Tales from Ardulum Read online

  So, how to deal with his monitor problem, which was directly related to his power problem since he couldn’t access the second without the first? He could have a replica made and delivered in two weeks. He could wander around a ship scrapyard and hope to get lucky, but the nearest yard wasn’t open on Sundays because the owner was, ironically, from the USA.

  Yorden sighed. He’d had enough of Earth for a lifetime. Hell, even Mars would be better than this planet filled with false peace and broken promises. Something was wrong here, and the bandage the Risalians had patched over it wasn’t any better. It was worse, in a way, because Yorden at least understood war and religion and communism and all the other stuff humanity cooked up to kill one another. Whatever was going on right now was…it stank like gefilte fish, and Yorden fucking hated fish.

  So, what then? His only real option was to do an open remod’ and hope the curator never stopped by. There was probably something toxic in the dust and shards at his feet, so maybe he could keep her out that way. Really, it was a miracle the ceiling hadn’t fallen in on him yet.

  “Galactic criminal today, or galactic criminal tomorrow? Does it matter? Probably not.” Delaying the departure date would be a hassle, but less of a hassle than trying to cover up his mistake or having to listen to a lecture by the museum curator who would want to be mad and throw things and have him arrested but wouldn’t because of Risalian peace.

  Fucking peace.

  Yorden snorted and pulled apart the remains of the center console, keeping the section with the yoke intact. He laid the series of computer biofilms across the skeletal remains of the framework and then began to install the cellulose battery pack. It would independently power the navigation systems and computer itself, but not the thrusters, leaving only the question of how to get the hunk of metal off Earth. Yorden had one more deal to make before he could accomplish that goal.

  YORDEN PRIMLY FOLDED his hands across his lap as he wedged his hips into the black leather chair he’d installed in the Buran’s cockpit—a chair that had, until very recently, been in the curator’s office.

  “Yes, I am very interested in the safety of our youth. To me, Youth Journey—this time of directed internship and socialization, if you will, of the Systems’ young people—has only the noblest of intentions. That’s why I want to be a part of it, you see. Earth didn’t join the Charted Systems until 2020, and I was thirty-five then. Far too old to take part in yet another birthright tour, but I think this ship and I have a lot to offer the youth of today.” Yorden reached over and smacked the metal wall of the shuttle, which was in full view now that the Buran’s new transmitter was up.

  The Risalian on the other end of the comm stared impassively. Hir black hair was piled in a bun atop hir head, hir skin was the same sort of blue Yorden had seen in the history vids, and hir neck slits—gills, maybe—gently flapped open and closed like a gasping fish’s mouth. The image wasn’t disturbing at all.

  “History!” Yorden added, continuing his charade, this time with more bluster. “Why, in this ship alone, I can tell the history of the Terran people! Our glorious journey into the stars! Or, rather, the Risalian discovery of our solar system and how everyone on Mars Colony practically wet themselves when your delightful blue faces showed up on the surface.”

  “Mr. Kuebrich, your allusions to Terran bodily functions can be left out of your application.”

  “Sure, sure. What do you say? You’ve got a pack of old thruster power modules over in Chiang Rai that’ll work just fine for this shuttle, and I can have them here tomorrow with your okay. Give me a few days to get my bearings, and then I’ll head to Callis Spaceport with a smile under my beard and a cockpit seat for a fresh young face.”

  “You haven’t even sent me the safety specs of this shuttle.” The sound of bioplastic films sliding against each other filtered through the comm. “What is your ship’s name? The Buran?”

  “No, no. It’s…the Pledge. Mercy’s Pledge, because, uh, I pledge to help kids find their way in life. It’s my mission statement.” Yorden was in danger of vomiting after saying that, but since the Risalian’s neck slits hadn’t even begun to shade into purple, it looked like he was on solid footing.

  The Risalian straightened hir pale-yellow tunic and read something offscreen. Yorden had never seen a Risalian in person, only over comm, and found himself wondering if the species wore pants. Hell, he didn’t even know if they had external genitalia. There was probably a first-contact video from Mars he could look up if he really wanted to, which, Yorden decided, he did not.

  “Mr. Kuebrich, your résumé seems to have some contradictions. You note five Terran years of ship maintenance and three of piloting, but twelve of ‘intergalactic diplomacy.’ I see no degree certificate for this. Where did you study?”

  “School of Hard Knocks,” Yorden shot back, regretting the words the moment they left his mouth.

  “Which is where?” xe asked.

  “America. Texas. One of those smaller public schools no one ever talks about but that turns out decent people.”

  “I don’t have enough records about the educational systems on your world to validate that answer.” Xe rubbed at hir neck slits—not a good sign—and then clacked hir claws together. “I’m curious enough, given our lack of Terran mentors, to interview you in person. We’ve no use for those fuel cells anyway. They’re too outdated. I’ll have them shipped to you immediately. I can take your location from your comm signal. In three days, please be at the coordinates I am transmitting now.”

  “Perfect!” Yorden couldn’t contain his grin. The curator had wanted some sort of fuel or thruster set for the shuttle, just to be able to show kids how one might hook them up. He’d get the Risalian tech installed no problem, and if she got upset about the different planetary origins…well, she’d likely just give him a lecture. Besides, once everyone figured out what he’d done, he’d already be in space, away from his miserable blue marble of a homeworld, and in a ship that might not fall apart for a few years. He’d have diamond rounds in his pocket from the cedar delivery and a whole new life to live. As long as the Charted Systems had some form of edible red meat that wasn’t still walking around, he’d be happy.

  SPACESHIP STEALING TURNED out to be really easy.

  Yorden had opened the bay doors and no one had even come by to ask why. He’d started the clean-energy thrusters, which had some fancier Risalian name that he didn’t care about, and the curator had finally come by to ask if systems testing was important for museum pieces. Yorden had assured her that it was, and she’d left. And when he’d driven the marshmallow-shaped ship out of the museum and into the parking lot filled with the midday tourist crowd, the patrons had just cheered and taken photos with their phones. So, Yorden had pointed the Pledge’s nose to the sky and engaged the thrusters. Boom. Done. He hadn’t even charred anyone standing too close because thrusters didn’t put out that kind of heat anymore. Nope. He’d just sailed like a turkey vulture into the heavens while the sheep of his homeworld watched and thought it was the best damn thing they’d ever seen.

  And now, he was here. In space. On a space station called Callis Spaceport and fuck—he was in space flying a ship he should have named Stay Puft. And he was talking to aliens.

  “Two hundred and twelve diamond rounds, as agreed. Please release the locks on your hold and my people will unload the wood.” Captain Neganondonu, arm fur rippling in what Yorden hoped was happiness, placed her palm on his old, rigid tablet to sign for the transfer of funds.

  They were just outside the Pledge, which was cooling off in berth 3,504, docking bay nine, in the aft hangar of Callis Spaceport. Around them—stacked on either side, below, above, and diagonally—were thousands of ships. The Pledge was by far the smallest, dwarfed by frigates, liners, cutters, dredgers, and shuttles that made his look like a kid’s paper airplane. The recycled air in the hangar smelled like burnt wood and salt, and the temperature was set several degrees too high for his liking.

 
; “This…was not my brightest idea,” Yorden murmured as his gaze wandered around the bay, his fingers twitching in his pockets. He knew that his eyes were as wide as saucers but didn’t really know how to help that. Vertigo hit him in every direction, even when he looked to the side. The hangar was just… It was just huge. It was huge, and he was a Terran without a clue on a stolen spaceship left over from the Cold War. Hell, save for his pocket comm, the highest bit of technology he had was a tablet from 2015.

  Why had he thought this was a good idea?

  Words streamed from Yorden’s mouth, bypassing his brain entirely. “No wonder Terrans don’t generally go past Jupiter’s diamond mines. There have to be millions just in this spaceport alone, and how can they all just live here in peace? What if I…what if I step on someone? Or sneeze and kill someone with my germs?”

  Captain Neganondonu jiggled the tablet. “Calm down. While you walk and gawk, maybe the first thing you should buy is a new one of these. The cellulose content in your tablet here is so low that the metal feels cold, and I don’t see anything resembling a biofilm. Cell-Tal ships to Earth, and I know they contracted with this fruit company.”

  Yorden shoved the tablet into the pocket of his snug flight suit, ran a hand through his beard, and pursed his lips. He definitely wasn’t shaking, and he definitely didn’t feel like a LEGO mini figurine in an oversized toy box. “Yeah, I’ll think about it. Meantime, can your crew spray down the inside of my cargo hold after you get the wood out? That smell gives me a headache.”

  “Of course, Captain.”

  A shiver ran down Yorden’s spine. Captain. It sounded too good to be true. It sounded like how the air smelled in the Callis Spaceport—like a new paperback you stuck your nose into and huffed. Maybe someday he’d feel silly for getting so excited over a title conferred on him by a stolen ship. Right now, though, it sounded better than a hot shower or a trip to the barber or one of those really satisfying dumps you took after eating spicy food.

  “How long till you finish unloading?” Yorden asked. His voice definitely did not sound nervous.

  “An hour local time. Have you synced your watch yet? Callis runs on Systems Standard Time. Twenty-nine-hour days, which I think is a bit long for you.”

  Yorden tapped the bioplastic bracelet on his right wrist. It showed 12:03/29. “Auto-sync. I’m good. I’ll just head for a walk. Be back at thirteen.”

  The fur on Captain Neganondonu’s arm flattened as she turned from Yorden and continued to direct her crew. Yorden filled his lungs with that rich, too-good-to-be-true spaceport air and followed the blinking neon signs and flashing floor lights to the bay exit. The signs were either embedded in the walls, floating, or simply suspended from the ceiling, and they sported at least half a dozen languages. “Common” ran from right to left at the bottom of each—as mandated by Risalian law, but Yorden didn’t think the made-up language was ever going to take off. Beings got particular about their heritage and such, or at least they did on Earth. Likely, Common would go the way of Esperanto. Still, he’d learned to speak it anyway, because he sure as hell couldn’t pronounce Risalian sounds, and his Alusian was barely passable. A few of the signs had Spanish and Mandarin on them since Earth and Mars hadn’t managed to agree on one representative language for the Systems, but the grammar was wrong on both and the spelling atrocious.

  Some ten minutes later, Yorden finally wound his way out of the docking bay and into a brightly lit hall. Yorden let out a sigh of relief. The ceilings here were lower and the walls closer together. There were more signs—hundreds of them flashing and playing music and talking at him—and there were people. Beings. Sentients. Whatever they were called. Distinct bouquets of pheromones and body odors slapped his nose. No one seemed to be in much of a hurry, not this far from a central artery, but there were still just so many of them. Bipeds. Quadrupeds. Slicks of goo with voice-box things. Fur, feathers, scales, gasses, all chatting and eating and laughing. And there were Risalians in the corners, in the alcoves, and in the junctions, just watching with their stony faces, sometimes standing next to emaciated bipeds with translucent skin who seemed just as impassive.

  Yorden pushed past them all, ignoring the occasional call to chat or drink or question if he was lost. His stomach was doing little flips, which were at least more manageable than the nausea-flips he’d had in the docking bay. A stiff drink would have settled it all, but he was already late thanks to the Pledge’s cheap navigation core. He’d need to upgrade that soon. Hell, he’d need to upgrade the whole damn ship soon.

  “Yorden Kuebrich, please, over here.”

  Yorden turned in the direction of the heavily accented Common. His eyes widened. He’d expected the Youth Journey official who’d helped supply him with the thrusters or at least another yellow-clad Risalian. He wouldn’t have been surprised if one in gray had shown up, either—some secretary or peon sent to deal with the Terran. But no, it was a blue-tunic that gestured for him to follow into an office off the main corridor. He followed hir into a room with a shimmering silver floor, smelly aquariums for walls, and a bay window that looked out onto a clear section of space. The whole place screamed money and power, and it was definitely not where Yorden wanted to be.

  “Have a seat, Captain.”

  Yorden sat down on a thick chair, the seat made of a near ebony-colored wood he assumed to be andal. This was a Risalian, after all, and Cell-Tal was built on Neek andal plantation farming. In an office like this, no cheaper wood would do.

  “Markin?” he asked. “‘Cause the blue tunic—”

  “Markin Kelm.” Xe sat down on hir own wooden chair behind a narrow andal desk. The whole setup looked comically Terran. Yorden suppressed a laugh. “You are piloting a stolen historic ship and have a hold filled with timber you did not pay for.”

  Everything in Yorden froze save for his heartbeat, which only pounded louder. A swishing filled his ears. Were the Risalians always so blunt, or was this a tactic? Was a blaster going to come out from behind that polished desk and shatter the whole illusion of peace? God, Yorden really hoped so, even just so he could say, I told you so.

  “Yeah,” he managed. “So what?”

  Markin Kelm gave away no emotion. “You understand that is illegal. All of it.”

  “Yup.”

  There was a long pause, then, as the markin stared at Yorden and Yorden stared defiantly back. The worst the markin could do would be to incarcerate him. They didn’t kill beings in the Charted Systems. He’d heard of reeducation centers, but only in relation to the Risalians themselves, as they’d kept their own penal code for their people. If Kelm was trying to intimidate him, xe would have to work a lot harder than a guaranteed bed with three perf squares a day on some moon.

  “Do you plan to continue such activities outside your solar system?”

  Yorden shrugged. He looked cool, surely. Nonchalant. His brown hair probably needed a combing, and he definitely needed a shave, but that all, hopefully, added to his rugged charm. As long as Risalians didn’t have heat sense to see that he was sweating like a roasting goat, he’d be fine. “Probably. Why? The museum trying to get its ship back?”

  Kelm rubbed hir neck slits. “I have already compensated the museum for its loss, and a crew of workers is currently in the Amazon rainforest, replanting the species of tree you cut down.”

  Yorden raised an eyebrow. “That’s got to be sticky work.”

  “For a Risalian or a Terran, perhaps. We have genetically unrelated workers who will not mind.”

  “Uh-huh. So, you’ve cleaned up my mess. What does that mean? I owe you?” Yorden scoffed. “Since I didn’t care about the mess, you’ll have a hard time collecting.”

  “I’d like to offer you a job, Captain.”

  That shut Yorden up. He leaned against the back of his chair, folded his arms across his chest, and considered the being in front of him. He’d read this spy book, surely. Some cheap, grocery store checkout lane plot where the hacker gets hired by the government
or they go to jail. Yorden snorted. He’d pass. He wasn’t about to trade one shitty life for another.

  “Like work release? Keep me busy instead of incarcerate me?”

  A low growl came from the markin’s throat. The copious hair on Yorden’s arms rose for a moment until he realized that Kelm was doing the equivalent of a sigh.

  “Captain, you have a very…unassuming ship with old technology. Your weaponry is laughable, but your hold has exactly the format of climate control required for live-tree shipment. I’d like to hire you for andal transport from the Neek homeworld to Rath, one of our moons.”

  “Where the Cell-Tal headquarters are?” Yorden couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice. “One of your cutters could haul fifty times what the Pledge can carry.” What’s the catch? There’s always a catch. Probably has Risalian versions of AK-47s hidden in the trunks of those andal trees.

  Markin Kelm’s left front claw clicked on the tabletop. That particular claw was longer than the rest, although Yorden didn’t know if that was cosmetic or evolutionary. He’d thought Risalian claws were generally black, too, but Markin Kelm’s longest was a pale green. It was juvenile to think of it as a giant booger picker, but the thought was already there, pushing laughter up Yorden’s throat when there should have only been seriousness. He barely kept himself in check.

  “When we are seeking to carry harvested plantation trees from the Neek System, I agree with you. However, transporting live trees is…something of a religious problem for the Neek. They are inherently wary of technology and find our cutters disconcerting. Yours, on the other hand, would pose little threat.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “In return, all charges against you will be dropped. You will be paid per transport, and the contract will continue as long as Mercy’s Pledge is in operation.” Kelm unrolled a thin tablet and pushed it across the desk to Yorden. “Sign where indicated and you are free to go.”

  Yorden didn’t even bother looking at the biofilm. The contract stank worse than Yorden did. He was a Terran, sure, but he wasn’t uneducated or some freshly minted Journey youth. The Risalians could take their sketchy-as-hell tree-shipment business and find some other asshole to run it. Unless the Risalian was willing to offer a lot more. Like a Minoran luxury liner. Or his own moon. Or hell, a house on a moon with a few scantily clad, fully consenting women and enough money that he never had to see another human again. Aside from his scantily clad ones, of course.