by Jim C. Hines
“Not the worst place I’ve ever stayed,” Wolf said, folding down one of the top cots and doing a pull-up to test the frame’s strength. “What’s the plan for finding our Prodryans?”
“Weren’t you paying attention back at the meeting?” asked Monroe.
“In the beginning, sure.” Wolf switched to one-handed pull-ups. “Then it got boring, so I went back to reading.”
Mops should have chewed her out for that, but she found it hard to get angry at Wolf for reading books. “They gave us three days. We’ll be working as station janitors for cover.”
That made Wolf perk up. “How much does it pay?”
She chuckled. “They pay by not tossing us into space.”
“And by getting copies of everything we learn,” Monroe added. “You know they’ll be monitoring us. Everything we do, everyone we talk to.”
“I’m guessing the badges are bugged,” agreed Mops. “Along with the usual station surveillance. Anything you say, assume the Coacalos family is listening over your shoulder.”
She subvocalized a follow-up, asking Doc to pass her words along to the team and hoping whatever listening tech was in place couldn’t crack short-range EMC signals. “They might be going along with us because they don’t want trouble from the Alliance. Or they could see it as an opportunity to get their hands on a potentially valuable weapon.”
“Quetzalus don’t have hands,” Kumar responded in kind, his words appearing on her monocle.
“When do we start?” asked Wolf. “Prodryans tend to stick with Tower Two, as high up as they can afford. Gravity’s lighter up there. I say we head up and beat some answers out of—”
“Let’s save starting an intrastation war as our backup plan,” Mops interrupted. “Lazan Coacalos has given us limited docking records on Prodryan visitors, but I didn’t see much there. The Prodryans probably housed the fighters in a larger freighter with forged registration. We’re not going to find anything listed under Assault Commander Burns Like Sunspots or Prodryan fighter squadron 52.”
Wolf shook her head. “If this mission was so important, they would have been careful.”
“I’m sure they were,” agreed Mops. “But secrets are slippery. You tried to be careful last month when you were sneaking time with Private Salieri instead of finishing the mold inspection in the greenhouse.”
Wolf’s face reddened.
“Or last year when Captain Brandenburg went on leave to have a child,” Mops continued. “Only the command crew knew why she was leaving, but word leaked to the whole ship within two days. Keeping secrets is hard, especially in a place like this. Someone on Coacalos Station knows about Burns Like Sunspots and his squad. Someone has the answers we need.”
“There are hundreds of Prodryans on the station,” said Kumar. “How do we find the one with answers?”
“The restaurants,” said Monroe.
Kumar blinked. “Restaurants?”
“Squad 52 was about to fly off to attack an EMC cruiser,” said Mops. “What do Prodryans do before a battle? They eat and drink and get wasted on fruit honey. Wolf, you know the restaurants here. Where should we start?”
“You really think anyone’s going to talk to humans?” asked Wolf.
“Humans have a bad reputation. Not an entirely undeserved one.” She gave Wolf a pointed look. “We’ll have to earn a little gratitude. This place is a mess, a SHS crew’s nightmare. That gives us the opportunity to make friends and improve our reputation. We’re station janitors now. Do the job, then ask questions. Fear of humanity is nothing compared to the relief of finally being able to use your toilet without worrying about explosive backfire.”
The list of backlogged maintenance tickets was extensive enough to keep Mops and her team employed for a year. Of the thirty-eight restaurants in the station directory, thirty-five had one or more service requests ranging from faucet replacements to a freezer that had been broken so long its contents had probably evolved into a primitive tool-using society.
They started with Tower Two. From the outside, it looked like a stalagmite made of dark red glass. A sign at the main entrance warned visitors to expect lessened gravity, and listed the various gases in the air. Krakau and Tjikko were strictly prohibited from entering without a portable air supply, available from a vending machine to one side.
Mops stepped carefully through the doors and across the threshold. The ground was perfectly flat, but her body felt like she’d missed a step on a staircase as she crossed onto the lower-power grav plates.
Where the other towers she’d seen had floors to separate each level, Tower Two’s levels were separated primarily by bridges and platforms, allowing Prodryans to fly from one area to the next. Most structures had flat rooftops and ledges where Prodryans watched like colorful gargoyles as the humans entered their territory.
Mops double-checked her list and the map Doc helpfully displayed on her monocle. Doing her best to look like a bored employee, she raised her voice and asked, “Can anyone tell us where to find a place called . . . Well-Burnt Food for the Happiness of Your Ingestion Holes?”
“I assume the name flows better in the original language.”
A Glacidae wearing a respirator gestured to a path bordered in vivid purple brick, curving off to the left.
Mops and her team spent the next two hours unclogging a backed-up drain in an acid-cooker, used for softening up certain Quetzalus delicacies. The second restaurant—Dead Meat Products with Spicy Grease, Served Fast!—needed six kilograms of congealed fat unclogged from their pipes.
Both owners were grateful for the help, but neither had any information about Prodryan pirates hosting a prebattle feast in recent weeks. They also seemed quite eager to usher the humans out of their restaurant and away from customers—preferably through the back door.
“Where did you eat when you were here?” Mops asked Wolf as they left Dead Meat Products.
“A bottom-level dump in Tower Five called Home-Grown Spicy Protein Slabs. I can take you if—”
“Heads up!” Monroe’s shove sent Mops sprawling. In the reduced gravity, she slid and rolled a full three meters before recovering. She rose into a crouch as a pair of Prodryans flew through the air where she’d been standing. They swooped away, clawed limbs scraping along the ground.
Monroe was close enough he could have cracked them both with his baton. He didn’t, but kept the baton ready as he watched the pair fly higher to disappear among the bridges that crisscrossed the air higher up.
“Bastards,” snarled Wolf, fumbling for her weapon.
“Stand down,” Mops snapped. “They’re just kids. No armor or enhancements. They probably dared one another to fly close to the scary humans.”
Her monocle had flagged a number of drawn guns from nearby Prodryans who were doubtless hoping for an excuse to use them. From their rooftops and ledges, they’d have no trouble mowing down Mops and her team.
Mops waited until Wolf secured her pistol. “The next job is a busted utensil sanitizer at Cooks Good Meals Restaurant. Eighteen meters ahead and to the right, on Pink Street. Monroe, keep watching the sky. Everyone keep your hands off your guns unless they start shooting first.”
“Don’t they find it suspicious that maintenance staff are armed?” asked Kumar.
Wolf snorted. “Around here, they’d be more suspicious if we weren’t.”
They reached the restaurant without incident. Inside the door were a pair of bulky vending machines. One offered a variety of Prodryan cigars, while the other sold Krakau stim slugs—dried sea creatures with a mildly intoxicating effect. Past the entryway, the building split into two wings. A ramp to the left led down to a shallow pond where two groups of Krakau dined at floating tables. To the right was a larger, tall-ceilinged area occupied mostly by Prodryans. An unfamiliar song played over ceiling-mounted speakers, blending with the clicks and splashes of conv
ersation.
A greeter pedestal with a squeaky wheel zipped up to welcome them to the restaurant and ask for their party size and seating preference. Mops tapped the “Other” button and said, “Maintenance. We’re here about the broken sanitizer.”
As if he’d been waiting for them, a Merraban burst through a door in the far wall, his long arms raised in greeting. “Welcome, and thank you! I’m Cooks Good Meals. Call me Cook.”
“I thought that was the name of the restaurant,” said Kumar.
“It’s named after me. Cooks Good Meals’ Restaurant. The possessive doesn’t translate well from Prodryan Pidgin into Human.” He gestured toward the door behind him. “This way, this way.”
Merraba were friendly, but relatively rare. Most preferred to live their lives in their home system. Mops had only encountered three others in her life.
Cook was typical of the species, standing a meter high, with an armored torso shaped like a giant yellow walnut. He stood on four fuzzy legs. Extending those legs would double his height, but most Merraba were more comfortable in that squatting posture, despite the fact that their absurdly long arms tended to drag along the ground.
Each arm was twice as long and twice as furry as the legs. Only the hands were hairless, with five jointed fingers and two thumbs, one on either side of the palm. Cook’s head was small and bare, mostly hidden by the yellow fur of his shoulders. When threatened, Merraba could duck their heads entirely into their shells, leaving one or both eyestalks exposed if they chose.
Not that anything was likely to threaten a Merraban. They were one of the most easygoing races in the galaxy, even adopting new names to fit in with other cultures. Mops wondered what Cook had called himself before he took on a Prodryan-style name.
“That sanitizer’s been acting up for weeks,” said Cook, leading them into the kitchen. “We’ve had to cycle it two, three times just to get a decent clean. Sometimes the heat doesn’t kick in at all.”
“Sounds like an electrical problem,” said Monroe.
Kumar glanced around. “Depends on the model. Some of the older industrial sanitizers had glitchy temperature sensors. If that gets corroded, it can cause erratic heating.”
Large refrigeration units dominated the back wall. A long, multi-surface cooking table stretched most of the length of the kitchen. On one end, a Prodryan grilled a batch of small yellow insects skewered with sliced orange tubers of some kind. Beside her, another Prodryan fought to keep a green-shelled crustacean from crawling out of a metal pot.
“Clamp that lid,” Cook barked to the second Prodryan. A Krakau hurried out of a storage closet and pulled herself up to help.
The sanitizer was a chest-high metal box set into the wall. It reminded Mops a little of an old safe, with its reinforced round door. A rotten-egg smell drifted up the instant Cook opened it. Inside was a series of circular racks and shelves for dishes, utensils, pots, and pans of all sizes.
“Smells like you’ve got a bacterial problem growing in the hoses, too,” said Mops. “Can we disconnect the power without disrupting the rest of your kitchen?”
Cook stepped nimbly out of the way. “Do whatever it takes.”
Disassembling the sanitizer took close to an hour, after which Kumar crawled inside to examine and test various hoses and electrical connections. “I was right. The sensor’s gunked up. Looks like some clogged jets as well.”
A sensor module clattered onto the floor a moment later. Monroe picked up the small metal rod and began scrubbing it down. Wolf crouched at the door and fed a power-spray hose in for Kumar.
“Would you like to try a roasted Tjikko nut?” asked Cook, coming up behind them.
“No, thank you,” Mops said firmly. “We brought our own food.”
His eyestalks twitched in dismay. “I’ve seen the nutrient tubes humans are expected to ingest. Calling them ‘food’ is an insult to food throughout the galaxy. To subsist on nothing but tasteless goop in a tube . . .”
“They’re good, sir!” The sterilizer amplified and echoed Wolf’s voice. “The nuts, I mean. Don’t worry, you’re not eating part of a Tjikko. The nuts come from a non-sentient tree from their world.”
Cook extended the nut. It was the size of Mops’ fist, with a green string tied around the middle. The ebony shell was polished and scored to be easily cracked. “I infuse them with an oil similar to your Earth chocolate. I so love seeing your facial expressions the first time you taste one. Consider it my way of welcoming you to the station.”
“I appreciate the offer, but it’s not healthy for our species.” Mops patted him on the arm, remembering how fond Merraba were of friendly physical contact. “Thank you, though. It’s nice to run into someone who isn’t terrified we’re going to eat them.”
“Merraba are toxic. I imagine eating one of us would make even a human sick.” He made a warm trilling sound, the equivalent of laughter. “I’m just happy to see four more humans who’ve escaped the EMC.”
“Escaped?” Monroe repeated.
Cook gestured at their jumpsuits. Mops had made certain they removed all rank and other insignia, but anyone familiar with EMC issue uniforms would still recognize them. “Do you know why the Krakau haven’t enlisted scientists from other species to help cure your planet?”
“Because they don’t want to risk anyone sabotaging their work,” said Monroe. “Or trying to use that research against us.”
Obviously, that secrecy hadn’t stopped the Prodryans.
“Could be, could be.” Cook bobbed his eyestalks again in easy agreement. “But I’ve always found it curious, how protective they were of your Earth. I remember when the Quetzalus first detected signs of life on your planet, about a hundred years ago. They filed their intentions to send an exploratory probe, all legal and proper. Next thing you know, the Krakau are scrambling to put together a mission of their own to get there first.”
“You remember that?” asked Wolf.
“Merraba can live two hundred years,” said Mops. “Not pissing off everyone you meet has a significant effect on life expectancy.”
“True enough,” trilled Cook. “I’ve always wondered what the Krakau wanted so much that they stole Earth from under the Quetzalus’ beaks.”
“You think they were after us?” guessed Monroe. “Humans?”
“Let’s just say, as an outside observer, it looks like they’ve gotten an excellent return on their investment in Earth. Don’t get me wrong. If you’re satisfied with your arrangement, it’s none of my business. But I like you people. You’re mostly straightforward, easy to deal with, and all a little crazy. You might be an endangered species, but I’m rooting for you.”
A spurt of water inside the sanitizer made Kumar jerk back. “It’s all right,” he called. “Just cleared a water line, that’s all. Someone hand me a vise clamp and a tube of sterigel to flush the line.”
While Monroe and Wolf assisted with the repair, Mops lowered her voice and said, “You mostly serve Prodryans here?”
“I serve anyone willing to eat,” he said, with a good-natured bump of her arm. “But Tower Two is mostly Prodryans, yes. They won’t harm you if that’s what you’re worried about. They may not like humans—or anyone else—but they follow Coacalos rules.”
“They declare war on the galaxy, but they play nice on this station?”
“For now, sure.” Cook turned to shout orders at one of his chefs. With one eyestalk watching his employees, he continued, “Some Prodryans will kill other species on instinct, but every race has its outliers.”
He rapped his knuckles on his shell, as if to demonstrate. “There’s an advantage to neutral territory where they can interact with other species. To buy or trade for things they can’t steal, or just to catch up on the galactic gossip. Don’t let them goad you into a fight, though. If you fire the first shot, all bets are off.”
“I’ll keep
that in mind.” Mops lowered her voice. “I hear they can get pretty rowdy. Especially at those prebattle feasts.”
Cook leaned closer. “Who doesn’t get riled up at a party? But they’ve never given me trouble I couldn’t handle. Some broken furniture and dishware, maybe. I make sure they pay for the damages.”
“How long since the last one?” Mops asked.
“Eleven days.”
Which would match the timing for the attack on the Pufferfish. Mops checked the other cooks again. “Do you happen to remember the names of those Prodryans?”
Cook’s eyestalks bobbed again, giving her a once-over. “Why does it matter?”
“They may be responsible for hurting some friends of mine.”
He started to back away. “I’m not interested in helping anyone get their revenge.”
“I don’t want revenge,” said Mops.
Wolf perked up. “I do!”
Mops elbowed her in the ribs. “We’re here to try to stop them from hurting anyone else.”
“I appreciate your assistance with the sanitizer, and I have great sympathy for your situation and your species, but—”
“Tell him you’ll eat the Tjikko nut,” said Wolf.
Mops spun. “What?”
Wolf stepped toward Cook. “She’s fresh from the EMC, like you guessed. She’s never tasted real food in her life. Not since she was cured, anyway. Your concoction would be the first thing she ever eats. Believe me, you never forget your first time.”
Mops’ glare promised a long string of nasty assignments, followed by extreme death, but Wolf ignored her.
“Never?” Cook repeated, turning back to Mops. His eyes bulged with a mix of sympathy and disbelief. “Not even an illicit taste while on leave?”
“It’s not a good habit for us to develop,” Mops said sternly.
Wolf snorted. “One nut is not a habit, and I promise it won’t hurt you.”
