Элизабет Бир - Ancestral Night

Its name, in a terrible transliteration, was Goodlaw Cheeirilaq, or that was what it said in the English portion of the sign by the door, and it was a Rashaqin, one of the most technologically established and gentlest of the systers, and never mind that it looked like something that would eat a meter-and-a-half-long wasp for dinner.

It seemed to have an ovipositor, so I guessed it was female, but having no idea how gender constructs worked in Rashaqin society, I decided to just keep thinking of it as an it. Enough other critters have called me an it since I left the clade—where they would have taken grave offense—that it’s become just another pronoun. There are more important things to fuss about in space than whether the whatchamacallit’s translator system is telling it you’re a them or an it or a whatchamacallit yourself.

I bowed, an act of respect that seemed to be understood, as the Goodlaw returned the gesture with a lowering on its head and forethorax. As it came into sight, the resemblance to an Earth insect I’d only seen in lucky pet cages on some other ships both strengthened and faded.

My new acquaintance had broad wings that were folded under light green sheaths along its spine. But it walked on six legs in addition to its manipulators and raptorial forelimbs. Its little hooked feet anchored it neatly to the webworks, though it seemed at home in the very light gravity.

“I don’t have an appointment,” I said. “But your door was open.”

The insect stridulated, Greetings, friend Dz. I am forewarned that you have police business for me to consider.

Transferring the documentation was easy; I just forwarded senso clips of my exploration of the factory ship and the two pirate attacks to the Goodlaw. Cheeirilaq asked me to make myself comfortable while it reviewed the documents, which didn’t take it as long as I would have expected. Probably it had AI assistance.

These are unedited?

“Nearly,” I said. “Our shipmind removed 3.5 seconds containing proprietary information necessary to our salvage operations, which we are not required to release.” That proprietary information, loosely so termed, was the pinprick.

I see you had not filed for a permit for this salvage operation.

“There was no appropriate jurisdiction to file in, as we were in unincorporated space.”

The Goodlaw knew, and I knew, that we could have filed with our station of departure. It tilted its head, studying me with all its multifaceted eyes, and stridulated something that my senso returned as untranslatable. I assumed it was a thinking noise.

You won’t mind a ship inspection, then?

“We have no contraband.” A rush of relief: we didn’t have any contraband, and I was profoundly glad of it. “Our only interest in the factory ship we found was to bring it back and turn it in, and if we hadn’t encountered the pirates we would have probably brought it to the nearest Synarche Space Guard station.”

Then you will not mind a ship inspection.

I consulted with Singer. Whatever Connla was doing, he’d ducked out of senso, which made me just as happy, but in his absence Singer and I constituted a quorum.

“As long as our shipmind can observe the inspection and record it, of course not.”

That seems reasonable.

Either the Goodlaw was a lot less corrupt—or power-trippy—than the stationmaster, or it was a lot more subtle about it.

This appears to be artificial gravity.

“It does, doesn’t it?”

What you have shown me looks like magic, Synizen Dz.

I grinned. “There is no such thing as magic. There’s only physics we insufficiently understand.” I took a deep breath, and decided to trust it at least a little bit further. One way or another, it was likely to know about the pirate ship docked on the ring already. Whether revealing that we also knew, and had had a past encounter with said ship, was likely to get us into trouble… that, I couldn’t say.

So I gambled.

I said, “By the way, the ship that took a potshot at us is docked here.”

Fascinating. The mantid rubbed its raptorial arms together.

There was an awkward silence. Well, awkward for me, anyway. The Goodlaw spent it regarding me with compound eyes, utterly unmoving.

Well, maybe it was waiting for me. I decided to risk it. “Now, sorry to be so blunt, but Habren is playing games with me on the topic. Will this data pay for a refuel?”

Pay is an archaic concept. But yes, this justifies further resource allocation to your project. I will speak to Habren. I believe they will agree to a dispensation of fuel and consumables.

Without even a pause, it reached out with a manipulator and opened a com channel. Stunning me, Cheeirilaq patched me in as well.

There were some indistinguishable noises, and then a hum through the senso. I sat quietly and listened while Cheeirilaq spoke with Habren, demanding with infinite politeness that Singer and crew be expedited on our way as merrily as possible, and with as much alacrity.

If you insist, I can probably justify fuel for that, Habren admitted, after what I decided was a grumpy pause.

Of course you can, Cheeirilaq answered. It’s already been allotted, and Dz here is right; its tug is smaller than a mail packet and can travel faster on the same fuel allotment. I would encourage you to provide a generous bonus allotment, in fact, given that they are both performing a transport service for the Synarche and bringing in important information about criminal activities.

The translator wouldn’t quite let Habren sound grudging, but I projected it anyway. They spoke directly to me. You will have to obtain repairs to your derrick in the Core, however.

That will be acceptable, Cheeirilaq replied, before I could. I shall issue them a voucher.

After all that, I found myself in strong agreement with Connla that now was a great time for a little rest and recreation. We were stuck here until we got our fuel and our clearances, and bumping around the tug being anxious about pirates was only going to annoy Singer. Besides, it wasn’t as if any of them knew what I looked like.

I wasn’t interested in strategy games or sex, though, so I ran a quicksearch on what I did want, then let Singer know where I was going. A few minutes later, I seated myself on a stool of a reasonably clean ring bar in a low-grav section of the wheel. Having eased off my station shoes and feeling much more comfortable with my afthands (clad in socks!) resting in perched position on the rail beneath the service top, I gave myself over to contemplating the nuanceless amber depths of a glass of printed whiskey. I hadn’t had my drink for two mins when a local bar-type, subspecies human, presenting masculine and on the make, crawled over.

He sidled onto the next stool, hooked flat feet under the rail, and said, “What are you hiding under all that paint?”

I didn’t look at him. He was wearing a spider-dress—a collection of jointed limbs and servos that formed a halo around his shoulders and were meant to respond independently to his skin conductivity, muscle tension, everything up to and including his brain radiation, broadcasting his mood and attention to everyone around. A pretty narcissistic piece of clothing, if you ask me, designed to make your interiority everybody else’s problem.

They made them in cobra and chameleon models too. I probably would have preferred an octopus. Colors and lots of limbs.

He waited for a moment, dress contracted like it had touched something hot, contemplating his evident failure to connect.