On the Run (Wine of the Gods Book 28)

by Pam Uphoff

  "You've studied up in a hurry," she teased. "I think you were more of a businessman than a breeder, before."

  He nodded. "Trawlei was such an expert, I left it all to her. And really, we weren't ever big competitors, we both just liked to ride. A foal now and then for the fun of it."

  "So you made your money in business? Did you own your own business?"

  He'd worked out how to put his experience in the Kingdom into this World's terms. "I have degrees in business and law, started out working for other people, but I judged some real estate market fluctuations correctly and wound up working for myself, turning borderline slum property into commercial property, selling some, leasing others. Out west. With Trawlei gone, and the boys and I . . . Theo, the younger one, didn't handle it well, got into a bit of trouble and I was less than honest in getting him out of it. Richard couldn't make up his mind which of us to be the most disgusted with, and isn't hardly speaking to me. Theo . . . he's probably still getting into trouble. But now he's going to have to get himself out of it. I'm keeping myself away for both our sakes." He paced over to the next stall. Jesting Time looked relaxed and drowsy. "I'll just stick to horses, and play the stock market. That's better all around."

  That had so many holes in it . . . On the surface, on paper, it worked. Fidel and Rior had worked over the computers of this world, sometimes paying personal visits to the government agencies to get the right authorizations. But anyone physically checking on them wouldn't be able to find anyone who knew them, wouldn't find the purported sons, Richard or Theo. Nor any distant family who remembered any of them. But it was solid back three generations on paper, where it faded into the brushwork of families that had died out. He'd bought and sold some business property last year, so some people would recognize him. But his business and law degrees were from a distant world, and while he was studying this World's, he was far from an expert. Well, he'd keep studying, and eventually he'd be what he'd claimed all along.

  Chapter Five

  15 March, 2961

  Ajay pulled himself reluctantly off Hailey, and sprawled out beside her. "So, why do you want to be a criminal? Why not get a job, since you've got that high-powered education?"

  "There aren't enough jobs for the number of graduates. I partied too much to be in the top ranks, so the job offers didn't come my way. That's the way it is. Are you from Mars, or something?"

  "Something. Mars is a mite cold for my tastes. I mean, I fool with horses, riding, training, mucking out stalls, everything. I enjoy it, certainly didn't go to school to learn how it's done."

  "I'll bet you grew up on a horse farm. My dad was an insurance exec. Off to the office every day, home every night, golf once a month, fatal heart attack at fifty. That's the World, as I know it."

  Ajay nodded. Fourteen billion people, and all this 'automation' is doing most of the work. Makes Home look lovely. There was always something for the able-bodied to do. He snickered faintly. If one was honest enough to want to work. Otherwise, you team up with a bunch of witches and steal things.

  "Well, I'm no paragon of honesty, so I can't pick on you."

  "You've got a job. I wish I had one, I wouldn't steal if I didn't feel like it was the only option I had left. See, if you go on the dole, they sterilize you." She ran her hand over her stomach and smiled.

  Two and a half months along, like all the others. And now they can't even steal as easily. A foreign feeling, that might have had some resemblance to responsibility, stirred. He had money. Fidel had raided the Gang's account, transferred the funds to Ajay. And Ajay had followed his hint to get an investment broker. He was earning about . . . he started dividing up his income by all the women in the sisterhood and blanched a bit. Pretty damn small allowance, even if he didn't keep any. Now, he could give half of it to Hailey and she'd be in great shape. But he'd been reading the papers, and stuff ongrid, and if anything was clear, it was that women could really screw men financially. So he needed to stay untraceable, give money to Hailey in cash, and maybe talk old Fidel into really doing a corridor to the Moon. And selling it for a big chunk of change.

  Chapter Six

  4 November 2961

  "You really like this Fidel fellow, don't you?"

  Peggy looked over at her father in surprise. He looked serious, and concerned. "Oh. Dear. You do realize that using the resources of your department, which of course doesn't actually exist, to check out your daughter's beaus is probably why I'm a thirty-two-year-old spinster, don't you?"

  He didn't reply.

  "So, what's wrong with this one?"

  "I looked at him because he's investing fairly heavily in the Redoubt. As far as I can tell, he walked out of nowhere eighteen months ago, selling gold in small enough amounts to not trip any alarms, but steadily enough to build up a considerable nest egg. He's in all the computer databases. Everything backs up his story, but disinter the backups from two years ago and he disappears. It's all fake. Has my experts sweating buckets trying to figure out how he did it."

  Peggy felt hollow with shock. "So, is he a foreign agent? Or a criminal?"

  Her father looked down at his hands and hesitated. Alarms went off in her head. Daddy never hesitates unless it's going to hurt.

  "We collected a DNA sample. And then another because the results were so bizarre. Technically, he is human. But there's been some serious genetic engineering done. I've got more staff trying to figure that out. The other fellow there is the same. Well, not identical, but thoroughly engineered. Yesterday we met up with another probe, into the strange genetics of a bunch of babies born a month or two ago. It seems Ajay attended an orgy at a sisterhood house. Big New Year's Eve party. The funny thing is that not only did every single woman there—thirty-four of them—get pregnant, not a single one even considered aborting, and every single baby is his. Some of them are as much as eighty percent his—the mother's DNA swapped out for more of his. The biowarfare people are all boggling and wondering what the hell happened."

  "Ajay has thirty-four babies?"

  "Thirty-seven. Three sets of twins. Naturally, twins occur in about one out of two hundred pregnancies."

  Peggy sat down and stared into space. "Umm. What do you think is going on? Fidel looks Caucasian, but a bit tanned. I wondered if he was perhaps part Asian."

  "The DNA analysis, above and beyond the unnatural genes, seemed to correlate with Northern European and a touch of Central American Indian."

  "So . . . he's probably a Spanish spy?"

  "I'd be sure of that, if it just weren't for the engineered genes, genes never found in nature. At least not in a human being. He's actually got what the lab swears is a bird gene for blue pigment."

  "What about Ajay, same mix?"

  "Caucasian, African and Jewish. Someone fixed his Tay-Sachs gene. A medical breakthrough that would make Mr. Andrew Jackson Enterprise filthy rich, if he knew how to do it to others."

  "And he doesn't?"

  "We haven't asked him yet." He hesitated again. "We need to know what's going on. So . . . will you continue to see Mr. Iron?"

  Peggy froze. Oh. Spy on Fidel. Fidel. The man with all the nice horses. The nice man, who doubts himself so deeply. With the big two-year-old from nowhere with no papers. She sighed. "All right. What do you want me to do?"

  "For now, nothing. If we can't find anything out, any other way, we may prod him a bit. And your analysis of his response would be needed."

  She nodded. "Right."

  "And don't go near him until you've settled down."

  "Right. I think Pride needs some cross-country work. Long and slow."

  "Good." He stood up, and looked down at her. "I'm sorry. You've been so happy this year."

  "Well, maybe he's a space alien, no connection with local political wrangling." She smiled weakly and headed for the stables. She needed a really, really long ride.

  Chapter Seven

  10 November, 2961

  "Well, that was quite a party, wasn't it?" Ajay looked around at all the
women with their babies and wished he'd had sense enough to run for it.

  ***

  Fidel let the young stallion walk, feeling the horse's tense muscles though the pad and saddle, and the gradual relaxation of his back muscles. The horse's head dropped a bit as his initial alarm faded. Fidel tightened the reins, letting the youngster feel the bit. They'd spent enough time ground driving that steering and stopping was easy, and he used his voice as much as his legs to urge the horse forward.

  Peggy's car drove up to the barn. She parked and walked over. "So, today was the day and you didn't even tell me?"

  He grinned over at her. "It was unspectacular, as it should have been. If you'd like, tack up Blitz and let's take a nice slow stroll around the countryside."

  Sun towered over the thoroughbred. Fidel had seen his sire, a heavy warhorse if he'd ever seen one, not a bit of the leg feathers one would see on a draft horse, however much he matched them in size. Sun wasn't going to be that large, but he wasn't done growing at seventeen hands.

  "Still no papers?" Peggy asked. "I'd hate to see someone claim ownership of him, at this late date. You've put a lot of time and feed into that handsome fellow."

  Fidel steered Sun after her, gently slowing him. "There's a long way to go between this and his first show. I'll just play my fish along slowly, thank you."

  She sighed. "I'd have an ulcer, worrying about it."

  "I'm a patient man."

  Sun pointed his ears at a pheasant that burst out of the grass ahead of them, but didn't copy Blitz's spooky head toss. The morning sun was bright and warm, the air fresh and cool. And on a day like this I feel young. He had to restrain an impulse to gallop, held the young horse's first ride to a few brief trots.

  Peggy was glowing with contentment as they unsaddled the horses and turned them out. He had no idea where Ajay was, today. With his harem, most likely.

  "Breakfast? Or I suppose it's nearly lunch." He ushered her through the kitchen door and when she turned her glowing face up to him, he failed to restrain the impulse and leaned to kiss her.

  Bliss was Peggy in his arms, in bed, after they'd exhausted each other. Pleased each other.

  He stroked her short, professionally trim hair. "Umm. I'm going to have to start working at impressing your father."

  She tensed. "Oh. He, umm, thinks you're a . . . bit old for me."

  Fidel could feel his own muscles tensing. He had too many years in government to not translate that to her father considering him a security risk. He hadn't the faintest idea what the elder Falconstone did, somewhere in the government's bureaucracy. The man's reticence made intelligence rather likely. I've been thoroughly checked, and probably found to be lacking. "Warned you off, did he?" She froze at that. Was she afraid of him? Should she be? For a moment he saw the staircase clearly, holding off the Security agents from behind a shield of Peggy . . . Never. Never.

  He nuzzled into her hair. "It hardly matters. He's right. I'm closer to his age than yours."

  "He worries too much about me."

  Fidel chuckled at that. "Oh, that's a father's prerogative. Is he insane to have not locked you up to keep you out of my clutches? No. That's not the problem."

  "What is the problem?"

  "Hmm. Maybe I need to be less cautious, and give a demonstration of what a brilliant and valuable fellow I am." And stop putting off the Lunar corridor. Once past that lump, once multiple dimensions are accepted, I can explain without being thought insane.

  Her arm around his ribcage tightened. "I think you're valuable."

  He cuddled her body against his. "Good. Then there's only your father to impress."

  Chapter Eight

  1 December 2961

  They could find no drag effects on the ground. Even over long distances, the mileage never varied, no matter the number of bubbles they carried, or corridors they stretched. Fidel took several trips in small planes, and the pilot seemed to find everything normal as he pulled ten corridors along.

  They incorporated under the name Trans-Dimensional corridors and Fidel bought himself a ticket to the Moon.

  Fidel looked at his papers, or more precisely, his plastic chips. Am I standing at the top of the stairs again? If I am wrong about the corridor, I am going to push a hundred people—and myself—down them. He smiled at the hostess and went where he was ordered. The preflight physical was a quick confirmation of the more exhaustive exam two weeks ago. Then he was passed to the training rooms, where he donned the stretchy tight suit that could save him if the shuttle lost pressure. He looked in the mirror and shook his head in dismay at the old man in long underwear. Well, not so old any more, almost young enough to be worthy of Peggy. Do I dare? All those blithe comments about breeding some witch children. Ha! I want Peggy's children to be mine. My heirs, of whatever I make of myself in this new world.

  He practiced putting on and taking off the helmet half a dozen times, until he could do it smoothly and easily. After that it was just a matter of waiting for the launch. He rinsed his mouth out several times, but didn't drink, and walked around until it was time to board. He sat in a tiny seat, a thin wall on one side to give a semblance of privacy, an aisle on the other. The seat reclined during some hours of the day, there was a drop down table, and a screen with full grid access and communications. He'd survive the three day trip. Almost everyone did.

  He accessed all the books he'd requested, and selected a fat work on the history of the Universe to start with. He'd gotten as far as the formation of the first stars when the warnings for take off sounded. The big carrier lumbered into the skies, and headed up. Two hours later, it dropped them at the edge of space and their own engines kicked in and drove them the rest of the way. Fidel ignore the grumbling complaints of the others about the acceleration. One and a half times the pull of gravity was small enough, and it lasted a surprisingly short period of time. Three times a day they would fire the engines for a tenth-gravity acceleration. These were their meal times, and the time most people would want to use the facilities. Right now, the engines shut down and the passengers flocked to the two open spaces, an observation bubble and a microgravity experimentation center. Bobby Winston had warned him, so he stayed away until everyone who was going to get sick had done so, and everything was cleaned up. He felt a bit queasy himself, and went first to the observation deck. He'd seen the night sky from the tall mountains of the Great Divide. Perhaps one could see more stars here, but the stale air and the solid plastic made the viewing less visceral, and he didn't stay long. See? I'm still dragging the corridor along, no problem at all. In the experimentation center he bounced around enough to make himself regret his stiff old joints, then returned to his seat, and the formation of the second generation of stars.

  The book hastened onward, to the current theories of planetary formation, and a rollcall of the solar system. Fidel noted that Hygiea was listed as the fourth largest of the asteroids. Here. Then on to the specifics of Earth's natural history. He started skimming, being in familiar territory, with this. All the same, for every World he'd ever been to that was advanced enough to have a real natural history written up. Right up to the end of the last ice age. Which here really was the end. Unlike his poor star-crossed home, hit by a piece of Hygiea just as the ice sheet finally retreated. Thirteen thousand years later the glaciers still covered both poles, down to nearly forty-five degrees.

  Anthropology and archeology were interesting, and kept him occupied for the remainder of the trip.

  The lunar gravity allowed them to set down gently, and they all slowly filed off the shuttle to view their, in his case, temporary living quarters. The central dome of the Redoubt was lavishly landscaped, the plants reaching upwards on impossibly thin stalks. He admired it all, took the full tour, and returned to his room ready to experiment with the corridor.

  He opened it and stuck it to the wall opposite his bed, and sat to write a note. He didn't see Ajay on the other side, just his study, and he read until a flicker of motion caught his ey
e. Ajay waving at him through his foggy view of the corridor. He looked at his watch, it was 10AM in Cloverdale. Very close to their worst case.

  Fidel crumpled his note and tossed it through. It burst into flame. Ajay pounced and put it out, unrolled it and nodded. He wrote a note himself, crumpled and tossed it.

  Fidel hastily caught the flaming missive and extinguished it with his coat. He uncrumpled it and read I'll start by making it ten X. Fidel nodded to the young man, and sinking into meditation himself, could see Ajay sort of leaning and stretching and adjusting something about the bubble material. Fidel crumpled another page of his notebook and tossed it.

  In the end they made the corridor time pass at a hundred times the exterior time. If everything in it experienced ten seconds of time in the brief transition, then at worst three g's would be felt. The mice made it through and back several times before Fidel stepped through. A momentary pressure, then he stepped out into the heavy gravity.

  Ajay was grinning. "Works like a charm, eh?"

  "Indeed." Fidel settled in his desk chair and picked up the ornate old-fashioned phone and dialed Bobby Winston's number. "Bobby? I've a business deal I need to talk over with the Redoubt Board of Directors, but first I'd like to show it to you . . . "

  Two hours later, Bobby was phoning around for an emergency meeting of the Board.

  The next day, they moved the Earth end of the corridor to London, carrying it invisibly along on the plane flight. Fidel sat quietly, and Ajay sweated nervously in his new suit.

  Bobby looked a bit manic as he introduced them around.

  Fidel helped Ajay tack down the corners of the corridor. The Board members frowned at the small lunar quarters room.

  "That's a very high-end three-dee hologram." CEO Benjamin Douglas frowned at it.