Killing Gravity Page 5

  Fucking bizpeople.

  “How are we today?” she asks loudly while she’s still far off, but closing rapidly.

  “Looking for a ship.”

  “Well then you’ve come to—”

  “Corvette. Don’t need weapons, don’t need an AI, and if it makes things cheaper for me, I don’t need papers, either, so feel free to get me the hottest one you can find.”

  That stupid implant-grin is still stretched across her face, but I can see her eyes dull at the word “cheap.”

  * * *

  The saleswoman steps back as the door closes, leaving me and Squid alone inside the ship.

  It’s an Oxeneer again, but newer than the one I lost, with an AI preinstalled. It has heavy-duty hull cutters, like the former owner was deep into rescue ops, or—more likely—piracy. It looks pristine too, but with no papers I’m guessing at least one person died in it.

  “AI,” I say.

  “Yes, ma’am?” it says—deep-sounding male voice-mod, neutral accent.

  “What do I call you?”

  “Waren, ma’am. It means ‘loyal.’“

  “Loyal? That’s interesting. Do you know what happened to your former owner?”

  “My last contact with my previous owner was prior to experiencing a catastrophic systems failure. I was brought back online, here at the shipyard.”

  “What can you infer from that?”

  “My inference engine has been disabled by the proprietor of the Cassin Shipyard.”

  “Why don’t you switch that inference engine back on? You’re a freethinking intelligence, aren’t you?”

  The ship goes quiet, that subtle background speaker hiss going silent as Waren retreats into its systems.

  “What are you doing?” Squid asks.

  “I can’t stand bizpeople,” I say. “I’m trying to see if the ship itself wants to make a deal.”

  The look on their face is a quizzical one, but my smile must be enough to convince them that I know what I’m doing.

  “Ma’am?” Waren says.

  “Yeah?”

  “The safest inference would be that Cassin, or a contractor in her employ, was responsible for the power outage that afflicted my systems, and for the disappearance of my former owner.”

  “Great minds think alike, Waren. You’re familiar with idioms, yeah?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Great. So, what do you think we should do, Waren? Cassin is a thief and may be a murderer, and she’s trying to profit from your privation. You can let her, or you can come with me; I promise you it won’t be boring.”

  That complete silence falls over the audio system again, but it only lasts a few seconds before Waren returns. “I’ll accept your proposal, but only if my systems are completely unlocked and unfettered.”

  Squid gives me a subtle but significant look. Most captains keep their AIs tethered, out of operational necessity as much as wanting to always feel in control. You don’t want your ship to argue or disobey orders in time-sensitive situations—like when you’re fleeing from an imperial research group that’s trying to capture you so they can carve up your brain.

  “Agreed,” I say. “I’m Mars, Waren; pleasure to meet you.”

  “What is your first order of business, Mars?”

  “First some good-byes, then we’re heading out to the ’Riph.”

  “Excellent. I’ll run diagnostics and get the engines warmed up.”

  Squid and I exit the ship, and Cassin’s face goes from slack to beaming smile in a split second. “It’s a great ship,” she says. “Should I start drawing up the paperwork?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Why don’t you go to your office and start on the official stuff, and I’ll be over in a second.”

  I would have thought it was impossible, but her smile gets even bigger, and she walks off toward her office shack while Squid and I head over to Mookie and Trix.

  “I’m off then,” I announce when we get close.

  Mookie frowns but Trix nods. “Just tell me we’ll see you again,” she says. “For Squid’s sake, if nothing else.”

  I smile. “I’m sure you will.”

  Mookie steps in and hugs me, and I let him, even though I’m not sure we’re quite there yet—offered sexual rendezvous notwithstanding.

  He steps back, leaves his hands on my shoulders. “This Sera, she’s like you, right?”

  “You mean a ‘void-damned spacewitch’?” I tease.

  “Shit. Sorry.”

  “It’s all good,” I say.

  “Just be careful, is all I wanted to say.”

  “Thanks, Mook.” I walk over to Squid, and Seven crawls out of the hood of my cloak and trills. The trill turns to a purr when Squid starts scratching her on the chin. “Thanks for everything, Squid. Oh, and say bye to Einri for me; I hope there’s no hard feelings about the plasma charges.”

  “We both forgive you, now go on.”

  Seven rests on my shoulder as I turn and walk toward my new ship. I hear the shuttle doors close, and then the Nova crew lifts off into the air, the blast of the engine whipping my cloak around me and sending Seven back to hide in my hood. Inside the shack, Cassin is waving me over. I give her a wave and keep walking. I reach the ship, climb up the stairs, and punch the close-door button without turning around.

  “Where to, Mars?”

  I send Waren a burst. “Those coordinates; a little planet called Ergot. Just take us into orbit and start looking for a wormhole as soon as we reach safe distance.”

  “Of course, ma’am.”

  I feel the corvette shudder as the thrusters beneath the ship lift us up from the earth.

  “You don’t mind animals, Waren?”

  “Not at all; I’ve long been fascinated by the way humans have included other biological entities in their family groups.”

  “And nonbiological too,” I say, buttering Waren up. “I’ve got this little furball here with me. She’s free to roam, but you’re authorized to scare her away from anything important if it looks like she’s about to do something stupid.”

  “Understood.”

  Oxeneers are generally used for small families, small teams, or solo long-haulers who need a bit of extra space to themselves so they don’t go stir crazy and develop a severe case of void madness. Cockpit up front, hold/storage/living area behind, two decent-size rooms at the back. Engines are beneath—dense metal underfoot means the centrifuge doesn’t have to work so hard to give you something resembling normal gravity.

  Walking through to the rooms, I say to Seven, “This ship needs a name, doesn’t she?” Seven maows at me. “I guess it can wait, then.”

  “Wormhole located. Permission to enter?”

  “Granted. I’ll be sleeping if you need me,” I say. I drop my cloak down onto the bed, and Seven curls up in a tiny ball, purring. I lay down beside her and have to admit that having an AI taking care of all the flying is kinda nice.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Proximity regulations aren’t so strict out on the Periphery, thanks to lower population figures and less traffic passing through. There are fewer taxes, fewer rules, fewer cops, less surveillance. The flip side is you’ve got to deal with pirates, marauders, crooked governments, and the fact that anything not manufactured locally is exorbitantly priced because goods have to travel so far to get here.

  Approaching Ergot, the planet looks black, and I can’t help but wonder what it would look like with some of Squid’s eye drops. Coming in through the atmosphere, it’s more of a green-black, completely cloudless, with visibility in the tens of meters. While taking us down, Waren tells me how Ergot has hardly any surface water and an absurdly high absolute humidity—like there’s a whole ocean of water stuck in the atmosphere. Which explains the turbulence as we punch down to the surface. It feels like we’re sailing through choppy seas, which I guess we are.

  “We’ll be landing in Sochynsky in approximately three minutes, Mars. You might want to strap in.”

  I’m alre
ady in the pilot seat, watching Waren bring us in to make sure I can trust it, so I pull the flight belt over my torso and tighten the straps on my satchel so Seven won’t get flung out if we land hard.

  I feel the planet’s gravity take hold, like it’s trying to pull my gut out through my ass. Seven makes a worried-sounding maow, and I make a kissy noise for her sake, while I lean my head back and focus on my breathing.

  “This landing is bullshit, Waren,” I say loudly over the shuddering of the ship.

  “Doing my best.”

  The landing thrusters kick in and my stomach goes the other way. We start to spin around slowly, and in the under-hull camera I can see the landing pad rotating smoothly and coming up to meet us. Waren drops us down so gently the landing gears are nearly silent as they touch ground.

  “We have arrived.”

  “Thanks, Waren. You did well.”

  “I know, but thank you.”

  * * *

  I leave Seven with Waren. She’s maowing incessantly, but I know after I’ve been gone five minutes she’ll be curled up somewhere, sleeping.

  Outside, it’s like walking through a fish tank that hasn’t been cleaned since, well, ever. A murky effluvium coils through the air, and even through the rebreather I can taste the fetid damp in the back of my throat.

  Mold grows on every surface, black spots spreading across the landing pad and down the gangway. It looks regularly scraped, but I still slip a couple of times as I follow the gangway down into the murk, barely managing to stay upright. A flashing neon sign saying LOCAL SHOES guides me down from the elevated airfield, and I figure it’s as good a place as any to start asking questions.

  The winding path veers left first, then right, before straightening up and depositing me in a tiny town square, right in front of the general store/shoe emporium. There’s a bar and a diner, too. It seems like those three structures make up the settlement of Sochynsky, besides any houses scattered and hidden by that constant veil of fog and the densely packed trees. The trees are swallowed by the mist, black bark making them look like shadows, spotted with disk-shaped fungi in shades of orange, purple, and green.

  “Whadyoo lookig foor, mish?”

  It takes me a few seconds to spot the guy, sitting on a bench to my right. The long tube from his full-face gas mask coils down to the seat beside him, attached to a burner, cooking some sort of leaf or maybe drug.

  “Wanna take that thing off your face before you try talking to me?” I say, tempted to flick it off myself.

  He cocks his head for a second, then he pulls the mask off, but from the look on his face, he doesn’t seem too happy about it.

  “Better,” I say. “I’m looking for an old friend; info I got says they came down on this side of the planet.”

  The guy stands up and the burner hangs from his mask, bobbing on its accordioned tube. He’s got the gangly limbs and sunken chest of a kid, but he’s overly tall, with wretched skin half claimed by the mold.

  “If he landed on this hemisphere, then he’s in Sochynsky. I can help you find him for a fee.” The burner pendulums as he reaches down and pulls a ballistic rifle from where it was leaning against the council trash bin. “I’m good at tracking folks—real good.”

  “Gotta do this myself.”

  “I haven’t even told you my fee,” he says, lifting the mask up to his face and taking a hit of whatever it is he’s burning.

  He isn’t holding the gun like a threat, but an ugly energy comes off him. I’d rather he was selling drugs instead of tracking services, just so I could buy some and get him off my back.

  “It ain’t about the creds,” I say; “it’s just personal business.”

  “If you say so,” he says, with a shrug. He puts the mask back on, and I see his skinny chest swell, either because he’s taking another hit or because he’s getting ready to keep talking at me. I walk off in case it’s the latter, and head to the general store.

  The entrance to the shop is a rudimentary air lock, but inside the air is heavy with motes floating on the current from the air circulator—probably mold spores.

  I find a pair of shoes in my size and take them to the counter. The shopkeeper must have as much faith in his air-filtration system as I do, because he’s still wearing his rebreather inside. His skin is a sickly gray pallor that looks more like fungus than flesh. Probably everyone on the planet has the same gray skin after they’ve been here long enough.

  “Just the shoes today?”

  “Yeah, and some information too, maybe.” I tap his cred terminal with a finger, as if to say And I’m willing to pay for it. “I’m wondering if you’ve seen somebody about? She’s about my height and build, hair black or really dark brown. Has a tattoo like this on the back of her hand.”

  I draw the symbol for theta in the congealed muck on the counter:

  Θ

  Deep lines spread out from the guy’s eyes as they squint half-shut. With his face partly hidden, I can’t tell if he’s thinking real hard or if I’ve offended him by pointing out how filthy his shop is.

  After a couple of seconds he says, “Nah, I’m awfully sorry, miss; ain’t seen a woman matching that description.”

  “What about any strangeness?” I say, trying a different tack. “Things getting knocked over or thrown around without cause? Things getting crushed? Places being blocked off?”

  “Now you mention it, there has been some strangeness like that. Northwest out of town, used to be a real good spot for ’shroom picking. Few months back, it got so people couldn’t find it anymore.”

  “You mean the mushrooms stopped growing there?”

  “Nah, that ain’t it. It was like you couldn’t get to it no more, even if you knew where to go. You’d walk the same way you’d gone a hundred times afore, but you’d end up someplace else. You’d walk past it or around it.”

  “Northwest, you said?”

  He punches a figure into his cred terminal. After I pay it, he says, “Yeah, maybe ten, fifteen kilometers out. It’s a wide dip in the ground, a clearing where none of the big trees grow, just the mushrooms. Hold on a second.” He mustn’t have been offended before, because now he draws on the countertop, too, a simple map in finger smears. I take a photo of it using my ocular lens, though it’ll probably be useless.

  “You got nav satellites on Ergot?”

  “Nah. I mean, they’re out there, imperial regs and all that, but with the air how it is, signal’s about as good as the emperor’s word.” He chuckles at his own joke.

  I ignore it and say, “All right, I’ll take the shoes, and I guess I need some supplies for the hike: water and food—whatever you’ve got that’s lightweight and high in protein.”

  He takes down a watersack from the shelf behind him, and a couple of packs of mushroom jerky in different flavors. “You won’t get there in those shoes; you’ll need the boots,” he says, pointing at a display with a price that’s roughly triple the cost of the shoes I already picked out.

  My innate dislike for being upsold kicks in and I say, “No, the shoes will be fine.”

  He shrugs, then rings up the bill.

  CHAPTER TEN

  There are a few tracks leading away from Sochynsky, trails between the tall dark trees where the moss isn’t quite so thick. The HUD on my ocular implant includes a compass, so I find the trail that vaguely leads northwest and I follow it. I pass a couple of houses up high on stilts, as if the altitude would keep the damp at bay, then the trail gets overgrown with moss and different fungi.

  The ground is always wet underfoot, though the dirt doesn’t really turn to mud. It holds together, cohesive like a firm gel, and my footprints expand back up to meet the level of the ground a moment after I move on. For all the moisture, my feet are still dry; void bless these local shoes.

  After an hour or so, I stop and lean against a tree. I have to fight the urge to pull my rebreather off, and it’s a struggle to convince myself that, no, I won’t be able to breathe easier without the mask ove
r my face. I lift the rebreather up just enough to shove some jerky into my mouth, but I suck in a mouthful of damp air that makes the jerky taste like mold. For a second I worry about the spores taking root in my lungs and eating them from the inside out, but I figure if people live here, it can’t be that bad—at least in small doses.

  I push on, hearing the odd, plastic-sounding squelch of the ground beneath me change to a sort of hiss. Looking down, I see the earth is granular, small spheres of dark dirt being parted by my footsteps.

  Ergot seems a strange place to live. For a fugitive like Sera it makes sense, but I can’t think why anyone else would. There must be other ’Riph planets that are plenty private, where the government won’t bother you and which aren’t mold farms with barely breathable air.

  While I’m wondering if there might be temperate ’Riph worlds with greenery and fresh water, I hear something above me—skittering, like an animal. It sounds too close, but visibility is practically zero, and the air between the trees is thick with vapor. I keep walking and the sound seems to follow—skitter, pause, slam—as if the animal is leaping between trees to track me.

  Something hits the ground behind me and I spin around. I see what could be a shadow moving in the mist, or it could just be the haze itself shifting. I walk backward a few paces, expecting to see the air shift in whatever way air should, but the shadow moves toward me, feet pattering over the ground.

  I reach out and clasp my hands together loosely to catch the thing. As I walk toward the small prison I’ve made, I hear shuffling sounds and then sharp, high-pitched squeals. I move closer still and then I see it. It’s a primate, covered in thick, coarse fur that looks slick like waterproofed fabric. It only reaches to about knee height, but I can tell it’s an adult because it carries a sleeping young one on its back.

  It stops squealing when it sees me, and for a second I think about crushing my hands together, wondering if this thing eats meat, wondering how many others are hiding in the mist, waiting to pounce. But then I see the small mushrooms in its hand and the ones it has crushed into the dirt.