“Tip is your son,” Taglioni noted. “Kylee is Dya Simonov’s, but who is Flute?”
“That’s their quetzal,” Chaco noted, an unaccustomed reserve in his eyes.
Taglioni took a bite. Closed his eyes. Chewed as if in bliss and finally swallowed. “What is this taste? I’ve never known such a . . . an interesting, mellow, what? How do I describe this?”
Tal tried hers. This wasn’t just meat and cabbage. It had a sort of anise saffron mixed with . . . No, there was simply no Earthly comparison to the delicate taste.
Chaco looked triumphant. “Cool, huh? Made barrels from aquajade, then charred them on the inside, right? For Inga’s whiskey. But that raised the question: What if we fermented cabbage in one of the barrels. Shazam! That’s the taste.”
“Inga will buy all you can produce.”
“If I could sell this in Transluna,” Taglioni declared, “we could all retire.”
“I like this guy,” Chaco said with a smile.
Taglioni gave him a companionly wink.
“So, what’s the trouble with Flute?” Talina asked. “Something going on there?”
Chaco leaned forward on his elbows and used a napkin to clean the grease from under his fingernails. If Taglioni noticed, he didn’t so much as blink. Another point for Taglioni.
“Tal, it’s like they’re a threesome. The good news is that we don’t worry nearly so much about the wildlife. Haven’t seen a skewer, a bem, or a sidewinder around the shops for more than three years now. Makes it a lot safer for Maria and Skip. On the other hand, it’s like the three of them are more of a family than we are.”
Madison added, “Getting harder to get Kylee and Tip to make it through their lessons. And it’s weird, they seem to share thoughts. Like telepathy.”
“Molecules,” Tal said, knowing intuitively. “TriNA reads our memories through transferRNA. Encodes them. Then, when the molecule is handed off to another person, it uses tRNA to code the memory to another brain. I have flashes from Kylee’s youth all the time. Memories of her and Rocket and Mundo Base. All from when we shared molecules.”
“Worries me about what else they might be sharing out there,” Chaco muttered. “You know what starts to happen between boys and girls when they turn thirteen?”
“Sometimes it’s funny to call them children,” Madison said. “They’re a lot more mature than I was when I was thirteen. Kylee in particular. Sometimes I think I’m talking to a grown woman.”
Talina gestured with her fork. “Kid’s had the crap kicked out of her by life. Don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t taken her in.”
“Got her language mostly straightened out. Took two years to keep her from cussing like a marine. Where’d she learn that foul mouth, anyway?”
Talina winced, made a face, and raised a guilty hand. “Uh, I was under duress at the same time she had the misfortune to think of me as a role model.”
Taglioni, though wolfing food, and having gone back for more, was watching with rapt attention. Seemed to be hanging on every word. What was it about the guy? He might have been studying for his comps.
“She still hate people?” Talina asked.
“Not as badly. I think it helps that Dya and Talbot fly out every couple of weeks. I don’t know what to think of her. She’s different. But so is Tip.” Madison took another helping.
“So, Dek,” Chaco turned his attention. “Heard you had a pretty rough transit from Solar System.”
“Some damn fool once said that wisdom comes through adversity. Looking back on it, now that I’m so wise, I’d have been a whole lot happier to have remained arrogant, dumb, and unenlightened.”
“Taglionis,” Madison noted. “As I remember they were pretty high up in The Corporation.”
“Yeah,” Dek agreed. “Most of the time when I went to family gatherings, we had to be on oxygen.”
“So what brings you to us?” Chaco asked.
“I guess I’m like a pilgrim from the old stories: a man in search of some illumination or understanding. The part of me that I lost on the way here? I need to replace it with something else.”
“You any good with tools?” Chaco asked. “Want to help me put that pump I just fixed back in the water system?”
Slugs in the mud! Chaco had just asked a fricking Taglioni to . . .
Instead of the rude response or explosion Talina expected, the man said, “Sure. Be my pleasure.”
Well, what the hell other surprises lurked inside that unassuming shell?
40
It hit him like an explosion. The scintillating pleasure shot through Dan Wirth’s pelvis, up his backbone, and tingled the bottoms of his feet. He gasped, crying out as Allison’s practiced muscles tightened and she rocked her hips. Rode his orgasm for every delicious instant of it.
Panting, Wirth rolled off of her, leaving his arm to drape over Allison’s chest. “Wow,” he rasped as the tingle faded. He blinked up at the ceiling. He’d had Hofer’s best man hand-plaster the bedroom. Like Allison, there was nothing to match it on the entire planet.
“No complaints?” Allison asked, reaching for a cloth to mop up.
“You do that for all of the marks?”
“Of course. But you’re the only one that gets it on demand and for free.”
“Lucky me, eh?”
She was watching him with those calculating eyes. He missed the old Allison. The innocent one with the wounded-bird expression and hesitant, almost desperate approach toward life.
“You’ve been preoccupied.” She tossed the cloth to the side.
“What’s your take on Taglioni?”
“Not sure. He’s different. I’ve given him the eye, he just nods. Has that strange smile like he knows and understands, is actually appreciative, but not interested.”
“Think he’s into men?”
“No. Definitely heterosexual, just not into a casual fuck.” She shifted. “You remember, don’t you, that we promised Aguila we wouldn’t take him down.”
“He says he can fix it. Make it so that I can go back. Live like a fucking Boardmember and lord it among all those high and mighty cocksucking assholes in Transluna. The slate wiped clean. A whole new life for Dan Wirth.”
He waggled a cautionary finger. “All for ten percent and expenses. You know, the unsavory bribes for the Board and the rest of the ass-fucking bureaucrats. Now, why do I smell a quetzal in the bushes? What’s wrong with this picture?”
“He say why he’d do it?”
“As a fuck-you to his cousin who’s on the Board. And I’m supposed to believe that?”
Allison raised a pale shoulder in a shrug. “What else did he say?”
“That he’s staying here. That he’s not going back. And I’m supposed to believe that a child of that kind of wealth and privilege just lets it all go?”
“Depends on what happened on Ashanti. From the crew I heard that he scrubbed toilets. Lived with them, worked with them, no job too tough. Their story is that he changed when they all thought they were going to die. Maybe he doesn’t want to chance that again. Aguila didn’t. Not after Freelander showed up.”
“So I trust the fancy prick?”
Allison reached out, turned his head to face hers. “You’ve been getting moody. You’ve got an anger building inside. Then, after you talked to Taglioni, you’ve been more like the old Dan. Like you’re plotting and planning again. So tell me. The truth. What do you want?”
“I’m the richest man on the fucking planet.”
“You are.”
“I had to trade a bedroom addition for a toilet-sucking scarf. Those two safes. They’re bursting. That’s real wealth. Not on paper, or a line of credit. The triumvirate or Aguila need something, they come to me. I own half of this miserable planet. So, what’s the point?”
She considered, the ghost of
a smile molding her lips. “Wondered if that wasn’t the trouble.”
“Hmm?”
“He dangled the carrot, and you can’t help but bite at it, hoping it’s for real.” A beat. “Might be. If it is, you’d go back?”
“To play in the big game? Baby cakes, I’d go in a second.”
“So, he’s offered you the chance to go back on Ashanti? Is that the fool’s play? Or is it the lucky draw? How do you tell if it’s real, or a sucker’s bet on red twenty-two?”
“Oh, I don’t trust the fucker for an instant. I think he’s playing me. Wants to use my wealth to bitch-slap that cousin of his. Now, knowing that, am I smart enough to sidestep the landmines before they blow my fucking foot off?”
“Are you?”
He made a face. “See, that’s the gamble. Those Corporate cocksuckers play a rigged game. But tell me, who knows more about rigged games than me, huh?”
“You got any insurance that good old Dek won’t have you arrested the moment you step off Ashanti? Then he gets all the plunder, and you’re fucked.”
“Oh, angel, you have no idea how that very thought rolls around inside my head. But, no. Sometimes you’ve got to go with instincts. Rather than making a fast fortune, I think he’s playing a long game. Wants to use me as a pawn on the Corporate chessboard.”
“Pawns get sacrificed.”
“Uh-huh. And if they make it all the way across the board, they get turned into queens who can really kick ass.”
She shifted, stared at him with an uncommon intensity. “You’re seriously thinking about going, aren’t you? Even knowing the risks.”
He smiled, slapped a hand to her toned stomach. “What about you? Want to go with me?”
“Not for the time being.”
“Oh?”
“Like you, I’m willing to play the long game.” A pause. “What happens with The Jewel? This house? Your interests here?”
He gave her his coldest, threatening look. “You asked for forty-nine percent once. I’ll give you half of everything. Anything you establish from here on out, that’s yours. But don’t fuck with my half.”
“What about the house here?”
“Yours. But in return, you fucking damn well better be sending plunder back in my name. You see, Dek’s right about one thing: If Ashanti makes it back to Solar System, they will be sending more ships. If my share of the plunder isn’t on board, I’ll still be rich enough to hire some nasty shit-sucker to pay you a visit.”
“I’m smarter than that.”
“Yeah. I think you are. You got the balls to do what has to be done?”
She gave him a taunting smile. “Only one possible problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Your good Mister Taglioni? He’s out in the bush at the Briggs place. Odds are better than forty to one the silly son of a bitch is going to get himself killed before he can do either one of us any good.”
TRAP
I live in a state of confusion that I cannot confide to anyone. To do so would be a sign of weakness. If there is anything the Irredenta do not need at this point, it’s even the suggestion that I am not in complete control. That I doubt—in any way—the Will of the universe.
That’s on the surface. The façade I present. The persona that I adopt.
Inside, I wish I could drop to my knees, raise my hands and implore the universe: Did I not sacrifice everything for you? I murdered my fellows, ate their flesh and organs in an act of holy sacrament. I committed myself, without reservation, to your Truths. I followed, without question, the wisdom of the Prophets. Endured the hideous agony of scarification as I sliced my skin and repeated the process time after time. Used a cleaver to amputate the soft flesh of my nose. Made my body a repository for the dead and destroyed relationships to ensure the dead I harbored would be reborn in the next available female.
How is my faith and sacrifice repaid?
Fatima continues to suffer. Three more people are missing, two of them children.
And still another child, young Pho, is dead. This time, we know what happened. Manram saw the plant reach down, wind itself around the screaming child. The little boy was lifted off the ground and the plant began eating him. Manram ran forward, tried to pull little Pho away, and was grabbed up herself. She barely managed to tear free; large chunks of her arms, the flesh of her hands, a large patch of her shoulder are missing.
Another, Renzo Demopolis, age six, was found at the edge of the escarpment. He was in convulsions. Something blue staining his mouth. He’s now laid out in the cafeteria in hopes the Prophets will, through some utterance, tell us how to cure the boy.
The impact is devastating. The children are the reborn souls of the dead. Purified. The universe promised they’d be immortal. That the Irredenta were the way—the vehicle through which all of humanity, the universe itself, would be purified.
I am achingly, painfully, aware that each of these children who dies at the hands of Donovan will be lost. For them, death is once again eternal and absolute. Renzo and the slug-infested Fatima, we can save. We can consume their remains again and insure their eventual reincarnation.
At least, I hope so.
I need the Prophets! I need their counsel. But to my absolute frustration, Irdan is mute this morning. Won’t eat. His breathing is shallow, his limbs barely twitch. Callista and Guan Shi are mumbling so softly I can’t hear, seem to be fading just as fast. I really look at them now, realize how wasted their bodies are. Living skeletons draped with sallow and loose skin. Their eyes have sunken so deeply into the sockets, they remind me of those Mexican Day of the Dead masks.
And what happens when they die?
With people bustling around the cafeteria, I dare not show despair. I cannot drop my head in my hands.
Cannot weep.
I am the Messiah.
I am contemplating the uncomfortable realization that I am the loneliest man alive when Shyanne Veda hurries in from the hallway, stops before me, and bows.
“Messiah,” she says, avoiding my eyes. “There’s a call on the radio. Supervisor Aguila is flying in. Says they’re bringing provisions and want to give us some information. Should I answer?”
I give this consideration.
Is this the universe coming to my aid? And so much faster than Petre, the Chosen, and Vartan had anticipated?
That old and innate sense of opportunity fills me. “Tell the Supervisor we are delighted to accommodate her.” Raising my voice, I call, “Someone! Find Petre! Call the Chosen. The Corporation is coming! You know the plan. It’s time to spring our trap.”
And in that instant, relief pours through me like a cool and refreshing wave.
I chuckle like a gleeful child.
I finally understand.
Of course we’re suffering. Once again, the universe is teaching us a lesson: Just because we’re in a new place doesn’t mean we forget the holy Truths.
In this case, the Truth is that there is no progress without sacrifice, pain, and purification.
We need a new sacrament, and Kalico Aguila shall be our first. But we must play it perfectly. Petre and Svetlana have worked this out, planned every aspect of how to lure Aguila and her people to the right place. As The Corporation is the epitome of deceit, we must be even more cunning. As long as they are not wearing armor, if we play this correctly, it will make no difference.
41
Donovan’s immense and endless forest gave way to the escarpment upon which Tyson Station perched. The day had gone from uncomfortably warm to downright hot. Kalico shifted her quetzal-leather hat where it hung down her back, the strap tight at her throat. Anything to get a little air. She wished she’d worn something lighter.
She stood beside Mark Talbot as the ex-marine kept the airtruck skimming a good two hundred meters above the highest treetops. Thickly packed forest stre
tched off to the irregular horizons—a lumpy mass composed of aquajade, various species of chabacho, stonewood, broadvine, and the curiously turquoise trees she’d never heard a name for.
And then, here and there, they would overfly an open spot, something she’d never seen except around Tyson. Usually it was a round hole in the forest, maybe a couple hundred meters in diameter and surrounded by towering trees. In the center, all alone, stood a most unique tree. Another uncatalogued species. This one a bright lime green with branches that ended in oversized round-shaped flat spatulate structures—could you really call them leaves? They reminded her of supersized ping pong paddles on flexible stems. The tall tree occupied the exact center of the opening; apparently the rest of the forest wouldn’t dare to intrude. Given the way Donovanian forest jostled, shoved, fought and crowded, that made the plant, tree, or whatever it was, more than a little ominous.
Talbot pulled back on the wheel, and the airtruck climbed as it approached the dark basalt cliff upon which Tyson Station had been built. He crested the caprock and hovered while Kalico, Dya, and the two marines studied the research base. A couple of people were out, watching, hands to their brows to shade them as they squinted against Capella’s bright rays.
“Try them again,” Kalico said to Dya.
The woman lifted the mic, saying, “Tyson Base, this is the Supervisor. We’re inbound with a load of provisions. We have issues we need to discuss. Please respond.”
“We see you. You are free to park. Look forward to serving you.”
“Serving us? Hope that isn’t a cannibal joke.” Private Muldare observed where she stared thoughtfully out at the five domes. They looked out of place—white and round as they were against the green, blue, and gray background. The sheds, made of chabacho wood, had more or less faded into the scenery as they weathered.
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