"Take a seat." Wixa waved Maiga to a chair. "Oh hang on," she said when Maiga paused, looking down surprised, at a curled up cat on the chair. Its sleek black fur caught the light as it breathed.
"You have a cat? Who took care of it while you were away?"
Wixa just grinned and lifted the cat up. It hung limp in her hands and a wire trailed from its side. She pulled the wire out and ran her hand over a spot between the cat's front legs. At once, it started to squirm in her hands and she put it down on the chair. It jumped onto the floor and began to nose around Maiga's feet.
"You have a robot cat?" Maiga grimaced. "I can't believe I just said that."
"They're quite popular on the station." Wixa bent down to tickle the cat behind the ears, making it purr. Maiga sat down, shaking her head. She had seen cats around in the accommodation blocks, but it hadn't occurred to her that some of them might not be real.
"His name's Glyph," Wixa picked Glyph up and scratched him--it, Maiga thought, it--under the chin. "Beautiful isn't he?"
"A perfect replica." And what the hell is the point of it?
"Right. Coffee." Wixa put the cat down to roam the floor and started to bustle around the kitchen area.
Maiga wandered over and sat at one of the tall stools at a long bench. Glyph followed her and jumped onto the second stool. Maiga ignored an urge to pet it. What would be the point? A moment later Wixa placed two cups on the bench.
"You know," Wixa said. "There's so much more than coffee that people are willing to pay good prices for. Tea, chocolate, whisky, fancy soap, all the little luxuries of life. Other things too, Dr Sheni's clinic needs medical supplies."
Maiga frowned at her and Wixa back-pedalled. "Medical supplies we'd sell at cost of course. Um, then there's one thing we can always sell. Chickens."
"Chickens? What? Frozen ones?"
"No," Wixa laughed. "Frozen chickens don't lay eggs."
Good point. A fresh egg could be an unspeakable luxury. How many chickens were out there among the human survivors? On the other hand, live animals on the ship sounded like a recipe for disaster.
"I can track goods down and negotiate prices," Wixa said. "I have the contacts on the station to sell the goods here. You have a ship and can handle security. You said you'd think about it. Have you decided yet?"
Maiga had. She would stay. For now.
"I don't make any promises, Wixa. I was… Well I wasn't sure I was going to stay, thought I might move on. But for now, I'm staying."
Wixa grinned and held out her hand for a shake. "Of course you are! We'll make a lifer of you yet."
After they shook hands, Wixa raised her coffee cup and smiled. "Partners."
Maiga echoed the gesture and the words.
"Partners."
Glyph began to purr.
~o~
Maiga left Wixa's quarters after an hour or so. After seeing her out, Wixa made sure the door was locked, and then she walked into her tiny office, through a door from the living room. Unlike the rest of her quarters, this room was neat, quite bare.
A large sloping desk-like computer terminal took up most of one side of the room. Screens of data illuminated various parts of the flat panel. This was the heart of Wixa's world. She picked up a lot of word of mouth gossip, she had a talent for it, her superiors had always said. But probing computers was where she got the truly important information.
Like the information about Tesla she'd sold to Jadeth.
Maiga's face had been part of that information. One of Ilyan's followers, believed to be his lover. And supposedly killed with the rest of them. So the day Wixa had seen her walking through a corridor on the station, large as life, had been like seeing a ghost.
Nothing in the information she'd found had even hinted that Maiga was still alive. Trying to find something to explain it had driven Wixa almost crazy. And she never had found out. The information had probably been buried deep in some High Command database back on Earth and destroyed in the final attack. Maybe one day Wixa would be able to ask her.
She touched a panel on screen. "Are you there?"
"Where else?" A man's voice came from speakers in the wall above the computer panel.
"She's staying."
"I know." Some doubt came into the voice. "You're sure about her?" "She's the one?"
"I'm sure."
"I had great hopes of the newspaper man."
Wixa shook her head, although the man speaking couldn't see her. Well probably he couldn't. He'd better not be able to. She'd warned him before.
"He's a good man," Wixa said. "And I think he'll be important, but he doesn't have what it takes. He doesn't, well, he doesn't have the balls."
"And she does?"
"Yes. I think so."
The man chuckled. "Things have changed since I was topside."
Wixa rolled her eyes. "We have this thing up here called metaphor."
"Anything else to report?"
"Oh, I picked up some gossip." She sat down now in the comfortable chair in front of the panel. Glyph jumped up into her lap and curled up. She stroked him and he purred. Purrs too easily, she thought, and decided to tweak his programming when she had a moment. Cats should be more standoffish.
"Right, first of course the most important thing, Bara and the Trebuchet."
Chapter 4
For their next job, they planned ahead. Wixa contacted their destination ahead of time and checked out what goods were in demand there. So this time the Friss's cargo hold was full.
Or would be soon, once the two of them finished loading it. The crates of Glissandian feathers, highly prized as decoration where they were going, were light enough that the two women could load the ship easily themselves.
Maiga worked in silence while Wixa chattered on. That's why she has that ridiculous cat, Maiga concluded, so she can talk to it. Or she'd talk to herself and people would think she was crazy.
"Damn," Wixa exclaimed suddenly, interrupting herself. "I can't remember if I plugged the cat in to recharge."
Of course crazy was a possibility.
"It's always a real pain coming back and finding him frozen in place," she said.
"Oh, please."
Wixa grinned. "I'm not kidding. He'll be a little catty statue on the floor. Or on his side with his legs all stiff."
"So, you come home and find your cat dead and bring it back to life by recharging its batteries?"
"Yep, that about covers it."
"Madness," Maiga muttered. "Okay, well, go back and check you've left it charging up."
"You'll be okay loading this stuff yourself?"
Maiga hefted a literally feather light box in each hand. "I think I'll manage."
She walked up the ramp into the hold. As she secured the boxes she heard Wixa talking to someone and a moment later a man's voice called from outside.
"Hello? Captain?"
Captain. On instinct Maiga's hand moved towards the knife she kept on her belt. She hadn't told anyone on the station her rank. A shape moved into the hatchway, a man. Tall, broad shouldered and bulky around the chest. She'd have to take him down fast if she was to stand a chance. He smiled at her. A rather nervous smile.
"Hello, Maiga isn't it? Wixa said it was okay to interrupt you for a moment."
Her hand stayed hovering in the small of her back, near the sheathed knife.
"Why did you call me ‘Captain'?" she demanded.
He looked taken aback for a moment, by her sharp tone. When he spoke his own tone was apologetic. "Oh, I'm sorry. Just, well, this is your ship, isn't it?"
Ah, captain of the ship. She moved her hand away from the knife. "It is my ship."
"And, if I need to call you Major, or Colonel, or…"
"Maiga will be fine."
He smiled again, relieved, and she relaxed. This one was no threat. Around her own age, she guessed, light brown skin, black hair. In his large hands he held a small electronic device, a recorder she realised and frowned. That had better not be on
.
Maiga walked back out of the hatch, towards the boxes still waiting on the walkway beside the ship.
"My name is Chervaz," the man said. "Oh, can I help you with your loading?"
He went to pick up a box and she hid a smile as she saw him brace his back, and bend his knees as he took hold of the handles. When he lifted, he staggered backwards and almost hoisted the box over his head. Maiga put her hand out on his back steadying him.
"Sorry," she said, not hiding the smile too well now. "I should have warned you."
Chervaz stared at her then smiled too, and laughed. "So, on this trip you are transporting… boxes?"
"Feathers." She popped the lid off one box, showing him the feathers inside, which shimmered soft blue green.
"Oh." He looked at the couple of dozen boxes still waiting to load. "That's a lot of birds."
Maiga shrugged. Big deal. When ten billion of your people had died in a day then a few dead birds didn't bother you too much. She went on loading boxes and he went on helping her.
"What can I do for you…?" She thought about it for a second. Was this guy a lifer or a driftie? The lifers liked to be called "mister". But he was too young to be retired, and she couldn't see any obvious disability. She erred on the side of politeness. "Mr Chervaz."
"I wanted to ask you if I could talk to you after you return from your trip. And any future trips. You see I run a newspaper."
Newspaper, yes, she'd seen it. Cost a demi-cred, and was only a few pages long. She'd read it a couple of times, usually ones left behind in Chullan's. It covered events on the station, especially those of most interest to the human residents. And it carried other stories too, from off the station, the gossip that new arrivals brought. That was presumably what he wanted to hear from her, any gossip she happened to pick up.
"Would that be for your ‘Important if True', section?"
"Oh, you've read the paper? That part, Important if True, that's an old tradition, you know."
Here we go, she thought. Another talker, like Wixa. Another one who likes to spin a tale. Nice voice though, nice accent. She let him talk on.
"Back on Earth, a thousand years ago, in a frontier town, a newspaper man would have a column called "Important if True", where he'd report things he heard, from new arrivals usually, but that he had no way to confirm. He had to print the stories, because if he didn't and they turned out to be true, then people would want to know why he hadn't told them about this before."
"And if they turned out to be false, he just had to point to the word ‘if'," Maiga said.
"Exactly." Chervaz nodded. "Well, this station is rather like those frontier towns."
They had all the boxes loaded now, but Maiga would have to wait for Wixa to come back. Ushering Chervaz out of the hold, she closed up the hatch and started to put on her light jacket that she'd tied around her waist.
"So, will you come to see me after your trip?" Chervaz asked.
"Wixa is better at the information gathering than me."
"Oh." He looked disappointed. "Well, even so, it's always good to get several perspectives on the same information. You may notice different things than her, with your training."
"My training?" Maiga's voice went very soft. "And what training would that be?"
"I…" He frowned. "Well, you're… Marine Corps? I'm guessing."
"And Wixa?"
"She doesn't really hide that she used to be military intelligence."
Maiga sighed. Paranoia. He's observant, that's all. He's a reporter, it's his job. Anyway, she could do that too, look at someone and tell which service branch they belonged to. Except… She frowned at him. Hard to say with this one. Polite and gentlemanly like a starship officer, but with the physique of an infantryman.
"How long have you been on the station, Mr Chervaz?"
"About five months." So not a lifer then, a driftie, yet not. A lifer in the making. "I started the newspaper about three months ago."
"Why?"
"It's just something I used to read about, newspapers. They always appealed to me." His face became dreamy. "They were… important I think. They could topple governments."
"Sounds dangerous."
"Yes, they often were. They changed history."
"Is that why you print it on paper?" She asked, becoming the journalist herself, interviewing him. "Rather than doing it over the station's network?"
"Yes," he confessed with a nod. "The romanticism of it, yes. But the station managers control the network. Theoretically they can get at and change everything on there. If I ever wanted to say anything critical of the managers, they could stop me. But if it's on paper, if it's passed around from hand to hand, then nobody can contain the truth." His eyes gleamed for a moment as he said that last word. Truth. Ilyan had cared about the truth too.
"Where can I find you?" Maiga asked. "When we get back."
"I have an office over the tailor's shop. Though, I'm usually not there. You can call me."
"Snap me your details." Maiga took out her Snapper and he sent her the information.
"It was good to meet you, Maiga," he said. "I look forward to talking when you return." He offered her his hand and she shook it. As he turned to go, he stopped and spoke again. "Oh, I'm hearing a lot of rumours about this Captain Bara. If you happened to pick up something about her and her ship, I'd be especially interested. Hello again, Wixa," he said with a nod to her as she arrived back.
"Hey, Vaz," Wixa said. "Got a new roving reporter then?"
"I hope so." He nodded his goodbyes to them, and hurried off.
"He is cute," Wixa said, grinning at Maiga. "Did you two have a nice chat?"
"He just asked me to pass on any information we pick up. Come on, we've got an appointment to keep."
"He is cute though," Wixa said as they boarded. "Those big brown eyes. And big hands. You know what that means, don't you?"
"Big gloves. Now shut up and contact traffic control before we miss our launch slot."
~o~
Dr Sheni looked up from reading a patient's notes when a nurse popped her head around the door of the doctor's office.
"There are a couple of people here to see you, Doctor."
"There are always people here to see me, we call them patients."
The nurse rolled her eyes. "Not these two. They're doctors."
"Doctors? It's not…?"
"No," the nurse shook her head, her eyes pained. "No. Couple of drifties these two. I think they're going to ask you for a job."
"I'll be out in a minute."
The nurse left and Sheni stood up, with a groan at that damned pain in her knee that the arthritis drugs couldn't get rid of. Another couple of doctors, eh? Well that might save her from being forced to attempt surgery to replace her own kneecap.
Limping and feeling the weight of all of her sixty-eight years, Sheni walked over to the wall where several pictures hung. One showed Sheni with two younger men. Younger than her, but old enough to retire from the military and instead work here at Sheni's clinic and infirmary.
They hadn't been under any obligation to head back to Earth when that recall order came. But they were doctors and they knew where their duty lay. If Sheni had been younger perhaps she'd have gone too. Perhaps not. She had obligations here.
Better go see her visitors. If they really were doctors maybe her dreams of retiring and spending all day pushing up her blood pressure with copious quantities of coffee could soon be realised.
Oh they were so young, she thought, as she walked out into the waiting area, which was quiet now, though would doubtless fill up again later in the evening when people started to relax after their days work. Some people got so sensationally relaxed she didn't even have to anesthetise them to deal with their wounds.
Neither of the doctors was even thirty, she estimated. One was a man with fine blonde hair and hazel eyes, the other a woman with skin darker than Sheni's own, which had started to fade a few years ago. Both wore earnest expressions a
nd neat, clean clothes. Keen to impress.
"I'm Dr Sheni." She held out her hand to them
"Lon," the man said, shaking her hand
"Anishk." The young woman next. Good hands, both of them.
"Dr Sheni," Lon said, "We arrived on the station a few days ago. We're both doctors and we want to offer our services to you, to work here in your clinic."
She wondered about the word "we". A couple maybe? Can be tricky working together.
"I can't offer you much pay," Sheni said. "But I can certainly offer you plenty of work. There are many more human residents here than before the… war." She never felt sure if ‘war' was the right word.
"We just want to work, doctor," Anishk said. "Just do what we were trained for."
"What's your background?" Sheni asked.
"I was working in a burns unit," Lon said.
Well they did get burns around here. Accidents happened in the industrial sectors.
"I'm a specialist in blunt trauma injuries," Anishk said. "I've been published in--"
"Ah-ha. Either of you ever deliver a baby?" They both looked mildly horrified, even disgusted. "I don't suppose you know much about paediatrics."
They both shook their heads. "There's not much call for that in the military," Lon said.
"Well there is here," Sheni said. "The residents will go around having children. What about geriatrics?"
"Old people," Lon said after a brief pause.
"Well that's a start. What about you?" She looked at Anishk. "What do you know about geriatrics?"
"Only that they are all splendid individuals," Anishk said, her tone sincere, yet dry, eyebrows arched just a little. "And that they have much knowledge and wisdom to impart."
Sheni grinned. Ah, well this one had some promise.
"You'd be right." She smiled at them. "And don't let my old country doctor demeanour fool you. I'll confess. I didn't deliver a baby for the first time until I was fifty-three. Come on, let me show you around."
~o~
Chervaz walked into Dav's tavern, ducked a glass sailing through the air, and looked around.
"Vaz! Over here!"
He spotted a waving man, part of a group of humans and aliens sitting around a table. Chervaz waved back, and then went to the bar. A moment later, he joined the group at the table, carrying a small glass of beer.