by H. E. Trent
“Most on this continent are, including the women.”
“I haven’t seen any yet.”
He nodded. “I imagine you haven’t. They weren’t abundant even before your kind came.”
Court couldn’t have missed the note of accusation in his voice. She figured he was entitled to it. If Jekhans hadn’t been so intrinsically peaceful, things might have been different.
She wouldn’t have been there at all, pitying him and wrestling with her guilt.
He wouldn’t have needed her help if her kind had never settled Jekh at all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Court had hoped Commander Festus would hole up in an administrative office somewhere and that her first day at the station would be painless, if not easy.
Her wish hadn’t been granted.
She’d known that with the law enforcement staffing shortage in Buinet that she wouldn’t be allowed a long warm-up period. She figured she’d be tossed into the thick of things not long after checking in, but she’d hoped her first day or two would be spent overseen by a secretary filling out forms, not wasting time in front of Festus’ desk.
He stared at her over his tented fingers, swiveling his chair side-to-side.
She kept her hands clasped at the small at her back and tried to affect her most professional mien. The act was hard to manage while being scrutinized like an insect specimen in a glass case. All of the others assigned to the same station had already started the on-boarding process, so she knew she’d been singled out. If he thought she was going to wither under his gaze, though, he had another think coming.
Finally, Festus cleared his throat. “You know you’re here to fill a quota, right?”
She squeezed her fingers tight. I’m not a fucking quota hire.
He tipped his chair back and stared at the ceiling. “Yep. Can’t have a male officer patting down female arrestees.” He had the gall to sound miffed. “That’s why they let you through.”
Bullshit.
Her gaze fell to his hands.
No rings. Didn’t mean anything, though. He might not have been into jewelry. Some cops just didn’t like wearing rings on the job. If Court had to guess, though, she’d say he had someone at home. He had to be close to fifty, and if he’d been amongst the first wave of settlers, he’d likely already been matched with a bride. They would have made an exception for him, probably, and recruited a woman for him on Earth.
She looked up and found him rubbing his chin.
“Having a hell of a time trying to figure out where to assign you,” he said. “How do you feel about having a desk beat?”
She ground her back teeth, but nodded. “If that’s where you believe my skills will be best utilized, I’ll do admin.” For a while, anyway. Admin meant she could do some official snooping—try to find some avenues to investigate her grandfather’s death, and maybe try to find out where Jekhan drugs were stored. There had to be a supply of Marscadrel around somewhere.
“Some of the vets wanted to toss you into Zone Seven to see how you’d fare.” He barked with laughter.
She cracked her knuckles. Why’s that funny to him?
“You know where Zone Seven is?” he asked.
“Vaguely, sir. I might have…happened onto it yesterday when I was out exploring.”
“I wouldn’t do so much exploring if I were you, unless your goal is to get yourself in trouble. Seven borders that stinkin’ river. That’s where all those disgusting Jekhans live.”
“Disgusting, sir?”
He grunted. “Degenerates, the whole lot of them. The way they live…”
Court would have sworn the man shuddered.
“Zone Seven is an abandoned experiment. The goal was to give the Jekhans their own space so they’d have their own community. Keep ’em happy and productive.”
She waited for the but.
“But, for whatever reason, they don’t want to work. Wouldn’t pitch in.”
She waited for the punch line, and of course, it didn’t come. She ground her teeth some more to keep her jaw from dropping. He’s deluded. He obviously hadn’t engaged a Jekhan in civil conversation.
Trigrian hadn’t seemed particularly opposed to working off his perceived debt, nor had Herris. They’d both seemed concerned about balancing the scales. Lazy freeloaders wouldn’t do that.
Festus leaned back in the seat, forearms draped over the rests. “Yeah. Sometimes, settlers go there to check out the natives. Most of the time, the Jekhans scatter like cockroaches in the light. Don’t want to service them, you know? They’ve got shops and restaurants. If I were to go there, they’d serve me, but only because of my badge.”
She bet he liked to throw that badge around a lot, too. “If you know they’re derisive toward the settlers,” she said, “why would you want to eat at one of their restaurants?”
He shrugged. “Because I can, that’s why. All right. Let’s see where to stick you.”
She bristled until she realized he was referring only to her job and not to her person.
He pulled his tablet forward and input some data. “Shit. Relo office says your medical data got fucked during transit. You’re not even cleared to be on duty.”
She furrowed her brow and was about to tell him what he could do with his fucked data, but then she remembered Eileen. Eileen had been trying to prevent them from turning Court into a broodmare.
“Fuckin’ incompetents. They have one goddamned job.” He pounded the desk with his fist. “Well. Couldn’t send you out even if I wanted to. Head to Health and Wellness first thing and tell them you need the LEO panel as well as RE-03. The order should be in their system by the time you get there.”
Court knew what the LEO panel was. She’d had that numerous times—basic blood draw for wellness screening. But the other was unfamiliar. “What is the purpose of RE-03?”
He ignored the question. “After you’re done with those tests, see the unit admin Brenna. You need to redo firearms qualifications. All this shit’s going to tie you up for a week or more.”
She wondered what difference the testing would make if she were destined to be a desk jockey, but she didn’t dare ask. She hated feeling like there was a plan in play that directly affected her and yet no one was letting her in on the details. The lack of information fed her McGarry cynicism, which in her experience was almost always justifiable.
“All right, get the fuck out of here. You’re dismissed.”
She ground out a “Thank you, sir,” and left his office before he could pile on one more thing.
She studied door placards as she passed through the hallway, noting who was where. She passed the cubicle farm that housed investigators and support staff, and backtracked, figuring she might as well check in with the only other female in the building. There were supposedly other women working in law enforcement in Buinet and surrounding areas, but so far up the chain that Court would probably never meet them.
Brenna was easy enough to find, though Court had to pass four leering detectives to get to her.
Brenna’s jaw dropped and she pointed at Court. “You!”
Court pointed her thumb to herself. “Me?”
Brenna took off her headphones and whispered, “Festus kept saying you were a quota hire. I thought he just meant you had a vagina. I didn’t think he meant you were like me.” She narrowed her eyes. “You look really pale in your file photo.
“Oh.” Court blew a raspberry. “I’ve still got my summer tan. It didn’t fade in stasis. Come winter, I’ll be pretty fucking pasty. Glow-in-the-dark feet and everything. I’m a disgrace to my very ebony grandmother, I’m sure. She used to slather me up in baby oil and send me outside to bake some more. Genes do what they want. Brown doesn’t always win.”
Brenna snorted and clasped her hand over her mouth when several detectives turned to look at them. “Sorry,” she whispered. “We can’t let them think we’re in cahoots.”
Court canted her head. “Why are you here?”
“My father was in the first wave. He was a soldier. I’ve been here half my life.”
“Wow.”
Brenna had to be an absolute fount of information, though Court had to be careful trying to glean any from her. She’d likely have a hell of a lot of biases, and Court would rather find out what they were upfront than after she’d gone and stuck her foot in her mouth. What would a woman like her think about Court harboring a couple of Jekhan strangers in her basement? Or the fact she thought they were stunningly attractive? That was the kind of thinking that had probably gotten her grandfather killed, though she couldn’t prove her suspicions yet.
Court grabbed a rolling chair from the nearby corner and pulled it closer to the desk. She sat, and the cubicle walls blocked her mouth from view of the leering detectives. One dark-eyed cop seemed to be paying special attention to her. Whether he was interested because she had a vagina or the fact she’d interrupted his work, she didn’t really care.
“So, how do you like it?” Court asked.
Brenna’s easy smile wilted. “W-why do you ask?”
“Because I don’t have anyone else to ask.”
“Oh.” Brenna let out a relieved-sounding titter. “True. I’ll be glad when there’s a little more estrogen on the planet, that’s for sure. Anyway, I guess I don’t really have a good framework to base my answer. I was pretty sheltered, and I don’t remember much about Earth.”
“Have you encountered many Jekhans?”
“Why?” Brenna pulled her lips between her teeth.
Court shrugged. “They live here. Seems odd you wouldn’t bump into a few.”
“We employed a Jekhan housekeeper for a number of years. She was always kind to me. Didn’t like my father much, though.”
“Ever wonder why?”
“Daddy’s a…difficult man in general.” Brenna’s voice tapered off at the end.
Court didn’t push. Knowing Brenna wasn’t completely disgusted by the natives was at the very least a step in the right direction. “Listen, Festus says I have to redo some tests.”
“Oh.” Brenna waved a hand over her desk and woke up the computer display. It was streamed from a tiny projector mounted into her desk onto the cubicle wall in front of her. She made a face. “Ew. All those? Why?”
“I don’t know. I wonder if Festus didn’t believe my scores were credible.”
“Knowing him, that’s a possibility,” she whispered. “He’d probably rather keep you at a desk so you’re fat and slow by the time your match shows up to claim you. He probably expects you won’t be here long.”
“Well, that’s proof that I’m not paranoid and that the ladies on the shuttle didn’t lie.”
“Ask any of the Terran women you can find here,” Brenna whispered. “We’re all trying to buck the system. The whole thing is stupid and backward. Damn, RE-03, too?”
“What’s that one? Festus wouldn’t say.”
“Reproductive health panel. Looks like your pre-test results were lost during your travel.”
Court scoffed. “Fuck that. That information doesn’t have anything to do with how I do my job.”
Brenna killed the display. “Relo and matchmaking services have a lot of clout.”
“But my ability to have a child, or whether or not I want to have one, is no one’s concern but mine.”
Brenna wrung her hands and pursed her lips. “Uh…”
Court jotted “What?” on her e-pad and the device across the desk.
Brenna wrote back, “Look. I don’t want to get in any trouble or see you get into any, but the truth is, you’re not going to be here long. You’ll be pregnant within a year, probably with multiples because no one here lets nature do its job. And then you’ll be pregnant again a year later.”
Court had barely read the lines before Brenna shook the pad clear.
Court wrote, “You’re the second person to hint at that. Settlement not happening fast enough for them?”
“Not by a long shot. Officials here report to speculators back on Earth. Some company named Marquise.”
Court snatched the pad. “I know about them! They made Montana uninhabitable.”
“Same guys. They’ve got fingers in the pot everywhere. Lobbyists and everything. There’ll be no funding for new businesses and infrastructure improvements until certain population goals are met. The folks with the money want to make establishing flagships worth the investment.”
Court leaned back and muttered, “Shit.”
Brenna wrote, “Please be careful. I’m being candid because I’m afraid for you. I know who you are. Who your grandfather was, I mean.”
“Yeah?” Court’s hackles rose, and readied herself for an argument. She was sick of the arguments, but for as long as she had breath in her body, she’d defend his name.
Brenna nodded and shook the pad. “I think he was right about a lot of things. A lot of us do.”
Court’s heart stopped. She’d gotten herself amped up for a fight, and…there was nothing to fight about.
What a weird feeling.
“Brenna, I need that report about last week’s breaking-and-entering in Zone Five,” some detective shouted.
“Right, Salehi. I’ll show you how to pull it up.” She scrambled to her feet, and gave Court’s shoulder a squeeze as she passed, whispering, “Keep your nose clean. Please.”
Too late for that.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Court swiped her wrist in front of her front door and waited for the lock to tumble.
Marscadrel.
She scoffed and put her shoulder against the heavy door to push it open. At Health and Wellness, she’d been poked, prodded, and drained of enough blood to suffuse a small vampire only to be sent down to the clinic pharmacy for iron supplements. Six months in space had apparently depleted her stores. While down in the basement waiting on those pills along with Vitamin D supplements, a Jekhan janitor had pushed a mop past her.
Naturally, because she was a shameless McGarry, she’d followed him to a quiet hall and asked about Marscadrel.
He’d played dumb.
She hadn’t bought it.
She let the door swing closed behind her, locked it, and bent to scratch Jerry behind the ears. “Hey, buddy. I’ll take you out in a minute.”
She headed for the stairs.
With some additional pressing to the peeved janitor, she’d learned that Marscadrel was a synthetic hormone formulation designed to restore missing levels in Jekhan males and reboot the immune system so the body could fight off infections.
“Hormones? Jekhan males experience menopause?” she’d asked the janitor.
He’d shaken his head once she’d explained the term, and pushed his mop down toward radiology. “No. Once we start on the downhill slope, we’ll die. But that’s what you want, is it not?”
She hadn’t had words to respond, and that had suited him fine.
Her clothes, sans underwear, were folded neatly and stacked on the table beside the laundry machine in the hallway. Trigrian obviously hadn’t been joking when he’d said he’d figure out the buttons.
She continued on to the guest bedroom and stopped in the doorway.
Not only was the bed empty, but still crisply made.
“Where are they?” She hurried down the hall to the master.
Not in there either.
“Where did they go?”
Cold terror ricocheted down her spine, and she ran for the stairs.
Certainly Trigrian wouldn’t have taken a man as ill as Murk out into the streets. She hadn’t had any idea of how sick Murk was until she’d learned about the drug. He wasn’t just sick; he was dying. He wasn’t just a squatter, but a man in need of rescue.
She yanked the basement door open and flew down the steps without bothering to turn on the light.
“Please…”
She fell to her knees in the bedroom closet and yanked the secret panel open.
Empty.
“Fuck!” She pounded the wall right
as her wristband trilled, signaling an incoming call.
She tapped the band and pushed to standing. “Yeah.”
“If you don’t think the weather’s too warm for it, I’d love to meet you at Spilled Milk for the stew special.”
“Amy?”
“The one and only.”
“I thought you were on a shuttle run,” Court said.
Amy sighed. “Flight got delayed because of some solar flares or something that are impacting electronic equipment in space. I’m grounded here a few more days. How was your first day on the job?”
“Sucked.”
Jerry skittered up the stairs, and she followed, closing doors as she went.
“The police department’s a boy’s club. Did you expect otherwise?”
“No. I just hoped they’d disguise their revulsion of the fairer sex a little better. I’ve got a question for you.”
“Yes?”
Jerry sat in front of the cold, gas fireplace and stared at her.
Little weirdo. She opened the back door to let him out to do his business. He didn’t move.
“What’s your question?” Amy nudged.
“Oh. I was talking to the admin down at the station and she seemed to doubt that I’d be allowed to stay on the job very long given the woman shortage here.”
“Uh-huh.”
“If that’s true, then why are you still working? And her, for that matter?”
Amy giggled. “Simple. Just like how Eileen muddled your records, we all take steps to make ourselves inconvenient matches. Your coworker’s records could indicate that she’s infertile.”
“Even if she isn’t.”
“Bingo.”
“And what do yours say?”
“That I have a genetic predisposition to certain mental illnesses.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, but not the ones my files state.”
“I wish someone had clued me in on that before I came here.”
“We’ll figure out some other way to get you off the hook.”
Courtney pointed to the backyard. “Go, meatball. Pee and run around.”
Jerry stayed.
“What’s with you?”
“So,” Amy queried. “Can you meet me? I have it on good authority a certain baker wants to see you again.”