The Betwixt Book One

  Chapter 16

  It took over a week to locate and organize a rendezvous with the Rain Man. Then it took a little under half-minute for the Commander to well and truly dash all our hopes.

  He’d called us into the meeting room to discuss something as our ship was drawing into a planet-dock in some system I’d never even heard of. Od was practically wriggling out of his skin, whirling around with the excitement of our impending meet with the elusive Rain Man. Even Crag’tal looked lighter, looked ready to stretch his feet on the planet below and intimidate anyone who got in our way.

  But the Commander? The Commander had a different idea.

  “When I meet with the Rain Man,” he said, “I’ll ask for clarification of this situation – see if he can provide me with enough, or any, information to corroborate your stories.”

  “When you meet with the Rain Man?” Doctor Cole crossed her arms, like her son, and stared up at him. “When we meet the Rain Man, I think you mean.”

  “I know what I mean. You will stay – you will all stay here. I may have given you enough benefit of the doubt to not throw you in the brig thus far – but do you think I’m about to let you go roaming around on the planet, free as a shooting comet?”

  Doctor Cole rolled her eyes slowly enough that I could see the balls shift against the skin of her eyelids. “I should have known.”

  “Yes, you should have. I’m going out on a limb even meeting the Rain Man. Do you think I’m going to jump all the way off the tree and let you loose? Do you think my superiors would be happy with that?”

  “Jason, you’re so—” Doctor Cole began.

  I didn’t want things to degenerate, again. “Okay, I guess that makes sense,” I said quickly, trying to show the Commander that at least one of us could cooperate. He was right – we were idiots for thinking he would let us come along.

  I swallowed my disappointment and tried to give as genuine a smile as I could muster.

  “Not you,” the Commander returned the smile in a half-half kind of way. “You’re coming along.”

  I blinked hard, not about to hide my confusion. “You said—”

  “That was them; this is you. Not my choice – the Rain Man would only agree to meet us if you were there.”

  I scratched my wrist, trying to fidget away the awkwardness. “… Why?”

  “You can ask him that yourself – right after I remind him that GAM orders don’t come with strings attached.” Jason sighed, but his smile crept a touch further up his lips.

  “Why?” I realized I was about to shoot myself in the foot here, but something didn’t fit. “Why take me along now that you know he’s on this planet?”

  In a quick flash, Jason’s smile was all there – both sides of his jaw, both cheeks, both eyes. It dwindled as fast as it had come. “I thought you wanted to go—”

  “Of course I do, but—”

  “You don’t think this makes sense? Well, I’ll tell you something – I didn’t want to make things hard for myself. Making this Rain Man agree to the meeting was practically impossible, and I didn’t want to call through to my superiors to get the higher ups to put the heavy on him. The top brass tends to avoid diplomatic incidents like my mother avoids making sense.”

  Doctor Cole snorted but didn’t interrupt.

  “When I slipped into the conversation that you were on board, the Rain Man became more helpful than a thousand battle mechs. He agreed to rendezvous on this planet, agreed to divert his whole ship and meet us here in planet-dock.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I mean, how do you reply to that? “But—” I began.

  “Nothing. There’s another reason to have you there. Rain Men are usually as quiet and dead as deep space. They’re notoriously hard to question. They retain data, hold and save books – but requesting any information from them is like squeezing gold out of standard moon rock.” Jason kept shifting his gaze to the door as he spoke, obviously eager to get this over with. “That is unless they’re excited.”

  “Ah, yes.” Od nodded sagely. He looked calm and collected again – his dance of wonder at the possibility of meeting the Rain Man having given way to stoicism. “This is a good plan.”

  “It is?” I asked, still confused but all the more aware that Jason wanted to get the hell out of here. Perhaps we didn’t have much time. Perhaps Jason had already stuck his head too far out in diverting his ship here in the first place. He looked so eager to get going, but I still didn’t understand. I wanted to understand everything before I met with the Rain Man. He was the only being in the galaxy who could tell me about my mother, about who I was…. And I didn’t want to be at a disadvantage when I spoke to him.

  “When their race is excited,” Jason pushed up from his chair and stood for one short moment, looking directly at me before he moved toward the door, stride quick and strong. “They talk. The usual trouble is finding something that can make a being that has seen and read everything excited. We’re in luck today.” The Commander opened the door. “I’m going to have to ask the rest of you to return to your quarters. Mini, it’s time to go.” The Commander was speaking as he walked, his back turned to me, the door almost closing behind him.

  I leaped to my feet, awkwardly fumbling into the chair behind me. “Hold on, but—”

  “No buts,” he called back, “Just goes.”

  I cast my glance back to Doctor Cole who still had her arms crossed but had an amused smile playing across her lips.

  “Go on.” She nodded at me. “He needs you on this one.”

  That was an odd thing to say. “You’re all so excited to meet him,” I turned my head to the door to check that the Commander hadn’t marched back in to drag me off. “I don’t want to go without you. I don’t even know what questions to ask; I don’t even know what I’m looking for.”

  “Ask all the questions you can,” Od had a glimmer of excitement left in his eyes, “Every single one you can think of. It is your best chance to find answers, though they may not yet make sense – you will be able to travel with them until they do.”

  I blinked, trying to sort through Od’s mystical response. “What about the weapons? Will he know where they are—”

  “You aren’t going to be asking him for weapons.” The Commander was back in the doorway, expression stony.

  I sunk my teeth into my lip. I hadn’t even heard him approach.

  “I will be asking the questions – you just have to stand there. Now, let’s move out.” This time the Commander stood next to the doorway, waiting for me exit.

  I looked quickly at the others in the room, the beings I was beginning to realize were my only friends. I didn’t want to leave them behind – they all had talents I couldn’t hope to match. Crag’tal could intimidate the socks off a Tarian Merc; Od’s exuberance and mentor-like charms could turn even the ditziest waitress into a warrior; and Doctor Cole knew more about The People, and annoying the Commander, than most in the Galaxy.

  What skills did I have? What methods could I hope to use to ensure the Rain Man told me everything I needed to know?

  Perhaps it didn’t matter. Perhaps, as the Commander had said, he would be the one asking all the questions. Would he ask the right ones? Or would I be barely a meter from the greatest source of knowledge in the galaxy, listening to the Commander huff and puff about a diner waitresses buying fancy guns and kicking fleshy freaks?

  I was about to find out.

  …

  It wasn’t long until the Commander and I were standing in a decontamination unit in the planet-dock. He was out of his crisp black uniform and into his chunky armor instead. I was still in the clothes Doctor Cole had loaned me – plain black pants, a plain white shirt, and a plain brown vest. I’d plaited my ice-white hair in an effort to make the stuff less visible.

  I stood up straight, with my hands clasped in front of me as the decontamination bots buzzed over us. It was standard procedure to go through them when you left or entered a planet-dock. We didn’t have the
m on the station, but that was because the entire thing was ducted and filtered through life support. Nasty space bugs, Clouds, unknown alien entities – space ships and space stations had onboard sensors and filtration systems to weed them out. Planets were different. All it would take is one unsuspecting Crag to bring in Tarian Flu, and it would decimate a planet-bound population. Decontamination was taken seriously, and there were pretty strict penalties for people who tried to avoid it. Not that Jason and I were about to avoid it – he was the Commander. He upheld rules; he didn’t avoid them.

  Five minutes of awkward silence gave way to ten. It wasn’t until we completed the full fifteen-minute cleanse that the door in front of us pinged open, revealing the planet-dock beyond.

  It was a sight. The Decontam Units led right out onto the huge metal ramps that wound down to the Customs Deck below. There were trails of aliens there – jostling in twisting lines as they were processed through the Custom’s Scanners. The scanners were huge metal rings that concurrently scanned and assessed anyone traveling through them – accessing their identity files, processing their visas, checking and rechecking with the GAM HQ to ascertain they weren’t a security threat.

  I was surprised to see such technical security, but then again, I hadn’t been off the station for a while. Things were moving on in the Galaxy, and as Jason had said, these were strange times.

  “Haven’t been planet-side for a while, huh?” Jason was looking at me side-on as we marched quickly down a ramp.

  “Ah, no.” I smiled awkwardly as I spoke. I wasn’t one to be dishonest, but I didn’t want the Commander to know how much of a station homebody I was. Working in a space diner was one thing, but you got used to the kinds of aliens that came through there. Planetside was completely different. There were aliens I’d never seen before, technology and clothes that didn’t make it out to my small, isolated nook of the galaxy. Coming here was like being stuck inside a Central TV show – like I was smack bang on Central Earth in the hustle and bustle of the future.

  “I don’t blame you – a lot of noise, a lot of tech, and a lot of crime. I’d take the quiet of space with a couple of pirate raiders thrown in any day.”

  I smiled less awkwardly and took another long look at the cue below us. “That’s going to take ages to get through.”

  “We’re not going through customs.”

  I snapped my head around to look at him in full. That was possibly the most uncharacteristic thing the Commander could have said. He might as well have cackled that we were on this planet to kick puppies and upend babies’ lollipops into the sand – because skipping Customs wasn’t something a straight-and-true GAM officer would do.

  “Relax – we aren’t doing anything illegal.” He had a secret, amused smile on his lips. “It’s just quicker this way.”

  I frowned at him. “Everybody has to go through Customs. I may not travel planet-side often, but even I know that. It doesn’t matter if you are a GAM, some alien princess, or even the Central President himself – going through Customs is the law.”

  “Thanks for the lesson,” he said sarcastically – though not bitingly. “I’ll have to remember that. For now, we’re going to go around customs to one of the other docking bays. The Rain Man’s ship is in dock A45 on the other side of the terminal.”

  “Oh, so we aren’t going planet-side,” I said, face hot.

  “Nope. Rain Men don’t ever leave their ships alone – not for love, money, or GAM inquiries. They’re bound to their books like the spines to the pages. Plus, how are we meant to go through customs without you having a visa?”

  Yeah, so obviously I hadn’t thought that through. I avoided the Commander’s gaze and pretended to be interested in watching the sharp blue light of the Custom’s Scanners play against the scaly skin of some Crag.

  “We’re going to the other end of the terminal,” the Commander clarified slowly, obviously realizing I had no real idea what was going on and was about as likely to deduce it as Od was of headbutting Crag’tal. “We had to go through Decontam because it was standard procedure – but we can skip customs. We’re going to take the elevator up to the A level docking bays then walk the corridor to A45.” The Commander was slow and patient as if he were giving orders to the dumbest newbie recruit. “When we get on the Rain Man’s ship, let me do the talking. They’re an odd race, and I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings.”

  I pressed my lips together and let the Commanders speak. I didn’t appreciate him talking to me as if I was a child, but at least he was telling me what would happen next.

  “We don’t have long, so this will have to be quick. The only reason I managed to organize this meeting was that our ship was diverted here, anyway. She’s being refueled and restocked right now, but I have to get back to Operational Command before my official mission begins. We’ve got two hours, tops. I know it’s not much – not with a Rain Man, anyway, but it’s all we’ve got.” The Commander answered my questions well before I’d thought to ask them.

  I nodded, trying to keep up with him as he forged through the crowds on the Customs Deck, apparently leading us over to a bank of great tech-glass elevators at the other end of the room. I tried to dodge behind people as best as I could – ducking under a Crag’s arm as he gesticulated to some human, twisting around a Hantari as he glared at the Crag’s back, and apologizing my way between a human couple who looked more jet lagged than someone woken up from stasis after a fifty-year flight.

  “Oh, ah, sorry – um, excuse me—” I let out a constant trail of polite utterances as the crowd thickened in front of me.

  “Come on.” The Commander waved me forward. “Like I said, we don’t have much time.”

  “Okay,” I spoke up, trying to make my voice carry as another surge of aliens pressed into me.

  I’d lost sight of the Commander altogether by the time two massive bear-like aliens pushed past me, their long and flexible tails whipping behind them and catching my ankle as they went.

  I stumbled forward, losing my balance. The Commander was in front of me in an instant, looping an arm up around my own as I fell roughly against his chest. The hard armor wasn’t inviting, but his eyes looked down at me with a tenderness that made me blush.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I nodded. I was more than okay. Being this close to Jason was like facing up to a mega star – my skin felt as warm as a fresh brew of Tika tea. The rest of the crowd around us – the press of aliens, the incessant ring and blare of the overhead com unit – it all burnt away.

  “We have to keep moving,” he might have said. “Stick with me; this crowd is thicker than I thought it would be.”

  “O-oh,” I stammered as he set me straight on my feet. “Of course.”

  Instead of plowing through the crowd, letting me fend for myself against every shape and size of alien life that were all surging toward the Custom’s Scanners, this time the Commander stuck by my side. With more than a quick glance my way, he led me through until we reached the tech-glass elevators on the other side of the room.

  I felt comfortable and uncomfortable all at once. I was hyper aware of my body – where it was in space, what my hands were doing, where my clothes were sitting, how my hair was playing across my shoulder, how my eyes must look too wide and rounded, how my mouth wouldn’t sit straight. At the same time, I felt an excited warmth – the kind of pleasant tingle you get after you plunge your feet into a hot basin of gel-water after a long day at work.

  When we made it to the elevators, I had almost resorted to pinning my lips straight with my hands – they weren’t behaving, just wobbling this way and that. Bah! I wanted to look normal.

  For one electric moment, I thought the Commander and I would be alone in the elevator until the two Hantari walked in an almost plastered me against a wall.

  In a way, I was glad of the distraction; I was becoming unstuck far too fast. I was like a girl who’d chanced upon her first crush – all light headed and flushed. Which was
the wrong way to be right now. I wasn’t a girl crushing on a hot GAM – I was a half-breed alien whose rapidly unwinding destiny was bringing me at heads with the Galaxy’s greatest enemy. I didn’t have time for this, and neither did the Commander – whatever this was, of course.

  Try as I might, I couldn’t stop looking at the Commander out of the corner of my eye – flashing a glance his way every time I was sure he was too busy glaring at the Hantaris. It always happened like this with me – I would go along in a hazy dream until I realized with absolute gut-clarity that I had fallen for someone.

  I wasn’t a romantic at heart; I was a halfy – and I often fell for beings, human or alien, who wouldn’t want a shade of me. I didn’t have Claudia’s charm or confidence. I had impossible white hair and an almost human face.

  None of that mattered right now. The second I’d brushed up against the Commander, I’d turned to mush. There hadn’t been anything between us at that moment – neither physical distance, nor my over active mind.

  If there’s nothing betwixt, things are as close as they can get.

  I put a flat hand on my stomach and tried not to let my imagination overcome me as the elevator hurtled upward. After the first couple of floors, the back of the elevator – which was completely clear tech-glass – gave a sudden view of the planet below. It was startling, breathtaking – or at least it would be if I’d had any breath to spare. Still, it was a sight to see.

  The planet below was heading to dusk – the long orange light spreading over some massive city until it glinted off the tech-glass and metal – sparkling like a handful of Old Earth glitter. The buildings were tall and sleek – standing up like branchless trees, reaching so tall it looked like night between them. I could see the hover cars whizzing about them in their straight ordered lines of traffic. The sun glittered off everything – lit it up until my eyes couldn’t take it all in.

  It was beautiful. The kind of view that made me want to adventure around the galaxy to see what it had to offer.

  The elevator took a turn that directed us back into the middle of the terminal – back to a view of a standard metal elevator tube.

  The Hantaris soon hopped off the elevator, almost hitting me in the face as one of them swung some long package around. The Commander put up a hand to stop it, and gave a grim, only nearly polite smile to the alien as he stepped out of the doors.

  That left the two of us again. I uncontrollably took a gulp of air as if I were readying for some deep dive.

  “Olin.” The Commander said, out of the blue.

  “Sorry?” I squeaked.

  “It’s the name of the city below and the planet.”

  “Oh, it… it’s beautiful.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  We descended into silence. This time a far sharper, far more acute silence than I’d ever shared with the Commander. He could tell, I realized with another gulp, he could tell I was standing barely a meter from him, crushing like a schoolgirl. How pathetic he must think I was, how naïve. The strong, handsome Commander and the awkward, accidental-hero waitress.

  “Here we are.” The Commander stepped forward as the elevator drew to a halt, the doors snapping open silently.

  I set my mouth into the only smile I could manage and followed him at a distance. Oh lordy lord – why did I have to be this ditsy?

  “It should be a short walk to the right docking bay.” The Commander strode on ahead.

  I felt as torn as I had when my non-human side had taken over me to fight the Twixt at the dig site. It was a different type of torn – it wasn’t active, aggressive, pulling at me like it was trying to draw and quarter me. It was calmer. My human mind felt like a whirl of pink and love hearts, while my other side sat back with a warm smile on her lips.

  I was confused, that was all there was to it – just confused.

  “Like I said before, let me do all the talking. I should warn you – Rain Men are… just be diplomatic, don’t stare at him, and don’t touch his books.” Jason kept striding on ahead.

  Ah! I had to snap out of it. There was a job to do. So what if I wanted to scamper off to some quiet place and squeak and jump up and down like an excited chipmunk? I was being a silly, silly girl. People were relying on me – hell, the galaxy was relying on me. Now was not the time for anything, save a cool head and a collected disposition. I was about to meet the only being who had any real chance of helping me survive the Twixts, and yet I was still thinking about Jason.

  I chewed so ferociously on my lips as we walked, it was a wonder I didn’t eat them right off. All too soon the Commander turned down a far smaller corridor and stopped in front of a big airlock that read “A45” in scratched optic-paint.

  “Here we go.” He straightened up, brushing some non-existent dirt off his armor. “I can’t believe I’m actually doing this,” he added under his breath.

  No, nor could I believe my own state of mind. In the middle of a mission to save the galaxy, I was falling head-over-heels for a GAM Commander for no better reason than I’d stumbled accidentally into his arms. It was so outrageously, so ridiculously, so impossibly foolish. This stuff didn’t happen outside of crappy holomovies and human romance fiction. In the real galaxy, feelings developed over time – mutual attraction, and so forth.

  Oh, who was I kidding? I’d liked the Commander from the moment I’d met him; now I was just exquisitely aware of that fact. Why shouldn’t I be? I was moments from possibly finding out my true destiny – my mind was reeling, overwhelmed. It was looking for some strong arms to hold it in place, and apparently, I’d found them.

  I tried to keep my eyes off him as we entered the airlock. I was about to meet the Rain Man….

  “Ready?” The Commander walked through the airlock doors as they sunk back into the wall with a mechanical whirl.

  He didn’t wait for my reply.