Crudrat Page 3

  Both crudrats crouched back down to look through the warped grating once more. The murmel leaned his little furry-face next to Maura’s.

  “What in all space makes you interested in that there skiff, beastie?”

  The alien boat was still shaking.

  “It looks angry,” said Rees.

  The murmel squealed in agitation. Apparently, he didn’t take fondly to the look of it.

  The skiff began to scream again, not in human tones, or even with sonic power, but the dulcet song of metal against metal.

  “Just lovely.” Maura covered her ears once more.

  Rees’s eyes were watering.

  The murmel looked ever more impressed.

  What they didn’t notice was the effect it was having on the fastening of the air duct cover. Already loosened by Rees’s stumble, the high-pitched noise seemed to be shaking the weakened metal links further. Without warning, the grate, including the ledge part on which they stood, gave way.

  With crudrat timing, both rejects reached for handholds. Rees’s small fingers found purchase, wrapping firmly about a bump of welding in the side of the tunnel. Maura might have been fine, but the murmel panicked. He hurled himself up off her shoulder with such force it threw off her grip. Her fingers missed the duct end and she fell.

  The steel Spoke docking arena was certainly not the biggest the spaceport had on offer, but it was military Spoke, so designed to handle a small size battleship if necessary. That meant it wasn’t a low ceilinged hanger by any means. The military always did things big, and one of their battleships, built for power not style, would probably take up most of the bay. There currently was no battleship in residence. Maura had a nice long way to fall.

  There was a fighter docked just below Rees’s duct, cutting into the distance somewhat. The military skiff was taller than the alien boat, for it had a large scyther tube riding its back, but it still barely cut her fall down by an eighth. In any event, whether she willed it or nay, Maura was heading straight for it.

  Maura was not one to panic, and she’d always fancied a bit of flying. She’d just hoped it’d be in space, inside a spaceship of some kind. Gravity, even artificial gravity, was prone to complicating matters. The fall seemed to happen quite suddenly, but also took a strangely long time to occur. She flipped flat to catch as much air as possible, then upright so she was feet first. She tagged down as briefly as possible onto the hull of the spaceskiff. It jolted her knees so hard it ensured future aches. She somersaulted forwards across the top of the spaceboat using movement to channel velocity. The tumble was off so that she ended up sliding down the side of the skiff’s scyther attachment, and then the rest of its hull. She kicked back with both feet near the bottom before the landing gear puffed out, launching into a forward dive. She landed on the floor of the dock in another somersault, coming out of it into a low crouch.

  Why, Maura was smug, that could almost have seemed intentional.

  Far above her, Rees whistled his appreciation in a tone only a few degrees lower than that of the air ducts. Then he vanished up the broken duct and out of sight. The murmel went after him. There was nothing neither of them could do for her now, and they all knew it.

  3

  To be a citizen is everything. Rejects are no better than aliens, both being equally contemptible in the eyes of the Wheel.

  ~ Excerpt from The Wheel in Motion by C. Venderseep

  Fortunately, the sequensors hadn’t noted Maura’s spectacular flying descent.

  Unfortunately, the group of bucks, paused to watch the antics of the alien skiff, had.

  What, space curse it, are they doing docked in the steel Spoke zone instead of all proper velvet carpets and sweet smells ‘round progenetor receiving arena?

  Whatever the reason, their interest was piqued, and Maura found herself surrounded by tall beautiful people trussed up in some mighty expensive get-ups. It was a combination designed to irritate everyone, including each other. There they stood, the scourge of the universe, all of them eyeing Maura as though she were some new prize specimen purchased at high credit loss down planetside.

  “What do we have here? Some exotic spacebird?” The voice was high rank and high tongue, nasal but melodic. Vocal trigger trait? Maura wondered. Or an accident of birth left uncorrected?

  “More like space trash, brother,” said a second, similar voice. Trigger trait then. The two voices harmonized together in a way only science could manufacture. Expensive modification, that.

  “Reject,” said the first voice, and spat.

  “Crudrat. Look at its hair,” said a third new voice with no melody to it.

  Maura kept her eyes downcast. She risked one quick-silver glance through blue eyelashes at the third speaker. Physical trigger trait on that one – peaked eyebrows tinted bright red. She’d also been given, by accident or design, big dark eyes and long red hair cued back in a gold clasp. Nice and stylish, in a jagged way.

  “I didn’t know crudrats could fly.” The fourth in the group had diamond shaped trigger trait beauty marks, one on each impossibly high cheekbone. He was diamond beautiful to go with it. Genetic mods all the way – those cheekbones of his were sharp enough to cut ceramic composite.

  Maura straightened out of her crouch very slowly. She kept her muscles tense and knees loose — running probably her next best option. She did not rise all the way, but only uncurled into a low bow. From that position she risked a slightly longer look at the highstocks.

  They seemed around her age but were fit in a way no malnourished crudrat ever could be. They carried progenetor canes, silver tops marked with genetic contract code and parliamentary alliance. They dressed like dandies but no high rank family Maura ever saw skimped on brute training. Maura figured that, standing fully upright, she’d match them in height, but in strength she didn’t stand a chance – not against four at once.

  Running was looking prettier and prettier.

  Then a fifth toff stepped to the front of the group. There was something different about him. Something more... Maura stumbled in trying to suss out what it may be... just more. His skin had taken the brunt of the triggering. It was perfectly smooth, opalescent grey with a pearly shine.

  “The real question is,” he said, “what do we do with it now that we’ve caught it?”

  “Dip it for space scabies?” suggested the redhead.

  “You want it for your collection, do you?” The diamond one sounded petulant.

  “It is very unusual.” Pearly-skin cocked his head to one side and examined Maura as though she were a new pair of boots in a crossgenetor window display.

  “Look at you,” said one of the high range voices, “such a dilettante.”

  “But doll, you can’t collect every little stray that falls from above.” The one with the winged eyebrows kept a diffident tone. No doubt who was the power spoke of this little wheel.

  Pearly-skin lifted his cane and tipped it upward until the end rested under Maura’s chin. He used it to force her head up.

  “Look at me,” he ordered.

  Maura looked.

  The cane drooped. “Am Vern,” he hissed.

  The others all rushed around to his side and peered at Maura’s eyes. Hers were triggered, no doubt there. Maura’s eyes had nothing human, nothing normal, about them. They were wide and angled up towards the outside, with extra big pale silver irises and straight slits where round pupils should have been. They had ability attached to them too, she adjusted faster and could see better in the dark. The extra peripheral vision they afforded had kept her safe from many a blade.

  “It’s still a reject,” said one of the triggered voices. Then laughed. “Isn’t this priceless? Even those older-spoke-then-thou Am Verns bleed out a dud once in a while!”

  “Am Vern.” Pearly-skin’s voice stuck on the name like crud on a blade. He changed his grip on his cane.

  Maura was seized by the horrific urge to laugh. Now that was irony. I’m to be messed about by a fist-load of trig
gered toffs for belonging to progenetor stock I know naught of. Am Vern, she thought, savoring the name, thanks for the weird eyes, but why’d your ugly choices have to come after me now? Triggered to be sure, and a spendy one, but wasted on a child that turned out to be reject. Maura had always known her stock was high, unlike Rees who only wanted his to be. Because of her eyes there must be progenetor in her past somewhere up tall in rank and spoke. She’d just never thought it would matter to her present. Now it seemed to be affecting her immediate future.

  Pearly-skin struck out with his cane, but not fast enough. A cane, after all, was only an unsharpened blade. This time Maura had known it was coming.

  She twisted. The heavy metal whistled harmlessly through the place her head had just been. He’d been going for her Am Vern eyes.

  He came at her again, followed by his fellows. They were a sudden angry mass of starched fabrics and smooth movements. Progenetors didn’t fight like normal folk, more like dancers. Armigers call it slippy, for it didn’t have a jot of the military brute to it. But it was deadly enough in its elegant way, especially with canes all metal tipped and heavy handled. Maura dodged backwards, letting them think they were cornering her against the hull of a nearby military skiff.

  The one with the red eyebrows licked her lips. Maura had thought that this progenetor might be the best of the lot, but the look on that sharp face told Maura the highstock liked violence too much.

  Maura gave a little half smile, prey to predator acknowledgement.

  The redhead raised her cane, the heaviest of the bunch with the most inscriptions. Maura knew what that kind of cane meant — old family, old money, and nothing to prove. Her kind knew only one thing, what they wanted.

  But before she or any of the other highstocks had a chance to swing again, Maura jumped to the side and ran several steps along the length of the spaceskiff.

  The toffs lurched after her.

  Maura leapt up against the side of the fighter, far enough to elude their scrabbling hands. Tapping softly with her feet, to aide ascent, she literally ran up the side of the spaceboat. At the maximum height her small momentum allowed, she twisted, pausing for a moment well out of reach, gripping the smooth metal hull behind her. She looked down at the five progenetors, calculating distance.

  Then she pushed forward with hands and feet, using her legs for spring. For a long moment she was flat out, diving over their heads. She tucked and flipped once in the air, landed, and went right into a handspring, keeping her speed up. Then, no more fancy tricks, she ran as fast as she could flat out across the bay.

  They’d expect her to go for the ducts, but in situations like this, predictable got a girl killed. So Maura aimed for the implant-monitored standard exit instead – citizen central. Beyond that she could see silver-blue streamers wending off into the inky dark — beltways used by citizens to cross the spaceport, closed to rejects who had no implant to guide the belt.

  Maura ran across the dock gathering speed as she went.

  The implant reader was an arch of metal within an open square in the bulkhead. The arch meant there was a corner free at each side at the top, with enough space for a whip-thin girl to slip through. Just enough.

  Before anyone could stop her, Maura shimmied up the side of the arch, and propelled herself feet first through the gap, twisting her body sideways so her shoulders could fit. She landed on the other side with a soft thud.

  The two customs officials sitting watch, sprung to their feet automatically. Brown vests and coarse fabric marked them as subgenetors. It was a military arena, sure, but apparently not so risky a zone as to warrant military guards even with the alien skiff. The two customs officials weren’t even armed. Odd, that. They looked at Maura, noticed the blue hair, and sat right back down. Crudrat wasn’t worth chasing. Crudrat didn’t matter. Crudrat was zero security risk, she couldn’t get through any other implant-readers anyway.

  Maura didn’t intend to try. Before her was the opening to one of the huge long tubular coverings under which various beltways sped off. They got anybody who was anybody from where they were to where they wanted to be. Of course, rejects weren’t anybody. The entirety of the well-lit plastic that covered the beltway was wired to read implants. Maura could no more use a beltway than she could pilot a spaceskiff.

  Instead, she ran to one side of the belt entrance and scaled the high barricading wall there. She twisted on the dismount to grab the top of the wall and slow her momentum and then dropped down into the gutter on the other side.

  Under the brightly-lit plastic next to her, the beltway sped off, whisking citizens away on their little private squares of hovering belt and then to one side or another in accordance with the choice their implants dictated. But the gullies on either side of the beltway, littered with garbage and port’s end, were reject territory. There outcasts walked the length of the port, slowly, conducting the business of being invisible.

  Or, in Maura’s case, ran the length of it.

  She zipped through that gutter as though it were a scyther tunnel only with people to dodge instead of blades. Not so many people... few crudrats, with blue hair and sullen expressions, a beggar or two not yet spaced for wasting air. The dregs of the universe, the Wheel’s unwanted.

  Maura skittered up one side of the spaceport wall, half run, half climb. She rappelled off, jumping over the gulley and a group of vagrants squabbling at its center, and landing on top of the beltway cover. She leapt up and onwards with barely a pause.

  She ran full out for a bit longer but then slowed, jogging along the arched top, vaulting the long beams that held the huge cover in place. She felt her body settle into its crudrat breathing pattern, not timed to blades, but timed to the spacing of the beams. Here and there she leaped high and far, bridging a gap where one section of belt ended, dumping passengers off, and another started up again. Sometimes she had to twist her leap, following a curve in the belt or split in the tunnel. Below her, citizens went about their shifts — people with lives, and jobs, and purpose. People with implants, and clean faces, and nice clothing. And normal-colored hair.

  Maura risked a glance back. Not a glimmer of followers. She allowed herself a cautious smile. Even knowing that the Wheel always sought balance and her pride would be due its penance, she was pleased with herself for getting away. Take that, progenetor genes! All their triggering, training, and wealth, and their kind still couldn’t catch one failed crudrat. She permitted herself pleasure in each easy jump, in the strength that determination, not triggering, had put into her muscles. She had speed, nimbleness, and crudrat training on her side. Naught can stop me! Except...

  Maura paused and looked down, a quick glance, the kind used by any crudrat, checking for the shink of metal. Instead of blade movement she caught a glimpse of the one thing guaranteed to throw off her pace. Below her, inside its plastic tunnel, full of sterile air, sterile life, and bright white light, the beltway had stopped.

  Just up and stopped.

  The beltway never stops.

  All her life on board the spaceport – the entirety of her life – and two things were always in motion: scythers and beltways. The one that kept the port in orbit, the other that kept its citizens in motion. Like Spokes within the great Wheel, both were ever tracing their path.

  Maura blinked, rubbed at her eyes. The beltway was definitely stopped.

  She checked and still no one was following her. She’d like to think the highstock bucks gave up because they figured she knew the spaceport better than they. This place was just their lay-over from one pleasure jaunt to the next. It was her home. But it was more likely that young toffs like that couldn’t stand to set one crystal-cut shoe heel gutterside.

  Maura crouched down, rubbing off the fine sheen of blue scum from the beltway cover and looked through it.

  Some racket had halted the belt below her — a scrabbling of bodies and screams. The belt squares no longer hovered. The hum of airflow had quieted. Bright light beat mercilessly down on a se
ething mass of forms.

  Playing black hole to the center of this galaxy of unWheel-like chaos was a creature. Not a citizen, not even a person, a giant velvety-skinned being, looking almost murmel-like only white in color, and much, much bigger.

  An alien!

  Maura knew they existed, course she did. After all, way back in the turns before her body rejected the implant, the ticks when she belonged, when she’d had stock, she’d also had learning. About words, and numbers, and past lives, and aliens. She’d never seen one before, and never in all her turns expected to. Certainly not up close and all personal-like, under bright beltway lights, large as space.

  The alien was under guard, but the armigers weren’t much in the way of useful. The creature was writhing and roaring — tossing aside military and civilian alike. With so many citizens all on one place, it was clear no steel Spoke felt it safe to use a sonic gun. The alien had reach and strength over every other non-energy weapon.

  Maura stared. Big white ugly is holding its own downright successful-like. She’d seen one or two progenetors triggered to look very strange indeed, but nothing like this. Its velvety skin wasn’t skin at all, but fur — a thick pelt. Its eyes were fully black as dead space and it stood a head higher at least than the tallest armiger there.

  As she watched, the creature surged forward, shaking off captors and restraints in one violent movement. It burst out of the crowd and took off, leaping from one stopped belt square to another, actually moving itself down the halted beltway. It brushed aside occupants as if they were dust, knocking them off the belt, to fall onto the air jets below, causing more screams of outrage, fear, and pain.

  Intrigued, Maura shadowed it from above, using easy speed and simple leaps to keep pace. Free of the hysterical crowd, the alien moved somewhat like a normal human but Maura was clearly more comfortable with her run than it was with the beltway. It made decent time jumping along, but hadn’t a crudrat’s easy grace.

  Maura kept her eye on the blurry white form through the beltway cover. Perhaps pup-like? All first-run-awkward and unsure of the bones. Bigger, of course, so its steps would never survive blade-time, but still fluid, impressive enough. The difference being that this creature was grounded, no flips or wall-runs. But Wheel’s Holy Spokes it sure moved fast for such a hulking thing.