Ragamuffin (30 page)

“We choose how this conversation flies on, not you,” the pilot said after a long pause.

John would bet anything by the way it waited so long before each sentence that something, somewhere in orbit, was whispering translations into the pilot’s head. He had someone else in on the conversation. And that suggested that translators were in short supply.

Pepper had chosen his prey well.

“That’s true, but have you looked at the DNA of the specimen I carried with me?” John leaned forward. The hologram over the pilot’s belly fluttered slightly. Loss of concentration on its part?

It hissed at him. John felt something flicker in the back of his mind. The Teotl was testing to see if his personal implants could be hacked. His navigation
senses tapped directly into the cortex. They could have themselves a zombie to play with.

If they were good enough. John’s ability to tie into lamina had been hand-rolled by Nanagadans in orbit; it was unfamiliar enough that the Teotl should have trouble. The Teotl, much to everyone’s amazement, used the same protocols for mind-computer interfaces as the Gahe, and Maatan. It seemed as if a standard piece of technology got passed around. And only the humans were usually obstinate enough to try to reinvent the wheel.

“So you know we have a valuable resource of yours.” John ignored the chills going up and down his spine, the tiny tremors.

“Yes. Does it remain alive?”

“Yes.”

More waiting. “What is your price?”

“We want you to repair a ship of our own.”

“It will be considered.”

“Thank you.” John folded his arms and stared straight ahead. The attempts to hack into his very mind finally stopped, frustrated by the nonstandard equipment in John’s head.

The pilot labored itself into a semi-sitting postion. “You are accepted within us. Your role will be laid out in contract. That is your preferred form?”

“Yes.”

The pilot shifted and the divan slowly raised itself on a single flowing leg that oozed out from under the rim and turned toward the flowing-teardrop-shaped shuttle.

“We make for orbit in one hour,” the pilot boomed back at him. “Bring the translator to us with yourselves by then.”

That soon?

“We’ll all be ready,” John said. The divan squeaked to a halt and the warrior Teotl shifted. John bit his lip and his fingers itched to dance across an imaginary control set to blast him the hell out of this situation.

“All?” the pilot repeated after several heaved breaths.

“My son and Pepper. They will come with the translator.”

An explosion of random geometry flowed out of the divan’s holographic display. The pilot almost disappeared under a hail of blue cubes, then the display shut down.

“That one called Pepper will not attend you. We forbid it. We have seen it attack, it is dangerous.”

“You have your own protections. I need mine. If you do anything stupid, so will Pepper.” John stood up in front of the advancing divan, daring the pilot to run him down. It was waiting for orders. Then the divan began to inch forward again.

“Yes. Yes, do so. Do bring the aggressive one.”

The pilot moved the divan slowly up to the shuttle. John walked forward and closed his eyes as a warrior Teotl stepped out from underneath, obviously warning him to stop.

He did.

Somewhere deep in John’s mind a single point of light blossomed, then unpacked itself further into a sliver of paper with a question mark on it.

John opened his eyes, the ghostly question mark fading from the air, and turned back around. Lithe Teotl closed in around him and herded him out of the gardens toward the street.

He walked on for several minutes.

Pepper hopped to his feet. “Well?”

“You were right.” John fell into step behind him. They were free to go, but still being escorted out of range of the shuttle by Azteca. “Their interfaces are standard, I’m allowed access to them.”

“Good.” Pepper clenched a fist and smiled.

John could communicate with the shuttle. Still, it was a far cry from being able to fly it. Or even take it over. He hoped Pepper realized that.

But they were in and negotiating with the enemy.

Pepper led him randomly throughout the streets to lose anyone or anything following them.

“What do you think we’re going to find up there?” John asked.

Pepper shrugged. “We’re going to need something. Something other than a hostage to keep our edge.”

John tapped the tiny flask in his coat. Pepper was the kind of man who wouldn’t think twice about releasing something like that against his enemies, while John tried to forget he even had it as he let the dilemma simmer in the back of his mind.

Of course, the Loa could be manipulating him as well.

“I may have something,” John said, and pulled it out.

But after he explained what it was, even Pepper turned it over carefully, then handed it back.

John refused. “You keep it.”

“Why?”

“If we need to use it, you will be in a better position to trigger it.”

Pepper kept turning it over in his hands. Then he looked up at the sky and pocketed it. “It shouldn’t come to that.”

John nodded. He hoped to hell not.

“You’re slowing me down,” Pepper said, “and we’re still being followed. I’m going to go fetch Jerome and the Teotl. I’ll met you back here in an hour.”

Pepper disappeared off into an alley, and John kept walking, wondering what was following him.

M
etztli hiccuped, and after the long stretches of silence, Jerome finally broke and asked, “Why you all running?”

“Ah, ah.” Metztli scraped around and looked at Jerome in the dim green light. It coughed, a tiny hacking, and spit. “Our overlords have decided we are a threat for investigating advanced technologies. They destroy our nests, our ships, our supporters. It is genocide.”

Genocide. That was something, Jerome thought, that Metztli and its ilk knew well.

“Old things,” Metztli continued. “Very old. They control much: communications, and technologies. Very powerful, we are all their subjects.” Metztli wrapped its tentacles around itself. “You are too, even in this place that your kind tried to hide itself in.”

“Never heard of them.”

“But they are out there, and coming for all of us. Coming here is our last chance for survival, we have been forced away elsewhere. We tried to take this world so long ago in anticipation of the coming wars, but we failed. Now we come again, with differing strategies.”

“So you fighting them?”

“No. We run, now. Run and look to hide. We need your help.”

“Help? Help you?” Jerome shook his head. “We know about the kind of help you bring, we don’t want no part of it.”

“Well,” the Teotl said. “You really don’t have a choice.”

The door scraped open.

“We have no choice. Really?” Pepper slipped through. “People always have choices,” he said.

“A wormhole never truly closes,” Metztli said. “The expensive exotic matter is merely mostly removed, leaving a passageway impossibly small and therefore closed.”

“Or you use really large nuclear weapons to blow the exotic matter out and destabilize the hole,” Pepper said.

Metztli blinked and looked over. “Crude, and effective. But even after that with replacement matter, and enough energy, it can be forced back into shape.”

“We saw.” Pepper walked over to the Teotl and stood over it. “Detritus
from the replacement matter and waste energy pouring out of it. An incredible project.”

“The Spindle,” Jerome said. “You talking about the Spindle, right?”

Pepper nodded. “Do you have the resources to open the next one, the one leading back towards our systems?”

“Barely. We exhausted much to reclose the wormhole.”

“We don’t have such tools at our disposal,” Pepper said.

“We will teach you. We need to teach you.”

“Because the bad guys are coming through after you, right?” Pepper smiled.

“Yes, yes,” the Teotl hissed. “With your help, with resources we do not have now, we can keep the wormhole closed. Together.”

“Toss me the remote,” Pepper ordered Jerome. Jerome did so, and Pepper pocketed it. “How many ships and warriors do you have?”

“One ship. Fifteen warriors. Seventeen specialized units, five masters of the gene, seven masters of the metals and chemistries. Some shuttles. I do not know how many. Four hundred reproductive units. A thousand eggs incubating.”

The thought of a thousand Teotl waiting to be born made Jerome shiver.

“We wish to bargain for any world, any world that no one wishes, and we will shape our eggs to thrive in it. We will sign any nonaggression pact. We will accept most terms. We will share any technology.”

Jerome had imagined clouds of Teotl hanging over their world, ready to darken the skies. Instead, they had a desperate few dirty refugees, vulnerable and begging for their lives.

Pepper spread his arms. “Well, friend, you’re well and truly up that creek, aren’t you? And you are bringing down a great danger onto us. There are few reasons we should help you.”

“What creek?” the Teotl asked, a concerned note in its voice.

“The same one humanity’s been in for the last few hundred years. The same one you tried to send us up. Shit creek.” Pepper snapped his fingers. “One ship, that’s it?”

“That is it. We are the last of our kind. Many millions died after you shut the wormhole down that led to us. They died to protect us, to get us through and this far.”

Millions.

“One ship to get me back out on the other side of the wormhole to civilization. One freaking ship,” Pepper repeated. “I like those odds.”

“They are not good odds,” Metztli said.

Pepper smiled. “Not for you they aren’t, no.” He turned around and pushed the door open. “Time to leave.” He pushed the Teotl into the wicker basket.

As Pepper dragged the alien out, Jerome waited until they passed, then picked up his pocketknife and followed them.

T
he wind kicked at them, stirring Pepper’s locks slightly as the odd trio waited before the Teotl shuttle. Pepper tasted salt, and a myriad of other things on the wind. He ignored it all and remained still as a pair of Teotl opened his coat.

One by one they removed items. The two shotguns first. Pepper kept the small flask John had given him in his hands, slightly obscured by the remote to the collar.

The irony of the creatures’ own devices being used on them like this was Pepper’s kind of irony.

“They’re actually taking us up,” John said. Pepper nodded. Jerome stood between them.

The disarming continued. Next came the brace of pistols by unbuckling a belt. The Teotl snorted as the smooth-handled hunting knife came out of its case, and the machete with the oak handle tugged out along with it. They found the two pistols by his ankles, stiletto strapped to his calf, and finally the handmade sword on his back.

Pepper stepped over the pile they’d made. “You’re staring,” he said to Jerome.

Jerome looked down at the ground. John grabbed his son’s shoulder. “You sure you don’t want to stay? You don’t have to get involved in all this.”

“I already in.” Jerome shook free. “Far enough in it don’t matter where I go now.” Pepper agreed silently. The boy had as much a right to get off the planet as John or he.

They grouped up and stood at the shuttle’s side. A split appeared in the shiny skin, a man-sized entrance growing to accept them. Pepper walked through.

Across the grass, from the edge of the city, Pepper heard a scream. The Teotl had what they wanted now. Someone was being sacrificed somewhere on the edge of the city.

John looked back at him. “You okay?”

“Keep moving, let’s get this over with.”

The shuttle’s inhabitants swung from cocoons as it gained altitude, while the humans remained warily at the back, shuffled into a corner.

The Teotl were insane to let them into their lair. What new minds were controlling them? They’d lost a certain edge Pepper expected. Maybe the Teotl who had managed to land on Nanagada in the old days had been a particularly nasty sort.

He sighed to himself. Too much gray, not enough black and white for his taste.

They hadn’t tried to kill him yet, though. That was a plus. He began to let the right hemisphere of his brain slip into sleep while he watched the bundles of Teotl inside the craft bounce around, dangling from the current top of the shuttle.

Then he noticed something, like the aftertaste of orange rind on the back of his tongue. Jerome and John leaned against each other, asleep. Peaceful. Out. Something in the air, targeted at them.

Pepper smiled. That was more like it. He closed his opened eye, slowed his breathing, and slipped into an apparent sleep.

P
epper shook John awake. He looked around and gagged on the taste of orange rind.

“Jerome?” John staggered up and looked at Pepper. “What the hell happened? Where’s Jerome?” They weren’t aboard a shuttle.

“Easy, man, we’re okay.” Pepper steadied him. John swayed for a second, unfocused his eyes, and checked the time. It glowed fuzzily in his field of view, laid overtop everything he could see. He’d lost five hours. “Jerome is outside keeping an eye on our hostage.”

“I’ve lost five hours?”

Pepper sighed. “I know.” He wiped his hands off. “They gassed us on the way up and tried to separate us. Would have made for some nice negotiating on their part, having Jerome.”

“What’d you do?”

“Grabbed the first warrior’s arm when he came in to pick us up. I don’t think they’ll try again. Spooked them.” Pepper’s lips quirked, a grin, gone before John even realized it.

“Okay.” John took a deep breath. A whole world trickled in through the edges of his vision. The walls, a polished gray rock of some sort, faded into swirls of bright, gaudy orange and blue. A clear patch glowed hot white, with squiggles of wavy lines through it.

Alien text.

John squinted, then held up a hand and cleared a section of his viewpoint, a window into the real. The drab wall returned. “The data overlays. They’re the same that the Gahe and Maatan use. Standard.” Everywhere John looked he could see and access data tied into the real physical location. It was a breath of fresh air. He hadn’t been in an environment like this for a long time. It felt like coming home.