Incident on a Small Colony

The receiving dock stank of berries.

Raspberries, I think. Jani Kilian stared at the bright pink mess that spilled across the floor in front of her. With a hint of … what? Battery hyperacid, judging from the bitter tang. Add to that the melted plastic odor of evaporating sealant, backed by the ever-present undercurrent of stale station air.

Dammit. Above her, the dock alarms whirled like carnival pinwheels, sending wave after wave of red light breaking across the walls and ceiling.

Red.

Jani struggled to concentrate as around her the very air seemed to throb with color. Six hours for the paperwork. Another day and a half to get it all signed off. All that work for one shattered fifty-kilo drum of flavor concentrate. But it’s Family-licensed, and all the containers are tagged. Once you acquired a reputation for losing Family shipments, you could pretty much kiss your business good-bye.

“As if this place had any business to kiss.” Pearl Way Lading of Victoria Colony—We Cover the Commonwealth. A bit of an overstatement. Judging from their records, they covered only the six worlds that made up the Pearl Way, and thanks to competition from other companies both human and Haárin, along with general incompetence, their share of that market had been dropping steadily for years.

It’s going to drop even more after word of this gets out. Trashing Family shipments—not the way to build business. Jani paused to wipe away tears with her coverall sleeve, then switched to breathing through her mouth. The muddled stench had made her eyes water, seared the inside of her nose.

“Timas?”

Red. Everywhere she looked, all red.

”Timas?”

Jani bent at the waist and stared at her black boots, their surfaces too scuffed and worn to reflect the pulsing color.

”Timas? You deaf or what?”

The shout slammed Jani like a blow—she straightened as though someone had jammed a knee in her back. Timas was a new name. She hadn’t gotten used to it yet. Andree Timas. Documents technician. She pushed a hand through her cropped hair, felt the slick sweat that coated her scalp. Sing yourself to sleep with it, moron. “Just trying to figure out the best way to clean this up.”

The stevedore stepped in front of her. Royson, his name was, a baby-faced redhead of the sort that turned up at other people’s accidents. “Va-cu-um. In-cin-er-ate.” He waved a hand in front of her face and enunciated in a slow singsong as though speaking to a child, the cadence accentuated by his New Indies lilt. “Even a paper-pusher should be able to figure that out.”

Jani ignored the insult. It was standard dock abuse, and Royson had been lobbing it at her since her arrival three days before. Given some of the things she’d heard on other docks over the past five years, it almost qualified as a compliment. “The stuff’s already stained the topcoat.” She pushed at the edge of the gelatinous muck with the toe of her boot, revealing the telltale darkening of the floor beneath. “And the crate was a controlled shipment, which means triple the paperwork.” She pressed a hand to the back of her neck as the alarm continued to flash, felt the muscles knot. She couldn’t turn off the beacon—she hadn’t been coded into all of the company systems yet, so she didn’t have clearance. And I can’t ask Royson to do it. He’d just insult her again, and given her ramping anger, she might not be able to hold back. I hit him, I’m gone. And she’d only just settled in. I can’t screw up this job. She needed the money. A place to hide.