Outcast

by Alex Douglas

  In the day it had taken to reach the coordinates sent by the Belaari contact, Lan had helped to fix a broken toilet, lent his linguistic expertise to the translation of some Belaari documentation Prez wasn't sure about, and listened to the sad story of Glitch and her unrequited love for Vaxel, who was "too blue-brained to see a sprinkling of sugar on his breakfast beans." Lan had little to say on the topic of love so he remained silent while Glitch talked, talked... and talked. He had never heard so many words all at once. However when the conversation was over, he was secretly pleased when Glitch hugged him and thanked him and said he was a "great listener."

  Now he was sitting at his console, eating an Akilian breakfast pack with an odd, four-pronged instrument that proved inadequate for the task of spearing the beans. Perhaps all telepaths suffered as he did in the art of making conversation, and he wished he had paid more attention to the verbal articulation class in school. Perhaps Prez would provide some conversational stimulus instead, so that Lan could listen greatly and impress the captain as he had done his crew.

  His gaze fell on the tree again and he reached out to touch it, feeling the spikes of the gray branches sharp under his thumbs.

  Then a conversational topic leapt into his mind, and he spoke with relief. "What is the significance of this tree?"

  "Ohay!" Prez exclaimed, checking the date on his Tablet. "It's Kiz-Mah. I forgot all about it."

  "What is..." Lan allowed the alien word to rest on his tongue for a second. "Kiz-mah?"

  Prez grinned. "Party time, that's what. It's a tradition, a special time of year we had back on the compounds. Like, celebrating family and friends, only we didn't know who our families were so... Anyway, you were supposed to give gifts, but we didn't have anything to exchange so we just made played it by ear, so to speak. Here, let me give you a present."

  Lan was puzzled. "What gifts can you give if you have nothing?"

  Prez rummaged in the storage compartment under his console for a second and pulled out a small leather pouch. He gestured to Lan's hair. "Can I?"

  "Of course."

  The pouch contained small polished stones with holes right through the middle, decorated with tiny scratch drawings in black ink, zigzag patterns and stick figures. Prez took a lock of Lan's hair from the top of his scalp and divided it into three, and began to make a thin braid. Lan could feel Prez's breath on his shoulder, and his skin began to tingle at the proximity. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Prez's odd little fingers deftly tie the bottom of the braid underneath one of the tiny stones, and then start again on another strand.

  "I used to have mine long like yours," Prez flicked the piercing in his lip with his tongue as he pulled one of Lan's curls straight. "Chopped the lot off when one of Vix's friends told me I looked like an Andran tax official. What a terrible thing to say to a man."

  Lan's skin prickled at the touch of Prez's fingertips against the nape of his neck as the captain wrapped up the final strand in a small bead with a carved diamond pattern around the middle. The stones were cool and reminded Lan of the beads that adult males often decorated their hair with back on Aldor. "Terrible," he echoed, feeling slightly hot. He had never sat so close to someone else before for such a sustained period of time, but it was not as unpleasant as he had imagined.

  "There!" Prez grinned and stroked a strand of hair out of Lan's eyes. "What can you give when you've got nothing? Just your friendship. Happy Kiz-Mah, Lan."

  Lan moved his head and felt the beads swing in his hair. "Thank you." It seemed an appropriate response and he sat back in his chair, pleased. "However, I have nothing to give you in return."

  "Oh, don't worry about that. Glitch usually does mine, she'd be outraged if I let someone else get their hands on it." He chuckled. "She spends all year making thousands of beads. Wait ‘til she has a go at yours. You'll look like a spiked Damor beast."

  "So it is not the aim to look pleasant," Lan mused, examining the artwork on the stones again.

  But Prez didn't reply; he was busy reading a message that had arrived on his personal channel. As he watched the captain, Lan felt a very odd sensation at the back of his brain, and noticed that Prez's face was going pale. Lan didn't know what that meant, but it didn't feel good. "Is everything in order?" he said.

  Prez stared at the message for another few seconds, then swung the screen around. "Read that," he said. His voice was tight.

  It was a message from Doc, containing an extract from a news article written in Andran. The translation in Common was at the bottom, underneath a photo of the Akilian Premier, evidence of the planet's problems plain for all to see in the blind woman's milky eyes and lumpy, misshapen mouth.

  Akilian Planetary Closure -- Resolution Passed

  The Planetary Government of Akilia has unanimously passed the controversial Closure resolution, which will effectively cut the planet off from all communications, signal the recall of all Ambassadors, and the cessation of all trade with the outside universe. IPF medical staff predict the extinction of the race within the next fifty years, if further attempts are not made to combat the deadly genetic plague that has afflicted the planet for the last century. Akilia has been widely condemned for its genetic experiments on non-interstellar alien races in its efforts to find a cure, but any further measures the government plans to take are unknown, and unlikely to be made public.

  An unexpected inclusion in the Resolution is sub-motion 34.A, which grants the ku-tah descendants of the aforementioned experiments full Citizen status after years of legal wranglings at the highest level. Because this group remains unaffected by the plague, the compounds have been opened and transports will be organized to remove the ku-tah from Akilia before the Closure comes into effect. There have been reports of celebrations in some of the compounds, which the Akilian government has described as "insensitive."

  The Closure will come into effect at the end of Akilia's summer cycle, two months and three days from now.

  Lan read the article quickly, and Doc's comment at the bottom -- Happy Kiz-Mah from one Citizen to another! Prez still showed no reaction, just sat there staring at the RealViewer, at the black void ahead.

  "Are you not..." Lan searched for the correct word. "Pleased?"

  Prez murmured something that Lan couldn't understand. Then he seemed to shake himself, and a sudden grin transformed his face; a big, unfettered show of white teeth and pure happiness that looked like a sun rising in the sky. He sprang out of his seat and grabbed Lan in a hug, kissing him all over his face. "Mother of skies!" he shouted in Lan's ear then released him, laughing, and sat back down abruptly, covered his face with his hands and burst into tears.

  Lan's body went rigid with panic. What was the appropriate reaction? His immediate impulse -- typically Aldorian -- was to leave, but from what he had read, Akilians were tactile, and Prez apparently even more so. Lan could feel his face tingling with the kisses it had just been covered in. Tentatively, he reached out and placed his palm on Prez's shoulder.

  "I am sorry," he said. "I do not know how to make you feel better."

  Prez wiped his eyes and sat back in his seat, his breath hitching in his chest. "Feel better?" he said. "I couldn't feel any better than this. I'm just so... huh..." his eyes watered again, and he turned away and forced the word out. "Happy."

  "Oh," Lan said. "Perhaps I have read incorrect literature regarding the emotional reactions of... your people."

  A burst of laughter, then some sniffles. "Oh, Lan," Prez said, wiping his nose on his sleeve. "You sound like a computer."

  Lan raised an eyebrow. "Would... hugging... be appropriate?"

  Prez laughed again. "It's a celebratory thing, where I come from. But you don't like touching, I've noticed. Sorry about before."

  "It is necessary for me to become accustomed to the ways of other cultures if I am to function successfully in this system," Lan said. "If we are to celebrate, then let us... hug."

  "Come here then," Prez said, and wrapped his arms around Lan,
who settled his arms around Prez's shoulders in what he hoped was the correct manner. Prez's body was hard and warm, and the sensation of being squeezed was surprisingly pleasant. "Oh boy," Prez's voice was muffled. His fingertips stroked against the skin on Lan's neck for a second, then he pulled away. The tears had stopped, and he was smiling again, his eyes red but bright. "Sometimes you just need to touch someone, you know? To feel like you aren't alone." He ran his hands through his hair. "I'd better go and tell the others. This is a historic day, my friend."

  Lan smiled tentatively. "It is."

  "Will you be okay to get us to the jump gate? Should be there in less than an hour."

  "I will be okay."

  "Okay." Prez looked at the console. "Buzz if you need me."

  "I will buzz."

  "Okay." There was a silence. "Thank you."

  "For what?"

  "I don't know."

  "Okay."

  "Mother of skies!" Prez exclaimed again and bounded over to the access shaft. He slid down, and Lan could hear whooping noises echo around the metal walls of the corridor below, then the shut of the sliding doors that led to the underbelly of the ship, where he and his crew would -- no doubt -- soon be hugging. He remembered the glow of Prez's grin and smiled to himself, rubbing his belly. It began to flutter under his palm, and he frowned at the unfamiliar sensation. He re-read the surprisingly long list of ingredients on the Skits packet to see what could be causing it, but they were all IPF approved substances.

  Shrugging, he settled into his seat and lifted his own personal Tablet. He'd been reading an electronic book on the modern political history of Belaar, leading up to the Treaty of Goodwill with the Andrans and the formation of the trade route between the neighboring systems. He brought up the page he'd left and started to read, hoping that the dry description of Belaari jump gate technology would make the feeling go away.

  ***

  It was all Prez could do to stop his crew cracking out the mukkesh right there and then.

  "We can't," he said, switching to the compound language they all spoke. "We're going through a jump gate soon, then I have to meet with the Belaari contact on arrival at the port. It won't look good if we all show up pissed out of our skulls."

  Glitch cradled the bottle in her hands, beaming. "Only one?"

  "There's never only one. We'll hit the bars at the port, don't worry."

  Vaxel was sitting cross-legged on the floor. "I wish we could help transport them out of that plague-infested shithole," he said. "Instead of getting another load of old cargo to haul around."

  "Well," Prez said. "This old cargo is the job we've been waiting for all these years. We're going to be rich, my friend!" Then a thought struck him and he held up a finger. "And as Citizens, we're entitled to full payment now. Holy fuck, that's something, isn't it?"

  "Citizens," Glitch murmured.

  They sat in silence for a moment, thinking about the tremendous concept.

  "We're citizens of nowhere," Kris said glumly. "If the planet's closed, then we've got no fucking home at all."

  Glitch frowned. "The Outcast is our home," she said and gestured around the engineering section, at her workstation where a miniature tree -- decorated with tiny red baubles for Kiz-Mah -- bloomed in a pot beside the three monitors, at her photos that were stuck all around the wall behind her chair. "And after this, we can make a home wherever we like. We're Citizens now, not refugees with limited status. We can't be turned away, from anywhere."

  "I dunno. I know I'm being a dick, but I spent all those years hoping to leave, and now... we can never go back. It's just a funny feeling, that's all." Kris bit his thumbnail and stared at the floor.

  Vaxel got up and stretched, his shirt pulling free of his workman's trousers to reveal a plump belly. "Why the fuck would you want to go back there?" he said. "They're gonna die out because they didn't -- and still don't -- have the sense to fuck outside their own families. You wanna go there to watch them rot? And make no mistake, my friend, this is no grand gesture. Twenty years ago they didn't even consider us to be sentient beings. They're just getting rid of us now because they don't want us to have their miserable little planet when they're all dead."

  Prez held up his hand. "Enough," he said. "Our people are free, let's think about that for a while. Get back to your stations and get ready for the jump. Vaxel, try and sort out that blasted android. When we get to the port, then we can bitch and moan all we like, but personally I'd prefer to party. Until then, work, people!"

  "Yes, sir."

  He paused at the door. "First round's on me."

  Three big grins. "Yes sir!"

  "That's more like it," he said and went out into the corridor. The door swished shut behind him, and he permitted himself another dance of excitement before climbing the access shaft back to the bridge.

  Rich! And officially free. It didn't get much better.

  It would be wonderful to have a new ship; much as he loved the Outcast, it had long since served its purpose. The living quarters were cramped and the bridge only big enough for two pilots. Most of the space, logically enough, was for cargo. He sat down and lifted his Tablet, bringing up the list of requests that the Belaari contact -- Kai no Heh -- had sent. At least it didn't appear to be another consignment of livestock like the last job he'd taken from a Belaari, when the crew had been pushed to near-mutiny by the constant bellowing of the miserable creatures and the ship had stunk of piss for days after delivery. No wonder the cleaning android had gone on the blink.

  The destination beyond the jump gate was Melaarah XV, a Belaari space port that hung in orbit around a small moon in an uninhabited but mineral-rich system two sectors away. The port was huge and rumored to have excellent leisure facilities, largely because the Belaari had a mining operation on the third planet and the workers needed frequent breaks from the semi-toxic atmosphere there. It also served as a refueling center for the enormous intergalactic exploration ships which Belaar often sent out into the far reaches of space. One of those ships, now that would be very nice indeed. But they were far out of Prez's price range. They'd be rich after the mission, but not that rich.

  Lan's voice shook him from his thoughts. "We will arrive at the jump gate in approximately three minutes."

  "Roger that," he said and buzzed the crew to make sure they were ready. He turned to Lan, who was reading his Tablet and sucking on a Skit. Lan's expression was inscrutable. "Aren't you excited?" Prez asked, feeling his heart start to pound with anticipation and just a touch of nerves. Jump gates weren't a hundred per cent reliable; every now and then a ship would simply disappear inside them. Extremely rare, but still...

  "I have been through a jump gate before," Lan said. "It was... unremarkable."

  Prez's grin faded a little. He could just make out on the RealView the lights of two Belaari transports ahead. Trying to kill the nerves with some chat, he turned to Lan and gave him a curious look. "So tell me all about it then, was it when you left Aldor? As a matter of interest, why come so far? There are nearer systems than this one where you could've worked, probably more exciting too. All there is here is trade, and paperwork."

  Lan set his Tablet down on the console and looked out at the two vessels. "Aldor is far from this sector," he said. There was a silence then he pointed ahead at the emerging jump gate, one eye on Prez. "The development of construct engineers made a substantial contribution to the creation of the new XT32 version. Note the vertical positioning of the external rupturing barriers as opposed to the previous circular models. It meant that the Belaari repair engineers would no longer be sucked into the rupture accidentally."

  "Are you changing the subject?" Prez was amused.

  Lan seemed to consider the question carefully. "Yes."

  "Well, make it a bit more interesting then. I'm a pilot, not a scientist."

  "You have no interest in the technology?"

  Prez shrugged. "I like Skits, but I don't need to know how they're made to enjoy them."

&n
bsp; Lan's eyes focused together on the transports ahead. "Curious," he said, but offered no more insights on the jump gate technology.

  Prez studied his co-pilot's impregnable expression for a moment, intrigued. A shady past perhaps? His gaze travelled down Lan's chest to the slight gape in the robes, the shadowy dip at the base of his throat. He remembered the silky feel of Lan's hair between his fingers and sighed. It had been difficult to hold off the customary kisses at the end, only to forget himself when the good news came from Doc, the best present anyone could have wished for. He watched Lan touching the beads again and a warm feeling crept into his heart, just for a second.

  Then he shook himself from those silly thoughts and looked back at the screen. No one in the universe wanted a ku-tah for a partner unless money and a twenty-minute time limit were involved. It was just the way things were; accepting the facts and embracing what he had instead of missing what he didn't have, that was how he'd always tried to live. It made the loneliness easier to bear when he thought of his friends, his ship, his freedom.

  The Outcast drew up beside the Belaari transports. Prez lifted the little square device and sighed. "Here goes, then." He clicked a button on the side and groaned as the chip activated and the start-up hum lanced through his brain and ears. The pain subsided quickly and he rubbed at his temples, then he opened a communication channel to the bigger Belaari transport and cleared his throat.

  "Outcast reporting for duty."

  Chapter Three