Other Trails Chapter 3

[random_xtras]

"I like that design." Angelina stopped to look at the little ball shaped ornament of woven wire that Shade was just adding the finishing touches to. "Green with red reminds me of Gift Day."

"You can have it when I'm finished." The dark-furred girl didn't look up from her work.

"I don't have anything to pay for it with." Angelina shook her head. "We traded all the credits we could scrape together for you guys' honey wood, remember? And I still don't think we paid you a fair price for it."

Shade shrugged her lower shoulders and tapped the thick, soft leather collar that she wore to carry the twelve high load credit chits that now belonged to herself and her sister. "That's a lot of credit. I don't think we'll need more for a long time. And we still have most of our wool things, and all the other little wire tchotchke things we've been making too."

"If you want to call that stuff tchotchkes." Angelina shook her head. "Those collars and belts you guys made wouldn't look bad in toff circles. You're not going to have any trouble selling them, especially now that you know how to find out how much they're worth." She looked around the mess, which was empty but for herself and Shade. "Is Mist jammed in some crawl space reading again?"

"No." Shade looked up and snorted softly to show that her next words were a joke. "She's trying to steal your husband."

Angelina laughed. "Bugging him for more sign practice, huh? Good way to keep him busy and not brooding."

Then she sighed. "I wish we could take you two further, but the ship needs that overhaul and Karc's not welcome in the more civilized sectors. Neither are Pohle and Heather, but at least they don't have an automatic price on their heads just because of something someone did to them before they were born."

Shade frowned and rolled up to lay on her lower chest from the comfortable sprawl she'd been in as she worked. "Did to him before he was born? I don't understand."

"Yeah, you don't know the story of the forbidden." Angelina pulled a chair over and settled onto it, her hand going out automatically to take the holiday coloured ball as Shade offered it to her. "They were some megalomaniac's living weapons, made to take over a world. He used them to slaughter the entire population."

Shade trembled and leaned back, her eyes wide and her ears twitching. "But Karc wasn't there?"

"He was there," said Angelina quietly. "They all were. I know he didn't know any better, but nobody else really gets that. All they see is a planet's worth of slaughtered people treated like meat. And not that I know anything about the forbidden but space legends, but he's the only one I've heard of who ever managed to buck his inborn programming. Which is part of why he's survived this long."

Shade made a soft, sad sound. "He's still our friend. He's like a father who takes lost didis into his herd but doesn't hold onto them, so they can go back to their own fathers when they see them."

"Even when he's chowing down on red-centered steaks that are spicy enough to raise blisters on a normal human?" Angelina crooked a slight smile.

"Ffft!" Shade expressed her displeasure at her friend's dietary needs, but then nodded. "Yes, even then. I think this trip might have been cold and uncomfortable if we hadn't been able to sleep next to you two." More quietly. "My Dat was right about needing other people, I guess."

"You'll get used to being on your own." Angelina's smile was more sure as she reached out to gently touch the blanket covered chest of the girl who had begun to feel a bit like her own child over the two standard shipmonths that Shade and Mist had been aboard the Nothing Yet. "You're just kids, and you're facing a lot of new things."

Shade smiled at the human woman and then sighed. "I'm glad that you and this crew were the first people we met. Though I guess if the space cops guard our planet, like you told us they did, then no one really bad could have landed."

"Don't count on it. The IGP don't get out here often. There are convertors all over this part of space, but most of them have never belonged to the Protectorate."

"What's the Protectorate?" asked Shade, her hands and attention going toward the coils of wire laying on the floor beside her.

Angelina abandoned her chair and settled down to sit on the floor herself, absently toying with the little holiday ornament as she thought how to explain something that she'd heard about and been tested on in school, but never really thought of since. "I guess you could say that they're the ruling convertor race. They handle most of the government functions back on the homeworld and run the Galactic Police, anyway. A few thousand years ago they got overthrown by a more warlike bunch, but that seemed to have ended around the time that Earth got irradiated."

Shade frowned. "What did you mean when you said 'have never belonged to the Protectorate'? If they're a race, then they're born as Protectorate, right?"

"Yeah. But I probably should have said Nation. So people can join it if they like the ideals. I don't know how many do." Angelina shrugged. "Your agent that brings you the cotton's probably one of them. Does she wear a little shape like a planet with a squiggle in it anywhere?"

"Yes. And a mark shaped like a little fish, too." Shade frowned at the damaged coating on a length of wire, then used her teeth to start stripping the plastic away so that she could use the shiny copper on its own instead.

"Then she's Protectorate, though if it's the one I think it is she was born belonging to the other side of the conflict. Is she about twenty foot tall? Gold and purple?"

Shade blinked. "She looks like a purple and gold one of us."

"Oh right. She's using an avatar. What are her eyes like?"

"Purple. They look a little like a shadow puma's eyes."

"Yup. That's the Trader." Angelina chuckled. "She's got her own Nation now, though they're under the cover of a business conglomerate. They supply most of the energy to cybernetics and packaged rations to organics all over the galaxies, and they run a chain of convertor eateries that sells cheap oil and mineral fuel. She's the richest being in both galaxies, though the female warlord that runs this space station we're coming to packs her own wallop."

"Packs her own wallop?" Shade spat out plastic and then looked up and perked her ears, causing them to twitch slightly.

"Yeah. She heads a small convertor Nation. This station's their headquarters." Angelina tugged on a lock of her hair and absently thought that she was more than ready to visit the bathing facilities during the coming down time. There were levels of cleanliness that just could not be attained with a washcloth and sink. Especially with on-board water rationing.

"So the station's a country?"

"You could say that, yeah. It's sovereign political body." Angelina startled and put her hands out to brace herself as the deck beneath her lurched and a groan echoed through the ship. "Whoa! Are we landing already?"

"I don't hear any alarms." Shade looked around quickly, frowning with concern. Then she squeaked and scrambled to her feet as the ship crunched. "Ack!" She stamped a forehoof.

"No. It's okay." Angelina relaxed and got to her feet in a more leisurely manner. "We are landing. That was the sound of us coming down on whatever they're using instead of the broken landing pylon. You better get your things. Including the stuff we gave you last night at the farewell party."

"It still doesn't seem right to take all those things, when you and your crew have so little." Shade frowned, though she was thinking of all the woven wire ornaments and jewelry that she and Mist had hidden around the ship for the crew to find once they were gone.

"We've got enough." Angelina smiled at her. "And we didn't give that much. A computer pad, a first aid kit, cold rations, some non-slip stuff for you to use as shoes." The human woman shrugged. "You guys are going to need all that."

"I wish we could stay with you," said Shade quietly, her attention on coiling the wire she'd been using so that she could slip it onto her wrist and take her project along with her.

"No you don't," countered Angelina. "Hand to mouth freighting and dodging the law isn't any life for kids. You two need to go out and find something better."

"Time to disembark." Agassi popped out of the access tube that led past the ship's inner workings to the bridge, then turned to go back into it. "Everybody ready?"

"I'm ready," said Shade quietly, though she was trembling inwardly.


* * *


She was trembling more a few moments later as she stood beside her sister inside the biggest indoor space that she had ever seen. Chairs and tables that seemed larger than the trees she'd grown up under stretched out around her in every direction, and the ceiling was a whisper of a rumor so far above her that it probably had its own delivery post code.

Mist trembled too, one hand clasped on the little sheathed medallion of jagged metal that Karc had given her when he said goodbye, though she thought that there was no way that the object could protect her here, no matter how sharp and poisoned it was. She was unaware of the din of voices, music, and laughter that was nearly stunning her sister, but she clearly felt the floor shake as a titanic bipedal being ran toward her and Shade.

"Eeep!" Shade stamped as Mist did, then gathered herself to bolt out of the way, only to stop and stare as a huge hairy animal grabbed the massive person and dragged him squalling back to where a counter ran the width of the back of the room. There were even larger people by that counter, and one of the largest was a black one who leaned back against the counter on their elbows and watched as the animal dragged its captive toward them.

"Don't worry," said a voice from beside her. "The Warlady only wants to get the guy a kiss. He's not getting hurt. Do you need a seat?"

"War... lady?" Shade turned her head and saw a smiling organic person with skin and hair of a soft and pretty blue, and blue eyes that seemed to glow. "You're a convertor avatar."

"Yup." The woman smiled. "And yup. That's the Warlady, watching as her granddaughter kisses U-Turn."

"She's bigger than the men!" Shade's mouth fell open as she quickly signed to Mist about what they were seeing.

"Bigger than a lot of them, yes," said the waitress calmly. Then she winced as the Warlady backhanded a nearby man in the chest with enough force to nearly tip him backward over the counter.

"Ack!" Shade stamped and cringed. "What did she hit him for?"

"Because she can. That's her older brother."

"But being her brother doesn't mean that she should hit him," said Shade in bewildered but vehement protest.

"It does when you're Armourclad. They shoot at each other for fun, too."

Shade's chin trembled slightly. "That's terrible. I thought the Warlady was a good person."

The waitress shook her head. "She'll say she's not. But she and her Army have protected this sector of space from the Infection for several thousand standard years. And they make sure no one around here- organic or cybernetic- goes hungry."

"Infection?" asked Shade, signing as she spoke so that Mist could understand too.

"Yeah, it's a race of... Well, they look like a mixture of cybernetic, reptiloid, and insectoid, mostly, though some have mammaloid and ichithoid too. They consume and assimilate all living things that they come across, and make them a part of their hive consciousness. Some show some sentience, but most are just mindless killing and eating machines that make the forbidden look like a children's story."

Shade shuddered and hoped that she wasn't going to lose her lunch at the thought of such beings. "The Warlady has a big army?"

"Big enough. It's twenty of the biggest, meanest convertors ever born," said a passing convertor man cheerfully.

"Twenty? Two countings of your fingers, right?" Shade glanced at the waitress's five fingered hands.

"Yup. That's twenty." The avatar looked toward a call for more energy. "I have to go. Do you want a seat, or anything to eat or drink?"

"Actually, we're looking for a berth and passage. Could you recommend someone to ask about that?" said Shade, her front hooves leaving the floor as the well kissed man fell with a sound like a ship exploding before flailing weakly.

"Heyyyy. I can help you with that." The man who'd gone past did a quick about face and came back, then went to one knee and put an elbow on the floor to try and be at Shade's level.

Shade eyed him uncertainly as the waitress said a hasty good bye and hurried away toward the call. "You have a ship?"

"Lady, I am a ship." He smiled down at her boyishly. "And I'm a lot cleaner than that old scow I saw you come in on."

Shade scowled, her eyes scanning his arms, chest, and shoulders, and then blinking as she saw not only a faded Protectorate marking, but also the fish that meant that he followed the Forest Weaver. "You're Protectorate?"

"Huh?" He blinked himself, then looked down to study his own chest. "Oh. Yeah. I guess so. Though I haven't been that way since they finally let me out of school." One blue and silver finger poked at the marking, and then gently smoothed the fish. "I'm kind of my own Nation. Archivists are too stuffy for me, and I'm too little and too peace loving to play with Armourclads."

Shade frowned. "How much would you charge for the berth? The two of us." She nodded toward Mist, who was regarding the convertor with wary curiosity.

He grinned again. "You feed me, and I'll take you wherever you want to go. For as long as you want."

That made her blink. "Feed you what?"

"I'm not picky." He shrugged, the silver trim on his white and pale metallic blue wings winking in the ceiling lights as his grin turned charming. "But about twenty gallons of oil mush would really go down sweet right now."

Shade scowled in response to the charm. "You're not stealing us for your herd."

His grin widened as he hunkered down a little lower and his voice got soft and confidential. "How about you steal me?"