Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #217 Read online

  * * * *

  "Rats in the pipes again,” Loo said. She stood back from my counter between rows of empty tables. Filthy from ears to ankles, she was a walking bag of smells even from here and I tried not to wrinkle my nose in case it hurt her feelings. “Inspectors coming, ‘cause of the bassaders,” she continued. “Saw a rat over in the quad stalls, my own eyes. Bigger'n my head."

  "Inspectors? Know when?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Tomorrow, day after? Told you what I know."

  Inspectors were trouble, but not so bad with warning. It was good info. I reached into the discard bin beneath my counter and pulled out a blister of fake butter, four weeks past its date, and threw it to her. Loo caught it with both hands as if she was swatting down a bug, and gave me a wide grin before she popped the seal with her teeth and sucked at the blister, making happy sounds in the back of her throat. Loo was station-owned like most of the girls here, some orphan that was bought up for a job no one'd do for money. I was born free, but free is a joke anyway—I wasn't any more likely to set foot off of here than Loo was, unless I married or the stand folded and I had to sell myself to cover my debts. I've heard that on Earth and in most of the colonies men and women are equals, but not on Baselle and not on a Basellan-owned station.

  Finished, she stuck the empty blister in her pocket. “Thanks, Verah,” she said, and shuffled away down the corridor. I leaned my chin in my hands and watched as she got her bottle and brush cart and rolled it back to the door to the utility passages. It was early morning and none of the other vendors on the concourse were out yet, so hopefully no one would complain that she was out of her hole, or worse blame me for it.

  I put out the bell in case an early customer came by and I went into my back room, looking to see what I had to clean up before the inspectors came. Not much—I was pretty good most of the time, even when no one was coming to check. Half of the back was the prep room, with a big freezer rats couldn't get into, and counters and shelves of one-use plates and utensils and cups. Beyond that was an alcove where my pull-down bunk was folded up against the wall, and then the heavy door to the back corridor where the big trash went. I had my own bathroom which I kept clean myself; I think that's probably the reason Loo and I get along okay. If I had her job I'd probably hate everybody. Still, Loo's was not the worst job for girls on this station.

  I made a note to myself to mop the tile floors after lunch, and to change the oil in the hotcooker at closing. That should be enough; the wienermatic was self-cleaning between cycles.

  From the back I heard the lifts. Customers, maybe. I shut up the back room, smoothed down my pink pinstripe apron over my pink miniskirt, checked that my pink hair was tucked up neatly underneath my little pink cap, put on my best concession girl smile, and returned to my counter.

  * * * *

  In the slowdown between breakfast and lunch, three Gnetsians came off the lifts into the concourse. They glowered at everyone around them in their weird fat-browed, squinty-headed way before they walked up to my stand. One of the aliens was dressed in fancy, big black robes covered with little flapping metal discs as if someone had sewn coins all over it. Beside him, his companions were big, muscle-bound, and not very smart-looking. One of them spoke up in broken All, voice squeaky. “What is ‘hot dog'?” he demanded.

  I picked up my tongs, took a dog out of the cooker, set it in a bun, and held it up for him to see.

  "What is made of?"

  "Pig,” I said. Mostly pig. Sort of.

  "What is pig?"

  I gestured with the tongs at the giant pink ceramic pig that took up fully a quarter of the counter. “That's a pig,” I said. As if it looked at all like the frozen bricks of cloned biomatter that showed up in my loading dock bin once a month from Central Distribution.

  The Gnetsian picked up the hot dog, sniffed at it, his long scaly nose twitching from side to side. “It is meat, this?"

  "Yeh."

  He held it out to the guy in the coin-robes, who bent his head over it and took a deep, suspicious sniff. Then he clapped, once. “We take twelve,” the Gnetsian with the hot dog said.

  "Do you want fries with that?"

  "Fries?"

  I used the edge of my scoop to isolate one in the hotcooker, held it out to him with the tongs. He tasted it, raised his eyebrows in surprise—I suppose I should've warned him it was really hot—then he swallowed it without even chewing. “Also twelve fries,” he said.

  I packed up his order and he handed me a credit chit. I ran it, saw it come up on my screen as issued by the Gnetsian Imperial Embassy. Ah, so that's what Loo meant by ‘bassaders'. I hoped that whatever they were here to negotiate didn't involve either killing or buying people.

  * * * *

  For the next four days, the Gnetsian Ambassador and his bodyguards came to my stand to get lunch every day—twelve dogs, twelve fries, each time. Birnie, the balding Basellan man who ran the chicken-stick stand to my left and who resented being less successful than an eighteen-year-old free girl, was nearly fuming from his ears. By the fourth day even Hom and his wife, the nice couple who ran the breaded vegeribbles stand on my other side, were looking a little irritated too.

  The aliens had just left, burdened down with trays of food, when Loo crept out of the utility tunnel, looking around for station security before she ran over to my stand. She stopped in front of my counter and held out a grime-covered hand, something dark in her palm. “Verah! Look!"

  "What is it?” I asked.

  "I finded it,” she said, keeping her voice low. “It's a gun!"

  "What?” I said. “Where did you find it?"

  She smiled. “Was looking for rats, finded a gun. I see rats now and bzap bzap! Then inspectors don't have to come."

  "Can I see?"

  Her smile went away and she hid it behind her back. “It's mine,” she said.

  "I don't want to take it,” I said. I really didn't, not after where she must have found it. “I just want to see it."

  She stared at me, licking her lips, then nodded. I climbed over the counter, which took practice in a miniskirt. I'd never been this close to Loo before. The smell was overpowering, but what hit me most was how much she looked like a frightened little kid. She held out the gun and I peered at it, carefully not touching it. “I've never seen one like that before,” I said.

  "You seen guns before?"

  "Some,” I said, not wanting to say I'd only ever seen them in holo-novels. “You should turn it over to station security."

  She shook her head, emphatically No.

  "Well, if you won't turn it in, you need to keep it hidden and make sure it isn't charged,” I said. “If anyone catches you with it, you could get in lots of trouble."

  "I can hide it,” she said, and it disappeared immediately into the depths of her clothing.

  "Seriously, Loo. You could get hurt."

  She grinned again. “Bigger'n rats now,” she said. “Bzap!"

  "Hey!” someone shouted. As I spun around, Loo ran for the utility door. A security guard was walking towards us with a short, angular alien on four spindly legs a few steps behind him. “What was she doing out of the tunnels?” he demanded as the tunnel door closed with a click.

  I shrugged. “I don't know."

  The alien hissed. “As if vermins, human peoples,” it said. I could see myself reflected in its single giant eye, a bunch of pink glints on deep black, as it glared at me. “I sees the dirty it, in the foods place like vermin."

  The security guard also glared at me. I shrugged again. “I had nothing to do with it,” I said. Which was mostly true—I didn't ask Loo to come out and show me the gun.

  "The Turog Ambassador here is very particular about cleanliness,” the guard said. He was my height, not bad looking but built like my pigbrick freezer. “If you see Loo out of her tunnels again, you report it to me immediately."

  "Sure,” I said. I smiled innocently at the Turog Ambassador, then as gracefully as possible climbed over my
counter and back to my own space.

  The Turog grimaced. “Dirty vermin food,” it said.

  "The Gnetsians like it well enough,” I said. “They eat here every day. They're very nice, too."

  The Turog opened a mouth full of blue needle teeth, one row after another back as far as I could see. “They brings vermin foods to the talk table, make us smells it foul all day. Nasty low, make air all burned meats smell. Blame you?"

  "Now hold on,” I said. “Are you saying it's my fault you don't like what the Gnetsians eat for lunch?"

  "I is!” The Turog Ambassador leaned closer.

  "Oh, well, all I have to say is...” I paused as if thinking, then stuck out my tongue. “Phbttt!"

  I don't know what passes for an insult on Turog-Whatsis World, but I guess that was pretty close. The alien raised its arms up and started screeching. The security guard caught it around the middle, holding it back, and said something I couldn't hear as he shot me murderous looks over the alien's shoulder.

  I pulled up my stool and sat, arms folded across my chest, and didn't take my eyes off the Turog as the guard led him away. Stupid, rude aliens. At least I didn't have to clean the bathrooms after them like Loo. Poor kid. Maybe it was just as well she had a gun.

  * * * *

  The guard returned about four hours later, just as I was starting to get ready for the early dinner crowds. “Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it,” I said.

  "The Turog Ambassador wants to apologize for its rudeness."

  "What? Really?” I nearly dropped the thawing brick of pigmeat I was holding, I was so surprised.

  "Look, the Alliance has been working for years to try to get the Gnetsians and Turog talking, and now that they finally have, it's not going particularly well. Tempers are hot."

  I fed the pigbrick carefully into the wienermatic, careful not to chip a nail. “I'm just a concession girl,” I said. “Why would it care?"

  "It feels it was less than polite,” the guard said. “Turog don't apologize often; it's quite generous, especially since you were rude right back to it. You understand?"

  "Understand, yes. Care, no,” I said. “But you can tell the Turog Ambassador that I accept its apology."

  The guard shook his head. “It wants to apologize in person."

  I gestured expansively at the concourse, where a handful of late afternoon diners lingered, mostly humans. No aliens in sight. “Then where is it?"

  "I'm supposed to bring you up to the Ambassadorial Suites so a formal apology can be made."

  "Thanks, but no thanks. I've got the dinner crowd soon."

  "You can close."

  "But I won't."

  "It's not a request. I could have you reassigned, give you a job down in the pipes with your shit-covered little friend."

  "Can't. I'm a free person. And the stand's mine, too."

  "Then I can have your space reassigned to down in the automated cargo bay. How long would you last here with no business? And once your stand was gone, what then?"

  "What's your name?"

  He paused a moment, as if deciding, then said, “Garrit."

  "Well, Garrit, you're a fegging assvalve,” I said.

  "I know. It's my job,” he said. “So you're coming?"

  "I guess I am.” I turned the wienermatic onto timer, went into the back and sealed up the freezer and locked my few valuable things away. Then I brought down the gate over the counter, closing during business hours for the first time since my father died and left me running it on my own three years ago.

  Fat-headed Birnie was going to get most of my business tonight, and must have overheard my conversation with Garrit. He practically smirked at me from his stand as we walked past.

  Ellan Station was originally built to service rockcrappers living on the edge of the Bounds. Why the Alliance came here to set up a diplomacy shop I didn't know, but the rest of the station was still owned by the original Basellan mining company which is why we have people here who are owned. The Alliance spends so much effort trying to help the aliens, it seems like they should have some to spare for their own kind—but again, maybe it's because we're just girls that they don't.

  Garrit led me onto a lift that went up to the top levels of the station. I'd only ever been here once before, as a little kid helping Pa deliver a Super Dog Pack to some shut-in mine manager before the station got changed over.

  "Do you think this will take long?” I asked.

  Garrit shrugged. “I really don't know."

  The lift stopped and the doors slid open on pure luxury. I stared, not able to help myself—it hadn't been like this last time. Thick, fancy golden carpet covered the floors, while sparkling lamps that looked like they were made from a thousand pieces of glass hung up high overhead. Music played from somewhere, something full of violins. I felt more out of place than I ever have in my life. Well-dressed people, some in uniforms, milled around talking to each other, sipping drinks.

  The Turog Ambassador was nowhere to be seen. “It'll be along soon, I'm sure,” Garrit said.

  Time passed. Garrit shifted from foot to foot, glancing at me once in a while, looking at first bored, then annoyed. At last, when nearly an hour had passed, the Turog Ambassador appeared out of a far door and came over. When it was close enough, it tipped its head slightly to me.

  "Sorry,” it said, then turned and walked away again.

  "Uh...” I said, looking at Garrit. “Is that it? You brought me here and made me miss an hour of the dinner rush for that?"

  Garrit, at least, did me the courtesy of looking embarrassed. “We don't really understand the Turog very well yet,” he said.

  "Just fegging great,” I said. “All that and it didn't even sound sincere!"

  "It's hard to know with—"

  "Oh, save it!” I said, so mad I actually stamped my foot. “I'm going back to my stand now, if that's okay with you?"

  "Sure. I, uh..."

  "I'll see myself home,” I said, and stomped back into the elevator in my bright pink knee-high boots, clashing hideously with the golden carpet with every step.

  I was still muttering as I came out of the lift onto the concourse and passed fat-headed Birnie. “Verah!” he yelled as I went past, slopping sauce on the counter instead of his customer's chicken-sticks. “Inspectors came by, checked your booth. Hope it was clean for once!"

  Fegging wonderful. I reached my stand, noted that the gate had been unlocked, and slammed it upwards angrily. Then I climbed over the counter, checked the wienermatic and the credit slotter, just in case.

  Everything looked untouched, except for the big old report that had showed up on my desk in the back room. I turned it on, read through the brief message under the blurry inspector's seal: no problems found.

  The proximity bell out front chimed and I tossed the report back on my desk for later. Putting on the most pleasant smile I could manage, I went out to deal with what was left of the night's customers.

  * * * *

  Late that night, I woke up imagining I could hear distant popping sounds echo through the pipes in the walls, and the screaming of rats.

  * * * *

  I stumbled into my shower and let the ice-cold water, carefully rationed to two and a half minutes, trickle over my head and down. It was six in the non-morning, our starless station running on a standard 25-hour clock, and the start of a new day. I opened the wash-n-garb and took out a clean outfit—pink striped, same as yesterday's, same as tomorrow's—and got dressed. Then, as awake as I was going to be until I got some hot coffee in me, I went to my freezer to get out a fresh pigbrick.

  My neat rows of frozen meat bricks had been turned into a pyramid pile in the middle of the floor. Frotting useless inspectors shouldn't have even needed to open the freezer, much less move anything around. Cross, I picked up the one at the top of the pile and carried it out front.

  I slit the wrapping and was unpeeling the brick when someone walked up to the gate. “Not open for another hour,” I said withou
t looking up.

  "You'll open for me,” the reply came. “I'm the Inspector."

  I set the brick down again on the counter with a thunk. “Forget something yesterday? Didn't make enough of a mess?"

  "I'm only just getting to your stand now."

  "You didn't come inspect my stand yesterday?"

  "No."

  I leaned through the door into my back room and snagged the report off my desk. I handed it across the counter to the inspector. “Who left this, then?"

  He tossed it back at me. “A faked report won't get you off the hook,” he said. “Will you let me in, or do I shut you down?"

  Nothing else to do, I opened the gate for him. He climbed over, spent a few minutes poking around up front, then disappeared into my back room as I leaned against the counter. Why would someone have broken into my stand, if not to steal something? And why pretend to be the inspector?

  I had a thought and looked at the pigbrick sitting half-unwrapped on the counter, the one that had been at the top of the pile and guaranteed to be the first one I grabbed this morning. I picked it up, finished peeling off the translucent, papery wrapping, and held it up to the light. Several tiny pinprick holes appeared like stars. Someone had broken into my freezer and tampered with the meat. And I just bet I knew who—that creepy, no-go Turog Ambassador, trying to wipe out the Gnetsians. Garrit said that the talks were going badly, but I wondered if he knew how bad.