Embrace the Romance

by S. E. Smith

  Nuñez had laughed. “What the hell are you doing trying to make a homestead the hard way? The townspeople would be thrilled to build you a clinic, like they did mine.”

  Axur had looked away and mumbled something about it being complicated. Bethnee sympathized. She lived that every day.

  Axur turned out to have another invaluable skill. The rattled, panicky owner of the cow only spoke halting English, but Axur figured out the woman spoke Korean, and served as their translator. He admitted to speaking eight languages fluently, and could get by in a lot more. Bethnee knew Nuñez was adding it to her arsenal of arguments of why he should move to town. Under her bluff and blunt exterior, Nuñez had a heart the size of the Andromeda galaxy, and didn’t believe in complications.

  It fell to Bethnee, with Axur’s translation help, to negotiate a complex trade for their cow-saving services that resulted in Axur getting the drugs he needed for his chimera using a credit the rancher had at the chems shop, in exchange for Axur giving his food-trade goods to Nuñez, who would share them with Bethnee so she could make further trades for the ingredients for nutritional supplements for her animals and Kivo.

  Bethnee found Nuñez and Axur in the holding pen outside. Unexpectedly, the chimera and the dire wolf also roamed the pen, pretending disinterest in one another. Bethnee sent a thread of her talent out to both animals, and found that Kivo considered the wolf a new friend, and the wolf was considering everyone in the pen, including Bethnee, as potential pack mates that needed guarding from the dangerous, grunting yaks in the neighboring paddock.

  Axur laughed at something Nuñez said. Despite his untamed hair and the peculiar cloak he refused to remove, he was a surprisingly handsome man, especially when he smiled. And such was the irrational tangle of her phobia that she could admire a tall, good-natured man from afar, then be too scared to get close enough to see the color of his eyes.

  “I’m going to remove the tracers from the wolf,” she said loudly. “Want me to do the same for Kivo while I’m at it?”

  Axur gave her a puzzled look. “Tracers?”

  When Nuñez explained about the pet-trade practice of implanting active tracers that broadcast a valuable animal’s location to the net, and passive tracers that showed up on bio scanners, Axur readily agreed.

  With Nuñez’s help and the portable surgical suite’s micro instruments, Bethnee finished with both animals in thirty minutes. Nuñez planned to trade the active tracers to a client who could use them for tracking goats.

  In the lobby, Kivo sidled up to the tolerant wolf and licked at her muzzle. Bethnee could well believe that Kivo was the peacekeeper among Axur’s menagerie.

  Nuñez entered and crossed to Axur to hand him a cup of hot coffee.

  He smiled as he closed his eyes and smelled it, then sipped it with obvious enjoyment. “Stars, but I’ve missed this.”

  Nuñez sipped from her own cup. “I trade for it whenever I can.” She pointed a thumb toward Bethnee. “Don’t ever let Bethnee make it for you, unless you have a biometal stomach.”

  Bethnee shrugged. It tasted like burned acid to her, so how was she to know what was too strong? A thigh muscle in her bad leg spasmed. She needed to soak in her single luxury, the geothermal pool. She should just go home and...

  “Dammit,” she said. “I can’t take the wolf with me today. I only have the glide board, and no den big enough for her.” She caught Nuñez’s eye. “Can she stay a few days?”

  “Sure, but she’ll be alone except for the geese and the yaks, and she’ll hate it.”

  “I know you don’t know me or my setup,” said Axur, “but I could take her for as long as you need. My barn is big, and she wouldn’t lack for company.”

  Bethnee looked at him in surprise.

  Axur splayed his hands. “I have an ulterior motive. I was hoping you’d come out to my place and look at the rest of my pets. Tell me what they are, and how to care for them.”

  Nuñez nodded. “You can borrow the flitter.”

  The idea of going alone to a man’s homestead spiked Bethnee’s anxiety, but Axur had scrupulously accommodated her by keeping his distance, and it was a good solution for the new wolf. If she didn’t like what she saw, she could jet. Besides, she had to admit she wanted to see the exotic animals Axur had told them about.

  “Okay.”

  Axur looked pleased.

  Nuñez blinked and raised her eyebrows. “You trust him?”

  Bethnee pointed to the chimera, draped across Axur’s sturdy cybernetic knees like a lapdog, and the wolf, who was licking Axur’s hand.

  “I trust them.”

  Chapter Four

  GDAT 3241.155

  If Bethnee hadn’t been following Axur’s runabout, she wouldn’t have found his high-country homestead. Which, she surmised, was as deliberate as his choice to stay away from town, as well as his choice to wear his awkward heavy cloak.

  She landed the flitter in a clearing about a hundred meters southwest of the edge of his loosely fenced perimeter. She wished she’d thought to bring her glide board, to save her leg from the uphill hike while carrying her veterinary bag. Fortunately, the dire wolf stayed near with very little coaxing via her talent.

  Axur backed up as she approached, staying well out of her discomfort range. “Sorry, I didn’t think about the distance.” Behind him rose two buildings fashioned out of starship freighter sections. The taller one had wide doors made from an airlock. “It’s windy up here, so I want to give you an earwire so we can talk without shouting. It’ll take me a few minutes to program.”

  “Okay.” The wolf remained by her side, nose working overtime as she checked out her new surroundings. Bethnee reached out with her talent to do the same.

  Axur cleared his throat. “Some of the animals are in the barn.” He pointed toward wide, open doors. “I’ll knock on the wall when I’m ready with the earwire.”

  Forty minutes later, Bethnee sat on a rough-hewn bench at the worktable inside the barn, packing her equipment back into her bag and talking via the earwire to Axur, who was in his living quarters area. She didn’t subvocalize; animals didn’t care if she spoke out loud. “You’ve got a fortune in stolen and illegal pet-trade animals.”

  “Stolen?” The earwire made his rich baritone sound thin and distant.

  “Your e-dog, for one. ‘E’ for enhanced. He’s military-trained, and his sensory implants and command processor are still active. If you knew the passcode and comm band, you could program a percomp to give him complex sets of orders to follow, and get a feed through his implants.”

  “That makes sense. I named him Trouble because that’s what he gets into unless I give him jobs to do. Just like some Jumpers I know.”

  “Your three cats are illegal because the designer spliced in a few primate genes to give them those long, flexible toes and a broader diet, and left them fertile. Any CGC health inspector would destroy them on sight, in case the splice bred true. Feed them meat and dairy, and any fruits or vegetables they’ll eat. You could trade with Nuñez for some yak milk. They’ll probably go into their first estrus cycle in the spring.”

  “Lucky they’re all female. Can you or Nuñez fix their playgrounds so I don’t have kittens on my hands if some equally fertile male comes looking for love?”

  The big dire wolf warily poked her head into the barn’s entrance. The boldest of the young cats had already left a stinging wound across her nose leather.

  Bethnee laughed. “Fix their playgrounds? Yeah, we can neuter them. What did you name them?”

  She held out her hand, and the wolf trotted over. She sent another thread of healing to the wound, but couldn’t repair the wolf’s injured dignity.

  “Alpha, Bravo, and Delta. There were four, but one of them died the first day.” He was silent for a long moment. “I never liked cremation duty.”

  “Me, neither.” She ran her fingers through the wolf’s rough coat and sighed for all the beloved animals she’d lost over the years. “Your two ravens ar
e a non-fertile mated pair and bred to be pets, but they’re about half again the standard size, so they’d be destroyed for unfair ecosystem advantage. They’ll tolerate the cold, but they need clean water and bone-in meat every day, or they’ll starve. There won’t be enough winter carrion at this elevation. That huge aviary you built them is good, but give them more branches to sit on.”

  “I traded for extra cases of dog food this summer. What else do they need?”

  “Grains, leftovers, especially any real meat, maybe some rotting fruit. They’ll eat almost anything. You might make them some toys and puzzles with food rewards. Train them to do new tasks. Keeps their busy brains active instead of destructive.”

  “I named them Shade and Shadow, after that tri-D serial about thieves. I recover an amazing amount of stuff every time I clean out their bowls and baths.”

  She chuckled at how disgruntled he sounded. “Your foo dog, Shiza, is legal, probably stolen. They’re designed to look like little curly-haired lions from pre-flight Chinese legends, but underneath, they’re mostly dog, so you can feed him whatever you feed Trouble. Don’t let Shiza bite you out of anger or fear. Foo dogs are designed to protect children, and his teeth can inject a nasty toxin. I can use Nuñez’s lab to tailor vaccines for you and the others, as well as Nuñez and me, but it’ll take a ten-day or so.”

  The big wolf sat on her haunches and rested her head on Bethnee’s shoulder. She stroked the wolf’s broad head. “Long day, huh?”

  “I’m sorry, I’ve taken up a lot of your time.”

  “No, I was talking to the dire wolf. Her life is in flux at the moment, and she’s in here with me, wanting affection and reassurance.”

  Axur mumbled something in a language she didn’t recognize. Her minimal education hadn’t included anything but Standard English, and whatever rude words she could pick up on the streets. “What about the miniature dinosaur? I think it’s supposed to be a stegosaurus. Its name is Ankle Biter.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t do reptiles, amphibians, or fish. Can’t feel them at all. Your reference manuals are your best bet. It might need to stay inside for the winter.”

  “Can I ask how you know so much about the pet trade? You don’t seem like the type.”

  Ordinarily, she zeroed personal questions, but he was trusting her with the animals he loved. More tellingly, they all cared for him and trusted him without reservation.

  She considered what she wanted to say. Jumpers willingly volunteered to work for the Citizen Protection Service’s elite military force. The CPS hadn’t done nearly as well by her, though to be fair, the huge agency had multiple missions, and it had been just the one corrupt woman.

  “Never mind, it’s none of my business.”

  “No, it’s okay, it’s just…” She couldn’t come up with the right word. Talking about her past brought on a sour stomach and leg spasms, which was part of why she didn’t do it often. “In the mandatory age-seventeen testing for minder talents, I scored high for animal-affinity minder talent. The CPS Testing Center agent said she got me a full scholarship at the CPS Minder Institute. Thrilled my parents, because I’d get the education they never had and couldn’t afford for me. I didn’t care, as long as I got to train my talent and work with animals.”

  “That’s not what happened, I take it.”

  “She chemmed me, gave me an illegal chimera implant to change my DNA’s biometric signature, and sent me as a counterfeit indenture to her cousin, a pet-trade dealer on a space station. She told my parents I died in a tragic interstellar passenger liner accident. Even sent them a memory diamond with my original DNA and a death payment. My bondholder made sure I knew that if I ever escaped and went home, they’d have to give back everything, which would bankrupt them.”

  She didn’t understand Axur’s reply, but the words were unmistakably curses. She envied his vocabulary.

  “The first bondholder was okay. He got me training and promised I’d be a contract employee as soon as he could afford it, if I kept quiet how he got me. Three years after that, a bigger company destroyed his business and bought all his assets for a fraction. Instead of freeing me, Breitenbahn imprisoned me on an interstellar research ship. He only cared about results. I was the only ‘employee’ who couldn’t leave, couldn’t complain, couldn’t fight back. And after all, I was just an indentured, subbin’ minder.”

  Usually, she’d be shaking uncontrollably at this point, but now, she just felt queasy. Maybe it was different because Axur was just a sympathetic voice in her ear, and she was hanging on to a warm, hundred-kilo dire wolf who could sever a man’s leg with a single bite.

  “Breitenbahn finally made them stop abusing me when the animals started dying because I was too damaged to care for them or help the designers.”

  “How did you escape? I’m assuming they didn’t suddenly find their lost ethics and let you go. You’re far too valuable.”

  “Shipped myself in a container of comatose bovines bound for a remote frontier planet. It was dangerous, but Breitenbahn hired this new guard from the indenture system who wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. He shot me with an equine tranq and…” She shied away from the hideous memory. “Anyway, Nuñez was inspecting the shipment and found me. She believed my unbelievable story and took me home with her. Fed me, gave me animals to care for, made me a part of her vet business, and didn’t judge. That was three years ago. I owe her more than I can ever repay.”

  “If I was still a Jumper, I’d invite some of my squad mates for a little vacation that just happened to coincide with the destruction of that ship.”

  “Thank you. I think.” She smiled. “I probably shouldn’t condone personal vengeance missions by elite special forces with access to really big guns and explosives.”

  “What can I say? We’re trained to take the initiative. Lowlifes like Breitenbahn are obviously a threat to the galactic peace.”

  “Well, if you ever get the chance, I hope you’ll let me save as many of the animals as I can. They didn’t ask to be there, either.”

  “I’ll add it to the mission parameters.”

  She couldn’t tell if he was teasing or serious. A vigorous gust of wind rattled the doors of the barn and blew in a cloud of pine needles. “Nuñez’s yaks say it’ll snow tonight. Do you have someplace warm for the birds of paradise?”

  “Her yaks talk? Never mind. I figured I’d bring their cage into my bunk area until I can fix up the barn.”

  She looked up at the roof of the chilly barn and watched the dust swirl. “I could keep them for the winter, if you like. I have geothermal heating.”

  “Feeding them will add to your costs. I don’t want to impose.”

  “You aren’t imposing. I offered.” She gently moved the wolf aside. “You can keep the dire wolf in trade. Give her a name. She’ll love guarding you, and having the run of the valley when it snows. She’s built for the cold. She’ll eat a lot more than four birds, though. I’ll trade removing the tracers from the rest of your animals, and a barrel of nutritional pellets that would be good for all your canines, to make it even.”

  In the ensuing silence, she got to her feet and brushed off her butt.

  “Okay, we have a deal.”

  Chapter Five

  GDAT 3241.254

  Three months after meeting Bethnee, Axur pedaled the stationary generator cycle in his barn to give his anxiety a better outlet than churning his gut. Kivo had suddenly taken ill, and Bethnee had insisted on borrowing Nuñez’s flitter and coming in person, despite a howling snowstorm. Axur had sequestered himself in the barn so as not to distract her. She’d grown more tolerant of Axur’s physical proximity in their various interactions since they’d first met, but Kivo needed her full concentration.

  The earwire idea had worked so well that first day that he’d created a better, customized version for her and convinced her to wear it everywhere. It helped make up for the lost camaraderie of his fellow Jumpers, and Bethnee seemed to enjoy having someone to talk t
o as well. She’d dubbed it the Axur-net.

  They discussed the animals, and laughed about how unprepared each of them had been to find themselves homesteading on a frontier planet. He’d at least had extensive Jumper survival training to fall back on. She grew up on city streets and had spent the last eight years in space.

  Jumpers weren’t good at waiting and wondering. They climbed into planetfall mech suits and kicked ass. He peddled.

  Two hours later found him adding worrying to the list of things he wasn’t good at. Kivo had crashed twice, and each time, Bethnee had pulled him back from the brink. The last time she’d talked to him through the earwire, she’d sounded exhausted and distant, and she hadn’t responded at all for the past ten minutes.

  She was competent and smart, but something Nuñez had said one day, about a migraine headache being blowback from overusing her minder talent, had Axur thinking Bethnee might be in trouble. He wasn’t trained to treat minders, because they weren’t allowed in the Jumper Corps, but he was trained to treat humans. Despite what some zero-heads still thought, all minders were human. After five more minutes of plaguing himself with visions of calamity, he went back to his living quarters.

  Kivo lay quietly where Axur had left him. Bethnee lay behind him, eyes closed, one arm and one knee draped loosely over him like a lover’s. Kivo’s breathing was steady. The tufted tip of one of his tails moved, and he swiveled one large ear toward Axur as he stepped closer.

  Bethnee didn’t so much as twitch, and looked pale and sweaty. If she’d been awake, she’d already be edging away.

  He called her name softly, then louder, but got no response. He couldn’t use his salvaged autodoc, because he didn’t know how Bethnee would react to waking up in an enclosed cylinder little bigger than a cremation tube. That left his bed, which easily held him and various pets, so it wouldn’t make her claustrophobic.

  He gently extracted her from around Kivo and carried her toward the back room. She felt warmly female in his arms. He felt guilty even thinking it, because it would terrify her. He had no business wanting a woman who’d been treated as a subhuman, and beaten or worse to force compliance. Hell, the thoughts terrified him. He was the opposite of attractive, and had enough baggage to open his own tourist shop at the spaceport. He couldn’t see how it would end well for either of them.