The Hematophages Read online

  Sighing, I walk to the right facing airlock and press my nose against the porthole, my breath fogging the lower half of the transparent plasteel. I haven’t actually gotten a good look at my future home yet.

  The Borgwardt is just like every other Hestle vehicle: huge, blocky, and utterly unbeholden to aerodynamics or aesthetics. It’s made of retrofitted material cheap enough to be unbearably ugly, but not so cheap as to fall apart under pressure. It’s functional. An office building with a motor.

  Made for deep space salvage and “rescue” (a joke if I’ve ever heard one), the Borgwardt and all the ships like it in Hestle’s fleet spend ninety-nine-point-nine percent of their time in the ink. During the brief periods when it makes planetfall, powerful repulsors on its nominal underside make it defy gravity. I think of old fairy tales of magical castles flying above the clouds and wonder if they were inspired by something like the Borgwardt once.

  As I pull my face away from the airlock it’s too late. It’s already happened. The story’s come back to my mind.

  A lone survivor.

  She made it through some arcane war or crash or perhaps was marooned for a dozen solar cycles on a dead ship before finally being found. Sometimes she was cryogenically frozen for an improbably long period of time. Sometimes not. The story has many iterations but the important point is always that she’s defied all luck to make it back to Yloft or someplace like it.

  Her ship is dragged back by a salvager or a mercy mission. There’s the interrogation, by a security goon in her signature glasses. Only goons and Gore-Fa gangsters wear spectacles these days. No one wears them for corrective reasons, and the Gore-Fas only wear them for fashion. You can always tell security by their impression glasses, telling them your heartbeat, whether you’re lying, and a hundred other improbable things that they probably don’t actually do, but goons love letting ordinary people like us believe they can.

  The interrogation goes painlessly, because, of course, the lone survivor isn’t lying. She really did make it through that war/collision/space lizard gullet. So, they let her out into the prophylactic airlock.

  Her ship, the one she was marooned on for however long, is behind her, just as the Borgwardt is behind me. To the left is the interrogation room, where she just left the bespectacled goon behind. Ahead is the way-station, possibly Yloft. Actually, always Yloft in the tales we told as kids, though someone’s cousin’s best friend had always heard another dry dock or possibly a carrier vessel.

  Then, the fourth airlock, the one facing nothing, slides open. After all of her trials and travails, usually much amped up by the storyteller, and often featuring aliens and skin-wrappers and unlikely cosmic events not so rarely involving quasars, wormholes, and interstellar organisms, she’s spaced.

  Maybe she knew something she didn’t. Maybe it was just a mistake on the part of the Yloft systems controller. That part, the moral of the story, is as murky as the origin of the disaster, and usually depends on whether the storyspinner is trying to make it sound like a wicked joke or a cautionary tale or something else entirely.

  I gasp at the telltale sound of airlock hydraulics hissing and opening. For a split second, I’m certain it’s the hatch into space, as I’m certain every time I’m standing on a prophy. You know. Just for a split second. I blow out all my breath so that my head doesn’t explode upon exposure. But then, instead of chill and evacuating air, my ears pop and the prophylaxis’s pressure has equalized with Yloft’s.

  “Welcome back, Paige,” Veronica, one of countless station bunny controllers says over the intercom.

  “Thanks, Ronnie,” I reply, waving hastily in no particular direction and scurrying onboard.

  Maybe it’s sad, maybe it’s pathetic, but it takes me more than fifteen minutes to pack up the accumulated belongings of an entire lifetime. I look at my toothbrush, in particular, so old that not a single bristle is vertical anymore, like a haircut parted straight down the middle. It might be the nicest thing I own.

  Scratch that. The dark gray pinstriped suit I’m wearing is the nicest thing I own. Like most station bunnies I mostly wear an array of speedsuits, jumpsuits, and coveralls, our fashion sense shown off by their bright colors and arrays of usually meaningless patches. I slip into a bright turquoise pair that fits like a glove, marked only with a large hippocamp patch on my back – the symbol of my alma mater. I think of these as my “school clothes” – always safe for going on campus, and not bearing any aggressively provocative designs that the professors might find objectionable.

  I stuff the suit I just slipped off into a duffel with all the rest. I don’t know what fashion’s like on the Borgwardt. Every deep ink vessel has its own sense of shipboard haute couteur, and like to laugh at all the others, not to mention station bunnies or fresh virgins brought on board with no sense of whether fedoras or fake eyelashes are the thing to wear. Fine, they’ll laugh at me until I can get the feel of the place and finally do some shopping. I’m not going to guess about it now, and I haven’t got enough spare chits to try.

  I drag two duffels and my steamer trunk outside my quarters. These, and a whole lot of underutilized education represent my entire life to date. With a deep sigh, I press a button I’ve never used before. It’s a little yellow square with a person wearing a hat next to an arrow pointing at what could be a ship.

  “What the hell, Peggy? You hit the button by accident?”

  I jump, startled, and clutch my heart for extra effect. The Yloft Stevedores Union is known for being slower than flash-frozen molasses, yet here, in her little toy soldier uniform and shako, is one of my old gambling buddies from middle school, Sally. I would’ve known it was her, anyway. She’s the only one who ever calls me “Peggy” aside from my grandmother back in Horizant.

  “Sally Ann Collins,” I state through gritted teeth, “Have you ever known me to strike a button or lever that I did not intend to?”

  The next act in our little Kabuki show is Sally acting as though I’ve killed her dog, complete with quivering lower lip, and featuring every bit of the spectacle save maudlin violin music.

  “Say it ain’t so, Peggy!”

  “It is. It is so. I never intended to stay a station bunny all my life. I’m off to surf the ink, find my fortune, maybe even my place in history.”

  Sally snorts and rolls her eyes. She rubs some kind of imaginary gunk from her hand off on her uniform in the customary gesture before sticking it out at me. I rub the non-gunk off my own hand before taking hers.

  “Well, kid, can’t say we’ve kept up all these years, but I’ll miss you nonetheless.”

  I’m a little touched. More than I expected to be. Am I really leaving Yloft? I know everyone here, down to their middle fucking names. What the fuck am I thinking?

  “Thanks, Sal, I… that really means something.”

  “Yeah, sure it does,” she says, miraculously stuffing a duffel under each armpit and somehow still hefting the foot locker by both handles.

  Stevedores. They are a breed apart.

  I think I’ve never even noticed my old friend’s muscles. She could probably knock out a full-grown bull.

  “Where you starting your illustrious career? The good ship Cynthia Ryder? Mistress of the Stars?”

  “The RV Borgwardt, if you please, wharfie,” I say, tipping an imaginary cap.

  Sally wrinkles her nose.

  “Hassle Corp?”

  I frown.

  “What’s wrong with working for Hestle? Good pay. Good upward mobility.”

  Sally just shakes her head as if she knows something I don’t.

  “Better you than me, I guess.”

  Whatever. I don’t say it, of course, but I wouldn’t be content as a longshorewoman. Sally’s settled into a rut on Yloft and I refuse to. Where moments before I had been questioning my decision to leave, panicking and rethinking everything, now I’m re-energized. I pull out my wallet wand and press it to her badge, ready to transfer a nice, fat tip. Partly it’s because she’s an old
friend and partly it’s because I can’t believe she’s carrying all my stuff at once, but mostly, if I’m being honest with myself, it’s because I know I’m better than her and I want to rub it in.

  “Hey, forget it,” she says, pulling her badge away just as I’m about to make the transfer, “This one’s on me. You better come back though, because this is the only time.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “Yeah. Hell yeah. I’ll be back all the time. Not like I’m dead.”

  She trundles off down the corridor, stomping left and right like a piston-driven machine. I feel a little ashamed of myself. But as I’m standing there, reddening, I hear her shout back at me.

  “Hey!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why don’t you stop by the Mercado tonight? We’ll play a quick round of bones. For old time’s sake.”

  I scratch the back of my head. It actually sounds good. But, oh shit.

  “I have to onboard in three hours.”

  As much as she can with no hands, Sally makes an “eh, what are you going to do?” gesture. Then she eyes me up and down real quick.

  “You said the Borgwardt, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You got hair bows?”

  I run my hands though my hair. I always keep a ponytail.

  “No.”

  She snorts.

  “You should probably stop by the Mercado anyway. Bon voyage, Peggy.”

  “Thanks.”

  ●●●

  Shit. Why did I let Sally guilt me into this? I swore I wasn’t going to worry about shipboard fashions, and here I am in the Mercado, buying bows instead of downloading my last bits of research from the library.

  “Ah, hell,” I say, tossing a bunch of bows up in the air, “I can’t fucking decide.”

  The merchant looks me up and down. Her name is Opal. I’ve always felt like she had the look of someone desperately clinging to too little remaining youth, but her fashion sense has never failed me before.

  “Let me guess: Borgwardt.”

  “Yeah,” I admit.

  “First time in the ink?”

  “How many times you been in the ink?”

  She doesn’t smile, but there’s a twinkle in her eye.

  “Never. No desire. But, here, take the green ones.”

  I grunt a thank you and run my wand across her register, already blinking with my charge. The Mercado is its usual mess of hawkers, gawkers, tourists, ink surfers, and station bunnies. A disproportionate section of the marketplace is devoted to foods, both exotic and down home cooking. Ink surfers fresh off a long jaunt are an easy mark for a bowl full of some steaming, spicy or bland stew. And the Mercado is deliberately centrally located so that everyone boarding or deboarding a ship must pass through it and consider delighting in its wares.

  I pass by a group of bewildered tourists, all with maps of the station pulled up on their jotters, looking around like they’ve never been on Yloft before. Maybe they haven’t. Maybe they’ve never been off-planet before and Yloft is their first taste of the greater galaxy. If so, it’s a shitty one. I can tell by their clothes they probably belong to the luxury liner Mistress of the Stars, which they’re doubtless trying to get back to. It would only take me a minute (a second, really) to help them, but if I stopped to help every bewildered tourist on Yloft I’d never have time for anything else.

  Like the station bunny I am, I have no trouble navigating the Mercado, even with the dozen or so “under construction” roadblocks in place. The roadblocks are mostly deliberate fakes, an agreement between the construction workers and the merchants’ council to keep commerce congested in the Mercado. I don’t dare duck under or over any of them – why ruin the illusion and piss off the construction union and the chamber of commerce at the same time?

  “Ambroziak!”

  I’m at the corridor leading to the archives. And who should be there to block my way but my erstwhile peer Peavey?

  I spit her own name back at her with a semi-cordial nod. She’s got that skeletal, scarecrow-thin look to her that some ships encourage but I’ve always found a bit grotesque. Her look is the result of eschewing food and relying on stims and tranqs to get her through school. I’m hardly a straight arrow – nobody at our alma mater is – but Peavey takes it to an extreme. Her veins must be full of nothing but chemicals.

  Her arms are folded over her breasts. She wears her speedsuits tight, but just baggy enough that she seems to have an ordinary supermodel’s figure rather than her own gaunt, cracked-out one.

  “I heard you got my job on the Borgwardt.”

  “You applied for that one, too? I had no idea. Wouldn’t have snatched it from under your nose if I had.”

  Her lips seem to disappear, her mouth becoming a narrow slit.

  “Anyway, good to see you,” I say. “Got to stop by the stacks one last time. Say goodbye to Professor Pendleton for me. I’d do it myself, but, you know, fuck her.”

  I press the two middle joints of my first two fingers to my temple in a mock salute and attempt to skirt past Peavey. It’s not hard – she’s not exactly a soccer goalie, and her stick-thin figure doesn’t really block the entire hallway.

  “Ambroziak.”

  Sighing, I turn around. I don’t even pretend to hide the aggravation in my voice.

  “What?”

  Not only has Peavey’s lower lip reappeared, it seems to be trembling. It’s always hot and cold with her. She’s always halfway around the astral plane or laser-focused on some book. I’ve never seen her show genuine emotion before.

  “I just wanted to say… I mean… we’ve known each other all our lives.”

  “Oh.”

  Crap, I’m an ass. First Sally Collins and now this. Her arms aren’t folded anymore, and I can see she’s trembling, her entire wireframe body all aquiver.

  “Listen…” I try to dredge up her given name out of my memory banks, “Yadira, it’s not that big a deal. I mean, I envy you. You get to finish up. If this doesn’t pan out for me, I’m fucked. You walk away with your doctorate either way.”

  She runs her hand across her nose.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  Tentatively I open my arms. Peavey and I have never hugged. I don’t think we’ve ever shared anything more intimate than an eyeroll behind each other’s back. But she seems to need it right now.

  Slowly she steps into my guard. I have no idea how long this thing is supposed to last, and I seem to be the only one doing any embracing. I’m just about ready to start patting her lower back to indicate that we’re all finished up here when I feel her hands rubbing up and down my back. Okay, I guess she didn’t just need this, she really needed this.

  I nestle the side of my head against hers, but roll my eyes as I do so. The fact that she’s suddenly broken down and proven she’s got a real heart pumping real blood in that beanpole body of hers doesn’t change the fact that this is still fucking Peavey.

  Suddenly she’s brushing away my ponytail and wrapping her hand around the back of my neck. Has all of Peavey’s nastiness all these years really been because of sublimated desire?

  “Peavey…” I start to say, not sure how to let her down easy.

  But no. Of course not. How could I have allowed myself to think the best of someone? Suddenly Peavey isn’t just stroking my back, she’s clasping my waist and her bony fingers are securely gripping my neck. I try to jerk out of her suddenly rigid grasp, but I feel lightheaded. Cigarette burns fill my whole field of vision and I can feel something icy cold seeping into my bloodstream.

  I attempt to wrench myself out of her grasp, but only succeed in jerking once before I realize she’s holding me like a ragdoll. There’s a burning sensation, circular, on the back of my neck. The hug had been an excuse to sneak in for the chance to clasp the patch secreted in her palm to my naked skin.

  My arms are dead weights. I try to bat at her, but they’re asleep as though I’ve been laying on them all night. She smiles at me. It’s not even cruel. It�
��s like she’s genuinely sympathizing with me, as though sitting by my side in the infirmary room at the end.

  “Shh, shh,” she whispers, running her hand through my hair, “Your whole body’s just going to sleep. I coded this one especially for you. It’s like anti-Ambroziak. There won’t be a trace of it. Everyone’s going to think you weren’t able to handle the pressure of going off- station and your heart just gave out. Too bad. So sad. Bet you wish you’d paid more attention in pharmacology.”

  “Over a job?” I want to shout at her, but my lips won’t move.

  Her eyes dart around but no one is paying attention to the two lovers in the alcove by the entrance to the archives. She hustles my body over behind a cutlery dealer’s canvas tent. She slowly lowers me to the ground.

  “No one’s going to find you here. Not for a while.”

  She pats me on the cheeks, again, the actions of a faux lover. Maybe she really did want me and could only consummate the mad, twisted relationship in her mind with a murder.

  Well, shit. I guess this is it. I’m reduced to the point where only my eyeballs can move.

  Pseudocoma. Locked-in syndrome.

  In a few moments my lungs will stop moving. It’s kind of peaceful, really, in a bizarre way. Especially considering Peavey could have given me something really nasty, made me choke on my own vomit (which would’ve just been embarrassing) or target my pain center until my heart just couldn’t take it anymore (which would’ve been unusually cruel).

  No, she was content to just let me fade away. It’s surreal now. I can’t even feel anything, like I’m floating on clouds. It’s sort of like I’m tumbling, but not in the heart-thumping, skydiving kind of way, just as though I were tumbling away into space.

  They say your life flashes before your eyes in your final moments. I never really knew what that meant. Like a slideshow? Or just the happy parts? That you just get to reminiscing? Or is it really supposed to be your whole life, relived in that tiny moment, through the magic of time dilation? Well, I’m even less clear now because it isn’t happening to me. I just feel myself drifting away, like floating on a current without even a tube or a canoe.