by J. S. Morin
“Bradley! Haha! There’s my boy! How ya been, son?” Dad had never had a shy moment in his life. If he was showering and the walls suddenly fell away around him, leaving him in the middle of a crowd of strangers, he’d crack a joke about the sudden draft. But this wasn’t the stage at the Orpheum or some bottom-feeding star-cruiser line. And no one called him Bradley anymore.
“It’s Carl. Remember?” he replied with a tight smile that didn’t disguise the fact that it was forced.
Don slipped his arm off Carl’s shoulders in such a way that he ushered him toward his mother. “Oh, fine, ‘Carl,’” Mom cooed. She hugged him tight. “Your father’s old friends are all dead anyway. They won’t care.”
Carl pulled away, holding his mother at arm’s length by the shoulders. “What?”
Dad ran his fingers through his hair. “What, ‘what’? I never told you that one? You’re named after my best friends growing up: Brian, Richie, Aaron, Danny, and Lee. I took some liberties, since they only gave me one vowel to work with.”
“All this time… What a fucking stupid name!”
Dad’s lopsided grin became a scowl. “Hey!”
“Excuse me,” a pale-furred laaku interrupted. “Don, you asked for any news from G5344-4-2. We’re suddenly getting scanner readings from the lunar surface.”
Don shrugged. “What kind of readings we talking?”
The laaku tilted her head slightly before answering. Carl wondered if Don picked up on laaku body language well enough to note her annoyance. “Any readings are noteworthy. As of ten minutes ago, we picked up nothing. But there appeared to be at least one settlement on the surface, near the point that used to be directly facing us.”
“Used to be?” Carl asked, butting in. These were his moons after all. If one of them was going funky on him, he had a right to know.
“Five hours ago, G5344-4-2 shifted course in its orbit. It is now on course to collide with G5344-4’s atmosphere in two hours…” She pulled out a datapad. “And nineteen minutes.”
Carl looked around to the faces of everyone gathered around him. “What the hell happened while I was gone?” A sinking dread crept over him. “And where the HELL is Mort?”
Clapping a hand on Carl’s shoulder, Don gave him a sympathetic smile. “Mort went over there to kill that alien my daughter was worshiping like a god. By all reports, he did it. They brought Tania back just about an hour ago, delirious.”
“Wait. Back up. Mort killed Devraa?”
“That appears to be the case,” the laaku woman said.
“…who was on that second moon.”
“Yes. I was able to estimate the creature’s base of operations by observing aberrant orbital mechanics and—”
“And now that moon’s going to crash into the planet with Mort on it?”
Don gave a grim nod. “We sent a shuttle over there, but it looks like it was a suicide mission. If they’d survived, the pilot would have brought him back by now.”
Carl jabbed a finger at the laaku scientist. “You said you just started getting readings on that moon, didn’t you?”
“Yes, just moments ago.”
“What’s your name?”
“Shoni of Ikuzu.”
“Shoni, you’re with me.” Carl stormed back into the hangar and shouted to his crew, who were only now disembarking. “Pack it back up. We’ve got a rescue mission. Mort needs us.”
# # #
The controls of his own ship still felt like a treat doled out all too infrequently. But the simple joy of flying the Mobius shrank in the face of his worry over Mort. Carl had crash landed a ship or two in his time and walked away in one piece. But there didn’t seem like much chance of Mort walking away from crashing a goddamn moon. Ithaca’s atmosphere rushed past as the Mobius shot free at full throttle.
“When the hell was someone going to mount a rescue if we hadn’t shown up?” Carl demanded.
In the copilot’s seat, Shoni didn’t look up from her datapad. “We didn’t think anyone had survived. And we didn’t have volunteers lining up to go check out a planetary catastrophe in the making.”
“And when the moon suddenly started showing up on your scanners? No one put two and two together and realized Mort was alive over there?”
They rounded the planet, accelerating all the while, bringing the second moon up on the horizon. Ithaca facing the wrong way in its rotation was just another annoyance in a string of annoyances.
“It seemed likely that Devraa had died in some cataclysmic event on the surface. Who could imagine that anyone survived an event that could knock a moon out of its orbit? Without his influence, the scanner-jamming effect wore off.”
Carl shot the laaku a glare. Normally, he didn’t have anything against science. It produced a lot of shit he liked. But this particular brand of wishful hypothesizing was doing its best to get Mort killed. “And the delay… you just assumed it was a coincidence. You said they brought Tanny back hours ago; sounds like Devraa died and his worshipers went catatonic. Why didn’t the effect on the scanners wear off at the same time? I’ll tell you why: there are these stupid towers in the cities across Ithaca, and when Mort knocks one down, the effect ends. So when I hear that someone can suddenly see stuff on that little moon over there, I get to thinking maybe it was Mort who did it. Am I the only one who isn’t completely dense?”
“Still wouldn’t have been any volunteers,” Shoni muttered.
“Says who? Did anyone bother telling my father?”
“Chuck? He’s a retired comedian.”
“And Mort’s best friend. If my dad hadn’t retired, the two of them would still be flying together. He’d have gone in a heartbeat.”
“Chuck Ramsey was busy running your little operation while you were gone.”
Carl blinked. He’d had nightmares where his parents were running his life again, telling him where to go, imposing curfews on perfectly innocuous planets, and asking his dates more questions about their personal lives than he ever had. Dad muscling in on his new syndicate was worse than the time Mom tried to enroll him in dance classes when he was eight. “Well, me and ‘Chuck’ are going to have a few words when I get back.”
“If we get back…”
Carl glanced over at Shoni. “You are just a little ray of sunshine, aren’t you? I’ve got your data loaded into the nav computer. Get lost. I’ll call you if I need any parades rained on or some actual scientific advice.”
Shoni sighed and unbuckled the safety harness—Carl hadn’t bothered with his. As she sulked her way out of the cockpit, Carl let out a pent-up breath and focused on getting to Mort the quickest way possible.
# # #
The door from the common room opened, and a sleek young laaku slipped through. She was blonde and coiffed with tambor resin in all the right places to make Roddy’s heart palpitate. A black waistcoat outlined her figure, and a pair of clear data lenses obscured her eyes with glowing green readouts too small and backward to make out any detail.
Roddy tucked his EV helm under one arm and leaned casually against the nearest crate. “You must be Shoni. Missed you on the way in. I was doing last-minute engine checks. I’m Rodek of Kethlet. Everyone calls me Roddy.”
Even through the data lenses, Roddy noticed the eye roll. “Oh, yes. I must not have heard of the only other laaku on G5344-4-3, the one who named that fighting game in the rec hall after himself.”
Roddy chuckled good-naturedly. “Yup, that’d be me. You like it?”
“And you’re the drunk.”
Clearing his throat, Roddy pulled himself upright. “Um, that’d also be me.”
“It’s a diverting game and better cardiovascular exercise than most digitized entertainment. A bit crude in form and subject, however.”
“Wasn’t aiming for art. I just wanted a vent for the steam I was building up going sober. Ain’t easy, lemme tell ya.”
Shoni crossed her upper arms. “I pulled your file, Rodek. Criminal history aside, you excelled in schoo
l and have well-above-average intelligence.”
Roddy shrugged. “I test well.”
“So why the affected human gutter accent? Your English aptitude scores are as good any. You ought not sound like a hooligan.”
Flipping his EV helm upside down, he spun it atop one outstretched finger. “Sister, you ain’t been out of the core worlds much, have you? I’d bet this is the first field trip to the ass-end of the galaxy Don Rucker’s taken you on. Lemme clue you in: everyone hates a smartass. Guys like Mort can get away with being Mr. Know-It-All because he can turn people to gooey meat. Someone like me, I gotta live off good will and a little edge. Some rough customer takes me for an egghead and a blaster at my hip won’t make him think twice. Plus, talking like some prissy grammar snob would probably be what got him pissed at me in the first place.”
“You could do better than this. The reason you don’t see many laaku on smuggler crews is because we are valued at our trades. I… I could speak to Don Rucker about finding you a position.”
So that’s where this was going. Two puzzle pieces interlocked in his mind. Shoni was probably the only laaku working for the Ruckers. That had to get lonely in a way that Roddy could relate to. While he wouldn’t mind some female company, he wasn’t going to let hormone-guided thinking get him dragged into working for Don. “Hey, let’s just worry about this rescue mission and getting back out alive.”
Esper cleared her throat. Roddy had forgotten her, standing by the controls to the cargo ramp in her EV suit. “We’re going to have to pump out the air. You should go back to the common room, Shoni.”
Shoni nodded, beating a hasty retreat for the door. “Right. Sorry.” The fur at her neck bristled in embarrassment.
The door clanged shut, and Roddy turned to Esper. “Sorry about that.”
“What’s to be sorry about? You two would be cute together.”
They plunked their EV helms on, and Esper hit the airlock controls. Red lights strobed and the klaxon blared as the atmosphere was pumped from the cargo bay.
# # #
Mort stared up into the sky over Little Brother. Lucky him, he was seeing the end of the world with front-row seating. The nameless gas giant blotted out the stars practically from horizon to horizon, its features cloaked in the shadow of the sun. If not for the light of his staff, Mort would have been watching in utter darkness. If not for the necklace producing breathable air scented with cattle, he’d have already been dead.
At his side, Samson Richelieu lay slumbering, face covered in a scientific breathing mask that made Mort wary of performing any last-minute magicks. So long as there was hope of rescue, he wouldn’t doom the poor lad to suffocation by kerfuzzling the science his life clung to.
Mort hadn’t lived a good life. Oh, he’d lived a rich and interesting one, to be sure. But goodness played into it only rarely. He and the Almighty were in for a rough patch reviewing a lifetime of questionable moral decision-making, and Mort was under no delusion as to who’d come out the worse for it. Still, the hours or minutes he had left were scarcely enough time to peel the plastic packaging off his misdeeds.
He spat on a scrap of cloth he’d found in his wandering around the city, finding obelisks to smash. As he watched the blotted sky, he spit-cleaned Devraa’s dried blood from his staff. It was just something to pass the time. Whether he died with a clean staff or a bloody one was little matter. Cleaning his soul wasn’t so easy.
A familiar whine and roar perked up Mort’s old ears and lifted his spirits. “Hot diggity damn. Someone finally sent over a rescue.” Tossing aside his rag, Mort clambered to his feet and prepared to act casual. There was no need for anyone else to know the dark wanderings of a wizard’s thoughts in what he suspected might be his final hour. Either the Mobius was about to land, or someone had rigged up another old laaku-cobbled jalopy out of spare starships.
“Missed me again, you rotten bastard. Keep trying and you’ll win one day. But today, I win again.” Among wizards—who argued with the universe as a matter of course—addressing other ephemeral concepts like Death, Fate, or Karma wasn’t considered socially awkward. Taunting them, however, was considered gauche.
The Mobius set down a dozen or so yards away from the shuttle crash site. The cargo ramp was already opening before it settled. “Come to enjoy the view?” he called out, waving.
But the two figures back-lit in the cargo bay were wearing out-of-ship suits with the helmets on. One was obviously Roddy, and the other had a rather Esper-like shape, though Mort knew better than to guess. Getting that sort of thing wrong engendered more hurt feelings than it had any right to—and two for the price of one.
Pointing with his staff, he illuminated Samson. “Get the lad aboard. He’s broken just about everything conveniently breakable, so go gentle on him. Maybe some healing magic would be in order.”
The Esper-shaped figure nodded and slung Samson over a shoulder. He was twice her size with room to spare, but she’d gotten good enough at self-modifying magic that she could manage the strength to lug him around. Hopefully, she was being subtle enough with it that she wasn’t going to suffocate him by cutting off the science to his breathing mask.
Roddy scurried aboard the shuttle. Mort called after him. “There’s nothing in there, you daft chimp. This isn’t a salvage; it’s an escape.”
While the helm would muffle the laaku’s voice, Roddy was adept enough with hand gestures to tell Mort exactly what he thought of that suggestion.
Storming off, Mort decided to get aboard the Mobius before there was an accident or miscommunication that resulted in him being left behind. Then, for a few dark, spiteful heartbeats, he wondered just what it would take to arrange such an “accident” for the smart-fingered chimp.
The spinny lights were spinning red in the cargo bay, which meant Mort was still depending on his necklace for air. Esper was waiting inside with Samson slung across the floor. If she recognized him, she had yet to give any sign. Impatient to speak with Carl, Mort climbed the metal steps and tried to turn the door handle, but it was locked.
The thought occurred to him that he could get through any number of ways. Simply overpowering the lock was an option. He could overload the airlock systems, which would probably release the lock. He could also discorporate and walk through the metal. However, any of these options were quite likely to throw the Mobius out of whack when it was in rather urgent need of being properly in whack. Mort was just going to have to trust that Carl knew exactly how long they had before Little Brother became Little Barbecue.
Roddy came back moments later with a small technological device the size of a double-decker sandwich tucked under one arm. As soon as his feet hit the ramp, the Mobius lifted off. Mort waited through the whole bloody cycle of the ship sorting its breathable air from its non-breathable, that blasted racket from the klaxon honking the whole while.
When it stopped, Esper was the first to pull off her helm. “Mort, who is this pilot?” She knelt over him, checking his injuries.
“You know damn well. It’s your brother Samson.”
“Thought so,” Esper muttered as she felt along his ribs. “Can you give me a hand with—”
“Roddy, take care of the lady and her brother. I need to talk with Carl.”
Mort didn’t give the laaku any time to answer. Stepping through the now-unlocked common room door, he found himself in a bizarre family picnic. He didn’t pause, but the scene slowed him and kept his head from watching where his feet were taking him as he passed through. “Um, Jaxon and… Rachel, right? Sorry, fuzzy on the rest of you. We’ll do introductions later.”
The two former Half-Devil pilot friends of Carl’s were sitting around the holo-projector playing computer games with a mixed pair of children as a pale-furred laaku looked on. Mort blinked and shook his head, refocusing on the task at hand.
“Carl,” he called out as he approached the cockpit.
Carl leaned around to look back from the pilot’s seat. “Hey, keep outta here.
Last thing I need is—”
“To crash back down to the moon’s surface,” Mort finished for him. “I might not have gotten every last obelisk. It wasn’t exactly the time to be doing surveying work. Just take us as straight up as possible, just to be safe.”
“Straight up is the gas giant.”
“Your call. Damned if I know which is worse for a starship.” Of course, Mort did know. Crashing was sure death, and at best, it was a tie. But he’d have wagered good terras that the Mobius could handle yet another strange atmosphere today.
Duty discharged, Mort meandered back to the common room. But while everyone else’s attention was focused on the racing game being played on the holo-projector, Mort turned his eyes skyward to the domed ceiling and the view of the cosmos beyond. Flames washed over the glassteel as the Mobius forced its way through Little Brother’s sky toward the safety of anywhere-but-here. The flames flickered out and died as they reached the vacuum, only to commence briefly seconds later as they skipped along the outer layer of the gas giant.
Mort had assumed that the silence as he witnessed these vast, cosmic events unfold was due to his keen focus and powers of concentration. But the noise of simulated racing had stopped. The game wasn’t just paused, it had been shut off entirely. Everyone in the common room was transfixed as the Mobius pulled clear of the impending planetary calamity. If there was yet another hidden civilization down deep in the bowels of that gassy world, they were in for a bad day. But such grim speculation held little thrall compared to the events unfolding before their eyes. The glassteel dome framed the moon and planet perfectly, even as it grew ever more distant.
Carl’s voice came over the comm. “I swung us around and set us adrift. Common room should have the best view besides the cockpit.”
A moment later, the door to Carl’s quarters opened and Amy emerged. She glanced up, but headed for the cockpit without a word to any of them. Roddy came up from the cargo bay and grabbed a beer from the fridge. Yomin—Mort was fairly certain that was the tech girl’s name—ventured out of her bunk to join them as well. Lastly, Esper arrived with her brother’s arm draped over her shoulders, helping him walk.
