Black Hull (19 page)

Mick brought his hands up but couldn’t shield
himself in time. He flew against the jagged edge of a metal bracket and slammed
to the floor, then rolled hard into a wall, then back against the opposite
wall. The last thing he heard before falling unconscious was Axa’s violent
screams.

The Fogstar spun violently, stalled,
then dropped underneath the pursuing light-class. The golden disc of Glisreel
whipped in and out of view every few seconds. The dot of the bounty ship
appeared and disappeared with the planet every two seconds as the Fogstar violently
rotated. Sera pulled hard on the firing rod and hit the release button,
launching twin rockets.

A cloud of smoke and light flashed
repetitively on the viewscreen.

“You got them!” Axa yelled, half-sick.

“We’re fucked in ways that I can’t cure,
so don’t get too excited. We’ve got a taint. They won’t stop coming now. I’m
afraid we’re officially on the run.”

“We’ve got to get away from Glisreel. I
knew it was a bad idea coming here. Where can we go?”

Sera looked around her cockpit, two
familiar faces missing: “Back.”

“Are you sure you want out? Are you
certain?” said Carner, braced by his cane.

A red desert wind blew waves of sand at
his weathered face. He held up his forearm to shield himself. Sera winked.
Tears from the wind, or sadness, dried on her cheek. Carner sensed from where
her sadness had come, but he had already decided he would help her, and cause
it to endure.

“I’ve been sure for a year now. I should
be asking you—are
you
sure
they’re still alive?”

“I’ve made all the arrangements, my
niece. It’s for you that my generous coffers that have kept them from shipping
into Grave Orbit. It pains me to see you go this way. Your dad wouldn’t have
wanted it.”

She squinted at him.

“You’re going to give me that? Dad never
talked to you because of the horror you put on our name, and you’re going to
throw that on me?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I never could
pretend to be an upstanding man, not in this universe we live in. The age of
principled living, sweetness and light, has long forsaken humanity.” The old
man laughed, reflecting upon his wasted youth.

She took a set of ship keys from her
uncle.

“Go to the hospital. FOD will be there.
He will take the bodies. He’ll get you out of military reach. He’ll get you the
circ mods.”

“I’ll pay you back for all of this.”

“Sure you will, kid. Sure you will.”

“Did you get good droids?”

“No—they’re shit. You’re going to have
to live with that. They won’t be your father and brother, not anymore.”

“When I get an expancapacitor rig they
will.”

“Don’t count on that. You’d do better
getting to Utopia,” he laughed.

“You think?”

“It was a joke. That place is a scam.
The universe runs on bullshit—didn’t your father teach you that?”

“Tell me straight—will it work?”

“If you get a rig, sure it will. But
you’d better pay me back first, or FOD will have my head and yours shortly
after.
Pay me
before you go hunting for rigs, understand?”

“That’s all I need to know. How much
time do I have before UCM knows I’m AWOL?”

“Two, maybe three days tops. But FOD
will take care of that. Are you sure I can’t convince you to change your mind?
Hell, what’s the difference—go to Utopia—maybe it’s not bullshit. It’ll be a
hell of a lot safer than getting involved with FOD. God knows how you’ll get an
expancapacitor rig—killing a trickler is an autotaint, even with the best circ
mod.”

Sera paused in the roar of a sandstorm
wind. It died down, but she didn’t speak—she looked starward, deep in thought.

“You’re going lawless, and I can support
you in that, but don’t let me hear you’re getting a reputation, got me?”

“Principled living is gone? Wouldn’t
know it by what you’re asking. You seem to care about what happens to me.”

“My brother and me aside, I always loved
you. I know what happens to people when they go rogue. I don’t want to see
you—don’t want to hear about you drowning in what’s out there on the other side
of the law. There’re things out there worse than death, you know.”

“I didn’t tell you what happened that
night.”

“And there’s no need to,” Carner said.
He hobbled close, and for the first time she could remember, Sera felt his
touch.

“It was my fault.”

“Ain’t fault in this universe to be
placed anywhere but the creator’s stirring hand!” snapped Carner.

“It was. I drowned Teddy. My father
drowned getting to us.”

“You were on a fringe world. You drown
on a regular world, your plant goes off. An ambo-ship will scoop you up, have
you revived an hour after you die. On a fringe planet—hell—you’re lucky an ambo
came that same day. It’s not your fault. It’s a lottery, that’s all; that’s all
anything is.”

“I could have said no, I could have told
him I wanted to stay in bed.”

“Well you choose that guilt then. You
can take it with you right off this planet too, ‘cause I don’t want it here,”
he released his arm, returned to his cold, distant self.

“I’m going. Thanks.”

“You’ll be just fine. When you start
needing work, come and see me. Maybe I’ll get along with Theodore just fine,
being that he’ll be mounted on an XJ71. Maybe he and I’ll have fine amends
together that way. Life works like that.”

“XJ71?”

“FOD isn’t cheap. That’s the best I can
do for you.”

Liar. He has the money. There are other
reasons he’d keep my father a half-version of himself.

Sera looked at the light-class ship her
uncle had secured for her. Its metal gleamed under red starlight, its bow
windows repelling the rushing sand.

“What’s he like—FOD?”

“I’ve never met the man. He’s a ghost. A
real villain. But I’ll tell you this—he never fails a job he’s been paid to do.
And there aren’t many jobs he can’t do. Get off this dustbin. I’ve got
smugglers coming through. Don’t stay long away from Bessel though. This
system’ll make a good home for you. Don’t forget that.”

“Got it.”

Sera walked against the wind to her new
ship.

“And remember,” Carner called out,
receding into a fog of sand, “promises are not worth shit, ‘cept to act as
points of weakness.”

He knows I promised them. He understands
why.

She raised her hand in farewell without
turning back and entered the Cozon. The ship launched into space, leaving the
only sanctuary in the free universe left to her.

Into the galaxy; a rogue, a thief, a
futureless vagabond, tied inextricably to the scum of the universe, all for a
promise made out of guilt and love.

A man in a navy blue uniform, countless
emblems of honor emblazoned across his chest, looked down at Mick. He lay upon
a gurney, ready to be slid into a room-large white tube. The officer looked
placidly at his apprentice:

“Mick, I know you’ve signed the papers,
but I’ve got to ask you this out of necessity, for my own conscience. Hell,
I’ve asked every cadet to come through FRINGE, so here it is: Are you sure you
want to do this?”

Mick laughed. He’d been training for the
rewire for six months.

How is he going to ask me this now? It’s
got to be a joke.

Mick surveyed the old man, looking for a
smile, or some sign of the comedy. There was no trace of one.

“God damn Commander. What the hell are
you doing? Why freak me out now that I’ve come this far? I’m nervous enough.”

“This is going to change things. It’s
going to change you,” the mild tone of Commander Reynolds replied.

“I’ve read the papers, been through the
class. I know the statistics.”

“The statistics are bullshit. Seventy
percent you read? That’s propaganda. It’s everyone. Everyone who goes through
this.”

Thanks for the vote of confidence
asshole.

“You seem okay to me, Commander,” Mick
smiled.

“Sure, it wears off over time—by time I mean
decades. Enough years for you to have a productive career as a FRINGE
operative. By the time you get to my age, you’ll feel it in pieces, in flares,
once in a while. But for until then, there’ll be hell at home, I can assure you
of that.”

A vision of Karen flashed before Mick’s
eyes. Their baby boy stared brightly with his father’s eyes. Her bulging
stomach, their second unborn child. Their shared dream of happiness.

“Karen and I talked it over. We’re ready
to work through it. She supports me.”

“It doesn’t matter one bit if she
supports you, or if you think you know what you’re getting into because you
took a class on it. The rewire spits you out a different person—a machine
useful to FRINGE, but of no use planetside, in the home,  in a family.”

“So what? You’re serious? You want me to
bail now, as it’s about to start?”

“Yea. Because I don’t think you want to
split up your family. I think you’ve got a good thing.”

“What do you expect me to do?” Mick
said, anger encroaching on him, the shadow of his eventual rage. “Just leave?
The last four years of my life wasted, and go drive a crane?”

“We can put you in the UCA police. My
son’s heading that way.”

“I know he is. And he told me how
awfully boring his life will be.”

“We can get you a desk job—you have the
brain for one. FRINGE planetside detail. Even orbital sergeant isn’t out of the
realm of possibility.”

“Hah,” Mick chuckled. “Can you see me
behind a desk Commander?”

The commander looked for a long time at
his cadet. “You know, I guess not. You’re going to do the UCA a lot of good.”

“Thanks,” Mick said, and he closed his
eyes.

“Procedure one, engage. Twenty-five
minute circulatory system reduction to near-freeze point,” the commander said
over his com to a doctor observing the rewire chamber from a window above.

“Confirmed for procedure one. Engaging
now. Please exit the chamber, Commander.”

Commander Reynolds saluted Mick and left
the room.

The beauty of life engulfed Mick. He
felt free and grateful. He thought of his puppy, Selby.

What a good boy he is. He always brings
me back to center.

A vision of a night on the sofa with
Karen played live in his brain:

My goddess—how ever could my love for
you change? What power of technology could alter our love? I do not believe
there is such a power.

“They’re gone! XJ look!” GR whined.

“I can see that GR, there’s no need to
cause a scene,” XJ said cautiously. He checked the hangar again for the
Fogstar, but he knew exactly where they had docked. They had watched the ship
fly away—leave without them. “She’ll be back—she wouldn’t abandon us.”

“Forlorn! The very word is a like a bell
to toll me back from thee to my sole-self!” GR ranted, spinning like atop along
his waist groove.

“Again with this poetry nonsense?” XJ
disapproved. “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill, GR. She’s coming
back. Enough. No more out of you.”

XJ looked behind them, suspicious of a
single soul loitering by the edge of the hangar entrance.

“
Him
—what does he want?” XJ
asked.

“He wants to join the tournament.”

As if he could hear them from one
hundred yards away, the black-cloaked man backed into the corridor, hiding
himself from their view.

“What now then?” GR asked. “Back to the
booth?”

“I suppose that’s our only option. She’ll
be the more pleased with us if we get the money before she gets back.”

“Are you positive you can win?” GR asked
as they left the former parking spot of the Fogstar.