Salvage

by R J Theodore

  “Hold it!” Amos shouted and fetched clamps and additional wire from a nearby trunk.

  They held the cage shut and refastened it all around the edges of the door. The animal lunged again and again, chasing their fingers where they appeared through the bars. Each time, Amos and Kirna removed their vulnerable digits with no margin to spare. The tortured and transformed creature pursued them with a ferocity Talis found difficult to believe, even watching it happen right in front of her.

  Sophie made a horrified sound in her throat as though she could not find a voice with which to swear. Dug made a similarly strained noise in agreement.

  Talis would have told them to look away, but she was as transfixed by the sight as they were. They watched, linked in their horror, as the small herbivore tried to tear its wire cage apart to get its long, now curving teeth into the fingers of the two alchemists struggling to keep it contained.

  The cage danced on the surface of the worktable until, at last, the animal slowed. Talis thought its small heart must have burst with the strain, and that would be the end of the pitiful thing’s torment. Instead, it reared up on its hind legs and hooked clawed toes through the top bars of its cage. It strained, pulling the wire out of shape, and emitted a small stomach-turning grunt as though its throat were clogged with thick phlegm.

  “Another moment,” Amos said, holding onto the cage but bending his face closer than safety permitted. “And . . . there!”

  The animal went rigid. The remaining hair along its spine stood up straight, and even more of it shed off. Its hindquarters arched, and its neck and head lowered as though it were a cat stretching after a nap. But there was nothing satisfying in this posture, nothing relaxing or languid.

  It coughed, and blood and spittle flew from its mouth. The jaw hung open. As Talis began to wonder if the joint had dislocated, a flare of burning green light came to life in its throat, like a chemical set ablaze. It was saturated, beyond bright. Matched by only one other thing on Peridot: Nexus.

  The light dripped out of the animal’s mouth as though a liquid. It landed in a puddle of blood and spit but did not mix with the fluids. Instead it moved around the bottom of the cage, pooling up against the edges of the bottom tray and then changing direction. Talis got the distinct impression it was searching for a seam through which to escape. After exploring the entire surface, it collected in the corner nearest Sophie. She drew back in revulsion.

  Their focus—even that of the small creature—was all fixated on the tiny flare.

  The room was quiet. Amos and Kirna exchanged looks, and the girl picked up a notepad and pencil, handing it to her mentor without a word. He began to record his observations, pursing his lips as he scribbled furiously. The pencil made a scratching sound too similar to that of the creature’s claws as it had scrabbled against the paper lining of its cage.

  The animal collapsed, then rolled onto its side as though its limbs only just became aware of the abuse they endured. It heaved with labored breath, grumbling at the beings gathered around its cage. Amos nodded, and Kirna picked up a scalpel and opened the cage door.

  She reached in, up to the elbow. The creature, fueled by fright or madness, found a second wave of strength. It latched onto her forearm and bit through the leather glove as though it were tissue paper. Its teeth cracked her chitinous forearm with a muffled crunch. Kirna cursed, almost an octave higher than usual, and shook her arm to cast off the thing. It held fast. She finished what she’d set out to do before it attacked, using the scalpel to cut its throat.

  The creature bled out, over and into her punctured gloves until it was finally weak enough that Kirna could dislodge it from her arm.

  “Rinse, fast!” Amos commanded her, but she was already on her way to the wash basin set up against the nearby bulkhead, carefully holding the arm so that the creature’s blood ran away from the puncture in her glove. Sophie leapt to Kirna’s side and tried to help her get the glove off, but Kirna shoved her away, shouting to stay back. She plunged the arm into the bath and held it there. Her lips thin, eyes wincing against the burn of the acid.

  After a moment, she took up a towel and retreated across the cabin. Her eyes were wide and fixed on Amos. Dug’s hands flexed, ready to do whatever would need to be done to protect his crew and ship.

  The ship’s clock in the corridor outside filled the silence with ten minutes’ worth of tension.

  Finally, Amos took a deep breath and nodded. Kirna stripped off the second glove and tiptoed back over to them as though she were afraid she might jostle loose the creature’s madness in herself.

  Talis fixed Amos with what she hoped was suitable glare. He could have warned them. “What in Helsim’s immortal sphincter was that?”

  Amos removed his gloves. “That was the Yu’Nyun solution. Our attempts to determine its composition only confirmed its origins were extra-planetary. We had little choice but to test a diluted sample. I know of no reason why it would not have the same effect if injected in a larger creature.” He looked at Kirna again. She was tending the injury to her forearm, pouring more of the cleaner onto the wound, hissing at the sting as it reached broken skin beneath the chitin.

  “Or a person.” He closed his mouth again and his lips formed a thin, pale line.

  “Five hells. So that’s what happened at Ytima. They all killed each other. “Talis had held to the thin hope the vials had some kind of recreational drug or a panacea for every known ailment. Best chance now was maybe they could use it to move a few of the aliens or their allies along to their next plane of existence. Better to just keep it away from anyone. “No doubt, then, it could be weaponized?”

  Kirna let out a wry laugh. She fought to hold her voice steady. “Look at it. It already is.”

  “But to the captain’s question,” Amos said, disapproving of his assistant’s tone. “Yes, I do believe this could be concentrated or otherwise modified to a format that could deliver large doses to multiple subjects at a time. We must conduct more tests, so we know what will happen if it is introduced to the population.”

  “More? Don’t you dare let any of those things lose on my ship, Professor.”

  But there was reason to test it if anyone else had come up out of flotsam with any of this stuff. “Think you can make an antidote?”

  “Without knowing more about what it is, what it does, how it affects the system, what species might be resistant or immune—”

  “All right.” She held up a hand for peace. “A ‘no’ would have done it.”

  “The answer was not a negative, Captain.” Amos sighed. “As with all things of true and proper science, further examinations and investigations must be made.”

  Kirna stepped away from the table to put a hand on Talis’s forearm. “We’ll try, Captain. We promise.”

  Sophie stood up and fished in her pocket. “There’s one more piece to this.”

  She produced a palm full of the cleaved alien crystal. The green puddle inside the cage began to move again, trembling and surging against the side of the tray. When Sophie held it close enough, it jumped the rim and plunged into the depth of the largest shard.

  Amos adjusted his spectacles as he leaned over Sophie’s hand. “Fascinating. May I?”

  “All yours, Professor. There’s more where that came from.”

  The alchemists had hurried the chips to their workbench, questioning and hypothesizing and seeming for all the world to have forgotten the crew was there.

  Talis nodded, took the hint, and motioned for Dug and Sophie to leave them to it. As they walked back toward the accessway to the weather deck, the voices of the two alchemists returned to their usual conspiratorial levels as they discussed toxicology, neurology, hormones, and other things Talis couldn’t follow. The sound of serrated knife edges on small bones forced her, finally, to stop listening in altogether.

  “Salad for dinner, maybe.” Sophie grinne
d at her, holding open the hatch to open sky.

  “Do you know what dish I would enjoy?” Dug’s expression was intense, and his smile curved as dangerously as his blades.

  Talis could sense what was on his mind. That there might be boxes of that solution out there in the world, in the hands of people far less likely to take what few precautions Amos and Kirna did.

  Talis and Dug moved back to the deckhouse to resume his exercises, and Sophie wandered off to tell Tisker what the commotion had been about and to take over the wheel for a time.

  “I’m picturing a greasy box full of kebabs and steamed vegetables.” Talis picked up the ball where she’d dropped it before. It had been two years since they enjoyed the food of their favorite Subrosan restaurant, nestled away in a corner of the Cutter undercity, across the border, on the other side of the world.

  He nodded at her as he caught the ball and tossed it back, slow and deliberate.

  She searched his eyes. “You ready?”

  “Oh, I am ready.”

  Chapter 31

  Oil, sweat, spices, grime, and blood. Talis took a deep breath of Subrosa’s familiar miasma as she stepped down from Moth Catcher’s ramp. It filled her lungs, cleared the stagnancy of the past few years, scraping it clean with the stinging, acrid scent.

  The tunnels and alleys remapped regularly, giving or taking ground in turf wars, business competition, or to disorient the Rosan constabulary from the island proper. A language of glyphs danced across the polyboard and corrugated metal lining the semi-permanent structures. The entire station vibrated with the street traffic from twenty-plus levels, through the more permanent structures anchored into the underside of the island above.

  The last time they walked the noisy thoroughfares of Subrosa, Talis accepted the Yu’Nyun contract to take them to Onaya Bone. Though she had come around to blaming Hankirk for putting her in that situation, she couldn’t help but twirl a prayerlock around her finger and hope, this time, she’d make better judgments of the business ahead of them.

  First was to get kitted out in respectable clothing. Something off the secondhand racks. Worn in, but no patches. She left her crew aboard Moth Catcher to watch the bulk of their money, and their secret alchemists, and wandered through the motley racks of Ragtown in search of the right items. Something that would look and feel as natural as skin.

  It was critical to look the part in Subrosa. Deadly to get it wrong.

  Twill pants, gray for Tisker and khaki for herself. Box-knit cotton tops, soft and warm—a whole pile of those, ranging from gray to brown to black. The white sleeveless undershirts Sophie used to live in, plus brown leather pants with metal rings for a hundred pouches. Loose black cotton trousers for Dug, and a button-up collarless shirt. Jackets, socks, scarves. She ignored the knowing looks of the kiosk attendants and resolved to change out of her Rakkar scraps as soon as she could find a cubby in which to do so. Piles of new things, and her looking like that, she’d soon have a hundred Subrosan street rats following her, sniffing at her pockets for pinchable coins. A miserly shopkeep sold her an empty soap crate to hold the lot, which didn’t do anything to hide her current look but at least concealed the nature of her errand.

  Just one more stop. Talis found a pawn kiosk at the mouth of Assessor’s Hall and bought some shine to round out their restoration. Beads for their prayerlocks, bronze and gold cuffs for their arms. Emeralds for Tisker, to accentuate the green shots in his hazel eyes. More gold and silver rings than they had piercings to wear them in. That thought in mind, Talis bought a sharp needle too. It had been so long since they’d pawned everything they owned to fund their room in Lippen; likely some of their empty piercings would need reopening.

  It didn’t compare to the jewelry they used to have, which had been collected over their careers, each piece with a special significance. That wasn’t important now. She wasn’t trying to replace what they’d lost, nor was this meant to make them sentimental. Important thing was to catch the light. To sparkle and to swagger.

  When she returned to her crew, it was like the morning of Wind Festival all over again. They pawed through the treasures with exclamations of delight and tore wrappings off those bundles bound in newsprint. They found or made a place for each of the earrings brought back. Overdue rewards for years of hard work. They had two years of added decorations to make up for. There should have been victories and narrow escapes to celebrate with rings and studs and gems. Sophie and Tisker took turns holding a flame to the piercing needle. Sophie adopted a new nostril piercing, and Tisker gave her one of the emerald studs, keeping the other for a third piercing he added above the two in his lobe. Even Talis did not escape the needle. Her cartilage pulsed hot with the addition of two rings around the rim of her left ear.

  The old spark flared bright again. After the first moments of flexing their arms and shoulders to revel in the comfort of proper dress, they stopped fidgeting. A new but familiar confidence settled into place. Talis nodded her approval.

  They left Dug to watch the ship and make sure the alchemists didn’t wander off, and Talis stepped backward across the catwalk leading from the exterior docking bay to watch Sophie and Tisker saunter along behind her. The crowd parted for them. A confident stride in Subrosa was worth three armed escorts. Let them think there were four weapons hidden away for each one visible on her hip. A captain worth robbing was able to hold her own against the would-be cutpurses. And yeah, she looked the part again. More importantly, she felt the part.

  She flashed a smile at her crew. They were two years removed from all their contacts, but they had a plan. And, unlike the last time they docked in Subrosa, they weren’t desperate.

  “Shall we make a visit to Jones? Or maybe go get a bite to eat first?” She winked at Sophie, but she was only teasing. There was no question to it. They needed those upgrades before they could leave again, making it their next order of business. And the sooner they placed the order for their commission, the sooner it would be done.

  Tisker nudged Sophie with his shoulder, and they exchanged eager smiles.

  “All right, stow those grins. Our arrival has been noticed, no reason to doubt that.”

  They may not have been in touch with their business acquaintances, but they were well known on Subrosa. Someone would have recognized Talis as she shopped and made off to let the boss of one syndicate or another in on the little parcel of news. By the time they reached the main alleys, the silence that wafted around them was more than enough to make her jumpy.

  But what disturbed her more were the guards patrolling the undercity. Proper discipline and Rosan uniforms meant something else was going on. She wanted to ask someone, but it had to be the right someone.

  What was clear to her was that their next actions mattered more than ever. Far out of the world as they’d been, and if their original plan hadn’t been interrupted with the windfall of Wind Sabre’s old treasure, they’d have started out looking for a new captain to crew under until they managed to save up enough for a ship. That would be expected, but they’d arrived on a large ship instead. Too large, some would quickly note. That was a mark against them.

  So, let the fair denizens of Subrosa watch in amazement as they strolled up Builders Alley to the shipyard of one Jones, Subrosa’s famed artisanal builder of skyworthy vessels.

  They had to cross the entire diameter of Subrosa at the upper levels to reach the shipyard, and the way the joy bubbled up and threatened to burst forth, Talis felt as though she were leading a parade. Drunken laughter might go unnoticed in Subrosa, but actual happiness and glee stood out like a glow pumpkin against the unforgiving reality of life in the blackmarket city.

  They passed a group of children armored in scraps of warped polyboard, corrugated metal, and paper helmets. They carried sticks and lengths of steel bar. On makeshift shields slung over their shoulders, in messy penmanship, the words ‘GOSTE PUTROL’ stood out in white
paint, bold against a red field.

  “Ghost patrol,” Sophie mused. “That’s a new game. Shouldn’t they be training for the slum lords?”

  “Been a long time,” Talis said. “A few of those kids were in soaking breeches last time we were out this way.”

  “Gods, Captain, you’re making me feel old.” Sophie, youngest of them all and with the round features that promised she’d look young until her hair turned gray, earned a look for the comment and had the decency to shut up.

  Tisker thumbed a presscoin out of thin air and whistled. The kids turned to look at him, their sharp focus instantly fixed on the trophy he displayed.

  “Oy, lin brodhaers,” he said, letting his Subrosan pidgin accent return to the thickness it had when Talis first met him. The kids were practically his kin. All street urchins in Subrosa had the city for a mother. “Wan theh ’bou ghosts?”

  One street rat dashed up and palmed the coin. By the hungry eyes of his mates, he’d have to defend it later. “Jeh th’one ghost, y’ol farter. When yo bin?”

  “Oninn adventure,” Tisker said, ignoring the insult. It wasn’t in the rats to be polite. “Unla yo’n nev know. So, wha’bou it?”

  The kid, so young that he still spoke with a child’s lisp, stuck the corner of Tisker’s coin in his mouth and bit. Satisfied, he answered. “Y’see it creepin’ rou er’where. Tinpot say it lives’n th’plenums, but I alwhen see’t in th’dump halls.”

  “Real that? Yo’not jaen playin’?”

  Talis half expected the kid to demand another coin to continue, but Tisker had wounded his pride. The child puffed out his chest, where a tin badge, painted solid red, was pinned to his dirty gray shirt.

  “We’s Uh-Fish-Oil Ghost Patrol. Paternus Flinch put us onnit. E’ry six clangs, we bring ’im news. Sup fer a week, iffin we bring it in kilt. Two weeks, iffin it’s trussed ’n breathin’.”

  The kid bristled as Tisker laughed. Lower lip protruded in a pout below fierce eyes and furrowed ridge. The children of Subrosa were no lambs. Talis waited for him to pull a knife on her crewman.