---

Bishop’s Opening (Part 1 of 4)

By R.S.A. Garcia

Old as she was, the Kiskadee had done three full delivery runs without a single safety incident. So naturally, with the crew relaxed after a fourth successful delivery and launch, and eight cycles after Reece slingshotted the starship around Tavaco to head back to the Roost and their next job, their luck ran out.

Sebastian was in the middle of his daily workout when the shrill bark of the fire alarm brought him to a halt.

“Where’s that coming from?” he shouted as he hurried to unbuckle himself from the treadmill’s harness with sweaty hands. Officially, he was the newest crewmember, two years into a three-year contract and designated as a cargo handler. The alarm meant the ‘other duties as assigned’ part of his contract was about to kick in.

“Ventilation shafts ten and eleven,” Reece replied in his ear.

Sebastian was shoving his feet into his mag boots when the pilot added, “Origin point–Oxygen unit four.”

Shit. The schematic in his head confirmed that was one of the units for the living quarters, and the ventilation shafts fed into both cabins. Plenty of fuel for the fire.

“Get into that suit, Bas,” Olly said. She sounded calm, but Sebastian knew she was worried. If they couldn’t contain the fire by starving it of oxygen, then finding and smothering the source with CO2, they’d have to vent the entire level.

“Two minutes and I’ll have eyes on it,” he said, ducking through the airlock into the corridor. The hexagon shaped Kiskadee was mostly its aft hold, with everything else jammed around or in front of it, so he didn’t have far to go to the cabins. But that also meant a fire could spread fast, and they’d never see it coming.

“Corridors clear,” Reece verified.

The nearest suits were between Olly, his and Reece’s cabins so he would get a look at the fire as he dressed.

When he glanced through the porthole into his shared cabin, there was nothing to see but neatly made bunks and storage. He leapt the few feet to Olly’s airlock, peered inside and cursed.

Several spherical balls of yellow-orange flame surrounded hearts of indigo blue, floating through the air like misshapen balloons. They lost their shape and spread out into rippling carpets as they encountered more oxygen. One drifted down to touch the protective barrier above the red-tipped lettuces growing in Olly’s small hydroponics garden. The flame died, but the transparent plastic blackened, short zig-zag patterns scorching its surface as the invisible fire continued.

“I have eyes on it. Vent the Habitat, then Olly’s room.”

He slammed his hand down on the lock and the door opened.

“Sebastian, what are you doing?” Reece asked, his voice sharp.

“Thirty seconds!” He ducked under a fist sized ball of flame and headed for Olly’s rectangular garden. The plastic over another part of the garden greyed to opaqueness as it melted inward. To his right, a globe of fire settled onto Olly’s bed and deflated into nothingness as black patterns burned into the sheets and restraints.

“You don’t have thirty seconds,” Olly said. “I’ve already sealed off and powered down the unit in Habitat Maintenance. Venting the cabin now.”

Sebastian ripped the plastic off the garden, cradled the huge tray–made light by low gravity–against his chest, and leaped for the doorway.

“Do it!” he called out as he twisted in mid-air, touched down in the corridor and slammed his elbow against the lock screen.

The airlock clicked over to sealed as he carefully placed the tray on the ground, then wrenched open the double doors of the storage unit.

“Sebastian?” Reece asked, his tone clipped.

“Fine, I’m fine! Getting into the suit. One minute to deploying CO2.”

An hour later, when he emerged from Habitat Maintenance, he found Olly had already laid down the foam in her quarters. She took her helmet off as he approached and shook out her braids.

“Why?” was all she said, dark eyes narrowed with anger.

He stopped. He’d seen her this angry once before, and it was best if he kept his distance so she wouldn’t be able to physically pummel him. She’d done that last year, after he’d turned back on a near empty oxygen tank to grab her safety-line when both her anchors were severed during a space walk.

“It didn’t take me ten seconds–”

“You had no idea how far that fire had spread.”
“I’ve seen fire like that before. Once you get the shafts closed and the power off, you’re going to be fine.”

“Opening the door could have fuelled it!”

“Goodness gracious, I’m fast enough to avoid great balls of fire,” he said, with a slight smile at his own bad joke.

She advanced on him, poking his chest with her finger. “Not funny, Bas.”

“Okay, maybe it’s a bit forced–”

“Just tell me why.”

He grew serious. “Because you love that damn garden. It’s taken you three contracts to afford it, and you just got those lettuce right. I wasn’t going to let you lose it.”

“Really?” She flung up her hands, her expression incredulous.

“I knew I could save it. So I did. And anyway,” he gave her a grin, hoping it would go a long way to settling her nerves. “I didn’t want to be stuck eating dehydrated protein bars and sauce packets for two weeks.”

Olly’s teeth bit into her lower lip, and she made a sound of frustration. “What am I going to do with you?”

“I’d say take me to bed because your shift’s up. But I’m guessing that’s a no.”

“Good guess.”

He made a sympathetic hum in his throat and drew closer. “What if I do the reports while you and Reece deal with Dispatch and Facilities?”

“Is this your way of trying to make me overlook your reckless behaviour?” she said, eyebrows arched.

“Is it working?”

But Olly only huffed and walked away, leaving him to follow.

---

A knock made Bishop Kingston look up from the plans on his desk. “Come.”

The door to the office, inlaid with mother-of-pearl tracings, folded open. Kingston’s White Knight entered and fisted his right hand against his bare chest. A glittering 3D tattoo of two diamonds inside a circle–the crest of Sept Kingston–flashed at Bishop from the Knight’s forearm.

“A summons, Bishop. Kingside,” he said, his voice thin as it emerged from the pinhole speaker of the full-mask he wore. The mask was as white as the Knight’s sheer pantaloons, and edged with green and gold, the colours of Sept Kingston. Bishop wore a similar mask himself, only his had the crest etched into the left cheek. It was twin to the tattoo on the back of his right shoulder.

He rose smoothly from his desk, refusing to let the tension that gripped him show itself in his movements. “The Audience Room, I presume?”

“The King awaits you in her Chambers.”

A matter too sensitive for the Rooks or Kingside Pawns to hear then. His mouth set in a grim line. It would not be good news if it had to be discussed in Chambers, and with Grandmaster Kingston off-world, he assumed the worst. That it had something to do with the Kingston himself.

The Knight accompanied him through the hollowed out, highly polished halls of the Sept. The walls were a honeyed colour, petrified wood that had aged to perfection since the time the first colony ships had landed on Valencia. One of the first Septs grown from the Greatwood, Sept Kingston was a sprawling mansion surrounded by its own village, every bit of it pruned from the sentient forest that covered much of Valencia’s main continent. Vines dripped from arches and windows, fluttering in the breeze that drifted through their sparkling flowers, carrying their sweet floral scent everywhere.

The King’s Chambers were on the third floor, deep inside the labyrinthine Sept to make it difficult for saboteurs and assassins to find. When Bishop called out and the King bade him enter, the Knight bowed and turned back down the corridor. Bishop made sure he had departed before he touched the doors open.

The King of Sept Kingston sat at the console that curved outward from the massive tree trunk growing through the centre of her suite of rooms. Her mask was the same tan brown as her skin, with tinted eyeholes and a speaker in the centre of the parted, painted on red lips. Her capable hands danced along the Coretree Analysis Unit, inputting model calculations to ensure their nutritional value before she fed them to the crystalline quantum Coretrees themselves. Through the tinted windows on her right, Bishop could see the glittering expanse of the Sept’s vineyards beneath the morning sun.

Bishop bowed and waited. The King would take her time to greet him, as the models were of the utmost importance. Feeding the Coretrees was the most important job of every Sept and Grandmaster. Without the Greatwood, no ships could be grown, no Septs improved, no trade conducted for necessary resources. Without the Greatwood, the quantum power of the Coretrees could not be used in Valencia’s other business. The solving of problems, great or small, computational or otherwise, for off-worlders who would pay good money have the impossible made possible.

And right now, after several tempi of inexplicably low Harvest, and Coretrees that bore rotten fruit and errors, they had their own urgent problem to solve. The King spent most of her time working on this with the Grandmaster, while the Queen and Bishop made sure their strategies in the Great Game of Valencian politics did not suffer and leave them vulnerable to attacks from other Septs. But Harvest was near, and the season of Petit Caréme almost upon them. Soon, this tempi’s Term of the Greatwood would close, the Septs’ rankings would be posted, and several months of reprieve from the deadly games would begin.

Not that his work would end. No, Petit Caréme was the planning season for his kind.

The King froze the hologram in front of her and looked up at him. “Bishop. You are well, I hope.”

He hated these false pleasantries, but it was not polite to begin a conversation without them. “My King. I am in excellent health. Thank you for asking. You are also well, I hope?”

She waved a dismissive hand. “I have a task for you.” Her voice was gentle and low but threaded with hardness.

Behind his mask, Bishop pursed his lips. “Of course, my King–”

“Bishop,” she interrupted him. “Let’s speak plainly.”

Old anger weighed heavy on his tongue, but he only said, “As you wish.”

She rose from the carved chair and went to the window, narrow shoulders visible beneath her sheer robes. She was tiny, barely above five feet. Her black hair had been crimped and curled into a bejewelled knot. He stared at the back of her neck and tried not to think of how easily he could break it.

“Are you still angry, Bishop? About what we did? What we took from you?”

He knew her questions were traps, so he said nothing. He clenched his fingers against the urge to scratch at shoulder scars that had completely faded many tempi before.

“You can tell me the truth. It would not leave this room.”

He knew it would not, but he had no desire to ever trust her with his secrets again. She was King now. And he was a Bishop still earning his way back into his Grandmaster’s trust.

She sighed. “You always were so careful. I never thought you would defy him. You know how he is.”

Oh, he would not discuss this. Not for her, not for anyone. “You did not send for me to discuss my…feelings.”

“Of course not,” she said. “As Bishop, you have none. And you are right. This is no time to indulge my curiosity.”
He was not fooled. She was prodding, always prodding, for any sign of weakness. Any sign of betrayal. He was grateful for a less subtle attack this time, at least. The other kind was harder to guard against.

She turned and came to stand in front of him.

“The Grandmaster has secured a Conclave with Sept Bartica. He will meet their Grandmaster at Greater Paradise on his return from the meeting with the Consortium regarding the search for their lost slaver ship.”

“But he will be in the company of the Valencia. Will he allow such a move to be witnessed by her?”

“He plans to be discreet, but she is an ally these past decades,” the King stated in her soft way. “For the moment, we have nothing to fear from the Royal Sept after we gave her our full support in the trial of the last Valencia.”

The King was right, but the Royal Sept Valencia was the pinnacle of the Great Game, their Grandmaster its best player. Bishop could never lose sight of how dangerous all the Grandmasters of Valencia were, allies or not. This one had almost cost him his life, after all.

No, he reminded himself. You did that with your own foolish, emotional actions. No one else is to blame.

“You will take First and Second Rooks and such Pawns as you deem necessary and leave immediately for the space station. You will protect the Kingston and bring him home safely.”

Bishop bowed his head. “Of course.”

“Take the Cook with you. The Grandmaster would appreciate satisfying meals after all these weeks of travel. The Valencia’s palette is not to his taste.”

He straightened. “Cook would welcome that. He has wanted to go off-world for some time now.”

“I’m aware. And you must deal with the matter of his service. Use the time to bring the issue to a conclusion. I do not wish the Kingston to have to take action.”

“That will not be necessary,” he said, stung at her censure and interference in his Septhold duties.

She stepped closer to him and signed instead of speaking, in case listening ears were nearby. “Don’t make me do your job again, Bishop. I don’t enjoy it.”

Bitterness filled him at her lies, but he kept his body relaxed. He signed back, “I understand your concerns, my King. I will allay them.”

Her fingers were graceful as her words. “See that you do.”

---

Reece chirped Dispatch at the Roost, who then contacted Eastern Allied Corporation’s Facilities Department. After he and Olly ran a full cycle of remote checks with Engineering to ensure the fire wasn’t caused by human error, and endured several lectures from Accounting about insurance premiums, the request to charge the repairs to Corporate Billing was approved. Sebastian filled out the necessary forms and Reece reviewed and filed them.

The Kiskadee couldn’t operate unless it could pass inspection when they returned to the Roost, so it made sense to get the work done immediately, before they had to pick up their next cargo. They put in for a few cycles shore-leave during the repairs. EAC granted the leave, then directed them to Greater Paradise Space Station. Olly knew the station well since she’d spent most of her childhood there. It had a corporate approved repair shop and was just two weeks away.

Happily for Sebastian’s food loving soul, it also had an unusually large food court level that sold more than variations on compressed seaweed and recycled water because the planet Paradise and its resources were nearby.

Once the paperwork was done, Sebastian helped Olly move into their cabin, her little garden a splash of green in the grey room, and they settled in for a slow, boring ride to one of the great mysteries of the universe…the Arbor of Greater Paradise.

Sebastian could still sense the leftover tension in Olly as they worked. That was his fault, Reece told him on the Bridge while Olly was tending to her plants. He’d scared them both and Olly wouldn’t forget that easily.

“Fix it,” Reece had said.

So, when they finally went to bed, he settled under the sheets and pulled Olly close. She threw her bare leg over his and turned her head to where Reece floated alongside their bunk. His eyes were closed, but he was only resting them; he couldn’t sleep while technically on watch.

“Tell me about the best thing to eat on Greater Paradise,” Sebastian coaxed, fingers drifting back and forth over her smooth shoulders.

“Bas, we still have weeks of rations to get through. Why would you want to hear about what you can’t have right now?” Olly replied. Straps crisscrossed atop their blanket, cocooning them against the chill of their quarters. They were almost never all in one spot at the same time, but after the fire, the unspoken agreement was they needed a little time together.

Olly walked her fingers over his bare chest. He twisted, choking on laughter that carved dimples into his brown cheeks, and slapped at her hand. “Stop!”

“It’s hilarious how ticklish you are.”

Reece grunted beside them and flung one large, muscled arm over his bearded face.

“Anyway, you know the answer already,” she added.

“Tell me again. It will help me forget how small this bunk is.”

She folded her arms across his chest and rested her head on them, a slight smile on her face. “This bunk is not small. I’m a generously proportioned beauty. Isn’t that right, Reece?”

Their pilot did not answer, his barrel chest rising and falling evenly, as if he slept.

Sebastian ran his hands over her long braids and the metallic twists of wire that decorated them. He knew his smile was irresistible, so he wore her down with it until she groaned and said, “I just want to sleep, Bas.”

“So do I. Help me?”

“What’s there to tell?” she said softly. “Doubles is the best food in Greater Paradise. Everyone knows.”

“How did you find out about it?”

She settled against him. Sebastian rubbed one hand over the soft rolls of her back and stretched the other to massage Reece’s smooth bald scalp, the way he liked.

“Whenever my mom had to work late at the ice factory, she’d take me to hang out with Gran at the docks until it was time for home. They had a mess room, so it wasn’t as dangerous as being alone on the factory floor, or in our quarters. Sometimes, she’d be so late, Gran would take me for dinner. That’s when we’d go down to the Basement, to Sticky’s Place.”

“Sticky was from a long line of cooks. His however many greats came up from the islands before the Wave, settled in the States, and moved on to the colonies when the Union fell apart. He’d left a cruise line to set up his own stall on Greater Paradise. The recipe for his best dish had been handed down for generations. Some of the ingredients were difficult to find, but since Greater Paradise was parked by an Arbor, he could trade with the Valencians for fresh herbs and everything else. Every time Gran took me to his stall, we had the same thing.”

“Four doubles, everything, plenty pepper.” Sebastian sighed, his limbs relaxing beneath her warm body and the grip of the soft restraints. “What were they like?”

She made a contented sound, and he watched her lashes feather her cheeks as she went deeper into the memory. “Two pieces of round, soft, fried dough the size of your hand, with creamy seasoned chickpeas sandwiched between them. They came with a choice of condiments. Pickled, grated cucumber slaw. Sweet, earthy, tamarind sauce. Your choice of flavoured pepper sauces. Mango, banana or pineapple. You ate them right there, with your hands, standing or sitting on a stool, and the only rule was you couldn’t order just one.”

Sebastian closed his eyes, imagining a tiny version of Olly sitting on a stool too tall for her, boots firmly curled beneath the rungs to keep her in place in low gravity, face spotted with the delicious remnants of yellow legumes.

“The first time Gran takes me there, she orders slight pepper, but this tourist standing next to us tells Sticky, everything. And then they order all the pepper sauces because they think they’re preserves. No one bats an eye because everyone likes food spicy in Greater P. Only way you can taste anything out here. But the tourist, they don’t know shit. They find out though. Never seen anyone drink that much milk in one go.”

“Best part is, Sticky watches all this and the only thing he asks is, “You good?” and the tourist catches their breath and says, “Two more, please.”

They both laughed as if the ending was a surprise, the familiarity of it wrapping Sebastian in drifting, cosy thoughts.

“Doubles.” They started as Reece spoke in his deep voice. “Makes me think of tennis.”

“Five whole words,” Olly teased. “Chatty tonight, aren’t you?”

“I didn’t know you were listening to the story,” Sebastian smiled at him.

Reece didn’t move his arm, but he shifted his head ever so slightly into Sebastian’s touch. “I always listen.”

Olly laughed softly. “No tennis in Greater Paradise. Sticky said they called it that in the islands. No one remembers why. I suspect he kept the name because there was mystery to it, like the Arbor.”

“Maybe,” Sebastian yawned as he spoke, “it reminded them of home. You know. The immigrants who left the islands. Maybe they were just holding on to what they could. Even if it was just a name.”

Olly was silent for a while before she said admitted, “Probably.”

“Olly?”

“Yeah?”

He lifted her chin and kissed her before pulling back to brush his thumb over the velvet of her cheek.

“Forgive me?”

She made a derisive sound in her throat. But then she leaned forward and pressed her warm lips to his again. “For now.”

“Only for now?”

“We both know this won’t be the last time,” Reece rumbled, eyes still closed.

He winked at her. “I can live with that.”

She sighed. “That’s what I’m afraid of. Then we’d have to find a way to tell your mom her baby got himself killed.”

“She’s got eight other kids to fret over. She barely notices I’m gone.”

Olly stroked a finger over his eyebrow. “Someday, Sebastian Thomas Carver, you’re going to figure out how unforgettable you are. Then God help us all because you get laid enough as it is.”

Reece didn’t join in their gentle laughter, rising instead to head up to the bridge and leaving them to rest in each other’s arms.

---

“So, it’s true there’s gravity on Greater Paradise?” Sebastian asked. They were five cycles out, and he was more than ready to start his short vacation.

“Only where the Arbor’s grown onto the station. No one knows for sure how or why,” Olly said over the Kiskadee’s chirp. She was down in the galley, getting something to eat. He could tell from her muffled chewing.

“But the Valencians know.”

“Of course, they know. It’s probably something to do with them. Best guess anyone has of how their trade routes work is the Arbors camouflage something their ships use to jump long distances. Anything with that amount of power can support artificial gravity.”

“Has anyone ever asked them though?”

Reece made a soft huffing sound next to Sebastian. His version of laughter. Olly outright chuckled in his ear. “Bas, no one asks the Valencians anything. If you’re smart, you stay out of their way. They’re easy to offend, and if you piss them off, there’s no one to turn to. They’ll shove you out an airlock so fast your head will spin.”

“That’s murder.” He glanced at Reece. “There are laws against that.”

“Greater Paradise isn’t a family commune,” Reece said.

“He’s right. The fleet you grew up in was focused on keeping everyone safe because you were all families. Greater Paradise is about commerce. Station Agents uphold the laws for regular folk. The Valencians are…not that. No one tells them what to do. And there’s no recourse for anyone who messes with them.”

“But the Pan-African stations don’t work like that. The Kairi sure as hell don’t work like that. You kill one of them anywhere, the entire Sibling Army comes for you.”

“Government versus Corporate,” Reece grunted.

“You’re not wrong though, Sebastian. In some places, murder’s only a problem if the wrong people die,” Olly said.

Sebastian considered that, a troubled frown on his face. “What do Valencians look like?”

“Assholes,” Olly said. And no matter how he pressed her, she would not say more. So, he put the Valencians out of his mind and settled into preparing for his first visit to Greater P, a name Olly told him was an inside joke because for most residents, Paradise it was not.

Mostly, he planned the food he would try from the dozens of proprietors who serviced the thousands that passed through Greater P. Olly had told him what she remembered of her childhood there–every dish she’d eaten, every corridor she’d walked.

But she couldn’t prepare him for the actual sight of the Arbor. From the moment it first appeared on the viewscreens as a winking star, a bright light that grew larger and larger, he could not look away. The filters had to adjust, just so the rainbow dance of it didn’t blind them. The Arbor spun in the starlit darkness, a massive forest of twisting trunks, thin leaves and curling tendrils. Greater Paradise rotated slowly beside it–two hollow metal circles connected by an elevator. The outer hull of one end of the station had been captured by the crystalline oasis and glittered like the Arbor, branches twisting over the rotating habitat as it grew toward the other end of the station.

“There she is,” Olly said as they watched the station draw nearer. “Home, sweet home.”

Sebastian floated above the floor next to Reece, hand curled around a hard thigh to keep him anchored, while Olly sat strapped in on his right. “Are you glad to be back?”

She shrugged, sliding her fingers between those of his free hand. “Gran and Mom are both gone. Nothing here for me now.” But he knew that dismissive tone. Sensed something unspoken and painful under it. Olly was as private as Reece about many things. It was part of the reason they made such a good team. Talking was optional on the Kiskadee, and though he was always up for a chat, a joke or a story, Sebastian didn’t mind silence.

As they watched, a ship glimmered into being beside the Arbor, a mirage settling into solid shape without warning. Although the forest dwarfed it, Sebastian drew in his breath at the dimensions and light-limned irregular angles of it. He’d never seen a ship like it. It looked like something carved from enchanted wood and fairy light.

Olly groaned beside him. “Great. A Valencian ship is in port.”

“That’s what they travel in?” Sebastian’s lips parted as he leaned closer to the screen. “It’s incredible.”

“Talk is they grow their ships. Probably from the same thing as the Arbor, as they seem to thrive out here in absolute zero without any sustenance.”

“I would give anything to see that up close.”

“Enjoy the view,” she said. “This is as close as they let anyone get.”

“Why?”

“I already told you,” she said. “They’re assholes.” And her usually amused, cynical tone carried a bitterness Sebastian hardly ever heard from her.

“You hate them, don’t you?” he asked, turning to look at her profile, at the long line of her neck and the small, rounded tip of her nose. Her eyes when they rested on him, were a deep, dark brown he couldn’t read. She laid a gentle hand on his cheek, but all she said was, “Better get ready to dock.”

---

Host Commentary

By Valerie Valdes

Once again, that was part one of Bishop’s Opening, by R.S.A. Garcia. It will continue with part two next week.

Some stories begin with a character saving a cat; this one begins with Bas saving plants. As heroes go, he’s kind and a little too reckless for his own good, qualities that will eventually propel him into a portion of the universe he never imagined himself a part of. Bishop, on the other hand, is cool and calculating, his political duties and machinations a stark counterpoint to the intimate found family of the Kiskadee. What will happen when their paths cross? Find out next week.

Escape Pod is part of the Escape Artists Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and this episode is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. Don’t change it. Don’t sell it. Please do share it.

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Our opening and closing music is by daikaiju at daikaiju.org.

And our closing quotation this week is from Premee Mohamed, who said, “If love does not pin you down, if love is not heavy enough to keep you in place, what on earth could be?”

Thanks for joining us, and may your escape pod be fully stocked with stories.