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  Keep him away from Ateil as much as possible.

  It also meant that Ferret could eavesdrop while she worked. For the most part, the Ateil chattered and twittered in their own language, but every now and again, she caught snatches in Standard, just enough for Ferret to learn that there was no love lost between Purple and Yellow. The sort of quarrel that could build up between two beings who’d been cooped up together in a cramped ship for too long.

  It spilled over onto outsiders, too. Red, passing components on to Ferret, who was wedged into a work space small even for her, said something about, “Can’t expect my partner to work like this very long.”

  Purple Ateil snapped at him, “You will work till the job is done!”

  “Hey, hey, we don’t leave a job unfinished. But we also don’t like that tone, you know what I mean?”

  “Red!” Ferret hissed. But he was between her and the Ateil, and she couldn’t get out of the cramped little corner.

  “Ah, yes,” Yellow told Purple, “leave the help alone.”

  Purple said something harsh-sounding in the Ateil language, and then turned back to Red. “You come and go, and yet nothing is completed. Can it be that you work deliberately slowly to earn more?”

  Ferret, distracted, yelped as she pinched her finger. Shaking it, she snapped, “Try working in here! Try, and see how fast you work!”

  Purple sneered as much as an Ateil’s rigid face could manage, “Perhaps it is skill you lack.”

  “What—why—you—”

  Red moved between her and the Ateil. “Calm down,” he warned. To Purple, he drawled, “Look, I’m not big on social graces, and I’m not going to give you any pretty words. I don’t like you, and you’ve made it pretty clear you don’t like us, either. That said, Ferret and I are good mechs. You can look up our records if you want proof. And we’re working as fast as we safely can, so we don’t have to be in each other’s company any longer than we need to be.”

  The Ateil reared back, narrow nostrils flaring. “Arrogance! Human arrogance!”

  “Red,” Ferret said uneasily.

  He ignored her. “Well, hell, you’re free to hire someone else—”

  “Red!”

  He held up a silencing hand. “—but that’s going to cause a delay, you know. A really bad delay, probably, when the other mechs hear about this. Most of them are human, too. Might not find any of them free to help you for, oh, maybe a station month or more.”

  Purple’s crest shot up. “Were you one of the True People, I would see you dead for such a threat!”

  “Hell, look at this, a human’s not even good enough to kill. Isn’t that—”

  “Red!” Ferret dug a claw into his thigh. With a curse, he whirled to her, and she said mildly, “This work is done.”

  To do the Ateil credit, Purple didn’t argue over the amount due, merely signed over the proper amount and then turned his back on the mechs. Ferret couldn’t exactly drag her partner away short of literally digging her claws into him, but she tightened her fingers on his arm just enough, and got him moving, off the ship and back into the station.

  Red delicately worked his arm free from her determined grip. “Well, all things considered, I think that went pretty well.”

  “Heh.”

  “Never mind ‘hen.’ It’s over, we’ve got the credits. Let’s go get us a drink.”

  “That sounds—oh, fur-molting damnation!”

  “What—”

  “I left a tool on the Ateil ship.”

  “Get another one.”

  “No, no, this one is to my hand and species perfect. Have to go back.”

  “Want me to go with you?”

  And risk you, they getting to war? I so think not. “Not needed, thanks. Back shortly meeting in bar?”

  No need to name it: there was only one bar that the mechs frequented. “Yeah.”

  Ferret scurried back to the Ateil ship: sooner mere, sooner back.

  Keeping calm, yes? she warned herself, and said to the Ateil, Purple Ateil, who met her, “Your pardon for this, but haste to finish for you made me leave tool on board. Retrieval allowed, please?”

  To her relief, no one stopped her, or said anything outrageously infuriating. She ignored the murmurs. The tool was lying exactly where she’d left it on the floor, and mat in itself was a touch insulting: they hadn’t even wanted to touch something not Ateil But Ferret refused to let herself react, merely scooped it up and said, “Thanking am. No longer needing to bother you.”

  But Purple Ateil moved smoothly to block her way, and Yellow silently moved in behind her. Ferret swore silently. “Something is wrong?” she asked carefully.

  “We would question you.”

  Damnation. Ferret tightened a clawed hand about the tool. “Perhaps. What of?”

  “Why dares the human hate us?”

  That was the last thing she would have expected. “Dares?” Ferret echoed helplessly, not at all sure where this was heading.

  “Yes! It is not of honor for one of no status to show such strong emotion to the True People. And for one who is colored with that evil hair shade to do such, especially when we cannot of honor slay him—there is no balance left for any!”

  Ferret blinked. Complicated statement, yes! If she understood it correctly, Purple Ateil was telling her that by allowing someone who was too inferior to be legally slain to insult their honor by daring to show anger to them, they were trapped without a way to restore their status.

  Ek. Still complicated. Humans and I, two species but we understand each other. These, no. Avian sapiens, Red calls them. More like avian stupid, I think. If being is too inferior to be noted, then surely is too inferior for his anger to be noted.

  Suddenly she wanted nothing but to get off this ship as quickly as possible. “Wanting to know why Red hates you?” she snapped, utterly disgusted with everything Ateil. “So be it. Killing his shipmates, you.”

  Quickly she summarized the story Red had told her, and saw Ateil crests rise, but whether it was in anger or surprise, she couldn’t tell. “So?” Ferret asked. “Does that not give good reason for his anger?”

  Purple Ateil was definitely upset, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. If he’d had true feathers, Ferret thought, they would have been puffed up. “Not enough. Not enough. It does not restore honor or balance.”

  “Sorry am I,” Ferret retorted, “but frankly speaking, that is not my affair. Stand aside, please.” Or I swing this tool and damage more of you than your honor.

  “This is not possible. Status must be settled.”

  “Ek, nonsense. I am not human, not same species.”

  “Status must be settled. You are partnered with the human creature. Not exact balance, but it serves.”

  “Hell, not!”

  Just then, a familiar voice drawled, “Everything all right?”

  Before the Ateil could say anything, Ferret called out to Red, “Not letting me pass!”

  “You know,” Red told the Ateil, “it’s really not a good idea to keep a hostage. Particularly not a mech. Don’t want to get the mechs’ union after you.”

  The Ateil said nothing. But Ferret took advantage of the moment of uncertainty to slip under Purple Ateil’s arm and escape. “Good thing you came along when you did.”

  “Figured you might need a hand. You all right?”

  “Ek, yes. Bar!” Ferret added emphatically.

  The mechs’ bar was small and crowded with as many chairs and tables as could be fit in without forcing out customers. There were quite a few station mechs there, off shift or between jobs, but Ferret wriggled in between to find Red and herself a place to sit.

  Quite a few station hours later, they were still sitting with the latest round of drinks, luxuriating in the time off. Then Red asked, not quite offhandedly, “What did the Ateil want?”

  “Strangeness.” With a shrug, Ferret told Red about the convoluted honor and status system of the Ateil. “Their problem,” Ferret concluded.

&nb
sp; “Hell, they deserve it.” Red eyed his drink moodily. “Let ’em all die, the universe wouldn’t care.”

  “Their credits pay for our drinks. And—heh, what now?”

  Red straightened, eyeing the two humans in their crisp blue uniforms with suspicion. “Station Security.”

  “Coming this way.”

  Stopping in front of them, in fact. “Red Collins?” They made a mangled attempt at Ferret’s whole name, and she cut them off with a curt, “Ferret.”

  “You know who we are,” Red said. “What’s the problem?”

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “About?”

  “You were just working on the Ateil ship, were you not?”

  “Hell, yes. Finished the job some time ago and decided to take a break. Which we were doing, thank you, when you interrupted us.”

  “We’ll try not to take up too much more of your time,” one agent said dryly. “But it seems that there was a little accident on board their ship. A small explosion in a console-one on which you were working.”

  “Oh, hell,” Red said helplessly.

  “There’s more. One of the Ateil was killed in the explosion. And just to make things even more interesting, the others say that he was someone pretty high ranking, too.”

  “Not possible!” Ferret protested. “Explosion? No. Good work we do!”

  “She’s right,” Red said. “Check our records.”

  “We already have. Apparently you, Ser Collins, had an encounter with the Ateil once before.”

  “That was Standard years ago!”

  “Of course. You’ll come with us, please.”

  “What about Ateil ship?” Ferret asked frantically. “Who has examined that?”

  The security agents had the good grace to look embarrassed.

  “No one!” Ferret cried in realization. “True, yes? Ateil have not let you on board!”

  One guard muttered something about “sovereign territory.”

  “Is nonsense!” Ferret returned. “If they call crime, they forfeit right to sovereignty claim!”

  Red gave her a how the hell do you know that? look. Ferret gave him a lip-curl of a grin in return. “Travel much, learn much.”

  The security agents weren’t so impressed. “Sorry. You’ll get a chance to explain everything in our office.”

  They were turned over to the grim, solid human head of Station Security, Captain Vazkez. “Sit down,” he said without preamble. “I want you to watch this.”

  The chairs were human-sized, but a guard found a cushion to make things a little more comfortable for Ferret. She sat dangling her feet, feeling ridiculously like a cub. At Vazkez’s signal, another guard switched on a viewing console and started playing a security tape.

  “From the Ateil,” Vazkez said tersely.

  Together, Red and Ferret watched Purple Ateil touch a control. “One that you two replaced,” Vazkez told them unnecessarily. “Now watch what happens when he switches it on.”

  Ferret winced at the sight of the explosion that followed.

  “Good-bye, Purple,” Red said without much regret.

  But Ferret all at once sat forward in her too-large chair, frowning. “Know it? Something odd there.”

  “Oh, sure,” Red agreed. “It’s damned odd, what with all the species out there using all kinds of tech, that the Ateil should just happen to use a data format compatible to what humans use.”

  “They come in and out of this station pretty often,” Vazkez retorted. “Probably switched over to this format because it’s more convenient.”

  “Convenient for whom? Humans? Never knew the Ateil to care much about anything to do with humans.”

  Ferret stared at the console. “Show record again,” she insisted. “Slowly this time slowly … there! Freeze it!”

  Springing up from her seat, ignoring the guards’ start, Ferret studied the image, nose nearly touching the console screen. “Something funny, yes. Something hidden … not seeing what Purple did with his left hand. See? Something in it, but not seeing what.”

  Red frowned, staring at the image. “You saying he did his own sabotage?”

  “Oh, come on!” one of the guards began, but was ignored.

  “Seems possible, yes,” Ferret said to Red. “Possible, but …”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Vazkez exclaimed. “He was clearly the one operating the control. If he had sabotaged it, that would mean he was—”

  “Attempting suicide,” Red cut in. “And succeeding pretty well, too.”

  “Heh,” Ferret said, straightening. “Red, maybe so? Because of us?”

  “Because he was insulted? Lost status over dealing with—whoa, Ferret. You might have something, really might. Who spoke to us aboard their ship?”

  “Purple and Yellow—ek, no! Yellow never spoke to us, to Purple only. Only Purple dealt with us, spoke with us. Sacrificial Purple?”

  “Damn! They really do have a weird culture.”

  “Bet me any dialog Ateil had with station was recorded. No shame or loss of status from talking into machine.”

  “No bet, Ferret.”

  Vazkez was looking helplessly from one to the other. “What the hell are you two talking about?”

  “I need to be aboard that ship,” Ferret said.

  “They won’t allow a human—”

  “I am not human. We need to prove our theory, our innocence. And if we are correct, Ateil may try to block my path, but not one Ateil will speak to me.”

  Of course they didn’t allow her to go alone. But even as she had said, no Ateil spoke to her. They blocked human guards without so much as looking at them; they ignored Ferret completely—and she shot on board before anyone could move. Ek, there was the exploded stuff, not yet completely cleaned.

  If Purple could hide what he did, so can I.

  Pretending to merely be staring in horror at what had been the console and a living being, she managed to subtly touch a finger to some of the residue, not letting herself think what might be getting on her fur, then turned to leave.

  Sure enough, no one stopped her, or even looked at her. Why should they? Wasn’t she almost as inferior as a human? All she was doing, they must think, was looking at the scene of her “error.”

  Back in the station, Ferret said, “Examine residue now. Before accidentally contaminated by me.”

  She waited anxiously with Red. But anxiety vanished bit by bit. As Ferret had expected, the computers registered normal traces of engine fuel, microscopic scraps of shed Ateil skin cells—

  “And traces of explosives,” Red finished triumphantly. “T-39, eh? Not the sort of thing mechs carry, and you can search our stuff if you have any doubts.”

  “Suicide, indeed,” Ferret said. “Poor Purple. No way out else.”

  “Ateil think humans are inferior,” Red explained to Captain Vazkez. “Not good enough even to kill. But someone had to talk to the mechs if the job was to get done.”

  “Why Purple was the one, not knowing,” Ferret continued. “But it was he, only he, who lowered self to speak to us.”

  “Maybe he would have been able to clean himself from contamination if it had ended there,” Red added. “But then I added to his problem by talking back to him. Getting him angry when he shouldn’t get angry at an inferior. Poor bastard never had a chance.”

  “Only one way left to cleanse honor,” Ferret finished. “Kill self, blame inferiors, die with status restored.”

  “Yeah. Unfortunately for him, it didn’t work. Ferret, want to bet me the Ateil get out of here as soon as they can get everything back on-line?”

  “No bet. Captain Vazkez, thinking that someone, non-human someone, should send scholars, do more accurate studying, maybe, Ateil culture.”

  Red nodded. “Good idea. Uh, Captain Vazkez? We free to leave?”

  Vazkez opened his mouth, shut it again, then said helplessly, “Go on. Get out of here.”

  Together, Ferret and Red walked out of his office,
free mechs once more.

  “Bet you business is really good for us after word gets out,” Red said.

  “No bet,” Ferret retorted.

  * * *

  Josepha Sherman is a fantasy novelist and folklorist whose latest titles include Son of Darkness, The Captive Soul, the folklore title Merlin’s Kin, and, together with Susan Shwartz, two Star Trek novels, Vulcan’s Forge and Vulcan’s Heart. She is also a fan of the New York Mets, horses, aviation, and space science. Visit her at www.sff.net/people/Josepha.Sherman.

  A MAN’S PLACE

  by Eric Choi

  ALAMER-DAAS CORPORATION

  Internal Circulation Only: 14 Earth Days

  Category III Technical Specialist: Food Services

  Location: Maryniak Base, Luna

  Duties: On-site menu planning and implementation for staff, three shifts daily, adhering to UNSDA food guidelines, and in consultation with the company nutritionist and base physician. Accommodate local preferences and nutritional needs as required. Maintain inventory of food stores and rations for routine and emergency use.

  Note: Experience with lunar environment preferred.

  JAMIE Squires was dicing onions for his omelet when the alarm sounded.

  The klaxon blared through the small confines of the kitchen, synchronized with the flashing red light on the ceiling. Jamie put down the knife and, after a quick check to ensure everything in the kitchen was off, ran out into the mess hall. The diners must have stood up quickly from their seats, given the number of chairs knocked backward. Their faces were apprehensive.

  “An X12 solar flare is in progress,” barked Laura Crenshaw, the general manager of Maryniak Base, over the intercom. “All personnel are to report to their designated storm shelters immediately.”

  Billy Lu, Maryniak’s chief engineer, appeared in the doorway. His red cap designated him as the emergency warden for this sector. “All right, everyone, follow the signs, straight down the corridor. Let’s move!”

  Jamie followed the crowd into the passageway. He tried not to think about the X rays and gamma rays that were even now going through their bodies. Traveling at the speed of light, they hit Maryniak at about same time as the warning from the space weather satellites at the L1 point. The imperative now was to get to the storm shelters before the arrival of the protons and heavy ions.