No Life But This (9 page)

Quin and my sisters had been permitted to join me on my trip to the flight base on Luna, from which the moonliner to Europa would embark on its interplanetary journey. Luna was not as strictly regulated as the outer colonies,
really only being a space-port off planet. Most earthly regulations were still in effect on Earth’s moon. The journey there didn’t require stasis, and only a moderate disinfection procedure, so many people travelled there on vacation, or to get a taste of colony life to see if they could endure it. Many people, they say, can’t. There are all kinds of reasons why. Health concerns, gravity, nutritional
deficiencies, sunlight, asthma. Human beings aren’t really built to live anywhere but Earth.

I spent most of the time on Luna with a blinding headache. It had faded mostly on the morning of my ultimate departure, probably due to the huge number of drugs Dr Svarog had prescribed. I had waited, nervously, in the seated queue at the space-port, as first Xavier and then Rose had been bundled off
to their final disinfection procedure. Then it was my turn. Tristan had a stranger snap a final photograph of all four of us. She and Penny had bid me a tearful farewell, and Quin carefully nodded at me, with a strange smile on his face. I stared at them, trying to memorize their faces, trembling.

I might never see them again.

Then I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and stepped into the first
disinfection chamber. Now it was over an hour later, and apparently I was finally disinfected enough to pass muster.

‘Please lie on the couch for bacterial reintroduction,’ the disembodied voice said sweetly.

I lay down on the cold plastic table – calling it a couch was far too charitable – and allowed mechanical arms to brush me on various parts of my body. According to the literature, they
were reintroducing beneficial bacteria without which my body would be susceptible to dangerous infection. How anything that would infect me could have made it past the antiseptics and disinfectants and antibiotics and irradiation we all had to endure was beyond me, but apparently human beings – and close genetically modified cousins – could not easily function without
some
microscopic symbionts.
They’d discovered this in the early days of colonization. We are not alone – we are each colonies of mites and microbes and bacteria, all functioning together to create a single entity.

So I was re-exposed to the
proper
kind of eyelash mites, the
appropriate
fingernail bacteria, and
right
sort of microscopic passengers. The disinfection protocol had been instigated during the plagues of the Dark
Times, and had never been restructured.

Once I was properly reinfected, I was directed to collect my clothing and proceed through the final doors – and welcome to the moonliner
Daedalus
.

My clothing had faded and shrunk and gotten considerably more worn as it had gone through its own sterilization process, but Jamal had warned me about this. I put it back on, and it still fit well enough. I
had to sit and wait for the dizziness to pass before I could go through the final doors. I’d had to do that quite a bit through this whole antiseptic odyssey. Dizzy, still a bit ill, and already missing my family so much I felt as if I’d been torn in half, I stepped through the doors and into the
Daedalus
.

‘Hey,’ said Quin. ‘Took you long enough.’

I blinked in utter amazement.
‘Quin!’
I signed, making the flicking sign for ‘5’ that we signed as Quin’s name.

‘You recognized me. Good sign.’

‘But what are you doing here?’
I signed frantically.

‘I’m coming with you,’ Quin said, examining his fingernails. ‘What, didn’t I mention it?’

I glared at him.
‘No
.’

He grinned broadly, his teeth showing white against his blue skin. We
usually don’t smile like that, so I knew he was doing it to annoy me. ‘You need an interpreter,’ Quin said smugly. ‘Rose isn’t good enough at sign, and you can’t be expected to touch
everyone
on Europa.’

‘But Rose
…’

‘Is shy, you know that,’ Quin said, stopping me. ‘You’re not going to make her speak for you
all
the time, are you?’

I swallowed. Actually, even though Quin was an almost immediately
annoying person, I was suddenly extremely glad he was going with me.
‘But you didn’t prepare. The antibiotics …’

‘Mr Zellwegger and I had this worked out days ago. I started the antibiotics when you did.’ He shook his head. ‘It was awful. It felt like something inside me died that day.’

I closed my eyes as I tried not to laugh. Laughing at Quin’s jokes was one of the worst things you could do.
It only encouraged him. Fortunately, I sound odd when I laugh, so I’m quite used to suppressing it.
‘Did the girls know about this?’
I asked instead.

‘You’re not the only one who doesn’t talk,’ Quin said with a wink.

‘Where’s Rose?’

‘To your left at the passengers’ dining lounge. Munching on a pre-stass special of the day.’ He bowed dramatically. ‘This way, my liege.’

Quin’s royal sarcasm
was well founded. The room in which the passengers to Europa were waiting to be taken to their designated stass chambers was opulent in the extreme. Luna base was made mostly out of radiation-shielded mudbrick, formed out of the lunar dust, and actually felt quite homey – almost tribal. It was quite utilitarian in design, and didn’t add much in the way of frills or finery.

The moonliner, on the
other hand, was luxurious. The light fixtures in this dining lounge appeared to be cut crystal. The ceiling held a detailed fresco depicting Daedalus with his mechanical wings soaring into the clouds away from the island of Minos. If you looked closely you could just see doomed Icarus, a tiny figure above him, flying too close to the sun. The walls were literally made of golden velvet. I touched
one as I entered the lounge – my handprint stayed on the wall. I ran my fingers down it and left ploughed furrows. I was almost tempted to draw on it with my finger, but I smoothed it with the edge of my hand and the marks flowed invisibly back into the gold shine. Even going to UniPrep, I wasn’t used to such luxury.

Rose laughed, and I realized she’d been watching me. I turned to look at her.
I’d been too nervous this morning as we prepared to board the moonliner to really look at her carefully. I was still nervous, but now that Quin was going with me I found it somewhat easier to concentrate.

Rose was pale, and her eyes were shadowed with exhaustion. I knew that look – she hadn’t slept well. She was prone to nightmares, and stress always brought them to the surface. But she was smiling.
Her hair was dark, still damp from the disinfection wash, and held tightly back in a French braid. Her bronzed hair reminded me of our swim, and I found my eyes crinkling in a smile. ‘I got you some fruit, and stuffed mushrooms,’ Rose said. ‘It’s best to have a good meal in your stomach before a long stass. It makes recovery go faster.’

There were few animals and thus little meat on Luna, so
the buffet mostly held vegetarian dishes. I wasn’t hungry, and ate as little as Rose – who could never eat much. Quin loaded his plate with delectables and went back for seconds. I wondered how he could eat so much.
‘Hey,’
he signed silently when I asked.
‘If I’m going to die, I want to do it with a full stomach.’
His flippancy worried me. So Dr Svarog had illuminated the risks of stass to Quin,
too.

We waited for nearly an hour while a few more passengers staggered in from the disinfection gauntlet and collapsed into dining chairs. Looking around I could see we were all universally exhausted. Something about that disinfection procedure just ate up our energy. Probably for the best, since we were about to go to sleep – sort of.

Finally we were called. ‘Zellwegger, party of four?’ said
the steward at the end of the lounge.

The taste of iron flooded my mouth. This was it. I was about to be called into stasis … possibly into death.

‘That would be us,’ Xavier said quietly, and we all stood up.

My legs turned to water with fear. I’m afraid I staggered as I stood. Both Quin and Rose lunged for me, but Rose got to me first. She was terribly worried.
‘I’m okay,’
I told her, but
Rose was unconvinced. I couldn’t hide my fear from her.

‘What’s wrong?’

I tried to keep Dr Svarog’s fears suppressed and only said,
‘Stasis. I don’t know what to expect.’

‘Oh,’ she said. She looked from Xavier to Quin and back to me. ‘We had you scheduled to share a tube with Quin, but …’ She didn’t say it, but she wondered if I’d rather travel with her.

I couldn’t even find a word to express
how much I would prefer that. Stay with Rose rather than spend the next forty minutes listening to Quin pontificate rudely? I was ecstatic. Rose laughed.

‘I’ll talk to Xavier about it,’ she said, walking me towards the steward’s desk.

I wondered if this meant Xavier would have to travel with Quin. ‘No,’ Rose told me, catching the thought. ‘Xavier wouldn’t let me get a double tube with him. He
insisted on a single.’

I pulled my hand away quickly, but I caught something I wasn’t supposed to; Xavier would not, under any circumstances, lie down in a tiny room alone with Rose. Rose, though she knew the reasons for this, was hurt.

‘Are you coming?’ Quin asked loudly. ‘I know slime moulds who travel faster than you two!’

‘Takes one to know one,’
I signed at Quin, and he chuckled.

‘So,
we have you down for one double and two single berths,’ the steward said, unconcerned with our banter. ‘Your full names, please?’

‘Xavier Ronald Zellwegger.’

‘Rosalinda Samantha Fitzroy,’ Rose said primly.

‘EP Quin T. Essential and EP Octavius Sextus,’ Quin said for me.

‘He has to say it for himself,’ the steward said without even looking up from his screen.

I clapped my hands at him and
signed it for him. He stopped me before I was half done. ‘Are you all right, sir?’ the steward asked, horrified. ‘Let me call the medical officer. Sometimes the disinfection process can cause unexpected reactions …’

‘Listen you semi-evolved simian—’ Quin began.

‘If you’ll look on your records,’ said Xavier, ‘you will see that my two guests here are under special medical release. Their appearance
is normal.’

The steward blinked, did a double take at Quin, flipped through pages on his screen, and finally conceded the point. I often got this kind of treatment if I travelled where people didn’t expect to see me. I appeared somewhat cadaverous if you didn’t realize what caused it. Quin was darker than me, so blue he was almost black, so in certain lights he could sometimes look normal. I
had no such luck. ‘If you two gentlemen will come this way then, please …?’ he began.

‘Actually,’ Rose said. ‘Xavier? Would it be all right if Otto travels with me?’

Xavier looked at the two of us, and his shoulders sagged. I couldn’t tell if it was disappointment or relief. ‘Of course,’ he said, but it sounded just as grim and formal as everything else he said.

‘Meaning I get my own room?’
Quin said with a raised eyebrow. ‘Terrific.’

‘Ahm …’ the steward looked about to protest.

‘Surely there isn’t any real problem?’ Xavier asked.

‘It’s against policy …’ the steward said, and Xavier looked at him hard.

‘Policy?’

One word; one cool, calm word, that was all it took. ‘No,’ said the steward quickly. ‘No problem. Only I’d need to inform stass control and have the records shifted
… get the tubes recalibrated …’

‘Well. Do so, if you please.’

The steward hurried away, flushed, and I stared at Xavier. People feared him. People had obeyed the last leader of UniCorp, too, but the deference there was to the position. I hadn’t paid too much attention to Bren’s grandfather in the past, but now, due to Rose, I couldn’t help but wonder over him. The respect he garnered had more
to do with himself, his personality, than his role as UniCorp’s CEO. I always knew he was powerful, but suddenly I came to the realization that this old man was dangerous … in a way I wasn’t sure I yet understood. I took Rose’s hand again as my nerves overtook me.

It was a full ten minutes before the steward came back. ‘I’ve arranged for the passenger transfer. If the four of you would follow
Cheryl, please?’ He gestured towards a powerfully attractive woman in a jacket with a great deal of braid. She stood very straight. Rose recognized that her face was bought – surgery and rejuvenants. I realized she was a higher rank than the steward. He had to have called her in. I wondered if she was the captain herself. If so, she wasn’t saying.

We followed her down corridors of already closed
stass tubes. We passed the glass-fronted circular doors at regular intervals, their various lights and monitors on the outside. These doors were quite large. There was an odd smell – a combination of flowers and commercial perfume, with an undertone of something acidic and chemical. It made me feel giddy. Quin sniffed. ‘What is that?’

‘Stass chemicals,’ Rose said. ‘Residuals. A more modern mix
than I’m used to, though. The perfume is more subtle.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I approve, actually.’

‘Gardenias,’ Xavier said. ‘I’ve made this run before. The
Daedalus
has been in operation for nearly twenty-five years – that’s old, for a moonliner.’

Our guide stopped at an open door. ‘This would be you, Miss Fitzroy. And your companion?’

‘Otto,’ Rose supplied for her. ‘Otto Sextus.’

‘Mr
Sextus, if you and Miss Fitzroy would say your goodnights to the rest of your party, and take your places in the tube.’

I turned back to Quin. This was it. We might not ever wake up from this. Quin’s face was impassive. ‘See you in the morning, bro,’ he said gruffly.

I wanted to hug him, but this was Quin. I settled for touching his shoulder, my thumb against his neck. He wasn’t frightened.
‘Quit cowering,’
he told me silently.
‘If you die in the next half hour, you won’t have to worry anymore, will you.’

And deep in his consciousness I suddenly received a face. Quin was thinking of someone. It wasn’t a face I remembered. One of us, but young, no more than five, the skin barely tinted blue. I thought Quin might have been remembering me as a child, but I wasn’t sure. He pushed me
out of his mind as he pushed my hand away – not ungently. ‘Well, are you two finally going to sleep together or not?’ Quin said, gesturing at me at Rose. ‘What, you want me to watch? Move!’

I was too frightened even to blush. I signed
‘goodbye’
and turned to enter the stass tube.

Rose was bright red, thanks to Quin. Xavier reached up and lightly touched the side of her face, brushing a tendril
of hair off her cheek. He stared at Rose as she climbed up beside me. ‘I’ll be right here,’ he said, taking hold of her hand.

‘I swear, you’re more worried about this than I am,’ Rose said. ‘Honestly. I’ll be fine.’

Xavier couldn’t shake the serious look from his face. ‘I know,’ he said quietly. He hugged her with one arm and lightly kissed her forehead. ‘Rest well.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll be here
when you wake.’

Rose nodded and flung herself into the tube beside me.

‘Right,’ Quin said. He grinned lasciviously at the pretty official. ‘I guess that means you get to take me to bed, now.’

An amusing mixture of emotions flashed over her face, ranging from annoyance to revulsion, with a healthy dollop of fear, all buried under the professional smile. ‘Right this way, sir,’ she said crisply.
Quin winked at me as they left.

The door closed behind us, and we were alone, awaiting takeoff. I knew it could be anywhere from twenty minutes to near an hour. An hour of terror awaiting my possible demise … It felt like the long walk on Death Row.

I turned to Rose. She looked right at home. Her blonde braid was drying, and she was dressed in a cream and lavender mock-Edwardian shirt she had
purchased this summer. It had been fun watching her develop her own sense of style. Rather than follow the dictates of current fashion, as her mother had once done, she’d searched out possibilities and finally settled on vintage clothing and antique styles, which she mixed effortlessly with her artistic flare. She said she figured since she was vintage herself, she should put it to good use. Strangely
enough, vintage fashions were beginning to become popular, and not just at UniPrep – all over the planet. From following the fashions, Rose had inadvertently gone to dictating them. Such was the power she didn’t realize she held. She looked beautiful.

She crossed her arms behind her head and leaned back against the raised cushion that served as a pillow. ‘Now we wait,’ she said. She took a deep
breath, sniffing the air. ‘This really is a good mix,’ she mused. ‘Shame it’s only for this trip.’

I frowned.
‘You’re actually looking forward to this, aren’t you.
’ I signed.

‘I only caught like three words of that. Looking at what?’

I reached over and touched her wrist.
‘Are you looking forward to this?’
I asked, then let her go.

Rose shrugged. ‘Yes and no. I’m used to it. And Xavier and
you are coming too, so it’s not much of a problem.’

I raised my eyebrow.
‘Bren?’
I signed.

Rose shifted subtly away from me – I wondered if she even realized she’d done it. ‘I’m trying not to think about that.’