STRANGE WORKINGS:
In Which Several Motivations Begin to Surface.
by Electric Keet

Travel between terraformed areas on the light side of Mercury involved sitting in an automated capsule, shooting through covered surface tubes, and staring out at a landscape too grey and boring to be believed. Travel on the dark side of the planet meant the same, but with a landscape too dark to be seen at all. Thus, I was staring more at the inner reflections of the lights within the capsule. “Too late to change my mind?”

Bell reached for the locked handle of the door. “No problem, eh? I can just let you out here—”

“Thanks, but I prefer my atmosphere to be, you know, atmospheric.” I slumped against the window and absently fingered my left antler. “Kiddin’, anyhow. Would much rather do whatever we’re doing than watch Eekay scramble to find some fan to catch a nog, y’know?”

“Jealous, Lady?”

I snorted. “Of what, zir lack of standards?”

He laughed at that. “Think zie an’ Yaz will start orbiting each other again? They’ve got the friction, maybe there’ll be sparks.”

“When Neptune dries up, maybe. Yaz ain’t excitin’ enough for zir tastes, anymore.”

“How so?”

“Glitchin’ gossip,” I chided with a smirk. “So, right before we take off, the snowkitty gets all cheerful and asks Yaz if he could stop being dour long enough join zim and Ira at the beach.”

His ears swivelled. “Wait, zie’s willingly going somewhere with Ira? I guess rule number one stands.”

“Yeah. Never expect to understand Eekay. So Yaz says no ’cause he doesn’t have a swimsuit.”

“Swimsuit? Waste of good sunlight. He really has changed. That, or he only said it as an out to go do something else with Falda.”

I blinked. “Like what?”

The lynx smiled slightly. “No clue.”

As if on cue, a voice with a generic Mercurian accent sounded from the capsule’s control panel to let us know that we’d be at Antimony Ward in two minutes.

The door opened to a somewhat matronly-looking raccoon in a sienna house-dress which redefined quaint. The lynx to my left smiled. “Evening, ma’am. I’m Rubin Gloeckner, and this is Lady Aesc. Your wife is expecting us….”

She nodded. “She mentioned. Come in, please.” Bell and I stepped into a rich, earth-toned home which conspired to utterly culture-shock me before I even got past the foyer. “If you wish, I could try to coax her upstairs, but if she didn’t peek her silly head up for breakfast…. Ah, well, she’s in her laboratory. The basement.”

Bell hesitated. “You’re sure she won’t mind?”

“Not so long as you stay quiet until she’s in between tests. Go ahead.” She motioned toward a stairwell. “Shall I put on some tea?”

At the same time, we both said, “Thanks, no.” He continued. “We’ll only be here for a few minutes, I think. Thank you, though.”

The basement was larger than I expected given the outer dimensions of the house, but it still seemed cramped for all the equipment and the myriad shelves of labelled tins and bottles, some of them ancient-looking. Squarely in the centre of the mess was a large area of wooden floor which was clear save for a few bits of glassware holding unknown substances. A circle of light inscribed with notes and complex geometry was cast from a projector above. At its edge knelt a determined-looking raccoon who was even scrawnier than Yaz.

As we watched, she reached forward to grasp and pull two of the dishes. They scraped along the circumference of the circle and came to rest on two targets lit in soft blue. A wall of projected numbers hovered to one side; she stared at it, exhaled, then darted one hand next to it and traced some additional numbers then waved the whole mass away. She finally spoke with a rough voice. “It’s progress of a sort.”

Bell nodded. “Estie, this is Lady Aesc – yes, Lady is her first name. She’s one of the others in my team….” He looked to me and nodded. “And she’s a good friend.”

The raccoon pierced me with unsettling, analytical eyes. “I see.”

I smiled slightly, mostly to put myself at ease. “M’ mate here explained that you’re working on… a cure for Charon-shift.”

She chuffed, “A cure? No, more like a wedge to pull open a trap.” She gingerly lifted the sealed, liquid-filled glass sphere from the centre of the circle and stood. “Harmless electrolytic fluid feeds infinitesimal machines, tiny little self-propagating packets of one man’s will to impose his perfection on others. Full-body conversion without a tank… or a choice. The nanites are the trap he set, and the trap which I will wedge open. The cure will come when his kind renounce their ways.”

I cringed a bit and looked to Bell. He was nodding slowly. “We can hope, eh? Steady progress?”

“Rather, but I still don’t know just when it will be enough.” The researcher’s intensity disappeared. “You see what it involves. I’ll explain for the benefit of Miss Aesc. Any given colony has a directly digital code to disable it, but it was a tradition of Mercurian nanotechnicians to add a simple physical trigger as a failsafe. Charon-shift no longer responds to the digital… and the physical trigger is unknown, and apparently more complex than tradition and sanity would dictate.”

I stepped nearer the strange, illuminated mandala to try to read the text around it. “And it works by moving certain things around?”

She pulled a bottle from the shelf behind her. “Any given subset of the colony will respond to the position of what I hope is a maximum of five distinct detectable external stimuli. Radioactive isotopes, magnets, gravitic pulses, and the like, all at specific relative start positions and sometimes with motion.

I shook my head. “Trial and error?”

“Far from it. Careful measurement will show a level of feedback as each condition is met, but it’s subtle and fickle.” She gave an apologetic nod to Bell. “I’ve been able to solve several steps, but I don’t know how many there are… only how close I am to the next one.”

My mind buzzed with questions, but only one came out. “Are you the only one working on this?”

She narrowed her eyes. “As far as anybody knows, I’m not working on this at all. Nobody is. The research is as illegal as the technology itself.”

“But Pluto—”

“—will remain as it is indefinitely, until such time as some obscure researcher imposes her own will against that self-exiled mass of unfortunates.” Estie looked directly at Bell. “Of course, not even Luna’s best people will be able to deduce who was financially backing that researcher.”

“Of course,” the lynx agreed with a shrug of false nonchalance. “Crazy how that happens.”

“In the meantime, an entirely different obscure researcher is at the precipice of starvation. Would you two care to join my wife and I for a meal? I think I missed one already, today….”

CRY HAVOC:
A Taste of Challenge, Conundrum, and Chaos on Mercury.
by Electric Keet

“I know that look,” the lynx said. “Last time I saw it, you’d just swigged some rancid beer. What’s eatin’ Yaz, eh?”

“I’ll tell you what’s eating me,” I grumbled. “Eekay is still strutting around like this is zir chance to steal back some starlight, and I can’t read Ira at all so I have no idea how zie’ll act on the ribbon.”

Bell nodded. “It’s been like this for a while, and I think Basil fed the flame intentionally, but…. Look, Eekay’s not all there, but zie’s no idiot. You have a plan and you have the skill to make it work, so I think zie’ll listen to you during the race. Don’t let the drama panic you, eh?”

“I hope you’re right.”

Some sort of team chant started up in the direction of Zeitmaschine. Bell shot a smirk in their direction, then looked back toward me. “That wasn’t the only thing, was it?”

I tightened my jaw. “No, but the other thing is just an annoyance. It figured that Team Parallax had to withdraw. I could cope with their manager, at least. But with Zeno’s End filling in, that means dealing with… what, is there…?” The lynx grinned and nodded slightly to a point over my shoulder, so I turned to face— “Ah! Ms. Mahatapa.”

“My dear Mr. Lenslight.” The leopard’s eyes scanned slowly down, then back up my body with a sort of practised distaste. “You are still mister, yes?”

I did my best not to visibly grimace. The last thing I needed was to be reminded of… how… well I was dressed. “Last I checked, yes. It’s good to see you.”

Her tail hooked in exactly the fashion that drove me nuts about Eekay… in both good and bad ways. “Of course it is. Ah, and there is the famous Rubin Gloeckner, in with a surprise first-place in that final race of the Jovian League.”

Bell smiled politely. “Surprised me, too, ma’am. Just goes to show that anything can happen, eh?” He clapped me on the arm and whispered, “I’ll be in the pit. Don’t let the ice queen freeze ya, mate.” He straightened his collar, nodded to the leopard, and turned toward the team staging area.

“Anything indeed.” She took a step closer with a dangerous grin that got colder near her eyes. “Anything goes on Io, but we are no longer in a pageant of personality. These races will be the test of not showmanship, but true ability. Tell me…. Being so new to the position and with your star racers so preoccupied with acting out an absurd rivalry, do you not feel that you are perhaps slightly out of your league?”

I’d been expecting some amount of that sort of psychological warfare from her, and I came prepared to duel. “Yes, perhaps… but it heartens me that I’m out of my league on somewhat more than a… technicality.”

Her grin remained, but withdrew from her eyes. I’d drawn blood. “I see. Well, of course, best of luck to you and to Six Below. It will be a fascinating race.”

“And best of luck to you and Zeno’s End.”

She turned and sauntered away with a taunting sway to her hips. I shook my head and walked toward the observation deck lift to the sudden percussion of the Martian team riveting their uniforms on. The stands were already nearly full with spectators, many of them cheering names I couldn’t hear through the deafening rush of nervous blood in my ears.

Impossibly black shadows cut the surface from the ribbon and the racers from their wheels. I traced the thin, parallel threads of white along the edges of the racing track with my eyes. The interposing display highlighted each set of four turquoise dots with call-outs and team identifiers, and I liked the arrangement I saw. Every Zeitmaschine racer was isolated by a Six Below racer immediately in their lead. I wasn’t certain that we could take first like that, but we could defeat the Mercurians’ tactics on their home turf and keep them on their toes, something worth far more later in the circuit.

Lady’s voice over the comm pulled me back out of the trance of heartbeat and thought. “I think the tigers are up to something,” she warned.

Two of the Martian team, The Humblest, were using the inside to come up on both her and the raccoon behind her. “If you’re good on the turn, boost it,” I said. “If they start in on your buddy, you’re fine. If they try for you, they’ll be in his way anyhow.”

I watched her wheels accelerate sharply away. One of the Martians followed, but the gap had already widened. “Good work. Hang in there, team, just a little longer.”

A few seconds later, Eekay piped up. “Got a pozzy vec here, Yaz. Gonna boost it.”

I shook my head as though zie could see it. “Hold the block, Eekay. Ira, stay with them!”

“Oi! we’re here to win!” Zie darted away from the cluster around zim.

“Pull it back, you can still spook ’em into scattering!” No longer restrained, two racers from Zeno’s End – precisely the ones I wanted to keep in lower rankings – bolted out from behind the knot to vie for second. “K’r’roc fleabait! Ira, do what you can to recover position.”

I held my breath. Five long seconds passed.

“That’s a first for me, an’ yer first run as a manager, Yaz-boy. Snaz opener to the Thirteen, spot?”

The point totals rolled in to the right of the display. I breathed out, “You may have snagged first, Eekay… but the team didn’t.”

TRAVEL AND TREPIDATION:
Six Below Makes Their Way to Mercury.
by Electric Keet

“Hello, and good day! I’m Captain Shimakage, and I’d like to welcome you aboard GreenStar flight three-twenty-two from Lyrcea Planum, Io, to Tir Planitia, Mercury. We’ll be travelling a distance of about four-point-nine astronomical units and we should reach a peak velocity of around one-twentieth light-speed, meaning a relative time gain of just under forty seconds. The total flight time should be nearly twenty-eight hours, so we encourage you to get comfortable. If you have any questions or concerns, or if there’s anything at all we can do to make your flight more pleasant, don’t be afraid to ask our attendants Psande and Minion. Thank you again for travelling with GreenStar.”

In fact, Minion – a diminutive skunk – was already at my side to offer me a pillow. I smiled and accepted it gratefully. “I have not slept much; too excited!” I said.

He gave a friendly bob of his voluminous tail. “Are you on holiday?”

“Not quite.” Eekay was working on the best way to sprawl out nonchalantly. “Y’ever watch bodyracin’?”

“No, but my son is excited about the Thirteen Ribbons,” Minion said.

The snow-leopard grinned at this. “Be sure to word ’im when y’ get home that you met Team Six Below, ’cause th’ Thirteen’s where we’re ’eaded.”

“No kidding? I’ve got to go check on the other passengers, but… would you mind if I came by later and got a signed photo for my boy?”

Yaz nodded with a smile. “I think we could arrange that, after Falda gets a nap.”

“Yes, thank you.” I reclined my seat to a comfortable position for exactly that.

“Of course! Let me know if there’s anything else I can get for you.” With that, the skunk disappeared into the centrelift, headed for another level of the shuttle.

I shifted in my seat, adjusted my tail, touched my head to pillow, and fell fast asleep.

…speed and sound and light and scent and colour and contact and chaos and most of all speed!

I gritted my teeth as another bump threatened to throw me off-balance. The ribbon stretched straight ahead into the horizon, but it was subtly uneven. “Ira!” I shouted, my voice sounding muffled and underwater in the rushing wind. “I hope you know what you are doing!”

Zir voice came through clearly. “Yes!” Zie sped ahead on energy wheels of the wrong hue. The fur of zir crimson-ringed tail fluttered in the rushing wind. “Read the ribbon carefully, wolf!”

I struggled to keep my attention away from the unidentifiable racers all around, from the wall of abstract olive vegetation on all sides, from the unreadable text blinking on the display in my helmet. “What do you mean?”

Zir only response was to let out a small shout of exhiliration.

My fear grew; the next bump might send me tumbling along the track at deadly speed. I focused my eyes on the magnetic mesh of the ribbon, but at this speed it was merely a dark streak. “Ira, I do not think—”

“Here it is!”

“I cannot!” I started to feel overwhelmed, floaty, disconnected—

Zir voice echoed as though from within my own head. “Read the ribbon!”

Time slowed. The yellow-green blur surrounding the track resolved into thick jungle. The energy-wheels of the racers in front of me began to flicker, then pulse. My heart suspended itself, then released, then tightened again with glacial pace. The ribbon, however… I could see the elongated diamond mesh, so much angular black. I could read the change in density where the surface rose ever so slightly, enough that it would jostle me. I heard a whisper of several voices, all guiding me in language I didn’t know but somehow understood. We adjusted our position slightly and shifted our weight to….

We?

We became aware of shadows in front and behind—

I jerked awake with a sharp breath. My blood throbbed in my ears. I felt tight as though I’d been bracing for impact. A quick look around showed that the others were napping or out of the cabin except for Yaz, which explained the smell of kaflet.

He glanced up from his data-scroll. “Falda?”

I shook my head slowly. “I… was dreaming.”

The wolverine seemed concerned, now. “You smell like panic. Are you all right?”

“Yes, fine. How long have I been sleeping?”

“About five hours. You looked like you really needed it.” He motioned to the others. “Ira and Lady are crashed out, too. Eekay and Bell are off wandering around to see what other teams are on this shuttle, and since they haven’t returned yet, they probably found one. I was thinking of joining them.” He rolled up his scroll. “Care to walk for a bit? Stretch?”

“That is probably a good idea.” I stood up and looked to one-again-orange Ira, who still slept peacefully. “Zie was in my dream. It was strange. We were racing… and I think we were on Venus.”

He slipped his shoes on. “A little nervous?” I nodded a little, and he continued. “Yeah, so am I. We’ll be there within a week, but try to relax some, okay? First things first… Mercury.”