Tobias Buckell - Ragamuffin

“Yes. Don’t move about.” Etsudo crossed his legs on the floor before her. “Did Deng send you?”

“I don’t know who the fuck Deng is.”

“Are you sure?”

She looked at him with contempt. “Yes, I’m quite sure. What is going on?”

“I have a machine in this room that reprograms you. It’s like what we do to get the zhen cha, I know that is no secret. But me and my machine are more subtle. I want you to stay you, with all your memories. I just change… some things. Make a better you. One that wants you to pay for your crimes, Nashara. Like the deaths of all those people on Villach.”

Nashara nodded, pulling slightly at the scarves. “Only one problem, buddy. I have no crimes to confess.”

“We know for sure you killed the Gahe breeder.”

“Yes. I did that.”

Etsudo cradled his chest. “You don’t think that was a crime?”

“I’m under orders. It wasn’t a crime, it was a mission.” Nashara rested back into the chair. “I’m not a criminal, I’m a damn POW.”

A mission? “Who are you on a mission for?” Etsudo asked.

“Chimson mongoose-men. Nashara Capsicum is the name I used there. Do you knock out all the girls you bring back here? Will I end up being your willing sex slave?” Her eyes glittered, and Etsudo wondered at what point even his artistic tweaks would fall apart. There was a coiled, snakelike danger here.

“I would never do that. What’s a mongoose-man?”

“Think feng, but more deadly. We work for the Ragamuffins. They used to protect Chimson and New Anegada, before you took them off-line.” Nashara twisted. Scoping out the room.

“What is your mission?”

“Deliver myself to the New Anegada Ragamuffins, if they are still working for the benefit of humanity. If they’re not still worthy, then I’m to cause as much trouble as I can by myself. I’m a virus, for the Satrapic lamina.” She smiled.

Etsudo’s mouth dried up. “A virus.”

“What were you going to do with me, Etsudo?”

He crumpled a bit. “I was going to try and keep you. You’d be my prize on this ship. The most dangerous yet. Now I think I’ll leave you to Deng.”

Unleash her to Deng.

“You want to destroy the Hongguo then? Is that it?” Nashara raised an eyebrow.

“Destroy?” Everything fell apart again, but instead of the instigator being Deng, it was this woman.

“Chimson knows about Honggou mindwipes. After a mindwipe I will reboot and slip into the lamina, just bereft of all my recent memories since I left Chimson. I eat lamina processing resources up and reproduce my mind over and over again until there is nothing left. Then the real fun starts.”

Gods. What had he gotten into? Etsudo looked down at his feet. “My whole crew is like this.”

“Like what?”

“I believe what my father put in my mind, what he believed, which is that the Hongguo help humanity keep its balance with the Satrapy. That we will lead our race to stand shoulder to shoulder with the other client races.”

“You really believe it?”

Etsudo looked up and sighed. “I would have loved to have known you as a crewmember.”

“Are you going to kill me?” Nashara looked at him, a steady gaze. “Look at me, Etsudo, don’t even try to lie.”

“No.” And he wasn’t. If he lied now or entertained the thought, she would see it. It would break that loyalty. She’d find a way right now to rip clear and kill him. He knew that with a certainty that shook him.

“Okay.” Nashara relaxed. “I trust you. You’re going to patch me up so I don’t remember this and send me back out. Détente?”

Etsudo nodded, still staring directly at her. He snapped his fingers, and Nashara slumped.

When he woke her up, several hours later, he did it by walking through the door to the cabin with a full tea set.

“Sorry I forget the pot noodles in the galley,” he said. Nashara nodded, looking around the cabin. He’d pulled her to the floor and left her cross-legged, sitting with her back against the wall. She’d gotten up and moved to the center of the room.

He let her eat, and when she put the chopsticks down, leaned across. “While I always enjoy the pleasure of an interesting guest, I will be honest and tell you we have no positions for a person of the, um, skills that you forwarded to me.” He held out his hands, showing her rough calluses. “We work hard and are just a small crew. A ship’s bodyguard, or security force, as you call yourself, is unnecessary to us.” He smiled. “You must realize the Takara Bune is not in the habit of making enemies. That is not our way.”

It was a peace offering, one that if she was ever somehow able to reaccess these memories he’d buried, she’d maybe understand.

She leaned forward. “Etsudo, we do not always choose to make enemies. Sometimes they come whether we create them or not.”

He couldn’t argue with that. He barely remembered what else they discussed. He grabbed his chest as they stood with a tiny gasp, then escorted her out.

Let Deng take her. Let her escape. He just wanted the danger she represented off his ship. She wasn’t the order he wanted. She was chaos.

Etsudo all but limped back to his cabin. Once a place of refuge, it seemed a little more bare, a little more empty. He took several painkillers and checked with the cockpit.

“Sabir here,” the pilot said.

“I’m taking a nap,” Etsudo said. “Stall Deng, tell him the woman was too dangerous to try and knock out. We’ll try later, under better conditions. Tell him to stay well clear of her.” The last thing they needed was Deng setting her off.

If Deng tracked her, found when she was next taking a shuttle off the habitat, it would be worth lives to take her out.

Maybe. But how would Etsudo explain that?

If he gave her time, maybe she would escape Deng. Or maybe he wanted the Hongguo to deal with her unawares and fail. Had he let her go because of that?

Etsudo washed his face and hung his head under the flowing tap while he tried to wrap his mind around what had just happened. Running water, always an intermittent luxury for spacers.

He curled up by the vacuum sink. The painkillers kicked in. Etsudo pressed the back of his head against the wall and started to drift toward sleep as he turned things over in his mind. Where did his loyalty lie? The Hongguo, or humanity, or himself? What trumped what? How could he tell what to do? His father had buried the Hongguo oath into him: service to mankind. But then he’d buried loyalty to the Hongguo into him as well. It felt as if he could rip himself in two. And always, always was the knowledge that he needed fuel. The Satraps controlled the fuel, and without that, he was nothing.

It was Sabir who woke him up, an insistent whisper in his right ear from the cockpit.

“Captain! Deng wants to talk to you, right now! Etsudo!”

Waking up felt like climbing out of a pit. “What? What does he want?”

“The woman, Deng tried to capture her.”

Etsudo pulled himself up. “What happened?”

“They tried to capture her and she escaped. There are dead zhen cha and feng all over the place.”

Etsudo rubbed his face, clearing the artificial sleep away. “I’m on my way. Unconnect us from the habitat. Get ready to leave.” If Deng was going to take it out on him, they’d have to run. He wasn’t sure, but the more time went by, the more the idea of running appealed. If there were people like Nashara out there, then maybe there could be room for him.

Maybe.

So many maybes.

Etsudo let Deng’s request for a live session trickle through. He braced himself.

“She escaped,” Deng said. A simple statement. “Did your sensors detect that she was equipped to handle exposure to vacuum.”