Tin Star (10 page)

“I know that, and you know that, but perhaps you have a sudden urge to go get yourself a warm liquid drink of your choice. Surely, leaving your office for a few minutes is not a crime.”

“No,” he said. “It’s not a crime.”

He got up and took the voucher with him.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I said before he reached the door.

He hadn’t given me the pass code. He was trying to steal from me.

He laughed in a double harmony.

“How silly of me.”

“Just because I’m being obvious with what I want doesn’t mean that I’ve turned stupid,” I said.

“Of course not,” he said.

“That voucher is no good unless I send word to Kitsch Rutsok, and I won’t send word unless I get what I came for.”

“Of course,” he came back to the desk and entered a long set of numbers and characters on the datapad. I picked up his communiquer and called Kitsch’s to authorize the voucher. When the alien left the room, I got to work.

The chatter seemed to confirm Earth had joined the Imperium for its protection and Earth Gov had been replaced by the Earth Imperium Alliance, but some of Earth Gov was still fighting for its old isolationist stance. There were ten messages to and from Earth regarding the Humans on the Yertina Feray. There was only one response. No matter how many times they had tried to reach Earth and beg for instructions and help, Earth had only one reply.

“Treason. Denied.”

They had turned their pleas to the Human representative of the Earth Imperium Alliance on Bessen. They were now trying to appeal directly to the Imperium for help. So far they had no answer.

I cleared my tracks and exited the office.

They’d been burned. The Humans had been burned from going back to Earth just like me.

13

Now armed with more information, I began to observe the Humans with interest. What at first seemed arrogant to me, now looked like desperation. I still kept my distance, but the Yertina Feray was only so big and I could not avoid them forever. That I would run into them was inevitable. And I had many questions.

I could not deny it. They had upended me.

After my visit to the Ministry of Colonies and Travel, it didn’t take long for our paths to cross.

I was standing in the makeshift market with Heckleck when the Humans arrived on the other side of the square. The girl went to the stands and began looking at some lace. I had already looked at the lace; it was beautiful, but overpriced. I could have easily traded it for a good favor but I made a point to never buy anything at the market. I just liked to see what people thought their wares were worth. If there was one thing I had learned from Heckleck it was that in public, things were worth more than in private. And that public price was useful information to know.

“Straight for something useless,” Heckleck said. “That’s good information for you to know.”

As much as Heckleck knew me, and liked me despite my being Human, he still harbored some hostility toward Humans. Perhaps he was more sensitive than I ever gave him credit for and had noticed how preoccupied I was since they’d arrived. Perhaps his sharp words about them were to offer me protection and comfort.

I patted Heckleck’s appendage.

“Good eye,” I said. “I owe you one.”

Although, really I didn’t owe him anything for such a small observation, but it was our way and so I played along.

I moved on to the food stands and haggled myself a free graffa cake. I was licking the sticky sweetness off of my fingers.

“Oh, well, I’ll take a small corner of your graffa cake then.”

I handed him the last of the graffa cake, and he tore off a piece of it. And then tore that piece in half until he had not much more than a crumb.

“There, that should do,” he said.

I smiled at him and turned away, as I was more interested in looking at the girl as she weaved her way through the stands. I noticed that she did not buy anything, but she fingered many items. She picked things up and then put them down, as though she were marking them.

She was raven-haired. I didn’t remember ever seeing hair that blue-black when I was on Earth. It seemed fake somehow. Her features and skin looked as though she had been shaken in a bag of every kind of Human being. I noticed that she had curls and curves. She seemed more feminine than I remembered a girl being. I wondered how I compared. Then I pushed that thought aside. I didn’t care.

The girl put down the glassware she was handling when the young man with dark hair joined her. The girl’s attitude changed. She smiled and touched the boy playfully. The boy put his arm around the girl’s waist, and they moved into the crowd.

As I began to make my way out of the market, I was approached.

It was the Human girl. She’d waited until I was alone.

“This is silly,” the girl said. “We can’t just ignore each other.”

I brushed her off and moved up to the seats. But she was persistent and followed me.

“My name is Els Ribinder,” she said. And then she smiled. Her teeth were whiter than I remembered teeth being. It was nice to see a Human smile. So many things looked like smiles but weren’t. Sometimes, to feel genuine kindness again, I would stare into a mirror and smile at myself, just to remember what one looked like. But here was a real smile, right in front of me. Up close.

It irritated me that she had told me her name. It meant that they would not be just “the Humans,” now.

“I hear you can get things,” Els said.

“There are things here,” I said, indicating the makeshift market.

“Yes, but not what I want,” Els said. “Besides, the prices here are steep.”

I observed as Els tilted her head to the side. She twisted a piece of hair. She gazed underneath her eyelashes. I remembered Bitty doing the same thing to get a piece of chocolate, or a toy that she wanted from the store. I remembered that it always worked on our parents. But whenever I tried, it failed.

Still, I tilted my head to mirror Els’s.

“Depends on what it is,” I said.

“Lotion,” Els said. “This space station air is so much harsher than our ship was. My skin is about as dry as a lizard.”

“Lizard,” I said, and then laughed. “I’d forgotten about lizards.”

“We’re far from Earth now,” she said, laughing with me.

It was those little details, that when remembered, delighted me. Lizards, small reptiles that used to scurry under the rocks near my house. I liked them better than snakes, whose slithering always scared me.

And lotion. I remembered my mother’s lotion. It smelled like magnolias. My mother would put it on after she showered. It was a luxury. But the dry desert heat demanded such luxuries. On occasion my mother would let Bitty and me put a little bit on our hands. My mother had shipped a crate of magnolia lotion with her on the
Prairie Rose
. I closed my eyes. I could not remember what a magnolia looked like. It was getting harder and harder to remember what flora and fauna looked like from back home. All I could picture were the strange otherworldly plants in the arboretum.

As Els spoke, I could almost remember what my mother’s voice sounded like. They had a similar lilt.

There is nothing here anymore. Better to go to the stars.

“It will cost you,” I said.

“I don’t have that much currency,” Els said. “What will it cost?”

“I’ll take a thing or a favor.”

Els looked at me and smiled. Then she pulled up her sleeve. On her wrist she had a large bracelet of leather and a thin one made of gold chain. It had a tiny charm on it with a flat map of earth. If I could pick something that I would want for myself, it would be that bracelet. How happy I would be with the Earth dangling on the edge of my wrist. A constant promise that even if I never returned, it was still home. I knew immediately I couldn’t take it. It was worth too much.

“Quite a piece,” I said. “I’ll take the leather one.”

But Els took the gold bracelet off as though to press it into my hand. It was the move of a person who was used to working people and getting what they wanted. I put my hands up in front of me so that the bracelet did not touch me.

“No,” I said. “That’s not how I work. I’ll take the leather one.”

Els’s eyes hardened for a moment then softened again. She pulled off the leather cuff and handed it over to me.

I had a new piece of information now, too. This girl was tricky. She did not really want the lotion. We had been near each other for long enough for me to smell the soft scents that Els wore. She had luxury items already. She wanted something more.

I looked at the cuff and put it on my wrist. It was real leather. Worn and soft. Not fake. It was valuable as well.

Standing with Els made me miss Bitty. It was this longing that made me say yes to getting the lotion even though Els didn’t need it.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll do you the favor.”

“Goody,” Els said. And then squeezed my arm the way my sister Bitty used to do when we were excited about something.

“But it might take a little while,” I said. “It might be faster to get when you go to Bessen.”

“Oh, that’s not sorted out yet,” Els said. “I need the lotion now.”

“I’ll need a bit of time,” I said trying to calculate what favors and items I needed to do this in as few trades as possible.

“You could join us tonight,” Els said. “Or I could join you.”

I shook my head no, and she shrugged and turned and ran off to join the boys. I watched her. The way her black hair bounced as she ran. The way her curves filled out her clothes. The way she was so easy with herself despite being stranded on a space station. In all my time here, I had never been that at ease.

But I had the upper hand now in knowing that Els wanted something from me.

When Els rejoined the other Humans, they all looked up at me. I knew they were sizing me up. I tried to look unaffected by the attention. But it was the boy with the dark hair that caught my eye and made me catch my breath. He was looking back at me just as intensely—as though he already knew me—but neither of us smiled.

14

The station had moods, and the next day I could tell by the way people hurried by with heads down and whispered conspiratorial conversations that something big was going on. There was a shift in the normal hum of the day. I closed the metal curtain of my bin and tried to ignore the excitement. But I could feel from the way everyone in the underguts buzzed that whatever it was it was unusual. It probably meant some big cargo or some illegal entertainment that was being run in the secret game hall. Or maybe it was some kind of new drug that would sweep through the station and make a few undergut dwellers temporarily rich. Or perhaps it was some information about the Imperium and their new movements and conquests.

I placed the things that I could not trade in a day into a secure box I had hidden in my bin and then went to the area where we in the underguts dined.

Sometimes Heckleck would join me at mealtime, but mostly he preferred to eat in private. The way he ate disturbed most species. I didn’t mind his company because I had become used to it.

When I first arrived in the underguts, I was never asked to join the other aliens at mealtime. It bothered me at first to eat alone. I had been so used to the constant company of my family and the other colonists, but now it suited me just fine. I sat alone, eating meals while absorbing everything anyone said in the underguts. I had become an expert on the subtle body language of the different species. I could tell immediately when someone could be taken advantage of.

Keeping my distance was the way I’d survived. Now that so many aliens owed me favors, if I sat with one it might mislead the others into thinking that I had favorites. That would be a disadvantage to me, and I liked to minimize the odds against me in a deal.

It was an unspoken agreement with all the gutter dwellers to keep that table for me, so as always there was an empty table in the corner. Unless Heckleck joined me, I would eat there alone, head down, concentrating on the plate in front of me, eating every last morsel no matter what it was and be grateful for it. I was like everyone else in the gutter, never knowing when I might eat again so I always ate everything in front of me no matter if it was a protein pak or a real meal.

“A moment of your time?” an alien in the gutter dining hall asked. He’d approached my table uninvited.

I glanced at him. He had information he wanted to trade, I could tell. But was it information that I wanted? I didn’t look up from my food. I kept putting the fork into my mouth, eating bite after bite. The alien hovered. I ate. He had thick legs, the size of tree trunks, and a tail that he balanced on. He started to shift his weight from side to side. That meant the information was good, and he thought it was valuable.

It probably wasn’t.

When my plate was empty, I pushed it in front of me and then turned my eyes to him and stared him down.

He was a Minor Species. His snout was long. His nostrils opened and closed quickly. His clothes were filthy, and he had a sore on his forehead. I tried to figure out what he wanted. Coin? No. Medicine? No. Drugs? Yes. But he likely knew that I didn’t deal in drugs. I reached into my pocket and took out a card. It was a chit for the bathhouse. There he could clean up and most likely make a drug connection.

“What’s everyone so excited about?” I asked, motioning to the invisible buzz around the underguts.

“Imperium representatives found dead,” he said.

“Dead?”

Dead was never good.

“Dead. Found stabbed and stuffed in a vent near where the Humans stay.”

I knew that the other aliens were watching to see if his information was worth anything. A bathhouse chit was not worth much. He waited, hoping that I would put something else down on the table. After a few minutes, I put my hand out to take back the chit. The alien put his hand on top of mine. The deal was accepted.

“It’s strange, don’t you think, that the Imperium would not answer those Humans?” the alien asked.

“Everyone knows a message sometimes takes longer than expected to get a response,” I said, “especially when there’s been an emergency of some sort.”