Tin Star (4 page)

I stumbled out of the Ministry of Colonies and Travel. Aliens pushed by me on their way to the Sunspa or to the market or to their place of work. They all had somewhere to be.

I could not think of a single place to go next.

4

When you are lost, go back to the beginning.
That’s what my father always told me when I was a little girl. I remembered his canvas coveralls, thick and stiff when he would come home from the factory. I would be confused about homework, or having trouble following my grandmother’s senile logic. He’d pull me up on his lap and tell me to go back to the beginning, and sure enough, a thread would be there for me to follow.

I wished that he were alive now. If I had known then that his death would lead me here to this moment, I would have begged my mother to stay on Earth. If he were alive then maybe my mother wouldn’t have joined the Children of Earth, and we would be safe at home. I could have been happy on Earth. I could have been happy in the small garden my father and I tried to grow. I could have been happy looking at the stars and keeping them far away. I wanted my family back.

Right now I would have settled for any Human, just to have someone familiar to ask for help from. But I was the only one of my kind. I wanted to stop and fall down every time I reminded myself that.

Movement meant survival. So I kept moving.

The station was big, but my feet moved quickly and covered a lot of ground, past the stores on the shopping quarter and the sleeping quarters and station operations. I went up and up and up in the elevators until I reached the docking bays. I didn’t stop until I reached Docking Bay 12. I must have stood there and stared at it for hours, thinking that the
Prairie Rose
would somehow return and retrieve me, even though that would never happen. I could only think magically now. Reality would crush me.

Nothing happened. No ship docked. Not many aliens were around. For a docking bay, there was very little action. But that was the way that it was on the whole station.

I went now to the anteroom and sat down with my stolen plant. I imagined entering the airlock and opening it and falling out of the station and into the darkness of space. Everything about my thoughts was ugly.

But the plant in front of me was beautiful. And while my thoughts were numb, my eyes fixed on the yellow of the blooms.

It kept me from doing something that could not be undone.

*   *   *

“How much do you want for the plant?”

I opened my eyes to see a large insect-like alien. I remembered him from the day I was found.

“It’s not for sale,” I said. My voice cracked. My throat was dry, and the air mask the med bay had issued me itched. It was losing its ability to filter air. I wish they had given me the nanites, but I could not afford them and they were not automatically given, especially to Humans. And even though I was thirsty and hungry and I hadn’t eaten in days. I knew that if I lost the plant, I would lose the war waging inside of me. The plant meant life.

The alien made a noise.

“Oh, you Human, don’t speak! You are trying to kill me with your sounds.”

I wasn’t sure where his eyes were. I chose to focus on the two protuberances on the side of his head. That seemed to work. He pointed at the plant again.

“How much?”

“It’s not for sale,” I whispered in the Universal Galactic my dizzy brain could remember.

The alien’s face changed. Perhaps he was smiling. Perhaps he was angry. I could not tell. He rearranged himself, and his tiny wings fluttered for a moment.

“There, talk low like that and I won’t steal it from you. Instead, we can negotiate. My name is Heckleck.”

“Tula Bane,” I croaked.

“I’d like your plant,” Heckleck said.

I looked at my plant, knowing that I should sell it. The plant was the only thing I owned. It was the only beautiful thing in the cargo bay and though it would probably save me to sell it, I could not let it go.

“I’ll give you a hot meal and some currency on your chit,” Heckleck said.

I pulled the plant closer to me and crossed my arms around it on the ground in front of me as though I were guarding it behind a wall. I could see by his movements that he wanted the plant very much. It was probably worth more than he was offering.

“No,” I whispered.

“Did you say
no
?” Heckleck asked. “Your Universal Galactic is terrible.”

I shook my head from side to side.

“Yes. Good. Good to do business with you,” he said reaching for the plant.

I pulled the plant up into my arms and cradled it.

“I said NO!” I shouted. It used up the last of my energy. I was blind with hunger. I was wiped.

Heckleck groaned in pain and then all I could see was his mouth coming toward me. He extruded his tongue, which looked like a sharp pointy barb, and injected my arm. I dropped the plant and tried to scramble away. I felt the barb sting my arm and immediately I felt nauseous. I looked back at Heckleck. He was not reaching for the plant; instead, he was calmly looking at me, rubbing his little wings, which made a mournful sound.

My head ached, and I felt hot. Had Heckleck killed me? Perhaps he was like an insect on Earth, calmly waiting for paralysis to set in before he finished me off at his leisure, picking off parts of me when needed. If I had been agreeable, I could have lived.

But maybe it was for the best that he’d killed me.

Maybe it was better that he ended my life over a pretty plant. Maybe this insect-like alien had done me a kindness. After all, I had just thought about killing myself and had been too cowardly to do it.

I looked around the cargo bay. Through the window, I could see that we’d rotated back, making Quint, the planet below, visible. I figured I would fix my gaze on it. Staring at it while I died would be like sending a hopeful wish out to the universe. It was an image to hang on to. At least I’d gone somewhere. At least I’d seen something extraordinary. A whole other world. A different sun.

The station PA system blared, as it always had, the announcer speaking too quickly for me to understand. I began to sweat profusely. The ringing in my ears became louder until I thought it would make my head explode, and then everything seemed to pause. I felt clear; my breathing became easier, and the words spilling forth from the PA began to make more precise sense:

“Station Time 1800 hours. Full newscast available on the O-ring. Remember to always wash your extremities for health safety. Current station alert is yellow.”

I looked around surprised.

“What’s going on?” I said. My head had a sharp pain, which then subsided. I could feel my brain changing.

“It’s working. Good,” Heckleck said. “So, what do you want for the plant?”

There was a slight delay, like an echo in my brain, but then I could understand him perfectly. There was no accent.

“You stabbed me!” I said. I was forming words in Universal Galactic naturally, almost as though I had spoken it fluently, instead of haltingly, my whole life.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. I injected you with some of my nanites so I could understand you,” Heckleck said. “I’m glad I did; the nonaltered frequency of your voice was just about killing me.”

“I feel strange,” I said.

But I could understand him in a more precise way than I had before he’d stabbed me. And more important, I could now breathe freely without the mask. I ripped it off of my face and threw it to the ground. Without it binding me, I felt curiously free.

“The nanites are reproducing. Just calm down. Try to breathe normally. Relax. Once they reach their maximum, your body will normalize. Right now they are multiplying.”

“Do you sting many people?” I asked.

“Usually I sting to kill, not to talk,” he said. “But no, I don’t do that very often.”

I didn’t feel relieved.

“You may experience some discomfort. Sorry about that; it’s hard to know how a species will react. I’ve never stung a Human before. I suppose we can be glad it didn’t kill you. Although then I’d have the plant for free. Now, what do you want for this plant?”

“I want to go home,” I said.

Heckleck laughed. Or at least he made a noise that I thought could have been a laugh.

“The plant is not worth that,” Heckleck said. “Besides, it’s not like the old days anymore.”

“I want to go home,” I said again. Not knowing even where that would be.

“Don’t you pay attention to the announcements? There’s been a coup. The League of Worlds has been dismantled and now the Major Species have joined together in the Central Systems under the jurisdiction and protection of the Imperium.”

“What’s the Imperium?” I asked.

It must have been a trick of the light because I could have sworn that this alien insect creature looked wistful for a moment.

“I just care about Earth,” I said.

“Well that’s exactly why the Imperium has seized power; because enough species don’t care.”

He looked at me and then at the plant. He began to rub his wings, which filled the docking bay with an eerie sound.

“The plant. What’s it worth?” I asked.

“If I return it to the constable, he’ll give me a favor.”

That didn’t make the plant seem as though it was worth much at all.

“I need help to get off the station,” I said. But even as I clung to that idea, I knew that there were not many ways off of the Yertina Feray, and fewer ways back to Earth, especially when they wouldn’t take me back.

“I know about you,” Heckleck said. “Everyone does. And you will never get off this station. You are nobody. And worse, you’re a Human. Even if you did get on a ship that would take one of your kind, you’d have nowhere to go but to roam like the others of your kind do. And it would cost you more currency chits than you’d likely make in a hundred years.”

“There are other colonies that the Children of Earth have built. I’ll go to one of those.”

But I was not certain that I would be welcomed. The Children of Earth kept to themselves and Brother Blue had shown me that I was not one of them anymore.

“Didn’t you hear me? Perhaps your nanites are not yet working. Humans roam and wander. They are not settlers. They are a burden to everyone.”

“We Humans are just starting to settle the stars,” I said. “But we’re out there.”

I pointed to the window, to indicate the stars and space.

Quint was still visible, and it had rotated and I could now see a mountain range. I leaned toward it, as though I were a part of it; as though that planet would claim me, even though no one was down there. As I did, the plant fell to its side and some of the soil spilled onto the floor. I began to scoop what I could and put it back into the pot. It felt good to have dirt on my hands.

“Listen to me carefully,” he said. “You are taking up water and food that the Yertina Feray is already sadly low on. With you dead it will mean more for those with nowhere to go. More scraps for those who have been thrown away.”

“Then do that why don’t you?” I said. “Sit there and watch me die.”

He looked as though he were going to move across the cargo bay and do just that. Instead he settled his body down on the floor next to me.

“Do you know how many species survive in your situation on this station? Almost none. They come in on a ship, in trouble or troubled. They come out here to find work that doesn’t exist, or to disappear to the Outer Rim thinking they’ll find something better, or a new world to settle. But there aren’t that many viable planets to settle. No currency to get there if they do find somewhere. No allies. No friends. No help. Nothing. Do you know how many aliens like you I have watched die? Scores.”

I knew what he was saying was true. I wanted to cry, but instead I hardened myself.

“But I’m feeling generous today,” Heckleck said. “Give me the plant and I will owe you a favor.”

“Favors are useless if I’m dead. Besides, how can I trust you?”

“You can’t,” Heckleck said. “I’m not a nice Hort.”

I laughed. It was not funny, but somehow having a conversation with someone felt normal after being so isolated.

“Are you strong enough to run an errand for me?” Heckleck asked. “If you are, then I will pay you in currency loaded onto this chit. I do not go to the social level often; the noise is too much for my kind when it is most crowded, even with the nanite frequency adjustments. But I have to deliver this package to a ship captain who likes to get drunk at Kitsch Rutsok’s bar when he’s in port. Deliver it and bring back the item he gives you, and I’ll pay you then.”

“Pay me first,” I said.

“This is why the universe is at such odds with itself. No one trusts anyone!” Heckleck said handing me a chit. “Fine. Here is payment. If you run off with it, so be it. I’ll find your dead body eventually and retrieve the item, the chit, and the plant.”

Heckleck took a wrapped-up linen package the size of a sandwich roll out from under one of his chest plates and pressed it into my hands. The linen was wet with a grayish color.

“What is this?” I asked.

“It’s a digit from one of his crew members. Tell him to give you the item, or I’ll send the rest of the crew members to him in pieces.”

I realized the grayish substance was likely the alien’s blood.

I looked over Heckleck’s shoulder out the window, at the planet and beyond it to the stars.

I stood up.

If I was going to survive and get off of this station, I would have to trust him. I felt dizzy, my stomach grumbled. I had to eat. It had been too long. I was afraid that if I took the plant with me I would lose it. It was safer here.

I placed the plant in front of Heckleck.

“If I find that you have betrayed me in any way, I will summon up all of my strength and use it to kill you,” I said.

“Then we have an agreement,” Heckleck said.

I nodded and then stumbled out of the cargo bay.

I would do it. I would live.

5

Kitsch Rutsok’s bar was as crowded as a place on an empty space station could be. Still, since hardly any ships docked on the Yertina Feray, it was not hard to spot the captain that Heckleck wanted me to give the digit to. He was a blobby sort of creature who was red all over his body, with enormous arms and hands and, most likely due to the difference of gravity that he was used to, he floated on a hover seat. He was gesticulating and shouting as he played a game of chance that looked like roulette. There were two females of his species hanging on to him. Every time he won a round they moved their seats from side to side and bumped in a little closer to each other.