by H. E. Trent
The space smelled like fresh-brewed coffee, and someone had rigged up the sound system to play some old AC/DC. The unexpected familiarity boggled her mind. To compound her confusion, there was so much dissimilarity around her, too.
The clothes on the racks weren’t typically Terran, but they weren’t simple Jekhan garb, either. They seemed to be some utilitarian combination of the two. Lightweight and made of the breathable fabrics Jekhans preferred, but containing all the tabs and pockets a Terran would want for the copious amounts of crap they carried around.
She picked up a pair of jeans and made an appreciative grunt, wondering if she could convince either of her men to squeeze into a pair.
Perhaps once they stop gaining weight.
They’d both put on a lot of mass in the past few months, and she figured the end was in sight.
“Can I help you find something?”
Court started at the sound of the deep voice behind her, and nearly dropped the hanger. She clutched her chest with one hand and slipped the jeans back onto their rack with the other before turning.
The man—with unkempt dark blond hair that tickled his ears and neck, and a beard that looked to have not seen a razor in at least a month—raised an eyebrow at her. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Don’t apologize. My mind wanders a lot lately. I probably wouldn’t pay attention to a bomb going off in the street.”
His nod came slowly. “I haven’t seen you before. I probably would have been the first to hear of someone new settling in the area.”
“Oh. Well, I…we’ve been in the area for a while. Just now making it into town.”
“Where’d you come from?”
“Uh…” She racked her brain for the name of a city—any other Terran-settled city besides Buinet, but couldn’t think of one. Before she’d relocated, she’d known them all. She’d had to memorize them for her the exams. She grinned. “Boston.”
“Boston, huh?” He rocked back on his heels. Cowboy boot heels, at that. “One of the few places in the northeast I hadn’t visited. I’m from Nevada, myself.”
“Going from one wild west to another, huh?”
He chuckled, and some of the tension he held in his jaw relaxed. “Something like that.”
“How long have you been here?” She was using a tactic she’d utilized all the time when talking to suspects back in Boston. If she distracted them from what they wanted to talk about, eventually, they relaxed. It probably didn’t hurt that she looked so small and harmless.
He whistled low. “Fifteen, sixteen years.”
Fifteen…
The math didn’t add up. “Fifteen years ago, we hadn’t started settling yet. Our soldiers had just started…”
He nodded slowly. “Go on.”
“Oh.” She didn’t think she needed to finish the statement. He was a soldier, or had been once.
“Yeah.” He grimaced and stuffed his hands into his half-apron’s pockets. “The folks here are…well…maybe they’re here for the same reason you are, huh?”
“I doubt that. I came to Jekh looking for someone and to do a little hiding, maybe, and realized later that wasn’t a great idea.”
“I could say the same for myself. But, at least you have a good excuse.” He pointed to her belly. “I’m just a deserter. Lots of deserters here.”
She opened her mouth, but closed it without speaking her question when she realized the folks standing around were brazenly watching them. She cleared her throat and tucked her hair behind her ears. “Um. Is that coffee I smell? I ran out five months ago.”
“That long? Shit. You and your husband must have staked a claim pretty far from here.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Pretty far.”
“What are you growing?”
“Right now, we’re just trying to figure out what thrives,” she hedged. She figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to reveal she knew too much about the native plants. “Re-planting what we found growing on the property.”
“Smartest thing you can do, honestly. I wish more folks would do that and stop trying to plant miracles they’ll never reap. I’ll get you a sample of that coffee, if you want some. I’m not sure about it yet. Had to go all the way to Buinet to pick up the order from my contact there, and the coffee was in storage so long I can’t tell if the piquancy is the natural taste or if the beans went a little rancid.”
“I’m no expert, but I’ve certainly consumed enough of the stuff to be able to tell the difference.” She followed him through the displays as quickly as she could, but keeping up was difficult when she wanted to stop and fondle the goods. She grabbed a beautiful hand-woven blanket on the way past a shelf and clutched it to her chest. There was no shortage of bedding at the farm, but she wanted something new for the baby—something of his or her own.
While the shopkeeper fiddled with the coffee pot, Court leaned against the counter and stared at the rack behind it. Medicines, mostly mild pain killers and skin ointments. Until that moment, she hadn’t given much thought to what her delivery would be like. In the back of her mind, she’d known she’d be giving birth at the house, but hadn’t considered the pain. On Earth, she could have chosen to deliver in a hospital with enough drugs that she wouldn’t have felt so much as a tickle, but she didn’t know what people in wild Little Gitano did. She was seriously unprepared, and her only guides were two men who’d admittedly spent minimal amounts of time around pregnant women.
“Is your husband nearby?” The shopkeeper pushed the coffee mug toward her along with a decanter of cream and a bowl of sugar.
“He’s…around. Exploring, probably.” More likely, Trig was waiting in the flyer with the doors open, ready for them to beat a hasty retreat as soon as he saw her on the road. “So, what kind of currency do you use here?”
He shrugged. “Whatever folks have. We have a couple of guys who do trade all over and we maintain our own conversion rates here. Whatever coins or credits you have, we’ll take.”
“Do any bartering?”
“Plenty. Whatcha got?”
She fondled Amy’s bracelet she’d carried in her bag, and chewed her lip contemplatively. “I’ve got a few things I might be interested in offloading. Listen, is there a com here? My family on Earth hasn’t heard from me in over six months.”
“Shit.” He grimaced. “Well, yeah, it’s back in my office, but our bootleg transmitter won’t connect to the satellite for a couple of hours. If you want to pre-record a message, I’ll queue it to go out as soon as the connection is up. We’ll hold any messages that come in for you until the next time you visit.”
“That’d be wonderful, thank you.” She wrapped her hands around the coffee mug and pulled in a long, deep breath. Already, she could smell the acid. The brew was going to be bitter, but she was going to drink it anyway as if it were much-needed, long-overdue medicine.
He watched her expectantly as she brought the brim to her lips. “What do you think?”
She gave a hard shudder. “Not even Jesus Christ could work a miracle on that.”
He threw his head back and laughed hard. “Okay. I might have messed up. It’s cut with something, right? I think the brew ratio is off.”
She gave another taste. “Chicory?”
He snorted. “Fuck if I know. I used to be a Folgers kinda guy.”
She tasted the coffee one more time. Definitely chicory. “You need to use half as much grounds. That chicory will have you tasting the bitterness all day long. More water, less coffee. It should be okay.”
“I’ll give your recipe a shot. Still annoyed they couldn’t get me plain-old coffee.”
“My—” She cut off the words, thinking better of them at the last second. My what?
She wasn’t even certain there was a word for what Trig was to her relationship-wise. He wasn’t her lover—not yet. Boyfriend seemed inadequate. Partner, maybe?
From a Jekhan standpoint, he was technically her spouse, but she didn’t think the shopkeeper would understan
d the arrangement. “My…husband,” she said anyway because simple seemed best. “He had a whim to try to grow coffee plants here.”
“Honey, if you can manage to grow ’em, I’ll buy every bean you produce. They’d be cheaper for me to sell than the imported stuff, and folks’ll stop complaining about how old it tastes. They drive me nuts.”
“I’m sure coffee complaints are the least of your worries.”
He sputtered, and then murmured, “You’ve got that right.”
She fondled her bracelet again and scanned the aisles behind her. She needed to get some seeds, for sure. And what else? They’d been making do without so many things and for so long that she’d all but forgotten what “necessities” were.
“Go ahead and pile everything you want onto the counter,” he said. “I’ll hold the order here while you record your messages.”
She spent five minutes walking around the meet-shop, picking up things she thought would be useful with a baby in the house, and indulged in a pound of cured bacon. Local it said. Someone around has pigs! Or at least something close enough to them. If the meat wasn’t pork, she didn’t want to be told otherwise.
She left everything on the counter and followed the arrows and the English-printed signs that read “COM.”
The office was small, so she easily found the com positioned in the corner. Plexiglas-like walls that were probably soundproof enclosed the cubicle, and the shopkeeper had provided a little stool in front of the panel.
Thoughtful.
She eased in, her big belly bumping the desk ledge, and closed the door.
“Who first?” Naturally, she needed to get in touch with her sister, but she also wanted to let Amy know she was okay. Brenna, too. Seemed a good enough order of business, so she put in the sequence for her sister’s encoded line first.
“Hey, Erin.” She gave the camera a little wave. “We’re okay. This area is very quiet. I’m due in a few weeks. I hope you’ll understand if I can’t be too precise about our position, but I wondered if you could send us some things. I’m going to scan the list in to convey with this recording. Tell Mom and Dad I’m all right, that the baby’s all right, and that I love everyone.”
She scanned her paper list into the feeder and then discarded it.
Amy next.
Court opted for sound only since Amy was so often out of visual communication range.
“Hi, Amy. It’s me, Courtney. I just wanted to let you know I’m okay and that the men are okay. Thank you for giving us your flyer. I swear, I’ll find some way to repay you. Send a message back to this address whenever you’re in range so I know you’ve received this.”
Brenna last.
Court twined her fingers and stared at the camera. Shy Brenna who’d stuck her neck out for Court. She may have spent half of her life on Jekh, but she hadn’t grown cold because of it. She still believed in kindness—in helping. Court had to hurtle herself through outer space to find a friend like her. She didn’t know if that was sad or hilarious.
“Hey, Brenna. I know you can probably get your brother to trace this communication and figure out exactly where I am, but don’t feel like you have to. I just wanted to let you know that I’m okay.”
The shop owner knocked on the booth wall, and held up a coffee mug, smiling. He mouthed, “Much better!”
Court gave him the thumbs-up.
He headed back toward the hallway.
She turned to the camera. “I’m due next month, I think. I’ll get in touch after the birth to let you know I survived.” Her laugh was tinged more by nerves than mirth. Women had been having natural births since forever. She wasn’t a special snowflake, but she did worry whether she was suitably equipped for the process. Her worst nightmare was the baby getting stuck and that they wouldn’t be able to figure out how to deliver him or her.
She signed off, stood with some effort, and made her way back into the shop.
The shop owner put down what looked like an old-fashioned walkie-talkie as she approached. She’d seen them in war movies. They’d been out of common use since around 2020, though she imagined they probably had their uses in such a remote place with so little infrastructure.
“How much do I owe you for the calls?” She reached into her bag for her wallet.
“Hey, don’t worry about the calls. I usually give first calls away for free when folks are new to the area.”
“I made three.”
He shrugged, and then itemized the merchandize on the counter. “Cash or trade?”
“Um…I’ve got Earth cash and…” She slipped the bracelet onto the counter. “I can give you that. A lot of people have been admiring it. Might be worth something.”
He snapped up the cuff and quickly turned it over. “Where the hell did you get that?”
Does he recognize the symbol?
Depending on which side he was on, that may not have been good thing.
“A friend,” she hedged.
“Well, keep that.” He slid the item back.
She stared at him.
“Take it. Really. You’ll regret the trade.”
“Why?”
“Listen, how much cash do you have?”
She kept staring, but a man like him had probably been stared down by far tougher opponents than elfin Courtney McGarry. He seemed totally unfazed.
She could press him and try to find out why, but Trigrian was waiting. She didn’t want to risk him doing anything reckless because he thought she was taking too long.
“I’ve got three hundred bucks in paper currency, issued in Buinet.”
“Okay, so you’re up to a hundred and twenty-five. Give me a hundred and I’ll put the twenty-five down on your tab since I can’t make change at the moment.”
“That’s kind of you. Pardon my suspicion.”
He rubbed his pale beard and shifted his weight. “Funny how that goes, right? No one here trusts a stranger to not have ulterior motives. Backward way of living.”
“Same here as on Earth, at least in my experience.”
“Sorry to hear it. But, look.” He took her cash and leaned in. “The way I see things, there are two ways to do business. You can be ruthless and squeeze every penny out of folks, or you can be a little flexible in hopes that if anything bad happens, your neighbors will help you survive.”
“I feel like I once heard my grandfather say that.”
She couldn’t be sure, but she thought a muscle beneath one of his scruffy cheeks twitched. The cop in her said to press him, but she couldn’t. Not yet.
He pulled an ancient tablet computer out from under the counter and shook it awake. “So…you’re twenty-five in the hole. What’s your name?”
“Courtney.”
“Got a last name?”
When she didn’t respond, he looked at her, gaze intense and focused.
She kept her lips zipped. She wasn’t giving up the name.
He drummed his fingers on the wood counter and ground his teeth a few beats. “All right, then. Let me know when you’ve made one up. At the moment, you’re the only Courtney on my list. So, hooray, you don’t get needled. Need some bags for this stuff?”
She needed a moment for all the words to settle into her brain—for her to assess her risks and hope that she wasn’t overlooking some treachery. But, his eyes were too kind. His posture too relaxed. His hands too still. She didn’t think he meant her any harm or that he had any planned. She hoped she didn’t regret that assessment later.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Trig and Court were barely out of the flyer before Murk’s relief at their safe return gave way to unmitigated anger.
He gave Trig a shove. “What. The. Fuck.”
Trig put up his hands. “The trip was my fault. Don’t blame Courtney.”
“No, no.” She retrieved a hemp bag from the back of the flyer and set it on the shed’s dirt floor. “I can fight my own battles. Going to town was my idea, Murk, and I used my witchy feminine wiles to convince him to fly me
.”
Does she think that’s funny?
Murk got out of Trig’s face and got into Court’s instead.
Unchastened, she stared at him unflinchingly. “I took a calculated risk, Murk.”
Trig collected the remaining bags from her.
“We needed to see what sorts of people are in town, and we needed supplies. People need community sometimes. And on that matter…” She gave him a hard poke to the shoulder. “Women need to be touched.” She started for the door, carrying a plush, cream-colored blanket under her arm.
What the hell is she talking about?
He started after her, but Trig grabbed his wrist and pulled him back. When she was out of earshot, he said, “She’s angry that we’ve spent so much time away. She thought we didn’t want her.”
Didn’t want her? Murk gave his head a hard shake. How could she possibly think that? He’d done everything he could to ensure her comfort. He’d given her space, as any woman in her condition would have wanted. If she’d known the sorts of lecherous thoughts streaming through his brain over the past few months, she might have banished him from the property altogether. Seeing her so delectably round and winsome kept his dick in a near-constant erection. Of course he’d stayed away from her. Not just to give her space, but to minimize his self-torture. He’d tried to only go near her when doing so was necessary—when his condition worsened. Apparently, she’d taken offense at that.
He threw up his hands.
I’ll never figure her out.
Trig handed him one of the heavy bags. “She’s not like us, Murk. I think we’ve wasted a lot of time not knowing her at all.”
They started for the door—the path to the family space. Court disappeared into the house as they stepped into daylight.
Trig whispered, “She said the Terrans in town are deserters from the first influx, and that they didn’t change anything there.”
“Odd,” Murk croaked. Much to Court’s hormonal annoyance, he’d been forcing his voice back a bit more each day. Apparently, Erin had been right, and Court probably liked him better when he didn’t speak.
“I thought the same thing. I wondered if maybe they kept everything the same on the premise of luring in Jekhans and making them think Little Gitano is a safe place.”