Space Unicorn Blues

by T. J. Berry

  And suddenly, she knew the right song to sing.

  Jenny began the funeral haka with a guttural cry that caused several of the dwarves near her to startle. She lifted her quivering hands into the air. The words of the manawa wera became entwined with the singing of the dwarves. Sometimes her cries clashed with their melody, battling their words into submission, but other times her harmonies joined with the Bala singers to strengthen and bolster their wails. Jenny had never cried when her family performed a haka, but today her eyes were wet.

  The edges of the void turned gold and the entire sphere contracted, then swelled outward in a burst of power. The dwarves allowed their song to settle back down into a calm, quiet rhythm. Jenny finished her haka with a pūkana, widening her eyes and lifting her chin. She drew a breath and rested her tired hands in her lap. The ship waited for instructions. It hummed with power, no longer in hibernation.

  “See? I told you I could do it,” said Ricky from the back of the room.

  A new set of dwarves took the place of a few who had become tired during the song. It looked like they switched over in regular shifts. It would take a lot of singing to power this ship for years on end. Jenny suddenly had an appreciation for how much the dwarves were doing that she could not see. No wonder Cheryl Ann had taken the time to learn their names.

  Boges stopped in front of Gary.

  “She reminds me of your mother,” she said, patting his sweater affectionately and heading into a dwarf door in the wall.

  Jenny pulled out her tablet. She was still slightly nauseated from the humming of the dwarves around her. The redworms were drifting lazily around the remains of the Arthur Phillip, but they would find the Jaggery shortly now that it was back online.

  “It was good that you joined us,” said Gary. “The ship appreciated your song.”

  “I wasn’t sure what to do.”

  “You did fine.”

  Ricky was examining the blossoms that had popped up around the room. It almost looked like a fully functional stoneship, with tall grass on the floor and vines snaking down the walls.

  “What is all this?” she asked Gary.

  “It’s very interesting,” he replied. “Few humans in history have been able to channel nullspace energy. You seem to have learned the skill.”

  “It’s not a skill. It’s just… coming out of me.” Jenny lifted her hand. It looked completely ordinary now.

  “The Sisters study for years to create even a basic diversion or disguise. What you are doing is advanced magic,” said Gary.

  “I thought humans couldn’t harness Bala magic. It’s all locked up in your biological processes,” said Jenny.

  Gary looked like he was debating whether to say something. He seemed to decide in favor.

  “Bala bodies are built for channeling nullspace energy. In general, human bodies are not. But there are a handful of humans who learn how anyway. You know them as necromancers.”

  “Bloody hell,” said Jenny as her breastbone began to ache again. She rubbed it and closed her eyes. “And I shot them out of the sky.”

  “Yes, you did.” Gary pushed off the floor to leave the engine room. Jenny grabbed his arm to stop him.

  “One more minute,” she said.

  “We have to get into FTL–” he began.

  “A second. Can your blood heal nerve damage?”

  Gary’s eyes rested on her legs, hovering above the floor.

  “Nerve damage is the most difficult injury to heal. It’s not likely that the small amount of blood I administered subcutaneously could bring back your mobility,” he said.

  “Right now it’s just twinges of pain, pins and needles,” she replied.

  “Then that’s likely the extent of the healing you will experience.”

  Jenny sighed and zipped up her jumpsuit for want of something to do with her hands. This entire conversation was making her uncomfortable.

  “Is that bad?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, Gary. Is it good to feel stabbing pain in my legs, but still not be able to use them? I think it could be better.”

  “Do you want to use them?”

  The answer came more slowly than she expected.

  “This is me,” she said simply.

  “Perhaps the woman who is an impressive fighter in her chair won’t be so impressive without it,” he said.

  “I can’t relearn everything again. I’m tired,” she replied.

  “You’re afraid,” said Gary.

  “No. Maybe.” She hedged. “I’m afraid of what Jim is going to do. You set him off good by breaking his nose.”

  “I’ll offer to heal it.”

  “You know he’ll never accept that from you,” said Jenny.

  “Jim hasn’t changed at all. He’s repeating the same mistakes over and over and he’s going to drag the rest of us down with him,” said Gary. “Our only leverage over him is that he wants to get away from us as fast as possible. Knowing that, we need to make this delivery as seamless as possible and let him move on.”

  “I know. I’ve been letting him hang on for too long. I guess he reminded me of Cheryl Ann and… the good times before it all went to hell.”

  “Who’s Cheryl Ann?” asked Ricky, coming over with her arms full of flowers.

  “I’ll explain later,” said Jenny. “It’s complicated.”

  “Oh wait, is that the woman Gary killed?”

  A pained expression flickered across Gary’s face.

  “I said later,” said Jenny firmly.

  Boges poked her head back into the dwarf door. Her voice cut through the humming dwarves in the room.

  “Captain, the ship is ready to jump to FTL.”

  Jenny didn’t care whether Boges was calling Gary “captain” any more. But Jim was a powderkeg ready to blow. Gary twisted the horn in his hands.

  “You’re not going to let that go any time soon, are you?” asked Jenny.

  “If you’re going through Borstal Checkpoint, I’ll have to hide it again,” he said. It was a question phrased as a statement.

  “It’s the only way to get to Fort J in time,” she answered.

  Boges soared out of the dwarf door and handed Gary a gleaming knife. He shaved a thick sliver off the bottom of his horn and handed the knife and the rest of the horn to Boges. He floated over to an ornate wood cabinet mounted on the wall and pulled open the doors. Inside, Gary blew the remains of a desiccated trisicle out of the FTL drive. He placed the sliver of horn into the gleaming gold mesh of the drive and closed the door. A chunk that big could get them to Fort J five times over.

  Boges waved from the dwarf door to get Jenny’s attention.

  “If you intend for Jim to get us through the checkpoint, you should be aware that he has locked himself in his room.”

  Jenny groaned and pulled herself toward the cockpit.

  “We’ll get into FTL first, then I’ll get Jim out of his room.”

  “You know, Perata,” called Ricky, gathering up a blossom that took two hands to harvest. “These stamens are worth big bucks in the pharmaceutical division. If you can grow some more, we could–”

  “I can’t make more. It was a onetime thing,” said Jenny.

  “It’s an incredibly useful skill to have,” said Gary.

  “Hasn’t been useful so far,” said Jenny. She pulled out her tablet. The redworms were starting to stir. They nosed at the debris of the Arthur Phillip, searching for chunks worth dissolving and finding few. The distress beacons had dwindled down to a handful. It hadn’t been pretty out there.

  Jenny sailed along the hallways, which were now full of soil. A small part of her wanted to bloom them like she had the engine room, but not with Gary and Ricky watching behind her. In the cockpit, she settled into her chair and Ricky took Jim’s seat.

  “Going to FTL,” called Gary from the back. He touched the instruments to put the Jaggery into FTL. For a split second the ship became transparent as it ceased to exist around them. Jenny’s consciousness caug
ht up to the ship, but not before hanging free for one fraction of a second within the expanse of space – untethered and exposed to the full magnitude of the universe. If she’d been inside of her own body at that moment, she would have screamed in terror. It was the second best part of traveling through the null.

  Jenny loved nullspace. She was still unable to walk in FTL, but she felt calmer and less overwhelmed in here. Like zero G, she had more mobility. The solid rules of logic and physics seemed to fray a little at the seams, giving her the ability to move and think faster.

  “Feels like that dream where you’re trying to run, but you can’t get yourself going,” said Ricky, resting her head on the console in front of her.

  “Yeah,” said Jenny absently. A zing of pain jolted down the back of her thigh. Those electric bursts were happening more often. They took her breath away.

  Gary called out the ship’s status via the vials and tubes in front of him.

  “Heat, gravity, and water systems are coming back online,” he said. “The ship is traumatized, but it is making do.”

  “That goes for all of us,” said Jenny, massaging her leg. She snaked an input cord from her tablet to an outlet on the side of the viewscreen. It flickered to life with an image from the remaining exterior cameras.

  “There. Now we can all see,” she said.

  “Where are the stars?” asked Ricky.

  A fuzzy orb glowed in the center of the viewscreen. It appeared as if they were heading straight for an immense woolen sun.

  “The eye of Unamip watches over our journey through the null,” said Gary.

  “Or… it’s the Doppler effect from flying past the stars this fast,” said Jenny with a shrug. “Whatever your pleasure.”

  “How long to Reasonspace?” asked Ricky, taking the deliberate breaths of a woman about to heave.

  “We’ll be at Borstal Checkpoint in less than an hour. And no puking in my cockpit,” said Jenny.

  “If we’re not going to make our rendezvous at Jaisalmer, you can drop me at any space station along the trade route instead,” said Ricky.

  “We’re going to make our rendezvous,” said Jenny. She reached under the console and found the stacks of coiled wire and tools she’d stashed there. She grabbed some rolls of coated copper and cutters and floated up to the wires that the trisicles had chewed through.

  “There’s no need to reconnect the tablet,” said Gary. “I’m perfectly capable of flying the ship from right here.”

  “I know, and you’re brilliant at it, but when we go through Borstal, Jim has to be piloting and he can’t use those controls.”

  She snipped the frayed wires and ran fresh ones to her tablet. Thankfully, the bugs hadn’t gotten into the walls and ruined those runs. She twisted a wire onto a connector and plugged it into her tablet. It pinged and buzzed with alerts as it read the ship’s status. She saw everything that Gary had already told her, plus dozens of other errors. She muted them all. Reason technology relied on the immutable rules of logic. While they were in nullspace, it would ping her about every strange readout or occurrence on the Jaggery. Which would be a lot in this realm that didn’t adhere to the laws of physics. Better to rely on Gary and the Bala instruments, which were built to handle the shifting reality of nullspace.

  “I still don’t like this Borstal idea,” said Ricky, lifting her head. “The entire point of going through Fairyfloss is that they’re overworked and tend not to do onboard inspections. You go through somewhere else and they’re going to comb through this ship like a… like a comb.”

  “It’s the only way to get to Fort J in time,” said Jenny.

  “But the only one on board who can get through is Jim,” said Gary.

  “And me,” said Jenny. “I am the hero of Copernica Citadel.”

  “That’s not going to get you very far in Reasonspace any more,” said Ricky. “Ever since the horn shortages began, things are getting strict near Jaisalmer. Why do you think I only work in Earthspace?”

  Jenny tapped on her tablet and pulled up a document.

  “I have a plan for the checkpoint. It’s going to suck, but it’ll get us through. I have working papers for all of us. Real, legitimate papers. Not forged. Jim can get us through as his staff.”

  “You mean as his property,” said Gary.

  “It’ll get us past inspection. Be deferential to him for a few hours, we’ll drop this cargo, and then we can all get on our way.”

  “I don’t see why this cargo is so important to you,” said Ricky. “We don’t even have to go back into Reasonspace to make some cash. I have my bar supplies and you can make those flowers. Gary can sell bits of horn. Just fly on out of here.”

  “The cargo is critical to the Summit.”

  “Is that what the Sisters told you?” asked Ricky. “Because I hate to tell you, they’re more fickle than I am. Who knows who they’re working for today?”

  “No, we are going to Fort J,” said Jenny, frustrated. “Even if we miss the Summit.”

  Ricky narrowed her eyes. Jenny tried to play it off, but she’d said too much.

  “What are you hiding?” asked Ricky.

  “Nothing,” said Jenny. She tapped her tablet to open the rest of the working papers. All she needed was Jim’s signature in three places on each and they would be able to get through with a minimum of hassle. She was only mildly concerned that he’d keep them in his service after the delivery. Jim wanted a lot of things out of life, but a complement of servants wasn’t one of them.

  Ricky was still staring at her.

  “What?” asked Jenny.

  “I’ve worked a game table for years. I know when someone is lying,” said Ricky.

  “Explain it to her,” said Gary. “Perhaps she can help.”

  Jenny closed her eyes for a moment before replying. “They captured my wife, Kaila, on a supply run a while back. They have her on Jaisalmer.”

  She put her left hand in her pocket so she didn’t have to see her wedding ring.

  “It started out as a routine cargo inspection and then they went into the crew quarters and grabbed her out of our room. I couldn’t stop them,” she said.

  “Oh shit,” said Ricky. “I’m so sorry.” She rubbed Jenny’s back.

  “Thanks. I’ll find her. Dryads don’t have much in the way of valuable parts, so she’s likely being detained in the Jaisalmer harvesting center.” She turned to Ricky and couldn’t stop herself from asking for reassurance. “They wouldn’t bother with a dryad, right?”

  Ricky squeezed her shoulder.

  “No. I’m sure she’s fine. Probably just hanging out in a pot decorating some general’s living room,” said Ricky.

  She pushed herself out of Jim’s chair. “Well, I know better than to try to dissuade a woman from rescuing her wife. If we’re going through Borstal Checkpoint, I need to go hide some things in the walls.” She floated out of the cockpit.

  Gary studied the orb for a moment, then bowed his head. Jenny had the distinct sense that he had just said a prayer.

  “What did you ask Unamip for?” she asked.

  “For safe passage and the strength to endure.”

  “That’s a good prayer.”

  “You know, in Bala history, I am also called the hero of Copernica Citadel,” mused Gary.

  “But your side lost the battle,” said Jenny, with a laugh.

  “We took down four Reason ships before the citadel fell.” Indeed, they had.

  “Fair. How has life treated you since Copernica, hero?” asked Jenny.

  “I wouldn’t say they’ve been the best years of my life,” said Gary.

  “Me neither. I wonder sometimes, if our ships hadn’t taken out those last couple of necromancers, would the whole war have come out differently?”

  “I wonder that as well,” he said.

  Jenny appreciated that he hadn’t asked to put the gravity back on. Jim would have been whining her ear off right about now.

  “It’s fascinating how life
comes full circle sometimes,” said Gary. “You remember that last necromancer? The one who retreated back to Copernica?”

  “Yeah, we never found him.”

  “Are you aware of who he was?”

  “No, who?”

  “Bào Zhú.”

  Jenny turned herself fully around in her chair.

  “What? Did he know this whole time that I was the captain of the Pandey?”

  “I can’t imagine so. If he did, he wouldn’t have allowed you to live.”

  Jenny thought of the topographic map of scars across Bào Zhú’s body. She’d caused those with shells full of hardware. And then she’d let him go flying off into openspace at Beywey. She’d killed that man twice.

  “Well damn. I had no idea,” she said.

  “I think that was the point. He wasn’t keen on anyone on either side knowing he was the necromancer who lost the war.”

  Another electric zing shot down Jenny’s leg. She jumped. Her hand went to the spot involuntarily and Gary noticed.

  “Another twinge?”

  “Yes, Doctor Cobalt,” she said.

  “Don’t be rude.”

  She chuckled at his stern demeanor and toggled the intercom.

  “Jim, I need you in the cockpit,” said Jenny. She turned back to Gary. “When we get to Borstal, you and Ricky need to be in the walls with the dwarves. I’ll meet the boarding party in the cargo hold with Jim. There’s a chance, with the Summit starting in a few hours, that they’ll be skimming through ships quickly without inspections.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” said Gary.

  “I’m not. You stay hidden until they find you. Only then will we try the ownership papers.”

  Gary made a face.

  “I know. I don’t love it either.” She hit the intercom again. “Jim, get out here.”

  “I’m good right here,” he answered.

  “This guy,” said Jenny, exasperated. “Get in the cockpit now.”

  “No,” he pouted. “This is my ship and everyone keeps calling you ‘Captain’. Well then, you captain it, Miss Fancy Pants.”

  “Oh for bloody hell,” muttered Jenny. “He only pulls out Miss Fancy Pants when he’s about to have a meltdown. If I had time, I’d let him stew in there until he got hungry, but we don’t have more than thirty minutes until Borstal.”