Stitching Snow

by R. C. Lewis

  He shrugged his slumped shoulders. “Must be. But it’d be a mighty powerful one to get through up here. What would a boy like this be doing with such a thing, and alone?”

  That question piqued the part of my brain that craved new puzzles. “I’ll find out. You’re exhausted, Petey. Head on home.” I cut off his attempt to protest. “You all have work to do in the morning, and if I can handle Jarom Thacker, I can handle one injured boy from Garam. I’ll let you know if I find out anything.”

  He gave in and left again, slamming the door a bit hard on his way out—hard enough to rouse my mysterious guest, who began to stir. From the groan, I guessed I hadn’t gone heavy enough with the painkillers. He wouldn’t be feeling too spry, but I palmed a tack laser behind my back, just in case. As well as I could handle a fight, a makeshift weapon meant a lot less effort.

  A second groan resolved into words. “Ow…What—where am I?”

  “On Thanda. Mining Settlement Forty-Two.”

  His eyes wandered, unfocused, until they settled on me. Dark eyes with an unnerving depth to them. “Forty-Two…There was a malfunction, smoke everywhere.”

  “Aye, then you crashed about eight links from the settlement.”

  “Crashed?!”

  He pushed himself up, too fast, nearly toppling over before I pushed him back with my free hand.

  “Slow down. You’re not going anywhere just yet.”

  “My shuttle. Is it—?” The boy gasped for breath, pain contorting his face and raising sweat across his forehead. I thought about giving him a higher dose of painkillers, but decided I preferred him immobile.

  “Still in one piece, but in a bit of a state. It’s not going anywhere just yet, either.”

  “How bad is it? Can it be repaired? Is there someone who could do that?”

  A snort of laughter slipped out. “The slugs around here are good enough at using machines, but haven’t a baby’s first gasp on how to make them work to begin with. Garamite brains like yours, you can manage yourself, right?”

  “What? I…Not my area. Botany. I don’t know anything about shuttles. But it has to be fixed. I can’t stay here forever.”

  “True enough. Forty-Two’s work crew is full up, and you don’t seem the mining type. Mind telling me why you’ve gone to the trouble of scan-scrambling your way here in the first place?”

  He paled enough to tell me it wasn’t just about the pain. “What do you mean?”

  “We may not be brilliant Garamites around here, but we know there’s only one way to get to the surface undetected. There are three habitable planets in this solar system other than your Garam, and no one chooses Thanda for a vacation. So why are you here?”

  “You’ll laugh.”

  Unlikely. I told him so without a word.

  “I’m treasure hunting.”

  “If you think you’re going to steal one speck of merinium, those miners will make you wish we hadn’t pulled you from that wreck.”

  My decided lack of laughter seemed to startle him. “No, not merinium! Not even close. Chasing stories, that’s all. Doesn’t much matter now, if my shuttle can’t be repaired.”

  A sigh hefted my chest. He didn’t have many options, and neither did we. Only two, really—report him to Immigration or not. No one in the settlement wanted government officials coming around if it could be avoided. We were happy to be far from the eyes and ears of the crown on Windsong. As long as this boy didn’t interfere with our mine, no one would much care what kind of lawbreaker he was.

  That left another two options to decide between: help him or leave him to fend for himself. His specially equipped shuttle was the only quiet way out. If he couldn’t put it back together, he’d be stranded.

  His problem, not mine. Not even sure I could help if I wanted to—a Garamite shuttle wouldn’t be anything like a Thandan mining drone. I wouldn’t know where to begin fixing it.

  Do what needs doing.

  I shivered. Memories of my mother’s voice hadn’t haunted me in years. It was right, though. Everything from my gut to my toes to the tips of my eyelashes told me someone had to help launch him back into orbit, save him from the trouble he’d fallen into by believing some ridiculous legend about treasure. He needed a favor on a planet where nothing came free.

  Nothing except all the favors Petey had done for me when I first arrived in Forty-Two. I wouldn’t have survived my first snows without him. Maybe it was my turn.

  Tank it, then. If nothing else, the shuttle could be an interesting puzzle to solve.

  “I might be able to help. No promises—depends on exactly what’s damaged, but I can at least help you figure how bad it is. See where that takes us.”

  His brows furrowed. I wished he’d stop looking at me, but there wasn’t much else to look at in the tiny bedroom. Something in those deep eyes made me want to move closer and run away at the same time, melding curiosity and fear into one confusing sensation.

  “You? A doctor and a mechanic?”

  I harrumphed. “Nothing close. I just know how to read the instructions on medical supplies. And as for machines, let’s just say I’m better with their brains than their bodies most times, so like I said, no promises. But you don’t have many options here, do you?” When he stared without answering, I rolled my eyes. “Look, do you have a name, Garamite?”

  “What? Oh, Dane.”

  “Fine. Dane. It’s the middle of the night, so I suggest you rest up while I do the same. In the morning we can see what there is to work with.”

  Dane settled back down, admitting his exhaustion. “Fair enough. What’s your name, Thandan?”

  “Essie.”

  “You saved my life, didn’t you, Essie?”

  “Looks like I did. Hope you don’t give me reason to regret it.”

  Dane opened his mouth to say something else, but I didn’t wait. I closed him in the bedroom, crossed the small kitchen and living area, and shut myself in my lab. Several half-finished programs called to me, but my muscles felt like they’d been injected with merinium. I checked the drones along the side wall—all seven of them in standby mode to recharge—and settled on the cot I kept at the back of the room.

  I set the tack laser on the floor within easy reach…just in case.

  A sleepless night never stopped me from getting up early, especially not with a stranger under my roof—not that any other stranger had ever been under my roof. While four of the drones set off for work in the mine and Dimwit reorganized my interface cables for the eighteenth time, I held Ticktock and Zippy back. I’d need Ticktock’s help out at the shuttle, and Zippy needed some patching. During the rescue, it had overloaded several circuits by operating too fast…again. Maybe I could finally get its timing locked down.

  Fixing Zippy came first—I couldn’t keep both drones out of the mine all day—though my mind kept wandering to the shuttle.

  “Ticktock, what files do you have on Class Three Garamite shuttles?”

  “Production history, design options, safety records, artistic renderings—”

  My mistake for asking a broad question. “Do you have any official schematics?”

  “Negative, Essie.”

  “Okay, come here and plug in.” I loaded up some crack-codes and scanned the off-planet networks I’d already broken into before, looking for an easy way to get something useful. Garamites were clever with tech and had some blazing stubborn barriers on their computers, but I found a maintenance network that was less fiercely guarded. It had exactly what I needed. “Download those files and share them with the others.”

  I had hooked up Zippy to my diagnostic system and was tracing out the blown circuits. Then I replaced them, reworked the timing, and went back for more. My mind settled into the routine, stitching and testing, searching for the solution to yet another problem. A snip here, a patch of code there, a route I hadn’t tried before.

  Numbers. Logic. Puzzles. The clarity of the routine relaxed me.

  “Essie, right?”


  I jumped and nearly fried Zippy. Dane stood in the doorway to the lab, looking worn but a bit more alert, and he’d removed the smart-plaster from his forehead. His eye contact unnerved me as much as it had the night before, but then his gaze flicked to my hair. I had a small scarf tied over it to keep it out of my way, but hadn’t tucked and wrapped it fully like I had for the fight.

  “What, never seen a redhead before?”

  He cleared his throat and averted his eyes, but I wondered if maybe he hadn’t seen my hair’s exact color before. The only dyes I could get were the ones the good-time girls used, and they weren’t much for subtlety. Red mixed with a touch of purple had been the closest to a natural hair color I could manage. But it was better than risking recognition with the hair I’d been born with.

  “Sorry,” he said, hesitating. Then, “Nice computer.”

  My pride and joy had been cobbled together one component at a time when I won enough shares to buy them, stitched together from scratch when I didn’t. I tapped the command to run another test on Zippy’s timing algorithms. In the green—supposedly.

  “The junk-tech here is scrap compared to what you have on Garam, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged. “Looks like it does its job, and that’s what matters. Last night is a little fuzzy. Did you say something about not reporting me to the authorities?”

  “Not yet,” I said, keeping an edge of warning in my voice. I’d contacted Petey first thing to fill him in, and he’d agreed to my wait-and-see approach. “The miners would say the authorities are more trouble than you’re worth, so just don’t go making enough trouble to change that.”

  “I’m very interested in being trouble-free. You also said we could go check on my shuttle?”

  “It’s a long walk. Sure you’re feeling up to it?” A glare was all the answer he’d give, and he did seem steady enough on his feet. “Right, fine. Just let me finish stitching up this circuit board.”

  “Stitching?”

  “Working microcontacts is the closest I come to needlework. It’s a bit of a joke for the men, so that’s what we call all my fixing and coding and general fiddling.” I made the last few connections to bring the drone back online and lugged it off the platform. “Right, then, Zippy. That should do you for now. Off to work you go.”

  Zippy whistled an acknowledgment and scuttled out past Dane. Still a little too fast to my eye. Maybe that one was a fight I’d have to forfeit.

  “You should eat something. Here.” I tossed Dane a nutri-bar, which he snapped out of the air. Good reflexes. “Your coat’s by the door. Bundle up.” Blazes, now I’m saying it, too. Of course, with Dane being from Garam, maybe it wasn’t stating the obvious.

  While he ate, I loaded a case with an assortment of gadgets and gear. Not that I had any real idea what I’d need. Working on the drones was one thing—I’d spent most of my time in Settlement Forty-Two fussing with their inner workings, teaching myself how they ran. Off-planet shuttles, not so much. But Ticktock had enough tools built in to handle most things…I hoped.

  Dimwit held an interface cable I wanted, still determined to find the perfect order for the set. When I tried to take it, the drone latched on with a grip I’d never break. I gave two useless tugs, then reached toward its shut-off switch. It let go.

  Dane was ready by then, so I shrugged into my own coat, slung the case over my shoulder, and shoved through the door. The pair of drones trailed after me, and Dane took the hint to follow. I let all of them pass so I could lock up. Despite his coat, Dane shivered.

  “It’s so dark,” Dane said. “Storm coming in?”

  “This?” I snorted. “No, cloudy through the day, clear at night… just another beautiful day on Thanda. Best way to keep warm is to keep moving.”

  The clouds may have meant no storm, but Dane quickly launched into a blizzard of questions. “What kind of robots are these?”

  “Mining drones.”

  “So why aren’t they in the mine?”

  “Because Ticktock’s loaded with a schematic of your shuttle, and because everyone agrees blowing up the mine is a bad thing. Not for nothing I call this one Dimwit.”

  “Dimwit Essie help Essie.”

  “And I can’t seem to correct that ‘loyal puppy’ programming glitch.”

  We walked on, the faint hum and grind of machinery at the mine fading to nothing, leaving the quieter whirr and scuttle of the drones. Since Dane didn’t know where he was going, I had a ready excuse for keeping in front. As nice as it was to avoid his unsettling glances, I didn’t like having him behind me. My instincts said to keep an eye on him.

  Side by side it is.

  “Keep a sharp eye where you step,” I advised as we got deeper into the woods. “And if you find yourself out here alone, mind you don’t veer to the north. We’ve had a few sinkholes up that way.”

  “Lovely planet.”

  “If you wanted lovely, you should’ve crashed in the Bands.”

  “What are the Bands?”

  Blazes, he doesn’t know even that much?

  “Equatorial zones,” Ticktock provided, “comprising fifty-seven percent of Thandan population with native flora including—”

  “That’s enough, you,” I cut in. “It’s the one place on the planet that still manages a glimmer of warmth now and again.”

  “If it’s better, why aren’t you there?”

  The incessant questions were getting me right rinked off, yet I answered just the same. “Busy enough here, aren’t I?”

  “Do you ever go down there?”

  The men did. Every ten days—two weeks by Thandan reckoning—a different rotation of miners went down to the Bands for a five-day visit with their families, lovers, or bottles of something better than Petey’s jack-ale. I could have, too, but I didn’t. Ever.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “No place nor need for me. The Bands is all women and children, and men too old or too crippled to work the mines anymore.”

  “You are a girl,” he pointed out.

  I braved his eyes long enough to shoot him a glare, and there was no doubt he felt the heat of it as his step stuttered. “I am, and I may be the only one living in Forty-Two. But I’m no one’s wife and no one’s good time, and I’ve no intention of letting that change anytime soon.”

  “I’m not saying you shouldn’t be here. It’s intriguing, that’s all.”

  Intrigue…not something I was looking for. A grunt was response enough, and he fell mercifully silent. The reprieve continued until we emerged onto the flats, where a sharp gasp signaled Dane’s first sight of his damaged ship. His only sure way of ever going home no longer looked sure at all.

  “Come on, now,” I said, marching ahead toward the shuttle. When he gave no response, I turned back. Dane was leaning against the last tree, breathing heavily, his arm held tight against his ribs. “You all right?” I asked, heading back to him in case he collapsed. “I knew I shouldn’t have brought you out here before you’d recovered.”

  He grabbed my arm. Fire shot through me at the point of contact. My fingers curled into a fist, but he pulled himself upright and released me.

  “I’m fine,” he muttered. “Let’s go.”

  To figure how seriously botched the ship was, I had to stitch up my own mess. When I’d told the drones to cut the power, they’d done a right thorough job of it.

  “There,” I said to Ticktock. “Splice that last connection. Try it now, Dane.”

  He threw a switch, and a flickering hum ran through the ship, but only a few indicator lights flashed to life. “We’ve got power. Looks like everything’s offline, though.”

  “Good, that’s how I want it. Last thing I need is another spark-shower.”

  He handed me a water-pack, and I pulled a thumb-size device from my pocket and waited for the readout to turn green before taking a drink. When Dane tilted his head curiously, I grunted.

  “It’s not personal,” I said. “I always check the w
ater. Right, time to see what we’re facing.” I retrieved a boxy contraption from my case and patched it into the ship’s systems.

  “What is that?”

  “An Essie exclusive. Lets me have run of the place without asking its permission,” I said, taking my slate from my coat pocket and initiating an interlink with both the panel and the schematics in Ticktock’s memory banks. “This way I can run my own diagnostics. Given the state of this place, I don’t trust its computer to tell me the truth.”

  “Makes sense. Anything I can do to help?”

  I checked the results, and my heart plummeted to the mines. The first few lines on the diagnostic readout held nothing but headaches, and it only got worse. My instinct not to trust the computer had been dead-on. It was thrashed. Several subroutines had been wiped out by the overloads, and most of the others were a corrupted mess.

  Then there was the physical damage. Most of it was superficial, but some key components had blown out, including what I suspected was the scan-scrambler. Ticktock cross-referenced what we saw with the schematic and maintenance files, detailing the repairs necessary. All that was straightforward enough.

  Except the maintenance files assumed we had access to Garamite clean-tech. And the diagnostic wasn’t even done yet.

  Fixing everything would be more than a favor. More than twenty favors.

  “You can tell me if you have anything valuable on board that we can trade for parts.”

  “Some merinium.”

  I couldn’t help a laugh, but felt no humor. “That’s the one thing we don’t need in Forty-Two. We’ve got a mine full of it. Exactly what kind of treasure hunt are you on, Dane?”

  When no answer came, I stared, daring him to remain silent. His eyes had changed, darkening, like they hid as much as mine.

  “It’s a story I heard.” He spoke carefully, watched me as though my reaction would dictate each word that followed. “Something about a treasure big enough to change things.”

  “Change what kinds of things?”

  “Things on Windsong, maybe.”

  Memories shuddered through me at the mention of that planet—sunlight dancing on the mountains, rainbow orchids, birds singing every morning…shadows looming over me, pain and silence and must-keep-quiet—