Empire of Dust
Page 36
“I wanted to go and visit the Seaward Settlement,” Danny continued. “Mrs. Benjamin is going there. It will take me seven days if I go by wagon. You said I should make my own mind up about things, now I’m grown.”
Jack said softly, “You can’t argue with that. And she’s a good pilot, he’ll be perfectly safe.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Danny took Lorient’s silence as permission and skipped off down the corridor.
“They have their uses, our psi-tech friends.” Jack watched until Danny was out of sight.
“They might be useful, but they are not friends.”
• • •
She hadn’t quite promised, but Cara felt she should give Gen the opportunity to tell Ben the news herself. For the next five days, running survey missions, working with Ben every day, Cara worried that Gen’s secret was about to burst out of her mouth. She felt as though she had it written across her forehead and was only surprised that Ben didn’t sense what was going on inside her head. Not telling him was just one more brick in the wall between them.
Then Ben announced that they’d take a few days to catch up with admin. Wenna had been bugging him because she wanted to get airborne again and there were also things that needed his attention on the ground. Cara was grateful for the break, but Gen’s occasional presence in the ops room as she logged in and out on her own survey trips added even more pressure. They exchanged conspiratorial glances and Cara covered up for Gen’s tendency to make late starts because she was spending a lot of time in the bathroom in the mornings, but despite all her exhortations, Gen still shook her head when Cara asked if she was going to tell Ben today.
On the sixth day Ben stalked through the ops room with a face like thunder, looking neither to right nor left, but as he passed Cara, sitting at a workstation, he paused, said, “Get Gen in here, now,” and strode into his office.
He knows. Cara’s stomach lurched.
• • •
“Miss Marling, sit down, please. Do you have something to tell me?”
Ben kept his voice low and even. This was a conversation he didn’t want to have. He felt sick inside. Out with it, Gen, don’t make me drag a confession out of you. Not you of all people. All of a sudden his office felt half the size and short on oxygen.
Gen didn’t sit and Ben saw by the set of her jaw that she wasn’t going to make this easy. Fine. If she wasn’t, then he wasn’t. He tapped the datacrystal on his desk.
“I can read a buddysuit upload and I know what elevated hCG levels mean. How long did you think you could keep your pregnancy secret? Were you going to wait until it was obvious?”
Gen glared at the datacrystal. “How many times do you check through all the suit readouts? Someone told you.”
“So you told other people before you told me.”
“Not exactly.”
“Who knows?”
Gen shrugged.
“Who knows?”
“Max.”
“You’ve seen him since he went to Seaward Base.” He didn’t make that sound like a question.
She hesitated.
“You have!”
“I love him.”
Ben closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing slowly, in and out. In and out. “What do you see in him? He’s nothing but a chancer.”
“He’s not. He’s funny, kind, sweet, passiona— Are you jealous?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“We used to—”
“A long time ago. We were good together once, Gen. It’s over.”
“It wasn’t over until you brought Cara to Chenon.”
“Now who’s jealous?”
“I am so not jealous of that relationship. You’re both heading for a fall. Why do you think she’s bunking in with me?”
“Let’s keep to the point. You’re pregnant. Who else knows about it?”
“Cara guessed. Ronan probably knows. He scanned me. He must have. . . .” She touched the fading bruise on her temple. “It’s not Cara’s fault. I made her promise not to tell. She didn’t, did she?”
“Cara did not tell me.” And that’s another obstacle between us. Oh, fuck, what a mess. “You know what happened to Coburg. Three lives lost, and the Fenec girl wasn’t even pregnant. What do you think will happen if Lorient finds out?”
“Does he have to find out?”
“Not if you don’t have the baby.”
“Are you suggesting a termination?”
“I can’t force you. This isn’t the Militaire.”
In the Militaire, such matters were routine on long away missions where pregnancy could endanger the soldier and her unit. Things were generally more flexible in the colony service.
Generally.
But he had a duty of care.
Generally, in the colony service, your colonists weren’t trying to find excuses to kill you.
“I can count as well as anyone, Gen. Your baby’s due about the time we’re scheduled to leave Olyanda. You can’t safely undergo cryo while pregnant. If you have the baby here, it can’t do cryo for the return trip. No infants under six; the mortality rate is too great.”
“There’s another option.” Gen looked at him under lowered eyelids. “I have the baby before we leave and Max and I, and the baby, go home the long way, awake on the ark ship.”
“An ark ship only has two pilots awake on rotation. It isn’t equipped for families. Babies are fragile; emergencies happen: colic, fevers, any number of small ailments that an adult would fight off but a baby would need urgent medical attention for. You’d need a medical team. It’s hardly practical.”
“So you are suggesting a termination.”
“I’m asking you to consider your options. If you’ve done this just to ensure Max gets a ride back to civilization . . .”
“You think that?”
“I don’t know what to think. You were heading for a promotion, Gen. It seemed to be what you wanted. Now what do you want?”
“I want Max, and I want this child. I’ve never felt like this before.”
“Think about it sensibly. You don’t want Max to end up like Coburg, do you?”
“I can’t think about it sensibly. I just keep thinking that I might have to leave Max behind. I’ve really fucked up, haven’t I?” She gave a rueful shake of her head. “In more ways than one.”
“Yes, I’m afraid you have. Don’t make a decision now. Go away and think about it. We’ll talk again in a few days.”
The best solution for Gen would be for Ben to give her the Dixie to get her and Max off planet and away from danger, but the Dixie was Ben’s back door, his only escape plan if he needed to get Cara out of danger. He wasn’t ready to relinquish that unless it was the last option. Gen obviously wasn’t even aware of the little flyer’s presence. He pressed his lips together in a hard line. No, he wasn’t going to give her that get out, at least, not yet.
• • •
The barrier between Cara and Ben grew more obvious each day. Judging by their wary watchfulness even Youen Biggs and Mohan Razdan had noticed. The easy banter of the early days had dried up. They flew a shift, manned the surveyors, took soil and bio samples with the efficiency of robots and with about as much humor. The nearest they got to smiling was at Youen’s delight in finding another creature to add to his list of discoveries.
Coming to the hangar early one morning, Cara spotted Ben in a dim corner, talking to Yan Gwenn. She was about to join them when she realized what they were examining. The bulk of a machine, half as big again as a four-seat flitter, stood draped in polytarp. The corner of the covering was open and exposing the drive casing, instantly recognizable as the space-scarred Dixie Flyer. What the hell was that doing here? Was Ben thinking of leaving?
Everything clicked into place. How much platinum could you get in a Dixie? She blinked away tears and retreated until she was out of sight.
How much?
Enough.
Chapter Twenty-five
CONFESSION
/> Eaten by suspicion, Cara decided to ask for reassignment. Then she changed her mind on the grounds that she should stay close and find out exactly what Ben was up to. They were charting the eastern highlands, which were old in geological terms. Wind and weather had shaped the landscape, and where the high land met the low there were vast tracts of dust desert. Ben put the flitter down and cut the drive. When the dust settled, they all climbed out into the dry heat of late afternoon. Clouds of fine black powder puffed around their feet with each step.
They had to be doubly careful to watch out for a number of stinging insects, irritating but not deadly, though one liked the taste of human blood and could cause nasty allergic reactions in some people. The settlers had taken to calling them skeeters, even though they bore no real relationship to their Earth counterparts. Youen was one of the unfortunate ones who came up in angry welts with just one nip; when he sensed one in the air, he generally climbed into the flitter until the danger was over. Despite lathering himself with repellent cream or wearing a protective net, he was still a magnet for them, as though he wore a flashing illuminated sign on his head that said, Fresh blood here.
Where dust gave way to rocks, heat reflected from the smooth table surface scoured clean by the arid wind.
Mohan tested a boulder prior to sitting down. “Yeowch! You could fry an egg on that. I think I’ll stand.”
Youen emerged from the flitter and scanned the area for any flicker of alien life, then began to delve in rocky cracks and turn over stones to see what lurked beneath.
“Ready?” Cara prepared to monitor Youen. He had a tendency to fall over his own feet while his mind was preoccupied elsewhere.
Ben shouldered a pack of geo-sensors and walked past her, heading north to check the substrata for anything unusual. He’d made it a rule that no one went off alone, but he didn’t offer to take Mohan.
Cara broke off from monitoring Youen before he’d really got started. “Going alone?” she asked.
He stopped and turned. “And if I am?”
*One rule for you and another for the rest of us, is it?* She switched to a tight telepathic band.
*I’m not taking Mohan because he’s not got enough savvy for this kind of job, and you’re too busy.*
*You didn’t even ask.*
*Would it have made any difference if I had?*
Cara was, for once, totally at a loss for words.
Ben turned, walked back, and threw the geo-sensors into the flitter. “Take a break,” he told Mohan and Youen. “I need to talk to you,” he said softly to Cara, but the softness in his voice was offset by the steel in his fingers as he took her arm, almost dragging her along with him as he strode across the rock and down onto the soft surface, stirring up dust with every step.
“Something you can’t say in front of them?” she asked as they got out of earshot.
“It’s something I can’t say in front of anyone else.” His face was as stony as the desert. “I need to know what’s wrong.”
“Wrong with what?”
“Don’t play that game! Wrong with you. Wrong with me. We used to be friends and now you cut me out. Why?”
“I don’t cut you out. Nothing’s changed.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“Everything’s changed. Even Youen and Mohan keep their heads down in case they get them bitten off.”
She didn’t answer.
“Come on. What is it . . . Is it Ari van Blaiden?”
“What?” Her head snapped up. The dizziness threatened to overwhelm her, but she pushed it away. *It’s too late. He knows. And I didn’t tell him.*
*Mr. van Blaiden wants to know that his secrets are safe.*
“What about . . . ?” She couldn’t even bring herself to spit out Ari’s name.
“He was your lover.”
“How . . .”
“Max let it slip. He used to work for Alphacorp accounting. He assumed that I knew, since I am your husband.”
“In name only.”
“We can remedy that.” His hand clamped tight on her arm, and he stood still and yanked her up close.
The fire in his eyes was pain, not lust.
“You wouldn’t . . .”
He breathed out sharply, let her arm drop, and stepped back a pace. “Dammit, Cara, don’t you know me well enough by now? Don’t you trust me?”
“I thought I did.”
“And now you don’t?”
“I want to . . .” She looked at him. Tears of emotion and frustration were about to let her down and come spilling out. She took a deep breath.
Now or never. If she didn’t tackle him about it right this minute, she’d always wonder. “Tell me about the platinum. Tell me why you’re not logging it. Tell me why you’ve got the Dixie Flyer hidden in the hangar. Tell me there’s no conspiracy, that you’re not on the take. Look me straight in the eye and tell me.”
“What?”
She had all her psi-tech talents stretched toward him. He could lie, but he couldn’t fool her. She would know.
“Platinum?” He looked bemused. All she was getting from him was puzzlement, genuine surprise.
“You’re not going to tell me there isn’t any.” She almost spat it out.
He closed his eyes for a moment and then half nodded and looked at her. “There’s platinum. I didn’t think you’d done enough survey work to . . . Well, never mind. Why do you think I saddled us with a single-minded dreamer and a green settler?”
“Then why aren’t you logging it?”
“Hera-3.”
“What about Hera-3?”
“It was overrun by pirates, just like the official records say, but using weaponry that could only have come from one of the big corporations.”
“Alphacorp.” Cara suddenly went cold all over. Did it have Ari’s stamp all over it?
“Or even the Trust,” Ben said. “What chance do you think this colony would have if the Trust or Alphacorp or any of the megacorps knew the extent of the platinum deposits? The more people who know about it, the more likelihood of careless talk after the mission ends. By the time Wenna analyzed the data and spotted the platinum . . .”
“Wenna’s in on this?”
“She found it. Came to me with it, scared as a rabbit. Wenna and I have done all the surveys of the platinum areas personally. That’s why I was so keen to get out from behind a desk and into the field.”
“And the Dixie Flyer?”
“It’s there because of you.”
“Me?” She stared blankly at him.
“I thought if you were really in trouble, you might need a way out.”
It was the truth. She could sense it. But still something didn’t quite fit. “Why didn’t you tell me that was what you were up to?”
Now it was his turn to look uncomfortable. “When I brought you here, I didn’t know about the Neural Readjustment or the Ari van Blaiden connection.”
“Would it have made a difference?”
“You were his lover. Might still be. Cara, how do I know you’re not working for van Blaiden?”
“Ari’s spy? How can you think that? You got me off Mirrimar-14. He was trying to have me killed.”
“It could have been a very good cover story. Even you might not be aware. Maybe you’ll wake up one morning and something inside your head will have triggered and you won’t be you anymore.”
They were nose to nose, surrounded by nothing but desert and their own team in the far distance. His words landed like a solid blow. Maybe she would. Her legs felt as though they couldn’t take her weight and the skin on her face felt icy despite the heat. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat.
“I know,” she said. Her voice felt tiny out here in the desert. “But . . .” She cleared her throat. “I won’t let it. There’s too much of me in here.” She put her hand to her head. “Don’t think I haven’t had doubts, because I have, but that’s why I believe that whatever they did to me wasn’t finished. Ronan . . . Couldn’t he tell?”
She jerked her head back. “It’s a two-way thing; do you trust me enough for that?”
“Just do it.”
She did as he asked and their foreheads connected. She felt his skin hot and dry against hers. After the first inkling that Ben was reading her emotions, she got nothing but a warm glow. This man loved her steadily, truly, and deeply. When he released her, she stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. She’d known his feelings all along, if only she’d let herself believe them, but suddenly she did believe, and it pulled the rug out from under her feet, made her feel weak at the knees, slightly breathless. She fought the realization away so she wouldn’t have to deal with it right now, hoping she’d not transmitted it before their two-way contact faded, but afraid that she had.
“I’ve had all the pieces of this puzzle in front of me since the day we found Gen and Max,” Ben said softly. “I kept taking them apart and not liking the look of them. I was hoping—I don’t know what I was hoping. Whichever way I put the pieces together, I didn’t like the result. Cara, I need to know. I need to know everything and I need to know now. Can you tell me? I’ll help you deal with the block if I can.”
Should she? Could she? If she did, she couldn’t make matters worse.
She took a deep breath.
A wave of nausea hit her—Ronan says I’m ready to tell—but she fought it off. It’s too late, he knows.
Mr. van Blaiden wants to know that his secrets are safe.
The nausea got worse, and her head started to spin until she felt as though she was going to pass out. She must have stumbled forward because the next thing she knew she was in Ben’s arms. She leaned her face against the tough hide of his buddysuit, feeling the heat on her cheek.
“I can’t,” she whispered. The sickness retreated, but she knew it was just waiting for her to try again.