Aboard the Aïdolate

Aboard the Aïdolate the air was still.  Much of the gigantic spaceship was still hermetically sealed; when it had crashed, nose-first, into the planet and buried nearly 90% of itself in the ground crash-doors had activated all through the ship, and only a very few had ruptured.  Of those that had ruptured, only 5% of them were near the ship’s exterior, and the native air had made very few inroads.  Throughout the rest of the Aïdolate the air was still, stale and poisonous.  This didn’t matter much to the ship’s occupants at the moment as the ones who cared were all held securely in stasis pods or cryo-fields, and the ones who didn’t care were held in necro-fields.

In chamber alpha-7-gamma-echo-112, a five-dimensional designation very useful in faster-than-light travel where the ship’s engines unshielded singularities in patterns that caused space-time to wrap around itself locally and allowed rapid travel across vast distances, a solid-state generator stuttered as crystals very slowly slipped across each other.  They’d been moving under a slight but constant pressure for over four hundred years since the ship had landed, and the shear strain was finally forcing them out of alignment.  The generator stuttered again, and a red icon starting flashing on a tablet-sized computer that had been flung into a corner during the crash.  Induced electric fields arose around it, sensing its need for power, and other things in the room flickered into life as they too received energy input.  For several hours that was the extent of the activity increase, until the change in temperature caused by the electronic activity added enough to the shear strain to let the crystals slip over each other completely.  There was a sharp crack like the momentary discharge of static electricity, and the generator blinked and failed completely.

The necro-field, a variant of stasis technology that keeps things dead, failed thirty-five seconds later.  A pale blue light faded away, more noticeable by its absence that when it was present, and a horizontal alcove like a long, deep, high shelf appeared in its place.  The necro-field had concealed it as well as ensuring that its occupant stayed dead.  Two and a half-minutes later, all the shadows in the room rearranged themselves, flowing across surfaces like oil across water, greasily merging into a patch of darkness by the alcove, and something that might have been a long, thin, spindly-fingered hand reached out and felt around as though tasting the air.

On the tablet computer in the corner the red icon blazed brightly and symbols appeared beneath it, also in bright red strokes.  Relays and solenoids clicked rapidly, chattering like a chipmunk, and a secondary generator received instructions to start up.  For a moment power flowed through it and back into the necro-field generator, but before it managed to stabilise a necro-field the power faded away again, delicate circuits jolted by the crash burning through and out.  In the shadows gathered by the alcove another hand appeared, and then another and another.  Behind them something darker, and vaguely oval appeared, a patch of deep blackness in the middle of the shadow, moving like a bloated spider.  Then the oval expanded, and for a moment it was as though a huge pair of wings unfurled above and around the shadows, ragged and torn at the edges.  Then they folded away again and as the shadows flowed back to their rightful positions the whole shape of the barely-seen creature folded in on itself, tucking it and stretching out, becoming vaguely human-shaped.

“Aïdolate?” said a voice, hoarse and husky with disuse.  It coughed.  “Aïdolate?  Can you hear me?”

Something hummed, and lights came on around the room.  “I can hear you, Elder Matthia,” said an inhuman voice that seemed to be made out of windchimes.

“Oh good,” said the man-thing revealed in the lights.  He now had two arms and two legs, one head, and a medium-height, slightly hairy, muscular body.  Spines protruded from along the backs of his arms and legs, and little horn-like stumps poked out from each of his vertebrae.  A ridge of bone stood out from his shoulder girdle making him look like he was wearing a ruff of some kind.  His skin was a greyish burgundy, and his eyes were violet.  “Aïdolate, where are we?”

“This planet is referred to only as Balanus-7-epsilon.”

“How very useful.  I suppose my next question is why am I awake?”

“The necro-field containing you has failed.”

Elder Matthia sighed, and coughed a little again.  Dust plumed in the air in front of him to his disgust.

“I had gathered that,” he said, his voice scratching but still managing to sound testy.  He took a couple of tentative steps, finding out how stiff his muscles were.  To his pleasant surprise he had no problems.  “I would welcome a little more data.  Why has the field failed?  Was it a deliberate action?”

“No, Elder Matthia,” said the Aïdolate.  “Your plan to have crew-member Frevel free you during the voyage failed when Frevel was killed during a maintenance check.  We have crashed on a planet, and the damage we have sustained has finally resulted in your freedom once more.”

“Who else is free?”  His voice was suddenly stronger, more strident.

“No-one else has woken yet.”

Elder Matthia smiled, the muscles in his face pulling the skin around as though it wasn’t properly attached, and his mouth opened enough to expose sharpened canine teeth.  “How long has it been?” he asked.  He rubbed his hands together.

“A little under five hundred years,” said the Aïdolate, a little surprised when Elder Matthia screamed in anguish.

Bounty Hunter II

"Tell me about this woman and her children, then," I said a little slowly.  I was wondering what was going on here.  Even Ma Dodd wouldn't intimidate the Sheriff into setting her boy up like this, no-one held a grudge against Dodd.  It's hard to hold a grudge against a guy who can't even reliably tell a man what day of the week it is.  "She been seen around these parts then?"
"I dunno," said Dodd, his face falling a little, sadness creeping in at the edges.  "I was just trying to find her, and I figured I'd go around and ask a bunch of folks.  She's mean, and she's mean to children too.  I figured people are bound to notice that."
Maybe, I thought to myself.  And maybe people who notice that are careful not to notice themselves noticing that; folks round here know what their own business is and are mindful to keep it that way.  Same as me, my business is my own, and I don't rightly like people asking deep questions about it, so I don't go asking any deep questions about anyone else's business.  And is that the kind of thing that lets a woman get away with stealing children?  I wasn't much sure I liked the kinds of thoughts that Dodd was bringing up.
"I think you gotta be mighty careful asking questions like that," I said.  I gestured at the house.  "Might be I can get you something to drink, Dodd?  Seems like talking's making me thirsty."
"Uh."  Dodd looked puzzled.
"Lemonade, maybe?  Your Ma lets you drink lemonade doesn't she?"
"Have you got Dandy-lion and Burr-dock?"  Dodd drew the words out like they were two words each, clearly liking the sound of them.
"Sure thing," I said.  I did too; not for me, but some of the visitors I got had old-fashioned tastes and liked the stuff.  I thought it made you wet the bed at nights, but that surely wasn't my problem if it affected Dodd like that.  "Sit yourself down while I go fetch."
When I came back outside Dodd was still standing by his car, so I hiked on down the path and handed him a tall glass with ice and a straw in.  He sucked the drink greedily, and he looked a little happier again when he took his lips away from the straw.
"Any clue what this woman looks like then?" I still wasn't sure I wanted to know, but I sure as hell wanted to know why Dodd had a Sheriff's badge and was asking questions of decent, god-fearing folk.
"She has children with her, but they're not her own."  Dodd sucked his drink a little more and I waited, seeing if he had anything else to say.  "She's mean to them."  Another slurp.  The straw rattled a little in the glass. "She's always cold."
Now that was a surprise.  The temperature out here in summer doesn't fall much below 70 and right now it was in the high 80s.  "How do you know she's cold, Dodd?  She telling folks that?"
"She's always wearing a coat," he said, sounding sly and proud at the same time.  "It's a long one, brown, and comes down to her ankles and up to her neck.  She's always wearing it.  She must be cold to wear a coat all the time."
"That's a mighty fine piece of thinking," I said, and despite the temperature a chill had just run all the way down my spine and was making me want to shiver.  I controlled myself, pressing my shoulders out and my chest forward, forcing myself to notice the sun beating down on me.  "Maybe she's got no other clothes though, Dodd."
"Hadn't thought of that," he said.  He sucked on the straw again, getting the last of the drink up.  Then he looked up, his eyes bright and a smile on his face once more.  "But then she's only got the coat and she'll be easy to find!"
"That's true," I said, nodding and holding my hand out for the glass back.  "You should go and ask people if they've seen the woman in the coat.  Tell them it's a brown coat, that'll help."
"Right!  Right!"  Dodd pushed his glass back into my hand and ran round his car, tripping and catching himself on the hood in his haste.  He righted himself and got in, and started her up on the first try.  He waved to me as he pulled away, and I waved back with my free hand.
"Holy crap," I muttered to myself as I turned back up the path to wash up the glass and wait some more for my parcel.  "Dodd's going looking for Clarissa Kay?  That can only end one way."

Bounty Hunter

Dodd wasn't quite all there, most folks would agree with that.  He was a nice guy, and there wasn't no-one who would say he wasn't, specially not when his mother was down at Martin's bar and drinking heavily again.  She had a heavy fist and she kicked a man when she got him down.  But he actually was a nice guy, wouldn't hurt animals or insects, and cried for half the day when he found a roadkill squirrel outside Martin's.  His mum was inside at the time, and Lady Agnes stuck her head round the door and let it be known at the top of her voice that Dodd was screaming and pounding on the road outside, holding up the traffic.  Then she disappeared back to the chauffered car and Dodd's mum looked up from her pint of dark, made a face like one of them gargoyles on the top of the church where the reverend thinks no-one looks no more, and went outside.  I wanted to follow her, and I'm sure every man in that place did, but there ain't none of us had the courage.  We sat and we waited, and we heard what might have been the slap of a meaty hand meeting flesh, and then we waited some more and finally Ma Dodd came back in, and put the squished squirrel down on the counter and gestured to it.
"Cook it," she said.  "Cook it good."
No-one said a word, though we were all wondering who was going to be eating it, and Martin gave the nod to his niece who was tending bar that afternoon as well, so she gets a page of newspaper, wraps the squirrel up all careful like and takes it back to the chef.  Twenty-minutes later the squirrel's back out, on a plate now and shaved or somesuch; there's a pickle shoved in each eye socket and some fries and a bit of spiky salad on the side, and Martin sets it down in front of Ma Dodd as careful as you please, and she picks it up and takes it outside.
Hell if we weren't all dying to go and look and see what she did with it.  But none of us would move, and so the rest of us were all sitting still, not wanting to be the first, not wanting to be the one out of place when she came back in.  She came back in with the plate, though the fries were all missing, and puts it back down on the bar.
"He'll stop crying now," she said.  "It's food.  He understands about food."



*
A few years later I was a bit further out of town dealing with little jobs and bigger jobs, some of which needed other jobs that kind of wrapped around them and kept them from prying eyes, the kinds of jobs that need doing but need doing quietly, in shadows and becurtained rooms with people who're somehow slightly allergic to light, as they like to tell it.  I was sitting out at the front, minding my own business and watching the world go past, waiting for it to deliver a little package to me, when Dodd pulls up in a battered old car, the kind of thing that'll run forever because when they made it it was all iron and steel and chrome and they didn't have anything better or lighter.  When he stopped I could see it start to sink into the gravel.
"Merry afternoon," he said gravely, getting out of the car and picking a hat up off the seat next to him.  He put it on; it was a hunter's cap, with the ear-flaps and the peak, and it looked a little odd on a guy I was used to seeing in shorts.  He was wearing a jacket and trousers that were all taupe, and I was impressed with myself for knowing what that colour was, even if I didn't think it was a colour a man should be wearing.
"Dodd," I said, not too friendly but definitely not hostile.  I'm not a hostile kind of guy unless I'm provoked.  "You got yourself a nice car?"
"My car," he said, patting the hood and wincing when he left his hand there too long.  "My car.  It takes me home, to Mummy."
"I bet it does," I said.  Dodd wasn't that easy to talk to.  "It brought you here too, right?  Why did it do that?"
"We're looking for people," said Dodd, trying for serious now.  I made myself stop smiling and forced myself to listen.  "I've got a job, and I look for people.  Have you seen any of them?"
"I don't think I rightly know who you're looking for," I said, thinking that I rightly knew everyone he might be interested in talking to.  "There's only me and you here right now, Dodd.  I reckon you've found both of us."
"It's my birthday tomorrow," said Dodd, but it was always his birthday tomorrow.  "For my present you could just tell me where the people are."
"That sounds like a mighty good present to give you," I said, "but I still don't know who it is you're looking for, Dodd.."
"There's a woman–"
"Hah!" I laughed.  "If it's a woman you're after Dodd, you've come out of the wrong side of town.  You want Katerina's, but there's a membership fee."
"No, I'm looking for a woman.  She steals children."
That gave me a pause for a moment, I don't have anything to do with that kind of illegal.  Children are strictly off-limits as far as I'm concerned, but it also meant I didn't know who he was after.
"Children?" I said, now curious.
"She steals children," said Dodd again.  "And she takes them home with her, and then she makes them leave her again so she can do it with others."
"She sounds bad," I said.  "Shouldn't you let me deal with that problem, Dodd?  I can have a word with the Sheriff, see what he wants to do about it all.
"He appointed me!" Dodd sounded very proud now, and produced a badge.  "See? I'm a bounty hunter!"
I stared at the little badge, wondering where our Sheriff's sense of humour had come from.