Tin Star (14 page)

“On our last light skip, as we were to approach the colony on Andra we were told to divert to wait out a massive solar storm.”

“So you never made it to a single colony?” I asked.

“No. Our ship exploded.”

I found it interesting that every message to the colonies went through Brother Blue. That was consistent with what we experienced on the
Prairie Rose
.

“There was so much smoke, and parts of the ship were being sealed off,” Els said. “We were lucky, we three made it to the escape shuttle. But everyone else died. Reza grabbed me so I wouldn’t follow our crewmates out of a hull breach. I owe him my life.”

“You’re lucky that Reza saved you,” I said. “That’s a big favor to owe. Humans sometimes push, instead of pull.”

Or punch. Or kick. Or spit, like Brother Blue.

The evening chimes sounded. Els’s hand flew to her mouth.

“Oh! I’m late! Reza has us all on Sunspa rotation. He’s managed it somehow.”

As she ran off I wondered if, when the
Prairie Rose
disintegrated, anyone had tried to make it to the escape pod. They’d all done drills in case of an evacuation, but I supposed in the moment drills would be forgotten. Perhaps someone was still alive, on a station like the Yertina Feray or on a planet somewhere. Alone, like these Humans, dependent on the kindness of a bitter gutter dweller like me. Or what if Reza hadn’t been mistaken? What if some of them had made it to Beta Granade somehow? My heart skipped a beat.

18

With all of this new information I was at a loss to figure out a course of action, and it made me miss Heckleck. He was always full of knowledge on what to do when no one path seemed clear. We’d spent many an evening swapping tales about our days.

What made me freeze each time I tried to think of a course of action was the fact that Brother Blue had risen so high. It was impossible to think straight.

I went to the warehouse, to my confessor, the mining robot with the painted-on face. I sat in front of it, willing it to be Heckleck. I tried to summon him up in my thoughts and to figure out what he would say to me about the Human situation.

He would tell me to look at the facts. I had the passes. They were valuable despite not being useful right now. He might remind me that they could be more valuable if I gave them to others for a bigger favor or sold them for a smaller return. He would ask me to try to see the bigger picture. One week down the line. One month. One year. Five years. Ten years. Twenty. I made myself dizzy with the thoughts of that many moves ahead. I was not a master as Heckleck had been.

“I hate them,” I said, even though it was not true. I did not hate Els, Caleb, and Reza. I hated that they confused me. I hated that they had dealings with Brother Blue. That they had been close enough to stab him and they didn’t.

Why would they? They didn’t see him for the true terror that he was. They saw him as a man who had Earth’s best interests at heart and as someone who could help them. It was infuriating. I lashed out and kicked the robot in frustration.

The robot did not change expression. It had no sage advice for me. It did not care that I had lost my temper. I touched its cold metal to forgive it its failings and to thank it for forgiving mine.

I reminded myself that if I watched how things played out, if I left them to their own devices, something useful might present itself. That was what Heckleck had always said to do. Always play long, never play short.

Eventually, something would break.

I watched and took it in over the next few days. Els hung around Kitsch Rutsok’s bar trying to ingratiate herself to any alien that she thought had a connection to the Imperium. Reza spent hours at the Ministry of Colonies and Travel, pumping tokens into communication devices, making calls that my source there informed me were still only met with silence. Caleb hung about the docking bays for reasons I couldn’t figure out. They were bad at trading. They were bad for my business. Their situation was getting worse.

Which was why it was no surprise when a few days after meeting with Els an alien came into the dining area and yelled, “There is a commotion in the luxury ring!”

Commotions often happened, and they were always announced because the lowest of the lowlifes saw it as an opportunity to steal or take advantage. I ignored the exodus of aliens leaving their plates and protein paks half-eaten on the tables. Some would go and steal. Some would go to watch. When there was a lack of hochts, commotions were a kind of entertainment, especially if they involved one of the rich falling to join us in the underguts.

“Who is it?” one of the lazier aliens called out. I knew him to be interested only in certain kinds of commotions. He could not be bothered with basic domestic disputes.

“It’s the Humans,” the alien called out.

I took my time. I finished eating. I drank some recycled water. I cleared my plate. Then I walked slowly to the lift.

The lift doors opened, and I could hear the crowd. The aliens were mostly standing around and jeering. The Humans were being escorted out of the home they’d squatted in. Tournour was leading them out. Reza was arguing heatedly with Tournour while Caleb was trying to calm him down. Els was crying and shaking and trembling at the roar of the crowd.

The aliens were screaming and howling with delight. The alien next to me was cursing and it didn’t matter that they were Humans, what mattered was that pent up frustrations were being released. I remembered helping him when there was a complication with the birth of his children. I couldn’t help myself, I punched the alien’s arm. He turned to me mid-holler ready to strike, but when he saw who it was, he stopped. I gave him a look and a gesture that to his species meant to stop and I’d be in his debt. He got the message and began to shush those around him. Then he helped to make a pathway for me to get a closer look at the action.

I pushed to the front. I could see Tournour, who always kept his calm as he did his job. He looked like someone who was taking out the trash. Tournour saw me in the crowd and made his way over to me.

“I don’t suppose they’re being escorted to an Imperium ship,” I said.

“You know they’re not,” Tournour said. “They’ve overstayed their hospitality up on this ring and run through their currency. They are terrible negotiators, and no one will claim them.”

“Can’t you disperse this spectacle?” I said.

“I didn’t think you cared,” Tournour said.

“I don’t,” I lied. “But when you kick others who’ve fallen to the underguts, you do it quietly.”

Tournour turned back to look at the Humans.

“When there hasn’t been a hocht in a while, it’s good for the population to let off steam,” Tournour said.

He walked away from me. I cursed him with the only Loor slur I knew under my breath, hoping that he would hear. I watched as he spoke to one of his guards. The officers immediately shouted out some orders, and soon officers started pushing back the crowd and clearing them from the ring with threats of arrests and round ups. This opening up of space around them calmed the Humans.

Before I left with the crowd so that I wouldn’t get arrested, Tournour caught my eye and nodded at me as though he’d done me a favor. I knew what it meant. I owed him.

I cursed. Likely, this favor owed wasn’t worth it.

19

I next saw them wandering the gutter, poking into bins trying to figure out how to secure a spot in the underguts.

I sat in my bin, metal curtain open, watching as Els, Caleb, and Reza stumbled and fought for a place. They were very bad at it. They picked the wrong people to approach. They were misled, taken advantage of, and given the runaround. Reza tried the hardest, and if it wasn’t for him they would not have managed the mid-sized bin that had hardly enough room for all three of them. I knew that it would not be comfortable. As the lights dimmed for Final Chimes, I closed my metal curtain. I listened to the familiar rhythms and the sounds of the underguts as everyone settled down for sleep. Only this night, Els’s loud sobs added to the cacophony before the quiet. It grated on me, and I suspected it was meant to pull on my sympathies.

The underguts was not at all like the upper decks. It was dank and dark and it smelled. I remembered how frightened I was my first night down here.

A few hours of sobbing passed, and then there was silence. I wonder if Els had gotten bored with getting no response or if the boys had managed to calm her or if it was something else.
Adaptability.
Even I had grown accustomed to my lot in life once it had changed. That was a gift. It was what made the Human species strong. It was what had made me strong.

*   *   *

I was used to others staring at me as the station’s sole Human. I’d always been strange to the people that lived here, but this morning as I walked toward the Nurlok’s fabric shop the stares were more evident. And worse, they were coupled with whispers. I passed by and aliens stopped. I caught sight of an arm or a tentacle or an antenna turned in my direction. Mentally, I scrolled through all the transactions that I’d done in the past few days and tried to figure out if I’d handled something badly. Had the rules changed? Had I offended someone? Had the chain of trade caused something to sour? It was important for me to figure it out in order to nip whatever this strangeness toward me was in the bud. My status had to be impeccable. All I had was my word and my reputation.

The Nurlok was standing in front of his store, sucking on a long smokeless pipe. One of his children was hiding behind his legs. The child kept peeking out at me and then screaming in that way that all children do when they are both afraid to look at something and daring themselves to look at it. The child was excited at its own bravery. I knew that it was because as a Human, I looked like one of their culture’s demons.

“Tell me again which one of your sex is the stronger or the weaker?” the Nurlok asked.

“That’s not a fair question,” I said, wondering what kind of test this was.

“I know you to be strong, but what of the others?” the Nurlok asked, smoothing over the perceived offense.

“I think we are all weak and we are all strong,” I said. I did not want to admit that there was a time in Human history where women were called the weaker sex.

“My money is on you,” the Nurlok said.

“Thank you,” I said and I brought a box out of my pack. The Nurlok slid open the wooden box and examined the Jurniarn slug I had procured.

“It’s small,” the Nurlok said.

“Yes, travel was hard on it, I think,” I said. “But it’s pregnant.”

The Nurlok emitted an agreeable noise.

“Let’s see its quality,” the Nurlok said, taking his pipe and poking at the slug. The slug turned from brown to yellow and started to puff out. Soon a thread came out of its mouth. I looked away and noticed there was a hocht poster up on the wall behind him, but I couldn’t see it closely. They were everywhere.

The slug continued to spit out its thread. The Nurlok took his pipe and scooped it up and began to feel it with his fingers. He held it up to the light. He showed his child and explained things about the slug in their language. The Nurlok was pleased with the strength and the color of the thread, but said that the feel of it was not the most desirable.

“The quality of it might be changed with care and diet,” I said.

“We have an agreement,” the Nurlok said. “You have three bolts of whatever you might need as a return favor.”

I’d wanted four, but three was a good price. I nodded.

Then he put his pipe back in his mouth and lit up the coil. The sweet smell of whatever it was he smoked came out. I took my chit for the future bolts and glanced at the store window where another hocht poster hung.

After I read it, I understood why everyone had been staring at me and why the Nurlock had asked such strange questions about Humans.

“Have the bets begun?” I asked.

“Yes,” the Nurlok said. “The odds are not in your favor.”

“I would think my acquaintances would know that I could hold my own.”

“No one knows anything about Humans,” the Nurlok said. “The rule of thumb is to bet on the being who calls the hocht. They are the more passionate. They want to win more.”

“Of course,” I nodded.

I had not played this right.

20

If they wanted to win a hocht, why Caleb? Reza would have beaten me easily; he was large, physically fit, and obviously very strong. Even Els had more observable physical strength than Caleb. Caleb was skinny, and he seemed fragile as though even a look could break him. Perhaps it was to trick me into thinking that I could win? If that was the problem, I couldn’t begin to guess at their motivations.

Why?

Why would he do that?

Yes, I had stayed out of their way since they’d moved to the underguts. But I had not done anything to truly offend them.

But deep in my heart I knew I had. I had ignored them. I had not inquired after them. I had not helped them in any way. I had not behaved like a Human being.

On the day of the hocht, I could hear the people as the lift doors opened to the main level. I didn’t remember ever seeing a hocht so well attended. The square was buzzing. I weaved my way through the gathering crowd. It seemed more busy than usual. People cleared a way for me. Some aliens nodded at me, some looked me over as though they were trying to determine whether they’d made the right bet.