That morning, Edie glanced warily at the deodorant, as if it was some sort of bad habit. She’d bathed, and was getting ready to go on the picnic, and was still whiffing of heat, which left her with an extremely strong desire to deodorize it away. Yet, she kept remembering the way Walter’s nose wrinkled in disgust just talking about the chemical stink of the stuff, and she had to admit there was an antiseptic note to it. She’d never thought of it in that way, because all her life the important thing had been to somehow cover the vivid, piercing scent her body produced at these times. The idea this could be appreciated by someone without it leading to immediate action had never occurred to her.
When she padded out into the corridor, she was immaculately groomed- but free of deodorants and chemical scents, which brought back memories of late nights sneaking down to the docks. This time, she was sneaking off, just as herself, but to be with the good people instead of the bad people. The freedom of this was intoxicating, although it was terribly unfamiliar.
Walter met her at the sub docking bay, and he immediately quirked an ear and sniffed the air. “What’s this? No horrible chemicals?”
“Were they really that horrible?” asked Edie.
“Well, yeah. I guess you had your reasons. Ready to go?”
Edie blinked, taken off guard, as some part of her was all set to purr ‘I trust you’ in order to defuse the deep and lustful sniffing, drooling, and other crude reactions she found she was expecting. It occurred to her that she had no grounds for expecting this from Walter at all, and surprisingly, she found herself annoyed, as if she was entitled to a certain amount of uncontrollable, crude slavering to rebuff. Denied this, she covered her pique by asking, “What’re we having?” and promptly raged at herself in her head for tacky, suggestive remarks, but Walter didn’t seem to notice that, and gave her a straight answer.
“Just some sandwiches. Made some chai tea, because I know you like it- that’s what’s in this bottle. Set your navcom for L1-3F-VS, or you could just follow me but we might as well both have the set destination.”
“What’s the subsector location?” asked Edie. “That’s pretty general.”
“You won’t need it- there’s virtually nothing in the whole sector but the place we’re going. The sector itself only goes up to R4 at its highest point. That’s one of the reasons it’s so nice- it’s a sort of lowlands, the ceiling is very high there. There’s a field reinforcement node there- so far above you that it looks like a star. Nice place,” said Walter.
They entered their respective subs, and, with a shriek of tiny turbines, plunged through the hole in the floor into the main tank, bound for L1-3F-VS.
Walter’s voice burst in over Edie’s radio. “Shit! I wasn’t thinking at all. Is this bothering you, are you okay? I could fly you by wire…”
“No!” said Edie. “I mean, I’m fine! Let’s just go. Anyway, you’re with me.”
“Absolutely! Sure you’re okay?” came the voice.
Edie smirked a bit, flying straight and level without a waver. “I had to go back into the tank someday. And please believe me when I say that I checked my fuel gauge very carefully and compared it to the length of the journey before I even hit the throttle in the first place…”
Walter laughed. “You’re a hell of a kitty! All right, good for you. I’m going to stick close by- and I was trained in the service to check that before launching. Mine’s good, too.”
When the destination approached, Edie found she was flying rather too close to the ceiling, and checking her fuel obsessively. There was no comment about this from Walter- probably it was only to be expected- at any rate, she felt enormous relief as the arc of her final approach intersected neatly with the landing bay, and her wheels hit sturdy metal. Shortly thereafter, Walter came in for an equally neat landing on the vast docking space. Edie considered for a moment how handy it was that Aquarius structures could be built so absurdly large, while she taxied for the elevator that would lift her up into that vast ceiling.
Walter joined her in the sub parking area, which was very empty- no other subs at all, no machinery. She blinked, however, at something that wasn’t often seen in these echoing, empty steel caverns- litter. There was an empty beer can lying by the wall. “What’s up with that?” she asked.
Walter looked surprised. “That’s not regulation,” he said, and jogged over to pick up the bit of trash. He jogged back, and the two headed for the freight elevator that was the only inter-level transport available.
It dwarfed them ridiculously, but Aquarius wasn’t short of energy and it made a kind of sense to Edie, as yet another huge steel room bore them patiently upward- it was simpler to have one elevator do everything, in low-traffic areas like this, and simpler was better: less to break down.
At the top of the ride, another cavernous steel room came into view, and it was all wrong.
Walter’s ears were bolt upright in alertness. “That’s the smell of vomit! Someone’s been sick?” Edie tensed, as well- though her sense of smell was not as finely honed as the wolf’s, the scent was awakening memories in her. Vomit, stale beer, something that had been burned, unwashed wolf… inexplicably here, in this vast steel room. A glance around showed more trash, the remains of a fire that had been lit on the floor, the place where someone had been very sick…
Edie trembled. “What do we do?”
“We’re gonna call in the janitors,” answered Walter, “they’ve got another lovely job on their hands.” He tossed his beer can in the direction of some of the randomly strewn garbage. “Some picnic spot! Sometimes I just can’t believe those oppies. This is disgusting. I’m sorry about this…”
“But aren’t you sc… alarmed?” asked Edie, who plainly was. “Who did this?”
Walter set down the picnic things, and took her by the shoulders. “Edie, nobody travels on Aquarius who isn’t meant to be there. We can track any living thing on the whole damn ship. There is no such thing as space pirates! This is the result of some filthy dumb oppies who had a party. It’s somebody who has money but no class at all. We do get those from time to time. Now, let’s go out and find a nice clean spot to have our picnic, and by the time we’re done, they might have gotten around to sending someone to clean this up.”
Edie relaxed a little. “No pirates, or bug-eyed monsters?”
“Maybe they’ll be bug-eyed when I tell them off- politely- for unnecessary littering, which I hope I get the chance to do. It only causes work for the maintenance staff, and there are plenty of better places where they could party.”
Edie and Walter headed for the entrance to the cavern, which was conveniently open. The area was indeed pretty, but there was evidence of more partying- the ground was far from immaculately groomed, and there was more garbage scattered around here and there. Edie began to get very nervous, while Walter’s look got harder and harder, and finally, he said “This won’t take a moment. Come with me, I really need to ask these people to be more considerate. It’s gonna take some poor maintenance sap hours to clean all this up.”
He began to head up over a nearby hill, following the signs of foot traffic, the occasional bit of garbage, and Edie came along, but her heart pounded and she began to hear indistinct sounds in the distance…
The air was split by a cat-shriek of fear and pain, from a voice that would be hard to mistake for any other, a harsh soprano scream, and Walter froze, and then dropped the picnic things and charged over the hill.
“Maggie!”
Edie froze in turn, everything coming into focus in an instant of horror as she realized what Walter was about to do, and she shrieked, “No!” and raced after him desperately- too late.
Gasping, she rushed into a clearing, in which Walter was at bay, encircled by ragged, mean-looking wolves. At one side of the clearing, surrounded by grinning wolves, was Maggie- and she was pulling the train. There were wolves over her, under her, taking her in every way, soiling her fur with semen and with spit- she had found the real thing, somehow. They had her by the throat, as well, and her eyes sought out Walter and Maggie in shock and terror.
Then Edie saw the alpha wolf ambling forward, totally confident, with a beer in his hand, and her brain short-circuited for a second, and all she could say was “You.”
Chuck looked her over. “Where the fuck did you go? It’s been years.”
Beside her, she saw a grinning wolf flick a lit cigarette at Walter, and hissed at him with desperate intensity, “Don’t! do! anything! Don’t even move! I’ll handle this!”
“They’ve got Maggie!” hissed Walter back, in agony. He was shaking.
“Damn it,” hissed Edie rapidly, “they will kill you if you start anything, you be still!” She hastily returned her attention to Chuck, who seemed interested but unhurried. The other wolves continued to circle.
“I had to go, hon, you know how it is,” purred Edie appealingly. “What brings you here?”
“Edie..!” hissed Walter, and she hissed, “shut! up! soldier!” back. This seemed to work, and she returned her attention to the gang leader.
Chuck yawned, showing rotting teeth. “We’re going to Verdant. We made some money, traveling in style. Makin’ some money on the way, too. And havin’ some fun.”
Walter was just about creaking from intolerable tension, and a circling wolf moved in, clearly intending to poke or shove him. With a glance at Chuck, Edie scooted around to interpose her body and shield Walter. She was limp with fear that someone would get through, would cause Walter to swing on one of the pack, any one, it wouldn’t matter. All that was keeping him alive was the fact that he hadn’t attacked anybody. One slip and he would be dead- she knew the code and had seen it played out over and over again. You attacked one of the pack, and you had all of them on you at once.
Chuck smirked at her. “You want a turn? It’s been a long time since you were with us. And this one doesn’t have the fire you had, baby. You were the best there ever was.”
Unexpectedly, there was a flurry of motion, as Maggie writhed and yanked and burst free of the wolves around her. The pack’s attention snapped to her, but at that instant Chuck snapped “Hey, chill!” and Edie hissed “No!” at Walter, and their combined authority was enough to keep a lid on things. It wasn’t clear what Chuck wanted, but it was certainly clear that according to him Maggie wasn’t worth much, and also that he wasn’t intending to punish her attempt to get away. The wolf under her tail slipped out easily enough, but Edie winced as the little Siamese yanked against a wolf-tie, pulling free of what turned out to be a substantial knot. Edie winced again as she realised that she’d had that one herself.
Maggie staggered weeping into Walter’s arms. Sniffling, she caught sight of Edie, and sobbed, “I don’t LIKE your kind of fun!”. Edie didn’t dare look at Walter’s face. She bristled with embarrassment, but held her ground, thinking to herself- so far so good, now if we can all get out of here alive…
“Come on, babe. For old times’ sake?” wheedled Chuck, which did not go unnoticed by the other wolves. They regarded her with interest- an even better cat, and Alpha’s Choice as well. Edie saw this and took advantage of it, purring “Can you ask your boys to give us some space, hon? For old times’ sake?”
Chuck glanced sharply at them and jerked his head. That was all it took- the other wolves cleared away, taking positions behind him, leaving Edie, Walter, and Maggie alone.
Walter muttered thickly, “She’s hurt, Edie.” while holding Maggie tight. Edie glanced rapidly at the little Siamese while trying to hold Chuck’s gaze at the same time, and saw that one of Maggie’s ears was torn and bloody. The silver cat lifted an eyebrow questioningly at Chuck.
The alpha wolf snorted. “That was Jeb. He’s an asshole. You’re an asshole, Jeb!”
“Fuck you!” snarled an emaciated wolf in reply. His eyes were frightening, and he had a slight tremor that never entirely went away.
“You’re an asshole, you don’t know how to fuck a cat nicely. Shut up, asshole.” replied Chuck. “This a friend of yours, Edie?”
Edie nodded, standing her ground. “This is a friend of ours.”
“I can smell that you want to fuck, too. Come on, honey- look, if you ride for a while, tell you what, we’ll fuck Jeb up to pay him back for what he did to your friend when he fucked her…”
“Fuck you!” screamed Jeb, shaking. Edie could see he was one of the mean ones- there was a definite type who always were in there when the train was being pulled, and who got a special kick out of blood and pain and humiliation. Jeb was clearly a hairsbreadth away from attacking someone, and Edie took a moment to hiss to Walter with desperate urgency, “Stay!”
Chuck turned slowly to look at Jeb, who snarled horribly, twisted his head, and finally looked away. Finally, Chuck growled, “Oughta fuck you up anyway. No class. Look at you, ripping up her ear like that, make her ugly, and she’s a friend of this fine pussy useta be one of us. Asshole.”
Jeb snarled, not meeting Chuck’s eye, and Chuck barked, “Asshole! Go around hurting our honeys, make ‘em not pretty anymore, what the hell good are they then? No class asshole.” He turned again to face Edie. “So you had to go, huh? Assholes like this one get too much for ya? You were always a match for ‘em, that’s what I liked about ya.”
Edie nodded, not looking at Walter, picking her words carefully. “I had to go. You know how it is. I went out and started working. Left the planet.”
Chuck nodded. “Yeah, I know how it is. Hey, I keep seeing ya not exactly padding over here to get fucked, huh? Asked ya three times. You sure you don’t want any? I got Bob here, he’s fuckin’ hung like a horse, would that be nice? You like that, babe.”
Edie stayed where she was, and purred carefully, “You know how it is…”
At that, Chuck grumbled, “Yeah, yeah. So… I guess you want to take your friends and get the fuck out of here, is that it? Shiiiit.”
“I’m sorry, Chuck,” said Edie. “May we go?” She watched carefully, keeping an eye on the other wolves who clearly weren’t happy with that proposal, but remembering the way Chuck had a weakness for feline politeness and protocol. It was the contrast he’d liked, between that and the vision of the same feline going wild with the whole pack- and Edie thought there was a chance to get through to him in that way.
She added, in all sincerity, “Please?”
At that, Chuck lifted his head, looking disappointed but strangely dignified. He took a leisurely glance over his pack, as if to remind them who was alpha, and then he said, “Yeah. Damn. Good seeing ya, babe. You’re the best. You may go.” A slight stirring of discontent in the pack was stilled by a sharp glance from its Alpha, and silence fell.
Edie hissed at Walter, still nervous, “Back away slowly. Do not run, do not turn your back until we are out of sight.” They did so, Walter supporting Maggie, who was very wobbly. Slowly, they backed away over the top of the hill, until they were out of sight- and then, rushed back the way they had come, Edie glancing nervously in every direction.
They went down to the sub docking area without speaking, and then Walter, his face unreadable, said, “We need to get her to the infirmary- we’ll want dock B. I’ll walk you back to your place then. While we’re flying back, I’m going to get security brought up to speed.”
“Are there jails on Aquarius?” asked Edie.
Walter snarled harshly. “You don’t understand. If they could pay for a ticket, they can buy and sell any justice, any lawyers- it’s just as if they got rough with a red-sash. Security needs to be warned so they can contain any damage. We’re left to pick up the mess. Let’s get Maggie somewhere safe.”
Edie nodded, and they got into the subs, Walter awkwardly flying with Maggie on his lap, and fled the place with a scream of small turbines, covering the endless miles back to their home.
