Crux: A Sci-Fi Romance (The Jekh Saga Book 2)

by H. E. Trent

  The tablet would self-erase its contents in a couple of hours, but Eileen would have seen the proof, even if she couldn’t carry it with her.

  She scrolled through the pictures and the couple of short letters that had accompanied them.

  “That’s Amy,” Eileen said. “She’s with…that’s Courtney McGarry and her sister. I was on both shuttle flights when they came in separately. Courtney took her?”

  Lillian nodded. “Amy, as you know her, wasn’t born as Amy. She was born Emania.”

  “Emania?” Eileen said the name slowly, as if she were trying to get her tongue used to saying it, repeating it several times. “She’s…Jekhan, ain’t she? She’s not from Earth.”

  “You knew?”

  Eileen sighed and held the tablet against her chest, eyes wet. “I guessed. Didn’t want to say anything. Didn’t want to scare her or to make her think I cared one way or the other.”

  “How long did you suspect she was a hybrid?”

  “I don’t know. I always had that sinking feeling that something wasn’t quite right about her. I liked her too much to say anything, I guess. Didn’t want to spook her because she was so sweet to me. I was one of the very first attendants hired to make those shuttle runs. At the time, not too many people were volunteering, but she did, and she didn’t look down at me for being a little country, you know? I couldn’t help but to think there had to be a little something wrong with her for wanting the job, but if I thought that, I’d have to apply the same logic to myself. I mean, nobody should want to do this gig for a living. Too dangerous, and too much damn disrespect from the passengers. I knew I could hack it, though. I’m a cowgirl. I’ve dealt with bossy assholes all my life who don’t even know enough shit to fill a thimble.”

  Edgar’s shoulders shook with his silent laughter.

  Lillian pressed her lips together tight and fixed her gaze on the drop ceiling.

  She usually didn’t have such difficulty keeping a straight face. Eileen was going to be a handful for sure.

  “Amy—Emania is safe, though, right?” Eileen asked. “Tell me she’s safe.”

  “She’s fine,” Lillian said soothingly. “We could arrange for you to see her, but telling you she’s safe was only one of the reasons I asked you to come here today.”

  Eileen finally took that seat and let out a long exhalation. “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  “You can certainly refuse, though I hope you’d at least think about the proposal before you do.” Lillian pushed another tablet forward—one with heavily encrypted files Eileen would only be able to read in a signal-dampening pocket outside of the COM band tracking area. There weren’t many of those pockets in or near Buinet, but Lillian suspected Eileen knew every spot inside and just outside of Buinet where devices couldn’t get remotely hacked. She hadn’t kept herself out of trouble during her visits to Jekh simply by staying holed up in her corporate apartment.

  She tried but, of course, Eileen couldn’t activate the tablet. She set it back down and gave Lillian a querying look.

  “Take that home with you. Read what’s within in the place where you normally read your most private space-band messages.”

  Eileen tipped her chin up and scoffed quietly. “I see. Looks like you know a hell of a lot more about me than I know about you.”

  “Information is a currency in the game I’m playing.”

  “And you’re trying to make me a player?”

  “I’m asking you to volunteer. I’m not going to force, bribe, or blackmail you into doing anything you don’t want to do. I’m going to ask for your help. You’re going to go home and read your messages. Maybe send your mother a nice note telling her that you’re fine in spite of the current upheaval here, and letting her know that you’ll be off-planet for a while.”

  “Where am I going?” Eileen put up her hands and shook her head. “Never mind. Don’t tell me. Let me guess. It’s in the tablet?”

  “Yes, but what I can tell you is that there are two assignments. Both need to be done, though you’ll have ultimate discretion in choosing which, in your opinion, is most pressing.”

  Eileen tapped the side of the tablet against her palm and ground her teeth.

  The dossier Edgar had put together about her said she was on the gives-fewer-shits side of forty. On Earth, she’d been a part-time mail carrier outside of Fort Worth. She had no family except for a mother who owned a ranch. Eileen sent money home to maintain both the lady and the land. Eileen wasn’t the reckless adventuring type—Lillian knew that type all too well. Eileen didn’t have the traits. Space cowboys were raising hell all over the damned planet. They were enacting their little boy dreams and terrorizing anyone who’d stand in their way. Eileen hadn’t taken the shuttle attendant gig because she wanted to see space. She’d signed up because no one else paid that kind of money to folks who only had high school diplomas. Lillian doubted that a life so far from home was one of Eileen’s aspirations.

  Eileen was the kind of woman who wanted to be at home. Lillian sure did. She missed the Georgia sun. She missed seafood. She even missed having little old ladies pat her on the hand and say, “Bless your heart.” But she hadn’t been able to say no to the job. She’d worried that things would turn out the exact way they did and that there wouldn’t be any Terran on the planet with pure motives.

  Pollyanna.

  Lillian leaned her forearms onto the edge of her desk and forced a swallow down her parched throat.

  So dry in this mouse maze of offices.

  “What do you want out of this big Jekh mess, Eileen? In the end of it all when the dust settles, where do you see yourself?”

  Eileen gave Salehi a long glance over her shoulder, and then turned back, tapping the tablet against her palm some more. “Honestly, I just want to go home and stay home.”

  Nailed it.

  “I didn’t want to have to worry about property taxes going unpaid. Didn’t want to worry about being able to afford hay. Didn’t want to worry about the cost of grain or fret about having to cull the herd early. I wanted to be able to take over for my mother on the ranch when she retires—and Lord knows she should be retiring now—and I wanted to go in with a cushion. I didn’t want to work myself to death like my daddy did. This job was supposed to be about building my savings account, not about this…” She threw her free hand up. “Mess.”

  “So you’d go home,” Salehi said.

  Eileen faced him and nodded. “Yeah. I’d sure as shit would. I’d go home and stay home.”

  “Even if you’re offered land here? And animals? If you had everything paid for free and clear and your only investment would be your time and labor?”

  Eileen opened her mouth as if to say something, but the words didn’t come out.

  The offer was intoxicating, even for an urban girl like Lillian.

  Eileen gnawed on her lower lip and drummed her fingers on the chair arms. Finally, she shook her head. “No. My mama isn’t here. No good starting from scratch when we’ve already got something at home.”

  “So we’ll get you home,” Lillian said.

  “How? Very few folks are able to get off the planet right now, and I don’t rank high enough to be one of them.”

  Lillian gestured to Salehi. “We’ve been on this planet a long time, folks like me and Salehi.”

  “You have connections.”

  “Yes. Some connections are, admittedly, dirtier than others, but given the climate, beggars can’t always be choosers. If you choose to go, Salehi will accompany you on your missions. He knows the system and knows who to avoid. Better yet, he knows how to fly those space-faring buckets of bolts.”

  “Renaissance man, huh?”

  Salehi turned his hands over in a gesture of concession and bowed slightly. “Having a diverse skill set is a somewhat necessary evil in this place.”

  “Yeah? What else can you do?”

  “He has a certain knack for languages,” Lillian said. “That’s what launched the career that
put him on this rock in the first place.”

  “That is true,” Salehi said. “I would have been content to stay on Earth and behind a desk in the administrative capacity I was promoted into before this mess started. Unfortunately, the nature of my commission left no room for me to refuse.”

  “So, you’re not a space cowboy.” Eileen smirked.

  He shook his head. “No, ma’am. I’m a pilot and linguist with better-than-average aim, not a cowboy.”

  “You’re a nerd.”

  “That may be the kindest thing I’ve been called in fifteen years. I’ll take it.”

  Eileen pushed up out of her chair, grabbed a couple of hard candies from the bowl at the edge of the desk, and then tucked the tablet into one of her jumpsuit’s numerous pockets. “When do I get to see Amy?”

  “Soon,” Lillian said. “You shouldn’t worry about her safety, although I realize telling you that won’t stop you from being concerned. You care about her, and she should have people caring about her. She’s very important to the people of Jekh, even if she doesn’t realize that she is right now. But before she can do her job, we need people to do other ones.”

  “Like the ones you’re trying to give me.”

  “I admit they’re somewhat urgent.”

  “Thank you for your honesty.”

  “I feel you deserve the truth.” Lillian let out a breath. She’d gotten too good at lying. Honesty was what required practice lately.

  “I could get used to it,” Eileen said. “I’ll take a look. That’s the only promise I can make until I see what you need. For all I know, I’m in no way qualified to do what you want.”

  “You are qualified. The question is whether or not you’re fond enough of risk to do what needs to be done.”

  “Thank you for being candid.”

  “I’m not a fan of baiting and switching, Ms. Conroy. I’ve been burned too many times with that myself, including with a marriage that went careening downhill too fast for me to even see the warning signs. Go into this scheme with your eyes wide open and don’t be afraid to ask questions.”

  “Are you gonna answer them?”

  “The ones I can.”

  Eileen nodded and turned toward the door. “I’m so used to folks making up any ol’ answer, I don’t half know what to do with myself when folks tell the truth.”

  Edgar grabbed the door handle for her and gave Eileen another of those gallant bows. “You try to give them the same.”

  “Oh. I see. Sounds so obvious, right?”

  He opened the door, remaining completely shielded behind it.

  Eileen left.

  He closed the door.

  Lillian propped her chin onto her fist and stared at him.

  “Ma’am?” he asked.

  “I suppose telling you not to get attached would do me no good.”

  He had the audacity to flush red as he shifted his weight. “She’s…an interesting woman.”

  “And you’re lonely, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t know how any man in this city who hasn’t been matched with a spouse wouldn’t be.”

  “I don’t want to see you get your heart broken, Edgar. Outer space is hell on relationships, but what do I know about love? I picked wrong.”

  “You’re not completely to blame.”

  “My mother told me not to marry him. That’s what I get for being contrary, right? She wanted me to marry her sorority sister’s son, but no, he was way too nice, and I wanted the man who made me swoon. I was so stupid.” She waved Edgar away and woke up her computer’s interface projector. “Ugh. I wonder what Charles is doing with his life now. He probably took over his daddy’s business and has a nice house and a bunch of grandbabies to make it loud.”

  Edgar chuckled. “You’ll let me know when Eileen is in touch?”

  “You know I will. Get back to work before someone comes in to send you out to investigate something.”

  He nodded and left.

  Lillian sighed as the door closed behind him, and then put her head back, staring at the drop ceiling for a minute or two.

  Edgar was going to fall for Eileen. The chemistry was there. Lillian would have needed to be blind not to see that brightness in their eyes or the way their skin had flushed when they looked at each other the first time.

  At some point, and probably soon, he’d be less open to risking so much. He’d actually want to have a life again. Lillian hoped that they were well on the way of turning things around on Jekh before she lost her right-hand man. There were others who could step up into his place, but none with his intuition.

  She was going to miss him…and perhaps that was good problem to have.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Erin knelt behind her sorta-brother-in-law, hoping that the sickly-looking coffee plant he was nursing was supposed to look so wilted, and that it wasn’t suffering from lack of irrigation. She’d been on coffee restriction for about a week, though, and couldn’t hold her tongue anymore. That baby coffee plant deserved a better chance.

  “Maybe you should…do some watering?”

  Trigrian smiled and moved on to weed the next plant.

  Jerry sniffed after him, as the dog was prone to do whenever Trigrian was in the fields. To think that Jerry had once been a service dog who spent the majority of his time indoors or on leashes blew Erin’s mind a little. He’d once belonged to her late brother Michael, who’d—due to numerous health conditions—rarely left his apartment, even to work. Jerry had adapted admirably to the outdoors. Their mother couldn’t believe the overweight meatball had become a farm dog.

  “The plant is fine, Erin,” Trigrian said. “Besides, I had Allan check the weather reports when I was in Little Gitano yesterday morning. We’re due for several days of rain, starting early next week.”

  “Well, that’s good for the plants, right?”

  He grunted and moved to the next little bush. “Also good for farm security, is it not? Highly unlikely that anyone will trespass during a torrential downpour. Too dangerous here. The storms in this microclimate can quickly spark floods.”

  “Well, that’s not good for the plants. Should you cover them or something?”

  He chuckled, and moved again. “Don’t worry about the plants. They’re well rooted, and drainage in the fields is excellent. Perhaps some plants will lose leaves, but as long as the roots are strong, they’ll spring back.” He gave her an eloquent look. “I happen to know the roots are strong.”

  “Okay, okay, fine.” She put up her hands in defeat. “I don’t mean to be a backseat driver. I know I’m annoying as shit, but I can’t help being worried about that coffee. If I have to live here, I want a coffee guarantee.”

  “I don’t make guarantees, but I’ll do my best to make sure these plants bear enough fruit that we can save some for seeds. We’ll have to wait quite some time before we can turn this into a cash crop.”

  “Hey, I’m not worried about selling the stuff. I just want to drink it.”

  “You should always be thinking of selling potential.”

  At the sound of the newcomer’s voice, Erin turned.

  Esteben leaned against Trigrian’s supply trailer.

  Fuck.

  She’d hoped that given time and distance from each other, she could force their tryst to the back of her mind and return to the neutral civility they’d extended before he’d brazenly licked around the fruit on her palm. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, though. He’d become an obsession. In her experience, obsessions were nature’s way of telling her to pay attention.

  But to what?

  Jerry skittered over and sniffed his feet in greeting.

  Esteben hooked up an eyebrow at the pet.

  Erin had learned that Jekhans didn’t really keep pets beyond small creatures that could be kept in aquariums or cages atop desks. The locals were all so intrigued by the few dogs in the area.

  Jerry sat at Esteben’s feet, his tongue lolling merrily and his tail thrashing against Esteben’s ankle
s.

  Okay. I’m paying attention.

  “I’ve already told Murki that,” Esteben said, “Not that he was seeking my advice, but I can guarantee you he has thoughts of profit in mind.”

  Jerry looked up at him as if Esteben were the god of all dogs.

  Probably not far from the truth.

  Erin rolled her eyes at herself. She was being unfair because he’d made her anxious, and she hated having men get under her skin that way.

  Esteben knelt and scratched Jerry behind the ears.

  “Yes, he told me what you said,” Trigrian said, not completely hostilely.

  Erin had always noticed a bit of tension between the two men, for whatever reason, but both kept it under wraps, likely for Murki’s sake.

  “I thought Kerry was with you,” Esteben said, looking to Erin. “I wanted to get her.”

  Erin shrugged. “Court has her. The doctor was back in Little Gitano earlier than expected and he stopped by to give Court a prenatal exam. He wanted to take a look at Kerry, too, just to make sure the small amount of Tyneali physiology she has won’t assert itself in any unexpected ways.”

  “She’ll be fine, just like Murk and I were.”

  “There’s no harm in checking to be sure.” Trigrian tossed his work gloves onto the trailer and jogged toward the path. “I will return after the doctor leaves,” he called back.

  “No need to hurry,” Erin called after him. “I’ll probably get bored of watching the plants grow and will find something else to do.”

  She could hear him laugh in the distance. “I don’t doubt you will.”

  “What choice do I have?” she muttered. She kept busy so she didn’t have time to think. She worked herself to the bone so that when she rolled into bed at night, her stomach didn’t get a chance to tie itself into knots over the fact Headron stroked her hair so tenderly while he slept. She just fell asleep. She worked until her muscles burned and feet throbbed because if she were tired, she couldn’t get herself into more trouble with Esteben.

  Hooking her thumbs into her belt loops, she shifted her weight and considered a hasty retreat.

  Esteben, still kneeling by the trailer beside Jerry, cast her a neutral look.