In the Company of Others

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Pardell obediently raised his container, a white plastic cup, to Malley’s. In another place and time, it would have been disposable. Here and now, despite its plain appearance, the cup was a prized possession; its ship markings, Merry Mate II, proof of a heritage few could claim and none could replace. “I was just thinking, my friend,” Pardell protested mildly after sipping his beer. “There’s no law against it.”

  Malley wasn’t letting it go, turning to look Pardell in the eyes. His own, dark brown beneath a broad forehead and straight-line brows, were clouded. “There’s no law against butting in line, but the last person we saw do it ended up in pieces. Messy, little pieces. You know better than to make people nervous, Aaron. Going all spacey in a crowded room is one of those nervous-making things. Okay?”

  Nervous. Pardell looked down at his gloved hands, trying to think if there had been an instant of his life when he didn’t have to listen to warnings, make the effort to blend with others. Suddenly, the boisterous crowd, the heat and smells, the sounds—everything—became overwhelmingly real. Pardell inhaled slowly and carefully through his nostrils, fighting the irrational urge to gasp for air, recognizing the signs with helpless frustration and more than a little disappointment. He’d overstayed his tolerance. “Time I headed home, anyway,” he announced, pouring the rest of his beer into Malley’s as nonchalantly as possible. The reminder hadn’t offended him; Malley was right. Odd behavior wasn’t tolerated, not here, where getting along meant being safely predictable and following the unspoken rules.

  Those rules definitely included not pushing one’s way in through the doorway so people trying to leave were shoved back against others. Pardell and Malley turned at the commotion with everyone else, the growl of outrage vibrating in a wave from the door to the bar. The following, ominous hush let Sammie’s roar through clearly: “Enter onna right, morons! Where’re you raised, huh—?”

  The rest of what the usually vocal Sammie might have said died away. “Malley! What’s going on?” Pardell hissed. Malley, taller by a head than most, was staring in the direction of the tavern entrance. “Who—?”

  “Strangers,” Malley said, astonishment clear in his hushed voice.

  “How many beers have you had?” Pardell muttered, straining to see for himself. The station might be bursting at the seams with humanity, but people kept to their own sections. Thromberg had sacrificed a significant amount of its interconnectivity through the emergency modifications to house the immigrant population trapped here, and, unstated, Station Admin was nothing loath to keep its inhabitants in isolated communities. Especially since the riots.

  No doubt Sammie’s regular clientele knew each other on sight, all too well. “Thought you knew everybody,” Pardell teased his friend.

  “Shut up,” Malley said almost absently. “They’re Uniforms. Earth Uniforms.”

  “Earthers? On-station. In Sammie’s.” Pardell wasn’t sure which was more ludicrous: the idea an Earth ship could dock at the station without the news spreading translight, or that such troops would simply walk in here first. Outward Five was nowhere near the stem docking ring, by any measure. “In Sammie’s,” he repeated numbly.

  “Shhsh. I’ m trying to hear what’s going on.” Despite this, Malley gave a low growl of his own when bodies suddenly pressed closer on all sides, everyone facing the door with the quivering attention of a crowd unsure whether to bolt or cheer. His strong arm made a wall between Pardell and the nearest set of shoulders. “Watch where you’re going, Denery!”

  Syd Denery’s back rammed into Malley’s elbow before the smaller immie could help himself. He craned his head around to face Pardell, an anxious look on his wizened features. “Sorry, Aaron. Can’t help it. They’re shoving us back to make room for the Earthers. Maybe you should head out before it gets worse.” With another contortion, Denery managed to twist minutely farther away, as he did so, informing his immediate neighbors in an urgent, cheery whisper: “Hey, Aaron’s back here, y’know. Careful, you louts!”

  “I’m all right,” Pardell said to the world in general, feeling the familiar humiliating heat of an angry blush on his face.

  “No,” Malley countered. “I don’t like this. You should get out of here—”

  Pardell sputtered: “How—?” just as the unthinkable happened and a mass of people fell backward toward him as though knocked flying in some game. Amid the cursing and apologies, he felt contact on all sides.

  Confusion. Anger. FEAR!

  ... Time stopped. All Pardell could hear was his own heart, hammering like some frantic bird caged within his ribs. There must have been dozens of people touching him, connecting with him, bombarding him with their emotions until he knew he couldn’t stand another feeling . . .

  PITY.

  ... It drowned him even as his body was wrenched free. Suddenly, all of the connections were broken at once as Pardell felt himself launched through the air. He had an instant to be amazed at the pile of struggling, intertwined bodies beneath him before Malley’s toss landed him on the floor behind the bar.

  Anything broken? Pardell asked himself cautiously, unwilling to move and find out. He remained curled where he’d dropped, ignoring the spilled liquid and crumpled containers under shoulders and hip, working on controlling the natural impulses of his stomach and waiting for his heart to resume something closer to a normal beat. Breathing took a fair amount of concentration.

  “You okay, Aaron?” Sammie leaned over him, warily distant. “Malley’s go’n nuts out there.”

  Pardell jerked his head in what he hoped looked like a nod and not the prelude to convulsion. He’d had plenty of those as a child, learning to cope with his reaction to the inadvertent touch of others. Adolescence had been worse, far worse; adulthood had moderated his body’s confusion to a tendency to vomit and a blinding headache. Like the one presently building behind his temples. He swallowed carefully, feeling his stomach subside, at least.

  His friends would be upset to have done this to him. They’d grown up together; very likely, he wouldn’t have survived the process without their help in keeping a safe distance. Mutual gain, since anyone touching him received a low-level shock, like a static discharge, but that had never diminished their sense of responsibility for him. Always the weakest. “Look out for Pardell.” If he’d heard it once. . . .

  Pardell felt his hands clenching into fists. “I’ll be fine, Sammie,” he ground out, easing to his feet. He glanced down at the mess on the floor. “Let me know the dibs on this—”

  “Not your fault,” Sammie mumbled surprisingly. “Get that lump of a Malley outta here ’fore he tosses someone bigger in my face.”

  Pardell didn’t bother nodding, although his headache had started to fade. He was more intent on the scene on the other side. Things were, to put it mildly, rather interesting.

  Like the parting of a flood, the tavern patrons had somehow been dammed up on either side, many jumping on tables to gain a better view as well as breathing space. It didn’t appear as though any had left. Novelty was as rare as privacy, Pardell thought, as intrigued as the rest. The curtain hung limply across the door, unmoving for perhaps the first time in a decade. There was an unprecedented amount of filthy floor showing in front of the bar, a glimpse Pardell could have done without, having recently been pressed to it.

  In the now-becalmed center stood the mannerless fourteen who’d caused such an uproar. Earthers for sure, Pardell thought with wonder, almost forgetting his sore head and battered body parts. He’d never seen one before, but there was no mistaking either the flawless uniforms or the well-fed faces. Seven men and seven women, lined up in two tidy rows, similar to the point of caricature. Someone, he decided, liked jutting jaws, black hair, and high cheekbones. The troops, for they were patently military of some kind, looked jittery, standing at a very uneasy attention with their eyes rolling as if attempting to track everyone in the room at once. Pardell wasn’t sure if this was because they were dismayed by the closeness of the crowd or b
y being weaponless. Had they tried boarding Thromberg with weapons, he reminded himself, they wouldn’t have made it this far. Stationers and immies might not always get along, but neither tolerated Earther arrogance—not when Earth’s idea of helping the desperate meant the occasional supply ship and suggestions of patience.

  Malley was standing closer to the bar than most, still part of the crowd. Although his jacket had split open along its right shoulder mend again, there was no sign Sammie’s fear of more flying bodies was about to come true. Pardell caught Malley’s meaningful look his way and shrugged slightly in reassurance. He was bent, but nothing worse, thanks to his friend’s quick thinking. Several others, the less drunk, mouthed “sorry” at him or otherwise looked embarrassed.

  Then the curtain opened to allow someone else in and every local face assumed the same expression, as though a riper odor than usual had permeated the room. Sammie rubbed his hands marginally cleaner on his stained apron before coming around to the other side of his bar, a move that raised more than a few eyebrows. It settled several outstanding bets on what Sammie wore on his feet, Pardell chuckled to himself, watching a few of the gamblers in question glumly examining the splayed toes in their quite serviceable, if homemade, thongs. “What’s the meaning of this, Forester?” Sammie demanded without a trace of his customary lowerdeck accent, inspiring the collection of other wagers. “I expect compensation for this interference with my trade and customers—”

  Sector Administrator Garfield Forester. No need for the name—everyone in Outward Five would recognize the receding double chin and mottled skin, those odd washed-pale eyes under shaggy brows. The man used every possible opportunity to stick his face in front of them on the vid screen and complain about something or other; let alone his popularity as a subject on washroom walls.

  Why was he here? Pardell wondered. Everyone knew Forester as a straightforward bastard: efficient and ruthless, but not inclined to visit those in his care. He’d gone from running the station’s main cargo bays to being in charge of ten thousand homeless. Needless to say, the change hadn’t been appreciated by either side.

  Odd to see Forester without his usual trio of security from Inward Four, though Pardell was sure the man had been delighted to exchange his scruffy escort for the spit-and-polish Earthers. After all, station security was distinguishable from their fellow stationers only by the crossed belts they wore on duty, the belts holding vital equipment such as comm equipment, a force rod or two, and, most importantly, a day’s rations in case duty meant missing their scheduled turn in line at the dispensers. Until those had been added, escorts had tended to be unreliable around the supper hour.

  Outward Five supplied security personnel for Inward Four, and so forth up the length of the station—a policy that reduced the risk of having to hit a member of your own family over the head when maintaining order. Of course, on Thromberg, the definition of order had evolved to suit the times. Station Admin used to have volumes of picky little rules and regulations, with keen-eyed officers watching for crime and mischief. Now, what mattered was containing trouble to one location, whether it was a malfunctioning air vent or the start of a riot. Thromberg’s surviving security was very good at spotting trouble and locking it down until trouble died away or killed itself.

  Anything else was handled locally. Each section had become like a small town, with those who assumed responsibility and those who happily avoided it. Both types understood that stability depended on the whole more than any individual. Station Admin ignored the tendency of persistent troublemakers to simply disappear. And, usually, Station Admin could be ignored—except when they conducted sweeps. Those annoying searches were ostensibly to look for hoarders, but everyone knew they were really hunting station equipment that had been “relocated.” Kept people on their toes.

  So why was Forester down here, with Earthers? It wasn’t routine.

  Pardell’s own eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he took an easy, slow step back. Tanya, Sammie’s oldest granddaughter and seniormost of his bar staff, mirrored his movement, slipping forward with convincing casualness to scrub at a ring marring the bar’s metal surface that likely predated her birth, in the process almost completely blocking him from view. He could just see Sammie’s back each time she leaned forward.

  Not that Station Admin knew any reason to single him out, Pardell assured himself, but it was always safer to avoid notice. He wasn’t the only one quietly fading into the background. Sammie’s was a haven for many unwelcome elsewhere.

  “We’ll be out of your way in a moment, Mr. Leland,” promised Forester, his real voice a thready echo of those rich tones heard daily on the interstation comms—if any still paid attention to those announcements. Pardell couldn’t recall the last time he’d listened. “We’re looking for a non-reg’d individual named Pardell.”

  Pardell closed his eyes briefly, wishing he’d placed his own bet. What were the odds? While he couldn’t for the life of him imagine why Forester came after him with Earth troops, there were some—minor—infractions he could imagine might be of interest to Station Admin. Not that most in the room couldn’t say the same. Creative housekeeping had become an honored skill on Thromberg.

  “Non-registered? By your people?” Sammie repeated, putting a distinctly ironic twist to the words. “How could that possibly be, Administrator Forester?”

  By the sound, Forester had gritted his teeth. “Non-reg as in not a stationer or immigrant. You know the type I mean. The kind of refuse that keeps you in business.”

  “I’ll take your slur under advisement for litigation, Administrator.” Sammie stepped forward, his stained apron jutting ahead of him, thick, capable hands curling almost into fists. “What do you—or these Earthers—want with this Pardell?”

  Forester didn’t retreat, but his erect stance developed something of a backward tilt. “That’s none of your concern, is it? As you’ve noticed, our guests have come quite a distance—let’s not keep them waiting while you and I debate.” Forester coughed, as though the well-shared air of the tavern was not to his taste, or it could have been his proximity to Sammie. “I want Aaron Luis Pardell. Now. I understand he frequents this level—has acquaintances here ...” His voice trailed away suggestively. Then, loudly: “Anyone know this man? Step forward if you do.”

  Even Forester had to sense the rising tension in the room. Give one of their own to Admin? Pardell asked himself. Barely likely—and there’d have to be a reward or a serious grudge involved.

  Give one to Earthers?

  There’d be blood first, even from those who might otherwise consider Pardell himself a waste of air.

  “As usual, your informants have lied to you, Administrator,” Sammie said with some of that tension edging his voice. “Look elsewhere.”

  “Hey!” came a voice from the crowd. “Not so fast. I know the guy you’re after—tall, heavyset fellow? Pardell. Yeah, I know him. Hangs around the ration line a lot, looking for handouts.”

  In a falsetto, yet. Pardell bit his lip to contain a grin. Trust Denery. He’d owe the man major dibs for this one. There were a few equally unhelpful descriptions shouted out at random. Given the level of alcohol consumed in the room earlier, he was surprised no one burst out laughing.

  Though Forester won’t believe a word of it, he warned himself, losing that impulse himself, but he won’t risk looking a fool in front of the Earthers either. Pardell wished he dared lean farther to one side or that Tanya’s grandfather had thought to polish the metal sheathing behind the bar to make some sort of mirror.

  Fourteen pairs of fresh-from-a-box mag boots clanged in unison as the Earthers acknowledged a new arrival. Pardell’s curiosity got the best of him and he sidled as close as he dared to Tanya to catch a better look past her ample shoulder.

  Forester was tall for a stationer, closer to Malley’s height than Pardell’s, but without his mass; the matched set of Earthers were tall and lanky as well. The figure now holding the curtain to one side, as though uncer
tain of welcome or justifiably offended by the atmosphere in Sammie’s, was dwarfed by comparison.

  It didn’t matter.

  She, or he, wore a floor-sweeping, metallic green cloak, complete with hood and goggled respirator. It resembled the gear used by the meds and their assistants during outbreaks of infectious disease, but made of layers of such fine, gauzelike material it could have been mistaken for some flight of fashion. One gloved hand kept the heavy, well-patched curtain open; the other held a notepad, curled protectively within the crook of an arm. The figure took a step into the room, letting the curtain fall, then fumbled abruptly at the respirator, finally pulling it down under her chin with an impatient yank.

  For the face was female. Pardell released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

  Not a pretty face, he decided. Not one to easily forget either. It might have been the combination of impatience and disapproval drawing her lips into a thin line—or the glitter of absolute determination in those bright blue eyes. Her cheeks were indented with the reddish pinch marks left by an ill-adjusted respirator. Rather painful-looking marks at that. Not a happy lady.

  They were her troops, all right, having frozen into a rigid attentiveness the moment she’d opened the curtain. Two more had followed her in, essentially filling the cleared part of the room. Forester was practically groveling. Pardell noticed everyone else, including Malley, seemed suddenly more entertained than wary, as though the arrival of this mystery woman was part of a free vidshow. Maybe, he thought with disgust, they expected her to take off the cloak next and dance on the bar.