She wanted to ask if it was customary for priests to lurk on street corners, waiting for hungry travelers to talk to themselves, but he shooed her down a side corridor to a room that held a sink and commode.
“I will wait here for you,” he said, lowering himself onto a bench where the hallway opened back into the domed main temple. “Take your time.”
He shut his eyes and leaned against the cool white stone at his back, seemingly settling in for a nice nap.
Liza regarded him a moment, then went to wash up and use the facilities. She closed the door behind her, sorry to see there was no lock, then shed her pelisse and pulled the decidedly unhappy feline, still wrapped in the pillowcase, from her shirt.
“Mrow,” the cat said, squirming to be released from her prison.
Liza set her down and opened the mouth of the pillowcase. The cat stalked out, gray fur matted down, eyes narrowed.
“I’m sorry,” Liza said. “It was the best I could do.”
She took care of her needs, then went to the sink and splashed cool water on her face, giving the cat a modicum of privacy. As Liza had suspected, the animal knew how to use the commode. She’d heard cats could be trained to do so, and the lack of feline droppings in Suite Four had certainly seemed proof enough.
With a quick flap of wings, the cat alighted on the edge of the sink basin. Craning her neck, she stuck her head beneath the flow of water and began to lap at the running stream.
“I could get you a dish, instead,” Liza said, amused.
The cat stopped long enough to give her a disdainful look, then returned to drinking. Liza stoppered the sink anyway, so as not to waste water. She could rinse off in slightly cat-saliva-tainted water, after all. She’d done worse.
Finally, feline thirst assuaged and the worst of the sweat and dust washed away, the two of them went back to where the priest waited. Valise in one hand, Liza carried the cat cradled in her other arm—outside her clothing, this time. After all, the old man had already indicated he’d sensed the animal’s presence.
“There you are,” he said, opening his eyes and sitting up at their approach. “My, what a lovely creature.”
He held out a gnarled hand. The cat sniffed at it, then leaped gracefully from Liza’s arms to the old man’s lap. She turned about three times, then lay down, purring loudly. Liza tried not to feel a stab of betrayal.
“Jealousy is one of the basest emotions,” the priest said, running his palm over the cat’s fur. “And so often unwarranted. Not to worry—this creature still owes you her primary loyalty.”
Liza swallowed back a tart reply, along with her questions. Holy men and mystics were notoriously difficult to get solid answers from.
“I’m ready to meet with the elders now,” she said, instead.
“Ha.” The priest’s cackle of laugher made the cat glance up at him. He resumed petting her, but his gaze stayed on Liza’s face. “We’ve already spoken, and are willing to offer you sanctuary, Princess Elizabeth Calloway von Saxe-Roth.”
She stared at him, her blood and breath freezing.
“What…?” She moistened her mouth, then spoke, with effort. “How do you know who I am?”
“We know many things.” He smiled placidly up at her. “Also, our nanotech is the best in the galaxy. Within moments of meeting you, I’d contacted the rest of the temple, sent your image to be processed, and identified the cat hidden in your clothing.”
“Damnation.”
“I believe your mother taught you it isn’t ladylike to swear.”
“Is there anything you don’t know about me?” Liza scowled at him, anger heating her cooled blood. She preferred the warmth of her temper to the chilling knowledge that she was completely found out. “I suppose you’ll turn me in for the reward, now.”
“Not at all. Calm yourself, youngling.”
She struggled to draw in a breath. The priest had had plenty of time to contact the authorities. If the temple wanted to claim the reward, they would have had redcoats waiting for her on the steps.
A thought occurred to her, and she narrowed her eyes. “How roundabout a route did we take to get here?”
He let out another cackling laugh. “Clever as well, Miss Roth—I understand that is what you call yourself?” She gave a short nod, and he continued. “Had we gone directly, we would have reached the Temple of Vishnu in under half an hour. But I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to access all your information.”
“And the cat?” She nodded at the contented creature on his lap.
“She is your companion now,” he said, giving her another stroke. “Her past history does not matter. It is the future that counts, and how one goes into it.”
Very philosophical.
She hesitated a moment, torn between taking to her heels, and accepting the priest’s offer of hospitality. But she was tired of running.
“How long can I stay?” she finally asked.
He looked up at her, his gaze steady. “As long as necessary. When it is time for you to leave, you will know it.”
Unexpected gratitude stung the corners of her eyes. “Thank you.”
“You might not be so grateful, once you see your quarters.” He lifted the cat gently from his lap, then levered himself up with the help of his smooth wooden staff.
“I’m sure I’ve seen worse,” she said. Her miner’s quarters had not been particularly luxurious, and between her small berths aboard various ships and on the station, she was no stranger to cramped spaces.
The priest led her back into the echoing main temple. The cat trotted at her heels, making occasional winged forays to inspect the statues lining the walls. Along with the sweet incense smoke, a sense of peace filled the temple.
Liza’s breathing eased. Whatever lay ahead, at least she was not in custody of the British Galactic Army, being dragged home to be a pawn in her father’s machinations.
“Mrow,” the cat said, swooping in from one of her explorations to land on Liza’s shoulder.
Liza winced as the cat’s claws dug in momentarily. She’d need to add padding to her blouses, but it was a small price to pay.
“What shall we call you?” she asked, giving the feline’s forehead a rub. She was rewarded with a soft purr as the cat half-closed her bright purple eyes.
The priest glanced over with an impish look. “She was formerly referred to as Hyacinth.”
“Hyacinth?” Liza gave her head a disbelieving shake. The cat breathed lightly into her ear. “I can’t call you Hyacinth.”
No, the clever escapee perched on her shoulder was something darker and more elusive than some sweet-blooming mainstay of an English garden. A belladonna perhaps, or…
“Nightshade,” Liza said.
The cat let out a soft chirp that Liza took for agreement.
“Shade, for short,” she continued.
“Appropriate,” the priest said, “considering the color of her fur. Names should carry multiple meanings, don’t you think, Miss Roth?”
He was laughing at her, she was certain, but she did not take offense.
Shade leaped off her shoulder to soar, gray wings extended, beneath the domed ceiling of the temple. Liza watched her, and a strange warmth kindled in her belly, as though she’d swallowed a small, bright ember. It took a moment for her to identify the unfamiliar feeling as the first stirrings happiness.
Whatever the next chapter of her future held, at least she would not be facing it alone.
~FIN~
Anthea Sharp is author of the USA Today Bestselling sci-fantasy series Feyland and the Victorian Spacepunk series. Discover more Victorian Spacepunk stories in Anthea Sharp’s Stars & Steam collection, available at all ebook retailers, or read the first in series, Star Compass, originally published in the Dominion Rising anthology.
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IN
THE CLUTCH
A SHORT STORY
By LJ Cohen
ABOUT IN THE CLUTCH
For the lone Human crew member on a ship full of Quentarians, dealing with the overheated environment isn't her only problem—her supervisor actively dislikes her and most of the rest of the crew barely tolerate her. But when something goes drastically wrong with the atmosphere aboard, it falls to the thin-skinned, warm-blooded, small-statured woman to save The Endurance and her reptilian crew.
IN THE CLUTCH
“You’d better not die on me, you reptilian bastard.” That would give the language translator fits. A race that procreated through shared egg caches had no concept of children without fathers. Or rather, no Quentarian had a single primary mother or father. Tina rubbed her hands together to return some of the feeling to them before grasping his legs again and continuing to drag the massive body. “This would be easier if you weren’t so bloody big.” The engineer struggled to catch her breath. “Fucking Godzilla.”
She kept muttering pleas and epithets directed at the Quentarian chief engineer and his equally scaly and equally unresponsive crewmates. Maybe if she insulted him enough, he’d wake up. Nothing else seemed to be working.
Tina sat cross legged leaning her back against the side of the access shaft and glared down at her test meter. It was no use. She’d done as much troubleshooting as she could and still had no idea what was causing the error. “Fine,” she muttered. “They think I’m incompetent anyway.” She triggered the comms device. “Nerua? I’m having a hard time locking down the –”
“Where are you?”
After several weeks aboard The Endurance, Tina had finally gotten used to the hollow, mechanical voice that translated the sibilant Quenten into the galactic standard polyglot she understood. The hiss that accompanied Chief Engineer Nerua’s words didn’t need any translation. Even if little else did, annoyance transcended language, culture, and species.
“Section alpha seven, between hydroponics and life support.”
“Don’t touch anything. I’m on my way.”
Damn. It was bad enough that most of the crew ignored her, but her own supervisor seemed to think she was barely capable of cycling an airlock. Despite her long experience in dealing with multiple life support systems on a huge range of spacecraft, he’d insisted on giving her detailed instructions for the changes they needed to make to the atmospheric mix in order to handle the long transit.
It was hard enough not to take it personally, but his views of her were formed by Quentarian assumptions about Humanity as a whole. And it seemed like her performance in engineering hadn’t done anything to change that. “Look, there’s definitely something wrong. I’ve matched the schematic to the controls and dialed in the overrides, but I’m getting a strange sensor reading.”
“I said, I’m on my way.”
Tina heard the angry rattle of his appendages before he cut off comms. He would be more irritated than usual: the Quentarians disliked the access tunnels. They ran close to the skin of the ship and couldn’t reliably be kept warm enough for the reptilian race’s comfort. Crawling around in here was usually the job of the newest crew member. On this trip, that would be her.
He slithered into view, using both sets of appendages and his tail to propel himself to where she waited. His mandibles slid across one another and his gill slits narrowed to the bare minimum. Tina sighed. Apparently they could taste her presence and it wasn’t pleasant. Served them right for having her on board.
The Endurance’s engines rumbled deep below them. They were still in normal space, but soon they would be piercing through into the void and exploring past all known star maps. The window for this deep-space mission was very narrow. If Tina couldn’t certify the atmo mods by the time they reached their insertion point, they would have to wait at the very edge of charted space until conditions became favorable again. Which increased the risk that some other expedition would get there first to reap the rewards.
There was a lot of money and prestige riding on their success and Tina wasn’t going to be the one to screw it up.
She narrowed her eyes and leaned forward to show him the display on her multi-meter. “The settings match your schematic exactly. No problem. I just keep getting an error on the readout. Something must be wrong with the mix.”
Nerua clacked his mandibles as he studied her numbers before holding out a claw.
She handed over the device. He was her supervisor and checking her meter calibration and the atmo settings was protocol. Working life support was a high-stakes game. Oversight was essential. But so was knowing and relying on your coworkers’ skill sets: Nerua’s mistrust was evident even to her rudimentary understanding of Quentarian body language.
His own captain had vetted and hired her. That didn’t seem to matter to Nerua. Nor did her years of experience and high ratings.
Tina fumed silently, mentally ticking off all the reasons signing on The Endurance had been a terrible choice. None of which negated the simple fact that she’d had no other options.
Holding her meter in his primary appendage, Nerua unclipped his with his secondary and prepared to take his own readings. He flicked out his tongue rapidly in what Tina had figured out was the Quentarian equivalent of tapping a foot or drumming fingers on a desk.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with her meter. Nothing. She calibrated her test equipment at the beginning and end of every work shift. This wasn’t her first orbit. She’d been crawling her way through conduit when Nerua was still curled up in an egg.
Fine. Let him force a calibration. Let him do the basic troubleshooting Tina had already done more than a dozen times. He wouldn’t trust her results unless his mirrored them. Fine.
It took Tina several minutes to realize Nerua’s silence wasn’t his usual sullen anger when he was around her, but a profound and uncomfortable stillness. As she turned to him, the emergency alarms vibrated through the access corridor and deep into her bones.
The Quentarian didn’t react.
“Nerua! What’s going on?”
He blinked his triple-lidded eyes slowly, lazily, before stiffening and slithering down to the floor, his gill slits opening and closing in a rapid, staccato rhythm.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Tina’s translator broadcast meaningless squawks. Who programs a translator without profanity? Especially for engineers. “Nerua? Can you hear me?” She hesitated before laying her hand on his thorax. Quentarians were exquisitely sensitive to touch and Humans were apparently “touch-deaf.” His body was cool, though that didn’t mean a whole lot with a cold-blooded species. But he was unresponsive which definitely wasn’t a good sign.
She keyed her comms device. “Medical emergency. Engineering. Section alpha seven, between hydroponics and life support.”
There was no response and she tried several more times before giving up. Either they couldn’t hear her or this was something ship-wide. Either way, it meant she was on her own. Tina was used to that, after over a dozen years piloting a one-person skimmer. It’s why they had recommended her for this gig. Well, that, and it helped mitigate the financial sting from Astro-corp’s abrupt layoffs and her mounting debts.
So here she was, light years out of her comfort zone. With her supervisor down for the count.
Tina briefly debated the wisdom of moving him, but she really had no choice. She had to get him out of the ship’s catacombs and to medical.
She pried her meter from the larger of his two arms and frowned at the display. Nothing in the readout explained why Nerua was unconscious. Both Humans and Quentarians breathed the same basic atmospheric mixes, which was why she could crew for them without needing an expensive and inconvenient breathing apparatus. And she felt fine.
The changes he was having her make to the atmo shouldn’t have caused any problems to either species. It was to help them accommodate to the peculiarities of traveling through voidspace in the same way scuba divers used to change their breathing mixes for deep dives.
On the ship it wasn’t a matter of pressure; The Endurance was a sealed environment, but voidspace operated under its own rules.
The atmo had been programmed to turn over gradually through the course of the next full duty cycle. Nothing should have changed this soon. Tina glanced at Nerua and back at her readout. The captain was on a tight timeline. If she switched the mix back to standard atmo, there would be a delay before they could enter the void. It could mean the entire expedition wasted. No expedition, no bonus. No bonus, no way to reclaim her pawned ship.
There were several other expeditions being mounted alongside this one, but so far, The Endurance was the only ship to be this close to the insertion point. Forget the bonus, if Tina screwed up the mission, she’d be censured and booted from the ship without pay. And with that kind of record, it would be next to impossible to hire on to any other deep space job. Her ship would be long gone and she’d be stuck in some dead-end work, permanently grounded on some dead-end planet.
Nerua wouldn’t hesitate to protect the mission. Even at the cost of his own life. He had said as much when she first set foot in engineering.
But something was wrong. All her instincts screamed at her. The subsonic vibrations of the emergency alarms bored into her skull. She tried one last time to reach someone outside the access tunnels and got no reply.
“Fuck.” The translator gave a brief squeal in protest before cutting out. It would take time to set the atmo back to baseline. It was time Nerua might not have. But it was the only variable that could explain his condition. As quickly as she could, Tina reprogrammed the mix to normal space levels. Maybe by the time she got Nerua to engineering, whatever was in the air would have cleared and she could get someone to turn off the damned alarm.
Orphans In the Black: A Space Opera Anthology Page 48
