Hiiro
'Ten days of civil company' became something of a mantra on the ship. That single line denoted the mood and opinion of the speaker more concisely than any other indicator.
Those who simply wanted the outfits unwelcome guests off the ship said the words with a dour acceptance; the job was an unpleasant one but it was a job none the less, something to be muddled through with above average grumbling and a steady work ethic.
Leeroy's supporters—an odd mix of those loyal to a fault, morbidly taciturn, unsettlingly enthused, and spitefully indignant—used the mantra as a watchword. Ten days of civil company wasn't an ideal, it was a law to be enforced with browbeating, uttered threats and in some few instances, bribery. Unsurprisingly, the promise of a larger share of the job's pay won many hired guns from the indifferent majority to Leeroy's side.
Lastly, there were those who growled the statement like an untimely armistice— a ten day ceasefire while the enemy walked in their midst. More often than not, I found these mercenaries in the armory tooling over their equipment in preparation of what they thought would inevitably come next. Explosives were prepackaged into discrete portions, firearms of all makes and calibers were cleaned and calibrated to exacting standards, bodies and minds were fortified for the battle ahead.
For his part, Treu seemed to share the sentiment. Once his charge had been loaned a cabin in the crew quarters and thrown inside, he claimed a portion of the hanger and partitioned it off with tarps and netting. I didn't hear a single person complain about not having him sleep next door. The informal cordon that appeared shorty after was mostly loyalists ensuring the big man had the privacy he obviously wanted, though a few dissenting voices joined the guard with less altruistic intentions. If the big man did try anything, I doubted a few rifles would stop him. Still, I couldn't help but respect the balls on every merc who manned the cordon with a weapon pointing in instead of out.
It was the third day back under thrust when I finally worked up the nerve to do more than just think about the devil woman calling herself Bim. I couldn't place it but there was something naggingly reminiscent about her. It made no sense, there wasn't anything that physically reminded me of anyone I knew and she'd barely spoken to anyone since coming aboard. So why did it feel like I should know who she was? I arrived at the cabin she'd been loaned and knocked on the door.
"Um, hello? Are you in there?" I asked.
"Yes."
I waited for her to open the door, to ask what I wanted or tell me to go away but nothing happened. I listened in, thinking I might have caught her sleeping or that she was getting dressed but I couldn't hear any movement on the other side of the door. I couldn't tell if she was ignoring me and hoping I went away or just preoccupied, so I knocked again.
"Are you going to open the door?" I asked.
After another lengthy pause, she did. At the sight of her another wave of misplaced nostalgia washed over me. The room she'd spent the past three days in was completely bare. There was no trapped heat, no scent of an unwashed body, hardly any evidence that she'd been inside at all. The only thing that betrayed her occupation was a single black book sitting closed on a shelf next to the bed.
"You are the first human to initialize conversation with me." She vacantly stated. Her entire manner was aloof and slightly on the slow side, not quite like a person half-drunk on sleep but similar.
"Ah, sorry." I said. "I don't think anyone around here really knows how to deal with you."
"I was under the impression the native contractors were all quite skilled at lawyering deals. Is that not the case?"
I blinked at her words, feeling as if in a single sentence we'd both gotten lost on different pages. I wasn't sure what exactly she was asking me. How the hell did she pull lawyers into this? What kind of a backhanded complement did I just get? I put the eccentricity aside for the moment and tried to catch up to her conversation.
"I can't really say. I'm a recent addition to the crew." I said.
"That is a trait you and I share." She stated vacantly.
"I don't think you count." She stared at me in silence. "Because you're a client so you're not really part of the crew."
She continues to stare at me, amber eyes fixated on my own.
"Did you need anything?" I asked. "Your room doesn't look very comfortable."
"It is not." She stated bluntly.
I waited for her to elaborate, but she didn't. I couldn't tell if she was just being polite and waiting for me to take the hint or if her stoicism was a deliberate ploy to get me to leave her alone. This devil woman took a poker face to a whole new level, her face would have been more expressive if she was wearing a stone mask. I was almost ready to admit defeat and depart when she finally spoke.
"What nature of exchange are you proposing?" She asked.
"I don't really know. I just thought you could use a friend."
"And what is it you desire in return?"
"What? No, this isn't an 'exchange.' I just wanted to help you."
"Why?"
The way she asked made me think we were on different pages again. I pressed on regardless.
"I thought you could use it. I know how hard it is to get settled in a new place when you don't know anybody." I said, offering the half-truth with full sincerity.
"…It could be of use. Why are you willing to offer something in exchange for nothing? You will depart this transaction expending more energy than you stand to gain in value. Is it your intention to place me in your debt?"
She hadn't struck me as the paranoid type, though she did fit the bill in retrospect. I recalled my first real conversation on the Shadow as a notational member of the outfit. I'd been half-kidding when I made my remark to Eric, but my words gained a sour note when applied to her situation.
There had been a meeting to decide if she lived or died at their hands— our hands. She hadn't been on this ship for a full minute before being shot at and ever since there were armed soldiers of fortune just waiting for an excuse to kill her and her absent bodyguard. Who wouldn't be paranoid in that situation? Who wouldn't lock themselves their room and be skeptical of whoever came knocking? Now that I'd actually thought about it, instead of just wondering why I was compulsively drawn to her, it was a stark parallel to what might happen to me if my own situation came to light. Was that why I was here at her door? The killing heat inside of me gave no reply.
"Are you really a devil?" I asked.
"Do not deviate from my question." She said brusquely.
"No, I'm not trying to indebt you to me. I'm trying to be a decent human being and offer some generosity to a person in need."
"Why?" She repeated.
"Because I want to. Why can't you just take my word? It's not like I'm trying to marry you."
She gave another of her pauses and this time I realized she was weighing my words. That had probably been what she was doing all along. What had struck me as her being slow was actually deliberate and calculating. She was a woman trying to avoid the witch-hunters all around her with nothing but cold logic. It was so obvious I couldn't believe I'd missed it earlier. Her next words all but confirmed my suspicions.
"I have learned to be suitably wary of humans who approach me with generous intentions as they often have malicious motivations. That is why I cannot take your word, Human."
"I'm sorry-"
"Why?" She interrupted, her languid air momentarily abandoned as she jumped into the present.
"I know what it's like to get stabbed in the back after holding up your end of the deal. I'd rather not get into it, no point bringing up old hurts."
"I see… Then that is an experience we share, Human." Her alacrity faded, the prior aloof, measured nature returning to the fore. "I cannot say whether I am a devil or not. I do not know what they are. The explanation you were provided by my tormentor accurately encapsulates my being."
"Your tormentor? You mean Treu?"
"Yes."
That gave me some food for thought. Tormentor was about as far from a term of endearment as they came and the way she said it, the certainty she placed in the word, left nothing good to the imagination. Considering that he was supposed to protect her through whatever convoluted hate-hate relationship they had and how he'd explained his mission, I was surprised she was talking to me— to any one for that matter.
"What did he do to-" I started, but she cut me off before I could make an even bigger ass of myself.
"I'd rather not discuss it, ever."
"Ah, sorry. Just so you know, not everyone is like him." I said. "In fact I get the feeling he's one of kind, so try not to base too many assumptions off of him. Okay?"
"My opinion of your species is still nascent and unsolidified, Human." She gave me another of her weighty pauses and I almost thought she was done with me before I heard her draw a breath to continue. "Why is it that you were the first of this ship's company to approach me? Are you too a deviant from the human norm?"
I was about to dismiss the question out of hand, but the unnatural warmth inside of me begged to differ. If she'd asked me a month ago, I'd have protested regardless; much like I had when I woke up in the Shadow's medbay strapped to a table looking into Princess's alien eyes for the first time. If was odd, the alien woman standing in front of me looked more normal, more human, than Princess did. Bim's amber eyes flecked with gold had an inquisitive curiosity to them, but they lacked the piercing inhumanity of Princess's swirling purple counterparts. It felt like she was seeing me and wondering, instead of looking through me and knowing.
She was an alien, maybe even a devil, but as the same time she was so familiar it itched. Why couldn't I nail down this misplaced reminiscence? I was like a compass needle, always drifting south without knowing why. Deviating from the norm, it made me sound like a freak. I just wanted answers. Answers I couldn't get through the ordinary means of investigation.
"I wouldn't word it like that…" I said noncommittally.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
"Though you do not disagree with the sentiment of my question?" She asked intently.
"I don't really know. I don't think I'm so different and certainly not a deviant. It's more like I haven't found where I belong yet. I'm still looking for the man I want to become one day." It felt stupid to admit but she stood there staring at me locked in her aloof composure. "I get that's not really a helpful answer-"
"That answer is incredibly helpful." She interrupted. "I still find the concept of growth beyond the accumulation of knowledge and power rather foreign. To hear the idea of being incomplete despite physical existence in the present moment of linear time is very helpful to me. The unfounded self doubt is also useful, though I fail to empathize with you rationale. I have learned more in the past ten minutes of conversation with you than I did in one-hundred and forty-three hours of introspection in the company of my tormentor."
"Um, thank you?"
"Why? I have only stated my observations of objective truths."
"Sometimes people need to hear the truth."
"Such conditional would be unnecessary if they did not live mired in falsehoods." For the first time since we started talking, she moved. It was a tiny gesture, the slightest tilt of her head made all the more weighty given her unshakably regal demeanor. "Are you such a person?"
Again, I wanted to refute her question out of hand but I couldn't. I'd been honest enough in my pioneering days, but in my life of criminal activities afterwards, I'd discovered I could lie as easily as I drew breath. I was a social chameleon, wearing whatever false identity I needed to finish my job. But there were some moments of unparalleled truth buried in that swamp of deception. I'd heard hundreds of final words and often in those last moments my own tailored persona would fall away as I became their executioner and their confessor.
My final painting came to mind, the innocent woman I'd murdered on the orders of a tyrant. Her final words rung through my memory, 'No more owner, is happy dream, no?' Was that the sum of my life's accompaniments? A man who could only offer mercy down the length of a gun while so wrapped in lies he thought it would all be worth it in the end. No, I wouldn't be that man. I was disgusted with myself for pulling that trigger, and I was glad that I was.
"I was." I admitted. "I think I might still, but I'm trying not to be. I've spent enough of my life with my head buried in the snow and mud. I don't want to spend the rest of it like that."
"That is good. I would have ceased this conversation had you answered in the affirmative." She stated.
"How do you know that wasn't a lie?" I teased, only for her to step back into her room and reach for the door controls. "Wait! That was a joke, a bad one."
"How can I know that? Perhaps that is the another falsehood. Perhaps you have been lying this entire time and I was wrong to differentiate you from my tormentor."
"He wasn't lying to you." Gidget said from my right.
The ginger-headed man had left his room further down the corridor and was headed down-ship towards the Crush, which put him on a collision course with our dying conversation. Gidget was broader and taller than me— which seemed to be another common trait among the mercs on the Shadow. His pale white skin was dotted with freckles, making it less harshly glaring than Princess's albino palette. His choice of casual wear was colorful, eclectic and utilitarian, making me think of a paint-splattered handyman more-so than a gun for hire.
"Spoken like a collaborator." Bim stated.
"It's a variant of the Liar's Paradox. It's an outdated method of testing the logical capacity of machines— and aliens. The proper paradox is 'this statement is false.'"
"…I do not understand." She said.
"But most humans and modern machines would." Gidget said with a shrug. "Congratulations, you're dumber than the average toaster."
"I am not dumb." Bim stated fiercely.
"Oh wow, you're even worse at picking up sarcasm than I am." Gidget said.
"Do they not have a sense humor where you come from?" I asked, eager to keep her talking.
"No. My kind rarely make unnecessary interactions with each other; those that we do are often predatory in nature. I know of humor from my first teacher on humanity, though I do not understand its nature or implementation."
"You'll pick up an ear for it eventually." Gidget said. "If you're socially blunt enough, people will assume you're autistic and stop bothering you with trivialities. That's what I recommend."
With that, Gidget turned and went on his way, dropping out of the conversation as abruptly as he'd joined it. I couldn't imagine what kind of culture fostered such rudeness. Even my rural upbringing in the savage hitherlands of my homeworld had taught me basic manners.
I also couldn't imagine what Bim had meant by her kind—devils or xenos that they may be—being solitary predators. On all of Intatenrup there was only a single animal like that, the Byakkai. They were great eight-legged demon tigers, the killer of all lesser beasts who staked out hundreds of square kilometers for their territory. When I compared those two, the feral beast was nothing like the lonely woman who'd locked herself in her room. After one of her long pauses she asked me another question.
"Is a toaster's sole function to toast things? Such a machine does not sound very intelligent."
"There's a few in the ship's mess. I could show you, if you wanted."
"Your guidance would be appreciated, Human. What do you desire in return?"
"This isn't a deal." I said, before deciding that it'd be easier to work with her quirks than against them. "Fine, if you want to put a price on it, stop calling me human. Use my name, Hiiro."
She made another of her ever so slight gestures, the tiniest shifting of her weight away from her room's door towards me.
"Very well. I will guard and honor your name with every utterance, Hiiro."
"Uh, yeah. I'll try and do the same for yours, Bim."
A shiver raced up my spine. It wasn't just that she'd said my name properly, which was a hit-or-miss event on the Shadow so far. There was something else entirely, something not quite electric or magnetic in the air between us when she spoke. That nagging familiarity reared it head once again and this time, it was accompanied by the supernatural warmth that flooded my body in an awakened surge of radiant, killing heat.
I stepped back from her, tripping into the wall opposite her cabin in my haste to put a gap between us. I couldn't burn her. I had to control this! My searing nerves were alight with power than needed direction, it needed release but I had nowhere to send it. I wasn't just warm, I was hot, more than hot, I was burning up! I didn't know how to get rid of this heat. It was like I was drowning in a hot spring right in thin air; I could barely breathe, every shallow puff of my lungs threw a shimmering heat haze in front of my face.
I pressed myself harder against the cool metal wall, the corridor's bulkhead feeling like packed snow against my feverish skin. I focused on the sensation, leaning every scrap of exposed, sweltering skin I could into the wall. The relief was neither explosive or combustive, but it was just enough that I could hold on. I could ride the razor's edge of this killing heat long enough to get it under control.
For her part, Bim stood there unmoving and statuesque as she watched me.
"Be wary, names have power beyond the finite constraints of language." She said at length. "Do not invoke even a false name unless you truly must."
"So what am I supposed to call you?" I asked, barely succeeding in keeping the voice level around my panting breath.
"You may use the name given, so long as you maintain a degree of impartiality. Speak it with nothing but the flesh or mind and never anything more."
"I'll try to do that." I said.
Not that I had any clue what that actually meant or how to do that.
After that, I became her unofficial chaperon. Bim didn't find the same easy acceptance that I had on the Shadow, but after a day of following wherever I led her, the mercs stopped dropping every conversation when we entered a room. We spoke little in the following days, she was contented to observe any and everything while I attempted to puzzle out what I could from watching her. One of the only times she offered an unprompted opinion was when I ran off to make my bi-hourly check of the ship's space-age boiler room.
"You honor this ritual with great urgency despite its trivial nature, this bodes well of you, Hiiro."
I wasn't sure how to respond to her sudden talkativeness, so I thanked her and got on with my day. A few of the more open-minded tried to make polite small talk with her, only the most determined ever getting more than a few words of reply in the hours that followed. I'd imagine most of them came to the same early conclusion I had about her, that she was slow witted and held little insight into her surroundings. Of all the crew, it was only Tony who suspected that Bim might have something worth the effort hidden behind that alluring doll-face.
Ten days of civil company turned out to be a generous estimate. We tumbled back into realspace during second shift of the seventh work cycle. There was no layover on the float this time, every ship in our convoy made comfortable speed for the system's hub planet. A general summary of the astrological details made the rounds and while Bim absorbed the information with zip, I was barely able to grasp the generalities.
The Trastorno solar system was binary, which meant it had two stars, and a single habitable planet— which was apparently far less common than I thought it would be. The terraforming effort was at stage two, meaning it was about three hundred years behind my homeworld, and things weren't proceeding smoothly despite the frequent passage of IceBreakers in system. Frequent was a relative term when it came to the titanic, faster-than-light battleships. An IceBreaker might drag a cluster of ships to a border world once every fifteen years or more, but sometimes for systems lucky or important enough it could be range from two or three years.
Trastorno was a truck stop on the cosmic scale from what I understood. It was 'on the way' for more than one faster-than-light route which made it an ideal place to catch up on the latest news, markets and transfers. Paired with a planet that could produce most things which couldn't be mined from asteroids and an underworld presence that nearly rivaled the local authorities in power and dwarfed them financially; Trastorno was a welcomed name for the mercenaries aboard the Stalking Shadow for more reasons than one.
There was always work available for anyone with lax morals and low standards, so long as you knew where to look for it. The Shadow wasn't even halfway down the gravity well before the rumor of a job offer started circulating among the crew. That rumor was all but confirmed with a general readiness order to have both shuttles prepared for repeat planetfall by the time they arrived.
I was assisting the labor effort when Treu emerged from his hide with Leeroy in tow, both headed for Bim who was watching me at a distance. I broke off the work detail to a few muttered curses that fell stillborn when they saw me headed towards our less-than-welcome guests. Leeroy saw me coming and beckoned me to join him.
"There are matters that must be discussed with our hosts, Creature." Treu barked.
"What matters, Tormentor?" Bim asked, her response lacking her customary delayed inquisitiveness. She was curt with Treu, keeping him at a distance she was powerless to enforce.
"Our initial contract was to let you ride along with us on our next job," Leeroy said. "But that was before and this is now."
"This is indeed the present moment." Bim confirmed, clearly missing his implication.
"What I mean is, the situation has changed." Leeroy said grudgingly.
"You no longer wish to honor our contract." Bim realized. "Why?"
"We've got a prospective client planetside. Long term close protection and site security, at least a few months of work. I've got eight guns that say they won't take the job if I bring you, which hurts but it's not damning. If you come, I can't spare the manpower to babysit you."
Bim seemed to lose something in translation and looked to Treu for confirmation.
"They want to end our agreement early on mutual good terms." Treu stated bluntly. "You are a burden on them, Creature. One they wish to be rid of."
"…I do not understand." Bim said, this time looking to me for clarity. "Is my presence truly so cumbersome?"
I suddenly had three sets of eyes focused on me and I regretted getting involved in this conversation. Treu looked down on me, a lazy disdain held in his posture if not his deliberately neutral expression. Leeroy wanted me to disarm this bomb and move on, but he wouldn't step away and leave this entirely to me. Whatever I chose, he'd be right there taking up the slack beside me. Then there was the woman, amber eyes faintly pleading for me not to abandon her.
"Its not just you. People are complicated, some of them don't like the idea of risking their lives around you and him." I said, motioning to her bodyguard.
"…That is a sentiment I share with them then." Bim stated. "In light of new information, perhaps a renegotiation is in order?"
"What kind?" Leeroy asked, a soft note a dread breeching his stoic demeanor.
"Instead of an escort, I desire an apprenticeship under your company's tutelage. I wish to be paid in experience and a temporary place within your fellowship. In return, I can offer the toil of this body and that of my protector." Bim turner her attention from Leeroy to Treu. "That is, unless you would impede my mandate, Tormentor."
If looks could kill, I'm sure Treu would have murdered everyone and destroyed the Shadow for good measure. As it was, he smiled a cold predatory grin.
"The details of my own secondment will need to be refined after your new agreement has been finalized. Otherwise, I have no objections, B̶͍̌i̶͉̅͝m̵̭̼̒'̶̙̙͑̑k̵͚̿e̶̫̿l̴̢͔͒a̵̘͉̒̌ỉ̷̡̼̀ḓ̶̓̈́h̶̢̢͒̕z̴̡̀͋͜a̷̤͎̓̂."
A wash of vertigo hammered me as he spat her name, but I kept my footing. Bim went to the ground as if she'd been clubbed over the head, mouth agap in a silent scream. Leeroy looked from the giant of a man to the downed woman in confusion, then moved to help her as I did the same.
"What'd you do to her?" He asked. Treu only smiled.
"I reminded it which of us holds power over the other. I will repeat that lesson as often as I must, Devil."
"Damn you, Treu." Bim whispered.
"I have long since been damned, Creature, but waste your breath anyways." Treu turned to depart, pausing before he returned to his hide. "I'll leave you to finalize the details of your agreement without me. Your chittering minds are wearing my patience thin."