As I waited nervously down the street before my interview with Fryx, I noticed customers leaving the popular Mama Ting’s Wok would often pause at the next door and notice they had eaten their spring rolls or shitake fried rice next to an actual arms merchant, “Fryx Nuwar’s High-Tech Weapons.” Strange contrasts like that were common within the busy outlets, stores, and stands of the marketplace concourse near the space station’s central shaft and elevators to the docks.

Almost whimsically, the designers of Landon’s Needle built the concourse buildings like little shops within a town’s streets and alleys. The curved ceiling loomed twenty meters above the shops—an imposing luxurious effect in its inefficient use of space. Covers on all the concourses’ main lights ensured a dark ceiling to not spoil its magnificence: a vast display showing innumerable stars all the brighter because their light did not travel through a planet’s atmosphere. The display also showed the station’s shaft leading to the docking slips that stuck out from the shaft’s side like little teeth. The concourse most days buzzed with crowd noises, electronic shrieks, and aggressive thumping music from shops and kiosks. With the noise below and the starry black across the ceiling above, the concourse felt like a well-lit carnival at night.

When Fryx interviewed me for the job, we faced each other across the utility table. We stood in the six-by-six-meter back room functioning as a workroom, storage, and break room. Unlike the immaculate showroom up front the back room was a cluttered mess. Opened boxes of parts balanced on top of other boxes. A metal cabinet with dozens of small transparent drawers clung to a wall, several of the little bins missing. Various loops of wire, hammers, wrenches, and other tools hung from long, thin rods running along the walls. A small worktable sagged against a wall with both drawers half open. Pens, drill bits, aerosol cans, wires, gears, and other machinist implements covered the table and the drawers. A cracked blue-metal lathe lay on another table, as well as a grinder and a drill press. The smell of lubricant and coolant lingered. On my entrance I had run into chains hanging from a hoist, and the metal links tinkled softly behind me.

Fryx placed a long box on the table between us and cut its synthetic covering and opened it. “I’m curious about something,” she said.

Her eyes were deep green and beautiful. Gleeians were genetically human, though their heads could not grow hair. They had traditional ornate tattoos in certain places on their body: I could see Fryx’s tattoos on both temples, both sides of her neck, and on both wrists. A particular kind of animal set the theme for each Gleeian’s tattoos. Fryx had birds: part of a tree covered with swallows, a heron’s head, a peacock.

“I looked into you and your family,” she said as she removed plastic-wrapped steel components from the box and set them on the table. “Your father is a marketing manager and your mother is a director of finance, both for the station—Here, put this piece on the end of the table there. No, next to that tube—Why would the son of two high-level administrators work in a marketplace shop?”

“Because you’re Gleeian.”

She was turning to put the empty box on the floor, but she stopped, her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

I felt my shoulders tighten with tension. I wasn’t doing this well. “My parents want me to work on station for nine months before I decide to go to graduate school in history—”

“Nine months? When the fleet arrives?”

“Yes, that’s when I can take a berth down to Pallas.” Only a short shuttle flight would reach the planet the station orbited, but of course no one in their right minds would make that trip without a fleet protecting them.

“For school? How do I figure in this?”

“I want to study the history of the galactic diasporas.”

“I see, like the Gleeian diaspora. So we’re some bug for a naturalist to study? Is that it?” She set the box down on the floor and crushed it with a boot.

Now she thought I looked at them like insects. How was I messing this up? “No, not like that. I know there’s a lot of prejudice against your people, but I think the Commonwealth could learn a lot from you.”

With one hand Fryx pushed components aside and laid a flat black box on the table. “Such as?”

“For starters, how your people broke free from Ryneld slavery.”

“You mean those who did. So we’re only valuable for our information about the spider lords?”

“Well that’s important, of course. But no, there’s much more to learn. The free Gleeian diaspora started with nothing and yet has spread to every major urban center. The virtues they possess can teach the rest of us something of value.”

“Ahh,” she said and rubbed her chin. She nodded and opened the black box. Several rows of tools gleamed. “Nice little speech. You already sound like a professor. I’ll tell you what—I like you, Kurt. I also don’t get many applicants, so that helps you, too. But I need someone who can pull their weight. Here are the instructions.” She tossed a chip to me. I bumbled the initial catch but grabbed it before it fell to the floor at least. “Here are the tools. If you can assemble this arc striker and it doesn’t catch fire or send you to the hospital, you’ve got the job.”

“Great. Thank you.” But as she walked away I wondered if she was joking about the hospital.

*     *     *
Over the next month I learned all I could about Gleeian history and culture from Fryx. While a hub of an important business sector, the station’s library resource net was lacking outside technical subjects. The Gleeian only appeared in connection to their Ryneld thralldom; their slavery was virtually the only subject capable of research.

Taking a job as a shop clerk for a Gleeian disappointed my parents. Though technically living up to our agreement, they could see I wasn’t living up to its spirit. They didn’t understand the benefits of researching firsthand a Gleeian and thought I was wasting a year before graduate school.

Eight months remained before I would write my entrance level paper to compete for admission to a history graduate program. I needed the deal with my parents because these programs were expensive. They accepted few applicants, and they looked most closely at one’s entrance paper. I gambled with a neglected subject like the Gleeian, and so I needed to mine Fryx’s heritage for as good a paper topic as possible.

But Fryx didn’t like questions about her past and her culture. Sometimes she would answer them, but mostly she would change the subject.

One afternoon Fryx opened the back room safe while I stood by holding an armful of packages. She unlocked the safe and took out a scanner.

The safe held a couple of stacked computer chips, another scanning device, and a long cloth-wrapped bundle, which caught my eye. I leaned forward and knocked over a precariously balanced stack of boxes. The dull clanging of steel parts brought Fryx’s green eyes on me.

My face heated. I nodded at the safe. “What’s that? The bundle?”

She placed a hand on it. “This isn’t for the shop. This is personal. It’s a relic from under the Ryneld’s dominion.”

She wore a deep V-neck shirt and the light red fabric on the left side of her neck had fallen towards the shoulder, exposing more of the bird tattoo running from her lower neck to the collarbone. Depicted in the style of old Earth Chinese brush painting, the tattoo showed a yellow-eyed eagle staring over a branch of cherry blossoms, presumably scanning the earth below for prey.

“Why do Gleeians have tattoos like this?”

She closed the safe, absently pulling up her shirt to cover the tattoo. “You said you studied our history. Did they teach you nothing about us?”

I set the boxes on the backroom counter. “They taught us undergraduates the big-picture events, like the treaty establishing Gleeian safe harbor on free stations and worlds, not the daily life stuff. Are the tattoos religious?”

“They cover up the slave markings from the spider lords.”

“But many Gleeians are born in free zones and haven’t got markings.”

“If some of my people are slaves, none of us are free. They wear the tattoos in solidarity.”

“You say ‘slaves,’ but from what I’ve read there are different relationships. Most are serfs, owned along with the land they live on. Then there are the personal thralls of individual Ryneld. Then—”

“I thought you studied Gleeians so the Commonwealth can learn how adaptable we are. Or are you really studying Gleeians as slaves?”

“Your very tattoos show how the slave dynamic is tied up with being Gleeian. I just want to understand your people better.”

“Maybe this will help you understand better how the Gleeians live under Ryneld dominion. You know most live as a subjugated people apart from the Ryneld, right? What you don’t know is every year the Ryneld hold a ceremony to declare war formally on the Gleeian community they’re lords over, just so when they murder us it doesn’t harm their precious religious purity.”

“Why do they murder you? I read they have rules protecting the Gleeians.”

“Protecting Gleeians? That’s what you think their rules are for? They have many rules protecting their purity, not our life or welfare.” She stared at me coldly. It reminded me of her eagle tattoo. “We reproduce much faster than they do, and they fear our numbers getting out of control, so they find reasons to kill us. That’s all I’m saying on this subject. You say you’re interested in learning how the Gleeians adapt so well in the Commonwealth, so ask about that. I don’t want to talk about Gleeian slaves anymore. Now take those boxes to shipping for the next freighter run.”

I collected the packages and left, a heavy feeling in my stomach. With slavery off limits, what would I write my entrance paper about that was suitable for serious research? The Gleeian traditional cuisine? Would my paper be a cookbook? Or a book on interesting tattoos?

Tattoos. I remembered how her shirt’s shoulder strap had fallen, revealing more of her eagle tattoo. I enjoyed thinking about her naked back. I imagined running my fingertips past her eagle tattoo and farther across her body. I realized my entrance paper wasn’t bothering me as much anymore. Something would turn up.

*     *     *
“You’ve worked here four months now. I’ve told you about our birthing ceremonies and our death ceremonies, about our freeing rituals, and about our family hierarchies. You know our traditional breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, and what we call the clothes we put on our little ones when they get sent to school. What more could you want to learn?”

Fryx and I sat at the little table in my apartment’s dining room, the remains of our dinner of falafels with hummus and tahinov hatz for dessert cluttering the table. I leaned back in my chair and drank away the last of my cup’s hibiscus tea, though with all my attention on Fryx I barely noticed its tart taste and floral aroma.

To someone who lives on a planet, my thirty-square-meter apartment would be a sign of it being cheap. But on a space station it was a luxury. Unlike the larger apartments with multiple bedrooms for roommates and a box shape to cram as many units as possible in the apartment complex, my apartment had one bedroom and—to show the designers cared little for thrifty efficiency—was quite irregular in shape. Next to the dining room table was the biggest sign of luxury however. Instead of a virtual window with a digital view of a pleasant park, my patio door opened to an actual view of the rim-hub park between the buildings, five stories below.

Fryx knew nobody could afford such a place on what she paid me. It embarrassed me my parents paid for it, but I wouldn’t refuse.

I stood and went to the kitchen and leaned on the breakfast countertop that partitioned the kitchen from the dining room. “The only Gleeian topic remaining is what you enjoy drinking after dinner.”

She smiled. “A beer is fine.”

It was strange having my boss over for dinner, but then again I had done little working in my life, so I was a poor judge. Still, I liked her. Could our relationship be more than boss and clerk? Though I had dated several fellow students, none of those relationships had been serious. Certainly I had never dated a businesswoman whose kin were enslaved by spider people. This made me nervous as hell—my smile felt forced, and I felt twitchy. Booze was a key part of my plan.

I handed her a glass of beer as I sat down with my own. “Good to know—Gleeians drink beer.”

“They drink everything they can get their hands on, just like the rest of the universe.” She gestured the beer at the surrounding apartment. “This is a nice space.”

“Thanks. It’s courtesy of my parents, of course. Look at this.” I called out, “Computer—Sleep time.”

The lights dimmed, the ceiling became a display of the station’s docking needle against the vast starry blackness, and the muted sound of chirping filled the room.

“What’s that sound?”

“Crickets. Pallas had them. A terraforming remnant. I listen to them and look at the stars before I fall asleep.”

Fryx studied the docking needle on the ceiling display. A freighter and a troop transport approached. “Is that real time?”

“Yes. We get to see traffic with the upcoming campaign approaching.” Thinking of the campaign, my gaze shifted to the large planet, Pallas, looming above us. “Nobody knows which city they’ll liberate, but the rumors are it’ll be Patrone.”

“Are they supposed to have a lot of libraries and books there, eh, professor?” Holding her glass of beer she reached out and poked my forearm with her forefinger.

“I’m only a student. But yeah, the city is famous for its libraries. Accounts tell us the city is gorgeous. The Commonwealth evacuated it early, so the AI shouldn’t have destroyed much of the city. Think about that—two hundred years later we bring the city back to humanity.”

“Not only to humanity.”

Though the feeble light kept me from seeing her expression, her tone should have been warning enough. But the beer, low lighting, and presence of a beautiful woman loosened my mind.

“Does it help at all that the Gleeians’ sacrifice gives us such wonders?”

A silence stretched out. She stood, the chair scraping violently back from her legs. A sound of glass breaking jarred me, and I sprang up from my chair. “Lights up,” I said.

She had smashed her glass against the wall, a wet stain still oozing towards the shards of glass on the floor. But her face was cold, not angry. Her eyes looked flat, her lip curled, and her legs planted wide. She looked like a different person. “Nobody really cares my people are enslaved so the mercantile houses get richer. It’s sickening.”

The mental fog from the beer evaporated. Holding up my hands, I stammered, “I didn’t mean—well, I guess I did. Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“What difference is there if you say or think it? At least if you say it I recognize you’re just an asshole who’ll use me to become a professor.”

“But I’m not. I’m not even sure I’m still interested in graduate school. I’m considering staying at this station.”

She stared at me with that same dead look, but then her face softened and her posture relaxed. The Fryx I’d seen at work for the past months was back. “I’ll cut you some slack. You’re young and naïve. And it helps you’re good looking.” She patted my cheek, winked, and left my apartment.

That was an abrupt change in attitude. I swept the wet broken bottle pieces into a dustpan. Was what I said true? Yes, I hadn’t fully understood my reservations about graduate school, but at that moment I realized it was true.

The beer-wet glass fragments slopped into the garbage can from my dustpan. This was a new side of Fryx. She had looked like a different person. It felt like on Pallas when the first brisk wind of fall hits your face after a warm summer. How well do I know her?

But how does it feel when you know your people are enslaved? What kind of knot would be in your gut? How would that affect your feelings towards others? She was pretty well adjusted given the baggage she carried.

I collected the dinner plates. I might still go to graduate school, but I resolved to avoid asking her about slaves or the Ryneld again. That should avoid any more trouble.

*     *     *
We lay side by side in bed, light dim, and around us was the sound of virtual crickets chirping happily and the strong, zesty aroma of gardenias. The station’s docking needle stretched out on the ceiling’s display above us. Pallas wasn’t in sight at the moment, so I could see only the starry black as the station’s backdrop.

After another month of dinners—with no beer glasses thrown against walls—Fryx had started staying the night. I saw more of her bird tattoos. The birds visible when she was clothed looked kindly, but all the hidden birds had a brooding or ominous air.

Two ravens fought on her back with red slashes against the dark black feathers. Birds on her upper arms, hips, and thighs included eagles, owls, and a vulture. All the birds were devouring something or looking as though they wished to.

My hands were locked behind my head with my arms flat on the bed, and she rested her head on my right arm.

I had steeled myself for the last couple of visits to ask her if she would move in with me. She had a larger apartment, but she shared it with three other women. The fleet would arrive the next day—the last time I could leave for Pallas for some time. If I didn’t leave I would miss my opportunity to continue my studies for the indefinite future. Whether I stayed or left, whether she moved in with me or didn’t, a point of decision for everything approached. I had to ask.

“I’m surrounded by stale business relationships on this station,” I said. The irony was that I talked often about this topic, making it stale itself.

“Yes, but with you people business makes everything go around. It should feel like the air you breathe.”

“The Commonwealth goes to war against the AI to get more stuff for our markets. We all work for a boss because we don’t want to starve. We ally with the hated Ryneld because it’s the only way we can win against the AI. It’s all just business, business, business.”

“Am I such an awful boss?” She turned her head and bit my earlobe.

“You’re different from everyone else. Even if we weren’t involved, working for you would be different, too.”

“Careful, little Commonwealth boy—you shouldn’t fall for a Gleeian and their wicked ways.”

I took the plunge. I gently pulled my arm free so that I could rise on my elbows and turn and look at her better. “You like it here, right?”

“What? You mean your apartment? Yeah, sure.”

“Why don’t you move in?”

“So you’ll stay after all? The Pallas-bound ship arrives tomorrow, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe it depends on whether you’ll move in with me. I know your apartment’s bigger, but you’d have more room here without three other people.”

She laughed. “Are you selling me the apartment or yourself? You don’t sell the battery pack, you sell the energy pistol, remember?”

“Well, yeah, you’re right. I’ll start over. We do well together. Why don’t you move in?”

“I’m sorry, but you aren’t Gleeian. It’s not a good idea.”

“Gleeians can’t get into relationships with non-Gleeians?” I gestured to her dimly lit body on the bed. “I’m sorry, but what is this?”

“We can get attachments like this, but that’s different from living together. You’re not Gleeian. Why don’t you just enjoy what we have?”

“My parents married to advance their careers. They don’t love each other—they barely see each other. Following in their footsteps sounds terrible to me. I want to be with you even if it isn’t the responsible thing for someone like me.” In the dim light I found her hand and squeezed it. Her palms felt rough with callus.

She didn’t respond. Had I done it? Convinced her? The hand squeeze must have broken through her reserve.

“Computer—magnify the ships docking,” she said.

The ceiling display zoomed to the station docking needle, crowding out the stars. Three ships that had been behind the station until Fryx noticed them were approaching the docking slips. Enough of their hulls was visible now to see two were Commonwealth ships. The third was an unfamiliar design.

She hadn’t been listening. I tried to keep disappointment from my voice. “The first ships are early.”

“Lights on.” Fryx pulled her hand free and got out of bed, staring at the ceiling. The tendons in her neck stood out. She was blinking, and her shoulders looked tight. She began putting her clothes on, swearing when she dropped her shirt.

“It’s a Ryneld ship, isn’t it?” I sat up on the edge of the bed, the tile floor cool against my bare feet.

She sat on the bed to pull on her pants, then stood again. Her movements seemed jerky.

She must be frightened. I stood next to her and placed my hand on her shoulder. She looked at me, her eyes wide.

“I’ll be at your shop, too, so nothing bad happens.”

She stared at me as though looking past me, turned, and left my apartment.

I sat on the bed. A feeling of protectiveness washed over me. I wanted to make sure nothing bad did happen to her. It surprised me to see her frightened—she always seemed so confident.

“Sleep time,” I said, and I lay back. As the crickets chirped, the view zoomed out so the three docking ships looked like little insects struggling to climb a sleek stone.

*     *     *
The next morning after Fryx and I saw the Ryneld ship on my ceiling display, I phoned my mother from the apartment. Her face appeared on the viewer, and her customary frown lines softened away when she saw me. She brushed aside a stray red lock of hair escaping from the bun skewered by two hair sticks.

“Kurt! What prompts a call to your mother on an otherwise uneventful morning?”

“To schedule a dinner date with you and father.”

“A dinner date, hmm.” She peered at me through the viewer, a smile growing on her lips. “You’ve met someone.”

I laughed. “I’m not agreeing or denying anything until dinner.”

“I knew it. You did meet someone. I could tell the moment I saw you. You look radiant.”

“Maybe I ran in the park.”

“Nonsense. Then you’d look just sweaty and gross. This is excellent, Kurt! Now you’ll stay at the station. I’m sure your father and I will get you inside whichever department you like.”

I couldn’t tell her I would continue working as a clerk for Fryx. She would guess Fryx was the someone I had “met,” and they needed softening up before they discovered I was dating a Gleeian.

“At dinner, mother. We can talk at dinner.”

She winked at me and waved goodbye.

*     *     *
When I entered the shop an hour later I found a spider looming over Fryx, wraith-like in its customary Ryneld black robe.

“Kurt.” Fryx nodded at me as if it were just another customer across the counter from her.

My smile felt forced and my heart pounded as I walked to the counter. After all my unanswered questions over the last nine months, here the real thing stood before me: a traditional slave Gleeian facing her traditional owner, a Ryneld spider lord.

Fryx had put the arc striker I constructed during my initial interview—and it did work—on the counter between the spider lord and herself. She was demonstrating the device setup.

A glass counter bisected the room, empty but for pedestals showcasing various weapon models. None of the storage room chaos or even the coolant smell found its way here. The open front door let in a murmur from concourse shoppers.

My stomach churned. Fryx needed an escape. I smiled and walked around the counter to her side. “Boss, I can help this customer if you want to take your lunch.”

She ignored me. “I hacked the feeds to boost energy output by only 10%,” she said, “so it’s 100% legal at the Station’s docks.” Her fingers quivered as she set the weapon down. Despite myself, I glanced sideways to see if the spider lord noticed. Of course the spider lord noticed. A spider’s eight eyes would miss no human weakness.

The spider remained motionless. She had the sharp crested head of a female. A half-meter taller than Fryx and half-again as wide, her body-length black robe hid her five arms and three tripod-like legs. Her sweet, subtle fragrance surprised me. No one ever wrote about how the Ryneld smelled nice.

Not hiding it this time, I looked at her black robe. Red bars—some whole, some broken—were stitched into the robe at the neck, wrists, hips, and across the chest. I didn’t know the bars’ meaning, but more of them meant higher prestige. This spider had a lot of red bars. I also knew the spider’s carapace, hidden under the robes, would change color depending on her mood.

The spider drew an arm out of her robe and brought it near her mouth. She gurgled as the many pincers surrounding her mouth manipulated the voice box strapped to the arm. Ancient spider people, in ritual hunts for bull-sized scaled lizards, would grab ahold of a beast’s neck and use serrated pincers around their mouths to pry off scales in search of an artery. Strange how those same pincers performed as mundane a task as turning on a translating device.

The spider lord screeched and her pincers clicked. The voice box crackled with static before the mechanical voice engaged. “You look like a thrall I knew. From a Yolanth estate.”

“My kind do appear alike to spider lords,” said Fryx. “This will charge to full capacity in two hours.” She plugged its cable into the charge station.

The spider lifted the weapon’s double batons, power wires drooping to the counter. “How many strikes can it make?” The voice box had a disconcerting habit of stressing random syllables.

“At least one hundred from a full charge.”

The spider lord put the batons back on the table, her arms disappearing again under her robe. “The estate belonged to the Righteous, Indomitable, and Judicious Blythe of the Eighteenth Hatching of the Pure Luminescence Hive of Sun Rock. I am the Honorable and Courageous Zinthia of the Thirty-second Hatching.”

Fryx touched a nozzle on each baton. “Twin lasers prime the air and guide the plasma for greater accuracy. With your arm’s length the two batons should strike two meters away.”

“Someone murdered Blythe the Eighteenth while he slept. The priests killed his thralls to join him in eversleep, except for one. They could never find her.”

“Interesting. Like I said—we all do look alike. The arc striker will nicely complement your weaponry.” She reached for the cash exchange device. Her sleeve fell back, revealing a tattoo of a hawk’s head in black. “Are you paying with Universal Credits? Or would you prefer a different kind of payment?”

“I have not heard enough.”

From Zinthia’s extended arm, the translating device squawked and emitted static. The spider lord banged it on the table and repeated the string of clicks and squeals. The device shrieked and said, “Are there any special charging requirements?”

“No, it plugs into the USO. Oh, wait.” Fryx opened a bin and removed a connector that covered her entire palm. “You don’t have a Universal Standard Outlet. You’ll need—” She froze and looked guiltily at Zinthia.

Whatever was wrong, maybe the spider wouldn’t realize it if I distracted her. I pointed to an energy pistol under the glass case. “My lord, the arc striker may need to be calibrated. Perhaps you would be interested in looking at a different weapon?”

Zinthia shrieked, and the voice box rasped its metallic voice. “Quiet, stupid human.”

Fryx moved her hand back towards the bin, but the spider lord’s own hand—it would be the tarsus on an actual spider—shot out, pointing two claws from beneath its black fur at Fryx, who froze.

Almost certainly under the black robe the spider’s sternum displayed the rose and blue coloration of mirth—a cruel mirth.

“Show me what you have in your hand.”

Fryx opened her fingers. “Only a connector, my Lord.”

Her “my lord” sounded nuanced, as if she had a history of using the term.

“And why would I need this connector?”

“I don’t know if you need it. I wanted to ask if you did.”

Zinthia made strange chittering noises with clicks. Black ooze dripped from her mouth onto the counter. Do the spider lords have the same embarrassment about drooling we do? I wanted to wipe it away with a towel. Would that insult the creature? Was the ooze poisonous?

“We both know why you retrieved this connector,” the spider lord said. “Say it.”

“Universal Standard Outlets are, well, universal for most ships. But I didn’t want to presume your ship—”

Zinthia hissed and from her cloak lifted a tarsus with a comm link attached to it. She brought the device near her mouth and delicate pincers tapped the screen. A soft screech sounded. The spider uttered her own screech and clicking back. This continued for several moments, and then the spider dropped her tarsus back into her cloak.

“My ship quartermaster tells me Universal Standard Outlets are standard for 85% of the sector’s ships. The remaining 15% use a dozen different connectors. Given those very low odds, I want to hear you say how you knew this was the proper connector for me?”

My face heated at the direction the conversation headed. We needed security. I reached for the hidden button on the counter to alert them.

Fryx noticed my movement. Her free hand, hidden by the counter’s opaque back, pushed my hand away. I stepped away from the counter in surprise.

Why didn’t she want security? Ah—I understood. The outcome if security fought a spider lord here would be bad; both Fryx and I would probably end up dead.

“An experienced merchant such as myself must be familiar with the diverse needs of my clientele,” said Fryx. She set the power connector on the table next to the arc striker.

“An experienced merchant would be aware the Ryneld are covetous of their secrecy. Outsiders understand little about the workings of our ships. Outsiders who were never thralls, that is.”

Fryx paused. “My Lord is discriminating and can read me well. I have something that might… clear the air between us. Balance the ledger, so to speak.” From under the counter Fryx retrieved the long cloth-wrapped bundle I had seen in the safe before and set it on the counter, moving the energy weapon towards the spider lord to make room. She revealed a sheathed short sword beneath the white wrappings.

A black, leather-like substance covered the scabbard, and red runes were etched along its length. A dull red stone stared bleakly from the translucent white hilt, a handle that curved and twisted strangely; it must be shaped so Ryneld can hold it with their two fixed claws in each tarsus.

Zinthia finally lost her nonchalance. Three tarsi emerged from the robes, all poised to grab the blade, and she leaned her head down.

Fryx put her hand on the sword. “The people of this station do not love your kind, my Lord. If you take this sword without paying for it, security will arrest you.”

I held my breath. Would Zinthia grab the sword? Common knowledge held spider lords fight to the death rather than surrender their weapons.

The spider lord collected herself, stretching her head to its former position. Her tarsi disappeared beneath her robe. Her wheezes and clicks continued for several moments before her device translated. “You know what this is, of course.” I saw another black blob on the table, a big one.

“I part with it for a price.”

“You insult me. It’s forbidden to buy or sell the d’yrack. Especially the d’yrack of the Eighteenth Blyth. Give them to me now, and perhaps I will forget our meeting.”

“No. Once you have it you can order your assassins to murder me later.”

“But if you don’t give them to me, my assassins will murder you and take them.”

“Then we’re at an impasse. For if you leave here without the sword, I’ll cast it into space like trash.”

As if it shielded us from the vitriol, the voice translator failed to make sense of Zinthia’s screeching. After some time it abruptly cut in: “Damn your barbaric language. Let me repeat myself: if you do that, I will not only have you killed, I will have you tortured well beyond the point at which you will wish you were dead.” One quivering string of black ooze clung to a mouth pincer.

My initial excitement at seeing a Ryneld and Gleeian interact had long since faded into fear for Fryx and myself. Why couldn’t the spider lord just leave us in peace, leave things the way they were before her visit?

I looked back and forth between the spider lord and Fryx knowing this needed defusing. Because the right words failed me, I fell back on my nine-month-long sales routine—asking customers about their needs. “Spider lord, maybe it would help if you shared your plans for the arc striker.”

Fryx finally looked at me, though she didn’t look frightened or appreciative of my help. Her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared in anger.

Though confused I plowed forward anyway. “It may seem like a silly question since clearly it’s designed for combat, but there are many kinds of combat. Attacking versus defending, on a planet versus on a station, against an AI versus a human thug—the arc striker is a better or worse weapon depending on these conditions.”

The spider lord shrieked and clicked. Her voice box translated: “I am weary of your loathsome race. Eradicating the sacrilegious thinking machines is a sacred task, but after campaigns where so many Ryneld bleed and die, who has profited years later? The humans always end up with new cities or space stations.”

“I thought the Commonwealth gave the Ryneld their share in the reclaimed areas,” I said.

“At first, yes. But the campaigns move on elsewhere and everyone forgets what the Ryneld did. Two years ago on Sorgath the planetary governor expelled all Ryneld communities. What happened to our share on that planet?”

Though I had paid little attention, I heard news about Sorgath, something about riots and accusations that spiders killed a Commonwealth citizen.

In the pause Fryx said nothing, her flat eyes unreadable.

“What do I need the weapon for? Honoring a fallen sister. She favored the arc striker, and in her memory I will use the weapon on the campaign. Is that enough information for you?”

I opened my mouth, but stopped and looked at Fryx.

“Kurt, go work in the back,” she said.

The spider lord’s raised tarsus stopped me from turning away. “Stay. You wish to ask me something more.”

“I know little about your kind. Was your sister from your hatching cohort?”

“No, she was not born in my hatching or from an egg.”

I could feel Fryx’s stare fixing me, but for the moment my interest had eclipsed my fear. “Not born of an egg? Do the Ryneld have live births?” I had a sudden thought. “Was she not Ryneld?”

“She was Ryneld through and through. You humans are so stupid. She was born like her or you.” Again the tarsus lifted, pointing at Fryx and then me. “But she was Ryneld worthy.”

I stared at Fryx, only barely noticing her curled lip and wrinkled nose. “She had two arms and legs like her and a soft skin? But she was still Ryneld?” Even to me this sounded stupid.

“Yes, she was my sister, and she died on Pallas liberating the mines of South Orsonnel.”

The Ryneld gave honorary membership status to human beings? Surely someone at the academy researched how a human being could become an honorary sister with a Ryneld, but for me this was news. More questions leaped into my mind.

I noticed Fryx’s legs were planted far apart and her hands were on her hips. She looked like she did when he broke my beer glass against the wall. I shut up and stepped back.

“I’m sure we can find a way out of this impasse.” Fryx smiled, though her eyes looked flat. “Why don’t we do this? You purchase the energy arc striker from me for two thousand standard credits, twice what I normally sell it for. That’ll show we’re good friends, and I’ll give you the d’yrack for nothing.”

The spider lords had a lot of esoteric rules governing honorable conduct. One of these rules forbade a spider lord from killing someone who they did business with. Not for three revolutions of the moon, anyway. I didn’t know which moon the Ryneld held as the standard of that unit of time.

“That solves our problem,” said Zinthia. She produced a small device with which she scanned Fryx’s merchant code.

I knew spider lords disdained haggling, but I didn’t know they completely rejected it. Surely she knew she paid four times what the arc striker was worth.

Fryx checked her data link screen. “Thank you for your business. Let me put these in a box for you.”

“Never mind that.” Zinthia grabbed the blade, leaving the white cloth wrappings on the table. She held the sheathed blade between two tarsi so it angled up behind her. She turned to leave.

“Wait—you’re forgetting the arc striker,” said Fryx.

“I have no desire for this garbage.”

“What about the fallen sister you wanted to honor?” I said. This time Fryx didn’t seem annoyed.

“A weapon from this traitorous thrall would dishonor her memory. I would sooner honor her memory with—,” and here the translator said, “excrement,” but the word seemed too tame given Zinthia’s enthusiasm in saying it.

“My Lord, you paid me two thousand credits,” said Fryx. “If you don’t take the arc striker with you to your ship, the money bought the knife.”

“I don’t know which disgusts me more: a treacherous backstabbing thrall or a bureaucratic merchant.” The spider lord extended a tarsus and collected the arc striker, holding it as if she held something foul to discard.

“And here is the weapon license.” Fryx placed the chip on the counter. “Discarding it to anyone other than an approved handler or merchant is illegal, so you should keep it until you reach your ship.”

“Open the device so I may inspect it for traps or data sniffers.”

Fryx fetched her technician toolbox and dismantled the weapon. Zinthia watched unmoving until all the parts lay on the counter before her. She tried to lift a piece with two tarsi, but the three immobile claws on each tarsus made manipulating objects like this difficult, and the first piece escaped her grasp and fell back on the table. I couldn’t imagine her wielding the weapon in combat. Perhaps her ship could alter it so she could use it on the campaign.

She pointed a tarsus at me. “Human, pick this piece up.”

This must be partly why their society has servants or slaves. Perhaps they evolved alongside another sentient race with opposable thumbs. I lifted each piece, turning them over under the spider lord’s gaze. She had me bring several pieces near her facial pincers—I leaned in so close I could see the fine black hairs sticking up on her head—and a thin yellow proboscis slipped from her mouth, delicately touching the item. At the end of her inspection she made me drop the computer chip from the device into a robe pocket, and she waved a tarsus to Fryx to reassemble the weapon.

Zinthia wedged the package containing the arc striker against her body with an arm. “You think you are safe on this station. But I tell you Blythe the Eighteenth will be avenged by your ritual disemboweling.”

“Yes, thank you for your business, my lord. Here is your receipt.” Fryx produced a chip, which I put along with the arc striker license in Zinthia’s robe pocket, and the spider lord strode out the exit, leaving three black blobs on the countertop behind her.

My heart beat fast. I felt giddy. “She doesn’t seem to like you.”

Fryx grinned and jumped up to sit on the countertop, avoiding the black globs. “I think you’re right. They reserve disemboweling for those who lack honor. But don’t worry—she won’t disembowel me.”

“She seemed pretty serious about it.”

“No, she wants assassins to murder me.”

“What? But I thought you used her own rules against her. She can’t kill someone she did business with, right?”

“Oh, I did, and she can’t. But she’ll tell one of her hatching sisters or brothers about this. She won’t tell them to do anything—the brother or sister will feel honor bound to set it up themselves.”

“You need to escape! You can hide in my apartment until the fleet leaves. It should be safe then.”

“I think I’ll be OK. Come on.” She hopped off the counter.

After she locked the shop, she ambled across the concourse among the knots of men, women, and children window shopping or sitting on benches. We passed tiny restaurants with steam in the window and smelling of curry, curio shops selling interesting junk from the conquered planets and stations, and upscale shops with manikins wearing business suits and dresses outside their doors, all selling to the upscale hubbers who left their hub-side parks and perfect apartments.

Fryx walked carefree, as if one of the more vicious killers humanity knew did not want her dead.

We strolled to the curved rising wall marking the concourse’s edge. Beyond this were only the passenger and cargo tubes to the central revolving satellite shaft, where travelers or shipments would board elevators to zip towards the docking slips. A man with dark glasses on the ground leaned against the wall. He seemed to stare at us, but I soon realized he was asleep when I heard him snore.

Fryx checked her wrist com link for the time and stopped next to the merchant association’s information window. A large digital display had been built into the wall where buyers could find the amenities or what wares they wanted. She tapped on the display, and a station map materialized. A little “You are here” sign popped up on the map. Fryx’s forefinger hovered above it.

“With Blyth’s D’yrack in her possession, the spider will head straight to her ship to secure it. So she’ll travel down this corridor.”

“How does that affect your escaping?”

“Have patience! After this corridor, she’ll follow this path, ending here. What happens here?”

“Security and Customs. She’ll have to pay a tariff on the arc striker?”

Fryx laughed. “Our spider friend wouldn’t mind a tariff on it. No, what our—”

She paused as an announcement came over the loudspeaker.

“Code 532. Repeat. Code 532.”

Booted footsteps sounded to the left of us, from somewhere down a passage leading away from the market area.

“I haven’t heard a Code 532 before,” I said. “Is it Zinthia?”

“Indeed.” With a touch, Fryx called up a code entry screen on the digital display and typed something. The station map disappeared, and a visual feed of the Customs area replaced it.

A long room made up Customs with a low ceiling and with a glass wall divided by shiny metal teller grilles and desks along one of the long edges. A Customs agent sat behind each of the grilles through which travelers would talk before being admitted through a door leading—depending on how good that traveler’s day was going—to either interrogation rooms or the docking slip elevators.

Zinthia held her back against the glass wall, facing more than a dozen armed security officers pointing their handguns at her. Her black robe lay discarded a meter away, and so I saw the bright purple of rage on her carapace. She held the sword pinned between two tarsus at her side. There was no audio feed, but I could see a guard approach the spider lord, his mouth moving and both his palms out in a peaceful gesture.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Let me paint the picture for you. The Customs agent asked her to hand the arc striker over for examination and for her license. This checks out fine, since Ms. Spider rightfully purchased the weapon and has a receipt. The technical assistant of the Customs agent begins an inspection, as they do for any high-tech weapon. They find someone has juiced the weapon to 200% normal specifications, clearly outside legal range. The thing is a station hazard. The chip I handed her attested I sold it within legal limits, so I presume Ms. Spider hacked the device somewhere between our shop and Customs.”

“I see.” Of course.

“The technical assistant notified the head of security, who dispatched ten—no, a dozen—officers. Once there, they approached the spider lord and told her she would have to surrender all her weapons so they could sort this whole thing out for her.”

“They already have the arc striker, though.”

“Yes, but they can see she still possesses a weapon, the D’yrack.”

“Will she surrender it?”

“Given Ryneld rules of honor, I very much doubt it. Also this one is weary with debasing herself to humans. Part of her wants a confrontation.”

Another four security officers entered the room. Zinthia turned and pounded one of her tarsi on the door leading to the dock elevator. Judging by the amount of black ooze flinging onto the glass wall, she was being vocal in shrieking and clicking her demands.

“But it’s in the officers’ interest to defuse things. They must know the sword has special significance for the Ryneld. She can’t be a threat to the station with it if they escort her.”

Another man entered who wore the head of security uniform. He didn’t have a weapon. The camera angle hid his face, but I could see the tattoos of tigers on his neck and the backs of his hands. The man was completely bald.

Zinthia stopped hitting the glass wall. The sheath flew off the blade and to the floor faster than my eyes followed. Her three legs formed a tripod under her, and her arms all formed a peculiar, almost ritualistic stance of ready attention with the D’yrack held sideways between the spider lord and the head of security. All her limbs swayed in place. This looked like a martial artist exhibition I had seen once before.

“There are fifteen ready stances with the D’yrack,” said Fryx, stroking her chin. “Spiders like their pretty names for things, but this is just ‘Number twelve.’ A true blade master can kill dozens of enemy warriors with this position.”

“But she’ll kill station security guards!”

“No, spiders use the blade for ritualistic duels, not in non-formalized, modern combat.”

His hands hanging at his sides, the tattooed head of security approached Zinthia, much closer than seemed prudent. He stopped just as Zinthia’s motions froze. From this angle I could see his mouth open as he said something.

Zinthia leaped towards him, her D’yrack flashing. I expected the man’s head to rip off, his body to fling aside like a bit of wadding. Instead the exoskeleton of Zinthia’s arms and body withered and flayed, and she fell back onto the floor. The officers advanced, firing their flesh- and exoskeleton-tearing plastic flechettes into her prostrate body.

I turned to Fryx. Her eyes were wide, and she took in a deep breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth. She rubbed at her arms, and I could see the backs of those arms raised with gooseflesh. Her face and neck flushed red. She looked like she did during sex.

A shudder swept through my body and I felt cold. I turned back to the display. Crime scene photographers arrived to take high-resolution pictures of the scene’s body and damage to the station, but the officers held them back. The head of security lifted the D’yrack. Despite the awkwardly shaped hilt, he deftly cleaned the black gore from it with a towel and rolled up the blade with a long white cloth into a bundle. He left the Customs area, and the officers stood aside for the photographers.

“He’s Gleeian.”

“Yes. The Ryneld murdered both his parents, so our spider friend picked the wrong concourse to create an incident.”

A tone sounded, and Fryx put a finger to her earpiece. “No collateral damages? Good. And you can steer the blade my way again? And the video? Yes, of course—the usual. Thank you.” She dropped her hand from her ear.

“Kurt, you have no idea how much money a video of a spider lord’s death battle makes. They’re illegal, but that only drives the demand up.”

Fryx nodded her head toward the shop, and we walked in silence back to it. After she let us back in, she said, “Next time wait until I ask for help, OK? You almost ruined things a couple of times.”

“I thought you were in real trouble. So are you the thrall she spoke about—the one who killed Blyth?”

“No, my mother was.” She looked in a storage bin. “You didn’t order enough. That was the last of the arc strikers.”

“Your mother must have given you the D’yrack. Does she know how you’re using it?”

“We’ll expedite a new order just to be safe. A spider might buy any high-tech weapon, but arc strikers are good as they’re the hardest to detect hacking.” She stood with her fist under her chin, staring at the empty bin. “No, the spiders murdered her ten years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hmm? No, don’t worry about it. We’ll get a bulk order next time so we always have some in stock.”

*     *     *
The passengers milled before the closed elevator doors that would take them out to the docking slips. Half the ship’s passengers had boarded. I watched them from where I sat with the few others that also suffered the unforgiving lounge chairs. The bright light bothered my eyes.

I felt a lump in my throat, something I hadn’t felt since a small child. I had kept that dinner date with my parents. It could have been years before I would see them again. Of course my leaving upset them. For all I lambasted their loveless relationship of mutual profit and orienting their lives around advancing their careers, for all that they loved me and it hurt them I left.

I would never see Fryx again. At least I hoped I wouldn’t.

The elevator doors opened. More passengers entered until no more could cram in, and the doors closed.

I had no idea what I would write for my entrance level paper. The best opportunity of course would be about Gleeians and Ryneld. In the right hands the complexity of their relationship could be a fertile field for historical research, but I didn’t think I could bring myself to write about them anymore.

Everything I believed about Fryx had been only skin deep.

The elevator opened again, and I stood and joined the last of the passengers as we entered, the door closing behind us. As the elevator began a falling sensation weakened my knees for a moment. The air was close; the smell of so many bodies around oppressed me.

Perhaps cowardly, instead of speaking to her I had sent a note—an actual pen and paper, handwritten note: “You warned me, and I didn’t listen.” I considered drawing a bird, but I’m a poor artist.

When I had been a boy and had broken a flower vase or one of my high-tech toys, my father never scolded me. He would sit me down and say, “The lost value was just the price for learning something. You’ve learned what to avoid.”

Studying history is like that. You learn the mistakes humanity makes, the missed opportunities, the lost value, and then you write in enough detail that people pay attention.

The door opened, and I smelled the sharp, unpleasant smell of engine oxidizers and fuel. It smelled like the workshop. Fryx working at the cracked blue-metal lathe came unbidden to my mind.

I knew the value I had lost. I just didn’t know yet what I learned not to do. Of one thing I was pretty sure, though—the lesson’s cost was too high for the return on investment.