The lawman jabbered on. “This
wasn’t some small scam taking a few chips off a citizen, this crime threatens
all the Backworlds. The Assembled Authorities have been notified. Frizzers bad
news.”
Shit. “I didn’t know it was
frizzers.” Craze had to try some truth. “You better have found every one of
those guns. I don’t ever want to run into one of them things out on the Edge. I
wouldn’t touch the things. Honest. I was here for the chocolate.”
“There’s no chocolate here,” the
patroller said.
“The bars. The foil bars.” Craze
thrust his chin toward the small red and gold items strewn over the floor.
The lawman picked one up. “These?”
His small, meaty hands unwrapped the bar, holding it out under Craze’s wide
nose. “Mealworm cakes, son. That’s all these is.”
Craze smelled the brine, gawking at
the red crumbly cake in the patroller’s hand. That couldn’t be right. That
couldn’t be what was protected by the foils and gelatin casings. The seal ...
the seal embossed on the foils was used for chocolates. Yet he couldn’t argue
with the reality in front of his face.
His breath suddenly left him. “No!”
The squat man in brown laughed. “He
didn’t know. He honestly thought he was buying chocolate.”
The patrollers joined in the mocking.
The leader said. “Verkinn sure can be gullible. Guess the aviars was right
then.” He shook a finger at Craze. “Deal through legit channels, boy, ‘n only
from folks you know. This clandestine shit only leads to bothers.”
Sometimes to great profits, but
Craze kept that to himself. The aviars had to be Talos and Lepsi. Phew. They
hadn’t abandoned him to battle these legal woes in order to get a bigger cut of
the loot. Despite being cuffed by the patrollers and probably on his way to
prison, Craze felt pretty good.
He regained some sense of
belonging, which Bast and the council had stolen by ostracizing him. Things
would be OK. He had two good friends. Craze knew that without a doubt, and he
also knew the patrollers didn’t think him very bright. He’d use that. “I never
tasted chocolate before. Just wanted to see what all the fuss is about.”
“That’s what your captain said.
Said you often a dipshit,” the patroller replied.
“
Cappy’s
never wrong.” Craze was impressed by the
aviarmen’s
skill at manipulating the legal authorities.
“You not getting off easy, you
understand.” The lawman nodded, satisfied and smug. “Your captain is pretty
hot, promised us you’d help in chasing after these thugs. After he’s punished
you.”
“I’m sure. The brig for me.” Craze
enjoyed playing along, careful not to go too far and blow what Talos and Lepsi
had accomplished, wondering how he was supposed to assist the Elstwhere law,
but he didn’t press. Sooner or later he’d know everything.
“The Backworld Assembled
Authorities gave me the OK to track these barbarians down,” the man in brown
said. He grabbed Craze’s wrist, tugging him onto his feet. “I’ll see he finds
his way to his ship. Consider
youself
deputized,
Verkinn.”
Deputized? A funny thought came to
Craze. The aviars’ promises, the Backworlds Assembled Authorities’ approval,
being deputized; perhaps Talos and Lepsi’s ship had been hired to pursue the
smugglers. Shit. The reach of the law was long if it was to follow them out to
the Edge.
The patroller leader nodded. “All
right, Dactyl. You’ll find half the agreed on pay in your account when you get
to the docks. If not, ping me.”
“I expect the rest when I haul
those smugglers back here for interrogation ‘n trial,” Dactyl said.
“Good hunting.” The patroller
saluted. “We want that scum. Want them bad. Get in contact if you need anything
from us.”
Dactyl nodded. His iron grip
tightened on Craze’s shackles, dragging him out into the street and toward the
docks. He led Craze in such a way that folks stopped gape-jawed, pointing and
whispering.
Craze became a spectacle of shame
paraded off Elstwhere, not so different from how he left Siegna. Shit. “This is
gettin
’ to be a pattern,” he said.
The ship looked sad in the
well-maintained dock, hideous and long past its prime. It was an awful shade of
green, chipping and peeling. And it was shaped so odd, like two beetles back to
back with six cylindrical protrusions sticking out from the center that
reminded Craze of worms.
He seriously questioned his sanity.
Wow. That was what he would travel the Backworlds in? That was what he invested
most of his chips on?
Dactyl shoved Craze forward onto
the boarding ramp and into the hatch at the end of one of the worm-like
extensions. Once on board, the lawman released Craze’s hands from the binds. “
Yous
watch
youself
. The
patrollers told me to keep
yous
on probation. One
wrong move ‘n
yous
to jail.”
Around the bend, the aviarmen
stooped side by side. The confines of the entry made them appear taller than
usual, creating the unmistakable impression that they owned this spacecraft.
They wore serious airs, furrowing their brows, and burying their hands deep in
their coat pockets. The similarity of their dress and stance gave them the
guise of a uniformed crew, which made Craze feel a little left out. Although he
wore mostly browns and grays too, it was in a different order and his boots
were still shiny. It was of minor consequence though, as he was incredibly
relieved to be back at the docks with the aviars.
Craze rubbed at the chafing left as
a memento by the cuffs, grinning at Talos and Lepsi. “Thanks.” He raised his
brows in Dactyl’s direction wondering how the patroller planned to enforce the
probation. Then a horrible possibility crept to mind. Was Dactyl going with
them? Craze tried to relay the question to the aviarmen through his expression.
Talos’s tentative smile and tug on
his prized pin, signaled their carefully crafted exit strategy had changed.
“Welcome back, Second Officer Craze.” He ran a hand through his shock of blue.
“Before you join us on the bridge, the Sequi could use a good cleaning.” From
behind his back he brought out a bucket full of cleaning gel and some clothes.
“The Sequi?” Craze asked.
“The Backworld Assembled
Authorities granted our ship the honorable name when we was deputized.”
Did that mean Dactyl was or wasn’t
remaining on board? Craze clenched his jaw, wishing the lawman away. It’d be
about impossible to recover his lost investment with a patroller on board.
Talos kept talking. “The
Authorities is short on ships ‘n since we saw the vessel the frizzer runners
left in, we agreed to help out Dactyl in apprehending those despicable
infiltrators.”
Translation: the lawman would stay
and the aviarmen had seen the smugglers’ ship. They’d told the Authorities. The
only reason to do so was to get Craze sprung. Ah, he’d prove they’d made the
right decision and not screw this up. What a beautiful thing they’d
engineered—thieves chasing after smugglers. Craze had to bite the inside of his
cheek to keep from laughing. He peered into the yellow slop, doing his best to
remain somber. “Yes, Sir.”
“No more dipshit behavior, Second.
I need my crew if I’m to chase those criminals down effectively. The
Authorities agreed as long as I saw to it you was punished.”
The aviars must have emphasized
Craze’s skills as essential to get the Authorities not to insist Talos hire a
new crewman. Warmth spread in his chest and dimpled his cheeks. Craze saluted
the aviarmen, fist to chest. “Yes, Captain.”
Talos clasped his hands behind his
back, standing straighter. “Clean every inch of this ship ‘n don’t be all day
about it. If you do unsatisfactory work, I’ll have to withhold your pay.”
Pay? Maybe something could be
salvaged out of this mess. Impatience to know more threatened to do Craze in.
He gripped the bucket handle tight, squeezing until the urge lessened into
something he could control. “Understood, Sir.”
“Carry on, Second.” With a curt
nod, Talos stepped down the corridor toward the center of the spacecraft. Lepsi
and Dactyl followed.
Craze began his atonement at the
hatch and the pressure lock. The passageway was an aging emerald green except
in the spots where the reinforced carbon composite had worn. In those places,
the ship was a dingy white. Gray lockers for eight crew members lined the
entryway. Four of them contained spacesuits and helmets. On closer inspection,
only one of the suits actually functioned. Great.
Craze moved on. The passage led to
a living area the size of an efficiency. If everyone on the Sequi hung out in
here, they’d be tripping over each other, and forced into each other’s faces.
It’d be all the worse with a full complement on board. What if the aviars hired
more crew?
Craze’s vision shivered. His knees
soon followed. Dammitall. The walls sensed his fear, creeping in, eating up
valuable inches. Oh jeez. He pushed at them, suspecting he might not be cut out
for space travel. For the time being, however, he was stuck with it as his way
of life. At least until he found a place to settle. He hoped that wouldn’t take
too long.
Whether it took twelve minutes or
years, he needed to calm down. With determination normally reserved for
scamming chips from rubes, he forced his terror into the background, imagining
the tavern he would someday own, rearranging the bottles on the shelves. Gin
with gin. Low quality to high. Ouzo with ouzo. Biting to flavorful. The panic
faded. He took a deep breath. The Sequi reeked, rank as old shoes in a filthy
barn.
Leaving the wall, he continued
cleaning, expunging the grunge settled over everything in the common living
space. The composite gleamed in a paler green, glossy as glass when he applied
the gel. He noticed other things besides the lack of room now. Ladders in the
center led up and down. Five other corridors besides the entry branched off the
walls, their doorways almost flush with the living compartment. Craze peeked in
one. Crew quarters.
He scrubbed the floor and the
kitchenette, which was no bigger than a closet, and wiped down the table,
chairs, and exercise equipment. Covered portholes were placed between the
entries to the private compartments. He unhinged them and cleared each pane of
smudges.
Before he finished with the
windows, the ship boomed to life, vibrating with energy, enthused to get going.
Craze stayed at the last porthole he had cleaned, watching as the Sequi zoomed
away from Elstwhere, the planet and Siegna shrinking as the distance grew. Up
ahead, cobalt burst into the heavens like a new star being born. The light
opened up to reveal the portal of the Lepper System. With a small shudder, the
Sequi slipped inside. The stars and planets disappeared behind the corridor of
blue light, leading onward or maybe backward. It was hard to tell.
Craze next straightened and dusted
the crew quarters branching off of the living area. Three rooms had only one
bunk, the others had two sleeping spaces inside. In one of the singles, he
found his pack set on a comfortable bed. He smiled at the
aviarmen’s
continuing thoughtfulness, once again grateful he’d bumped into them on the
transport from Siegna. Some drawers and a fold-down desk completed the
furnishings.
After sprucing up the residential
spaces, Craze climbed down the ladder and worked over engineering and the
storage bays with the cleansing gel and rags. When he finished, he climbed the
ladders up to the bridge where he found Talos, Lepsi, and Dactyl.
He longed to ask the aviars about
the chocolate, possible pay, and everything else. Did they nab any chocolate or
was it all mealworms? He couldn’t, not with the extension of the Elstwhere
patrollers sitting there. He couldn’t believe they ventured out to the Edge
with a representative of the Backworld Assembled Authorities on board. It would
definitely crimp Craze’s style. He’d have to go after his dream above-board and
honest. He feared such behavior would keep him poor.
Dactyl had removed several layers
of brown, but he was still very brown. What he lacked in height, he made up for
with an aura of intimidation clinging to his shoulders and close-shaven beard. His
eyes were the color of tree bark and his hair a reddish shade, but it was still
mostly brown. It waved down past his waist, neat and gleaming. Since it wasn’t
living, he must have spent a lot of time caring for it.
Craze felt his hair coiling itself
into neat rows in response, brushing against his shoulders. He cleaned the
bridge, dousing things in gel, then wiping them off with the cloths. The
mustiness of the aged Sequi lessened, infused with the fresher scent of citrus.
When all gleamed spotless, Craze took the bucket and rags down to a storage
closet. Then he climbed back up to the bridge and took a seat.
An island of console and systems
took up the center of the bridge in a circular shape. Talos was in the central
command position, Lepsi sat on his right. Dactyl had assumed a crew station
behind the two of them. Craze chose the position on Talos’s left. Large windows
banked the walls with wide glimpses outside, providing close to a three hundred
sixty degree view. Blue. All he saw was blue.
“Do we have a plan?” Craze asked.
Talos answered. “When we took the
ship to the docking facility, after fixing everything and loading up our cargo,
First Officer Lepsi ‘n I were fortunate to spy a ship with black smudges
painted on the aft panels. I went to examine closer ‘n noticed the contours of
the Fo’wo’ symbol underneath.”
Craze took cargo to mean the aviars
had the chocolate bars stashed on board. “An actual Fo’wo’ vessel?”
“Yup. It surprised us, too. We
reported it to the Elstwhere patrollers ‘n Assembled Authorities. Alarmed ‘n
having no available ship to go after the smugglers, they asked for our help. We
had to agree. Can’t have the enemy flitting around the Backworlds.”