Tanager's Fledglings (The Tanager Book 1)

by Cedar Sanderson

  Small stock could be kept in stasis boxes, although they were expensive, and Jem never had enough of them. Stock was always in demand, to add fresh breeding genes. Genetic manipulation was expensive, and out here in the rim worlds, the last frontier, live cover was far more desirable. He carried frozen ‘pipes’ of genetic material, of course, but the woolies would sell. People, as Walter had been fond of saying, were crazy. Jem figured the woolies were even dumber than the beeves, and that took work.

  He spent some time pitching hay and manure, adding to his compost pile. The ship’s garden didn’t use it all, but he sold the excess, too, sterilized and certified, on the rocky world of Loki. They could use all the dirt they could get, and paid almost its weight in gold, he thought the first time he’d sold it, under Walter’s watchful eye. His street kid background had helped him learn the gentle art of negotiation, and he could read ‘tells’ better than any poker player, Walter had informed him in a rare burst of praise.

  The puppy was asleep in the bottom of the crate, a boneless heap of fur with a nose, when Jem put his head in to check on it. He backed out as silently as he could, and headed to take his morning ‘fresher. He’d learned to appreciate the cleanliness Walter had insisted on, as much as he’d fought it at first. Today wasn’t as good as the shower with water, but the cleaner towels took most of the feeling of grunge away. Then he sat in the bridge, with the door open to the galley, and pulled up today’s homework.

  He was musing over organic chemistry when he heard the little dog’s howl. It was a welcome interruption. Jem unlatched the crate and caught the furball as it lurched out in one hand, then carried it straight to the pads. The book said the best way to train a young puppy was to anticipate the need, and that right after a nap, voiding would occur. He watched anxiously as the small animal snuffled about, then with relief as the puppy took care of its business. He never thought he would be this interested in a creature’s bowel movements.

  He let the puppy gambol around his feet, watching carefully so he didn’t step on it again, and went back to his books. This, he quickly learned, was not going to work. The puppy tugged on his pant leg, wanted to play, chewed on his shoe, and finally disappeared under the control desk, where a welter of wires ran into the bulkhead. Exasperated, Jem pulled the wriggly pup out, both of them sneezing from the dust.

  The man held the pup out at arm’s length, keeping him up at eye level. The pup relaxed and panted slightly, only the tip of his tail moving.

  “Look,” Jem explained as patiently as he could. “Me ‘n you, we have some time together before Altressa. I’m to teach you some manners, and you are to leave me alone while I’m working. Got it?”

  The pup stuck out his tongue and wriggled, obviously wanting to give the face above him kisses. Jem gave in and cuddled the puppy, who slobbered enthusiastically on his cheek. Then he carried him back into the galley and got them both lunch. He looked at the book on dogs while they ate.

  Basically, a puppy at this age was an eating, pooping machine. If he could learn to predict when the puppy was going to go, he would be able to solve that problem. Food wasn’t an issue. The replicator could be set to produce nice, fresh food tailored to the puppy’s needs. And sleeping... Jem eyed the puppy, who was play-attacking his plate on the floor... that would be a nice break, and time to get some work done. He got up and put the puppy on the pads.

  Chapter 2: Altressa

  The week went by without any passage of time at all, it seemed to Jem when his alarm went off, reminding him to button down the ship and prepare for foldspace. Between housebreaking the puppy, teaching it unsuccessfully to sleep by itself, which led to it sleeping with Jem every night, and his usual work, the man had no time to think straight for days. Now, he put the pup in the crate, steeling himself to ignore the crying, and walked through his checklist to secure all cargo and loose items for the transition.

  As long as he was in the cargo holds, he couldn’t hear the howls, but when he got back to the living quarters he had a twinge of conscience. The transition to foldspace was rough on him, and any other human who went through it, but the puppy couldn’t be warned what was coming. Jem got him out of the crate, put him on the pads for a minute, and then strapped himself into the bridge control chair, cuddling the pup in his arms. Oblivious to his preparations, the little dog concerned himself with licking Jem’s chin and neck.

  The countdown clock on the board hit zero, and Jem braced himself. Walter used to say transition was like being turned inside out through all your orifices, and Jem couldn’t debate that, although he wasn’t sure what an orifice was the first time he heard Walter say that. Once it was over, they would occupy their very own time/space bubble until the carefully calculated course took them back to an intersection with real space.

  It was uncomfortable, yes, but reliable. He’d never really considered what would happen should the whole thing go wrong. It didn’t all go wrong this transition, either. Just... the puppy didn’t like it.

  Well, ok, the puppy hated it with every fiber of its little being. That little being that held more matter than Jem had ever dreamed possible, which it was losing at both ends as quickly as it could void it. Jem yelped in dismay, then added his own contribution, as the transition and the sudden smells and sounds overwhelmed him.

  It was while he was cleaning up the mingled vomit and other bodily ejecta that Jem realized he would have to devote a stasis box to his new little friend every time they made transition. He simply couldn’t have this happen during a time when he needed to watch the board. There was little enough, Walter had explained, you could do when everything redlined. But you could hit the kill switch and drop back to realspace. Jem had never had to do this, even though he had been drilled in it many times.

  The puppy was huddled under the bridge chair, shivering and panting. Jem wasn’t angry at him. Little fellow looked sick and sad. He knew he’d made a mess and he didn’t like it any better than the human did.

  “C’mon, then.” They could both use a drink, and the computers would fly the course he’d set.

  In the galley, the puppy lapped gratefully and Jem rubbed him all over with a damp cleaner towel to remove the crusted gunk. A shower for himself or a bath for the pup were impractical. They wouldn’t have a lot of water until they got to Altressa. The cleaner towels were pretty nifty, they removed dirt and some bacteria. Walter had explained, and later, Jem had looked it up. They were alive, like moss (Walter had shown him mosses on one trip planetside, back when Jem was still scared of sky) and they lived off the nutrients of, oh, dead skin and the like.

  Not as satisfying as a shower, but Jem hadn’t had one of those until Walter had taken him on. Before that… Jem caressed the puppy’s silky ears and the dog responded by licking his hands. Jem tried not to think about it. His childhood was the past, and you didn’t look back.

  “Look forward, keep moving. No regrets.” Jem told the puppy this firmly, but he didn’t mean the accident in the bridge. The puppy wiggled all over as his tail signaled his joy. He didn’t care what the words meant. Jem put the cleaner towel back in the special damp pouch and sealed it for later. It would smell fresh when he needed it again.

  “Altressa,” he told the puppy while he was getting food. Now that he couldn’t smell the vomit, he was hungry again. “Altressa is a rich world, and that means good pickings, if I’m careful. Walter was always careful here. Y’see rich worlds can afford lots of laws.”

  He put a plate of food down for the pup, who started to chase it around the floor, his nose pushing it while his mouth was busy. Jem laughed at him. Life was better with the pup in it. Less lonely with someone to talk to. Walter hadn’t been one to talk much, and Jem had learned to listen when he did. But he was gone now.

  They had another five days in transit, before the computers chimed. Jem sat in the bridge chair, alone, his eyes intent on the board. The pup was in stasis, frozen in the crystal-clear substance humans had learned to make from a weird technology. Jem
wasn’t even sure how it worked. There was more, he had learned, to know than he could possibly absorb in a lifetime.

  At the moment, he was stubbornly holding his eyes open while his body shuddered with the transition. Seasick must feel this way. He’d never been to sea, and thought that he never would, but he’d read…

  The ship lurched one last time, and then settled smoothly into the silence of space. Jem sighed. He hadn’t thrown up this time, and the board was all green but for the single amber indicator that was his fuel. Time to gas up on this trip. Walter had had to explain that one, too. “Gas,” he’d said, tapping the light with a blunt fingertip, “Used to be the currency of nations, lad. Still is, on a few primitive worlds. Course, you have to be rich to live on a primitive world.” He’d held up that same finger, cautioning his protégé “Have to be even richer to rely on only the sun or the wind, boy. Remember that.”

  The poor, Jem had learned, lived on fusion, and the really poor… he flinched away from that thought. It was enough to know he needed to take on reactants here. Not much. Altressa was a rich world, and looked down on that sort of thing, so of course they made it expensive. He’d fill up at the next stop. Tas was a special place, and he’d be able to afford it if the lizards and the woolies went over well here.

  Altressa was closer to the hypernode than the world he’d just left. The math was still out of his reach, but Jem had learned enough to know that the gravitational forces created by a solar system interfered with the ship’s hyper engine that allowed it to fold space around the ship and pierce it to another hypernode, like a needle through cloth. He might not know the math, but he knew it would take three days of travel.

  As Jem did his chores he mused on the concept of time. The days he kept for ship time weren’t the Old Earth days of 24 hours. His days were, Walter told him, based on a 29 hour cycle that had been established on the network of space stations across the known universe. Planets varied too much, Walter explained. There were a few stations that didn’t keep the standard, but enough did to make it a standard.

  Altressa’s station was no different. The planet, on the other hand, was small, and their day-night cycle was almost half the length of his day. It meant that trade went a little faster than on the station.

  Jem didn’t really worry about it. His route wasn’t set in stone, and it had been two seasons since they passed through Altressa. He and Walter…

  Jem opened the stasis box and heard the pup’s sneeze with an odd feeling of relief. He knew the dog wasn’t a person, but the puppy kisses like he was getting now made him feel much less alone.

  “I think you’re still too young. Maybe next trip.” It was foolish, he knew, but he wasn’t ready to put the dog on the market.

  The puppy still didn’t have a name. Jem didn’t see any point in giving him a name since his new owners would undoubtedly change it. Like the ship. Walter had told him that before he’d bought it, the ship’s name had been Kraken. Jem considered that it was a much more exciting name than the Scarlet Tanager, but Walter had glared at him and assigned homework. Much later, after a reading that wasn’t nearly as dull as it could have been, Jem was willing to admit that a trader would probably not benefit from requesting port access with a ship that was named Kraken.

  It had been his first encounter with the implications of words. It had also been his first brush with the Old World’s pirate legends. He hadn’t stopped reading when the assignment was complete. Jem’s childhood had not been one with room for make-believe. His adolescence had allowed limited time, under Walter’s keen eye. Now…

  A chime rang through the ship, and Jem gave the caramel-colored ears one last ruffle.

  “Be good. I have to talk to people.” The pup ignored the stern tone, and followed on Jem’s heels happily, his little tongue lolling out.

  In the bridge, Jem sat at the board and accepted the incoming call. He waited for a moment until the other end was ready again. Station to ship calls where someone had to come to the bridge were not uncommon. The smaller traders like the Tanager couldn’t afford to man the bridge constantly.

  The vidscreen opened and a familiar face smiled at him. “Welcome to Altressa, Scarlet Tanager. Happy to see you again.”

  “Hello, Officer Treigh.” Jem found that he was a little nervous without Walter’s presence over his shoulder. “Declaring a visit of two to not more than four ship cycles for the purpose of trading and selling in the market. Will need a permit for docking, and another for the market.”

  “Not going planetside this trip?” Jem could see the older man’s eyes flickering back and forth between something off-screen and his face. He knew from experience that the customs officer was typing up the permit requests. Altressa liked to put on a customer-friendly face, hence the welcome mat. Walter had warned him on their first trip to watch closely, though. The laws here could trip you up if you so much as sneezed the wrong way.

  Why do we – you – Jem had corrected himself, with a small duck of the shoulders away from a blow that never came from Walter, even when he was cheeky. Why do you bother with Altressa?

  It was a rich world, was the answer, and if you behaved they wouldn’t try to cheat you. That wasn’t their way. Jem had pondered that, and had learned the value of it as the seasons passed.

  Now he answered the question that had been asked. “Not this trip, I think. I don’t have a lot of goods to move, and am not buying more than I sell.”

  Treigh nodded. “You’re a sharp kid, Jem.” Then, unexpectedly, he laughed a little. “Not a kid anymore, I see. I keep remembering you as you were when I first met you, a skinny little runt. You’ve grown.” His eyes flickered away. “I’ll have the tix for you when you dock. See’ya.”

  The vidscreen blanked, and Jem felt the heat in his cheeks start to subside. The puppy thumped his tail against the floor and recalled Jem to the present.

  “I can’t daydream anymore.” The young man picked the pup up and cuddled him. “You’re growing, too.”

  When the docking at the station was complete and the customs officer came on board, Jem had the wares for the market all neatly crated and stacked in the shipping bay. The rest of the ship was sealed, the beeves were content with automatic feeding and watering, although cleaning their pen would be a monumental chore when he was underway again. The pup was in stasis. He hated doing that to the little dog, but he didn’t know how long he’d be gone, and he couldn’t have a strange animal wandering the station with him.

  Treigh held out his hand to clasp forearms with Jem. “No Walter?”

  Jem shook his head, feeling the familiar tightness in his throat. The old man’s absence didn’t seem like it was a wound that would ever heal. Only the echoes of his advice in Jem’s head still sounded. Don’t let them see you cry, kid.

  That had been a long time ago, and in a place far away. It still applied. “I’m on my own this trip.”

  Which implied, carefully, that he wasn’t alone in the universe. People will take down one man, Walter had cautioned him. Don’t let them see you weak.

  Treigh nodded, and then looked at the wand in his hand. “All clean.” He said briskly. “Want to show me anything?”

  Jem smiled at him, feeling the familiar mask of vendor come over him. He wouldn’t make a sale right here. The Altressans were death on bribery or back-room deals. But if Treigh dropped a few words in the right ears… The gorgeous little lizards really did glitter in the spotlight they’d been positioned under.

  Treigh pursed his lips in a silent whistle. “Well, I guess so.”

  Jem lifted the tiny creature and transferred it to the other man’s hand. It clung to his finger and blinked big eyes. “Cute as a kitten.” The customs officer declared. “And since you aren’t selling planetside, you don’t have to worry about invasives.”

  Jem nodded but didn’t say anything. The lizard didn’t need a sales pitch.

  Treigh, reluctantly, set it back into the clear case. “I’d say you might want to try old Abe Maho
ney first, before the open market. What’s in the big crates?”

  Jem showed him the woolies, which blinked stupidly rather than cutely. “Their wool is graded superfine.” He told the customs officer, who shrugged.

  “Can’t tell you anything about them, kid. Livestock does go planetside, you have their papers?”

  Jem handed him the plasticard which had the information about the woolies, how they were sterile cross species and clonable only. No danger of them getting loose and covering a continent with their offspring. Jem had done a lot of reading about the invasives of Old Earth and Newstar, and how much had been learned after that latter disaster. Bioengineering on the richer planets like Altressa meant that natural reproduction could be held in abeyance. Other planets just practiced conservation and control.

  Treigh scanned it and grunted as his wand flashed an approval code. He gestured at the door. “You have everything you need from there?”

  Jem nodded. The hatch to the rest of the ship was already locked and sealed. To come onto the station he had decontaminated the shipping and receiving bay per regulations and would not re-enter the ship until his stay here was over. It was not, as he’d complained on one trip to Walter, a ploy to make them spend more money for food and lodging on the station. He understood the paranoia over the possible threat of a plague. The animals he was carrying were carefully vetted and scanned before they were allowed to leave the ship. Also, as Walter had pointed out, the seals like Treigh was applying to the inner hatch kept anyone from poking about in the private parts of their home.

  Jem picked up the small case which held several of the little lizards and followed Treigh out into the corridors. The customs officer, his attention already elsewhere, waved absently in farewell and headed further out into docking. Another ship, no doubt. Jem headed toward the station proper. Docking was cold, and even though sterile, always managed to look dingy and worn.