Jade Star (Tanager Book 1) Read online

  Jade Star

  Cedar Sanderson

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this work are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright 2016 by Stonycroft Publishing

  http://stonycroftpublishing.com

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  Cover Design and art by Cedar Sanderson

  Acknowledgements:

  For both Amandas. To Thing 1: thank you for telling me that it wasn’t a complete story. And Thing 2, for telling me what was still wrong with it. To both of you, thank you for telling me you liked it anyway. You gave me the impetus to bring this fierce old lady to life on the page.

  Chapter 1: Ending, Interrupted

  There is no such thing as eternal youth. My body may look pretty damn good for pushing 200 old-Earth years, but I haven’t been a young woman in over a century and a half. And I didn’t ask for this. Had I been conscious, and aware of what they were doing, I’d have fought like a madwoman… but by the time I woke up again, it was done. Somehow it seemed ungrateful, with them all happy they had rescued me and saved me, to end my life again.

  I should explain, I expect. My name is Jade, and I was a rockhound. Left that profession behind after the incident I refer to, seems rude to rub it in my family’s face that after they were ready to push me off on the ice floe (had to look all that up, first time I heard the expression. I’d like to see an ice floe, some day. The thought of that much water, to float a chunk o’ ice big enough to hold a human…) I made it and am still going strong. Then again, they might not recognize me, was I to come back with this face and body. They likely don’t remember the good days, when I first held a little ‘un in swabbies and showed him the stars, his home.

  Anyway, I was old. Real old, past being able to help, and my mind was slipping. Might still be slipping, dunno. Wasn’t their idea to space me, that was all me. I didn’t want to drag out my dying, and I was a mite anxious to rejoin my man, it having been those many years of alone-but-not-alone. So I headed out in a little rock scooter, into the thick of the asteroids, so they couldn’t find me. We couldn’t afford me, the Family. Not with me doing nothing to help even with the babbies any longer. And I kept breaking bones. So going dirtside wasn’t an option. I wanted to have my end out there, in the black, with the stars like jewels all around. I saw the looks Ferric’s wife kept giving me, and I took a hint, right after my centennial birthday.

  Problem was, the scooter I took had a malfunction, which I knew, the reason I picked that one. Figured it’d get me out far enough, then give out, and I’d have a little time to admire the sparklies of the lights so far away, before my time was up. But instead that lil motor kicked into high gear with an annoying whine, and punched me so far out – I don’t know where I wound up, rightly. I’d passed out by then, more gravity than my old heart could take.

  I woke up on an alien ship, and nothing hurt. Thought I was dead, a minute. Then I swung my legs off that weird bed and stood up, and I knew it was real. An’ I could see myself, reflected in a blue chrome wall. I looked like a girl again. Probably a good thing I was alone, for that bit of time. I wasn’t real happy.

  I wanted death. I’d embraced it like the lover who’d brought me to the stars in the first place. Death was to be my friend, to take me by the hand and lead me back to him. I’d lost him years ago, but I knew he was there, on the other side o’ that veil of stars. Stars like living jewels on the other side of that bulkhead so shiny… I discovered that if I beat myself against it long enough, the blood made it less shiny. Pret’ sure the stars I saw were only in my head, though. They came in, then, as I was fadin’ to black, and they fixed me up again.

  The next time I woke up, I couldn’t get up. Not my body malf, they’d secured me. It just felt like a malfunction for a minnit, so I panicked a little. And one o’ them was sitting next to me petting my hand and arm and purring. It worked like a sedative. I jest relaxed into that warm fur, an’ went right back to sleep. Only this time it was a good sleep, with dreams, an’ all. I’m not tellin’ my dreams. Them’s mine.

  As I said, though, hard to be angry with them when it was clear they were pleased as anything over their work. Took me a while to figure out they’d never met an old human. They just restored me to what they thought I should be, thinking old age was a result of my scooter accident. Like little children with a building set, they are.

  I wish I had a better name to give them, the little people with the big eyes and plush fur. They don’t look like animals to me, but mebbe… mebbe a little like something I remember from a picture book. A lemur. Only they don’t have tails like that. They’re affectionate as anything, and…

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m forgetting a lot. Might be this old brain, I’ve no way of knowing what they did to it, if anything. Damned if I’ll let anyone open it up and take a look. Not yet, by a ways.

  After I’d taken my mad out on the wall, I’d been laid down on the bed and taken a nap. Sounds better than a coma, don’t it? I was tired, and my hands were bloody. Other parts of me, too. When I woke up, one of them was curled up with me. Half asleep, I thought he was one of the cats. Cats suited well to space. Dogs, not so much. So we’d always had cats with us in the rocks. They kept the vermin to a dull roar – vermin will follow humans ever – and they were company, when a rockjock was out for a month at a go, picking up ore.

  I’m afraid I cried into his fur until he was soggy and no doubt sorry he’d volunteered to stay with me. But it was the best thing they could have done. He patted my face and talked to me, not that I realized the sounds were words, then. But it was soothing, and it tided me over until I was in my right mind again. That wasn’t a quick process, but I don’t see a need to spill all the details, iff’n you don’t mind. Even if you do, I’m not tellin’.

  Once I was ready to go on living, I started in on learning how to talk to them. Wasn’t hard. They had been in contact with humans before. Not many – they’re shy, my friends are – but enough to have a bit of a phrase dictionary. I helped them with that. ‘Twas easier for them to learn my lingo than me to make theirs. I can’t sing. I got to the point where we could have a conversation, and then I asked them to drop me off somewhere.

  I could have stayed with them. They let me know that from the beginning. And nights spent with a mass of them all snuggled in a pile ‘round me, it was tempting. They loved me. But I was a pet, to them. Not as dumb as that cat I’d first mistaken Blackears for, but not much brighter. I could no sooner understand what made their ship go than that old cat, for sure.

  I wasn’t willing to be a pet. Cosseted and coddled and petted… Me, who’d been a rockjock with my man and nothing ‘tween us and the stars but a bit of spun ceramsteel. I had nothing, but then, I’d had nothing before him, too. He’d picked me up... neveryoumind where. It’s enough you know that it wouldn’t be the first time I’d started out with nothing more than my body and the brain in it. Only I figured I had a leg up this time around. I had a young body, and an old brain.

  It took me some time to come to that conclusion, and more time to convince them of what I wanted. I wasn’t in a big hurry, but I didn’t want to wait either, and get comfortable where I was. Finally, I was back out in the big black again, the stars wheeling around me, as I maneuvered toward a station, calling a mayday on all channels.

  One of the reasons it took ‘em so long to let me go was the need for secrecy. Someone along the way had hurt my soft little friends, and they’d learned caution. Meeting up with a lone human, or a little settlement way out in the sticks was one thing. A whole station full
‘o folks t’wasn’t happening. So we’d worked on a plan. They fixed up my scooter, which they obviously felt was a dangerous toy, and they phased in and out neat as you please, leaving me adrift in their wake.

  I watched the ship I’d spent so much time in blink out of reality and choked a little. It looked nothin’ like a human-built ship, with the angles and lines. I hadn’t gotten to see it on the outside, and where the inside looked smooth and polished – an’ cushioned, in places – the outside looked mostly like an accident. Like someone had stuck some rocks together.

  I’d miss them, and I was pretty sure at that moment I’d not see them again. Then I took a deep breath, sniffed hard, and turned on the emergency locater. I gunned it for the station, alarms shrilling, and waited for the welcome committee.

  Chapter 2: The Beginning of the End

  I had no idea where I was. I was pretty sure ‘nowhere near Earth’ was as close as I could put myself on a starchart. I hadn’t asked my friends questions, and they hadn’t offered that information. As the scooter’s radio crackled and I waited for a human voice, I could feel my throat tightening up until I wondered if I’d be able to talk back. It seemed like it had been a lifetime since I’d spoken.

  “Station to unknown craft, come in please.” The crisp male voice on the radio sounded tense.

  “Station, this is the scooter N1UUX, calling for assistance.” I got it out with just a bit of a quaver and a voice crack, but that was AOK with the story I’d ginned up. “Station...” I gulped loudly, “where am I?”

  “What? N1UUX, say again?” He sounded startled and very clear. I was getting closer.

  “I don’t know where I am. Can I come in?” I watched the station loom in my viewscreen, until it filled the pickups and blocked out most of the stars, saddening me. I almost turned it around, but it seemed a shame to waste the gift I’d been given.

  “N1UUX, please follow the blinking blue in your starboard plane.” He was back to the original tone of voice. Tense, but not overly ruffled.

  I turned my head and saw the light start to flash over a bay opening. I swooped toward it, the tiny scooter dwarfed as it passed through the shields with a ripple like a bubble in water. I might never have seen an ocean, but water I knew. The shields held off micrometeorites, and had I attempted a landing without warning, I’d be a smoking hole in space about now. I landed on the scarred ceramsteel and sat waiting, looking around. I didn’t undog the hatch - this was clearly an unpressurized cargo bay. They were taking no chances with me.

  I took a few deep breaths of the fresh air my friends had given me, and watched the marines come through the door at a trot, weapons held ready. They must have already seen I was alone, they only sent six. I could guess what was coming, and it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

  They took their time inspecting the exterior of my craft. I had me, and my skinsuit, in the cockpit. I couldn’t see the cargo hold from where I was sitting, but from the way they lingered I guessed that my fuzzy friends had put something in it. What, I had no idea. Hopefully nothing too outlandish.

  I hadn't worn an exosuit into the scooter, too expensive to waste on my final trip. I couldn’t just step outside and talk to them. The radio crackled. "N1UUX, who are you and where did you come from?"

  I took a deep breath and reminded myself again that people believe what they want to believe, not reality. “I don’t know. I mean, sort of. My name is Jade. But I don’t know where I am.” I allowed some of my fear into my voice. Not fear of the past, but fear of the future, which they couldn’t know. No more’n I did. “I was out in the scooter prospecting in the Oort Cloud. I blacked out... and woke up drifting here.”

  There was silence for a long moment. The exosuited marines, their hardened armor far more bulky than anything I’d ever worn out in the rocks, withdrew a few paces. I was relieved to see their weapons were no longer pointing at me. Movement across the bay caught my eye. A small tracked vehicle - magnetic treads, from the way it moved - was steadily moving in my direction.

  I didn’t have to worry, it turned out, about my air running out. They towed me through a lock, and into a maintenance bay behind the cargo area. Made sense, to be able to work on smaller craft under pressure and gravity. The marines had faded away, leaving one of their men still on guard, and a man in a skinsuit walked up and tapped on the cockpit. I obligingly opened up.

  “Sorry about the respirator,” he was saying as I pulled myself out carefully. “Follow me, please, ah... Jade.”

  They weren’t treating me like I’d expected. More like I was dangerous, but not... I was confused, and followed the man in the suit through a hatch and into a brightly-lit hall. “What about my scooter and cargo?” I asked. The position I was in, I couldn’t do anything about it. But it was all I had.

  “Don’t worry. We aren’t that far gone.” He didn’t look back at me.

  Now what’d he mean by that? What had I gotten myself into? Living with my friends for a timeless stretch of lotus-eatin’ comfort had made me soft. Living near seventy Earth-years in the rocks with only my family had kept me on my toes but not the way my first decades in the low ports had done. I dug deep into memories and looked around me with sharper eyes.

  The corridor was bright, but the man ahead of me walked like he was tired. Or drunk, and there’s a fine line there, I’ve seen it. You have enough fatigue, it’s as bad as tying one on and then taking the scooter out. I lost a son... I dragged my memories to the back and clubbed them into submission. The man stopped at an open hatch.

  “If you could wait in here...” He sounded apologetic and I looked him in the eyes for the first time. Tired. They were dark, hard to tell the color through the medical-grade respirator and all I really could see were his eyes and the bridge of his nose. He was sweating in there. I started to say something, bit it back, and walked into the room. He didn’t need me givin’ him a hard time, and he meant me no harm.

  That wasn’t, I knew as I heard the hatch slide shut behind me, the same as doing me no harm. I explored the room I’d been immured in. There was a fold-out bunk, standard issue same as one I remembered with no regret from more’n a hundred years before and a long flight out to the Cloud. This room was bigger than that one, and no need to share it with three other people. A perk, even if I did miss my man more’n I cared to dwell on. I’d be with him now, iff’n my friends hadn’t taken it into their fuzzy lil’ heads to rescue me.

  There was a screen which lit up when I touched it, and offered me options ranging from food and drink to entertainment. I asked for a meal and it appeared in a niche on the wall, nothing fancy but better than tube-food, so I ate it. Entertainment... I laid back on the bunk and listened to the music. They had a good selection. Not as good as the library we’d put together, but rockhounds needed something to keep the black at bay.

  I needed it now for the inner dark. I figured out how to dim the lights - not off, someone might come - and let myself drift on the melody. I still didn’t know where I was, I was locked into a room with no apparent way out, and something was wrong on station that had nothing to do with me. I’d wait until I knew more before I started taking action.

  That was the old brain, of course. A younger person might have started looking for an escape route. I knew how to get out - but out wasn’t necessarily safer than in. Patience is one of the things you learn out among the rocks. Rushing off will get you killed. Besides, I was curious. I didn’t care about livin’ so much, but this was odd, and that got my brain spinning.

  They were quarantining me, which I’d expected. A space station was no place to run the risk of contaminants and microorganisms coming on board. It was possible I had something my little friends did, but humans usually didn’t. Only... they hadn’t scanned me. They just put me in here, which wasn’t even a medical room. I’d been in one, and didn’t imagine they’d changed all that much. Something was wrong. I got up and played with the touchscreen, but if there was a call channel it had been removed from my menu options.r />
  I laughed out loud, and then looked around. Surely they were watching me? But there was nothing, not even steps in the corridor. I might have been forgotten. Only they had forgotten something. There are always ways around the obvious ones. I tapped into the entertainment channel and looked... there. The chat option was still visible - hard to remove it, really, as it was part of the application. I set up a login and dove into the virtual stream of conversations, looking for answers.

  There wasn’t a lot of activity, which surprised me. With the external size of the station, I expected there to be a sizable population. I lifted my hands away and watched a desultory conversation unfold over an imaginary relationship between two vidstars. Then I tapped into the list of fangroups. Ah. It wasn’t just me. Looking back a few weeks, I could see that it had been very active, then... what? Broken conversation threads and vague comments hinted, but didn’t reveal the reason behind the choked off voices.

  I didn’t want to ask direct questions and reveal myself. I’d learn more lurking and watching. Searching the groups for news showed that an immense force of censorship was taking place. But the tone was still there. People were scared. I logged out and went back to sit on the bunk and think. I’d only seen seven people since my arrival. The voice on the scooter radio could have been the dark-eyed man in the respirator. If there was a plague sweeping the station...

  My mind wandered. Where was I, and why had the alien ship chosen this as my destination? Why, for that matter, had they chosen to save me from certain death? I’d never asked them, didn’t want to know, I suppose. Too late now. That they had pitched me into a mess was clear, but if they had known about it beforehand, that I couldn’t tell. Nor why they would put me into it, if they did. Seems they had put a lot of effort into me just to throw me away. So... either they didn’t know, or they were using me as a tool.