by Sara King
“More or less,” she muttered. “Unfortunate, that.” There were plenty of things she wished she could forget.
“Ever wondered why nobody else remembers more than a hundred years back?”
“Of course.”
“And haven’t you wondered why your body can rebuild itself from scratch, even when you are badly burned?”
“‘Ashes’ is a bit worse than ‘badly burned,’ Ragnar.” The thought left a bitter taste in her mouth. She paused to consider. “So what am I? A robot?”
“No,” Ragnar said. “Your consciousness, your brain patterns, your DNA and body structure… All were imprinted on the Potion as soon as Marceau gave it to you. You’re still you.”
Athenais pulled away from the wall and started to pace, because if she didn’t, she was going to pull a gun. “So what do you want?”
“We want to break into the labs on Millennium and destroy the technology,” Ragnar said. “Morgan and Paul have gotten the codes to get us all the way to the vault. All we need to do is blow it to pieces. Then, after we’ve done that, we need ongoing samples of the old technology to rid the population of any remaining Potion.”
“Is that possible?” Then she frowned. “What do you mean by the ‘old technology?’”
Ragnar gestured at her with a big hand. “The difference between the Potion your father gave to you and the one he now sells by the dose is that yours can survive outside the body whereas the new technology can not. We need something that can survive without a host in order to create a cure.”
Athenais pressed her lips together, irritation rising once again. Locking eyes with him, she growled, “Paul told me you already had the cure.”
Ragnar flinched. “We don’t, but with your help, we will soon.”
So they had lied to her, Athenais decided, fighting the urge to stalk to the door and go find something to put holes in. Stiffly, she said, “And then what? What would you do with the cure?”
“Put it in the water supply,” Ragnar said. “Our guy will make it transmissible, passable from person to person like a DNA-based contaminant. It would eventually spread like the plague, and with no visible symptoms for a few decades, it should be fully dispersed before Marceau’s monster realizes what hit it.”
“Ideally, he’d be dead,” Athenais said, “But we both know how well that would work.”
“He’s made additional modifications to himself, I’m sure,” Ragnar agreed. “Improved upon the original technology, instead of dulling it down for the masses. That’s why we’re going to kill him.”
Athenais snorted. “You sound like this is a done deal. In and out. Easy-peasy. Hell, how do you even know those access codes still work?”
“Morgan and Paul have been working on this for years.”
“Good for them.”
“Attie…” Ragnar began.
She flicked an irritated hand at him. “You’re leaving plenty of room for error, here, and you’re doing it with my ship on the line. What do you even have against the Potion, anyway? You ask me, you should collect your shifter friends, go find a friendly planet in another galaxy, leave all us humans to our misery.”
Ragnar took a breath, then held it. He plucked a ball of fluff from her blanket and flicked it to the floor. Finally, he said, “You ever wondered why you’ve never had to go back to Millennium for repeat injections when everybody else has to go every hundred years?”
“Lucky, I guess,” Athenais said. “I hate needles.”
“The old technology was a one-shot deal,” Ragnar told her. “The new stuff requires periodic dosings to keep the body working.”
“So?” Athenais asked. “That’s obvious.”
“For every Potion Marceau gives out, he kills a colonist to incubate it.”
Athenais blinked.
“Marceau raids Penoi daily. The ones he brings back are injected with a replicating form of the Potion. The next few days are agony for them as the technology spreads and reproduces. After their flesh becomes mush and their organs stop working, their entire bodies are centrifuged to retrieve the technology.”
“Colonists.”
“Yes.”
“He’s killing colonists.”
“Yes. That’s why Penoi’s never grown advanced enough to join the Utopia, even though it’s right at its center.”
Athenais’s fingers curled into stiff fists. “That son of a bitch.” She slumped to the wall, her head resting against the slats of the closet, her eyes closed. She knew her father was a twisted plague on society, but this was the last damned straw. “Get your friends. I’ll help you.”
Dallas hurriedly moved away from the mess hall entry as the Captain and her First Mate headed for her chambers. She hid in a supply closet while they passed, then stayed there for long minutes, considering what she had heard.
A shifter. Ragnar was a shifter.
It was so exciting she could hardly breathe. Her throat all but ached with the need to blurt it to the universe, but she wasn’t that stupid. Despite what the moody old broad said, she had plenty of good sense. Still, the knowledge was too exhilarating to keep to herself. She needed to tell somebody, but who?
Squirrel only cared about her clothes and her books. Goat was probably already too stoned to talk to her. Dune was busy with his latest buggy. That left Smallfoot. She hated Smallfoot. He was rude, and always trying to get in her pants. But she had to tell somebody. It was going to eat a hole in her brain if she didn’t.
Smallfoot would be easy enough to find, though she’d probably have to wait a while for him to finish with his whores. That would give her a chance to hang out in The Shop, maybe catch sight of the other shifter. Two shifters in one place! This had to be some sort of record. That she had actually served on a ship with one left her all sorts of giddy. She loved aliens. She’d read tomes on them, in between missions back in the fleet. They were just. So. Cool. Shifters, especially. She’d spent hours poring over their breeding habits, absolutely intrigued by the intricate coupling customs, cocking her head at the fascinating—and somewhat grody—pictures.
Dallas extracted herself from the closet in a tumble and hurriedly picked up the mop when it fell. The sound it made was loud enough to make the walls ring, but thankfully the Captain did not emerge from her room to investigate. Heart pounding like one of Dune’s combustion engines, Dallas slammed the utility door shut before anything else could fall out and ran full-bore toward the air-lock.
Dallas slowed down as she emerged in Reception Hub N of the Terra-9 spaceport. A guard looked up from behind his desk and gave her a polite nod as she passed. She gave him a lazy wave, trying to maintain the old biddy’s patented look of casual calm even as her lungs tried to explode from the inside, and then broke into another run once she was past his kiosk.
The hub opened onto the main terminal, where merchants in little mobile stands sold everything from beermaking supplies to engine parts. Dallas had been out in the confused gathering once already today, hunting for a new perfume with Squirrel. Here and there, she saw a few scantily-clad women standing beside unmarked shuttle services, offering a ride planetside.
Officially, prostitution was illegal on Terra-9, but places like The Shop brought so much revenue to the tiny planet that the government would never actively seek them out and destroy them. In return, The Shop stayed planetside, dragging credits off the spaceport and into the local economy.
Dallas found a shuttle that was servicing the Forgotten District and paid the silken-clad driver three credits. “You lookin’ for a job?” the woman asked, raising a brow at the scanner, then at Dallas.
Dallas flushed and tried not to notice all the guys who were watching the conversation with interest from the passenger seats. “Uh, no. Lookin’ for The Shop.”
The woman lifted her chin dangerously. “Who’s lookin’?”
“Athenais Owlbourne,” Dallas said. She’d found that name usually did wonders when applied to shifty-eyed merchants and back-corner deals.
The woman’s eyes widened with that usual startled look, like she totally couldn’t believe that the dreaded pirate was five-foot-flat and blonde, but then Dallas was given a seat near the back by herself. There, Dallas waited until another forty passengers had boarded, then buckled her harness and held on as the shuttle jerked free of the space port and dropped into Terra-9’s atmosphere, all the while trying not to blurt to the nearest passenger that she knew a shifter.
After a shaky ride, the shuttle made a few landings, jettisoning dozens of people with each stop. “It’s over there this week,” the pilot said, giving a surrepitous glance at a sleazy-looking block a few streets down from the landing pad.
Dallas gave a knowing nod and pressed a few low-grade diamonds into the woman’s hand. It was all she could do to contain her excitement.
The shuttle pilot looked down at the rocks in her palm and hesitated, looking as if she wanted to say more.
“Yes?” Dallas demanded.
The skimpily-clad woman seemed to make her decision, because she lowered her voice knowingly, “Honey, you ain’t no pirate, and you sure as hell ain’t gonna fit in there. I don’t know what you’re looking for, but if I were you, I’d get back on a shuttle and go find a movie to watch or something.”
“I am too a pirate,” Dallas blurted, horrified. At the woman’s flat stare, she desperately wracked her mind for what Athenais would have said in retort. Raising her head with a sneer, she said, “And I got better things to with my time do than chat with whores.”
The woman’s face darkened, and instantly, Dallas wanted to take it back. Biting her lip, she watched as the pilot shrugged and climbed back onto her ship. A moment later, the shuttle was jetting back off into space.
Feeling a bit sheepish, Dallas began trudging off down the alleyway the woman had indicated, ignoring the interested stares of the scores of dirty spacers she passed along the way. She drew in on herself under the pressure of their gazes, feeling their eyes like prickles against her skin. The incident with the silk-clad pilot had sobered her a bit, even making her re-think the brilliance of telling Smallfoot about the shifter, but now she was wandering alone on the planet, in the middle of a nasty part of town, and her ride had just blown off for port. She had to find Smallfoot, if only to figure out how to get the hell back home.
By the time Dallas reached The Shop, she was a huge bundle of nerves. She walked inside and was immediately assailed by every stare in the place. Even though she didn’t drink, she lifted her chin and strode up to the bar to ask the scowling man behind the glass sheeting for a scotch. Trying to appear inconspicuous, she took it with her in search of Smallfoot.
It was the first time she’d been in The Shop before, and it was an even more unnerving experience than strolling through one of T-9’s biggest slums. She got the idea that women didn’t often frequent the place, or that maybe it was a gentleman’s club of sorts, because she was the only female wearing utility boots and spacers’ thermals.
In fact, it soon became evident that the various conversations of the place had ceased, and the tables of spacers were staring at her like she had golden horns protruding from her temples, so Dallas eventually retreated to the relative darkness of the back rooms to get away from them.
The gaming tables were lit up with single shaded lights hanging from the ceiling. The row of slot machines along the side walls blinked with multicolored lights. Set into the back wall, a tall red curtain separated the gaming from the more illicit wares.
Dallas sat down at one of the empty tables to wait.
“You gonna play?” a rough voice demanded. Dallas started and swiveled. A dealer with an energy pistol strapped to his belt was standing behind the table, giving Dallas a hard glance.
“Drinkin’ tables’re out front,” he snarled.
“I’m waiting for someone,” Dallas replied.
“Not here, you ain’t. This’s my table. Go back out wi’ Giggles if you ain’t gonna play.”
“I know Rabbit,” Dallas warned. It wasn’t quite true, but her Captain did.
“So do I,” the dealer said. “Now git.” He put his hand to his energy pistol.
Dallas got up and went over to the curtain. Muffled giggles and grunts emanated from the darkness beyond. She considered going inside, then hesitated and leaned against the wall instead. The dealer glared at her from under his table’s harsh white light, but Dallas ignored him and sipped her scotch.
Dallas wasn’t sure how much time went by before Smallfoot emerged from the curtained rooms but she had refilled her scotch twice and was beginning to feel quite tipsy. The dealer laughed at her and offered to let her play at his table with a starting credit of fifty chips, but Smallfoot came out before she could sit down.
“Fairy?” he asked when he saw her. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I can leave the ship just as well as you,” Dallas said. She squinted up at him, trying to remember why he was so tall.
Smallfoot laughed. “Yeah, but here? Only Cap’in’s stupid enough to come here… You’re drunk, ain’t ya?” He bent down and grabbed her under an arm.
“Nothin’ I can’t handle,” Dallas said. She staggered to her feet—she didn’t remember falling—and steadied herself on a slot machine. The contents of her tumbler spilled out over the black leather swivel-chair, ice cubes clattering to the floor with little pattering sounds. Dallas stared at them, wondering how they got out of her glass.
“Come on, now,” Smallfoot said, slinging her arm over his shoulder. “Let’s get you home.”
“I ain’t got a home, knucker,” Dallas slurred. “Captain hates me.”
“She don’t hate you,” Smallfoot assured her. “Wouldn’t’ve hired you if she hated you.”
“I fly better than her,” Dallas said. “She hates me.”
Smallfoot winced at that and glanced at the rest of the darkened gaming hall. “Come on,” he said, squatting down beside her. “Let’s get you back to Beetle.” He wasn’t very tall, but he was strong. He lifted Dallas to her feet and slung her arm over his shoulder. In an instant, he started carrying her out of the gaming room.
“Beetle’s crawlin with shifters,” Dallas said, trying to stop him. “Can’t tell who’s who anymore.”
Smallfoot laughed as he easily led her into the bar. “That true? Goat’s a character, but I wouldn’t call him a shifter. Just a little bit of a weeder’s all.”
“No,” Dallas said, emphatic, “Shifters.” She pulled Smallfoot to a halt and grabbed him by the shoulder, looking him in the eye. “Ragnar’s a shifter.”
Smallfoot gave her a strange look and laughed. “Ragnar’s in bed with th’ Capt’in. Sneaky way t’ make First Mate, but gotta make a livin’ somehow. Besides, I wouldn’t trade his job for anythin’. Attie’s a bitch.”
“No, no,” Dallas said. “I heard them. Ragnar’s a shifter. So’s the colonist. They’re brothers. Crashed on Penoi. Missing a finger.” She gestured emphatically to her left hand with her empty tumbler.
Smallfoot looked around and pulled her to an empty corner of the bar. Dallas followed, triumphant that the lecherous ass was finally taking her seriously.
“Fairy,” Smallfoot said as he leaned across the table to her, “What’re ya saying?”
“My name’s Dallas,” she said. “I hate Fairy. I’m not gay. I like guys. Well, not you. You’re kinda ugly. But I’ve always liked guys. Wish Goat didn’t stink so bad. He’s kinda cute. Not like that shifter.”
“Shit, Dallas,” Smallfoot chuckled. “I should get you wasted more often.”
“I’m not wasted,” Dallas said.
“Sure you ain’t,” Smallfoot said. “What was all that about shifters, now?”
“Buy me some more scotch.”
Smallfoot frowned at her but got up and went over to the bar. Dallas yawned and lowered her forehead to the table, glad for the cool firmness of the dirty countertop on her too-hot cheek. She was dozing by the time Smallfoot returned and set a heavy glass o
f amber liquid down in front of her, startling her awake.
“All right, Fairy,” Smallfoot growled. “You gonna tell me what all this is about, quietly, ‘fore we get the whole Forgotten District talking about shifters?”
“Lean closer,” Dallas whispered.
Smallfoot did as she asked.
“Closer,” Dallas insisted.
“Damn it, Fairy,” Smallfoot said, but he complied.
“I heard them talking,” Dallas said. She glanced back and forth to make sure nobody had heard her.
“Heard who talking?” Smallfoot said. “And stop shouting. Giggles is watching you.”
Dallas looked over at Giggles and stared at him until he went back to wiping down the counters behind the shield of glass. When she turned back to Smallfoot, she said, “Ragnar and the Captain. Ragnar’s a shifter. Said it himself.” She took a deep drink of scotch and found that it didn’t burn in her throat as it had before. She downed it in a few swallows and steadied herself on the table.
Smallfoot put his huge hand over her forearm to steady her. Strangely enough, she didn’t find the black mat of hair as revolting as she remembered. “Listen, Fairy,” Smallfoot began.
“My name is Dallas,” she said.
“Dallas,” Smallfoot corrected, “You’re telling me Ragnar said he’s a shifter? To the Capt’in?”
“His brother, too,” Dallas agreed. “The one with no finger. They’re aliens.” Eyes wide with meaning, she poked her fingers up against her forehead in tiny antennae.
Smallfoot stared at her for a long time before suddenly throwing his head back in a peal of hearty guffaws. “No wonder you’re such a prude. You hold your liquor like one of Squirrel’s fancy hats.” Then he was getting up, reaching for her.
Dallas prickled, but when she tried to veer away from him, she fell flat on her face. Smallfoot bent down, threw her painfully over his shoulder, and headed for the door of The Shop. She heard Giggles and some others laughing before she lost consciousness.
A Really Big Reward
Athenais met Ragnar and the colonists the next morning in the helm.
