Galaxy's End: Book One Read online

  There were two sets of bunk beds, and the possible combinations were limited. She was caught off-guard and started to have Bert and me together, which suited me, but she realized that meant she and Bill would be together. Her eyes shifted to me and I thought I’d be sharing her room, but she surprised me. “Bert, would you mind taking the top bunk in my room?”

  Bert said, “Not if you don’t mind me gathering spare blankets and clothing to make a bit of a nest to sleep under.”

  The captain continually surprised me. Trying to outthink her was impossible, because of choices like that. I’d have anticipated her wanting me to room with her, or possibly Bill because of how he had filled out and the smile he had directed at her. I had no idea why she chose Bert. Nor did she object to Bert’s nest building, which had always been a task never completed. I could imagine the near future. He would gather anything to improve his tunnel system, no matter how temporary.

  It didn’t matter. I was far more comfortable with Bill sleeping in the same room as me, as he had been doing for ten years, or thereabouts. I couldn’t remember the last time I woke without his soft snores soothing my nights.

  Some people complain about their mate snoring. For me, hearing Bill means that all is right in our untidy world, and the few times I didn’t hear it, he was outside guarding our camp against intruders or thieves.

  It turned out, as no great surprise, some of the clothing I’d chosen didn’t fit or suit any of us. I’d gone for frippery and cute. We tossed those on the top bunk where Bert would be. Some were hideous and I wondered if the clerk who had worked on commission while selling ugly clothing had tossed in a few things the store had a tough time selling when I was not looking in her direction. After all, I was going off-planet and wouldn’t open my bags until aboard the ship, so I couldn’t complain.

  If she had done that—good for her. I could respect adding to her personal credit account where there could be no recourse. I also appreciated that she had probably considered it payback to the client who had treated her so poorly. That would have been me.

  The pile on the top bunk grew and we also requested additional bedding from a passing ship’s steward. Then a loudspeaker ordered us to enter our bunks and wait for the crew to check on us before liftoff. A knock sounded at the door and a young woman in the ship’s uniform hustled inside and ensured we were all lying down as instructed. She informed us that for our safety, we were not to leave the beds until a ship-wide clearance had been issued. She also told us in a mechanical, memorized voice that if we disobeyed, the company was not responsible for any possible injuries. We were required to respond verbally while she recorded our answers.

  Then she was gone, presumably to the next passenger’s room.

  Bert said, “I’ll use this time to sleep if you can all speak softly. It has been a most stressful day.”

  The captain owned all or part of a spaceship, so she knew what was about to happen. Bill and I had never as much as flown in an aircar. Fear crept into my mind on little cat’s feet. I’d heard that phrase somewhere and with my new feline name, it fits the circumstances. While I didn’t expect danger, I didn’t know what came next, and not knowing is the root of many fears.

  I asked, “Since none of us has been on a ship before, can you tell us what is going to happen?”

  Instead of Captain Stone answering, Bert spoke first, “The engines will rumble as they start, and self-diagnostics are run. Vibration increases. Then it will get louder, and no one can talk because of that. Pressure will push you down. Not hurting, but more than you like. Lie flat on your back and wait.”

  “Then what?” I found myself asking.

  “Things return to normal at the end of the trip out of the atmosphere. Gravity will be supplied.”

  Captain Stone said to Bert, “You’ve flown before?”

  Bert said, “I’m under too many articles of clothing to hear you well. Time to sleep for me.”

  That was an outright lie, and his confusing language was intended to be misunderstood. Bert could hear perfectly, especially from this distance. His diction was better than mine, and he spoke at least five or six languages like a native. He simply didn’t want to give away his background or age, as usual. I cupped my hand to my mouth and gave a soft cough while muttering liar.

  I heard his muted chuckle from under the clothing in an answer but was probably the only one to do so because I was expecting it. I whispered just above audible level, so softly nobody else heard, “Good night.”

  “Sleep well,” Bert muttered.

  It took a while for people to learn how sensitive his ears were and even then, most underestimated his abilities. He heard a whisper in the next room as clearly as if someone shouted in Bert’s left ear. He’d told me his race had tiny little hairs inside their ears that allowed them to thrive on a planet filled with hungry predators. His species had evolved, those that survived, due to the sensitive hearing.

  The liftoff was much as Bert had described. Within a few tenths of time, we were off planet, away from the clutches of the Coliseum police of Roma, and safely on beds in a pair of tiny metal rooms where a full step in any direction would force us to stop or strike our noses on a wall. The only place to move was the two steps to the door.

  The announcement that we were free to move about the passenger area brought me anxiously upright. The farming planet, Franklin, a planet I’d never heard of before a few hours ago, loomed far ahead somewhere in the darkness of space.

  For now, I simply wanted out of the confinement of the cabin and the freedom to explore the Dreamer. “Bill, want to look over the ship with me?”

  “In a while.”

  I cast a look in his direction and found him on his bed with his forearm tossed across his eyes. He didn’t look well.

  Captain Stone peeked in and said, “Liftoff and entry into space with the shifts in gravity affects some like that. He’ll get used to it in a day or two. Bert wants to remain in his burrow, sulking about the computers he left behind. He assures me they were destroyed and of no use to the police trying to track us or find out anything about us.”

  “Want to go with me and check out the ship?” I asked Captain Stone.

  She hesitated, then caved. “Sure, I haven’t been on a working ship like this in years.”

  “Working ship?” I asked.

  “Tramps, we call them. Not traders, but they do usually carry cargo. A few passengers and usually a there-and-back route the ship travels regularly. Sometimes there are three or four stops. Not a lot of money in it for the ship and crew, but it’s steady income, which is sometimes better than taking chances on a trader like the one I own.”

  “You own a whole ship?” I asked without thinking, astonished that anyone could have that much money. She had mentioned it before, but the concept only now revealed itself to me. My words had spilled from my mouth without thinking.

  She laughed, “Along with owning all the expenses for upkeep, repairs, fuel, crew wages, taxes, and worst of all, bad trades. Most traders hit that wall sooner or later. One bad trade can put you out of business if you’re not careful.”

  She was talking as we moved down a narrow passage that Bert might enjoy because of the confining feel to it. Sort of like a tunnel in space. In the end, we opened a heavier door, one with the word “airtight” printed on it. Captain Stone carefully resealed it when we passed through into a larger room.

  Larger is a generous description. Five tall, tiny tables big enough to hold a pair of small plates and two glasses stood inside, and at each, four narrow chairs rested. Between them was enough room for a skinny child on a diet to move through. A female of the crew welcomed us and directed us to a table with a small swish of her hand. At second glance, it was not a human woman, therefore it might not be female either. There wasn’t room to wave for attention without hitting one wall or another.

  The surface of the table was the auto-menu, but a human, something only the wealthy could afford. A simple enough process to order w
ith a few taps on the table, and the steward returned with the items and cleaned up as the diners at each table departed. The captain and I sat facing each other across the small tabletop.

  Captain Stone ordered a baked potato with all the toppings, the only thing I was familiar with, so I punched in the same. She said, “Wine?”

  “We need to talk,” I mumbled. “I have no idea what most of the stuff is on the menu, the only wine I’ve tasted was probably something else. A cheap imitation. Bill and I seldom had a full credit to our names until recently. I’m out of my element and feeling lost.”

  She smiled and said, “I was going to talk to you about the same things. Those are issues that we need to discuss, I mean.” Her fingers tapped the wine icon. She selected from a variety on the menu, tapped twice to confirm, and ordered a glass of water to go with it.

  I was about to speak again, but she held up her palm. “Wait until the steward gets here so we’re not interrupted.”

  I looked around. The ceiling was low, appeared to be metal, as were the walls, tables, and chairs. It was not fancy. However, it was clean if I ignored the rust and accumulated filth concentrated in the corners. However, with a ship as old as I believed this one was, there had been plenty of time for it to gather that dirt and grime. Plenty of time to clean it up, too.

  The steaming hot potatoes arrived, and she told me, “Drink half your water.”

  Without questioning her, I did. She then poured half the glass of white wine into the water and said, “From now on, never use stims or alcohol in the presence of strangers. If you do, water it.”

  I gave her my best smile as I tasted the drink It was good. “I don’t consider you a stranger. Not anymore.”

  She sighed and her eyes flicked to the occupied tables a step or two away. “Imagine those people are of the same race as Bert and speak to me accordingly. You’d be amazed at what I’ve heard while eating in public.”

  I got it. We had no idea of who the other passengers were, what their business was, and how it might affect us. Only a fleetingly brief time ago, we had been running from the police, all of us. We were felons, or escapees, or something. The legal system on Roma wanted our capture so badly they had sent several sleds loaded with agents to capture us. If Roma still did want us, and I assumed it did, it could probably catch us on board the Dreamer or send agents to Franklin for the promise of rewards. I’d heard of such things.

  Why they wanted Captain Stone was a mystery, and she would tell us when the time was right. It seemed a lot of fuss for betting on herself to win a battle in the arena. It also didn’t sound illegal.

  For now, she wanted to learn about me. Well, she’d paid for the tickets for our trip, so she had a right to know everything. I glanced warily at the other passengers.

  Closest to us were two Wren, a brown bird-like race covered in fine feathers. While they couldn’t fly, their ancestors had. It still showed in the general shape of their bodies. They were notoriously anti-social. Beyond them sat a male Bask and a female human. She wore too much sparkly jewelry. It had the look of being real. I wondered how I could steal her jewelry and manage to get off the ship with it.

  Until I knew more about how things like theft of property work on a ship, I wouldn’t attempt it. However, I’m a fast learner and in the past when opportunity knocked, I answered.

  I didn’t share that sort of information about Bill and me with strangers, not even ones that paid for a ticket that took us on a spaceship. The less that people know about you, the less they can hold over your head or use to blackmail you.

  Most of all, she wanted to know about me and my empathic powers, not my past criminal activities. She hadn’t said that, but it was coming. I felt her watching me. She knew about me, at least a portion of it, and she wanted to know more. I sipped my watered wine and loved it.

  No matter what she expected or wished, she was not going to have a telepath on her hands. It was not the same thing, even if telepaths were more than a myth. I couldn’t speak to others with my mind, but there were rumors of some who could. True or not, my abilities were far simpler. I helped people make choices. Not all the time. Only when it served me. I couldn’t tell what a person was thinking any more than the next person.

  Empaths work by feel. If another has a box of candies, I can’t take one without punishment. What I can do is place the idea that sharing the candy will make him or her feel better. In that way, I may or may not have one of the candies offered to me.

  Back in the arena, I hadn’t told her to move to the Hoot’s right. Not in words. I’d merely used my small talent and mentally suggested that she wanted to move in that direction as the contest progressed. It was her choice. I was a whisper in her ear. As I termed it, I gave her a little mental push that might help her win the bout, which is far different than telepathy or reading minds or whatever. I have no more ability to know what a person thinks than anyone else.

  While sitting there and anticipating the questions she would ask, and waiting for her questions to begin, I tried to imagine how to express that what I could do was very little, and for years, I hadn’t believed I even had that much ability. It took a lot of trial and error to convince myself.

  Bill had helped me devise interesting tests to prove or disprove my abilities when we were young, and also understand the limits. For instance, we had walked past a street vendor who sold sweet cakes, a man we’d intentionally passed daily for a month. Every morning, I smiled at him and he smiled back and maybe one of us said a few words of greeting.

  That was all Bill’s idea. Then on day thirty, or thereabouts, we walked together as the previous twenty-nine days, and as we approached, he caught sight of us. I pushed the idea to him that today he wanted to give us a small sample or treat because he liked us.

  As we reached his pushcart, he held out two small rounds of cake.

  I nearly fell on my face with surprise. Until then, I had not believed in empathy. Not a little. Not even its existence.

  That was the beginning. It was the first time we sort of confirmed I could do such a thing. In the eight or ten years since that day, my powers had barely improved. Well, that was not exactly true. I learned how to better control them. If a person were already teetering in one direction or another, I could often convince them which one to choose.

  I could not make a Hoot move to his left in combat when he was trained and wished to go to his right. A selfish person would not hand me fistfuls of money. The idea that empaths could do those things is wrong. Either that or I’m a poor empath. One of the two.

  But knowing our limitations is part of growing up, no matter who we are.

  The captain had eaten her meal and sat waiting patiently as she watched me. Mine was untouched. There was too much to think about, too much to learn. I finally tasted the potato. First, it was nothing like any I’d ever tasted, the texture was also different. It led me to believe that what I’d been eating my whole life had been other things and not potato. That didn’t surprise me at all.

  But it was the toppings that made me drool. Cheese, two kinds, green onions that were fresh, not dried, and reconstituted. And butter. Real butter, not jelled oil that had been stained yellow.

  As good as the food was, I suddenly wanted to talk as if the energy in the food had loosened my tongue. “Captain . . .”

  “Do not call me that until we’re aboard my ship,” she said softly but emphatically.

  “Miss Stone?”

  “Stone will do. What’s on your mind?”

  “You. And why you came searching for me.” Being brutally direct like that sometimes yields unexpected results. I had often found abruptness an advantage, not that I expected it to work on the captain.

  I think she debated telling me the truth with the same directness and decided in favor of it. “You have a gift, Kat. I hope to make use of it.”

  The question hadn’t phased her. Okay. There was no way to deny what she knew, but I was not about to allow anyone to rule my mind or place me
in danger because of knowing about my empathic ability. I stiffened slightly at her answer and decided to be warier in the future. I’d been accepting what she said as fact, blinded by the credits she’d had me spend on clothes and the cost of the tickets.

  We’d be on the Dreamer five days and there would be plenty of time to talk. If I didn’t like her answers, I could get off at Franklin, disappear as I blended in with the locals, and see what that planet had to offer. It had to be better than Roma. Bill and Bert would go with me. There would be people to scam, items to steal and sell, and perhaps even an honest job.

  She peered at me and waited as if she could read my mind.

  “What?” I finally asked sharply, almost offended.

  “You want to know more of me and my plans for you, all three of you, and you have the patience to wait me out until I respond. You don’t trust me. Or anyone not in your gang of three. Let’s sit here and sip our wine and learn about each other.”

  I liked that idea. The wine was good, weak enough it wouldn’t free my tongue too much, and there was a lot to learn. “Your ship? Tell me about it.”

  She hesitated and allowed her head to loll back a little. “It belonged to my father before me. He owned a little trader like almost all others, with an S6 engine reclaimed from military use. Not enough room left inside the cabin to change your mind, let alone for him, me, and one crewman who smelled bad and loved garlic.”

  “The Guardia? The ship we’re going to?” Her description didn’t sound at all like I’d expected.

  “Lords of the Seven Layers of Heaven, no. I thought you wanted to know about my early years. Do you know anything about trading ships?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I love honesty almost as much as loyalty. Here’s the short story. The larger the ship, the . . . no that’s not quite right, do you understand mass?”

  I shook my head.

  “Okay, let’s say weight instead of mass. You know what that is. The more a ship weighs, the larger the engine must be, and therefore the more fuel it uses.” At my nod of such a basic concept, she went on, “The more fuel, the more it costs me to operate. That means it costs shippers more to send products or people. If I charge more, shippers send their goods on cheaper ships. So, by necessity, traders are tiny ships with small crews and economical engines. They move small, expensive items, or items in critical need from world to world.”