He was right, frustratingly so. “I’ll give you half the cash and you can help crew the ship I’m getting.”
“First Mate,” Lewis said. “Is it an armed ship?”
Alice looked at him in a new light, considering what it might be like to be stuck with someone like Lewis. He didn’t look too old, seemed to have more than a little British in him, and knew his way around weaponry. He was also a better pilot than she was. Having people like him around opened up a whole spectrum of work, and he’d done nothing to seem untrustworthy. It’s what he said that made her question him, but she couldn’t help but think that it was just his way of keeping her on her toes. “It’s an armed ship, and it’s new.”
“So he’s paying market value for what he already owns.”
“The price is high because it’s all got to be done quietly,” Alice said.
“He knows the thief,” Lewis concluded.
“Ex-wife, actually.”
“Why didn’t I guess?” he said, laughing.
“How did you find me in the first place?” Alice asked.
“Does it matter?”
“If I’m to seriously offer you second in command on a brand new ship, yes, it does.”
“It’s like I told you before, I caught wind that you’d been hired to go after something big on the Stellarnet, and thought I’d stay within saving distance,” he said.
“You’ve done this before?”
A holographic news report appeared between them, projected from something he had implanted or was wearing, she couldn’t tell which. A comical news caster announced that ‘Loretta Neve and her three children had been rescued by a group of mercenaries’ over video footage of Lewis and five other rough-looking spacers. “It’s a living,” Lewis said. “This job paid pretty well, but the cash ran out after a few months so I went back out.”
“Why don’t you pick up work like everyone else?”
“You’ve seen the law here,” Lewis said. “Besides, no one will hire a Veers Nine veteran, especially one who grew up here. I’m damaged goods, and, to be honest, my first few jobs didn’t go well. Now I only get hired by other mercs, and they don’t pay well unless I’m already saving their asses. I’m the art of ‘right time, right place’ all personified and such.”
“You don’t get secondary command codes,” Alice said. His methods would require more investigation, but there would be plenty of time for that.
“I have to earn your trust, I’m square with that,” Lewis replied.
“I don’t think there will be enough room for your shuttle to dock.”
“It’s an embarrassing planet hopper anyway.”
“You get twenty percent of earnings after expenses,” Alice said, knowing she was pushing her luck.
“Bollocks, you’re twice the thief I thought you were if that’s a serious offer.”
“Okay, twenty five percent.”
“Forty, and I get first pick at new weaponry.”
“Thirty, and you babysit new crew,” Alice said.
“Thirty five and you guarantee that I get to visit family in this sector twice a year.”
“They live here?” Alice asked.
“No one lives here anymore, luv. There’s only mining and fighting. They’re on the Alb Moon Drift, just a few hours away by wormhole gate. My folks didn’t get far.”
“Agreed then, you’re my first officer,” Alice said, swinging her feet over the edge of the cot and standing up.
“Thank the living, a ship bigger than a bread box with someone who can find work,” Lewis said as he strode to the door and punched a few buttons. The hatch slid out of the way and Alice saw what awaited outside. There was a battered four seat skid tethered to the rolling mobile hospital. Across from it was another dented and filthy transport with a red cross painted on the side. It stood on nine two metre tall tires that rolled smoothly, keeping the vehicle mostly level. There were three main floors, and she could see two skids rushing up to hatches like the one they were leaving.
Past the other mobile hospital, she could see the gloomy, stony black terrain. Flashes of light and rumbles in the distance punctuated the night. The ground was barren stone and gravel. “Why fight on the ground?”
“My people put the bombardment barrier up thirty eight years ago, after one of our islands got nuked. Dirty nuke too, radiation killed more than the blast,” Lewis said as he hopped to the skid craft as though he were crossing a room. He held his hands out to her and said. “Gotta start trusting me when you can, not only when you have to if I’m going to be your first.”
Alice nodded and accepted his helping hands. “But that’s not where it ended.”
“Veers Nine is the proud holder of three materials that can’t be synthesized. I don’t know much about them, but one of them is for making living metal, like shift steel, another is big in regenerative science, and the third is part of what makes xetima fuel possible.”
“Pretty rare stuff?” Alice said as she sat in the passenger seat. She looked up the length of the mo-hos and saw that it was in the middle of a long convoy. Armoured antigravity hover trucks, personnel carriers, and hangars on wheels rolled in staggered formation. There were dozens of smaller vehicles zipping between, close to the ground.
“Rare enough for governments and companies to fight for a couple klicks of mining territory at a time. That’s one of our rigs back there." He thumbed over his shoulder.
Alice looked to the rear of the convoy and saw a towering square building with massive angled ports along the bottom. Several vehicles on heavy wheels towed the cultivation structure.
“I remember this place when I was a kid,” Lewis said as he pushed an old credit card into a slot, spending fifty credits and activating the skid. “The place wasn’t pretty compared to New Leeds or some other core world city, but it sure as shit looked better than this. We were rich too, mining was under control, but the wealth was everywhere. Left with my parents after the nuke and came back years later to fight for this rock. Only took three battles to realize it’s hopeless. There are so many different flags on this place that we weren’t the good guys anymore, we were just another government with too much firepower and too little sense.”
“Where are we going?” Alice asked as the skid decoupled from the mo-hos and began to accelerate.
“Back to the shuttle, it’s tethered up ahead,” Lewis replied.
Alice looked for it as they approached a wide hover truck towing three large floating platforms. “I’ve never seen a place like this,” she said. “I’m sorry for what happened here.”
“No crying over it, now. This place would have to be cleaned up then terraformed all over again to get anything to grow properly. I just need to get outta here before they offer too much credit to leave. This is the only rock in this universe where I can always get a job.”
* * *
A hissing sound all around Eve woke her. She opened her eyes but couldn’t make anything out. Her hands struck a lid as she reached out, painfully bashing her fingers against the inside of a container lid. The top of her capsule split down the middle and she was assaulted by humidity, and a thickly sweet smell.
“Everything’s fine,” Wheeler said, offering her a hand up. “Well, you’ve been Goddess-napped, but you’re better off with us than on that overgrown prison.”
Eve accepted his hand without a second thought and got out of the old stasis capsule with unusual deftness. The chamber she emerged into was dimly lit. Ahead was a broad set of stairs leading down into a pool. There was a light somewhere under water. The waves gently lapped the sides of the opposite half of the chamber.
She tried to speak but couldn’t. Her mouth seemed unwilling. Eve stood in a relaxed pose, but one not of her own striking. She was not in control of anything but her eyes.
“She’s losin’ it a little, I think,” said an amused voice to her left.
“You’re going to be very quiet until I tell you I want your opinion, Kipley,” Wheeler said.
“Yeah, yeah,” replied Kipley, stepping into sight. He was wearing a Freeground style vacsuit under a heavy dark blue coat. His forearms rested on a powerful looking rifle that was hanging from a safety line attached to his shoulders.
“I’m sorry we had to resort to this,” Wheeler said to her, gently touching her shoulder. “Getting you off the Overlord Two took some serious work. We left a framework double in your place. She’s not that bright, but she can fake a good night’s sleep, some canned chatter, and walking around. We had to take control of you using a slave circuit Hampon installed a while ago. You’re all wired up, darlin’. Any control you think you have over yourself is as much myth as those old religions the Order is trying to replace. We’re going to release you now, so you can control yourself, but I ask that you hear us out. We’re offering you real freedom and the truth about what’s going on.”
Eve staggered as she regained control over herself. “Never do that again!” she shouted, furious.
“You got it,” Wheeler replied. “We’ll even cut the strings if you give us a few minutes.”
Figures seemed to step out of the shadows near the pool. They were sleek looking bipeds, who stared at her with big single coloured eyes. “Where am I?”
“The Fallen Star,” Wheeler said. “A research ship that I’ve brought here so we can make a few trades. I’ve already said hello to Lister, but you’re the one I really want to talk to. You’re the one the crowds want to follow.”
“What do you mean?” Eve asked, remembering the masses she spoke to earlier, but not believing that they would follow her based on the little time she spent in front of them.
“Religious artifacts and devotion are the most popular items in the donation bin. Almost all the folks in the Order of Eden colonies are dumping their old beliefs and their symbols in favour of your living religion. Lister Hampon,” Wheeler said, almost celebrating the name. “That idiot wanted to use you as an icon on strings, a new religious idol he could control, but it’s worked too well. Now even we can’t make a move without telling you what’s going on. He’ll never set you lose, he’ll always have a button on you.”
“A button?” Eve asked, irritated at the foreign vernacular.
“A set of puppet strings, probably a kill switch. You know, the opposite of being free,” Wheeler said.
“Ah. What are these things?” Eve asked, looking at a tall, thin creature standing next to the pool. Everything about him seemed elongated, and he didn’t have hands so much as tendrils that split off from his forearms. It stared at her like all the others, passively, openly.
“These are issyrians in their true biped form. Most of them are a rare type, outcasts because they can be violent if they choose. That smell in the air is the scent of their clutch, their House. If you take a good whiff you’re going to find something bitter. It took me a while to figure it out.”
Eve couldn’t help but be frustrated. It had been so long since she felt like she was in control of where she went, what she could do, who she could speak to. “Figure what out? What’s a clutch?”
“Consider it a large family, a closer knit community than you’ve ever seen,” Wheeler said. He turned to the pool instead of finishing his explanation.
She followed his gaze and spotted several shapes coming to the surface of the pool below. They broke the surface of the water gracefully and ignored her altogether. A few of them looked perfectly human, others were as varied as the issyrians she’d already seen. Those changed as they emerged, opting for a less sleek shape, changing into something that she recognized made more sense in the dry air. Fingers emerged from narrowing hands, flippers transformed into sturdy feet. One continued onto the deck on her belly, and instead of opting to sprout legs, she flowed over the dry plating on uncountable tiny tendrils. Eve assumed it was a female because she caught a glimpse of tiny creatures inside a translucent section of her back. These creatures didn’t disgust her, as she might have assumed, but they were fascinating. Some of them were beautiful.
Once all but one of the issyrians she’d noticed in the dimly lit pool were out, the last began to surface. He was a different animal entirely. Eve nearly had to turn away at the sight of it.
The thin grace of most of the issyrians was not present in the creature that emerged. Its shape suggested physical power. Armour plates the colour of dried blood covered him in shapes that hinted at a human skeleton and musculature. They overlapped, scraping as he moved with the sound of wet stone on stone. Fluid drained from gills along his sides then closed. Translucent armour plates moved into place, covering the vulnerability. Glistening, oval eyes with shifting yellow and red colours stared at her from behind a hard transparent guard that she could see fine veins in. He sported a death’s head in fine, dark armour plates that took on the characteristics of a mostly human skull. There was extra armour beneath his chin and around his neck, guarding one of the most vulnerable parts of the human body.
The beast moved up the stairs towards them, followed by his entourage of six issyrians. The plates of his exoskeleton didn’t only scrape and shift as he walked, but as he breathed, adding a constant rhythmic grating to the chamber that set Eve’s teeth on edge. “Nora knows what it is to be part of something larger than herself, and it’s a frightening thing,” the beast said, the plates covering his mouth shifting to accommodate his speech. “But that’s new, isn’t it?”
“How did you know?” Eve asked. She’d told no one how it felt to be turned away from her fleet, her metal children, or that the idea of connecting with them was frightening before the attempt. It was even more frightening after she was rejected.
“I’ve been connected with you since we arrived. Not even Lister Hampon understands how deeply integrated the interface chip they installed is. I can see your dreams, Nora, and they are corrupting you. I know what that’s like, I’ve been controlled by a hidden hand before, by programming I would have never agreed to.”
“That’s how you took control of me,” Eve said. She was afraid to press the creature, but his voice was kinder than she expected. It was strange, as though he had two sets of vocal chords; one bass and a higher, contralto set. His voice was a contrast to his appearance - eerie but calming. “How did you know it was even there?”
“Try to think as you once thought, and you will realize how odd that question is, coming from you,” the beast said. He was almost pleading with her, judging by his tone.
As he spoke the words she realized he was right, she already knew the answer. When she was connected to the broader network of systems around her, or her fleet, she could sense unusual or new ports naturally, instantly. “I can’t believe I forgot.”
“I can feel two minds when I connect to you,” the creature said. “One is becoming more dormant all the time, the other is overtaking old instincts. Think of it like a neural virus. I can correct the problem without discarding all the memories you’ve gained from Alice. I can’t promise that you won’t lose something else in the process, though. Something you won’t realize has disappeared until it’s gone.”
Eve thought for a moment, recalling the bond she’d just established with Lewis. He would be her first officer on a ship that was better than she could ever imagine owning. She just had to get back to-
“You’re slipping!” the beast said, grabbing her shoulder. “None of that’s real. Everyone in those memories is dead. Lewis, Ulrik, even Alice.”
Eve stared into the hard face of the creature standing over her. His hand gripped her shoulder gently, and there was alarm in his voice but no indication of malice. It was true, she was having a hard time remembering what happened the day before, but she could recall Veers Nine like she’d just left right down to the smell, and the grit in the air. “Help me,” she said, feeling as though she was drowning.
The creature looked over his shoulder and several of his companions moved towards the pool swiftly. He looked back at her. “I’ll earn your trust in separating you from Alice. I can feel that you’d like he
r saved, and I’ll make sure neither of you are lost.”
“Can you help me get away from Meunez?” Eve asked.
“You mean Hampon,” Wheeler said. “Right? She means Lister?” he asked the beast.
“She does,” he confirmed. “We shouldn’t have put her in stasis for so long. This has advanced further than I thought.”
“Stasis?” Eve asked. A slim silver casket was brought from the pool to her side. Once again, her limbs, her mouth were no longer under her control.
“We can’t strike a deal like this,” Kipley said. “Is there going to be anything left in there after you’ve scooped all of that other chick out?”
“Shut it,” Wheeler snapped at him. “We got to her in time, she’ll be fine.”
Eve watched dumbly as the slender case was tilted up vertically and opened. “Be ready to catch her,” the beast said. He gestured towards the white bones arranged inside. The skeleton emitted white light, then flesh was woven so quickly it appeared to erupt forth. In the time it took her to blink her eye, a fully intact human woman stood where the case and bones once did. She was caught in the arms of three issyrians with care.
They brought the woman’s body closer. She was hairless, with a plain face.
“Are you sure about this?” Wheeler said. “You’ve done neural healing before, but never a wetware to wetware transfer.”
“Your memories of the Victory Machine’s predictions, as they were given to Collins, made you certain that Eve and Alice would stand in one place at the same time in two bodies. Why question it now?”
“The Victory Machine didn’t provide an image, or coordinates, just a line of text. That thing has a way of being cryptic, and that kind of statement comes from the interpreter, not the machine itself.”
“So you’ve said.” The beast placed one hand on Eve’s head. It was so large it covered most of her forehead and she could feel his fingers firmly gripping the base of her skull. He did the same to the breathing female body opposite her. She could feel something cutting into the back of her head, and wanted to scream as pressure increased on several small points of the bone beneath. With a crack that resounded in her head, whatever was tunnelling into her skull broke through. “I know how to do this. There’s no doubt that this transfer will work.”
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework Page 34
