Beyond the Rim

Night fell swiftly. On Zodiak Prime, the day was only six hours long, so after I arrived at noon, there were only three hours until dusk.

“How do you stand the short days?” I asked. Stace was rosining her violin, sitting on the bed, her legs crossed. I stood in front of the window, the lake rippling with silvery v-shaped trails of ducks and swans.

“I don’t,” she said. “But it’s no moon that’s harder getting used to.” She closed the rosin case. “There’s cool stuff here too. There’s a hot springs outside, then there’s a town that Daddy brought here for an experiment.”

“An experiment?”

“Yeah, they all agreed to come here from other Rimworlds and try out this new drug based on zodium.”

“Zodium?”

She gave a wry smile. “It’s named after us because Daddy found it here. The town is just a temporary town until the trials are over.”

“So what does zodium do?”

“All kinds of stuff. Do you want me to show it to you?” She picked up my shirt, tossed it to me. “You’ll probably want this; it gets cold out there.”

I pulled the shirt on over my arms, and stood up, trying to latch it in back.

Stace laughed. “No, that’s a slave uniform. It’s like the guards’ uniforms, except it has latches in back, so the owners are the ones to put it on. Here.” She stood behind me, and tugged the latches together until they snapped in place.

“There.” She stepped in front of me. “Don’t you look the pretty picture.” She ruffled my hair. “Let’s go.”

I followed her out of her room. We walked to the end of the corridor and took a lift that ran toward the other end of the building, and opened out onto a plain of sand. We climbed out onto dry ground, the stars twinkling in a moonless sky, and trudged across the barren landscape, a soft breeze blowing. Stace explained it was an artificial breeze; if we were outside the barrier, the wind would bury us in sand.

A low building stood next to a fenced-off area, and as we neared I heard a glopping, gurgling sound. Off to the left, a small lake gleamed, steam rolling from it like mist.

“These are the mud pits,” said Stace. “Don’t touch them—they’d burn your fingers off. There’s a creature that lives under it, some sort of crab-like thing. Come on.”

I followed her into the small house. “They pump the water and mud in here, cool it off some. It has zodium in it, so it’s supposed to be good for your skin.” She stepped through a door on the left. Inside, steam coiled toward me, taking my breath with its stifling heat. In the floor was a pool filled with mud that was gurgling, bubbles popping in a miniature chorus.

“You might want to take your clothes off now,” she said. “Just your shirt if you want.” She stripped off her outer shirt and then skirt and boots, leaving just her undershirt and leggings. Then, with a grin, she dove into the pool headfirst.

I didn’t relish the idea of going in, so I waited beside the pool for her to surface. A minute. Two minutes. Was she all right? I fumbled for the clasps at the back of my shirt, yanked it off, then jumped in, boots and all.

Mud closed over my head. I couldn’t see a thing; if I opened my eyes, they’d fill with mud. I swam through it, pushing through thick bubbles that squirmed against my skin and broke like delicate blisters.

Where was Stace? I couldn’t find her. My lungs tightened, longing for air. I had to surface, and pushed my head above the mud.

There, leaning against the side of the pool, was Stace, a grin on her mud-plastered face.

She laughed, wiping mud from her eyes.

“I got you! I wouldn’t let a little mud be the end of me, you know. But it’s good to know how far you’d go to help me.” She patted the pool edge beside her. I held onto the edge, and found that beneath the mud, at least on that end, was a ledge I could sit down on. I leaned back, closed my eyes. The mud, glopping against my skin in a soft rhythm, was soothing.

“It’s the best, isn’t it?” said Stace, leaning her own head back. “I come here if I want to get away from the house.” She wiped her hands on the side of the pool, and lifted them to my face. She carefully sloughed mud away from my eyes, pulled her finger down my nose, over my mouth, creating a mudless line.

All I wanted to do was lie there, soak, forget. Become mud myself, and float away with the bubbles…feel nothing else, ever again.

Stace had to ruin it by planting a kiss on my lips.

“Mmm, it’s not bad. If you eat it, it increases the healing powers.” She kissed me harder, trying to open my mouth with her lips. I wouldn’t do it. I wasn’t ready for her to interrupt me.

“Come on, Devlin, try it,” she laughed. She stuck her tongue into my mouth. I had a sudden impulse to bite off her tongue, but thankfully (or not) resisted it.

A smooth, slightly sandy substance trickled into my mouth, along with a taste that was rather sweet, like sweet rolls or, vaguely, like cinnamon.

“S’ noth badth,” I said.

“I have an idea. Could you get out?”

Still recovering, I climbed out of the pool. Mud squelched in my boots.

Stace climbed out too and stood in front of me. Then she pressed her finger to my chest and swirled the mud around in spiraling patterns.

“There! I have to show this to Kassia. Don’t move.” She pressed the comlink implant behind her ear.

Her eyes took on a blank, faraway look. “Oh hi Kas! You won’t believe this. Seriously, you won’t believe this. Now look. You see what I’m seein’? Yeah. Yeah, isn’t he craze? He’s mine.”

She rambled on, talking to her friend who I couldn’t see or hear. At last she turned off the link and said, “Okay, Dev, pick up our clothes. I’m exhausted.”

We ran across the grounds to the door. Inside, we took the side-lift to her quarters. “That was fun!” she said, and flopped down on the bed, mud and all. “I’ll take a shower in the morning. Night night!” In a few minutes, she was completely relaxed, breathing evenly.

I didn’t relish the idea of sleeping in mud, so I looked for the shower. I didn’t care if she punished me; I was going to use it.

Inside the shower, warm water poured over me, re-dampening the mud, and chunks of it slid off and dissolved down the drain. Finally I was completely clean, and I walked through the air dryer, and then realized I didn’t have any clean clothes.

I couldn’t find anything else to wash my clothes in but the shower. By the time they were dry, I was dead tired. I tugged my pants back on and lay down on the floor in a random clear part of Stace’s room, then fell asleep.

I awoke to a soft suctioning sound. A dark, pretty face with large, sad grey eyes looked down at me. A woman was vacuuming the bed, cleaning it of mud apparently. Stace was nowhere in sight.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hello,” she said.

I scrambled to my feet. “I’m Devlin. The new…” I choked. I couldn’t bring myself to say “slave”.

She nodded, still vacuuming. “I’m Larin, the maid.”

“The what?”

“Maid. It’s an old title we had before bots. The master likes the human touch.”

“So—you’re a slave?”

She nodded.

“I’m sorry.”

“I…don’t remember much else. The master is good to me.”

“Do you like it here?”

“I do my job.” She stopped vacuuming. The door to the shower room slid open, and Stace appeared, wrapped in a towel.

Her face scrunched into a frown. “What are you doing here? I told you to be out by the time I was done.”

“I—did my best, mistress.”

“Well, your best isn’t good enough. I’ll have to tell my father about this.”

“I’m sorry, miss.”

“Out!”

“No, wait,” I said. “It’s my fault. I was talking to her, distracting her—”

“It’s not your fault,” said Stace.

“But—”

“If I say it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault. Out, slave!” Stace picked up a boot and threw it. It hit Larin in the back. She flinched, but didn’t turn around. She just walked through the door and disappeared.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said. “She was just doing her job.”

“She’s not supposed to be seen in my room, and she knows that. I want slaves to be invisible, except for you.” She looked me up and down. “So, what do you want to do today?”