by T. J. Berry
“I don’t need it,” said Jenny. “Thanks anyway.”
“I pay my debts,” said Ricky.
“What if we stop worrying about debts and karma and just be nice to each other,” said Jenny. “I give you a ride, you help me up a ladder, it all works out.”
“You mean like friendship,” teased Ricky. “I’ve heard of this concept. People doing nice things for each other, for no reason at all. Seems suspicious, but I would be willing to give it a try, Perata.” Ricky patted the damp braids that Boges had woven into Jenny’s hair.
“I don’t want any friends,” said Jim, chewing on that damn stick again.
“Oh good, because you have none,” said Ricky.
“You two are the mean girls of space, always picking on guys like me,” he pouted.
Ricky burst out laughing, and even though it hurt like hell, Jenny couldn’t help but join in.
“Oh my god, I am seriously getting that engraved on my tombstone. ‘Here lies Ricky Tang, the meanest girl in space.’”
The comm crackled open.
“FTL Jaggery, this is Fort Jaisalmer, you can set down in the rugby stadium.”
“This day just keeps getting better,” said Ricky.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Redworm Sunset
The redworm reared up as Gary, Kaila, and Subedar Singh tried to inch past it out of the dissection room. Alarms blared throughout the floor, indicating a set of restraints had been broken.
“I may have misjudged the timing,” said Singh, pulling out her firearm and aiming it at the worm’s head. Gary pushed her weapon toward the floor.
“It will spray corrosive acid if you shoot it.” Ridiculous humans, always trying to shoot their way out of problems. “Kaila, get in front of us. It is drawn to heat and you’re the coolest of us.”
Kaila looked at him skeptically, but extended her branches horizontally to shield them.
“I thought you were here to rescue me,” she said.
“This is a Jenny Perata sort of rescue,” said Gary.
“Ah,” said Kaila, in complete understanding. “Then this will get harder before it gets easier.”
The door opened and the redworm techs rushed in, stopping short at the sight of a ruddy, five-meter creature hunched over against the ceiling. It turned on them and sprayed acid the color of an Earth sunset. They didn’t have time to scream before they dissolved into a puddle of goo. The worm bent down and extended a proboscis to slurp up the nutrients. It was probably the best meal it had seen in months.
“That’s the only door,” whispered Subedar Singh. For all of her bluster, she didn’t sound like someone who had ever been in a fight. She probably just bullied Bala here on Jaisalmer.
“We need to get it away from the exit,” said Gary. He scanned down the tools hanging on the far wall of the room. Mostly saws, surgical instruments, and collection containers. But there was one thing. While the worm was focused on its puddle of humans, Gary picked a blowtorch off the wall. Someone had put it away dirty – there were still downy phoenix underfeathers stuck to the nozzle. He tossed a couple of lab coats onto the floor and turned the valve on an oxygen tank mounted to the wall. Cold O2 flowed out of its attached hose. He laid the end on the lab coats, lit the blowtorch, and held it to the rushing gas. The oxygen hissed into flame, melting the hose and spreading the fire to the lab coats underneath. He dropped the blowtorch on top of it all.
The worm already sensed the heat coming from the far wall. It reared up again, smashing its mouth on the ceiling. It snaked over to the fire, knocking over the exam table with the dead dwarf, ignoring the bipeds in the room completely. Gary pulled open the door and Subedar Singh jumped over the puddle of acid that had already eaten through the tile and part of the subfloor. Some poor human in the administrative offices below was going to experience a searing red rain any moment now.
Kaila stood at the edge of the puddle. She was too heavy and slow to jump in place, let alone across such a width. Gary crouched down to let her onto his back.
“I’ll carry you.” All of Kaila’s branches whipped forward to cover her face in horror.
“You can’t expect me to ride a unicorn,” she said, scandalized.
“Just this once,” he said with a smile. She put her cuffed hands over his head and leaned onto him. He used his long gait to step over the puddle. A couple of her longer fronds trailed through the acid and she jumped.
“Ow.”
Gary put her down in the hallway. Other techs and guards ran up to join them.
“What’s going on?” asked a guard, with a stun stick out.
“Redworm escaped. You’d better get it under control before it gets out of the building,” said Subedar Singh in a convincing approximation of imperious anger. The guard nodded and ran into the room, sliding on the puddle. His foot came to rest in a hole in the tile, wedged in the disintegrating subfloor. The acid began to melt his flesh.
“Help!” he screamed to the other guards.
“Get in there,” said Singh, pushing the others forward into the room.
By this point, the redworm had realized the fire contained nothing edible and slithered back to the front of the room. It was rather inelegant without the weightlessness of space to help it glide.
The first tech was suited up against acid spills. She stepped past the howling guard and raised a heat gun that was intended to mesmerize a redworm until you restrained it. But this worm had already been tricked once today and it was not having it. It propelled itself forward and sprayed.
Subedar Singh pulled Kaila between herself and Gary and motioned for them both to start walking. More guards arrived and a second alarm sounded throughout the building as the acid dripped into the rooms beneath them. There was a chorus of human screams from behind them as they calmly walked toward the exit.
“This is definitely a Jenny Perata rescue,” said Kaila.
“It will take them a while to sort out the body parts. They might even assume we’ve all been eaten,” said Subedar Singh over the alarm.
A team of armed Reason officers rounded the corner, weapons drawn. Singh stepped in front of Gary and directed them toward the dissection room.
“Two redworms escaped. I saw one go into the ventilation system,” she yelled. The officers nodded and ran down the hall. “That will keep them busy for a while.”
“But there was only one worm,” said Kaila.
Subedar Singh shook her head.
“Trees are so dense,” she said.
As they stepped out into the Jaisalmer sun and heat, blast doors came down over the building’s exits. That would definitely trap all of the humans inside with the redworm and not stop the worm itself at all, noted Gary darkly. After the chaos of the harvesting center, the street outside felt like a calm respite, even on Summit day. In his lab coat, none of the rank and file gave Gary a second look. Kaila, on the other hand, was a different story.
A patrol stopped them on the street, but Singh was ready.
“Sir, why is this dryad out of the harvesting center?”
Singh patted the curve of Kaila’s trunk.
“She’s been requested in Colonel Wenck’s apartment.”
“Very good.” The soldier waved them on their way.
An explosion blew out the bottom floor windows of the harvesting center. They ducked as chunks of glass rained down. Kaila extended her branches to cover Gary and Singh from the worst of it. Shredded bits of leaves floated around them.
“You don’t think that was the blowtorch?” asked Gary. He’d hate to think he’d caused that.
“No. They’re probably trying to flush the ‘second redworm’ out of the vents,” said Singh, making quotes with her fingers.
“But there was only one worm,” said Kaila again, clearly confused.
“So, where are we meeting the Sisters?” asked Singh, pulling her uniform jacket down tight.
“I’m not sure,” said Gary. She gave him a look that could melt iron.
> “If you tricked me out here…”
“It’s not that. We have a delivery for them. My stoneship is supposed to land and meet them, but I don’t know where.”
Singh thought for a moment.
“There’s only one place in the city large enough for a stoneship to dock.” She pointed north. “The rugby stadium.”
“That’s not far,” said Gary.
Kaila’s face shifted from dismay to elation at something in the sky behind Gary to the south. He looked up to see an immense, slow-moving asteroid soaring over the city, casting deep shadows as it passed.
“Jenny!” squealed Kaila.
“She’s probably not on board,” said Gary. “They took her to detention.”
The human faces around them lifted to watch the Jaggery fly over the tops of the buildings. People gasped. It was on a crash course with City Hall. The ship rotated on its axis until a relatively flat section was facing the facade. The Jaggery skimmed along the side of the building, not disturbing the structure, but skimming a layer of paint off the side of the concrete and onto the asteroid. It came away as a white line above the pink flower. The ship spun again and deposited itself neatly into the concave bowl of the rugby stadium.
Sirens wailed in the distance as emergency services scrambled to contain the redworm threat as well as the fire that had started billowing out of the lower floors of the harvesting center. Gary thought he saw another dryad slinking along the sidewalk, but when he turned to look it was just an ordinary tree, inert and still.
Kaila was transfixed by the Jaggery.
“Jim can’t drive like that,” she said breathlessly. “That is definitely my Jenny.”
“Thank Unamip,” said Gary, relieved that he wouldn’t have to go look for her and Ricky. This might turn out to be easy after all.
“Singh, what in the hell are you doing out here with my unicorn?” called a voice from the far side of the street. Colonel Wenck stepped into traffic toward them. Military vehicles screeched to a stop as he marched across four lanes without looking.
“Oh, bollocks,” said Subedar Singh, her hands going from her sides to being clasped in front, then back again.
“The redworms, sir,” she said, faltering. “I pulled these two out of harvesting as the redworms began attacking. I thought you might want to ensure the unicorn was out of harm’s way.”
“There was only one redworm,” insisted Kaila.
“Not now,” whispered Gary.
Wenck looked skeptical. “Come with me. I’ll escort you over to the office. We’ll lock him in the storage closet until this mess with the worms is over.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And get rid of this thing. I don’t know why you thought I’d want a tree.” He shook his head.
“Get rid of it?” asked Singh.
“Shoot it, or whatever. I’m not slowing down for a stack of timber.”
“Oh dear,” said Kaila, covering her mouth with her branches.
Wenck started walking toward Reason Command, not waiting for anyone.
“Should we make a run for it?” asked Gary.
“No. He’ll radio it in and every grunt within ten blocks will be on us.” She took out her weapon and aimed it toward the sky, glancing behind her to ensure that Wenck wasn’t looking. She turned back to Kaila. “Fall to the ground when you hear the shot. When we’re out of sight, get to your ship as fast as you can. We’ll meet you there when we can slip away.”
Singh squeezed off a single round and no one around her flinched. Kaila lay down on the ground dramatically, splaying her branches so that people on the sidewalk had to step around her. Singh tossed the keys to her handcuffs on the ground, grabbed Gary’s arm, and ran to catch up with Colonel Wenck.
“Get up here, Singh!” called Wenck.
She and Gary trotted behind Wenck toward Reason Command, in the opposite direction to the rugby field.
“How dumb do you think I am, Singh?” asked Wenck without breaking his stride.
“What, sir?” asked Singh, her eyes wide.
“You were trying to steal my unicorn.”
“No, sir. I was getting him out of the–”
“Don’t bullshit me, Subedar. He’s got that lab coat on and his best friend’s wife next to him. I am not an idiot. You were springing him from harvesting.”
Gary still thought they had a good chance if they made a run for it, but Singh stubbornly kept at it.
“Honestly, sir. I found them together in the harvesting room. I went in there to check on him, like you asked, and he already had the coat on and the tree in there with him. They let the redworms go and tried to kill me. I grabbed them both and got out of the building before we were sealed in. That’s when you found us.”
Wenck didn’t appear convinced. A second explosion boomed out of the harvesting center. A piercing shriek echoed down the street. It was the cry of an injured redworm.
Gary hated to do it, but he knew how he could help Singh and make their way toward the Jaggery. He reached out and slid his hand over the back of her shoulders. She looked up, confused as to why he was seemingly being affectionate at that odd moment. He yanked her back toward him and pressed his forearm against her neck, then reached down and unholstered her firearm, pressing it against her headscarf. This was exactly the type of violence that he abhorred, even in jest. But sometimes, the Reason pushed a man so far that he felt he had no other choice. That was the gift of conflict escalation – it just kept on giving.
Singh struggled against him.
“What are you–”
“Shut up,” Gary snarled in her ear and he felt her stiffen. She didn’t know him well enough to understand this was well out of character for him. All the better. Her reactions would be authentic. Shame burned in the pit of his stomach.
Wenck turned and drew his own weapon, as expected.
“You put her down or I’ll shoot.”
“Don’t shoot,” cried Singh. “You’ll hit me.”
“That is an acceptable risk,” said Wenck, taking aim with cool detachment.
As his finger tightened on the trigger, Gary twisted so that his back faced Wenck. The shot rang out and Gary felt as if he’d been punched in the ribs from behind. Singh jerked in his arms and pulled away. Her uniform was coated in silver. She put her hands on her knees and breathed heavily.
Gary’s blood pumped out of the hole in his chest for a few seconds, then the opening closed.
“Unicorn blood,” he yelled in his loudest voice, pointing at the puddle on the ground. He put his hand on the back of Singh’s neck and walked her quickly into the crowd as people ran over to scrape silver drops out of the dirt. Wenck tried to push through after them, but the frenzy only grew as more people fought for the precious substance. A few scrutinized the crowd frantically, looking for the unicorn who had bled into the soil.
They ran two blocks before Gary handed Singh back her firearm.
“I apologize for that,” he said. “Were you hit?”
“No.”
“Now you have plausible deniability. Tell Wenck I made you come with me,” said Gary.
“Oh. Thanks.” She still seemed shaken at having taken fire.
A pair of grunts waited on the next corner, looking over the heads of the crowd. Searching for them.
“He radioed it in,” said Singh, cocking her gun. Gary put his hand over hers and eased the hammer away from the trigger.
“You don’t need to shoot your way out of every situation,” he said.
She looked genuinely perplexed.
“But how else…”
He took her hand and pulled her into the closest building. It was a grocery store, packed with tourists in town for the Summit. They pushed through the aisles, past baskets of flying vek held down by nets, and bottles of fizzy drinks made with something called “essence of fairy.” One woman was testing a facial cream that smelled like elfin armpits. A rainbow display proclaimed Real Unicorn Meat in chilled, parchment-wrapped packages
. An employee was frying up samples on a portable stove next to it. From the smell, it was ordinary cow flank, but these people wouldn’t know the difference.
Singh took the lead, pulling him through a swing door into the cold back room. A few employees looked up from their tasks.
“Reason business,” said Singh, “Where’s the emergency exit?”
A faun in a bloody apron pointed his cleaver toward a narrow hallway. Singh followed it to a door at the end. They burst back outside, blinking in the sunlight. They emerged in a small street between buildings piled high with trash and empty boxes.
“This way,” she said, heading toward one end of the alley. Two Reason soldiers stepped into their path, blocking the exit. Singh turned and pulled Gary in the opposite direction. Two other soldiers came around the corner from the other end. Gary moved his hand up to her wrist and held her like he was in charge. If they took him in, at least she wouldn’t be charged as an accomplice.
“What do we do?” she asked.
“We let them take us,” he replied.
Her hand hovered over her holster.
“I could–”
“No more killing,” he said firmly. Her hand fell back to her side.
“Subedar Singh?” called one of the grunts, advancing on them with weapons drawn.
“Yes. Get me out of here!” she cried in mock alarm.
“Unicorn, drop your weapon and get down on the ground.”
Gary raised his hands above his head. It seemed like they were in that position a lot these days. He suspected they would remain that way for the foreseeable future. The burden Unamip had placed on him, he had realized, was to live forever, but without self-determination.
A streak of red swooped through the alley from the building above them, knocking down the grunts on the right side of the alley. They lay still. A crack like thunder echoed off the cement walls and the second set of grunts was down, hit by a bolt of purple lightning from above.
Gary squinted into the sky. He couldn’t see anything except the roof ledges. When he looked back down, four Sisters stood next to them, veils perfectly still as if they’d been there all along.
