After a quick snack of mashed plant fibers and lichen, I dug into the portfolio of maps and schematics I had accrued over the years. Though I knew the layout of every ship in dock, a once-over of the Meramec’s design wouldn’t hurt. I thumbed through the manuals I had until I found the correct one: United-Consortium Organic Ship Schematics: Rewritten Lightweight Military Cargo Ships. I opened it up to the “Cargo Hold & Loading/Offloading” chapter and reviewed the basic schematics.
You see, organic ships aren’t as easy to remodel as the ancient all-metallic designs were. Organic ships had to be bombarded with different frequencies of radiation to shift their genetic facsimiles to hold whatever configuration was wanted. Without it, the ship would continue to repair itself using its original design, following its pseudo-genetic rulebook to the letter. While rewriting a ship was easier than building a new one from scratch, it was still an incredibly expensive operation. The only people who could afford, or would want to spend the money redesigning a perfectly good ship for the sake of distancing itself from the military, was the United-Consortium.
I really didn’t like that company. It was big enough to qualify as its own nation and had enough devoted fanatics to be its own religion. The company had its fingers into everything from major ship overhaul to fine jewelry and design to groceries and pharmaceuticals. The goods it sold were either cheaply made or ridiculously expensive—if not both—and it had cornered pretty much every market. You couldn’t fling a pudding pie without hitting one of its blasted advertisements, subtly boring into your mind and demanding you buy from the only company that offers free credits back after your hundred and fiftieth purchase from the store* (*offer only valid to 0.1% U.C. Credits back per purchase. U.C. Credits can only be used in licensed U.C. stores and cannot be redeemed for actual credits. U.C. Credits back must be used within four days of initial purchase. Not valid in all states and territories. Not valid in United-Consortium Proxima Centauri Branch stores.). Perhaps I was just bitter at being so poor, but I was sick of those blasted bioluminescent signs flashing in my face night and day. If I want something, I will go out and buy it. If I don’t want it, you can’t make me.
In any event, I wasted the last hour before departure poring over the blueprints of the United-Consortium’s well-guarded schematics for a rewritten light military cargo vessel. Of course, the blueprints didn’t tell me the whole story; the U.C. wasn’t stupid enough to post the entirety of their refit plans out in the open for public use. They posted just enough to keep face with their “Re-Purpose After War: Giving broken and neglected organic ships a new home” campaign. I could sing the jingle before I learned to walk.
Pulling every last string my brother had had and spending entirely too much of my money on bribes, I was able to piece together a roughly complete picture of what the ship actually looked like inside.
They hadn’t changed the design too much from the light military cargo vessel it had been. Even if they were trying to distance themselves from anything war-related, they admired the military’s ability to design ships that actually work. In the long run, the Meramec had only suffered slight changes, moving a wall here, switching where the central human command was, and of course, adding the gaudy blue and gold symbol of the U.C. Unlike most other shipping companies that relied on a tattoo system to decorate the ships, the U.C. actually included the symbol into the ship’s genetic facsimile. This really didn’t mean much beyond the fact that if the ship took damage there, it would heal with the symbol more or less intact.
Assured I had my plan memorized perfectly, along with the layout of the ship, I made my way to the docking area. Once I had reached the bay, I covered the soles of my shoes with as little contraband goo as I could get away with. No sense in wasting it all, especially considering I might need more once I was on the ship. No sense in having shiny, goo-covered shoes, either—that was a fast way to get caught with all of the security prowling around the docking areas of the station.
Stepping past security was no big deal, considering there wasn’t any. The U.C. prided itself in only hiring the best, most capable crewmen for long voyages, meaning that extra security was unnecessary. Plus it was also more cost-effective to replace cargo than it was to hire more bodies. I found a place to wait unnoticed behind the cargo of a neighboring ship until they finished loading the last of their Centauri-made locomotive parts through the ten-foot by ten-foot cargo door. Once they had, I waited a second longer for the door to begin to close. The crewmen were already deep inside the ship, letting it close its own hatches.
All I had to do was trick it.
Striding quietly up to the hatch, I reached with my left hand through the door, resting my arm on the ever-closing iris. I took my right hand and, adjusting it so that my fingers were pointed downward, pinkie to the left, I gripped hold of the outside of the hatch and waited anxiously as the iris closed down around my left arm. It didn’t hurt, but it was a long moment before the ship decided it knew what was going on.
It, being the good little organic ship it was, assumed that my arms, awkward as they were, belonged to one of the crewmen on the inside of the ship. Of course, no crewman was stupid enough to get their arm stuck in such a slowly-closing hatch, but the ship wasn’t aware of that. After a moment, it decided to open up further, just enough for me to wiggle my underfed body through. I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as I touched the ship’s decking. Home stretch.
Within a few days, I would finally complete my plan of revenge and let my brother rest. Though, knowing him, he probably was getting as much rest as he wanted, wherever he was. I moved gingerly around the hold to find a spot to hide. I knew roughly where I wanted to be after memorizing the blueprints, but what those prints couldn’t tell me was what cargo was where. The hold was massive enough to fit an entire, eighty-foot-long train engine inside with room left to walk comfortably around it and clearance to keep from bruising the ceiling. Fortunately it just had train parts, the boxes of which provided a much better place to hide. It was unlikely the crew would be back here at any time, but I would feel much better having a hidey-hole to dive into if needed.
It didn’t take me long to find the perfect spot. It was far enough from the hatch that I would have plenty of warning should the ship decide to vent the hold, but tucked behind just enough boxes to make the chances of a crewman spotting me unlikely.
The only problem was that I wasn’t the only person who had found the spot and its glorious positioning.
“Ayh!” called the high voice in almost the same moment I stepped on her ankle.
“Shhh!” I cried out quickly, bending down to shut the fellow stowaway up, should she decide to cry out again. She looked up at me with a pain-stricken panic.
“Who—” she used a choice word, “—are you?”
“Obviously not crew, slinking around the hold like this!” I said defensively. “Same could be said for you, I imagine.”
“Yes,” the girl said with a voice that was close to pouting. “You can’t hide here, though, it’s my spot.”
“If they find me, they find you. How’s that for your spot?” I gestured to an empty area next to her. With a scowl, she finally nodded.
For a moment, we didn’t say anything. I was too busy trying to find something to sit on. I couldn’t very well place my keister on the deck itself since the ship would sense my body heat, so I had to have a buffer, preferably one made of the same material as the cargo containers. After a moment of watching me search aimlessly, the girl sighed and handed me a spare piece of broken container. I accepted it and sat down carefully. I started to ache all over again.
“So, what’re you doing here?” the girl asked. I glanced at her, throwing my hood back and fluffing up my hair a little. The more I looked at the other stowaway, the more grimy and unfeminine I felt. She should have been a princess, with a thousand elegant curls coming off her head in endless directions. She had a natural pout to her face that made her seem even more immaculate and, compared to me and
the greasy engine parts, she was downright clean. I’m not sure how she had managed to keep her light-colored pants and tastefully ruffled top. Equally tasteful were the smattering of mostly geometric tattoos across her arms and the backs of her hands. I didn’t see any gang tattoos, so at least I didn’t have to worry about having any angry tribe members coming after me in retribution for her bruised ankle. The bracelets and earrings she wore looked like solid metal, cheap but still beautiful.
“Earth,” I said simply. She rolled her eyes at me.
“Duh, genius,” she raised an eyebrow just a twitch to cast me a condescending look. “I meant why are you stowing away?”
“Because I’m secretly the Queen of Everything but my favorite minion forgot to buy my ticket on a luxury liner,” I snapped back a reply, feeling a little sick.
“I hope your minion murders you while you sleep,” the girl retorted.
“Yeah,” I said glumly and feeling sicker. “So do I.”
For a moment neither of us said anything. I realized how lightheaded I was feeling. During my spat with the other stowaway, I hadn’t noticed the ship undocking and building speed. Now that everything was quiet, I could hear the steady noises of the ship’s muscles, spreading few and efficient organic sails to catch the solar currents. For as long as I could, I focused only on those sounds, trying to ease away whatever was ailing me.
“I’m sorry,” the girl finally said. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“I didn’t mean to be either,” I replied.
“I’m just such a curious person. Sometimes I blurt out questions without meaning to,” she rubbed her sore ankle. I reached into my toolbag for some salve.
“Here, sorry I stepped on it,” I said, and handed her the small can. She smiled gratefully.
“How about names?” she said, putting on the salve. “Mine’s Ariadne King.”
“Marcie Dunn,” I said, bombarded by another wave of sickness. This time, however, I almost threw up.
“Are you okay?” Ariadne asked. I looked toward her. The fuzziness of her hair seemed to spread to her entire body. I blinked before I realized it was my eyesight, not her becoming some kind of were-beast.
“Actually…” I said through enormously thick thoughts; I suddenly felt warm, and panicked. Why was the ship spinning like that? “I…don’t think so.”
“Neither do I,” Ariadne said, moving a bit closer. My vision started to distort, on top of being blurry, and before I could recognize her giant face standing over mine, I blacked out.
I think my head banged against something too.
Two
I felt terrible. Not I-just-went-four-rounds-with-a-smelly-mammoth terrible either. This was far worse. Like an itchy flu on steroids. I spent a disproportional amount of time semi-conscious, that much I know. I heard a lot of voices and obnoxious pacing. But mostly I tried to drift back into the void I’d been thrown into. I avenged my brother adequately, hadn’t I? The skiptrace couldn’t go back to work after losing his license.
The part of me that wasn’t interested in the void sighed. No, that wouldn’t do. After all, those men had laughed you all the way out of the office. You have to turn that license in.
I sighed again and woke up.
That bright light definitely wasn’t helping my headache any. Nor was it helping my nausea or the fact my skin felt like it was on fire. I blinked a few times to see if it would go away.
“Mphm,” I think I said. Someone else sighed.
“Fine. I’ll turn it off,” the huffy voice, coming from my right, reached up and turned off the light. I tried to breathe a little easier. It didn’t work, of course, because my lungs were burning too.
“Owie,” was the only thing I thought to say. I tried looking around to see where I was. This didn’t feel like a ship, needless to say. No, this was definitely on solid ground. It wasn’t a space station either; the walls were too square and covered in beneficial molds. This was definitely a hospital, by the almost overwhelmingly musky smell that came from all the infection-preventing microorganisms and free-floating antibodies. Hospitals were a completely different creature from normal organic buildings. Their immune systems were up to four times as active as their counterparts and that allowed them to withstand most diseases, especially the kinds that could be transferred from person to buildings, like leprosy and some forms of colds. What the hospital buildings itself couldn’t cover, other organisms like molds and mosses were introduced and kept in just the right balance.
“What hurts?” the huffy voice asked. I tried to spin my head around and look toward it. That was a horrible idea, given how much pain shot through me. Why couldn’t someone have just killed me? I couldn’t see who was speaking, however, given how much my vision was blurring again.
“Everything, genius,” I said in a tone snippy from the pain.
“Good,” the voice was now angry. After a moment it sounded repentant. “No, I’m sorry. You’re in pain, that’s not good. I’m just so angry at you.”
Oh. The voice became recognizable. What was the girl’s name?
I looked toward Ariadne carefully. She sat primly in a seat, with an expression that was somewhere between man-eating-bear angry and worried mother. Her big eyes stared solidly, not necessarily boring through my soul, but they were unmoving in their expression.
“Why are you angry at me?” I asked feebly. She blinked a few times as if I was stupid.
“Nothing, never mind. Just get better, we’ll deal with everything later,” she waved me off, turning back to the book she was reading. The light was kind of low for that.
“You can turn the light back on,” I said, turning my head away from the bioluminescent source. “I think I’m going to try to sleep some more.”
“That’d be a good idea. The doctors said you’d need it,” Ariadne said without much venom.
I closed my eyes for a second. The light from her reading lamp seemed to ignore my eyelids, but I was used to sleeping with a bright light. I was pretty much used to sleeping anywhere. On trains, on park benches, in the middle of a space station, and even as a stowaway on board a ship.
Anywhen however, is a different matter.
“What happened on the ship?” I had to ask. I knew it was probably a bad idea, given that I was now in a hospital bed, but my overactive, if slow, brain wasn’t about to let me sleep wondering.
“Chaos,” Ariadne said glumly.
“Please?” I asked politely, turning to look at her sideways.
“You fell and hit your head, knocked over a container of locomotive parts, sent the ship into a panic, brought the crew down on our necks, and nearly died of radiation poisoning,” Ariadne said without actually closing her book. I frowned, thinking over the plausibility of what she said. Given the fact I was no longer on the Meramec, it seemed to make sense. Given the fact my arms were covered in lesions, it continued to make sense.
“Where…?” I asked with an inkling of the answer.
“Earth,” Ariadne said.
“Okay,” I commented, processing. My brain seemed to be running exceptionally slow at the moment. “How did…?”
“The crewmembers took pity on us. Besides, I’m well-connected enough that they couldn’t risk venting me into space without an investigation happening.” Ariadne finally closed her book.
“Oh. So why am I here?”
“It was the cheapest place I could afford,” the glum-ish tone creeped back into her voice. I processed what that meant.
“Why did you do that?” I asked, looking at her again. “I can’t pay you back yet.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” she said, holding up the skiptrace’s license. “We’ll have to figure something out. I had had plans for that money.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Just don’t do that, okay?” Ariadne seized up in a frustrated motion. “Don’t apologize, just stay alive and we can make a deal.”
“Fine,” I said curtly. I would have bit off my tongue if I thought that wo
uldn’t make me hurt even more.
“You…” Ariadne’s anger came back. She stood up so fast she almost knocked over the chair. Gripping the skiptrace’s license in one hand and her book in another, she continued her fuming. “Are the single most inconvenient stranger I have ever met!”
“What were you going to do with the money?” I asked quietly.
She stopped being angry for one moment.
“I was going to buy a ship,” she stood the chair back up and sat down in it with almost a singular, graceful motion. Maybe someday I could be that elegant.
“Oh,” I said. “What kind of ship?”
“Just a little one,” Ariadne smiled more to herself than to me. “I was going to start a messenger business, for high-priority parcels you know. I had all of my runs planned, from here to the stations to Baltia to Myrkheim to Bjarmaland, when it’s in-system, of course.”
A sinkhole opened itself up in my chest. I felt horrible beyond the radiation sickness. I had never imposed myself on anyone like this, not the point where their dreams were in jeopardy. She could have told me I’d stepped on her favorite pet and I would have felt about the same amount of guilt.
“I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” I said sincerely. “Once we turn that license in, I’ll pay you back for the radiation treatment.”
Ariadne held my gaze for a moment as if she was one of those human lie detectors. After a while she must have decided I wasn’t lying.
“Sounds like a deal.”
I held out my least lesioned hand as a gesture of friendship. She took it very gently and gave it one small pat and smiled. Gosh even her teeth were perfect.
• • •
The treatment went well and within a week, I was up and about. I still had ever-fading scars from the lesions, but I wasn’t dead.
Set'em Up Page 2
