by Manda Benson
She issued the command for the Shamrock to seal off the bridge door, but it wouldn’t close. Jed didn’t know whether the ship’s paralysis extended to the airlocks, but she wasn’t risking trying to find out without a solid door between her and them.
She chewed on a piece of conurin, welcoming its bitter euphoria as she picked up the gun. She’d dropped her weapon near the equipment store, which meant Wolff was potentially armed. This time she would be methodical and thorough. This time there would be no failure.
Back into the corridor, this time less hesitant, she approached the equipment store where Taggart must have hidden before he’d seized her, and plunged a scaffolding pole into the cavity, beating it against the walls so to be sure the room concealed no one. The escape pod remained closed.
She arrived at the place she’d been ambushed to discover the main airlock wide open. Scanning the floor, she couldn’t see the gun. Jed hung back from the doorway and flipped down the IR-UV eyepiece attached to the left side of her skullcap. Leaning through the door, she saw into the dark interior of a small ship. A shuttle, presumably the intruders’ means onto the Shamrock, illuminated by its infra red emissions. There was only the one room, and Wolff wasn’t in it.
Jed stepped back out and looked through the small window beside the airlock door. The shuttle’s shadow blocked out the stars. Its slim hull lay close to her ship’s flank, terminating in a short propulsion tail and framed by four slender vanes ninety degrees apart. It had been docked here, all this time, and she hadn’t been able to feel it. Jed shuddered.
She looked back through the docking connection, and lifted up the eyepiece for a moment. Some lights glowed on the console, and Jed felt an odd affinity for them. Somehow, this computer was a distant part of her, part of the Shamrock. Jed put down the eyepiece again, and looked at the shuttle’s computer. Would it need disconnecting? No, it was a simple one-way interface, Jed was sure of it.
She set the gun she was carrying to a short-range, high-force blast, and fired it into the panelling below the consoles. The computer casing blew apart, scattering components that flared briefly in the air. Jed’s full senses flooded back. The fuel levels were at seventy-six percent and stable. The docked shuttle was there—here. The navigational systems—Taggart’s device on the bridge! She couldn’t access the course data. But Wolff... Wolff was in the cargo bay.
Jed activated the command to close the airlock doors, isolating the little ship. She would not have it offer an escape for its surviving passenger. The starboard corridor lay still in ghostly starlight. The aft terminus behind the armoury was empty, the lower levels sealed off for the return journey. He had nowhere to run.
Jed slid through the archway and immediately stooped behind a heap of canisters secured to the wall with cargo netting. She could smell him. She stalked to the end of the pile, straining her senses for confirmation. She rounded the corner to encounter him with her finger on the trigger and her arm outstretched.
She came up with a start, his gun inches from her nose, he with a startled expression, and each holding their respective weapons in their right hands, neatly interlocked.
Consternation overcame her as her opponent steadied his breathing. Some of the tension eased from his face as it assumed a humourless smile. “Ah, stalemate, methinks. Or should we draw?”
She had fouled again. She’d been so eager to dispose of Wolff she hadn’t paused to consider the best method of going about it. She should have gone back to the bridge and evacuated the aft corridors as soon as she’d regained control, like an Archer with presence of mind, not run down here eager for bloodshed like an impetuous apprentice. She could hardly ask Wolff to drop his guard and stand back so she could shoot him now. She could not be sure that if she pulled the trigger now, his retort shot would not fell her with him. Angry compunctions flitted through her mind. Mathicur, and the Code.
Jed fixed him with a cold, unflinching stare. “You will leave this ship.”
“So you speak. I did wonder.”
Jed did not see why she should waste her breath talking to this man who was so very beneath her, both in caste and genetics, but something about his sardonic parlance compelled her to argue with him. “Facetious trespassing fool.”
“Then shoot, Archer, and shoot true, lest I gun you down first.”
“My reaction speed is a hundredfold that of any common man of this galaxy.”
“Ah, but in the act of pulling a trigger such an advantage would be slim.”
Jed stood facing him for a moment, neither prepared to capitulate, both with guns held out on decided arms with their weight distributed over both feet.
“Whatever our personal convictions of each other, I cannot make you hand over control, and you cannot make me leave this ship. Henceforth we stand unwavering to the end of eternity.”
“Your proposal is that we coexist on my ship?”
“I see no other way.”
Jed arched one eyebrow. “But trust you that I should not come upon you in a moment of vulnerable somniance and there slay you in cold blood?”
“Or you the same?”
“I can outlast you in waking moments.”
Wolff’s eyes darted to focus on the pouch at Jed’s belt. “You keep chewing on that shit until you waste from lack of sleep.” Wolff’s manner was confident, but his eyes betrayed apprehension.
Jed detected a tremor through the floor. The Shamrock strained like a pent beast, alien and wild, and it set a palpitation pounding in her chest. The thunderous warble of the ship cresting the light barrier shattered the air. A vibration ran through the floor and walls. A wan smile played on Wolff’s thin lips. “Where wanders your ship, Archer?”
Jed’s temper boiled. Was this peasant trying to play games with her? “Tell me where!” she shouted at him.
Wolff raised his free hand, palm toward her. His gun hand rose fractionally, but he steadied it when he saw the tendons in Jed’s arm flex. “I don’t know.”
“What is the destination of this trajectory you have imposed upon my vessel?” She had intended it to sound impassive, but it came out as an intemperate snarl.
“I said, I don’t know.”
“My assumption was that you were leader of this two-man farce.”
Another half-smile. “Appearances must be deceptive, but no. Taggart may have appeared bourgeois, but he was a schemer and an exploiter.”
Jed watched him. Was he lying? What strategy could there be in such a lie? Somehow that contingency didn’t suit him. “I could see it in Taggart. He was not of the Blood!” Jed widened her eyes. “And I see it in you, you are of the Blood!”
Wolff’s mouth fell open, before tightening into a ludicrous grin. “I am of the Blood? Archer, you jest!” He exhaled. His shoulders sagged. “This is folly. You propose to stand here indefinitely?”
Kill him, said Jed in the privacy of her mind. Finish him, Shamrock.
She felt anger with Wolff for his inconvenience, but more with herself. Now what was to be done? She couldn’t stay here, with him. She couldn’t let him wander off and try to creep up on him again, or risk him creeping up on her.
Jed’s gaze didn’t leave him, but she reached for the wall and stepped backward. He moved after, keeping his distance.
Slowly in this fashion, they made their way back up to the bridge. The console panel still lay on the floor. All traces of Taggart’s existence had been erased.
Wolff waved his gun—Jed’s gun. “I cannot shoot you. I believe you will not shoot me while your own life is at risk. Do we have a truce?”
“My word as an Archer?” said Jed sharply. “And yours, as a felon?”
“My word,” said Wolff. “Or one of us may die of the stress.”
“Ya? And what honour rides on your word? You implied not one moment ago that you are not of the Blood.”
“My honour as a sentient creature.” The man turned his head this way and that, taking in the scene, and slid the neutron gun into a holster on his belt, w
atching Jed uneasily. “My name is Gerald Wolff.”
She looked at him, tensing her finger on the trigger. Did this constitute surrender? She had never been trained for such a confrontation. Could she shoot a man who backed down from her? This was lunacy. It was for her own interests, for the interests of her ship. Not to shoot him would be to endanger her future. Her other fingers tightened on the weapon’s grip, but she could not do it! Some primal instinct prevented it. He said he was not of the Blood, yet she could see he was of the Blood, and men of the Blood honoured their words, and she was of the Blood and she must honour an agreement with another of the Blood. What would happen here if she let him live? What indeed?
“Come now.” Unease showed in Wolff’s countenance. “I give you my word.”
Reluctantly, she holstered the gun. “Jed,” she returned. She could kill him later.
“Jed? One syllable? Nothing more to it?”
“Jed of the Shamrock of the clan hortica.” Jed regarded him coldly, settling her shoulders against the window.
He cast a glance in the console’s direction. “Taggart I see remains to haunt us.”
Jed’s temper reached an angry crescendo, and she jerked her hand back toward the gun. Only Wolff’s guarded stance and her sense of logic stilled her. She hated this frustration—how Wolff was still holding her at a compromise. Vehement emotions were frowned upon in the Code of the Archers. They indicated poor self-control, and now she had failed to dispose of him she would have trouble getting the Shamrock back under control.
“You expect me to believe that you came aboard this ship, to hijack it, with no idea of where it was to be sent?”
“I did.” Wolff kept his hands up with the palms toward Jed as he spoke. “This is hard for me to explain. I didn’t exactly come here of my own volition.”
“Didn’t exactly? How can one not go exactly of one’s own volition? You either choose or you go under duress, and I did not see that man point a gun at your head!”
“Look, calm down. I’ll try to explain this to you the best I can.”
Jed knew losing her temper would not help her or the Shamrock. The best she could now do was to find out as much as possible. Still watching him, she sat.
Wolff gestured to Taggart’s device. “You cannot override it and stop the ship?”
Jed’s glare told him not.
“And you can’t disconnect it, not while the program’s in operation?”
“That device is feeding the course data into the ship. Disconnecting it would result in the chimaera array crashing and the stabilising machinery of the Alcubierre drive going out of kilter very fast.” Jed scowled. “It could culminate in the destruction of this vessel.”
“Can you broadcast a tachyon distress call, then?”
Jed cast her eyes toward the ceiling. “This ship is among the swiftest by man’s forging hands. No other could race it and win. If a distress call were an option, I would have done it. Do you think me stupid?” There was only one who would and could oblige the Shamrock’s distress signal, and pride and fear would not let Jed bring Mathicur to the Shamrock in this sorry state.
Wolff slid his jacket off his shoulders. Underneath it he wore a sleeveless thigh-length engineer’s waistcoat with a utility belt carrying a plethora of tools, over a vest of a dirty blue-grey colour. A lopsided, thorny black tattoo in the form of a snake eating its own tail encircled his left bicep. He must have stood about four inches taller than her, and his hair wasn’t completely grey as she’d first thought—its original tawny brown showed beneath the roan. Neither was he old. Probably he was even younger than her. With slow, deliberate movements he sat. His presence disconcerted Jed and he smelled–a strong odour of male with overtones of sweat and ship dirt.
“Sit you not at such proximity.”
“Oh yes, I’ve heard of the Code of the star Archers and your tenets on cleanliness. So, which would you risk, sitting here until we both suffocate in our own filth, or have me strangle you when you go to wash?”
Jed glared at him. “So, whose tenets do you follow?”
He exhaled emphatically, and crossed his legs. “I make my own life.”
A silence descended over them, and Jed searched herself for some way out of this deadlock. She felt for the Shamrock, but the navigation still wasn’t responding. The fusion engines added a steady hum to the background as the ship rode an Alcubierre wave at a thousandfold the speed of light.
After a moment, it occurred to her she’d unwittingly entered into an acrimonious contest over who could hold their silence for longest.
Wolff sat still, staring ahead. Jed composed possible sentences in her head. Shamrock thrummed unresponsively.
Jed’s attention shifted to take in the room. This was becoming tedious.
Wolff inhaled, and finally yielded.
“I’ve already told you that I did not choose to come here. My role in this mission and the reasons for my association with Taggart are complex. If I tell you my story, will you tell me yours?”
Jed looked at him. “What?”
“If we’re going to sit here until one of us falls asleep so the other may dispose of him or her, we might as well find some way of passing the time.”
Jed frowned. That was the last sort of response she’d expected. It discomfited her, not because it frightened or threatened her as Taggart had, but because it was just plain ridiculous.
“It’s just a suggestion. I’m not asking if I can have your liver.”
Jed looked out the viewport then back at Wolff. “All right,” she said, uneasily.
Wolff raised his eyebrows and flashed his subtle smile. “Shall I go first?”
Chapter 3
Parasite
Parasite! You cloying wretch,
Who beneath my skin adheres,
Tho’ with no virtues your prying fetch,
You expose all my fears.
Wolff settled back on the seating, raising his leg and resting his ankle on his knee. This put Jed on her guard again—Wolff relaxed was somehow more threatening than Wolff parading about the ship with a gun. At least she knew where she stood with the latter version.
“I was born on an asteroid. I don’t remember much about it, now. My mother died shortly after giving birth to me, and it was my grandfather who raised me. He didn’t like me—I don’t mean he was abusive, or anything like that, but there was always this coldness between us. I never knew who my father was—they didn’t speak about it—he must’ve been an outsider.” Wolff hesitated and looked at Jed. “Probably he was of the Blood. In retrospect, I suppose he must’ve raped or deserted her, and that with the circumstances of her death were probably the cause of my grandad’s umbrage.
“My family were miners. I think they’d been in the asteroid for a couple of centuries at least. Apart from me and Grandad, there were the two offspring of Grandad’s deceased sister and their mates, and three children between them. All the time I can remember being there, I used to steal things and pick on the other kids. I don’t know why. Perhaps because that was all Grandad expected from me. Perhaps I was just a horrible little boy and it was in my nature.
“When I was twelve years old I managed to sneak onboard the ship that ran around the asteroids picking up the ore and doling out the pay, and it left without my absence being noticed. They must’ve visited dozens of asteroids by the time they found me. I couldn’t identify my asteroid, and I didn’t know its number. That was how I joined the ship.”
“In what capacity?”
“Well, it was a barge that hauled ores from the mining communities on the asteroids to the refinery in orbit around a ringed Jovian world. In exchange for letting me live on his ship, the captain expected me to help out with the work.” Wolff exhaled, and cast about the bridge in a self-deprecating way. “Those people on that ship showed me nothing but kindness, and I threw it all back in their faces. They were all tall, mild-mannered people, not like the squashed-faced, stout breed of men in the asteroid belt whose o
nly means of argument or defense is violence, and soon enough I realised I could do what the hell I liked and get away with it, and I was back to vandalising and stealing.
“The captain kept his patience for nearly a year before he accepted I was incorrigible. He dropped me at the system’s penal center. He said he hoped it would be for my own good as well as his. Now I know enough about the judicial system to know he must have bribed my custodians. Those guards have no scruples. They’ll bail kids to paedophiles and slave drivers and all sorts.”
Jed interrupted him. “What do you mean, bail?”
Wolff wiped his mouth on his forearm. Was this the reason his shirt had no sleeves? “I don’t know what you know about the judicial system.”
“Archer clans are not governed by common law.”
“I thought not. If you commit a crime,” Wolff said, grinning, “in the real universe, and someone reports it, you can be arrested. If it’s a non-violent crime, a random jury decides whether you are innocent or guilty, and if it’s guilty, they freeze your assets and set your bail. Rich people, or people with lots of friends, can sometimes afford to pay their own bail, but most people can’t. In that case, you’re put up for bail auction, and any member of the public may choose to pay your bail, at which point you are taken into their custody and become their slave for a duration proportional to the bail price. In my case, my bail was paid by a salvage station.”
Jed fidgeted, uncrossing and re-crossing her legs. “What about if one committed a violent crime and was found guilty of it? You did say the perpetrators of non-violent crimes were bailed.”
“They’re executed. No one would bail them. In certain mitigating circumstances, they can be castrated and then bailed.”
“So these individuals are sold to anyone, and whichever man takes possession of them can do whatever he or she wills?”
