Harsh Oases (15 page)

Sorrel winced. “Deva, Klom! I have to kiss those lips once in a while!”

Looking down at his flaking hand, Klom said, “But Sorrel, we know this cruft’s not contagious. The curandero said so. Once it finds a host, it stops looking for others. It’s worked its way right into me, though, adopting lots of my genes into itself. That’s what makes it so hard to get rid of.”

“That’s no matter. I still prefer not to have those patches rubbed all over me, or to come in contact with certain parts of you. You’re just lucky the cruft stopped at your waist.”

Klom smiled dreamily. “Tonight we’ll doublecheck its progress.”

Sorrel stuck out her vividly pink tongue. “If you can spare a minute for me, now that you’ve got a new friend. Or if there’s a centimeter of space left in your crib.”

Klom looked down at his feet.

The creature from the
Caution Discharge Zone
lay peacefully sleeping, one forepaw folded over the other beneath its chin. Drool snailed down the side of its face to darken the dirt. Its unlabored breathing gently rasped the stale air within the shebeen.

Reaching down, Klom fondly skritched the beast’s scalp around its fleshy forklike appendage. The rhythm of the creature’s breathing deepened in a contented fashion. “Use his name, Sorrel, please. You know I gave him a name. Call him Tugger, please.”

“Tugger! Ridiculous! Why ‘Tugger’ anyhow?”

“I found out he likes to play that way. You should see him pull on a rope. He can put up a real tussle.”

“And why ‘he’?” I certainly didn’t see any ballocks on him when you trotted him around for everyone to admire.”

“I don’t know. I just feel Tugger’s male.”

Sorrel waved her arms about in frustration. “I give up! You get first crack at a potential treasure trove, and all you come away with is an ugly pet! This is so typical for you, Klom. You’re just too dumb to grab the main chance, even when it’s right under your nose.”

Klom looked hurt. “There was nothing valuable in that decommissioned area, Sorrel. At least as far as I looked. But I stopped when I found Tugger. I had to get him out of there. The atmosphere was bad for him. And he perked up right away once we were outside in the fresh air. But I shared the money from the crystal eggs with you, didn’t I? Ten taka and sixty pasia. That’s something, isn’t it?”

“Birdscratch! Someone with your experience should be hauling in much more. Tomorrow, I expect you to pick another decommissioned area and make a big strike!”

“But I already found something very valuable, Sorrel. Tugger! Just look at him. What a character! He makes me smile, just like Airey does. Who could ask for anything more? Anyway, I figure if I concentrate on ripping out the old Vixen equipment like everyone else, I can make a steadier pay. No, I’m not going back to any of the decommissioned areas. The odds are too slim.”

“What’s this, what’s this? Abandoning my advice! I’m hurt! Truly I am!”

Airey dropped down onto an empty ladderback chair. He wore a shirt that proclaimed with glowing threads support for his favorite ball team, the Alavoine Tumblers. His bronze face was slicked with sweat, rendering his mustache a limp strip of furze. Even hours after Final Sunset, the air retained a surplus of enervating heat.

Signaling to Thrash for a drink, Airey resumed his chiding. “So, you’re letting one little setback discourage you, Klom? I had thought much higher of you.”

“Setback? What setback?”

Airey dug a toe of his sandal into Tugger’s side, provoking a mild grunt and a shifting away by the beast. “This worthless thing! Now you have another mouth to feed. Have you considered that?”

Klom remained positive. “I can’t get Tugger to eat anything yet. All he does is drink a little water. And he seems to do that just to please me. He just doesn’t seem to be hungry. And even when he does decide to eat, I’m sure I can get plenty of scraps from Kirsh, over in Kitchen Number Twelve.”

Thrash lumbered over, carrying Airey’s mug and a plate of fried salicomia and quom nuggets. “Snack’s on the house,” growled Thrash. “Your pet’s brought in extra trade tonight.”

“Thank you, Thrash.”

Klom picked up a nugget and held it under Tugger’s nose. Sniffing without opening his eyes, Tugger made a polite refusal by lifting his paws to cover his face.

“See? He’s not greedy or any trouble at all. Tugger only brings happiness and good luck.”

Exasperated, Airey blew air rudely past his fluttering lips. “I give up. Sorrel, can you convince him to abandon this worthless foundling and get back to some fruitful exploration of—what did you say the ship’s name was?”

“
Caution Discharge Zone.
”

“Hmm, a queer appellation. Well, Sorrel, go ahead. Lay your best arguments on our mighty yet stubborn friend.”

Sorrel popped a nugget into her mouth. “Forget it, Airey. I’m sick of cajoling this idiot. It’s like trying to teach a Tonshuan warthog to sing.”

Airey pinched the corner of his mouth and rubbed a finger across his mustache. “Are we entirely certain this beast isn’t valuable? After all, someone went to all the trouble of placing him in a suspensor-sac, however long ago. Klom, exactly what did our mighty overlord say when he inspected, ah, Tugger? And are you sure it was really him?”

Klom recalled.

At the foot of the ladder, Klom had exited the shaft and retrieved his sledge. He loaded Tugger onto it The creature was alert, but still obviously weak and unsure from its long estivation. Klom had rested for a few minutes, refreshing himself with more water and cake, before setting out for the main port.

Out in the fresh air, Tugger visibly quickened. Rapaille, busy processing materials through the matter-modem, did not at first notice Klom and his living find. When he became aware of the rare discovery, Rapaille squawked with excitement and summoned one of his supervisors over his communicator. Harshly, the Quetzal pushed Klom aside and bent over Tugger.

“Please forgive the rude treatment you’ve received at the hands of this worthless drone, kindly sapient. You will soon be in touch with others of your kind, who will doubtlessly be overjoyed to know of your continued existence, and ready with a handsome reward.”

In reply, Tugger laved Rapaille s face with his broad tongue.

“I don’t think this one places so high on the sapient scale, Rapaille.”

“Nonsense! Plainly an advanced being.” Yet for all his blustering certainty, Rapaille regarded Tugger with a veneer of suspicion.

A personal lifter arrowed toward them in response to Rapaille’s summoning. When it reached them, both Rapaille and Klom stared in disbelief.

The vessel held not a mere supervisor, but Bright Tide Rising himself. A sixstrand, the lanky Horseface was attended by a shimmering corona of majestatics that nearly concealed his head, yet remained recognizable by his strangely articulated build and various family sigils worn as a gorget. Rapaille dropped to his knees and bowed. Klom remained standing.

Without consulting either Rapaille or Klom, Bright Tide Rising directed a portion of his swarm to engulf Tugger. After a swift examination, the units reunited with their peers. Pausing an unnaturally long time, the owner of the Aspema Yard finally delivered his verdict in a rumbling voice.

“Minimal sentience. Germline not on record. No talents, no adjuncts, no discernible worth. Dispose of the creature as you see fit.”

As soon as Bright Tide Rising left, Rapaille berated Klom for twenty minutes for wasting the time of both himself and their ultimate patron. Klom absorbed the tirade placidly, then announced he was ending his shift early and returning to shore on the next transport. This news elicited further incoherent screeches from the Quetzal.

Now Klom repeated the Yard owner’s assessment to Airey. The words seemed to deflate the slight, capricious fellow, but he soon regained his usual jovial air.

“Oh, well, there are months of salvage ahead. You’ll hit the mother lode yet, Klom, I’m sure.”

“Thank you, Airey.”

The trio passed a few more hours drinking and chatting, eating and joking. Numerous individuals came over to examine Tugger. Klom felt proud.

At last, in the face of another workday, their beds beckoned.

Once outside, Sorrel stumbled in the near-lightless mucky path leading away from Thrash’s, but Klom caught her before she could land in a patch of redolent luminous vomit, seething with intestinal symbionts. Tugger trotted along fastidiously behind. The dank air weighed like a blanket

“Sorrel?”

“Uh, what—?”

“When did you ever taste Tancredi nectar?”

“One night, Jess—Jess Badura—he and me—you were sleeping—”

“Oh.”

Sorrel stopped and hung with both hands from Klom’s bicep. “You’re not mad, are you, Klom?”

“No. I just like to learn things.”

Three months into its disassembly, the
Caution Discharge Zone
appeared, from the outside, relatively unscathed. Here and there across its convoluted carcass, new holes gaped, broken open to facilitate the removal of the ship’s guts when the nearest port was inconveniently distant and a matter-modem could not be maneuvered inside. Cormorants and kingfishers wheeled above the Vixen starliner, colonies roosting in selected niches and staining the slopes with their guano. A line of goose-bamacles had formed just below the high-water mark; at low tide, the exposed barnacles craned their mouthparts around on long necks, questing for the gnats that swarmed above the waters, the gnats in their turn attracted by the floating mats of seaweed that now trailed outward from the hull.

At a definite point in the near future, the
Caution Discharge Zone
would be reduced to an empty shell no taller than the line of barnacles, all its superstructure dismantled. At this point breakers skilled in underwater work would cut up the remaining shell and float the pieces away. The ship that had sailed the starwinds for an eon would be no more.

But right now, much still remained to be taken from inside.

Klom and Tugger arrived with the rest of their crew and marshaled outside the assigned entryway. Rapaille paid no notice to the oddball pair: a marked contrast to the first day Klom had shown up for work with his pet.

Fixing his hard eyes on Tugger, Rapaille had demanded, “Klom! What’s the meaning of this pointless complication of your duties? Why is this worthless mass of protoplasm not already ground up into raw chuck for Kitchen Twelve?”

Klom did not exhibit any anger. But something in his voice made Rapaille flinch. “Tugger is my friend. No one hurts my friends.”

Rapaille retreated. “All right then. But why not leave the beast in your crib?”

“There are too many bad people in the bustee. Someone might break into my crib and try to steal Tugger. Maybe even harm him. He doesn’t know when people plan to do him harm. And he’s too gentle to defend himself. I need to keep him by me all the time.”

Realizing when he was beaten, Rapaille angrily said, “Let the consequences of your soft-hearted stupidity be on your own head then! Tending to this monster will slow you down, and you’ll soon be lying in a ditch with the Dungbeetles, begging paisa off the smart and sensible breakers who go about their work with vim and efficiency.”

Klom made no reply, but simply marched inside the ship. Before they separated, Nyerephar and several other fellows congratulated him for standing up to Rapaille. Tugger came in for his share of the good will as well, accepting much petting and rib-thumping and shaking of his vestigial shoulder-hands.

Today, Klom and Tugger received no extra attention from anyone, so standard a part of the scene were they.

Half an hour’s trudge through ravaged corridors and chambers, naves and apses, full of dangling cables and wires and sliced-open sheathing brought Klom and Tugger alone to the room where the breaker had left off work yesterday. The room was empty of furnishings, and only a scatter of devalued triptix littered the floor. The small personal data-palettes which had once carried routing instructions, dietary requirements, letters of introduction, shipboard credit-debit records, medical histories and other information needed by interstellar travelers now constituted nothing more significant than a drift of dead leaves.

One entire wall of this room presented a matrix of small doors inset with clear panels. Each door opened onto a long slim padded capsule plainly intended as a sleeping tube for members of some vaguely serpentine species. Each tube had to be disengaged from the matrix and stacked on the sledge. In one corner of the room squatted a large matter-modem. This deactivated cube, part of the intraship goods-transport system, presented no mirror face.

Klom fell to work, his head lamp casting all the illumination he needed. Tugger lay down peacefully on the hard floor and fell asleep. The puddle of drool spreading from his jowls caught glimmers from Klom’s headlamp now and again.

In the three months Klom had owned his new pet, the man and beast had become inseparable, even off-duty. Sorrel had come grudgingly to accept the new arrangement, while Airey simply disdained to pay any more attention to Tugger than he would have given to a familiar rug or table.

Several hours of hard work with spanner and snipper and prybar resulted in a sledge piled high with tubes. Klom must run these back to an active matter-modem before he could continue. But first he paused to refresh himself.