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  Carrie Vaughn, LLC 8400 words

  P.O. Box 20982

  Boulder, CO 80308

  [email protected]

  I’ve been having bad dreams.

  I don’t remember them. Dreams are a mostly autonomous physiological phenomenon and aren’t recorded with the rest of my life. But I’ve been waking up vaguely unhappy, with a soreness in my muscles like they’ve been twitching all night. It feels like bad dreams.

  I haven’t told anyone.

  * * *

  Ransom and I are in a passenger lounge in the B level of Tre Ateyna Station, killing time. It’s swanky and we don’t fit in, with our utilitarian ship jumpsuits and militaristic short-cropped hair. Ransom doesn’t have any insignia because he doesn’t really need it. Everyone who needs to know he’s the captain knows. I’ve got the Visigoth ship patch on my shoulder. It shows a cartoon rat with a sword. Like so many things about our outfit, it started as a joke and then stuck. Too late to change it now.

  Everyone else in the lounge is fashionable. Sturdy travel clothes in bright colors with interesting textures and accessories. Nothing that could get tangled up in unexpected zero g, but enough to do what fashion is supposed to do, when done correctly, which is advertise that the wearer has both money and taste. We don’t look quite uncouth enough to call security, but the transiting passengers give us a wide berth. I’m enjoying it. Three days of shore leave, just enough time for me to get out a signal to contact someone from home for a meeting, to download everything I’ve collected since the last meeting. Experiences. Memories. Me. All of it gets back home eventually.

  Me, and those like me, aren’t entirely human. We’re supposed to be secret, but Ransom and the crew found out. Somehow, they still seem to like me. Even Ell. Especially Ell. My profound relief at getting to stay with my crew will be deeply present on that download, when Tez gets here. And I’ll find out if she’s been keeping an eye on me, because I’ll get everything she’s experienced. I have a feeling she’s been keeping an eye on me, after the accident and subsequent revelation.

  Things got weird on the Visigoth for awhile, but Ransom has decided he likes having a not-quite-human on his crew. There are benefits: my instant recall, higher-than-average everything. I can take damage. “I just thought you had a really good memory. Really fast reflexes,” he told me, when I finally healed from spilling my not-quite-guts everywhere and we were able to sit and drink and talk. “Not anything outside the realm of possibility.”

  “Yeah, we do that on purpose,” I’d replied, which only reminded him that I’m not the only one. He’s used to thinking tactically, and he’s probably spent some time thinking about how to face a culture of not-quite-humans in a conflict. I could tell him that we’re not really warriors. But, well, I am, and I’m all he has to go on.

  Slouching in the seat next to mine, arms crossed, Ransom glances at me sidelong. “Can you tell me what we were doing on this day ten years ago exactly?”

  He does this every now and then, as if he needs reassurance. “Is this a test?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  It’s not a significant moment in itself, but it’s surrounded by significant moments, which might be why he chose it. “That was three days after you took command of the Visigoth. We’d spent all day interviewing crew, and you got Nix for ops. Message came right in the middle of screening this poor scared kid for weapons specialist.”

  “Oh my god, what the hell was that kid doing selling himself as a weapons specialist? Wonder what happened to him.”

  “We could look him up.”

  He huffs a laugh. “Oh, that’s okay.”

  I hold up my hand because there’s more. “Anyway, you were so happy about Nix saying yes that we went drinking to celebrate and you went home with a girl named Trish. She wanted to see the ship and thought you were drunk enough to say yes. But you weren’t.”

  “You know, I’d forgotten her name.”

  Wasn’t like Ransom to forget a name in that particular circumstance, which meant he probably hadn’t slept with her. I don’t remember that part because I wasn’t there, he never said, and I never asked. Shortly after he left with Trish, I left with a guy named Chris, and we did sleep together, and I remember every minute of it.

  “How can you stand it?” Ransom asks.

  “Stand what?”

  “Remembering everything. What about the stuff you want to forget?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like in primary school when my pants ripped from top to bottom and everyone saw I wasn’t wearing underwear.” He actually blushes a little, some red in his ears, from that remembered mortification. Memory can be so physical.

  I try really hard not to laugh. “See, you didn’t forget that.” He gives me one of those looks, and I shake my head. “Naw, I don’t want to forget anything. It all matters.”

  A reunion of some sort is happening up the corridor, two groups in color-coordinated suits that somehow avoid looking like uniforms. I’m thinking business associates rather than a family. A dozen of them erupt in loud greetings and laughter, and they come together hugging and slapping one another’s backs, all of them chatting over each other in a language I don’t recognize, and it’s heartwarming. Familiar. I imagine a scene like this happening a thousand years ago on the dock next to a sailing ship. On some level people are the same everywhere.

  Even my people.

  I feel Tez before I see her, the hum of our coded transponders, part of the hidden network. I sit up, and Ransom follows my gaze to see what I’m looking at.

  She does fit in, wearing a jacket and loose trousers, her short red hair swept back in a style that is definitely intentional. She’s pretty, serene, with a valise over one shoulder, just an ordinary woman traveling from one spot to another. She meets my gaze across the space, and we approach each other. Ransom’s at my shoulder.

  “Tez,” Ransom greets her.

  She smiles. “Captain, good to see you again.”

  I step forward. The need to make contact, to shake hands and create the connection that exchanges information, is a compulsion. We’re eager for it. I approach, reaching to take her offered hand—and I hesitate.

  I draw my hand back, just an inch. She tilts her head, confused, and I can’t explain. It’s like my brain can’t tell my arm to move. I can’t finish the circuit.

  “Graff?” she asks.

  I whisper, “I’ve been having bad dreams.”

  She closes the distance herself and takes my hand. I shut my eyes and sag with relief because the pinch of connection and flow of information that follows is right and good and a comfort—until lines form on her brow, a crease of worry, and the flow stops.

  I can’t read her download. Her memories. The circuit is interrupted.

  She lets go with the gesture of dropping something hot and says, “Graff. You’re broken.”

  I stare for a moment.

  And then I collapse.

  * * *

  My muscles seize in a panicked fit, and my processor spins with a whole bunch of diagnostics. I feel like I’ve been stunned, which means danger, which means hostiles, and I need to assess—

  “Lie still. Just lie still.” Ransom’s hands are on my shoulders, forcing me to lie on the floor.

  “Broken how?” I demand of Tez, trying to sit up despite Ransom. I feel fine—no I don’t, the diagnostic scan has found something, and my processor heats up.

  A couple of uniformed station security officers have arrived, and Ransom holds them off. “He just fainted. A bit dehydrated. It’s fine.” They seem skeptical, but they leave us alone and work on breaking up the crowd that has gathered.

  This is embarrassing. “How?” I ask again.

  “You’re missing time,” she says.

  “That isn’t possible.”

  “It shouldn’t be, but there it is. Three hours and twenty-four minutes of missing memory. Were you … I don’t know, in a coma? In stasis?”

  That would have been recorded as being in a coma or in stasis. I assess my own processor. “There’s no gap. I’m not reading a gap.”

  “Our chronometers don’t match.”

  Another shuddering fit of panic passes through me. This isn’t right. One of us is wrong. I don’t feel broken, so it must be her—

  But I’m the one who passed out. I lace fingers through my hair and growl in frustration.

  “There must be a mistake,” Ransom says.

  “Look at him,” Tez murmurs, and she’s not wron
g. An anomaly has been detected; my body is trying to account for it, and failing. I’ve started running a fever, and my internal diagnostics are screaming.

  “Which three hours?” I demand. “Exactly which?”

  She rattles off the date and time to the second. A segment from just two weeks ago. I review, sitting frozen on the carpet of this posh passenger lounge, helpless. I’m used to being the strongest person in the room. Is that Ransom holding my hand? Shit.

  I find the moment. I was on assignment, planetside on Wellbien, a deceptively named backwater outside Trade Guild territory, tracking the second-in-command of a smuggling outfit, our latest target. I’d planted myself at a bar to wait. According to my chronometer, I’d been there less than an hour. Not even an hour.

  Daylight when I got there, dark when I left. Way too dark. More than an hour. I’d never noticed the anomaly. Why. My processor freaks out even more because it can’t find the gap; the memory is seamless. But it’s wrong. Recognizing one inconsistency cascades into a dozen others, trying to fill that gap with explanations. My target never showed up. I reported that my target never showed up.

  I was sure my target never showed up. I was sure— But what if?

  Ah. This must be what having a heart attack feels like. I focus hard to keep my breathing steady. Memory can be so physical.

  Suddenly, I look at Tez. Whatever error this is, she’s got it now. “Are you okay?”

  “Downloaded memory is compartmentalized, you know that,” she says gently. “I’m fine.”

  “I just … I worry.” My lungs hurt, I’m trembling, and I squeeze my hands to try to stop it and I can’t.

  Tez says, “I need to get him home.”

  “I don’t want to go,” I murmur.

  “Then you won’t go,” Ransom insists.

  She shakes her head. “You don’t understand, he’s broken. You can’t help him.”

  “Like hell,” he answers.

  I find that very inspiring. I take hold of her wrist, a very normal human gesture, no downloading involved. It breaks my heart that she flinches. “I want him to try.”

  Ship logs. Tez identified the gap when her processor tried to sync our chronometers, so we know what time the gap covers, and ship logs will tell us what should be in that gap of memory. “Captain—”

  He’s already on his comm, talking to the ship. “Nix, I want logs from the following range. Encrypt and transmit to my tablet.”

  “Not just ship logs,” I say. Breathing is an effort; talking more so. What is happening to me? “That assignment on Wellbien. See if you can get surveillance, security reports. The bar, the name of that bar—”

  “You can’t remember?” Ransom says, astonished. He finally seems to believe that I’m really broken.

  “Starshine, the bar was called Starshine. That’s where the gap in memory is. If we can figure out what happened…”

  He repeats this into the comm and Nix confirms, already pulling security data.

  “Graff, we need to go,” Tez says, pulling my arm over her shoulder.

  “If he needs to go home the Visigoth will take him,” Ransom says.

  “You can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s classified!” They’re sniping at each other.

  “Stop arguing,” I mutter. I plead with Tez. “Let him come. I need him to figure this out.” This is a big ask. The biggest. This is breaking rules fundamental to who we are, but I have this terrible feeling that if I leave Ransom I will never see him, or Ell, or the Visigoth, or any of them ever again. “Please. I know he can help.”

  Her sigh is resigned. “You’ll be the one answering for it.”

  “Answering for what?” Ransom asks. I’m afraid we both glare at him, unable to articulate explanations. Home is just a little bit wary of outsiders. As in, no one from outside has ever even made it to orbit. This is … going to be rough.

  Tez says to me, “Just him, on my ship. Not your crew. We’re going to get in trouble enough as it is.”

  Ransom hesitates at this. Leave the Visigoth behind?

  “It’s okay,” I say, patting his arm. “You should stay.”

  Resolve settles over him. “No. I don’t trust them not to take you apart.”

  He helps Tez get me to my feet. I’m able to walk, but I’m glad they’re on either side of me, just in case. Station security trails us until Ransom tells them off. Then he calls the Visigoth again.

  “Nix? There’s a situation. Graff and I are going on assignment for a bit.”

  A hesitation. “Was this planned?” the comm answers.

  “Not even a little bit. I can’t give you a time frame either. Can you and the crew handle the courier job by yourselves?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Don’t ask, I don’t think I can explain it. How’s that data dump coming?”

  “Ready in ten minutes.”

  “Good. Thanks.”

  I need to call Ell. Actually, I need to see him. I need to explain in person. But Tez is also right—I’m breaking, and we need to go now. We have ten minutes, and that isn’t enough time for him to get to this side of the station, and if I see him I might not be able to let him go.

  My comm is already beeping when I reach for it.

  “Graff?” And it’s Ell. Visigoth’s doctor. My friend. My lover.

  “Hi.” I don’t know how to tell him this. “So, word got around fast.”

  “I was right next to Nix when Ransom commed. What the hell is going on?”

  Lie, I should blithely lie, so he doesn’t worry. Except if I don’t come back he’ll hate me forever, and that hurts. I might not come back. I have to sit with that a moment, as the truth of it settles into me.

  “I’m sick, I guess. Something in my processor is … it’s not right, and Tez is taking me home to get me looked at.”

  “If you’re sick then I should be there—”

  “You can’t do anything about this.”

  He knows I’m right. He’s the one who had his hands buried my innards in that spectacular accident that revealed my true nature to the crew. He knows he can’t help. “Then let me go with you. To hold your hand, or whatever.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t know if it’s safe.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I’m not supposed to bring people home and I don’t want to drag you into trouble,” I say. Not lying, not explaining, either. My whole life is that.

  Ell laughs a little. “What’re they going to do, kill me?”

  I don’t say anything. Tez frowns harder. Ransom’s giving me a look.

  “Still want to come?” I ask him.

  Ransom takes the comm out of my hand. “Doctor, you stay with the ship, that’s an order. I’ll look after Graff.”

  “How is that going to—” He stops. No one argues with Ransom. “Graff.” His voice turns strained.

  “I’m going to do everything I can to get back here in one piece.”

  “You’d better.”

  “I love you.” My eyes squeeze shut because this hurts in every way possible. I know he answers the same, but it’s getting hard to listen.

  Tez’s runner isn’t really built for three. She’s got the crash couch, leaving the two of us with jump seats in the back. She hooks me up to an oxygen mask and injects anti-inflammatories while we’re waiting for the last transmission from the Visigoth.

  The medications only help a little. The fever stops rising but doesn’t break. I can’t seem to keep my processor from panicking, trying to fill that gap in the data. My eyes aren’t focusing right, and that’s a little scary.

  “Sleep if you can,” she says before moving to get the ship out of dock.

  “Captain?” Ransom’s comm announces. “Here it is.”

  He gives a short laugh of triumph while studying the data coming in on his handheld. “Shit, how much did you get?”

  “A lot,” Nix says wryly. “There’s more—a lot of this was already pulled and isolated, by an unidentified security entity.”

  “What?” Ransom exclaims, going even more tense. “What does that mean?”

  “Someone doesn’t want anyone looking at this. What’s this about?”

  “Not sure. Include whatever first-pass analysis you can for me and make it quick.”