by Smith, S. E.
2
She wondered what Danyel was up to. He was an attractive and appealing man—and not too young! Her sexual imagination was going to have fun with that.
Unexpectedly, two men in plain dark clothing approached her. “Pilot Nikka Stihlzhusek?” The ID cards they showed her were Union Lines Security.
“Yes?”
“You’re in danger. Come with us.” They ushered her toward an elevator.
“But I’ve—” been with a Faxen Syndexec’s agent, who could get in trouble if it’s known he was with me. She swallowed hard. “I’ve just had a perfectly peaceful lunch.”
“Faxen intelligence has picked up a credible threat against starliner crews. You aren’t safe outside secured areas.”
To her chagrin, the elevator whisked her away from Danyel. It translated sideways to a public corridor. The security men led her to a door that said Rodogo Group, opening onto a room with a desk and two chairs. “Remain here.” With that, the Company security men left her with only her churning thoughts for company.
Was she in trouble with the higher-ups for being outside the transit hotel while there was a security mandate? Well, she could hardly have expected it before it came in! That would be the explanation she’d give them, and she’d show them the notebook and the time stamp on the security mandate.
But what an annoying turn for the day to take. She had gotten a good night’s sleep, even if it ran to the middle of the next day—her newly arrived body didn’t care about local time. She’d had a good lunch that felt like breakfast—again, her body didn’t care what to call it. Her eyes had feasted too. Danyel was a beautiful—and not too young!—man with his curly dark hair, dark brows, strong-boned features and large eyes the color of dark chocolate.
He did need to grow up. That wasn’t news to her. It wasn’t unique to him either. Many Faxen citizens gave her that impression—that they were younger than their years, with rejuvenation or without it. They seemed to have an indelible naivete regarding that increasingly heavy-handed government of theirs. She was an employee of the same government through the state-controlled starlines; she was not, however, a naïve dupe.
For the first time, she studied the room she’d been left in. It didn’t look like a Union Starlines company office. Instead it reminded her of the kind of impersonal interview room used by successions of interviewers. There was even a glossy brochure—made of real, meaning expensive, paper, not electronic—saying, Fly the stars with Telal. The brochure suggested adventure, money, and patriotism as it described the role of the Tellus-Albion Corporation in countering Disunion terrorism.
Danyel might have believed it.
She didn’t.
Telal was a mercenary outfit. It was heavily involved in suppression of Disunion terrorism. That included suppression actions where Disunion terrorism wasn’t really happening but it was convenient to take over the continent, space station, or planet in question. Needless to say—although naïve Faxens could never bring themselves to say it—fomenting unrest and resentment only stoked the fires of the Disunion movement. In any event, there was unrest across the stars. Starliner pilots were the kind of far-flung, high-profile representatives of Faxen commerce who could find themselves caught between unrest and retribution.
She checked her notebook. There was the security mandate, flashing red, just as it had when it announced itself an hour ago. Except. . . .
She stared at the notebook.
The warning was time-dated more than four hours ago—before she’d left her room in the transit hotel.
* * *
Danyel ran to the door with the hinged glass window in Pleasure Palace. Star was no longer waiting outside the door. He hoped that meant Koi’s client had departed. He knocked urgently.
Koi opened the hinged glass window and peered out. Koi’s eyes were pretty as a woman’s, Danyel thought irrelevantly. Koi’s eyebrows went up at the flower in Danyel’s hand.
“A friend of mine disappeared,” Danyel blurted out. “Please help me figure out how to find her.”
Koi opened the door. He was a slender Wendisan with fine features, golden skin, long black hair, and bright, intelligent eyes. In Koi’s compact but elegant parlor, Danyel related how Nikka had vanished.
“There are several things that could have happened,” Koi said thoughtfully. “Including your employer, if she learned of your friendship with another woman.”
Danyel started to hotly object. But he remembered how often Merdis had been jealous of his attention to anyone else even at the level of simple friendship. He’d never mentioned Nikka to Merdis. He’d never mentioned Koi either. “I don’t think so. She doesn’t know.”
“In that case, is Nikka a run of the mill star pilot like so many here?”
“No, she’s a superb pilot.”
“Well, there are elements in Starway who might steal valuable people for ransom.”
“Disunion terrorists?”
Koi shook his head. “Those have no real influence here. There are strange and bitterly hostile elements here, though. Usually those are kept in check, but these are unsettled times. They have been known to kidnap for ransom.”
“I don’t think her company would pay a ransom. She says it’s often careless about the safety of pilots.”
“Ransom is iffy anyway when dishonorable people demand it. But there are agencies in Starway that can steal stolen people back. It is very expensive, though.”
“Expense is not a factor,” Danyel heard himself saying. “But I don’t know where to begin to find her.”
Star appeared from under a table. She curiously sniffed his right knee.
Koi said, “If it were you who were missing, Star could find you in Starway just by knowing your smell.”
Danyel had a sudden inspiration. “How about if Star smells something of Nikka’s?”
Fifteen minutes later, they were at Nikka’s hotel room. He’d hoped that she would be there, even if it meant she’d changed her mind about letting him fix the lock or letting him in at all. But she didn’t answer his knock. When he opened the door—after a brief struggle with the key, just as she described—she wasn’t there. Her pilot’s uniform was draped over a chair. So she hadn’t come back and gone on duty.
Koi pointed at the clothing. Star hopped on to the chair and sniffed the blue coat. She investigated Nikka’s white shirt, delicately exploring the collar with her slender muzzle.
Danyel ached to know Nikka’s scent himself. He didn’t have Star’s keen nose. He’d have to sniff the back of Nikka’s neck to get her aroma. A shock of fear went through him at the idea that he might never have the chance to resist the temptation to do exactly that. “How can Star follow someone’s trail here?”
“This star station is full of air currents carrying molecules of scent. And Star is a Chivvier, the only breed of dog native to Wendis, descended from a noble breed of Twentycent Earth. It’s inborn into Chivviers to find misplaced things or missing people. And Star is one of the best of her kind.” Koi smiled as he watched Star thoroughly sniffing the clothing. “Star is a nickname. Her real name is Strelka.”
One of Star’s ears pointed at Koi.
“She is named after a famous dog at the dawn of the Star Age, one of the first dogs sent in a rocket into space. We Wendisans all have nicknames besides our real names, because our real names are often those of ancient heroes and gods. Our names are too heavy to casually toss around all day.”
“Koi’s a nickname?”
“My real name is Tsukuyomi, for an ancient moon god.”
Koi meant a pretty fish. It was a nickname that made it easy for someone to take Koi for less than he might be. Danyel had known Koi long enough to suspect that there was much more to Koi than met the eyes (and other body parts) of his clients.
Star looked up and leaped toward Koi. He caught her in his arms.
* * *
This wasn’t possible. The notebook had only alerted her to that security mandate an hour ago. While N
ikka was still staring at it in disbelief, a middle-aged woman came in. Wearing the blue business suit of Union Line management, the woman smiled to see her staring at the notebook.
Nikka took the offensive. “There’s something wrong with the security mandate alert. This notebook only got it at noon. I had already left the secured area, which was not unreasonable. When it registered, I started back for my room immediately, but Security intercepted me.”
“You’re too valuable to risk losing,” the woman said. Her voice made Nikka’s hackles rise. It was a very calculating voice.
The woman introduced herself as Aris-Lane Sind and seated herself in the other chair. This felt more than ever like an interview situation, and not a warm and friendly one, either. “You have singular qualifications. High intelligence, high experience.” Sind swiped through a small notebook of her own. “In your last starflight review, you made a perfect score. None of the other takers did. How would you like employment at twice the rate you earn now?”
The rates for starpilots didn’t go up that high. “Doing what?”
“Interstellar piloting in special operations for the Telal Corporation.”
“Freight runs don’t need my qualifications.”
“There are secret missions that do. “
Alarm bells went off in Nikka’s mind. She’d heard of star pilots being approached for that kind of stuff. “That sounds dangerous.”
“There is a certain amount of danger. It is, however, patriotic, in service of the Union. Your home world, Tellus, is one of the worlds of the Faxen Union. As such, Tellus has a vested interest in the Union’s integrity as I’m sure you agree.”
Well, because of its University, Tellus took not only a commercial and political interest in the Faxen Union, but also an academic interest, including history and political science. Some of the University’s prominent academics were articulately and forcefully concerned about how Faxe, the capitol world, was driving the Union toward something more like an empire. “Sorry. I’m not interested.” Nikka turned away from Sind toward the window.
This window too had a high interior view. It overlooked the corridors of the compact business sector of Starway where various interstellar companies had offices and representatives.
Behind Nikka, Sind said, “It would be the best way to avoid prosecution.”
Nikka whirled. “Prosecution?”
The other woman’s smile has something coldly predatory about it. “It seems you brought contraband to Starway. This will be discovered on a tip tomorrow morning. How unfortunate that you succumbed to the lucrative temptation to smuggle Oblivion.”
Oblivion was a highly illegal psychoactive drug made from plant matter on Faxe.
Nikka felt as though she’d been slugged in the stomach. “I’d never do that.”
“It will be traced to you.”
Her mind raced but got nowhere. This woman was talking about planted evidence. “What if I agree to your secret mission?”
“Oh, then the Oblivion smuggling won’t sully your record with the Starlines. You can go back after your special assignment with Telal.”
It sounded as though the Oblivion was not an empty threat, that it was definitely hidden in her liner. Could it have been planted during the maintenance pass in the night, just after arrival? Or even before her starliner left Moira, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, Faxe’s prison planet? Upset, she turned back to the window.
To her surprise, she recognized Danyel in the wide corridor outside. It could only be him, with his curly dark hair and limber walk. He had with him a small white dog and a slender Wendisan man. What in all the galaxy was he doing here? Absurdly, she wanted to beat her fist against the window, get his attention, call out for him to rescue her. Then she remembered stories she’d heard about pilots being recruited for dangerous secret missions. One of her fellow pilots had taken such a mission only after being told that if he didn’t, his wife would be murdered and he himself framed for the crime. He’d survived the secret mission but he refused to talk about what he’d seen and done.
The thought of an innocent person—even Danyel—being threatened in order to coerce her made her blood run cold. Don’t look up! she willed, as though Danyel could hear her thoughts.
She was glad when he didn’t even stop.
3
He had no proof that Nikka was in that one office suite out of the twenty in that level of Starway, or even on that one of the fifty levels of the star station. But Star, sniffing the currents of air from ducts and intakes, had given Koi a subtle affirmative signal. Also, of course, Nikka had never come back to her utterly ordinary transit hotel room.
This was a different kind of room, one of the best in Starway, luxuriously furnished. It befitted a Syndexec of Faxe. Far be it from Merdis Gole to rest her head anywhere ordinary.
Danyel still had the daylily. He meant to put it into a water glass, but found a vase with an elaborate floral arrangement already in the room. He added the daylily. Different from the other flowers, more temperate than tropical, it made the arrangement more approachable. He liked it better that way.
Since the room belonged to the Gole family’s company by contract, there was a ReXcom Artificial Intelligence. The AI was, of course, highly secured. Danyel had long since figured out how to use it and leave no trace. Planetary surveyors really did gain an amazing suite of skills, including some best not openly admitted. Before now, getting into the AI had been just a game for him. This time he meant business.
That business office door had a sign that said The Rodrogo Group, an innocuous-sounding name that he’d never heard of. The AI, however, suggested that it was a front for the Faxen Secret Intelligence Agency—SECINTAG.
At that, Danyel gave a low, dismayed whistle.
SECINTAG was bad news for terrorists but also for innocent people who ran afoul of it. He’d known a fellow surveyor who fled SECINTAG to join the Survey, living out his life in the electric jungle under an assumed identity. It had been the only way to escape SECINTAG.
Danyel ran a metanalysis of recent news and intersected it with ReXcom proprietary information. He came up with a strong plausibility that SECINTAG might be recruiting starliner pilots by coercion for an impending clandestine interstellar enforcement action—that SECINTAG needed pilots and would get them by fair means or foul.
Danyel extricated himself from what he’d seen with great care, erasing his tracks. He sat for a long time, thinking, motionless except for fingering his sigident ring. The ring held a crystal that verified and defined his identity in society. For the first time, he wondered what kind of society it really was, and if it had slowly changed for the worst.
The liner bringing Merdis to Starway arrived on schedule. She entered the luxurious room in the late afternoon, making something of a dramatic entrance of it. That was her style. A striking woman with dark hair streaked with silver, in the late-middle-aged prime of her life, she looked like the corporate executive she was.
He rose to greet her affectionately.
She greeted him with, “Danyel! You look old!”
“I’ll always look younger than you,” he said firmly. “Because I am. Merdis, the rejuvenations have come to an end for me. The Wendisan doctors won’t do it anymore.”
She looked offended. “Nonsense.”
“Fact,” he insisted. “Any more iterations and it will shorten my lifespan.”
She had a calculating expression. “I want you young. Even with a shorter lifespan, you’ll live as long as I, and never be left alone.”
With a hollow, sinking feeling, he objected. “It will stunt my IQ, too. So they won’t do it.”
“They will. Money talks.” She smiled—not at him, but at the truth that in her world, money talked.
The name Merdis derived from the name Mercedes, which in the old Earth days had meant mercies. Merdis had no mercy for him today. Where had it gone? His mind flashed to Nikka’s careless reference to ReXcom today. Resource Exploitation Com
pany was how many people, not just Nikka, referred to it these days. Officially it was Exploration. Some people fastidiously split the difference and chose to say Extraction. But Exploitation might be the truth.
“Perhaps I’m wrong,” she admitted.
He felt a bright surge of hope. She’d just needed to think, not automatically react. She’d remembered that she loved him. He moved to embrace her.
She turned toward the vase with its elaborate flower arrangement. She adjusted the flowers. “You do need to look older than you were. Otherwise I look like a woman keeping a boy. So the next rejuvenation can wait a few months. It easily can be arranged by then.” She frowned at the daylily. “I didn’t order this one.” She threw it to the floor.
The daylily hit the floor with thock that was soft as flaccid cellulose, yet rocked his soul. Merdis was a beautiful and very intelligent woman. She’d rewarded him well for being her personal agent and lover. He had put a great deal of money into his personal bank account, freely traveled across the stars, and proven himself over and over again to be an expert, attentive, inventive lover. He loved her. She loved him. Except when she didn’t.
What she loved without exception or fail was control. Everything the way she wanted it. Any reality that diverged from what she wanted had to be changed to her liking. She’d always been this way, and he’d always found ways to accommodate it.
But not this. Not a rejuvenation that would steal years from his life and intelligence from his mind. The rest of the conversation was a blur to Danyel. He knew the responses that pleased her. He promised what she expected—good sex tonight, lovemaking centered on her wants, as always. Under the surface, though, his vital attachment to her strained to the breaking point. For years, he’d felt bound to Merdis in loyalty and love. He called it the pair bond and cherished it and rejoiced in it. Now the pair bond, on his end, abruptly broke. Like a broken but highly reactive chemical bond, it sought to re-form. With blinding speed it did. He felt a sudden responsibility to Nikka—to save her from the danger she was in at whatever cost he had to pay.