Salvaged Destiny

by Lynn Rae

  “There, not so bad,” Del reassured him with a final pat on his shoulder.

  “Do we have to go back that way?”

  “Only if you want to drive back to port in the cart.” She quirked an eyebrow at him and he envisioned a six-hour hike up, down and around the looming rock formation they had just crawled under. That wasn’t what he wanted to do at all.

  “Oh I do want to take the cart back. Remind me not to eat anything before we have to go back through there.”

  Del laughed, big jolts of laughter making her shake, and Lazlo grinned back. He liked it. She was very pretty when she was laughing. Well, Del was very pretty all of the time, even when she was rooting around in the mud. So of course a big laugh and shining eyes would make her even more attractive.

  “Don’t worry about it. I can always set up a winch to pull you if I have to. Let’s go, big guy.” She abruptly stopped walking and he almost ran into her. “You did apply your antifungals today, didn’t you?”

  Lazlo blanked for a moment, too distracted by her head nearly under his chin to process her words. But he got back on the conversational track. “Yes I did. Why?”

  Nodding with satisfaction, Del pointed to an oily green film on the rock walls surrounding them. “We’re going to be walking around green-chancre spores. If you sniff, you’ll smell them—they’re kind of vinegary. But you will be fine if you took your meds today. And take them tomorrow.”

  Fighting back nausea at the memory of the horrific images of green-chancre infections he’d seen in the mandatory briefing before arriving on Sayre, Lazlo swallowed and followed Citizen Browen as she continued down the canyon, staying well away from the damp walls.

  Del crouched next to Lieutenant Casta as he fiddled with the transmitter. They’d been at the top of a slight plateau for the last ten minutes as he tried to align the antenna, triangulate distant satellite pickups and get the electronics to cooperate in the humid, dirty surroundings. So far, he’d tried it seven times with no success. Not that she was counting. Lazlo was breathing deeply though his nose and clenching his teeth together as he tried to make minute adjustments to the gadgets. Del would have given up on them long ago. Actually, she hadn’t bothered with the majority of those devices in years because they didn’t work most of the time. Expensive too.

  Stretching her shoulders, Del contemplated how badly things had gone that morning. They hadn’t found anything. Not a nut or bolt or broken bit of resin to even indicate that anyone had ever been in the area, let alone people who had constructed and then abandoned a storage facility.

  She’d thought that signs would be obvious if they were near the cache—an abandoned trail, cuts in the rock, a trash midden of some sort. All of those things were in abundance at the other abandoned military sites she knew. But this section was clear of any human residue—just small, eroded cliff faces, damp creek beds and wet sand. Non-magnetized sand at that.

  It was late in the afternoon and she was ready to suggest they head back to the cart and return to the port. As far as she could determine, the area was clear and untouched. Perhaps the military had used this section for field exercises of some sort but they hadn’t left anything behind if they had.

  “Blast and afterburn,” Casta grumbled and sat back on his heels. This made his thighs bulge under the close-fitting tan fabric of his trousers and Del decided to look at the transmitter instead.

  “No luck?”

  “None.” Lieutenant Casta shook his head, expression hard to read under his hat, shades and a light coating of dust. He’d been game for every suggestion she’d made that day—climbing up rock faces, dropping down between boulders, lifting aside mats of crisp algae and replacing them carefully. She’d briefly considered asking him to do a headstand to see if he would, but decided that was mean. “I sent out three unacknowledged pings. There’s no way of knowing if they got through until we get back and check.”

  “That’s all right. Today was kind of a test run anyway. The other locations we’re going to have to check are much rougher and farther out than this one. We’re working out the process.”

  “Yes, the process that doesn’t seem to include reliable communication.” Casta sighed and frowned at his transmitter sitting there, innocently blinking yellow and green. “I don’t know if I can get a more powerful one from the station. Those are kept locked up for an emergency. I wonder if the major would consider…” He trailed off, looking out at the plain below them, his expression changing to curious interest.

  “What is it?” Del asked, automatically looking out the same direction he was. In the distance she saw a plume of dust and just before it, a tiny cart moving along at a good pace. Strange.

  “Citizen Browen, would you expect to see another vehicle out here?” the lieutenant asked in a slow manner as he kept looking at the tiny vehicle.

  “No,” Del answered without hesitation. There were very few people on Sayre who traveled outside the borders of the agricultural operations. She’d never encountered anyone at random this far out.

  With a grunt, the lieutenant shut off the transmitter and turned to her. “Turn your datpad off completely.” He moved to do the same as she fumbled for the small piece of equipment stored in her shirt pocket for safekeeping. As she was powering it down, Casta grabbed her arm and pulled her down flat on the rock, next to him. She complied a bit clumsily, still not sure what was happening, but starting to grow nervous. With a few efficient movements, the man lying beside her had a pair of visions in front of his eyes, tracking the distant cart. With a start, she remembered her own battered set and pulled them out, bumping her elbow into Lazlo’s side several times as she struggled.

  “Watch it,” he said, twisting against her. “I’m ticklish.”

  “You probably shouldn’t tell people about that right off,” Del replied, finally getting a better view of the cart after some adjustments. Hmm, she didn’t recognize anything about it but considering how limited her magnification was, she hadn’t expected much.

  “Why not?” Lazlo asked as he shifted again to lie lower on the rock. This movement squeezed his body against hers more tightly and Del was sorely tempted to poke him in the ribs a few times.

  “Because those inclined to pranks would take advantage.” The best view Del got was of a newish cart, made for rough work—knobbed tires, raised undercarriage. She could only make out one person in it, bundled up against the dust. Lazlo’s leg pressed against hers and she felt all sorts of hard knobby things he’d stored in his pockets. “I can’t see much with mine. What do you think?”

  “If you think it’s unusual for someone to be out here, then I suspect someone is trying to find us.”

  “Shouldn’t we let them know where we are then?” Del wondered if it was someone from her family. They all knew it was impossible to reach someone with a signal—they’d send someone directly. But how would they have known where to look?

  “No, we definitely don’t want to attract his or her attention.” Casta was still looking through his visions, speaking slowly and appearing completely relaxed. “I’d say someone is probably on to us.”

  “Oh no,” she moaned. “How? I thought you said this was all undercover.”

  “I did, but it’s not surprising that someone has figured something out. People talk.” Lazlo sounded so calm about it but Del was anxious. If someone else found the cache, she wouldn’t be paid and she was counting on that money to pay for a class or two. Maybe even a trip to a conference.

  And if it was Harata or one of his minions out there, she and her family could be in real trouble. She remembered what had happened to the woman who had run against him in the last election. A few weeks after Harata had been sworn in again, her cart was stolen, her home burglarized and someone had spiked her field’s irrigation system with coolant. She and her family had lost everything.

  “Is that cart heading anywhere we’re going to go?” Lazlo asked. He stopped looking at the distant cart and stared at her instead. The idea that someon
e with nefarious intent was out there didn’t seem to bother him in the least. But he had all sorts of skills and weapons to rely on. She was alone and vulnerable to any sort of intimidation.

  Del thought rapidly. “Without looking at the maps, my guess is no. That’s not really the direction we would be going for anything.” She didn’t dare power up her datpad and check. The mystery cart was close enough to them to pick up the signal if they were scanning frequencies.

  “So if we keep a low profile, no one should notice us?”

  “I guess. What if there are others out there?” Del pictured swarms of searching carts, piloted with menacing figures in black, relentlessly crisscrossing the blue-lichen fields.

  “We’ll just have to keep a really low profile.”

  “What, subterranean?”

  Then he laughed, big barks of laughter that made her grin in response. He was a likable guy, this Lieutenant Casta. She wondered what sort of family had produced him.

  “Are we satisfied with our search today?” Lazlo glanced back at the cart speeding along the horizon and then rolled onto his back and stretched his body with a sigh. Del wanted to stretch too and relax and bump into his body a few more times. It had been so intriguingly solid.

  “Yes. I saw nothing that looked promising and the scanners agreed with me.”

  “It’s always good when the machines back up our opinions, isn’t it?” He rolled to a crouch on the rock, looked for the now out-of-sight cart, then helped her to her feet, both of them making a slight effort to dust themselves off. It mostly resulted in smearing the sticky mud over even bigger swathes of fabric. “Where are we going for dinner?”

  “What are you talking about?” Del couldn’t quite understand what he’d just said.

  “Dinner, tonight. I’m hungry.” Casta looked at her with an inquiring quirk of his eyebrows and she felt as if she had lost some sort of grip on reality.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?” He wanted to eat a meal with her? Why?

  “Absolutely. I think I can even claim it as a legitimate expense, so we should go somewhere nice.”

  *

  Del had obstinately refused to let him pick her up, insisting instead on meeting under a particular tree on the Lower Boulevard. Lazlo accommodated her peculiarities. Considering how hard they’d already worked that day, he wasn’t going to argue with her. Just thinking about how her smudged face had filled with confusion when he’d invited her out earlier made him smile. He needed her to be in a good mood because there were tougher challenges ahead.

  So Lazlo waited, freshly showered and neatly dressed, under the largest cashew tree and tried not look around for Del too obviously. He was early and resolved to spend at least ten minutes alone before he started to wonder if she was going to stand him up.

  To take his mind off the possibility, he thought about the conversation he’d had with Major Sekar upon his return. He’d informed his commander that they hadn’t had any success and that he’d spotted another cart out in their general area. The major had sobered even more than his usual grim expression at that information and ordered him to carry regulation weapons with him at all times.

  Then his commander asked how Del Browen had performed and Lazlo happily described her skills and abilities until the major held a hand up to stop him. He warned Lazlo that her safety was his responsibility when they were out on this assignment and Lazlo had taken that advice quite seriously. Not that he hadn’t already felt entirely responsible.

  There were quite a few pedestrians out on the Boulevard. It was early evening and there were families interspersed with individuals, the flow of movement a bit slower than the normal rushed pace of life during the day. Lazlo hadn’t spotted anyone that he’d arrested before, so that was promising.

  Lazlo watched a man try to manage the erratic trajectory of a determined toddler girl. She was about two feet tall and headed for a planter filled with damp soil that would look especially grimy smeared on her clean yellow jumper. The man caught her before she could grab any dirt and she gave him a thwarted look.

  Lazlo felt like laughing—she had the same expression Del had when he’d maneuvered the promise to share a meal out of her. The little girl stuck out her chin and with an amazingly flexible twist nearly escaped the man’s grip, her tiny hand just brushing against the side of the planter before she was caught up in a hug and lifted away.

  “Aww, let the girl have her dirt.” A familiar voice spoke up at his side and Lazlo glanced over to see Del Browen also watching the little drama.

  “You wouldn’t say that if you had to wash her clothes.”

  She looked up at him, her gray eyes amused. “You saw the state of my things today. That’s my usual laundry challenge. I could handle a little mud.”

  Lazlo nodded and looked at her. She was wearing plain tan pants and a white shirt, loose and buttoned all the way up and down. Not eye-catching, but presentable and not at all soft or accessible. Exactly what he’d thought she’d wear out to dinner. But despite his hope that she would dress in something more out of character and revealing, he still wanted to compliment her.

  “You look very nice, Citizen Browen.”

  “Thank you for the kind effort, Lieutenant Casta.” She sighed. “I know what I look like.”

  “You do look very nice. Tidier than you did earlier.”

  “Oh now that’s not much of a challenge, I looked as if I’d been drug behind a cart before I changed.” She quirked an eyebrow and glanced over the people wandering around them.

  “Mine weren’t much better. I’ve been thinking we should dispense with the titles, since we’re working together.”

  “Maybe. All right, that makes sense, Lazlo.” Despite her reluctance to say it, Del smiled a little and turned toward him when she did.

  “Del.” He tried it on and found it very pleasant to say. “Where would you like to go, Del?”

  “Someplace quick. I’m hungry.”

  “No Mendel Club tonight?”

  At his mention of the port’s most expensive and elegant restaurant, Del snorted and shook her head. “Can you picture me there?”

  “Sure,” Lazlo agreed easily. Why wouldn’t he want to take her there? “It’s really good. You’d like it.”

  She looked at him with disbelief. “Not tonight, big man. The closest I’ve ever been to that place is picking up the refuse at the back door. Let’s just go to a quick counter. There’s a good noodle place over on—”

  “Upper Southwest. Yes, I know that one,” Lazlo broke in. “Sorry to interrupt, but here comes a patrol. Get ready for some questions.”

  He saw Tate and Wood ambling their way, uniformed and surveying the Boulevard. Tate spotted him first and gestured for Wood to follow her over. They were both good patrol officers. He’d worked with each of them a few times. They were sturdy, confident and dependable, excellent traits for security work.

  “Hello, Lieutenant,” Tate greeted him while Wood kept glancing around at the people on the Boulevard, ready for any sort of interruption.

  Lazlo greeted them both, then introduced Del to them. She shook their hands and stayed silent.

  “How are things tonight?” Lazlo asked, curious about what might have happened in the port while he was gone. He was addicted enough, or lonely enough, to keep the port security data feed scrolling even when he wasn’t at work, so being cut off today had bothered him.

  “Quiet now. Earlier we had some excitement,” Tate offered with a glance at her partner.

  “Disturbance in front of Council offices. More of those protesters,” Wood rumbled tersely.

  “What happened?” Maybe he could review the data feed later for all the details.

  “Chanting, signs, blocking the entrance for a bit. We stayed out of it until they started making people stumble as they walked by. Then when we asked them to leave, they did. No muss,” the male officer reported as he propped his hands on his hips and flexed his arms. Del’s eyebrows rose.

  “Some muss,�
�� Tate broke in, excited. Her blue eyes brightened as she explained. “They were fairly belligerent and confrontational. The commander’s orders to take it easy on these people might come back to burn us. If they keep getting bolder.”

  Lazlo felt as if he needed to support the major’s approach to the protesters, one he happened to agree with. “It’s not our job to escalate any situation. Being calm with this sort of thing has worked out well for us so far. I know that Major Sekar will make the right call if their tactics change.”

  Both Tate and Wood looked mollified for the moment, enough so that they turned their focus to Del, standing silently at his side. She was shorter and slighter than all three of them and he had the sudden urge to put his arm around her to protect her.

  “So are you two headed out for dinner?” Wood asked. The male officer took a deep breath and gave Del a very subtle looking-over. Now Lazlo really wanted to put his arm around her. Maybe put a blanket over her.

  “Yes we are,” she replied, sounding as firm as if she were deciding what direction to go. “Lazlo suggested the Mendel Club, but I didn’t dress for that tonight.”

  “But another time, right?” Lazlo asked, trying to portray interested male, which wasn’t that much of a reach anymore.

  Del merely looked at him with faint exasperation. “We should probably get going.”

  Both Tate and Wood said farewell and ambled off, but not before Wood invited them to stop by Chancy’s later. He looked mostly at Del when he said it, which made Lazlo determined they would not stop by. Walking toward the noodle quick counter, Lazlo tried to come up with a topic of conversation not involving the work they were doing. He now felt paranoid that anyone around them could be listening in and reporting back to some mysterious competitor.

  “Would you like to stop by Chancy’s after we eat?” Why did he ask that? He didn’t want to go there.

  “No.” She didn’t even look over at him as she walked with determination toward the noodle counter.