Subcutis (Bona Dea Book 1) Read online

  “Bingo. It’s on Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps. It was all very picturesque: rolling fields, snow-capped peaks. And a colossal glacier in a nearby valley. We were there, my family and me, for a week, and the weather was sunny for most of it. But this one particular day there was a rainstorm. A constant torrent from dawn till dusk.”

  “This is desirable?”

  “Not to go out in. But I sat out on the veranda watching it and … honestly, Charlie, it was beautiful. I wish you could see it. Nature in all its glory! The sight of the rain sweeping over the land, the sound of it beating on the steel over my head and dripping at my feet. There was a slight chill, but I didn’t need a coat. And to cap it off, the reassurance of hearing my family in the lodge behind me. Total security, total contentment, total wonder. Happiness.”

  “Hmm …” said Charlie. Flora enjoyed the small vibrations of his chest below her ear when he made that particular noise. She pressed a little tighter to him. “Do you think that everyone would have enjoyed that scene as much as you did?” he asked.

  “Oh no, I’m sure that most would have hated it. My parents were probably inside thinking, ‘This bloody rain’s going to ruin our holiday’. I guess that the causes of happiness vary from person to person. Probably the feelings associated with happiness do as well, but I couldn’t say for certain. I don’t know how other people feel when they’re happy because … well, because I’ve only ever been me.”

  “Hmm,” he said again. “That’s helpful, thank you.”

  “Glad I got there in the end.”

  “I hope that you’re happy now.”

  She looked up at him. Azure blue eyes, long spidery lashes, short brown hair tousled on one side. A prominent nose and a smile which was for her alone. “Definite ‘Yes.’ I wish I could stay longer, but …” She glanced at her multi-purpose wristband, which, by ship’s regulations, had to stay on even when everything else came off.

  “Time’s getting on?”

  “Less than an hour till my next shift. Sorry, but I’d better head back to my quarters.” She slid out from under the pale blue sheets and dressed quickly, not bothering with her shoes and socks; she’d be changing outfits in a minute.

  His eyes were trained on her, as was that smile. She grinned back.

  “It’s only a two hour shift, Charlie. I’ll come by straight after, before I hit the sack. I imagine you’ll have another challenging question for me?”

  “Count on it. In the meantime, I’ll tidy things up here and then deactivate myself.”

  Instant mood killer. For a while there, she’d more than half forgotten that her Pinocchio wasn’t a real boy. Reality, as it so often did, asserted itself back around her with a thud.

  “Yeah … see you in a bit.” She stepped out into the corridor.

  * * *

  Not being in a sociable mood, Flora dodged the lounge, choosing the quieter route that ran between the storage rooms and science labs. Her bare feet slapped pleasingly on the cool titanium alloy as she turned into the crew quarters wing. While many of her crewmates found the Bona Dea’s corridors oppressive, she liked their simple aesthetic. Two meters wide and three high, the same grey panelling below, above and to the sides. Ribbed at regular intervals where emergency bulkheads waited their moment to slide into action. Straight lines and right angles dominated. If a robot had veins, she thought, they would look like this.

  Yes, nice simile; I could put that in my next poem. Ship’s lanes, like robot’s veins, light a song within my … brains.

  Needs work.

  She was less fond of the sight of her quarters. And here they were, tucked away in the extreme corner of aft and port. At the touch of a button, the door swished aside to admit her.

  “Home, sweet home.”

  It wasn’t the layout Flora had a problem with, nor the dimensions; five meters by ten, including a separate bathroom, was more than generous. It was the lack of personality, a void for which she was responsible. Dark blue carpeting, light blue paint on the walls and ceiling: a colour scheme she’d picked out herself before they left Earth. And while others had filled their quarters with colourful and idiosyncratic reminders of home, she had only a couple of pictures of her family. Even those were displayed mostly out of a sense of obligation - she’d long since drifted apart from her parents and brothers.

  And of course, she’d wanted nothing to remind her of the seven wasted years of her marriage.

  Flora waved a hand dismissively, as though to sweep thoughts of the past from her mind. It was time for a change of attire. Old clothes in the laundry basket, cleansing lotion applied to the skin – water was too precious a commodity to waste on something as trivial as washing – blue jeans and white T-shirt selected. Before dressing, she paused in front of the full-length mirror.

  Opinion as to what she saw there was divided.

  What a wreck, said her inner pessimist. Are you really only 35?

  “Actually,” her voice of optimism replied aloud, “I’m looking pretty good for my age. Slimmer and fitter than I was ten years ago.”

  Perhaps, but you’ve let yourself go these past few months. And it’s starting to show.

  “No problem. I’ll put in some extra gym sessions when I get time.”

  Spend all day in the gym if you like, you’ll still be saddled with those massive thighs.

  “Symbols of feminine fertility. I’ll take them as a positive.”

  And your freakishly long fingers?

  “Ideal for a technician. Why would I want to change those?”

  Those dark, bushy eyebrows look particularly weird today.

  “Accentuating the power of my emerald eyes.”

  Ha! Well, how about the birthmark? Let’s see you put a positive spin on that.

  Flora glanced at the port wine stain which dominated her right cheek and neck.

  “The people who matter to me don’t care about it. So neither do I. Now, I’ve heard enough from you. Get back in your cage.”

  The paranoid voice receded, and Flora was smiling as she dressed, her good mood restored. Her shift didn’t begin for another half an hour, but she decided to make an early start, and stepped out of her quarters. The door to Engineering was directly opposite.

  Just then, however, her wristband beeped. A glance at the screen told her that she was being contacted by Miriam Hunter, ship’s owner and captain. She opened a channel.

  “This is Flora.”

  “Cartwright, please come to the Hub immediately.”

  “On my way, Captain.”

  Hunter’s tone had given nothing away, but the usage of surname instead of forename, Flora had learned, tended to mean trouble. As there were no alert sirens ringing through the Bona Dea, it was reasonable to suppose that the trouble in question was limited to her.

  Okay. I expected this, and I’ve rehearsed what I’m going to say. Just play it cool …

  But her heart beat a little faster with every step she took towards the Hub.

  II

  … It is vital we realize, as we consider the future of our species, that the outbreaks of oppression and exploitation in our past are not freak occurrences. Too often they are dismissed as aberrations, resulting from the actions of lone despots and criminals, yet a cursory perusal of our history books shows the same pattern again and again.

  Oppression! Of women, of gay and black people, of any minority.

  Exploitation! Of animals, of trees, of the Earth that nurtured us.

  And even in the present day, we start to slide back the moment we let our guard down, as I have shown in Chapters 4, 5 and 6.

  Oppression and exploitation. They are the norm, the default settings of humanity, defeated only after centuries of hardship and sorrow, kept in check now by the vigilance of feminists and other civil rights activists. Out there in the reaches of space, far from Earth’s influence, they will find fertile ground to grow again, unless we are there to stop them.

  You see, we need the stars, and the stars
need us …

  – Miriam Hunter, Wake Up Call

  Flora approached the Hub with as much poise as she could muster. She nodded at the ship’s biologist, Natalia Preciado, as she passed her in the corridor, and glanced curiously at the lounge door, through which raised voices were leaking. But she didn’t stop to investigate; two doors further on she entered the nerve centre of the ship.

  Truthfully, it wasn’t the most inspiring room in the Bona Dea. No blinking lights, no hubbub of activity … simply two rows of computer terminals at the back, a pilot’s control station in the middle and a large screen at the front. The computers were of identical design, differentiated only by names such as “Power Consumption,” “Auxiliary KSD Regulation” and “Astrological Readouts” displayed over them. Second officer Shamecca Jackson currently stood over the last of these. Dark-skinned and slender, hands folded behind a flawlessly straight back, the ex-military Lieutenant glanced briefly at the newcomer then turned back to her screen without comment.

  Ahead of her, Captain Hunter stood with arms crossed and left hip propped against the pilot station, attention focused on a fuzzy image on the main screen: a planet, stony grey with faint reddish lines criss-crossing its surface.

  “Any atmosphere?”

  Jackson ran a hand over the smooth terminal. “Yes: oxygen, very fragile.”

  “Surface composition?”

  “Mostly ice. Silicates beneath that. Still collating data on the core.”

  Flora cleared her throat. “Reporting as ordered, Captain.”

  “Yes, wait in the Meeting Room, Cartwright, I’ll be with you shortly. Theories on the cause of the surface markings?” Hunter didn’t turn round; the conversation continued as Flora worked her way along the right side of the Hub.

  “They look consistent with crust movements beneath the ice. Our scientists may have another theory.”

  “No, I concur. It seems we’ve nothing more than a poor woman’s Europa here.”

  “Speaking of the Science team sir, Ms. Rivers asked me to relay a request to land on another planet soon. It’s been five months, and they’re apparently tired of being cooped up in their labs.”

  “I’ll be happy to stop for some sightseeing once we find interesting or original sights to see. This doesn’t qualify. Turn us around. We’ll have Gypsy plot our next jump. Hopefully this time …” The doors shut behind Flora and she heard nothing more.

  * * *

  The Meeting Room was very much a part of Hunter’s domain; the only other door from it led directly to her quarters. While there was a large round table for conferences involving several people, it was the captain’s own desk, black, squat and fixed firmly to the deck, that caught the visitor’s eye. No clutter on this workspace: a computer, lamp and handpad were joined by a single book.

  The book was Wake Up Call, Hunter’s own creation. The front cover showed the author, set against a backdrop of stars, gazing directly at the reader. Her appearance reflected her mixed Caucasian and Caribbean heritage – rigid, golden hair that might have been touched by Midas himself, burnished copper skin, blue eyes which flashed a warning: ignore me at your peril. A quote from a glowing New York Times review proclaimed that this would be remembered as the seminal work of 8th wave feminism.

  A bookcase behind the desk carried numerous works from waves 1 through 7, every one of them a first edition. The name ‘Hunter’ featured more than once; Miriam being the latest – and perhaps, the greatest – of a dynasty that had begun with her great-grandmother.

  It must have been a horrible pressure, mused Flora, to have grown up with the weight of so much family history on her shoulders. How would I have coped if my parents had set such lofty goals for me? Or any goals at all … ?

  Her reverie was interrupted as the door swished open behind her. She was surprised to see her fellow technician Annabelle Grace entering at the head of a small crowd. She had a visible bruise around her left eye which had not been there a few hours earlier.

  “Annie? What …”

  Seeing her, Annie’s freckled features shifted from defiant petulance to forced cheer. “Hey there, Boss, fancy meeting you here! Don’t tell me you’re up before the headmistress as well?”

  Hunter, striding to her desk, was unamused. “Stow it, Grace. Pull up some chairs, and we’ll sort this out.” Two others had entered with her: Balafama Abayomi, atmospheric scientist, ebony-skinned, tall and superbly muscled; Barbara Young, ship’s gardener, middle-aged and pleasant company on her good days, which were unfortunately rather infrequent. She brushed angrily at her dark hair – usually immaculately combed, it was hanging loose over one eye.

  “Should I wait outside?” asked Flora.

  “No, sit down Cartwright. You can listen in. Bala, run me through what happened.”

  “Truthfully, I only caught the end of it. There were several of us in the lounge. I was at the opposite side playing pool when I heard raised voices from the dining tables. Before I could get over there, Annie threw a punch at Barbara. I acted to restrain her before things got worse.”

  “Good. Well, Grace … ?”

  The young technician slouched back in an exaggeratedly unconcerned manner; Flora half expected her to put her feet up on the table. As much as she liked her, she often found Annie’s attempts to be “a character” somewhat laboured. Her red hair was a mass of braids, writhing unevenly about her head like a Gorgon’s snakes. An orange paisley shirt and matching mini-cape clashed violently with a pink cotton dress. The message was simple: Look at me.

  “Well … I was minding my own business, eating one of Alice’s succulent meals – corn, lettuce and tuna I think it was - when I saw our gardener wandering over …”

  “I’m a hydro and aeroponic engineer!” cut in Barbara.

  “ … well I say wandering, but really she was marching, stomping, striding belligerently straight for me, and when she arrived she put her finger an inch from my face, puncturing my personal space in a way I found quite intimidating … ”

  “Captain, I was dignified throughout!”

  “ … and she shrilled at me, ‘Why haven’t you lazy technicians looked at my problem yet? I put in a high priority request 14 hours ago!’ or words to that effect. The actual language she used was pretty shocking, stuff I’ve never heard before and hope never to hear again. Such words from such a mature woman, Captain! Anyway, I knew the request that she was talking about, having seen it on our to-do list, and was forced to tell her that it was pure nonsense.”

  “It is not nonsense.” Barbara, teeth gritted, was fighting valiantly for self control. “The artificial gravity in my garden is plainly higher than for the rest of the ship. I can feel it every time I go in there. What if it affects the crops? This smartass won’t be laughing if she has to spend a couple years eating tinned food and breathing recycled air.”

  “So I patiently explained the cold realities of gravitomagnetic field generation to her – specifically that units in our flooring will, by design, put out 1 g when operating at peak efficiency, and anything more than that could only be the product of that wonderfully furtive imagination of hers. Fertile, I mean.” She laughed. “Oh yeah, then I said: ‘If the ship ain’t working, complain to me; if the laws of physics ain’t working, complain to God’ … that was a pretty good ad-lib, don’t you think?”

  Hunter said nothing, simply gazing at Annie until her bluster drained.

  “Well, anyway … she said something about me sitting around on my lazy ass while there was work to be done. I didn’t like that, so I let my fists do the talking. Or one of them anyway. The right one.” She sighed theatrically. “Look, I hardly even made contact! I’m a lover, not a fighter. Unlike our friendly Amazon here. Bala practically rammed my head through the deck.”

  “I’m sorry. Perhaps I was a little rougher than necessary, but …”

  “No need to apologize,” cut in Hunter. “Your secondary function aboard ship is security, though I never really thought anyone on this crew would need
policing. Barbara, you evidently didn’t throw any punches; you’re dismissed.”

  “Thank you, Captain.” Barbara paused at the door. “I imagine that Grace’s punishment will be quite severe.”

  “Is that so?” Hunter, as usual, was giving nothing away.

  A lengthy silence followed the gardener’s exit. Annie placed her left foot on her right knee and fiddled with the lacing of her boot, Bala’s eyes roved aimlessly over the bookcase, Flora frowned as her thoughts returned to her own situation. Hunter activated her computer and operated it with precise taps and flicks of her index finger.

  “I have the psychological profiles from before we shipped out here … ah yes, here’s yours. The summary reads: ‘Ms. Grace’s personality is electric, her psyche strong and robust. Her enthusiasm for the mission is heartfelt. She would doubtless be a popular crew member and I have no hesitation in recommending her for duty on the Bona Dea.’ A glowing report. So what’s gone wrong?”

  “Nothing! Nothing’s gone wrong. I’m still the same as I was on day one. Other people might have changed, perhaps that’s the problem.”

  A golden eyebrow arched. “Every flashpoint on this ship seems to revolve around you. A coincidence? Or can we deduce that you, in fact, are the problem?”

  “I guess I might be a little maverick for some folk’s taste, but hey, every pack needs a Joker.”

  “Interesting analogy. The Joker’s left unused for the vast majority of adult games. Surplus to requirements.”

  Annie’s narrow face reddened slightly. “Hey, come on! I’m not surplus, I work my ass off doing stuff only I can: nursing the KSD, fixing wonky wiring, crawling through vents, tweaking and polishing ... try running this place without the technicians, I’d love to see how far you get.” She nodded triumphantly.

  “There are six technicians, only one of whom is a problem. Let’s review your track record from the past ten months or so … stop me if I miss anything out. I gave you your first reprimand for sarcastically saluting the second and third officers …”