Empire of Dust

by Jacey Bedford

  Outside the house was a stable. Though groundcars were available for the first year if he needed them, the settlers’ official policy was not to use equipment that would not be staying on Olyanda after the tech teams left. Victor wasn’t much for horseback riding, but he could manage. Rena said she preferred the little square cart pulled by a pony, and he was pleased to see that she was learning how to harness and groom the animal herself even though Danny was always willing to do it for her.

  Where was Danny today? The boy was often out and about somewhere, since he’d taken to hitching lifts on flitters. Victor didn’t like that idea, but the flitters would be gone at the end of the year and, overall, he was pleased that Danny was adapting well to the new environment. He was much better off in a world where the pace of life was slower.

  A figure moved in the shadow of the stable. Thinking it was Danny, Victor paused and turned. The figure had ash-blond hair that was almost white. Taris, not Danny. He ambled over unhurriedly, hoping that Rena hadn’t noticed.

  “I told you not to come here.”

  “Sorry, Director. I missed you at your office and I wanted you to know that I found something.”

  “This way.” Victor led Taris behind the stable to an embryonic vegetable patch that Danny had begun to dig. Broccoli trees on the north side offered shade from the sun and shelter from the watchful.

  “Well?”

  “Director, you’re not going to like this.”

  “Just tell me, Taris, I’ll make up my own mind.”

  “I went snooping around Landing. In the animal barns across the river, they’re supposed to be breeding critters, but they’ve got a shed full of tanks. There’s a lab and all sorts of machinery. The critters in the tanks were just half grown—not even big enough to be born . . .” He pulled a face. “I swear, Director, it looked like cloning to me. I couldn’t keep my dinner down.”

  Victor had been pressured into allowing the tanking station. The psi-techs promised that they’d only rear natural embryos, but if Taris was right and they were cloning, what monstrosities might they be rearing?

  “You’ve done well, Taris.”

  “Thank you, Director. What are we going to do about it?”

  Victor was torn between the desire to rip out the abomination and the knowledge that his name was on the agreement. He’d not agreed to cloning, however.

  “Only . . .” Taris’ voice was wheedling. “I’ve got some friends who feel just as strongly as I do about this and they say it shouldn’t be allowed.”

  “You’ve told others?”

  “Only a few. I felt so bad when I got home that . . .”

  “I see.” Victor took a deep breath. The decision was made for him. If anyone knew that he was allowing this to happen, he’d be less than a leader in their eyes. Taris had taken the decision away from him.

  Victor took a deep breath. “You’re sure you have friends you can trust?”

  Taris looked up at Victor’s face, and there was the light of zeal in his eyes. “I do.” He turned away with new purpose.

  • • •

  Cara’s unease grew. Whenever she passed through Landing or Timbertown, she felt as though everyone was watching her, saying, “There goes Ben Benjamin’s wife; he’s thrown her out for another woman, you know.” In Landing she kept getting messages of sympathy or strange looks from those who wondered what was wrong with her to drive Ben into Gen Marling’s bed.

  This was the woman who had decked the head of the psi-techs in front of a hall full of onlookers. This was the woman whose best friend had taken her husband. This was the woman whose husband thought so little of her that he hadn’t even bothered with the courtesy of a separation before bedding one of his staff.

  Cara had moved out of Gen’s room and into a single one that was hardly bigger than a closet. She took to spending her spare hours there and suddenly felt able to do what she hadn’t felt able to do since escaping from Ari: she opened up what she’d stolen from his handpad and started to go through it systematically. Some of it made sense and some of it didn’t, but a pattern began to emerge, and Felcon was barely the tip of the iceberg. It was obvious that, as well as the information from his own insiders in Alphacorp, he was receiving information from someone in the Trust, and there was some kind of special force—illegal, she presumed—set up to do some very dirty work, indeed. She wanted to share what she’d found with Ben, but she still wasn’t officially speaking to him except when necessary for work.

  She’d taken just about as much as she could. When she went for her regular checkup, she’d had to sit the stress test twice for Ronan to correlate results. Ronan had rested his hand on Cara’s shoulder and said, “Get it out into the open.”

  “It’s Ben.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “I know this thing with Gen is only a sham, but I thought we were over the worst and now we’re apart again.”

  “Talk to him.”

  “I’m not sure I can. Oh, I can do the everyday stuff, but the personal stuff is much more difficult.”

  “You can’t resolve anything until you talk. It’s time.”

  Ronan’s words stayed with her as she got back to her little room and stripped off the light coverall she wore beneath her buddysuit. She stepped into the shower and set the jets to maximum. It was all Ben’s fault. He should have found someone else to play the part of Gen’s lover. Why did it have to be him? Was there something between them? There certainly had been.

  She knew that was ridiculous, but she worked up a temper as she worked up a lather. In the end she couldn’t stand it any longer. She pulled on the first clothing that came to hand, soft pants and a stretchy top, took a deep breath, and marched purposefully to Ben’s room. She passed Gen in the corridor.

  “You look as though you mean business,” Gen said.

  “I need to talk to Ben.”

  “Reconciliation time, huh?”

  Reconciliation? She didn’t think so. She didn’t really know why she needed to see him or what she hoped to achieve, she just did. Maybe it was make or break time.

  Gen fended off a pair of nosy onlookers in the corridor who’d seen the look in Cara’s eyes. “Give them some space.” Cara heard her say, “There’s not much privacy here at the best of times. I’ll personally kill anyone who disturbs them tonight.” Then the door closed.

  Ben came out of the shower with a towel round his waist, just finishing the tight braid in the back of his wet hair. There was a bruise on his cheekbone from where she’d hit him.

  “Hello, Cara. I thought I heard the door.”

  “Hello, Cara? Is that all you can say? Come on, you can do better than that. How about, ‘How are you?’”

  “Well—how are you?”

  “Do you really want to know?” She was beginning to feel out of control and she fed the feeling; let it go; ran with it.

  “What’s all this about?”

  “I’ve been collecting words of sympathy. Have you any idea what people are saying out there?”

  “Words.” He shrugged, a what-can-I-do-about-it kind of shrug.

  “Words that I’ve had enough of. I feel like a prize idiot!”

  “Ah, now we’re getting down to it. Your feelings are hurt.”

  “And shouldn’t they be? I am the wronged wife, after all.”

  “Are you?” He finished plaiting the braid, turned, and poured himself a cup of tea from the hotpot in the corner.

  “What?”

  “You’re certainly not wronged, and you’ve never been a wife.” He put his cup down untouched. “When we first came here, I thought . . . I hoped that there might be a chance to turn our relationship . . . into something more solid, but I guess the whole van Blaiden thing screwed that. Maybe that’s over, maybe it isn’t—I guess time will tell. In the meantime, this situation is just another sham. Don’t get upset. At least it’s doing somebody some good.”

  Suddenly she glimpsed something fragile which had eluded her for longer than i
t should have. Damn. Ronan was right. But Ben was being as annoying as hell, and he wouldn’t be having that kind of impact on her unless she really cared—cared more than she’d let herself admit. Well, she wasn’t going to make a turnaround now and fold like a wimp. How could she retrieve a relationship she’d never had in the first place? She’d promised to work on it, but was there anything there to work on?

  “It’s not doing me any good at all.” She hid her confusion in petulance.

  “Don’t you think I’ve had my fair share of flack? And Gen, too? The adulterous husband and the deceitful friend. At least you’re the innocent party.”

  “Yes, well, I want out.”

  “Out?”

  “Let’s make our divorce public.” She sounded bitter, even to herself.

  “If you want to, but we both knew what we were getting into.”

  “Did we? I wonder. I thought we had a friendship.” She blinked away tears. After their heart-to-heart in the desert she’d thought all their personal problems would resolve.

  “We did, but we could have had more.”

  “More what? More sex?”

  “You’ve got to have some sex in the first place to have more sex. And I don’t count the night we met.”

  “You’ve waited all this time to throw that in my face. What’s the matter, didn’t you enjoy it?”

  “Very much. But you didn’t.” He dropped his voice. “I’m not talking about sex, I’m talking about love.”

  He came up close, and she could smell the soap on his damp skin.

  “What moves you, Cara?” he asked. “What touches you? I’m damn sure it’s not me.” There was an echo of I wish it was.

  It wrenched at her. Why couldn’t things be simple between them?

  “What makes you tick, woman? Ari van Blaiden? What did he do to make you love him so much and yet be so afraid to love again? Was he so good in bed?”

  She shuddered, remembering Ari in bed: powerful, athletic, greedy, ruthless, excessive. Sex with Ari was sometimes painful, often exhilarating, always draining. She’d been riding an emotional high, and the fall had been long and hard. How could she love again when love was so damaging?

  “It is possible.” Ben’s voice was gentle again.

  “What?”

  “To love again.”

  Had she been broadcasting? How could he have read her thoughts so well? Maybe he didn’t need to be empathic to know what she felt.

  “Is it?”

  “Yes. If you want it badly enough.”

  Did she? She replayed the past. Ari. Ben. Ari. Ben.

  *Mr. van Blaiden wants to know . . . *

  *Bugger Mr. van Blaiden.*

  Ben was warm and real, whatever he said, she knew he loved her and—go on, admit it—she loved him, too. The Ari in her mind was her own version of Ari van Blaiden. She’d clung to the image of the past for too long. It would destroy her if she didn’t break free from it. Did she want to be free to love again?

  “I think I do.”

  “Not good enough.” He turned away from her, and she saw a tear of water from his wet braid run down the muscles of his back.

  He was being hard on purpose. She supposed she deserved it. She’d trampled all over his feelings since that night on Mirrimar-14. If she was entirely honest with herself, she’d known right from the beginning that she’d touched him. She’d used him without giving anything back. Now was the time for giving. Giving and taking. Because she wanted to and not because she felt obliged.

  She touched the rivulet, cutting it with her finger, felt the tension in his skin, in his whole body.

  He turned.

  She looked up at him. “I know I do.”

  “And you’ve got to trust me.” He took her hand, curled it into a fist, and brushed his lips across her knuckles.

  She nodded, not trusting her voice.

  He bent his head forward and kissed her. It was gentle, warm and inquiring. His face was still damp from the shower. She pressed forward into him and returned the kiss, feeling a surge of excitement in her belly. A feeling that she’d almost forgotten. She let herself go.

  Her arms wrapped around his neck involuntarily. He slipped the hem of her top up over her head and bared her upper body. Then, while she struggled to pull off the offending garment to free her arms, he ran his hands up from waist to underarm and then slid them round to the swell of her breasts.

  She gasped involuntarily and pulled away. Was this just her hormones kicking in?

  No, it wasn’t. This was real. How could she have been so stupid for so long? Ben had been here, waiting for her to make her mind up, and she’d almost missed the moment.

  *It’s never too late.* He was in her head, but she didn’t question it. Instead, she opened up her fears and her longings to him, implants meshing, and slipped a tight cocoon around their emotions to keep the rest of the world out.

  A confusion of senses followed—physical, sensual, emotional—until they lay on the bed, exhausted, in a tumble of covers and clothes.

  Perhaps she slept. She was floating in that halfway stage between reality and dreaming. She knew Ben now. There were no secrets between them. She knew the beautiful but brittle first Mrs. Benjamin and what it was like to make love to Gen Marling. She knew about Ben’s worries that Crowder was playing politics with the whole Olyanda colony. What had she given Ben in return?

  Poor Ben. He knew now what it was like to be screwed by Ari van Blaiden, in both senses of the word, and . . . She sat bolt upright as she remembered something and said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?” He was warm and sleepy.

  “Sorry if I thought of Ari while . . .” She blushed.

  “It won’t happen again.”

  “What if . . .”

  “I tell you it won’t. Do I have to prove it?”

  He reached up for her and they fell back among the covers.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  CONSEQUENCES

  Ben whistled quietly under his breath as he logged in his ident to use the two-man flitter in the end transport bay. It had been two days since Cara had given herself permission to be whole again. Two wonderful days and even better nights that put him in a good mood even Lorient couldn’t dispel. There was a low-key conspiracy among his team to keep the situation under wraps.

  “Ben,” Suzi called to him down the length of the hanger. “Cas said you were going out. I wanted to ask you something. Did you know Calvin suspected someone had been snooping at the tank farm?”

  “Snooping?”

  “He found a door forced this morning. Gupta is checking it out.”

  “Keep me informed. To the uneducated eye there’s not much difference between tanking and cloning.”

  She nodded and went in search of the young vet.

  Ben turned back to the flitter.

  “Hello, Mr. Benjamin.”

  Ben recognized the voice behind him immediately. “Hello, Danny.”

  “Are you flying again?”

  “I’m going to Timbertown to see your father.”

  “Can I come? I got a lift here in a groundcar. I need to go home now.”

  “I can take you.”

  Danny scuttled round to the other side of the flitter and jumped into the passenger seat.

  Ben climbed into the pilot’s seat. Under minimum power, he rolled the little machine out of the bay and set it up on its antigravs.

  Danny was grinning again. “I like flying,” he said. “I’ll miss you when the psi-techs go home.”

  If you do, you’ll be the only one. Ben’s thought went unsaid.

  • • •

  Cara felt as though she had just shed one outgrown skin and her new one was pulsing with life. She had given up all idea of following convention and was on duty with Gen, overflying some of the smaller watercourses between Timbertown and the next largest settlement. They’d decided to brazen it out together.

  Gen was coping with the pregnancy much better now that she was ab
le to admit it. Ronan had given her something for the sickness and confirmed that everything was progressing normally. She should have been full of optimism, but she was still fretting over Max’s disappearance.

  “He’s keeping his head down, probably camping out somewhere quiet,” Cara told her, but Gen wouldn’t be convinced.

  “He’d get a message to me somehow,” she said.

  “How? Be realistic.” But privately Cara thought that she might be right. Jon Moon and Rufe Greenstreet hadn’t found any sign of him. It was time to get a Finder out to look for Max.

  They completed their sector and set a course for home. Cara had the controls. She flew in along the valley, over new settlements upriver from Timbertown. Trees had been felled and timber stacked for natural drying on the edge of the lumber camps. One or two structures in the settlements were at the foundation stage and several more had been marked out on the new town plan. Until homes were completed, the settlers would live in their wagons and in tents.

  Timbertown, its street plan now well-defined, the meeting hall complete and several wooden houses already occupied, looked as busy as an ant colony from this height. Below them, the road to Landing was full of traffic. Another flitter registered on her screen some distance away. Cara knew instinctively it was Ben. Her mind reached out for his, and she was rewarded with a warm feeling of love. He was heading toward Timbertown with Danny Lorient in the passenger seat.

  “Look.” Gen pointed. Far ahead along the road there was a slim plume of smoke rising across the river from Landing.

  Cara’s belly knotted. *Ben. Smoke.* She gave him the coordinates and he swept round.

  *I see it. Fuck! It’s the tank farm. Gestalt.*

  Cara handed the controls over to Gen and forgot about the immediate operation of the little craft. She opened her mind on a broad channel. Cas, safe in the ops room at Mapping, and Saedi, returned from Timbertown, joined her mentally to hold the combined minds of every psi-tech in the immediate area.

  *Emergency procedure.* Ben gave the instruction through the gestalt, but individually, everyone was already following the carefully worked out routines.

  *On our way.* Yan ordered the emergency vehicles airborne.