A Crooked Road Home
By Caroline Sciriha
Five jumps to Xanta
Once you touch the depths, the only way is up. Jesson flicked on his music bank and leaned back in his chair, his whisky glass gripped between his hands. The liquid sound of pipes filled the tiny cabin. He closed his eyes, letting the melody fill his mind with other places, other thoughts, and wash away the lingering memory of those last moments on board the colonists’ starship.
The haunting sounds and the fiery fluid loosened his neck muscles. He gulped down the last of the whisky and poured himself some more, then glanced at the monitor imbedded in the console before him. The starship had floated to the edge of the screen, looking like a silver octopus in a black sea.
He toggled to map mode, and the image faded to be replaced by grid lines and a couple of pinpricks of flashing light. This sector of space was devoid of traffic; it was why he’d chosen it.
The sliding doors behind him swished open and First Mate Stee, a miniscule female with a greyish complexion, stepped into the cabin. “Captain, the booty inventory.” Stee placed a translucent sheet on the console.
“Thanks.” He ran a fingernail down the list. The starship’s control chips would fetch a goodish price on the black market. As for the rest, there was nothing unusual, mostly the colonists’ personal cards plump with galaxy credits, as well as jewellery items and some gadgets—nothing that would excite the big traders. He hadn’t expected anything else, just an easy board and raid to cover his next loan payment.
But nothing ever came easy.
His finger’s downward slide stopped at item 43: the ship’s destination chip.
“Shadow would be interested in that,” Stee said.
“Hmm.” According to the information on the chip, the newly discovered planet was fertile, and its mass and distance from the sun promised moderate temperatures. The Galactic Federation protected these discoveries with the highest security. Which meant Shadow, the richest crime ring in the galaxy, would pay well for the chip—finding premium land for their hallucinatory crops had become a priority. And patrols would be practically non-existent so far out of the normal trade routes. “Seventy-one percent water is a lot of sea, but still leaves a sizable area for Shadow to play with. I’ll send an encrypted message to my father.”
Stee cocked her head. “I thought you already had. The communication schematics recorded a fluctuation just before I left the bridge.”
“Have the Knight Hawk run a system’s test.” A malfunction would be disastrous at this point. Every galaxy credit he netted from this heist had to go into paying back his debt and accrued interest. His beloved father hadn’t offered reduced terms. Never let family interfere with business, if you want to succeed, Father had told him when he protested. Still, this latest heist might enable him to finally break away from Father’s control over him and the ship.
“I’ll let my father know that we’ll be auctioning the chip to the highest bidder.”
Stee’s eyebrows rose.
“Other crime lords might gang up to outbid Shadow,” Jesson said. “That could put the price up.” He was his father’s son after all.
“Shadow won’t like it. And they would expect more loyalty from Lord Jesson’s son.”
“I’ve not taken the oath.” One master was one too many. But for now, he needed to keep Father happy. The remaining whisky in the glass trembled. The Knight Hawk had fired the thrusters and would soon make the jump.
“Set the coordinates for Xanta,” Jesson said. “My father’ll take the loot off us. For his usual cut, of course.”
Stee picked the inventory sheet and left to oversee the jump. Jesson leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. With a bit of luck, the destination chip would enable him to pay all that he still owed for the Knight Hawk and the technology he’d installed to make it the fastest ship in the galaxy. The extra expense had been worth it. The Knight Hawk could outrun any galactic patrol. It was what had kept him alive and out of custody these past ten years.
Jesson removed the patch of artificial skin which covered one of his eyes and rubbed the scar. It itched each time he felt stressed, and even more so when he had to deal with his father. He switched off the music. Pipes and flutes weren’t going to help him today.
A light on the console blinked. He brushed his finger over it and Cargo Master Vincente’s voice crackled out of the speaker. “A freight ship and a patrol answered the colonists’ distress signal. They’re heading here.”
“How long?”
“The Patrol’s the closest. Four jumps away.”
“The colonists might not be alive by then.” Which meant more deaths tallied against him.
“And we’ll be long gone,” Vincente said.
Jesson grunted, then cut the connection. Had he caught a hint of disapproval in Vincente’s tone? Unbidden, a picture of gas-dazed and sobbing colonists rose in Jesson’s mind, but if he grew soft each time a child cried, he should have remained on Xanta. Besides, crying only used up the colonists’ air reserves. And with the control chips in his possession, they wouldn’t be able to generate more. However, if they were very lucky—and had a smart captain—the Patrol might reach them just before their air ran out. The heist should have been just a routine raid—board; fire the gas; cripple the ship; bag all that was portable. His crew knew the drill. But one of the females hadn’t been as disorientated by the gas as the others. These ten years had taught Jesson to never underestimate those with nothing to lose. Unfortunately, his youngest crew member hadn’t been as vigilant.
The life of a skinny boy for a loan payment. Plus the lives of the starship’s crew and passengers. Perhaps.
He’d need to let the boy’s family know, but it would have to wait. More essential business beckoned. Jesson emptied his tumbler, then tapped into the encryptor to reach his father.
Two jumps to Xanta
The Knight Hawk drifted towards the waiting cruiser. The airspace was crowded this close to Xanta, but if anyone cared to check, their ships’ designations declared that the Knight Hawk was trading in gems and jewellery, while the cruiser was a rich man’s toy, a means of shuttling the pleasure-loving from one hot entertainment spot to another.
The airlocks kissed. Jesson straightened his closefitting jacket and ran his hand over his short hair. As his father had always drummed into his sons, appearance was half a sale.
The cruiser airlock opened with a hiss of warm air. The Shadow lord preferred his ship’s temperatures to be high, it seemed, at least higher than Jesson allowed on his. But then Shadow had a bottomless supply of galaxy credits. Unlike the Knight Hawk.
It was also Shadow’s way of showing who had the greater muscle.
A plump man stepped into the opening. “Jesson’s little bastard.”
Jesson tensed, but this was not the time to take offense. If Shadow thought they could rattle him with an old insult, they did not know the man he’d become.
“Lord Teir.” He’d often seen the drug lord at his father’s house. Jesson schooled his face not to show disappointment—he’d hoped to reach someone higher.
The man’s gaze swept over Jesson from the flesh-coloured eyepatch to the tip of his scuffed boots. Jesson felt warmth rise in his neck. The needier he appeared, the lower the offer would be.
“I see you’ve inherited your father’s eye for business, if nothing else,” Teir said.
Jesson’s fingers tightened into a fist. Teir probably knew that he’d lost his eye at his father’s house, and that Lord Jesson hadn’t bothered to pay for regenerative surgery. “You honour me,” he said.
The Shadow section leader did not advance to offer the customary arm grip. So be it. Teir had called him bastard after all. And there was no hiding the tawny tinge in Jesson’s skin that broadcasted his Ma’attan blood. Taking offense would damage the negotiations before they even started.
“We’ve verified the information you sent Lord Jesson,” Teir said. “Shadow will buy the chip. There will be no auction.”
The hell there won’t. He’d take the slights and the attitude, but no one dictated what he could do with his booty. He opened his mouth to tell Teir just what he thought of that, but the fat man put his hand up. “Our records show that we hold IOUs in your name for the amount of 3 million galaxy credits.”
What! It was the amount he still owed his father. He’d paid back 7 million, plus interest already. And it had taken him ten years and every credit he could spare.
“Lord Jesson was glad to recoup the amount early. Which means, of course, that we own the Knight Hawk. One point five million units is a fair price for the planet’s coordinates.”
He’d hoped for more, much more. “It’s worth three point five.” Enough to pay the rest of the loan and tidy him till the next heist.
“It’s worth nothing without a buyer.” The man’s eyes bore into him. “Or if you’re dead.”
Sweat trickled down to the small of Jesson’s back. In the tiny space, the bigger man had the advantage. But who was he kidding? A Shadow crew member would be monitoring their conversation, and Jesson would be incapacitated with gas before he took a single step toward Teir.
“Good, I see we understand each other,” Teir said. “Lord Jesson is authorised to receive the chip. One more condition. We have a cargo we need delivered to Xanta. Once it and the chip reach your father, we’ll cancel your IOUs for the amount of 1.5 million.”
Jesson shook his head. “The ship’s weight has already been registered with the port authorities. They’ll know I have illegal cargo if I add anything.”
“Credit Shadow with some intelligence. You’ve lost a crew member. The cargo will be the equivalent weight of one sniveling boy.”
How the hell did Shadow know about that? “Then you’ll have to pay passage.”
“Get it through customs and your little bird will be fuelled and serviced at our expense. That should cover it. You’re more useful off Xanta.”
Teir would look charming with a knife scar running down his fat face. “What’s the cargo?”
“Nothing to worry about. Just feed and water it and deliver it alive.”
What! “Now wait a minute…”
Teir spoke into his wrist mike. The airlock behind him parted and the fat man ducked through it. Jesson took a step after him, but a uniformed crew member filled the space where Teir had stood. He wheeled a square plastic box, the height of Jesson’s hip, through the airlock, then stepped back into the cruiser, leaving the box behind.
The cruiser airlock closed behind him.
How was he going to hide a box that size? It would certainly not fit in any of the secret compartments. The muscle at the side of his jaw jittering, Jesson pulled the box through his side of the airlock and locked the hatch shut.
“What have you there?” As expected, Stee was waiting for him. She eyed the tubes jutting out of the container—one for liquid, one for dried food pellets. The furrows on her brow deepened.
“I don’t know. Some animal or other.”
“We don’t do animals.”
“Yes, well, I wasn’t given much of a choice.”
“We always have a choice.”
“Not when they hold your IOUs.” He’d find a way to pay the old man back for selling him to Shadow. One day.
One jump to Xanta
“Ne majey ge…
Old is the land of the people.
Fertile and ripe are our wombs.
All are father and mother
Blessed by the two moons.”
Ma crooned the Ma’attan lament as her thin arms held him, turning his sobs to sniffs. He was safe here in her embrace. She would protect him from the big man’s fists. “Ne majey ge…”
A slap, and he slammed onto the floor, his shrieks mingling with Ma’s. Pain lanced down his cheek, burnt his eye. Pain as he’d never felt. He couldn’t see, and warm liquid cascaded down his face, into his mouth.
The tang and taste of salt and iron mingled with his tears.
Thud. Fists on flesh. The flash of Father’s ring.
Moans.
The silence was worse.
Jesson struggled against the constricting webbing—he had to save Ma. He had to hide from Father. The rhythmic throb of the Knight Hawk stilled his limbs.
He hadn’t had that dream in years. Snapping open the webbing, he swung his legs off the sleeping pad and buried his head in his hands. His encounter with Teir must have triggered the memories he preferred to keep locked away. He was a ship’s captain now, not a frightened boy. And that planet, that land of peace and beauty that his mother had sung about, no longer existed. Singing, or dreaming about it, wouldn’t bring it back.
He folded the sleeping pad back against the wall to pull down the flap of his console and the swivel chair that transformed his sleeping quarters into his office. Space on the Knight Hawk was limited, but at least he was master here.
Passing his thumb over the console, lights flickered on, and the Knight Hawk’s trajectory and current position appeared on the screen. The Knight Hawk had started the countdown to the last jump before the final run to its home planet, Xanta. That planet had stopped being home the day Father drove his fist once too hard into Ma’s face. But Father and Shadow had ensured he hadn’t escaped his fetters, yet. Saddling him with a caged creature that was probably the size of a well-fed canine was proof enough.
If Shadow, or his father, wanted to get him arrested on entering Xantian airspace, they couldn’t have found a better way.
He thumbed in the link to the cargo bay.
“Captain?” Vincente’s bald head filled the screen.
“Has the creature eaten?”
“It’s taken water but left the dried meat pellets.”
Not a predator, then. Damn Teir for not giving him any information about what was in the box. “Give it vegetable pellets.”
“Did so already. It would be better if we know what we’ve got.”
“I’ll come down later.”
“Ne majey ge…”
Jesson whirled round, for a crazy moment expecting to see Ma behind him. Nothing but blank walls and folded bed pad. His cabin was too small to hide a desert rat, let alone a mortal. Yet someone was singing.
Cutting Vincente off, he searched his room for some hidden device. Nothing.
“Ne majey ge…”
His empty eye socket twitched and itched. The voice sounded young, anxious. Could one of the crew be playing a joke on him? Yet who knew Ma’attan?
He strode out of the cabin, the voice continuing to cocoon him in its embrace. It was everywhere, and nowhere, filling the spaces of the Knight Hawk with sound—which no one else heard.
Of course they didn’t. Ma had no reason to haunt them. Only him. He’d failed her.
He was going mad.
The singing continued. Songs about Ma’att, songs about freedom, songs about love, songs about loss.
Stee took to following him with her eyes, her gaze a silent question. She knew something was amiss. She’d been with him since his first voyage, when he was a mere youth who’d barely known how to program the Knight Hawk and get the ship in the air. But he couldn’t tell her his mother’s phantom had decided to take up residence in his head.
The voice piped on.
Why had Ma waited twenty-six years to curse him? The death of the boy must have been the chaff that tipped the scales. The Ma’attan valued life above all. The boy had been part of his crew, his responsibility. He had betrayed his Ma’attan heritage, and all that Ma had taught him.
He’d become just like his father.
Off Xanta
Jesson woke up drenched. Father was angry with him for going into his office. He whipped him, then he whipped Ma for not keeping him close, out of sight.
“Ne majey ge…” Old is the land of the people. The land was Ma’att, and Ma’att meant both homeland and Mother.
“Farem’ije toa…” A mother’s love is infinite, eternal.
“Stop it,” he yelled.
The voice faltered, then halted, as if the phantom paused to watch him unravel.
“Ajeni!” Help me.
Jesson groaned. “Help me,” she’d screamed then, too. But he hadn’t been Ma’attan enough to stop his father. Just as he hadn’t stood up to Teir and demanded what that chip was really worth.
“Ajeni, toimoi’d.”
Jesson shuddered. The voice sounded frightened, but hopeful, too. Ma had always been strong—like all Ma’attan. At least she’d stopped singing.
His heart banging against his ribs, Jesson sat up, his gaze darting round the cabin. He hardly remembered what Ma had looked like; he only remembered long black hair, and green eyes the colour of wet grass.
“Ajeni, toimoi’d.”
Toimoi’d. Male—not son. “Who are you?”
“Ye’ma.” Girl.
Jesson crashed off his bed, swept out of his cabin and lunged for the descent pole that would take him down to the lower levels of the Knight Hawk. Not bothering to latch on the safety strap, he plummeted down and his boots slammed onto the cargo bay. Rounding the shuttle, he gazed around the space as if he’d never seen it before. Every square inch had a function: food storage; flares; weapons rack; off world clothing; spacesuits; one square box.
Teir’s container stood in the middle of the floor.
“Captain?”
“Leave.”
Vincente snorted, but did as he was told, shimming up the pole as agile as any of Xanta’s primates.
We’re all animals after all.
Jesson ran his hands over the container. He didn’t have the codes to open it.
Father would.
“Ye’ma? Ye’ma?” He hadn’t communicated through thought since he’d been three years old. With Ma.
“Toimoi’d?”
“Stay low, as low as you can get.” Jesson strode to the weapons rack and took down a laser gun.
Shadow would not be pleased. They might even renege on the payment.
How had they expected him to get a box that size through customs? Of course they knew he’d have to open it, break it up. And Shadow needed that chip. He’d be made to pay a price for the loss of a containment box, but they wouldn’t back out of their agreement.
He set the intensity of the laser to its lowest setting and fired.
Plastic blackened, dissolved, and one of the locks fragmented. The jagged hole grew around the ruined lock, and a stench of sweat and fear exploded out of the breach. Jesson enlarged the opening, then took his finger off the trigger. Large green eyes below a fringe the colour of the void peered out of the opening. Skin more golden than his. A pure Ma’attan, one of the few still alive.
“Close your eyes. Don’t look.”
The girl lowered her head and shut her eyes. He pressed the trigger again to destroy the second lock. The child did not whimper or move as the laser continued to melt her prison. She was Ma’attan—strong and resilient. Just as Ma had been.
“You can come out now,” he said. He pulled up the lid and reached in, but the girl flinched and backed away.
Long moments passed. Jesson felt the girl touch his mind, like a feather across his thoughts. Her rapid breathing slowed. She shuffled within the box, then thin fingers gripped the side of the container, the girl’s disheveled hair appeared above the rim, then her dirt streaked brow and her eyes, the exact shade of grass after the first rains.
She couldn’t be older than ten.
Father liked them young. Ma had been young too, he’d just never realised how young.
Jesson reached for one of the landside jackets hanging behind him. He chose the smallest one—the boy wouldn’t be missing it—and draped it round the girl’s shoulders. “We have a spare cabin you can use.”
Xanta’s grey orb filled the console’s screen. Jesson shut it off, then, pocketing a gas pistol, he strode out of his cabin and slid down the pole. He found the Ma’attan girl and Vincente in the galley, one floor up from the cargo bay. The girl was seated by a fold-down table, playing with one of the toy gadgets they’d lifted off the starship, while Vincente monitored the two food portions he was heating.
The girl looked up and her contentment faded.
Of course she knew what he intended. The Ma’attans could read minds. Even his half-breed one.
Vincente switched off the heater and straightened. “Have you thought about how we’re going to explain Eja?”
Eja? If even a stone-faced Xantian cared enough to learn the child’s name, the quicker she was off the ship the better.
The cargo master placed one of the food cartons next to the girl. “Careful, it’s hot.” He mimed touching and pain.
“We’ll drug her and say she’s a crew member who drank too much. We can’t have her questioned by customs.”
“Her parents were killed by Shadow.” Vincente’s gaze shifted behind Jesson as Stee joined them. The tiny galley had become decidedly too crowded.
“How do you know? Ma’attans are dumb,” Stee said.
Jesson stifled a bark of laughter. Silent to others, perhaps. But not to Ma’attans. Eja hadn’t stopped prattling and singing these two days.
Stee eased past Vincente and filled a cup with water. She dropped a sleeping tablet into the water and pushed it towards the girl. “Drink.” She mimicked the action.
Eja’s gaze swung to Vincente, then Jesson.
Her fear lanced him. Fear had darkened the colour of Ma’s eyes, too, whenever she knew she’d displeased Father.
He’d lose his ship, perhaps even his life, if he didn’t deliver the girl.
“Help me,” she’d cried in her box. Just as Ma had screamed, before Father had silenced her forever.
Eja must have been terrified in the dark, locked in a box, but she hadn’t cried. She’d face worse horrors at Lord Jesson’s house.
She’d survive—she was Ma’attan.
And he…he was not. A man without dignity has nothing. No race, no motherland. Not even song. His mother had been wrenched from her home, her family, her planet, but she had not stopped singing.
The girl had sung in her cage, too.
Ma would have been ashamed to call him son. And Father never called him son, either.
Once you touch the depths, the only way is up. That’s what Ma used to say after each beating.
He had the fastest ship in the galaxy and the coordinates to an unknown world. He couldn’t give Ma the homeland she’d lost, but he could give it to one little girl. And shield her as he couldn’t shield his mother from Father’s fists.
“Don’t drink it,” he told Eja.
“Don’t be a fool,” Stee said. “She’s not worth it.”
“Behind you,” Eja cried.
Jesson whirled, sheathing the girl with his bulk and drawing his pistol. Vincente had drawn a weapon, too. Heat seared Jesson’s cheek, stunning him. Eja cried out and, behind him, a pistol clanged to the floor.
Stee reeled and crumpled to the ground.
Jesson gaped at Vincente and tightened his grip on his pistol. “You’re a Shadow man.” He should have known. Vincente was Xantian after all. Shadow, or his father, must have arranged to have Vincente meet him, just when his previous cargo master had decided—or been induced—not to return on board.
The fluctuations in the communication schematics now made sense. “You sent encrypted messages. Who do you report to? My father? Teir?”
Vincente’s eyebrow twitched. “Drop that.” He jerked his chin at the pistol in Jesson’s hand.
“After you.”
“That’s not going to happen. A gas pistol’s no match against a laser.”
“You wouldn’t have fired it inside a ship unless it’s at its lowest setting.” He had to bank on Vincente not wanting to blow them all to smithereens. “Get down, Eja.”
The girl slid under the flimsy protection of the table. It would have to do. “I want you off my ship,” he told Vincente. “You can take the shuttle to Xanta.”
“You’ll need a cargo master to get through customs.”
“I’m not going to Xanta. You can tell my father he’s not getting Eja. He’s destroyed one Ma’attan too many; he won’t hurt another.”
Vincente smiled. “I’m not Shadow, Stee was. I’m Patrol.”
What?
“Drop your pistol, you’ll only get us all killed.”
There was a reason why lasers were locked away on board spacecraft. The little girl gazed up at them. She still clutched her toy and a tiny frown scrunched up her face.
“Don’t be frightened,” he said.
She shook her head. “You’re Ma’attan. And Vincente’s a good man.”
If Vincente was a good man, what did that make him?
He could fire his pistol, the gas would disorientate Vincente. And with a bit of luck, the patrolman’s laser wouldn’t hit anything too vital before that happened.
What then? He could bundle Vincente into the shuttle and set its coordinates for Xanta. Then he’d load the Knight Hawk with the colonists’ destination chip and race away from this system. He’d be on the run from Shadow. And on the run from the Patrol—but that had been his life these last ten years.
It was no life for a little girl.
She’d love that watery planet.
He couldn’t go there. The Patrol knew he had the coordinates. They’d follow them. And Eja deserved better than a life on the run. Just as Ma had deserved better than a life as a slave. And she shouldn’t have died so young.
Just as the boy shouldn’t have died.
And nor should the colonists have died, and so many others like them. So many lives lost because of his wrong decisions. A mother’s love is infinite, eternal, Eja had sung. Perhaps he could deserve that love and honour Ma’s sacrifice. Jesson let the pistol drop from his hand.
Vincente kicked the weapon away. “Captain Jesson, you are under arrest for piracy. You will be locked in your cabin till I hand you over.”
“Trusting of you. Will that be before or after you inject me with paralysing serum?”
“You were ready to give it all up for the girl. I don’t think I need to incapacitate you. Yet.” Vincente slid a location bracelet over Jesson’s wrist. “I’ll see the colonists get back what you took off them.”
“So they’re alive?”
“Of course. A Patrol was waiting a jump away. I beamed the information as soon as you decided on your target.”
And rigged the schematics. “When you return the destination chip, perhaps the colonists could take Eja with them. She’d like that planet.”
Vincente smiled at the girl, and she scrambled up and slipped her hand into Jesson’s. Her delicate fingers radiated warmth into his palm.
He should be comforting her, not the other way round.
Would the colonists think her dumb, too? He coughed to ease the tightness in his throat and looked at Vincente. “Why did Patrol plant you on me? I’m nobody.”
“You’re Lord Jesson’s son. We hoped to get to him through you.” Vincente thumbed his credentials into the console by the exit hatch, then input a string of digits. “I’ve denied you access to the Knight Hawk’s control.”
“Of course.” He’d lost the one good thing he’d called his own.
“Trafficking in Ma’attans will earn your father a few years on a penitentiary planet. But if you testify against him, we could ensure he’ll never be able to hurt another child again.”
Jesson rubbed his destroyed eye. It always itched in times of stress. He hadn’t been able to defend Ma when he was three. Perhaps he could see that she got justice. He was Ma’attan, after all, just like the girl. Solid as the land. Fluid as the rivers that no longer ran in that lost world. He had needed to be, to survive. Perhaps one day he’d be allowed to board a colonists’ ship and join Eja. He’d sing the songs with her and make Ma proud.
When you reach the depths, the only way is up.