Strange Lands

They take the Rat to Old Space, because Sellis has contacts there--what Cahill calls a 'hooligan rabble', and Sellis insists are 'good ol' pals'. They file into the elevator to the surface and have drinks with the rabble in a dingy but friendly bar built below street level, and accessible down a slippery staircase.

It's snowing here, and Marsh hadn't really expected it. Hasn't had all that much experience with snow, and weather in general. He keeps finding the window and wondering if the stairwell outside will fill with the stuff and trap them here, inside the bar.

Eventually, Cahill notices and laughs at him, and Sellis calls him an Old Space snob, which Cahill takes as a compliment, sketching a bow that sets the rabble to laughing and thumping him on the back, because they're all dressed like they are ship-board and Cahill looks as Old Space as Avan--with her mining town vocabulary and gunnery shop-talk--sounds. The rabble doesn't buy it for a minute, and as soon as Cahill realizes they think he's one of them, born and bred, it will start to annoy him.

Marsh grins into his beer--he's drinking and no one cares. The rabble doesn't even bat an eye. Not at the drinking and not at his weapon--and waits for the moment. For the indignant sputtering. But it doesn't come because Cahill's spent so much time with Sellis and his hooligan rabble crew that he's becoming more like them without even realizing.

The next time they come to Old Space, it's to meet clients. Nobles who want goods not smuggled, but transported very fast and very, very quietly to the Reaches. It's shady, but it's what Sellis does, so Cahill mutters about falls from grace and dresses for the occasion, sleek and suddenly gentile in dark coat and elegant clothes. Avan laughs and Sellis mocks him mercilessly, but they all change into similarly formal attire, except Sellis who won't give Old Space nobility the satisfaction of thinking he'd dress up for them. "Over my dead body," he says, and it becomes an argument with Cahill which Avan eventually gets dragged into.

She's in a dress. Pale yellow and delicate, but she still cusses like a girl from a mining town. She threatens to shoot them both if they don't shut up, and the argument changes from being about Sellis and what Cahill calls his 'mule stupid pride' and becomes a circular quarrel; arguing about the argument, and Marsh stands with Lilaey--who's having no part of it--and tries to figure out whose side he should be on.

In the end he disappears back into the room he shares with Cahill, and changes, because he doesn't want any Old Space noble thinking the Ratatosk is piloted by one of a hooligan rabble, even if they'll think she's captained by one. Lilaey gives him a look up and down when he comes back and says "lose the gun", which hadn't even occurred to him.

He'd rather lose the dark mark on his face. Rather that than be the only one unarmed.

He loses the gun. It doesn't hide well under the dress jacket, anyway.

The house they arrive at that evening is old. Brick and mortar and decorated with flowering, climbing plants, and the door is answered by a very polished, very handsome man with a series of small circles in descending size along the curve of his cheekbone. He doesn't introduce himself. Just looks solemn and decorative as he leads them to what is either a library or a study, and Marsh gets an unpleasant feeling that’s very like looking into one's distorted reflection in warped glass. He finds he's edged closer to Sellis, and drops back in disgust and Avan nearly walks into him.

Marsh waits for her to ask if he's okay and thinks he'll probably have to hit her if she does. But Avan just gives him a little push and mutters, "Walk. Walk properly. I'm wearing goddamnheels here!" Old Space fashion offends her sense of practicality. Her shoes pinch her toes. She's told them about a million times on the way over, and reminded Sellis about as many times how grateful he'd better be because she's doing this for his goddamn client.

Sellis, who's barely, barely acceptably attired. It probably pains Cahill, the state of their captain, when Cahill even has what he says is an "appropriate hat for the situation" and it was hilarious until he'd lent Marsh one and said, "Wear it, goddamn it. It's bad enough we're going to look like we answer to a vagabond."

Marsh had waited for Sellis to object, but all he'd said was, "And I'll look like I run a crew of circus clown", so he'd put the hat on and smoothed his jacket and hoped his boots were alright, because other than them he looked as refined as Cahill.

He's not sure that’s a good thing, now. His eye keeps finding the tag who hovers silently in the corner, and steps forward only to fill glasses and replenish the plate of artistically shaped sweets and cakes. Marsh hadn't really expected the butler. Hadn't even considered the possibility, and hasn’t, in all honesty, had all that much experience with other tags. He wonders if there's some kind of formality he should be observing.

No one's mentioned anything about his sitting with the crew, obviously one of them. Then, a minute later, realizes he's been able to let his thoughts drift because even though questions are directed to the left and right of him, he hasn't been addressed once.

At least the tag butler is refilling his glass. Doesn't even cant that sideways questioning look at Sellis as he does the way do in the bars, sometimes.

Marsh didn't used to notice these things, but Sellis twitches so much when they do it that he's started to wonder if he should be taking more offense, or taking offense more often. He uses Sellis's discomfort as a cue and makes lists in his head of words, and rules and occasions that he can't ask anyone about.

The tag comes and refills all their glasses again, and this time Marsh catches the questioning look. Directed at the noble and not at Sellis, which was why he'd missed it before. The man gives a faint nod as go-ahead, and as wine sloshes tidily into his glass Marsh realizes what the man is doing. Humoring the savages, the hooligan rabble.

He feels very bad for Sellis, all of a sudden, and the next time Sellis calls Cahill a dressed up clown and refuses to scrub up and down and sideways for any Old Space buffoon, Marsh follows his lead.

"You're a bad fucking influence," Cahill tells Sellis when Marsh wears the dress jacket over functional on-ship clothing, and Sellis gives him that disapproving look he gives Cahill whenever Cahill mentions him.

"I'll wear the hat," Marsh offers, because, inexplicably, he likes the ugly thing.

"Oh, I'm the bad influence," Sellis says and shakes his head when Marsh tucks his hair under it, using darkened monitors as mirrors. Marsh holds up his gun belt and Sellis's expression finally lightens a little. "May as well," he says.

There is no tag at this house. The door is answered by a little girl who clearly isn't meant to be anywhere near the entry hall, because a nanny comes and scoops her up about a half second after she says, "Hi," and introduces herself. She's all easy manners and self assurance, but the nanny finds Marsh's gun and fixes on it, even though Avan is armed to the teeth and obviously so. Even though Sellis and Cahill and Lilaey wear similar arms. She shoves the little girl behind her, and Sellis gets that twitchy look that makes Marsh think this is one of those instances he should maybe be angry about.

Except that he's not. He's angry for Sellis and oddly embarrassed that he looks as much a vagrant as Sellis when the tags out on Old Space streets are elegant and genteel and refined. Sellis won't say a word on the matter beyond, "Just fly the goddamn ship," and guessing what the hell he's expected to be doesn't ever seem to meet with any success.

He's not a fool. But he is a tag, and he's always either scaring the locals or getting Sellis condescended to.

Tags don't carry guns. Not usually, and the image of one who does is a dark terror in the back of Old Space minds and maybe everyone's all the way to the Reaches. The idea that a tag might jump his program and go rogue, running on virused programs or entirely independent of any influence but his own and out for blood is, Sellis says, the sort of boogeyman story that comes from guilty consciences.

Sometimes, Marsh can find the edge of his program, and trace along it, finding the thoughts that he's built and formed himself and the ones that came from Land's Child technicians. Or he thinks he can, but maybe it's a mistake, because he finds that edge by watching the others and finding where he differs from them. Finds the edge between him and them by watching where the borders of Sellis's resentment and Cahill's exasperated patience fall.

He finds the edge of the program shifts and sometimes isn't sure there's any clear end or start of it at all.

Sometimes, he thinks he needs pscyhs, because nothing makes any sense at all and the only thing he can blame that on is that shifting, elusive program that he can't even get a real bead on.

The next time they have occasion to dress up, it's not for a client at all, but an extravagant Midstate wedding, because even dirt poor Midstate has its wealthy nobles, and Midstate nobles feel the need to show off that wealth. Marsh waits for Sellis to make disgusted comments about it, but he doesn't. Instead he annoys them all with nostalgic recollections until Cahill says that it's obvious he's only invited to the wedding at all because he "banged the bride when she was slumming, once."

Sellis doesn't take the bait. Just says, "She thought I was dangerous," and makes a face that’s maybe meant to reflect that.

"She bought that line, huh?" Cahill says, and Avan says, "You look constipated," and for all her previous whining about dresses and shoes, Marsh notices she's got new ones on for the occasion. Or maybe just ones he's never seen before. She's pretty and he's never noticed that when she was just Avan, shooting things and cheating at card games.

The thought catches him off guard, and sends his mind searching for the edges of the program, because he's not sure where that idea came from. Everything's been in a spin since he joined with the Ratatosk, and when Sellis says, "Getting dressed or what?" he finds the rest of them are ready, and says, "A minute," and takes ten because he's not at all sure he want to go.

Sellis tries to give him his papers at the door, because Midstate teems with illegal tags and made tags and the whole wide belt of stations is far more insistent on documentation than any other place, including most of Old Space.

"In case we get separated," Sellis says, when Marsh doesn't take them, and keeps holding them out, insistent. It's as near an order as Sellis ever comes, apart from things pertaining to the bridge or ship management, but when Marsh reaches for them, his fingers won't close and for a second he knows exactly where the edge of the program is. Or this edge, at least.

Touching the papers suddenly seems like touching a dead thing, fills him with an aversion that gets stronger the more he tries to ignore it, until he finds himself backed away, and hopes for pride's sake he isn't shaking.

Someone snaps, "God sake," and in a minute he can focus again and realizes it's Cahill, and realizes Cahill is shaking his head in that way he reserves for moments when he thinks Sellis is an idiot beyond verbal description.

Sellis stands there looking dumb, and Marsh thinks he probably has the same slack look about him. Tries to pull himself together, even if his hands are still shaking. Even if he can't look away from the papers Sellis is still holding out.

Sellis hates tags, and Marsh thinks he's probably never looked so much like one--acted so much like one--in his life. He clears his throat and says, "Are we going or not?" and makes sure he isn't looking at the damn papers as he says it, even if his voice is hoarse because his throat and mouth have gone suddenly dry.

He trails Sellis through the party, keeping him in sight, because the risk of separation is real, and he's not sure what to say if someone questions him, because Sellis is a wanted outlaw. He doesn't think someone touchy about a tag's legality would overlook Sellis's.

Sellis isn't as tall as Cahill, but he's imposing when he isn't dressed like a vagrant. Elegant women shake his hand and the bride blushes and giggles with him between dances, when she isn't giggling with her new husband. Her hair is an intricate, gravity-defying thing that still manages to be elegant. Gold pins stick from it, and on short, delicate chains, tiny chimes hang from the pins. They jingle softly when she dances. More when she takes Sellis's hand and bounces like a little girl and says, "You have to meet my sister."

Marsh wonders if Sellis feels at all like he's being traded, or maybe passed on--You can have my pirate when I get married--but Sellis just laughs and says he's danced the last two dances with her sister already, which makes the bride frown in disappointment and sigh, "And I was so looking forward to introducing you." He wonders if Sellis feels like a showcase.

He's not sure if he's supposed to like the girl, but Sellis doesn't seem put out at all, and when he introduces them she looks a little surprised at the mark on his face, but takes his hand and shakes it, her handshake surprisingly firm for a girl with chimes in her hair.

"Dance with me," she says, and Marsh twitches, but she won't let go of his hand.

"Oh, don’t be shy," Sellis says, and smirks, and Marsh thinks he'll kill Sellis for this later, but follows the girl, because she's not taking his hesitation for a no, and probably wouldn't take no for a no, either.

He doesn't have a lot of experience with dancing. Before the Ratatosk, he flew explorations, and occasional rescues, out where population was scarce and the only dancing was drunken and mostly graceless and always either half in jest, or a sociable prelude to an entirely different kind of dancing.

He's as rough around the edges as Sellis, except he doesn't brush up as well.

But maybe the girl doesn't think so, because he's dancing with her sister next, and then--somehow--with Avan, who's light on her feet and knows how to dance and says, "You looked like you needed rescuing," and laughs, and ducks under his arm in a twirl he didn't know he was supposed to make.

The dance ends and he makes his way back to Sellis, sweating and too hot with shirt and jacket and the crowd all around and says, "Bastard," and Sellis laughs and shrugs and hands him a fluted glass--champagne--and Marsh knows it's because the waiters would probably bar his path to the alcohol. The rogue tag boogeyman has a close cousin in the too-drunk-to-follow-programs bogeyman, and Marsh wonders how they think someone that blind drunk would be capable of mayhem.

He doesn't say anything about that to Sellis, because they don't talk about things like that and because for once Sellis doesn't look angry--at him, about him, he's not really sure.

"Cahill has a bottle," Sellis says, and nods across the room, to where Cahill also has a table, and sits laughing and arguing with the groom's friends and Marsh doesn't want to have to go begging a drink in front them.

For once, Sellis seems to be at ease about him, around him, and it's like Marsh has taken over for him, worrying at things that hadn't bothered him before. That hadn't bothered him even when they were bothering Sellis.

But he isn't sure that wasn't a dismissal, and says, "Oh," and "Right," and edges his way through the crowd on the edge of the dance floor, to take the empty chair at Cahill's table.

Cahill holds the bottle to pour the second he sits down and says, "Where the hell's your glass?" in the easy way he curses when he isn't trying to look like he's still nobility. Even the wealthy Midstate groom and his wealthy Midstate friends are still only Midstaters and not worth impressing, maybe.

Or maybe Cahill's just had a glass too many. Marsh had left his glass by Sellis--to look less like he needed the charity--and takes over Cahill's and says "Pour," and doesn't look to see if there's any reaction to the familiarity.

He's learned that from Sellis-- to ignore the sensibilities of people who don't care about his. But what he's learned from Cahill is that caring about those very people's sensibilities is what separates one from the rabble.

He never used to worry about what made one anything, and isn't really sure he minds being rabble, or part of the hooligan horde, or any other thing Cahill calls the people Sellis usually prefers to deal with.

But they're not the sort of people who employ them, unless it’s a run that’s unusually shady, and dangerous, and the last time they worked for the 'good 'old pals' they ended up getting shot at. So there's no reasonable path other than parties that reek of money and pretension and trips to Old Space mansions and dressing to look more like the sort of people the nobles want to deal with and less like the people they are.

It means tag butlers and scared nannies, and sometimes it even means tag hookers, because this party crawls with them. Girls with tag marks so intricate that Marsh knows they're fake. Not real tags at all. No programs. But made tags share the same social ladder, more or less, and when Cahill flirts with one, Marsh takes the bottle and pours himself another drink and ignores him with as much determination as he can muster, and somehow finds himself in a conversation about the price of Reaches produce and whether or not it's utterly ridiculous.

"Jump is expensive," Marsh says, "and it takes that to move things while they're fresh. Are the Reaches supposed to afford to feed everyone for free?" God help him, he has Sellis's political opinions. And--God help him twice--one of the groom's friends slams his glass down hard enough force that Marsh is surprised it doesn't shatter, and launches into a passionate speech about the history of the Reaches and what they owe the longer settled sections of space.

Marsh says, "Then Midstate owes Old Space just as much," and Cahill breaks off his flirtation and hauls him up by the arm, and says, "Are you drinking?" like he hadn't been the one refilling his glass, and when they're away from the table hisses, "Are you trying to start a riot?" and shoves him towards Lilaey who's sitting watching the dancers and looking bored.

"Marsh is drunk. Help him pretend he's sober."

Lilaey looks at him. Says, "He's fine," and offers him her plate of finger food. When Cahill leaves, she says, "Don't make his new friends hate him, or they won't play with him any more. And then he'll come bother us. By which I mean me."

Sellis is dancing with the bride's sister, holding her out on the end of his arm as she twirls and then spins back in, laughing and laughing. Lilaey says, "This party is terrible," then looks sideways at him and says, "Dance?"

"I'm not taking a pity dance," Marsh says, and polishes off the last of her hors d'oeuvres.

"Huh," Lilaey says, "I'll take a pity anything at this point."

They spend a lot of time on the Ratatosk after than, running what Sellis calls 'errands' and Cahill calls, 'shady deals', and 'another step down the ladder to hell'. Avan watches stale video after stale video because the runs are quiet and there's no one to shoot, and Marsh pulls jump after jump until even he's sick with it.

Cahill says, "Back and forth, back and forth," and cooks dinners that only Marsh feels well enough to touch, and it's not until they have to ferry a girl from her uncle's holding in the Reaches back to her home in Old Space that the peace and boredom is broken.

Sellis curses at everything, but mostly wants to know why the brat can't take a passanger ship back like everybody else, and why is he always saddled with the crappy jobs.

"You specialize in the crappy jobs," Lilaey tells him, and they give the girl Cahill and Marsh's room because Avan insists a lady needs privacy and counts herself and Lilaey in that number--"Against all odds," Sellis says--and it's unseemly to displace the captain of the ship, ever.

The girl doesn't talk to them much and Sellis calls that "a fucking godsend," but Avan takes to her, and then it’s the two of them watching stale videos.

They do a lot of flying on the engines, because jump is even harder on those who aren't used to it, and even if it doesn't take them very far it gives the stomach a chance to settle and the head to stop pounding.

Cahill does most of the engine flying, because it's fair, and Marsh naps in Sellis's room between jumps because the couch is occupied, and his own room temporarily off-limits, and his head aches from too much time hooked up to computers, and the girl draws all kinds of conclusions that make Sellis even twitchier than usual.

Escort duty ends at the docking station, where an entire entourage is waiting for the girl and Sellis waves goodbye cheerfully and mutters, "Good riddance" under his breath.

Sellis is edgy after that. Doesn't even shake it when they reach Eriannon, the station they consider home, and where they have permanent off-ship quarters, and where they know people, and where almost everyone is a good ol' pal and a member of the rabble horde.

They dock and pack and put the ship in order, and head station-side, then up to the residential floors. It's strange sharing an apartment with Sellis after sharing a room with Cahill. On the Ratatosk the captain's space is sacrosanct, but here he's a roommate and Marsh borrows his things when he needs them and moves them when they're in his way. The shift is always a little disconcerting.

Sellis doesn't say "You could get your own place," even though it's obvious he's thinking it, sometimes. He gets that thoughtful look, and Marsh just knows it's on the tip of his tongue. He gets that look a lot after the girl and her speculations.

"I can't get my own place," Marsh says, finally, darkly, watching shows on the television--shows he hasn't seen a hundred times before--with dark determination. Not looking away from the screen. He doesn't have money, even if Sellis says he does. If he did, he might buy his own papers, even if the thought of having to touch them makes his skin crawl so bad he has to shudder hard to stop the feeling. Maybe he could put them in a bag, or a box. Lock them up. Cover the safe so it'll be out of sight.

The idea spooks him bad. Spooks him worse that he is spooked, and he tries to change his train of thought, and doesn't quite manage. Just stares hard at the television through narrowed eyes and wants to throw up every time his mind goes back to the papers.

Sellis could get him his own place if Sellis wanted. Or, really, Sellis could get himself another place and say it was Marsh's, and tell him to get out and live there instead.

The thought is sort of painful. The programs want him to be near Sellis. The program tells him he likes Sellis because Sellis has his papers. And maybe he does like him, all on his own, apart from that. It's impossible to be sure, because the edges are gone, and maybe aren't there at all. Maybe it is actually neat mesh, the way it's meant to be, and all the edges he thinks he finds just illusion or imagined.

Sellis says, "If you wanted to--" and stops, and Marsh doesn't know if it's an offer or a request, and slides down on the couch and keeps on watching the television.

"You don't have to," Sellis says, eventually, "Just if you wanted."

"I'll let you know," Marsh says, and it sounds a lot colder than he'd meant it to because Sellis doesn't ever let him know anything. Leaves him guessing at things and Marsh hasn't had that much experience with having to guess all the damn time.

He has that list of words and rules and occasions but all the questions boil down to 'what do you want from me?' and he can't ask Sellis that, because Sellis does want something from him and hates it so hard that he can't look at the papers either, sometimes, even if all he wants is for Marsh to fly his ship, and to not be a tag.