The Scrounger Trilogy

Foreword

This fall, I was allowed to meet a man who actually touched our Moon. Charlie Duke visited the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space center, and I got to shake his hand. While this trilogy is a work of fiction, I frequently relish the opportunities to visit museums and learn about the real space program. Part of the inspiration for these books are the sheer possibilities that lie in the depths of space, and every day, there are fantastic discoveries made in this front. It's vastly, hugely, enormously important, as Mr. Duke stressed when I met him, to keep learning about our Universe. It's so huge, and we don't really know anything about it. There are education centers all over the place, all of which constantly updating their information as new discoveries are made.

Author's Note

This is a special edition of previously published books. I have made formatting and editing adjustments to bring all three books into one volume, with abridgments in addition to regular editing. It came to my attention that the books should be read all at once, as one big volume, rather than three separate volumes. The abridgment is simply an adjustment for the sake of story flow. In the case of Empty Space, I felt compelled to remove the first eight chapters, which are the typed and re-written original manuscript, written by hand in a college ruled notebook circa 1999. Other abridgments were decided as I came across scenes that I felt could be left out.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Mr. Duke for his time, and the the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Museum for inviting men of Air and Space to meet the public. Thank you to the Karl G. Jansky Very large Array for continuing to provide tours and a museum for public view, photos, and to a myriad of people who all made it possible for me to complete these books; you all know who you are! Thanks to the Wichita area cosplay community for befriending and supporting me, and to area authors and readers who kept my sanity and ego in check.

Research: Organized study or methodical investigation into a subject. See also: Scrounging.

Scrounging: the act of collecting information for trade.

Empty Space

Prologue

Taqual fought his cough and crouched in the bushes. Cold winter rain threatened to drown him at any minute. Overhead, his father’s brother’s son lay prone, a crystalline cylinder protruding from his lower back. As he skulked, the Gods and Goddesses bathed the body of his tribe fellow with clear water from a beautiful container. Close by, a dull, sand-colored floating hut squatted like a massive bullfrog in the trees.

The Deities were noisy, with bright manes, pale skin, pointed ears and eyes like gemstones. Some were bald and as green as the canopy of the jungle. As Taqual watched, one of the pale deities with white hair and shriveled skin lay prone on an altar. Clear snakes bit and pierced his skin; water of varying colors flowed from them into the deity. Taqual thought he looked dead.

The group, all in white robes, rolled Taqual’s cousin onto another shiny altar, shaped like their village marker stones, and polished gray like a thunderstorm. The limp human was positioned as for a funeral. Taqual shivered and choked back a cry. The beings took a small bright instrument, no longer than his own finger, and sliced down the middle of the young human’s chest. Two other deities held the rib cage open. Deftly, a red bloody mass was removed and taken to the white-haired god, who also lay prone, eyes closed and chest open.

Uttering a choked sob of confusion, Taqual hurtled through the jungle undergrowth as fast as his feet could carry him, praying to his ancestors and the animal spirits for guidance. The Gods had shown them not to kill each other, or fear Death. What did the old god need with his tribesman’s heart?

Cotalp, the shaman, met him at the village stone. He looked more aged than ever. He already knew the jungle was disturbed. Cotalp had already spoken to the animal spirits. Taqual said nothing and collapsed at the shaman’s feet, weeping into the earth.

****

Circa 1985

A black and white craft edged further from the pale atmospheric halo of the jewel-tone world. Ilese rested her angular chin on a slim white hand and watched the monitors from pale green eyes. The audio was fairly boring, lots of shuttle to mission control, and Mission control to shuttle gibberish. She reached over with the other hand and tuned the focus on the monitor. The black and white craft, a cylinder with wings similar to their own early space craft, approached a mass of girders, glittering solar panels and stubby cylindrical pods.

Coba chuckled beside her, his green Lutessian form reclined against the copilot’s seat. He watched the broadcasts on another monitor while various instruments and eighteen recording devices saved all the broadcast data they encountered.

What are you giggling about?

These—what do they call themselves, Homo sapiens? Are really weird.

The beings on the screen were dark haired, pale and Theran-like but for the rounded ears. Coba changed channels again—this time the images were of tiny insects swarming up a tree. Coba loved these quiet recon trips. Ilese would rather be back in the lab analyzing the data.

Control, docking seal is good…

Their proximity buzzer went off. Ilese slapped the com button.

Unidentified craft, you are in quarantined research territory. Please vacate the prem—

WHOOOOO!----

With a snarl she slapped the button again and laid her hand over her face.

Aeh, stupid buzzers, just get their ship’s signature and report it, Coba suggested casually. He’d been hitting his sunlamp harder lately, which put him in a better than usual mood.

Ilese ran her hand through her short, unkempt platinum hair and squeezed the pointed ends of her ears like the lab therapist had suggested. She wished all she needed was a sunlamp to alleviate her stress load. On the outside monitor, the human shuttle crew locked things down, and gave reports to Control in a monotonous sequence. The buzzer was gone, having skimmed the planet’s atmosphere quickly. The chrono indicated a long wait for data collection and the return of their sister ship from the harvest.

Ilese yawned.

**** ****

Around the current time...

Zeeto pushed the warp levers back where they were. The ship fell out of its warp bubble. Earth’s moon filled the viewport. With no system markers, Willie had to do calculations in his head to figure out when Zeet needed to bring the Quardun out of warp space. They had shaved it close–another ten seconds would’ve turned them into space dust.

As he brought the bow around, he had to admit that the planet really was attractive from space. It was blue and green and brown and dusted with clouds, and reminded him a little of Corenne and Asethnoria. He still would rather have been under his sunlamp…

In the back, the thumping magnified in rhythm and intensity. It had a dull thud quality to it, like a rubber hammer against a concrete floor. Upon hitting the atmosphere, the ship bucked and swayed and the thudding turned into a whump noise. Condensation beaded between Zeeto’s ears as he wrestled with the controls. The maneuvering thrusters were malfunctioning and only operated in short bursts. He took one hand from the flight stick to wipe the moisture from his glossy black eyes and almost lost control.

Den Shie watched his friend fight flight controls that were jerked by thickening air, and held onto his harness. He would’ve liked to have been in the seat behind the Kaffon Triad for this, but those blasted G-pol fighters had fried it before Quardun warped.

Willie stared at the monitors around the copilot’s seat, licked his black lips nervously, and chittered a Gibb lullaby to stay calm. It wasn’t working, and more of his hair fell to the deck with every violent rock of the ship. He didn’t bother reading the displays to Zeeto.

Within a minute, they were a couple thousand feet from the surface. Coming in on the night side as they were, they could discern towns and cities by way of their lights. The village they approached was small. When the maneuvering units kicked back on, Zeeto used that moment to scan the ground for a place to land. The light was nil, as the moon had been on the other side of the planet and the ground scanners were offline, but he could tell that the surface here was too hilly. He’d have to land closer to the town than he wanted.

Den spied it–a group of ground vehicles leaving a party hastily. Behind one of the buildings was a large, flat expanse of grass. He didn’t know that this was the show ring for the animals at the local county fair. It seemed like a good enough place to crash…

Chapter 1

Dara awoke to the sounds of the ship. Quiet ticking noises, vibrations and a low gentle hum reached her in the small cabin. It was dark, and outside in the lounge she heard Zeeto tramping around. She smiled. It was kind of funny how that Lutessian had taken to earthling carpenter jeans and clunky boots. She fuzzily determined that trading on Earth might have gone on for some time.

She rolled over and hit the light switch, which was a dome shaped button on the wall. Two clicks brought medium light, and she stretched. Everything she needed was in this dorm-sized room: her dresser, a built-in closet, many drawers...it even had a bathroom connected to another room. Den had told her that this ship had once been a commercial passenger ship and had been outfitted in its rear sections for carrying freight.

There were two mattresses, but they were removable and the other one was in a storage chamber in the aft. Dorienne pushed the covers off–her old dolphin fuzzy comforter and purple plaid sheets. Her clock, which was set to the ship, said she had perhaps an hour and a half to get around before they landed. She threw on her burgundy terry cloth robe and padded out to the lounge.

You were still gripping the coffee cup when I put you in there. I had to wipe up a drool spot the size of your Atlantic Ocean. Den was cleaning the carbonization from the barrel of his rifle. It was a common occurrence on energy weapons. The smell of the cleaning fluid reminded her of coconut and Lysol.

Heaven forbid. I actually salivate. That hellish Geometry problem gave me nightmares. There were too many systems...too big. Dorienne had been forced to do a warp jump coordinate calculation for her home planet from Asethnoria so she would at least know how to do one. It had taken her three hours and she hadn’t finished the last systems, but her math had checked out. Zeeto let her off for good behavior.

She traipsed around the lounge in her bathrobe and little leather house slippers, and got coffee and some bread and fruit from the pantry. Of course, both came dehydrated in the little vacuum sealed pouches, so she needed the coffee just to swallow them.

I read about Moon City. What’s it really like? She looked at Den through sleepy eyes.

Well, think of Figg Station, only the law is a bunch of vigilantes controlled by a former Asethnorian Senator, guy named Engle Nogga. Basically, you can do whatever you want for a living, as long as you keep the really illegal parts outside the city. Most of the bums in this Galaxy work out of Moon City.

He laid the clean barrel on the table beside the rest of the rifle. Complete, the energy weapon was just over three feet long. Dorienne looked at that and thought of all it had probably been through and what her little calf-holster laser pistol would do. She’d shot before, but that was in a rifle range with a .22.

Dorienne wasn’t really in a mood to talk yet, and wanted a shower. Den started, as if he knew what she was thinking.

Don’t bother dressing up just yet, and don’t bother with that leg-shaving thing. You’ll be getting defolicized at the station. You know, permanent hair removal.

Sounds great, as long as I can keep what’s on my head, she gave him a special look. That didn’t change her desire to shower, though not needing to shave her legs would make it much faster.

She didn’t realize until talking to Zeeto that she was going to have to meet a bunch of people right away, and was irritated that he wanted her to dress up. She compromised with nicer jeans, styled hair, and more makeup. She was done before the warning buzzer sounded and had time to make sure her maroon sweater fit just right before buckling into her designated space in the con.

The place they saw after they passed the system marker was nothing more than a craggy, broken moon, larger than Earth’s moon by a bit, but still not as big as the planet around which it revolved. They had come in so the two looked like an odd eyeball, with the green planet as the iris and the moon as the pupil. As they neared, Dorienne could see the encrustation of pressure domes and other such fabrications on the side of the moon near a deep gouge from a meteor.

Trafcom didn’t take near as long to give them a docking number, since they didn’t need to off-load anything. It was a tube that extended from the central pressure dome, a semicircular grid work of girders and Plexiglas material. On the end was a pressurized airlock and a seal for the belly hatch. Zeeto inverted the ship so it stared at the stars from the starboard and the craggy surface of the moon to port. They got closer till there was a thump and a hiss of rushing air, then a loud squeal as the seal closed tight.

Seal is tight. Let’s go. Zeeto closed the ship down, locked the controls, and took the drive card from its slot on the pilot’s console.

She unbuckled and walked out to the waiting area behind the con, where Den opened the hatch. When she looked through, she discovered that the floor was straight down from her feet, creating a sense of vertigo. She knew, though, that the orientation of the gravity would change.

Den crawled through, and she followed, not very gracefully. It was disorienting, and she was dizzy for a moment as they waited for Zeeto.

They don’t have artificial gravity or orientation shifts on Earth, do they, asked Den.

No. My planet is normal.

You call monks burning themselves in protest normal? You’re very warped, Dara, said Zeeto as he closed the hatch and the airlock.

I never said I wasn’t. She was actually surprised those old broadcasts could be seen clearly this far out in space. She didn’t know about the signal jammers that the labs at Elliot had put in place on the back of the moon.

They walked down the long tube with intermittent lighting to a sliding diagonal door. It had a massive brushed steel frame and a key pad on the right, as well as motion detectors and two overhead lamps. Den punched in a key sequence, and the door whisked open.

Behind the door was an ordinary white painted hallway with a red stripe and small yellow dots down the middle about four feet from the floor, or deck. The paint scheme became wilder as they passed into other corridors towards the center of the dome. Some paintings were pretty and reminiscent of a few of Dorienne’s doodles, others were just plain hideous. Zeeto explained that it was part of Nogga’s program to support the visual arts as a therapy and necessary part of cultural development. He also explained how this place was fairly new in the galactic scheme of things, and that the first few operators had been either a criminal or shrewd trader. Nogga was the first actual politician to gain control of the Moon, so it was said.

They finally came to the door of what the aliens called the Central Drop. Dorienne understood why as soon as she entered the enormous cylindrical room. It rose far above them to four other levels, and had a view port at the top of it that showed stars. It also dropped countless levels down before hitting a series of avenues like the ones on Figg Station.

Dorienne stood at the edge of the platform and leaned over the guard rail till she got a bit of vertigo, and stood back. Four tubes stood in the center, and a catwalk to each. In the middle was still another opening, a good ten feet wide. She followed Zeeto onto the catwalk to the tube Den stood beside.

Wow. Is this like an elevator station?

Yeah, the addy tubes. That hole in the middle is for larger lift vehicles to carry small amounts of cargo. Den towered over her as they waited for a pod. He pressed the button again to call one, and moments later a brass-topped pod floated up the tube in front of them. It rotated so that its opening aligned with the entrance and they shuffled inside of it. It rotated again, and Dorienne held onto the rail on the inside as it started down.

They couldn’t see much outside the pod as they shot past levels. Ambient techno music filled the interior and a light panel in the top glowed softly on them. It took longer to get to the bottom than expected, but when they did and exited the pod, Dorienne was taken aback. Here, the avenues were wider than at Figg; trees grew in the soil beds instead of shrubbery, and the lights were dimmer everywhere except on the plant life. Special dishes on the exterior of the city collected light from the sun and focused it on batteries that powered the huge, bright lights over the small gardens. In some areas, it was the only light source, and shadows loomed everywhere.

In one of these shady spots was a place that looked like a café or bar. It had neon and holographic lighting on the front and a long, tall window with a mirrored finish. The door was an old, rusty space ship hatch, and the sign over it read Winkie’s. They pulled the hatch aside, which appeared to be gutted of its original mechanical parts to lighten it, and stepped inside.

To Dorienne’s left was the row of booths against the window, and the light from the neon glinted in flaws on the tabletops. To the right was an open, square, low ceilinged room with a few round tables and one long square one. The interior consisted of dark red scarred wood that was probably very pretty once. The bar was wooden with the same kind of pitted and stained grey finish as the tables. Behind that were shelves of bottled drinks and a cook’s station, and there was room enough for three people.

Ooallash? Zeeto asked. A second later, one of the cook’s fleshy tentacles flopped onto the bar, followed by the rest of the heaving Walthos. They had to move for another group of customers to enter.

Zeeto, Den Shie, you took my advice, I see. He lifted the appendage and reached out to Dorienne, who took it graciously, swallowing her disgust. Welcome to my restaurant, Dorienne. He rolled out her name in an accent like Russian and Gaelic combined.

Thank you.

I suppose, Ooallash continued, that you’re looking for Laniah? I sent her home since we aren’t having much business that I can’t handle on my own. He motioned to the new customers seated in the large square room.

Actually, we were wondering if you knew whether or not Dex was around.

I believe he is. You know where to go?

Uh huh. Thanks, Ooallash.

Dorienne waved as she followed the other two out into the avenue again. Once more they entered an addy and took it a few levels up this time, to the residential section reserved for the wealthy. It was located in a suspended structure that looked like Manhattan Island upside down, and had a bubble over the top that appeared green from the addy platform they stood on. A series of long, wide tunnels with dim blue lights and two sets of single rail cars with a central walkway led to the suspended island.

Zeeto took one of the cars and drove them down the tunnel. It didn’t take as long as the addy rides did, and he parked in a small area inside the structure. They left the car and headed for a door like the ones on the docking level.

The gravity’s gonna change in here, so be careful and hold onto the ladder when you step through. Zeeto demonstrated when he stepped through, holding the rung palm up and flipping as he jumped through.

What is it with that? Is it some kind of cheap thrill? Dorienne watched Den do the same thing; he thudded heavily on the corridor deck on the other side. I’m glad I’m not wearing a skirt, she muttered, following them through. She managed to get in without hurting herself, and readjusted her hair.

This whole place is like this–the guys who built it were trying to use every space they could for shops, and there are places in the lower levels where you’re walking on the ground or ceiling, and others are walking on the walls. Den stated this as if it were an everyday thing, to walk on the walls or have gravity shift.

Dorienne thought of the Japanese cartoons she had seen and thought that this was weirder by far. Humans didn’t even have artificial gravity yet, and the only explanation she’d been given had to do with alternating magnetic fields or centrifugal force.

This corridor was stark and white like the docking area, and the numbered doors spaced every so often had names. They stopped at one and Zeeto pressed a button beside a little speaker.

Yes, this is Spideltrop.

Its Zeeto and Den Shie. We’ve got a friend to introduce you to. They stood and waited for the door to open.

****

Dorienne was relieved to be out of that place. She had to answer a million questions for that sleaze ball, and had all kinds of claw marks from Dex’s adopted Minian child, Qia. She wanted to go get a bite to eat somewhere, but the guys had some other plan. They were taking her to the med center for some kind of hair removal she hadn’t had time to look at on the SLN.

It was in the bowels of the city, underneath most everything else, where there were no view ports anymore. The walls weren’t so vibrantly graffitied here, and most places were taupe or sage colored, to be neutrally soothing. There was a desk with a map at one corner, but no receptionist. Den lead the way, actually able to distinguish between the smells of the different chemicals, and took them straight to the stainless steel double doors with only the one look at the map.

There was a warning sign, but the two aliens pushed her inside anyway. The room was long and rectangular, mostly stainless steel and black rubbery material on a few surfaces. On Dorienne’s right was a series of portals and there was a long stretch of deck before the console computers of the three technicians. One, a non-descript Theran, looked up from his monitor. The robot and the insectoid Orakian didn’t pay them any heed.

Who’s going in? asked the Theran.

She is. Human, female.

Alright. You can sign the billing papers while she’s in there. He pointed at the sliding door on the end closest to the room’s entrance.

The whole place was dim, and was lit mostly by the lights from the panels. Den pushed her toward the opening to the first chamber, convincing her easily that eliminating the majority of her body hair would be worth it. With one final shove, he got her inside the chamber.

She turned and stared at the doors for a moment after they closed. The chamber was small with no windows save the one that was mirrored on her side. Great. An exam table, basically a stainless steel slab with thin padding, stood in the center. The room wasn’t square, either; it was octagonal, one side being the door.

Please sit on the table and answer all questions. Your answers are being recorded. The voice was soft and electronic, and came from the high ceiling, where the light panels hummed and an exhaust fan whispered faintly.

Dorienne nervously complied and answered the basic medical questions. Name, menstruation, previous surgeries, any other medications she was taking...birth control pills… She tried to explain this as much as possible.

The computer moved on to ask her about vaccinations. Finally, the voice told her to do the inevitable–strip. After placing her things on a tray in one corner, she was told to lie down to receive shots, and then she would be scanned.

A long arm from an open hole in the ceiling stretched down, making mechanical clicks and whirs as it positioned a needle and injected it into her arm. Another needle was positioned on a device like a finger and was injected into her thigh. The last one she had to roll over for.

She rolled over again and held very still, nary breathing as a blue laser passed over her, stopped at her feet, and turned red to retrace her body. Dorienne hated being naked. She knew that the other rooms had windows, too, and all of her little flaws would show...the scars, all of her moles, her little tummy...all of those things only a husband or lover should know about and be able to appreciate.

The next room was no bigger than a closet. It was a shower, and Dorienne fumed again about the cursed windows. She was going to look like a beached whale, even though she knew the practical purpose for the window. The technicians could see if anything went wrong in case the instruments were out. It didn’t help her mood, especially since Zeeto was such a horny runt.

The closet shower was merely to get her wet. The next closet had a kind of breathable cellophane to wrap around her hair, and a pair of clear elastic panties. Instructions from the voice explained that the genital area was too sensitive for the procedure, and it was likely she wanted to keep what was on her head. She was then instructed to step into a circle on the floor, from which rose a clear tube just big enough for her body. This was the chemical bath–it rose from the floor up to her neck and stopped, waited a minute, then receded.

Dorienne stood in the same chamber for ten minutes, shivering as her hair follicles ejected themselves. She was slimy, cold, felt like she was burning, and wanted to hit the aliens. Next was the flash oven, a slightly larger room that smelled like singed hair, where a bright burst of light flashed as soon as she put on a helmet and stood in the center. It seared her skin some more. A light coat of dust clung to her body, and puffed up when she breathed.

Finally, she entered a curtained circular area with tiles and a drain. She was washed with a stinging antibacterial chemical after removing the plastic wrap panties and head wrap. Then she was rinsed with plain water before being doused with a botanical moisturizer that smelled familiar...Aloe Vera? She sat beside the floor drain and pulled her knees up to her chest.

Den and Zeeto watched her proceed to each chamber, hoping this was worth their time. As far as Zeeto was concerned, he just wanted to see if a human looked like a Theran naked, and was disappointed to find nothing new. Of course, if he had seen something he was interested in, Den wouldn’t tolerate it anyway. The horseman observed in quiet respect.

Hey, guys, you might want to look at this. the Theran tech called them over to look at his screens.

It was part of the monologue from the recordings. The tech had underlined the lines about birth control. Well, I guess you guys won’t be breeding this one, the tech laughed. He froze and got back to the console after a withering glare from Den Shie.

There are hospital robes in that locker over there. the Orakian pointed a claw at the far wall. I suggest you take one to her. I will retrieve her things in the first chamber. It moved away from the console, bopping the Theran on the head as it went. It apparently didn’t appreciate the humor, either.

Zeeto ran to get the robe just as the shower in the curtained area turned on. He came over, where Den waited till the shower finally shut off before sliding the curtain aside. Dorienne sat on her bottom and hugged her knees as her hair clung to her body.

I’m not moving till I have something to cover myself in! she growled, glaring over her crossed arms and holding her knees over her chest.

Why are you so self conscious? You’re just as nice to look at naked as you are dressed, said Zeeto, grinning stupidly. He winced when Den snorted at him to make him move so she could put on the robe, then stood in the way of anyone’s view with his back turned.

Den had more of a sense of privacy and knew that Dorienne was like any other being and should be given the same respect. She was, after all, going to be doing their research for them. That would save them from paying retainer fees to Dex and Eleksi–Den Shie really didn’t like the former man. He was expensive and played favorites too much between them and Drask Terragon’s group.

It wasn’t that he and Zeeto couldn’t do the computer work. They needed another person on the ship for various reasons, and a woman was perfect. A natural sense of cleanliness and organization would do them both some good. He had told Zeeto more than once on the way here that they should’ve grabbed her sooner than this.

This thing doesn’t cover anything! Dara stood now, the knee-length garment clinging to her wet body. The tech brought over her clothes and Den took them. Dorienne started to take them away, but Den shook his finger at her.

Ah, ah. You need to stay in the hospital gown, you’re going straight to surgery.

What!? she squinted at him, holding her arms out limply so the sheer pinkish material didn’t stick to her burned skin. It did anyway.

They pushed her toward another set of double doors on the opposite side of the room from the ones they came in. Dorienne stood there, and stared at them as if they’d turned into purple polka dot penguins and were riding away in her old Buick.

"I was poked with needles that were big enough to kill an elephant, I’m soaking wet, this thing is sticking to me, and I have sunburn in places I wouldn’t normally be burnt. I’m not in the mood to be otherwise violated right now!" She turned around and stalked towards the other door and slipped, falling on her rump. Now her rear was sore on top of it all. She clenched her fists and shook with anger. They hadn’t said anything that she could remember about surgery.

Den picked her up off the floor. Don’t worry–it’ll just be three tiny holes in your head. They won’t even have to shave your hair, just part it. He pushed her toward the other door, where Zeeto waited.

Three tiny holes…? She gawped.

They’re tiny chips that will let you talk to anything with a computer—it augments your brain and should let you interface with anything, he whispered into her ear. The techs didn’t need to know about the organometallic hardware that they stole from an underground dealer in military wares. Even the mechanoid doing the procedure was one that they were familiar with and owed them a favor.

She seemed unsure, but more agreeable after he told her that, and she followed them warily down another series of wide corridors to the op. Their mech friend met them there, a gangly character with four arms attached to a cylindrical thorax mounted on a set of treads. His head had two large holocams that reminded Dorienne of an eighties movie.

The robot waved one of the arms. You’re here. This way. His voice was decidedly male, scratchy and electronic. He pushed a door open with one of the spindly pincher arms and trundled into an op prep area. The whole place was dull gray and the electric blue mechanoid stuck out like a firefly at twilight.

There were racks of bottles of different kinds of antibacterials, sterilizers, boxes of gauze and tape, containers of sutures, and instrument trays, just like any Earthly hospital. Nitz, as the robot had introduced himself, sat her down in a metal chair and used a fine-tooth comb to part her hair in the center of her head, just above the hairline. He tied the hair on the crown of her head with a rubber band and made identical parts behind her ears. He readjusted the rubber bands on her wet hair, then asked her to lay on a table beneath a humongous hanging surgical laser.

What I’m going to do, Nitz explained, is use the laser to drill three imperceptibly tiny holes in your head where I’ve parted your hair. Then another mechanical arm will place the appropriate devices inside your skull. When it’s over, the wounds will heal in a few hours and the scabs will flake off like dander. It might take a few days for the organic parts to grow into the membrane surrounding your brain, and you’ll have a headache when you awake, but you should be able to leave then.

Dorienne felt weird about this, but thought that being able to hack into a computer with her head might be worth it. The fact that Den and Zeet had said nothing about converting her into a cyborg bothered her, but she pushed it down. She let him put another needle in her arm, an intravenous line for the sedative, and laid back. Then she counted backwards on her own, dimly aware that another robot had entered the room and to aid Nitz.

Chapter 2

An electronic pathway slowly dissolved into a dim forest, which was totally engulfed in the shrouding mists. There was someone or something else in there now, another voice that lurked in the recesses and spoke to her in the electric pulse of thought. It told her it had been three days, it was fully adjusted to its environment, and that the rest of her seemed to be functioning well. Then it showed her things that were stored in its own memory: scientific details, mech history, and some bits about cybernetics. While it did this, Dara had the sensation that these were also her memories now, that she knew this information. After this, it went on standby, waiting for her to become completely conscious and give it a command.

Soon, the fog cleared away and she could hear things in the recovery room, and vaguely remembered the procedure that put her here in the first place. She heard the beeping and clicking of life monitors, and a familiar voice speaking quietly to another. She searched her mind for the owner of the voice...Zeeto. Now she remembered that she owed them a prank or two and tried not to smile. She knew exactly what to do.

Playing possum was something she’d always done to her mother on Sundays when she didn’t want to go to church, and would serve her well now. The only indicator that she might be waking up would be the blinking of the heart monitor, but Zeeto might not be able to read that.

She searched for her new mental presence and spoke to it in images, entered its matrix, and found contact with the city computer. Now she had a surreal, electronic body in which she traveled down an electronic highway. She passed mainframe buildings and structures that looked like businesses, and there were smaller clusters of public and private computers. An enormous tower acted as the central processor, and it controlled all of the city’s basic functions. Her awareness of each computer appeared to give everything structure, as buildings tended to form just as she passed them.

After being asked by a checkpoint security patrol what she was, she was able to access the files on the Moon City computers. She told them she was an educational series and was only looking. She mentally laughed as she read the files on the waste disposal systems in the space port. Normally, a container ship would recover the refuse, but not this time.

****

After having moved the ship to a bay for some minor repairs, Zeeto stood outside the recovery room and watched through the glass. She still wasn’t moving, and it had been three days. He had to go see what Den had found out from talking to Eleksi about teaching her a few things while they worked and paid off the cost of the surgery. Kam was stood with him now, held a book from her stash, and the sheet of paper with the translated alphabet. The book was supposed to be for her, but he thought it looked interesting.

Look, I’ll be fine. If she’s got the attitude you say she does, then she won’t be weirded out by waking up to see me instead of you. In my opinion, it would be an improvement.

Thanks. I didn’t ask for your opinion, I only asked you to hang out till she wakes up. His palm radio beeped at him. What?

It’s Den–You might not want to come back up here right now!

Den yelled over an obnoxious siren.

The space port is literally up to its gills in crap.

Zeeto blinked and looked at Dorienne through the glass again. What?

All of the waste disposal containers dumped at once out here–the ones for the restrooms. It’s falling through the magnetic field on the open bays! It’s all over the ship. Whoa!

Zeeto glanced at Kam, and both stared at the inert human.

Where are you?

In Gidget’s hangar. I used the wall comp in there to talk to Eleksi and was cut off when I had to take cover from flying feces!

I’ll be there in a minute. I think we’re being toyed with. He closed the compact-like communicator and sprinted down the corridor, leaving Kam at the recovery room.

****

Several hours later, Dorienne had indeed fallen back asleep. She hadn’t quite been ready to wake up when she’d pulled her stunt with the computers and had promptly fallen unconscious when her chip yanked her out of the matrix. She dreamed now, and something stalked her in the jungle. It growled, and she shot into the foliage above her, but it pounced…

Dorienne sat straight up; her eyes flashed open and she gasped for breath. The machinery was no longer attached to her chest and arms, and the IV was gone. Where that last had been was now a small bandage of green spongy material that stuck to itself. She looked around at the recovery room. There were two other perfectly turned beds in the room separated by holographic dividers. The walls were cream and the lights weren’t too bright. There was a young man who wore what looked like a blue and black flight suit, sat at the end table under the glow of the small lamp there, and read one of her books. Her alphabet translation sat on the table beside him.

You had a nice nap.

The Theran had short white-blond hair, pale eyes, and an intellectual air about him.

Are you a friend of Zeeto and Den?

Yes. Did you cause that stunt in the spaceport?

She only grinned and tore out the rubber bands still holding the three sections of her hair. Then she noticed the peeling burn. It was almost gone. Experimentally, she swung her legs over the bed and let them dangle over the edge for a moment, now realizing that she really had to pee. There was a stall at one end of the room, so she stood shakily and made her way there. Relieved, she now poked around the room for her clothes.

Your stuff is in that locker over there. Den brought it yesterday.

Are you a fighter pilot?

Gee, how’d you guess?

Not everybody walks around in a flight suit as if it were jeans and a t-shirt.

Kam watched her go through the pile in the locker. She was obviously making sure everything was there...as far as he was concerned, everything was there. His eyes watched her rump as she walked back to the little bathroom. She came out looking much better, having combed out the tangles, applied some makeup, and sprayed some kind of sweet, musky perfume. All of that had been inside the little handbag, apparently. The pants were only a little tight, and the v-necked sweater clung.

Which one are you reading? she was still brushing her hair.

He blinked and held up the book.

Some of this is interesting, but I don’t understand the time jump.

If you keep reading you will. The history is part of a modern day problem, and the author has a way of weaving them together nicely. I’ve actually read that one three times. Dorienne took the alphabet paper and folded it into her purse, then took the book and headed out ahead of him. The nurse’s station was just down the hall. Dorienne cringed and walked faster when someone in another room moaned.

Dorienne and Laniah hit it off instantly, and they primped in the latter’s bathroom. Dorienne couldn’t believe she was curling her hair for this. Going to a club was stupid, yet she was actually excited about it. It was just like the post-graduation dance, just not on Earth.

You know, the last time I looked nice for them, they dipped me in a vat of chemicals.

Hah. Lani applied a dark wine lip color with a brush. She was sharply pretty, except for her nose, which was odd and large. She wore an electric blue strapless thing that sort of stayed on, and black, tight pants with crazy stiletto heeled boots. She wore her hair down and parted down the middle so her pointed ears were covered, but everyone would see the enormous gold hoops hanging low.

Dorienne was not so flashy. She didn’t like to show her tummy. When she sat, it bulged outward, and that was embarrassing. She was proud of her shoulders, though, and wore a black off-the-shoulders peasant shirt, her tightest blue flair jeans and the riveted belt that often accented her clothes. Her jewelry wasn’t anything different–it was the makeup and hair she to which she applied extra effort.

Lani stood back to look at her new friend. I can’t believe you’re only eighteen. You look fabulous–they won’t even recognize you.

Dara grinned sideways, doubting it would matter.

Chapter 3

Dorienne once again awoke on the ship as it moved through space. That confused her–when she’d gone to sleep, the ship was stationary and still attached to Moon City. Now she could feel the vibrations of the machinery as the warp drive hummed its song. Where had they decided to go at the last minute? What had happened while she was asleep?

She thought back to the night before. They’d all been at a club...Kam had chased off Aelyk...she’d flirted with Kanto...she’d danced with Lani...her calves were sore, as was everything else, but they hurt the most. None of the men triggered feelings of attraction, but they were ok guys.

She grabbed her robe and tied it over her pajamas, and made her way to the con. For some reason, she thought the other two would be there. They weren’t. She searched the ship, and finally found them in the aft hold. They stopped mid sentence and stared at her.

Where are we going? Why’d we leave? Did something happen?

Everything’s fine, said Den. We’re about to land on Asethnoria. Just a quick stop–we’ve gotta restock our pantry. Why?

I dunno. We seemed to leave in a hurry...

Actually, sassie, we’re taking you to Raygaal.

What’s there?

Eleksi Voradin. He’s an old pro at scrounging, hacking, you name it. There’s only so much we can do, and to do what you’re gonna do, you need to know what he knows.

Dorienne leaned against the hatch seal for the aft hold, feeling as if she’d sunk through the floor. In her head, she pictured him pointing a gun at her.

How long?

Um, maybe a month?

Dorienne was still too fuzz brained from sleep for this to completely sink in. She didn’t say anything else, just marched back to her cabin and sat there for a moment to absorb it.

A month, maybe. While they gallivant around the stars, she would be stuck listening to Mr. Trigger-happy tell her how to live out in space. A man she truly did not like…a man who would become her teacher. In her head, the image of a gun pointed to the spot between her eyes.

Buckle down girl. Dorienne started packing.

Chapter 4

Eleksi stood on his private landing strip, pulled the parka tighter around his wiry frame and glared at the ugly yellow craft that wavered in the stiff Raygaalian wind. Fortunately, he hadn’t had to file a notice with Trafcom of their imminent landing—they would only be there long enough to drop something off…rather, someone, and too much of her somethings.

The gear lowered from the bulbous underbelly of the craft and the forward lights cut off. A ramp lowered…Dammit, he thought, they really had done what they said they would…

The female strutted down the ramp like a model on a catwalk. She carried a backpack, a tool case, and two suitcases. Black slouchy knee-high boots crawled over her blue jeans to the knees, a red sweater poked from beneath her old earthling style bomber jacket, and black scarf flapped in the breeze. Her brown hair fell in a braid to the middle of her back, her face was clear, pale and splotched with red from the cold, full lips slightly chapped and green eyes intense. She licked her lips.

Eleksi grimaced. He had been against the plan from the start. Bringing a human off planet was dangerous, even with all the new construction and trade deals, and much of the planet Earth was still in quarantine. On the other hand, he wasn’t always available to do Den and Zeet’s research and couldn’t leave to follow them on their adventures when he had so much to do with Ery. They really needed their own scrounger on board to run searches. He had joked about ‘borgs and brain chips, but they had gone and stolen some anyway, to his dismay, and then picked up their human, drugged her and stuffed them in her head…and they swore that it was totally ok with her. He didn’t think so, having met Dorienne Nielsen; he knew she would have balked.

When she was off-loaded, the Lutessian and the horse-faced anomaly waved at them from the hatch before sealing it. The human held her tool box in front of her like a little girl on a fishing trip and smiled coyly at him. The last time he had been in her company, she wore a scant purple dress and had bitten him on the arm when he threatened to throw her out the Quardun’s airlock.

The urge hovered silently at the back of his mind, a formidable buzzing pressure.

Hi. The flatness in her voice surprised Eleksi and he hid it with a sneer. He directed her inside.

What’s your problem Primate?

I can tell you don’t want me here, it’s ok cuz I wasn’t happy either. Oomph, she barely managed to pull all her things to the underground home’s entrance. The landing strip was literally on top and to the side of the house.

You still need some education sassie, you keep the biting under control and we’ll be just fine.

Mmmhmm, I’ll be good.

Her demeanor was mature and serious, a far cry from two months ago. Good. He pointed out the different rooms to her, and that his was also his study. He explained that other smuggler friends sometimes stayed here on business for a small fee to escape the prying eyes of port security. Dorienne was impressed both with the size of the underground complex and its apparent creature comforts, but it was all drab and beige, and that sparked a twitch of cabin fever. Since it was late in the day, he gave her a chance to arrange herself in her own room and settle in; the space was a nice size with a bed, small table and chai,r and a wall holo, almost like a cheap hotel. A bathroom with a standing shower joined her room to the empty one next door. Standing beside the clothes-strewn bed, she curiously pulled back the covers to discover a real mattress instead of a sponge.

****

An hour later Eleksi called her into his study.

So, have you used your new little toy, or are ya just lettin’ it sit there?

She sat gingerly in one of the rolling ergonomic chairs, eyebrow raised.

I made all the spaceport restroom tanks dump simultaneously…

Eleksi rubbed his temples. I was joking when I called them toys.

Hey, they’re in my head, if that was ever an issue Den and Zeeto should have installed them in someone else. She crossed her arms over her modest chest.

He glared at her smugness.

Ok, sassie, standard transmission panel. He hefted the panel meant for bionics, ‘borgs, mechs and prosthesis, and squeezed a tube of blue goo onto the smooth white surface. He motioned for her to place her hands onto it and then began to enter commands. A program loaded on his extended systems. The bank of holoscreens and keypads covered an entire wall.

She spent the next two hours inside her head, navigating the net behind her eyelids for the first fifteen minutes before figuring out how to send images to the holoscreens. After that, it was on to research methods. She practiced communicating with the external systems, used her own codes of images and sensory perceptions, and developed her avatar. After a bit, Eleksi called it a night and she saved her data.

Her head ached and she went to the kitchen to find a pain reliever. Eleksi followed her, found a patch, and handed it to her. She gratefully accepted. Then he led her to Ery’s barn.

Dorienne had read of dragon boxing, but hadn’t imagined she would have the opportunity to meet one of the competitors. The grumpy man hadn’t spent a whole lot of time talking to her so far, so she really didn’t know anything about the leuts except for what she had read. She shook her head, feeling a little dizzy, but continued to follow Eleksi into the barn and toward the barred cage in the corner. It wasn’t the kind of cage that one kept a dangerous animal in though…it was more like a fancy stable. Heavy wooden pillars supported equally heavy elaborately carved wooden doors, and several large stones. The whole thing was filled with pillows and faintly smelled of something large and reptilian. At first she didn’t see anything, but as soon as Eleksi spoke, a glittering ruby-mottled scaly head reared and snorted. The leut’s triangular head was about two feet long, with two short horns pointing backward from the top of the skull, and the red-violet-black coloring ran the entire length of the lithe cheetah-like body. A long tail thrashed the pillows, wagging like a dog’s tail.

Eleksi cooed at the creature, rubbing behind the small ear holes and around the horns. He pushed Dorienne close to the stall door.

Ery meet Dara. She’s gonna stay here for a while.

Dorienne stood still as the giant lizard sniffed her with flaring nostrils near the tip of the triangular snout and made a deep purring noise.

You don’t smell Theran, what are you?

That is the first thing I always get asked, Dara laughed.

Eleksi glared at her. She purred—

No, she spoke. The accent is really heavy, but she clearly asked me what I am. You must speak to her a lot.

Eleksi stared.

Ery nodded her big head and nudged Dara in the stomach again. Eleksi scratched through his spiky black hair. Apparently the human could understand what his leut was growling—this could definitely be an advantage in the ring. Perhaps she could get inside info by listening to other leuts at the tourneys. Ery had barely qualified for this year’s fight season... He opened the cage and let his leut walk on her own, no lead. He had never had problems with her temperament, and he rarely kept her cage locked. She was middle aged for a leut at twenty four years, and her line had been long lived. His previous dragon had been his father’s—that one had died in an accident soon after Ery began her boxing career. Eleksi restated to Dorienne knowledge of their history; how the early Theran terraformers had found the Leuts in caves, found that the ground dwelling species were intelligent, and created mixed breeds and anomalies. Ery was one of those lines, a line that had lived in concert with Therans for many generations.

Dorienne stroked Ery’s scaly face, noting how warm, soft and dry the scales were, and that they had a furry growth between them. Along her back ran a bony plated ridge. Her feet had four black-clawed toes, the innermost of which was set to oppose the other three. Amazing, she thought, the Leuts might have developed like humans if Therans hadn’t interfered and tried to turn them into work animals.

Eleksi picked up the rubberized grooming wand from its rack and rubbed the dragon’s body down, coaxing her skin to release mildly pungent smelling oil. It was not a foul odor, but it did cling to the air and to the nostrils. When they finished, Ery’s body glowed and glittered in the barn lights. She looked like a rare jewel. Afterward, Eleksi bid the dragon goodnight and told Dorienne to hit the hay, more lessons would start early the next day, beginning with target practice. She nodded, wowed by the beauty of the Leut, and wandered to her room.

Two weeks of target practice had gone well, and so had riding lessons on the civi. Dorienne laughed out loud despite the cold; the air rushed against her face and clawed at her clothes. Eleksi gripped the leather seat behind her and grasped her hips as she steered the small air born craft in loops and dives. The Raygaalian countryside was a barren and rocky, with stunted trees, lichens and thorny bushes, and patches of slowly melting snow. As she understood, the planet was moving into late spring. Small flowers supported this notion by poking up through the snow. Eleksi had explained that the brief spring and summer season hosted the fighting tournaments, and she would most likely be present for most of it. Eleksi planned to use her as a wrangler, since she had the ability to understand the leut’s speech. She wondered during her training what Den and Zeet were up to, and how long she would be here.

Dorienne had so much fun on the civi she forgot how much Eleksi’s hands on her hips disgusted her…until the sirens blared and her mentor motioned for her to stop. She pulled over to the roof of the local outlet mall. As they sat there, Eleksi grumbled and she apologized, a chunky G-pol officer hobbled off his KAD and removed his helmet. He was the Lornixian breed of Theran: large black eyes, pointed ears, copper skin, black hair.

Well, Voradin, if it ain’t you.

Hello Tughy. Eleksi’s voice betrayed no concern. Dara relaxed.

Someone complained you buzzed their house.

How’d they know it was—

The officer waved his hands at the skies, ominous and gray for the most part. They had been heading home anyway.

Who else would be out joyriding with a gorgeous girl on a day like this?

Dara bristled.

C’mon, I was teaching my new wrangler a few things—

Ain’t she a little young? Tughy folded his arms.

Dara raised her eyebrow, then smiled coyly at the officer.

Hey, I got skills.

Tughy hmphed and sighed.

I guess I’ll leave you with a verbal warning this time, Voradin, go get’em at the tourneys! And he left.

Eleksi leaned around to see her face, and she turned to him.

You’ve got skills, huh?

She grinned, flipped the civi around the low building, and egressed in the direction of the house.

Eleksi cried out as his student slumped out of her chair to sprawl awkwardly on the study floor. He knelt, slapped her face, shouted her name, and finally rolled her on her side. He flipped on the lights and ran for a glass of water…when he returned she was bent over his refuse bin gagging. He set the water down and held her hair out of the way, feeling a curious mixture of panic and deep concern. It was curious because he didn’t even like her.

When she finished, he set the bin out in the hall to remind himself to dump it, grabbed the water, and helped her to her room. She described to him the start of the dizziness and how it became progressively worse every night, but tonight was the first time she got sick. He checked her temperature; she wasn’t promiscuous so she couldn’t be pregnant, she didn’t have a weak stomach, she hadn’t had any alcohol, she was supposedly perfectly healthy…

That left her chip. He surmised that using it affected her equilibrium. Time to do some research of his own; the smugglers hadn’t really told him anything, just that they had found enough on how to implant them and what they would do for the user. A break was in order, so for now they would concentrate on her survival skills. As he situated her in her room, the holo in the den beeped, telling him he had missed a message.

He flipped it on.

Eleksi, how’s it hangin’?

Not bad Zeet what’s up?

Dara driving you nuts yet?

She’s ok, still needs some work.

Zeeto paused.

That doesn’t sound right.

Ahh, well, she can shoot fine, ride a civi, fly a ship—

Damn, its only been three weeks!

Zeeto’s inner eyelids flicked a faster than usual expression of shock. Operating Thurga had been as easy as writing her name.

But she’s…sick somehow, he continued in a quiet voice. I think it’s something to do with the bioware you shoved into her cranium. You need to give me whatever info you have on them, I’m gonna do some more research and see if I can find something out.

Zeeto disappeared, leaving Eleksi