Rayessa and the Space Pirates

by Donna Maree Hanson

  ‘Opeia, darling,’ he said, smoothly. His whole mannerism changed. My eyes flicked from Alwin, who was struggling to stand, to Gayens, who was still close enough to snuff me, to the woman, a very familiar woman.

  ‘Don’t darling me, Carl. You really think I’m that stupid. I’ve been monitoring this room since they came in. You didn’t know I was watching that mail account did you? I know everything. Have known everything from the beginning, except where you had hidden her. I come from a long line of business sharks and you have finally played into my hands. It’s takeover time.’

  ‘Opeia, I can explain. She’s a clone. I know I shouldn’t have made her. I wanted to get rid of her so you wouldn’t find out. I know how much you hate the idea of clones. Why do you hate my research so much?’

  The woman stepped forward and my breath caught. Somewhere inside me, I recognised the auburn hair and creamy skin. Her eyes were grey like mine but larger.

  ‘Opi?’ I said. A faint image of a room with toys and a laughing face, overlaid with a sense of happiness loomed out of my mind. I was mesmerised by my mother. Her eyes bored into mine as she walked over. They were kindly and sparkled with tiny dots of light.

  ‘In a minute, honey. I have to deal with Carl first.’ She glared at him, those kind eyes now hard. ‘Let’s get a few things straight, Carl. I’m not stupid, and you’re an ass. You think I didn’t know Essa wasn’t mine? Do you think I couldn’t tell my own daughter? Do you think I let you hang around because I desired you, liked your company? I cut your funds and closed down your research because I was getting ready to jettison you.’

  Alwin butted in. ‘But when Rae went missing you couldn’t do it.’ She assessed Alwin. I think I saw a flash of recognition in her eyes.

  ‘Bright boy. Exactly.’ She took another step towards Gayens. ‘So I’ve kept you near me, waiting for this moment.’ Gayens’ gun came up again, though he didn’t know where to point it.

  ‘Bitch. You undid me. Ruined me. I lost everything in that riot.’ Spittle was flying out of Gayens’ mouth. His hands were shaking. I didn’t like it. Desperate people did unpredictable things. I knew that much.

  ‘I know,’ she said, smiling in a predatory way, ‘that’s why I started it. It was what I needed to get the law changed.’

  Gayens’ gun wavered. All three of us were on a knife-edge. Opeia’s aim never wavered. She was waiting for the opportunity to puncture him, I was sure. I could almost see her desire for him to play into her hands. I shook my head. She was a brave woman. I don’t think I could’ve done the same in her place.

  I took a risk. I bent my knees and pushed up. Lightly suspended by gravity I took aim. Alwin, seeing my move, ducked and toppled Opeia. My foot connected with Gayens’ gun. It spun in apparent slow motion up and away.

  Opeia yelled frantically into her communicator. ‘Now, now, now.’ Three security guards burst in, one from the main door, one from a side door and one from the ceiling. Carl Gayens was buried under three muscled bodies, his screams of outrage muffled by the security guards’ bulk.

  I stepped back, eyes searching for Alwin. He stood behind Opeia, watching everything at once. I supposed his mind was thinking, calculating as was his usual way.

  They dragged Gayens to his feet. He flopped between the guards and the beginnings of a huge bruise puffed his eye.

  ‘Thanks,’ Opeia said, dusting off her hands. ‘Did you get all that, Lieutenant?’

  Another man sauntered in, young looking, but not young, with beady eyes and thick eyebrows. He had a dark goatee on his rather wide chin. He reminded me of a pirate I once met. ‘Yes, thank you Ms Gayens.’ His voice grated like a rusty conveyor belt with misaligned spokes and cogs. ‘Mr Gayens won’t be troubling you for some time. Perhaps never.’

  ‘Great.’

  The guards dragged the sagging Gayens out. He glared at her. ‘By the way, Carl, you’ll have to represent yourself in court. You have no assets remember.’ He groaned and began cursing her loudly. The door shut with a snap, cutting him off.

  I stood there open mouthed. Opeia stepped towards me, touched my cheek with her forefinger and smiled.

  ‘So you remember me, Rae?’ she said softly.

  I examined her face. It stirred a ghost of a memory. ‘Not much. I associate the word “Opi” with you. I don’t know why.’

  Alwin looked embarrassed, not knowing whether to go or stay. I reached for his hand and squeezed it.

  ‘Because that’s what you used to call me.’ A tear slid down her cheek. I was feeling pretty choked up myself. Just then, the main door opened and a girl with a long plait, deep in the embrace of a young man with long blonde hair and dressed in leather and studs, fell through the door. At first I thought they were wrestling but then I realised they were kissing.

  Alwin gaped at me and I shrugged. ‘What next?’ I said to myself.

  Opeia’s eyebrow rose and she angled herself in their direction. ‘Honey, Essa come and meet your sister.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Family Found

  The girl extracted herself from her boyfriend’s embrace. She adjusted her exquisite beige pants suit and tossed her braid over her shoulder. ‘Oh Mummy,’ she said in a posh voice. ‘Didn’t see you.’

  My mouth opened and shut. It was me, but not me. She walked elegantly and sounded like a female Alwin Anton. I sneaked a look at him. He was staring open mouthed at Essa, my clone, the other me.

  ‘Dirk,’ Opeia said to her clone daughter’s male companion. ‘Wait for Essa in her room dear. We’ve got some family things to discuss.’

  Dirk turned and headed for the middle door. Opeia aimed her security pass and it slid open, revealing a large elegant room with a huge bed on the other side. I couldn’t help staring at Dirk. Now that I looked at him I realised he wasn’t wearing much but a few strips of leather and studs. His well-tanned backside was suspended in a strappy affair and his back was painted with shimmer gloss.

  Opeia spoke, ‘Really Essa. I’ve told you before, associating with him is bad form.’

  Essa sniffed and walked over. ‘But I like him and I’m on holidays. You know it’s nothing serious, just a bit of fun.’ The girl’s grey eyes met mine and she stood stock still. ‘Who is that? She looks like me.’

  I was dripping with envy. My clone was evidently educated, classy, sophisticated and well dressed. Everything I wasn’t. I’d been eating beans and hardtack while she had lived the life I was meant to have. I was being rejected by Alwin for being young and naïve, while she was romping it around with all types of people. Life sucked, really sucked.

  ‘This is your twin, honey,’ said Opeia, keeping her eyes on me. ‘Rae’s been lost for a while. Rae, meet Essa, your twin sister.’

  Essa was fascinated with me. She stepped slowly around me, head angling up and down as she took in every detail of my identical form. ‘A twin? You’re kidding me aren’t you? You’ve had a clone made. Oh Daddy is so funny sometimes.’

  ‘I’m not a clone. You’re…’

  ‘Now dears let’s be nice about this,’ Opeia said neatly. ‘Rae was stolen away quite some time ago. I’ve been searching for her ever since. I never told you, Essa, because I didn’t want to distress you. But Rae is my child as you are. She hasn’t had all your advantages but she’ll catch up.’

  Essa took her gaze off me and stared at our mother, confusion evident on her smooth creamy features. ‘Mummy, this is all very strange. Is she going to live with us?’ My mother didn’t answer, yet Essa saw the response in Opeia’s face. Her hand went to tug on her braid. ‘I can’t take this in right now. I need to…to, um, see to something. Catch you later, um, Rae.’

  Essa backed away then catching sight of Alwin, paused. ‘Oh, you’re nice. Want to play later? I’m sort of distracted right now.’

  ‘That tears it,’ I said. ‘Listen here you brat. Keep your hands off the company auditor. If I can’t touch him, neither can you.’

  ‘Brat. Me?’ Her fists bunched up. Swinging round th
e words toppled out of her mouth, ‘You smelly, slimy, little cow, waltzing in here saying anything that pops into your ignorant mouth. How dare you speak to me like that?’ Essa looked past me. ‘Mummy, tell her not to speak to me like that.’

  I glanced over my shoulder at my mother. Her eyes rolled up and she sighed.

  ‘Essa dear, go to your room. Relax honey. I need to speak with Mr Anton and your sister, okay.’

  Essa pouted, then tearing her gaze from my mother to me, then flounced off to her bedroom. Staring at her closed door, I was very tense. How did I deal with another me? Someone who had everything I had ever wanted. My emotions were climbing over each other. I did not know what to do or say or think.

  Alwin’s hand found mine, and he drew me to the couch. ‘Come on relax now. The worst is over,’ he said gently.

  Opeia sat down too. ‘How I pined for you dear,’ she said, from my other side. She picked up my hand and stroked it with her finger. ‘I wondered if you were alive or dead for so long. I loved Essa in your place, knowing she wasn’t you but a part of you. Sort of a twin. I hope you can get along. She doesn’t know she’s your clone. It would destroy her. Promise me you will never tell her.’

  ‘But she’s lived my life. She is everything I’ve ever dreamed of being. I can’t help feeling resentment.’

  ‘It wasn’t her fault you know. She had no choice.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Rae, please, promise me.’

  ‘Okay. I promise. But it hurts. It really hurts.’

  She lightly stroked my hair. It felt wonderful and strange. Only Gris had been affectionate with me. ‘Clones have equal rights to humans now. That’s the law. She has the same rights as you do. I have a duty to her as a parent. That’s why people don’t make them anymore. There’s no value in it. If a clone is a human then they can’t be used for labour, or body parts or to replace people.

  ‘Your Dad wasn’t always bad you know. He loved his research. But it got too much for him, science versus ethics. He couldn’t deal with both. Being God and creating people was all that mattered to him.’

  ‘How did you know Essa was a clone, Ms Gayens?’ Alwin asked. I looked at his handsome face, watching his mouth as he spoke. He was always so clever, asking the best questions and looking good doing it.

  ‘Carl was right, she didn’t have a flag on her cells. It was hard to differentiate her that way. He’d tried to transfer Rae’s memories to Essa and he succeeded in implanting some, but not all. There were small differences. She never called me Opi, for instance.’

  ‘So that’s why I couldn’t remember my life before I went to the outpost.’

  ‘Probably.’ Her soft grey eyes studied my face and her lips tensed. ‘Can you give your mother a hug? I’ve missed you so much. If I didn’t have to go to gaol for doing it, I would have killed that bastard husband of mine.’

  I uncoiled myself and edged closer. My mother smelt like a garden of sweet-smelling flowers. It teased another memory within me. Her perfume was the same as it had been when I was a child. I clung to her. I was finally home. I had found where I belonged.

  I felt Alwin get up. As I hugged my mother close I said, ‘Please stay, Alwin. Just a little while.’

  Opeia nodded. ‘Yes, you must stay,’ she agreed. ‘You can have Gayens’ room. Order whatever you need.’

  ‘Sure,’ I heard him say. He sat back down next to me and I smiled on the inside. I’d been through so much, loved and lost two fathers, gained a mother, a sister and a home. But beside me there had been Alwin, smart, brave and there to help me. I couldn’t let him go. Not then, not ever.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sisters & Lovers

  Sisters are very interesting creatures, especially when they seem to have everything you don’t. Like a good eye for fashion, for example, or an annoying desire to have the man you want for yourself. Essa was articulate, or so she told me. She talked with Alwin about galactic events, Earth history and the latest techno gadgets. To really show me up, she talked business with my mother.

  I felt like wiping the smile off her face when she strode confidently around the living room, posed in front of the view port and named the model, make and manufacture of all the ships she could see and could pretty well guess which home planet they were from.

  I sat on the sofa and glared at the ceiling, trying to unclench my fists. She ate delicately, with more utensils than I knew existed. I was putting on weight and had to watch what I ate. Even Opi had told me to stop wolfing down my food. I couldn’t help it. I’d never had so much food before—real, delicious food.

  Essa sat down opposite me and smiled. I grimaced back. I was dressed in my very own top-of-the-line ship suit. I had 20 of them in all colours. This particular one was violet, like the shade of the slave woman’s eyes. Alwin was watching the news broadcasts, on about 10 channels at the same time.

  Essa swapped seats to sit next to me, leaned over and whispered in my ear. ‘I really like him. If he’s not taken, do you mind if I, you know, try my hand.’

  Alwin had been so polite. We’d never spoken about that kiss on the ship and about what he’d said, about my youth, our age difference or feelings. He stayed with us because every day at breakfast when he said he had to leave I asked him to stay. Opeia would chime in on queue and give him some silly business-related task to do and he’d agree. He’d paid the company back and got a huge reward. He’d invested it wisely, so my mother said. Typical, I thought to myself.

  Then the penny dropped. I turned to Essa with my face screwed up. ‘I don’t know how you do it. Just leave him alone. Believe me, if he’s interested he’ll let you know.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said. It sounded like my own voice, richly cultured. ‘I’m used to taking the initiative. It’s part of the price of being so rich. No one is game to ask you out or seduce you, unless of course they’re slimy, money-grabbing bed crawlers. In that case you get rid of them quickly.’

  ‘I see. Doesn’t sound like much fun.’

  ‘And what would you know. It’s bleeding obvious you’ve never even kissed a man, let alone anything else.’

  ‘I have kissed a man,’ I said, head held high. ‘Several times.’ I’d just counted them up.

  ‘Bet you’ve never been to a highflyer’s party or Jack’s anti-grav disco, or drunk Martian champagne.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I will.’ Not content to leave it there. I thought of a comeback. ‘Look here dear, sis. Have you ever lived on an asteroid with hardly any food, been attacked by pirates, kidnapped, sold on a slave market and…’

  ‘Enough, Rae. I think Essa’s heard enough to be grateful she’s had such a good life.’ Opeia said before they started arguing again.

  I glanced at Essa’s face. She looked shocked. I guess my experience beat hers hands down. I stuck out my tongue.

  She sniffed the air and then oozed off the sofa. She headed for Alwin. I watched out of the corner of my eye, feigning indifference.

  I was pleased that he didn’t take his eyes off the news casts when she came over. Not to be outdone by his lack of interest, she ran her hands lightly across his shoulders. Still he took no notice, so she deepened the touch to a massage. He pivoted in his chair, thus stopping her ministrations, but ended up giving her his full attention.

  I was looking now. He was wearing a ship suit, indigo-coloured and tight. It hugged his body like nothing else I’d seen. It left nothing to the imagination. Given Essa’s tendencies I could understand why she found him hard to resist. I found him hard to resist. I was fascinated with him, dreamed about him, lived and breathed him. But I never said anything, never let on. I couldn’t bear the rejection.

  My eyes tracked her as she whispered to him. He shut off the news broadcasts with a snap. ‘Rae,’ he said, leaping to his feet. ‘Come here.’

  My ears popped up. Was he ordering me? I nearly bounded off the sofa to race over to him. But at the last second I changed my mind. My mother glanced up from her desk in the corner,
a smile about her lips.

  I eased out of my seat and sauntered over, doing a very good imitation of Essa or Del Divlan. I kept my eyes on Alwin as I approached. He didn’t fail to notice. His eyes were practically glued to me. My ship suit didn’t leave much to the imagination either. Two can play at that game.

  ‘Yes, Alwin, you called.’ I looked at Essa, she was backing away slowly. My eyes were drawn back to his.

  ‘Did you tell Essa you had no interest in me?’

  ‘I don’t recall…saying that.’ I said, all the time wondering what Essa had said. I was playing it cool.

  ‘Did you say that I was all hers?’ he asked, his voice suddenly deep.

  My eyes bugged out. ‘Hell no. That rotten cow.’ I turned around and eventually spotted her hiding behind our mother.

  His hands were on my shoulders. He dragged me round to look at him. Stunned, I stared into his deep, dark eyes with my mouth hanging open stupidly.

  ‘Good,’ he said. Then he grabbed me to him and kissed the life out of me. It didn’t scare me this time, so I kissed him back.

  After a while, when the world became real again, and I was safely enfolded in Alwin’s firm embrace, I heard Essa and Opeia laughing.

  ‘Took her long enough,’ said Essa.

  ‘Yes, but it was fun watching them,’ Opi said.

  Families, I thought, I could grow used to this.

  Alwin pushed me back by the shoulders. ‘Now we have Gris to find. Ready?’

  ‘Yes. Let’s go.’

  Epilogue

  The clean, white corridor smelt strange. Thick antiseptic scents covered the metallic taste of blood. I scanned each door, looking for number 97. I reached out a hand, feeling nervous. What if Gris didn’t want to see me? I knocked twice, rap, rap. There was no answer.

  Hesitating, I wondered whether I should go in when I heard my name called.

  ‘Rae.’

  I looked down the corridor and there he was. I knew Gris, even though he had his head shaved and it was covered in scars from surgery. There was something in his eyes, too, they were brighter and more intelligent.