The overhead com bonged twice, two incoming calls.
“In order,” I ordered.
“Ghee, this is Pam. Danny is in the tube with me. I’m letting him out on your floor now.”
“Thanks, Pam,” I replied. I checked the monitor displaying the security eye’s view of the hallway and said, “Front door, open.”
Danny wrapped himself around the frame on his way in. Grey, striped, and tuxedoed, the big feline “prrrowed” and stretched out his long, lean parts. Still walking forward in the stretched position, his little rear toes pushed and his feet lifted alternately - so damn cute. I walked forward and picked him up. Danny tucked his head under my chin.
“Hello, handsome.” I nuzzled his soft, furry noggin. He smelled like bird down, and dirt.
“Ghee,” Jack’s voice boomed. Boomed! Jack was uncharacteristically excited.
“Yes, dear?”
“Look at the monitor,” he said.
I walked to my viewall. One end of Danny was slung over my shoulder and the other end rested on my forearm. The cat was completely relaxed.
“On,” I spoke at the blank wall. A picture of myself appeared before me. I was in the civilian orbiter, at a customs desk, my back was turned toward the camera. The picture was perfectly clear, though tiny, the view from a wide angle security lens hung about a hundred meters behind me. My hair looked uncharacteristically short.
“So? When was this?” The last time I’d had hair that short was not long after my arrival on this planet. About two months ago I’d left KekTan was to visit Candy Land, but I hadn’t looked like that. My dull brown hair is now fairly long.
When we talked on KekTan we used local time. A month took longer on this planet than on Earth by about ten days.
“Two hours ago.”
“No, honeybuns, I’ve been here. This must be very old. My head is shaved there.”
“That construct’s not you. It’s B-4ST327R.”
Oh, shit. Another one.
“Buster is what she likes to be called,” my lover informed me.
I didn’t respond, but my mouth fell open of its own accord.
I collapsed onto my plush LaZGirl, put my feet up on the ottoman, and let Danny slide onto my lap. He demanded the attention of both of my hands.
All right. Everything’s fine. Don’t panic. My cover story’s in place. I thought to myself like a mantra. Although I’d started out as Carol on Earth, I’d died there in 2008, and somehow my personality had eventually ended up in this body, after briefly gracing two others.[1]
The body my conscience now resides in is one of two hundred constructs which were made by human beings between 2049 and 2050AD to help with the colonization of space. After four years of training and six of service, in 2060, the remaining twelve constructs had been sold to wealthy aliens. They had completed their primary mission before human sentiment inconveniently turned against the use of things like them.
Ten Earth years ago (KekTan years were longer than Terran years by roughly a third), the Rotagons captured Jack and illegally sold him to my owner at the time, Spauch. Jack had found me in the very same slave ship we were to visit tonight, the Trakennad Dor. Later, the Mek, myself, and he had all escaped to our future on this beautiful planet called KekTan.
I hadn’t entered this body until it had already been in service to Spauch on that fight ship for many decades. Its body had died, the conscience had fled, and mine had resurrected it an instant later. I don’t know why, or how, and no one knows this but me.
My cover story has been that I’d suffered brain damage from the decades of fighting I endured on the Trakennad Dor, and I can’t remember my early years in service to humankind, or much about my servitude to Spauch, either. My ‘memory’ picks up when I had returned to consciousness in this construct’s body, which had just died in the ring.
I couldn’t tell the Mek or humans the truth. Who would believe me?
Kek and Nok, who’d been my handlers on the arena ship, let me know a few years ago that they understood I was not the same creature I had been. Apparently, the way the construct had behaved and even moved had been different enough from the way I do, that the brothers’ father, who had been my guard at the time, had noticed the change. He must have let them know.
The Mek were not constrained by human belief systems and experiences, not being human themselves. The change in personality was not unbelievable to them. We’d talked about this in a vague way just once; Jack had not understood the theme of the conversation even though he’d been in the room at the time. How could he have? For all their experiences, humans remain fundamentally provincial.
On our view screen was the picture of another construct. She wasn’t me, or Deena.
“Ghee?”
“Yes! Uhm, so that’s, what, four now? Why are they all converging on KekTan?”
“Fuck if I know,” Jack said. He’d adopted some interesting language from the old Earth movies and TV shows I’d found and collected, and from me. He was careful not to be overheard when he used this particular word, however, since he was still a diplomat. Slang has changed somewhat, and he’d never cussed before he’d met me, having been a buttoned up deputy at the time. I’m glad I’ve been a bad influence on him; he’s loosened up quite a bit, at least in private. I feel comforted by this. He asked, “Do you?”
“Nope.”
“Does this have something to do with your super-special attractiveness? Are you calling out to each other across the light-years or something, somehow?” He sounded doubtful even as he spoke it. “We’re talking about twelve units spread who knows where throughout the Infinite.”
“I don’t think so, Jack. I haven’t experienced anything unusual.” My lover had just called me a unit. I didn’t feel good about that.
“So what the hell is going on?”
I shrugged, which he didn’t see, as we were on an audio-only link. “I don’t know. What did you learn about her?” I picked up one of Danny’s yummy treat pouches from the floor under my plush mauve armchair.
“Calls herself Buster… pilots a garbage scow designated… it’s in alien lettering, or numbers, I can’t tell which. Wait, here’s the translation. It’s only a number - 42904856. From a planet called Ordoron. Has a route - wait. The freighter’s on a multi-year circuit, cleans up debris in its client planets’ inner and outer spaces. Buster is… owned, by Apical Mining and Recycling Company. She’s here for business and vacation.”
Danny took a treat gently from my fingers and jumped to the carpet.
“She’s made of exactly the same stuff as you, Ghee, right down to your carbon fiber composite skeleton.”
The orbiter’s scanners would have analyzed all the molecules of her clothing, her body, and anything she carried through, looking for threats.
As Jack talked, I watched Buster on my view screen enter and exit the restroom.
“She’s staying at the Ambassador Knott, thank you very much!” Jack was still thrilled and humbled about the Mek decision to name the giant business hotel after him. I laughed. He continued. “She poses a low threat risk. Also, she’s researched banks.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m acquainted with Fic and Het over at KekTan National; they won’t tell me much, though.”
Mek security could not be breached.
“No, they wouldn’t.” I watched Buster and her Mek attendant enter the bus, and then the angle switched to an interior camera view. Her face looked… average. “Well, four out of twelve of us are here now. I don’t know what to say about that. It’s a strange coincidence.”
“Five. Don’t forget Deena. I’ll be home in an hour. We’re going to Klon’s tonight, right?”
Klon’s. What a funny way to put it. “Right.”
“See you soon.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Pause.
“Oh, get off the com alread
y, Jack.”
“Okay.”
Pause.
“Are you still there?” I asked, knowing full well he was.
“Yes, my love.”
“Kisses, then.”
“Kisses back.”
“Off,” I ordered. Jack usually left it up to me to end the call, unless he had business to attend to. Full of it, that man. Sometimes our com conversations lasted a long time.
There was no charge for com time. Communication was considered a necessity by the Mek. They were unlike the humans of my time. The populace of KekTan, which included myself and Jack, provided lots of basic needs free of charge to inhabitants and visitors.
KekTan was so rich, and the MekKop the total opposite of greedy; they wanted everyone to have a well-provisioned life. No one gathered enough to make themselves “better” than others. They had been slaves for generations, and had created the society on KekTan to reflect their need for harmony and generosity of spirit. Individual Mek didn’t have any desire to set themselves apart from their kin.
Of course, we did business in currencies, because it was convenient, but we also traded commodities.
When the Mek saw need, they moved to provide, but not to the point of stressing their own populations. They did what they could for everyone they came across.
As I walked into the bathroom, I pondered our forthcoming evening. We would be going straight up to the shuttle when Jack returned home, so I tamed my mousy brown hair with straightener and brushed a little conditioning concealer makeup on my scarred skin. I was wearing my Faire cotton robe, so fine it looked and felt almost like silk, but more breathable. Danny hopped up on the countertop, sat his furry little butt down on the cold stone, and observed.
“You know, I get a lot of compliments about you, my fine boy,” I told him as I tickled his right cheek with my left hand fingers. Brushing a fine bit of highlighting powder straight down the bridge of my crooked nose, I tried to create the illusion of straightness. Then I switched the applicator to a slightly darker color.
“You’re fond of trotting through the neighborhood with a dead mole in your mouth, I’ve heard. Showing off? The neighbors love that, you know.” I wasn’t being sarcastic, they actually did. The native, voracious moles did a lot of damage to landscapes and crops.
The wells the Mek had dug brought water to the surface, allowing them to landscape and farm, and the mole population exploded with the increase in sustenance. Mek preferred the cats to poisons, although traps baited with hormone lures were used because the cats just couldn’t keep up. Yet.
The Mek had gone crazy for cats.
I stroked the slightly darker contour shade down the right side of my nose, but my hand shook. Pam had generously chopped me in the deltoid during our lunchtime sparring match, making my shoulder sore.
“Damn.” I wiped the contour off the side of my nose and picked up a medstick, infusing the muscle with a mild anti-inflammatory. I sat down on the toilet to wait for the juice to spread, and Danny landed gently in my lap. He sat back on my thighs, faced me, and propped his paws on my chest, rubbing his face on one side of my mouth and the other. I stopped him with a nose kiss and pushed his paws down to my lap.
“I love you too, darling, but you’re smearing my makeup, and I’m not really attracted to the smell of your musk. Sorry. I have a very important date tonight. Can’t be late, or stink like you. I’m going into a ship full of aliens, and what will they think if my face smells like your muskies? You just never know how those aliens’ll react. They might think your exudate is a Love Potion. It could be dangerous for me.”
I put him back on the counter and finished my attempt at straightening out my mangled visage. I added a light lip liner and color and contoured my lumpy cheeks as best I could.
When I turned to exit the bathroom Danny jumped down followed me out.
He trotted to the front door which would open to the communal hallway, sat down, and looked back at me.
“Mrrm,” he said. He knew how to let himself out, but he liked to let me give him attention. He knew it was good for me.
I palmed the pad and the door opened. Leaning on the door frame, I watched his pigeon-toed back feet as he walked toward the lift. Once there he stood up on his hind legs, stretched his long body, touched the pad that called the elevator, and then sat down to wait. In a moment, the door opened. Danny marched into the lift and sinuated around Pam’s legs.
“Hello, again, Danny,” Pam said, and she smiled at me. The doors closed.
Jack or I used to walk him down the hall and get the tube for him, but one day he stretched up and touched the pad himself. We talked to the super, who admitted his kitty DNA sample into the programming and the biosenspad has been recognizing his little paw tap ever since. Whichever Mek was mekking the tube always took good care of him. Danny was considered kitty royalty because of his hunting skills. Being a part of Jack‘s and my small family didn’t hurt, either.
We even programmed the apartment door to recognize him, open, and lock behind him when no one is home. It lets him back out again, too. Danny normally checks in a couple times a day, but those days exist when something catches his interest and we don’t see him, or see him much, anyway, sometimes for days. Once in a while I catch a glimpse of him out in a field somewhere, or basking in the attention of one or more of his many admirers.
Usually he’s available to be fed breakfast and dinner, and receive snacks and attention from us. On nights too cold to hunt, I wake up with him snuggled between Jack and me, or sprawled across both of us.
Danny had been the pick of the litter of Kek’s favorite queen, and Kek presented him to me two years ago in a grand ceremony. At the time, Danny was a scrawny, confused kitten. Since then, he’s become a large and gentle cat, with little ego to speak of, and he manages to take everything with a good dollop of kitty grace. He’s as sweet as they come, and an excellent hunter which is why he is widely loved. People frequently tell me they’ve seen Danny here, stalking, or there, lunching on mole. Among so many others, Danny is a celebricat.
I checked the time. The computer told me that Jack had left his office.
I hung up the robe and pulled a light colored turquoise sheath carefully over my head, grabbed my elegant, strappy black heels, and headed for the living room.
Futzing around, I straightened cushions, wandered into the kitchen, and cupboarded some dishes. The cooker could make dishes, but I’d found a set of old Earth stuff I liked, and kept it around. They were painted with pink and mauve cabbage roses, purple fuchsias, and blue flowers - the little things might have been forget-me-nots. The set had been common in its day, but mine may be the only set in existence today.
I try to be careful, but every once in a while a piece breaks.
I’ve put ads out everywhere, offering to buy any like pieces anyone owns which are in good condition. Five pieces have come my way so far, but three have already left this plane of unbroken existence for good. I thought about sticking them in a case and not using them, to protect them, but they give me so much pleasure. Still, at nearly three hundred years old, every time one breaks, it hurts. So, I’d taken two perfect sets and exhibited them in display case in the dining area. Good enough.
I changed my mind about the movement-restricting sheath and the ridiculous heels.
In my walk-in closet, nearly as big as the bedroom, I put on clean panties, a camisole, and light grey slacks, and pondered which shirt to wear. Jack and I had decided to dress up a bit. We were visiting a rough fight ship, but its purpose was entertainment, after all. I recalled Las Vegas briefly, and then wondered if the fighters would still be naked. We would not be. Old, bad times should be revisited quite so authentically.
I chose an ivory Faire silk blouse. What silk had to do with the Renaissance I did not know, but the founders of the planet named Faire had created an artificial, but wholly realistic, of-that-Era society there. They’d managed to put silk worm farms in the appropriate climate zone around the plane
t, along with what I believe are other non-Renaissancy-type products, like mango, pineapple, banana, rambuttan, jack fruit, artichoke, spinach, eggplant, and many others. Those founders, all dead now except for a few descendants had designed the planet well.
The best commercial produce came from Faire, and textiles as well. In the past, the silk was used to embroider the robes of the self-proclaimed lords and provide fine products for them alone. Recently, the decision had been made to market the silk for high-end cloth, which has become quite the money maker, and I’ve heavily invested in its distribution and sale. Still primarily an agrarian planet, Faire was now being run as a co-op, in a thoughtful rejection of an authoritarian past.
The Mek and I had had a little something to do with their decisions, using our investments to nudge the populace in a sustainable direction after they deposed their despotic ruler, Deena.
The people didn’t have the resources to market and transport their goods off planet, though, so Kek, Nok, and I stepped in with our brand spankin’ new shipping and marketing conglomerate. We leased some of the docked Space Force ships from the Sheriff’s Department, mekked and manned them, built an office building on KekTan - the one I live in, and proceeded to market Faire products to the Mek, the human military, the Space Force, the former self sufficient planets, and the remainder of humanity within the new Galactic Union. Other species on planets within our sphere of influence trade with us as well. The enterprise has made us ridiculously wealthy, and because we are good people who’ve experienced extreme usury and abuse in our pasts, we engaged with the people of Faire in a, well, fair manner. They are doing well, too.
Deena, the former ruler of Faire, still languished in her castle prison on that planet, where she’d been incarcerated for her crimes against Faire’s humanity.
Before her spirit, like mine, also bounced into a construct’s body, Deena had killed me back on Earth via vehicular homicide. Somehow she ended up in a body so similar to mine we can only be told apart by her undamaged face, and the tattoos on our scapulas. The grind of time and human nature being what they are, I was able to get my revenge on Deena when her own admirals finally turned against her abusiveness, with our help.
She, I, the two sexers, and now this Buster are all humanoid, human creations; we are five of the original twelve who’d been sold into slavery over seventeen decades ago. Our life spans are unknowable. Why and how the five of us ended up in this same small region of space is a mystery. Why Deena and I started out in the same town on Earth, and have somehow both ended up in this region, I cannot imagine. When I thought about it, which wasn’t very often, I imagined there must be some grand plan at work, some master puppeteer somewhere with its own agenda. I have kept these thoughts from Jack though, because he is, after all, only human.
I heard the front door sheesh open. Had I been idle for an entire hour?
“Ghee? I’m home!” Jack announced.
Yes, yes I had.
I looked at my full length reflection, but avoided looking directly at my pulped face. The silk blouse was a sort of upscale oxford style which glowed mutely pink, with grey-blue overtones, like a fine pearl. I chose some soft, black wool-and-silk-blend knee-length socks and black flats with thick soles - a more ship worthy choice than the slingbacks. Carefully I outlined my eyes in a thin line of deep purple, and shaded my upper lids in a pale shade of lavender. I air kissed my lover’s reflection in the mirror as he entered the bedroom.
“A quick shower and change and we’ll be off,” he said from behind me as he turned around and kissed my lips with a satisfied smacking sound.
“Okay,” I replied. “You just missed Danny,” I said as I turned back to the mirror and re-applied a layer of lip color. I’d never used makeup on Earth, but I found myself enjoying it now.
“No, I saw him in the lobby on the way in.” Jack pulled off his shirt. “He was accepting attention like a furry little king.”
I laughed. That darned cat.
I sat on the end of our bed as Jack finished stripping on his way into the shower. The water ran. Moist, citrus-soap-scented steam wafted into the bedroom, and I’d barely pulled my socks and shoes on by the time he’d finished his rinse. Wasn’t technically a shower, more of a spritz. He must have been riding the chair all day. Jack hit a few parts of himself with a towel as he crossed the room and pulled clothes off hangers - a dark blue jacket, a pressed, light blue, medium-weight Faire cotton shirt, dark grey slacks, and black socks. He picked comfortable shoes with a bit of thick sole on them, as I had. Usually ship metal is cold and uncarpeted. We know what Spauch’s ship had been like when we’d left, but now, who knew? As I recalled, though, the metal hadn’t been metal, but some kind of material that somehow absorbed and radiated warmth.
“Wonder if Klon will let our tech boys and girls look at the ship material. Take samples, maybe.” Just like he was reading my mind.
He sat next to me on the bed.
“We can ask,” I said as Jack slipped on his second shoe.
“You’re the guest of honor tonight.” He looked at me.
“The… no.”
“The… yeah. Klon called and told me not to tell you.”
“I haven’t heard a thing.”
“So they might put a spotlight on you, seat you in a special box, introduce you, like that.”
“Shit.”
Jack chuckled. “Don’t sound so cheerful.”
“It’s been a long time since I was that Ghee.”
“They remember you. Everything’ll be fine. Nostalgic. All the worship, you’ll love it.”
“Sure.”
“They love you.”
“As a commodity.”
“No, as a celebrity.”
“Same dif.”
“So, be gracious.”
“Darling, I won’t embarrass Klon.”
“Klon! I was thinking about me. I gotta tell ya, Ghee,” Jack put his arm around my waist, shoulders, lifted me to my feet, and propelled me to the door, “I never thought of him as anything but a scary, dangerous beast.”
“He still is. But he seems to be taking entrepreneurship seriously.”
“So, if I promise to introduce him to some business folk who’ll be able to help him expand his enterprise, maybe into franchises, he won’t break me into bits, right?”
“That’s an idea!”
“This way he can get a cut of every ship’s take, instead of other people just taking the idea for a ride on their own.”
“Jack, that’s a thoughtful plan. Perhaps I’ll back that financially.”
“I thought you might. You’ll translate for me when the time comes, right?” We exited the apartment.
“You don’t even have to ask, but I’m glad you did.”
“I never learned Klon-ese.”
“No reason why you should. You weren’t there that long, thankfully.”
Jack and I reached the tube door as it opened to reveal Pam. We stepped through in unison. The doors closed and the slight feeling of pressure descended on us as we rose.
“Going to Klon’s?” Pam said rather than asked through her wide, toothy grin.
“Yep.”
“I went last night.”
“Did you? I asked.
“How was it?” Jack interrupted. He was nervous. I could tell because he adjusted the lay of his shirt by moving his shoulders, one of his few nervous tells.
“Not the same, thankfully. They took out the holding cells, put in visitor suites, and they don’t kill each other any more.”
“We heard,” I said. “Tap out.” I tried to growl out an imitation of our host. Pam and Jack laughed with me.
“The show was terrific. There were some injuries; it’s not all faked. They’ve cleaned all the stinky old blood off the walls and that nasty sand stuff is gone.”
“Nice.”
“The arena floor and walls are padded now.”
“Deluxe!”
“The fighters are usually well matched. Sometim
es they’re not, though, like when they put on a comedy skit during intermissions, so they can push the concessions. You’ll like it. It’s fun.”
The pressure lifted and the doors shushed open.
“Enjoy your night,” Pam said warmly.
We said goodnight to Pam and left the protected surround. A strong breeze blew across the roof, and by the time we sat inside our little craft we were disheveled. We’d named our ship the Maiden Faire. Get it? Made in Faire, because most of my wealth comes from trade in Faire products, also, the planet sported a culture styled on the Renaissance.
Combing through our hair with our fingers, we greeted our salt-and-pepper topped pilot, Tem, took our seats, and strapped in.
Chapter Seven
The Trakennad Dor