Mags followed along as best she could. It sounded like he was politely inviting them to—the what? Something about a star. And her name.
Damn, she thought. It’s been a long time since I heard anyone speak Russian. The memory was not especially pleasant for her. But she noticed the speech calmed the monkeys, and it sparked whispered discussion in their ranks. She watched them closely.
The big male stepped up. He glared at her, but he spoke to Plutonian.
If I have to pop one of these suckers, Mags thought, that one’s going first. Chest shot. Damn things are small with those tiny little heads. Thirty aught six would probably go through three or four of them at a time, no problem. But even with this laser rifle, I could carve a bloody path of—oh, what’s this now?
The elder female raised her staff again. She spoke from where her entourage had gathered around her in the chaos.
Mags noted the matriarch had a less confrontational tone than the male leader. While Karpov might have gladly tackled Plutonian, she surmised, the matriarch would have simply ordered him killed.
I hope that’s not what they’re discussing, she thought. I could take this whole crew with my boot knife, if I can just get out of this damned pressure suit fast enough. And they won’t know the meaning of hell until they’re trapped on this iceberg with Patches. Goddess help them all.
While she calculated the many ways she could destroy this little crew if it got out of hand, Plutonian made progress. He appealed to the males’ need for space of their own, and he proposed a larger home.
The elder female needed no persuading about getting the males out of her hair, but she needed to feel in control of the decision. She considered his offer of a presentation from Mags aboard his ship.
The man made grand gestures describing the caverns of a distant asteroid. He implied vodka would be served.
The matriarch spoke again. The females bowed to her. Grumbling quietly, Karpov also summoned the males to attention.
“Whatever you’ve got planned, Mags, I hope it’s good. Ready?”
She stepped up and held out her arm. He escorted her to his ship, along with Patches, and the grandchildren of the lost crew of the Volya IX followed.
★ ○•♥•○ ★
Meteor Mags stood on the main deck of Plutonian’s ship. Patches sprawled nonchalantly beside her. Dozens of macaques assembled before her, filling the floor and taking up whatever beds and chairs they could find.
She studied them a moment before raising her head to the DJ. “Maestro. If you please.”
On the way to the ship, she had tried to think of a song this entire crew would know, or at least enjoy. The Soviet national anthem came to mind, but she wasn’t really in the mood for that right now. Instead, she decided on a well-known folk song. “Dr. P.,” she asked, “have you got a copy of the tune Kalinka?”
“Vocal or instrumental?”
“Something with a lot of balalaikas. I love balalaikas.”
“Ah, yes. I have just the thing.” He brought up the volume on the ship’s speakers and pressed ‘play’. Kalinka began slowly, deliberately.
Mags raised her arms and turned 360 degrees before undoing the straps on her pressure suit. She pulled her arms free, pushed it down, and stepped out. As the melody picked up speed, she peeled off her skirt and flung it aside.
Plutonian raised a hand to the bridge of his nose and rubbed his eyes. How in the hell, he wondered, did I let her talk me into this? She’s going to do a striptease for them? He sighed. And then he heard the clapping.
As the tempo accelerated, the monkeys clapped in unison. Simian smiles spread across their faces. The matriarch sang. Her mother had taught her this song. More culture than the posters had been preserved by the lost crew.
Mags pulled off her top and tossed it into the crowd. The melody resumed its original, slower tempo. She picked up the black box containing the triglyph and opened it.
Strange harmony erupted from the box. Light shone from inside it, illuminating her face. What she saw there, she would never be able to describe to her satisfaction. But she knew she had made the right decision. She reached in and drew out the triglyph.
Kalinka picked up speed again. Monkeys clapped along, singing with the matriarch. They gazed at Mags with wide-eyed wonder.
In her hand, the triglyph extended a solid beam of light nearly a meter long. Mags brandished it like a sword, slicing the air as she danced to the rhythm. When she moved, the unearthly harmony grew louder and louder.
Plutonian saw Patches’ mouth moving. He saw the monkeys’ mouths moving. He realized he was singing too, without even knowing the words. What should have been a raucous din of animal chatter and howling took on a sublime quality, harmonized by the triglyph’s mysterious power.
He even felt the ship singing, and the mine, and the distant stars around them. Tears filled his eyes. He needed to record this.
The melody carried on frantically in the unearthly light filling the ship’s interior. From nowhere, wind buffeted the deck.
Mags’ red hair billowed. A sparkling orb enveloped her before breaking into hundreds of balls of light. They shimmered around her like a storm of scarlet fireflies. Her black star tattoos began to glow, and each one turned a brilliant red. She held the triglyph out behind her, now a sword of light, and held out her empty hand at the monkeys.
An ecstatic wave rolled over Plutonian. He had seen that pose before. It was the statue in Volgograd, “The Motherland Calls.”
This vision was not lost on the crew. They beheld Mags’ transformation and their mouths hung open in awe.
The matriarch stepped forward from her place at the front of the crowd. Falling to her knees at Mag’s feet, she touched her forehead to the floor. The macaques followed her lead. They bowed deeply, kneeled, and touched their foreheads to the floor.
Mags spoke, or sang. Plutonian could no longer tell the difference. Everything around him had transformed into music.
“Rise.” Mags offered her hand. The elderly monkey took it.
“You seek the homeland,” said Mags in a voice of light and melody. “But each of you carries the homeland within.”
On all of the monkeys’ chests, a blazing red light glowed over their hearts.
“For eternity,” said the matriarch, in a voice like a hundred balalaikas harmonizing. “Yet this place is no nest for us. This floating wasteland isn’t fit for a gulag. Take us with you, mother. Guide us to the homeland.”
Mags smiled beatifically. A light Plutonian had never seen glowed in her eyes. “I will deliver you to the new homeland, in this sturdy vessel. There, you will find all that you need, or the means to build it. I will supply you with anything you need to grow food, build nests, and raise cubs. But in return, you must raise mine.”
She described the swarm of baby octopuses living in the flooded asteroid tunnels. She told how the monkeys would need to rebuild the shattered tanks so they could grow crabs, and that all their mechanical skills would be called upon to restore power to the electrical systems there. But they would have all the space they needed, and Mags would bring them any equipment necessary.
Next, she described how the octopuses could communicate directly with their minds. The monkeys could see it all as clearly as if she had drawn them a picture.
“A miracle,” whispered the elder monkey.
Mags swung the glowing sword through the air above her head. A shower of hearts and stars made from pure light fell upon the monkeys. The music—the folk song and the unearthly harmonies generated by the triglyph—reached a glorious crescendo.
Mags opened her arms to the matriarch, who entered her radiant embrace. The elder monkey’s tiny hand rested on Mags’ grip on the triglyph.
Monkeys rose and resumed singing with even more passion than before. How long this went on, Plutonian could not say. He was certain it went on much longer than the original recording he had played. But at last, the melody ended.
A cheer went up from the crew
. They turned to each other, hugging whoever stood next to them. Male, female, it did not matter. Old conflicts and rivalries were forgotten. Only their shared vision had true meaning to them now.
Mags set the matriarch back on the deck. For a long time, she stared into the light pouring from the object in her hand. She may as well have been a million miles away. Wiping a tear from her cheek, she set the triglyph back in its case.
The wind settled. The orb of lights dimmed. Her glowing tattoos resumed their original color, and the cabin returned to normal.
She picked up the box and scooped up her cat. Patches licked her face and purred. They made their way through the crowd to where Plutonian stood in back. Tiny hands touched Mags once more, but this time they intended no harm.
“Why didn’t you just tell me you knew Russian?”
“Because I don’t,” she said. “But I do know music.”
“The universal language.”
“Indeed. Now be a dear and grab yourself a pressure suit. You’ll need it to get aboard the Queen Anne.”
“But—what about my ship?”
“We leave it here for our new friends. They can fill it with everything they want to take with them. We come back in a few days and escort them to their new home. I’ll have to get some equipment first, to rebuild the generator and get that place livable again.” Mags held up the black box. “I guess we still don’t have a place for this.”
“It doesn’t seem to mean us any harm. We could hold onto it for a bit longer, I suppose.”
“I’ll put it in my armory for safe-keeping. Just don’t mention it to Celina, okay?”
“I won’t if you don’t!”
“Deal. Now what do you say we get off this rock, and let them get about their business? We’ll go out through the power station and be aboard the Queen Anne in no time.”
★ ○•♥•○ ★
Soon, at the corridor to the power station, they said goodbye to the crew. Patches licked the monkeys’ fur, grooming them conscientiously. Mags gave out dozens of hugs to them until she suspected some were coming back two and three times. Even Karpov stepped up to shake her hand.
She accepted his proffered paw. “Fair winds.”
“And following seas,” said Plutonian.
Karpov barked an order to one of his comrades, who stepped forward from the crowd to return Plutonian’s shotgun.
“Plutes! You let them get the Benelli?”
“What can I say? They ambushed me.”
“I can’t take you anywhere.”
The door closed behind them, and Patches scampered down the hall.
“What do you really think will happen to them? Will they make good zookeepers?”
“Honestly?” Mags laughed. “I think they’ll end up merging minds with the octopi, ready or not. Maybe they’ll get deep into spirituality and meditation. Start wearing beads and chanting. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned them into a commune of hippie astro-chimps.”
“Macaques.”
“Whatever.”
“I still can’t believe you turned on a pack of monkeys with a strip dance and some tunes.”
“Hahaha! How is that different from your average club?!”
“At least we made it out of there without killing anyone.”
“The night is young, mate. Damn, I could use a drink. Stop for a nightcap?”
“I can’t sleep after all that anyway. Let’s go.”
PART FOUR: HER GREEN PLANET
“Humans,” muttered Meteor Mags. “How I hate them.” She exhaled a plume of smoke and stared out the window on the bridge of the Queen Anne.
“Gee, thanks,” said Plutonian.
“Relax, dear. I didn’t mean you.”
“Did you have any particular humans in mind?” He held out his hand.
Mags passed him the cigarette. “I sure did. Those sons of bitches who—”
The ship’s alarm interrupted with a jingle Plutonian had not heard in decades.
“Bollocks,” said Mags. “Cosmic rays. We need to hit the storm shelter.” She plopped into her command chair and began tapping her fingers on one of its touch screens.
“The alarm for cosmic rays is the Windows 95 start-up music?”
“Can you think of a better way to announce things are getting completely FUBAR? This won’t take a second, dear. Go get in my bed.”
Plutonian furrowed his eyebrows. “Do what now?”
“Don’t be shy, Dr. P. It’s a cozy place to curl up for a storm, and it’s where the shielding is strongest.” As Mags explained, Plutonian heard the rushing water filling up the reservoirs between the inner and outer walls of the hull.
Silicate-based insulation in a standard ship’s hull kept out normal radiation. But for stripping the high-energy protons off a cosmic ray storm, nothing worked like water. Modern ship design included a storm shelter protected by reservoirs, reducing the need to shield the entire vessel.
“We rotate the ship so one side faces the storm,” said Mags, “and then we wait it out.”
Patches lifted her head and watched Plutonian walk past. She mewed softly.
“Shouldn’t we get her on the bed, too?”
Mags shrugged. “She’ll get up if she wants to. After all the stuff she survived this year, I don’t think a radiation storm will upset her.”
As if in agreement, Patches rolled over, licked her paw, and shut her eyes.
“She’s fearless,” he said.
“Indeed.” Mags knelt down to scratch Patches behind the ears and then dropped herself unceremoniously on the bed beside Plutonian.
“So which sons of bitches did you mean?”
“Oh, right.” From a drawer under her mattress, Mags drew out a miniature, wooden treasure chest with a Jolly Roger carved into the lid. With a frown, she turned its contents into something to smoke. “Those sodding Soviet space monkeys just reminded me what horrible shite people did to get into space. Did you know the Russians sent up a dog into orbit? Before they sent primates?”
“Oh yeah,” he said. “The first animal to orbit the Earth, and it wasn’t even one of us.”
“Exactly. And you know what they did to her? How they honored her contribution to science?”
Plutonian shook his head, but he knew.
“Murdered her. Sent her right up there into space and then murdered her. Can you fucking imagine?” A tear rolled down Mags’ cheek. “Ungrateful bloody savages.” She wiped her eye. “Up there all alone, absolutely terrified, not even understanding why or what. Just abandoned. Like garbage. Like some unfeeling thing, not even an animal.” Her voice trailed off.
“Thus rewarded are our toils. But Mags, I didn’t think you even liked dogs.”
“I don’t! But that doesn’t mean I want them to suffer. They may be stupid, stinky sods, but their feelings still matter. They feel as much as you, or me, or Patches.” She licked the paper, running a finger along the seam. “Fuck,” she said. “This must be the saddest spliff ever rolled.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” he said, picking up the lighter, “they didn’t murder that dog. She died from overheating.”
“How awful. Cooked alive instead of euthanized.”
“That’s not much better, is it? Sorry.” He held a flame up to her.
Mags puffed. “Damn! Slim showed me his operation, and I still can’t believe the quality he’s getting out of it. Here. Be careful!”
Plutonian accepted, puffing leisurely. “You’re right, though. About humans. We do some pretty awful things. I think about stuff I did before I got out, and it makes me sad.”
“Got out of what?”
He waved his hand in the air. “The whole fucking system, Mags. The war. The lies. Everything. Oh, nevermind. There are probably things you shouldn’t know about me.”
“It’s okay if you want to tell me.” She covered his hand with hers. “Everybody’s got a sad story.”
“It won’t make you think any better of humans.”
> “Hey!” She squeezed his shoulder. “Some of my best friends are humans.”
Plutonian chuckled. “Alright, then.” He leaned back, resting against a pillow. “I was in Afghanistan. It must have been about fifteen or sixteen years ago now, just before asteroid mining really took off. Right about the time Tarzi was born, I guess. We’d been sent into the middle of a conflict with more factions, splinter groups, and proxies than anybody could keep track of.
“You’d think in a war you’d know who your enemy is. But it wasn’t like that at all. You’d go through these villages in the middle of nowhere. They didn’t know why we were there. Hell, they didn’t even know who we were! They thought we were the goddamn Russians. They wouldn’t even know who their own government was if we didn’t tell them.
“Of course, we weren’t the Russians. So why the hell were we there? And we’d tell them about the Twin Towers attacks, and they wouldn’t even believe us. How is it even possible for a building made out of glass and steel to be that tall? They’d never heard of such a thing, much less a pair of them being taken out by airplanes. It just wasn’t part of their reality. We’d show them pictures and videos, and they just couldn’t believe it.
“They certainly weren’t the evil enemy we’d been sent to fight. I’m not even sure that enemy existed. These people were just farmers living simple lives, minding their own business until a truckload of men with guns would arrive. Us, the Russians, some warlord, whoever.
“Did they ever fight us? Did they ever attack us? Sure they did. Someone else would come along, give them guns, and tell them unless they attacked us, their whole family would die.
“It made what happened even worse. There was no sense to it. No evil empire to destroy. No one you could punch in the face and make it all stop. There were just these poor fuckin’ people trying to live.”
He puffed and passed.
“Anyway. One evening my patrol is coming back through this village. We’d been there many times, and the people were friendly to us. The kids would come out, and we’d give them little treats like soda and candies. We’d transported our doctors and medicine out there and treated some of the worst cases at the base. We knew these people about as well as two strangers with no business knowing each other really can.
Meteor Mags: Omnibus Edition Page 42
