Rocket Boy and the Geek Girls Read online

  “And you are good at yours,“ said Hoku. “This will be a good change, I think.“

  Manuel could see Hoku’s hand, pale against the shadows of her robe. He reached out to take it, and led her slowly away from the others, down the steps to the clearing. “I have another change to propose,“ he said. “Won’t you walk with me by the water?“

  oOo

  “Emancipation“ first appeared in The Williamson Effect, an anthology tribute to New Mexico science fiction author Jack Williamson. Jack recently passed away, and is deeply missed. New Mexico SF fans and writers alike adored him for his brilliance, his good humor, and his unfailing kindness.

  oOo

  Pati Nagle...

  ...was born and raised in the mountains of northern New Mexico. Her stories have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Cicada, Cricket, and in various anthologies, including collections honoring New Mexico writers Jack Williamson and Roger Zelazny. She is a Writers of the Future finalist and finalist for the New Mexico Press Women’s Zia Award. Her short story “Coyote Ugly“ received an honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and was honored as a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Award. Her latest novel is The Betrayal, released in 2009 by Del Rey Books. She still lives in the mountains in New Mexico, with her husband and two furry feline muses. Her web site can be found at http://patinagle.com The Betrayal — an aelven fantasy — is available for Kindle from Del Rey Books http://aelven.com/thebetrayal.html .

  Rocket Boy on Call

  Pati Nagle

  The last message he’d received from GGL was tagged “urgent,“ so he hadn’t taken time to clean up, but as Sonja glanced up from her desk he wondered if it was a mistake to report fresh out of the cockpit. She looked so righteous in her pristine white business uni with turquoise accents, he felt downright slimy.

  Her eyes were glassy until she shifted focus to him; then her gaze flicked down and up, taking in the full length of him. He pulled back the hood of his flexsuit and ran a hand over the short, unwashed stubble on his scalp.

  “Tasha said ASAP,“ he said, trying hard not to stare. Long-boned, with just enough curves, and a Scandinavian complexion made more pale by living in a shielded environment, Sonja woke the hunger in his long-isolated body.

  “She had to take a call. Finish your report?“

  He handed her a data chip, and she fed it to her desk. Her eyes went distant again.

  He glanced around the compartment, which was amazingly stark given its size. Though only Sonja was here at the moment, she shared the workspace with her two partners — both equally hot — and he knew it served them not only as a business office but as a research lab. He wondered if they had a daily service come in to keep it this clean.

  Sonja nodded a couple of times as she scanned his report, then ran her hands over a virtual keypad. “There you go. Thanks for a job well done.“

  “My pleasure.“ He verified the transfer of credit to his account, and sent back a receipt.

  “Ready for the next assignment?“

  He stifled a sigh. He was tired and sore from chasing down the pirates that had been siphoning bandwidth from GGL’s client. The fight had been quick but exhausting. It wasn’t just his ship that needed a recharge.

  “What is it?“ he said.

  Sonja worked her keypad again, then took the fresh chip her desk spat out and handed it to him. “You’re to track down a lost colony. Here are the specs.“

  “Last known location?“

  “All in there, along with projections of the most likely trajectories. It won’t be easy; last contact was over a century ago.“

  He whistled. “Talk about cold.“

  Sonja shrugged. “It’s an inheritance claim, and the courts are demanding proof of demise. Give it your best shot. You’ll be paid for your time, with a nice bonus if you find them.“

  He slid the chip into his cuffband. “Okay if I start tomorrow?“

  Sonja raised an eyebrow, as if surprised he would need any down-time. “Fine with me. Maeve is off with the client, discussing strategies for bringing the colony in once you find them.“

  “Assuming they want to come in.“

  “That’s outside our scope.“

  “If they’re not in default, they’re not obligated.“

  She shrugged. “We’ll deal with that when we get there.“

  He nodded, watching the gentle ancillary waves the gesture had raised in her flesh. He had to swallow a sudden mouthful of saliva.

  Sonja had turned her attention back to her work, but when he didn’t move to go she glanced up at him after a moment. “Something else?“

  Took him a couple of seconds to work up the nerve. “Yeah. How about dinner? My treat.“

  That pale eyebrow rose just a fraction. How could a woman be hotter than Sol and colder than a comet’s tail all at once?

  “Thanks, but I never mix business with pleasure.“

  “What if I turn down the lost colony? Then it’s not business.“

  A tiny frown creased her brow. “But that would hardly put me in a mood for pleasure.“

  He sighed. “Right. Seeya,“ he said, turning to go.

  “Joe.“

  He stopped. Turned. “It’s Joseph.“

  She nodded. “Sorry. Joseph.“

  She didn’t say anything more. Her gaze traveled his body, with more curiosity now. A slow smile widened her pink-frosted lips.

  “Maybe after you’re done with this contract, and before the next.“

  Oh, mama. He grinned, tossing off a salute as he turned and headed out.

  “You’re on.“

  oOo

  Pati Nagle...

  ... was born and raised in the mountains of northern New Mexico. Her stories have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Cicada, Cricket, and in various anthologies, including collections honoring New Mexico writers Jack Williamson and Roger Zelazny. She is a Writers of the Future finalist and finalist for the New Mexico Press Women’s Zia Award. Her short story “Coyote Ugly“ received an honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and was honored as a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Award. Her latest novel is The Betrayal, released in 2009 by Del Rey Books. She still lives in the mountains in New Mexico, with her husband and two furry feline muses.

  Blindsided by Venus in the House of Mars

  Nancy Jane Moore

  I’ve almost become Lia Bukanan, so I don’t get too nervous at customs anymore. Still, while waiting for the agent, I did a visualization exercise to slow my pulse. It’s a relaxation trick I learned back on Paneris when I got my DNA tweaked to match my docs. I didn’t do it very long — when you’re hooked up to the stress analyzer, too calm will ding the buzzer as fast as too nervous.

  The android handling customs had a genderless proto-human face. “Welcome to Galatea Station,“ it said, politely, taking my docs and attaching me to the monitor. It slipped my ID in the slot to see if the physical data matched the readout. I watched the readout: female, one point five four meters tall, a string of DNA equations, an approved sign. Then the agent ran a search on both the ID and my physical parameters to see if any planet wanted me.

  It gave me an android smile. “Your identity matches, Spacer Bukanan, and your record is clear,“ it said.

  I smiled back. I like dealing with androids at customs. No station spends the kind of money it would take to program them with first rate AI, so they do everything strictly by the book. High quality surgery and forged docs pass through unquestioned. And, unlike humans, they never ask for bribes.

  The agent ran my work history and hiring hall cards through the scanner. “You were temp crew on your last ship, and do not have a new position,“ it said.

  “I just got paid,“ I answered, handing over my credit chit.

  The agent ran the chit, punched a couple of buttons to produce a visa, and told me, “Two Confederation-standard weeks.“
/>   “Thank you.“ Two weeks would be plenty. Long haul carriers stop regularly at Galatea’s station and they always need temps.

  Outside the port complex squatted the usual collection of bars, pawn shops, cheap sleepovers, and crummy little restaurants. The kind of neighborhood respectable people abhor, the local spacerville. Home.

  Like Galatea itself, the station used a biodome to impose the Confederation-standard climate and twenty-four hour day. A natural Galatean day would be a Confederation week. No one objected, though; Galatea’s so far from its primestar that its natural climate is far too cold for the humans and other warm-blooded species that currently inhabit it.

  Local time made it the middle of the night. Most businesses had shut down; most, but not all. Always something open in spacerville.

  I needed food and drink, and maybe a little chaos, something to wash away the hyper feeling I always get when I first hit stationside. The first open place I saw had a liquid light display that read “Bar“ in about twenty languages. I pushed the heavy steel door open. A mass of humanity packed the place. I couldn’t see them at first — the lights were turned too low — but I could hear them and smell them and just feel their mass choking the room.

  A large presence hovered to my right. As my eyes became accustomed to the light, a man, of sorts, came into focus. He had the blown-up pecs of the geneto-builder, and looked to be well over two meters tall. Bouncer. He gave me a little nod.

  I moved through the crowd with appropriate “excuse mes,“ a conscious effort to avoid stepping on toes, and a struggle to keep my small backpack of possessions from hitting anyone. The general atmosphere in the place made me uneasy.

  By the time I reached the serving bar and put in an order for a sandwich and beer, I’d figured out why the place felt like an accident waiting to happen. Almost half the people in the room wore union insignia on their overalls — they were the ones making all the noise, muttering into their drinks. Another quarter or so had captain’s bars on theirs: independent haulers, mostly. Officers off the large ships don’t do their drinking in seedy bars.

  Most of the rest were folks like me, temps who worked wherever they could get hired. Natural antagonists, all three: each blamed one of the other groups when they couldn’t get work.

  Usually I get along okay with the union folks, but I’d forgotten about the big strike at Galatea Station six planetside months earlier. Some of these people had probably been blacklisted — the union lost big time. I grabbed my beer and a sandwich that leaked around the edges, and aimed for what looked like an empty corner in the back near the kitchen so I could avoid the inevitable fight.

  I almost made it. Someone slammed into my right arm, the one holding the sandwich. It went straight up in the air as someone — a guy in spacer overalls — slid down my leg. The gloppy stuff landed in his hair.

  The pot had boiled over. Chaos reigned. Cries of “fucking scabs“ and “union bastards“ mixed in with painful screams and enthusiastic hollers.

  I chugged the rest of my beer as I plowed through the crowd of people trying to kill their neighbors. But the guy with my dinner in his hair had no intention of letting me go. He grabbed the collar of my overalls and pulled me toward him.

  There’s no time to apologize for accidents in bar fights. The rules are simple: there aren’t any. You just do whatever you can to make sure you walk out the door.

  I went with the pull, feinted toward his face with the mug I still held in my left fist and put my right elbow in his ribs. He gasped, and I grabbed his hand and tried to duck under his arm. I would have made it without the added size from the backpack.

  He grabbed my neck and threw me backward. I went down, but I still had a good grip on his hand. When I dropped I jerked his arm and sent him flying over me into a group scuffling nearby.

  Scrambling to my feet, vaguely conscious that I’d clipped a chair with my ribs on the way down, I tried again to find an exit. My mind seemed unnaturally clear as I surveyed the struggling masses that surrounded me. It showed me a possible path to the emergency exit — an obstacle course of people, but a path nonetheless. I ducked under flailing arms, put elbows in strategic locations, did an occasional foot sweep.

  I was focused on the flashing “exit“ sign, and had almost reached it when someone grabbed me around the neck from behind. I ducked my chin just in time to prevent a solid chokehold and spun around with an elbow cocked.

  The elbow grazed my attacker’s solar plexus, and as he jumped back, I followed up with a kick. He moved just in time for it to miss. It was my earlier opponent. Tenacious bastard.

  I could have made the exit, but the last attack changed my mind. If the asshole really wanted a fight, we’d fight.

  I looked at him, a tall skinny guy with the remains of my food still dripping down his face. He came at me with a hard fast kick. I came inside at the last moment, punching toward his face. He ducked, came up with his own fist. I danced out of range. We’d ended up in an open pocket, with plenty of room to fight. The unnatural clarity had taken over my mind again, but this time it showed me possible attacks, mine and his, instead of escape routes.

  The wail of a siren in the distance brought me to my senses. My opponent was coming at me with a fist. I moved just enough to avoid getting hit, and grabbed his wrist. “Patrol’s coming,“ I said, pulling him enough off balance to avoid a second punch. “Let’s get out of here.“

  He stared at me a second or two, decided it wasn’t a trick, and said, “Go.“ We ran for the exit.

  Luck had taken our side, for the moment. The patrol hadn’t arrived yet. We raced through the alley, then slowed down at the corner. Looking back we could see that the fight had spilled over into the street. We walked briskly, and had covered a couple of blocks before the first patrol vehicles landed.

  “Thanks,“ said my former enemy. “You didn’t have to get me out of there.“

  I shrugged. “Way you kept coming after me, I figured I might as well.“

  He laughed. “Hey, you dumped that shit on my head.“

  “I didn’t do it on purpose.“

  He looked a little sheepish. “I got carried away when things started happening. Anyway, thanks for dragging me along. Station ships you planetside if you get arrested here, and Galatean jails make spacerville sleepovers look luxurious.“

  “You been in one?“

  “I used to be young and stupid,“ he said. “You making for anywhere in particular?“

  “No. Well, sort of. I just got in, and I need to find a bed.“

  “What I need is another drink.“

  I grinned. “Me, too. But I’ve had enough bars.“

  We were standing under a streetlamp. He looked at me. “I’ve got some wine on my ship. For that matter, I’ve got an extra bunk.“

  That felt like a pass. I looked back at him, and hoped I was right. Not that he looked like a great catch. His hairline was receding and he had the pasty complexion common to spacers. But in spite of — or maybe because of — a haunted look in his eyes, I thought a few hours together could be fun.

  “Your captain won’t mind?“ I asked.

  “I am my captain,“ he said. Pride crept into his voice. He fished a pair of captain’s bars out of his pocket. Smart man. He must have stashed them before going into the bar.

  I raised my eyebrows. “I don’t usually move in such high circles.“

  He blushed. “Well, at the moment I’m also my entire crew. Rhea’s just a little ship, short-hauler. Jump-capable, though. I usually hire one or two temps, depending on what I’m hauling. But Rhea’s mine.“

  “Well, let’s go drink up your wine, Captain...“ I hesitated.

  “Demaine. Jace Demaine.“

  “Lia Bukanan.“ We shook hands.

  We slid our visas through the reader at customs. The system’s designed to let spacers with legit docs go back and forth.

  Like he’d said, the starship Rhea was small. She was also old, battered, and held together more by
faith than good welds. The cargo hold took most of the interior.

  She could carry a maximum of four crew, and even spacers would have found the quarters over-close: four bunk slots, each two meters long and one wide; galley to one side, head to the other; and the bridge after that.

  The builders had put time into designing the bridge, though. They’d set up four work stations, but they adapted easily to a two-person crew. And one person could run it in a pinch.

  “It’s a dumb name, Rhea,“ Jiace explained. “An extinct bird, one that couldn’t fly. But this Rhea flies.“