BEAD’S PICKLE
by
Carolyn Hill
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Smashwords Edition
Bead’s Pickle
Copyright © 2010 by Carolyn Hill
Cover art by Carolyn Hill
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. For further information, see http://carolynhill.com.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Smashwords Edition License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
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Dedicated to 1977.
* * * * *
BEAD’S PICKLE
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Chapter One
The stars clumped at the curved bow of the spaceship like glistening soap bubbles blown from a pipe. Bead, owner of the Daisy Fresh restaurant aboard the cruise ship Anarchy, paused to absorb the view on the enormous observation screen behind the Daisy’s pick-up counter. The sight of the shiny, bubbly stars always made her smile.
Above the restaurant’s chatter, Lorelei’s voice rose in song, and Bead’s smile widened. It was good to hear Lorelei sing again. The sixteen-year-old girl’s face was shining almost as brightly as the stars, and Bead recognized her lilting refrain: she was singing about freedom.
“That’s beautiful, Lor!” Bead said, leaning on the end of the metal counter.
Lorelei beamed and added an extra flourish to a series of notes as she handed a pink soda to her customer. The customer laughed appreciatively, and Lorelei looked momentarily flustered, reaching for the thick black glasses that sat on her tiny nose. But just as her song faltered and Bead started to curse herself for having made the girl self-conscious, red-haired Casey stopped building sandwiches, gathered Lorelei’s hands into his own, and led her into a gently twirling dance. In a gravelly voice, he sang exuberantly off-key, changing the lyrics so that Bead, rather than Bringman Wei, became the hero of an epic battle that Casey named “Sandwich Land.”
Lorelei giggled. She tilted her head back, looking up into the tall man’s face, and sang along with him. The large sleeves of her blouse billowed, and her voluminous purple skirts tangled around their legs as they revolved slowly in front of the observation screen, seeming to dance among the stars.
Freedom, Bead thought: that’s what the stars mean to us all—points of bright hope in space that is endless and wide-open.
“Hey, Chief,” Casey called to Bead. “Want to dance with us?”
Bead snorted and pushed away from the counter. “Pods, no! I’m a clod-foot.”
Lorelei stopped dancing, folded her hands, looked Bead earnestly in the eye, and said, “No, you’re not. It’s just those boots you wear.”
“Lor!” Casey laughed, and his surgically elongated earlobes jiggled. “Don’t talk bad about the commander’s boots!”
Bead shook her head and left the counter, not even bothering to ask Casey for the hundredth time to stop calling her by military titles when she’d never even been in the military. As she moved toward the back of the restaurant, she stomped a couple of experimental dance steps. No, there was nothing wrong with her very fine black boots, thank you; like she’d said, she was a clod.
When Lorelei danced, she looked like a delicate bird. In contrast, Bead felt like a galumphing bear. She was one hundred and eighty centimeters tall and weighed seventy-seven kilograms. She thought her nose was too big, her teeth were too big, her ears were too big, and her almond-shaped eyes were too small. The only thing she liked about her looks was her skin, which was a smooth, even brown all over.
She straightened the collar of her short-sleeved beige smock, tugged at her wild cloud of springy black hair barely restrained by a red hairclasp, and glanced down at her black pants, which were spotted with mustard sauce. She shrugged: okay, so she was ugly. The important thing was, she had work to do, work she loved.
Smiling, she pushed through the opaque-air curtain that separated the public space of the restaurant from the employees-only area, intending to turn left into the hallway that led to the office.
But straight ahead, not more than four steps in front of her, was an alien.
He, she, or it was just standing there, staring at the storeroom door. His, her, or its baggy white skin hung from a skeletal frame like melting wax and milk foam. It was tall, thin, and humanoid: two long fingers and a thumb at the end of each arm, two skinny legs, two clubbed feet without toes, no real neck, no hair—no clothes. Ear holes on either side of its blobby head were surrounded by a gauzy fringe. And its tongue was hanging out of its wide, lipless mouth; the tongue was a third of a meter long, nearly eight centimeters wide, and a dark, vivid, veined purple.
Bead backed up.
Fear crawled up and down her spine. This was one of the aliens from Golast, beings that everyone called “ghosts”—even though they weren’t ghosts. Nobody knew what they called themselves. Nobody knew what they wanted. Nobody knew why they haunted humanity, or why they had blown up the Betabreeze sun. But everybody knew to stay out of their way.
“Hey-ey,” Bead mumbled. She pointed shakily at the sign on the storeroom door. “Employees only.”
Then her brain caught up with her mouth: what was she saying? She stopped pointing, swallowed, and clamped her arm to her side.
The alien didn’t budge or even blink. Ivory-colored, pupilless eyes stared at the door, and its head wobbled slightly.
Bead shivered as she watched the alien watch nothing.
Taking a deep breath, she jumped left down the hall that led toward her office. It was galactic policy: leave the ghosts alone. For good reason.
She rushed down the hall, opened the office door, leaped inside, and pulled the door closed. For a moment, she just stood there, hand on the door, listening. But of course, if the alien wanted to come inside, the door wouldn’t stop it. The ghosts could walk through walls.
Heart still pounding, Bead turned away from the door.
Filli, who helped with the office work as well as the morning shift, sat at the desk, brushing her long brown hair and scrolling through accounts on the desk’s display. Her lower lip was tucked gently between her teeth. She looked up when Bead turned. Studying Bead’s face, Filli frowned, and the little plastic inhaler in her left nostril hissed softly. “Is something wrong?”
Bead grimaced. “There’s a ghost aboard.” She fell into her green and orange checked chair and activated a second display.
Filli’s eyes widened, and the inhaler hissed sharply. “A ghost? Where?”
“In the back room. Staring at the storeroom door.”
Filli sat very still and concentrated on breathing as Bead logged on to the communications system and contacted ship’s security to report the alien’s presence. By the time Bead was done, Filli had willed all her tension away. She tilted her head. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. How about you? Breathing clear?”
Filli nodded, but Bead watched her closely just to make sure. Filli was good at taking care of other people but sometimes forgot that she needed to take care of herself, too.
“Really,” Filli said, smiling gently. “I’m all right.”
Bead nodded. “Security says to ignore the ghost, act normal. The thing’s been popping up all over the ship for about an hour now.”
Filli lifted an eyebrow. “Normal.”
Bead grinned. “Cha.” She called up a spread sheet and eyed the figures marching in the air above the desk. “Buy Wise’s prices on dessert plates have gone up,” she said. “Maybe the salesman from Fast-and-Lo can cut us a better deal. Maybe if I buy a couple of cases.”
Filli gathered her hair methodically in one hand, clipped a barrette in place, and lifted the ponytail forward. “Wentao’s in jail. He graffitied the first-class elevators again.” She smoothed the tail down to her waist without a hurried or wasted motion.
“Blight!” Bead made a rude noise. “I’ve told him I can’t afford his protests. I should leave him there this time.” She rolled her eyes at the idea and scratched her ear. “So pay the fine.” Wentao’s fines, Filli’s anti-allergen inhaler, Lorelei’s surgery—that, and all the other expenses to keep her employees healthy and happy—ate away at any potential profit. But to Bead, they were more than employees, more than friends. They were family: she needed them, and they needed her.
That was something her own biological family had never understood.
“Normal,” Filli said.
Bead’s mouth quirked. “Anything else I should know about?”
“You mean besides the broken hot pot and the redplant blight?”
“Yeah, besides that.”
“No.”
“Ah.” Exhaling dramatically, Bead leaned back in her chair, propped her aching feet on the plastic desktop, and studied the silver stars painted on the black ceiling. Never mind the expenses, never mind the ghostly alien, she felt safe in her office with its blue walls, violet-colored carpet, and tacky plastic furniture. She was loved and had others to love.
The door opened and Lorelei rushed in. “There’s a man out front. He says we’ll all be fired!”
Bead peered at Lorelei over her black boots. “I’m not firing anyone, Lor.”
Filli patted a five-legged chair. “Come sit.”
Lorelei dropped into the chair and hugged her arms to her chest. “He’s from Daisy Fresh headquarters; he says they’re going to close us down!”
“From the corporate office?” Bead’s boots hit the carpet.
Lorelei huddled into a ball, pulling her legs and arms up and under her skirts and blouse, until not much could be seen of her except the tip of her nose and her black glasses. “I can’t lose my job! You know I can’t go back home! You know what my father will do to me! Oh please!”
Filli gathered her up in a reassuring hug.
Bead did indeed know what Lorelei’s father would do to her. Bead remembered the day the terrified girl had arrived in the Daisy. Tuce had found her on one of his taxi trips downside; she was huddled behind a refuse bin at the taxi port, swaddled in a black robe that concealed her from head to toe. Her face was bruised, and she couldn’t stop shaking. She was still shaking when Tuce brought her to the Daze. Her father had cut her tongue out. He said it was because women weren’t allowed to sing, but Bead thought it was so she wouldn’t tell anyone that he’d molested her. She couldn’t read, she couldn’t write. Bead had taken her into the family, made sure she got medical care, and paid to have her tongue regrown. The girl had refused Bead’s offer of laser surgery to correct her vision, maybe because the glasses gave her something to hide behind.
When the sixteen-year-old had recovered, she chose a new name for herself: Lorelei.
“Lorelei,” Bead said, keeping her voice low. “Did the man say why he thinks they can close us down?”
“Why?” Lorelei cast a desperate, foggy glance at Bead and broke into tears.
Filli murmured reassurance at Lorelei and gave Bead a look that said, “I’ll take care of this. Go do what you have to do.” Bead didn’t need encouragement; she banged down the hall, fists clenching.
She pushed through the opaque-air curtain and paused, searching the crowd.
The restaurant was shaped like a capital letter L. The curtain was midway along the bottom of the L, and from her position Bead could see up the long length toward the front, as well as watch what was happening in the back section at the bottom of the L. Some of the decor was the same as in every other Daisy Fresh: a cheerful yellow ceiling, a blue tile floor, round plastic cafe tables and chairs, and clear display cases beneath the metal service counters. Some of the menu was also standard Daisy Fresh: fizzy sodas, sandwiches, and green salad. But most of the restaurant, and much of the menu, had been customized by Bead and her employees in a manner distinctly disapproved of by Daisy Fresh headquarters.
The place was packed. The burgundy faux-leather booths in the back section, closest to where she stood, were full of regulars drinking fizzes or beer and eating sandwiches. An Anarchy crewmember was trying to beat his highest score at holoball; the game unit was chiming, and his buddies were cheering. Their comradery matched the mural that Wentao had painted on the walls of the back section: lovingly rendered images of common men and women at work and at play, which the eight Edee clones had bordered with hundreds of inked-black handprints.
The yellow-and-white cafe tables that studded the restaurant’s middle section up the length of the L were also full, and there was a short line of customers waiting to place orders or move to pay-and-pick-up at the counter that ran along the right side of that section. Casey was managing to handle the line without Lorelei, but he would need help soon. One of the eight Edee clones was running the credit register and getting the drinks, her short blonde hair shining beneath the spotlights that hung above the counter and lit the menu board on the green wall behind her. Along the opposite wall, a drooping redplant and several robust kitebushes grew in planter strips set in the floor. The kitebushes’ gas-filled white blossoms waved jauntily in the air, tethered to the plants by long, thin, string-like stems.
Past the customers, counter, and bushes, the restaurant’s front section sparkled with glass, gold paint, and light. The glass front door and broad windows let potential customers look inside as they strolled the Anarchy’s starboard mall. The gold-painted walls sprouted daisies: daisy paintings, daisy photographs, daisy holograms, daisy mirrors, daisy lamps, daisy cartoons, daisies of plastic and metal and fabric—everything except the real flower. In the center of the section, surrounded by cafe tables, a goldfish fountain burbled and glinted. Bead could tell that the rainbow spotlight over the fountain wasn’t cycling: it was stuck on pink. She would have to get Jaime to fix that after closing time.
As Bead moved forward away from the back curtain, the sensurround sprayed cinnamon scent and soothing vibrations. It was supposed to take the edge off midafternoon jitters, but it did nothing for Bead.
Casey glanced up from behind the sandwich machine and saw her. He gestured in the direction of the publicom over by the bathroom door in the wall to Bead’s right.
Posed in front of the com was a short, skinny, older fellow in a beetle-gray business suit, his arms crossed and his brow furrowed. Bead stuck her hands in the pockets of her smock and walked toward him between the booths.
The man saw her coming. He uncrossed his arms, recrossed them in the opposite order, and said, “Bead McCheckrovsky.”
She had never seen him before in her life but resolved then and there to fight to the death. “Who are you, and what do you want?”
“Mind your tone,” he said. “The customers.”
She hooked her thumbs on her smock’s pockets. “You made one of my people cry. In front of the customers.”
He held out an arm as if to steer her somewhere else. “Shall we take this—”
Bead planted her boots on the tile floor.
“—somewhere we can—”
Bead didn’t move.
The man glanced at the crowd. One of the regulars winked at him. He dropped his arm.
“Talk,” Bead said.
He narrowed his eyes. “All right.” He raised a finger in her face. “We’re going to shut you down, you and your gang, shut you down for good.”
She stared past him, watching the com’s pulse-light advertisement rather than his finger.
“You are in breach of contract, and Daisy Fresh Incorporated is finally going to be rid of you all.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.”
She kept a tight grip on her smock and on her temper.
“We’re taking you to court. And long before that, you’ll be tossed off the premises. We’ve petitioned the Anarchy’s board of directors to bounce you downside along with the rest of your unprofessional, lowlife, kiddie scum.”
Bead smiled unpleasantly, but her heart lurched. “What, exactly, have I supposedly done to breach the contract?”
It was his turn to smile. “That would be telling.”
“So you’re just here to strike terror into our hearts?”
He refolded his arms. “No, I’m here to check out the property. Striking terror is just a bonus.”
She had never seen a man look so satisfied in his life.
“Boss!” Jaime bounced out of the crowd and jostled her elbow. He gave the corporate stooge a long, careful look, then deliberately turned his back on the man. “Say, Boss, is Tuce on scene?”
The man in the suit frowned as Jaime’s blisterjewel jacket reflected the light of the com’s advertisement into his face.
“I haven’t seen him,” Bead said. “New jacket?”
Jaime spread the jacket open like a phoenix flexing its wings. “Fansplentastic, eh?”
“It peels my eyeballs back.”
Jaime beamed. He spun in place on his toe, a real stellar step, then slicked back the forelock of his jet-black hair. “Part of this wondiberous deal I just made. Travelered a packet of tinkered garbolage for a gas-brush that Tuce can wizard to maxify his 10-900 model, and gonna trade Tuce the gas-brush for an ocular refresh on the Betty lens. And now,” Jaime spread his hands and backed away smoothly, “I fade.”
“Correction,” the man from Daisy Fresh said. “Not just kiddie scum. Incoherent, brain-damaged kiddie scum.”
The sensurround squirted citrus. Bead chopped the air with one hand. “Threaten me. Take me to court. But leave my people alone.” She turned and strode through the lemonorangegrapefruit cloud.
Trouble. This man was trouble. What breach of contract? Did he know she’d lied about her age when she applied for the franchise license? Worse, did he know about Horace Finecalf?
She would cope. She had to cope.
The customers around the holoball cheered, the Sidereal Sounds of Orion Oriole rocketed through the music system in plexaphonic splendor, and the redplant dropped another leaf.
:::
Fifteen minutes later, the Daisy Fresh man was gone, Lorelei was back behind the counter along with Casey, and Bead was helping one of the Edee clones tidy the tables. Bead’s mind was running various disaster scenarios and protective counter-measures in unending succession, her stomach churning with tension.
And suddenly Lorelei screamed.
Bead looked up in time to see creamed chowder splash across the observation screen as a customer swept a soup bowl off the pick-up counter.
“I’m gonna buy you!” the man bellowed at Lorelei, who stood frozen, her blue eyes wide behind her thick glasses.
Bead moved toward the man, cursing silently. The richest passengers seldom came to this side of the ship. But here one was, a typical solaratti, dressed in opulent scarlet fabric, expensive hardware, and the best genetic modifications that the galaxy had to offer. He had extra height, muscle, and beauty—why did he have to pick on Lor?
The solaratti lunged at Lorelei, but the counter got in his way. Her glasses slipped down her nose as she shrank just out of his reach.
From his post behind the sandwich-making machine, red-haired Casey said, “Look, pal, you’re way out of line.” Turning one broad palm up, he rested the other lightly on the sandwichizer’s controls. He was thirty-two years old, and even though he still had the dangling earlobes that had been popular with teens twenty years ago, he knew how to project Reasonable Adult when he needed to. “How about I buy you a fizz?”
The rich man laughed. “I want her.” He activated his hover slippers, floated into the air, and flew over the counter toward Lorelei.
Lorelei fled from behind the counter, her purple skirts flying. The solaratti’s crimson slippers glowed as he chased her. She looked back at him, tripped over a chair, and sprawled on the floor.
Bead vaulted the chair and thrust herself between the man and Lorelei. “Enough.” Her nose was level with the man’s feet. “Leave now.”
The other customers grew quiet. Someone whistled, soft and low. Someone else coughed.
The man flew up and over Bead and dove down on Lorelei.
Lorelei screamed, and Bead snatched a fork and threw herself at him. Catching his ankle, she drove the fork’s tines into a slipper. The slipper’s hover mechanism rained sparks, and he did splits in mid-air and crashed to the blue tile floor.
Bead jumped on his chest hard enough to drive the breath out of his lungs. She grabbed a thick handful of his carefully styled scarlet hair and yanked his head back. “None of my people are for sale!”
He groaned.
She made a fist and cocked her arm. She could feel her vision going black, her blood racing through her veins, the old anger pounding in her temples. She knew she was flashing back, losing control . . . and she didn’t care. She would smash him and smash him and smash him.
“Uh, Bead.” Casey came up behind her and enveloped her fist in his huge hand before she could hit the solaratti. He shook his head.
She growled, her arm trembling. The air seemed to beat at her ears.
“Stand down, Captain,” Casey murmured gently. “The danger’s passed.”
Taking a deep breath, Bead glanced at Lorelei, who was climbing shakily to her feet. “You all right, Lor?” Bead asked.
Lorelei pushed her glasses up on her nose and gave Bead a brave little smile. “Better than him.”
Bead’s eyes burned. A moment later, she relaxed her fist, jumped up, and pushed blindly through the crowd, the sound of applause echoing in her ears.
:::
A pastry dish shattered against the recycler bin in the restaurant’s back room. Cocking her arm, Bead threw another dish, then another. “Rich man. Blighted solaratti!” Crash. “Nobody does that to one of my people. Nobody buys anybody when I’m around!”
Her mochacolored hands shook as she grabbed another dish. She drew her arm back to throw it. She paused, considering: the last pastry dish, still whole, still shiny, with a perky stripe of daisy-yellow glaze around the rim. She hurled it harder than she had the others.
All the broken pastry dishes looked like broken hands and broken bones.
She would have to pay to replace every single one. But she bought breakable dishes on purpose: they were her safety valve for times like this.
Bead palmed the recycler’s control. She twisted one foot against the other and shook her head as the recycler rumbled and ate the mess.
She had done it again. She had lost control of her temper, and if Casey hadn’t stopped her, she would have beaten that solaratti until his blood ran as red as his clothes.
She had to do better than that. She had to control her temper. Especially now, when there was a man from Daisy Fresh onboard.
Her name tag lay on the slatted-mat floor, flashing rainbow letters: “Bead Shinobu McCheckrovsky, Proprietor.” Her name was surrounded by the Daisy Fresh corporate logo, nine little daisies with pixie faces and maniacal grins, hands linked in a spinning ring.
Bead put one black boot on the name tag and leaned her weight forward, listening to the cry of cracking plastic.
She had spent every last credit she had to buy this Daisy Fresh franchise. Every last credit she had stolen from the money her parents had gotten when they sold her into marriage to Horace Finecalf. Every last credit she had taken with her when she ran away from that cruel, abusive man. Back then, all the broken bones had been her own.
She had been only sixteen.
Bead sighed. She was eighteen now. She would cope.
She scooped the cracked name tag off the floor and clipped it to her chest.
* * * * *
Chapter Two
Shoving aside the stuffed teddy cat that one of the Edees had left on the office desk, Bead called up a copy of the franchise contract she had signed two Galactic Standard years ago. Hundreds of paragraphs of dry legalese began to scroll slowly across the desk’s display: Bead drummed her fingers on the desk as she plodded through the contract.
Filli hummed softly, and Bead’s drumming slowed, then stopped.
An hour later, Bead still hadn’t found anything. She had at least two thirds of the contract left to read—and a splitting headache.
She shoved back in her chair and rubbed her forehead. “I’m going about this wrong. It takes a lawyer to decode lawyer talk.”
Filli handed her a painkiller and a business button. Bead pressed the translucent button, and a pair of holographic blue eyes appeared to float above her palm. The button’s sound recording said, “No mountain too small, no molehill too big for Johnsons, Johnsons, and Johnsons at Law.” An address flashed across Bead’s palm; the lawyers’ office was located on the port side of the ship.
Bead came from a long line of dirt-poor farmers, so she knew molehills. “Right,” she muttered. The blue eyes blinked at her. She pressed the button, and the eyes disappeared. “I don’t like telling strangers our business. What’s the word on these Johnsons?”
“Wentao spoke to them about the debts he inherited. He says they’re trustworthy.”
Bead raised an eyebrow. “Wentao said that?”
“What he actually said was ‘They are not entirely tools of the oppressors.’”
That was high praise coming from Chen Wentao. After his spendthrift parents died in an industrial accident, he’d become an unwilling indentured servant to the local solaratti. He’d fled before the debts were repaid, and the entire experience had turned the formerly carefree, middle-class teenager into a mistrustful, revolution-spouting seventeen-year-old.
Bead nodded. “I’ll check them out.”
She swallowed the painkiller and made a face at the pill’s bitter taste. Then she walked out of the office, through the restaurant, and out the front door.
The Daisy was one of seventy-five shops that ringed the Anarchy’s starboard mall. The Anarchy was an old ship, built in the days when bigger meant better and retro meant best. She had been the darling of a politically eccentric woman from New Belfast named Anna R. Kee, who had christened her and given her the shape of a seafaring ark with a long, narrow, antique key sticking out of its stern: an ark key. For fifty years the ship had sailed the ocean of night as the woman’s private plaything, but when she died, her heirs wanted nothing to do with the Anarchy, and so they sold her to the current board of directors, with one proviso: that her name remain the same.
Now she was a commercial cruise ship, an aging but still graceful beauty. Her exterior shone of faux-gold, and she had glittering solar sails she could unfurl for slow travel inside solar systems, or she could use her sublight engines, saving her obverted light drive for travel between stars. Her interior was a marvel of loving details: wood, marble, and polished and etched permasteel. She carried up to four thousand vacationing passengers, one thousand shop owners and employees, and another thousand full-time crew members. She had eight decks on each side of the ship in which to house, entertain, and employ these six thousand souls as she made her two-year circuit of Sector W of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Port was the glamorous side of the ship: it contained luxury quarters and suites for solaratti and other first-class and mid-class passengers, an enormous marble-columned mall, elegant shops, pricey wares, exotic entertainment venues, a grand thousand-seat theater, and modernized swimming and recreation facilities. Starboard contained quarters for economy passengers, ship’s crew, shop owners, and employees and had a smaller mall and less expensive markets, shops, and entertainment. It also held Bead’s favorite place, a rundown and little-used swimming pool. Large cargo holds filled the cavernous spaces at the bottom of the ship. Ship’s systems and the bridge were located in what looked like a small house set on the exposed top deck of the floating ark. The docking ports were set in ward cuts near the end of the key’s shank.
Johnsons, Johnsons, and Johnsons at Law was located in the glamorous port-side mall.
Bead called a greeting to the owner of the musicool shop next door to the Daisy and eyed with professional concern the busy Chickfish Hut next to the holorink. One of the Edee clones was purchasing eight identical beaded necklaces from the cart near the Rods of Pods; she waved her hand at Bead, and the overhead lighting made the swinging beads sparkle. Sugary smells from the bakery mixed with the lemony scent of alba lilies in the planter boxes that dotted the green diamond-patterned deck. The planter boxes were strategically placed to make people slow down and study the merchandise displayed in the shop windows.
Bead waited with nine other people for the white-and-tan express elevator, and when the door opened, they all entered the mirrored cage. There was a click, a brief sense of the stabilizers adjusting, and then the elevator swept rapidly sideways. When it stopped, the door opened, and Bead and the others stepped out into the port-side mall.
No alba lilies here: the port-side mall smelled of credits and confidence enhanced by the mix that phero-misters pumped into the air.
Bead took a deep breath and tilted her head back, admiring the clean lines of a nearby marble column as it vaulted upward toward a ceiling obscured by holo-clouds. The impression was one of boundless distance and limitless possibilities.
The corners of Bead’s mouth turned up, her limbs lightened, and her spirits soared. Even the gravity felt different here: everyone sort of bounced.
She pinched herself. She needed to keep her mind on business.
Muttering the lawyers’ address, she threaded her way through a graceful crowd of strolling solaratti. The solaratti were out to see and be seen, their toned muscles and unnatural beauty displayed to full advantage in an intoxicating array of galactic haute couture. Red was the color of the moment: everywhere she looked, Bead saw scarlet feathers, rosy livingsilks, wine-blushed skin dyes, ruby teeth-studs, carmine fingernail shields, and garnet diamonds pressed into towering headdresses that supported fantastic masses of auburn-tinged locks. Her own dark skin, plain beige smock, and black pants and boots stood out like a scabby clot in the rich blood that flowed around her. The Daisy Fresh logo on her nametag looked like a kid’s crayon drawing hung next to a masterpiece. She took her nametag off and shoved it in her pocket.
But no one was looking at her. They only had eyes for each other—cherry-colored, fiery eyes.
The lawyers’ office was concealed behind a subtly glowing mahogany wall with a tiny carving of a mountain set in its center. Bead stood directly in front of the carving, knocked, and waited for the wall to open, but nothing happened. The carving was exquisitely detailed; she could see each separate granule of earth.
As she watched, the granules seemed to pile higher, and suddenly the head of a mole emerged and gave her a toothy grin. It opened its mouth wide and winked.
Oh, Bead thought: it was a button slot. Feeling stupid for not having figured it out sooner, she fed the business button into the mole’s mouth, and a round door opened in the wall.
She stepped through the door. The interior of the lawyers’ office looked like a giant, old-fashioned library with dark wooden shelves that stretched from the gold carpet to the scrollwork ceiling and along the depth of the room, on into infinity, all lined with antique paper-and-leather books. The air smelled musty and smart.
Other than the shelves, the books, and the air, the huge room seemed empty.
“Hello?” she called into the silence.
No one answered. In idle curiosity, she ran her hand along a shelf and over the pimply leather of a book’s binding.
“How may we help you?” the book said, as two blue eyes blinked at her from the book’s spine.
Bead stepped back abruptly. “I, uh, need legal advice.”
“Please be more specific,” the book said.
“I need help with a contract problem.”
“Third row down, six rows over, fourth shelf from the top.” The eyes disappeared.
Bead stared at the book for a moment before counting rows and following its directions.
“Cha,” she said when she arrived at the designated shelf. “I’m here.”
There was no response, but the books’ spines all read “Contract Law,” so she reached out and touched one at random.
At her touch, what seemed to be the same pair of blue eyes appeared and stared out at her.
“What kind of contract problem?” the new book said.
“Are you the same, um, entity that I was just talking to?”
“That,” the book said, “is not a contract question. It is a category question.”
“Or possibly a sentience question,” another book said, sprouting its own pair of blue eyes.
“With cross-reference to property law, and the status of clones and artificial intelligence,” said a third book, blinking thoughtfully.
Bead sat on the floor. “Right.”
The books pondered legal definitions for a few more moments, while Bead got her bearings.
“Please,” she said, interrupting them, “forget that question. I signed a franchise contract, and the company is claiming I’m in breach. My name is Bead—”
“Bead Shinobu McCheckrovsky,” one of the books said. “You are the owner of the Daisy Fresh franchise located in the starboard mall, plot 32B. You signed Daisy Fresh contract number 056-7493-2248-1616-15C. You are eighteen years and forty-three Galactic Standard days old, born in Foster’s Hole on Proxceti 9 to Messa and Jason—”
“Stop!” Bead said, horrified. These Johnsons knew far too much about her. “Before we go any further, I have to know what the rules are here. You’re lawyers, right?”
“Correct. We are accredited lawyers.”
“And you won’t tell people my secrets?”
“Also correct,” another book said. “If you retain us as legal counsel, then we are bound by the strictest codes of confidentiality.”
“Just exactly how much does it cost to hire you?”
“Four—” began one book, as another said, “Five—”
“Our fee,” said the third, locking gazes with the other two, “varies from client to client. Given the state of your financial affairs and the fact that you employ our client Chen Wentao, we will charge no more than one hundred and fifty credits for an initial consultation.”
Ouch. “Given what you seem to know about me and how fast you accessed that information, I guess it’s a deal. You’re hired.” Bead leaned back against a shelf. “Do I need to tell you anything more, or have you already figured out what Daisy Fresh is up to?”
“We have,” said the first book. “Daisy Fresh Incorporated is claiming breach of contract based on three principle facts: one, that you were not of legal age when you signed the original franchise agreement; two, that you falsified information on your franchise application; and three, that you have failed to pay the franchise fee for the past five months.”
“But I’m eighteen now, a legal adult. And I didn’t pay the fee because they haven’t advertised in this sector like they’re supposed to.”
“Your first point is moot. A contract signed by an underage person is null and void. Your current age does not affect that fact.”
Bead stuck her legs out in front of her. “It’s their fault for letting me sign in the first place. They should have run a check on my fake ID. The other franchises did.”
“Daisy Fresh Incorporated had no legal obligation to verify the information you presented. Section 45, paragraph 7, subparagraph 13 of the Daisy Fresh contract clearly—”
“Most clearly,” the second book interrupted.
The first book harrumphed. “—clearly states that the applicant attests to the validity of the information presented therein and that Daisy Fresh bears no responsibility should that information prove to be false. You falsified information about your age, your parents, and your homeworld, which is the basis of their second claim against you.”
Bead grunted.
“And,” the third book added, “in regard to your accusation that they failed to advertise as per the contract, you are again in error. The contract does not stipulate advertisement in this sector of the galaxy.”
“But I read the contract before I stopped payment, and it says they ‘shall make supportive advertisement.’ It’s not supportive if it’s not in this sector!”
Three pairs of eyes shot away from their books and had a staring contest in mid-air before one obtained the right to reply. “According to ruling 46190357820448392-4947563921-113 of the District Court of the Superior Branch of the Galactic Potentiary in regard to Millman v. Gnomen Burgers Incorporated, advertisement in the sector in which a corporation’s headquarters are based is sufficient to meet the definition of ‘supportive.’ Daisy Fresh Incorporated is based in Sector H. Daisy Fresh spent ninety million credits advertising in Sector H during the time in which you operated your franchise in Sector W. That leaves you in breach of contract.”
“How the blighting hole was I supposed to know that?”
The book coughed politely.
Bead kicked her boot heels against the carpet. “If I pay the fee, will that take care of it?”
“The corporation has the option of rejecting payment that is more than four months overdue. The fact that they have waited precisely five months to inform you of your breach suggests that they are likely to exercise that option.”
“And I suppose there’s nothing in the contract that says they had to inform me?”
“Correct,” said one of the two that had lost the staring contest.
Bead frowned. “So what you’re telling me is that they have every legal right to sue me.”
“Correct,” said the other who had lost.
“But the judge might not see things their way.”
“Given your lack of good faith in misrepresenting your age and other identifying information when you signed the contract . . . ”
The lawyers’ voices droned on, but Bead’s eyes glazed over. She got the idea: she was a liar, and poor, and she would lose.
She hung her head. She had been running from her parents, running from Horace Finecalf, looking to make her own way in the world. Lying about her past had seemed justified, because her past was so horrible. But she had been unbelievably stupid not to see a lawyer before stopping payment on the franchise fees.
Then again, if that hypothetical lawyer had gone on and on like these Johnsons, she might not have understood anyway. What were the lawyers explaining now? Oh, cha: how Daisy Fresh was trying to save money by avoiding court, even though the corporation would win; Daisy Fresh figured it would be simpler to convince the Anarchy’s board of directors to cancel her lease and bounce her downside.
“The corporation,” one of the books said, “no doubt feels that this would break your spirit.” The eyes studied her thoughtfully. “You are a resourceful young woman, but evidence suggests that they may be correct. Ship’s records and gossip indicate that you have an enormous emotional investment in remaining aboard the Anarchy.”
Now that, Bead thought, was an understatement.
She stared one of the books in the eyes. It stared back.
The Johnsons had said nothing about Horace. So the headquarters guy probably didn’t know she had stolen the credits she’d used to buy the franchise and that she’d breached a marriage contract in the bargain. But if he contacted her parents, if he told Horace where she was . . .
“What do you advise me to do?” she asked.
All the books said, in unison, “Settle out of court to avoid additional penalty.”
Settle—just give up. If she gave up now, she wouldn’t risk Horace finding her. Maybe she could get a job on another ship. She could keep sailing among the stars, free and safe. She could save her money, work her way back up to buying a place of her own—be her own boss again, at no one’s mercy.
But to do that, she would have to abandon her new family. And that she would not do. Filli couldn’t survive on a planet’s surface; she was allergic to most of the stuff in a natural environment, and only her inhaler kept her alive aboard the ship. Who would pay for Filli’s inhaler if Bead lost the Daisy? And Lorelei—who would keep Lorelei out of her father’s clutches? Who would keep Wentao out of jail? Who would hide Jaime from the Black Cloud crime syndicate? Who would keep the Edee clones safe from the galactic corporation that grew them?
No, there had to be some way around all this, but she wasn’t going to find it here. It was time to get back to the Daze.
She pushed to her feet. “Thanks for your help.”
A book slid off the shelf, hovered in mid-air, and fell open. There was another business button sitting on the right-hand page. “Please take this with you,” the book said.
Bead palmed the button and dropped it into her pocket.
The eyes followed her on her way out.
* * * * *
Chapter Three
Bead stood in the Daisy’s storeroom, her arms stuck deep inside a white ceramic pickle barrel as she mixed the rice-bran pickling mash. The pickle barrel came up to Bead’s thigh and had a diameter as long as her arm, so she had to bend over and really work to mix the mash.
She had few pleasant memories of childhood, but the mash’s thick, warm aroma carried her back in time to one of those few. On that morning long ago, she had been headed out the kitchen door to feed the chickens when a shaft of sunlight had shot through the tattered curtains, crossed the dust-mote-strewn air, and fallen on her mother’s bent head. The light had made her mother’s thinning hair shine like black lacquer. Bead had paused, watching as her once-again pregnant mother plunged both arms into the enormous red ceramic barrel that held her pickle mash. Despite the weight of the seven-month-old baby on her back, the eighteen-month-old toddler tugging on the ragged hem of her skirt, the three year old climbing on a chair, and all the rest of her thirteen children who packed the small farmhouse and ran about the plain dirt yard, Bead’s overworked mother had seemed at peace.
At that very moment, she had looked up and caught Bead watching her. Wonder of wonders, she had actually looked at Bead, really noticed her. Instead of grunting something at Bead about getting on with the chores, she had lifted the corners of her lips in a rusty smile, nodded once, slowly, and then gone back to work.
Bead thought, now, that mixing heaven and earth in the pickle mash every morning was her mother’s only peaceful moment of the day. That mash had been one of her mother’s last connections to the traditions her grandmother had cherished, along with stories of the great-great-grandmother who had so long ago and so reluctantly left a country called Japan.
When her parents sold Bead into marriage to Horace Finecalf—without a tear, without an apology—her mother had silently given Bead just one thing to take along: the old, red ceramic pickle barrel.
If Bead still had that barrel, she would use it today. But Horace hated rice-bran pickles. He only liked pickles cured in vinegar and brine. He had thrown the barrel out his back door, where it shattered against the packed clay of his yard, frightening his mangy dog.
Even though Daisy Fresh headquarters would never approve, her mother’s rice-bran pickles were one of the first things Bead added to the menu when she bought the Daisy.
Bead pushed away the memory and glanced around the storeroom. It was a tidy place; it comforted her. The pickle barrel sat in the middle of the room, with plenty of space on all sides for her to move around. Cleaned vegetables lay in a green bowl near the barrel, ready to be placed in the mash. Metal shelves ran along three of the room’s four walls and were filled with bottles of colored syrup, containers of condiments, pressurized cans of spices, boxes of dry goods, and sealed cases of dishware and utensils. There was an empty space where the pastry dishes should go.
Bead was trying to think of a way to save the Daisy when the storeroom door opened and Lorelei rushed inside.
“Casey’s gone crazy!” Lorelei announced.
“Casey?” Calm, competent Casey?
“He’s trying to kill himself! There’s blood all over the bathroom!”
Bead yanked her arms out of the barrel, shook them vigorously to remove the wet bran mash, and ran toward the bathroom.
A crowd stood around the bathroom’s open door. Bead pushed her way through the crowd, and Lorelei followed her inside.
Casey was perched precariously on the metal counter that held the two sinks. He sobbed as he sliced his bare forearm with a paring knife. Blood dripped across the counter, reflected in the mirror on the wall behind him.
Bead slid to a halt. “Casey?”
“I’m bad,” he moaned. “Bad.” His eyes were closed, and he didn’t seem to know that Bead was there—he just kept cutting his skin in short, jerky motions.
She reached out and carefully pulled the bloody knife from his fingers.
His eyes flew open: wild, tortured, they stared right through her, horrified by something only he could see. “No!” he cried, hands jerking up in a warding-off motion. “They’ll all die!”
Bead handed the knife to Lorelei, who gulped and tossed it into one of the open stalls. Reaching out slowly, Bead wrapped her fingers gently around Casey’s ears, leaned in close, and said quietly, “Casey, it’s me: Bead. What’s wrong?”
His muscles trembled, and his dilated irises focused, but he didn’t seem to recognize her. Instead, he pushed away, crying, “Get away from me! We’re all killers! Killers, do you hear? They’re all dead!” With a wrenching moan, he shoved backward with both hands. His head hit the mirror so hard that the glass cracked. He fell off the counter and to the floor, banging his head again, this time on the hard floor tiles.
Bead knelt beside Casey. He had been knocked unconscious.
She looked up. Most of the customers around the door were leaving—some excited, others muttering uneasily about ghosts and crazy men.
“We’ve got to get him out of here, Lor,” Bead said, sliding her hands beneath Casey’s shoulders. “Take his feet.”
Lorelei stopped staring at the blood the knife had left on her fingers. “He’s heavy.”
“We can do it.” Bead shifted to get a better hold on his head and shoulders. “Ready?”
Lorelei slid her hands beneath his calves and bit her lip. She nodded.
Bead took a deep breath. “Cha. One, two, three, heave!”
Lorelei squeaked as they lifted Casey off the floor, but she didn’t let go. The remaining crowd made way as she and Bead waddled awkwardly out of the bathroom.
Jaime stood to one side of the doorway, jittering from foot to foot. The empty busboy cart fidgeted behind him, matching his footsteps, and his eyes shone as brightly as his blisterjewel jacket. His face was blanched white in stark contrast to his jet-black hair.
Jaime wasn’t good with violence. That was one reason he was running from the Black Cloud crime syndicate.
“Let’s put Casey on the cart,” Bead said to Lorelei.
Lorelei huffed and puffed agreement.
After they settled Casey into place, Bead took the cart’s controller from Jaime, overrode its independent motion, and said, “Jaime, you’d better sit down.”
Jaime pointed numbly toward the front of the restaurant, his entire arm shaking.
A brown-uniformed ship’s security officer was entering through the front door.
“I see him,” Bead said. She turned to three of the Edees, who were huddled in a tight clump in a back booth, whispering desperately to their shared wrist-journals. Their chess set was laid out on the table, all the brightly colored pieces arranged in neat little lines. Like Jaime, they were terrified. The woman from whom they had been cloned had committed suicide by slitting her wrists, and their deepest fear was that they, too, would one day fall prey to self-destructive depression.
But unlike Jaime, they hadn’t watched as half their family died.
“Edee, someone has to tell Filli to activate the first aid kit.”
The three Edees didn’t say anything, but one of them nodded her blonde head, slid slowly out of the booth, and darted toward the opaque-air curtain. The other two held hands and looked like they could barely breathe.
The security officer pushed his way through the crowd at the front of the Daisy.
Bead took one end of the cart, Lorelei took the other, and they steered the protesting cart toward the back curtain. Behind them, the two Edees each took one of Jaime’s hands in their own and pulled him into the booth so that he sat beside them. He folded his arms around his head and bent over the table as they began once again to whisper to the linked journals on their wrists.
Bead glanced back at the ship’s security officer. He had been cornered by two of the regulars, who were describing events with dramatic hand gestures. Good: that would give her time to find out what was going on.
They maneuvered the cart through the curtain and into the back hall, passing the row of small lockers for personal items.
“Lorelei, once we—”
Static filled the air and prickled the hairs on Bead’s neck as the solid wall to their right fuzzed. The alien that Bead had seen earlier was materializing through the wall.
The ghostly alien leaped forward and licked Bead’s bare forearm. Thousands of distinctly visible taste buds glistened as the long purple tongue rasped across her skin.
Bead jerked away, and Lorelei cried out in alarm, dropping to her knees as she stared at the alien. Her eyes grew as round as her lenses.
“Lorelei,” Bead said, struggling to keep the overburdened cart on track. “We can’t stop here.”
Lorelei swallowed, rose on shaky legs, and followed Bead, pressing against the left-hand wall as she passed the ghost. The alien smelled faintly of peaches, and Bead felt as if its pupil-less eyes were boring straight through her flesh.
They made their way into the office and settled Casey onto the empty couch. Lorelei shoved the busboy cart back into the hall without leaving the office, then stood near the couch, chewing on one of her knuckles.
“Oh, Casey,” Filli murmured, handing Bead the boxy, red-plastic first aid kit. She had warmed it up; it was humming expectantly. Filli sat down on the couch and cradled Casey’s head in her lap. “What happened?”
“He went crazy, Filli!” Lorelei waved her arms, and her billowy sleeves made whuffling sounds. “Blood everywhere! He’s going to die. And there’s a ghost outside! We’re all going to die!”
The Edee who had alerted Filli hunched her shoulders as if trying to fold in on herself.
Bead tapped at the pressure-sensitive controls of the first aid kit. It beeped, and several small hoses and a roll of green bandages popped out of its side. “No, Lor, he’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine. Right now we need you behind the counter.”
Lorelei moaned softly. “What about the ghost?”
“Ship’s security is here. I reported the ghost earlier, and they said we should go on about our business. So if it’s not in the hall, just forget about it,” Bead said, trying to do just that. She used one of the hoses to remove blood from Casey’s arm. “Edee, you want to go with her? Or can you tell us what happened?”
Edee pressed both wrists to her chest and whispered. “We haven’t recorded it yet.”
“Cha,” Bead said. The Edees recorded all their experiences in their linked journals to ensure that they would always stay as alike as possible and to check for signs of mental illness. “But if you could tell me, I might be able to keep Casey out of jail.”
Edee bent her head and ran her fingers over the thin band of soft metal that she wore around her left wrist. The smooth gray surface of her journal glowed faintly at her touch. “Oh. It’s here now.”
Bead peered at Casey’s wounds. They looked clean. She picked up a second hose and sprayed antiseptic over them.
“That’s good, Edee,” Filli said. “If you can, please tell us what happened.”
Edee said softly, “All right.”
Lorelei clutched her skirts, gathered her nerve, and walked out the door.
Edee kept her fingers on the journal as she whispered her report. “Casey’s shift was over about thirty minutes ago. He stayed to watch us play chess.”
Bead nodded. The Edees liked to play chess against each other, although, strangely, they made sure that every game ended in a draw. That outcome reassured them. They were particularly careful of their pawns; they sometimes played games where both sides tried to keep as many safe as possible. Bead suspected that the eight Edees identified with those pawns.
“After a while he got hungry, so he went to make a sandwich. But all of a sudden a ghost popped up behind the counter and started poking in the relish. We were scared, and Casey looked like he’d been slugged. We thought he was going to run away, but instead he charged at the ghost, yelling that it should leave, that it wasn’t supposed to be there.” Edee laid one cheek against the journal on her wrist and sighed. “I don’t know why he thought it would listen. But he kept yelling, and the crowd was upset. Someone screamed, and the ghost disappeared, but Casey didn’t seem to know that it was gone. He grabbed the knife and crouched down and looked really crazy, like someone was going to attack him. Then he stared at the knife and started crying. Then he ran into the bathroom and started cutting himself.” She rubbed at her eyes, which were moist with tears. “He hurt himself, Bead.”
“I know,” Bead said quietly. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“He shouted about being bad and about being killers,” Edee said. “Then you came.”
“Thank you, Edee.” Bead shook her head. “The ghost is definitely creepy. But it’s not like Casey to flip out. I don’t understand.”
“Bead.” Filli ran soothing fingers over Casey’s slack jaw. “Casey was at Golast.”
Edee looked sideways at Casey and whispered to her journal.
There was a pause while Bead applied temporary Readiflesh to his wounds. “He never told me that.”
“He’s ashamed. He didn’t want you to know,” Filli said. “He was a lieutenant on the Galarm command ship, and he thinks it’s his fault that the aliens blew up the star.”
“The command ship didn’t do anything.”
“Still,” Filli said, “he feels guilty.”
Bead winced. “No wonder he snapped. He probably thinks the ghost is coming to get him.” She wrapped the green bandage around Casey’s arm.
Edee stopped whispering to her journal. In the sudden quiet, Bead could hear Filli’s inhaler sigh.
“I had a friend,” Filli said, “on Betabreeze.”
Bead’s stomach sank. “Oh, Fil, I’m sorry.”
Filli just shook her head and stroked Casey’s thinning red hair.
Bead watched her for a moment, wishing there was something more she could say. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she pushed a button on the first aid kit, and the hoses slid back inside.
All the colonists on Betabreeze had suffered when the ghosts blew up the Betabreeze sun.
Galarm, the galactic military, had sent ships out to Golast just as a precaution, to be ready in case anything went wrong when the first human delegation approached the ghosts’ planet. The aliens hadn’t asked humans to visit; the aliens had never said anything at all to humans: they just ignored them as if they weren’t there. But humans were curious; they wanted to make contact with the only other sapient species they had encountered in their expansion across the galaxy. The Galarm ships had stationed themselves and their multitude of monitoring devices well outside the Golast system, far enough away to pose no threat, and the delegates from Galgov, the galactic government, had traveled toward the Golast planet in a small, six-person taxi-ship. As the taxi slowly approached the planet, it had broadcast its peaceful intentions in Galstandard and a wide variety of other languages, prepared to withdraw at the slightest sign of alien displeasure.
Things had seemed to be going well. The taxi landed in a sparsely inhabited area of the alien world, and its six occupants waited for an invitation to disembark.
Then the Galarm ships had detected a blue, web-like burst of something—some said it was energy, others said it was matter, still others said the distinction was meaningless. In one moment the blue web flashed into existence in the space surrounding Golast. In the next moment it emerged far away, in the space around Betabreeze colony. It engulfed the Betabreeze sun, and the sun exploded. The planet of Betabreeze disappeared.