by ZJ McBeattie
Tales from Omega Station: Belly of the Beast
By K.G. McAbee
Copyright K.G. McAbee 2013
Cover art copyright J.A. Johnson 2013
Tales from Omega Station: Belly of the Beast
K.G. McAbee
It was between shifts in Dhamu's bar. The usual piles of bodies and debris had recently been cleaned from outside the door, giving the bar a neat appearance that never lasted long. Inside, the place looked like it always did, always had, and doubtless always would until the end of the Rock, or Time, or the Universe…or all three.
In an establishment that had never known day or night, in a bar that never closed, it was almost impossible to find privacy and quiet. Almost, but not quite. The work shifts set up to keep the infrastructure of Omega Station ticking along, with often only marginal degree of success, provided a certain ebb and flow of customers in all the establishments on the Rock, from the lush elegance of the Starview Lounge to the lesser known—to the up-dwellers, anyway—places like the Chow Now, the Grababite, the Eatorbeeaten, or Dhamu's.
Malik stared out over his table, checking the clientele. Against the far wall four L'Taltons perched on stools around a table, sipping the weak pale beer that Dhamu brewed in the back room and clucking softly to each other. One, a neuter by the orange-gold color of its breast feathers, reached over from time to time and groomed its pair-mate's crest. One of the others—by their red-brown crest, those two were females—scrabbled in a flat bowl for bits of toasted nuts and tossed them into the air for its pair-mate to catch in its beak.
Aside from the L'Talton pairs, the only other occupants of the bar Malik could see were Crila and himself, and Dhamu behind the bar. He didn't count Tau the Silent, who, after polishing off three huge sandwiches and two glasses of beer, was stretched out on the padded bench beside him, snoring in quiet content. And Dhamu didn't look much more awake than the boy as he pushed a dirty rag in concentric spirals across the bar's stained polybdalloy.
Not that the burly Ferajai ever looked more than marginally interested in what was going on around him. Kovindi fighters, even those who, like Dhamu, made it out alive and with enough money to find another profession, were seldom the same afterwards, either mentally or physically.
Vicious fighting to the death could really take it out of even as tough a race at the Ferajai.
"Credit for your thoughts, Mal my son?" Crila took a drink of beer and winced at the taste.
"They're not even worth half a microcredit, Cri, if that. And if you'd rather have brandy or Serillian wine or—"
"Nah, beer's good enough, even if I do know what Dhamu uses to make it. Brandy is never a good idea; it makes me chatty." She took another drink as if to prove her point. This time the wince was just visible. She tossed a forelock of lavender hair out of her eyes. They were a darker purple, though the blue-green streaks that ran though them, and her pale skin, showed she was part Human as well as having Halsan in the mix.
What else was in her background, Mal wondered as he examined the small yet lushly figured woman who sat across from him. She was dressed in a brown spacer's coverup open to show a black halter, and scuffed boots that had seen better days—probably sometime in the last decade. Except for the forelock, beaded with tiny bits of obsidian and garnet, that persisted in falling into her face, her hair was cropped. The right hand that held her beer glass was flesh. The other one was hidden beneath a glove, but Mal knew it wasn't meat. He'd seen the damage that hand, with its various prosthetics, could do. Recently, she'd wiped a Connie's mind blank and knocked him to the floor with just a stroke of one finger. Not that her other hand was useless, by any means. He'd also seen her bounce unruly spacers out of Dhamu's when she was working her shift.
Cri liked a peaceful bar, and never minded cracking a few heads or breaking the occasional arm or leg or tentacle to get it.
"What makes you chatty, Mal?"
Malik looked into her eyes and felt a power that he could not explain.
"What's the matter? Worried I'll walk around inside your head and find out some stuff you don't want me to know?"
Malik opened his mouth to reply—then realized he had not spoken aloud.
"Hey! Don't do that weird Halsan mind reading thing. It's as creepy as one of Tau's cribs down in the Depths. Down there, I always feel like something's watching me, just out of sight, and planning on how to cook me for dinner. And I know your people can read thoughts, but since when did you get so, uh, more telepathic?"
"Since, oh, just lately, I guess. I always have been, natch—in the blood, like you say—but what this little baby—" she held up her prosthetic arm, "—did was just help me tap into it with a lot more power. But don't worry, Malik. I can't really see into that blocked off, blocked up blockhead of yours. I just pick up bits of flotsam, crap that floats around on the surface, like scum on top of sewage."
"Thanks—I think. That's a relief."
Mal didn't know if he believed her, but didn't see what he could do about it if she was lying. He'd known Cri for, damn, it must be nearly eight cycles. He trusted her, too.
As much as he trusted anyone.
"Nah, you're not a trusting soul, are you, Mal?"
"Will you stop that?"
"Sorry, son. It's just that you're, uh, broadcasting pretty strong right now. Something is, you should pardon the expression, preying on your mind. Want to talk about it?"
"No." He shook his head. Then he nodded. "Yes."
"What I thought." Crila grinned. "Whatever you tell me won't go out this hole, unless you give me leave. So talk. Get it off your mind. And you've got one, which is more than most around here can say."
Malik took a long drink of his brew, then set the glass down with precise care. He looked down at Tau, whose snores had gotten louder, and pulled his jacket further up over the boy's shoulders. A dirty toe peeked from the boot that just missed kicking him when Tau jerked in a dream.
A dream. Was it a good one? Could a boy like Tau, who'd lived in the Depths all his short life, have good dreams? A full belly and a safe crib were his ultimate in joy. Tau had been off on a journey to the Core to throw himself into the flames when Mal had found him. The boy had lost his tribe, and didn't want to live any more.
Malik knew what that was like, losing the only thing you had, the only thing you loved, and not wanting to go on anymore.
"So tell me about it."
Crila's voice was soft, soothing, no commands, no orders.
Mal sighed, looked down at the table and saw his past in the interlocking rings of spilled beer.
He didn't think he'd be able to talk about it, but once he began, the words flowed out like the babblings of a straz head.
"I was created in a lab, Cri. Can you imagine what that's like? To be grown like food or ka'frindi, on shit and chemicals? To know that you're nothing but an expendable piece of meat? I know. I knew from the beginning. They all made sure I knew…"
