I have something to say to him as well.]
It was at this exact moment that Sandy began to choke. She pointed, with every paw, to the lump of food bar lodged in her throat. Her many eyes opened and closed in desperation as she thrashed off her seat and onto the floor.
[Oh, no, you don’t, you little furball!] cried her handler, forgetting the keeper and turning back to her with sudden ferocity. Xe lifted her bodily and turned her upside down, as if xe would shake the obstruction from her windpipe. [You will die when I say so—and not a moment sooner!]
[Be gentle!] cried the pilot intelligence. [You’ll hurt her!]
Thus it was that when the hatch hissed open, the scene inside the four-passenger ship was one of violence. A two-meter-tall stick of a being held a tiny bundle of fur and eyes aloft, shaking her and swearing, while the ship itself cried for peace. And in witness, standing on the landing ramp, was the waystation keeper.
This was just bad luck for Sandy’s handler. Xe had only worked with a very select group of Sandy’s people, and was unfamiliar with the diversity of the species. There were those few who were bred for intelligence, the Thinkers: small, fragile, weak in everything but mind. But then, there were others bred toward vastly different goals. For example: the two-hundred-fifty-kilo mass of muscle, talons, teeth, and killer instincts who had just glimpsed a member of his own people being violently abused.
[Sorry about that], said the Strongarm (tier one-nine) a few seconds later, as he licked the handler’s blood out of her fur. [I saw what xe was doing to you and I just—I don’t know what happened. Instincts took over, I guess.]
Sandy shivered and drew herself into a ball. Her coughing had disappeared without a trace but her trembling, if anything, had increased. She lifted her eyes to the Strongarm’s, fighting with every scrap of her self-control to keep her true emotions out of her gaze. She had prepared for this moment for a long time, rehearsed it even; it would be a pity to ruin it with a face full of self-satisfaction.
[Oh, thank the Network], said Sandy. [I was so frightened.]
[Don’t mention it], said the keeper. [I’m Mer, by the way.]
Sandy’s rival: tier two-point-nine. Sandy’s handler: tier two-three. The handful of loaders, maintenance drones, cleaners, and the sanitation station: tier one-seven, on average. Mer the Strongarm: one-nine. Roche the android, Hood the Red Merchant, and finally this Human that stands in her doorway now, shaking like it’s going to fall apart: low twos, all of them. A year of good and bad fortune, divvied up among these lower intelligences. All of them witnessed it, most of them noted it, yet not one imagined that there was no luck at all. That they were each, obliviously and in their own small way, contributing to the goal of a higher intelligence.
They were helping a seven-year-old tier three run away from home.
Luck is not magic. It’s nothing but hidden strings and planning. The Networked galaxy has holes in it, it has give, it has blind spots and unregulated spaces. It is not difficult to teach a sanitation station or an elevator a new trick, any more than it is to distract a maintenance crew or confuse a scheduling intelligence. Getting someone a job at a waystation—even if it requires an accident to remove his predecessor—takes no more than patience, preparation, and knowledge of the Network. The galaxy is more dense with minds than it is with technology, and those minds have this in common: they do not look upward. When a high-tier accomplishes the most basic feat of manipulation, a low-tier shakes its head and calls it luck.
That’s if they notice anything at all.
Like this Human, who stands in her cabin doorway and stares at Hood’s faceplate with confusion written all over its smooth and nearly eyeless face. Its low-tier mind is formulating a theory right now, trying to explain to itself why Sandy would have a bounty hunter’s faceplate pinned to her wall. The Human will wonder, over the next few days, what that was about. It will add to Sandy’s high-tier mystique in the Human’s mind. And when Sandy needs it, it will be there.
Sandy watches the Human, her annoyance building. It’s been in her room for nearly three seconds, and it hasn’t said another word. That’s it. It had its chance for conversation. Time to impress.
[I have already sold my cargo],