by Stefon Mears
Perhaps Jacobs could allow himself to hate Zoltan just a little bit then. Just enough to provide a dangerous look in Jacobs’ eye and a cutting tone in his voice the next time they spoke. Yes. Jacobs could allow himself that much, at least for now.
Lord God Almighty did Jacobs need to get back to space, back where life made sense. How could he ever consider retiring to an Earth-bound house, even one in beautiful Mazatlan?
Jacobs picked up his discarded pen and noted: ‘Daedalus Dream as a retirement bonus?’ Then he turned once more to his charts. Even with the latest data from San Francisco Port Authority — at least, the version of that data released for public use — the three dimensional view of space between Earth and Mars lacked the gradation and measurements as fine and precise as Jacobs knew the data contained. The margins were too wide, introducing an extra element of risk to the travel.
No good. This land-bound tool may have sufficed for the general fleet planning the business required, possibly even for quick evaluations of known safe routes. But for a first flight along a brand new route? Dangerous.
Jacobs snorted when he realized he could feel a bitter downturn at the edges of his mouth. Not that long ago he had charted all voyages by hand, with paper. Now, finally, magic had given him a tool he truly believed was better than anything technology could have provided, and he had let it spoil him.
Still. Six hours Jacobs had spent trying to double-check the route he was planning for his voyage to Venus. Six hours trying to accomplish what he could have done in two aboard the Horizon Cusp, or even aboard the Lark’s Song.
But the Lark’s Song was due to ship out in two days, off to Kennedy on Luna before heading out to New Leningrad on Mars. Jacobs had wanted to give Tunold as much time as possible to adjust to giving up the captain’s office on the Horizon Cusp, but Daher would need to prepare the Lark’s Song for her first voyage as a captain.
No help for it. Jacobs would have to finish aboard the Horizon Cusp.
A light knock at the door preceded Cindy into the room. She came in carrying a piece of paper held between her thumb and index finger by one corner, as though she might damage it. Her sheer discomfort with something Jacobs considered so essential made him contemplate ordering that the office begin to track all records on paper.
He dismissed the notion just as quick, deciding that the entire office staff would revolt or quit.
“The latest delivery schedule from IIX, Mr. Jacobs.”
“Thank you.” He glanced over it until he reached an entry that made him call the receptionist back in. “What’s this about a delivery on the Venus flight?”
“That’s right, sir. Mr. Zoltan arranged it. One of his last acts before he left.” She crinkled her eyebrows suspiciously. “Actually, he said you would ask about it. He said, ‘If John asks, tell him I used the unusual circumstances clause to charge ten times the standard fee.’”
Jacobs grimaced, and Cindy took that as her excuse to leave. Smart girl. The increased fee was a good touch, but something about this sat wrong in Jacobs’ stomach. Could IIX have scraped up a delivery so fast after the formal press release a week ago?
Perhaps. Zoltan could have done it. Still, no man sailed as long as Jacobs had without learning which instincts to trust. And this time his instincts said that the courier would be trouble.
Just another detail to drop in Tunold’s lap tomorrow. Jacobs would have to move back into the Horizon Cusp come morning anyway. He could not risk any imprecision in his course for this voyage. He needed a ship’s phantasmal display, and the best would be the ship flying the route in question.
And, Jacobs had to admit, he needed the comfort of a ship around him amid all this turmoil.
Jacobs stared at the Venus entry on the IIX itinerary. He could not shake the feeling that a storm was brewing.
◊
Donal was met at the door of the Jade Monkey restaurant by savory smells, the clinking of dishware, the buzzing hum of background conversation, and Mr. Mohatar, with his wrinkled brown skin and his bright white teeth.
“Donal! Weeks we haven’t seen you! Off playing in the stars again?”
“Delivering packages, you mean.” Donal shook the proprietor’s hand with honest enthusiasm, unconsciously trying to match the man’s infectious smile. “Boring work, but it keeps the hyenas from my doorstep.”
“And may they never call your name at night,” said Mr. Mohatar with a quick warding gesture. More casually, he rubbed his hands together. “Alone or with company tonight?”
“My girlfriend is already here I see.” Donal pointed past a half-dozen full tables among the red-and-brown décor and Moroccan artwork to Li Hua, sitting under a mural of Mr. Mohatar’s native Marrakesh, looking over the menu.
“Girlfriend? So this is why you have brought no dates lately! But wait, you’re just bringing her here now?” Mr. Mohatar’s eyebrows climbed high enough to convey just a little hurt alongside his amazement. “You are ashamed of our cooking.”
“Never! It’s just that she travels more than I do. Actual dates take planning.”
“Fine. But I can’t let you meet her looking like that.” Mr. Mohatar gave Donal’s outfit a critical once-over, dusting here and straightening there. “Better. Now come, let’s not keep your lovely lady waiting.”
Mr. Mohatar swept Donal along, managing to give each diner a smile or a kind word in passing, until they reached Li Hua’s table, where he said, “My dear Ms. Tai Shi, if I may present your escort for the evening, the very fortunate Mr. Donal Cuthbert.”
He gestured Donal to his seat with such a flourish that Donal almost applauded. Donal took his seat and turned to comment, but Mr. Mohatar had already moved on to another table, smoothing over a question about an entrée.
Li Hua gave Donal a smile that looked wry around the lips, but sincerity gleamed from her soft brown eyes with their hint of caramel.
“So you’ve dined here before?”
“You could say that.”
Donal pointed to the open wine bottle with a questioning look, since both their glasses were empty, but Li Hua gave a slight shake of her head to indicate that the wine’s tannins needed a few more minutes yet.
He continued, “I discovered this place my first week in the city, and Mr. Mohatar has always made it feel like home.”
“Did I hear you tell him that courier work is boring?”
“I don’t want to make him worry.”
Li Hua’s smile gave up its attempt to stay wry. “How do you do it, Donal? Everywhere you go, people like you.”
“Trouble at work?”
“Everyone wants safety, but they all resent oversight.”
“I don’t think it’s the oversight, so much, as your boss. Mr. Mancuso can be a bit ... much at times.” Donal made a show of enjoying the sight of the reddish-brown dress that bared Li Hua’s shoulders and hugged her contours. “Whereas I can’t imagine anyone complaining about the sight of you.”
“I’ve never given you orders. Well, except when people were trying to kill us.” Her tone sounded droll, but her eyes showed that his words had mollified her. She glanced over the menu. “What do you recommend?”
“Try the tajine, with beef. It’ll go great with red wine.”
“Not just red. Look at the bottle again.”
LI Hua’s smile had returned to hover around her lips and eyes in that way that made Donal want to lean across the table and kiss her. But if he did, he would never hear the end of it from Mr. Mohatar, who might begin planning their wedding.
“A syrah. A Morgan ‘75.” Donal’s jaw dropped slightly as he considered how much the bottle had likely cost. But he knew why she had chosen it. “The same year as the first bottle we shared.”
“On Mars. The restaurant made me homesick.” She pointed to a couple of still-image depictions. “The colors, the open-air markets...”
“I never saw enough of Mars to miss.”
“I’ll have to give you a guided tour sometime.”
&n
bsp; “If the locals can go long enough without trying to kill us.”
“I’m a Mars local and I’ve never tried to kill you.”
Donal met her eyes, his cheeks fighting back a smile at her inadvertent reference to a personal joke they shared from their first night together. Li Hua caught the reference only a moment later, and the smile she gave Donal then made him want to skip dinner.
Whatever might have been said next was lost to the waiter’s arrival. Donal and Li Hua both ordered the beef tajine, with artichoke hearts and peas, served with a Moroccan bread made from an old Mohatar family recipe. Donal had prepared a comment about how she might try to kill him later that night, but the moment had gone.
“I’m just tired of people assuming I have some deeper agenda,” said Li Hua.
“Are you sure it’s not the reduced risk of your position? When was the last time you had to fight off a threat?”
Li Hua blinked, then poured them each a glass of wine. Donal swirled his and inhaled the subtle scent with its touch of blackcurrant. A touch richer and fuller than the bottle they had shared on Mars.
The first taste delighted him. The bottle was worth every cent.
Li Hua had yet to sample hers. “You think I’m looking for fights?”
“No,” said Donal, drawing the word out and raising his free hand to indicate that he didn’t want one either. “I just think you deal with people in nerve-wracking situations, and you can feel the edge without the release.”
“Maybe.” She paused long enough to sample her own wine, then savor it for a deep, eyes-closed breath that came in smooth but went out rushed rather than relaxed. “Probably doesn’t help that I generally meet these people around the time that Mr. Mancuso has proven his business acumen.”
“You mean after he’s gotten his acumen all over them.”
“He is paying for your graduate school,” Li Hua said with one eyebrow arched.
“And I appreciate it. But it’s still true that 4M has been downright predatory in its business practices lately.”
“‘Predatory’ has a specific business meaning.”
“You know what I mean.”
The waiter arrived with their bread, but the basket sat untouched between them as Li Hua continued. “You aren’t back on that Red Sun garbage.”
“No, but 4M has been on the move. Plus, you have to admit that Mr. Mancuso has been making as many waves in the society and political sections of the news as he has in the business section.”
“Doesn’t mean he’s trying to set up a shadow government.”
“Look.” Donal set down his wine and spread his fingers on the table before him, a universal not-casting gesture that promised peaceful intentions from a magician. “I’m just saying that a company he deals with might view him as power hungry. So when his Director of Security for Inter-Business Relations comes calling, people might expect that your work is part of his effort to seize control.”
Li Hua reached over and tapped the backs of Donal’s hands, indicating that the gesture was not necessary, like clinking a host’s glass instead of having one’s wine checked for poison.
But instead of speaking, she reached for her wine, so Donal added, “I hope we’re not going to waste tonight fighting. I’m going back to space in a couple of days.”
“Me too,” she admitted after her sip. “Wait. You just got back. I thought IIX guaranteed its couriers a week at home between off-planet deliveries.”
“Two weeks when the combat clause comes into play.”
“Again?” Li Hua’s smile was back, and Donal felt muscles in his back and ribs relax at the sight.
“Seems one of the local rich families on Luna objected to my delivery.”
“You see more action than I do these days.”
“That could change...” Donal tried to make his tone flirty. Not one of his great skills, but enough to keep the smile on Li Hua’s face, and maybe add a hint of promise behind her eyes.
“So why are they shorting your home time?”
“Special request for me to deliver a package to Venus.”
“Venus?”
In the space of a single word, Li Hua’s entire aspect changed: her tone urgent, her posture erect, her eyes scanning the room, one hand near her table knife and the other stroking a bracelet that Donal knew held ready enchantments.
“Who is sending you to Venus?”
Donal felt his stomach jump at her reaction, and it jangled a nervous thread through his words.
“It’s just a delivery. And you know I can’t identify the interested parties.”
“This isn’t a game, Donal.” She huffed out an angry breath at Donal’s narrow-eyed refusal to answer. “Who else knows?”
“I haven’t told anyone, so just the client and IIX.” Donal tried to shrug, but his shoulders had tightened and the back of his neck felt exposed to the door behind him. The gesture came out a twitch. “And anyone the client has told. The receiver, I imagine.”
“When did you get the assignment?”
All flirtation had fled from Li Hua. Donal saw in her only the focused, dangerous woman who had killed the people trying to murder them on Mars. Donal found himself answering her question, only the mental discipline of his calling allowing him to control how much information he gave her.
“Yesterday. Just after I reported in when I got back from Kennedy.”
“Where have you been since?”
“Just home. Now here.”
Their food arrived. Mr. Mohatar smiled as he helped the waiter set down the plates, but he must have read their intensity because he left without comment, only sparing Donal a worried glance.
“Were you followed?”
“Maybe.” Donal forced himself to pick up his fork to try a piece of the beef, but had to finish his thought before tasting what smelled so wonderful. “Some business type with a dueling sword got off the runner when I did, but he turned into a flower shop. Fionn said the woman behind the counter had a dozen roses ready for him.”
Li Hua called Pinyin-Lung, her familiar, out of its home in her brooch. She gave the smoky, serpentine dragon rapid orders in Chinese, then turned back to Donal as it whisked away.
“I’m impressed that you had Fionn follow him. We’ll make a field magician out of you yet.” She reached out and stroked Donal’s cheek, and the blend of adrenaline and desire flared confusion through Donal’s system. She continued, “It may be nothing, but Pinyin-Lung will find out.”
“So what do we do?”
“For now? We eat.” Li Hua’s smile was back, but this time it carried an undertone of excitement. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starved.”
Chapter Four
“If you won’t try the sfenj, at least let me bring you some baklava.”
Donal knew the smile on Mr. Mohatar’s face. Mr. Mohatar must have assessed the tension in the air during dinner. He also probably noticed the lack of angry words or postures, or the touching and looks that would have indicated sexual tension.
Donal’s guess: Mr. Mohatar thought the evening was on the ropes and was trying valiantly to save it for Donal through the power of his excellent pastries.
And dinner had been tense. There had been moments of pleasure through the wine and tajine, but then Pinyin-Lung had returned. Donal could not pick up the information the familiar had passed to its mistress, and Li Hua had put off his questioning looks with a small shake of her head.
Not the time to talk about it, perhaps, but something was wrong. Something she had spotted that Donal had missed.
And now, dinner was finished, and Mr. Mohatar had to settle for his payment, and for assurances that Donal would return for breakfast or lunch before he next left port.
When Donal and Li Hua were at last alone again, Li Hua turned to Donal, excitement flashing in her eyes. “They’re still out there.”
“They?”
“You missed his backup?” She shrugged. “I wondered why you hadn’t mentioned him. Anyway, there are on
ly two, and neither is a magician, so it might just be a warning.”
“Suppose there’s a third...”
“There isn’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
Li Hua tilted her head forward and answered with one raised eyebrow.
“Because this is what you do,” Donal said, and was rewarded with a graceful incline of her neck. He continued, “So they’ll just want to talk?”
“I didn’t say that.” Li Hua stretched her fingers and rolled her wrists. “I just don’t think they’re here to kill me.”
“You’re sure they’re after you?”
“Donal,” she said, managing not to sound condescending. “You are an excellent magician, and you’re starting to pick up some field skills. You beat bin Zuka in a serious duel, and you don’t even need to control your breathing to shift consciousness anymore. But face it,” — and here she paused to cover his hand with hers — “anyone coming after you would be a fool to let you reach me.”
“You think this is corporate espionage.”
“Most likely.” She shrugged, and even through the tension Donal found the movement fetching in her off-the-shoulder dress. “If they think they’ll distract me while they’re doing something else, then they’re foolish enough not to realize I’ve had Pinyin-Lung put my people on alert while we ate.”
She finished the last of her wine.
“No, words or a fight, this will be a message.”
“Then let’s go see.” Donal recalled Fionn and briefed him in Gaelic, Li Hua nodding along and adding details about positioning.
“Better to split up,” said Fionn. “We should go out the back and let Tai Shi Li Hua deal with the threat.”
“You want Donal to circle around and flank them?”
The emerald deerhound tilted its head with its ears at an angle that Donal read instantly as disagreement. He had no doubt that Fionn wanted Donal out of the way of a threat that did not concern him directly.
Except that, as far as Donal was concerned, a threat to Li Hua was a threat to him personally.
“They know I’m here,” said Donal. “And they know I’m with Li Hua. If I don’t come out with her, they’ll suspect a trap.”