by C. Gockel
“We go together or not at all. I handle the talking.”
“Sir…” she began. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Jon, Erelah should not be onship alone. Her behavior has been…unpredictable at best.”
Veradin opened his mouth, argument at the ready, but stopped. He looked down, his fingers digging into the edges of the battered tabletop.
“Perhaps there is someone at Merx that could help her,” Sela said in a half-lie, not wanting to offer hope that would be disappointed. Any medicos they would find at a ghost station were hacks and charlatans, better suited at illegal augmentations and patching up plasma weapon wounds.
“Merx, then.” He straightened and folded his arms. “The question remains: what to do with Erelah?”
“I have an idea. But you’re not going to like it.”
Chapter Nineteen
“No! I don’t want it!” Erelah backed away from Jon, her heart thumping.
“It’s for your own good.”
Her brother stalked closer with his hands outstretched. He approached her the way they would the wild scythe cats as children on Argos. They would try to capture the little kits with the erroneous dream they could bring one home and keep it as a pet.
“I don’t want it!” Erelah shrieked, not unlike a scythe cat.
She cowered until her back struck the wall and even then she tried to meld with it further.
“Jon, please no. Don’t.”
She was as fearful of touching him as she was of the jector in his hand. In her time with Tristic, there had been too many drugs. Some that made her sleep, some that kept her awake for days on end. This place was supposed to be free of that. Safe.
“Baby sister, please,” he crooned. “It’s to help you sleep.”
“I don’t want to sleep.” Erelah jabbed a finger at her temple. “She’s in there when I sleep.”
Jon would not understand, would he? He couldn’t.
“It’s for your own good, Erelah.” He sounded so much like Uncle.
Neither, in the end, really knew what was good for us.
“You don’t know,” she sobbed.
Stone-faced, Tyron folded her arms and watched them. Her voice was as flat as her stare: “I’ll do it, sir.”
“Stay out of this, Ty,” Jon barked.
Erelah took this momentary distraction and bolted for the doorway. It was a miserable attempt done with weak arms, weak legs.
Suddenly her feet were swept from beneath her. Her back hit the deck with a painful smack. Firm hands pressed her down. Tyron peered down at her. Erelah felt a sting in her shoulder. A wave of warmth grew rapidly, invading her spine and finally pooling over her scalp.
The familiar waiting darkness came with it.
Erelah’s eyes shut under sudden heaviness, and the sounds of their warring voices were the last to fade:
Damnit sela isaidiwoulddoit…
Itsdonenow…itsover.
Sela wriggled uncomfortably in the single suit, hating the way it fit. It hugged her frame in all the wrong places. She longed for the baggy, heavy material of her utilities, but Jon pointed out the folly of wearing them. Of course, he was right, but it did not help subdue the pang of loss in knowing that she could never wear them again.
Jon nudged her. “Problems?”
“These clothes. I feel…naked.”
The corners of his mouth curled. She felt the fleeting urge to smack him.
“I doubt full ground engagement gear is fashionable in a place like this, Ty. It might make you a bit conspicuous.” He was dressed in the civilian clothes Sela had haphazardly stuffed into his duty kit before they fled the Storm King . It was odd seeing him like that.
“I’ll manage.”
She renewed her frown at the crowded corridor.
The space was filled with lights and placards advertising everything and in every possible combination. The effect was jarring and more than a little unnerving. There was no order here. Occasionally the noise from the crowded taverns rolled out to them: laughter, raucous shouts, and jangled music. Smells mingled on the recycled air, despite the filters. The aromas of cooking food masked the danker, heavier odors of the badly-maintained hygiene of a few thousand beings.
What passed for a dock agent had warned them to leave their higher yield sidearms onboard the Cass. The station had an automated weapons surge trigger, he explained, to protect against breaches. But Sela was not searched. Perhaps it had to do with the staggering glare she fixed on the agent when he suggested it. His partner, a shriveled Onari clansman, had been in the obvious throes of a hangover and seemed content to stare at the rusted scales of the floor plating, a long line of drool trailing from his mouth. Sela seriously doubted they would have noticed even if she wore full turnout gear.
Amateurs.
Without breaking stride, she affected a stretch and quickly switched her knife from the makeshift holster between her shoulder blades to her jacket sleeve. It offered better access to the weapon.
Merx had apparently begun its life as a refueling station, back in the days of dependence on cesium fuel tech. It had been an essential point for long haulers looking to refuel. When cesium fell out of favor, the station was lost to memory. Its position no longer offered a strategic advantage, so both the Regime and the Sceeloid chose to ignore it. As with any overlooked corner, people and things that did not want to be found collected there. And, to Sela, it seemed a great many souls preferred to remain lost.
The quarters were close. Having lived on carriers and stations among nameless thousands for nearly her entire life, Sela was accustomed to a lack of space. But never before with such discord. There was no control to it. It was a tormenting chaos of pedestrian traffic that obeyed no rules. Trelgin. Onari. Binait. Eugenes. All of them were going everywhere at once.
Sela caught the appraising stare of a Eugenes male and scowled. He looked away and quickened his pace through the throng, not unlike the tech on the Storm King . She hated the clothes she had to wear, hated the crowd’s raucous disorder, and hated their very smell. The dusty heat of Tasemar was bliss in comparison.
As they made their way past a skinshop, a rail-thin Binait female, hideously young, called out to Jon.
“Come play with me, handsome. Bring your mate to watch.”
He pulled Sela along before she could yell anything back at the little vulta.
How had this been my idea?
“Stop scowling,” Jon said.
“I’m not scowling. I’m watching. You’ll know when I’m scowling.”
He drew her into a chummy embrace, one arm thrown over her shoulders. He buried his face against her neck.
“What—”
“This is the place, Ty. Behind me.” They had stopped in front of a tavern. The bleary-eyed security guard had given them the name of a merchant of nav charts, Phex. This was apparently his establishment.
“Listen to me.” Jon’s voice was low and had the strange ability to play along the lower portions of her spine in a pleasant way. To the crowd, he was a lover, intimating a secret. But his words were far from loving. “We’re outnumbered. If it goes skew, get back to the Cass. Like we talked about. No last stands here.”
She scanned the doorway. It was another drinking establishment like the handful they had already passed. Glowing signs offered intoxicants and gaming. Drunken patrons lounged about the exterior.
“Stop looking at the crowd,” he said tersely. “Look down. Act like you’re enjoying this.”
That was really not that difficult. Sela ducked her head. “Understood, sir.”
Sir. The word had slipped out. She winced at his measuring silence.
“Stop.” He tilted her chin up with his fingertips. “Stop calling me that. You do that in this place, and we’re both dead. This place hates Regime. If they know about the warrants, we’re both nothing more than a meal ticket.”
He pulled back, the warm press of his body now gone. She swayed slightly at the abruptness of his withdrawal. Her ears
burned. She swallowed, peering owlishly about. It was as if the colors in the passage had changed, becoming overexposed and garish.
Why was everything so hellishly loud?
“Be nice,” Jon said. His hand entwined with Sela’s as he guided them to the doorway. “And smile.”
Sela pulled a too-wide plastic grin across her face. “I’m always nice, damn it.”
With one last hitch at the damned single suit, she squared her shoulders and entered.
Quiet. Too quiet.
The lights overhead hummed with eye-watering brilliance. On disjointed legs, Erelah eased herself from the cot. She had no memory of waking. Her head felt thick. Her tongue was swollen against the roof of her mouth. A cloying metallic taste invaded her throat. The buoyant sensation was familiar but weak.
Something was off, missing. But what?
Then she realized. The uneven vibration of the Cassandra’s engines was absent. Testing her balance, Erelah teetered to the middle of the room.
Could we be docked?
But where?
Charts. They’d been talking about nav charts.
Then she remembered why the flat ugly taste in her mouth was so familiar. Tyron had given her something to make her sleep. But why? She was too groggy to fully embrace the tremor of betrayal that came with that thought.
Cautiously, Erelah made her way to the door and pressed her ear to its surface. A low-level hum seemed to come from very far away, punctuated by the periodic hollow clank of metal on metal.
She tabbed the lock. It clicked twice in rapid succession but stayed closed. Erelah tried it again, a little more desperately.
Nothing.
“Jon?” Her voice seemed too loud against the uncommon quiet. “Jon…please.”
Then, after long contemplation, she ventured: “Commander Tyron?”
No one answered.
Wakefulness returned to Erelah in stages, and with it, something else. It uncoiled from the burrowed-out hollow in her brain.
/They’ve abandoned you, my girl/
She recoiled and pressed her forearms against her ears. It did nothing to block out Tristic.
“Not there. Not there. Not there,” she chanted.
/Oh, but I am. I am here, lovely child. For you. I am waiting./
“Jon. Where are you?” She did not bother to raise her voice above a whisper. He would not hear.
/Abandoned. You have been left. But I want you still./
Tristic seeped into her, impossible to fend off. She faded under the monster’s overpowering tide. The last thing that registered was a guilty sense of relief.
Slowly, Erelah’s body uncurled. She stood with an erectness that denied any previous sense of fatigue or pain. Then, with stilted careful steps, she turned back to the door.
The locking interface was a simple electronic device, a mere privacy lock.
/Another delay. More tedium. More annoyance./
/There would be specific pleasure in eradicating the brother and his breeder./
Carefully Erelah’s fingers picked at the metal frame that hid the locking mechanism’s circuits. Soon her fingertips were bloody as the bare metal sliced into the skin.
Erelah was not there to feel the pain.
Chapter Twenty
“You’re a tall one, aren’t you?”
The expectant silence that followed made Sela realize the comment had been directed at her. She glanced at her captain. He bore a strange amused expression, despite the tense circumstances. At least someone was enjoying this.
The comment had come from Phex, a squat yellow slab of a Rhobgic seated at the table across from them. She was particularly mistrustful of their kind. Their biology was the symbiotic pairing of what amounted to an intelligent fungus growing over and invading a host animal frame. More parasitic than anything. Little wonder they were branded non-regs. They dwelled in the dark and squalid environs of the Known Worlds. Judging by what she had experienced of Merx so far, Phex had found an ideal home.
“I get that a lot,” Sela said quickly, before looking away. In truth, she had been designed to grow specifically to her present height with the bone density and muscle mass to match. She doubted Phex would have been interested in that fact.
Sela was scanning the crowd. She was hyped, on edge. The number of people here made her nervous. The tavern was a heavily fortified establishment with one point of entry. She counted four visible security personnel. Two additional, she suspected, were disguised as patrons. And in all probability Phex bore a concealed weapon. She and Jon were at a disadvantage here.
“Good looking female.” Phex smiled, displaying teeth unacquainted with hygiene. “How much?”
Although the question was directed at her captain, it was meant for Sela to overhear.
“No one buys me,” Sela growled. Now the little bastard had her attention.
Jon canted his head. The expression in his eyes was a silent command.
Play along. Like we planned.
“Not for sale.” He pulled her into a possessive embrace. She complied stiffly, all the while glaring at the tavern keeper.
“No such thing as not for sale here, friend.” Phex’s grin flattened for a moment. “Everyone knows that.”
“Of course,” Jon responded in Commonspeak. His Eugenes accent was flatter, practically undetectable. “But the reason I’m here is to make a purchase , friend.”
“What kind?” Phex squinted, his flabby jowls jiggling with delight. Sela was temporarily forgotten.
“Nav charts. Compatible with a Cassandra interface.”
“Bit of an antique, eh? What’re you offerin’ to trade?”
“Pharms. Quality product.”
“I might have…something.” His Stygian eyes rolled up and to the left in a pantomimed search for memory. “What system?”
Sela wondered if anyone really bought this act. Phex may look like a pile of doughy, rancid wax, but beneath that was a razor-sharp swindler. Dangerous, even.
Jon leaned over the table. “Not a system…a region. The Reaches.”
Phex rocked back in his chair and waved a hand. “What in Fate’s name would you want with the Reaches?” He did not pick up on their desire for subtlety.
“That’s not really important, is it?”
“Important enough to want charts to it.”
The trader leaned forward. His thick-fingered hands rustled around in a bowl of joolid crisps and made them disappear into his maw.
“Perhaps he doesn’t have what we need,” Sela said, repeating the memorized phrase, just as Jon had coached her back on the Cass. That was the way these types negotiated, he had explained. To Sela, it felt ridiculous, inefficient, but she trusted her captain’s insights.
Jon made an exaggerated shrug and started to stand.
“Drink! You’re dry. Where are my manners? Let’s talk over a drink,” Phex erupted with a hollow chuckle.
He brushed crumbs from the table and pounded on its surface with a fist. A stoop-shouldered server appeared.
“Drinks for my new friends here!”
Jon glanced at Sela. He bore the same deadpan expression she had seen before every deployment, but she knew that underneath, he was all nerves. Yet so far, things were unfolding as he had predicted.
Moments later, the server was back. Phex took his drink and gulped its contents in one well-practiced motion. Jon reached for his tumbler, but Sela intercepted. She studied its contents, sniffed. Then, tentatively took a sip. Her gaze never left Phex the entire time.
“Yannish brew. Cheap stuff.” Satisfied, she placed it back before her captain with a curt nod and pulled a plastic smile at Phex that made her earlier scowl look inviting.
His expression darkened. “Breeder, right?” Phex’s pretense of the congenial merchant dissolved.
“That make a difference?” Jon asked, dropping his hand to trap Sela’s against the arm of the chair.
“Always can tell one. Got a look about ‘em. ‘Specially this one,” Phe
x replied. He turned his sneer from Sela to Jon. “What’d you do…get caught giving it to her in the officer’s lounge? Easy to see that temptation.”
“It’s complicated.” Jon reached for his mug. His other hand firmly anchored Sela’s arm in place.
My captain is saving your life right now, parasite. Sela chewed the inside of her mouth.
Phex rumbled on. “Trained killers from the day they’re born. No such thing as a tame breeder, I says. Can’t trust ‘em. I’ll deal with you. Not her. No dealing with breeders.”
Jon regarded their host for a measuring moment across the table.
He wasn’t going to do this? Was he?
Perhaps sensing Jon’s hesitation, Phex adopted the chummy salesman tone once more. “My man at the docks no doubt told you, I’m the only one here that deals with newcomers. Not as if you got much choice in the matter. Now I got the maps you need. You have decent goods that I can move, we go talk.”
“I’ll find you when we’re done here.” Jon released his grip on her but kept his stare on Phex.
“Let us discuss this in a more private setting, friend.” Phex’s smile reappeared, victorious. He gestured to a doorway shrouded with the remains of a stained tapestry at the back of the tavern.
Sela eyed Phex with infinite distrust. Her captain rose, ready to follow. She stood.
“Your…retainer can help herself to my tavern’s amusements,” Phex said over his shoulder. “If she’s even capable of such.”
Jon shot her a warning expression.
Sela nodded, squelched.
Separating was a gamble. They would be out of contact with each other; the Cass had no functional vox devices onboard. This had better be worth it.
Jon suddenly pulled her into an embrace. Before she could react, he was kissing her.
“Remember…low profile,” he said in a rushed whisper against her neck. He stepped back, tapping her under the chin. “And…uh…try not to kill anyone.”
And just as quickly he turned to follow Phex.
“A beauty like you shouldn’t be alone.”
