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Del's Story

by Redlucy

I duck under a pipe in the cargo-bay and take a swig of burning rum to counteract my intense urge to start doing chin-ups. Urge abated, I allow myself to admire the scrawny, tattoo covered arm holding the flask. A little will power and you can overcome any genetic imperative. "Take that, Delphinus Leo Tetrarchies-Smith," I say to myself. "We're just Del now. Scrawny, ugly, Del." I punctuate my words with another drink.

As I pass the engine room, I can hear the eerie humming of my mechanic. The sound bothers most of the crew, but like I say, "if we marooned crew for having have funny habits, we'd have no crew." I don't tell them that I know why she hums, or that I once heard her sing for the galactic summit. That would open too many questions about both our pasts.

The engine room door is open, and as I pass, Prasti turns and looks at me with her one good eye. Even covered with engine grease, her face is perfect, and that unsettling eye promises more intelligence than that of an ordinary wrench-head.

I reach the deck, and grab a com. "If everyone will buckle up, Mulligan tells me we're about to start docking procedures." As the crew straps in, and Mulligan works his mojo, my mind strays to the past.

I was born on Janus Minor, in one of the humanfacturing, or gen-zip, labs, and I spent my early years in sterile halls and classrooms.

Everyone has heard of the Janus Minor gen-zip children, though few are wealthy enough to have even seen one. They are purported to be the most perfect beings that can be concocted from human DNA; beautiful, talented, loyal individuals available to elite clients as Companions and pleasure toys.

There are actually three grades of gen-zips. The Cs, destined to be Companions, are the ones deemed perfect in every way. C-class gen-zips receive full training, and fetch the highest prices. The B-children are just as lovely, but have some minor flaw, too vain perhaps, or lazy. So, the B-children are sold at a lesser, though still exorbitant, price to one of the high-end brothels that specialize in such specimens. Last and always least, the A-children are the ones who, despite all the advantages of genetic selection and gene-zipping, come out ordinary. The A-children don't stay in the facility long, and rumor among us kids was that A stood for adoption.

I was labeled as a Brothel-boy. Sometimes I wonder, was it the same flaw which made me unsuited for life as a Companion that made me yearn to escape my fate? Or was that yearning something else, something beyond what they knew to test for? Two years ago, I would have told you it was the former, but since Prasti crossed my path, I can no longer be certain.

I was labeled flawed, she was not. Yet here she is, a C-child, as far from Janus Minor as I am.

That is our secret, Prasti's and mine. Scars and tattoos hide my identity while engine grease hides hers. She hums to keep the music out of her head, while I drink to keep the exercise and poetry out of mine. We are siblings of a kind.

"Welcome to Calliope Station, Mates. We'll divide the booty, and then there'll be one week's leisure while the ship is re-stocked. If any of you want to go back on account for the next run, be back by week's end."

As soon as the booty is divided, the crew scatters. I'll worry about new recruits when I find out who comes back and who doesn't. For now, it's time to order stock and find the next job. On Calliope, there's only one place to pick up jobs: the Bacchus and Stars.

I sit at the bar, and gesture so the bartender notices me. "Ratri, how are you?"

"If is isn't Del, come back to warm my lonely nights."

"You know the Folly is my only lover." Ratri is an attractive woman, despite being a Saffir, but our playful banter has never gone farther than the bar, and we both know it never will.

"If you ever give up on cold, hard ships, and want to try something soft and warm.." As with all Saffir, Ratri's fur covers her from head to toe, but the offer is a jest. She's no more interested in me than I am in her.

"Any news for me?" I ask, placing money on the bar to pique her interest.

"No one's left any messages for you," she says, so I sweeten the pot. "But, since you ask, I hear there might be a gen-zip conference on Nuptial." She knows what jobs interest me.

I buy the details. Not only is there a good payout, but Nuptial is a prime tourist spot. We should be able to do the job, and pick up some extra plunder from pleasure ships. It'll be a good run, and that's what I need to keep the crew happy. Satisfied, I leave the Bacchus and Stars, and swing back by the ship.

The Oliver's Folly is small by any standard, but she flies true. I won her in a game of cards, off a drunk on a third rate planet. In those days, I was still worth looking at, and the man took a fancy to me. I left him drunk, and horny, without a ship, or gold.

That night I tried to remove my face all together. I passed out from the pain, but not before doing quite a bit of damage. Maybe that's my flaw. I don't like being an object of lust.

As I open the hatch, I notice a girl, maybe twelve or thirteen Earth years, watching me.

"Hey, mister," she calls out, "do you need a cabin-girl?"

I ignore her.

Inside, all is quiet. I log into the station-net, and order supplies. Then I look for a way to pass the next week. I don't want to spend it holed up with a bottle of rum and my memories. As I peruse the crew lists of docked ships, a name catches my eye: T. Flint. Last I heard, Flint was working a government job three systems from here. No one's going to bail on a government retirement plan, so this can't be him. But I have to make sure. He's listed as crew on a merchant vessel, the Apathy, another sign that he can't possibly be the man I knew.

As I leave the Folly, I notice the girl is still there.

"Come on, give me a job. I can do anything you need me to." Then the light hits her, and I realize that she is translucent.

"You're a ghost?"

"I can still be useful!"

The little scrap tries to look menacing. I walk through her.

"How rude!" she says, but I pull out my flask, and continue to the merchant's dock.

The merchant's dock is separate from the common dock and has been set up as a kind of open bazaar where merchants can sell their wares right from their ships. Calliope has vendors from all over the galaxy, and the bright colors and powerful smells give the bazaar an exotic feel. I pass makeshift stalls selling fruit, combustion catalyzers, fine cloth, and grav boots. My eyes aren't really on the wares, as I scan the ships for the one called Apathy. At last I see her, a midsized vessel in good repair, and I prepare myself to look interested in whatever she's selling. It isn't hard; the Apathy specializes in weaponry, and the woman making sales is well versed in her merchandise. She handles each one with easy familiarity, and I can tell that she has done more than merchanting.

"Come on, just give me a try." The voice comes from behind me, and has a whine to it, which grates on the nerves as only a prepubescent girl's voice can.

"I don't need any crew, especially dead ones." With that, I approach the arms dealer of the Apathy.

I pretend to be buying a hand weapon, while I work out a way to ask about the dealer's crew-mates. Fortunately, I don't have to. As I take my time examining different kinds of guns, the dealer, who calls herself Afya, leans in close.

"You have an eye for fine weaponry. Let me show you something." With that, she pulls out a case, and opens it. "With this, you'll never have to reach for a weapon again." It's a bio-graf gun, meant to -zip against the hand. Such things are definitely on the un side of legal, and she's taking a risk in showing it to me.

"Aren't those things dangerous?" I ask. "Don't most of them get rejected by the host's body, killing the limb they're -zipped to?"

"Not this one. This one's graf-piece is guaranteed gen-clean. Your body won't reject it because it 'll think you grew it yourself."

The gun is truly a masterpiece. It's light, flexible, and has built in safeties so you can't shoot off your privates while taking a piss, or start a bar fight with accidental fire. But what makes it really high end is the graf-piece. A true gen-clean piece of graft is supposed to be impossible, but I know who's aboard this ship, and I don't doubt that this weapon is everything Afya says it is.

"Out of my price range," I say, regretfully. I move on, grinning internally. Nobody but Tamar Flint could have come up with a way to gen-clean bio material. This is my man after all. What luck!

"How about I be your night watch?"

I turn on the transparent girl, "How about you go toward the light and leave me alone?"

The next two days I hang around the merchant dock, watching the Apathy and trying to avoid my little ghost. Afya is the most common face I see. I have a feeling she could best me in combat, so I determine to avoid her. There are a couple of bruisers who help set out the merchandise each morning, and pack it away when the bazaar closes, also worth avoiding. The other crew members appear to be on shore leave. I see no sign of Flint, but I know he's there.

'Mr. Flint made a gun, to give himself away. Don't keep hiding, Mr. Flint, Del just wants to play,' I mutter to myself, and for once, I don't care that it comes out in rhyme.

On the morning of the third day, a hooded figure exits the ship. He stoops a little, as if the pains of age have started to set in. I break away from the shadow I've been hiding in, and follow. As I walk behind him, I am sure that this is Flint. It's been years since I saw the man, but there's no mistaking the rhythm of his steps. Flint ducks into an alley, and I hurry to catch up with him, but by the time I get there, he has disappeared. Damn! I hit the wall in frustration.

"I could find him," pipes up a voice I do not want to hear.

"Go haunt someone else!"

She watches me until my anger slips. "I really can find him for you." When I don't reply, she floats away, disappearing as she does. Good riddance.

I slump against a wall. The chances of Flint returning by way of the same path are low. If I wait for him back by the ship, I may have to run up against Afya and her goons. I take out my flask and swirl the contents to help me think.

"Found him." This time, the voice shouldn't be behind me, but it is. I turn and see an unreasonably cheerful face poking through the wall over my shoulder.

"You walk through walls?"

"I'm a ghost."

I take a swallow of rum. "You found him?"

"Yup."

"Where? Is he alone?"

"Can I join the crew?"

"No!"

The face in the wall disappears.

"Wait! Okay, a cabin-girl."

"Don't worry, I don't eat much, and you'll hardly even know I'm around." I somehow doubt that. "He's in here, with a pretty lady. But you're going to have to come through the door."

"A pretty lady? Is she a fighter?"

The ghost girl considers this, "She's all dressed up in floaty silks."

An illicit rendezvous. Better men than Flint have been caught this way.

The lock is old, and the mechanism simple, it gives easily, and I pull out my blas-pistol before entering. The ghost leads the way into what must be an abandoned storage facility. At last we come to a door, and my new cabin-girl indicates that this is the room. I steel myself before opening the door with a flourish, bringing my pistol to bear on a very unlikely scene.

Tamar Flint, the man who crafted me, and who I once called Father, is tied to a chair in the middle of the room. Tubes and wires run from his body to a makeshift -zip lab. Velvet curtains, which may once have hid the lab equipment, hang from the ceiling, and a bed, overflowing with pillows, has been roughly shoved to one side of the room. Bending over the lab equipment is a dark haired woman in a flowing gown.

"Prasti?" The woman turns around at my question, and it is indeed, my mechanic. Without the engine grease, and with a silk scarf replacing her eye-patch, she is absolutely stunning.

"He has to pay for what he's done," she says simply, turning a crank. Flint screams in pain.

I should stop her. I should end his torment and shoot him. I should save him, rather than letting that much brain get wiped out of the galaxy.

I turn around and walk out.

The crew shows up on schedule, and for once every last member has decided to go back on account. Lucy, our cabin-girl, is so excited to meet everyone that she keeps going invisible. I don't make eye contact with Prasti when she comes aboard, but I don't stop her either. After all, I went after him too, and she and I are the closest thing to family either of us has.