Memento Vivere, Nineteen

[keaalu]

     Skydash had stood in the garage doorway for a very long time, watching as the port quietened down in the deepening gloom. Passengers dwindled, vehicles parked up, lights came on. Cleaning crews came out to sweep the runways. Trucks serviced and refuelled the fog-lifters. She’d watched for most of the afternoon to see Blink coming round the corner from the security wing, distressed but safe – but nothing. Maybe she was lost, maybe her travelcard had run out of credit. Maybe it was as simple as choosing to walk home.

     Maybe something horrible had happened.

     Skydash paced the width of her garage, agitated. She felt super-alert and anxious, wings twitchy, uncomfortable. She knew she should have tried calling her, to check she was all right, but hadn’t wanted to harass her friend - she’d known where Blink was, right? And she shouldn’t have taken this long to get back! She’d have warned her, if it was going to take this long.

     She knew something was wrong – wronger than those monsters refusing to help fix the damage they’d caused – but couldn’t quite pin down what she thought had happened. And couldn’t figure out what to do about it. She could hardly leave the port and go chasing her friend, after all, not now. Should have just gone and got her, their disguises be damned. Should have told her to stay where she was, and picked her up from town. Too late for that now, though.

     She went back to the open garage door, and stared out into the dusk. A pair of security guards fled from her, startled streaks of high-beam torch and high-vis jacket in the gloom, but she ignored them. She had bigger things to worry about. Fear crawled along every wire, every sensor. Where was she. Talk to me, Bee. She paced the width of the garage, knuckles pressed to her lips, wingtips trembling.

     Kainda wasn’t the only one to have made use of the little homing beacon. It had been a handy way of keeping an eye on Blink’s progress, as soon as she left port environs. Skydash still wasn’t entirely sure how much she trusted the other biological critters here in Brume.

     A short time after their traumatic conversation, after Blink had met the creatures (monsters, Skydash corrected herself, darkly), the beacon had suddenly stopped transmitting. It wasn’t the first time she’d lost contact with it, so Skydash had hoped it was a coincidence, just a foible of the port’s communication net’s cyclical security resetting… but it had always come back on, before. Now it was silent. She knew it must be the disc itself had gone off the air.

     And now her friend wasn’t even replying to her handheld – the signals went through and Blink just… ignored them. Wouldn’t pick up. It left Skydash with a trembly harmonic, plagued by terrible ideas, too many worrying thoughts to track and not enough processor-space to devote to them all.

     How was she ever supposed to find her now, in the dark, in a city full of a thousand bolt-holes, with no beacons, no ident and no internal positioning array to chase?

     I can’t do this. I need help.

     Skydash settled cross-legged in front of the little terminal, bent down almost double to see the screen, inwardly cursing the ridiculously tiny infrastructure. (As if she needed any more problems to deal with, right now. How was anyone bigger than a laima supposed to use any of it?) She input her parents frequency, and tried to use the time waiting for it to go through productively, to banish the thoughts whirling in her mind. It didn’t really work as well as she’d hoped – push one idea away, and a new one cropped up in its place.

     Finally, the signal went through. It wasn’t her dam that answered the call, though, but someone much smaller. She frowned affectionately at the screen. “I hope you have permission to go answering calls, Dip.”

     “Ama!” Serendipity giggled excitedly, and flopped out to lay on her front on the terminal, arms stretched out in front of her towards the screen, wiggling her fingers. The swathe of buttons she’d laid on made a horrible strangled error! noise, but she somehow managed not to cut the transmission. “No-one said you’d be calling! I missed you! Where are you? Have you got to that new place yet? Is it nice? Can I see?”

     “Oh, I missed you too, sparklet.” Skydash wiggled her fingers in the same way. “It’s not very exciting, here, it’s all cold and wet. Flashie not with you today?”

     “Uh-huh.” Serendipity curled her lip. “Onnul Dust was just going to take him Up, but they haven’t gone yet, because you called. Do you want me to get him too? He’s not far away.” She was already looking over her shoulder, stretching out an arm for her sibling.

     Skydash forced a smile. “Not just yet. Listen, Bit, could you-… is Auntie Lara there? Could I talk to her?”

     Although she pouted, disappointed, Serendipity obviously picked up something in her dam’s mood, because for once she didn’t argue. “I’ll go and get her.” She slithered off the control panel, triggering more error noises, and disappeared from view.

     Skydash sat and listened to the little voices on the pickup, confused and concerned – doesn’t Ama want to talk to us? She didn’t say not, but she wants Onnie. Will she talk to us later? I don’t know, she didn’t say. She doesn’t sound very happy.

     They faded into incoherence as they moved away from the terminal, and then there was nothing at all for several moments, a static picture and silence. Skydash couldn’t help another pulse of irrational fear that maybe someone was spying on her and now her connection with home had been cut, too… then a far bigger blue and white figure came into range of the sensors, and she felt her wings sag in relief.

     Celerity’s gentle face creased in a huge grin at seeing her daughter. “Skydash! Oh, thank goodness, you made it safely to Fog. I’d begun to worry. How are you both doing?”

     “It’s Brume, Mama.” Skydash managed a flicker of a smile. “I’m sorry I haven’t called until now. I-I couldn’t get a signal, and we were busy, and-… and…”

     Something in her face obviously gave her away, because Celerity’s beaming smile suddenly wasn’t quite so bright. “…Dashie? Is everything all right, spark?”

     “Things-…” Skydash ran the strap of Blink’s satchel between her fingers, carefully, composing her thoughts. “Things have gone wrong. And I don’t really know what to do, any more.”

     “Talk me through what’s happened. Is it to do with Bee?”

     Skydash nodded. She tried to relay the facts in as cool and scientific manner as she could, hoping it’d help her maintain her composure. “We thought we’d made some progress, yesterday, because we actually found them. Those creatures we were looking for. Blink went on her own to talk to them.” The memory brought back a phantom of that terrible crushing shock flickering in her chassis. “They said they weren’t going to help us. That-…” She drew in cold air, in an effort to make her hot, stressed internals a little more comfortable. “It was a punishment, for letting Frond die. May-maybe I should have gone with her? Forced them to help us, to keep the promise they made…”

     “Oh, bitlet. That’s horrific. I’m so sorry.” Celerity leaned closer into the pickup, lowering her voice, optics mirroring her daughter’s pain. “How is Blink taking it? Would she like to talk to us, too?”

     “I don’t know where she is, Mama.” Skydash felt her composure crack, grimacing in pain. “She was meant to be coming back here. I spoke to her just after midday, and-and… sure, she was upset, who wouldn’t be? But I haven’t heard from her in forever.” She shook her head, but resisted the urge to get back to her feet and resume pacing. “It’s getting dark. Last time she spoke to me, it was just past the middle of the day. Now she’s just… stopped responding. She was supposed to have been coming back here, to where we’re staying, to-to… make plans, with me. To figure out what we were going to do now. And she’s just not responding to me any more. Not even the homing device is responding!”

     Skydash finally glanced up, to meet her carrier’s worried eyes. “What if she’s done something stupid again? What if she’s-…” The words were surprisingly difficult to force out. “-tried to hurt herself? It-… it wouldn’t be the first time.”

     Celerity remained quiet, for a few moments. Blink’s psychiatric history wasn’t very good, and there was always the chance that in her despair, she’d done something impulsive and terrible. But it had always been triggered by jealousy, thoughts of being second best. “Have you argued, at all?”

     “No. Well not strictly. She, uh-…” Skydash looked away. “She wanted to interface. Last night. I said no. I was scared I’d hurt her. She thought it was because of RJ. You don’t think that’s it, do you? It was-… it was nothing! I said-… as soon as she was fixed…” She shuttered her optics and covered her mouth with one hand. Her systems recognised the stress as an imbalance and made her gyroscopes sway giddily. “It’s my fault, isn’t it, she’s gone and done something stupid-… All those times she left me, and every time, we decided, one last try. Maybe I should have just listened to her. It was bad luck even trying to do this. We’re stuck here in the middle of nowhere, and we’ve put ourselves further back than we ever were.”

     “Dash, Dash… hush. Don’t write yourselves off yet. Give me just a moment, won’t you?”

     Celerity sat and quietly considered everything her youngling had said. Skydash watched out of haunted optics, unable to shake the fear that worked away inside her, like a broken piece of clockwork.

     “Is it possible that something else might have happened? Could she have gone somewhere else? I don’t know, perhaps gone looking for a more moderate one of those creatures? You two aren’t the sort to just give up, just like that.”

     Skydash shook her head. “We only found the garden in the first place by being lucky. I don’t know how we’d find any other of those critters when everyone’s deleted everything about them.”

     “Deleted the information? Why would anyone do that?”

     “Because they’re bad luck. Dangerous. We thought the government here was just being paranoid and stupid, that we could handle them because we’d experienced them before.” Skydash laughed, painfully. “Uncle Star always said overconfidence ran in the family, and it’d be my downfall if I wasn’t careful…”

     “Hm.” Celerity steepled her fingers and pressed them to her lips. “Where did you find the information, then? Could she have gone back there?”

     “The librarian helped us. Bee said she thought he knew what she was, she wouldn’t have risked going back. Especially not after he’d warned her they were bad news…”

     “So what else could have happened.” Celerity pursed her lips, thoughtfully. “If she was distressed… could she have bumped into someone else that could have helped her? The police, maybe? Counsellors, medical professionals? Maybe found her somewhere to stay for the night?”

     “But we don’t know anybody… else…”

     Skydash felt fear prickle up her wings. A whole new thought seized her, and she felt like an idiot for not considering it sooner. “Kainda-!” Her words emerged as a whisper, as though her vocaliser had suddenly lost power. What else could it possibly be? Only one other person knew the frequency of the homing beacon, and that one person had already sent her spies to confront Blink in the city.

     What if she’s found out Blink is a femme?

     Something deep inside felt like it tightened – she felt her defensive protocols snap to attention, all on their own. Shielding contorted to protect her fusion core. Unfamiliar programming activated. The under-used circuitry connecting her weaponry to her nervous system all came online at once, and her upper arms grew very hot, very quickly.

     She’d never felt scared enough that her weaponry had activated without conscious control – which only helped increase her fear. Her fans sounded ridiculously loud in the quiet garage.

     “I recognise that look,” Celerity mused, softly.

     “It’s that obvious?” Skydash felt her trembling wings slope even more dramatically downwards, scared, and added, more quietly; “am I going to get shot at?” She fidgeted on the spot, fighting to retain control and offline her wilful armaments. At least they hadn’t unholstered, remaining tucked safely away within her upper arms.

     Celerity was quick to lay oil. “It’s only obvious because your sire makes the exact same face when he’s startled. You won’t get shot at.” She found a tired smile. “So long as you don’t get them out in public. Not without a good excuse, anyway.”

     Somewhere in the background, she heard one of her uncles snort! a laugh at the innuendo, then a clonk and little yipe of surprise as someone dealt out swift, painful justice. Skydash managed a feeble smile.

     Celerity rested her elbows on the communications panel. “Who’s Kainda?”

     “She’s some predatory laima we met by accident on the sleeper. She thinks Blink built me and wants to sell me, and thinks she deserves some of the profits for… I don’t even know. Finding her, maybe.” Skydash diverted coolant to her cannon mountings and felt them begin to lose some of that wicked, frightening heat. It didn’t help cool her desire to chase off into the gloom, or the itchy, twitchy feeling in her thrusters. “We thought we’d got rid of her on the sleeper, she was only aboard because her yacht was in for service. But she put a homing beacon on Blink and followed her into the city, anyway.”

     The homing beacon. Maybe she could still track it, from where it had last come from? Skydash concentrated on the long-departed signal, trying to pin it down.

     “I think I know where Bee was. I’m going to go and check it out. If I can get lucky I might bump into her. I’ll let you know what I find!”

     “Dashie, please. Slow down. Think a second.” Celerity put up her hands, and waited until she had her daughter’s agitated attention before speaking again. “If she has been taken, what do you plan to do?”

     “Well, I-I have to go and find her-! I have to save her-!” Skydash kept glancing over her shoulder, at the doors. “I have to go now, Mama, if I leave it any longer they may hurt her-”

     “But you just told me you have no idea where she might be. You can’t just go rampaging in like certain other folk in this family would – you know how well that always works.”

     “That’s why I have to go now, if I leave it they’ll take her further away and I might never find her-!”

     “…and if they’ve taken her into deep space, then what?”

     Skydash looked back, and for a moment just stared, not comprehending. “-what?”

     “You told me the people that took her have a vessel with stellar capability. How are you going to get to her if she’s aboard?”

     “What are you saying?” Skydash stammered. “You’re not suggesting I just leave her?”

     “I’m suggesting you stop trying to do it all on your own. You need to find someone that can help you.”

     “But I can’t wait for you to get here!” Skydash all but wailed. She was halfway to her feet before she even consciously realised she was moving. Her thrusters were already hot, preparing for flight. “I have to do something now!”

     “Dash? Skydash. Skydash.” Celerity waited until Skydash was looking at her before continuing. “Stop. Just listen to me a moment. If you have to fly off, do it after I’ve finished talking to you. All right?”

     Her dam’s words were soft, but with a layer of steel beneath them. Skydash nodded, plopping awkwardly back to her aft, but she couldn’t sit still, wings trembling.

     “You are not alone, out there. You will always have us to fall back on, if you ever need us. But I’m not suggesting that we’re the ones to help you. You need to find help where you are now.”

     “But Uncle Star said there weren’t any of our kind this far out-”

     “I’m talking about the people that live there, on Brume. Biological entities.”

     Unpleasant surges of conflicting energy rippled through her core. She knew all about her dam’s experiences with biological folk, and she wanted nothing to do with them. “What good will that be? What’ll they be able to do? Apart from kidnap me, dismantle me-”

     “Dash.” Celerity held up both hands, and Skydash’s words dwindled back to mutterings. “Most people are not your enemy, unless you make them so. I was unlucky. The world was inhospitable, populated by citizens that didn’t always heed the law, and I was lost and injured. We’d sneaked through the darkness, no-one knew we existed, and our enemies took advantage of that.”

     Skydash nodded; if even her dam had good words to say about organics – most organics, even – after everything they’d done to her, then perhaps there was some hope hidden here somewhere, after all?

     “Make yourself visible, make connections, make friends. Make sure everyone sees you as what you are – friendly, intelligent, benevolent. If you hide away, you lose proof of your autonomy, and that is one of your best weapons in keeping yourself safe from people that will want to use you for their own gain,” Celerity went on, softly, in the silence. “And you need to make connections. Without friends, you’ll have no-one to help you succeed. You’ve seen how their world wasn’t designed with our kind in mind.”

     Skydash snorted, very softly. Wasn’t it just? Her dam’s advice usually gave her confidence, and right now, it was succeeding in calming her frazzled emotions, just a little. “What should I do now?”

     “You said it’s getting dark? So rest.”

     “But I can’t-”

     “Rest, Dash. You won’t be able to do anything in the dark. Trust me; biological creatures get scared of giant mechanical life-forms roaming the streets at night. If you try it, you more than likely will get shot at.” Celerity smiled, reassuringly. “Take the opportunity to rest, recharge, defragment. You will help Blink best by being at peak operating condition. If she hasn’t turned up by morning, go to the police – security force, interstellar gendarmerie, whatever they call it. Get their attention, and report her missing. The sooner you notify them, the sooner they’ll be able to give you news of their progress.”

     Deflated, Skydash sighed and nodded, studying her hands where they lay in her lap. “I suppose.”

     “Didn’t I tell you Ama’s always right, Dashie?”

     The deeper voice made her glance up. “Day?”

     Her sire had squeezed into the range of the pickup; he leaned down into the screen, hands on Celerity’s shoulders, their faces so close they were almost brushing together. He smiled. “I know Ama’s already offered, but if you want us to come and help you, just say the word. We know where you are. If we set off now-”

     “It’s all right,” Skydash interrupted. “I can do this.”

     “So long as you’re happy to, and not just trying to make us feel better. You know we wouldn’t offer if we didn’t mean it.”

     Skydash summoned a smile, although it made her feel worse. “I can do it,” she repeated.

     “All right. But keep us updated.”

     “And regularly,” Celerity added, lifting a warning finger. “No more of this, I’ll call you when I remember, once every solar cycle or thereabouts.”

     Skydash held out her hand, pressing her fingertips to the screen. “I promise. I miss you.”

     “We miss you too, Bitlet. Both of you.”

* * * * *
     Blink felt rotten – muggy and aching. Her ears were still throbbing, and her forehead felt like someone had it in a vice, slowly tightening the pressure in her temples. Her eyes felt swollen, sore and tight. It would be so nice to slip back down into unconsciousness, where nothing hurt, but her aching head made it impossible.

     Where was she, anyway. She barely remembered going to the café, lost in that personal miasma of black thoughts, but she knew that this wasn’t it. The chair was softer. There was carpet under her feet. The clink of crockery was missing, the jingle of the till, the hiss of the steam-powered beverage machine. Even the soft hubbub of street noise and traffic had gone. The smell of food was eerily absent, replaced with the tang of disinfectant and polish. The only sound droning in the background was that of machinery – an engine, perhaps? Had Lunete helped her back to the port? (Fantastic, all that effort and now they knew where she was staying.)

     Blink lifted her head a tiny fraction, and found a hard white surface close to her nose. She lay slumped forwards against a cushion of some sort, presumably to protect her from the hard surface of the table. Through the soles of her feet, she could feel the soft hum of a distant generator.

     “Good afternoon,” a voice drawled. “Was wondering when you’d finally decide to wake up.”

     Blink finally dragged herself up through the murk just enough to get a good view of her situation, and immediately wished she could sink back down into oblivion.

     Sitting opposite her, not quite smirking, was Kainda.

     Blink wiped her sore face with one shaky hand, and let her head rest back into one palm. “I’m not interested. Whatever deal you want to make to get me to sell Dash-”

     “I think you should hear me out.”

     “I’m not interested.” Blink rubbed one eye with the heel of her hand.

     They’re not going to help you.

     It was hard to concentrate on much else.

     Executioner!

     “Uh. You’re not precisely in a position where you can go making demands, sweets. You might want to listen to what I have to offer you.”

     “Do what you like.” Blink squinted her painful eyes. The lights felt too bright, glaring up off the white tabletop like harsh winter sunlight on snow. “It’s not going to change things. I’m stuck like this no matter what you do.”

     Kainda leaned closer, resting her head in both hands to stare Blink in the eye. “Then how about we peel you open. See what secrets you have hidden under all those layers. Hmm?”

     Blink froze, breath catching in her throat.

     A lazy smirk spread across Kainda’s face. “We’ll see how brave you feel afterwards. Eh?”

     The soft sound of laima footfalls was the only warning Blink had that someone was behind her. She jumped, startled, but too late to prepare, certainly no time to leap away or fight.

     Then a hand closed roughly on the back of her neck, and pressed her face into the cushion. She gave an inarticulate noise of fright and anger, and lashed her nails at her assailant, trying to claw them away from her neck, but the fingers tightened and pushed harder. The soft cushion moulded to her nose. She struggled to draw breath, pain blossoming in the back of her head.

     A voice she didn’t recognise whispered close to her ear; “don’t move. This is pretty sharp and I have to be accurate, you know? I can’t guarantee it’ll be good for you if you wriggle.”

     She moved her hands to the cushion, trying instead to force it away from her nostrils, trying to push her assailant back. The need to draw breath burned in her head. How did it possibly expect her to not wriggle? Flashes of light danced in her vision.

     From somewhere distant, she heard Kainda snap a command, and the fingers relaxed, just enough to allow her to draw breath – Blink sucked air into her lungs with a desperate, wheezing gasp, as though fearing she’d never breathe again.

     Before she could recover her wits, the cold touch of something metal, a knife-! flashed up her side, under her clothing. For an instant, she was convinced that blood would come pouring from her ribs, a hot flood of plum-coloured pain, and that’d be it.

     A millisecond later, she realised it was worse. The knife had sliced only through her clothing.

     Blink felt her bindings go slack and instantly knew she was in serious trouble.

     Kainda’s expression didn’t change – that same lazy, self-congratulatory smile that convinced Blink that the medusi had known her secret ever since she’d bumped into Lunete yesterday. She just wanted to humiliate her, too.

     The instant the hand vanished from the back of her neck, Blink jerked her arms up, in a vain attempt to keep the shredded fabric in place and preserve her modesty. She could feel the tickle of pieces of fabric slipping down her back. “What do you think you’re doing?!” The words came out an alarmed, breathy squeak. It felt like her stomach had gone into freefall.

     “Just making the point that fessine don’t get to have secrets.” Kainda watched her. “Not that sort, anyway. Just how long did you think you could fool us? Seriously? You must think we’re all idiots.”

     “If Lunete hadn’t overheard me talking to my friend yesterday, you’d still happily think I was a spur.” The idea of her (possibly-)friend’s betrayal stung.

     “You weren’t that convincing-”

     “You never even suspected-!” Blink cast her gaze around the room. The only door was behind and to her left. She might not get far, but had to at least try.

     “Because your kind usually know their place in the world. That’s why nobody suspected you. The very idea of a fessine with gonads big enough to try this sort of stunt was so ludicrous, nobody even stopped to think it might not be a pretty little spur, strutting around in those tight trousers. I mean, what fessine in her right mind would think she could get away with it?” Kainda’s grin grew wider. “Obviously, we found one not in her right mind.”

     Blink slithered off her seat and backed away, hugging her chest, all the while keeping her gaze fixed on Kainda. The wall bumped against her back. Dash. She had to call Dash. If she could just get out the door, she stood a chance.

     Kainda rolled her eyes and gestured at the chairs. “Skeida. Sit down, already. You can’t go anywhere, you may as well be comfortable.”

     “I don’t need your permission to leave.” Blink edged towards the door. “You have no right to keep me here.”

     “On the contrary. Consider it a civilian arrest.” Kainda shrugged, dismissively. “Where do you think you’re going, anyway? Out an airlock?”

     Blink froze. They weren’t in a building. The rumbling she’d felt through her feet was the sound of a generator. An engine.

     “Welcome to Venture.” Kainda spread her arms, flamboyantly. “I wish it had been under better circumstances, but you know. Have to take what chances you can get, right?” She rose to her feet, and walked around the table towards her prisoner. “We’re currently half a day out from Brume. You can try and swim back if you want, but I don’t think you’d get too far.”

     Blink remained rooted to the spot. She’d run out of ideas.

     Kainda came close. “Now, let’s talk business, shall we?”

     Only having met her once, at the table on the sleeper, Blink hadn’t realised quite how tall the medusi was. She puffed herself up, standing as tall as possible and trying to look bigger than her diminutive stature would allow, but the top of her head barely came to the medusi’s shoulder. She felt sure Kainda would see her heart pounding at the inside of her ribs.

     “I don’t care what you have to say. I am not selling Skydash.”

     “I’d really rather you were on board with this. We might even be able to do you a good deal.” Kainda loomed over her. “You don’t really have much choice in the matter, Blink. The only reason Egils hasn’t yet called the police is it’s night-time, back home.”

     Blink stared up at her. “What’s the deal?”

     “You tell us where it is, and help us with the technology, and get to live in relative comfort. Or, the police come, you go to jail, and we take the thing anyway. We know you stashed it at the port somewhere, we just don’t have the security clearance to go looking for it. All we have to do is wait until the cops are involved, they find it, and we claim it. Stolen property. Stolen from us. Easy.”

     Blink squared her shoulders and glared. “Then they can come and arrest me.”

     “Ugh. Hesger really put some irritating notions into your little head, didn’t it. Why does everything have to be so difficult with you. Fine!” Kainda flipped a dismissive hand, as though waving away a troublesome child, and turned to the two crew standing guard. “Take her down to the guest quarters. That’ll work well enough as a brig until we’ve got the police here.”

     With one member of the crew holding each of her arms, Blink was marched swiftly through a set of short, cream corridors and lifts, down to a lower level. The last shreds of cut fabric fluttered to the floor in her wake, leaving her chest clothed only in the torn remnants of her shirt. She kept her arms stubbornly folded, to keep her chest covered.

     They finally stopped by a narrow door, where the feel of the generator through the floor was stronger.

     “Here’s your bedroom, princess.” The spur thumbed the controls, punching in a security code too quickly for Blink to catch. “Enjoy your stay.”

     The shove caught her unawares, square between the shoulderblades, and she tripped over the threshold, automatically flinging her arms out to catch herself. “-ah!” The soft carpet felt a whole lot harder than it looked, scuffing friction burns into the heel of her hands, and the impact briefly drove the air from her lungs. She swallowed the cry of pain that threatened to escape, arching her back and rolling to the side in an effort to relieve the sudden pain in her recently-unbound breasts.

     Blink waited until the door had closed before carefully picking herself up off the floor, to examine her new surroundings. Dismayed, she found another chunk of her ruined shirt had torn away. She wrapped her arms around her chest, trying not to tremble. What exactly were they planning for her? She’d lurched from one disaster straight into another, so fast she’d barely had time to think.

     Fearing ‘guest quarters’ would be a euphemism for a cupboard, or worse, Blink was pleasantly surprised to find her prison was genuinely a cabin. Smallish, granted, but pleasantly decorated in subtle pastel shades of yellow and pink, with hints of ruffled lace here and there. A bed (only large enough for one, thankfully) tucked up into one corner, with little curtains strung around the open sides. The surface of the dresser built into the opposite wall was bare, save for a small mirror and reading board. What looked like wardrobe doors hinted at a walk-in cupboard, next to which was an alcove containing a washbasin, and lavatory.

     Blink made her way slowly around the room, rattling each of the drawers, hoping to find a one with a little clothing that she could use to rescue a little of her dignity, but none would open. She lacked access to the lock on the main door altogether – the control panel wouldn’t even light up. The computer screen flush with the wall next to the bed would come on, but forbade her access to anything except televisual entertainment – and then only fictional dramas or health and beauty magazines. No communications access. Well, that was no surprise.

     She settled on the edge of the bed, arms crossed protectively over her chest. The air felt uncomfortably cool. “Well, at least that’s one less thing I have to remember not to get wrong,” she addressed the room, quietly.

     Now what do I do. What do I do.

     They’re not going to help you. Executioner!

     She closed her eyes against the tears, and swallowed thickly. She’d cried more than enough lately. She should be trying to think of a solution, not wasting time on melodrama and useless emotions.

     I’m never getting my old body back. I’m going to be laima forever. And now, I’m going to be arrested, too. Sent to a correctional facility until I learn to like being a second-class citizen, forbidden from doing what I love. And I’m never going to see Dash again – I dragged her all the way out here for no reason. Mercy knows what she’s thinking, right now. She probably thinks I’ve run away again.

     Blink slid to the floor, and tucked herself into the corner, knees up under her chin. It was so hard to see any kind of silver lining to all this.

     Come on, she scolded. Get yourself together, Bee. This is a bump in the road, nothing more. You’ve dealt with bigger things – when you moved into the library, you’d already reconciled yourself to being laima for the rest of your life. You thought you were going to die of haemorrhagic fever, too. It was only when you got in contact with Dash you started getting optimistic for change.

     You’re not going to let this stupid cointe get the better of you, surely. Thinks she’s so smart, thinks she’s got you cornered. She’s nothing compared to the Gok, and you’re not going to let them beat you either. Right? You barely talked to them. You can try again. There’s got to be some way of convincing them to help…

     Small steps. First things first. You have to get a message to Dash, so she knows what’s going on and doesn’t worry so much. Then you can figure out how to con Kainda into taking you back to Brume. Then-… well let’s get ‘getting back to Brume’ out of the way first.

     Blink let her cheek come down to rest on her knees, and drew in a shaky breath.

     Maybe I should never have left Hesger. I should never have called Dash. I should have been satisfied with being alive, and made the most of what I had left to me. Should have used the incredible gift that Frond gave me, and concentrated on helping Sadie find the vaccine.

     I’m so sorry.

* * * * *
     Skydash sat in the open garage doorway and watched the dawn break, threads of pink and gold stealing into the dark clouds. A low mist rose in fitful tendrils off the wet tarmac. It could have been pretty, if she’d felt inclined to try and enjoy it. Instead it left her frustrated, silently willing time to pass a little quicker, the sun to rise a little faster, the mist to clear and society to wake up so she could do something.

     In spite of her parents’ advice, she’d fidgeted for much of the night, unable to engage her dormancy protocols, tormented by what might be happening to Blink. (Where is she, what’s Kainda doing to her? If she’s hurt her, if she’s even thought about hurting her…) To keep her mind occupied on more useful things than the myriad nasty ways of killing squishies, she grilled the net for information on how Brume’s police was set up, wondering who best to contact. What if Kainda had left Brume? She had absolutely no evidence to suggest that was the case, but wouldn’t that be the perfect way to separate Blink from anyone that might help her? In which case, how was she ever going to find her.

     She banished the thought. In other words, she might need something more than the local force. Coracina, the security wing of the Coalition interstellar fleet, apparently had offices in the town centre. She had to go and talk to them, before she did anything else. See if they’d help her. And if they wouldn’t, see if they could give her some guidance on who would.

     As soon as it was just light enough to see well, she took to the air, and angled herself in the direction of the city centre. Her primary atmospheric drive used vanes, planar electrostatic thrusters which were quiet compared to the massive thrusters older models had used, but she still felt weirdly uncomfortable, flying low over the silent rooftops. Nothing much else flew here, not outside the port. Vehicles were old fashioned grounders, most rolling on wheels, or hovering just off the ground at best. She’d stick out a mile - be chased as a UFO, if she wasn’t careful. It was fortunate that most of the city’s inhabitants were still deep in slumber.

     She homed in on the point from which she’d pinpointed the beacon’s last transmission. It led her to a public square, typical for Brume – antique-effect and cobbled, surrounded on all sides by boutiques and eateries, and with only just enough room for vehicles to drive through in single file. The data wasn’t a very accurate. Blink could have been in any of these buildings. It would take a very long time to ask if anyone had seen her.

     She pointed thrust her heels forwards, letting her ion drive take her weight, and landed carefully in the square. The irregular clicks of cooling, contracting metal inside her thrusters echoed off the walls, making her fidgety. She didn’t want to have to deal with being interrupted by curious locals.

     No-one came to investigate the sounds, though, giving Skydash all the time she needed. It took a while to locate what she was after, but finally she spotted it, down in the gutter and half-hidden among old dry leaves. She stooped and picked up the broken black disc.

     Well, there was her answer why it had gone off the air; it had been intentionally snapped. It didn’t reveal who had snapped it, and there was always the slim chance that Blink had done it, to stop Skydash following her. Skydash palmed the broken device carefully into her subspace anyway. If she went to the police, they might be able to look for… prints? Fingertip oils or something… and tell her who had broken it.

     She set off to cover the rest of the journey on foot, walking slowly to avoid having her bulk damage the cobbles. What had Ama said? ‘Make yourself visible. Prove you’re benevolent.’ Making the ground shake as she strode along would no doubt have done the opposite, terrifying everyone and turning any crowds into screaming, fleeing hordes.

     …or rather, made it worse. The streets of Brume’s capital were quiet and fairly empty, but individuals still dropped their possessions and either hid, or outright fled in the opposite direction, at seeing her approach. Skydash tried to ignore the hurt. Why were they scared of her? She’d not done anything to make them scared, except be big. (Unless everyone was wrong, and their civil war had touched this planet, after all. She had to hope that wasn’t the case.)

     At least the police station was not too far away. The severe concrete building was close to the local government offices, just off the winding High Street, close to the centre of town and right smack in the centre of one of the densest areas of buildings Skydash had seen in Brume so far. It reminded her a little of the narrow, choked streets and tower blocks of home.

     Well, stage one of ‘find the police station’ was completed. Stage two, ‘find someone to talk to’, was going to be a whole lot harder. The building alongside the police station had the Coracina emblem etched into the sliding glass doors of the front entrance. The laima sized sliding glass doors. Skydash pursed her lips; how was she ever supposed to find anyone to talk to? No-one was prepared to come out and meet her, watching warily from inside (and probably discussing defensive options), and there was no way she’d get in through that tiny entrance.

     Muttering quiet invective about the inherent bias in this tiny society, she made her way around the building, down the alley, hoping to find some sort of open space (and maybe employees) out the back. The shared yard was also almost empty; there were a few vehicles bearing police or Coracina livery parked up close to the buildings, but no-one tending to them. The one solitary vullish police officer outside jumped so hard at seeing her, he almost spilled his breakfast down himself, and hastily ducked back into the building, alarmed.

     Skydash peered through the door, optimistically. “Hello?”

     She heard the ripple of frightened voices, somewhere inside, but no-one actually responded to her.

     She sighed, and stood upright. Perhaps she was just going to have to wait for someone to be brave and come out, and how ever long was that going to take. She looked around herself, wondering if she could find an intercom. If she could just talk to them, prove she wasn’t a threat.

     An upstairs window was open, and she could see the back of a short-haired laima’s head. She hesitated – experience had taught her laima were trouble – but the rest of the body wore what looked like a Coracina uniform. Maybe she was in luck.

     Skydash drew a stabilising pulse of cool air through her core, and approached the window. “Excuse me? Hello?”

     The laima jumped at the unexpected voice, and twisted around in her chair. Seeing Skydash, she sucked in a sharp breath and her ears flattened. “Uh-” She looked torn between staying frozen to her chair, and outright bolting.

     Skydash managed a friendly smile and wiggled her fingers in greeting. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. I would have gone through official channels, but, uh. I couldn’t get through the door to ask to see you, at the desk downstairs.”

     “You couldn’t get-” Credit to her, the medusi recovered fairly quickly; she straightened in her chair, and cleared her throat. “Well. Greets. How can I help?” Her voice still shook, thin and frightened, but she at least had shaken off that look of wide-eyed terror that partway convinced Skydash that she was going to be shot.

     Skydash leaned into the window, fingers braced against the frame. “Are you Captain si’Danuka? I understand you’re in charge of the Milvaga?”

     The medusi managed a nod. “It’s Captain Jadiga,” she corrected. “And yes, I do command the frigate in orbit. Who is asking, and why do they need to know?”

     Skydash offered a hopeful look. “I’m asking, because I need your help.

     “You need my help?” Disbelief dripped from the words.

     “That’s right. My friend is in trouble. I hoped you might be able to help me?”

     “What sort of trouble? That is-… Sorry. Who is your friend? Is he like you? I’m not entirely familiar with your-… uh. Species? Sorry. Are-… is that you or are you uh, inside that big mechanical suit somewhere?” Jadiga forced an apologetic grin that showed her teeth.

     Skydash frowned, equally confused. “I… suit? No. Think of me as a large, inorganic version of you. With wings.”

     “And, uh. Your friend is like you?”

     The more they talked, the more Jadiga seemed to be relaxing, her hair smoothing and ears perking forwards again, Skydash noticed. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad plan after all. Skydash dithered for a second. Would they be more likely to help if she lied, pretended that Blink was still a machine? “No. She’s laima. Right now, anyway.”

     “What sort of trouble in your friend in?”

     “I don’t know where she is. She disappeared yesterday. She was supposed to come back to the port, where we’re staying, but she never made it back.” Skydash felt her wings slope, just a little. Fear made them prickle again. “I’m really worried.”

     Jadiga shook her head. “I’m sorry. I know how hard it is when someone goes missing, but this is really something for which you need to ask for help from the local police, really. If you make a missing person report, they’ll be able to put out an alert to the other authorities, give descriptions to the hospitals, keep an eye out for her…”

     “But-”

     “…and make sure they know how they can get in contact with you. Thing is, Coracina doesn’t generally get involved in planetside policing. I’m only here temporarily, while there’s the disturbance along the imperial border. We’re trying to figure out what’s got our neighbours’ feathers all ruffled.”

     “But I don’t actually live here either. I’m just visiting. So is my friend.”

     “I’m really sorry, but this isn’t something I can help you with. I’ll get someone to come out and talk to you, all right?” Jadiga leaned closer to her intercom. “Sal, could you come up to my office, please?”

     Seeing the opportunity slipping away, Skydash hastily added; “I think she might have been taken offworld, as a hostage.”

     Although she betrayed no other outward sign of curiosity, the medusi’s ear flicked – something she’d noticed Blink also did when interested in something. Skydash seized upon it.

     “We’ve been having trouble with someone we met on the hibernaculum on the way here - Kainda, another laima. She thinks my friend stole me, and she wants to get her to sell me to her. She’s been harassing her the whole time we’ve been here. Now I think she’s taken a step beyond just following us-”

     Skydash’s words petered off at a small sound in the background; Jadiga had heard it, too. The door at the far side of the office clunked, and begun to swing open.

     “Oh, blast,” Jadiga muttered. “I didn’t warn Sal.”

     ‘Sal’ turned out to be a fessine; tall and slender, with bright blonde hair slicked back into a ruthless twist at the back of her head. Her clothing resembled Jadiga’s uniform, although with subtle differences that made it look more like a simple plain-clothes variation.

     Seeing Skydash, the fessine sucked in a breath and went absolutely rigid with alarm. Her pad and stylus fell from her fingers and clattered away on the wooden floor.

     Jadiga leaped up, and hastily went around her table to her side. “It’s all right, love. This is Skydash, she’s come here to ask for Coracina assistance,” she introduced their giant visitor, carefully. “Skydash, this is Saloma. Milvaga’s former logistics officer, and my wife.”

     “She’s very big,” Saloma managed, at last, in a thin squeaky voice, clutching for Jadiga’s hand.

     “Hello, Saloma.” Skydash nodded her head, respectfully. “Pleased to meet you.”

     Saloma gave a nervous little laugh, and after retrieving her pad, settled awkwardly on a chair at the far side of the table, squaring her equipment on the desk and trying to avoid having to look at their visitor. Skydash noticed her fingers trembled and her stylus stuttered across the notepad, and wondered again what it was that made her so scary.

     “So, Skydash,” Jadiga prompted. “You were telling me about… Kainda, wasn’t it?”

     Skydash drew her attention back to the captain, although she noticed Saloma begin noting things down in the background and hoped it wasn’t just a coincidence. “That’s right. What else did you need to know about her?”

     “These are some serious accusations you’re making, I was hoping you’d have something to back them up.” The threat in her words was subtle; you better not be wasting my time. “What leads you to think she would have gone so quickly from this verbal harassment, for want of a better description, to taking your friend off the street and offworld altogether? Is it not possible that your friend went willingly with her?”

     Skydash had to stop and think. In all the scenarios she’d had in her head, that one had never occurred to her. Surely not? “I don’t think she would have. Kainda wasn’t a nice person, and I don’t think there was anything she could have offered that Blink would have wanted.”

     “Outright abducting her, and after such a short period knowing each other, does seem a little extreme.”

     Skydash studied the old wood of the windowframe beneath her fingertips. She felt awkward, thinking about betraying Blink’s secret. How else would she convince them to help, though? “Well, uh. We’d had some bad news. Blink wasn’t thinking very clearly. I think she might have let something slip to one of Kainda’s family.” She rubbed the back of her head. “She was pretending to be a spur.”

     Saloma gave her an unexpectedly hard look. “You are aware that’s illegal?”

     “Of course I know that. Why do you think we were being so careful?” Skydash glared back. “We didn’t have much option. We came here for a very specific reason and it was essential Blink retained her autonomy. We didn’t think it would be for very long.”

     “There are always options that don’t involve breaking the law.”

     “Why are you biological creatures always so binary?” Skydash despaired. “What does her plumbing even matter?”

     “If someone was trying to artificially inflate their status any other way, would you be so quick to forgive them?”

     “Sal, Sal…” Jadiga caught her hands and gave her a small squeeze. “Saloma, it’s all right. We can discuss that later, if we have to. Right now, we have a fessine that’s gone missing, possibly taken against her will-”

     “…and who we’ll have to arrest when we find her.” Saloma folded her arms, and looked up at Skydash. “Are you still sure you want us involved?”

     “Yes. I need someone involved, who can help me find her. Because I can’t do this alone.” Skydash vented air in a sigh, just a little. “Blink hasn’t always been laima. She used to be like me. She was turned into a laima, to save her life. We were looking for a way to turn her back.”

     Jadiga rested her elbows on her desk, and laced her fingers. “All right. Well, it would seem you have a fairly valid reason to think your friend has been abducted. We’ll help you with the paperwork, and let you know when we find something.” She leaned across the desk, closer to Saloma, and lowered her voice. “Could you call Miers? Ask him and Truda to meet us here? This might be related to that call the local police had last night. We might as well check it out for them if we’re heading that way, save them a trip.”

     Skydash watched for a moment, hopefully, until it became clear that the medusi wasn’t going to volunteer anything. “What other call was that?” she wondered.

     Jadiga smiled. “It’s a police matter. I’m not at liberty to discuss it with civilians.”

     The lie sprang from her vocaliser before she could suck it back. “Well, I am a member of the police force, back where I come from. Could I help you, if you’ll help me?”

     Jadiga gave her a very long, considering look. It felt as though the medusi could see right through the lie already. “If you provide me with the appropriate credentials, I’ll think about it, although I’m not sure you’ll actually be able to get aboard Milvaga, except in the hold.”

     Skydash knew about the basic workings of the force back home – a large proportion of her family were serving officers, and had never been shy about discussing things with her (within reason) if she’d asked them about it. She’d seen plenty of official identification, too; she remembered playing with her dam’s police ident when she was very small. Pretending to be one of the highest-ranking divisional officers was probably tempting fate, though, so instead she copied her cousin Slipstream’s credentials, overwrote his basic details with her own, and sent it over.

     Jadiga read it out loud. “So. You’re quite a low ranking officer, with mainly traffic duties, and some involvement in narcotics…?” She quirked a suspicious brow. “I still think you’d be better off working alongside the local service. I’m not sure how these will help me.”

     “That’s only my current specialty. I worked in other divisions when I started my training. Plus I have interstellar capabilities; I don’t need to breathe and vacuum isn’t a problem.”

     For several seconds more, Jadiga stared her out. Skydash kept her optimistic expression in place by sheer force of will. She knew the captain could see through it-

     “All right.” Jadiga sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I’ll discuss it with my crew. Your ability to move outside of Milvaga might be an advantage.” She narrowed her eyes, just a tiny bit. “If you can travel through interstellar space without a vehicle, I suspect you’ll follow us anyway, whatever I might say.”