Among The Stars (Heinlein's Finches Book 2)

by Robin Banks

  Hugh is hovering on our ramp. Alya can’t shut the door because he’s in the way. I’m used to him spacing out, but this is a bit much.

  “Dude? You’ve got to get in. You’re about to get squished.”

  “I think I’m going to stay.”

  “What?

  “No offence, but this sucks. I thought life on a circus was meant to be fun. None of you are having any fun. Not ever. You’re all having a miserable time. I don’t know why you do it, but I don’t want to.”

  He picks up his bag and just walks out the door.

  “Well, shit,” mumbles Alya.

  “I’ve been wishing for him to disappear all along. Now I can’t stand to watch him go.”

  “I can’t stand feeling that he might be smarter about this than us.”

  Hugh or no Hugh, we shut the door and strap ourselves in. Alya puts our request for departure through the com. Ten minutes later, we’ve still not received it, so she puts it through again.

  She whacks her head on her seat. “Had I known he was going to be this slow about it, I’d have made coffee. If we don’t get moving I’ll fall asleep.”

  “You want me to make you one? If he clears us you can bellow at me.”

  “Please. That’d be great.”

  “You must be in desperate need if you’re willing to drink my coffee.”

  I move around the kitchen on autopilot, but my programming must be faulty. The first drink I make is somewhat spoiled by the fact that I didn’t put any coffee in the machine. I hope to all the gods that Alya is less zonked than me, ‘cause otherwise we’re most likely going to crash and die. I’m giving it another go when she yells from the bridge.

  “Luke?”

  “Is it time?”

  “No. But please come over.”

  I was worrying over nothing. She’s perched up on her seat, looking more alert than she has in hours.

  “He’s denied our clearance.”

  “He what?”

  “He says we can’t go. We have to wait for the pull-down to be over.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Two boys have been billeted with us. We can’t go until they’re good and finished.”

  I drop on my seat. “Can he do that?”

  “He can. He’s in charge. But if he does, the animals will be out of sedation before we’ve even left. I’m not re-sedating them; that’s fucking dangerous. And I’m not flying a ship with two of his boys on board. I know you could handle them, but I can’t.”

  “Handle them?”

  “You can defend yourself. You defended me. I can’t. I’ve already proven that. I’d need you to mind me all the time, and you’d be outnumbered.”

  “I think you’re full of shit. You could handle them perfectly well if you stopped playing by the rules. But this is bullshit. Now what?”

  “I’m going.”

  “Without clearance?”

  “Yup. We go. When we get into com range we message Parker. Bit of luck, our message will reach him before Sean can even send his.”

  “You’re gonna tell on him?”

  “Yup.”

  “You know that means war, right?”

  “And what do you call this? A tea party?”

  “Good point. Won’t he report us to the Fed for theft?”

  “Probably not. Him and the Fed don’t get on all that well. His criminal record is longer than yours. And Patrolmen are more likely to listen to a vet like me, however low she might have fallen, than to someone like him. I’m slightly more credible.”

  “You also don’t look like you block punches with your face for a hobby.”

  “You’re a gent. Ok, let’s do it.”

  It feels unreal, but we’re stealing a ship. Technically, anyway. I wonder briefly what effect this could have on my emancipation. I’m sure Alya didn’t think about that, but I’m also sure she doesn’t need the extra stress right now.

  As we taxi away from the portabubble, a racket erupts from the com.

  “Sorry, kid. I can’t turn it off until we’re out of orbit. I need to be able to receive Fed coms.”

  “No problem.” I say that because what else can I say? Listening to Sean scream through the com is chilling, though. The guy has totally lost it. Back home he’d get arrested for half the shit he’s threatening to do to Alya. If he ever actually did any of it, that’d get him arrested anywhere.

  Alya bellows at me over the racket. “Isn’t it nice to be flying away from this? Think of those poor bastards still working with him.”

  Shit. “Tom is down there.”

  “Fuck. Sorry.”

  “I’m alright.”

  “You certainly are.”

  The acceleration hits and seems to slowly crush Sean’s voice into silence. When we finally decelerate, the silence is bliss.

  Alya gets on the com straight away, though. She records a message for Parker telling him why she did what she did. As soon as she’s done, she slumps in her seat.

  “Alya, you look like shit. You should be in bed.”

  “You should be in the cargo bay. I forgot. Should have made you take Kolya’s spot.” Her face crumples when she says his name.

  “No. If you crash this ship, the animals are going to die anyway.”

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “I trust you more than anyone else in the world.” I realize that it’s true. It may not be worth much, but it’s true. “I don’t trust your exhaustion.”

  “Do you think I could nap until the animals wake up?”

  “No. I think you could sleep until you wake up. I can unstrap the animals on my own.”

  “They’re not going to wait nicely for their turn just because I’m tired.”

  She’s right. That just makes me angry.

  It’s only four days’ travel to Parcae. We never get a chance to catch up on our sleep. We just work until we collapse, doze until we can bear to get up, and then we do it all over again. If we could take a break, recoup our strength, get over everything that hit us, then we might be ok. But we can’t. So we just carry on.

  Parcae

  Year 2378

  Terran Standard

  1.

  Alya manages to land without crashing the ship. Things go downhill from there.

  Setting up the stables on our own really sucks. It’s hard work and we’re on a time limit. Once the animals start coming out of sedation, we have to deal with them. If the stables aren’t ready yet, the entire process ends up scrambled. I don’t know how we manage it all on time, but we do. I feel ready to drop to the floor and die by the end of it, though. Parts of me are starting to really hurt and I’m not sure if I’m dealing with pain or damage. I guess it makes no odds. The work won’t change either way.

  We’re just about to turn in to get some food and rest when Sean rolls up. His boys are still bustling around the site, busy as hell, but as his only job is to bellow at people I guess he can take the time to harass us.

  “How is it going?”

  Alya gestures at the stables behind her. “Tah-dah! We’re done.”

  “I was worried about you. I know you’re understaffed. If you need help you will ask me, won’t you? I’ll look after you, if you let me.” He sounds genuinely concerned.

  I worry for a moment that Alya is going to fall for it. She’s exhausted and he’s a damn good actor. I should trust her more.

  “How thoughtful of you. If I ever forget how I ended up understaffed, I’ll hit you up. Until then, it’s a nope.”

  “As you wish.” His indifference is not as credible as his concern. “I didn’t come here to talk about this, though. We’ll need the two of you in the show.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Only to move the animals in and out of the ring. Nothing new.”

  “You’ve got Tom now. You can’t tell me he’s not up to it.”

  “I don’t know what he’s up to at all. He’s not here.”

  “What?”

  “He never made his
ship. Disappeared before pull-down. Seems like your staff just don’t have the staying power.”

  “We’re still here.”

  “Indeed.” He looks so godsdamned happy about that. “Unfortunately we had to leave a boy behind due to a cracked skull. It seems that our stay in Megaera was rife with mishaps. So we’re understaffed too, and now we need you in the show. It won’t take any more of your time than your current role. You will need to pop round the office and pick up your uniform. We can’t have you in the ring looking like that.” He looks at her up and down, and his nose wrinkles. “I’m not sure we should have you anywhere looking like that. You’ve really let yourself go. I guess it didn’t matter when you were knocking about with trash.”

  “Oh, don’t talk yourself down. You don’t need to. Everyone does that for you anyway.”

  “Very funny. I’ll need you to come to the office, anyway.”

  I pipe up. “I’ll come.”

  “I asked Alya.”

  “She’s busy.”

  “Is she now?”

  “Yes, she is. Shall we?”

  I’m angry enough to pick him up bodily and drag him away, if that’s what it takes. Either he sees that in me or he’s had enough entertainment, because he nods curtly and walks off. I follow him down the site. It’s weird how unfamiliar this place feels, these days.

  I remember how it was when I first came here. It’s kind of embarrassing: I was such a kid back then. My head was full of bullshit. I obsessed over the most pointless crap and enjoyed everything and nothing. Looking around the site, I get flashes of memories, but they feel empty. I remember what happened – I can replay the recordings in my head – but I can’t remember how any of it felt. I’ve lost the memories of those feelings. Realizing that is like a punch in the guts.

  When we get to the office I’m in no mood to mess about. Neither is Sean, thankfully. He nods towards a bag on a chair. When I pick it up, it doesn’t seem heavy enough. I’m waiting for him to give me something else, but he snaps. “That’s it. You may go. I’m sure you can find something to do.”

  When I get to the bunks, I open the bag up. I was right: there’s not enough stuff in here. Jacket, trousers, and shoes for me; some of those ridiculous not-foot-shaped shoes with the pointy heels for Alya; and then some small bits of mostly see-through stuff. I chuck it all back into the bag and go tell Alya.

  “I’ve gotta go back to the office. He forgot your uniform.”

  “That’s weird. Can I have a look?”

  “Sure.” I hand the bag over. She rummages through it, then puts it down and closes her eyes. “Fucking asshole.”

  “What?”

  “Not you. You don’t have to go back. That’s my uniform.”

  “What? No way. Whatever that is, it’d fit in my back pocket.”

  “Yeah, well.” She sighs. “This is going to suck.”

  “Do you want me to…”

  “No. It’d only make things worse. Luke?”

  “What?”

  “Do you want to talk about Tom?”

  “No. No, I don’t.”

  She doesn’t look convinced, but she doesn’t push me. That’s a good thing. I want to bury all of that at the back of my mind and never think about it again. No point in doing anything else, anyway. It’s a big universe we live in. That story is over.

  When she comes out of her ATR to head out to the show, she’s wearing… She’s not wearing much of anything. Not enough. All the critical bits are covered, but that’s about it. And she’s got make up on. Her eyes look immense in her tiny face, framed by long, dark eyelashes. She scowls at me and I realize I’ve been staring at her with my mouth hanging open.

  “Sorry! You look great?”

  “I look fuckable. Which I hate. Which is why he’s making me wear this.”

  She sounds so sad and so angry that I don’t know what to say. I want to make her feel better, but she’s not wrong.

  “The other girls on show don’t wear much more.”

  “They wear more than this, though. And their job isn’t to drag animals around. This is unnecessary. And deliberate.”

  “I get it. You do look good, though. I mean, really good. Better than anyone else around here.”

  She nearly smiles at me. “That’s rather subjective, kid. And it’s part of the problem. Hey ho. Carry on.” She walks towards the stables.

  “You’re going to go out like that?”

  “What choice do I have?”

  “…Not going out like that?”

  “That’d be disobeying a direct order. It would turn this into an official issue and leave me with two choices: getting sacked or wearing this anyway and admitting they’ve browbeaten me into it.”

  “Gods. Everything with you is a damn strategy.”

  “No. Everything between me and them is. This is war. Just because it’s not been declared, it doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

  “What are you fighting for?”

  That stops her in her tracks. “Ha. Interesting. Very interesting. I’ll need to think about that. I don’t think I’ll like what I find out.”

  I nudge her onwards and we set off again.

  When we get to the big top, two ponies apiece, he’s here. He’s got nothing to do here, yet here he is, leaning against the side wall right by the back door. We have to wait for our cue to bring the ponies through, so we can’t avoid him.

  He gives Alya a slow look up and down, then halfway up again. I really wish I could punch him. He makes me sick. Alya stays cool, though. Her only reaction is a single raised eyebrow.

  That must not be the response he was looking for. His eyes narrow and his face twitches briefly, but he recovers and beams me a smile.

  “So, have you put your dick in there yet?”

  “Say what?”

  “Have you fucked her yet? No? She’s bound to want to fuck you. You’re her pretty boy hero. Though being a male with a pulse would do. I’d recommend it. She used to be pretty decent. A nice beginner’s ride. That was before she started fucking the boys, but if you give her a good scrub she ought to be passable. Provided it’s not all gone loose in there.”

  Alya clucks. “Oh, poppet. Are you worried about me fucking guys bigger than you? You knew that was statistically inevitable.”

  “You never complained about my size when we were making love.”

  “Don’t lie to the kid. We’ve never made love.”

  “Oh yeah? What did we do, then?”

  “Sometimes you got too drunk to find a place to park your dick, so you stuck it inside me. It made no difference to me either way, so I’d let you.”

  “Bullshit.” He turns to me. “She used to like it well enough. The noises she’d make... I never knew if she was loving it or getting hurt.”

  Alya’s laugh tinkles. “There you go again, telling the kid silly stories. Why would you have even thought about that kind of thing? It wouldn’t have made any difference to you either way.”

  “It’d make a difference to you, though. So which was it? Pleasure or pain?”

  “You’re forgetting option three. Boredom.”

  “What?”

  “Anything to make you finish up faster. A girl needs her sleep.” His face darkens, but Alya carries on. “Come on. You don’t really think I could enjoy being touched by you, and you tried hard enough to hurt me and couldn’t. We just used each other. You needed a victim. I needed a ticket out of town. I guess you got shortchanged.”

  I’m torn between being proud of her and dropping the ponies’ reins to drag her away. This guy is not safe, and now he’s so furious he’s not bothering to hide it. Thank the gods, the back stage door opens for us. She walks through and I follow.

  The ring boys give her a good look too, but she doesn’t pay them any attention. It takes us seconds to get the ponies in the ring, and then we can get out of everyone’s way and wait until the act is over.

  In the dim light backstage, I would probably not have noticed her crying if she d
idn’t start dabbing at her eyes. “Shit. Is my make-up ok?”

  “Yeah. All good. Are you ok?”

  “As long as I’m not smudging.” She sniffles. “Old trick. Make-up on top only. That way when you cry you won’t look a mess.”

  I wish I could hug her or something, but I don’t know if she’d like me to touch her in that costume, or at all.

  “Why are you crying? You told him what was what.”

  “Yeah, right. I made him really angry, is what I did. It was reckless.”

  “It was brilliant.”

  “I’ll settle for both.” She’s crying again. I rub the tears away from under her eyes. I can do that, at least.

  “Come on. Soon over.”

  “Over? How?” she wails before she checks herself. I don’t say anything. I don’t know what I could say that wouldn’t make it worse. It seems to take forever for the act to be over. We grab the ponies and take them back, Alya struggling to walk across the soft ground in those ridiculous shoes they put her in. Then we do it all over again.

  Alya manages to hold it together until we’re done with the stable visits, then she falls apart so suddenly and quietly that I nearly miss it. She just curls up in a dark corner and starts weeping. When I find her, I have no idea how long she’s been like that.

  “Shit. Come on. You’ve been doing so well.”

  “Doesn’t feel like it.”

  “You did. You looked splendid and you did splendid. I want to go and gut that asshole.”

  “Can I watch?”

  “Sure. If you can make it there in those shoes. I’m not carrying you. Come on now. Time to go home, unless you want to spend the night here.”

  “Wouldn’t mind. I hate sleeping alone. I miss Laika.” She starts crying again.