Ashfall Prophecy, page 11
“Syd wants to know if it’s an idiom,” Melian finished for me.
“He is an idiot,” Zara said. “One-Left means ‘one left.’ Like the last one. It’s not a traditional ‘den’ name. Maybe this Ezziah was the sole survivor of a bloody battle. Or maybe her old den was entirely wiped out by assassins.”
Hiram crossed his arms. “You can’t give yourself a nickname.”
“No,” Zara agreed. “For her to take that as her den name, she must have earned it.”
Our shuttle coasted into an open dock at one end of the Torrent. This section used to be a huge Vulpin freighter built for hauling smaller ships across long distances. Now it was lashed to a bobbing asteroid on the edge of calamity and connected like the last car on a train to dozens of other ships and their rocks.
The shuttle settled into its berth. Immediately, I could feel the movement of the asteroid beneath me. The constant up-and-down sway felt like being on the dock of a boat during a storm. Saliva filled my mouth, and I swallowed back a bit of nausea. This would take some getting used to.
There was no oxygen in the makeshift docking bay, so those of us who needed to breathe pulled on our helmets. We exited into the cavernous freighter, where the gravity was so weak that I had to concentrate on stepping lightly so as not to go floating up to the ceiling. There were dozens of other ships parked in here, all of them Vulpin in design, and all of them pocked with dents, dings, and bullet holes.
We descended a metal staircase down to the main level. A pair of Vulpin waited for us there.
“Welcome to the Torrent,” the female Vulpin said over the comm channel. I couldn’t see much of her through her suit’s grease-smudged visor. “Your ship looks nice and clean.”
That didn’t sound like a compliment.
“Are you Ezziah?” Zara asked.
The Vulpin snorted. “No, little sister. Come on. We bring you.”
Our escorts led us through the freighter to an airlock that connected to the next section of the Torrent. The chamber sealed behind us and then flooded with oxygen. We peeled back our helmets as the next door unlocked, revealing the station proper.
“Whoa,” I said.
I didn’t go out a lot back when I lived on Earth. I wasn’t exactly a social butterfly. Didn’t get to make a ton of friends with my mom dragging me around the country, running from what she thought were alien bounty hunters. In fact, the only party I ever really got to attend was during my last days on the planet, when those rookie ecoterrorists were camped out by our cabin. I remembered that night like it was yesterday—cheap beer in red plastic cups, thumping music, meat-substitute hot dogs roasting over a campfire. And there was even a girl that I almost hooked up with. A couple days later, my mom would point a gun at her. Good times.
Anyway, my memory of that party was basically exactly what the inside of the Torrent smelled and sounded like.
We’d entered the hollowed-out shell of what used to be a Vulpin cruiser. Crammed into that space were like fifty Vulpin, some of them behind kiosks piled with different wares, and some of them milling around haggling or smoking or drinking or all of the above. It was like the Vulpin bazaar I’d visited back on Denza, but squeezed into a room not much bigger than the Eastwood’s bridge. My eyes stung from the smoke that hung in the air, the beleaguered fans someone had welded to the ceiling not doing much for the circulation. The room smelled like musk, and fur, and pipe smoke, and bacon. My mouth watered and my palms sweated and I felt suddenly light-headed.
“Oh man, there’s too many of them,” Hiram said quietly. “I should’ve stayed on the Eastwood.”
Almost as one, the crowd of Vulpin stopped what they were doing and turned to size us up. They wore their fur in all sorts of different ways—dreadlocks, leopard print, spikes—but I noticed that almost all of the ones operating stands had one side of their heads completely shaved, with the long fur from the other side swept over. Now that their helmets were off, I saw that our two escorts wore their fur that way, too.
We stared at the Vulpin and the Vulpin stared back. And then Melian raised her right hand and waved.
“Hi,” she said.
That broke the ice. All at once they started shouting at us, propositioning us, trying to hawk their wares. One Vulpin held a chunk of space rock studded with glittering diamonds in my face while another tried to sell me a jar containing what looked like a scorpion except it had a set of very human-looking teeth in its grinning mouth. Melian ended up with a string of polished beads around her neck, a different color eye painted on each one.
“I think I just bought this,” she said to me.
I squinted at the necklace. “Are those knucklebones?”
“Keep your arms to your sides,” Hiram said as he limped along next to me. “That way they won’t be able to pickpocket you.”
“I don’t have anything for them to steal,” I said.
“Still,” he replied.
“Back up, you buzzards!” shouted the female who’d met us in the hangar. “These are Ezziah’s guests! Anyone messes with them, you’ll have to answer to the One-Left!”
That got some of the merchants to back off, but there was still a press as we tried to move through the market. Our second guide—a mean-looking male who was missing an ear on the shaved side of his head—resorted to kicking and punching any Vulpin that got too close.
As our path cleared, I noticed that Aela had drifted over to an uncrowded stall manned by a chubby Vulpin with sleepy eyes. On his table were rows of capsules that reminded me of lava lamps. They appeared to be filled with concentrated energy—lightning streaked back and forth inside the tubes, occasionally calming down enough to reveal a flash of some purplish-gray substance. Mounted atop each of the strange containers was a hollow attachment that looked like it would fit perfectly over a Vulpin snout.
“What are these?” Aela asked the merchant as I stepped up next to them.
“You kidding?” The Vulpin glanced at me, then swallowed. “Look, I don’t want any trouble.”
I took a second look at the capsules. Each one was labeled with a phrase like NIGHT WITH DEN BAYO QUEEN or BLOODY MOMENT OF GLORY.
“Do we seem like trouble?” Aela asked, their robotic voice making it impossible to tell whether they were trying to be sarcastic or genuinely curious.
“Wait a second . . . ,” I said. I leaned down to study the capsule labeled, simply, OKAY LAP DANCE. The proportions were much different than inside Aela’s exo-suit—the ratio of crackling energy to magenta gas was way off—but I saw it now. “Those are wisps you’re selling.”
“Renting. Memories for rent only,” the Vulpin replied. He leaned across the table, lowering his voice so that only I could hear. “If you’re selling the wisp, I know a guy. I could get you a good price. My regulars are getting pretty sick of this selection.”
I almost decked him. “Where did you get these?” I asked through gritted teeth. “Who makes them?”
The Vulpin shied away like that was an off-limits question. “Beats me, furless.”
I thought of the wisp that had been trapped in Ashfall’s temple for millennia, forced to relay its dire message until Aela freed it. A message in a bottle, that’s how Vanceval had described the technology used to control the Ossho. This kiosk renting pervy memories didn’t seem nearly as sophisticated as what we’d encountered on Ashfall, but there was still someone out there in the galaxy working on isolating and controlling Ossho.
“Come on, Syd,” Aela said. “We’re losing the others.”
Aela walked away from the table like they’d completely lost interest. I shot the Vulpin one last dirty look and followed.
“Doesn’t that bother you?” I asked.
“Should it?” Aela replied. “I honestly don’t know.”
“I mean, those are wisps he’s got trapped over there,” I said. “Using them to just replay the same memories over and over. It’s gross.”
“Are those wisps?” Aela replied. “Single memories. Exiled from the collective. Removed from all context and connection. No, Syd, those fragments are not like me.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “But they could be. If they were part of a bigger entity, like the Ossho cloud. Or you.”
“Yes,” Aela said. “But then they would only be a piece of me. Is that any more autonomy than they have now?”
My head was starting to hurt thinking about it, so I edged forward. Just ahead of us, Zara had struck up a conversation with the woman leading the way.
“I don’t recognize your style, sister,” Zara said.
The Vulpin dragged her claws across the stubble on her head. “Ah, pup, you can’t understand den One-Left until you meet the boss lady.”
“Last time I was here, den Zuzza ran the Torrent,” Zara replied.
“Den Zuzza was three governors ago,” the Vulpin said. “You been here before, eh? You’re . . .” She gave Zara a once-over, noting the mantle of fur she wore across her shoulders. “Den Jetten, yeah? How’s the whoremaster keeping these days?”
Zara’s flashed her fangs. “Ask your mother.”
The den One-Left woman chuckled. “Yeah, yeah. The boss is looking forward to seeing you, y’know?”
“Seeing me—?” Zara started to ask her question, but the other Vulpin waved her off.
“Not you, pup,” she said. “You.”
She pointed one of her claws at my uncle.
I raised an eyebrow at Tycius. “You didn’t tell us you knew den One-Left.”
“I don’t,” Tycius said, looking as confused as me. His eyes widened a fraction. “There was an Ezziah at the institute, though. But that’s not possible . . .”
Our guides led us through two more sections of market, the next ones more dedicated to food and drink. Although the loose gravity of the Torrent made me feel like I was constantly going to float off, the booze-sticky floors at least helped me keep my footing. Each new section was as dirty and rusty as the last. There were multiple walls that had clearly been breached at some point and then resealed with scrap metal. I noted how every Vulpin we passed wore a space suit, like they were ready to lose atmosphere at any moment. It also quickly dawned on me that the only well-maintained area of each section were the airlocks. The Vulpin had made sure to keep them operational. That way, if there was a breach in one section, it could be sealed off.
We stopped in a quiet area where an empty elevator shaft led upward. The Vulpin coming from the opposite direction were covered in soot and rock dust and weren’t so lively as the ones back at the market. The Vulpin trudged to the opening in the ceiling and jumped, floating upward, using rungs placed along the walls to propel themselves higher. I was looking up at a dozen or so Vulpin ships stacked on top of each other.
“This is the tower,” our guide said. She jerked her thumb in the other direction. “Refinery is that way if you want to pick up a shift, pay for your rooms.”
Zara snorted. “We’re good.”
“Then you’re going all the way up,” the Vulpin said. “Ezziah is waiting for you at the top.”
As a group, we did big jumps into the air, and the weak gravity released us upward. Hiram winced when he pushed off. I was going to ask if he needed help, but his pissed-off look told me it was better to just let it drop. Anytime it started to feel like gravity was regaining its grip, I reached over to the wall and propelled myself on from one of the handholds.
“Kind of a fun way to get around,” Melian said.
“It’s a very interesting place,” Aela replied. “Your people are resourceful, Zara.”
“Resourceful?” Hiram exclaimed. “This place is a death trap.”
“That’s what makes it fun,” Zara replied.
We passed by compartment after compartment. Down the bisecting hallways, Vulpin hung around or slipped into and out of their living quarters. As we neared the top, I looked to my uncle.
“You’re quiet,” I said.
“Yes, well,” he replied, “I do believe I’m about to see a ghost.”
“Cool,” I replied. “Keep on being cryptic.”
We floated through the final airlock and reached the uppermost ship in the stack of derelicts the Vulpin referred to as the Tower. This boat was different than all the others we’d passed through. Where the others had been rusty and dingy, this section gleamed like it had been freshly buffed. There were gold and wood flourishes throughout the walls, which featured planter boxes flowering under soft UV lights.
“Shit,” Hiram said. “They’ve got a yacht.”
I’d seen ships just like this one cruising around the skies of Primclef and occasionally plunging down beneath the surface of Denza’s endless ocean. The Denzans used them for exploration and tourism, the vessels coming equipped with pressure-resistant glass bottoms. The Vulpin had installed the yacht with the glass floor as the ceiling, so the room offered a disorienting view of the maelstrom outside.
“Total kingpin office,” I said under my breath. “H’Jossu would love this.”
“Ah, finally,” said the scratchy voice I recognized from our invitation. “My honored guests have arrived.”
Ezziah One-Left was the tallest Vulpin I’d ever seen. She could look Hiram right in the eye. But that achievement came with a huge asterisk. Her organic torso was mounted on a pair of intimidating cybernetic legs, the prosthetic limbs doglegged like all the Vulpin but larger and equipped with an array of pistons and compressors that suggested they were capable of serious force. Ezziah’s right arm was cybernetic too, although this one was made to scale to match her fleshy left arm. The diamond-tipped claws on her robotic limb winked in the flashing lights of the detonating planet outside.
One-Left. As in, only one limb left. Or one left arm.
Aela got the dark humor at the same time I did. “How wonderfully literal,” they observed.
I guessed that Ezziah was about as old as my uncle. It was hard for me to put an age on Vulpin and even harder with Ezziah as half her face and snout were covered with old, puckered burn scars. No fur grew on the ruined side of her head, leaving her with just a prickly half mane. The Vulpin of her den shaved their own heads to emulate her.
Tycius stepped in front of the rest of us in a way like he’d forgotten we were even there. “By the tides, Ezziah, it really is you.”
“Small universe,” the Vulpin rasped.
Ty closed the gap so he was right in front of Ezziah. For a second, I thought he might try to hug her. “I heard you were dead,” Tycius said.
“I lived,” she replied. “I heard you were out of the game. Out to pasture on the blue ball.”
“I’m back,” Tycius said.
He reached up and glided his hand over Ezziah’s burns, not touching her, but pushing his fingers through where the rest of her mane should have been. I suddenly remembered a story my uncle told me back when I first came to Denza, about how he’d made the mistake of touching a Vulpin diplomat’s hair and ended up tripping from the hallucinogens she kept hidden there.
“Oh, my dear,” Tycius said, “what did they do to you?”
“You know me, Ty,” Ezziah replied. “No favor goes unreturned.”
Maybe it was because I’d spent so much time around Zara and always half expected her to stab me, but I was surprised when Ezziah tilted her head to gently rest against my uncle’s palm. With her good hand, she cupped the back of his head, dragging her thumb claw behind his ear.
“Bro,” Hiram whispered. “Your uncle totally hooked up with that Vulpin.”
Melian made a face. “Don’t be gross, Hiram.”
Zara glanced at me then, and took an uncomfortable step away.
Finally, and maybe a little mercifully, Ezziah and Tycius remembered we were in the room with them. Tycius turned to us with a sheepish smile.
“Ah, right. Ezziah, these are my charges—”
“The crew of the Eastwood,” One-Left said. I saw the switch go off in the Vulpin’s eyes. From nostalgic to shrewd in a split second. Her gaze swept across us. “A few short, aren’t you?”
Tycius blinked in surprise. It did seem strange that this Vulpin woman would know how many were in our crew.
I decided to speak up. “We left the others back on the ship,” I said. “In case we ran into trouble.”
Ezziah smirked at me. “Smart boy.” She eyed Tycius. “Surprised Marie Reno didn’t come in person.”
She was fishing. If I knew that, then my uncle did, too. He moved on quickly.
“We took some unexpected detours during a training exercise and blew through our sedatives,” Tycius said. “Zara here, she knew about this place, and said we could get a resupply.”
“Zara den Jetten,” Ezziah said, particularly savoring the name. “How’s your father?”
People were always mentioning Zara’s dad, and not in a particularly favorable light. She stepped forward with her chin high, though. “Haven’t seen him in two years,” she said. “But I imagine he’s still stubborn and snake-bit, as always.”
“You took a big risk coming here, exposing our place to outsiders,” Ezziah said, her tone more bemused than scolding. “All for a routine resupply? Surprised the institute wouldn’t scramble a ship to your location. Had to be easier than coming all the way to Jeuna . . .”
“I don’t hear any music,” Zara replied. “So let’s stop dancing.”
“Fine,” Ezziah said with a chuckle. She gave my uncle’s shoulder a parting squeeze, then moved across the room to her desk, every footfall echoing sharply against the metal floor. Accessing her console, Ezziah activated a vid-screen on the far wall.
A message appeared on-screen. A bounty.
Attention: all Vulpin freelancers. A price of 10,000 Stonelea’n ducats will be paid on the capture and safe return of the ISV Eastwood and its crew. There will be no interference from the Serpo Institute in this matter. Please see attached job history for references.
Account holder: Butler, R.
