Tomas Proleque looked at the screen in front of him, frowning.
The message blinking on his screen wasn't, on the face of it, any reason for a frown. A bet laid on the fourth match in a mindclash tournament, for fifteen ISK, on Kurstan Ardmugar to win in twenty two minutes or less.
Tomas frowned, nonetheless.
Frowned, and reached for his comm handset, and punched in a number and then a code.
He had to wait a moment before the call went through. Even a section manager in the F.I.O.'s Anti-Piracy Division doesn't get automatic clearance to the division head's private line.
A click, a familiar voice. No need for introductions, not on this line, with this code.
"I think we've got a problem," Tomas said, instead of Hello.
He glanced back at his screen, and his frown grew deeper. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that message as a response to a recall signal. None of the signals that the message had been sent under coercion - a bet on an odd numbered match, for example. Agent wishes to stay in place, the message said to anyone who knew how to read it. Cover not compromised, intel forthcoming.
Except that this was the fifth time this particular agent had refused recall and the last two times had been orders, not suggestions.
Tomas rubbed a hand over his head, the habit his wife blamed for his baldness, and sighed. "I think we've got a problem," he said again. "With Jory."
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Flash Flood
((co-written with Stitcher))
Helmi Alpassi knew that she'd originally been tapped to train into Pilot Roth's personal security detail because Sarge had known she could keep her head when it mattered.
Had known it from the first moment they met, after all.
And if there ever was a moment not to panic, Alpassi, this is fucking it.
"Pilot, Lieutenant Etay," she said calmly, "if you'd come to the front of the house with me now, the shuttle is on approach."
Charles Etay was carrying one of the babies in a safety-capsule. Amieta Invelen had the other. Helmi couldn't tell which was which and really didn't give a shit, so long as the total number of babies equalled two and they were each in the most expensive and sophisticated piece of protective child-transport equipment available in the Cluster. Helmi had picked those capsules herself, after a lot of research.
Finding out they were tested by dropping them out of a second story window with an actual child in them had sealed the deal.
Still, she would have preferred them to be carried by her people, would have preferred all the civilians to be hoisted up and hauled at speed to the assembly point, really.
If speed had been an issue, Pilot's feet wouldn't have touched the ground. But the shuttle won't be here for another three minutes anyway.
And Pilot was prone to panic. Helmi knew that part of her job description was making sure Pilot felt safe, as well as was safe.
So she let Etay carry one of the twins. And she didn't take Pilot's elbow to hurry her along, even when Pilot paused and said something about flowers and the nursery.
"I'll make sure they're packed," Invelen said reassuringly, and Pilot started moving again. Helmi scanned the sky, looking for spikey sansha shapes, saw none, saw ...
The sky.
It was wrong in a gut-wrenching way, the familiar off-black interstellar dust clouds of New Eden as seen from Debreth at sunset shifted towards an ugly yellow-green, like a gathering storm of forces Helmi didn't want to guess at. The Intel suddenly went from an intellectual threat to a real and immediate one. Adrenaline pulsed her implants to a higher pitch, burning copper on her tongue.
And on the horizon, burning rain. Five stars, moving as stars shouldn't, glowing like a banked furnace in the fading light as they twisted and writhed, shedding speed. Almost hidden behind the wind, the banging of the air as it raged impotently against this supersonic violation swept across the valley, echoing like a distant battle.
Nothing so clean and wholesome as thunder and lightning rode on the winds of this storm.
And the floods it brought were not the kind Debreth was build to withstand.
Implants on her retinas read the friendly, so that's fucking something IFF broadcasts from the falling constellation as it shed the last of its speed in one low looping bank over the river and swept in towards the estate.
A surface-to-orbit shuttle painted in the livery of Re-Awakened Technologies Inc settled in the wide avenue as three of the remaining ships – angular Caldari gunships bristling with weapons - screamed overhead, their hulls bearing a blue starburst on bare gunmetal. The fifth, much larger ship settled in to a relative stop above the Roth estate and the grounds thrummed with the subsonic rumbling of immense graviton pads keeping the staging platform aloft. A percussive blast rattled the windows as explosive bolts blew along its flanks and four humanoid giants, armoured and massive, dropped from the flanks of the the thirty meters to the ground and landed in a blast of pneumatic gas. Within a second their guns and sensors were tracking the skies as they fanned out, covering the grounds.
Only a moment behind them were the ropes, ten of them, and before those ropes had even finished uncoiling to the ground, the first of the troopers was on it, her arrestor hook buzzing harshly as it slowed her descent. She hit the ground and rolled, moving aside with only a heartbeat to spare before the next trooper, and the next after him hit the deck, rolled and bustled to cover, each claiming three drones from the swarm that swept from the dropship's bays. Almost-white painted ceramic hardsuits, each with that blue starburst splash and a mirrored visor covering the face, Kaalakiota assault rifles. Airtight, nanite-proof, damn near bulletproof, but still light and clean-lined enough to allow the soldiers to move with grace and ease in Debreth's low gravity.
The flurry of activity swept towards the little knot of people on the lawn, parted around them, and left them untouched, except for the wind whipping their hair.
One of the troopers, the first one out, jogged towards them, heading unerringly for Pilot Roth. No rank insignia, Helmi noted, just a blue sunburst, and the words Hakatain Dynasty Holdings and A. Sihayha. I.D. confirmation spooled across her retinas and Helmi stopped the instinctive reach for her sidearm before it was more than a flicker of muscles as Captain Hakatain's personal bodyguard tapped the side of her helmet to clear the faceshield, saw a corresponding flicker in the other woman's eyes.
"Captain Roth," the woman said. "Chief Aato Sihahya. Captain Hakatain sends his regards."
Pilot - surreally, given the circumstances - extended her hand and said with a smile, "I'm very pleased to meet you. I hope you had a safe trip?"
"Safe enough, ma'am," Sihahya said, returning the handshake with a gauntlet that could probably have crushed Pilot's hand flat if she wanted. "With your permission, we'll see to the defence of your estate and the town in your absence."
"With my ... " Pilot's voice trailed off, and Helmi suppressed a sigh. One day she'll learn that she's in charge.
Her mouth was open to translate Pilot-speak into marine, one more part of her job, Pilot Roth appreciates your offer and certainly extends all the permissions you need to carry out the protection of the Roth property and surrounding area, when Pilot surprised her.
"Thank you," Pilot Roth said, quietly but clearly. "That would be appreciated. Please do anything you feel required."
One day turns out to be today, Helmi thought, as Sihahya saluted and re-opaqued her visor with a brief nod to Helmi. Either the the Ancestors are with us, or the world is about to end.
Or both.
"Pilot, we need to be getting you on the shuttle," she said. Invelen was already moving. Helmi herded Pilot and Etay up the ramp as armoured forms set up defensive positions around them, mostly missing the flower-beds.
One baby started wailing, then the other. Pilot tried to comfort them as Invelen secured the capsules but the twins refused to be consoled and their piercing screams were a counterpoint to the rumble of the shuttle engines as it lifted off. Helmi linked her optical implants into the shuttle's external cameras and watched as two of Hakatain's gunships escorted the shuttle into high atmosphere, then stalled into a graceful backwards dive towards Debreth again as the shuttle raced towards its rendezvous with the Feather.
As the gunships shrank to invisibility against the blue-green globe below them, Helmi let the connection fade. Spirits watch over you, she wished the men and women they were leaving behind.
And Ancestors sharpen your aim.
Helmi Alpassi knew that she'd originally been tapped to train into Pilot Roth's personal security detail because Sarge had known she could keep her head when it mattered.
Had known it from the first moment they met, after all.
And if there ever was a moment not to panic, Alpassi, this is fucking it.
"Pilot, Lieutenant Etay," she said calmly, "if you'd come to the front of the house with me now, the shuttle is on approach."
Charles Etay was carrying one of the babies in a safety-capsule. Amieta Invelen had the other. Helmi couldn't tell which was which and really didn't give a shit, so long as the total number of babies equalled two and they were each in the most expensive and sophisticated piece of protective child-transport equipment available in the Cluster. Helmi had picked those capsules herself, after a lot of research.
Finding out they were tested by dropping them out of a second story window with an actual child in them had sealed the deal.
Still, she would have preferred them to be carried by her people, would have preferred all the civilians to be hoisted up and hauled at speed to the assembly point, really.
If speed had been an issue, Pilot's feet wouldn't have touched the ground. But the shuttle won't be here for another three minutes anyway.
And Pilot was prone to panic. Helmi knew that part of her job description was making sure Pilot felt safe, as well as was safe.
So she let Etay carry one of the twins. And she didn't take Pilot's elbow to hurry her along, even when Pilot paused and said something about flowers and the nursery.
"I'll make sure they're packed," Invelen said reassuringly, and Pilot started moving again. Helmi scanned the sky, looking for spikey sansha shapes, saw none, saw ...
The sky.
It was wrong in a gut-wrenching way, the familiar off-black interstellar dust clouds of New Eden as seen from Debreth at sunset shifted towards an ugly yellow-green, like a gathering storm of forces Helmi didn't want to guess at. The Intel suddenly went from an intellectual threat to a real and immediate one. Adrenaline pulsed her implants to a higher pitch, burning copper on her tongue.
And on the horizon, burning rain. Five stars, moving as stars shouldn't, glowing like a banked furnace in the fading light as they twisted and writhed, shedding speed. Almost hidden behind the wind, the banging of the air as it raged impotently against this supersonic violation swept across the valley, echoing like a distant battle.
Nothing so clean and wholesome as thunder and lightning rode on the winds of this storm.
And the floods it brought were not the kind Debreth was build to withstand.
Implants on her retinas read the friendly, so that's fucking something IFF broadcasts from the falling constellation as it shed the last of its speed in one low looping bank over the river and swept in towards the estate.
A surface-to-orbit shuttle painted in the livery of Re-Awakened Technologies Inc settled in the wide avenue as three of the remaining ships – angular Caldari gunships bristling with weapons - screamed overhead, their hulls bearing a blue starburst on bare gunmetal. The fifth, much larger ship settled in to a relative stop above the Roth estate and the grounds thrummed with the subsonic rumbling of immense graviton pads keeping the staging platform aloft. A percussive blast rattled the windows as explosive bolts blew along its flanks and four humanoid giants, armoured and massive, dropped from the flanks of the the thirty meters to the ground and landed in a blast of pneumatic gas. Within a second their guns and sensors were tracking the skies as they fanned out, covering the grounds.
Only a moment behind them were the ropes, ten of them, and before those ropes had even finished uncoiling to the ground, the first of the troopers was on it, her arrestor hook buzzing harshly as it slowed her descent. She hit the ground and rolled, moving aside with only a heartbeat to spare before the next trooper, and the next after him hit the deck, rolled and bustled to cover, each claiming three drones from the swarm that swept from the dropship's bays. Almost-white painted ceramic hardsuits, each with that blue starburst splash and a mirrored visor covering the face, Kaalakiota assault rifles. Airtight, nanite-proof, damn near bulletproof, but still light and clean-lined enough to allow the soldiers to move with grace and ease in Debreth's low gravity.
The flurry of activity swept towards the little knot of people on the lawn, parted around them, and left them untouched, except for the wind whipping their hair.
One of the troopers, the first one out, jogged towards them, heading unerringly for Pilot Roth. No rank insignia, Helmi noted, just a blue sunburst, and the words Hakatain Dynasty Holdings and A. Sihayha. I.D. confirmation spooled across her retinas and Helmi stopped the instinctive reach for her sidearm before it was more than a flicker of muscles as Captain Hakatain's personal bodyguard tapped the side of her helmet to clear the faceshield, saw a corresponding flicker in the other woman's eyes.
"Captain Roth," the woman said. "Chief Aato Sihahya. Captain Hakatain sends his regards."
Pilot - surreally, given the circumstances - extended her hand and said with a smile, "I'm very pleased to meet you. I hope you had a safe trip?"
"Safe enough, ma'am," Sihahya said, returning the handshake with a gauntlet that could probably have crushed Pilot's hand flat if she wanted. "With your permission, we'll see to the defence of your estate and the town in your absence."
"With my ... " Pilot's voice trailed off, and Helmi suppressed a sigh. One day she'll learn that she's in charge.
Her mouth was open to translate Pilot-speak into marine, one more part of her job, Pilot Roth appreciates your offer and certainly extends all the permissions you need to carry out the protection of the Roth property and surrounding area, when Pilot surprised her.
"Thank you," Pilot Roth said, quietly but clearly. "That would be appreciated. Please do anything you feel required."
One day turns out to be today, Helmi thought, as Sihahya saluted and re-opaqued her visor with a brief nod to Helmi. Either the the Ancestors are with us, or the world is about to end.
Or both.
"Pilot, we need to be getting you on the shuttle," she said. Invelen was already moving. Helmi herded Pilot and Etay up the ramp as armoured forms set up defensive positions around them, mostly missing the flower-beds.
One baby started wailing, then the other. Pilot tried to comfort them as Invelen secured the capsules but the twins refused to be consoled and their piercing screams were a counterpoint to the rumble of the shuttle engines as it lifted off. Helmi linked her optical implants into the shuttle's external cameras and watched as two of Hakatain's gunships escorted the shuttle into high atmosphere, then stalled into a graceful backwards dive towards Debreth again as the shuttle raced towards its rendezvous with the Feather.
As the gunships shrank to invisibility against the blue-green globe below them, Helmi let the connection fade. Spirits watch over you, she wished the men and women they were leaving behind.
And Ancestors sharpen your aim.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Welcome To The Future
Section F - F-for-Freedom, F-for-Future, it said right there in big letters over the section ring seal - was the part of the station which housed returnees from the Empire, the State and the Federation until they'd found jobs and clans and homes.
And it stank.
Too many people for the space, for the waste services, the air-cyclers, Capitaine Elienne Desorlay thought.
She'd seen the ads on the holo, back in the Federation, a tall Brutor woman whose deep brown skin picked up the colours of the Minmatar flag on the wall behind her, her faintly-accented Gallantean vibrant with hope and promise. Come home, children of the Republic! Home to lives of freedom, the lives of your ancestors.
Eli snorted at the memory. If your ancestors lived on tubes of casien protein, maybe, ten-to-a-room in the bowels of a space station with the perpetual hum and thud of the biomass processors on the other side of the wall.
Still, it doesn't smell as bad as it did last time.
Or maybe I'm getting used to it.
She lit a cigarette anyway, sour local Republic tobacco but better than nothing, as Lieutenant Charles Etay hitched the knees of his trousers and crouched by the body lying against the wall.
Eli was pretty sure it was a body, although without the medtechs' identification of the stained and crumpled rags wrapped around oozing meat as human, she would have had her doubts.
She exhaled a lungful of smoke. "Well?"
"No ID," Etay said, turning to look up at her. "Might not have had any before the beating."
"If he's registered with - he?" Etay nodded confirmation and Eli went on, "Registered with Resettlement, they'll have his DNA on file."
"If he was registered. And if they'd gotten around to testing." Etay looked back at the body. "Dental, maybe. If there's anything left of his teeth."
"If he ever saw a dentist," Eli said. "Fortune fuck me, it's not like his own mother would know his face."
"No," Etay said soberly. He rose to his feet with the easy grace of the young and strong, the fils de putain de merde, and adjusted his cuffs. "Morgue services'll have a better idea, but what do you think? Four of them? Five?"
Eli dropped her cigarette and crushed it with a toe. "At least. Fists and feet. But I don't see much blood on the walls, not that you could tell in this shithole."
"Somewhere else, then?"
"Could be. Or else ... more than five. A lot more. Packed in around him."
Etay put his hands in his pockets and looked at the walls assessingly. "Splashes on them, not the walls."
"Yeah." Eli shook another cigarette from the pack. "A lot more than five. Fifteen, twenty. More."
"Five is a gang," Etay said thoughtfully. "But twenty, Eli. Twenty is a mob." He tilted back his head to look up at the walls rising on either side of them, vanishing somewhere twenty stories up into the clouds gusting from the over-worked envirosystems. Heads disappeared from sight as he did, windows banged shut. "Mobs don't come from nothing. Inter-tribal? Some sort of feud?"
"No reports of anything like that," Eli said. "Not that I've seen. Some shoving in the lines at supply, name-calling. Big jump from that to this."
Etay looked around the grimy alley with its grisly contents, and then slid Eli a sideways glance, one eyebrow raised. "Such a big jump, someone would have seen it, non?"
Four hours later Eli lit her last cigarette and thought sourly, 'Non' is just about fucking right.
Someone had seen something, she would have bet her pension on it, more than one someone, too, but those witnesses, whoever they were, weren't talking. Not just the usual 'no love lost for the long arm o f the law' either. She flicked ash down-wind.
The closest they'd gotten to an answer had been We take care of our own from a skinny Sebbie woman with the fish-belly pale skin of a life-long station dweller, the words spoken with the flat contempt of someone who'd long ago lost faith in the tender mercy of those in authority to take care of anyone but themselves.
"Something that never got reported, maybe," Eli said aloud, and Etay nodded. "Could be some tribal thing even, for all we know - "
She felt a tug at her sleeve and turned fast. Just a kid. A snot-nosed Vherry kid of indeterminate gender, pulling on her arm with fingers black with dirt.
"That's bad for you," the child said solemnly, pointing at her cigarette. "It'll make you die. We learned in school."
"That's you told," Etay murmured, the corner of his mouth twitching up.
Eli gave him her best glare, the one that had sons and husband backing towards the door when she used it at home, and Etay ducked his head and got very interested in his shoes. Eli turned the glare on the kid, but the miniature Minmatar was made of sterner stuff.
"It is, though," the - boy? girl? - insisted. "Bad for you."
"I'm Gallente," Eli said. "It's different. But yes, it would be very bad for you. I'd have to arrest you."
Etay, the salaud, was laughing at her, almost soundlessly but I can fucking well tell. Eli put a hand on her hip, showing the child the ID pinned to her belt. "See? Republic Justice. So beat it before I put you in jail for loitering."
The kid moved back, just out of arm's length, and stopped there. "Are you here because of the Sansha?"
That sobered Etay. "No," he said, and Eli shook her head as well. "The Fleet and the capsuleers will make sure the Sansha never come here, okay?"
"No," the kid said patiently. "Not the ones out there. The one here."
Etay hitched up the knees of his trousers and crouched. "What one here, hmm?"
One skinny little arm lifted, and one filthy finger pointed, past Etay, back down the alley to the temporary barrier already beginning to sag on one side, marking the place the body had lain.
Eli looked, then looked back at the kid. "How do you know he was Sansha?"
A shrug that said as clearly as DNA testing that the kid had some Gallente blood was her only answer.
"Did someone tell you he was?" Etay asked, and got a nod. "Who? Do you remember?"
Another shrug. "Everybody," the kid said. "Everybody was saying it."
Etay met Eli's gaze over the top of the child's no-doubt lice-ridden head. "Everybody was saying it," he said quietly.
Words. Words and fear, at first. Until more and more people hear it, repeat it, and then it's words and fear and fists and feet.
And some poor bastard is little more than a smear on the sidewalk.
Etay produced a bar of sweetened gelatine from a pocket, and offered it to the child. "Do you know who it was, who was saying it?" he asked. "Names?"
With a shake of his head, the kid snatched the bar and bolted.
Eli burned her cigarette down to the filter with a final drag. "You have to hold it out of their reach," she said. "For future reference."
Etay didn't smile. "We should make sure they check the body for any extras," he said, getting to his feet.
"You know they're not going to find any, farmboy, don't you?"
He looked at his feet, golden hair falling across his forehead and hiding his face from her. "I know. But we should make sure they check."
"And you know we're never going to get a name, or names, don't you? Who ever it was, they're local heroes now."
"Defending against the Sansha threat," Etay said quietly.
Eli shrugged. "Welcome to the future, farmboy," she said. "This isn't going to be the last time someone's suspicions get some poor fucker lynched. Anyway, it could be worse."
Etay raised an eyebrow at that.
Eli shoved him towards the exit, towards off-shift and home and a bottle of wine and some cigarettes from the Fed that don't taste of armpit. "He could have actually been a Sansha," she said. "Think about that, why don't you?"
"They've never set foot on a station," Etay said. "Cia said that."
"That she knows of," Eli said. "That she knows of, farmboy."
Etay let her herd him along. "The capsuleers are driving them back."
"Until they get bored," Eli said. "Oh, I know, I know, your pretty girl podder will put her ship on the line to save the innocents, you've said, more than once in fact you've said. They're all like her, are they? You know they aren't, and one day you'll realise she isn't like that either, not really. Podders, Charlie. Not people."
Etay looked down at her, and then back the way they'd come.
"Maybe they aren't," he said quietly. "Maybe not. But Eli - can you honestly say, today, that being people like the people back there who kicked a man to death because someone whispered 'Sansha', can you honestly say that people is always something worthwhile to be?"
And it stank.
Too many people for the space, for the waste services, the air-cyclers, Capitaine Elienne Desorlay thought.
She'd seen the ads on the holo, back in the Federation, a tall Brutor woman whose deep brown skin picked up the colours of the Minmatar flag on the wall behind her, her faintly-accented Gallantean vibrant with hope and promise. Come home, children of the Republic! Home to lives of freedom, the lives of your ancestors.
Eli snorted at the memory. If your ancestors lived on tubes of casien protein, maybe, ten-to-a-room in the bowels of a space station with the perpetual hum and thud of the biomass processors on the other side of the wall.
Still, it doesn't smell as bad as it did last time.
Or maybe I'm getting used to it.
She lit a cigarette anyway, sour local Republic tobacco but better than nothing, as Lieutenant Charles Etay hitched the knees of his trousers and crouched by the body lying against the wall.
Eli was pretty sure it was a body, although without the medtechs' identification of the stained and crumpled rags wrapped around oozing meat as human, she would have had her doubts.
She exhaled a lungful of smoke. "Well?"
"No ID," Etay said, turning to look up at her. "Might not have had any before the beating."
"If he's registered with - he?" Etay nodded confirmation and Eli went on, "Registered with Resettlement, they'll have his DNA on file."
"If he was registered. And if they'd gotten around to testing." Etay looked back at the body. "Dental, maybe. If there's anything left of his teeth."
"If he ever saw a dentist," Eli said. "Fortune fuck me, it's not like his own mother would know his face."
"No," Etay said soberly. He rose to his feet with the easy grace of the young and strong, the fils de putain de merde, and adjusted his cuffs. "Morgue services'll have a better idea, but what do you think? Four of them? Five?"
Eli dropped her cigarette and crushed it with a toe. "At least. Fists and feet. But I don't see much blood on the walls, not that you could tell in this shithole."
"Somewhere else, then?"
"Could be. Or else ... more than five. A lot more. Packed in around him."
Etay put his hands in his pockets and looked at the walls assessingly. "Splashes on them, not the walls."
"Yeah." Eli shook another cigarette from the pack. "A lot more than five. Fifteen, twenty. More."
"Five is a gang," Etay said thoughtfully. "But twenty, Eli. Twenty is a mob." He tilted back his head to look up at the walls rising on either side of them, vanishing somewhere twenty stories up into the clouds gusting from the over-worked envirosystems. Heads disappeared from sight as he did, windows banged shut. "Mobs don't come from nothing. Inter-tribal? Some sort of feud?"
"No reports of anything like that," Eli said. "Not that I've seen. Some shoving in the lines at supply, name-calling. Big jump from that to this."
Etay looked around the grimy alley with its grisly contents, and then slid Eli a sideways glance, one eyebrow raised. "Such a big jump, someone would have seen it, non?"
Four hours later Eli lit her last cigarette and thought sourly, 'Non' is just about fucking right.
Someone had seen something, she would have bet her pension on it, more than one someone, too, but those witnesses, whoever they were, weren't talking. Not just the usual 'no love lost for the long arm o f the law' either. She flicked ash down-wind.
The closest they'd gotten to an answer had been We take care of our own from a skinny Sebbie woman with the fish-belly pale skin of a life-long station dweller, the words spoken with the flat contempt of someone who'd long ago lost faith in the tender mercy of those in authority to take care of anyone but themselves.
"Something that never got reported, maybe," Eli said aloud, and Etay nodded. "Could be some tribal thing even, for all we know - "
She felt a tug at her sleeve and turned fast. Just a kid. A snot-nosed Vherry kid of indeterminate gender, pulling on her arm with fingers black with dirt.
"That's bad for you," the child said solemnly, pointing at her cigarette. "It'll make you die. We learned in school."
"That's you told," Etay murmured, the corner of his mouth twitching up.
Eli gave him her best glare, the one that had sons and husband backing towards the door when she used it at home, and Etay ducked his head and got very interested in his shoes. Eli turned the glare on the kid, but the miniature Minmatar was made of sterner stuff.
"It is, though," the - boy? girl? - insisted. "Bad for you."
"I'm Gallente," Eli said. "It's different. But yes, it would be very bad for you. I'd have to arrest you."
Etay, the salaud, was laughing at her, almost soundlessly but I can fucking well tell. Eli put a hand on her hip, showing the child the ID pinned to her belt. "See? Republic Justice. So beat it before I put you in jail for loitering."
The kid moved back, just out of arm's length, and stopped there. "Are you here because of the Sansha?"
That sobered Etay. "No," he said, and Eli shook her head as well. "The Fleet and the capsuleers will make sure the Sansha never come here, okay?"
"No," the kid said patiently. "Not the ones out there. The one here."
Etay hitched up the knees of his trousers and crouched. "What one here, hmm?"
One skinny little arm lifted, and one filthy finger pointed, past Etay, back down the alley to the temporary barrier already beginning to sag on one side, marking the place the body had lain.
Eli looked, then looked back at the kid. "How do you know he was Sansha?"
A shrug that said as clearly as DNA testing that the kid had some Gallente blood was her only answer.
"Did someone tell you he was?" Etay asked, and got a nod. "Who? Do you remember?"
Another shrug. "Everybody," the kid said. "Everybody was saying it."
Etay met Eli's gaze over the top of the child's no-doubt lice-ridden head. "Everybody was saying it," he said quietly.
Words. Words and fear, at first. Until more and more people hear it, repeat it, and then it's words and fear and fists and feet.
And some poor bastard is little more than a smear on the sidewalk.
Etay produced a bar of sweetened gelatine from a pocket, and offered it to the child. "Do you know who it was, who was saying it?" he asked. "Names?"
With a shake of his head, the kid snatched the bar and bolted.
Eli burned her cigarette down to the filter with a final drag. "You have to hold it out of their reach," she said. "For future reference."
Etay didn't smile. "We should make sure they check the body for any extras," he said, getting to his feet.
"You know they're not going to find any, farmboy, don't you?"
He looked at his feet, golden hair falling across his forehead and hiding his face from her. "I know. But we should make sure they check."
"And you know we're never going to get a name, or names, don't you? Who ever it was, they're local heroes now."
"Defending against the Sansha threat," Etay said quietly.
Eli shrugged. "Welcome to the future, farmboy," she said. "This isn't going to be the last time someone's suspicions get some poor fucker lynched. Anyway, it could be worse."
Etay raised an eyebrow at that.
Eli shoved him towards the exit, towards off-shift and home and a bottle of wine and some cigarettes from the Fed that don't taste of armpit. "He could have actually been a Sansha," she said. "Think about that, why don't you?"
"They've never set foot on a station," Etay said. "Cia said that."
"That she knows of," Eli said. "That she knows of, farmboy."
Etay let her herd him along. "The capsuleers are driving them back."
"Until they get bored," Eli said. "Oh, I know, I know, your pretty girl podder will put her ship on the line to save the innocents, you've said, more than once in fact you've said. They're all like her, are they? You know they aren't, and one day you'll realise she isn't like that either, not really. Podders, Charlie. Not people."
Etay looked down at her, and then back the way they'd come.
"Maybe they aren't," he said quietly. "Maybe not. But Eli - can you honestly say, today, that being people like the people back there who kicked a man to death because someone whispered 'Sansha', can you honestly say that people is always something worthwhile to be?"
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Conversations on the Utopian Ideal: Twenty Eight.
((co-written with Silver Night))
Captain Silver Night waited at the foot of the docking umbilical, watching the small woman - the word came to mind unbidden - waddle towards him. Ciarente should, of course, have taken a passenger transport platform rather than walk the length of the hangar, and he knew his crew would have offered her one at the security checkpoint. Knew, too, exactly what she would have said, the same response she gave when he offered to take her place in the labs at HQ or overseeing a production line. Relax, Silver. I'm pregnant, not crippled.
Reaching him, a little breathless, she smiled. "Hello, Silver. How are you?"
"I'm well, Cia. How are you?" He started towards the ship. "Shall we?"
Tired, he thought an honest answer to his question would have been, judging from the blue shadows beneath her eyes and the pinched look to her face that the warm smile couldn't quite hide. But -
"Fat," Ciarente said instead, with a laugh, and then nearly overbalanced as the umbilical sloped upwards. Silver offered his arm, and Ciarente tucked her hand through the crook of his elbow, leaning on him lightly. "Ooops. Fat and with a centre of gravity that changes daily. I find it hard to believe that there's still more pregnant for me to get, but they assure me it'll happen."
"Well, you're most of the way there, from what I understand." They crossed the airlock threshold and Silver hesitated, considering the distance to his office. " I think ... " Security station, no, medical staging, no, non-com break-room .... "I think this should be suitable.
Ciarente, of course, had an apologetic smile for the non-commissioned officers who accurately read their Captain's expression as a suggestion that elsewhere would be a better place for them to be at the moment. And if she walked the length of the ship and went into premature labour she would no doubt apologise to medical for the inconvenience.
Sinking awkwardly into a chair, Ciarente smiled and said as if she could read his mind, "I'm not going to suddenly have the babies on B deck just from walking to your office, Silver."
"Shall we not take the risk, nevertheless?" he said.
Ciarente laughed. " All right. It's your ship, after all." She folded her hands over the swell of her stomach. "And I admit, although I'll deny it in public, my ankles are starting to complain a bit at the extra weight."
"Not so very much longer," Silver said. "And there's nothing wrong with taking it easy, when you can. Tea?"
"Yes," Ciarente said. "Yes, tea, thank you. And yes, time's been passing. It's ... getting to be time for me to think about names, perhaps."
"Oh?" Silver poured for both of them.
Ciarente picked up her cup and spoke to it, rather than to him. "Verin told me it's traditional, Caldari tradition, to chose an ancestor's name. It's not so different, where I come from. A grandparent, a great-grandparent. Someone you want to remember, maybe."
"I suppose it is somewhat common in many places," Silver said.
"Camille," Ciarente said with fond exasperation, "Camille thinks I should name my daughter Camieta. But I ... I've been thinking more about boy's names."
Silver sipped his tea. "Oh? Like what?"
"People it's important to remember. Important to family." Ciarente picked up her cup again, and put it back down, tapping the rim gently with one finger. "I haven't talked to Ami about it yet, Silver. I don't want to ... blunder in, I suppose."
"Blunder in?" Silver asked. "I'm afraid you're going to have to tell me a little more than that, Cia."
Ciarente looked down at her stomach and told it in a whisper, "I thought, perhaps, well, I wouldn't, of course, I know reminders can be painful, but I got the idea, and it seemed like the right thing, and I ..."
"Cia?" Silver prompted gently when she stopped.
"I was thinking about Jan," Ciarente said quietly, and then hastened to add, "But of course, not if, I haven't even mentioned it to Ami, it's a stupid idea, isn't it, I - "
"Cia," Silver said. "I don't think it's a stupid idea at all. Yes, reminders can hurt, but it's also good to remember."
"You think?" she asked hopefully.
"I think he would have been honoured, Cia," Silver said. "It would have made him very happy, I think. Having a niece and nephew."
"All right," Ciarente said, and smiled. "I'll talk to Ami."
Silver nodded, and sipped his tea. "Speaking of Ami. She and I discussed things, yesterday."
"Oh," Ciarente said, and went quite still. "Silver, are we - how secure are we, here?"
"Secure," he assured her.
"All right," Ciarente said quietly.
"I think Amieta is right," Silver told her. "A great deal has changed."
"Yes," Ciarente said. "That's what she said to me, and I suppose she is right, it has. I ... I just need to know that you're sure, I guess. That it's the right decision, for you. Not because of me, or what Ami said, or ... but that it's what you want."
"I'm sure, Cia."
"I don't want to put you in a position where ... I don't want it to be just because I'm ... a mess, about things."
Silver realized with alarm that Ciarente's eyes were filling with tears. Hastily, he offered her a handkerchief. "That isn't it at all, Cia. I would like ... to be able to have holos on my desk and spend holidays together without worrying about being seen."
Ciarente gave him a watery smile. "Like normal people? I know. I've felt that way, too, sometimes. But ... we're not, Silver. Are we?"
"Maybe a little at a time."
"Yes." She rested her hands on her stomach again. "It would be nice. Not to have to wait until my children are old enough to be able to keep secrets, to tell them who you - oh!"
"Cia?" Silver rose to his feet, making the comm connection to Medical with a thought. "Are you all right? Cia?"
"Give me your hand," Ciarente said urgently. "Quickly!"
"Do you need medical?" Silver asked, leaning over to offer her his hand.
Ciarente shook her head, taking his hand in hers and pressing it firmly against her stomach. "No. Wait. Just wait - there!"
Silver felt a vibration against the palm of his hand, faint but unmistakable.
"Did you feel that?" Ciarente asked softly.
"Yes," Silver said as softly, and felt the movement again, as if in response to his voice.
Ciarente's fingers tightened over his. "That's my daughter, on the top there," she said. "They can hear us, you know. I guess we sound like - when you're swimming underwater and people are talking by the pool, I suppose. But they can hear us." She smiled at him, tears sparkling on her eyelashes. "Say something to her."
"What ... " Silver cleared his throat. "What should I say?"
"Tell her hello," Ciarente said gently, and when he hesitated: "It's all right. Go on. Tell your - "
He saw her lips start to shape the word and forestalled her. "Don't - " say that. An automatic, reflex response. Never say it, not aloud, no matter where, no matter when. Never say it.
"Of course," Ciarente said, the ghost of a sigh. "I'm sorry."
Her smile was apologetic, but Silver thought he could see sadness there as well. He looked at his hand, both of Ciarente's now folded over it, felt the quiver in her skin that told of a new life moving, growing, listening to his voice. All three of them, he thought. Right here beneath my hand.
He would bury who he was and who he cared about behind an alias, behind a million secrets and a thousand locked doors, if that was what was best for them.
Or shout it from the hangar gantries, if that was.
Or say -
"Hello," Silver said hesitantly. "Camieta. Jan. Or whoever you're going to be. I'm - " He paused, and Ciarente squeezed his fingers. Silver took a deep breath. "I'm your uncle. Most people call me Silver. Most people do. But my name ... my name is Val."
Captain Silver Night waited at the foot of the docking umbilical, watching the small woman - the word came to mind unbidden - waddle towards him. Ciarente should, of course, have taken a passenger transport platform rather than walk the length of the hangar, and he knew his crew would have offered her one at the security checkpoint. Knew, too, exactly what she would have said, the same response she gave when he offered to take her place in the labs at HQ or overseeing a production line. Relax, Silver. I'm pregnant, not crippled.
Reaching him, a little breathless, she smiled. "Hello, Silver. How are you?"
"I'm well, Cia. How are you?" He started towards the ship. "Shall we?"
Tired, he thought an honest answer to his question would have been, judging from the blue shadows beneath her eyes and the pinched look to her face that the warm smile couldn't quite hide. But -
"Fat," Ciarente said instead, with a laugh, and then nearly overbalanced as the umbilical sloped upwards. Silver offered his arm, and Ciarente tucked her hand through the crook of his elbow, leaning on him lightly. "Ooops. Fat and with a centre of gravity that changes daily. I find it hard to believe that there's still more pregnant for me to get, but they assure me it'll happen."
"Well, you're most of the way there, from what I understand." They crossed the airlock threshold and Silver hesitated, considering the distance to his office. " I think ... " Security station, no, medical staging, no, non-com break-room .... "I think this should be suitable.
Ciarente, of course, had an apologetic smile for the non-commissioned officers who accurately read their Captain's expression as a suggestion that elsewhere would be a better place for them to be at the moment. And if she walked the length of the ship and went into premature labour she would no doubt apologise to medical for the inconvenience.
Sinking awkwardly into a chair, Ciarente smiled and said as if she could read his mind, "I'm not going to suddenly have the babies on B deck just from walking to your office, Silver."
"Shall we not take the risk, nevertheless?" he said.
Ciarente laughed. " All right. It's your ship, after all." She folded her hands over the swell of her stomach. "And I admit, although I'll deny it in public, my ankles are starting to complain a bit at the extra weight."
"Not so very much longer," Silver said. "And there's nothing wrong with taking it easy, when you can. Tea?"
"Yes," Ciarente said. "Yes, tea, thank you. And yes, time's been passing. It's ... getting to be time for me to think about names, perhaps."
"Oh?" Silver poured for both of them.
Ciarente picked up her cup and spoke to it, rather than to him. "Verin told me it's traditional, Caldari tradition, to chose an ancestor's name. It's not so different, where I come from. A grandparent, a great-grandparent. Someone you want to remember, maybe."
"I suppose it is somewhat common in many places," Silver said.
"Camille," Ciarente said with fond exasperation, "Camille thinks I should name my daughter Camieta. But I ... I've been thinking more about boy's names."
Silver sipped his tea. "Oh? Like what?"
"People it's important to remember. Important to family." Ciarente picked up her cup again, and put it back down, tapping the rim gently with one finger. "I haven't talked to Ami about it yet, Silver. I don't want to ... blunder in, I suppose."
"Blunder in?" Silver asked. "I'm afraid you're going to have to tell me a little more than that, Cia."
Ciarente looked down at her stomach and told it in a whisper, "I thought, perhaps, well, I wouldn't, of course, I know reminders can be painful, but I got the idea, and it seemed like the right thing, and I ..."
"Cia?" Silver prompted gently when she stopped.
"I was thinking about Jan," Ciarente said quietly, and then hastened to add, "But of course, not if, I haven't even mentioned it to Ami, it's a stupid idea, isn't it, I - "
"Cia," Silver said. "I don't think it's a stupid idea at all. Yes, reminders can hurt, but it's also good to remember."
"You think?" she asked hopefully.
"I think he would have been honoured, Cia," Silver said. "It would have made him very happy, I think. Having a niece and nephew."
"All right," Ciarente said, and smiled. "I'll talk to Ami."
Silver nodded, and sipped his tea. "Speaking of Ami. She and I discussed things, yesterday."
"Oh," Ciarente said, and went quite still. "Silver, are we - how secure are we, here?"
"Secure," he assured her.
"All right," Ciarente said quietly.
"I think Amieta is right," Silver told her. "A great deal has changed."
"Yes," Ciarente said. "That's what she said to me, and I suppose she is right, it has. I ... I just need to know that you're sure, I guess. That it's the right decision, for you. Not because of me, or what Ami said, or ... but that it's what you want."
"I'm sure, Cia."
"I don't want to put you in a position where ... I don't want it to be just because I'm ... a mess, about things."
Silver realized with alarm that Ciarente's eyes were filling with tears. Hastily, he offered her a handkerchief. "That isn't it at all, Cia. I would like ... to be able to have holos on my desk and spend holidays together without worrying about being seen."
Ciarente gave him a watery smile. "Like normal people? I know. I've felt that way, too, sometimes. But ... we're not, Silver. Are we?"
"Maybe a little at a time."
"Yes." She rested her hands on her stomach again. "It would be nice. Not to have to wait until my children are old enough to be able to keep secrets, to tell them who you - oh!"
"Cia?" Silver rose to his feet, making the comm connection to Medical with a thought. "Are you all right? Cia?"
"Give me your hand," Ciarente said urgently. "Quickly!"
"Do you need medical?" Silver asked, leaning over to offer her his hand.
Ciarente shook her head, taking his hand in hers and pressing it firmly against her stomach. "No. Wait. Just wait - there!"
Silver felt a vibration against the palm of his hand, faint but unmistakable.
"Did you feel that?" Ciarente asked softly.
"Yes," Silver said as softly, and felt the movement again, as if in response to his voice.
Ciarente's fingers tightened over his. "That's my daughter, on the top there," she said. "They can hear us, you know. I guess we sound like - when you're swimming underwater and people are talking by the pool, I suppose. But they can hear us." She smiled at him, tears sparkling on her eyelashes. "Say something to her."
"What ... " Silver cleared his throat. "What should I say?"
"Tell her hello," Ciarente said gently, and when he hesitated: "It's all right. Go on. Tell your - "
He saw her lips start to shape the word and forestalled her. "Don't - " say that. An automatic, reflex response. Never say it, not aloud, no matter where, no matter when. Never say it.
"Of course," Ciarente said, the ghost of a sigh. "I'm sorry."
Her smile was apologetic, but Silver thought he could see sadness there as well. He looked at his hand, both of Ciarente's now folded over it, felt the quiver in her skin that told of a new life moving, growing, listening to his voice. All three of them, he thought. Right here beneath my hand.
He would bury who he was and who he cared about behind an alias, behind a million secrets and a thousand locked doors, if that was what was best for them.
Or shout it from the hangar gantries, if that was.
Or say -
"Hello," Silver said hesitantly. "Camieta. Jan. Or whoever you're going to be. I'm - " He paused, and Ciarente squeezed his fingers. Silver took a deep breath. "I'm your uncle. Most people call me Silver. Most people do. But my name ... my name is Val."
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Entirely True
Avolier Girane paused at the gate to the DeGrace house, straightening his tie and smoothing a palm over his hair. Of course it was impossible to imagine Lorraine DeGrace, or Lorraine Roth as she is now, living anywhere other than the DeGrace's ancient house on the broad terraces above the river, but the restrictions on private vehicles in the old part of town did mean that guests were forced into a closer encounter with the public transport system than a councillor like Girane was used to.
Satisfied that he was at least presentable, Girane made his way up the path between the manicured shrubs. The door opened as he approached, and he recognised one of Lorraine's sons, the polite one, Michel or Marc I think, doing duty as a doorman, offering to take Girane's coat with a smile that made his resemblance to his father all the more marked.
And there was the father himself, topping up another guest's glass with a wink and a laugh, Lorraine DeGrace's folly they used to say, until Jorion Roth, spacer, became Jorion Roth, capsuleer.
"Bon soir, Avol, you're well?" Jorion draped an arm around Girane's shoulders and drew him further into the room. "I'm glad you could make it tonight, I'd hate to get sent back upstairs without a chance to see you. Pesellian's well? He's not here tonight?"
Jorion's smile was, as always, infectiously warm. Pesellian always said it never reached the man's blue eyes, but Pese's always been jealous of every man better looking than he is, which is why he refused to come tonight and left me to make his excuses. Girane paused, vaguely aware that though the thought was entirely true, it didn't quite feel like the entire truth, and then realised Jorion was waiting for a reply. "I couldn't drag him away from the lab, I'm afraid."
"Ah, scientists, eh? My eldest, Cia, she's the same." Jorian gestured toward the back of the room, where a plump girl was moving among the guests with a tray of canapés. "Lorraine had to drag her down here by the ear, or close to it. She's been accepted to the Ecole de Physique, you know, we couldn't be more proud, but a girl her age needs more in her life than the books, non?"
Girane nodded agreement and took a glass from a tray offered to him by a younger girl, one with a far stronger resemblance to Lorraine. And there was Lorraine DeGrace Roth herself, her eyes and smile as bright as the gemstones around her neck, pausing to kiss her husband's cheek before extending one slender hand to Girane.
"Avol," she said fondly. "Such a pleasure. Is that darling man of yours brewing up some sort of elixir of eternal youth in his laboratory? Because I swear you look younger every time I see you. Therese has gotten you a drink? And - Cia, don't stand there dreaming while Avol is hungry."
With a murmured apology, the older Roth daughter held out her tray, wearing an echo of her mother's bright smile. "M'ser Girane, how nice to see you again."
Girane contemplated the potential damage to his waistline in each pasty-wrapped parcel on her tray, but Lorraine's cook was famous in society circles, and rightly so, and he couldn't resist. The girl smiled again, and began to turn, and Girane hastily cast about for a topic of conversation that would delay her and the tray she carried. "Jorion said you're studying to be a physicist?"
"Oui, M'ser," she said, politely but a little distantly. "Perhaps less useful than Dr Aurelim's work on tuber yields, but it interests me."
"Oh, you know Pese's latest?" Girane discreetly took another pastry.
"Great potential, perhaps not here but in places with more marginal conditions," Cia said, almost the exact words from Pese's Science Merit Citation, and entirely true, although with no mention of the military applications, not the entire truth. The girl gave him another bright, Lorraine-DeGrace-smile, and said, "You must be very proud of him, M'ser. Please, do try the ones on the left. They're cheese, quite delicious."
"Oh, well, if you insist." She was right: they were quite delicious. He said so, and Cia's smile broadened, genuine warmth in her eyes for the first time, as if she'd been somewhere else until them and briefly stepped inside herself. Fortune, she's almost pretty, Girane thought with surprise, and then, "Did you make them?"
Cia nodded, flushing a little, and lowered her voice to say confidingly, "The secret is the - "
A loud curse behind her made them both turn. Doetre Tumame, past and most say future mayor, was hopping on one foot, swearing, the crumpled child's model of a sharp-edged space ship on the floor an eloquent explanation.
"You stupid cow!" a shrill voice declared. The owner of the voice, a small girl with startlingly ginger hair, glared up at Tumame. "You ruined it! Why don't you look where you're going, you - "
"Camille," Lorraine DeGrace said, and cast a laughing glance around the room. Children, the glance said, inviting complicity from all the parents there, what can you do?
""Well, she should!" the girl said furiously. "That took me and Cia ages and - "
"Then you should have taken better care of it, cherie," Lorraine said. "Now pick it up and take it to your room."
"Not until she says sorry!"
Lorraine lost her smile. "Camille! That is not an appropriate tone to use. If you are looking to be -"
Whatever Lorraine thought Camille was looking to be was lost as the tray Cia had been holding hit the floor with a crash. She stared down at it and then looked up with a bright smile. "Fortune," she said. "I'm so sorry, everyone, I really am a butterfingers."
"Oh, Cia," Lorraine said with a disappointed sigh.
The girl flushed a dull red and bent to gather up the spilled food, murmuring apologies.
Jorian put a hand on his wife's shoulder and said genially, "Well, I think Cia has announced it's time to move into the dining room, everyone. Mayor Tumame, let me offer you my arm, I trust Camille's Drake hasn't caused permanent injury? They are quite a sturdy little ship, we pilots call them flying bricks for a reason."
The tension in the room lifted as the guests followed Jorian and Tumame towards the dining room. As the staff set out a first course of delicate white fish and lemon butter, even the former mayor forgot her injury.
Girane would not even have remembered Jorion and Lorraine's youngest and least well-behaved child, except, leaving the house full of excellent food and better wine, he heard a child's voice from the shadows beneath the hedge at the front of the property.
"I don't care, Cia! I am running away and you can't stop me!"
The eldest daughter's voice sounded somehow softer and warmer in the darkness. "But I will be lonely when you've gone, cherie. And sad, without you."
"You're going away anyway, to college!" Camille said sullenly.
I am eavesdropping, Girane thought, with a faint, guilty thrill. Still, it's always useful to know what one can about a family like the DeGraces. As a councillor, it's almost my duty to.
As a justification, it had the benefit of being entirely true. Girane stepped further into the shadows as Cia said gravely, "Only a little way away. And I have to, to get a good job so I can get a house of my own."
"Of your own?" Camille asked. "With just, like, you?"
"Mmm. There might be room for one more, cherie. If you wanted."
"We could be running away together!" the child said excitedly.
A faint rustle of clothing. "We could. If you weren't running away now, that is."
"Oh." A small foot scuffed gravel. "Maybe I could wait, for you. If you didn't take very long."
There was a smile in Cia's voice as she said, "I promise I'll be as quick as I can, how about that?"
"Okay. I guess I can wait, if you're quick. Ow, don't squeeze, Cia!"
The girl laughed quietly. "I can't help it, you're too squeezable. Hey, since you're not running away, do you want to help me fix your ship?"
"It's too smashed," Camille said sadly. "That stupid lady has big feet! She should watch where they go!"
"Yes, she should," Cia agreed. "But I bet it isn't too smashed. I bet we could fix it, with maybe some replacement bits."
Camille sighed. "Then it won't be the same, with new bits."
"No, it'll be like a real spaceship. They get fixed all the time, you know," Cia said. "And new parts get put on them when they're too broken."
"Really?" Camille asked.
"Uh-huh. So your ship will be even more real, if it's been fixed up after a collision."
Camille said hotly, "Mama should have made the stupid lady 'pologise, not me, Cia! That wasn't fair! It was on the table and everything, she knocked it down with her big fat backside, I saw!"
Girane had to stifle a laugh, thinking Tumame is rather broad in the beam, as Cia said quietly, "Well, maybe Mama didn't see."
"She should have been on my side anyway! She's my mama!"
"Mama can't help being Mama, Cami. Don't be mean about her. And I'm on your side, hmm? How about that?"
"Okay. Cia?"
"Yes, cherie?"
"Can we go and fix my ship now?"
Girane stepped back out of sight hastily as feet scuffed and bodies moved in the shadows. "If you've finished running away."
"I have," Camille said, as the two sisters joined hands and started back to the house.
Then as they passed the shadows where Girane stood, she added thoughtfully, "Well. For now, anyway."
Perhaps it was that carefully considered qualification that stuck like a grass seed on Dry Day to Avolier Girane's memory. Certainly, when he heard that Jorion Roth had fallen victim to some sort of cloning accident, he wondered first, not about the man's beautiful now-widow but about the eldest and the youngest of his children. When the Roth family left Debreth, suddenly and completely between one day and the next, Girane found himself thinking For now without quite knowing why he did.
And when, some time after that, Ciarente Roth called upon the town council to explain that sometimes Air Traffic Control regulations were made to be broken, Mayor Avolier Girane surprised his fellow councillors almost as much as he surprised himself when he found himself agreeing with her.
She was a DeGrace, he explained to them later, even if this pilot fellow she wanted them to recognise as a hero was Caldari. There had always been DeGraces in Debreth, even back before the first of the nine bridges had been built. Humouring her, especially now she was a capsuleer pilot and richer than Fortune's right hand, was an entirely prudent thing to do.
Eventually he won their agreement. Fines were cancelled, a statue commissioned, a public holiday gazetted.
After all, what he had said was entirely true.
And in the end, Girane thought to himself, standing on First Bridge on the first Debreth annual holiday to celebrate capsuleer pilots, watching Ciarente Roth watch Captain Night make a gracious speech thanking Debreth for the honour, in the end ...
No-one knows the entire truth, in the end, except perhaps Fortune.
Who keeps her own counsel.
Even, he thought, joining in the general applause, even from capsuleers.
Satisfied that he was at least presentable, Girane made his way up the path between the manicured shrubs. The door opened as he approached, and he recognised one of Lorraine's sons, the polite one, Michel or Marc I think, doing duty as a doorman, offering to take Girane's coat with a smile that made his resemblance to his father all the more marked.
And there was the father himself, topping up another guest's glass with a wink and a laugh, Lorraine DeGrace's folly they used to say, until Jorion Roth, spacer, became Jorion Roth, capsuleer.
"Bon soir, Avol, you're well?" Jorion draped an arm around Girane's shoulders and drew him further into the room. "I'm glad you could make it tonight, I'd hate to get sent back upstairs without a chance to see you. Pesellian's well? He's not here tonight?"
Jorion's smile was, as always, infectiously warm. Pesellian always said it never reached the man's blue eyes, but Pese's always been jealous of every man better looking than he is, which is why he refused to come tonight and left me to make his excuses. Girane paused, vaguely aware that though the thought was entirely true, it didn't quite feel like the entire truth, and then realised Jorion was waiting for a reply. "I couldn't drag him away from the lab, I'm afraid."
"Ah, scientists, eh? My eldest, Cia, she's the same." Jorian gestured toward the back of the room, where a plump girl was moving among the guests with a tray of canapés. "Lorraine had to drag her down here by the ear, or close to it. She's been accepted to the Ecole de Physique, you know, we couldn't be more proud, but a girl her age needs more in her life than the books, non?"
Girane nodded agreement and took a glass from a tray offered to him by a younger girl, one with a far stronger resemblance to Lorraine. And there was Lorraine DeGrace Roth herself, her eyes and smile as bright as the gemstones around her neck, pausing to kiss her husband's cheek before extending one slender hand to Girane.
"Avol," she said fondly. "Such a pleasure. Is that darling man of yours brewing up some sort of elixir of eternal youth in his laboratory? Because I swear you look younger every time I see you. Therese has gotten you a drink? And - Cia, don't stand there dreaming while Avol is hungry."
With a murmured apology, the older Roth daughter held out her tray, wearing an echo of her mother's bright smile. "M'ser Girane, how nice to see you again."
Girane contemplated the potential damage to his waistline in each pasty-wrapped parcel on her tray, but Lorraine's cook was famous in society circles, and rightly so, and he couldn't resist. The girl smiled again, and began to turn, and Girane hastily cast about for a topic of conversation that would delay her and the tray she carried. "Jorion said you're studying to be a physicist?"
"Oui, M'ser," she said, politely but a little distantly. "Perhaps less useful than Dr Aurelim's work on tuber yields, but it interests me."
"Oh, you know Pese's latest?" Girane discreetly took another pastry.
"Great potential, perhaps not here but in places with more marginal conditions," Cia said, almost the exact words from Pese's Science Merit Citation, and entirely true, although with no mention of the military applications, not the entire truth. The girl gave him another bright, Lorraine-DeGrace-smile, and said, "You must be very proud of him, M'ser. Please, do try the ones on the left. They're cheese, quite delicious."
"Oh, well, if you insist." She was right: they were quite delicious. He said so, and Cia's smile broadened, genuine warmth in her eyes for the first time, as if she'd been somewhere else until them and briefly stepped inside herself. Fortune, she's almost pretty, Girane thought with surprise, and then, "Did you make them?"
Cia nodded, flushing a little, and lowered her voice to say confidingly, "The secret is the - "
A loud curse behind her made them both turn. Doetre Tumame, past and most say future mayor, was hopping on one foot, swearing, the crumpled child's model of a sharp-edged space ship on the floor an eloquent explanation.
"You stupid cow!" a shrill voice declared. The owner of the voice, a small girl with startlingly ginger hair, glared up at Tumame. "You ruined it! Why don't you look where you're going, you - "
"Camille," Lorraine DeGrace said, and cast a laughing glance around the room. Children, the glance said, inviting complicity from all the parents there, what can you do?
""Well, she should!" the girl said furiously. "That took me and Cia ages and - "
"Then you should have taken better care of it, cherie," Lorraine said. "Now pick it up and take it to your room."
"Not until she says sorry!"
Lorraine lost her smile. "Camille! That is not an appropriate tone to use. If you are looking to be -"
Whatever Lorraine thought Camille was looking to be was lost as the tray Cia had been holding hit the floor with a crash. She stared down at it and then looked up with a bright smile. "Fortune," she said. "I'm so sorry, everyone, I really am a butterfingers."
"Oh, Cia," Lorraine said with a disappointed sigh.
The girl flushed a dull red and bent to gather up the spilled food, murmuring apologies.
Jorian put a hand on his wife's shoulder and said genially, "Well, I think Cia has announced it's time to move into the dining room, everyone. Mayor Tumame, let me offer you my arm, I trust Camille's Drake hasn't caused permanent injury? They are quite a sturdy little ship, we pilots call them flying bricks for a reason."
The tension in the room lifted as the guests followed Jorian and Tumame towards the dining room. As the staff set out a first course of delicate white fish and lemon butter, even the former mayor forgot her injury.
Girane would not even have remembered Jorion and Lorraine's youngest and least well-behaved child, except, leaving the house full of excellent food and better wine, he heard a child's voice from the shadows beneath the hedge at the front of the property.
"I don't care, Cia! I am running away and you can't stop me!"
The eldest daughter's voice sounded somehow softer and warmer in the darkness. "But I will be lonely when you've gone, cherie. And sad, without you."
"You're going away anyway, to college!" Camille said sullenly.
I am eavesdropping, Girane thought, with a faint, guilty thrill. Still, it's always useful to know what one can about a family like the DeGraces. As a councillor, it's almost my duty to.
As a justification, it had the benefit of being entirely true. Girane stepped further into the shadows as Cia said gravely, "Only a little way away. And I have to, to get a good job so I can get a house of my own."
"Of your own?" Camille asked. "With just, like, you?"
"Mmm. There might be room for one more, cherie. If you wanted."
"We could be running away together!" the child said excitedly.
A faint rustle of clothing. "We could. If you weren't running away now, that is."
"Oh." A small foot scuffed gravel. "Maybe I could wait, for you. If you didn't take very long."
There was a smile in Cia's voice as she said, "I promise I'll be as quick as I can, how about that?"
"Okay. I guess I can wait, if you're quick. Ow, don't squeeze, Cia!"
The girl laughed quietly. "I can't help it, you're too squeezable. Hey, since you're not running away, do you want to help me fix your ship?"
"It's too smashed," Camille said sadly. "That stupid lady has big feet! She should watch where they go!"
"Yes, she should," Cia agreed. "But I bet it isn't too smashed. I bet we could fix it, with maybe some replacement bits."
Camille sighed. "Then it won't be the same, with new bits."
"No, it'll be like a real spaceship. They get fixed all the time, you know," Cia said. "And new parts get put on them when they're too broken."
"Really?" Camille asked.
"Uh-huh. So your ship will be even more real, if it's been fixed up after a collision."
Camille said hotly, "Mama should have made the stupid lady 'pologise, not me, Cia! That wasn't fair! It was on the table and everything, she knocked it down with her big fat backside, I saw!"
Girane had to stifle a laugh, thinking Tumame is rather broad in the beam, as Cia said quietly, "Well, maybe Mama didn't see."
"She should have been on my side anyway! She's my mama!"
"Mama can't help being Mama, Cami. Don't be mean about her. And I'm on your side, hmm? How about that?"
"Okay. Cia?"
"Yes, cherie?"
"Can we go and fix my ship now?"
Girane stepped back out of sight hastily as feet scuffed and bodies moved in the shadows. "If you've finished running away."
"I have," Camille said, as the two sisters joined hands and started back to the house.
Then as they passed the shadows where Girane stood, she added thoughtfully, "Well. For now, anyway."
Perhaps it was that carefully considered qualification that stuck like a grass seed on Dry Day to Avolier Girane's memory. Certainly, when he heard that Jorion Roth had fallen victim to some sort of cloning accident, he wondered first, not about the man's beautiful now-widow but about the eldest and the youngest of his children. When the Roth family left Debreth, suddenly and completely between one day and the next, Girane found himself thinking For now without quite knowing why he did.
And when, some time after that, Ciarente Roth called upon the town council to explain that sometimes Air Traffic Control regulations were made to be broken, Mayor Avolier Girane surprised his fellow councillors almost as much as he surprised himself when he found himself agreeing with her.
She was a DeGrace, he explained to them later, even if this pilot fellow she wanted them to recognise as a hero was Caldari. There had always been DeGraces in Debreth, even back before the first of the nine bridges had been built. Humouring her, especially now she was a capsuleer pilot and richer than Fortune's right hand, was an entirely prudent thing to do.
Eventually he won their agreement. Fines were cancelled, a statue commissioned, a public holiday gazetted.
After all, what he had said was entirely true.
And in the end, Girane thought to himself, standing on First Bridge on the first Debreth annual holiday to celebrate capsuleer pilots, watching Ciarente Roth watch Captain Night make a gracious speech thanking Debreth for the honour, in the end ...
No-one knows the entire truth, in the end, except perhaps Fortune.
Who keeps her own counsel.
Even, he thought, joining in the general applause, even from capsuleers.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Love and Crime
"Charlie, you're a fool." Capitaine Elienne Desorlay hunched her shoulders against the draft whistling out of the ventilation duct, gaze steady on the door at the end of the alley. "This exchange program - that no-one's ever heard of before - just happened to pull your name out of the hat right when your capsuleer conceived more than a fancy to have you closer to home?"
Lieutenant Charles Etay, his thick coat more than a match for the breeze, more podder bribes, shrugged. "A job is a job all the same."
"A job that's a podder's grace and favour, for you to lose as soon as you lose her fancy?" Eli snorted, fumbling in her pocket for her cigarettes. "That's not a job, farm-boy. That's a polite way of offering to turn you into her putain.."
That got her no more reaction than a faint smile. "Such a way with words, you have," Etay said, leaning forward to cup his hands around her lighter as the draft made the flame flicker and dim.
"Oh, and how's it going to be, then, you tell me, when she tires of your pretty face?" Eli drew on the cigarette and when it lit, puffed smoke in Etay's face. "When you tell her no when she wants to hear yes? When you think yours when she's thinking hers?"
Etay took a step back and turned to watch the door again. "There's a job there. There'll be one here, if I need it." He shrugged a little."Do you think this asshole's going to show?"
"He'll show," Eli said with flat certainty.
"He's got to know we'll be watching his girl," Etay said. "The smart thing would be to -"
Eli flicked ash downwind. "You're forgetting something."
"I am?"
"One, he's a criminal. And crime makes you stupid," Eli said, holding up her thumb.
"Well, that explains a great deal," Etay said mildly.
"And two," Eli said, raising her forefinger to make the shape of a gun, "He's in love. And love, farmboy ..." She aimed at him. "Love makes you dumber than dumb."
Etay glanced sideways at her, long lashes half lowered over his limpid gaze, the breeze ruffling his hair into artless disarray, leaning against the wall as if he belongs on the cover of a holo, not that he knows it, which is almost more annoying, Fortune fuck him. "I recall you saying something along those lines once or twice before."
"A pretty girl crooks her finger, and a silly boy goes running. And then discovers he can't go wandering off again so easily."
Etay laughed soundlessly. "You think Cia plans to keep me chained up and captive?" he asked. "To father the rest of her children?'
"Stranger things have fucking happened, farmboy, most of them in podder's hangars."
Etay took a step sideways as a passer-by obscured his view of the door. "She's not like that, Eli."
"Oh, not like that, not like that, says the man so head-over-heels in love with her he can't see her any more clearly than he can the shadow behind the sun." Eli burnt the cigarette down to filter on a single ferocious inhalation and dropped it. "Fortune fuck me, and Robert just finished repainting the bathroom."
"Painting the ... " Etay stopped, eyes steady on the end of the alley. Not a stupid boy, no, Eli thought. Just a foolish one. "Eli ..."
"Someone has to keep an eye on you, farmboy. Someone with a clear head."
The corner of Etay's mouth that Eli could see twitched upwards. "And you're volunteering?"
"Partners, remember?" She took a wide step around him as a face familiar from the squadroom holoboard showed at the end of the alley. "So you tell your pretty podder mama-to-be that this exchange program needs to have room for your senior partner. Flutter your eyelashes at her, or something."
"Eli ..."
She jerked her chin towards their target. "You going to argue with me or you going to make this arrest?"
Etay's head turned, his eyes narrowing, and he reached for the PRD on his belt. Cop trumps love-sick fool, Eli thought to herself.
For now, anyway.
For now.
Lieutenant Charles Etay, his thick coat more than a match for the breeze, more podder bribes, shrugged. "A job is a job all the same."
"A job that's a podder's grace and favour, for you to lose as soon as you lose her fancy?" Eli snorted, fumbling in her pocket for her cigarettes. "That's not a job, farm-boy. That's a polite way of offering to turn you into her putain.."
That got her no more reaction than a faint smile. "Such a way with words, you have," Etay said, leaning forward to cup his hands around her lighter as the draft made the flame flicker and dim.
"Oh, and how's it going to be, then, you tell me, when she tires of your pretty face?" Eli drew on the cigarette and when it lit, puffed smoke in Etay's face. "When you tell her no when she wants to hear yes? When you think yours when she's thinking hers?"
Etay took a step back and turned to watch the door again. "There's a job there. There'll be one here, if I need it." He shrugged a little."Do you think this asshole's going to show?"
"He'll show," Eli said with flat certainty.
"He's got to know we'll be watching his girl," Etay said. "The smart thing would be to -"
Eli flicked ash downwind. "You're forgetting something."
"I am?"
"One, he's a criminal. And crime makes you stupid," Eli said, holding up her thumb.
"Well, that explains a great deal," Etay said mildly.
"And two," Eli said, raising her forefinger to make the shape of a gun, "He's in love. And love, farmboy ..." She aimed at him. "Love makes you dumber than dumb."
Etay glanced sideways at her, long lashes half lowered over his limpid gaze, the breeze ruffling his hair into artless disarray, leaning against the wall as if he belongs on the cover of a holo, not that he knows it, which is almost more annoying, Fortune fuck him. "I recall you saying something along those lines once or twice before."
"A pretty girl crooks her finger, and a silly boy goes running. And then discovers he can't go wandering off again so easily."
Etay laughed soundlessly. "You think Cia plans to keep me chained up and captive?" he asked. "To father the rest of her children?'
"Stranger things have fucking happened, farmboy, most of them in podder's hangars."
Etay took a step sideways as a passer-by obscured his view of the door. "She's not like that, Eli."
"Oh, not like that, not like that, says the man so head-over-heels in love with her he can't see her any more clearly than he can the shadow behind the sun." Eli burnt the cigarette down to filter on a single ferocious inhalation and dropped it. "Fortune fuck me, and Robert just finished repainting the bathroom."
"Painting the ... " Etay stopped, eyes steady on the end of the alley. Not a stupid boy, no, Eli thought. Just a foolish one. "Eli ..."
"Someone has to keep an eye on you, farmboy. Someone with a clear head."
The corner of Etay's mouth that Eli could see twitched upwards. "And you're volunteering?"
"Partners, remember?" She took a wide step around him as a face familiar from the squadroom holoboard showed at the end of the alley. "So you tell your pretty podder mama-to-be that this exchange program needs to have room for your senior partner. Flutter your eyelashes at her, or something."
"Eli ..."
She jerked her chin towards their target. "You going to argue with me or you going to make this arrest?"
Etay's head turned, his eyes narrowing, and he reached for the PRD on his belt. Cop trumps love-sick fool, Eli thought to herself.
For now, anyway.
For now.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Unlucky
He was hungry.
He'd been hungry for a long time. There was food, rotting, stinking food that sometimes made him vomit, but food nonetheless, in the cans scattered here and there, but he was usually chased away from it by those larger and stronger.
Or if not larger and stronger, then at least with others to help them hunt away strangers and claim the food for themselves.
He didn't have others.
He was alone.
That was worse than being hungry. Being hungry was a constant pain that gnawed at his belly and burned his throat and made him almost too weak to walk, sometimes, but being alone was Wrong.
It wasn't his fault. He'd just been unlucky, or that's what he tried to tell himself when the feeling of Wrong got so bad he couldn't uncurl himself.
He hadn't always been alone. He'd had a pack, too, once. Not a big one, but a good one. He hadn't been hungry, or cold, or chased, then. He'd had a good leader, even if it was a Big, a leader who always made sure there was food, and fresh clean water that hadn't been pissed in, and had kept strangers out of their home. It hadn't been a big home, but it was big enough for their pack, just him and his sister and Packleader.
Packleader hadn't been able to talk properly, of course, being a Big, although it tried sometimes, making noises with its mouth. He'd learned how to understand what it wanted when it made those noises, or some of them, anyway, and that made Packleader happy.
But then one day Packleader had started to smell wrong. It had laid down in its sleeping place and stopped moving. He and his sister had tried to wake Packleader up, had licked all its fur the wrong way round, but Packleader didn't wake up, and after a while Packleader started to be cold and smell even more wrong, and that's when he'd known that Packleader had stopped being there and had turned into food, even though nobody had bitten it on the back of the neck the way you did to turn something into food.
That was the first time he'd known what it was to be hungry.
He'd pulled on the metal thing where Packleader kept the food, even though that was a Badboy, Wrong, thing to do and it made him want to dig a hole and hide, doing it. He and his sister had drunk water from the bowl in the waste place, beside the dirt Packleader always put there for them to use, even though drinking water from that bowl was another Badboy thing.
They'd been thirsty. He didn't think Packleader would have wanted them to be thirsty.
They ate the food from the metal thing until it ran out. Then he'd tried to find more food for them, but their home only opened when Packleader made it and neither he nor his sister had been able to make it work. They'd waited for another Big to come and bring food, but no Big came, and they got hungrier and hungrier. His sister's fur began to fall out, and his mouth hurt and bled all the time. One day his sister wouldn't get up from her sleeping place.
That's when he decided they had to eat Packleader.
It was an awful, Wrong, Badboy thing, but he couldn't think of anything else.
Packleader was enough food for a while longer, but he'd started to worry about what they'd do when it was gone by the time they heard the home opening one day and some more Bigs came.
They didn't bring food, though. And they didn't want to be part of the pack. They put their paws over their noses and made loud noises with their mouths and when they found Packleader those noises got so loud they hurt his ears.
Then one of them rushed at him and his sister and even though he'd never seen a Big in fighting posture he could tell instantly that's what it was. His sister told him to run and got in between him and the Big. The home was still open and he'd run for the outside. Before he got there he looked back to make sure his sister was following him and just as he did the Big lifted one foot and brought it down hard on her. There was a crunching noise.
He'd learned that day you don't need teeth to bite someone on the back of the neck.
He ran, and kept running, until the Big stopped chasing him and longer, until his paws were so sore he couldn't bear to put them on the ground, and then he crawled into the smallest place he could find and curled up and cried, for his sister, who was now food, for Packleader, and for himself, who was Wrong, and Badboy, and alone.
The next morning was the first time he was hunted by another pack.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find a pack that would let him be part of them. If he'd been younger, maybe, or older, the Packleaders wouldn't have cared. Or if he'd been stronger and large, he could have fought a Packleader and taken their pack for himself. But he wasn't strong, or large. He was the right size to sit on a Big's legs when they were resting, which had been just the right size for his old Packleader, but was just the wrong size now. And no Bigs wanted to be his Packleader, even when he showed them how he could chase his tail as if it was a scurry-food, and pretend to be surprised when he caught it, which had always made his old Packleader happy.
It didn't make the other Bigs happy. One even kicked him, hard, but he remembered what happened to his sister and when he saw the Big's paw go up he dodged, and the kick only hit his side and leg. It still hurt, even though it didn't turn him into food, and it never stopped hurting, so he couldn't run much anymore.
After than he stayed away from all the Bigs.
So he was hungry, all the time. And hunted. And alone, which was worst of all.
Right now, though, he could smell food.
He crept out of the hole where he'd been hiding from the other packs and tried to work out where the smell was coming from. His nose told him it was somewhere in the Bigs that hurried by, near the big fast metal things, and he wanted to cry. He couldn't go out there, among all of them, with their kicking paws and loud noises, especially not near the big fast metal things. He'd seen others get too close to those things and suddenly become flat and food.
He was so hungry, though.
And what if they did kick him? What if he did turn into food? He was alone, and Badboy, and Wrong.
And hungry.
He crept out, just a little way, to see and smell better, belly low to the ground. None of the Bigs paid any attention. The food smell moved away and he followed it, carefully, as fast as he could. He couldn't walk very fast, since the Big had kicked him, and the smell got further away, and he wanted to cry again, but then it got much closer really quickly and he realized that the Big carrying the food had stopped.
He looked at it. It wasn't a very big Big, the same size as his old Packleader, and it was with another little Big who was part of its pack. They made noises with their mouths at each other while he watched them. The smallest Big smelled sad, but the Packleader smelled like it was in fighting posture, even though its paws were on the ground.
He couldn't see any food, but it was there all right. Sometimes Bigs carried food in the outside-fur they had to make up for not having much proper fur. He guessed this one was doing that.
He really, really, didn't want to be kicked again.
He really, really wanted something to eat.
He crept forward, watching the Big's paws, and nosed it the way he used to nose his old Packleader to tell it he wanted food.
The Big looked at him. It didn't kick him.
It didn't give him any food, either.
He nosed it again, and even though Bigs couldn't talk, he tried explaining to it that he was very hungry, and Goodboy, and could he please have some food?
Both Bigs looked at him and made more noises with their mouths, not loud noises, though, and their paws stayed on the ground. While they were looking at him he showed them how he could chase his tail and pretend to catch it, except his side and his leg hurt too much and he fell over on his rump. It was horribly humiliating, but he got up and tried again. He even pretended he'd meant to fall over, and did it again on purpose, even though it really hurt.
The Bigs made more noises. They didn't kick him.
They didn't give him any food, either.
He started to cry. He couldn't help it. He put his nose against the Big who was the Packleader and tried not to make any noises with his crying.
The Packleader Big put its paw inside its outside-fur and then it was holding food. It gave the food to the other Big and the other Big got down close to him on the ground and held it out in a paw.
It was real food, fresh, food that tasted of food. He tried to eat it politely, but he was too hungry. When he was finished he headbutted the Big's hand the way he'd used to with his old Packleader, to show he was grateful. The Big smelled sad again, when he did that, but it rubbed his head with its paw and gave him more food, and made noises to the Packleader.
The Packleader made noises back.
The Packleader didn't smell sad. It didn't smell happy, either.
It didn't smell angry, though. Just ... a little bit like it was thinking about whether to dig a hole and hide, or get in fighting posture and bite someone on the back of the neck.
Not him, though, he didn't think.
He nosed it again.
This time the Packleader got down close to him and made more food appear in its paw. He took it and ate it the very politest way he knew how. This was a good pack, he could tell, even if the smaller Big was sad. There wasn't any kicking. The noises they made to each other weren't loud.
And they had a lot of food.
The little Big did something to its outside-fur, and took it apart. The Packleader took the piece, and tied it to his neck. It held on to the other end.
It held on to the other end.
He stopped being alone, and Wrong. He had a pack.
He butted his Packleader's paw with his head and waited for it to tell him what to do.
Then something terrible happened.
One of the fast metal things came very very close and stopped and his pack went right up next to it.
He tried to tell them how dangerous it was, but they were Bigs, and he couldn't make them understand. The little Big climbed inside it, and then his Packleader did, and they ignored him, even when he danced the Danger Dance right there next to the metal thing.
His Packleader pulled the thing tied around his neck and made noises at him.
He wanted to run, more than anything. The metal things were dangerous and Wrong and even being this close to one made him want to dig a hole and hide.
But his pack was inside it. He couldn't run away and leave them in danger.
He had to at least try to protect them.
His Packleader pulled the thing around his neck again.
He closed his eyes and jumped.
He'd been hungry for a long time. There was food, rotting, stinking food that sometimes made him vomit, but food nonetheless, in the cans scattered here and there, but he was usually chased away from it by those larger and stronger.
Or if not larger and stronger, then at least with others to help them hunt away strangers and claim the food for themselves.
He didn't have others.
He was alone.
That was worse than being hungry. Being hungry was a constant pain that gnawed at his belly and burned his throat and made him almost too weak to walk, sometimes, but being alone was Wrong.
It wasn't his fault. He'd just been unlucky, or that's what he tried to tell himself when the feeling of Wrong got so bad he couldn't uncurl himself.
He hadn't always been alone. He'd had a pack, too, once. Not a big one, but a good one. He hadn't been hungry, or cold, or chased, then. He'd had a good leader, even if it was a Big, a leader who always made sure there was food, and fresh clean water that hadn't been pissed in, and had kept strangers out of their home. It hadn't been a big home, but it was big enough for their pack, just him and his sister and Packleader.
Packleader hadn't been able to talk properly, of course, being a Big, although it tried sometimes, making noises with its mouth. He'd learned how to understand what it wanted when it made those noises, or some of them, anyway, and that made Packleader happy.
But then one day Packleader had started to smell wrong. It had laid down in its sleeping place and stopped moving. He and his sister had tried to wake Packleader up, had licked all its fur the wrong way round, but Packleader didn't wake up, and after a while Packleader started to be cold and smell even more wrong, and that's when he'd known that Packleader had stopped being there and had turned into food, even though nobody had bitten it on the back of the neck the way you did to turn something into food.
That was the first time he'd known what it was to be hungry.
He'd pulled on the metal thing where Packleader kept the food, even though that was a Badboy, Wrong, thing to do and it made him want to dig a hole and hide, doing it. He and his sister had drunk water from the bowl in the waste place, beside the dirt Packleader always put there for them to use, even though drinking water from that bowl was another Badboy thing.
They'd been thirsty. He didn't think Packleader would have wanted them to be thirsty.
They ate the food from the metal thing until it ran out. Then he'd tried to find more food for them, but their home only opened when Packleader made it and neither he nor his sister had been able to make it work. They'd waited for another Big to come and bring food, but no Big came, and they got hungrier and hungrier. His sister's fur began to fall out, and his mouth hurt and bled all the time. One day his sister wouldn't get up from her sleeping place.
That's when he decided they had to eat Packleader.
It was an awful, Wrong, Badboy thing, but he couldn't think of anything else.
Packleader was enough food for a while longer, but he'd started to worry about what they'd do when it was gone by the time they heard the home opening one day and some more Bigs came.
They didn't bring food, though. And they didn't want to be part of the pack. They put their paws over their noses and made loud noises with their mouths and when they found Packleader those noises got so loud they hurt his ears.
Then one of them rushed at him and his sister and even though he'd never seen a Big in fighting posture he could tell instantly that's what it was. His sister told him to run and got in between him and the Big. The home was still open and he'd run for the outside. Before he got there he looked back to make sure his sister was following him and just as he did the Big lifted one foot and brought it down hard on her. There was a crunching noise.
He'd learned that day you don't need teeth to bite someone on the back of the neck.
He ran, and kept running, until the Big stopped chasing him and longer, until his paws were so sore he couldn't bear to put them on the ground, and then he crawled into the smallest place he could find and curled up and cried, for his sister, who was now food, for Packleader, and for himself, who was Wrong, and Badboy, and alone.
The next morning was the first time he was hunted by another pack.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find a pack that would let him be part of them. If he'd been younger, maybe, or older, the Packleaders wouldn't have cared. Or if he'd been stronger and large, he could have fought a Packleader and taken their pack for himself. But he wasn't strong, or large. He was the right size to sit on a Big's legs when they were resting, which had been just the right size for his old Packleader, but was just the wrong size now. And no Bigs wanted to be his Packleader, even when he showed them how he could chase his tail as if it was a scurry-food, and pretend to be surprised when he caught it, which had always made his old Packleader happy.
It didn't make the other Bigs happy. One even kicked him, hard, but he remembered what happened to his sister and when he saw the Big's paw go up he dodged, and the kick only hit his side and leg. It still hurt, even though it didn't turn him into food, and it never stopped hurting, so he couldn't run much anymore.
After than he stayed away from all the Bigs.
So he was hungry, all the time. And hunted. And alone, which was worst of all.
Right now, though, he could smell food.
He crept out of the hole where he'd been hiding from the other packs and tried to work out where the smell was coming from. His nose told him it was somewhere in the Bigs that hurried by, near the big fast metal things, and he wanted to cry. He couldn't go out there, among all of them, with their kicking paws and loud noises, especially not near the big fast metal things. He'd seen others get too close to those things and suddenly become flat and food.
He was so hungry, though.
And what if they did kick him? What if he did turn into food? He was alone, and Badboy, and Wrong.
And hungry.
He crept out, just a little way, to see and smell better, belly low to the ground. None of the Bigs paid any attention. The food smell moved away and he followed it, carefully, as fast as he could. He couldn't walk very fast, since the Big had kicked him, and the smell got further away, and he wanted to cry again, but then it got much closer really quickly and he realized that the Big carrying the food had stopped.
He looked at it. It wasn't a very big Big, the same size as his old Packleader, and it was with another little Big who was part of its pack. They made noises with their mouths at each other while he watched them. The smallest Big smelled sad, but the Packleader smelled like it was in fighting posture, even though its paws were on the ground.
He couldn't see any food, but it was there all right. Sometimes Bigs carried food in the outside-fur they had to make up for not having much proper fur. He guessed this one was doing that.
He really, really, didn't want to be kicked again.
He really, really wanted something to eat.
He crept forward, watching the Big's paws, and nosed it the way he used to nose his old Packleader to tell it he wanted food.
The Big looked at him. It didn't kick him.
It didn't give him any food, either.
He nosed it again, and even though Bigs couldn't talk, he tried explaining to it that he was very hungry, and Goodboy, and could he please have some food?
Both Bigs looked at him and made more noises with their mouths, not loud noises, though, and their paws stayed on the ground. While they were looking at him he showed them how he could chase his tail and pretend to catch it, except his side and his leg hurt too much and he fell over on his rump. It was horribly humiliating, but he got up and tried again. He even pretended he'd meant to fall over, and did it again on purpose, even though it really hurt.
The Bigs made more noises. They didn't kick him.
They didn't give him any food, either.
He started to cry. He couldn't help it. He put his nose against the Big who was the Packleader and tried not to make any noises with his crying.
The Packleader Big put its paw inside its outside-fur and then it was holding food. It gave the food to the other Big and the other Big got down close to him on the ground and held it out in a paw.
It was real food, fresh, food that tasted of food. He tried to eat it politely, but he was too hungry. When he was finished he headbutted the Big's hand the way he'd used to with his old Packleader, to show he was grateful. The Big smelled sad again, when he did that, but it rubbed his head with its paw and gave him more food, and made noises to the Packleader.
The Packleader made noises back.
The Packleader didn't smell sad. It didn't smell happy, either.
It didn't smell angry, though. Just ... a little bit like it was thinking about whether to dig a hole and hide, or get in fighting posture and bite someone on the back of the neck.
Not him, though, he didn't think.
He nosed it again.
This time the Packleader got down close to him and made more food appear in its paw. He took it and ate it the very politest way he knew how. This was a good pack, he could tell, even if the smaller Big was sad. There wasn't any kicking. The noises they made to each other weren't loud.
And they had a lot of food.
The little Big did something to its outside-fur, and took it apart. The Packleader took the piece, and tied it to his neck. It held on to the other end.
It held on to the other end.
He stopped being alone, and Wrong. He had a pack.
He butted his Packleader's paw with his head and waited for it to tell him what to do.
Then something terrible happened.
One of the fast metal things came very very close and stopped and his pack went right up next to it.
He tried to tell them how dangerous it was, but they were Bigs, and he couldn't make them understand. The little Big climbed inside it, and then his Packleader did, and they ignored him, even when he danced the Danger Dance right there next to the metal thing.
His Packleader pulled the thing tied around his neck and made noises at him.
He wanted to run, more than anything. The metal things were dangerous and Wrong and even being this close to one made him want to dig a hole and hide.
But his pack was inside it. He couldn't run away and leave them in danger.
He had to at least try to protect them.
His Packleader pulled the thing around his neck again.
He closed his eyes and jumped.
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