“Cloth, maybe,” she snapped. “Space suit scrap, something tough, carbon-lump but not vapor. Not good in engine, not good in deep space. Lucky you that nothing did go fiery on you!”
She was familiar enough with human expressions by now, thanks to Red, to recognize embarrassment and relief when she saw it. They muttered thanks, and Ferret, who had never yet mastered the human art of bargaining, let Red handle the details of payment: so much to Mech Central, so much as his and her bonus. Red, finished, knowing his partner, put an arm around her shoulders to start her walking. But she couldn’t resist a parting shot over her shoulder.
“Think you not that mistake make again, okay? Good.”
“A hundred mechs in service,” Red muttered, “and I had to get stuck with Mom.”
“Heh. Not minding funny stuff. Such as you. But, yeek, time wasting.”
They headed down one of the station’s narrow, no-frills off-white corridors. There was transit throughout the station, but transit cost credits. Besides, they’d been working here long enough to know all the quickest ways from one module to another. Red and Ferret cut through the cargo module, avoiding a robot cart heading the other way on its air cushion, then casually taking a shortcut through the zero-G cargo zone, kicking off from one side, steering with the skill of experience, and exiting just as casually back in the next artificial gravity module, just a short walk from Mech Central.
“Bet we got another job, yes?” Ferret said, shaking her fur back into place.
Red ran a hand through his wildly ruffled hair, marginally smoothing it. “With so much traffic coming in? No bet there. Want to wager me which is the next species in trouble?”
She curled up her lips in a grin. “Want to have to clean my quarters again?”
Red dodged under a low-slung pipe. “Hey, you got lucky!”
“A human partner? That is luck?”
“A hundred mechs,” Red repeated, grinning as well, “and I got stuck with a ferret.”
“Big laughs. You think you could have wriggled into that engine tubing and not gotten stuck?”
“Yeah, well, never mind that. Let’s go check in and see what they’ve got.”
Ferret stifled a sigh and followed her partner. One thing about Red, when he worked, he worked. Not lazy, like some humans. More like her people.
That thought made her stifle another sigh. Her people usually were more, well, groomed, She really, really would have rather stopped at the nearest sonic shower to get the sweat out of her fur, maybe get something nice to drink, too. But the station mechs worked on commission and bonuses, so the more jobs, the better. Money to send home, earn a nice place in status-ranking. Red was sending money to Earth-home, too, she knew.
Good people, us.
But did Red have to be so cursed cheerful about it?
Red was still cheerful as they came to the separate module that was Mech Central. He and Ferret duly entered their license numbers, waited for their retinal scans, and were greeted by the computer’s dispassionate male voice, “Live long and prosper.”
Some human tech with too much free time, Red had once told Ferret, had reprogrammed the computer to sound like a character from an ancient Earth entertainment.
“Job listings, current,” Red told it.
“Searching… current listings. One urgent. Ateil ship requests minor adjustment to freighter.”
“Ateil!” Red snapped, all good humor gone in an instant.
“That is accurate.”
“Never mind accurate. Find us something else.”
“Red,” Ferret whispered, “what—”
He waved her to silence. “Don’t confuse the computer.”
“Searching… current listings. One urgent—”
“You gave us that already! Computer, damnit, find a new listing.”
“It is illogical to damn a computer.”
“Just find a new listing, okay?”
“Searching… current listing. There are no new listings. Do you wish to refuse this assignment?”
Ferret ducked under her partner’s arm, took one look at the screen and the fee being offered, and snapped, “We accept!”
“Ferret!”
“Assignment accepted,” the computer cut in.
“Damnit, Ferret—”
“Live long and prosper,” the computer said, and shut off contact.
“Come,” Ferret said to Red, clamping down on his arm with a hand. “Talk, now!”
She couldn’t have actually dragged him along, but Red followed her out into the station without resistance. “Ateil!” he said. “Damn it to hell, Ateil!”
“We both saw. That was the only job needed. Nice money. Too nice to turn down!”
“I don’t care what—”
“We refuse job, bad look on record. Also some other mech take it instead. You can refuse money, heh? You have some secret nest-cache?”
“Ferret, stop it.”
“Not knowing species, Ateil. Why this fury?”
Red took a deep breath. “They’re Birds,” he began. “Hell, I mean they’re what humans call avian sapiens.”
“So?”
“So, that’s not the point. The point is, they hate humans. Say that we’re inferior.”
Ferret blinked, puzzled. “Their problem, not ours, yes? This explains nothing. Why the rage, Red?”
He shrugged angrily and started to walk off, but Ferret slipped past him in the narrow corridor and twisted about to confront him again.
“Damnit, Ferret—”
“Come, tell.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“No? Together we work, and needing to know your emotions are not causing danger to me or you.”
“You know better than that. I don’t endanger a partner.”
“Yes? Then together we have worked long enough for trust.”
Red said something fierce under his breath. “Okay, if it’ll get you off my back.”
“Huh?”
“Okay, okay. I wasn’t always a station mech, you know that.”
“Yes. More than that, no.”
“Worked on a freighter, nothing fancy. But we got along, the crew and I. In fact, I’d say we were all pretty good friends, and I was able to fix pretty much anything that went wrong with the ship. Almost anything. We were a bare bones operation, like the guys we saw today.”
“Something went too much wrong.”
“Yeah. Too much. There was an Ateil sip within reach, so we sent them a distress call. They ignored us.”
Ferret straightened. “Not possible! Against all interstellar law! Maybe the communication did not—”
“It went through, all right. They got it. They just didn’t want to be bothered with inferiors.”
“Red, not proved!”
“Like hell it’s not! I heard them say something about ‘inferors’ just before the com went down, I swear it. Ferret, we lost more than half the crew before I could cobble something together to get us into a station. More than half of my friends! All because we were too inferior to be helped.”
Ferret let out her breath in a soft hiss. How much of what Red said was truth, and how much what a human, confused and frantic in the middle of deadly chaos, had thought was truth? “Red,” she began carefully. “That was space—years back, yes? Ek, wait. Nothing can change past harm. But is living well, what, old Earth saying?”
Red snorted. “‘Living well’s the best revenge,’ you mean?”
“Is so! Money offered us is good, I say again. Ateil not recognize you, you not know them, so we hurt Ateil in money-place, then drink to lost friends.”
He grunted.
“Yes?” Ferret prodded. “Ateil said minor adjustment to freighter. So faster done, faster gone.”