Snowburn

by Frost, E J

  “Aren’t you going to check the box?” Kez asks.

  “Naw, load it up.” If the rats have fucked us, they’ve fucked us. There’s no one around to confront, and I’m not venturing into their tunnels again, so there’s not much we can do about it.

  “Okay.” She carries the box up the Marie’s ramp, but she checks it first, my cautious kitten. Her smile tells me we got what we wanted.

  She brings me a bulb of water when she returns to help me unload. Operating the funnel is a one-man job, though, so there’s not much she can do other than stand around, watch and slurp my drink.

  After I unload the last crate, I move to the base of the Marie’s ramp and reclaim my water. She’s left me most of the bulb, so she was only taking tiny sips. Probably just to tease me. She gives as good as she gets, my kitten. I hold my arm out and tuck her against my side when she comes to me. She turns her face into my shoulder. Catches my sweat-dampened tank in her teeth and tugs on it. Then kisses my chin. “I like it when you’re sweaty,” she murmurs.

  I cup the back of her head. Stroke her stubbly hair with my thumb. “Naughty kitten,” I say absently. I’m watching the tunnel. All the darker now for having three crates stacked in front of it. Is there movement in the shadows? A flash of white fur? A gleam of claw? I can’t be sure, but I think so.

  “C’mon, kitten.” I lead her back up the ramp. “We’re done here.”

  Kez peers back at where I was staring. Then glances up at me anxiously. “Is there—?”

  “Dunno.” I tap the ramp controls. Listen to the hydraulic hiss as it closes behind us. “But we got what we came for, so it’s time for us to go.”

  “Okay.” She slips her hand in mine. Smiles up at me as we walk towards the cockpit. Without hesitation. Without question. That immediate, unblinking trust she’s given me right from the start. I squeeze her hand.

  “You ready to take us out of here?”

  She chews her lower lip for a moment. Considering. She was watching me closely as I took the ship down. I don’t have any concerns about her ability to fly us out of here, but I’m not going to push her if she feels it’s too much.

  She nods firmly.

  “Then you’re driving.” I steer her towards the captain’s chair.

  Kez sits cross-legged on my workbench, polishing one of the spare bones, watching me cut the first knife. The bones the rats have provided are stripped clean: no meat or gristle left on them. But they’re not smooth, and shaping the knives will be easier with smooth stock, so Kez rubs the bones with the polishing cloth I’ve given her.

  She doesn’t show any squeamishness at the task. She sets to it in the same practical, straightforward way she does everything else. Yet another thing I love about her.

  “You ever come across anything you couldn’t do, kitten?” I ask without taking my eyes off the laser I’m using to cut the bone.

  “Mmm?” She lifts her face, obscured by an opaque breather that covers her from nose to chin. I’m wearing its twin. I do not want either of us breathing human bone dust. “Splinters. I can’t pull out splinters. Not out of myself. Not out of Ape or Nevie. I just can’t do it. Makes me sick.”

  “Splinters.” I try to wrap my head around this foible. She can sit there calmly sanding down a dead man’s bone. She can take on an orclas with only a couple of threads of monofilament. She can deal with her friend puking and shitting all over her during Hex withdrawal. But she can’t pull a piece of wood out from under a layer of skin.

  “Uh-huh. Your turn. Is there anything you can’t do?”

  I consider it for a moment. There are a few things I haven’t done. Could I do them if properly motivated? Probably. “Eyeballs,” I say finally. “Anything to do with eyeballs.” The chopdoc on Cayster had to knock me out before I’d let him near my eyes. I didn’t mind him cutting up my face while I was conscious, but I was not letting him open up my eyeballs. “And spiders. I’m not a huge fan of spiders.” I never got to meet any of Phogath’s rectal worms, but I met plenty of the planet’s arachnids. The little green ones that tunnel into your mucous membranes to lay their eggs were the worst. I had to have a batch of those cut out of my sinuses. That was not a good day.

  “Spiders and eyeballs?”

  “Next subject,” I growl, not wanting to think about spiders and eyeballs, particularly not in conjunction.

  “Have you ever done this before?” she asks, tipping her chin at the bone I’ve cut in half.

  I examine the cross-section. There’s a good amount of compact bone, which is what I want for the knife. The honey-combed spongy bone and marrow are no good to me. Although I hear the marrow is edible. I’ll leave that to the Mirrormen. “Not exactly. I’ve used animal bones as weapons.” Mostly as clubs. “I haven’t carved knives before.”

  “Is that what we’re doing?”

  “Yeah.” I glance at her. Have I kept her that completely in the dark? If so, she doesn’t look perturbed. She sights along the side of the bone she’s been polishing, nods in satisfaction, and turns the bone over.

  “See this ridge?” I slide my forefinger along the outer edge of the bone. “That’s where it’s thickest. I’m gonna use that part, so try not to polish too much mass away.”

  She nods. “Aye-firmative.”

  I examine the bone half I’m holding again, decide where I’m going to start the cut and set it back in the magneclamps I’ve stuck to my workbench. I trim off everything but the compact bone first and cut myself a working blank. The knives are going to have to be shorter than normal throwing knives to fit my forearms. I prefer a twenty-centimeter knife for throwing. These are going to have to be about sixteen centimeters. Anything longer than that and I won’t be able to bend my wrists and elbows with the knives in place. As long as I stick my target, that should be long enough.

  I’m also going to have to throw spear style, which is not my preference. I get better results with a quarter spin. But the spin requires some weight at the back to ensure rotation and the thicker I make the hilt, the more bone I have to shove under my own skin. So I end up with a design that’s more like a damned dart than a knife. But it balances the competing factors.

  I stay with the laser until I’ve got the final shape and all I need to do is hone the edge. The dry bone is easier to cut than the steel or thermium I usually work with, but, I discover as I begin roughing out the second blank, it’s full of organic inconsistencies, and a thin spot on the second blank causes the hilt to fracture irregularly along one edge as I cut.

  “Fuck.” I pull the blank out of the clamps and toss it onto the bench next to Kez.

  She frowns at it through her breather. “I take it it’s not supposed to look like that.”

  “No.”

  “Well, good thing we’ve got spares.” She hands me the one she’s been working on, which is yellower than the previous two bones, but when I cut it through, has wonderfully thick ridges of compact bone.

  I cut two blanks out of that one, and when I trim the first blank into a rough, I know these are my knives. “Musta been a milk drinker,” I tell Kez, running my fingertips over the dense, yellow bone.

  “Or a runner,” says Kez.

  “Yeah, you figure your bones look like this?”

  She sniffs. “My bones are much prettier than that,” she says, stretching her legs in front of her and pointing her toes, free of her boots and encased in soft peds now that we’re back indoors. “Probably not as long, though.” She takes the unpolished bone and holds it against her thigh. She’s holding it backwards, so the head and trochanter protrude past her knee. About six centimeters past her knee. “Man?” she asks.

  “Or Amazon.” My kitten’s fairly tall for a woman, so the original owner of that bone must have been over two meters. Or had legs up to their neck.

  She holds the bone out and examines it in the strong mid-day light streaming through the big windows overlooking the river. “It’s funny to think of this being under my skin.”

  “Not as f
unny as thinking about it bein’ under my skin.”

  She puts down the bone. “How’s that?”

  “Knives I’m carving go under my skin. That’s how I’m gonna get them into the meeting with Tyng. All they’ll scan is an extra pair of bones. Lots of Mods have those.” I might even have a few. I’ve never checked.

  Kez stares at me for a long moment. “You’re fucking with me.”

  I shrug. “Nope.”

  “You are not sticking that—” She grabs the broken blank and waves it at me. “Under your skin!”

  “Not that one. It’s broken.” I finish trimming the blank and pop the magneclamps to release it. I turn it over in my hand, testing the weight and balance. It’s already pretty good. Now let’s see if it takes an edge. I know from experience that bone shards are fucking sharp, so I’m hopeful.

  “Hale!”

  “What?” I thought we were finished with that last subject, but Kez evidently has more to say.

  “I’m serious. Listen to me. I had no idea that’s what you wanted the bone for. You can’t do this. What – how . . . wait, is that why Doc Gray is coming here? Is that the favor? You’re going to have him implant these under your skin?!”

  “Yeah.” I flip on my grinder and let it warm up while I move over to where Kez is sitting. I push her legs apart and lean in between her thighs. Peel down our breathers so I can kiss her. “An’ you’re gonna sit next to me an’ tell me how brave I am while he does it.”

  “No, I’m not!” Kez protests. She twists her face away, but I cup her neck, draw her back to me and kiss her until she stops whining.

  “I might even want you to kiss it better once Doc Gray is done.”

  “This isn’t funny.” She pushes at my chest, but she doesn’t put any strength behind it. “I can’t let you do this. Please, Hale, don’t.”

  “It’s done, kitten.” Well, half-way at least.

  “No, he hasn’t cut fucking holes in you to stick those in.” She gestures wildly at the blanks sitting on the workbench. “We’ll get them in some other way. Please, I don’t want you to do this.”

  I catch her hand, push up her sleeve until I find the spot where I cut her to give the rats their blood-price. I rub my thumb over the healed wound. “Remember this? Remember bleeding so I’d have safe passage outta the rathole? You didn’t hesitate. Didn’t even flinch. You think I got any problem doin’ the same for you?”

  “I don’t — it’s not —” She shakes her head and glances around like she’s looking for some other answer. She also looks like she’s about to cry.

  “Kezra.” I pitch my voice deep and use her full name so she’ll know I’m not playing around now. “I’ve got no problem with this. It’s not the first time I’ve cut myself up for the cause. This is a better reason than I’ve ever had before—”

  “No,” she says so low it’s almost a moan. “You’re going to cut big holes in yourself all because my stupid brother cannot keep his stupid dick in his stupid pants.”

  I cup her face in my hands. Lift her head so she has to look up at me. “They’re going to be small, surgical holes. That’s why Doc Gray is doin’ them. An’ I’m doing this for you, not your stupid brother. Definitely not for his stupid dick.”

  That gets me half-a-smile.

  “C’mon, kitten. This is one of the best plans I’ve ever come up with.” It blows my escape from Tol Seng away. All that required was strength, some of the skills I learned in S.A.W.L., and a lack of other options. “You gotta admit, Tyng will never suspect.”

  “Because no one else is crazy enough to implant knives under their skin.”

  “Are you so against this ‘cause stickin’ ‘em under my skin is like a splinter?”

  She snorts. “I’m against you mutilating yourself. You’ve already got a huge hole in your shoulder from where my sister shot you, and now you’re going to have two more big holes because of my stupid brother—”

  I cut her off with another, deeper kiss before she winds up again. “My shoulder feels fine,” I tell her when I let her up for air. Which is true. Doc Gray did a great job with it, which makes me confident about having him cut the sheaths. “An’ this is gonna be fine. Now, how ‘bout we go back to the part where you tell me how proud you are of me?”

  She slides one arm around my neck and tilts her face up for another kiss. Which I give her. There are probably some things better than kissing my kitten, but I can’t think of any right at this moment. “I am proud of you,” she whispers against my mouth. “Don’t ever think I’m not totally blown away by the way you keep saving my ass. I just wish you didn’t have to.”

  I chuckle. “For the record, daily ass-saving gets a little old. But I’m fine with it occasionally.”

  “But it has been every day,” she points out.

  I stroke her cheeks with my thumbs. “Yeah, it’s been every day. But I figure once we’re done with Tyng, things are gonna calm down. As long as you don’t go promisin’ flesh to any more drug lords. An’ as long as your brother doesn’t stick his stupid dick in any more drug lords’ daughters.”

  “I’ve learned my lesson. No more flesh. Ever.” Kez shakes her head ruefully. “Ape? Who knows. But I’m done pulling his ass out of the fire all the time. He’ll have to live with the consequences of his own actions.” She looks at me squarely. “I’m not letting anything threaten this. You and me. Not ever.”

  That gets her a very deep kiss.

  After enough kissing that the little monster starts to rumble, despite how chapped he is, I return to my knives. I stick our breathers back on, drag Kez off the workbench, over to the grinder, and keep her pressed to my back as I shape the edge on each of the three blanks I’ve cut. She leans against me, arms around my waist, rubbing her cheek between my shoulder blades. She doesn’t distract me. Just adds immensely to my enjoyment of what I’m doing.

  The first knife I make isn’t one from the yellow bone. It’s thinner and lighter. I toss it around for a moment after I’ve sharpened it, testing the weight, then give it an experimental toss at the far wall, at a line of pseudowood that frames the two huge panes of glaz overlooking the river.

  I don’t expect it to stick. My throw wasn’t particularly good and I didn’t put much force behind it. But it does. The bone bites into the pseudowood like a long white fang and hangs there, quivering.

  “That’s not a bad knife,” I tell Kez, before turning to sharpen the two others.

  Kez does hold my hand while Doc Gray cuts the sheaths. And she whispers into my ear, but after the first minute, she’s not telling me how proud she is of me. She’s telling me how much she wants me to fuck her again. And when I growl at her, she tells me exactly how she wants me to fuck her, a description which involves some very complicated bondage. Who knew my kitten had such a vivid imagination?

  Her whisperings keep my mind off what Doc Gray is doing to my arm. He’s working behind a fizzing blue sterile shield, so I can’t see much. And he’s numbed my arm down so I can’t feel much beyond some tugging. But we talked about it in detail, and I watched while he marked out the pocket he’s creating under my skin with a q-pen. So I know exactly what he’s doing. Kez’s dirty descriptions are a welcome distraction.

  She gets so inventive that I have to chuckle. “I don’t think I could get it in if your legs were tied together like that, kitten.” The mechanics are just all wrong. “I’d be willing to give it a try, though.”

  She presses her cheek against my neck and jaw; I can feel her skin heat as she blushes. “You could put it in the other place,” she whispers.

  Ah, has someone discovered she likes anal sex? She certainly got off when we did it with the vibrator, but I wasn’t sure if it was the anal stimulation or everything else we did. I turn my head so I can whisper right into her ear. “You invitin’ me to fuck you in the ass?”

  The heat of her skin against mine increases. “Yes.”

  “Bad kitten.”

  Doc Gray sits back and turns off the sterile shiel
d. I glance down, take in what he’s done and lift an eyebrow in surprise. He said the sheath would be concealed beneath my subcutaneous fat – which set Kez giggling madly, and earned her a poke in the side – but I thought it would be visible to some degree. I’d planned to wear long sleeves to cover the bulge. But there’s barely a ripple. I can see that the knife is in place by the edge of bone protruding at my wrist. Looks like a very neat compound fracture. The knives aren’t that thin; how the fuck did he hide it?

  “Good job, Doc.”

  He turns his goggly silver fish eyes to me and nods. “Thank you. It’s nice to have an appreciative patient.”

  “I am. For everything.” He had a long swim on top of the surgery. He seemed to like it, though. He was smiling hugely when he showed up at sunset, his crested head popping out of the river a meter clear of my shock-net. He was in a good enough mood that he threw a wriggly silver fish at me and laughed when I retaliated by tossing the lees of my tea over his head.

  “You are most welcome. And your generous donation to my clinic will help me hire another assistant, so I can take more evening swims.” He didn’t set any particular fee when I asked him for my favor. So I handed him a thousand hard in rolled octagons when he arrived. If he’d demanded a thousand, I probably would have tried to bargain him down. But since he just took what I gave him, I was inclined to be generous. “Now, please lift your arm and bend the elbow.”

  I do. The sensation of the foreign bone under my skin is extremely strange, but it’s not painful, probably because my arm is still mostly numb.

  “Mmm.” He prods the bone at my wrist, grinding it against my real bone. That does hurt. He takes out a little hand-held scanner and runs it up my arm. Frowns into the display screen. “Mister Snow, what was your father’s profession? And your mother’s?”

  “My real parents?” At his nod, I say, “Atmosphere miners.”

  “Do you know how heavily they were Modified?”

  “No. They weren’t around for me to ask.”

  The fish-doc hums again and does something to my wrist. For a second, I just feel a weird sliding under my skin. Then pain shoots up my arm like he’s turned the knife into a hot needle.