"How - how long have you been there?
"Long enough. Tama..." he bit his lip. "There are some things no one needs to see, or know about, and I think you have seen too many things."
She nodded jerkily, feeling the darkness sucking at her mind. She would not remember...
"Can you get up?" he asked.
"Yes."
She staggered to her feet, feeling incredibly ancient suddenly. The last hour and especially the last few minutes had taken years off her life, she was sure. She followed Ben down the long corridor to the tube for the lifeboat.
He strapped the sleeping child into a couch and turned to the silent Tama. She looked up at him, feeling numb inside. He still had that smile on his face, and suddenly she wondered why.
Ben wrapped his arms around her and held her as she started to cry.
"I'm proud of you." he told her. "Both for doing it, and for regretting doing it."
"Thanks." she managed. "Give me a minute... all I seem to do is cry on you. I'm sorry."
He grinned. "You have a long time to make up for it. Ready to fly?"
"You bet." She felt her heart starting to lift. Life in a world where people loved her again was going to be good. "Let's go home."
End Transmission
Voyageur’s Cap
Duty was neither to be entered upon lightly, nor to be worn as a badge of honor. Yet even in her short life, Liatris had seen both. Had done the first, as a matter of fact. Which was arguably what had led her to this forgotten backwater. She liked backwaters. Had grown up in one, chosen another to spend most of her adult life in. But this one... this one gave her the shudders. She squared her shoulders yet again, heaven forbid a Voyageur of the Hudson’s Bay Company show ought less than a bold countenance. Lifting a clenched fist, she prepared to knock at the door, only to be surprised as it swung open.
Liatris put a hand on the holster at her hip, fingering the worn leather, but not yet pulling her weapon. "Hello?" she called, pitching her voice to carry without too great a volume.
"Anyone home?"
No answer came from within, and from the scents swirling about her on the air from the house, she thought no-one had lived her for quite some time. Duty bound, she stepped into the tenement hall. The stillness in the air was almost complete, although Lia thought she saw and felt the ghostly movement of rodents feeling in each room as she wound her way through the rooms in a circle ending back at the door.
None within. Dusty furniture and littered floors spoke of residents at some lost date. Duty had not driven Lia to inspect the food chiller. She was unwilling to inflict that on her nose. She hesitated at the threshold weighing duty. Was her long journey balanced by this empty place where her quarry ought to have been? She sighed and pulled the door closed behind her. Overhead, rain drummed on the dome and green lightning tore through the mineral-laced atmosphere that had brought humans to this planet. A whole planet, and all the men on it packed into this squalid place. Her nose wrinkled as she looked around. Narrow streets dominated with towering tenements, each floor an apartment unto itself, accessed by grav elevators. Many of them, she had been told, could only be accessed by the previous owner's DNA, a design flaw that had left landlords gnashing their teeth when renters refused to leave or to pay rent.
Lia pulled her toque back onto her head, affixing that badge of her status and livelihood firmly. Even in this misbegotten place, the voyageur's cap would be recognized and respected. She set out for the nearest bar. She knew it wouldn't be far. Every settlement on every planet in the known galaxy had at least one bar, and her rule of thumb was that the more poor and miserable the place, the more bars there would be. Her only criteria was, where would the widow of a spaceman hang out?
It took her three bars and a few quiet questions of bouncers and barmaids to find the place. It took her longer to find the woman slouched at a table, half lying on the bench. The woman's face was blotched and purpled with her drinking, and Lia almost didn't recognize her from the photo feed Daz had always been streaming. Lia stood at the foot of the table for a few moments, frowning down sternly at the sodden female.
"Angel? Angel R'driz?" she finally asked loud enough to cut through the truly awful sounds that the sound system was projecting in the guise of music.
"Yeah? Who wanna know?" The woman levered herself upright and peered blearily at the slender apparition who had spoken to her. She saw a petite female dressed in soft trousers and a blousy white shirt that partially hid the round breasts. But what made her eyes widen and then narrow in speculation was the red hat the girl wore.
"You're a v'ger. Voy-ager." she tried again.
"Yes, ma'am." Lia replied politely.
"M'husband was a v'ger."
"Yes, I know." Lia sighed inwardly. The woman wasn't belligerent, but she wasn't all there, either. "I served with him on his last ship."
"You see him die?" the harridan demanded.
Lia shook her head slightly. "No. I helped bury him after..." she decided not to give the details to the drunken woman.
Angel stared down at the table, seemingly lost in thought. Lia waited patiently. Soon enough, the bloodshot eyes swung back to her. "Why 're you here?"
"Daz had left something with me."
The eyes brightened. "Money?"
Lia shook her head again. "No, a voucher." She held it out now, pulled seemingly from thin air, but in reality it had been strapped to her forearm along with another of her weapons. Angel snatched it and held it close to her face, puzzling over the words.
"This's for the girl." She finally announced, handing it back to Lia. Nonplussed, Lia took it.
"Yes, it is for his daughter."
"She's not here."
"Where is she?"
"Work, hopefully." Angel sniffed suddenly. "Damn Daz, dying like that."
She put her head down on the table and began to sob noisily. Lia backed away from this display of emotion and turned to the bartender who had pointed her in Angel's direction not that long before.
"Do you know where her daughter works?" she asked. He shrugged and swiped at the bar. She grunted and slid a coin to him.
He grinned briefly, a flash of white teeth through the smoke and dim lighting. "Happen to be in the kitchen. She helps out, pays for Mam's beer." He jerked a shoulder in the direction of a hidden door.
Lia opened the door cautiously, unsure what she would find. The crowded room beyond was typical of many commercial kitchens. More brightly lit than the bar, it was surprisingly clean and gleamed of stainless steel and white tile. There was little room between the counters, but the floor didn't stick to Lia's boots as she walked across it. She found the girl, one of only three in the kitchen, around the corner bent over a cutting board. Lia stopped short and stared.
She knew the child had to be Daz's daughter, the other cooks were small, swarthy men who spared her a brief glance before continuing their frenetic work. But the girl was wearing a dushabi, the enveloping head cover of the militant H'lallah and she was very sure that Daz had not belonged to that violent religious persuasion. Lia had had unpleasant encounters with them, herself. Suddenly duty was very heavy on her shoulders. The child wore the head cover pulled up to her nose, even here in the sweltering kitchen. The dark blue fabric draped down her back, covering her hair completely. Oddly, she wore ordinary street clothes for the rest of her costume.
Lia cleared her throat. The girl looked around, and then stood up straight and faced her. "You were with Da."
Lia nodded. All she could see was a pair of emerald green eyes. "He asked me to find you, should anything happen to him, and to give you this."
She held out the voucher. Unlike Angel, the girl hesitated before slowly taking the card and reading it. She looked up at Lia. "My name is Serene. I suppose we will be getting to know one another."
One of the men appeared at Lia's elbow. "You ok, meija?" he asked Serene with a sideways glare at the older woman.
"Yes, of course. This lady served wi
th my father in the Voyageurs."
"Ah! and now?"
Serene sighed. "I need to go with her, Ruez. My father has left me an education. I am sorry I will not be able to help you."
"No, no..." he waved her concerns away and hugged her incongruously. "Child, you are not meant for the kitchen. Go with God and be blessed." he finished with making the sign of the cross over her face, something Lia found highly ironic considering what Serene was wearing.
She turned to Lia. "We can go now."
Lia arched her eyebrows in surprise. "You don't need to gather your things? Go to your home, say good bye to your mother?"
Serene shook her head. "Ma will only scream and cry at me. She spends most of my pay. I have a bag here. I thought this was coming, and I'm ready."
"Daz spoke to you about it."
"He told me that he wanted me to get an education. That was why he joined the Voyageurs. When I received notice of his death, with his personal message, I know someone would be coming."
They were headed in the opposite direction of the bar, into a crowded restaurant. The kitchen must serve both, Lia realized. Serene carried her sack over her shoulder, and Lia carried the small bag Ruez had pressed into her hands as they left. From the smell, it was to be dinner for her and her charge.
Once on the street, Serene faltered. "Where do we go now?" she started.
Lia pointed to the side of the dome where the spaceport connected to the wild atmosphere outside. You couldn't see the towering space tower through the smog and darkness of the oncoming night. "Do you want to linger, or shall we fly?"
Serene's eyes lit up. "We can leave tonight?"
Lia grinned. "You want to stay here?"
"No. No, I don't!"
As they walked to a monorail stop, Lia contemplated the enigma of the child walking beside her. Why the head covering? She didn't have the name, or the background, that would ordinarily accompany such garb. Was the girl infected with spore? She shuddered a little. The nasty disease started with the parasitic spore of a certain plant that attached to skin, and started to eat away at it. It was contagious as hell, and had spread to most of the known worlds. It could be cured, usually by cutting away enough flesh to remove the spore, but Lia had seen people too poor or too far from civilization to have been treated. They evoked the ancient disease of leprosy.
Lia herself was wearing an electronic mesh in all her clothing that warded off the spores, which were attracted to the electrical impulses of the human nervous system. The mesh damped out the signal and simultaneously emitted a low-level impulse that destroyed the spore. The voyageur's cap, an ancient symbol of the bold adventurer, had come back into fashion a half millennia ago as part of the head-to-toe system.
They boarded the train in silence, Lia paying their fare. Her expenses in this mission of duty were covered by the Company. She doubted Serene had been able to squirrel away much from her mother's grasping hands. She broke the silence.
"You speak well."
"I didn't want to be marked by my speech as being from Copper. Or from anywhere. I wanted to be able to leave this behind and never come back."
Lia looked across at her all but invisible companion. It was hard to read the child under the coverings. With only a pair of green eyes to go on, Lia wasn't sure of the mettle of Serene. All she knew was that the girl was sixteen standards old, and had apparently never been off Copper. By the time Lia was sixteen she had seen as many worlds, but then again, both of her parents had been HBC. Lia had never lived in one place longer than four years in a stretch. It made finding a place to call "home" difficult. Serene seemed eager enough to leave this place, and Lia didn't blame her, but she did wonder how the girl would deal with new worlds and new people if she had chosen to hide herself so well even on this, her home.
The train jerked to a halt and Lia stood easily while the girl struggled with her bag and the motion of the still swaying train. Lia led the way still in silence. She had a lot of questions, but this was not the time to ask them. They stepped out into the port, a separate bubble from the enormous dome where Serene had grown up, the only enclave of humans on this desolate world. Lia looked at it through her companion's eyes and saw that the tone of life was different here. People moved about them with purpose, enormous crawler loads of ore dwarfed the humans that guided them to the even larger cargo shuttles resting awkwardly on the tarmac. Here there was a sense of urgency and drive that was utterly lacking in the city.
"Come along," she told the girl, turning and heading toward the customs building. "We need to get you your papers."
"I have my papers." the girl told her in a bewildered voice.
"No, you don't. You need to be certified fit to travel, you know. And I won't have your Ma coming after me on a charge of kidnapping."
They entered the low building - a rarity on Copper, Lia realized now. The lobby was relatively empty, but behind the glass window of reception perched a wizened old lady. She looked up sharply at them and inquired in a gravelly voice, "What have you found, Voyageur?"
"My charge is Serene R'duez, child of Daz R'duez, late of the Company."
"Ah, so you did find her. Good, good." She came around the glass to scrutinize Serene. "Don't flinch, child, I shan't bite. Hard to see much of you, anyway. Come along." she commanded, echoing Lia earlier.
Left alone, Lia settled onto one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs and closed her eyes. She had long learned the trick of seeming asleep while remaining aware of her surroundings. She knew Jane would take good care of the child, the old lady had been a clerk with the Company for fifty Standards before retiring here, of all places. Lia shrugged. People were strange.
She heard them coming down the hall and was standing waiting for them when they entered the lobby.
"All well?" she asked Jane.
"Just peachy. Nothing wrong with her that getting off this mudball won't cure." She handed Lia the card that was now encoded with Serene's traveling permissions. "Go on now, you too, before things catch up with you."
"Nothing's chasing us." Serene protested.
"Something is always after a voyageur." The old lady replied firmly with her depth of experience.
"We do need to go. I'm guessing Ruez will stall your mother to the end of your shift, but after that?" Lia shrugged.
"I'm ready."
Back out into the metallic scented air of the port, Lia guided them around to the left of the building to where the smaller shuttles where docked. Her ship was there. A Scout needed no shuttle, being perfectly capable of landing and lifting off a planet under it's own power. It also wasn't much larger than the shuttles it was next to. "There we are." Lia pointed with pride.
Serene's eyes widened. "That little thing?"
"Yep, and I'm glad there aren't two of you."
The door swung open, and Lia jumped easily into the lock. Serene followed more slowly, and Lia waited until she was all in before triggering the door to close again. She faced the girl, still in the hallway by the lock. "Off with it, now."
"Wh-what?"
Impatiently, Lia flicked her fingers. "Off. The headdress. I know you aren't H'llalah. Jane would have let me know if it were Spore. So why do you wear that disgusting thing?"
Reluctantly, Serene started to unwrap the cloths. "Da told me to wear it last time I was home."
Lia snorted. "Well, I know he wasn't part of that dishonorable group."
"No," muffled still in the clinging garment, Serene finally pulled it completely off. "It was to protect me."
Lia sighed. Her charge was stunningly beautiful. The perfect emerald eyes set off a creamy complexion that was a shade darker, perhaps, than the milky white skin most redheads had. Serene's long red hair was braided and wrapped in a crown on her head. Her oval face was flawless, and now that Lia could see all of her, she understood Daz's concern. On Copper, Serene's beauty would have led to her mother treating it as a commodity.
"So how long have you been hiding under that thing?" she
flicked her fingers toward the now shapeless cloth.
"About four years. Haven't had my face uncovered even to eat. I'd sleep with it partially on and my door locked. Times I felt like I couldn't breathe, but I didn't dare take it off, or Ma would see me..." The words came pouring out of her and she dropped the cloth on the floor. "Do I have to wear it again?"
Lia shook her head emphatically. "Never."
Serene sighed. "Thank you."
Lia eyed her critically. She could see the stress on that too lovely face now.
"I think you should get some sleep."
"Aren't we lifting?"
"Yes, but no reason you can't get some rest."
"It's my first lift..." Serene looked the twelve she would have been when her father sent her into purdah.
Lia sighed again, then chuckled. She had a feeling she would be sighing a lot on this journey. "Come along."
She got Serene strapped in and sat at the pilot's station herself. On a populated planet, lift was as easy as pressing a few buttons and letting the computers do the work, but her training left her uncomfortable with utterly relying on this method. She was a scout pilot, trained to land unaided on worlds men had never set foot on before.
She watched the displays until they were well into orbit, and then looked over at Serene.
The girl's face was glowing with joy.
Lia grinned. "Whee!" she laughed. "I suppose I get too used to it."
"That was amazing."
Lia chuckled again. "You'll get used to it, but for now, bed."
She showed Serene to the tiny bunk-room with its folding bed and pull out desk.
"We share a 'fresher. But these ships are designed to carry two without them driving each other crazy."
The girl put her sacks into the cubbies and stretched out on to the bed. Lia thought she was asleep before her eyes closed fully. The older woman pulled a blanket over her and went out quietly.
########
Serene awoke to a peculiar vibration and lay for a moment wondering what it could be before she remembered where she was. She ran her hands over her bare face. It felt...odd, not to have her covering. She sat up and tried to remember how to put the bed back. Failing that, she folded her blanket neatly. In the controlled environment of the ship, she didn't need it, but it felt strange to sleep without it. Which the Scout must have known. Serene smiled. She had finally met a scout.
Warp Resonance Page 4
