Adam-Troy Castro - Emissaries from the Dead

Oscin Porrinyard made me want to hit him.

But before I could go through with it, Skye and Lastogne turned the corner, at a junction some fifty meters up-corridor. Lastogne still wore his grimace-as-smile, and Skye walked with a sprightly bounce to her step that from this vantage point seemed deliberate mockery of whatever he’d had to say to her.

When I caught her eye, she winked.

It had to be meant for me. She wouldn’t have needed gestures to communicate with her other half.

When I glanced at Oscin, for confirmation, he was winking too.

My moment of anger faded, replaced by open confusion.

What the hell was all this about?

The Dip Corps ship, an unlovely bullet bearing the service’s much-parodied trademark of a starscape in the outline of an extended human hand, sat berthed at the far end of One One One’s many hangars, a glowing, blue-walled chamber large enough to hold four ships its size.

The chamber had more than enough room to house my transport as well, but the AIsource had berthed that in another chamber. Why, beyond some sense of courtesy toward visitors who’d arrived at different times, I didn’t know, and didn’t particularly care. A number of inflatable sleepcube tents, perfect for wilderness accommodations, and just odd in this context, sat just outside the ship, each glowing from a soft internal light. There was also a portable table, flanked by a pair of stasis crates pressed into service as chairs. It looked like a place people lived, but nothing at all like home, not even as much of a home as the indentures had made of Hammocktown.

I suppose it was close enough to camping, for people deprived of any outdoors beyond a vast empty room with a spongy floor and luminous blue walls.

The air was warmer than the neutral setting preferred by most space docks, warm and humid in a manner that suggested, without actually providing, the presence of an overhead sun. It was the kind of environment I liked: all straight lines.

“The poor bastards sure make themselves comfortable,” said Lastogne.

“It’s no fun for them,” said the Porrinyards.

The ship’s hatch opened, revealing a tanned, muscular man with shoulder-length black hair. He was stripped to his waist, the planes of his chest shining with enough perspiration to suggest a recent workout. He had a massive nose and tiny gray eyes which seemed to light on Skye before turning, with sad self-knowledge, to me. “You’re from the Judge Advocate.”

“Brilliant deduction,” said Lastogne, dripping more than his usual concentration of scorn. “Counselor Andrea Cort, meet Exophysiologist Third Class Nils D’Onofrio, current status inactive. De facto commander of the three height-sensitives confined to this chamber on Mr. Gibb’s orders.”

D’Onofrio offered me a hand, kept it extended, then let it drop, a grim disappointment already burning in eyes that knew the cruel emotion well. “I see you share Mr. Gibb’s attitude toward us untouchables.”

“Not at all,” said Lastogne. “She just hates everybody.”

D’Onofrio gave me an appraising look. “Really, Peyrin. You must feel like you just found your soul ma—”

I cut him off. “Mr. Lastogne doesn’t speak for me, sir. It’s true that I try to avoid physical contact whenever possible, but the number of people I go to the trouble of actually hating comprise a very small and very select group, who had to earn their places there. Deal with me properly and I promise you we’ll have a pleasant, professional relationship.”

D’Onofrio studied me for signs of mockery. “I’ll take that at face value, Counselor. How do you want to do this? You want to question us together, or one at a time?”

“Together will be fine, for now.”

D’Onofrio acknowledged that with a nod and returned to the ship, a portrait of wounded dignity.

I thought of the many years I’d needed to carry myself with quiet strength, bearing the monstrous reputation I’d earned at Bocai. D’Onofrio’s bearing testified to the same kind of wounds, the ones known only to the scapegoated. I found myself feeling significant empathy for him. Without turning to Lastogne, I murmured, “Don’t speak for me again, sir.”

“My error,” said Lastogne, who didn’t sound sorry at all.

“I mean it. I’ll cite you with interference if you try it.”

“I understand,” he said, without an iota of additional contrition.

“Especially if you implicate me in any attempt to stigmatize these people.”

Lastogne waved his hand. “We don’t stigmatize them, Counselor. Not as bad as they sometimes think we do.”

“No,” said the Porrinyards. “You do worse.” They glanced at Lastogne, as if deciding just how much contradiction he could take, and then resumed, their shared voice pitched toward Skye’s side of the vocal register. “Gibb’s people are all high-altitude specialists. They define themselves by their ability to navigate the Uppergrowth bare-handed, and they demand that level of competence from everybody they work with. They have to, when the reflexes of others are so vital to their own survival. They see anybody who freezes up, who can’t function, who allows himself to be defeated by the same challenges they face every day, as not just weak but dangerous. Cross that line and you’re on their bad side, permanently.”

Wonderful. “You’ve already noted that I’m not too good at heights myself. Where does that leave me?”

The Porrinyards considered it. “I don’t think you should worry about it, Counselor. Most of Gibb’s people understand that you’re an untrained outsider, doing your best in an environment you find frightening and alien. It may lead a few to underestimate you, or show you less respect. But most won’t judge you by that criterion alone.”

I wasn’t sure I bought it, but that assurance would have to do for now. “And you?”

The Porrinyards grinned with something hard to avoid interpreting as affection. Now their voice tipped toward Oscin’s end of the register: “Here’s a shameful personal secret, Counselor: Oscin the single never quite managed the grace and confidence Skye the single demonstrated in high places. She did things that scared the hell out of him. He hid it well, and overcompensated by taking stupid risks to impress her. So I know what it’s like.”

They seemed to be going out of their way to show individuality in my presence. Why, I didn’t know, but I sure wished they’d stop turning it on and off and just decide which way they wanted to act.

A second later D’Onofrio arrived with his fellow exiles, introducing them as Exobiochemist First Class Li-Tsan Crin and Atmospheric Analyst Second Class Robin Fish.

Li-Tsan, lowering her head to get through the hatchway, was one of the tallest unenhanced human beings I’d ever seen; her hypertrophic arms and legs, left exposed by the minimalist white worksuit that covered her from breasts to hips, were so knotted by muscle that they looked too tight to move. She had light brown skin, emerald eyes, and a chin that came to a point. Her hair was a wispy halo of white so thin it seemed like cirrus clouds orbiting the darker skin of her face. She was beautiful, in a dangerous way, with all the coiled menace of a predator seeking a way out of its cage.

Fish, who barely came up to Li-Tsan’s collarbone, was milky-white, to the point of translucence, her finest feature lush red hair she wore in a quartet of tight shoulder-length braids. She wore a loose open vest that accentuated the curve of her breasts and the bottom half of a stained shipboard worksuit that looked baggy and shapeless on her, even though the name stitched into the chest pocket was her own. Nothing about her physique, from the slight bulge of her exposed belly to the soft freckled skin of her limbs, testified to the kind of hyperathleticism that characterized so many of Gibb’s people. Her puffy, bloodshot eyes seemed the footprints of many sleepless nights.