“This is worth a lot,” she says.
“Especially here.”
“Yeah, I know. You’re drinkin’ my
whole cut for this run.”
She turns onto her back. Wriggles down
in the chair and sips her water. “We didn’t
discuss expenses.”
“No time like the present.”
“Well, there’s fluids.” She jiggles her
bulb so the remaining water sloshes. “But I
figure you owe me a liter, so this makes us
even.”
“That water’s more expensive than your
blood.”
“That’s probably true.” She giggles.
“Okay, so I owe you for the water. How
much?”
“At least another forty minutes.”
“Throw in Ralph and we have a deal.”
“Ralph’s mine. No deal.”
She pouts. Wets her lips with another sip
of water and gives me a long, sidelong
glance through her lashes. “You could share
Ralph with me.”
“Whaddo you want, joint custody?”
“Equal Ralph time.” She wriggles in the
seat, stretches her legs out in front of her. I
bet inside the boots, she’s curling her toes.
“And a massage. Does Ralph give good
massages?”
“He’s all paws.” Actually, I give pretty
good massage, or so I’ve been told. I haven’t
had the opportunity to practice this decade,
though. “Sides, you owe me, remember?”
“I reciprocate. And I’m not all paws.”
“Forty minutes, Ralph time and
reciprocal massage, huh? That’s all you’re
offering me for this fine water?” I lift my
bulb and pretend to scrutinize it.
“And a shower. Forty minutes, Ralph
time, reciprocal massage and a shower. And
we might as well eat, too. Those noodles you
got the other night were good. Forty minutes,
Ralph time, reciprocal massage, a shower
and noodles.”
Sounds like a date. “That all?”
“At your place. I didn’t get to see
inside.”
“Forty minutes, Ralph time, reciprocal
massage, a shower and noodles at my place.
Sounds light to me.”
She sighs. “Sounds amazing to me. When
does payback begin?”
“You gotta make the drop first.”
She makes a disgruntled noise and settles
deeper into the chair. “I could send Ape. But
they’d probably stiff him.”
“You want something done right, gotta do
it yourself.”
“Ugh, I know.” She finishes the water.
Stretches. “Don’t I just know?” She climbs
out of her chair. “Snow, if you’re not doing
anything . . . would you come with me? You
are a hellofa backup.”
Remembering another woman who asked
me to brave monsters in the dark with her, I
give Kez a slow smile. “Sure. That’s extra,
though.” At the rate we’re going, she’s going
to owe me several hours of fucking. Which is
just fine with me.
She grins. Looks like it’s fine with her,
too.
Chapter 6
We find her brother sleeping. Kez shakes
her head at him and says, “He can sleep
through anything. Always could, even when
we were kids.”
Kez is a fairly deep sleeper herself, but I
don’t mention that since she may not even be
aware that she slept on top of me for two
hours. She’s not wrong about how deep her
brother sleeps, though. We don’t make any
effort at silence while we unload the box.
Ape remains blissfully unconscious, snoring
a little. Once the float machines are
reattached, the box bobs along behind me
like a tug on its tether.
The ramp lowers us into sheeting rain.
I’ve landed in VTOL mode, so the Marie’s
perched less than thirty meters from the dock.
But it’s a wet thirty meters. I could run it, but
I don’t think Kez is up to running. Even
walking, she lags behind me. In the overhang
of the dock, I wait for her. Dock 216 is dark.
Some of the distant docks show signs of life:
light, smoke, floaters arriving, workers in the
blue and yellow coveralls of Kuseros
Colonial Administration moving around. But
not Dock 216.
“Looks like we’re early,” I tell Kez as
she joins me in looking through the tall plaz
windows into the dark building. No
movement inside. And no obvious way in.
“They gave me a passkey.” She unslings
her backpack, rummages through it and
comes up with a small square of yellow plaz.
She pushes it into a slot in the side of the
building. One of the tall windows uncouples
from the others with a pneumatic hiss, pulls
back a meter and slides to the side. The
building exhales a stale breath, redolent of
fried food and time spent fruitlessly waiting.
Although Kez’s passkey opens the
building, it doesn’t turn the lights on. The
rainy dawn doesn’t do much to light the
building and once we walk through the few
meters of filtered grey light let in by the
windows, we’re standing in the dark.
My cat’s eye lets me see deeper into the
building. Some crates stacked in an area
outlined with florescent yellow paint on the
permacrete floor. A row of uncomfortable-
looking metal chairs bolted to the far wall.
Standing sentinel next to the chairs, a
battered recycler. Probably the source of the
greasy smell. Typically, it’s off, no lights
blinking. Those soyu strips are feeling like a
long time ago.
Reddish light flares beside me and I
glance at its source. Kez twists another of
her dreads and it glows green. Once she has
several beads lit, she shakes her hair back
and looks around. “What time is it?” she
asks.
“Don’t you got a clock in that hair?
Seems like you got everything else.”
She snorts. “No.”
“Five to five.” I translate it into civvie
time for her.
“Damn. They should be here by now.”
“Problem?”
“I don’t know. Probably not yet. They
may just be late. No everyone has Penny’s
thing about punctuality.” She gives me a faint
grin.
Since it looks like we’re gonna be
waiting a while, I evaluate the options for a
place to sit. The metal chairs are the worst
option. The floor looks softer. But it’s the
crates within their yellow line that look the
most promising. I step over the line slowly.
It doesn’t look wired, but you never know.
No alarms blare. I test a couple of the crates
with my hand. The foam-core ain’t sturdy
enough to bear my weight, but the metal
crates feel fine
. I climb onto one of them,
hold my hand out for Kez and help her up
beside me. I lean back gingerly. The foam-
core doesn’t shift: strong enough to lean
against. I let my legs dangle over the side of
the crate and relax.
After a minute of wriggling around, Kez
gets herself settled. She scoots close to me.
“May I?” She nods at my shoulder.
“Sure.”
She settles against my side, head on my
shoulder. I curve my arm around her. Rest
my hand on her hip. She feels warm, soft and
very, very natural against me.
“Comfy?”
She sighs. “Yes.” She lies against me
quietly for a few moments. I spend the time
enjoying her warmth and weight, the clean
soap smell of her hair. And the silence. I like
Kez. She’s not too noisy, but even her
relative lack of yap can wear on me after so
many years of solitude.
“Snow,” she says. I knew it was too good
to last. “Are you hungry?”
“Yeah.”
“I got some stuff out of your recycler. I
hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.” The Marie’s passenger
recycler doesn’t have much of a selection,
but all of it is nutritious, and some of it is
tasty. I’m curious to see what she picked.
“Don’t think this gets you out of buying
noodles.”
“Am I buying?” she asks innocently, as
she rummages in her backpack. She pulls out
several packets and spreads them across our
laps. Protein jerky, dehydrated pineapple
and four packets of green tea yokan. Kitten
has a sweet tooth. “I don’t think I said I was
buying.”
“You’re definitely buying. You leave
anything in my recycler?” Looks like she’s
cleaned me out.
“The tortillas. Who eats carrot and onion
flavored tortillas?”
I don’t like them either. That’s why
they’re in the passenger recycler. “They
were cheap.”
She offers me one of the packets of jerky.
“Cheap and nasty.”
“I see you keepin’ all the good stuff to
yourself. Gimme some yokan.”
She pouts but hands me a packet of the
sweet, green cubes. Shifts her leg a little so
the rest of the yokan packets end up in her
lap. Minx. I poke her in the hip. “Share, or
I’ll take your toys away.”
She picks up one of the yokan packets
with the tips of her fingers and grudgingly
drops it in my lap. I chuckle.
We eat in companionable silence for
several minutes. When she finishes, she leans
against me with a satisfied sigh. I shift her
closer to my side while I finish a packet of
pineapple rings.
She lets her head loll across my shoulder.
“I could use some Ralph time right now,” she
says.
“Close your eyes. I’ll wake you when
they come.”
She looks up at me sleepily. The hollows
beneath her eyes are so deep I could fit my
thumbs into them. “Who’s going to wake
you?”
“I don’t fall asleep in strange places.”
“Just with strange women.”
“You’re not all that strange.”
She grins. Closes her eyes. “Will you talk
me to sleep?”
“Ralph’s the strong, silent type.”
“Please,” she whispers. “Just a little?”
“Whaddo you want to talk about?”
“Anything. Tell me where you’re from.”
“Dunno. First place I really remember is
the orphanage on Paggen, Ep Indi.”
“You’re an orphan?” She rubs her cheek
against my shoulder. “Me and Ape are
orphans, too.”
I figured when she said she’d been on her
own since she was eleven. “What
happened?”
“Our mother was a Hexer. She never said
who our father was. Or fathers, more likely.
She was all over the place. Hex killed her
when I was eight, but she’d been up and
down the coldspiral for a long time. I hadn’t
seen her in months. We lived with our
Granna on and off from the time Ape was
born. When I was ten, Granna had a stroke.
They said she couldn’t take care of us. So we
were put in care.”
“Someone try to fuck you?” I know from
personal experience that’s why most of the
girls run.
She shakes her head, grinding it a little
into my shoulder. “Mister and Miz Muro
weren’t bad people. They did okay by Ape.
They were just very strict. I’ve never done
strict all that well.” She shrugs. Rebellious
kitten. “They wouldn’t let me go to Granna’s
funeral. So I ran away.”
“You lived on the streets? From the time
you were eleven?” I don’t smell any bullshit,
but she can’t be telling the truth. Girls that
young don’t survive on the streets. Not with
their souls intact. At least, not the streets I’ve
walked.
“I got lucky. After a couple of days, I was
so hungry that I tried to steal some food from
a street stall. I wasn’t any good at it. Granna
always said stealing was a sin, so I’d never
tried it before. The girl running the stall
caught me. Instead of turning me over to the
C.P., she gave me some food and took me
home with her. She lived in a . . . I don’t
know what you’d call it. We just called it the
House. There were a lot of girls there. Only
girls. They all lived together. They had jobs.
Supported each other. One of them took me
on as her apprentice. Livvy. She was a
runner. She taught me. I lived with them until
I was seventeen.”
“Why didn’t you stay?”
She grins at me. “I like boys.”
“Ah.” Lucky for me. “Those kinds of
girls.”
“Not all of them. But strictly no boys.
Once I turned seventeen, I got custody of Ape
and wanted him to live with me. But they
wouldn’t let me. So I got a place of my
own.” She’s silent for a moment. “How did
we end up talking about me?”
I shrug, rolling my shoulder under the
weight of her head. But I know exactly how
we ended up talking about her. I directed the
conversation that way. There’s nothing about
my past she needs to know, or that I want to
talk about. I could invent a more palatable
past, but I don’t see the point. I don’t
particularly want to lie to her, even if I don’t
particularly want to tell her the truth. “Is your
brother always that hostile, or is it just me?”
“Fifty-fifty. He doesn’t take to strangers
easily. Trust issues.”
Lots of abandoned kids have those. I
might even be one of them. Kez might be,
too. Her story ex
plains why her trust issues
haven’t been on full display. She’s looked to
me for approval from the start. Father figure.
And as long as she doesn’t mind fucking
daddy, I’m okay with that.
“And he might be a little jealous.”
“Yeah?” I wipe my mouth and turn my
head so I can nuzzle her hair. Her dreads feel
soft and lumpy against my face. I like the
texture. “Why’s that?”
I have a pretty good idea already, having
observed the interaction between the chimp
and his big sister. He wants her all to
himself. But I want to hear if she sees it the
same way.
“I, uh, I haven’t been interested in a guy
for a while. He doesn’t like sharing me. It’s
not a big deal. He’ll get over it.”
Nothing wrong with her peopleometer.
And I like hearing that there hasn’t been
anyone else for a while. “I’m not a big deal,
huh?”
She bumps her head against my nose.
“Don’t be a jerk.”
“Ow.”
“Sorry.” She yawns and stretches.
“You’re keeping me awake, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” I wasn’t trying to, actually. She
perked up pretty well after her cat-nap, so
another one probably wouldn’t hurt her.
She’s fading now, though. Shadows
deepening around her eyes and under her
cheekbones. She needs more than just two
hours of sleep. So do I. I check the chrono in
my eye. Zero-five-thirty. “They’re pretty
fuckin’ late.”
“I know.” She nods at the window wall
through which the Marie looms in her wet,
darkly oxidized glory. Good ship. “Sun’s
up.”
It is, shafts of light peeking through the
rain clouds. Might be rainbows later.
Rainbows and sunsets. I didn’t give a fuck
about either until Marin’s death. Then I
began looking for beauty wherever I could.
Trying to replace what I’d lost.
Kez fiddles with her dreads, turning off
the lightshow, then draws her knees up.
Leans them against my thigh and cuddles into
me. Her warm weight against me is beautiful.
Her funny, fragile trust is beautiful. The
noises she made when she came were
beautiful. Against her beauty, my rage against
the late-ass fuckers who are keeping us from
moving on to the things I’d rather be doing
with her grows.
“You got any way of contacting them?” I
ask.
She shakes her head. “I wasn’t told
anything about the drop. Only that the box
had to be here, Dock 216 North, by five, and