Transcendence

Zacharias looked at me, studying my face as his fingers filled a pipe with brown shreds. I wondered where he got his tobacco. The others were downstairs playing cards with his men, he had brought me upstairs to show me a book after we had made a deal with him. He is one of the most wanted men in the galaxy and he lives in the shadow of the capital building. He sat down across a table from me and watched as I paged through the book, a mystery novel from midway through the Common Era. I regretted not being able to read it then and there.
“A woman like you is wasted on the edges. You should be here, set up and running things right. Too many in our profession are...” he waved his hand dismissively. “Those Runs you are doing are below your talent.”
The praise was surprising from this hard, taciturn man. It also implied that he had been researching me, which is concerning. I shrugged. “There is always something new out there.”
He nodded. “Truth. You’re missing things here. Important news.” He did not continue immediately, but watched the interest I was trying not show. Testing me. He lit his pipe, guiding flame into the bowl with his dark tan fingers. “Have you heard of Dorado Sublime?” I shook my head, and he nodded. “I assume you know the history...Alpha, Primos, Hadrian, Michaela, all in a row, the past half century? Four complete systems, viable suns, multiple planets. A boon to mankind.” His voice twisted with sudden sarcasm. “They have us believe that it was intentional, that science allowed us to make it so...easy. If it has been that. In truth, they know it to be luck.”
“You speak of conspiracies. They? Luck? I—"
“I mean the men and women who set us on this path to the stars, the corporations that keep us here. And no matter how you feel about luck...theirs has run out.”
In his dark eyes I could see the desert skies of his ancestors, of all our ancestors. I saw bright fires burning in the night, something ancient stirring in his voice. “There are no more systems like these, none we can travel to in a lifetime. There are planets we could settle, but they are as rare as our Earth once was.”
“Don’t we have enough planets?” At this Zacharias leaned back, his mystery diminished as he became once more a hunted man, turned to cynicism by his struggles. “You and I might think so. The men of Noxxe and Tempel-1 might think so, but the governments, the corporations with the coin...they will never stop. They are eager and greedy and will always want more. Remember what Mars almost became?” In the early days, Corps had hand-selected settlers, sending wealthy relatives to create a insular, high-class society. Zacharias seemed impatient. “It took thousands of protesters, countless lawmakers...just to ensure an equal chance at the skies. No one cares about that now. No one even knows. The old Corps, the biggest-you know which ones- they have set their sights on Dorado Sublime.”
“What is it?”
“A planet. Small rock, but viable. The next in line for terraforming. The public believes we’ll continue settling Michaela, but the Corps will abandon humanity to the dry dust of it’s new home. It is privately owned, core to crust. That, my friend, is the way of the future. There are no more open systems, no more frontiers. Private colonies, perfectly controlled: New Roma, Washington 5, San Kyoto, St. Waltonberg. There will be no more freedom in the heavens.”
I was light-headed from the smoke, and his voice was laden with suggestion. I understood suddenly how this man commanded so many others, how he had become such a persistent rust-spot in Fed chains.
“This is the point, `Aalim Scout, wherein you ask what there is to be done about it. Their plan is not yet set in steel. Were the mission at Dorado to fail, I believe that their attention would be diverted. Not permanently, of course, but for a time...”

“The end of expansion” I finished for him, my voice a whisper.

“It would take far more resources than I have available. And my connections are...considerable” he said lightly, all casual business once more. The man could change as quickly as an engine flare. “It would be a matter of the right people at the right time. So goes the course of history, do you not agree? Such events have always shaped the course of worlds. What would have happened if someone had stopped Mission Evollo, or the founding of Target City? What if Xylos had not been destroyed?”
He knew, he must. How much? Rigon, Michlun, Ulysses? Jamieson and Whisp? Xylos had changed the way space stations were built, and guarded. One job gone wrong shaped things for a lifetime.
“History is always made by phantoms, by the ones who slip beneath the sensors and place themselves as spines in the side of—"
“Progress?” I interrupted for the first time. “There is no way to stop progress. You’d be a fool to try.”
“Of course. One cannot stop the progression of time, one can only influence how it is used.”A smile played on his craggy face. “Think nothing of it. I was merely sharing information with a fellow...historian.”

We both knew the word he had truly said.

Phantom.

after

Spent the last day leaving a complex jump trail between Collette and New Bombay, where there are plenty of places to hide from the Feds that may or may not be chasing us. There is always work in New Bombay.

Caban looked around at his crew and said, “Well. I think we all need Runner lessons.”

He’s not wrong. There are no academies for this line of work except a life spent doing it. None of us here are amateurs; if we were, we’d be dead. Ice took down Stretch and half the other men, she came away without a scratch. Kon got his armor shirt pounded near to scrap but still took down a few before everyone fled at the sight of Fed shuttles bearing down on us. Caban has a swollen black eye and a set of bruised knuckles. He came running back to get me while the air filled with Federal sirens that I didn’t notice. If Milano’s not dead he will be in their custody and even angrier. The Doctor came out of the shuttle and got some shots off before he tripped and split his chin open on a rock. I gave him his stitches after he made sure his repairs on me were holding up. Ice kept a close eye on everyone as he examined us. Her eyes are everywhere, and for once I don’t mind.

We’ll be making contact with one of Zacharias’ men in the morning. I didn’t exactly want to die for a few boxes of organ meat, but the crew is sore that we didn’t get paid. I hear Kon’s voice in the hallway announcing that he’s getting drunk now, and now everyone is spilling out of their quarters, their voices laughing and clamoring and loud.
I guess we’re all going to join him.

bad business

The bullet sped by, tearing a flap of fabric from Caban’s thick jacket.
I didn’t know he wasn’t hit.
As Stretch’s gun sounded, the rest of us broke holster. There was no cover, and it was four to six, with Em and the Doctor behind us in the shuttle. Ice hit Stretch immediately, and the man went down, still alive. Milano leapt on me before I got a bullet from my chamber. His weight pressed down on me and his ugly lips drooled onto my face.
“Thought I recognized you. Milano doesn’t forget a face. You’re Front’s little bitch. Still working after he got his brains blowed out by them Feds?”
I kicked him between the legs, but my shin met a solid piece of metal. The man laughed. “Served him right. Wish I coulda been there, but now I get you.” He put his weight on my ribcage and brought a hand to my throat, where I felt it beginning to squeeze. Around me, I heard gunshots, running, and the distinct sound of a body hitting the turf. Dirt ground into my eyes as I squirmed away from his tightening fingers. No one was coming to help me.
Because he leaned his whole weight on my lungs, my legs were free, so I pummeled both knees into his back, feeling the recently repaired tissues in my body straining and tearing. He grunted as I hit him, but did not lose his grip. Instead he leaned forward, so I sat up suddenly and hit him with my head as hard as I could. The impact nearly blinded me but I got my arms free and pulled my elbow across the bridge of his nose. When I got free I knocked him onto the ground and shoved my boot to his temple once, twice, until Caban was there, Caban with his arms around me pulling me back from Milano, Caban bracing his arm over my shoulder and shooting back at whoever we were still fighting. Was he hit? We were running away, and they were chasing us.
Em was flying the shuttle and everyone else was bleeding and angry.

They took our money, and my head still hurts.

business

The nature of this business (and this age) is to press on as quickly as possible, and Oberon hummed pleasantly as I jumped through to Collette, avoiding Fed scan ships. The deal was set for coords at one of the many game preserves that span the southern continents. Terraformed for beasts, though only a portion is set aside for preservation. Nothing is wild anymore, though creatures long extinct on Earth reside in relative solitude on Collette. No way for a ship even the size of Roller to land undetected, though human can sneak in with relative ease, as Ice and I proved on our nocturnal scope-out mission.
We rented one of the preserve’s “family packs” which includes breakfast, ice treats, and paper hats (of which only Em and the Doctor took full advantage) along with the clunky family-sized shuttlepod. Once aboard, Em promptly scrambled the preprogrammed systems so we’d be able to take it off the track, and Kon brought the crates aboard as the tour guides were busy explaining a large red bird to a crowd of exuberant, paper-hatted children and travel-weary parents.
We got to the spot only slightly early, having had to stop to watch several fleet-footed brown antelope browsing in the scrub, and enjoyed the sounds of birdsong as we waited for our contacts. As soon as the men stepped out of their own shuttle (not a Preserve model), my stomach sank. Out of the six, I recognized four, knew two, and one of those knew me.

These were bad men.

Last time I was in contact with Stretch, he killed a bystander who happened to walk by.
Last time I was in contact with Milano, he punched Ulysses in the face and stole our money, and we didn’t get it back until Tambor tackled him stabbed him in the side.

I won’t list every crime of every man I’ve ever met, but the looks on the faces of our contacts made my skin crawl. Ice’s hand twitch on her gun as one of them leered at her, and I avoided eye contact with Milano. I had hoped he might have gotten himself killed by now, like so many others I’ve worked with.
Caban made the deal swiftly and as easily as he does everything else, but when it came time to part ways, the contacts hesitated. Caban asked them to move along with their goods, and when Stretch only smiled my ears began to buzz. Then Caban took a step backward and said “Well. We’ll be moving along then, good business done.”

That’s when Stretch pulled out his gun, leveled it at Caban, and pulled the trigger.

stares

The air seal on the first crate hissed open, to reveal a layer clear plastic packing. When the burst of cold steam cleared, the four of us gazed down at a tray of human eyeballs.

No one spoke, and twenty-four blank stares looked up at the roof of the cargo bay and three shocked faces. Ice finally cursed and stepped back, breaking the spell.
“Well.” said Caban. “Well.”
The Doctor turned a dial on the side of the crate, and the tray rose several centimeters to reveal another layer of white, refrigerated blocks beneath.
“Looks like kidneys, maybe some ova,” he said, then turned to the next crate. Caban put out a hand to stop him.
“That’s enough. Put them back.” At his words, Mezaro shrugged and replaced the cover, turning another dial to reseal the crate. He looked entirely nonplussed, though the other men looked as disturbed as I felt. Ice looked, as usual, utterly calm, though it seemed somehow strained. I heard Em clattering in the gridwalks and wondered if she’d seen.
“What are you getting for these?” he asked, and when Ice told him, he shook his head. “I have contacts on Festia that can get you twice that. Easily. They’re fresh.”
“Fresh?” Caban seemed to choke on the words. He seemed unsure what to ask next.
“If Scout can jump us there by tomorrow night, they’ll get premium. Let me call my—"
“You’re a Runner!” I said, stopping before I called him a liar. We all have secrets. To my surprise, Mezaro looked at me with what may have been a sneer, then continued in a matter-of-fact voice.
“No. I’m a doctor. And I am in business with several organizations that trade in this sort of material. They’re brought to me, I package them and distribute them.” Caban made a disbelieving sound in the back of his throat, and the Doctor smiled. He was utterly unchanged from the shy young man who worked patiently to repair my own damaged organs, the cheerful and hardworking doctor who fit so easily into our crew. Nothing on his face was any different now than it had been when I first saw him, or when I saw him standing over the bloody body of the man he had killed. Suddenly that particular incident makes sense.

The thing that rings in my mind is his voice saying “They are brought to me”. That’s not “It is brought to me.” He was referring to the “material”, so it is either a grammatical mistake, or an implication that what is brought to him is not organs, it is bodies.
“He’s a butcher” said Ice later. “Hacks folk to pieces and sells them. Wonder if he kills them first.”
Kon grunted.
Em shrugged.
Caban looks lost, but is determined to make the sale to the contacts that hired him.

I can’t help but wonder what I’ll dream of tonight.

confidence

“Don’t go to Collette” said the Doctor, suddenly.
Ice looked at him sharply but said nothing, and he repeated himself.
“Why?” I asked. It was a strange outburst, as we sat at the table after dinner. Em and Kon had already scuttled off, Caban was washing dishes and singing under his breath.
“We should go to Festia instead. I know we just came from there…no, I don’t want to be dropped off in Paquin, Captain.” he said, though he had given no signs of participating in the conversation. “I just think we’d be better off there. Make a better deal.”
“We already have a deal.” Caban responded finally, coming back toward the table with a damp towel in his hands. “Any particular reason why we shouldn’t be keeping it?”
“There is better money to be made,” he said, not explaining anything as he appealed to Ice’s quiet stare. He knew us too well.
“Are you in trouble on Collette?” I asked, theories surging in to explain his suspicious behavior and in my mind, nature. He shook his head, but I saw in his keen eyes the glint of half-truths.
“Those men on Agrafena don’t know what they’re talking about. There are better places to drop the cargo.”
“Well. That may be, Doc, but that’s not our business. I’m wondering how you know anything about the Runner trade on any planet, especially one you say you’ve never been to.” Caban spoke deliberately, and I could not help but admire the man’s intelligence, when it shone through.
“I haven’t been off-world, but that don’t mean I can’t know a thing or two about business. I’m telling you…I know. You don’t have to believe me, but I’m suggesting what is best for the crew.”
Caban’s eyes glanced into mine, and saw the reflected doubt there. “I understand, Doc. I’m just asking how you know.”
“I did a lot of trading on Festia.”
“Trading?”
“Trading. I know the value of what is in your crates, and if you want a better deal, I can get you one.”
“That means breaking the deal we’ve made.”
“With rusty junk-heap barons, Cap’n. I say we find out what we can get.” Ice spoke for the first time. “But how do you know what’s in the crates? If you’re a peeking sort I can fix your eyes, Doc.”
He smiled at her, which alarmed me more than anything else. Caban often coddled her threats, but never when she was serious. “I know.” he said, with his simple easy confidence.
“How?” I pressed, leaning toward him. He looked over at me, and his grin broadened. Then he stood up and walked to the cargo bay, the rest of us scrambling to our feet, our guns, and his heels.

curious cargo

We’re heading back to Collette (much faster than our voyage here, thankfully) with the cargo we were handed from our new contacts. I liked them approximately as much as I liked the Runners they originally hired. Small-time, greasy folk who tromp about self-importantly on a frontier planet like Agrafena. Once the world gets moving, they’ll be recognized for what they are and left behind. The man in charge, a sweat-stained bald man who sneered rather than speaking, will end his days in a drunkard’s prison cell. They seemed wealthy enough, however, and the crates they had for us were clean and heavy and hummed with cold units. The coin we’ll get on the other end is…good. Better than decent. I learned long ago never to open a crate just because I was curious to know what was inside. The first time I did, Sandy Havers kicked me to the brig using words I’d never heard before, and even now hesitate to use. Since then deals tend to go badly whenever someone has taken a peek at the goods, though Jamieson laughed harshly and called me superstitious. He made it a point to always know what he carried, and use it to his advantage, either deliver or sell himself. The man had his share of enemies, but by the end of our association (though I still refuse to say his life) he was the one distributing to smaller operations rather than fighting over the scraps. Lys would simply ask the contact, and more times than not, they’d tell him, because that is who Ulysses was. I of course deny my superstition, but believe that the contents of a stolen crate, unless they are explosive or crying loudly or, as Em points out, her (though I have been given more than one occasion to question the validity of that statement)…they are better left where they are.

concern

We’re unloading our new cargo tomorrow morning, and as of first watch tonight, Caban hadn’t gone over the plan. Of course it will be the same as it ever was…I check out the location first, then the other three come in to do the talking, and we exchange goods for coin. These are new contacts we’ve never worked with before, so I have reason to be as nervous as I always am before a ‘routine mission’. I found Caban in his bunk and asked him what the plan was, and he looked surprised.
“No different than usual.”
“I’d appreciate you going over it with the crew.”
“No need, if we need to we can talk tomorrow.”
“You aren’t concerned with the new contacts?”
“No different than usual” he said again, though this time it annoyed me. I remembered the times when Caban and I spent most evenings talking, but there are more folk about now and we don’t anymore. “Is there something in particular that you’re thinking?”
“Just wondering why you aren’t acting like Captain.” I replied, too hastily.
“Well. What is that supposed to mean?” he lowered the pad he was holding and looked at me. I looked around at his quarters; the print of Earth turning into the sunset, the ponic plants in a neat row on a shelf, the folded blankets and messy pile of socks and shirts in the corner.
“We’re delivering stolen goods that we took from thieves, and you aren’t concerned that maybe we’re bringing them to their own friends? Maybe we should have gotten new contacts.”
“A little late for that now. There won’t be any problem.”
“You don’t know that.” I said flatly, old arguments from countless Captains biting at my tongue.
“That’s why you find out first. I don’t see the problem, Scout.”
The problem is that he’s not keeping track of things so well, and I said so. “Look at our crew, Caban. We have a crude old convict, a silent psychopath, a chemmed-over girl, and a murderous doctor who has carved a man to bits.”
“And there’s you, and there’s me.”
“But you’re not worried at all.”
“No. Never have been. Look, Scout, we don’t have a perfect crew. Are you looking to leave? We’re a skip away from Rookston, maybe you can rent out the old junkheap room you had before I came along.” His face was as serious as I’ve seen it, and I couldn’t find the familiar humor in it. He had struck low, but I had insulted his crew. Our crew.
“I’m not looking to leave.” I said, after a silent pause. “I’m looking out for all of us. It’s not the rest of them…you know I worked with Ice before, and Em is getting better, and Kon…is Kon. But the Doctor. Do you even know his real name?”
Caban squinted and rubbed his scalp. “Messero? Doug something. He helped you, Scout, when no one else did. And he’s made a place for himself here.”
“You saw what he did to that man.”
“And I saw what Ice did to the man who hit you with the pulse blast. You broke Kon’s finger, and in Paquin, you…”
“He scares me.” I said, realizing it was the truth.
“Not having a doctor scares me worse.” Caban stood up and grabbed my shoulder. “I’m watching out for us too. It’s my job, and you had better trust me to get it done. If you don’t, then we have a problem.”
“I'm doing my job.”
“Exactly. Checking to make sure I’m being careful. I don’t pay you to cook.”
“Maybe you should.”

He smiled, and all the anger in his coiled muscles disappeared. “You take that up with Ice, she’s in charge of the accounts. Ask her to start paying Her Eminence a wage too.” I laughed and wished him goodnight, but as I left his room Caban stopped me.
“When we met on Rookston, Scout, what had brought you there?”
“I finished a job early. I was working for Blackthorn…we had professional differences.”
“Man seemed to have those with about everyone.” He agreed, and I wondered what the cause for recognition was. “What did he do?”
I paused and remembered his unwelcome, forceful propositions and my equally forceful refusal of them, followed by my ungracious deposit in the junkspot town. “We disagreed about how my salary should be earned. I broke his fingers. Almost got his jaw, too.”
It is no small satisfaction that I get from surprising Caban, and I try to do it as often as I can. “Shakes, Scout. No small wonder why I’m afraid of you Runner women.”

carve

The fact is, the Doctor killed the man who came on our ship. I can’t say it was the wrong thing to do, and I can’t say that anyone ought to have hesitated in doing it. He was a threat, and I’m glad to know the Doctor feels as if the crew is something worth defending.

It’s just that I got a good look at the man’s body. He wasn’t just shot, though we gave them guns. The Doctor cut him, slice after slice, from his neck to his wrist. Straight, orderly cuts, right through his clothes and skin and arteries and veins. Killed him quicker and more painful than a bullet could have done it.

Brutal. That’s the only word for it. I’m not sure anyone else got a good look at the man, no one else seems to be looking at our young medic any differently. He isn’t acting any different, but it feels like we hardly know him at all. When I asked him about what happened, he was far too casual.
“Man showed up in the doorway with a gun. M got scared and I took care of him. Of all of us, guess I’m the one to know how to do it.” He wasn’t bothered by it at all, unless he was carefully controlling his normally expressive face.
Em wouldn’t answer me anything about it. I’ve seen her addled by chems but never this shaken up. She won’t look at him at all, and keeps shrugging, over and over, as if she’s trying to shrug off whatever it is she saw. Maybe she’s never seen violence before, though that’s doubtful. Or maybe, like me, she’s shocked that a man like the Doctor would slash a man to death. Slice after slice.

I tried making some orangey biscuits from my recipe book, everyone else seemed to like them but they stuck in my throat. Nothing seems quite right, and though there isn’t a speck of blood left on the ground, I still can’t help but see it.

on the offensive

Our attack on the Runner ship went nothing as planned.
We swooped in before they could fire and slammed our catchlock into place as if we had done it a hundred times before. After moving swiftly through the Runner’s ship, exchanging fire and fight, we had them overcome, though they put up quite a battle. I hate popping ships. We left them bound and gagged and bleeding on the bridge, after Caban delivered a brief lecture on the virtues of robbing from the innocent and ill-equipped, then made sure they’d be able to get free once we were gone. Ice, meanwhile, disabled their scanners and scrambled their nav so we’d be burning dust before they got a chance to find us.

We didn’t even take all their supplies.

We took their cargo, and Ice found the contact info so we could sell it ourselves, on Agrafena. They had so many supplies it was all I could do not to give them another lecture about the hungry spacelings they’d left behind, the family we had waiting for us an hour back.
As we were bringing back the first load of supplies, I noticed something was wrong. The Catchlock hatch was wide open, though I remembered closing it. Perhaps Em or the Doctor had followed us? Ice simply put down her crate and took her guns from their holsters.

We found the intruder near the door to the medbay. At first I thought the man lying facedown in a pool of blood was the Doctor, but then Mezaro appeared with a cleaning wipe and started removing the bright liquid from the floor. He looked up at us, and I saw a line of spatter marks on his face.
The sight of his torn body did not disgust me as much as the look in his crew member’s eyes when we laid the sheet-covered corpse on the bridge. They were cruel men. Killers, but still men. Caban doesn’t know I heard his fumbling apology.

I wish I could say that the shock of gore had some affect on our appetites. After returning to the civilian ship with water and provisions, the food was more delicious than any packaged protein has a right to be.

titles

I’ve flown on ships where I haven’t known anyone’s names, real or otherwise. Especially after Michlun, and Rigon, when I was drifting, I’d take the look in the Captain’s eye as a promise that I’d get paid, that I wouldn’t be left to die. I was wrong enough times that I started demanding names, I started leaving folk as soon as I disliked one small detail of the job. It’s easy to get work if you don’t care what work you’re doing, and I didn’t. It was nice, sometimes, to be a hired hand, no name and no concern. I could have made a name for myself a long time past, if I’d cared. I like to know names now, like to have the insurance of information at my back when nothing else is.

That said, I wish someone could explain to me how it is I’ve been sailing with a man for weeks now and never even bothered to find out his name. I took him for what he is, a Doctor. Everyone called him Doc, that’s how he was introduced to me and he’s never given any sort of correction to it. So I’ve called him the Doctor all this time. But he must have a real name, a family perhaps, and most certainly a history. He’s never shared one way or another, and right there I should have been suspicious. Like Caban said, he’s the only one aboard who uses their real name anyway. Am I getting senile? Or is it this shaking trust that Caban has inspired in me? Ice would ask if it was truth or stupidity.

It took some searching, and I’ve got more codes than I’ll admit to.

Douglas Mezaro. Doctor, home practice on Paquin. Those words were all I could find, seven words to sum up a life we know nothing about. And it’s not just my curiosity that has led me to wonder. There is something I can’t understand about him, but the problem is that there is nothing of subterfuge behind his eyes, he is all innocent smiles in that sharp foxy face of his. Is his face foxy? My grandparents and my books would say so, but I’ve never seen a fox, so I don’t understand the reference.
Regardless, this Doctor is not who he seems. He is not…trustworthy. He is, despite his membership on the crew, despite his lodgings right across from mine, despite the time he’s spent treating me and Em, a stranger. Douglas Mezaro.