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  ANDROMEDA MAYDAY

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © D. Tolmach

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Edited by Nicole Mentges

  Design by Sergei Godovalov

  Cover photo and model: Elina Gaisina

  Thanks to Todd Raphael, Elina Gaisina, Kristina Pinson, Sergei Godovalov, Nikki Mentges, Patrick Findler, Glenn VanSwearingen, Sarah Hughes, Logan Makse, Andrew E. Mathis, and Zara Alizademadani, as well as to Jackie Broyles and Dunlap for teaching me the best way to kill a murderous robot.

  Contents

  Sex, Drugs & Yiddish Music. In Space

  Murder at Mugger’s Point Hotel

  Silvos

  Andromeda Unshackled

  Sex, Drugs & Yiddish Music. In Space

  Andromeda Mayday and the Unmenschenables are the hottest interstellar klezmer band in the Milky Way. Born of the ghettos deep in the intestinal mucus of the Galactic Union, they, like their captivatingly intense and soulful singer, seem both out of place and right at home in that cultural black hole of a galaxy. They’ve burst out of obscurity and are racing up the charts with their sophomore album and hit single “Li’l Ol’ Me,” so if they come to your planet, see them before they’re forced back underground and you’re not cool enough to get past face control.

  – Laniakea Music Review

  Icy Lou

  You can’t take your eyes off of trouble and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her: a proud, exotic marine animal moving down the glass corridor as if in her own temporal dimension, staring straight ahead and ignoring the crowd lined up to gawk at our first refugees in years. There were six of them, arrogant, unwashed, and unshaven, and all but one—a feral man with a razorblade smile, whose squinty eyes locked onto mine as he passed—avoided our gazes. These weren’t the beaten-down women and orphans in rags we usually took in. They were something out of a post-apocalyptic-themed fashion spread in a glamour magazine. Armageddon chic.

  “Just what we need, more fucking musicians,” growled Dewball. There were bulky instrument cases of various shapes strapped to their backs.

  Armed security officers in black armored space suits escorted them, a precaution against infectious diseases and ambushes, and they were to be kept in isolation from each other and the rest of the station until we could figure out what to do with them.

  “I’ll take the girl,” I said. “Get a team together to talk to the rest.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  * * *

  I watched her for a while as she waited in the interrogation room, picking at a hangnail, not nervous, just fidgety. I bet the narc analysis will come back with some interesting results. She jumped at the abrupt appearance of my hologram.

  “Hello and welcome aboard. I’m Chief of Security Icy Lou, and it’s my job to ensure the safety of everyone here on the Qbik. I know you’ve been through a lot, and we hope to get you and your friends integrated into society as soon as possible.”

  “Are we being quarantined?”

  “Well, we call it . . . processing. I guess that doesn’t sound much better, like you’re food. Don’t worry, we won’t eat you. Just think of it as some alone time to get you prepared for your new life with us.” She didn’t look reassured. “If I could just get a little bit of information first. Can I have your name, please?”

  “Andy.”

  “Full name?”

  “Andromeda Beatrice Mayday.”

  “Okay. And home planet?”

  “J-64-14.”

  “And what was the last star system you were in before leaving the GUAP?”

  “D-22.”

  “I see. What’s it like there? The Galactic Union, I mean.”

  She paused and looked at her hands. “Boring.”

  “Boring?”

  “They banned smoking in all buildings and spacecraft, outlawed swearing. Now every song has to be sent to the Ministry of Purity to make sure we’re not ‘corrupting minors.’ It’s the same for writers, painters, everyone.”

  “And what’s the point of making music if you’re not defiling the morals of impressionable youth, right?”

  Finally she showed some emotion, giving a glimpse of the smile that made so many planets swoon. I paused as I considered whether to tell her we had banned smoking as well. “What about the forced-labor lunar colonies? Reeducation camps for xenosexuals?” I asked instead.

  “Can’t say. Never seen ‘em myself.”

  “The annexation of the Eagle Nebula?”

  “There was a referendum.”

  “Yeah, at gunpoint.”

  She shrugged.

  “Well, you go get some rest. You’ve got a checkup tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Back in the command center, I turned on the observation monitors for the refugee dorms. The men in the first four rooms were already asleep, and the fifth was empty. I steered the eyebot—one of the insect-sized camera drones I used to track anyone on the station unnoticed—to the bathroom. There he was, the creep who had stared me down. Naked, he pulled back the curtain and got into the shower. I followed him in and watched for a minute as he masturbated with shower gel. Then I pulled up Andromeda’s eyebot cam. She put out a cigarette, took her clothes off, and went into the bathroom. I watched through the steam as the water fell onto her black hair. The time she had spent on that cargo ship hiding from the authorities had taken its toll. She was malnourished and had large dead eyes. Her body was bruised and scarred. Or maybe she had always been that way.

  Andromeda didn’t bother to masturbate, so I turned back to the creeper, opening up the information Dewball had sent from his interview. Tombstone Wolfram. I’d love to see the criminal file the GUAP has on him.

  That evening Dewball and I briefed President Armonde on the new arrivals.

  “What do we know about our new friends?”

  “My first impression is they’re junkies and probably perverts of one sort or another,” Dewball answered.

  “So they’ll fit in?”

  “Unless something comes up during the psych eval, I don’t see why not.”

  I chime in: “I think they’ve been traumatized. They spent three months on the run from the GUAP in a badly damaged ship full of hard drugs with no running water and nothing to eat but MREs. We need to be careful with them. They probably have PTSD. They don’t know anything about current events, but they have no love for Silvos or the Union. We need to get them hooked up to the Network as soon as possible, but we should make sure they’re ready for it. If they want, we should let them play concerts.”

  “Have you heard them?”

  “No. But they can’t be worse than most of the crap people listen to here.”

  “Let’s just hope nobody tracked them this way.”

  The inevitability of war loomed once again over the galaxy. The Union was building up its fleet in the Fourth Quadrant, a crude and effective warning to the Coalition of Free Star Systems: join us or drown in a bloodbath. What assholes. Armonde was considering whether to send the CFSS cloaking technology. It was the only thing we really could offer the poor souls, but if the Union got their hands on it, they could reverse engineer it. We weren’t sure how much we could trust the Coalition anyway. For all we knew, Union spies had already infiltrated their government. Our only other choice was to sit back and watch them get slaughtered.
<
br />   * * *

  I observed the medical exams with Dr. Mars Maxon. In Andromeda’s room, the medbot instructed her to lie on the table and slowly scanned her body, sending us 3D images of her organs. A needle pierced her track-mark-pocked arm, siphoning out blood, and in a few seconds we had the results: several STDs and some organ damage from alcohol and drug abuse, as well as vitamin deficiency and a peculiar genetic deformity. “No airborne illnesses, no neurological disorders . . .” Mars twirled the hologram of her brain. “I don’t see any reason we can’t get them hooked up to the Network right away.”

  In each of their rooms, medbots gave the musicians shots of anesthetic, knocking them out. As their bodies relaxed, the doors opened and a team of surgeons and nurses entered, then turned each patient onto their stomachs and prepared the necessary instruments. After shaving their heads, the doctors went to work opening their skulls and threading in the neural transmitters that make up the guts of the Network. I’ve watched it so many times I feel like I could do it myself, but I wouldn’t want to. It’s pretty gross. When the operation was over, they were put into a deep regenerative sleep lasting at least twenty-six hours.

  * * *

  Tombstone opened his eyes.

  “I feel fucking amazing,” he blurted out loud to himself. I knew the feeling. It was an order of magnitude higher than that burst of energy you get after taking a huge shit. Today is going to be a good day.

  He sat up and put his pants on, whistling without even hearing himself, and called Andy’s room. “Heeeeey, babe, how are you?”

  “Great.” Her voice was groggy.

  “This place is awesome.”

  “We’re getting out today.”

  “I know. See you soon.”

  Andromeda hung up her communicator and went into the bathroom. She was smiling, but something was off. I watched as she scratched her head and looked in the mirror, reading her thoughts through the monitor. Where’s my hair? Her hands wandered around the crown of her head, seemingly of their own volition, before she gave up and brushed her teeth. Surgical scars dotted the top of her head like a constellation, and a foreign feeling crept into me. Guilt? Pity? Before it hit me completely, I shut off the feed and left.

  * * *

  She opened the door dressed in a robe.

  “This is for you.” I handed Andromeda a box. She opened it and pulled out a wig.

  “What happened to my hair?”

  “It’s standard procedure. We shave all newcomers. Just in case, you know, lice or whatever. I’m sorry. I know it sucks, especially for girls.” She took the wig out, walked to the mirror, and put it on.

  “You look great!” My voice sounded too enthusiastic to me, but she didn’t notice. The Network was dulling her senses, triggering pleasant feelings that could be overwhelming. She looked at me and smiled like a child.

  “You should get ready. I’ll be back in an hour to give you the tour.”

  * * *

  They were lined up in the recreation room, the newly bald men and Andromeda.

  “Why does she get a wig and not us?” whined one of the boys.

  “Y’all needed a haircut anyways.” Dewball handed a container to each of our newest residents.

  “This is a PGD, or personal gravity disrupter. Its signal nullifies the station’s gravity simulator. You put it on like this. . . .” I opened up Andromeda’s box, helped her put on her wristband and shoulder harness, and waited for the rest to do the same. “The dial regulates altitude and you steer with the joystick.” I turned the dial on her PGD and she slowly lifted a half meter off the ground, letting out a short cry of surprise. This impressed them, and with varying degrees of gracefulness, they all took to the air. “Let’s get started on our tour.”

  “In the Qbik, we strive to ensure that the needs of all of our citizens are met,” I began, leading them down the corridor. “Food and water, as well as medical and psychological care, are available free of charge to everyone at any time. In return, Qewbies show their thanks by working at least three days a week and completing one year of service in the Defense Squad.”

  “Everybody seems so happy,” Andromeda noticed. As we flew, everyone was smiling and saying hi to the newest residents.

  “People like it here,” I said. “Before the Revolution, the Qbik was a lunar-sized factory building warships for the Dynasty. During the Battle of Messier 5, President Armonde, then a general in the Galactic Revolutionary Army, took it, winning the battle and marking a turning point in the war. After the Dynasty capitulated, Osco Silvos anointed himself president of the Galactic Union of Autonomous Planets and began arresting everyone he considered a threat to his power, leading to the Great Exile. Armonde gathered as many refugees as he could and commandeered the Qbik, bringing it here, to the edge of the galaxy.”

  I took them down the hall to the nearest metro station, the system of electromagnetic trains connecting each sector of the Qbik. It was a platform bustling with students and workers. Our train came in less than a minute, and soon we were traveling over a thousand kilometers per hour through the innards of the space station. Other passengers gawked at us, crowding around to take pictures with the newcomers and ask questions. The main stop was the Grand Hall Central Station and Observation Deck A. When we finally got there, everyone piled out and we flew over the stairs to the Deck.

  The Grand Hall was the size of an old planetary megalopolis. The focal point of Observation Deck A, and the crown jewel of the Qbik itself, was the hundred-story-high window looking out over the entire Milky Way. It grabbed your attention as you exited the metro, and, released from the restraints of gravity, we flew right up to it.

  “Throughout the years, we’ve turned this old factory into our home, and now we’re the freest and most technologically advanced Human society in the galaxy. Growing up in the GUAP, you were probably taught a completely different history. . . .”

  Andromeda’s attention drifted from the cosmos, her eyes widening. “Are those trees alive?”

  I followed her gaze to the Grand Hall Park. “Of course.”

  “And that . . . that’s grass?” When they saw it, they descended, landing on the soft lawn and peering down at the green leaves like early space explorers on a newly discovered planet. They had never seen real plants.

  * * *

  “This is the Center of Behavioral Science. We consider it the most important field. To ensure that our citizens are emotionally successful and fulfilled, the Qbik is divided into one hundred and twelve regions based on personality types, ranging from strict conformists to radical individualists. We find this reduces conflict. Travel throughout different regions is unrestricted, indeed, encouraged, but we find that one’s life is more harmonious and enjoyable in a community of like-minded people. We also encourage self-expression and self-realization, and I think you’ll find that you have far more chances to fulfill your full Human potential here on the Qbik than anywhere in the GUAP, or, for that matter, the galaxy. Through a series of psychological and neurological tests, we will advise you on what role you will play in our society and the region we think you should live in.”

  We did have our secrets at the Qbik. As Chief of Security, I was responsible for keeping the peace, and the best way to do that was to make everybody happy. Humans evolved to live on a planet, so living on a nonorbiting space station was physiologically traumatic. To avoid the negative effects of prolonged life in space, the Academy of Sciences created an implant connecting us to the Network. There, the Qbik’s computer could automatically adjust our moods, ensuring we were happy at work and elevating serotonin and dopamine levels during free time. Old terms like depression and sadness became obsolete. We had the complete freedom to do whatever we wanted while the Network ensured that nothing we wanted conflicted with the interests of the Qbik. The alcohol and drugs we were free to use were harmless and had no effect other than to indicate to the Network to simulate “inebriation.” We had real drugs, of course, but they were created in a top-secret
laboratory to be smuggled into the Galactic Union. This was all confidential, known only to officers with security clearance at the Academy of Sciences and the departments of Defense and Security.

  Our other big secret was the reason no GUAP scouts had ever accidentally come across us: we were protected by a cloaking shield, making us invisible to the naked eye and scanners from space. If we detected a nearby ship, we reverse cloaked it so no Qewbies saw it. This left us vulnerable to collision, but we were in such a remote sector it wasn’t an issue.

  Everything that happened in the Qbik was observed by an extensive surveillance system. I had access to real-time and recorded footage from anywhere on the station thanks to my army of eyebots. This was a well-known secret accepted as a necessary fact of life, and ideas of embarrassment and shame became anachronistic. Everyone knew that at one point or another I had probably seen them naked or doing something they would have rather died than be caught doing before the Great Exile.

  * * *

  Andromeda couldn’t get to sleep. That was one of the side effects of the Network at first. Your brain got overloaded. I could have reduced her stress levels and put her to sleep, but the faster she adjusted, the easier it would be on her in the long run. I watched her roll over in bed from side to side until her hand reached out for the communicator. Suddenly, my own communicator rang.

  “Hi, this is Andy. I can’t sleep. Can we hang?”

  We met at the Grand Hall Park and sat on the grass of Observation Deck A under the all-seeing eye of the Milky Way. I poured her a glass of cognac that she finished in one gulp.

  “There are so many aliens here,” she said, after downing a second one.

  I almost spit out my drink and had to cover my mouth with my hand, checking to make sure nobody heard her.