And Dream of Angels - 1. Chapter 1

Apparently it’s debatable as to whether I was hatched, birthed, or super-evolved in an A.I. Bio-tank. It was on account of the fact I don’t appear to have any truly discernible navel that quite a few of the other coffin crews had taken to believing I was some sort of wingless Angel. Or, at the very least, some sort of similar, breedable variation. Anything other than Humanid. Which, of course, is what I am.

To me it doesn’t matter. But to the rest of the lifeforms who seem to be forever hanging around Machinski’s Port Bar and Diner it had been a point of discussion every time we landed for a stop-over. It hadn’t been helped by Frankie, the ‘captain’ of our coffin. It had encouraged the myth by stating it had originally found me amongst the wreckage of an abandoned illegal splicer lab, way out on one of the Boundary planet outpost stations. It was total GIGO as I have solid memories of my birth crèche, parental guardian and the pains of pilot training. But once the myth had been established, no amount of denials on my part seemed to satisfy the other crews’ curiosities or imaginations. Mind you, Frankie can be pretty convincing, even though it looks to me like a large five-eyed multi-coloured octopus.

Sitting up at the bar, Frankie leaned towards me and tapped a sucker-rimmed tentacle conciliatorily on my forearm.

“Hey, don’t let all these slime eating crust life get ya down, Charlie. I don’t care if you’re not one hundred percent pure an’ true monkey boy, I’ll still t’path to ya. I know some of the other sentients around here look down their whatevers at Hominidae – but, Hell, ya the best coffin flyer I’ve ever known.”

I smiled and took another sip of my beer while reflexively checking on the others who were pulled up near us at the bar. Frankie can often be more than a little indiscriminate with its telepathic broadcasts, even when it doesn’t want to be, and there have been times when other crews have taken offence at some of its less than subtle t’pathing.

Still, at least the translator was holding up and Frankie was coming through in a variant of Humanid, which meant it was starting to finally flex down. Whenever Frankie gets stressed out it usually becomes ‘discussionally confused’, and then the translator refuses to work. Either that, or Frankie just bypasses it. And the last thing Domino or I need is for Frankie to start broadcasting mental word soup whenever situations get a little close to critical mass. If Frankie really becomes freaked then it’s usually down to me to try and comprehend its raw visualisations and work out what it’s trying to communicate. Not the kind of thing I needed to contend with when a Radolex drive envelope is starting to deform and collapse around our coffin.

That’s what had brought us out of the Light prematurely.

With the drive chewed up we had no choice but to hump a ride on one of the mineral barge trains heading for a proper landfall, rather than one of those robotic industrial outposts. Domino had been right on the button when they had pre-cogged the intersection point, which had actually made them a little more united. Believe me, there’s nothing worse than when an all-male multi-organism lifeform colony starts throwing an argument within itself.

So we made it safely to Machinski’s Port, docked up, and received a new comm-pod with further instructions. It didn’t tell us much, except that the company now owning our cargo wanted us to keep on jumping as they felt the load was still worth diddly on the price per returning unit. Maybe the next time we come out they’ll be ready to sell, who knows?

After that it was a case of trying to find an engineering gang who were prepared to work with our nanotechbots. Word has somehow gotten around that ours are more crankier than most, so quite a few Radolex drive teams don’t want to work with them.

Part of the problem is everyone remembers the stories about what happened onboard the old military class cruiser, the I.S. Constellation. That must be, what, two, maybe three centuries ago now? Personally I don’t think those Defence ‘bots actually did manage to reprogramme themselves. Plus there’s more than enough information in any databank to explain how various organic lifeforms function and mutate, without the need for them to go experimenting on their crew.

Besides, our ‘bots have swarmed all over the drive and still can’t fix it, so I think they’re cranky because they can’t get access to the scientific knowledge they want.

Whatever, Frankie’s found some kind of freelance engineering team who come with good references this time at least, and who appear to know what they’re doing. More importantly, it seems they don’t mind the ‘bots crawling all over the place – or over them, for that matter. Which is just as well, considering how pissed off the ‘bots were the last time we had to put them into hibernation.

So that is why we were in the Port’s Bar and Diner, waiting to be fixed, grabbing a relaxation period and exchanging gossip with some of the other crews.

#

I suppose I should make it clear that Frankie calls all Radolex-driven craft ‘coffins’ regardless of their size or class. It’s not that we’re likely to die in them – that’s a given with any form of stellar or interstellar travel – but the fact is we might as well be dead once we take off and make it to surfing speed. It’s the payback for being given something by the Radolex, and all their gifts have come with invisible price tags.

If it wasn’t for the Radolex drive then there wouldn’t be any real long-time space travel, which originally helped save the Humanid race. Those returning pioneering travellers had been the much needed new blood back then. Successfully reviving the weakened gene pool on their return, they had provided ample new material to combat the wild mutations being born at the time.

But in order for our business to be successful you have to skim the light fantastic. Not some slick and easy hyperspace jump or some cute wormhole shortcut for us. The penalty is that relative time slows while all other time around you still progresses at its petty pace from day to day. Us coffin crews have to take the long way home, otherwise the Commodity Futures market wouldn’t work, would it? Like the sales pitch says: “The time differential means you’re goods stay ‘fresh’ while supplies run dry!” A couple of flips out and back and who knows? Your cargo could then be worth a fortune even an immortal couldn’t spend in their lifetime.

But if you were to ask me, I couldn’t tell you what our cargo is. And to be honest I have no interest in finding out. Cheap and often valueless commodities are bought when the price is low. They’re loaded onboard a coffin like ours, and they keep on being shipped off until, hopefully, the cargo becomes valuable sometime in the future, thus assuring the desired result. A massive profit to the syndicate, government or empire which holds out the longest. Ultra-longterm Investment. At least that’s what everyone is gambling on. Over a period of time the cargo will often be sold on to others, again and again. Naturally, all such transactions are recorded and posted centrally, so once a coffin arrives at any particular designated port, they can pick up an updated history via a waiting omm.-pod capsule. That way the crew is kept up to date of any new owners or company instructions.

There have been times, of course, when a coffin’s cargo hasn’t been what the manifest states. Which, in my opinion, is more than good enough a reason not to ask too many questions.

The problem is once you take off for that very first time then you’re dead to the life you leave. Crèche family, friends and lovers become memories once you sign up. Unless they can afford the high costs of stasis cocoons, or are inveterate travellers or even pilots themselves. Which, of course, is also saying you can come out the other side as sane as you went in.

It’s all dependant on the angle of the ding on the edge of the lightwave – which is why there is a need for telepaths, reliable precogs, nanotechbots and monkey boys, because not all lifeforms are immune to the side effects. And even then, a lot of us purebred Humanids are often still affected by the ghosts of future events, regardless of how rigorously we’re tested. It has something to do with accelerated genetic mutation, the reassembly of time particulates in the wake of the Radolex envelope, and the resilience and resistance of the Multiverse to non-evolved changes. As far as the Radolex themselves know, it’s only specific types of monkey boy who are destined to eventually evolve into telepaths which make safe pilots. Those of us who carry the dormant T-gene, and who can be successfully modified and accelerated into activating that skill, also seem to create the defensive ability to filter and block the visions at will. Thus we can pilot a straight course up the timeline.

Let me try to put Radolex flight into an easily understandable analogy. Our kind of ships sort of swim through time and space like fish which swim slowly upstream, navigating around the shallows and sometimes hiding in the weed beds until the water level rises.

These ‘weed beds’ sit happily in amongst the rest of the Multiverse energy anomalies. And just as any debris becomes trapped in canals and waterways, regardless of which planet you’re on, these weeds trap the energy from unshielded memories, thoughts, and the emotional debris accidentally discarded by the crews of passing ships. The problem is, once the energy is trapped then it will exist for as long as the weeds let it. They become physical memories living out their alternative lives and altered situations, almost like a strand of the Multiverse itself, before they eventually fade and die. Just like the real thing. For some they are proof of the possibility of an afterlife. For others it is just an unstable energy trap. Most of us Humanid pilots tend to call them the Wish-I-Hads.

Ships and crews are far better shielded now than those of the early days, and most Port Authorities are required by I.S. law to ensure that only fully certified craft take off and land. But some of the older ships are still likely to leak mental energy through cracks and chinks in their protection.

To make piloting easier some of the more stable ‘weed banks’ have been logged and surveyed, both for navigation and for scientific study. And, in old Humanid maritime tradition, those of us in the Pilots & Navigators Guild have always referred to them as the Sargasso Zones. In the early Migration and Exploration Period, craft would sometimes become physically lost for great lengths of time, only to be found trapped deep within one of the anomalies, perfectly functional, but immobile – their crews often dead, or just babbling mindlessly about being forever visited by ghosts.

I sometimes daydream that somewhere in amongst the weeds has to be a copy of my lost Felix. At least a tangible version of him. And sometimes, when we’re left with no choice but to cut through a weed anomaly, I will go into the observation blister and just look out at what is there around us. I’ve not seen him yet but I know I want to believe he’s there – whole and alive again. I still miss him greatly.

I’ve talked to no one about him, or how we felt for each other. Such non-breeding relationships are taboo within the Guild, punishable by the removal of a pilot’s interface connectors and an active regime of persecution. Only Frankie has some idea about Felix. It’s been inside me, far deeper than any other lifeform. Otherwise how would it know exactly what to project to me when the bad times come? But I don’t think about Felix’s dying so much now. If I try I can still see him at the end. Even the medibots were virtually inactive, which is always a bad sign. I had only been able to see him through a barrier window in the isolation pod wall. Sometimes I would have to jostle for position with the various organic and inorganic observers who were there to follow the progress of the complete virus cycle. And I would like to think it was Felix’s results which gave them the data to fight the plague effectively. He was my true mate, and it hurts when I think about what I have lost.

But I don’t have any other regrets about signing up to the Guild, or going into the Commodity Futures trade. The holding company I’ve signed up to have done the usual contractual agreement, paying a projected cut of the profits into a one-life-only trust fund for as long as my nominated crèche guardian remained physically alive – no cloning, no whole-body transplants, no bio-mechanical extension of the organic life presence. It was a way of ensuring the crèche continued to receive funding and the kids could have more than just a basic kind of a life. It gave them enough security and a little protection from the chaos of trying to survive day-to-day living out in the Packart colonies. From the communications pods I had been able to collect over the years I knew at least one of my crèche-brothers, Rafus, had followed me into the Light. The youngest of our batch, Jenson, had tried to make it planet-side – a deliberate decision of his against following in the footsteps of many of his crèche brothers.

Rafus had been killed when the Harbottle’s pre-cog had blown a synapse and had them drop out right in the middle of a Quantum Gravity blister. At least, that’s what the analysis of the wreckage seemed to indicate. But by the time we got to hear about it, it was decades in the real past and had become a more-forgotten-than-recounted crew bar horror story.

Jenson had eventually joined The Return Migration movement just after the Earth’s Immigration restrictions had finally been lifted. The remains of the surface government had declared the planet no longer overpopulated nor on the brink of exhaustion some time back, and had been actively campaigning to encourage Humanids to return planet-side for some time. I lost track of him six jumps ago now, so I’ve no idea whether he made it back to Mother Earth or not. I hope so. And I hope that he was happy in his new life, whatever that might have been.

But, for me, the gamble of Commodity Futures was a conscious decision, made with the knowledge that those who go out to ride the stars are going to lose everything they hold dear back home after just a few quick jumps.

And for that we are universally considered to be deliberate and dedicated outcasts by our respective races. The self same races who are also not afraid to exploit us for their own betterment. So we have evolved our own protective culture, which often isn’t specific to any one lifeform either. We have our own rules, mores and traditions. And for our sins we have baptised ourselves with the collective name of Hoppers.

#

It was the start of the Shadow Period of the sixth rotation since our landing when Domino came in and sat down beside Frankie and me at the bar. I was never sure if assuming a Humanid appearance when they were with me was considered flattering or not, but even I could see they didn’t look too good. Every so often a finger from the right hand would detach itself, wiggle along the bar, and reattach itself to the left hand. Sometimes a replacement would form up, but not often enough to keep to the symmetrical five by five arrangement. The finger routine was something I’d never gotten used to and it always made me wince a little, inside. It also always annoyed the Hell out of Frankie no end. Which, of course, was a big mistake.

“Can’t you cork-sucking ice-holes ever stop doing that around us?”

I glared angrily at Frankie, then set about making peace with some of the other ‘forms close by who had been within t’pathing distance.

Domino restabilised itself, and in a surprisingly delicate, sing-song voice, said “We’ve been rejected.”

I had no idea what they were talking about, but Frankie suddenly started to radiate gentle waves of sympathy and understanding, tinged with a whiff of regret – its body pigments changing from deep vermillion to a warm and uplifting golden yellow. It was the closest I’d ever known it to become emotional, let alone think about the feelings of others.

There had been another time, of course, when Frankie had nearly killed itself.

#

I still don’t know exactly how it happened, but as soon as the hull had been breeched the alarm had gone off and the emergency systems had just dumped us back into normal space. It’s supposed to drop us out of the Light and into the most safest space within the immediate vicinity, with the priority being to maintain Life Support conditions for as long as possible over the time approximated to repair the physical damage. Which, to be fair, when manually recalculated later, is exactly what the system did. Right at the mid point between an energy hot spot and its chaos halo. Diagnostics had shut down all non-Bio and cargo compartments, and from the Environment datalogs we found we’d been peppered by something which had left us with a spray of holes punched through the hull. Some of them the size of my fist.

The first wave of repair ‘bots failed to repair the coffin’s skin much beyond the outer access door. They had tried making it further but in the monitors we could see the little ‘bots popping and burning in the waves of energy from the near-by flaring hot spot. Problem was we needed a percentage of hull integrity in order to get moving again, and we needed cold space so we could plug the holes and effect repairs safely. It left just the three of us. Four if Domino were prepared to split into two.

But Frankie hadn’t even stopped to debate it. It had just slipped and slithered itself into an exoskeletal suit, got itself tooled up, and before any of us knew it, hard-nosed indifferent Frankie had climbed out into the fire.

It was the first and only time I’ve ever seen an exo suit smoke as particles of its protective armour were slowly blasted and ripped away, molecule by molecule, by the flare.

Things hadn’t been bad at first, and Domino and I thought Frankie would have the coffin sufficiently patched before things got bad. But as the energy gradually got inside the suit and started biting into Frankie’s cells it had started to t’path more in long, raw, uncontrolled bursts. With no experience in defending against such intensity I was suddenly seeing the control boards overlaid with ghostly visions of Frankie’s memories, unknown landscapes, and the incredible sonic beauty and the pleasure of form produced by a seemingly never ending string of calculations. And then I started to share the pain it felt. Layer after layer of it started shutting down and retreating into its own core in an effort to protect itself, until only the low-level, reflexive, primeval drive for survival was all that seemed evident in its outer levels.

When Frankie had completed enough repairs for us to finally move off again, it had simply crawled back into the coffin. We had wasted no time and while Domino set about getting us clear and into safe, cold space, it was up to me and some of the medical ‘bots to cut what was left of Frankie out from the ash and charred layers of its body mass which had become physically fused to the inside of the suit.

Even then it wasn’t pretty, and the only place we could rig up as some kind of hospital was the artefact decontamination bay, mainly as it was the only place we knew onboard which had adequate shielding against the uncontrolled, full volume confusion Frankie was radiating. Even its core cell pigmentation was strobing so fast the surviving remains of its body mass appeared to be glowing. I had even tried to keep its t’pathing properly controlled and attempted to put a protective shell around us. But in the end Frankie just tossed aside any mental defences I threw up, and then started to protectively download its dying cell memories into me. And, suddenly, I began to understand its race’s long struggles for survival, Frankie’s own hopes and aspirations, its dreams, desires and motivations. Even its own struggle for acceptance within its own society which had eventually shunned it for its involvement and continued contact with other, alien, lifeforms. In a few blinks of a wide eye, I got to know exactly what it was like to be Frankie. And I was surprised to realise just how similar we actually were. Then I was collapsing and mentally drowning in a flood of imagery and sensory overload.

In the end I had gone low, mentally finding a way of slipping upstream against his outpourings, and then opened myself up to Frankie in an attempt to combat the despair and loneliness it had felt at the possibility of its own cessation. It had been a coupling well beyond our sym-linking, and had somehow fused us on many levels – leaving us in some respects a little repulsed by the sheer, unguarded intimacy we shared, while at the same time obsessively fascinated by what we had both felt for, and revealed to, each other.

#

Back at the Port Bar and Diner, under Frankie’s soothing empathy Domino had gradually calmed down, and after they had finally left, Frankie explained to me about their collective detachable reproductive system. I knew Domino was an all male collective, and in order to perpetuate the species there were also probably going to be all female collectives. And it stood to reason that, somehow, they would get together and create other, new, sub-organisms which would ultimately go on to form collectives of their own.

“Ya see, it’s like this. Their reproductive cycle only occurs once in their collective existence. The male collectives send the female collective of their majority agreed upon desire his/their representatives. In other words, their figurative balls. An’ she/they then picks the balls she/they like the look of the best. It’s only good manners ta return the rejected reproductive representatives with a thank you note. Which, no matter how many ways ya look at it, has still gotta sting. Right? But, in the end, it’s all very civilized. No one initially knows who the sires will be, an’ the gene pool gets a pretty random swirling for good measure. Here, I got some graphics somewhere in my cells.”

I managed to block all incoming t’pathing before Frankie found whatever it was it was thinking for. Turning its head it blinked all five eyes in surprise.

“Hey! Don’t bounce me like that. An’ by the way, I’ve images of what you monkey boys get up to come ruttin’ time, an’ believe me, if I had anythin’ approximatin’ a stomach, it would be turned. For sure. Me? I’m just glad I’m totally complete”

“You’re hermaphrodidic, Frankie. No big deal.”

“Yeah? No big deal? Well, let me tall ya, when somethin’ turns round and says to me ‘go screw yourself’? At least I can ask ‘em if they wanna watch while I do.”

#

It was towards the end of the first quarter of the Shadow Period, twelfth rotation since landing. The Radolex team had given our engines a gold seal and pronounced them stable again. I had been summoned to the Guild Lodge, and afterwards I had turned up at the Port Bar and Diner a little later than I usually did. As I sat down next to Frankie, its pigmentation changed to a warm, soft amber, and I felt it radiate a gentle wave of concern towards me.

“Ya okay, Charlie?”

I pushed the call button in front of me and waited for the bartender to arrive. “I’m doing okay,” which was a stupid thing to say, especially around Frankie. If I blocked it out, then it would know something was up, and if I let it in too far then it would see and feel the root of my anxiety. And I certainly wasn’t ready for that just then.

The bartender came up, took my order, and returned with two beers. I slid one over to Frankie, who for once didn’t touch it. Instead there was a gentle brush against my arm.

“I don’t mean to interfere, Charlie. But if the medibots are adamant that it’s coming to the end of its life, then it’s gotta be for the best.”

A little spike of anger flared in me. “It’s easy for you to say something like that. Your body structure’s totally different to mine – and it’s not like you actually need any gadgets or gizmos to help make you function, is it? No, your ‘form is far too complex to be modified.”

Frankie lifted one of its tentacle ‘fingers’ and pointed its tip at the polished silver and blue crescent embedded near the top of its ‘head’. “There’s this communications translator.” Then, in a slightly more self-conscious tone, it opened and closed its eye membranes several times. “An’ there are these damn spectrum filters. Hell, ya know I can’t normally assimilate those long wavelengths like you an’ most of these other lifeforms can. Not unless I got me some kind of mechanical help. I take ‘em out, an’ I’m almost as blind as a newborn kit-ling. An’ sometimes those low frequencies, ya know, they resonate here inside me. They’re completely discordant, upsetting my internal structural harmony an’ giving my core cells indirect harmonics.”

Frankie sent me a quick second’s worth of what it felt like, and it set my teeth on edge. But I was still angry.

“This will be my third time, Frankie. It’s not going to be like the first time, when I had no idea what to expect. Or the second time when I still believed the Guild reps when they said it would be easier after the first replacement. It isn’t. They slowly decouple and take the whole of the neuro-metal network out of my body, while at the same time replacing it with a totally new one. It has to be done in real time, and no anaesthetic, otherwise it doesn’t fuse into the body properly. If it doesn’t fuse at a cell level correctly, when it gets activated for the first time, parts of me will die instantly. I’ll short circuit from the inside.”

I knew Frankie must have had a pretty good idea as to exactly what the replacement process was like. My own experience was no doubt buried away in his cell banks somewhere – a result of our coming together and mentally bonding in the decontamination area. I looked down at my beer, and didn’t move even when I felt Frankie’s light, feathery touch on my forearm, and the mixture of concern and empathy it broadcast to me.

“But, if ya don’t get it replaced Charlie, the breakdown an’ decay will start to speed up. In the end ya gonna corrupt ya own system. How many times ya ceased already?”

Frankie knew the answer, but I told him all the same. “Five times. Five deaths that I can remember.”

“Exactly, Charlie. Ya know there’s gonna come a time when ReGen ain’t gonna be an option, even without that neuro-metal starting to rot in ya, ‘cos the original data won’t be clean enough to copy any more. It’s one of the perils of being a short existence race, Charlie. The shorter the span, the more the desire ya race has to extend its existence time. Sure, I’ll still exist long after ya gone – an’ from what I know of those emotional feelings of yours, then yeah, it makes me feel ‘sad’. But I’m either here, or I’m not here, Charlie. If I create a kit-ling or two along the way, then fine. Ultimately it’s my decision as to the survival potential, and just how much racial history and personal experience I impart into my kit-lings. But the bio-engineers are still nowhere near mastering any ReGen process for ‘forms such as mine, and as a race we have no urge or desire to extend our existence beyond natural cessation. That’s why companies want us to head up coffin crews, Charlie. We exist a long time, an’ we don’t ask for much.”

We were silent for a while after that, tuning each other out and quietly drinking – listening to the audio conversations around us, and stewing in our own thoughts – until Frankie tapped me on the forearm again with one of his ‘pods.

“Look, I know ya Guild has its rules an’ regulations, an’ I suppose they’re all designed for your safety an’ wellbeing. It’s hardly good for business if’n ya not around ta pay ya dues, right? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing, okay? But I can’t let you destroy yourself like this.”

“What are you saying, Frankie?” I tried a subtle low level probe, but Frankie blocked and filtered it out without even twitching.

“When ya got rewired before, ya went to one of the Guild houses on one of the majors, right? Lemme see. Impressive architecture, expensive facilities, all high profile so as to maximise the impression of power. An’ naturally, with the Guild being the Guild, there ain’t no frugging way they’ll let me into one of those places, will they?”

“Yeah, you’re right on both counts, Frankie. But your point is?”

“Ya know, sometimes I wonder if nursing a nest-load of kit-lings would be easier… My point is, what if I were to link up with you when they start the process?”

I did a quick check around us to make sure Frankie’s thoughts hadn’t been picked up by anyone else. It didn’t seem likely as nothing nearby appeared to be staring at us. I relaxed a little.

“Frankie, what happened in the decontam bay was a one-off. It shouldn’t have happened.”

“But ya can’t deny it did, can ya. Look, I know it’s totally against Guild rules – but we’ve already gone beyond that. An’, hey, ya still got more of me in you than any kit-ling ever has.”

Again I did a quick check of the other ‘forms near to us, but for once we didn’t seem to be attracting any attention.

“Look, I don’t know what the deal is, but you know you’re not going to get close enough when the transfer starts, so let’s end this right here.”

“All I’m saying is that we don’t stand a chance if ya go to get rewired at one of the major Guild houses. But they must have some outposts somewheres, right? Where would you go to if you were out on the Fringe, or even Deepside come to that, with no chance of makin’ it back in time?”

I thought about it for a moment. Frankie was right. I’d never used the long haul rescue facilities before. From the stories told by those who had I had a pretty good idea of just how primitive the Guild outpost stations were. Nothing more than a no frills, no comfort, automated medi-station.

I shook my head. “They might be just medi-bots but they’ll still register your bioform signature, Frankie. They’ll know you’re there. They’ll still keep you out of the replacement area.”

“Of course they’ll know I’m there. Why shouldn’t I be? I’m the concerned coffin boss who had ta drop out of the Light because his pilot system is totally frugged – which is why we’re out in the cold space in the first place. An’ believe me, I’ll pay for ya next beer if the Guild has spent enough on shielding those outposts ta keep me from linking up with ya.”

“But you don’t really know what it’s like, Frankie. It’s like someone pouring white hot metal through every vein of your body. The micro-medibots are injected into your system, and as they flush the old network out they build the new one behind them. And that sort of reconstruction takes linear time.”

“Like I ain’t got time?”

Inside me a remnant splinter of anger sparked for a moment. “What’s in it for you?” And immediately I regretted it as I felt Frankie’s surprise, tingled with more than a little hurt. “Sorry, I…”

Frankie blinked its eye membranes several times. “Charlie, ya know how ya broke through when we were in the decontamination area an’ I dropped all that cell data onto ya? Well, when things were stable an’ my mass was back up again, I went through myself. Just generally tidying up the damaged cells, rebuilding an’ repairing from the data stored in my core cells, an’ finding where the new holes were. An’ that’s when I found out about your life-mate, Charlie. Him, the relationship the two of ya had, the conflicts ya have with the Guild an’ its doctrine an’ ya life in the crèche. I’m from a totally independent race, Charlie. I ain’t never experienced anything like that before. An’ I never realised just what all those damn strange things really meant to ya until then, either.”

Frankie stopped t’pathing for a moment and absorbed some more of its beer, its colouration rippling as it converted the chemicals in the liquid into something its body could assimilate better. After a moment, it continued.

“So a couple of jumps ago I waited until the coffin was deep in the weeds, then went up into one of the observation blisters, turned off the shields, an’ broadcast long an’ hard about Fear-licks. He’s definitely out there, Charlie. I know, ‘cos I put him out there. I made sure I got the rough co-ordinates deep in a core cell, so I wouldn’t end up with them being lost in another accident. When I was frugged an’ on the edge of total cessation, ya came to me, Charlie. Ya could have just shut the proverbial hatch and let me prematurely cease, an’ believe me I wanted to. But ya got into me Charlie. An’ ya made me realise I could still exist despite the damage, an’ that there would be a time when things would be all right again. Nothing an’ nobody has ever done that to me, Charlie. Not even one of my own kind. So, I figure, once we get ya rewired we could...”

I closed my eyes and my mind for a second and thought about it. Then frustration and anger got the better of me again. “How do you know all this is going to work, Frankie? It’s all supposition and theory and –”

“Domino said –”

“What!?”

Around us heads and eyes turned in our direction for a moment or two, and I turned the power down before physically glaring at Frankie. It stuck a ‘finger’ down into the bottom of its beer and emptied the container.

“It’s okay, Charlie. I got a ninety-eight ta two percent agreement on their silence, which turned into a hundred when I threatened ta eat the dissenters. Hey, any good pre-cog doesn’t talk, otherwise word gets around an’ no one will deal with ‘em. Anyway, Domino said it was such a long range vision that they were not prepared to commit a probability factor to it. Me? I’ve always been a gambler, Charlie, an’ I’m sure that somewhere, sometime, ya get back with ya life-mate again. If only for as long as the weeds let ya. Don’t ask me any more ‘cos I don’t frugging know any more. All I know is he’s gonna be out there, for sure.”

I sat and thought about it for a while. But there really wasn’t much to think over.

“Okay, so when do we start?”

Without even pausing, Frankie said, “I already got our coffin bumped up the list. We got the third exit slot after the next sunrise. Domino’s already got the new dockets stamped.”

All I could do was just shake my head, smile in resignation, and reach out for the call button to order another round. But before I could get near to press it one of Frankie’s tentacle pushed my hand away, and in a wide open broadcast it t’pathed:

“Hey, look who’s just come in! It’s the new crew of the Belford Margolis, if I ain’t mistaken? Settle yourselves down over here, an’ for a couple of beers apiece ya can talk me inta letting ya get to see what a genuine Angel looks like.”

Touching me lightly on the forearm, Frankie t’pathed:

“Charlie? Ya just might wanna start unsealing ya tunic...”