Millie was about to lock the ship up—she didn’t want to risk a stowaway. She recalled the strange voice she’d heard right before the Lazarus had fired a shot at her. “Can you just wait a second, please?”
“Sure.” The guy took a seat on one of the crates.
Millie looked through the gunship. There weren’t many places to hide, so it only took her a few minutes to search everywhere. She found nothing, or rather nobody. It had to have been some kind of weird illusion, maybe something her brain had created in response to the shock of the blinding light and the adjustment to the lower gravity of the Moon. Just a mirage. She followed the guy.
“Are you staying for a while?”
“No, I’ll just check out the bar and be on my way.”
“They’ll have non-alcoholic drinks at the bar, too.” He looked at her.
Right. She was on duty. A pilot couldn’t have a single drop of alcohol in their system. And she couldn’t afford to lose her license before she’d even gotten it officially. “Oh, of course. Is their coffee any good?”
“Sure.”
* * *
As it turned out, the coffee was appalling. The first bar was almost empty, but the second one, the murkier one, was busy. There was a game of poker going on at one table, a couple of guys were shooting darts in a corner, and a sports channel was turned on at the end of the bar.
She had no way of knowing what the pilot looked like, so she tried the bartender. “I’m looking for the pilot from the Lazarus of the Wildfire Arc…”
“We’ve got a lot of people coming through here…” He looked at her and blinked. He was a pretty boy.
Millie nodded, took out her personal device, and left a generous tip.
“…but maybe try one of the poker guys…”
“Thanks.” She sat down at a table close to the poker game.
Loud banter came from the table.
“I’ll strip you naked!” a slim man with nicely combed hair and a suit said spitefully. He was so well-groomed that he had to be working in a bank or as a tax accountant—apart from his tie, which had come undone around his neck.
“That’s what your mother said last night!” a fat man with long gray hair and an ungroomed beard responded cockily. There were old food stains on his T-shirt where it stretched over his protruding belly.
Everyone laughed. There were seven players around the table, and the dealer. Two younger women who looked like twins weren’t playing, just hanging out. They had long, straight black hair, painted faces, and were wearing skin-tight matching dresses. They were most likely working girls. The only woman playing looked older than everyone else. She had frizzy, salt-and-pepper hair, drooping eyes, and the brightest red lipstick Millie had ever seen—perhaps a visual decoy to draw the attention away from her shriveled skin. She was smoking cigars and drinking what appeared to be whisky on the rocks. Then there were another two men. The one with shiny black hair was leaning on his elbows on the table, wearing sunglasses and a black leather jacket. A colorful cocktail was sitting on the table next to him.
The last man had dark brown eyes and blonde hair. He sat, relaxed, leaning back in his chair so his face was out of the bright light around the table. He had a wry smile on his face. A defensive smile, not a happy smile. There was a certain sleek charm about him. In spite of his relaxed posture, his eyes were alert to everything going on. He looked like he’d already sussed out what everyone had, and now he was just waiting quietly for a good hand of his own.
“And what about you, fancy-pants, you ain’t saying nothing. Are you drunk?” the fat, bearded guy challenged the relaxed guy across the table.
“Yeah, I’m so drunk I’m sure you’ve got a pair of sevens, which will get you nowhere,” the relaxed guy replied.
That shut the cocky fat guy right up. His cheeks went red under his beard.
As Millie listened to them talking, it didn’t take her long to decide who the Lazarus’ pilot was likely to be. It had to be the charming, relaxed guy. His relative seclusion and his ability to sting upon provocation seemed appropriate for a sneaky looter. Hit at the right time and run. It resonated with the experience she’d had with the Lazarus of the Wildfire Arc.
She went back to the bar, had another drink. Then she waited.
He folded three times in a row, and finally lost his entire stack. Then he, too, went to the bar. “Two tequilas,” he said to the waiter and took a seat right next to Millie.
Millie studied him in the mirrors behind the bar.
Then he looked straight at Millie, making eye contact with her in the mirror. “So what do you want?” he said in a low intimate voice.
Millie felt slightly uncomfortable. Has he figured out who I am?
“Take me out back and give me a nosebleed?” he said.
She couldn’t decide whether he was being spiteful or flirtatious with her.
The bartender brought two shot glasses and poured the tequila.
“I knew who you were the minute you started talking to the bartender…” The shadow of a smile crossed his eyes. “A woman with a backbone in a pilot suit saying ‘E-Corp’ on the chest is a dead giveaway—not many of those around.” He looked at her with a wry smile. “Cheers, Miss Not-Yet-Pilot!”
Millie looked at the tequila shot in front of her, and then at him. She was somewhat flabbergasted. Mostly by how silly she’d been to think she’d appeared incognito.
He lifted his glass in salute and waited for her. “To freedom.”
She hesitated, and then gave in. “What the heck—cheers, Big Ears.”
They emptied their respective glasses.
“Big Ears?”
“Perhaps you’d prefer Big Guns?” She looked at him without smiling.
“Ha!” He laughed. “No harm done, huh?”
Millie didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure she was prepared to forget his attack, but she felt ensnared by his charm. Really, she ought to be on her way back to base to get her license, but here she was—risking it to get even. Or at least to off-load her anger from the surprise attack where it belonged. And now that she had the opportunity to give him a piece of her mind about shooting at her, she was tongue-tied. He appeared in no way to be a trigger-happy lunatic. Perhaps a double-crossing player at the poker table, but nothing more malevolent than that.
“I’ll tell you what—if you find yourself in need of a job, give me a buzz.” He passed her a transparent touch card.
The card lit up as soon as she touched it—Phil Lazarus.
She wanted to say something spiteful. “Oh, so you named your ship after yourself?”
“Why not? It’s a good name.”
Millie looked at him. Phil. “You just shot at me. Why the hell would I come work for you?”
He shrugged disarmingly.
It was infuriating. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I become a looter.”
“Scavenger…I’m a scavenger, not a thief,” Phil said. “Besides, you’d only have to fly, not scavenge. That’s what I do. I tell you what, lady, I never saw anybody get off the surface in pursuit as nimbly and rapidly as you did. And you don’t even have an effing license yet! I could use that kind of pilot.”
She couldn’t help feeling flattered. Finally she pressed his card against her personal device to store his details. “I’m going on an E-Corp space mission, you know. That’s why I’m getting a certificate.”
“Well, now you know how to find me if it turns out E-Corp doesn’t agree with you after all…” He gave her a mysterious smile, nodded, and went back to the poker table—and damn it if she didn’t find herself following him with her eyes, wishing she could stay on the space station just a little longer…
* * *
“Cleared to land,” Holman announced on the coms, after she’d entered Earth’s atmosphere and was approaching the space port.
“Affirmative.” Millie landed the gunship and pulled back in to the assigned bay.
“Welcome back to base.” Holman sounded annoye
d. “Finally! I was wondering where the fuck you were—first you snail out of the dock, then you race into space, then you’re late for Moon landing, then you land in a swift second, then I have to tell you to slow the fuck down docking at the space station, and then you seem to disappear down a hole at the station as if you had no care in the world to get licensed. We need to have a serious talk about appropriate pace at appropriate times, as well as timely feedback, little missy!”
Millie wanted to say something to calm Holman down. She knew she was on thin ice. But the freedom of being in space had felt so incredibly exhilarating, so liberating—in stark contrast to the confined living on Earth, with everyone crammed into the megacities. Outside, in space, she felt like she could breathe. She was finally certain she’d made the right decision signing up for the space mission—even though she loathed E-Corp. This was her way up and out into space. “Sorry, Holman. I have no idea what happened with me. I’ll make a point of leveling out my pace more appropriately, as well as giving feedback as to my exact whereabouts in the future. Please accept my apology, sir. It won’t happen again.” She turned everything but the coms off.
Holman didn’t respond.
She really wanted to lift the mood before she had to face him in person in a few minutes. “So what’s on the far side of the Moon—apart from looters, scavengers, and a broken signal booster?”
“Why—did you see anybody there?” Holman sounded alert. “Nobody but outlaws roam those waters!”
“Right,” Millie replied dryly. She felt herself becoming more attracted to the less beaten path of off-Earth living—outlaw or not. That feeling of freedom, her near-total lack of fear when she’d been flying, was too delicious for her to continue caring too much about rules and regulations.
“I’ll meet you at the bay.”
“Roger.” Millie removed the ear buds and switched off the coms. Just as she was about to open the hatch, she wondered again about that voice she’d heard. She wondered if that was a common experience for new pilots to have—perhaps something to do with adjusting to space? But she sure as hell wasn’t going to mention it to Holman. Not as long as he was unhappy with her. Besides, she felt like a new person; she felt stronger, more determined, practically independent. She wasn’t going to jeopardize that by telling Holman she’d heard voices. With that thought, she released the air-lock and opened the hatch. It depressurized with a hiss, and she stepped back down on firm ground.
“What happened to you?” Holman walked up to her, suddenly looking concerned.
“Did I pass?” Millie wanted to know.
“Well…” Holman paused. “Did you hit your head?”
For a brief second, she thought he’d somehow guessed about the voice she’d heard, but then he made a gesture toward her forehead. “Did somebody attack you at the space station? Is that why you didn’t come back right away?”
She wiped her forehead with her hand, and sure enough, a bit of dry blood came off. “The Sun was literally blinding on the far side, so I might have stumbled trying to switch the polarization back on manually,” Millie brushed him off. “As I said, sir, I do apologize for my untimeliness.” She looked at him.
“So what the hell did you do at the space station?” Holman’s concern had evaporated like dew in the morning sun.
“Is that part of the pilot test, too? Timeliness and frequent feedback?” Millie said in a gentle tone of voice.
Holman looked somewhat agitatedly into the distance as if he felt cornered.
Millie gave him a moment. “You know, no equipment was damaged, sir…” She recalled the way she’d tumbled about in the cabin when she was blinded and made a mental note to check the gunship for any new dents, as well as doing a more thorough search for a stowaway—just in case the voice hadn’t been a figment of her imagination, as she suspected. “Can you perhaps get back to me shortly for confirmation on my certificate status, please, sir?”
“Affirmative.” Holman walked off at a rapid pace.
“Thank you, sir.” She climbed back inside the gunship and went through all the hollow spaces requiring tools to get to where a stowaway could possibly fit. There was nobody, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She sighed and locked up the ship securely so nobody could enter or exit for the time being. Then she headed for the locker rooms. She needed a shower. She needed to wash the tension away. She needed to wash her infatuation with freedom off her face—and the blood, too. She needed many things, but right now she needed that pilot certificate the most.
* * *
As the water ran down her body, Millie let go of the stress and intensity of her virgin solo ride, but her thoughts kept circling back to Phil Lazarus. She was curious about the Wildfire Arc’s pilot, and pondered their encounter. Then she thought about the strange, somewhat surreal experience she’d had just prior to the Lazarus of the Wildfire Arc’s appearance. Were the two events connected? Was it really just a mirage? Or had someone actually been inside the gunship? The voice had seemed almost otherworldly. It had felt so real to her, but it made no sense.
She got dressed and went back to the ship with a thermal scanner. There was no sign of forced entry anywhere on the ship. A scan from every angle inside the gunship only showed hot engines, no human form. Then she switched to bio scan. No human form or other biological creature turned up this time either, but the bio scan revealed the fresh marks of what looked like a bit of blood inside the cabin. It was fair to assume it was her own blood, she thought, gingerly touching the scrape on her forehead, but just in case…There was just enough for her to get a few clean samples.
On her way to the lab, she first dropped by Kurt’s lab. Kurt was the first crew member she had met from the E-Corp space mission she was preparing to embark on—getting the pilot certificate being one of the final steps of her preparation—and he’d been nothing but kind to her. Not to mention he, too, was a scientist. Senior position.
“Hey, Miss Millie,” he said cheerfully when he saw her enter.
“Hi, are you busy?” Millie spoke fast and waved one of the blood samples in front of her.
“What’s that?”
“It’s probably nothing. I’d just like to test the DNA, if it’s not too much trouble?”
“Where did you get it?”
Millie quickly made a discrete sweeping gesture with her hand as if dismissing his question. She hadn’t known Kurt for very long, and although he seemed like a great and genuine guy, she still felt like this was a card to hold close to her chest. If indeed there had been a stowaway onboard the gunship, and she was responsible, it wouldn’t look good for her. Between pissing Holman off enough to jeopardize getting her certificate and lurking around making unauthorized DNA tests, she was sure another reported misstep wouldn’t be taken lightly—and giving an unauthorized stowaway a lift to the space station would be a heavy blow, no matter if she’d done it unknowingly. “If it’s too much trouble, don’t worry about it…”
“No, I’ll help you. I was just wondering…”
“Great, thanks man. I owe you. And please keep this between us. Top secret.” Millie smiled, left the sample with him, and raced out the door. If she’d been able to run the test herself, she would have. But the necessary lab facilities were off limits to her. She had no authorization to even enter. And if Holman caught her entering discreetly without authorization…it wasn’t even worth risking.
Outside, she slowed down a bit and continued to her own makeshift lab facility.
She opened another of the blood samples and studied it under a microscope. It looked like human blood. And when she ran a test, it proved rhesus negative, type O—human.
Millie sighed. It was probably just her own blood. She must’ve hit her head harder than she’d thought when that scavenger took a shot at her gunship. One last possibility was that the blood could’ve been there already when she first set foot in the gunship, blood from some other pilot, perhaps.
She closed her eyes. It was so vivid in her mind—her
memory of hearing a voice speaking to her right when she was practically blinded by the sharp sunlight flooding into the cabin. She could’ve sworn the voice was real, that someone else had been there, talking to her. She’d felt so good in space, like her anxiety was gone for good—but if she was hearing voices? Maybe her anxiety was actually getting worse, somehow, or manifesting in new ways.
No. There had to be something odd with this blood, she was sure of it. And if so, it could perhaps prove she wasn’t crazy, hearing voices, and there had been someone in the cabin speaking to her. She put the blood under her portable super-resolution microscope and zoomed in. It looked identical to human blood, the plasma, the cells. But when she got to the telomeres, something made her stop. Chromosomes weren’t her primary field of expertise, but she was pretty sure the nucleotide sequences located at the chromosome ends, the telomeres, of an average middle-aged person were supposed to be relatively short due to aging or a general state of decreasing health. But these telomeres looked as fresh and wholesome as those of a newborn baby. The blood couldn’t be hers.
She opened the display of her personal device and called Holman. “Is it common practice to have babies onboard space ships?”
“What? Babies?” Holman coughed somewhat coldly in her ear. “I don’t think babies are allowed in space. Surely they wouldn’t survive the forces when leaving Earth’s atmosphere. And why would a baby ever be onboard a ship anyway—they’re of no use to anyone. What did you inhale up there?” Holman finally thawed and laughed heartily at his own joke.
“So you’re sure? There has never been a baby onboard the gunship?” Millie bit her tongue—that was more specific than she’d wanted to be.
Holman stopped laughing. “Why, no—not to my knowledge. What’s this about, Hunter?”
“Thanks, gotta go.” Millie hung up.
She took a sample of her own blood and put it under the microscope. The telomeres in her blood looked the same as the sample from the gunship. Long, intact, newborn. Impossible. It had to be her own blood in those samples, then. She must’ve just hit her head quite hard without really noticing. But she was clearly mistaken about the length of telomeres in general.
The Dogs of God Page 19
