Earthrise (Her Instruments Book 1) (14 page)

“He’s nice to have around,” Sascha said. “And he’s a good doctor.”

“He’s an
Eldritch
,” Reese said. “What good is a doctor who can’t handle you?”

“For a doctor who can’t handle you, he did a lot of carrying you around,” Irine said. “Or did you forget those parts too?”

They were angry at her. The twins had never been angry at her. Reese looked from one furry face to the other and felt the world drop from beneath her. Then she got a tight rein on her sense of desolation and said, “Look guys, I appreciate your opinions, but if you hadn’t noticed we barely keep enough money in our pockets to feed the people we have. We don’t have room for another deck-swabber. I’m glad the man made a good impression and I’m glad he was around to re-pave my esophagus but we’ve got to move on, okay? Can we start with someone telling me when I’m going to get released, and how bad the repair bill on the ship’s going to be?”

They exchanged glances. Irine sat on the bench next to the bed and Sascha left.

“What was that about?” Reese asked.

“Nothing important to you,” Irine said. “So let’s get down to the stuff that is.”

Reese grabbed her wrist. “Irine, stop it. I don’t need your disapproval.” She sucked in a breath and forced the word out. “Please.”

The tigraine looked at her hand, then hesitantly petted it. The underside of her fingers were smooth. “Can I say something you might take badly, Reese?”

Last time Irine had said something similar, Reese had learned things about the twins’ intimate life she hadn’t really wanted to know. Still it didn’t seem like the time to refuse. “Sure.”

“I don’t know how you’re ever going to catch a mate and have kidlings at the rate you’re going.”

Yes, definitely a place she didn’t want to go. Still, she wanted Irine to stop with the evil eye routine, so she gave the question the serious response she would otherwise have avoided. “You’re assuming I want a mate and a family. That’s not even the way it works on Harat-Sharii, so I’m not sure where you got the idea that I’d want it for myself.”

“Even on Harat-Sharii we choose someone to have children with and have them,” Irine said. “Sascha and I will get to that when we’re older.”

Reese chuckled. “I don’t have a father, Irine. Why would I want a husband?”

“I might be wrong about this, but don’t humans still need both sexes to reproduce?” Irine asked, canting her head.

“Yeah, well, my family found a way around that a few generations ago,” Reese said.

“That doesn’t sound right,” Irine said, mouth twisting.

“And your harems and sibling intimacy does?” Reese asked. “You of all people should know these things are relative.”

“So you haven’t had a father in your life ever? Or a grandfather?”

Reese shook her head and managed a faint smile. “My grandma thought it was best that way. Men meddled, she said.”

“No, women meddle,” Irine said. “Men just go after what they want. It’s part of their charm.”

“Not all women are like that,” Reese said. “Some just go after what they want, too.”

“And some men meddle,” Irine agreed. “At least now I know why you sent the doctor away.”

Reese frowned. “That being... what, some orbit trash about me not knowing how to handle men because I didn’t grow up with one?”

“Well, you’ve got two girls on your crew, me and Kis’eh’t. Allacazam is neuter and Bryer might as well be... I don’t think I could sex a Phoenix unless I tied one down and hunted for parts. The only guy on your crew is Sascha and you’ve got me to keep him in check. So what’s a girl supposed to think?”

“I do not have issues,” Reese said.

“If you say so, boss.”

Reese sighed, but didn’t argue. At least Irine wasn’t glowering at her anymore.

She wasn’t sure that this was an improvement.

“When can I get out of here, Irine?”

“They say you should be fine within a day. They want to keep you under observation until then. You’re paid up for the full time anyway, so you might as well enjoy it.”

“Enjoy my stay in a Medplex,” Reese said. “Right. Tell me about the repair bill.”

Irine caught her tail and started picking at the fur at the tip. “Well... we lost the main cargo gantry. The hull’s dented all over the place, but we’ve identified the six places that the dents are more than cosmetic and have to be fixed. The last pirate laser destroyed the starboard sensor array... and the Well Drive’s gone cranky since Sascha redlined it to get you here. The bill is pretty sizable.”

Reese’s eyes had already glazed over. “How minor are the bumps in the hull we have to fix?” she asked, trying to concentrate on the least serious sounding item in the litany.

“Four of them are preventing the port cargo doors from opening,” Irine said. “The other two have twisted up waste vents.”

Reese lowered herself back onto the bed, which did not yield beneath her shoulder-blades. Her entire back refused to relax onto the cushions.

“It’s a lot of money,” Irine said, ears drooping.

“I know,” Reese said. She’d collected estimates for repairs too often not to know. The Well Drive alone... she could be grounded for months trying to convince creditors to give her that much money.

“Miss Eddings?”

Reese sat up on her elbows and found a Tam-illee dressed in Fleet blue-and-black standing at the door nearest her bed. She couldn’t read the collection of pins and stars and braids Fleet used for rank but suspected from the air of authority that the man was in charge of something.

“I’m Reese Eddings,” she said.

The Tam-illee joined Irine at her bedside. He had a stern and craggy face, almost completely human in seeming save for the shadow of a nose-pad traced around his nostrils... and of course, the large pointed ears on his head. “My name is Jonah NotAgain. I’m captain of the UAV
StarCounter
. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”

“Oh great,” Reese said. “Don’t tell me the pirates followed us here.”

“Good news, ma’am. They didn’t. We wouldn’t mind any details you could give us about them, though.”

“Right,” Reese said, and launched into an account with Irine’s help. The Fleet captain nodded through the story, taking notes on a tiny data tablet she hadn’t even noticed holstered at his hip.

“Would you mind terribly passing us the sensor data?” NotAgain said when she finished.

“No,” Reese said. “You’re welcome to it if it means you’ll have a chance to get rid of them.”

“We’ve been trying for most of a year to chase down all the hide-outs nearby,” the Tam-illee said. “This should give us enough data to shut down Inu-Case. The bad news is that they got a good look at you, ma’am, and they tend not to like the last few people who got away before Fleet comes down on them.”

“You mean to tell me that my data is going to incriminate them, you’re going to arrest them, and their pals are going to remember me and hold a grudge?” Reese asked, aghast.

“That’s about the size of it,” the Tam-illee said. “Most of the time they get distracted easily, though. If you lay low for a while they tend not to bother with revenge.”

“It’s not like we’re going to be running cargo any time soon anyway,” Irine said. “We’ve got a lot of repair work to do.”

“I can’t believe this,” Reese said. “Can’t you do something about it?”

“If we had enough manpower to assign a convoy to every freighter working the shipping lanes we’d do it in a heartbeat’s pause,” NotAgain said. “Unfortunately we’re spread a bit thin for that. All I can advise you is to head further into the Core and stay out of sight for a while. Take a vacation, if you like.”

“A vacation!” Reese exclaimed. She closed her eyes. “How long a vacation?”

“Certainly no longer than a year—”

“A year!”

“But at least two months,” NotAgain continued. “Three or four to be safe. I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s just a recommendation.”

“Thanks,” Irine said. “We appreciate the advice. We’ll send the reel to you later today.”

The Tam-illee smiled. “Thanks, ma’am. If there’s any question we can answer we’ll be glad to help. I’m border patrol liaison for Frontier Three... just use the Fleet broadband and we’ll be glad to help.”

“Thanks, we will,” Irine said. Once the man had gone, the tigraine leaned over. “You okay, Reese?”

“Four months to a year!” Reese said.

“Two to four months,” Irine said. “We have to make repairs anyway. We can do them in the Core just as well as we could out here.”

“But the Core is more expensive,” Reese said. “Besides, I thought if we got rid of Hirianthial the pirates wouldn’t care about us anymore!”

“They probably wouldn’t have if our escape hadn’t seemed to lead to their arrest,” Irine said. “But would you rather them not get arrested?”

“Of course not,” Reese said. She sighed and covered her eyes with a hand.

“It’ll be okay, Reese. You’ll see.”

“I hope you’re right,” Reese said.

Most of the time Hirianthial did not envy his cousin’s talent for pattern-sensing for he’d never observed it to bring her happiness. Satisfaction, occasionally, but never joy. It had shaped her as inevitably a carver’s knife did wood, transforming her from a mercurial child into a planner of great effectiveness with an escape route in every muff pocket and a raft of cushions against contingency. She never worried, but she never rested either. Her power continually warned her of the changing currents in the world and the situations those currents might inspire. Most people accused her of manipulation. She didn’t deign to answer such accusations and had acquired the many enemies one might have expected of someone in power with power. No, he rarely wanted her talent.

Today he wanted it. He wanted to know where the pattern was moving him and where he should position himself to give it better access to his tired body, to sweep him away to a place where he no longer had to think or act. After six hundred years, a man grew tired of living with the thousands of consequences of his thoughts and actions.

A starbase was a busy place, no matter how far from civilization one traveled. Exiting the Medplex, Hirianthial merged into the stream of aliens heading further in from the docks. He didn’t question the direction the stream took him but contented himself with following it. He had no other place to go, no pressing business, no work to report to. He supposed at some point he would have to make arrangements for the release of his luggage; he’d had it placed in storage here before embarking on Liolesa’s little mission....

Liolesa’s mission. He’d survived it and been sprung from his prison with the information she wanted. He still had duties, then. A secure comm facility first, then he could find someplace to eat and try to decide what to do now. If he was lucky, Liolesa would have some other ridiculous task for him.

Perhaps she would ask him to come home. He wondered if he would acquiesce.

Hirianthial walked toward the residential areas, where shops and services would be interspersed with smaller gardens and restaurants. As he entered the more populated areas he spotted several of the stranger species among the first and second generation engineered races that composed most of the Alliance: here and there a Phoenix like Reese’s engineer, trailing metallic feathers on the ground, or one of the great horned Akubi, head ducked to talk to smaller companions. For the most part the crowd was Pelted: humanoid but with the marks of the animals from which they’d been designed, fox and feline, wolf and any number of other influences. He’d found occasional humor in the realization that humanity had spawned more than one prodigal child in the galaxy. The Pelted had run away and eventually invited their parents to join them.

The Eldritch hadn’t even told their parents they were related.

No doubt people wondered as they did about every species that looked suspiciously like humanity, but no Eldritch would ever confirm such a rumor. It was part of the Veil, the same Veil that drove Hirianthial to the high-security facilities closer to the short-term hotels for the well-heeled. He paid the solemn man at the silver gate enough to feed Reese’s crew for a week and passed into the intimately lit foyer that led to several dark chambers. His was number six. He walked in, closed the door and checked the seal; he didn’t have the tools for more a sophisticated check and would have to trust his coin had bought him privacy.

It hadn’t bought him a Riggins-encrypted stream, but he laid out the money for one on the outgoing call and waited as it went through its complex security routines on the way to the Queen. He wondered what time it was at home.

Delairenenard answered the call in formal midnight blue dinner coat sparkling with silver embroidery; as always he was the picture of poise, his face smooth of any emotion despite how long it had been since Hirianthial had been seen or heard from on the homeworld. “My lord Hirianthial! How good to see you.”

“Chancellor,” Hirianthial said. “I regret interrupting your supper. May I have the Queen’s ear?”

“A moment, if you would. I shall inform her of your call.”

Not just a formal dinner, but one with enemies, then. If she’d been dining with allies Delairenenard would have promised her presence. Hirianthial wondered how much more knotted the political situation had become in his absence. It had never much interested him despite the influence bequeathed by his inheritance, but it had been hard to avoid the consequences of the poor decisions made by successive generations of Eldritch. Halting the decline of their species was the Queen’s priority, but all the solutions she’d suggested had not been well received by a species deeply in love with its own cultural pride. He had not envied her the resulting mess.