Earthrise (Her Instruments Book 1)

by Hogarth, M. C. A.

  “Awww,” Irine said.

  Sascha, studying the picture, said, “Angels, boss, I have to agree with her.”

  “Yeah, well, if you want to come on to him, be my guest,” Reese said. “Just don’t expect me to put your furry behinds back together if it turns out he can blow things up by looking at them funny. And if we break him, I think our benefactor’s going to be very grumpy.”

  “Speaking of, who’s the person with the money?” Sascha asked.

  “I don’t know,” Reese said. “I’ve never seen her face.”

  “Her face?” That was Irine.

  Reese shrugged. “Just a guess.”

  “A trap?” Bryer said into the following silence.

  “I don’t know why she’d bother,” Reese said. “Obviously the woman is bleeding rich. If she’d really wanted to sell me, you and the rest of us into slavery, she could have just hired someone to do it long before now.”

  “I wonder who she is,” Kis’eh’t murmured. “Who would know an Eldritch? One who left his world? It’s most peculiar.”

  “For all I know she’s the Faerie Queen of Eldritches and he’s her errant prince,” Reese said with exasperation. “Wondering about the assignment is pointless. I owe this person a debt and I’m going to pay it. Since I own this ship and I hired you, you’re all coming along. If you don’t like it, I can give you your severance pay in rooderberries.”

  The silence was refreshing.

  “Now,” Reese continued, “If you twins would be kind enough to set a course for Inu-Case, I would be much obliged.”

  The two Harat-Shar, still grumbling, rose and left the mess hall.

  “The rooderberries will probably go bad if we keep them longer than it takes to get to Inu-case,” Kis’eh’t said, her voice quiet.

  “We’ll have to hope we can sell them to whatever poor sots live there, then,” Reese said with a sigh. She stood. “I know it’s crazy.”

  “Honor is the best form of craziness.” Bryer said.

  Reese eyed him. “This is not about honor. This is just good sense. If someone loans you money, you pay them back.”

  Bryer canted his head. Of all her crew, he struck her as the most alien. Even Allacazam, with its lack of eyes, mouth or even any obvious personality, seemed less threatening than Bryer with his whiteless eyes and narrow pupils. They made the Phoenix look wild, even though he rarely made a sudden move. “About more than money.”

  “You’re right,” Reese said. “Now it’s about flying all over the galaxy posting people’s bail.”

  Again, that steady stare. This time Reese ignored it and picked up Allacazam, watching its colors—his colors, she’d never been able to think of him as an it no matter what the u-banks said—flow to a muted lilac. “You’ll want to man your respective stations. We’ll be casting off in ten minutes.”

  Kis’eh’t rose, stretching her hind legs and wings, then padded past her. Bryer followed. Reese watched them go, then dropped back into her chair with a sigh and cuddled the Flitzbe. She pet the soft neural fibers.

  “I wish I was as sure about this as I have to seem to be,” she said.

  She heard a rising chime, felt a wash of muted lilac, Allacazam’s way of asking a question. She’d never questioned how they managed to communicate; few people in the Alliance truly understood the Flitzbe, and those who did weren’t exactly writing How-To communication guides for people like Reese. All she knew was that from the moment Allacazam had rolled into her life, things had felt easier. Not necessarily been easier, but at least felt that way.

  “Of course I have to seem confident,” she said to him. “But still... an Eldritch? Slavers? I’m just a trader, not a hero. I don’t want anything to do with something this dangerous.”

  The Flitzbe assembled an image of her dressed in plate mail with a shining sword. Reese laughed shakily. “Right. That’s not my cup of tea. Speaking of which... I could certainly use something for my stomach. And then to go check on the fuzzies to make sure they haven’t secretly diverted someplace more pleasant.”

  The smell of sour yogurt tickled her nostrils and she hugged the Flitzbe. “No, I don’t honestly think that badly of them. It’s just that this is hard enough without having to explain it to them, too.” She sighed, ruffling the top of his fur. “Hopefully it’ll be quick and simple and we can drop him off somewhere and that will be the end of that.”

  She knew better. From the flash of maroon that washed over Allacazam’s body, so did he.

  Their least time path carried them through Sector Epta and most of Andeka. The engines that their mysterious benefactor had paid to refit six years ago cut the journey from sixteen days to eleven, and Reese spent all of them fretting. Kis’eh’t caught her in the cargo hold on the fifth day, walking the spindles in the reduced gravity that reminded her so much of Mars and her happier days climbing the few tall trees there.

  “Guarding the bins isn’t going to stop the cargo from going bad,” the Glaseahn said.

  “I know,” Reese said, then sighed. “I don’t suppose there’s anyone who could use twenty bins worth of overripe rooderberries.”

  “Maybe a maker of rooderberry wine?” Kis’eh’t suggested.

  “We should be so lucky,” Reese said.

  “You’re worried,” Kis’eh’t said.

  Reese stared down at the centauroid from her perch on the spindle. “Now why would I be worried?” she asked. “We’re only about to tangle with slavers.”

  “Not necessarily,” Kis’eh’t said. “You borrow too much trouble, if I may, Reese. If you stopped, maybe you could use your money to buy yourself a nice dinner on the town one day, instead of dropping it on multipacks of antacids.”

  “Dinner out sounds like just the thing,” Reese says. “Maybe if we get back in one piece from this debacle.”

  “When we get back,” Kis’eh’t said. “I’m not planning to die on this mission.”

  “Right,” Reese said. “Neither am I. I’m a survivor.”

  Kis’eh’t only shook her head and left the cargo hold, which suited Reese just fine. She’d hired Kis’eh’t three months after the twins, and Bryer a month after... that was about three years ago now, when she’d realized she would never do more than break even relying on the ship’s automated functions and contractors to do the work. At first, she’d resented their intrusion into her solitude; while she’d had Allacazam for a good seven years, the Flitzbe hardly seemed like a normal person. He didn’t require conversation, food, a salary, maintenance. He never complained. He was like a pet, but smarter. Sometimes Reese thought he was smarter than she was.

  But she’d learned to love the banter, the silliness, even the nosiness of her crew, and their help had made it possible to keep bread on the table. It was just that lately, they were all more nosy than usual. She wondered what was bothering them.

  Reese resisted the urge to tour the entire cargo bay one more time before leaving. Rooderberry wine. She wondered what that would taste like.

  The insistent chirp of the intercom roused Reese from a deep sleep several days later. She twisted in her hammock, fumbled for the controls and said, “Yes?”

  “We’re here, ma’am. Over your stinking colony world. Bet they have nothing to trade us but sheep. How are we going to fit sheep in the cargo—”

  “Irine! Enough! Find out where the city of Nurera is and get dressed to go down. Be quick about it, all right? The rooderberries are rotting.”

  The com cut off the end of Irine’s snort. Reese sighed and massaged the bridge of her nose. The gentle rock of the hammock calmed her, reminded her of home, but her stomach still whined. Some part of her had hoped they’d never arrive at this Freedom-cursed world, but here they were. All she had to do now was find the Eldritch and pry him out of jail before anyone noticed her doing it. Then she could deposit him at some Alliance starbase and be done with the whole mess.

  Reese rolled out of the hammock, the cocoon of felt blankets unraveling from her body as she raided her
bathroom cabinet for chalk tablets, peppermint this time. She rifled through her closet for something unremarkable to wear while grinding up her breakfast. That she didn’t have any unremarkable clothes didn’t improve her mood. She pulled on a black bodysuit, long-sleeved and high-necked, a pair of soft black boots with flexible, quiet soles, and jerked on her utility vest with its bright blue ribs and orange piping.

  She also tapped the intercom. “Irine?”

  “Yes?” From the distracted purr, Reese decided it best not to ask what Irine was up to. The cats chose the oddest moments to get amorous, and as long as it wasn’t in Reese’s face she didn’t care.

  “Is it cold down there?”

  A pause. Then, “Moderately. Colder than the cargo bay but not as cold as engineering.”

  Reese dragged a cloak off its hanger and slung it over her shoulders. With that, a belt with a sling for her data tablet, a handful of coins and a knife, she was ready. “Put us down outside Nurera, kitties.”

  “Aye, captain.”

  “Gentle as a cushion stuffed with feathers,” from Sascha.

  “I’ll be up there in a minute,” Reese said. She made one last check of her cabin, then left for the bridge. Sascha was sitting at the pilot’s chair wearing the fur that his gods gave him and nothing else. Irine was leaning over his shoulder, eyes fixed on the view through the tiny windows.

  “Oh for the love of earth,” Reese said, exasperated. “What have I said about piloting naked, Sascha?”

  “Don’t break my concentration, ma’am,” Sascha said, his relaxed drawl at complete odds with his intent stare. “Driving this old crate in and out of a planet’s skies takes too much willpower.”

  Having done it often enough herself, Reese couldn’t disagree. And Sascha was good—it was the reason she’d hired him. She’d grown tired of flying the Earthrise around herself. Still, she wondered what it was Irine whispered into his ear in their exotic language.

  True to his word, their landing sent a bare quiver through Reese’s body.

  “Good enough?” he asked her with a grin.

  “Yeah,” Reese said. “Now get dressed.”

  “Awww!”

  Reese poked him in the shoulder. “I don’t want us to be noticeable. You nude is noticeable.”

  “She’s got a point there,” Irine said, grinning.

  Reese rolled her eyes. “Meet me at the airlock.” She leaned over and pressed the all-call. “Everyone to the airlock. We have a job to do.”

  Fresh, warm air, redolent with spices and the scent of fecund soil and sun-warmed incense—Reese shuddered at the first whiff of Inu-case. She’d been born to recirculated air on Mars; from there she’d gone to the Earthrise. The freedom of the evening breeze struck her as unnatural and the varied smells alarming.

  “And there’s where we’re headed,” Sascha said, pointing out the first of the buildings as they crested the hill.

  “How far are we from the jail?” Reese said, choosing the moment to stop for breath. Inu-Case’s heavier gravity had sapped much of her energy on the ten-minute walk from the Earthrise’s position. They hadn’t wanted to land too close to town, just in case. Still, she envied Kis’eh’t, whom she’d left to guard the ship.

  “Once we hit the buildings, we’ll be two blocks south of it,” Sascha said, studying his data tablet. The tip of his tiger-striped tail peeked from beneath his brown overcoat. “They didn’t want it too close to the center of town, I imagine.”

  Irine squinted. “Looks pretty quiet down there. I guess we picked a good time to come by.”

  “Let’s just hope someone’s there to take our credit and let him out,” Reese said. “Come on.”

  Rising past the orange glow of the street lamps, the wooden houses had an ominous cast. What glimpses of the surrounding land Reese could catch between them revealed only a crimped plain drowned in violet shadows and the black smudges of distant mountains. The few trees dotting the lawns proved the source of the odor: their round, waxy leaves reeked so badly that the two felines took to skirting them, and even Bryer seemed to find them discomfiting.

  In sunlight, perhaps the rustic building materials and open streets would have seemed inviting. Reese couldn’t shake the sense of unease that seeing them in the dark aroused. It didn’t help that there was no one outside. No children playing. No people walking home. No one talking, wandering the streets. Reese had never been to a slaver’s retreat, but she could only imagine it being this silent, as if everyone was afraid to call attention to herself.

  “Doesn’t anyone live here?” Irine asked in a whisper.

  Bryer glanced into one of the buildings. “Deserted.”

  “Really well-maintained for someplace deserted,” Sascha said, tail lashing.

  “I don’t like this at all,” Irine said. “It looks like a pirate hide-out.”

  “Try not to look rushed, people,” Reese said. “If anyone’s watching, we have business here and we’re not worried about it.”

  “Let’s just hope they can’t hear us talking,” Sascha muttered.

  At the corner they stopped to allow a single sparrow zip past... a peculiar conveyance in a town, overpowered for mere hops across blocks and underpowered for any serious spaceflight. Reese watched it streak past and pressed a hand to her stomach.

  “Angels! I can’t decide whether to be glad there are actually people living here or not,” Irine muttered.

  “Never mind the people,” Sascha said, pointing at an unprepossessing one-story building. “That’s our stop.”

  “Let’s get this over with,” Reese said, and marched to the door.

  “How come there’s no gate? You know, with electrified wire or stunner fields or something?” Irine asked.

  “I don’t know,” Reese said. She tried one of the doors—it was locked. “I guess all their guards are on the inside.” She scanned for a door announce and found none. “Are you sure this is the front?”

  “I can check around the sides,” Sascha said.

  “Do that,” Reese said. “Take Bryer with you.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “And in the mean time we just stand here,” Irine said. “While security cameras stare at us.”

  “We’re not doing anything wrong,” Reese said.

  “Right,” Irine said, tail whipping nervously. When it smacked Reese one too many times on the calf, Reese hissed, “Stop that.”

  “Sorry.”

  They waited. And waited.

  “It can’t be that big a place, can it?” Irine said.

  “No,” Reese said, feeling a headache beginning to knot her brows. “Something’s happened.”

  “Should we go look?” Irine asked.

  She wanted to say ‘no,’ so of course she said, “Yes.” And, “Keep close.” Then she set off around the perimeter of the jail. The nearest buildings were still set far enough away that they could see anyone coming. No gates or traps startled them.

  “I can still smell him,” Irine said. She tapped on the wall. “But it stops right here.”

  Reese glanced at the grass surrounding the featureless wall, then bent and examined it. Irine joined her a moment later. They stared together.

  “See anything?”

  “No,” Reese said.

  Irine’s ears flipped back. “Would you know it if you saw something?”

  “I haven’t exactly done much investigative policework in my life,” Reese said. She sighed and straightened. “Let’s go back around front.”

  There were no other doors. No lights. Nothing. By the time they wound back up around to the forbidding doors, Reese was beginning to get angry. She pointed at the door. “Do something about that.”

  For once, Irine did not protest innocence, but began scrutinizing the door frame and feeling along its edge. Reese watched her with growing impatience, but forced herself to remain still until the mysterious actions of the Harat-Shar bore fruit.

  “Not bad. But not up to specs,” Irine commented as she pocketed h
er electronic picks and pushed the door in. It complained with a faint creak, then inched into the side-pocket. The girl peeked in through the crack. “Doesn’t seem to be manned,” she whispered.

  Reese glanced behind her shoulder—still nothing. Not a person walking up the dusky streets, no sound of music or laughter or life, just the constant slough of the perfumed breeze. In front of her, a sealed door with no guards and not a breath of a living person, despite Sascha and Bryer having vanished without a clue. There were people here, people far more dangerous than she was.

  “Maybe we should go,” Reese said.

  “But my brother!” Irine whispered. “And Bryer!”

  “We need reinforcements,” Reese said, tense.

  “What, Kis’eh’t and Allacazam? Sure, they’ll help,” Irine said, scowling.

  “I was thinking more like Fleet,” Reese said. “We’re not up to this, Irine.”

  “Think what you want,” Irine said. “I’m not leaving Sascha in there.”

  “Irine—!”

  But the girl had already slipped inside. Reese lunged after her, trying to catch her tail, but Irine had ghosted past the empty front desk to the row of cells. No halo shield arced across the wall leading to them; no guards stood rigidly before them. Reese fought a renewed foreboding as she hurried after the Harat-Shar. The warmth of the stone floor communicated to her toes through the soft material of her boots.

  “No sign of Sascha or Bryer,” Irine called back, “but at least here’s our expensive Eldritch!”

  Reese sprinted after the girl, a cold sweat erupting on her brow. As she pushed Irine aside, her throat closed for a precious second at the sight of the body. Then, strangled, “That’s not him!” She flung herself around, preparing to flee—

  And met the business end of a metal pipe. She didn’t even remember going down.

  “Stand away from the door.”