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  Jessa and Trog both quieted down, still grinning.

  “Hey, Didi. You here to help pick your new playmate?” Jessa said, her tone overly innocent, and Trog cackled again. “Or are you just going to watch this time?”

  “Shut the fuck up, whore,” Trace snapped. “Like you’re not going to spread it for the first living thing that steps out of the lock. Why don’t you mind your own fucking business?”

  Trog cackled again, and Jessa rolled her eyes, permanently etched with heavy liner.

  “Ooh, her shining knight. Honey, fucking is my business,” she said, but then shut her trap. As she should, as was right and good. She was the oldest of Fantasia’s resident prostitutes, and looked it; she had no right, harassing Didi. Didi was an artist and a goddess. Jessa was bug chow.

  Trace stepped closer to Didi, ran the back of one hand over her perfect right breast, watched the nipple harden through the thin material. She inhaled sharply, looking away. As though she were shy.

  “I want you to pick,” he said gently, softly in the cup of her ear. Even thinking about it was exciting, made his dick stir anew. God, he loved drop days. Didi didn’t care for them much, but she always participated . . . And the distance in her eyes when she was being taken by a stranger, the vague, faraway look to her as she distanced herself from whoever, trying to get away while her body performed, responding in spite of what she wanted—yeah. That was good.

  Didi didn’t respond, only kept her gaze averted, but that was okay. She was his girl. She’d do what he asked.

  A grinding clash of metal on the other side of the lock signaled that the crew had arrived and were coming through. Trace reluctantly stepped back from Didi, turned to watch the shielded door after nodding at Trog and Jessa, who both raised their weapons.

  With a squeal and a soft blast of icy, greasy air, the door slid aside. Moby was the first one off, grinning widely at the sight of Trace and Didi. He ignored the pieces pointed in his general direction.

  “Ah, the management,” he said, sauntering out. “Trace. Deirdre, how are you, love?”

  She smiled. “Hello, Richard,” she said.

  Moby seemed to redden slightly, but still he stepped forward and kissed her on the cheek. Didi liked to keep people off balance in her own subtle ways. It was one of the things that Trace admired most about her. He had chosen Moby for her a year or so back, and the pillow talk afterward had yielded up his real name, Richard Wale—Dick Wale, so of course, Moby, a reference lost on most of the Fantasians—but as far as Trace knew, no one else called him Richard.

  Moby turned his attention to Trace. “So, how’s the illegal drug business these days?”

  Trace flashed a look at Trog and Jessa, who both lowered their weapons. Everything was online.

  “Profitable,” Trace answered, and Moby nodded, tapped his collar transmitter.

  “Let ’em loose,” he said.

  “Lee?” Trace asked, and Moby nodded.

  “Anyone else I should know about?” Trace asked.

  Moby shrugged. “Nice looking 7er wanting a position, if you get the gist. Name’s Ri. Oh, and Frank Cole can go home, if you’re done with him.”

  Trace nodded. Good. Cole had issues; the last ten months had been an exercise in keeping him under control. “Did the rapist come up?” He asked.

  “Yeah. Yen. Big and ugly, can’t miss ’im. Oop, speak of the devil.”

  The man who stepped out of the lock fit Moby’s simple description to a tee. Lot of scarification and ink, face like a dump truck grill, big enough to step on Trog. He looked around, shouldering a beaten down duffel bag, his piggish gaze passing over the men, going straight to Jessa . . . Then Didi, where it stopped. The way he studied her—

  Moby was saying something about the new pilot, a highjack, but Trace wasn’t listening.

  “Yen,” he called, clearly and without hesitation.

  The big man hesitated, then walked toward them. He was a monster. Trace stepped slightly in front of Didi, his body language doing the talking.

  But just to be sure . . .

  He kept his voice low, directed at Yen alone. The others could hear, of course, but that was okay. Trace had run the compound for going on three years, after the first short-lived manager died in a slight alien incident. He knew the tack to take.

  “Welcome to Fantasia,” he said. “I heard you were coming. My name’s Trace, I run this outfit. Here’s the deal. You’ll get a job here, you’ll earn credit or product, you’ll learn the rules and stick to them. We’re a lenient bunch up here, got no problem with a man doing what he wants to do. I wanted to tell you, though, that we had a guy here, like two years ago?”

  He looked at Moby, who nodded.

  “Two years back,” Trace continued. Yen was frowning in concentration, watching Trace’s lips move. Moby hadn’t mentioned “dumb” along with big and ugly, but stupidity definitely stood out as a strong possibility.

  “This guy, he sometimes took things without asking. You know what I mean? Some people say theft, some people say picking up what was lying around, but what it comes down to, he came up here—to our home—and tried to take something without getting permission. You understand?”

  Yen nodded, slowly. Behind him, more of the drop ship’s passengers filed out, but Trace didn’t look away from Yen.

  “So he found himself outside, and the aliens took him,” he said. “They took him and glued him to a wall and stuck a baby alien inside of him—that’s how they breed, see? They stick their babies inside other animals. And when it was born, it blew his guts out. He was already dead by then, though. Not enough air, the cold . . . He died slow, surrounded by monsters, with a giant parasite in his belly, eating him from the inside out. Bad way to die, man.”

  Yen nodded again, even slower, but the message had clearly been received. Whether or not it would stick remained to be seen. Trace clapped him on the back.

  “Good to have you,” he said. He turned his attention to the others as they piled into the entry, looking around with sleep-slack faces. A high-end prostitute, sculpted and shaky—Ri, Moby had said. Nice. She was looking to patch quick. A couple of low-levels, street guys sent up to cycle out two of the established workers. A handful of assorted cons. Most of them carried bags or shoulder packs. Lee was last out, his nod to Trace making it spiel time. He raised his voice, addressed the group with practiced ease.

  “I’m Trace Berdella,” he said. “I manage this place. As I was just telling Mr. Yen here, there are a few simple rules that I expect you all to follow for the duration of your stay. Listen up, and pay attention.

  “One—you kill anyone, you steal anything, you’re bug chow. Two—you compromise the station in any way, you’re bug chow. And three, my own personal favorite—you do what I tell you to do, or you’re bug chow. Anyone need me to repeat those?”

  The faces stayed mostly blank, though he could see flickers of things, even through their careful masks—anger, fear, dread, more anger. A soft, sly smile from the thin man with the wandering eye. Had to be Wes Allen, the new chemist. All the chemists who ended up out here were psychos, he wasn’t sure why. Not like kill-everyone nuts, more of a want-to-see-my-collection-of-biopsy-slides crazy. At least they kept to themselves.

  Enough of a second had passed. “Good,” Trace said, and grinned in welcome. “Let’s get you settled in. Pardon the whip, but I wanted to make sure we got the essentials established right away. No need to be all militaristic, though, right? We’ll take the short tour on the way. Didi?”

  He turned, offered his arm to Didi, who took it with her own bare, willowy limb, her head high. Trog and Jessa shuffled ahead of them into the big corridor that switchbacked the length of the compound, Jessa already stealing glances back at the men as the group spread out a bit. Whore. Next to Didi, she was barely female.

  He leaned in to Didi, marveling at the pale, soft shelf of her jaw in profile. “The woman, Didi. Her name is Ri.”

  Didi nodded once.

  �
�I said you could pick,” he whispered. “Do you want her? Do you want Ri?”

  Didi nodded again, her expression unreadable.

  Trace felt his heart beat faster, pulsing every part of him. “Go get her patched and wait for me.”

  Didi released his arm and fell away, dropping back to walk with the others. A moment later, he saw the two women take the first offshoot in the badly lit corridor, one that snaked around to the private rooms by way of the gardens.

  Trace smiled. That was going to be good. Far better than watching the newcomers see the ant farm for the first time, though that was always a high point on drop days, too . . . a few more steps, round the corner—

  In front of him, a half-dozen live-feed panels on the corridor’s north wall showed a deep cleft in the rock, ten meters deep and barely two high at the highest point, illuminated by a handful of red lights. The passage was active, the bugs excited by the drop ship’s arrival, and as the group gathered around him, a half dozen loped past, a few more creeping by, their shiny black limbs dully reflecting the red light. They looked close enough to reach out and touch, though the wall beneath the panels was a meter-plus thick. Muted hissing came from the speakers, the skitter of claw on rock.

  “Christ,” someone muttered, and Trace felt a strange pride, looking out at the creatures, looking back at the shocked solemn faces of the people around him. Hardened lags, most of ’em, the sight of the bugs turning them into awed children.

  One of the creepers edged closer to the panels, giving them all a close-up view of slime-dripping teeth and long, eyeless skull, the bug crouched and hulking. It was easily a half meter taller than Yen, and as they watched, it let out a cry, the shrill, trumpeting sound that they made, often seemingly at random. As a group, the new people jumped. Trog and Jessa both laughed. Moby made a show of amused boredom as another alien answered in a piercing shriek, filling the section of corridor with strident and chilling sound.

  Trace smiled, pleased, letting them all take a nice, long look. Seeing the bugs up close was one hell of an incentive to keep in line, much more so than the drugs or credit he doled out. He decided he’d send a team out to “feed” them later today, for the benefit of the newcomers. It had only been a couple of weeks since the bugs’ last allotment, but he thought that Yen, at least, could use a visual to go with the story he’d told. There were a number of strategically placed cameras on Fantasia’s surface, the better to watch the bugs at their industry—which was pretty much breeding and being entirely intimidating, not necessarily in that order.

  “Come along, children,” he said, when enough time had passed, and they hurried to comply, as they should, as was right and good. Fantasia was Msomi’s world, but Trace ran it, kept its workers safe and happy, kept the bug population under control, and most important, kept the product going out on schedule. He was respected and liked at a job he did well. Anyone try to fuck that up? Bug chow.

  * * *

  Pete stayed close to Tommy as they moved away from the XT viewing hall, his heart racing. Jesus. The aliens were worse than the rumors, much, much worse, not like spiders or insects at all. They looked like giant black skeletons, deformed and mutated, humanoid only in that they had arms and legs, appeared to walk upright—but they had long, serrated tails that snapped and thrashed hard enough to divot the rock, clawed hands and feet, skulls shaped like, like he didn’t know what. Torpedoes, maybe, but organic, asymmetrical, and dominated by giant metallic teeth that hung down in the front. Strange spines like black bone jutted from their angular bodies, and the sound they made, that shriek—

  They were fucking horrible, and Pete felt a strong urge to apologize to Tommy again, but Tommy wasn’t looking at him. He stared straight ahead, walked no slower, no faster than anyone else. Pete followed suit, unable to breathe deeply until they got out of sight of the aliens, hoping that things would get better somehow.

  Right. If he were here alone, he’d be okay; he could be charming without trying too hard, and he made friends easily . . . keeping them, that was a different issue, but the ship wouldn’t be staying that long. But with Tommy here? Being responsible for Tommy’s participation in this fucked-up fiasco, having to worry about him and live up to his expectations, knowing that every time his big brother looked at him, he was judged and found wanting—that made everything seem infinitely harder.

  The manager and his workers led them through an open blast-door, into another section of dim hallway. Trace Berdella—Pete had never met him, but knew he’d run Msomi’s distributing operation for the Pacific Rim before winding up at Fantasia. Supposed to be educated, strange sense of humor, not afraid to get violent; he was high up on the ladder. Not a user, though his now-absent girlfriend—Pete assumed she was, and too bad, she was stunning—had been as high as the moon. Pete had known a lot of people on 7, the look was unmistakable. How she stood and moved, that expression of pure contentment. It was an amazing drug—all the pep of a good meth, the bliss of a high-grade psychedelic, the physical relaxation of an opiate, and no real negatives . . . Except the ever-rising price and the inevitable habit, which came on fast and was practically impossible to kick. The withdrawal was extreme, took weeks to get through—physically, anyway. The alterations in brain chemistry made it so that ex-patchers were generally a clinically depressed bunch, even taking the best psychotropics on the legitimate market. Suicides weren’t uncommon, nor was going back on 7. Only really rich people—or, presumably, drug dealers and those who slept with them—could afford to make it a lifelong addiction, and some did just that. Pete had tried it, once, and might have picked up a habit of his own except that he’d known a few of those suicides. Plus, you never knew when your connections might dry up, burn out or get busted, and then you were screwed. It was some heavy shit.

  “What’s your name, handsome? I’m Jessa.”

  Pete blinked, smiled at the woman who’d fallen in step with him, one of the workers. She held her weapon, some kind of assault rifle, low on one nicely rounded hip. At first look, she could pass for mid to late twenties, around his age, honey-colored hair, good body. The corridor was poorly lit, but as close as she was, he could see how rough her skin was, that coarse texture that came from too many cheap peels over surgically enhanced features. That, and the eye makeup, tattooed in a style a decade-plus out of fashion . . . She was likely in her mid fourties, at least. Not that it particularly mattered—the stuff the toxdocs could do these days, keeping certain muscles tight . . .

  “Pete,” he said. “Now, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this, Jessa?”

  Jessa laughed, a throaty giggle. “Waiting for you.”

  He smiled again, leaned in close. “Not me, sweetheart. I’m only here two days, and I’m low on resources. But if I get lonely, I’ll sure keep you in mind.”

  She placed her free hand on his arm, caressed it lightly. “See that you do, Pete. I cure loneliness.”

  She gave him a sexy twist of a smile and dropped back. A moment later, he heard her repeating her pitch to M-Cat. He smiled to himself but noticed that Tommy was glaring at him, and went back to staring straight ahead. Granted, his older brother had good reason—great reason—to be angry with him, but Tommy also needed to lighten up a little, in general. Just because these people weren’t Joe Citizens didn’t mean they were evil, or that they didn’t have feelings. Tommy acted like anyone in the sub-trades was the antichrist or something.

  Trace led them to another sliding blast-door—not including the airlock, they’d gone through three already. He stopped, turned to look at them, his strong, wolfish features the very essence of pleasant tour guide. Definitely an unusual guy.

  “We’re about to enter the main compound. It can be a little confusing at first, getting around—there are a lot of dead-end corridors, a lot of off-shoots that only go to one or two rooms. This place was built inside an existing cave system, to take advantage of the insulation, defensibility, whole buncha reasons. Anyway. The dead ends are marked. Tap into the
mainframe if you want to download a map, but you’re a pussy if you do. The hall we’re in now cuts back and forth through the compound, all the way to the bunks at the far east end. Get lost, look for the hall with the green paint.”

  He gestured at the wall. Squinting, Pete could make out splashes of army green. It looked like it had been randomly flung.

  “While you’re here, you’ll work,” Trace said. “Might be hauling chemicals or packaging, might be working in the kitchen or the lab, might be something else. We rotate a lot of the boring shit, cleaning, laundry . . . It has to be done, though, and if you don’t show for a shift or get it covered, you’ll be docked—wages, privileges, drugs, whatever it takes to keep you an active worker in our little community.

  “But like I said before, we’re not military or corporation—there’s a lot of good stuff up here, too. Fully stocked rec room, exercise equipment, hologames, like that. Basic soypro fare, but we get fresh fruit and greens from the ‘ponic garden—that runs along the south side of the compound through a couple of rooms.”

  He grinned charmingly. “You’ll have easy access to booze, stick, assorted light stuff—you want anything else, you’ll have to set up your own deal. Trog D. he’s your man.”

  The short crazy-looking gun holder grinned, gave a wave.

  “No weapons at Fantasia,” Trace continued, raising his voice over the sudden low rumble of protest. “Not unless you’re on a feed team or are holding one on my say-so. I know the bugs are scary, but they’re outside; inside, we got a lot of folks who’ve proved to be less than law-abiding, and I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings. In the totally impossible event of a perimeter breach, get to the standoff area, far northeast corner of the compound. We do drills every couple of weeks, you’ll know what to do and where to go. Until then, just follow the green paint; this corridor dead ends at standoff.”