Page 19 of Reaper Said Mine

I set my compad on the counter and let it project my credential packet. "Ursa Ramone, correspondent with IHC-Now. I am requesting formal press access to Lord Gnash for an on-record interview concerning the ongoing protectorate negotiations, regional security, trade stabilization, and the political status of Guyver Station."

The officer does not even glance at the full packet before stamping a red denial glyph across it.

"Request rejected," he says.

"On what grounds?"

"Lord Gnash does not grant interviews."

"Has Lord Gnash reviewed this request?"

"No."

"Then Lord Gnash has not denied it."

The officer looks down at me with the weary patience of a mountain contemplating erosion. "His policy has denied it."

"Policies change."

"Reapers change policies by killing whoever wrote the old one. Are you applying?"

The Fratvoyan clerk at the next station makes a strangled little noise that may be laughter. I keep my face neutral.

"I am requesting the name of the appeals officer."

The Reaper officer leans closer. Up close, I see old scars crossing the black skin near his jaw, pale against the darker surface. One bone spur along his cheek has been broken and has regrown crooked. "You may appeal to Docking Liaison. Docking Liaison will deny you in more words. You may then appeal to Diplomatic Clearance. They will deny you in prettier words. If you grow very annoying, you may appeal to Command Scheduling, where a clerk with three artificial hands will deny you while eating something that smells worse than death. Would you like directions?"

"Yes."

That finally gets a reaction. His eyes narrow with something like amusement. "You are either brave or badly educated."

"I have a degree."

"Then brave is all that remains." He taps his console, and directions appear on my compad. "Do not wander into restricted corridors. Do not record Reaper children without guardian permission. Do not touch anyone’s weapons, food, spurs, scars, or trophies. Do not use the phrase pirate king unless you wish to discover how many station residents find it tedious. Welcome to Guyver Station."

"Thank you."

"That was not kindness."

"I know. I decided to accept it anyway."

His mouth twitches. For a creature built like a nightmare with shoulders, the expression comes dangerously close to a smile. "Move along, reporter."

I move.

The arrival bay opens into a market concourse that steals half my prepared assumptions and leaves them gutted on the deck.

The central thoroughfare curves along the inner ring, wide enough for cargo sleds to pass between pedestrian streams. Three levels of storefronts climb the walls, connected by grated stairways, lift platforms, and narrow bridges draped with banners in Reaper glyphs and trade symbols. Merchants shout over one another from stalls selling everything from engine couplings and pressure seals to spiced fungus skewers, armor patches, handwoven cloth, illegal memory crystals, legal memory crystals with illegal advertisements, and jars containing small bioluminescent things that watch customers with too many eyes. The air is warm after the docking bay chill, thick with cooking oil, ozone, machine grease, unwashed travelers, incense smoke, and the mineral tang of recycled water.

Children run through gaps in the crowd.

That stops me more effectively than the weapons.

Reaper children are still enormous by human standards, all elbows, developing spurs, sharp teeth, and wild hair. They dart around a fountain built from an old engine casing while a gray-skinned adult barks at them to stop terrorizing the visitors. Nearby, a human woman with cybernetic fingers haggles with a Kiphian over fruit. A pair of Grolgath diplomats pass with faces arranged into cool disdain, though one of them keeps glancing hungrily toward the skewers. Farther down the concourse, two Reaper warriors help an elderly Alzhon lift a crate onto a sled while pretending the act is not kindness but impatience.

My compad captures everything.

A station resident in a patched utility coat notices the recording light and points a grease-stained finger at me. "You press?"