Walkabout

You bastard. You unbelievable, scumsucking, burn-in-hell bastard.

I thought you loved me, Dorian.

I loved you.

Did you plan that from the beginning? To feed me to your nasty little pet in the cellar? Was that your idea from the first?

When you slid up next to me in the bar in Kilasprii. Smelling of sweat and smoke and God, I wanted you. You grinned and ran a hand through that incredible hair and bought me one of those pale purple things that they have to store the bottles upright or the stuff'll eat through the cap.

I knocked it back, too, just to show you. Burned two layers of skin off my throat.

And you grinned, and knocked yours back, and then we drank one together, and then...oh, hell.

I wonder how far I've come? Stupid, I suppose, to come out without even a canteen. But I couldn't stand the thought of being there one more minute. Up out of that stinking basement you never told me about, jam a cartridge in my gun and out the hatch. The horizon never gets closer, but I must have crossed it eight or ten times by now.

Maybe I'll go back to Kilasprii. Killing Spree. You can always get a good hire in Killing Spree. Ship out on a pirate and never look back. I've never looked back since I was nineteen.

Since I was eight.

Since I was nineteen and finished what began when I was eight.

Damn scrubby bushes. Aren't there any streams on this planet? I suppose the bushes have to live on something. There we go. Awfully bitter--high metallic content, you said once--but it's water. Much better.

Killing Spree. That's what we all called it, me and Kidra n'Mari and Camill, who never would tell us her last name, just sat fingering her knife scar if you asked. I haven't thought of Kidra in a long time. Of course, he didn't look at all like you, Dorian. Black as spent fuel, for one thing. And he didn't have your smile. Lying smile.

I could go back. They're clever, those four you brought in. They'll get to Scorpio and I can get off this planet. Back to space and a clean fight for my living; I've had it with settling down. I've been a rover all my life. Since I was eight.

Of course, I didn't have much choice about it then. Little girls rarely do. Little girl whores, sold on the open market.

Oh, Mama, Papa. Can you see me, wherever you are? I hope not. I'd hate that. I'd rather think of you dead and safe. Middleaged women don't command the kind of price little girls do. Middleaged women worn out with childbearing, and only one lived past her first birthday anyway. I remember Paolo, so tiny in his cradle--I tried to feed him and I cried when he wouldn't take the bottle. I didn't understand he was too weak to swallow.

Or maybe that was Kithie. Mostly I just remember the graves. Six of them in a little neat row behind the house, and Mama's herb garden all around them, smelling fresh and sweet. Papa reading me the names, one after the other, three before me and three after. It always made me feel special, as if I was the one they kept.

Papa coming home so frightened, saying the Federation had declared GP an open planet. I thought we could go look for the place where they'd opened it up. We could look down inside and see all the workings, the wheels and gears that made it turn around the sun.

And fear and blood and fear and the hole in Mama's chest and her heart beating, beating.

Hello, flower. I was beginning to wonder if anything on Xenon had ever invented flowers; mostly they seem to go in for big thorns. Threaten the bees into pollinating, maybe. Though I haven't seen any bees either.

But it's a flower, little spot of blue in the gray-green scrub I'm walking through. Bobbing up and down, except that's me, of course. It's hardly moving. Sitting target.

Goodbye, flower. Just goes to show you can't trust anyone in this life. Take it from me.

I don't remember much after you died, Mama. Shuttled from place to place with KiKo and his stinking teeth. Sometimes he was nice to me. Most customers want happy little girl whores.

Until I cut his throat one night and all that stink burst out onto the pillow, across my arm. I've learned to do it neater, since.

Were you happier, Papa, Mama, after I avenged you? KiKo was the first, and K'tingi Ra was the last. He had to be the last, you see, because he had to teach me how to shoot, first. Everyone said he was the best. He boasted, once, that he'd shot a gun out of a man's hand, and then shot his hand off, and one through the shoulder, and then the neck before the poor slob even realized his gun was gone. Papa, Papa... I never told him I'd seen him do it. But I did it to him. Not as neat, but I gave him time to realize what was happening.

And out on my own, sucking down acid wash in Killing Spree, shipping out with Kidra and Hosh and Camill with the scar down her face. I've never been back. I never will go back. There's nothing but graves there, and no one to read me the names in sunlight that smells of marjoram and sage.

My feet hurt. No, they don't. Dorian used to rub my feet, sometimes.

Were you always a bastard, Dorian? I don't want to believe that. Believe that the last eight months of my life have been a lie, that you were always just using me, waiting for the right moment to come along to shove me down those reeking stairs.

When you pinned my hands over my head that time, laughing, and I threw you off the bed and kicked you and told you if you ever did that to me again I'd kill you. And you didn't get mad, you looked at me very seriously and said I'm sorry, I didn't know it would bother you. I never did tell you why I hated it. Was it all lies, Dorian? I'm glad I never told you, then.

I may as well sit down, I'm not going anywhere anyway. Eat a few berries. They're awfully bitter, these pinkish ones, but I like it. The seeds are sweet, they burst in your mouth with an amazing contrast.

So what do I do, now? Back to Kilasprii or a dozen places like it, I suppose. I've no particular goal in mind. Once I killed K'tingi, he was the last, that was the end of my goals. Hired gun for a while, and then I met Dorian and I didn't need someone to kill as a reason to keep on.

Tossing berries in the air. They blow apart very prettily, when I hit them. I hit most of them, I'm an excellent shot. I suppose I shouldn't risk all the noise. But I must be beyond the Hommik territory by now, and actually I don't much care. It'd be better than potting helpless berries, anyway.

So back to Killing Spree. Killing people for a job, to stay alive. You know, that's uncomfortably similar to you, Dorian. Of course, they're generally trying to kill me. After all, it's their job too.

What about those four you brought back from Terminal, Dorian? Although it was supposed to be five. You thought you'd get the teleport from them; the Liberator had it, after all. But they were smarter than you in the end, and I can't say I'm sorry.

I wonder if they've got the door open yet. If any of them have blown their hands off, trying. I know the combination, at least the one you told me, but I wouldn't bet it's the only one. Let someone else open it. Of course, if they do open it there's nothing to stop them taking off. No more Killing Spree for me then, though the Hommiks would do their best to provide one, I'm sure. Up, girl. Time to head back.

Mama, Papa, do you sleep better now? KiKo spat on Kithie's grave, when he was done with me. He didn't even see the marker, it was just a place to spit. But they're all dead, Mama. All your killers.

Well, that's not true. The ones who did it, but not the ones who ordered it, who made GP an open planet and opened the hole in your chest. I couldn't get them, Mama.

These four, now. Avon, Vila, Cally--no, Dayna, and Tarrant. Dorian said they're rebels, with what's-his-name, Blake. Fighting the Federation, for peace and justice--how we laughed, Dorian. There's peace in the grave, and there's justice at the end of my gun. I've dealt enough of it.

They care for each other, though. You were right about that. Well, not all of them, but that Tarrant and Dayna for sure. And I saw Vila sidling up to the dark one, Avon. Hosh used to sidle up to me like that, but the last time he tried I told him he'd lose his fingers if he didn't can it. I'll be stuck with them at least until I can get to Wellaway, it's the closest. I can get a ship from there to pretty much anywhere, and earn my passage somehow. I'd have to kill them to keep Scorpio, and I don't think I'd care to try. Not all of them at once.

I wonder if I could stay with them. For a while, anyway. Hell, I'm no freedom fighter, but I wouldn't mind the chance to get a shot off at Commissioner Kor. Kir. Whatever his name was. I was eight, I didn't pay attention to politics. The one who opened up GP.

They got a few shots in themselves, I heard. It was Blake who blew up Star One, wrecked communications and weather control and whatnot for months, and let the aliens in besides. At least, that's what they said. Never saw any aliens myself, and who needs weather control on a ship? But I'm all in favor of anything that rocks the Feds, just on principle.

Freedom fighting probably beats Killing Spree, anyway. And I think I'm out of practice on that purple stuff.

It was nice, the way that Tarrant went to Dayna in the cellar, held her so tight. I'd never break down like that, though. Not in front of anyone. Long hikes, that's my style. And back at the hatch again. This combination had better work, Dorian.

And no one's here. Damn. No, here they are. And aren't. I see they got the teleport working.

And what will I do now?

"It seems fairly obvious from where I'm standing."