Moral and Orbital Decay Read online

  Esper sighed. It wasn’t as if it was a bad plan. It just seemed like there was too much chaos mixed into the batter of this cake. How were they supposed to find a missing wizard when they couldn’t even keep proper track of one another? Times like this were when she found herself missing Tanny and the military rigor that used to surround their missions.

  The shift change had ended. Concourses and passageways that had bustled with work crews coming on or off duty had given way to a trickle of visitors and ancillary personnel. It ought to have made their search easier.

  “How can anyone lose a stuunji?” Roddy groused as they passed a bar, giving it a longing look. “He ought to be a fucking monument around here. ‘Excuse me, seen a guy the size of a hover-cruiser around here? Nearly three meters tall with an embarrassed look on his face…’ ‘Why yes, you can see him from anywhere on the station.’ It oughta be that easy.”

  “Well, something’s obviously happened. I think we should just—”

  Roddy whirled. “No. No asking. You don’t get how this business works yet, and it’s been long enough that it’s probably never going to sink in. We aren’t a regular Jane Human and Tumek Laaku; we don’t get to play Revolver Roulette hoping we get directions instead of coming up against whoever’s responsible for him being missing.”

  “Fine,” Esper said with a sigh. She scanned the restaurant windows, peering through as best she could when techno-lighting and greasy fingerprints made the viewing a challenge.

  Roddy stopped again and grabbed Esper by the hand. He towed her into a side-hallway leading to the washrooms.

  “What is it?” Esper whispered, leaning low.

  Roddy pointed with his datapad, not relinquishing his grip on Esper. “Eleven o’clock. See ‘em?”

  Esper followed his finger. “The couple with the Spacey Jim’s takeout?” She couldn’t make out rings, but they were dressed in coordinated outfits that didn’t appear sports-related, so she assumed they were more than friends.

  “Convocation,” Roddy stated.

  Esper snorted delicately. “I can hardly believe that anyone with Convocation credit is eating takeout from Spacey Jim’s.”

  “It’s good chicken,” Roddy said in dead seriousness. “And I caught a flash of a silver chain under the collar of the older one.”

  Esper looked again more closely.

  “I really think they’re just a couple on holiday.”

  “On a mining station?” Roddy asked. “In a remote corner of ARGO space? Eating Spacey Jim’s?”

  Esper’s nostrils flared as she huffed out her frustration. She didn’t want the two take-out diners to be wizards. She wanted a nice, tidy universe where a pair of galactic travelers could enjoy a peaceable, inexpensive meal without having their motives questioned. Unfortunately, Roddy was right. Her story didn’t add up. “I suppose. They made a cute couple, though.”

  “We can’t let ‘em spot us here. You scream wizard with that baggy sweatshirt of yours.”

  It was possible that Roddy had a different view of wizards than the galaxy at large. Spending so much time around Mort, the slovenly, rumpled look was what Roddy had imprinted on, same as a baby bird raised at a zoo came to think of a sock-puppet with a human hand inside it as “mama.”

  The thought of Mort hatched an idea in Esper’s head. Maybe she could make use of the annoying wizard’s help. He’d been scarce since Roddy had joined up with her. One more tidbit to add to her arsenal. Just as vampires hated garlic and the crucifix, Mort seemed to recoil from feminine personal care and laaku mechanics.

  Still, if he were paying attention, Mort might be able to tell for sure whether the two wizards were Convocation or just a pair of lovers out for a bite to eat—and Esper clung to the notion that it could still be both.

  Esper cleared her throat.

  “What?” Mort asked, materializing behind Roddy and swinging his foot in a kick that passed clean through the laaku without him noticing.

  Esper cleared her throat again and looked over at Roddy’s wizard suspects.

  “Got something in your throat?” Roddy asked, turning to look up at her. “If we’re gonna hide in the washrooms, who’s gonna be lookout?”

  “I’m still not convinced they’re wizards,” Esper said.

  “What more’s it gonna take?” Roddy asked. “Want me to go ask to see their pendants? Take a pot shot at one and see if it veers?”

  “Ah,” Mort said. “I see. Yeah, those two look Convocation to me. Twist their necks and find the nearest jumbo waste reclaim. Good-sized restaurant ought to have one big enough. Get the monkey to help with the heavy lifting if you don’t want to kerfuzzle anything conspicuous.”

  “Never mind,” Esper replied to Roddy. “Let’s just backtrack and duck in someplace until they pass. I don’t fancy the idea of cowering in a washroom and losing track of them. We need someplace with a front window.”

  Roddy grinned. “Come on. While those two are peeping inside the SushiGo, I know just the place for us…”

  # # #

  Cedric returned from the bar’s washroom, where washing was one service that the room had sorely lacked. Still, the beer was settling his nerves, and now his bladder was feeling the better as well. According to the clock behind the bartender, there were less than two hours until the station allowed ships to come and go.

  “You OK there, Ceddie?” Carl asked jovially, far more at ease with a belly full of hops. “Was about ready to come in after you. You know, in case the you-know-who found a back door into the crapper.”

  “Don’t call me that,” Cedric protested. “Only my mother calls me that.”

  “Mort used to.”

  An announcement came over the station public address. “As YF-77 maneuvers to a lower orbit, visitors are invited to direct their attention to the lower commercial ring. Thrust reverse burn will commence in approximately fifty-two minutes. Concourses N through W will have the best views of Karafuto IV, which will be sunlit during our adjustment to lower orbit.”

  Cedric scowled in the direction of the unseen speakers. “Bloody fools. They ought to know better than to pillage worlds for ore.”

  Carl reclined in his seat, either forgetting the state of uncleanliness or no longer caring. “Yeah, go run around yelling that. I’m sure you’ll be real popular.”

  “There you are,” Esper scolded. Then the winds of her voice shifted, carrying warmth instead of cold. “You found him!”

  Cedric looked toward the establishment’s entrance. His heart caught in his throat. Father’s apprentice was looking well. Clearing his throat and surreptitiously smoothing down his hair, he graced her with a smile. “Indeed. He has.”

  “No biggie,” Carl bragged. “He was just camped out in the bowels of the station, surrounded by castoff workers with a hunger for human blood—I mean terras.” A smile spread on his indolent features.

  “Ever consider turning your comm on?” Roddy snapped, following close behind Esper.

  Cedric and Carl scooted aside to make room in the booth for their two companions.

  The captain of the Mobius aimed an unsteady finger across the table. “Blame Abracadabra over here. My comm’s still shot.”

  “Indeed, the fault is mine,” Cedric confirmed. While he didn’t feel drunk, Esper’s proximity was warming his blood and dizzying his thoughts in much the same way as the demon juice.

  Roddy snapped his fingers in front of Carl’s face. “Hello? Ever heard of a public comm terminal?”

  Carl appeared to stew over this observation.

  “Forget it,” Esper said. “We’ve got bigger problems. There are two Convocation lackeys wandering outside, disguised as tourists.”

  Carl chuckled. “That should have been a giveaway. Nobody comes this far out for this junky holiday. I mean, the stellar maps say ‘there be dragons’ just the other side of this place.”

  The greasy windows stared at Cedric. Outside, blurry pedestrians strolled past. What would it take for two wizards who knew his liken
ess to identify him through a pane of glass that might as well have been a wine bottle’s bottom?

  Leaning close to Esper, he whispered, “Can I have a word in private?”

  There was time enough for explanations later, but this was his chance to unburden his soul and hide from his pursuers at the same time. It was neither brave nor chivalrous, but Cedric preferred the aid of his Titan Lager in making his confession.

  Esper nodded and exited the booth, standing aside as Cedric led them into the men’s washroom. With no one else inside, he blocked the door simply by leaning back against it, heedless of the grime.

  If she had any trepidations about their meeting locale, Esper didn’t betray them. So much braver than he. That was what he needed. More than that, he needed to learn the trick she used to achieve that unflinching calm.

  “What is it?” Esper asked, meeting his eye with a look of pitying concern.

  Where to begin? Cedric’s mouth opened, but words failed him. He ran a hand over his hair, noticing three days without a shower or bath in the slick feel. He tried again. “I read it.”

  She didn’t need any further explanation to grasp the thread of Cedric’s unraveling life. Her eyes squeezed shut. Her jaw clenched. “That wasn’t the plan.”

  “The plan?” Cedric scoffed. “Plan? What care did that book have for our plans? It had plans of its own. That thing had a mind and a malevolent soul. It made me read it. For years I had wondered how my father could have been so weak as to have given in to the temptation of words on a page. Now I wonder how he was not driven mad by what he read. I wonder how you could write it and hand it to me to deliver, as if such a tome could be passed along like a cookbook or a treatise on bird plumage.”

  “Opening it was probably the mistake,” Esper said, her tone neither forgiving nor condemning. Couldn’t she stop understanding long enough to judge him?

  “It would have driven me mad,” Cedric argued. “It promised that would be the consequence if I left so much as a single word unread. Now, it has its foul letters scorched across the folds of my mind. No washcloth can wipe that graffiti clean. No carpenter could sand those graven sigils smooth. It promised madness if I failed to read, and I fear it delivered that promise despite my compliance with its demands.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Esper said, putting a hand on Cedric’s upper arm. The warmth through the fabric of his shirt seeped into Cedric’s veins and trickled into his heart, providing some scant protection from the demons congregating therein. “You sought help. That’s a sign you’re not too far gone.”

  “I’m losing control,” Cedric confessed. “I hear the gossip among the station’s residents. Power failures. System glitches. They blame gremlins inherent to technology, flawed designs, poor work by their mechanics. It’s me. I can hardly enact the simplest levitation without the universe mishearing me like some malevolent genie.”

  Esper took him by the other arm as well, steadying him as if these revelations might have the power to topple him physically. Where did she get the strength to imagine she could stop him if he fell? Why was he so sure she possessed such power?

  “Back up and start at the beginning.”

  Cedric sighed. There was no time for the long version. In summary fashion, he explained the events that passed between him receiving the copied Tome of Bleeding Thoughts and his current circumstances. He recounted the return to his job, the days spent tinkering with the atmosphere of Halphus V and the nights spent awake, listening to the book’s incessant whispers. Cedric detailed his arguments with the inanimate thing and the many times he came close to burning it before it convinced him by threat and promise that its destruction would only prevent him from ever being able to end the torment. With difficulty, he recounted his struggles professionally and the increasingly frequent clashes with the project supervisor.

  “That was the straw that broke this poor camel’s back,” Cedric said. He wiped a tear from his eye, less from grief than from guilt and shame. “We argued of nitrogen, as the scientists call it. Of all the stupid, sub-elemental distinctions. We argued over nitrogen and how I wasn’t using enough of it in the atmospheric mix. He claimed to know my job better than I did and threatened to do the work himself.”

  Esper swallowed. She could see it coming. She had to. If Cedric stopped now, she would fill in the blank spaces with guesses well enough, but she would also think less of him for failing to admit his guilt.

  “I killed him,” he said. It felt awful to think about but such a relief to say out loud. “If he knew better, I told him, then I ought to just steal that knowledge and end the argument over it. I… I put my hands to the sides of his head. He tried to stop me, but it was a clash of equals or close enough. The universe failed to take sides. That is, at least until my fingers… I mean… they just sort of—”

  “Skip that part,” Esper said, cringing. “I’ve read the spell.”

  Cedric cleared his throat. “Well, he’s in my head, you see? I made him a dark little corner in my mind. He screams in there. It grows louder when I try to work magic. It’s as if he hopes the universe will hear him while it’s listening to me and set him free.”

  “What about the rest of the terraforming crew?” Esper asked. By her tone she had to have imagined he had murdered them all. He couldn’t let her think that of him.

  “I fled,” Cedric said. “I’d murdered my supervisor. What more reason did I need to remove myself from that vicinity? I have no children to abandon; I had no reason to stay and bargain with justice for some small hope of leniency. For once, I understood my father’s cowardice.”

  “You killed one man?” Esper asked.

  Cedric nodded. “No more than that but also no less. Murderer is not a title earned by degree.”

  Esper looked suddenly aside, focusing a hint of her attention away from him. The delicate muscles at the sides of her neck drew taut. When she faced him directly once more, he saw the reproach fade from her eyes. “Your father was a murderer, a liar, and good man all at once. I pray daily for his soul, and I don’t think it’s a lost cause. I can help you, too.”

  She took Cedric by the arm. As they exited the washroom together, the sick, unclean feeling that no amount of washing might excise had begun to scrape away by the grace of Esper’s acceptance.

  # # #

  Carl handed the comm back to Roddy. His ear was sore from the haranguing he’d just received for going comm silent and letting Amy worry that he might be dead. She was getting so sensitive about that lately. You’d think he’d been dead more than just the once.

  When Esper and Cedric arrived back at the table arm in arm, Carl glanced to Roddy with a raised eyebrow.

  “Don’t gimme that,” Roddy shot back between chugs of his beer. “It’s your species. Procreating anywhere and everywhere is why there are so many of you. For an advanced race, you can’t manage population control without colonizing.”

  “You two… all set?” Carl asked diplomatically.

  “We should get Cedric back to the Mobius and go find Rai Kub,” Esper said.

  Carl cringed. “Maybe we should have you hang around there with him, keeping his little ‘accidents’ from stranding us here.”

  “Where did the bounty hunters go?” Cedric asked. “Are they still out there?”

  “They poked their heads in, but the bartender wouldn’t let them in with outside food,” Roddy replied. He snickered. “Some meat packers they are, failing to scope out a place because they wouldn’t ditch some chicken poplets.”

  “Come on,” Esper said, taking hold of Cedric’s arm again. “If we hustle, we can get to the ship without those two fast-foodies noticing us.”

  Cedric shrugged her away. Not the move Carl would have made in his place, but the kid was a little screwed up right now. He could kick himself later.

  “I couldn’t,” Cedric said, shaking his head. “Your comrade is out there in the station somewhere, looking for me. I’ve hidden from enough problems of late. There’s an h
our and a half before we can depart. I’ll help in the search.”

  “Um…” Carl said, raising a finger. “Is that the best idea?”

  “Dock 746,” Roddy cut in. “If you can remember three digits in order, you can get directions to the Mobius. And we should split into pairs and keep a comm with each group.”

  “Pairs?” Esper scoffed. “Why bother splitting up at all? This place is huge.”

  “Comms,” Roddy replied, taking his off and dangling it as a visual aid. “Amy was about ready to skin Carl for getting his fried.”

  Carl took his out and inspected it with drunken studiousness. “Hey, hey! Mine’s on the mend. Looks like we’ve got two working comms for two teams. I’ll take Sweetcakes; Roddy, you pair up with Mort-Minus-Thirty.”

  “I’m going to pretend that was the beer,” Sweetcakes replied with an icy stare. “But I’ll go with Roddy.”

  Carl blew a melodramatic sigh. “You know, outside a Typhoon, I get nothing but shot down. C’mon, Ceddie.” He pushed himself out of the booth and stood, more stable on his feet than he’d expected. He tilted back the last few drops of his beer before lobbing it into the waste disposal trough that lined the walls.

  “Don’t call me that,” Cedric replied between gritted teeth.

  “Okie dokie, Mort,” Carl said with a sloppy grin.

  He could tell Cedric wanted to argue, but a drunk was an awful debate opponent. That was why Carl was playing it up. Inappropriately Drunk Carl was more fun than many of his alter egos.

  “What does your friend look like?” Cedric asked, shifting the topic away from nicknames.

  Roddy’s bottle arced through the air to shatter in the disposal trough alongside Carl’s. “Well, best I remember the conversion to archaic, wizardly units, he’s an eight-and-half-foot, three-quarter-ton rhino, last seen wearing an atmo-blue track suit.”

  Carl headed for the door, clapping Cedric on the shoulder as he passed. “Shouldn’t be too hard to find, right?”