Pet Trade

by Carol Van Natta

  He woke Bethnee. She sat up and pushed her hair back from her face. “What time is it?”

  “Zero six hundred. Sorry, but we need to talk.” He pointed to the table, where he’d set out a pitcher of water, cups, and two mealpacks. “Breakfast.”

  She stood and stretched again, and he looked away. The one glimpse of her mid-thigh-length sleeping tunic that clung to her high breasts, flared hips, and flat stomach threatened to derail his rational thoughts. He waited until he heard her moving, then turned back to watch her limp toward the fresher door because she drew him like a magnet. She was definitely walking more easily than before.

  When she returned, she looked more alert. “My leg is feeling good. Want to scan it?”

  “Later. Are you awake enough to think deep thoughts?”

  She sat. “Depends on the subject. I can’t solve the time-versus-distance paradox in interstellar transit physics before breakfast.” She triggered the mealpack’s heater.

  He laughed as he sat and triggered his own. “I’ll tell the Concordance Science Achievement Award Committee to stand down, then.”

  She pointed to the display he’d left for her on the table. “What’s this?”

  “Background reading.” He reached across the table to turn it on. “It’s why the wakeup call.”

  She nodded, then took a bite and started reading the highlights he’d hastily put together. He saw on her face the moment she got to the part that had caused him to wake her so early.

  “Holy hells. We have to warn the town. Daylight is only five hours from now.” She stabbed her fork toward the display. “And what the hell kind of audit takes a team of eleven to conduct one for a town of a hundred?”

  “This is going to sound paranoid, but I think the audit is a cover for something else. A raid, a theft...”

  Bethnee’s eyes widened. “A hunt for a CPS fugitive.” She stood abruptly. “You can’t stay here.”

  He shook his head. “I have to.” He crossed his arms. “It could be legit. The settlement company might be making a zero-tolerance example of Tanimai for cheating. If I get caught, the company could fine the town hard credits for not detaining and reporting an unregistered settler. If I’m the target, I don’t want CPS hunters anywhere near the town. I won’t go back willingly, and they wouldn’t care about collateral damage. Which is why I want you to take the animals to the safety of your cave.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, and he braced himself for an argument. Her expression of fear and worry morphed into resignation. “Okay.” She shoved her hands in her pockets. “You know what you can and can’t do. I hate leaving you here alone, but I’m worthless in a fight, and I don’t want the animals to be casualties, or hostages for your cooperation.”

  He let out the breath he didn’t realized he’d been holding. “Thank you.” Her trust humbled him. He resolved to be worthy of it.

  Bethnee made it look easy to load a menagerie of animals into the close confines of the flitter. He’d probably still be trying to catch one of the cats.

  He handed Bethnee an earwire. “A spare for our private net.”

  She put it in the top pocket of her coat. “Okay.”

  He handed her a slender length of rounded incalloy, with padding at one end and a bulge of fine wire net at the other. “Homemade shockstick.” He showed her how to operate it. “It’s Nuñez’s Solstice Day gift, because that asshole at the spaceport transfer dock confiscated hers.”

  Bethnee nodded. “It’s a great gift, and she’ll love it. Thank you.”

  He handed her a small, flat box tied with a tiny strand of fiber cable, looped in a bow. “Your Solstice Day gift. Open it when you’re safe.”

  She rewarded him with a shy smile as she slid it into her lower pocket. “I’ll ping you when I get home.”

  He fought a strong urge to fold her into an embrace, because her departure felt too much like goodbye. He stiffened his spine and stepped back.

  She opened the flitter’s pilot-side door, then hesitated and turned back. “Do you think I’m still warped by the recovery chems?”

  “I doubt it. They usually metabolize in six or eight hours, tops.”

  “Okay.” She stepped up and in, then turned to face him. “Then I think you should know, I still want to kiss you. Be safe, Axur Tragon.”

  She closed the door and lifted off ninety seconds later, by his internal chrono.

  He buried his roiling emotions under the activities of dowsing the glow lights and resetting the various analog security measures as he went back to his house. He prayed to the constant stars that the audit was just an audit, and that he’d be seeing Bethnee again soon, because he sure as hell wanted to be kissed by her, and return the favor.

  10

  * GDAT 3241.265 *

  Bethnee sent a short message from the air to Nuñez, but she had her hands full with flying and keeping threads of talent on eleven animals. Twice she nearly turned around when she remembered the look of longing on Axur’s face when she’d impulsively told him she wanted to kiss him.

  She pinged him the moment after she got the animals settled in the cave, and put out fresh water and food. Nuñez pinged a moment later. Bethnee told her what Axur had said about the audit timed for sunrise, and his suspicion about a hidden agenda.

  “Farking settlement company assholes,” Nuñez said vehemently. “I’ll get the local comm net going, in case the settlement company is monitoring the uplink, too.”

  “I’ll return your flitter to the clinic, and go home on my glide board.”

  “Okay. I’ll open the gate for the yaks.”

  Bethnee disconnected, then took a minute to send images to Axur’s animals so they’d know the cave’s layout and how to operate the pet doors. She wanted them to always have an escape route.

  She grabbed her glide board, set the security system, and walked as fast as she could to the flitter, feeling time slipping away. It wasn’t until after she was in the air that she realized she’d limped very little on the snowy path.

  After delivering the flitter and Nuñez’s present, Bethnee rode her board out of town. Just as she passed the last building, Nuñez pinged. Bethnee started to answer, but her friend was already talking.

  “...he won’t hurt you if you stay still. What are you two doing in my paddock? Back up, Upolu.” Upolu was a large yak bull, with wickedly curled, sharp horns and a dislike for strangers. Nuñez’s conversation continued after a moment. “Well, there’s nothing to see back here but yak shit. I’ll need to see your IDs and verify them with settlement compa–”

  The connection cut off.

  Everyone in Tanimai knew about the yaks and the geese, so the interlopers had to be the auditors, come early. The “inadvertent” comm was Nuñez’s way of warning her. Bethnee grounded the glide board and sent a quick warning to Nuñez’s spouse, then pinged Axur with the news.

  “Where are you?”

  “Edge of town. I’m–” An ear-splitting, chest-rumbling whump made her instinctively duck her head like a turtle. “I just heard a crash, but I can’t see anything. I’ll check the animals in the area.” She sent threads of her talent out to all the animals she could find, both domestic and wild, and took advantage of their superior hearing and night vision to glean information. “I think it came from the Administrative Center. The building is collapsed inward.”

  “Isn’t that where the satellite uplink is? Check your local comms.”

  She tried her percomp and the extra comm bracelet. “They’re down.”

  “The best thing you can do is go home.”

  “I can’t leave Nuñez.”

  “She has thick walls and neighbors and attack geese. You’re alone on a glide board. You’re brave as hell, and I can’t tell you what to do, but I will tell you that the hardest lesson a Jumper learns is when to retreat.”

  She blew out a frustrated breath. He was right. “Okay, here’s my offer. I’ll go home, if you’ll use your fancy tech to figure out what’s going on, an
d get help for Nuñez and the town if needed.”

  “Deal. Stay safe, Bethnee Bakonin.”

  She launched into the air again and hunkered down behind the board’s wedge front to reduce wind drag. Guilt gave her second, third, and tenth thoughts about her decision. It felt like she was abandoning the truly good and generous woman who had saved her life and helped her learn how to live on her own. Bethnee would never forgive herself if Nuñez got hurt, but she’d also never forgive herself if she became the lever to bend Nuñez to their will.

  11

  * GDAT 3241.265 *

  Bethnee was so distracted with visions of calamity that she almost didn’t notice the first sign that someone had breached her perimeter. The gossamer lengths of fiberet cable trailed down to the ground instead of invisibly spanning between the trees. An air vehicle had flown through and broken them, triggering the chemical reaction that made them faintly glow.

  She veered off north into the trees and turned off the board’s light, flying by terrain sensors alone. She slowed to almost a hover, a meter above the forest floor, maneuvering around the trees and boulders.

  She heard voices. A man and a woman.

  “What the hell is this sticky stuff?” The man sounded outraged.

  “Move slow. Grab my hand.” The woman sounded like she was suppressing laughter.

  Bethnee grounded her board quietly behind a tree and buried it in the snow, fighting hard against instincts compelling her to run. The animals needed her to stay.

  She sent threads of her talent to her animals and Axur’s to tell them all to hide in the caves.

  She heard squelching sounds as the intruder walked through her moat that had a mix of yak dung, mineral salts, and scrap glass road glue, kept warm by a geothermally heated grid at the bottom. Once he got out, cold air would turn the thick coating on his clothes glass-hard.

  Bethnee took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then peeked around the tree trunk. Two figures in one-piece blue snowsuits and transparent snow hoods trudged through the snow, away from the moat. The taller figure scraped the orange gunk off his butt as he walked. She opened her talent senses, but as usual, the humans felt like ghosts. She extended further and felt two more ghosts, clustered near the front of her cabin. That was more than a third of the auditor team.

  She limped as fast as she dared to the edge of the trees. The interlopers were using both flying and hand lights. They’d see her if she tried crossing the main path.

  She coaxed a nearby wild owl into looking at the front yard and borrowed the owl’s superb hearing. Three men and a woman, all in one-piece snowsuits, stood at her front door.

  “...haven’t got all day,” the woman groused. “Let’s get the power-ram to breach that door and look, then get the hell out of here. I don’t like being restricted to stunners and tranqs.” She sounded irritated.

  “That’s ‘cause you’ll shoot anything that moves.” A wide-shouldered man opened a display.

  The man who’d been in the moat looked down as he stomped his legs. “Fucking mud is freezing, even through my suit.”

  “Like you’re any better,” snapped the woman. She pointed to the display. “What does the tech scanner say?”

  “House has powered security, but nothing outside... No, wait. One double-tech signature. That way, and close.” The owl’s vision showed her an image of a man pointing into the woods.

  Ice flooded Bethnee’s veins as she frantically powered down her earwire and comms bracelet, berating herself for stupidity.

  “Signal died.” He tapped the display on the heel of his hand a couple of times.

  The woman focused on the main path. “If it’s the vet, she can just let us in. Keeps us on schedule.”

  They must have figured out where she lived from homestead records. They hadn’t asked permission to land, but it didn’t pay to piss off auditors, if that’s what they were. Especially auditors with weapons.

  Her only hope was to lure them into the woods and into her various security measures. None of them were fatal, just strong deterrents for the uninvited. She switched her battery-powered wrist light to low-power green and risked brief flashes to tell her where to step over rocks and duck under the branches. Learning every meter of her property in light and dark had helped her feel safe. She skirted around the fifteen-meter clearing. On the far side, she switched her comms bracelet on and off, mimicking an intermittent signal.

  Two interlopers came through the trees, their lights marking their progress. She backed further into the shadows. They plunged into the virgin snow of the clearing. A faint whipping sound whistled in the air.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “Who the hell leaves coiled spikewire in the middle of farking nowhere?”

  Bethnee took advantage of their noise to make her way down the hill. An empty flitter occupied her gravel landing pad. She limped behind it and down into trees and rocks to the southeast. Adrenaline jacked up her tension and turned her stomach sour. Her thigh spasmed.

  The sound of another approaching flitter echoed against the mountainside.

  She scrambled under nearby shrubs and let the disturbed snow cover her. A smaller flitter landed behind the first. Two people exited and walked toward her house.

  “...enforcers are coming to investigate.” A woman’s voice with a Mandarin accent. “Trummler wants us out by local dawn.”

  “I thought the auditor was supposed to intercept any calls from the area. We paid her enough.” A man’s voice, muffled by a high collar.

  “Call came from an ex-Jumper, so the dispatcher took it seriously.” The woman didn’t sound happy.

  Bethnee would have smiled if she weren’t so scared. Clever Axur had found help.

  Their words confirmed they weren’t auditors, which meant they were after something or someone else. She didn’t know what to do besides distract them so they’d leave her house alone, and delay them long enough so they’d run out of time and leave.

  She’d never imagined she’d be wishing for a speedy visit by the Del’Arche Planetary Enforcers.

  Bethnee had crammed herself into a rock hollow, wracking her brain for ideas. She was exhausted, and out of options, because dawn was coming.

  The intruders failed to breach her house’s physical and tech security, and had grown increasingly irritated about not catching her. Especially after two of them fell down a steep hill and the others had to deploy ropes to help them up the loose debris underfoot. They’d grown more wary of her traps after that.

  She reached out once again to the animals to make sure they were safe. To her dismay, she discovered Trouble, the e-dog, was outside the cave and headed toward her. His fleeting thoughts listened to the controller in his head with Axur’s order to find Bethnee and protect her. She refused to put any of the animals in jeopardy for her.

  “Got her!” said a male voice. “It’s faint, but the scanner says she’s twenty-three meters south, and moving closer. I’ll send lights.”

  Trouble’s controller was permanently on, meaning the intruders were keying on him. She’d promised Axur she’d keep his animals safe.

  With trembling fingers, she powered on both her higher-powered comms bracelets and her earwire, then pinged Axur. She subvocalized as she slid out of the hollow and stood. “I hope you hear this soon. Six people are at my place. They can’t get into my house. They’ve been chasing me. I’m going to let them catch me, or they’ll hurt Trouble. Send the enforcers here if you can.”

  She limped her way out from under the trees. She didn’t have to go far before lights flew close and a black-haired man and a blonde woman, both with blood spots on their pant legs, came toward her at a fast walk. She turned and ran away, exaggerating her limp so it looked like her top speed.

  “Get her!” shouted the man.

  The blonde woman ran, then launched herself at Bethnee to take them both tumbling down into the snow. The blonde woman rose to her knees and roughly pulled off Bethnee’s comm bracelets and earwire and thre
w them away. “You won’t be needing these.” She grinned like a shark. “I heard something bad happened to the town’s satellite uplink.” She grabbed Bethnee’s arm and hauled her to her feet, then jabbed Bethnee’s shoulder with an unpowered shockstick. “Where is it? Where’s the shipment?”

  “Wait,” said the black-haired man. “The boss will want to hear this. Bring her to the cabin.” He tilted his head toward her house.

  The woman clamped a strong hand on Bethnee’s arm and pulled her along. Bethnee limped as slowly as she dared, using the time trudging through the thigh-high snow to touch the strong, trusting minds of her animal family to keep herself from falling into a fog of fear. Her thigh muscle cramped once, then quieted. A small victory.

  Three more people stood near her front door, all wearing the same new-looking blue snowsuits. They must have sent the man with the ruined one back to the flitter to stay warm. An Asian woman stood and watched, arms crossed and fingers drumming, as a dark-skinned man with an upright crest of flame-red hair folded and pocketed a scanner. The third, a noticeably shorter man, pulled down his collar and stepped closer. He stared at her legs, then looked intently at her face. “Well, well, the God of the Gaps has finally answered my prayers. It’s Indenturee Bakonin.”

  She knew that face and voice from her worst nightmares. Kanaway, the guard with chems and perversions. The pieces fell into place. They weren’t a freelance theft crew raiding the town, or CPS operatives looking for Axur. They were mercenaries after the bounty for a lost shipment of valuable designer pets. The shaking started, and coherent thought began to disintegrate. She desperately sent her talent out to every animal she could reach with the imperative to stay hidden. She forced herself to focus on the Asian woman’s combat boots, counting toe taps. The animals depended on her to buy time for whoever was responding to Axur’s call for help.