Cohost writing prompt: @make-up-a-starship-pilot — Starship pilot who HATES this part
The box unseals with a series of clicks and hisses, and the scent of probably-toxic preservative gases. Timni wipes her damp palms on her coveralls, and gingerly lifts the lid.
“Effulgence?” she says nervously to the head inside.
There is some wait, and then the head opens dark eyes and looks silently at her.
“Sorry, Effulgence,” Timni says, cringing. “It’s just — you only told me to come to Vana, and that some supporter of yours would find me. And that I should be here within two days of your death. Well, we were here first, but — you died five days ago, and nobody’s come for you. The Court issued an declaration making your funeral an immediate official holiday period, and Vana shut down all travel. The jump bar’s about to lift, and — and if I stay much longer, I’m going to look suspicious, Effulgence; I’m a trader.”
The head stares at her silently, without expression.
“Sorry, Effulgence, sorry,” Timni says wretchedly. “Please. Whoever your friends are, they couldn’t come, they haven’t come. Tell me what to do, instead. Where do I take you? Who do I give you to?”
“I have been dead how long?” the Empress’ head says, sharply.
“Five days, Effulgence. If the official news can be trusted.”
“Nobody’s made contact?”
“Effulgence, you didn’t tell me who to look for, only to come here. I’ve done my best to stay inconspicuous, I attended the public funeral ceremonies for you and loitered in pilot bars bitching about the jump embargo and waited here on the ship for visitors. Nobody’s approached me for anything.” Timni considers this phrasing, and that she’s speaking to her deceased and secretly deposed Empress. “…Nothing of relevance,” she adds, reluctant and shamefaced.
“Who has approached you?” the Empress says, peremptory and suspicious.
“People who know me,” Timni says. “Who know Vana is not on my usual routes. I made my excuses, Effulgence, enough to satisfy them.”
“What excuses?”
Timni chews her lip. “I said an old lover asked me to meet them here,” she says helplessly. “They know me well for — for taste in unfortunate people. None found it unusual that any old lover of mine would make such a demand, nor that I’d comply. They won’t — well, they won’t be at all surprised that I’d end up disappointed by such a person simply never arriving.” She withers in shame. “I am not a person of quality, Effulgence,” she adds, throttled near to inaudibility.
“This has so far saved you from the notice of those who killed me,” the Empress says, perhaps a little waspishly. “Very well; circumstances further betray me. I require a body.”
“Effulgence,” Timni says, “tell me who can furnish you with what you require, and I’ll take you to them.”
“I require a body,” the Empress’ head says impatiently. “There are vendors of robotics at Vana.”
It takes Timni a moment to work through the reasoning on the likely current availability of the Empress’ finances, and then another to reach the inescapable conclusion.
”…You want me to spend my own money on a body,” she says, in miserable horror. And of course the Empress expects; why not, if one has never been poor, has never experienced the strictly limited supply and irreplaceability of wealth, has been given everything one ever expected at the pointed end of no more than the mere counter-expectation of one’s displeasure. “Effulgence, you’ll be lucky if I can buy you a telepresence trolley and mount your head on a stick!”
No question, of course, of Timni’s compliance before the Ineffable Will.
“Will anyone be surprised that you’d spend your savings doing this thing for an old lover of no quality?” the Empress’ head says with truly unnecessary ruthlessness.
Timni chooses to treat that as rhetorical, and possibly treasonously closes the box.
“Still no sign of your squeeze, then?” a faint, joking voice says, somewhere outside the box, and Timni’s voice laughs thinly.
“I got a parcel in the morning’s post,” she says, and the lid of the box lifts again, revealing something of the ceiling of a small commercial unit. Judging from its movements and the current visual angles, the box is resting on the counter; in front of it stands some stranger, with artisan’s goggles on their forehead, peering down. Behind the box, somewhere, stands Timni. “She’s here, but — ah, not quite as I remember her.”
The business proprietor stares down the head in the box with an expression of woeful distaste. “Tell you what, Timni,” they say. “For free, and no questions asked, I’ll take this out the back and run it through the scrap compactor. Never saw her, or you.”
Timni laughs thinly, again, with a rising note of desperation. “No, no,” she says. “A body, please. A — not too expensive one?”
“Timni,” the shopkeeper sighs.
“A body,” Timni repeats.
“Fine,” her apparent friend sighs. “Go next door and sit with a bubble tea, or something; I’ll have to run a compatibility profile. I’ll send you a message when it’s done.”
“All right,” Timni says reluctantly, and her footsteps recede. The box is rudely tilted.
“So you’re her latest piece of shit,” the shopkeeper says flatly. “I am not joking about the scrap compactor, friend; anything to say for yourself?”
“I was not intended to arrive here in this condition,” the Empress’ head says stiffly. “The Empress’ death has caused — certain reversals of fortune, in families of proximity. I have my expected access to neither money, nor, as you see, my body.”
Her interrogator snorts and simply lets go of the box, letting it fall flat on the counter with a jolt. “Nor any scruple about blowing Timni’s life savings digging you out,” they say scornfully. “Open your diagnostic port range, let’s get this over with.”
The compatibility scan dutifully probes for the hardware capabilities of the head, which its hardware mostly lies about in accordance with its incognito status. Nevertheless, irritable noises and snippy remarks give way to a steadily tenser silence. Finally, silently, the shopkeeper signals to Timni to return, rapidly runs a printout from an authenticable receipt printer, and says, “Send me this much.”
Timni starts to say something.
“No,” the shopkeeper says, very finally. “I want a paper trail that says you came in for a body for some scumbag girlfriend of yours, and I sold you one without any questions. That’s how much I’d knock my cheapest down for you. Now, off the record, take whatever that is far away from me.”
“It’s—” Timni says, wobbling a little.
“Closest thing I know is Cartel heavy weapons enforcers,” her friend says sharply. “Your taste is bad, Timni, and wherever she ended up in the time since you last knew her is worse. I don’t need the Cartel around here asking why I’m servicing their competitors’ gun-henries.”
There’s a quiet. “I wouldn’t bring you anything like that,” Timni says, very quietly.
“No,” the robot-seller says back, also quieter. “But you let all of them lie to you, Timni, and I will tell you for free: I’ve seen you take on trouble they weren’t worth, and she’s more.”
Timni picks up the box and clutches it to her chest. The Empress’ head catches a glimpse of a very pale, set face, before the lid closes on her again.
“I’ll remote a body up to where you’re docked,” Timni’s shopkeeper friend says, muffled and tired. “And I’d tell you to stay safe, but you’re already choosing wrong for that.”
“Sorry,” Timni says, almost inaudible inside the box, and perhaps outside it.
“You always are,” says her friend heavily. “Far away from me, Timni.”
