“I’ve got a better idea,” said Julie. “My sister’s a passenger ship. She’s in drydock right now, and hasn’t been booked for the next month. She can take your crew back to… to wherever the hell you come from, and then nobody will bother us by sending out more ships to find and rescue them.”
“Sounds good to me,” replied Romeo.
“Sounds good to me, too,” replied Lance Sterling.
“You don’t count,” said Romeo. “But I’m glad you agree anyway. So, Julie, when and where do I meet her and transfer the crew?”
“Just hold your position. I’ll contact her and she’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“She got a name?” asked Romeo.
“You couldn’t pronounce it,” answered Julie. “But it translates as Rachel.”
And fifteen minutes later the entire crew was heading back to Earth. Our adventure was over, and so was my story, and all I had to do to make it a best-selling classic was to find a way to tie it into Moby-Dick’s closing line about the Rachel searching for her missing children but finding only another orphan.
Actually, these things have a way of working out. Rachel had always wanted to see Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London, if only from above, so she dropped us off in England and promised to come back for those of us who had wanted to be deposited on some other planet as soon as she had another unscheduled month.
Lance Sterling decided to run for office (which eluded him) and I think Conan Kinnison joined a high-powered brokerage house until he was caught with his hand in the till. (Actually, both hands and maybe even a foot, as I understood it.) Others went other places.
Me, I was drawn to the sleaziest area of the city, developed a strong Cockney accent (which saved a lot of time, since I never had to begin a word with a W again), and began making up for all the lost time I spend in the space service by frequenting a different brothel every morning and every night for the next two years. Those few crew members who weren’t serving time in various local jails had dispersed all around the globe. Only I remained free and in London. And when the Rachel finally returned, looking for her lost children in and around the red light district, all she found was another ’ore fan.
Acting Private Tantas Jackson
Deborah Walker
Him should never have come to this planet. That fact tasty as gravy. Acting Private Tantas Jackson leant against the trench wall and scanned the plain. To the north, the empty glass-rock houses of Capital gleamed in the light of Osiris. To the south, stood Lyceum's landing bay. That was what them needed to protect.
Tantas' thoughts ran in a loop through his grey mind. How him going to survive? His mouth was dry with it. His blood was pounding with it. How him going to get out of this alive? And the others, too, Map and the three women, Joy and Barns and Trigger. You formed bonds. Him liked the rest of his quint well enough. Him wanted them to survive the battle, too.
But most of all it all about him.
Him crouched down in the trench when the makeshift door swung open. Private Joy stood, grinning in the doorway. Black and hard and lean. Her no amateur solider.
“You the one scared man,” said Joy. Her squatted down besides Tantas. “Ain't no need for it.”
Tantas laughed, harsh maybe 'shamed. “It shows so badly, Joy?”
“The fear is leaking out of you.” Joy reached into the overlapping metal scales of her body suit for a flask of 'shine. Her took a swallow and then passed it over.
Tantas took the drink, felt that liquid doing him good all the way down. “Do you know the Greek myth, Joy? About Deimus and Phobus? I've been thinking about them.”
“I knows them, Wordsworth. Deimus and Phobus ride across the battle field. Deimus, the god of dread and terror. Phobus, the god of panic and fear. I always did like the classics. Though I never understood them gods. Why do you need gods of fear and panic? Nobody's going to pray to them, excepting someone really screwed up. You that screwed up, Wordsworth?”
“Yes. Maybe I am, Joy. Can't seem to stop thinking about them.”
Joy nodded. “That'll be the poet in you. Well, ain't nothing in those old stories that's new to me.” Joy let out a long sigh, before saying. “You know who I see?”
“Who?”
“I see the Moirae, dressed in their white robes.”
“You believe in the fates, Joy?”
“Yes. Them Moirae. Them apportioners, Clotho, Lachesis and mainly Atropos. Her busy sharpening her shears. Ready to snip the threads.”
“You believed it's all ordained?” Yes. That could be comforting, Tantas supposed.
“I believe in lots of things, Wordsworth. Might be a lot of other gods stalking the battle field, yeah? Maybe them hivers, them believing in gods all their own.” Joy stepped to the trench wall and stared over it. “Might not even be room for us, with all them gods.”
“I see them,” said Tantas. “Not literally, but I can sense them.”
“You be a poet. That's your job, to see them others things. Then you write them down in pretty, pretty language, and make lots of money.” Joy winked. “Now, don't be forgetting to give my cut, when you're rich. Me being your muse and all.”
Fearing Joy might be making a mock of him, Tantas said, “Why did you come out talk to me, Joy?”
“When does a woman need an excuse to talk to a man? Beside, you're making me laugh, pretty boy. All on your lonesome and shaking with fear. Come inside and get some food with us.”
“No. I want to be alone with my thoughts.”
“Please yourself, Wordsworth. You'd be better inside, but sure I can't be telling you anything.”
“Thanks, Joy.”
“Any time, white boy.” Her smiled. “I just hope we see the Queen.” Her obsessed with the Queen. Although nobody knew where she was holed up — excepting the hivers.
“I don't know, Joy. Wouldn't make sense for her to come to the battlefield. She'll just send her soldiers.”
“Maybe. But a woman can hope.”
Joy went inside. Tantas' thoughts crowded back into his head. Him should have gone inside with Joy, but him had too much thinking to do. After today, him might be dead. Any thinking that needed doing, needed doing quick.
Could him shoot a hiver? Kill someone? Him the ultimate rubbish solider. You should have men and women for this, trained and polished, minds worn smooth with courage. Or maybe soldiers with better hearts than Tantas. How could you be a poet one day and a solider the next? Just couldn't be done. It nonsense. Help me, him prayed. Who him praying to? Maybe he was praying to Deimus and Phobus. Not a heap of sense in that.
Him thought about Joy and the rest of his quint. Camaraderie was just smoke, to fool the mind in these dog-dry days with Osiris riding high, bleeding heat. This was the last stand to prevent the hivers accessing the landing bay. If the hivers got through, the war was just about over. Because any reinforcements would be slaughtered as them landed.
Reinforcements were coming. Them had to be. Reinforcements were coming from the military base at Primateur, four months away. Them got the message. It couldn't be like this everywhere.
Him peered over the trench wall. Maybe him the first to see them, flagged as red dots on his helmet's internal screen. “They're coming, Sergeant,” his voice whispered electronically along the trenches.
“Acknowledged.”
A battalion-wide alert flashed orange in front of Tantas' eyes. The trenches came alive. Joy roiling out of the room, breathing heavy, head nodding. The rest of the quint emerging, struggling into suits, lining into position.