by Jaleta Clegg
I blew my nose and shrugged. "A bit. Did Clark get things settled?"
"Yes, the cargo finally arrived. He’s out there supervising the loading. I already talked to port authority. We have a window in four hours."
Something in her hand, something gray and furry, made a chirruping sound. It moved and I saw two very large green eyes.
"What is that?"
"Everett gave her to me," Jasyn said. Everett was the captain of the Windrigger and a Gypsy, related to Jasyn in a complicated way that I hadn’t followed. Jasyn spent time over on his ship while we waited for our cargo. New faces, new stories, she said. I hadn’t gone because of my cold.
The gray furball stretched and jumped out of her hands. It trotted on four delicate paws to sniff my leg. The green eyes looked up.
"It’s a cat." I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I’d seen pictures of the tiny relatives of Dursoi sand cats, but I’d never seen a live one before.
"They’re good at catching pests," Jasyn said. "Maybe Ghost will find those mice that got in here."
As if the mention summoned them, I heard the rodents scrabbling over my head. The cat cocked her head, her large eyes fixed on an access panel. Jasyn opened it. The cat leapt straight up, a full seven feet, and disappeared into the conduit.
"Jasyn! What if that thing destroys the wiring?"
"Relax, Dace. She won’t hurt anything. Except the mice. She’s trained. Everett gave her to me because he currently has eight of them on board." She grinned. "Ghost is also very friendly. Everett said she would be a good companion."
"I hate it when you feel sorry for me."
"Then stop moping around."
"I haven’t been moping, I’ve been sick." I snuffled into a tissue.
"You’ve been moping. And don’t think I haven’t noticed the pictures you’ve taped to the inside of the locker by your bed."
My face flushed. "Those are private."
"And I’m family, so it doesn’t matter. Oh," she reached into her pocket. "These were waiting for you at the office. The last Patrol courier brought them in. And complained very loudly about being a personal messenger service." She handed me two squares of paper, folded and sealed.
I took them eagerly. One was from Darus, a short note telling me he’d been assigned to the Patrol cruiser Avenger. I grinned at that. The Avenger happened to be the ship where Tayvis was assigned. Darus had some interesting questions about Tayvis that I wasn’t going to answer.
The other note was from Tayvis. I stuck that note in my pocket for later, when I had complete privacy.
"You aren’t going to share?" Jasyn slid her coat off and shook the snow out.
"Darus says hi."
"And?"
"He’s been assigned to the Avenger."
"I bet Tayvis wasn’t too happy about that. I heard about his encounter with Darus."
There’d been a few sparks. But how do you introduce your father, who’s been missing for twelve years and that you’ve only just met yourself, to the man you’re in love with?
"What else do they say?" Jasyn asked.
I was saved from answering by a sudden loud squealing and a series of rattling thumps from overhead. Ghost appeared at the open access panel with a blue-furred rodent in her jaws. She dropped the body and disappeared back into the conduit. Jasyn and I stared at the limp body on the floor. I nudged it with my toe.
"She’s certainly efficient," I said, still unsure whether having a cat was such a good idea.
"That doesn’t look like any mouse I’ve ever seen. Blue?"
I shrugged. The thing had six legs and antennae. But a pest was still a pest. I used a tissue to pick the tiny thing up and drop it into the recycler.
"You still haven’t told me what’s in the letters," Jasyn said.
"I haven’t read them yet." I didn’t want to share, even with her.
She hung her coat in a locker. "You read the one from Darus. What did he have to say about Tayvis?"
Maybe if I let her read Darus’ note she’d let me keep Tayvis’ private. And maybe I’d grow wings and learn to fly. Jasyn got what she wanted. I pulled the paper from my pocket and handed it to her. She unfolded it and began to read.
"Just what did you and Tayvis get up to when he came to visit on Parrus?" She had been off on an exotic island with Clark at the time.
"None of your business." He’d kissed me and told me about his parents and family. And kissed me again.
"Mmm hmm."
"I don’t ask about the details of your love life."
"And I wouldn’t tell you if you did. At least you and Tayvis seemed to have worked things out."
"It would be a lot easier if we actually got to see each other more than a few minutes every couple of months." I blew my nose again. "It was weird, talking to him without someone chasing us or trying to shoot us."
She laughed and settled herself at the table. "Darus is his commanding officer? That would be entertaining to watch."
We were interrupted by a knock at the hatch.
"Probably port authority," Jasyn said. "Final account settlement."
I opened the hatch. When I saw who was standing outside I almost shut it again. Jerimon grinned. His mischievous look combined with his deep blue eyes made me almost forget I didn’t like him. I stepped back and let him in. He shivered as he brushed snow from his hair.
"Jerimon!" Jasyn jumped up to hug her brother. He hugged her back and winked at me over her shoulder.
He wore a plain gray shipsuit, stained and faded. His duffel slumped when he dropped it. I shut the hatch on the snowstorm outside.
"What are you doing here?" Jasyn asked him.
"Time off for good behavior. They let me go a few weeks ago."
"So what are you doing on my ship?" I asked.
"I saw your face all over the newsvids and just couldn’t keep myself away." He draped one arm over my shoulder. I pushed it off and stalked away. I had to grab another tissue to blow my nose again.
"You’re out?" Jasyn asked. "Sit down. Let me get you something to drink. Dinner’s going to be another hour or so."
He sat at the table, making himself at home. I plopped on the cushioned bench between the cockpit door and the hatch and pretended to read files on my hand comp.
"I’ve scrubbed thousands of toilets," he said. "I think they finally took pity on me and let me go. Do you have any idea how many toilets are on a troop transport? One hundred and eighty six. And each one has to be scrubbed every day." Jasyn put a steaming cup in front of him. "I’ve been working temp jobs trying to catch up with you."
"You shouldn’t have had too much trouble getting a job," I said. "There’s a shortage of pilots in this sector."
He made a face. "They stripped me of my pilot rating, part of the sentence. A convicted criminal isn’t allowed to fly, not for ten years after release." His grin faded. He looked older with lines in his face that hadn’t been there a year ago. "That’s one reason I came to you. I need a job."
"What have you been doing since you got out?" Jasyn asked.
I didn’t ask because I had a pretty good idea. Unskilled labor on a ship meant one type of job. His answer confirmed my guess.
"Cargo handler for big freighters. And janitorial on a passenger liner once." The jobs that were dirty and hard and usually very underpaid.
"Of course we’ll give you a job," Jasyn said. "Considering we’re short handed."
"What can he do?" I protested. Not very hard, though. Jerimon really did look like he’d had a rough time.
"Load cargo, scrub the toilets," he said. "Wash dishes. Mop the floor. And fly if you don’t tell anyone."
"As long as you leave Lady Rina and her cards out of things, you can stay," I said. Lady Rina and her fortune telling cards had caused me no end of problems with Jerimon. She’d convinced him he was my soulmate.
"Deal," he said. "I’ll just have to win you over with my charm and good looks."
I snorted and turned away, pretending to re
ad.
The hatch opened again. Clark brushed snow from his hair as he entered. "Cold out there." He stopped when he saw Jerimon. He grinned and slapped Jerimon on the shoulder. "How are you doing, jailbait?"
"I’m a free man," Jerimon said. "Which means no more free lunch. No guaranteed bunk to sleep in. And few jobs."
"So he came here begging," I said. "Jasyn said he could stay."
"And how do you feel about it?" Clark asked me.
"Fine with me, we already discussed that." I sneezed, then grabbed a tissue.
"So I assume you want me to go to the port office and register him," Clark said. "Good thing I haven’t taken my coat off yet."
"The rest of the fees still need paid," Jasyn said. "I’ll come with you. I think I need to sign the hiring papers anyway." She grabbed her coat out of the locker.
"The cargo is loaded, Dace," Clark said. "We’re ready to leave."
"Good. I’ll see how much Jerimon remembers about preflight." It wasn’t strictly necessary, but I still couldn’t quite believe the ship wasn’t about to disintegrate around me. It had happened before, but not with my Phoenix.
Clark and Jasyn headed out into a day that was rapidly turning into a very dark night. I caught sight of snow swirling in the outside lights before the hatch slid shut.
Jerimon studied me, sipping his drink. "Alone at last."
"Don’t get your hopes up." I stood and put the reader back into its cubby.
"So, you patched things up with Tayvis? You know, Dace, if you ever break up with him, I’ll be waiting."
"Don’t hold your breath."
"You’re just scared of my good looks and excessive charm." He stood to pose and spilled his drink over his shipsuit.
I pulled a cloth out of the galley cupboard and tossed it to him. "When you’re done with that, get a headset. You’re taking the controls." I blew my nose again on my way to the engine room.
Chapter 3
The flight was uneventful. My cold gradually got better. Jerimon spent a lot of the first two days sleeping and eating Jasyn’s cooking. Then he made good on his promise to clean. He scrubbed everything in the ship, including the overhead bins. He cleaned my cabin while I was busy doing inventory on our small cargo hold.
Ghost made herself very useful. I found three of the blue mice on my pillow the second day out. The gray cat washed herself on the other end of my bunk. She gave me a self-satisfied look when I disposed of her trophies. Anytime I was in my bunk, she’d find a way into the cabin and curl up on my feet. It didn’t matter how well sealed I thought my cabin was, I’d wake up to find a warm furry lump on my bunk.
She followed me around the ship. I’d turn around to see her wide green eyes watching me. It was unnerving. Then she started slipping into my lap whenever I sat down. She’d rub her head against me and start vibrating. I scratched her head gingerly, unsure what she wanted.
"She likes you," Jasyn said, looking up from her game of Crystals. She, Jerimon, and Clark had a three-way tournament going. I’d declined. I wouldn’t have lasted four turns against any of them.
"But why?" I asked. "I don’t feed her. I don’t know what to do with her."
"Didn’t you ever have a pet?" Jerimon asked.
"Not hardly. It would have ended up in the orphanage stew pot."
Jerimon turned around to give me a shocked stare.
"Seven points up," Jasyn announced. "You just lost your scout." She pulled the piece off the board. "Try stroking her, Dace. She likes to be rubbed under her chin."
"How much food do we have for her?" Clark asked, watching me run one finger down the cat’s back.
"A month, the way she’s been eating," Jasyn said.
"Hah, ten points left," Jerimon said. Pieces clicked on the stacked boards.
"She’s been eating the blue things," I said. "The one I found this morning was missing its head and tail."
"Appetizing," Clark said.
I tapped the reader screen. The cat purred in my lap. "Prospects from Sudhi don’t look very good. We could swing out by Onipas and then into Heradan Sector. Or we could try going deeper into the Sidyatha."
"You don’t want to go into the Sidyatha," Jerimon said. "I saw a few reports while I was cleaning. Even the Patrol doesn’t go very deep into the Sidyatha."
"Why not?" This was news to me. I thought the Patrol permeated all of the Empire. Only the frontier worlds and beyond were safe from their ships.
"Thirty years ago the Sidyatha elected a new leader," Jerimon said. "He instituted a reform movement that has been gaining momentum. Back to the strict interpretations of divine law. It doesn’t acknowledge any authority outside of the religion. So the Patrol got booted out. It was driving the Commander nuts trying to find out what they were up to."
"What were you doing reading reports that were probably classified?" I asked. "Good behavior, hah. I bet they threw you out because you were too much trouble to keep locked up."
"Janitors are invisible," Jerimon said. "I was dumping the trash and cleaning the head during his conference call. I just happened to overhear his complaining about the Sidyatha. One of his battlegroup was chased out of their sector and he wasn’t happy."
"So we avoid the Sidyatha as much as we can," Clark said.
"Prospects aren’t as good," I said. "Onipas and beyond take us out to the frontier. Not much that we can haul that will pay off. The worlds are a bit rough for luxury goods and we don’t have the capacity to haul machinery."
"So we take some lower luxury items that we know will sell," Jasyn put in. "As long as we make docking and fuel costs, we’ll be all right. Six points down," she added to Jerimon.
"But if we follow that route, we end up near Viya Station and Tebros." Ghost made a warm spot in my lap. She’d stopped purring and was sound asleep. "Trade that direction is not going to work for us."
Jerimon shifted a piece on the board. "Why not? From what I read, there are plenty of cargoes to pick up."
"Because Dace is banned from setting foot on Viya Station," Clark said.
"And that’s Targon Syndicate territory," Jasyn added. "What was the price on your head, Dace?"
I ignored her. And the look Jerimon gave me.
"So we pass them by and keep going the other way," Clark said.
"Whatever." I flipped the reader shut. "Let’s just get this load to Sudhi and we’ll see what we can find."
Dinner, which was delicious, was interrupted by the reentry alarm. Ghost jumped at the noise, and made like her namesake. She disappeared into thin air. I took a last bite and stood. Clark was right behind me, Jasyn on his heels.
"I’ll clean up, shall I?" Jerimon said behind us.
We took our seats in the cockpit. I hit the button that cut off the reentry alarm. I set switches and checked engine levels. Everything was running in the green. The ship hesitated, held on a cusp of reality, before it slid into normal space. There was a moment of twisting nausea and we were through. Normal. Everything green. The sublight engines cut in smoothly. Clark slowed us while Jasyn scanned for our position. We’d come out right where we should. Sudhi was an hour away. She called their port authority while I powered down the hyperdrive. Jerimon clattered dishes in the galley.
"They won’t talk to me," Jasyn complained.
"Only males can conduct business," I said, remembering that from my reading.
Clark held his hand out for the headset. She passed it over.
"That is the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard," Jasyn said.
"I’ve heard dumber things," I said.
She laughed and ran another set of scans.
The planet hung in the viewscreen, an orange ball with a few stripes of bright turquoise ocean and thin fringes of green near one of the oceans. We passed its one moon, a tiny fractured bit of rock, and entered atmosphere. The ship bucked in a crosswind, I adjusted the stabilizers and it settled down. We landed on a bare strip of rock near half a dozen other ships. They were small freighters similar to the P
hoenix. We shut the ship down.
Clark stood and stretched. "If only males can conduct business, I’ll take Jerimon and get our cargo unloaded. It shouldn’t take long."
"Check to see if there are other cargoes." I usually handled that detail, mostly because I was the one with the membership in the Independent Traders Guild. But Sudhi did not have Guild offices. Sudhi and the entire Sidyatha didn’t recognize the Guild, so the Guild didn’t recognize them.
"Yes, ma’am," Clark said and flipped me a salute. I stuck my tongue out.
Jasyn and I finished shutting the ship down while the men gathered the appropriate papers and left.
Jasyn put her station on standby and swiveled her chair towards me. "Want dessert? I believe Trevyn made his chocolate cream again." Only Jasyn called Clark by his first name. Whatever name he went by, his chocolate cream would make the Emperor himself drool.
"You need to ask?"
We left some for Clark and Jerimon, maybe a spoonful each. We washed the dishes and waited. Jasyn found her nail file and started buffing her perfect nails. She’d explained to me once that they were perfect because she took care of them. Mine tended to be ragged and short and lined with grease.
I fetched my lute. I had no idea how to play. I figured I could learn. It proved to be a lot harder than I’d thought. I settled on the cushioned bench and started plucking. It made a mellow sound.
Ghost appeared with another blue thing. She laid it down in front of me and gave me her green stare.
I stopped plucking. "Good cat. How many of these things are there?"
Jasyn stood then picked up the offering. "Not near as many."
"We’re going to have to be fumigated if they aren’t gone soon." I plucked another string.
"What do you think?" Jasyn said, standing near the galley. "Another forest panel? Or how about an ocean scene?" She had an ongoing project of painting scenery on the walls. The cubby doors above me held a wide forest meadow complete with animals. They resembled half a dozen different species from as many worlds without being an exact copy of any of them. It didn’t matter. They were good, in my opinion. She’d extended her art to the other side of the hatch, with a narrow ribbon of flowers above the door. Near the galley was a thick jungle and a river with a waterfall. Her next panel was a vague blob of tan and blue, unfinished and still in the process of being decided.
