The Recovery Man's Bargain

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “You never leave an unconscious person with a broken nose untended,” she said. “You don’t know where the blood will go, what happens to the shattered bits of bone. You have no idea if that person is going to make it through the next few hours.”

  “Yet you did well enough to wake up and harangue me.” He leaned against the console. “I monitored you. No sense delivering a dead criminal to the Gyonnese. Then you’re not worth anything—to me or to them.”

  He had to work to keep his voice flat. In fact, he had to work at remaining near that console. He wanted to walk over to her and slap her across that bruised face.

  “Don’t worry,” Yu said because she was just staring at him. “The rendezvous time is close. You’ll be able to move then.”

  She licked her lips, but he couldn’t tell if that was from nervousness or from the pain. “I’ll pay you double what they’re paying you to take me home again.”

  He smiled. So she was afraid. Terrified, not just of him but of the Gyonnese.

  He liked the fact that she was terrified. It made him feel better.

  “On the salary Aleyd pays you, you would pay me?” He shook his head. “It would take the rest of your life to pay my fee. Two lifetimes to double it.”

  “I would get the money from Aleyd,” she said.

  “Because they have an interest in keeping you out of Gyonnese hands?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  So that was how she had gotten so far. Her corporation had backed her. They had probably provided the lawyers and maybe even the cloning service for her child. Had they killed the original child too? Or just Disappeared it?

  No wonder the Gyonnese were angry. They knew that they had no chance of getting justice, even before the case began.

  He walked toward her. He let his smile fade and the hatred he felt for her show in his eyes.

  She squirmed in the chair, but she couldn’t get free. She was breathing shallowly, a sign of growing fear.

  “You killed my partner,” he said.

  “He wasn’t your partner,” she said. “He was your employee.”

  Interesting that she believed the distinction was important. Did she rank human lives the way she ranked humans above aliens?

  If so, she would never understand why Nafti’s death made Yu so angry.

  So he said, “You tried to kill me.”

  She nodded, hitting her chin on the edge of the chair and wincing. “I felt like I had no choice.”

  Well, that excused everything. He was willing to die because she had no choice. He kept that sarcastic thought to himself, and made sure he kept his arms crossed despite the pain.

  “And now do you feel like you had a choice?” he asked.

  She licked her lips again. “I hadn’t realized you were being paid.”

  She was lying. And even if she wasn’t, he wasn’t going to let her know that he thought her stupid.

  “Why would I steal you otherwise?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “You could have been some kind of vigilante.”

  “Out to get mass murderers and bring them to my ship?” He permitted himself a small chuckle. “So I’m some kind of vigilante hero in your fevered imagination.”

  She winced. “I’m not a mass murderer.”

  “At least, not intentionally,” he said, knowing the lie she would tell him. The Gyonnese believed the deaths were intentional, that she had been testing a weapon. He had no idea who was right.

  The result was the same. The larvae were dead.

  “Not intentionally killing someone makes it better right? Like feeling you had no choice in killing me. That mitigates it, doesn’t it?” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice now.

  Her wince grew into a frown. He wasn’t sure if he was reaching her or just convincing her that she had no hope of getting away from him.

  “Now you’ve killed a man with your bare hands,” Yu said, unable to let it go. “How does that feel?”

  She raised her chin. He had gotten to her.

  “How does it feel beating a woman within an inch of her life?” she asked.

  He smiled again. And this time, he meant it. “After she tried to kill me? Exhilarating.”

  She studied him for a moment. Then she bit her lower lip, as if she were thinking.

  Finally, she said, “I can get Aleyd to pay you. We can set something up, some off-world account, and they can wire the money. They will do it. They paid for my defense—”

  “And that didn’t work, did it?” Yu said.

  “—and they paid to relocate me. They want me to stay away from the Gyonnese. Not all the suits are settled.”

  He tilted his head back. She actually thought he would bargain with her. Did she think everyone as crass as she was?

  “If Aleyd kills you,” Yu said, “then the Gyonnese won’t have you.”

  “If Aleyd wanted me dead,” she said, “it would have happened long ago.”

  That was probably true. They wanted something else from her.

  Or they felt she was too valuable an asset to lose.

  “You’re asking me to trust you,” Yu said.

  “No,” Shindo said. “I’m trying to figure out the best way for you to make a profit.”

  She wasn’t even a good liar. “And for you to survive.”

  “Of course,” she said. Then coughed so hard that she spit blood on the travel chamber’s exterior. “You injured me badly. You might want to get those fake medical idiots up here to set the nose.”

  “You injured me just as badly. I might lose my right hand.”

  Her expression didn’t change. She didn’t care. The woman had no empathy at all.

  “They build better hands now than we’re born with,” she said. “Consider yourself lucky.”

  He clenched his good fist. “You’re a cold bitch.”

  “And you’re a coward,” she said.

  He blinked at her, startled.

  “If you had any guts at all,” she snapped, “you’d take my proposal.”

  “If I had any guts at all, I’d take your proposal and then sell you to the Gyonnese.”

  Her eyes opened wide. She clearly hadn’t thought of that.

  “Why do they want me so badly?” She was trying for plaintive. It wasn’t working. “The case they had against me was settled.”

  “They think you broke the law.”

  “I did, according to the court,” she said. “That’s why I lost.”

  “After the case got settled. They think you hid your child from them.”

  “You saw Talia. I didn’t hide anyone.”

  “The original child,” he said.

  “Is dead.”

  For the first time, he couldn’t tell if she was lying. And he wasn’t even sure he cared. She wouldn’t tell him where the original child was, not even to save herself. That much was obvious.

  But then, she also knew that he wouldn’t kill her. So she had no reason to tell him.

  She might tell the Gyonnese.

  “The Gyonnese think the child is alive,” he said. “They’re going to use you as an example.”

  Her eyes seemed to get even wider. “An example of what?”

  “They’re trying to prosecute anyone who helps Disappeareds.”

  “But I’m not a Disappeared.”

  “Your child has Disappeared.” He let his arms drop, then winced again as his right hand bumped his leg. “Where else could they have gotten the cloning material?”

  It was his last gamble. He wanted to know where that child was if it existed. Then he could get rid of her, however he wanted to.

  He was no longer sure how he wanted to.

  “We got the DNA from her body,” Shindo said softly. “They clone the dead on Armstrong. There’s a whole industry that does it. I thought you knew that.”

  She wasn’t lying now. He could tell. Still, the news disgusted him. He hadn’t known that the Earth Alliance allowed the cloning of the dead anywhere within its
borders.

  Cloning the dead was forbidden on most worlds where cloning was allowed.

  He shrugged, pretending a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “You’ll never convince the Gyonnese of that. They want you. They want this case. They want to punish Aleyd. They lost an entire generation of children.”

  “They lost what they call original children,” she said. “They weren’t even sentient yet.”

  He clenched his left fist. His right hand hurt too much to move.

  “More excuses?” he asked.

  “Those larvae divide.” Her eyes were bright. She had made these arguments before. “The genetic material is the same in all the subsequent larvae. Just because the originals were killed doesn’t mean the individuals are gone.”

  For someone who was supposed to be smart, she didn’t seem to understand the flaws in her argument. He wondered if she would make that argument about human children.

  Probably not, since she supposedly lived with a clone.

  He said, “You’ll never understand the Gyonnese, will you?”

  “Why, do you?”

  He shook his head.

  “You live among them, don’t you?” she said. “That’s your home, isn’t it? On the fringes of the Alliance.”

  He had gone cold. He had never met anyone like her. Brilliant, but dead inside. He thought brilliant people were the most capable of empathy, but she was proving that theory wrong.

  “I’m taking you to them,” he said. “This is all too fraught for me. Then I’m going back to non-living things. They don’t try to kill me.”

  “Oh, they will,” she said. “That cargo hold of yours is deadly.”

  “I don’t spend a lot of time there,” he said.

  “It nearly killed me,” she said. “I kept some pills for the last of it. What happened to them?”

  The cydoleen. He’d left the pills in her pocket. “They’re on you.”

  “Maybe you can get me some medical help and let me take one. I’d like to keep improving. Unless you want me to die before the Gyonnese get me…?”

  He sighed. Then he waved his good hand over a nearby console. “Computer, transfer the medical programs to the bridge.”

  “They’re not designed for transfer,” the computer responded.

  He cursed.

  “You only need one of them,” she said. “Get whichever one has the capacity to touch. I need someone to set my nose.”

  Stupid woman. All the medical persona touched. Otherwise they wouldn’t work properly.

  “I can’t swallow otherwise,” she said.

  “Send the expensive one,” he said to the computer. “And have the avatar appear in human form.”

  “What about equipment?” the computer asked.

  “Have a bot bring anything the avatar needs when the avatar asks. And do it quickly.”

  The computer chirruped as it set about following his commands. Yu leaned toward Shindo, his face only centimeters from her battered one.

  “I’m not doing this for you. I’m not helping you in any way. I’m getting my money, and I’m getting out of the human recovery business. If the Gyonnese kill you, fine. If they destroy the Disappeared programs, fine. If they exact revenge on Aleyd, fine. It’ll have nothing to do with me.”

  “It’ll have everything to do with you,” she said. “Until you found me, this case was dead.”

  He grinned. The look was mean. “I have news for you, lady. I didn’t find you. I just recovered you.”

  She was frowning as he turned away. She hadn’t understood him. He went back to the console.

  Then she moaned.

  The Gyonnese had found her long before they hired him. Even if she went back, they would come after her again.

  Her nightmare was just beginning.

  And he couldn’t have been happier.

  ***

  The rendezvous point was a closed science base on Io. The base looked like it had been abandoned a hundred years ago. Parts of the structure had fallen down. Other sections were scattered across Io’s surface, as if some giant wind had come and shaken the place apart.

  The landing had been scary. It was the first time he’d tried to maneuver the ship into a port without benefit of a co-pilot or space-traffic controllers.

  But he managed it. When the ship touched the old-fashioned pad which showed he had landed safely by lighting up everything around him, he felt relieved.

  He glanced over his shoulder at Rhonda Shindo. She was unconscious. He had kept the bubble around her and cut off the oxygen until she passed out. Then he had given her a shot of something that would make sure she stayed out until he was long gone.

  He had packed her into a moving crate which looked like a cold sleep coffin. Her face was still a little bruised. There had been a lot of damage, apparently, or the nanobots he’d been using hadn’t functioned as well as he thought.

  Her clothing also had blood on it, and was ripped along one side. He hadn’t thought to bring anything else for her, and he really didn’t want to change her unconscious form. So he left the ruined clothing on her, hoping that the Gyonnese didn’t know enough about humans to care that her clothing was seriously out of order.

  He wished now that he’d gotten more than his expenses and the payment to Athenia up front. Normally, he would have contacted the Gyonnese, have the bots deliver her in that coffin, and then leave.

  But he couldn’t do that. He had to make sure he’d get some payment, and this was the only way. He was afraid the Gyonnese would complain about her physical condition. Technically, he had not violated his agreement with them, but he’d worked with them enough in the past to know how picky they could be, and he worried about that bruised face.

  He shut down all of the ship’s systems except the essential ones. Then he touched the frame of the coffin, activating its float mechanism. He sent it to the nearest downshaft, and followed, feeling like he was walking to his own death.

  He shook off the thought and went to the lower levels of the ship. The science station only had an environment in selected sections and since the landing pad was open to the atmosphere, he had to trust a corridor that automatically attached itself to the side doors.

  Considering how old this place was and how damaged, he wasn’t going to do that. Instead, he was going to don one of the working environmental suits, let the coffin lead the way, and head out the cargo bay. He would wait until the suit let him know that the environment was suitable before he removed his helmet.

  The coffin was already on the lowest bay level when he arrived. He opened a secret compartment off one of the corridors, removed his favorite suit, and put on a thick helmet with a mirrored visor.

  According to his suit, the bay he walked through was as contaminated as the hold where he’d originally stashed Shindo. Maybe her face wasn’t healing because the bruises there weren’t caused by the broken nose. Maybe it wasn’t healing because of the contamination.

  That was her problem now. He’d given her the pills. She could decide whether or not to take them.

  He sighed, then opened the bay doors.

  The lights were still on full, revealing a rusted, ruined port, filled with a lot of broken materials and destroyed ships. The landing pad looked like the only patch of ground that wasn’t covered with ruined equipment.

  The coffin floated toward a sealed doorway. A green light rotated above it, theoretically telling him that everything was clear inside. He’d be able to breathe, he’d be able to stand without gravity boots, he would be warm enough.

  Still, he tramped to the airlock doors, feeling like a giant in his suit. There was some Earth level gravity here or his legs wouldn’t feel like they were glued to the floor with each step.

  Everything felt right—and if he were in one of the lesser suits, he might pull off the helmet the moment the airlock doors opened.

  But this suit still hadn’t cleared the area. It claimed that the oxygen, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide ratios were off. There was also
another chemical that the suit didn’t have the sophistication to identify.

  At that moment, he decided to leave the thing on permanently. He wasn’t going to trust that the unknown chemical was safe.

  The airlock doors slid open and he stepped inside. The coffin came with him, crowding him as the doors closed behind him. Shindo looked peaceful even though she wasn’t. He tried not to look at her. He didn’t want to think about her more than he had to.

  The interior doors finally opened, and the suit approved. The environment was perfect for him.

  Still, he kept the thing on.

  A welcoming committee of five Gyonnese ringed the exit from the airlock doors. Yu knew he’d seen all five of these Gyonnese before. In fact, before he had met them, he recognized them from the air vids the Gyonnese used to distribute news. These five Gyonnese weren’t leaders of the Gyonnese, but they were the leaders’ assistants, famous in their own right among the Gyonnese people.

  But Yu didn’t know their honorifics and didn’t want to guess.

  “Where is the woman?” the nearest Gyonnese asked.

  “Here,” Yu said, putting his hand on the glass coffin.

  “You have killed her,” the Gyonnese in the center said. “She is worth nothing to us dead.”

  Yu expected the comment, but hated it anyway. The Gyonnese were quick-tempered and violent. He’d been grabbed by one once: it was like being held by a braided rope made of gooey flesh.

  “She’s not dead,” he said. “She’s unconscious. This was the easiest way to move her. I have to warn you. She’s very, very difficult.”

  “We know that,” the center Gyonnese said. “If she was not, she would not have killed our children.”

  Yu sighed, hoping that the visor caught the sound. “I mean hard to handle. You’ll need to restrain her from the first. And don’t expect her to give into anything. She’s a fighter.”

  He lowered the coffin so that they could see her face.

  “That’s a bruise.” He ran his hand over her face. “I broke her nose trying to keep her from killing me.”

  “Will she live with that injury?” asked another Gyonnese.

  “I had the injury repaired,” Yu said. “Even if I hadn’t, she could have lived with it. Humans are resilient.”