Crudrat Read online

  She dove under the next blade. It felt strange not to worry about a murmel on her back. Her weight and balance calculations shifted. It made the run a little easier. But for all that, she missed her little friend’s chitters. She’d never run the blades without him along.

  Shink. Shink. Shink.

  She twisted, vaulted a side blade, tumbled under a high one, and then bounced up and spun to the left. The next blade came in low and she flipped over it, twisting at the last so she could look back the way she’d come. Her landing was gentle as spaceskiff in zero gravity. No sound from her feet and not a chance of a dent in the tunnel floor. She snaked her head up to peer back through the whirring blades. No one was following her.

  Perhaps I’m not so old nor so sloppy. She twisted to face forward once more. Only to leap back away from a top down blade twirling to one side.

  Shink.

  Up came a blade from below, with unscooped crud behind its hinge, making it wobble slightly. Some crudrat hadn’t culled this tunnel properly. Amateur, thought Maura, tut-tutting to herself at the failure.

  Shink.

  Breathe.

  An upper blade cut. Maura drove herself down, sliding forward across the tunnel floor on her stomach. She popped herself up with a heave of hands into a sideways spin to avoid a blade from the left. She landed in a crouch, briefly out of harm’s way and took a breather looking cautiously around. She’d never known whether it was intentional design or not, but most scythers had a wait spot halfway along their length. Under tick restraints, she’d never been able to take advantage before, but this time she did.

  It was peaceful there. The light from tunnel-end throbbed as blades passed rhythmically before it, giving the impression of some living thing’s throat pulse. Everything was a dim blue color, filled with whirling specks of fresh crud and no sound but the humming shink of deadly blades.

  There.

  Maura rocked forward onto the balls of her feet. Getting grip with her toes, she ran up the side of the tunnel until she was perched near the top, far above a side blade. There was a small repair in the tunnel at that point, the consequence of some now-dead crudrat’s mistake. It sported a half-out screw, coated in old crud. It had jarred Maura’s scraper on more than one occasion and she remembered it with loathing.

  Perfect, she grinned. She took out the keycard on its long thin cord and looped it about the screw, wedging the card itself under the collected crud between screw and welded seam. It lodged there, hidden from view.

  She slid back down the tunnel wall, feeling bereft. Now all she had to do was retrieve the card before the next cleaning run. Fuzzy’s grand escape scheme was now on a time limit. From here on out, if they weren’t spot on, all her hopes would probably end up in some murmel’s belly.

  She turned back the way she’d come, took a deep breath, and headed for the tunnel exit, dancing the blades.

  Shink. Shink. Shink.

  6

  Shopping: a progenetor’s last great duty to the Wheel.

  ~ From Claudicix's Advice to Young Progenetors

  Maura oozed out the scyther tunnel and sauntered back towards the air ducts. Any moment she expected to be collared by a steel Spoke, but no one stopped her. Subgenetors continued about their business and some crisis with the crudrats down scyther end had everyone else’s attention.

  Maura headed back to her nest — a bend in two ducts near the low-market crossgenetor arena. It wasn’t a bad place to kip, warmer than the tunnels that ran to private residencies, and slightly bigger, but less private. She expected to find the murmel waiting for her. He usually chose to sleep curled in her small pile of stuff, which was good as she didn’t own a pillow and he didn’t mind if she used him as one. She did find the murmel, but there was someone else sleeping with him. Someone the murmel didn’t particularly like, as the blue beastie was sitting some distance away with his back to the interloper.

  “Rees?”

  No response. The lump in her turf did not bother to move.

  Maura inched closer. Too big to be Rees and with hair too long as well.

  She poked the person’s side and then skittered back.

  The sleeping form shifted and Ger’s sharp pointed face blinked up at her. “You not dead yet?”

  “Evidently not.” Maura shifted her weight to her knees to better free up both hands. Covertly she looked about, no weapons handy. Small tunnels were no place to fight, but still, this was her nest. She wasn’t gonna let it sink into anyone else’s mitts, let alone Ger’s.

  The murmel scampered over to her. His long blue tail was lashing back and forth, a sure sign of annoyance. Maura wasn’t sure if he was annoyed at her for the late return, or at Ger for messing with precedent.

  The little creature leaned affectionately against her legs and patted at her knickerbockers, grooming the creases for bits of crud. Annoyed with Ger, then.

  “Why you squatting my metal?” Maura’s voice was hard with no quarter given. She was tired of Ger’s little games.

  “I like it here.” Ger shifted up into a crouch as well. His eyes narrowed. “Ain’t you heard, top run? You’re out. Soon enough some other ‘rat will come along faster and better than you ever were. Who knows, maybe me.”

  Maura looked him up and down in as scathing a manner as possible. “You’re sure welcome to think that. You’d be wrong. But delusion helps some people get through life.”

  “How’s it feel, to be useless?” Ger answered barb with barb.

  “Listen, you, I may be out, but I can still kick your blade-hopping butt from one end of this spaceport to the other.”

  “How’s that trick going to feed you?” Ger shifted slowly about and began to back off.

  “Why you so worried on my health, all a sudden?”

  “You know me, always after helping a fellow reject in need.” Ger inched a little further away. “Just recently, for example, I helped a whole bunch of my friends.”

  Maura felt a sudden cold panic hit her sharp as space-ice. “Oh yeah, and what’d you help them do, jump out the nearest airlock?”

  Ger smiled the kind of smile that said the real reason he was there was to watch Maura’s face when he said what he was just about to say.

  “More like, what’d I help them to.” He amended her words.

  Maura crossed her arms and glared.

  Ger skittered away, high-tailing it down the tunnel towards his nest.

  Maura contemplated chasing after, but chances were, whatever he took, he’d no longer have it on him. Besides, she hadn’t the energy for more running. It wasn’t like she had much worth stealing.

  She rubbed her neck with one hand and patted the murmel with the other.

  “Nasty piece of work, that boy.”

  The murmel, being a creature of discriminating taste, agreed with her. He went to snuffle about where Ger had slept, looking for crud droppings.

  Maura followed, reaching down to the chink in the tunnel wall that released a little wire catch of her own devising. When pulled, it exposed a small hole where she stashed her ration cubes.

  Nothing.

  She scrabbled about, hardly daring to believe it. She’d been hoarding her pay for several shifts. She’d garnered much in the form of bonuses and extras, especially as she’d been trying to keep her weight down. With her runs ticking in as fastest, she put quite a number of cubes away in anticipation of the inevitable spin when she lost her license. It was one of the reasons she hadn’t panicked yesterday.

  Every last cube was gone.

  “Why,” she looked at the murmel, too shocked to yell, “that little space turd!”

  The murmel, now that the immediate threat of interloping human was gone, didn’t look up from his snuffling.

  Maura banged about some more, cursing Ger and his ancestor’s genes, whatever form they took, back to the Seeding. Eventually, she calmed down.

  “I sure wish I could fuel-up on crud and bits of space dust like you,” she said to the murmel, her stomach beginning to rumble.

  The murmel sneezed at her.

  Maura had few options. Ger was gone off to his friends, with her hoard, and there was no way she could take them all on to get back her own food. Rees would loan her a cube or two if she asked, but he hadn’t much to spare and she couldn’t stomach the idea of taking what little he had away. He needed to eat as much as she did. More, now that he was running blades ,and she wasn’t.

  So, ignoring her noisy tummy, she curled up in the spot Ger had vacated, hoping she didn’t catch space scabies from his sorry carcass. The murmel arranged himself near her head and Maura burrowed against his furry stomach. She fell asleep to the soft sound of his purring. He, at least, felt that now his human was positioned correctly, all was right in the universe.

  Maura awoke slowly, luxuriating in the decadence of it. Her regular routine was thrown off by a long spin and late to sleep, and no scyther shift urged her up to work.

  “Don’t you have crud to be eating, maybe some screaming to do?” she asked the murmel.

  He yawned at her, showing double rows of small sharp teeth.

  She sat up. “Well, don't go ‘round expecting me to fatten you up all on my lonesome.”

  The creature stood and arched his back in a stretch, elongating his long blue tail, the tip quivering. He looked at her expectantly.

  “Didn’t you suss my meaning? No run this spin. You be wanting breakfast? Then you’ll be having to go down tunnelside and let some new ‘rat to take you on. Won’t be the same, mind. No one else’ll fatten you up as much or as fast as I did, ‘spite what Ger goes ‘round uttering.”

  The murmel sat back on his haunches and had a bit of a wash. Maura figured he’d know what to do if he got hungry enough. More than she did, in any event.

  She was to go about her next task in the Great Alien Rescue Mission. And if one was going to get oneself chucked in the slammer, one might as well do it in as spectacular a manner as possible. Since she was hungry, food was going to be part of it.

  She ran boney hands through her short blue hair, sliding her nails over her scalp. She then straightened out the folds in her shirt and knickerbockers as best she could, brushing at the creases and the smudges of blue dust. There was no way she could ever make herself look respectable, not in rags and bare feet. Nevertheless, she struck determinately off, dodging through the tunnels that led up-market towards crossgenetor arena where all the hobnobs and highstocks did their shopping.

  Although it was early first shift, the market stall pods had all dropped down onto the floor of the amphitheater, and most were open for business already. The clear cables that connected the pods to their docks in the high arched ceiling were coiled away forming reflective nodules far above. In her more poetic moments Maura thought they looked like water droplets. In her more realistic moments, like pimples. During sleep shift, those cables dropped down in silvery ribbons. The venders would climb on top of their pods, hook the cables in, and watch their livelihoods hauled up — remote and secure. Those who came venturing into the arena during off times found it abandoned and lonely, bereft of its purpose.

  First shine, with lights recently up, the arena was a thing of beauty. Maura crouched at the highest tier where stalls gave way to arched ceiling, and before her the multi-level amphitheater was littered with brightly colored displays. No subtlety there, just spit and shine. Some venders set up streetside with colorful inexpensive items draped about, while owners of fancier pods with inset windows took advantage of their increased security to flaunt outrageous sparkles.

  The top level, in front of Maura, was mostly food vender turf. Tiny chew pods opened to form carts and more massive units, needing three or four cables, formed-up restaurants. Both offered up the best cuisine the Wheel had on hand. Next level down was clothes: high-end designer pods crammed with top-hats, bowlers, cravats, and suits nested next to cheap tin second hand stalls. Below them came munitions stores and space skiff suppliers, some of the largest pods arenaside, then shops selling furniture and other trinkets, and further down venders of the mysterious and the old, objects well beyond Maura’s ken. She supposed if she’d grown up in the world, her trigger traits dictated she’d know them all – probably own most of what they hawked, with credits to spare.

  The crossgenetor amphitheater was implant monitored within an inch of its existence. Readers were inset all around the perimeter, even at the edges of air ducts. New security measures had been enacted last turn. Lowlifes can’t be allowed to trouble progenetors at play, now can they? Of course, rejects weren’t officially permitted anywhere on the spaceport, but time was a girl could do a decent spate of begging in the arena. Now crossgenetor zones all sported high security, even those chipped who hadn’t the credits to afford the goods were denied entry. The Wheel took economic exclusivity seriously.

  Maura hovered at the duct-edge for a number of ticks, contemplating what food appealed most. The murmel sat patiently next to her, blue tail-tip a-twitch. Maura couldn’t see anyway around setting off the implant alarms, so she figured on using the murmel’s presence to her advantage. Picking the little beastie up, she jumped down into the corridor.

  A shrill, high-pitched whine rent the air, and two armigers came immediately charging over – predictable as scyther blades. There weren’t more than a few people shopping so early but those that were, quickly nipped into nearby chew pods. Maura ducked down and to one side, sliding in between two stalls, and then around the back of a pod. The murmel, acting his usual role of deeply affronted dignitary, stood pompous and alone in the middle of the thoroughfare.

  The armigers slid to a stop, sharp and graceless before him.

  “It’s only a blasted murmel.”

  “Spaceborn pests,” agreed the second gun.

  “Hassle.” The first reached for the blue creature with a brawny hand.

  The murmel fluffed up his tail and hissed in a very pointed manner.

  Both armigers backed away right quick. It was amusing as all get out to see. The murmel, without a belly full of crud, was about the size and general weight of Maura’s head. He was no match for two well-armed armigers, who, like most military folk, were triggered towards the large and bullish side of physicality. Still, there was something about the sheer number of teeth some tinker had seen fit to put inside a murmel’s head that gave most people the willies.

  “Stun it and chuck it into space.”

  “And have some engineering subgenetor scum cite us for tool damages? This one looks sassy but tame.” The armiger crouched down and made a little clucking noise, offering her finger to the beast.

  The murmel, feeling battle lines had been drawn, fluffed up further and minced forward in a tiptoe sashay, snapping his little teeth at that finger, in an attitude of menace.

  The armiger stood up right quick.

  The murmel danced in near enough to nibble at her shiny boots. He paused, tail lashing, and tilted his fuzzy face up, looking affronted. Then he leapt straight up in the air, threw his little blue head back, and screamed at the top of his not-inconsiderable lungs.

  There are many sounds in the universe worse than a murmel’s scream — the hiss of breathable air escaping into space, the crash of metal against metal, the slide of scyther blade through bone. But there is something remarkably potent to a murmel’s scream, they scream it like they really mean it. The noise was laced with terror, as though death were imminent, or the end of the world, or at least the end of the best parts of it.

  Maura’s murmel had a scream that won awards — little blue badges of honor and a certain heroic status amongst his fellows that amounted to “don’t mess with the best.” His scream was a real humdinger, hurling its way right into the brain with a deadly eardrum hit-and-run along the way.

  The two armigers almost jumped right out of their military grade boots, clapping hands to ears. Maura’d been living with murmels a-screaming all spin every spin most of her life, and it still scared the crud-dust out of her when it came on unexpected. Regular-type port-goers only heard murmel screams as distant echoes at tunnel’s end. Like the layering of blue dust that eventually covered all port kit, murmel screams were one more thing in a long stream of annoyances dealt out by spaceside life. But the chipped rarely got to hear a murmel up close and personal.

  Maura’s murmel was mighty close and getting himself pretty darn personal.

  Then, just as abruptly, he stopped screaming and sat back in his heels looking embarrassed by his own outburst. He wrapped his paws about his tail and bent to wash the tip.

  “Tame, you say?”

  "Yes, but even the tame ones only go crazy without a handler. You stay here and watch it. I’ll go get a net.”

  “Are you sure that’s… “ The gun trailed off as his partner walked briskly away, leaving him as the sole hero to safeguard the amphitheater against a vicious murmel invasion.

  The blue beastie paused in his bath to give the remaining guard a disgusted look. It was a look that said much on the superiority of murmels. Then he glanced about, probably looking for Maura. Maura hoped against hope he wouldn’t spot her bolt hole and come sauntering over.

  Possibly sussing out her crafty plan, the little creature leaped back up into the air duct, setting off the alarm once more, and then disappeared down the tunnel. Both Maura and the guard breathed a sigh of relief.

  Maura waited awhile for the female guard to trot back. When she did, her companion acquired himself a high-grade chewing-out for letting the beastie go. The two then continued patrolling about their merry way, with substantially less swagger to their shiny boots. Maura slid out from behind the chew pod and meandered in the opposite direction, all casual and unthreatening.

  She was obviously a crudrat — skinny-bones, quick eyes, sporting blue hair and attitude. So the wheel citizens didn’t notice her. Those few shoppers lazing about walked right past, looked straight through. She wasn’t no more than a speck of crud under their high-gloss shoes.