Five Unicorn Flush by T. J. Berry

Author:T. J. Berry [Berry, T. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, fantasy
ISBN: 9780857667830
Google: KJUHugEACAAJ
Goodreads: 41387417
Publisher: Angry Robot
Published: 2019-04-02T15:56:30+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ghost of Elves Past

Jenny spun in the air, using the captain’s chair as leverage. Kamis stood there, unmoving. His feet rested on the floor as if there was gravity in the room. Jenny’s heart pounded in her chest, then skipped in a couple of little misfires. She coughed.

“Hey,” she said to the shadow. “What’s up?”

Kamis did not react.

“I think we need to drop out of FTL and dump the bodies,” said Jenny. Even as she said the words, she felt her skin crawl with the wrongness of it. If human death rituals were elaborate with the embalming, excessive flowers, and putting the rotting corpse into a box and praying around it for hours, the Bala had them beat hands down. Each belief system within the Bala races had their own inviolable laws about how to treat the dead. And none of them involved sucking them through openspace, bouncing them around a cargo hold, and dumping them out of an airlock.

“The death customs of most of the dead beings on board require, at minimum, a wrapping of some sort before being jettisoned,” Mary informed her. Jenny rolled her eyes, which hurt her brain. Even back during the early days of the war, when they were taking heavy fire from the necromancers, they’d stopped to wrap pieces of torn uniform jackets around the eyes of their comrades. It was the minimum you had to do for your people.

“I know.” Jenny bit her thumbnail while keeping an eye on Kamis.

“What do you think he wants?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” said Mary.

“Hey. What do you want?” asked Jenny.

Kamis’ mouth dropped open and he formed a soundless word. Jenny’s stomach dropped as well.

“Oh gods, he’s trying to say something,” said Jenny. Her chest fluttered again and she took a long, steadying breath. Mary set off a gentle alarm chime.

“It appears you’re having arrhythmias. Likely due to heart trauma sustained during your electrocution. Or perhaps your freezing… one of your freezings,” said Mary.

“This bloody day is trying to kill me,” said Jenny. Her voice came out high and quavering. She leaned closer to Kamis. “Try again. I can’t see what you said.”

The shadow coalesced enough that the face became slightly more opaque. Kamis’ formed the word again and this time it was unmistakeable. Alive.

“Oh good. Kamis’ ghost says he’s alive,” said Jenny, leaning so far back that she was lying down in midair. “This is fine.”

“I hate to mention it,” said Mary. “But there’s something you should be aware of.”

“Am I going to like it?” asked Jenny

“Probably not,” said Mary.

“Then don’t tell me,” said Jenny, floating closer to Kamis. He didn’t seem to be any kind of threat, just standing there with his hands at his sides. In all of the stories that she’d heard, ghosts did weird things like using up your good lipstick by writing on a mirror and opening your cabinets to rearrange things very quickly. How that was frightening was baffling to her.

“No, I think I should tell you,” continued Mary, still on about whatever it was that bothered her.

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