Misfits (2 page)

To hear Jack talk, which was difficult to
avoid, he was personally responsible for the upkeep of the station
and all its systems. How he could manage this while also being
present at people's elbows during breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack,
and "canteen cocktails" was hard to imagine. Still, the phrase,
"Guess we'd better ask Jack," was said often enough to lend
credence to his claims of technical omnipotence.

"Ichliad Brunner to Storage Bay Three! Code
Eleven."

Well, he thought, picking up his tray,
someone was impatient. And Code Eleven, forsooth! He was expecting
no visitors, save the Phaetera company rep, whose existence he was
coming to doubt. And when had the Scout designated himself as a
mere "visitor"?

He deposited the tray, his thoughts again on
the problem of the weather patterns below them. So much
unexplained, so much seeming impossible. But there--explanations
must exist, revealing what seemed impossible to be merely
improbable. That was the hope. It was the reason he was here, and
why the station was here. Klamath, in its eccentricities, might
well demonstrate a key that could unlock the weather patterns of a
thousand worlds.

* * *

Storage Bay Three was the area reserved for
the Scout when he made his frequent and largely unscheduled
appearances. What the Scout did when he wasn't on station Brunner
neither knew nor cared. When the Scout was on station he dipped his
fingers into everything, always asking questions, always being very
busy, almost always being annoying, and most often doing all of
that in the company of Jack and his clanking tool belts.

Brunner entered the access hall to Storage
Bay Three at his usual brisk pace, ignoring the urge to hurry
prompted by yet another iteration of the demand for his appearance.
This summons was a disruption of his work, his thought, and his
schedule. He was obeying it--gods forefend that he bring the Scout
down upon his work area!--but he would not be goaded into rushing.
At least he was not like those who let their names echo through the
station for a half-shift.

Ahead, the bay doors were wide open,
revealing people, voices, uniforms--and Jack. For a wonder Jack was
standing quiet as the Scout and a tall Terran woman dressed in a
military uniform peered at something hidden by his bulk.

"Won't be a cause for trouble, then, for
you? I mean political trouble. I don't think these--…" That was the
tall woman.

Jack saw Brunner, and Brunner saw the small
hand-sign he made to the Scout, one of those pilots and Scouts used
to communicate in noisy or distracting environments. Brunner
thought of the sign as, "Attend, one approaches," but he had never
been formally trained in hand-talk, something he greatly regretted.
He might have been taught--would have been taught!--had his delm
allowed the Scouts to buy his contract when he had been at the
Scout Academy's meteorology school. Alas, by the time the offer was
made, he had been under contract to the technical services company
Phaetera, who had paid for his advanced training.

The Scout turned, bowed a polite if minimal
bow of equal recognition, close enough to a Terran nod as to be
indistinguishable except by one raised in an exacting house. "Tech
Brunner."

Brunner returned the bow as precisely as
possible. Really, it was saying too much for the Scout's clan to
concede equality, but perhaps the Scout himself was acknowledging
Brunner's Scout training. If that were so, then he was actually
summoned here for some purpose having to do with his work, rather
than to engage in yet another rambling conversation regarding the
"news" from the planet surface. Brunner knew Scouts--and, alas,
this particular Scout--well enough to understand that those
conversations were not as pointless as they seemed, though he was
neither sufficiently subtle nor demented to comprehend their
purpose.

"Meteorologist Ichliad Brunner Clan Lysta,"
the Scout said now, speaking Trade tongue in deference to mixed
company. "Allow me to make you known to Commander Liz Lizardi, of
Lizardi's Lunatics."

"Commander," said Brunner, giving what was
perhaps too curt a bow to someone of rank, but as she was both
Terran and a mercenary, he doubted that she would--…

Or perhaps, he thought, he had made too
hasty a judgment regarding a mere mercenary's understanding of
nuance. The commander returned a bow the mirror image of his own,
her face studiously blank.

"Meteorologist," she said, and then, after a
very quick scan for signs of rank, including a glance at his hands
to see if he wore rings, she added, "Contractor, are you,
Brunner?"

"Indeed," he agreed, giving her the fuller
bow she had earned. "Like yourself, I assume."

She smiled slightly. "Yes, but not for your
boss, I assure you."

"I thought it best to bring you together,"
the Scout suggested firmly before either raised the conversational
stakes again, "so that we might all gain advantage from an awkward
situation. The commander is bringing her forces into the fray on
the side of the Chilongan government. She is in need of accurate
weather prediction--and is willing to supply someone to carry
special equipment and give reports."‚

"Special equipment? I have no equipment to
loan--…" began Brunner--and stopped at Jack's low-key hand
motion.

Six paces to the big man's right, a backpack
stood on its rack. A red-headed Liaden youth--as much of an oddity
on the station as Brunner himself--in combat dress was examining
the pack minutely.

"Tech Brunner," the Scout said. "You will of
course be familiar with the commercial version of this Stubbs
MicroRanger from your training." He used his chin to point at the
backpack. "The Scouts will supply this unit on loan to the station,
if, in your professional opinion, it will be useful to your work.
The station may then lend-lease the unit to Klamath--or to someone
representing the legitimate government of Klamath. There is--…
melant'i at work--… in that direction."

Brunner eyed the offered weather machine.
The redheaded soldier was bent close, hands prudently behind her
back, winged brows pulled together into a frown. "This is no
commercial unit, Scout."

"Indeed. In comparison to the commercial
Stubbs--… This one is quite a bit more powerful, and has some
additional useful features--we will of course supply the manual.
Among the upgrades is the ability to transmit very long distances.
It may also be set to do precision positioning and multi-remote
queries on its own and to act as relay. Is this capability worth
the risk to equipment which costs on the order of a dozen cantra to
put in place?"

"Worth how much? Maybelle's beard! And I'm
supposed to just lug this around in an active zone?"

Startled, Brunner looked back to the
apparent halfling who'd been studying the Stubbs.

As Liaden as she appeared, the language she
spoke was Terran and the accent was--backworld, at best.

"That's not your problem--…" began the
commander but the halfling rushed on:

"Liz, this thing could buy Surebleak with
change left over, couldn't it? Didn't you say you can buy a ship
for--…"

The Scout laughed out loud, and cocked an
eyebrow at the tall Terran at his side.

"I see you have found us willing transport,
Commander."

She snorted, made a vague waving motion
toward the young soldier.

"Put it on, then we'll see if you've got a
worry, right, Corporal?"

The soldier's face was very unLiaden in its
mobility and willingness to display emotion. The expression of the
moment, if Brunner read it aright, was a cross between disdain and
awe.

"That an order?" she asked warily. "I can't
much afford to pay this back if I drop it wrong--…"

"Order," confirmed the commander, though not
as sharply as she might have done. "Now, Redhead."

"Yes'm." The soldier bent to the pack.

"The question remains, Tech." The Scout's
voice drew Brunner's attention. "Is it worth the risk to the
equipment to have the corporal carry it in what she properly names
an active zone?"

Brunner sighed, shoulders rising in one of
the all-encompassing shrugs that formed a great part of station
lingua.

"You wish to argue philosophy, Scout?
Equipment is to be used in the pursuit of information. This station
exists to gather what information we can regarding the unique
events upon the planet's surface."

Jack snorted. "See, I told you! Sure he
wants the Stubbs onworld. You want the Stubbs onworld. The
commander here, she wants the Stubbs onworld--…"

"Hey, it ain't that heavy, really, is
it?"

The discussion stopped as all eyes focused
on the corporal and her burden. She stood as tall as she could,
which was not very, and extremely straight, which was--… admirable,
given what she was wearing on her back. The unit's stand was still
deployed, and she casually flipped a trip-switch on her left side,
retracting it. Reaching to another switch, she said, "This one,
right? The antenna?"

The Scout nodded. "But not here. The unit
will begin transmitting on antenna deployment and I suspect it
would give a jolt to the local receivers at this range, even if all
it does is protest the lack of its key."

The corporal grinned and gave a half-salute,
with a cheery, "Yes, sir!" She moved her shoulders against the rig
and strode away at a good clip, as if testing new boots. Out the
door she went, down the corridor a dozen steps, then a quick circle
back.

Brunner watched the girl-soldier with some
discomfort. Certainly, she was young; at a guess, several years
younger than he, and--solely in his opinion--far too young to be at
war. But there, the planetary news source most usually available to
the station insisted that the "free-breeders" routinely armed
children younger than ten Standards. What the news source did not
make plain was if those children were armed defensively, or
offensively.

"Security," said the Scout, talking either
to the room at large or to the commander, "simply means
acknowledging that we have a mobile unit on the surface. We can
have no secrets about this: all we are doing is making sure that
the planet below gets the kind of meteorological coverage it
deserves. Given the interconnectedness of all things, weather
belongs to the whole world. And the weather where you are bound, my
friend--can teach us something, I'm sure."

The Scout looked to him--a request for
agreement, perhaps, or a reminder of his question?

"Yes," Brunner murmured, directing his reply
to both Scout and commander. "Yes, if this item is in my inventory,
it needs to be used if possible."

There. It was said. And there was another
thing that needed, yet, to be said.

He turned to directly face Commander Liz
Lizardi, and bowed slightly, promising an accurate account of a
problematic situation. "Understand that our channels are sometimes
monitored.… Someone on the surface is searching for weather units,
and destroying them. I have no doubt that by carrying such a device
you will make your force--… it could attract the attention of those
you may not be sided with."

She smiled, did the commander and gave a
casual salute, as if acknowledging the intent of his bow.

"Comes with the territory, sir. We're going
down there to straighten out a mess; happens the folks on the other
side might not appreciate us much, with or without your piece of
equipment. Weather's a big issue down there--almost another army,
by what I've seen of the records. If that machine lets me know what
I've got headed my way--well, sir, it's worth the risk, from where
I stand."

Brunner inclined his head, accepting her
summation.

"In that case, I am in favor of going
forward. I require the person who is to carry the unit have some
formal training beyond, ‘If you push this, the machine will work.'…
But I myself will need to read the manuals, as this is not the
machine I was trained on."

"You would, huh? Well, me too." She looked
at the Scout, but it was Jack who answered.

"We can hold the docking hub for you for two
orbits, Liz. More'n that, it'd look like we're taking sides--"

"Understood." She made what might have been
a gesture of dismissal-- or a call to action, and raised her
voice.

"Redhead! Front and center!"

* * *

Tech Brunner, the guy who was going to teach
her how to use the weather rig, was short--not dumpy, just small
and skinny, kinda like her--maybe shy, or maybe just nervous. Hard
to tell how old he was--didn't she know how easy it was to suppose
years off somebody just 'cause they were short and small? His face
was smooth, except for some strain-lines around his eyes and his
mouth, like he spent too much time in front of his screens, looking
at things that didn't make him happy. His hair was what they called
"ditchwater blond" back home, not showing any gray; and his eyes
were real dark brown, like high-grade chocolate. He had a good
voice, firm and cool, and an accent that made it sound almost like
he was singing.

He didn't have any service marks on his
sleeves; his uniform was basically just ship clothes: a shirt with
his name above the pocket, slacks with a name on the left rear
pocket, no hatch marks. The shirt did have a cloud with
lightning-bolt on the pocket, just under his name--she guessed that
was maybe a company or team logo, and didn't help at all with
guessing how old he might be.

He amused Liz for some reason, and she held
him back to walk with her and her friend the Scout, waving Redhead
and the weather rig on ahead. That didn't mean she was lonely,
though, 'cause the big guy--Jack, his name was--tugged right along
beside her, hauling what must have been the rig's shipping crate,
and pointing her the way.

Behind, the talk was half in what Redhead
supposed was Liaden, half in Trade and prolly half in hand-talk,
too, but that didn't bounce off the walls, so she couldn't be sure.
The whole situation was odd-shaped; off-center and full of
politics, in Redhead's opinion. She'd gotten pretty used to odd
since leaving Surebleak, even if the politics sometimes escaped
her. Being close 'round Liz maybe more than most new soldiers meant
she got to watch some of the inner stuff going down, though she
didn't savvy all of it.