Flotsam

by R J Theodore

  “It is confirmed.” The alien returned the device to xist back pouch. “They will distract the patrol ship, and then Wind Sabre should fly at a distance beneath, to the previously arranged coordinates.”

  Dug laughed low and short. Shifted his position, took the coffee from its holder on the dash and took a sip. The wall was crumbling a bit. Talis narrowed her eyes at him. Was it relief at not needing to encounter the crew on that ship? His own people?

  Not his own tribe, of course. They were across Nexus, nearer to the Rakkar islands. In another life this tribe would have concerned him only in a rivalrous sense. They might have teased him for sailing with Cutters, or for being away too long. But she’d taken him on that job, years ago, and he bore the scars of it. Scars that would get him killed among his people, regardless of tribe.

  The messed-up thing, the unfair thing, was that he was relieved to pass by his own kind unseen, taking these aliens that he neither understood nor trusted, to meet the Bone goddess.

  Of course, Talis might have misunderstood. A chuckle from Dug could mean many things. Few of them good.

  Chapter 23

  It was a good plan, though, and it worked perfectly. The alien ship’s silver surface reflected the pumpkins’ orange glow and the green light from Nexus along its curving hull. It loomed in the sky, gleaming like a gem in the morning light, and gave the patrol ship plenty to look at.

  Talis took over at the helm so Tisker and Dug could get a shift off. Her hand on the worn handles of the wheel, feeling the strength of the ship, the force of the winds coming up along the whole length of the rudder chain, she decided she didn’t man the helm often enough. Wind Sabre slipped into position beneath the alien vessel, mirroring its slow course. Against the glistening presence, no notice was given by the Bone patrol ship to the dark wooden shape three fathoms below.

  If they’d met up with an Imperial patrol ship along the border, if Hankirk had gone ahead of her and warned his people that Wind Sabre was traveling with the aliens instead of trying to chase her down for a private interview, such a ship would have known to look for them. But the fool had made another attempt to talk her onto his team. Snuck aboard her ship and got himself stranded on a miserable storm island for that mistake.

  She wouldn’t expect Hankirk to make a tactical error like that.

  Scrimshaw stood at the starboard railing watching xist ship around the edge of the lift envelope.

  “Look different from the outside?” she asked.

  “This entire experience has been unique,” xe said.

  Always agreeing while simultaneously correcting. Not her favorite conversationalist, this one.

  She leaned against the console, merging her weight with the mass of her ship. The engines were burning low to prevent exhaust bursts from the turbines, but she still felt the thrum of them through the wood, up her feet, in the wheel’s barrel at her hip. It gave her clarity. Focus. Here, she was at ease. In charge.

  She wondered if the aliens ever slouched.

  “Your ship have a name?” she asked instead.

  Scrimshaw turned from the railing, crossing gracefully to her side on the tips of those toes. They reminded her of bird legs. She was pretty sure birds didn’t slouch.

  “None of the contemporary languages of your planet have a word that is equivalent of our ship’s designation.” Xe moved xist arm in a small gesture that managed to indicate all of Peridot. “It is due to the nature of your geography.”

  Actually, she realized, the aliens reminded her a lot of birds. She’d initially thought of insects. But no, from the bearing of Scrimshaw’s body, the delicate weight distribution, and the tilt of xist head when xe considered her questions with dark blinking eyes, xe was more like a crane than a wasp. Definitely a crane.

  She wanted to ask what made them so desperate to understand Peridot, but recalling how such questions had been dodged during their Yu’keem lessons, she proceeded obliquely. She’d start the questions on the outside. Find a chink, wedge it open, and ease in.

  “Do you miss your world?” she asked.

  “Those of us on my vessel have never seen our home planet.”

  Well, whatever reply she thought she’d get, it wasn’t that.

  “Never?”

  “It was depleted of resources several generations before our crew was assembled.”

  Not ‘before I was born’ or ‘when my great-grandparents were still young.’ Their phrasing was always strange, and she had to wonder how they decided which Common Trade words to pick as equivalents for their own.

  Talis tried to imagine living her whole life in an enclosed ship, out between the stars. The first part wasn’t hard. Most Cutter folk happily stayed aboard the colony ships they were born on, rarely setting foot on an island for more than a few hours when the ships stopped to refuel. But between the stars, traveling endlessly. No open deck to feel the wind. And with emotionless crewmates for company? Cold and lonely, it sounded to her.

  “We are…” Scrimshaw seemed to search for a word. “Prolific.”

  “Ah,” she said. “Bled the old world dry, then, I take it?”

  Xe looked at her. If xist carved eyebrows could move, they might have gone up in surprise.

  “You understand resource depletion?”

  She laughed harshly. “Look around. This is a waste-not kind of world, isn’t it?”

  “But your planet is enriched and sustained by alchemy,” xe said, then closed xist mouth with a tiny snapping sound.

  It was true that alchemy had stopped the explosion that would have made their world as devoid of life as all the others like it that Scrimshaw had told her about. It held the bits of what Peridot used to be in place. Made it what it was now.

  “Sustained, I’ll give you that,” she said, removing one hand from the wheel to tuck it against her chest. The winds were stiff enough, and they’d dropped altitude to fly low through the thinner air and colder skies, and now her fingertips were turning purple. “Don’t think I’d call it ‘enriched,’ though.”

  She was quiet for a minute. Xe demonstrated xist kind’s failure at filling burdened silences, so she pressed on.

  “So that’s what you’re trying to learn, then?” She went directly for the question, figuring she’d muck up the diplomacy if she kept tiptoeing around the matter, and xe’d shut down on her without giving a better hint. “How to unlock alchemy to bring your world back?”

  Scrimshaw regarded her in silence, those dark sapphire eyes revealing none of the workings going on behind them. She had to wonder what orders xist captain gave, aside from helping with communications. Xe was not typically shy to demonstrate xist knowledge—except where it seemed to reveal anything at all about xist people.

  “At least,” xe said after a cautious pause, and with what seemed like hesitation, “to prevent the destruction of the next one.”

  The joint arrival of a Cutter airship and the Yu’Nyun starship did not escape notice at the port city of Talonpoint, on the edge of Fall Island. At first, there were only curious onlookers, those who had already been along the raised dock structure. But others ran back toward the high walls of Talonpoint’s proper city, and soon their audience grew. At the crowd’s periphery, Talis saw the gleaming tips of halberds marking positions taken up by the local security forces.

  The docks were inland, raised off the ground. Fall Island was named for the cascades of sand that tumbled from its edges, an endless supply that overflowed upward from a source somewhere underground in the heart of the vast desert. Docks built at the island’s coastline would be worn away too quickly, and the pouring sands would make it dangerous to those crossing to and from their ships. Airships had landing gear, retractable feet for cases where the ships’ engines would be powered down and the lift balloons allowed to slack. Instead, Wind Sabre had engaged her grappling anchors. Even though the journey to the temple and bac
k would take several days, Talis wanted her ship ready to move.

  The Yu’Nyun starship settled onto tripod feet which separated from the smooth hull on hinged legs, and the maw of its hatch opened downward, landing with a thud on the dock below. It was as silent as ever, so Talis had no way to know whether the alien ship had powered down its systems, or if they, too, were prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.

  A field of dark-skinned faces filled the docks around the two ships and Talis itched under the weight of the secrets they needed to keep. She ordered Dug to lower the boarding ramp from their lower bay. He gave her a long look but followed the order without comment. Shirtless, as he’d understood her intent, he opened the hatches wide and made a show of turning the crank, lowering his scarred self and the platform to within hopping distance of the ground.

  The crowds were quick to spot him and pulled back a fair distance from their berth. So long as no one committed any offense on this trip, she knew the sovereignty of a ship’s captain would keep Dug from harm. As long as he didn’t actually step foot onto the island, where his presence alone would be considered a crime. As long as the aliens made no grievous offense to their goddess.

  Talis dressed for the desert, protecting as much of her skin from the sands as possible. Slim twill pants tucked into her boots. Long flowing cotton blouse with a high collar, which she’d bought on another Bone island. A scarf that she wrapped around her hair and looped generously about her neck so that it could cover the lower half of her face if she tugged it up a bit. Goggles on her head, ready to pull down against the sand and the glare of ocean-filtered Nexus off the dunes. Fingerless gloves.

  She looked down at the revolvers on her desk, weighing the decision. If all were right in the world, she shouldn’t need them. She knew how to behave among Bone. For years she had considered Dug’s village a second home. She was going on a peaceful pilgrimage to bring diplomatic emissaries to a house of worship.

  But all was not right with the world. Hankirk had put the wind up her back, and as the distance grew between the storm cloud and Wind Sabre’s aft, she couldn’t help but feel it had been a mistake not to lock him in the makeshift brig in their cargo hold. She’d installed the steel-barred compartment after a client hired her to transport an exotic pet he’d purchased a few islands away. It ate the mattress in her cabin before they realized the ‘pet’ was, in fact, a wild animal fresh out of the jungles. Talis had to sleep in the crew’s quarters for a week until they got the animal to its new owner and she could reclaim her ruined captain’s quarters. Rather than swear off such errands, she’d invested in the cage. Even if they never had to transport another saber-tooth gryphon, she figured on it coming in handy for locking up sensitive cargo while they were in docks. The aliens’ first payment was behind those bars at the moment, but maybe she should have swapped it for Hankirk’s miserable self, just to keep an eye on him.

  It occurred to her that she might be protecting the man. Dumping him on that island kept Dug from Hankirk as much as it kept Hankirk away from her. Not for the first time, she wondered at her reluctance to kill him. She’d done others for much less, hadn’t she?

  But had she? Anyone else she’d killed, there’d been more of an immediacy to it. She was being attacked. They were going to hurt someone else. They were firing on her ship. They were faceless enemies threatening her life, her friends, or her livelihood.

  Maybe she just knew Hankirk too well.

  She shook herself from her musing and picked up the guns, slipped their holster over her arms, and clipped the buckle that rested below her breasts. Their weight was solid and uncomfortable against the sides of her ribs. Returning to dig around in her wardrobe locker, she found a long sleeveless vest, also in the Bone style. A gift from Dug’s late wife. It hung only a few inches above the ends of her long blouse, as if they were made for each other. Pinning the vest closed in front with an expensive turquoise cameo as long as her index finger, she thought she’d done a rather good job of dressing herself for a Bone temple visit. The vest would not disguise the bulging shapes of the weapons beneath her arms—that would require a jacket she was unwilling to wear in the desert heat—but it might at least come off as more polite. The guns were not quite as ready to draw as if they’d been bared.

  Her mind full of death and consequences, Talis met Scrimshaw at the lower bay doors. Xe had xist few belongings with xin, including what remained of xist food in its mysterious unmarked barrel. They never had figured out how xe prepared xist nourishment. Xe would step off Wind Sabre and that was that. No more uninvited alien presence on her ship. She’d expected to feel relieved.

  It wouldn’t be accurate to say that their alien passenger had become a friend. After all, that vial xe squirreled aboard had endangered her ship. Beyond the contraband, though, he had managed to stay out of trouble. For an unwanted passenger, that was as large a compliment as she could give. She’d hosted other passengers whose money-glazed fingers left prints on everything and managed to turn up everywhere. Underfoot, joining inconvenience with irritating commentary, or questioning the way she ran her ship. Scrimshaw, either because xe sought to keep xist brittle limbs free of her grip, or because xe was accustomed to ship life, was skilled at not being in her way.

  Talis had to admit that her curiosity regarding Peridot’s alien visitors only increased after exposure to their linguist. Scrimshaw revealed just enough to make it clear that there was some strange mystery to their behavior, some odd drive to their mission that Talis might never uncover or understand. And just like a mother saying “I’ll explain when you’re older,” the question of it needled in her mind. Sophie might be eager to absorb their language and siphon off their technological know-how, but Talis was far more concerned with learning how to read the aliens. Find their tells. Every race had one, surely that was a universal truth that extended beyond Peridot’s skies?

  Sophie was walking Scrimshaw down to the gangway, rattling off a list of questions she’d forgotten to ask previously, double-checking her pronunciation of words xe’d taught them, and sharing her own limited knowledge regarding Onaya Bone. It seemed like she wanted to say more, but at a severe look from Talis, she finally said her goodbyes and ran back to her post.

  The murmur from the gathered crowd escalated as Scrimshaw disembarked. If anyone present had entertained the notion that the two ships’ simultaneous arrival had been a coincidence, that theory was dead now. The crowd shifted, and she saw some children lifted onto shoulders for a better view. She tried her best to ignore them all. Tisker stepped out and watched the crowd, his hand resting casually but meaningfully on the gun stowed at his hip.

  Talis couldn’t ignore the increasing volume of the crowd as a Yu’Nyun escort greeted Scrimshaw on the docks beneath their starship. Two of them came forward and claimed Scrimshaw’s luggage. The others formed a triangle around xin, and the group disappeared up the ramp.

  Talis realized she’d assumed that Scrimshaw would be among those going to the temple, but she’d never actually asked. Had she seen xin for the last time?

  There was silence, then, from the Yu’Nyun ship. Talis stepped over to Tisker’s side, her back to the crowd, and went over the orders she wanted them to follow while she was gone. Dug was to remain on the ship. He already knew that, but she wanted Tisker and Sophie to know it, too, just in case Dug got a rabid thought in his head and decided to take his foul mood to one of the bars behind Talonpoint’s walls. She reiterated that they were not to cause trouble, which of course Tisker already knew. But he solemnly promised that they would all be on their best behavior while she took the aliens to stir up whatever trouble they had in mind. She shot him a look for that comment, but it struck home.

  Her crew would keep her ship safe. The rest was up to her.

  Chapter 24

  A few hours later, four aliens emerged from the Yu’Nyun ship, stepping down onto the sandy Talonpoint docks. Talis let out a breath she ha
dn’t realized she was holding when she saw Scrimshaw among the party. That she was even able to pick xin out from the other three was something of a point of interest to her. She recognized xin at a distance by xist uniform, but confirmed it when she approached and saw the familiar motif in xist body carvings. She had noticed it when they first met, at the ball where arm met shoulder blades. Later she’d realized that it repeated on xist left temple and the side of xist right forearm. She had to admit, if only to herself, that she’d picked xin out by those details alone, not by any variations in the structure of xist face, as she would a friend. It was more like looking over a group of similar horses and identifying her own by the marking on its coat. Or worse, the details of its saddle.

  Also in the small group was the captain, who advanced with enthusiasm to greet Talis in xist stiff accent. Talis realized Scrimshaw had never actually explained their genders to her. The aliens seemed to show no secondary characteristics to indicate their sex, and she had to assume the loincloths hid any primary. Their body types looked identical to her. But Scrimshaw had said the Yu’Nyun lived on their ships and were prolific. So there had to be another gender type somewhere, and wouldn’t it be more efficient to mix the crew than to separate them? Maybe Sophie had thought to ask about it. Then again, that seemed like just the sort of question that Scrimshaw would have dodged. She abandoned hope of figuring that out. Get them to the temple, get them their interview, and then who would care what gender the aliens are as they’re leaving Peridot behind?

  The veiled Representative of Commerce also joined them, along with a fourth alien that Talis was not introduced to. She supposed xe was a guard, though xe carried no weapons. Xe did not acknowledge her, so she ignored xin in kind. She was far more curious about the Representative’s presence, when the captain had been clear that xist role was limited to monetary discussions. Were they going to bribe Onaya Bone for the information they needed? Or her priestesses, to ensure the meeting even happened? Talis almost laughed at the thought. They’d gotten Wind Sabre’s help with the flash of money, sure, but Cutter smugglers were as far different a breed from Bone priestesses as she could imagine.