The woman had left behind a room full of advisors, of whom Mia was not one. “Are you asking my opinion, ma’am?”
“I am. Clearly there’s more to you than a successful businesswoman and you haven’t been afflicted by the disease of political blindness.”
The news about Messium had broken the morning before. Coupled with the vanishing of now eighteen colonies off the exanet, the citizens of the Milky Way were indeed beginning to panic. She’d had scant time to follow the news but had seen several reports of stampedes at spaceports and press conferences turned riotous.
“If it were up to me? I would very publicly provide the information to both the Alliance and Senecan militaries, as well as the leaders of the independent colonies. One, they need it—doing so could save lives. Two, it keeps Romane from being forced into picking a side. Three, it highlights the best aspects of Romane and its citizens—ingenuity, creativity, productiveness, intellect, generosity. It shows what individuals can do when given freedom and the fruits of their labor. Don’t be afraid to say that in the press statement because it happens to be true.”
Ledesme looked impressed. Mia wished she wasn’t too tired to properly appreciate it. “We maintain our freedom, strengthen our public profile as the best and strongest of the independent colonies, and shame both the Federation and the Alliance a little in the process. Coinciding with the fact it appears the blockade is cracking—I imagine those ships are needed elsewhere now—we stand to gain a great deal, assuming we live through this crisis. I’ll say it again, Ms. Requelme. You would make a skilled politician.”
“Well, if we live through this crisis, I’ll give it some thought. But for now I’m going to concentrate on the living part.”
“As are we all.” For a second the governor allowed her own weariness to show, and Mia had the idle thought perhaps one day they would be friends. “These are dark, difficult times. But here we stand. I’m sending you my personal contact address. If you should receive any new information, I’d greatly appreciate a heads up. No questions asked.”
“Absolutely, ma’am. Good luck. I believe you’re going to need it.”
With that she whirled and headed for the door, the first step in reaching her bed.
39
PORTAL PRIME
UNCHARTED SPACE
* * *
THE LUSHNESS OF THE FOREST increased as the steepness of the terrain eased. Colorful flora and fauna provided dashes of color to an endless pelt of clover grass.
The trees remained the primary decor, however, and they were increasingly fighting their way through dense woods. Though these mountains flowed at a moderate gradient rather than soaring up to craggy peaks, it was still high terrain.
“I killed my first man in some woods not unlike these.” Caleb didn’t peek over to see Alex’s reaction or determine whether she wanted him to continue. He needed to continue.
“It wasn’t as an agent. I was sixteen, working for the Senecan Wilderness Service for the summer repairing sensors and monitoring equipment. Late one evening, I was searching for a good place to camp for the night when I heard a cry.”
Not a cry…a keening wail conveying agony to chill his heart.
“I headed in the direction it came from and saw a man kneeling next to the corpse of an elafali. It’s a species native to Seneca…the closest equivalent is probably an elk or a moose. They’re endangered—rare to begin with and weakened by colonization—but they have these gorgeous spiral horns the color of pearled coral so poachers hunt them as prizes. The horns and sometimes the entire skull are sold as trophies on the black market.”
The animal’s guts were spilling out into the dirt, gleaming a sickly yellow in the evening rays. It had not been a quick or painless death for the creature.
“So this man was in the middle of sawing the horns off with a gamma blade. I could move fairly quietly by then and crept almost on top of him before he saw me. He stood, keeping a hold on the blade, and told me this was none of my business and I should be on my way.
“I responded that hunting elafali was illegal and I needed to report him. It was my job, though I would have done so regardless. He took a step forward and said, ‘You don’t want to do that, boy. I’ll ask you one more time to be on your way or we will have a problem.’”
The trees began to grow thicker, creating shade and cooling the air. He considered suggesting she get out the pullover he’d brought her from the ship…but she didn’t look to be shivering, not yet.
“I said ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t ignore this,’ and he lunged toward me. The guy was big, twelve centimeters taller than me and thirty kilos heavier.”
In the dim light he hadn’t been able to tell how much represented muscle and how much fat, not as if it mattered. He was a skinny kid just beginning to build muscles from the physical labor the job entailed, and the man would have crushed him either way.
“I kept a small Daemon on me because dangerous wildlife did roam the forests—not the elafali, which weren’t aggressive unless you threatened their young, but other animals. I reacted on instinct, drew it and fired. At such close range it sliced his chest wide open. The guy fell dead at my feet.”
He sensed her eyes boring into him and was unable to not glance over, but they showed only compassion. “You had no choice.”
“No. I didn’t.”
“What happened?”
“I gagged. Would’ve lost my dinner except I hadn’t eaten it yet. Then I alerted the authorities and sat down beside the corpse to wait. Not the man’s corpse, the elafali. It was such a beautiful creature, to be butchered for credits so some potentate could decorate his dining room with it….”
He’d carefully closed the eyes of the dead elafali, his hands shaking like a junkie desperate for a fix.
She squeezed his hand, encouraging him to continue.
“I suspect I was in shock for the first ten minutes or so. I don’t really remember them. Eventually I started pondering this man. Who he might be? Whether he left behind a family or kids? Whether anyone would miss him? But I realized I wasn’t sorry I had killed him. I was sorry he’d chosen to attack me, but he made the choice, and the hundred before it which led to that moment. And suddenly I was angry.
“How dare he try to take my life from me? He didn’t have the right to take the animal’s life and he damn sure didn’t have the right to take mine. He was a bully and a sadist who killed without the empathy to understand the consequences of his actions.”
He reigned in the intensity bleeding into his voice, surprised to be getting worked up about the event all over again some twenty-three years later. Perhaps it was because now someone or thing was trying to take the lives of everyone. Perhaps it was merely the familiarity of the woods.
“It worked out fine. The elafali carcass and the blade with the man’s fingerprints coating it were sufficient to convince the authorities I’d acted in self-defense. They brought me to the station for the formalities and my parents fussed over me for a day or so. Then it was back to life as normal.”
Their pace had slackened to an ambling stroll, and she placed a hand on his arm. “Is that why you got into your line of work?”
“What?” He forced an amused breath. “No. I told you, I got into it for the adventure.”
“I know, but…is it possible the encounter represented a formative experience? In your profession you’re able to stop a lot of unsavory people who believe they have the right to take from others—their money, their possessions, often their lives.”
He left the path to lean against a nearby tree. Was she correct? He enjoyed what he did because of the thrill of the chase, the challenge of each new mission and the confidence of being better than his targets.
But he couldn’t deny a powerful need for justice often invigorated his actions…none more so than when he eliminated the majority of the Humans Against Artificials terrorist group. They had murdered Samuel, and others before him.
If he thought about it now, he re
called at least a dozen missions through the years which had been heavily laced with a desire to exact recompense for harm inflicted. Might his life have taken a different path if he hadn’t discovered the poacher in the woods that night?
And he called himself self-aware. Yet she already saw deeper into him than he could himself. He gave her a diffident smile. “Maybe a little. You fancy yourself insightful?”
She closed the distance to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Hell no, I’m terrible at it.”
“Except when it comes to me.”
“Except when it comes to you.”
“It is a rather beautiful landscape.”
They had arrived at a glade of sorts, a clearing amongst the trees. Vibrant fauna of rust and gold dotted the scenery, in some cases winding up the tree trunks like symbiotic vines. Grass grew in tall blades to blanket the ground. A late afternoon light shone through the tree limbs in diffuse rays.
“It is. It’s also trying to lead us in circles.”
Alex glanced at him, curious. “What do you mean?”
“The topography and flow of the terrain are trying to prod us to circle back.”
“Not a surprise they would have numerous tricks up their sleeves, I suppose. But we’re not letting it, are we?”
“No, we are not. In fact…” Caleb nudged her to the edge of the glade and into the trees “…I expect down this hill we’ll find something new, and most welcome.”
She acceded to his nudging, welcoming anything which he deemed welcoming. And now that he had pointed it out it seemed evident the terrain was fighting them. The way through the glade would have been much easier and more pleasant and wound subtly away from their intended direction. Here the trees grew thicker and the ground rockier. To their left the mountain rose steeply, working again to force them to the right. He continued to angle left.
The sky began to dim as dusk descended. “Should we go back to the glade to camp for the night?”
“Nope. We’re good.” She eyed him suspiciously, but seeing as he was in charge for now didn’t otherwise protest.
Then there was a noise, steady and rough. It didn’t sound artificial, but…. “Caleb?”
He just shrugged mysteriously. Clever man knew what it was. But he hadn’t tensed; the set of his jaw had not locked, nor had his shoulders risen perceptibly. His hands were neither clenching nor unclenching. He didn’t believe the source of the noise represented a danger.
The air began to grow cooler, a damp chill she hadn’t previously noticed settling on her exposed arms. And then it was dark. “Caleb….”
“Trust me.” He held aside heavy brush and motioned for her to go on ahead. She did, so she ducked and stepped through—and gasped.
A waterfall over a hundred meters in height rushed down the mountainside. On reaching their level the water formed an oval-shaped pool before following a slope to the right to become a stream and trail back into the woods.
The water glowed with such a bright luminescence the area surrounding the pool was lit nearly to mid-day, though tinted an eerie amber.
His arms wound around her from behind and she sank against him, soaking in his warmth. “You think it’s a trap? Because it looks an awful lot like a trap.”
“No, this place is too well hidden. And I imagine were we to revisit the oceans we flew over when we arrived, we would find them glowing as brightly.”
As was so often the case, in hindsight the truth became blindingly obvious. “This is how they’re lighting the planet. The waters absorb the light at night and release it during the day.”
“Seems so.”
She squeezed his arms tighter at her waist, pulling him closer. “It must be some kind of photoluminescence, but it’s still artificial. I mean, it’s on a frigging timer.”
“Agreed. But you have to admit, it is a fairly elegant solution.”
“True. So what about this place, here?”
“I suspect it’s what it appears to be—rain or snow runoff traveling down the mountain to feed the valley.”
“What valley?”
“The one another five or so kilometers away.”
“Oh, that valley.” She craned her neck around to look at him. “Can we get clean? I haven’t had a shower in literally days.”
He kissed her ear. “Damn straight we can get clean. We’ll even camp here for the night.”
In seconds she had untangled from his arms and stripped naked, tossing the filthy and torn clothes into the trees. He had brought her a change of clothes, and she was never wearing those rags again.
She dove into the pool, only to surface howling as the frigid water seared through to her bones. His chuckle echoed behind her. That was fine, she’d be cackling at him soon enough. It was cold.
But she was intrigued now, so she went under once more. The water glowed clear through to the rocky bed. From within it was the color of French chardonnay. Feeling unaccountably carefree, she flicked her tongue out. Didn’t taste like it. A shame.
She reemerged to see Caleb gingerly tugging his shirt over his head. Once he had done so, she understood why.
Dark indigo-and-violet bruises marked his torso and shoulders. A deep scrape ran diagonally from his collarbone down to his ribs, and in three places it had torn open the skin. Though none of the gashes cut hazardously deep, the flesh surrounding them had swollen an angry scarlet.
She stared at him as he entered the water, her gaze solemn with concern. She met him halfway and reached up to oh-so-gently run fingertips over the bruises and along the edges of the wounds.
Her heart clenched at the stark sight of him being hurt. Not invincible. He had joked about the dragon slaying, but she hadn’t realized until now exactly how close he came to dying. All because he was trying to get to her.
His hand grasped her wrist and pulled it away from his chest. “No eVi to direct and supplement the healing. But I am healing.”
Incredulous at his cavalier attitude, she exhaled harshly. “You’ve been hiking all afternoon and evening like this? You lugged the pack like this?” She’d offered to carry it twice over the course of the hike; both times he’d blithely refused to hand it over. “You should have said something. And there are painkillers in the med kit, right?”
“If I couldn’t feel the pain I might forget about it and hurt myself more. It’s okay. I’ve had worse.”
She frowned at the notion but dipped her hand in the luminescent water and brought it up to the cuts, carefully washing off the dried blood and dirt. “You’re putting a medwrap on this as soon as we get out.”
“After.”
The tone in his voice inexorably led a corner of her mouth to tweak upward, despite the fact she was still worried about him. “After?”
In a blink he had submerged beneath the surface. Strong arms wrapped around her hips and lifted her up to drop her over his shoulder. The chill of the air blasted her wet skin. She squealed and played at struggling as he carried her out of the pool and to an area of thick grass on the shore.
He fell to his knees in the grass and eased her onto her back, then rested on an elbow beside her.
She shivered from the cool night air and the feel of his hand ghosting along her cheek, across her jaw and down her neck. When his fingertips delicately caressed a breast her breath hitched in her throat, due both to the caress and the reverence with which it was delivered.
His hand continued on to trace the contour of her hip but his eyes now rose to meet hers. His voice glided over her, as silken as his touch. “I thought you were dead. I didn’t dare admit it to myself at the time, but…I thought I’d lost you.”
Her hand found its way into his hair, damp waves lengthened to tickle his cheekbones. “I’m not dead. I promise.”
The curl of his lips sent a tremor shooting all the way to her toes, one having nothing to do with the cold this time. The glow from the water brightened his irises to a dazzling iridescent cerulean, but it was the look in them which sent her head spinning
.
No one had ever looked at her in such a way as this. It reminded her of the moment before they had breached the portal, though in retrospect the previous gaze had been but a pale hint of what she saw now.
And now, she didn’t need to ask what it conveyed. Her chest tightened as if it strove to constrain the emotions swelling within.
“No, you are not.” His head dipped to plant a tantalizing kiss on a nipple, then the curve of her breast where it met her sternum, then mirror his actions on the other side.
The kisses drew agonizingly down her abdomen. “You are very…” his tongue darted out to swirl around her navel, then drifted lower “…very much alive.”
Her head dropped back and her spine arched, and for a time she forgot every single thing that might have existed except the sensation of his hands and his tongue.
When she could endure the rapturous agony no longer she reached down and wound both hands into his hair, desperately urging him up.
He complied maddeningly slowly, and she was forced to raise up to crush her mouth against his and drag him on top of her. She relished his weight upon her, strong and sure, seemingly to the ends of the universe.
But just as he was about to slip inside her she shifted her hips, catching him off guard long enough to roll him onto his back beneath her. She giggled in devilish delight at the groan of frustration emerging from deep in his throat.
Her hair fell in waves to tickle his skin as she kissed each corner of his mouth and the curve of his jaw, holding herself centimeters above him with her hands on either side of his frame. Teasing him as he had teased her.
Judging by his expression of unbridled, smoldering desire, it was working.
A viblade didn’t function in the repulsion field, and his stubble was now veering dangerously close to a beard. Her lips burned from the friction, but she found she quite enjoyed the coarse roughness of it.
She stretched herself out along the length of his body, careful not to place undue pressure on his bruised, battered torso.
His hands lowered to her hips, firmly and somewhat insistently guiding her as she slid down over him, evoking a gasp from them each in equal measure.
Vertigo: Aurora Rising Book Two Page 26