Элизабет Бир - Ancestral Night

This person is probably the same one who killed a whole shipful of Jothari.

“What do you want?”

“You have possession of something of ours.”

“Something you stole, you mean.” From some people who murdered to get it.

Her pretty eyes narrowed. “Pretty self-righteous, for an interstellar dumpster diver.”

“Was that supposed to be an insult of some kind? Because if you’re trying to threaten me—”

She sighed. Stepped back, and crossed her arms. The labile play of emotions across her face reminded me that I was probably dealing with somebody unrightminded, who had never had therapy or engaged in the kind of self-examination that makes you question and eventually understand yourself and your own emotions. The Freeporters were violently opposed to social controls of all sorts. Even—especially?—healthy ones.

She was a reactionary force.

I was scared of her.

Connla and Singer were in my senso, and I could feel them there. Their support was encouraging. Singer was probably tuning me, too, to keep me from freaking the hell out. This was not a time when an atavistic panic response from my endocrine system would be useful.

See above; sometimes the best thing you can do is just not thrash.

“I’m trying to offer you a place,” she said, the muscles in her upper arms rippling as she tightened her grip on her own crossed arms. She was, I realized, struggling to control her temper. “Look, Haimey. You were very resourceful out there. We can use people like you. And like your shipmind, who we know has been requisitioned back to the Core and isn’t too keen on going. You’re in obligation trouble. Financial trouble,” she reinforced, stressing the archaic word. “We can give you freedom and keep you together.”

“How do you know all that?”

“Your shipmind filed for a service extension. And it’s not like you and your shipmates brought back a lot of salvage to justify the outlay on this salvage mission. So”—she smiled and unfolded her arms to wave one hand airily—“come with us. Be free of the Synarche. Find out what it’s like to truly be yourself, without a bunch of hive-types telling you what to think and feel. You already threw off the clade mind control. Why not dispense with the rest of it for a while and experience an honest emotion or two? You never know…”

The smile broadened, and even with my limbic system tuned way down I felt the shiver of her charisma in the pit of my stomach. “I heard a rumor you like bad girls.”

It was all I could manage to keep from rolling my eyes. Maybe they hadn’t researched me that thoroughly, then. Or maybe their barbarian emotional logic actually led them to believe that such an appeal could trump my better judgment. And my rightminding.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’d sooner kiss Rohn.”

I saw her attempt to parse what I was saying, the look of puzzlement creasing her flawless brow when the words didn’t impart meaning no matter what directions she turned them about in.

I took a step back toward Singer’s airlock, feeling fiercely glad that I could just step sideways into it rather than having to drop or climb down a shaft. Giving Sexy Pirate Farweather the advantage of elevation was a risk I didn’t want to take. The second step, though, I felt—well, I felt heavy. Profoundly heavy, as if I were under a big change in v , or very tired, or both.

“Sorry, kid,” Farweather said. “Can’t let you do that—”

Oh dear, said a series of chirp and sawing noises. Is there a problem here, Synizens?

A large green serrated limb poked out between us, barring the width of the corridor. Gravity returned to normal, and I shot Cheeirilaq a quick senso warning that things might get dangerously heavy for its physiognomy.

Not that I was sure what either of us could do about it if she decided to squash the Goodlaw like a… well, like a bug.

She’s not a Synizen, I sensoed.

Cheeirilaq didn’t respond. It flexed its saw-toothed forelimbs as if stretching out a kink and pivoted its head so the light flashed off its faceted eyes.

“Just asking directions,” Farweather said. She was already fading back down the corridor, and as she vanished around the corner I felt a moment of profound relief—and then an instant later I realized that my palms were clammy with sweat and my heart was pounding so hard my vision wasn’t stable.

I thought you tuned me down, I accused Singer.

I did, he answered. It seemed possible you might need all the adrenaline you could get, however.

That was fair. I couldn’t get too mad at him for fiddling that, even without permission. Even with all the juice making me unstable.

And as the immediate threat passed, I stopped trembling and managed to focus myself on Cheeirilaq. “Thank you for preventing my kidnapping, anyway. Is this going to put you in a bad position?”

Its antennae did something that was probably a shrug, and it stridulated, No worse than I already am. This is still a Synarche station. Whatever [Habren] gets up to on the side. If anything happened to me, the constabulary would show up in force, expense of shipping resources to the end of nowhere aside, and they don’t want to risk that. What was that being insinuating about you, Haimey? I only caught part of the conversation.

“I thought you knew my political secrets.”

I know they exist. Your record is sealed.

Which raised the interesting question of how Sexy Pirate knew about it.

I thought you might be a Core agent, Cheeirilaq admitted. I take it I was mistaken.

“It’s a long story,” I said.

Why is it sealed?

“I was underage,” I answered, turning to go. “And the courts decided that it wasn’t my fault.”

I SLID INTO THE AIRLOCK UNMOLESTEDbut soaking in anxiety hormones to the point where Singer actually reached in through the senso and twiddled me down a notch for the second time in a few minutes. I was aggravated about it until the calm chemicals hit, and then I remembered that there was a reason why I’d let him talk me into giving him the keys. When I get really bad, I don’t always remember that the terrible, distracting atavism is something I can fix, or even that I ought to.

Singer never forgets.

He was living up to his name when I stepped inside, engaged in a four-part vocal round with himself that seemed to have something to do with the world’s largest Mexican restaurant, by which I deduced that it was an antique. Singer also has a thing about madrigals, which means that Connla and I know a lot of madrigals.

“Did you get all that?” I asked from the airlock.

“Enough of it,” Connla said dryly.

One of the reasons we picked out our tug was that Singer liked the acoustics.

He was singing softly enough that the cats weren’t hiding. I wriggled out of my station shoes and shooed the cats into their acceleration pods—well, I shooed Mephistopheles. Bushyasta, I just picked up, fitted her tiny little breathing mask, and plopped her in while she cracked one eye and purred at me; apparently doing anything else under quarter grav was entirely too much effort for anybody, and at this point I was inclined to agree. Connla was in the common cabin, finishing a set of pushups. I tossed him a towel and nearly missed because I’m terrible at arcs under gravity, but he snaked an arm out and caught it anyway.

Singer brought his round to a perfectly timed and elegant close.

Connla pulled a shirt on. “What does wheelmind say about debarkation?”

“No clearance yet.”

“We filed shifts ago. This begins to resemble intentional obstructionism.”