When Places Call Read online

poem to flip by. But he knew most of the poems by heart anyway. He had been introduced to Turobeck early as a child, in school, and had carried the poems with him through his first space flight and early years living on a colony. He hadn’t even thought of Turobeck in nine years; he had ceased reading poetry completely.

  He closed the book and left it on the table.

  When he stepped back into the room, the glass doors and thick black curtains closed after him automatically. The room was different now, stylized to his liking. Gone were the pastels and fluffy bedspreads; the walls were now cream, the bedspread was black and the wooden cabinets gave off a pine scent that almost smelled real. The mirror had lost its frame and was now a large plain rectangle on the wall. Small round vanity lights showered the entire room in warm yellow light. It was a room Iguru would have designed for himself, something that felt disarmingly similar to home.

  It was highly unlikely Kira was a mind-reader, though it felt that way. It was more likely that he had collected detailed information about him, had somehow compiled a file. Iguru took a peek into the hall and for once the butler was not waiting right outside.

  He wandered down the hall and tested a few of the doors. None of them opened. The staircase was thankfully in the same place, but instead of going down to the hangar, he went up. After a few steps it began to grow dark and he turned on the wrist light on his utiphone. It didn’t do much to illuminate the steps in front of him and he pushed a hand forward. He encountered a barrier.

  The house was certainly advanced enough to have invisible barriers and shields, but something about the imminent darkness didn’t seem quite right. It reminded him of the simulators he would play as a boy where the game environment would only extend so far. The parts that were not programmed would simply be inaccessible, falling off into darkness or ending in a backdrop.

  He descended the staircase and went down to the hallway that led to the hangar bays. It was difficult to deviate off path, with the locked doors and hallways ending in darkness or backdrops. This place was a maze as much as it was a mansion, but clearly designed to keep visitors in specified areas only.

  It would probably be impossible to hide from the multitude of cameras that must be in place; it was as if the entire house just simply sensed his presence. The only way he could possibly gain entrance to other parts of the mansion was by Kira’s express permission, which would be hard to earn.

  There were no computers in the hangar bay, so hacking into any information Kira kept stored would be very difficult. Kira supposedly had databases, as he had mentioned as such when they were investigating Ananke, but Iguru hadn’t discovered any access points yet. The hangar bay doors silently slid open for him and he paused on the threshold. The hangar was bathed in quiet darkness with one exception. Kira stood before The Naked Rose as a long silhouette illuminated by a single work light. He was like a black stain in a white glow.

  Iguru clenched his hands and let out his breath slowly, trying to disperse his temper like he dispersed his breath. He marched towards Kira, not bothering to hide his presence, though Kira didn’t even turn to look at him; Iguru reached out, ready to yank him away—

  “She really is a beautiful ship,” Kira said.

  Iguru shoved his hands into his pockets to prevent him from doing something he might regret. He stomped to Kira’s side and harrumphed.

  “You called her a mutt, if I remember.”

  “That doesn’t mean she isn’t beautiful.”

  “She gets the job done.”

  “I’m sure she does. I imagine the Earth Interstellar Forces are quite upset you stole a ship to use as her base.”

  Kira gently swept a hand over the ship’s hull. Iguru tried not to inspect for fingerprints.

  “I imagine they are.”

  Investigator Rog, in particular, had been attempting to get his hands back on this ship for quite some time.

  “How does she fly?”

  “Well.”

  “No,” Kira shot him a small smile, “I mean, how does she fly?”

  “I thought you were an expert on aeronautics?”

  “I’m not talking about technical specs. I’m talking about flying. What’s it like?”

  Iguru stared at him blankly. Kira stepped closer to The Naked Rose and Iguru jolted forward, as if to protect his ship. Kira pretended not to notice and slowly rested against the hull.

  “What’s it like, to fall away from the world?”

  Iguru crossed his arms and stubbornly stayed where he was. Kira closed his eye. The red one remained open, an unblinking robotic shell.

  “Tell me?”

  Iguru resisted the urge to just toss him in the ship and tell him to experience it for himself. He moved closer to Kira, all to protect his ship of course, and flicked off an imaginary piece of lint. Kira laughed and Iguru made the mistake of looking at him. He was pressed up against the ship like a model posing with the newest hovercraft, hair askew and smile in place. He did a lot of smiling. No one smiled at Iguru. It was almost suspicious. Iguru harrumphed and leaned against the ship, looking up at the name he himself had inscribed in her side.

  “Liftoff is like being struck with a wave.”

  Kira hummed indistinctly, eye still shut, mouth open just slightly. His ear was pressed against the hull as if he was trying to hear the roar of the wave, the roar of the liftoff.

  “When you leave orbit, it’s like being pulled out to sea.”

  “Drifting among the stars.”

  Iguru nodded and his throat felt unexpectedly tight, “Then you hit light-speed, and everything is whiteness and darkness, and you can barely see and your skin stings like you’re being pelted by a bad rainstorm. Then, suddenly, everything stops and it’s like you’ve found your very own rainbow.”

  “The stars are yours.”

  “They are.”

  Kira opened his eye and Iguru ignored that there might be tears. Iguru pushed off of the craft and jerkily gestured for Kira to follow him.

  “You might as well take a look around inside,” he said, and then added, “before I change my mind.”

  Kira’s expression was all surprise and eager glee. Iguru awakened the ship and invited Kira in. He was not as gracious of a host as Kira, but he didn’t need elegance and refinery: he had his ship and she could speak for herself.

  “Iguru, checking in,” he announced.

  “Welcome, Iguru Halk,” the ship responded.

  “You gave her a voice?”

  “Every ship needs one.”

  “That’s quite an outdated concept.”

  Not to mention a sentimental one, but Iguru was not going to talk about how lonely space could get.

  “I like it,” Kira said.

  Iguru shrugged. Kira turned about the cabin, leaving a waft of vanilla scent in his wake. The Naked Rose was not as sleek as Ananke, not as shiny as a top-of-the-line cruiser, and definitely not as ergonomic as a passenger starshuttle, but she was unique. Pieces of different spacecraft from varied worlds and alien races knitted together to form a ship that could outpace any fighter craft and could out-compute any science vessel. She was born of stolen parts and black market beauties, was repaired in dump sites and refurbished with rubbish. In many ways, she embodied Iguru’s own journey.

  Kira briefly touched upon various controls, hands flitting back and forth over screens and switches. Iguru folded his arms, keeping his hands tucked away, and let Kira have the run of the ship. He watched cautiously though and winced at every fingerprint. Kira paused before the door to the sleeping cabin, cocking his head in a request for permission. Iguru grunted and Kira entered.

  “It’s quite…compact,” Kira said.

  “Tiny, you mean.”

  Kira spread out his arms and was able to touch the opposing walls of the cabin. He laughed a little bit.

  “I imagine it would be odd to sleep in a huge guest bed when you’re used to hiding away in a cramped space like this.”

  Kira glanced ov
er the smattering of personal decorations. On the walls screens displayed ship information and navigational updates. There were, however, a few that displayed images of a more maudlin nature.

  “That’s the launch of Orion Starlines’ Empyreal,” Kira said, leaning close to the screen so that his breath fogged over it.

  He watched the clip repeat itself again and again. The Empyreal was the first ever passenger shuttle to visit planets outside of Sol’s system. It launched decades after Turobeck and other early mavericks had paved the way of course, but Orion Starlines established the first regularly scheduled flights for interstellar travel. It was Turobeck’s dream turned real. It was space travel for the masses. It heralded a new industry and a new era in space flight.

  “I never got my hands on that ship,” Kira added wistfully, “Orion Starlines keeps it well guarded. They don’t even let museums rent it for exhibition.”

  Iguru said nothing. He already had his ship, he couldn’t understand collecting them. The Naked Rose served his purpose just fine.

  “Ah, Mio Wy’s ship! That’s a fine photograph. She was one of the first ships with a fully integrated computer navigator.”

  “Yes, the program was called Yallie.”

  “What is your navigator called?”

  “I fly manually. The most she does is welcome me and occasionally make observations about nearby celestial phenomena.”

  “Does that mean you didn’t give her a name?”

  Iguru glowered. Kira smiled impishly at him.

  “You did give her a name! What is it?”

  Iguru considered turning away, but the