The Outback Stars

by Sandra McDonald

  “Terry,” the man said.

  “Daris.”

  “I didn’t think—” A mixture of regret and guilt crossed Daris’s face. “I didn’t think you’d want to ever see me again.”

  “I didn’t come so you could make amends.” Myell made sure every word was hard and tight. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say about the past. All I want is to find some people. Can you help, or should I leave?”

  Daris’s cheeks reddened and he ducked his head. “I’ll try.”

  “I’m looking for Chief Petty Officer Massimo Chiba, Lieutenant David Quenger, and Lieutenant Commander Samuel Osherman, all from the Aral Sea. They would have arrived here on the first shuttle yesterday. I need to know where they went or where they are now.”

  Daris nodded. “Sit down in the lounge there. It may take a bit.”

  Anger surged through him—he sure as hell didn’t take orders from Daris—but just as quickly the hot spark faded, and Myell sat down on a lumpy red sofa. He rubbed his face with his hands and ignored the fear that the Shore Patrol was closing in on him as he waited. He helped himself to a cup of bland-tasting coffee as a few minutes turned into a half hour. Koo wriggled in his pocket and he took her outside into the thick Waipata afternoon.

  “I think this is where you and I part company.” He put her down at the base of a shrub. “Things might get hairy from here on in.”

  She gazed at him, flicked her tail, and darted off.

  “You don’t have to be so sentimental,” Myell called after her.

  Back in the lounge, a half hour turned into an hour and then ninety minutes. He went outside a few times but Koo didn’t return. Myell tried some snacks from the machine, but they tasted oily and his stomach threatened another revolt. Employees came and went, bitching about their jobs and coworkers. Myell was thinking about leaving when Daris returned and said, “Two of them bought tickets to Port Douglas and flew up last night. Nothing up there but the Corroboree. The other one, Osherman, I don’t know, is probably still in the city. He didn’t leave this terminal under his own name, at any rate.”

  Myell rose. “That’s all I needed to know.”

  Daris caught his arm. Myell jerked free and almost swung out, but Daris backed away.

  “Sorry.” Daris held up both hands. “But don’t leave. While I was pulling the info up, your name flashed across the security list. The Shore Patrol, terminal guards, and Waipata City Police are all looking for you. They’ll catch you if you’re on the streets. Stay the night and I’ll try to get you some credentials.”

  Myell eyed him warily. “Stay where?”

  “I have an apartment.”

  No. He wouldn’t put himself in that kind of position. Just being in the same room as Daris made him feel jittery, like a small electric shock was being run through him from scalp to toes.

  “I have a friend,” Daris said. “He does good work, fast. You’ll need ID.”

  Myell stared past Daris to a bulletin board full of handwritten announcements. Transportation for sale. Someone looking for a roommate. Common sense warred with ingrained fear. Yet he was no longer a child, unable to fend for himself.

  “I can help,” Daris said, more softly. He looked broken, suddenly, and so much like their father that Myell nearly shuddered.

  “All right,” Myell said. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Daris lived twenty minutes from the terminal. They took a P-train three stops and walked the rest of the way in the thick, swampy air of sunset. Brightly colored parrots flitted from roof to roof above them in a neighborhood that was prefab and bland. At a convenience store they stopped to pick up food and supplies. Daris’s apartment was on the second floor of a corner complex. Just three rooms, neat but impersonal, with stacks of paperbacks piled up in corners and on shelves.

  “People leave them,” Daris said. “At the terminal. The cleaners throw them away.”

  The sofa was long and hard, but it would do. Daris disappeared into the bathroom and Myell was left only with the hum of the climate control, a little too cold for his taste. He wished he was at Colby’s house instead of this drab apartment. He wished he was anywhere else, in fact.

  Daris returned. “You want some dinner?”

  “No. Why don’t you have a vid?”

  “There’s never anything interesting to watch.”

  To fill the silence Daris tuned the radio to evening news. Myell leaned back with absolutely no intention of dozing off, but the next thing he knew, Daris was sitting in the side chair, reading a flattened book while tearing at the crusts of a tomato sandwich. The quirk was as familiar to Myell as his own hands.

  “Want a sandwich?” Daris asked.

  “No,” Myell said. “Are you going to ask why the Shore Patrol is after me?”

  “No.”

  “You’re not curious?”

  “I’m curious,” Daris said, not meeting his gaze. “But it’s none of my business.”

  Damn straight. The old Daris would have demanded every detail, voiced unsolicited and wrongheaded suggestions, and insulted him for getting into such a predicament.

  “My friend Lem will be by in an hour or so,” Daris said. “He’ll want at least a thousand yuros. If you don’t have the money, I could get it on credit.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because,” Daris replied, with a shrug.

  Myell tried half a sandwich, but the tomatoes tasted metallic. He forced down some soy milk instead. Had to keep his strength up, at least until he found Chiba. In the bathroom he pulled out the coloring kit he’d bought at the store and dyed his hair blond. He had just finished when Lem, a stooped man with corkscrew black curls, dropped by as promised with a bag full of equipment. He set his gear up on the coffee table.

  “Just for you?” Lem asked.

  Myell thought hard. “Can you make one up for a woman I know?”

  “You got her picture?”

  He didn’t, but he knew there were public vids of her from the Yangtze disaster.

  “Easy enough.” Lem pulled down Jodenny’s picture in seconds. “Same last name, how’s that? You just got married.”

  The two IDs cost him much of Ganambarr’s money, but the job was done within minutes. Lem took off into the night. Daris pulled some sheets and a blanket from the closet and said, “I usually turn in early. You take the bedroom, and I’ll take the sofa.”

  “Why?”

  “So you can lock the door,” Daris said.

  “Your front door doesn’t lock?” Myell asked, perplexed. Then he caught on. “Oh. Do I need to?”

  Daris locked gazes with him.

  “No. I’ll never raise my hand to you again, Terry. If I do, God or you or anyone can strike me dead.”

  Myell heard the conviction in that promise, understood that this was the closest Daris was going to get to an apology, and knew that Chaplain Mow would urge him to accept, forgive, and move forward.

  “Fine,” Myell said. “I’ll take the bedroom.”

  He did, in fact, lock the door. Just because he could. Myell didn’t like the idea of sleeping on Daris’s bed and so he spread the blankets on the floor and stared at the dark ceiling. He heard nothing from the other apartments, no music or conversation or arguments. He curled up on his side, the blankets tight around his shoulders, the fake identity cards heavy in his pocket. In the morning he would go back to the terminal, find a flight up to Port Douglas, somehow find Chiba, resolve everything.

  Not everything, perhaps. Not his relationship with Daris, sound asleep in the other room. That was a knot too twisted to be worked out in one night. Still awake at midnight, he went out to the living room. Daris was sitting by a light with a book, but he didn’t look as if he’d been reading it.

  “Say you’re sorry,” Myell said, “and mean it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What for?”

  Daris didn’t flinch. “For hitting you. For belittling and humiliating you. For being an ass
hole of a brother, day in and day out. For ruining everything. For not being a man when Mom died and Dad started drinking.”

  Myell replied, “You were only fifteen when she died. That wasn’t your fault.”

  “The rest of it was.”

  In the dark apartment, with only the whisper of the climate control vents to fill the air, Myell felt something soothe over the raw, scraped feeling he’d been carrying with him for so long.

  “Can you forgive me?” Daris asked.

  “I’ll think about it,” Myell replied.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Jodenny paced the VIP cabin, stir-crazy with boredom and angry with herself. She should have given Myell more of an opportunity to explain. Whatever had happened with that inventory, he had still saved her life in T18. When she remembered how she had treated him in front of Gallivan and Timrin, she felt sick. Cheddie visited at dinnertime and brought news that only made her feel worse.

  “Myell’s AWOL. He probably got off the ship somehow. My guess is he’s down on Waipata chasing Chiba.”

  “Jesus,” she said, and rocked back in her chair.

  “Still think you should have joint counsel? He’s not exactly proving your innocence, here.”

  “What I need is a gib. There’s not even a desk unit here!”

  Cheddie said, “Commander Picariello considers it in everyone’s best interest if you don’t have one right now.”

  “He can’t refuse me.”

  “Sure he can,” Cheddie said. “Gibs aren’t guaranteed. I think you proved that in your own division.”

  Jodenny fumed. “I want to see the captain.”

  “I’ll put in a request, but don’t expect any quick response.”

  “Is this protective custody or house arrest?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m guarding your rights. They can’t take any statements from you without my presence. There are no bugs or electronic surveillance devices in these quarters, or so I’ve been told. Be patient. Things will settle down in a few days.”

  “A few days might be too late.” Myell was barely well enough to be out of bed—how could he go traipsing around Warramala? If he ran up against Chiba, he’d be in no condition to defend himself.

  “Can you ask Ensign Strayborn to stop by?” she said. “Assuming I can have visitors.”

  Strayborn came by after dinner wearing a wary expression. “Glad to see you’re up and around, Lieutenant. They treating you okay?”

  “Well enough. What happened with the April inventory?”

  “I’ve been advised by my lawyer not to say anything. I don’t want them to take my commission away, Lieutenant.”

  “Tell me what happened. If it’s not too awful, maybe I can help.”

  Strayborn shook his head.

  “I need to know, Ensign,” she said. “I need to know if I can trust Myell.”

  “Why is it so important to trust Myell?”

  Jodenny dropped her gaze. “Because I’m in love with him.”

  “Christ.” Strayborn sat and rubbed his hands over his face. Glumly he continued. “You’ll find out anyway. We only wanted to get the reconciliation done. It was late, you’d called in an inspection for the morning, we knew the dingoes had been acting up—Terry didn’t want to. The rest of us persuaded him. I told him I’d square it with you and the chief but honestly, I didn’t think it would make much of a difference. It’s not the first time I’ve seen large-scale glitches happen, and you never questioned us about it.”

  “Who else was involved?”

  “Ishikawa, Hosaka, Su, and Lange. But I was the one in charge.”

  “Will the others back your account up?”

  “They don’t have to. Myell recorded the whole thing, the bastard. I don’t know if he thought there would be a problem later, or if he was nervous about being in the observation module with Ishikawa by himself, but Security uncovered it this morning when they were going through the tower logs.”

  Jodenny fought a sigh of relief. Myell’s name would be cleared, mostly, in that regard. But Strayborn’s career was in jeopardy.

  “I’ll do what I can,” she said. “Maybe they’ll settle for a letter of reprimand.”

  After Strayborn left, Jodenny was left with only her grim imagination and the idea of Myell down on Warramala getting into god knew what trouble. She spent a sleepless night envisioning the worst and heard nothing until Cheddie brought more bad news.

  “Fleet has ordered you down to headquarters,” Cheddie said. “Admiral Nilsen wants to see you. Commander Senga will take you down.”

  “What does the admiral want?” Jodenny asked.

  “I don’t know. But she’s got appointments all day and then a box seat for the quarterfinals tonight, so you have to hurry.”

  Jodenny had time to grab a fresh uniform but nothing else. Fifteen minutes later she was strapping herself into the CO’s launch across the aisle from Senga, who poured himself a drink and grabbed some peanuts. The pilot popped his head in to say they were being bumped up the priority line for departure.

  Jodenny asked, “Are we coming back up tonight?”

  Senga smirked. “I am. You’re not. Didn’t they tell you? You’re being reassigned to Fleet until this is all straightened out.”

  “Reassigned?” Jodenny squeaked. Fucking Cheddie, he was her lawyer, he should have told her. But what if no one had told him?

  “I thought you knew.” Senga didn’t sound apologetic at all. “The Master-at-Arms will pack up your cabin and send your stuff down.”

  The birdie launched. Jodenny turned to the vid so Senga couldn’t see her eyes. Goddamn them all. The Aral Sea’s mammoth shape began to fall away, the sun glinting off the hull, shifting and changing its silhouette like a living thing. She didn’t expect she’d miss the ship itself but already the loss of her people and her fellow officers was a hollow place in her chest. The descent into Warramala’s atmosphere went smoothly as the launch, with no delays in orbit. Waipata, the capital, had been built on the southern continent along the Motuponui River. The port was a mammoth series of transportation domes glittering green in the sunlight. Jodenny and Senga were ushered through a private Customs lounge and their cards scanned in by a polite young woman who tried to give them strings of Corroboree beads.

  “Maybe later,” Senga said.

  Jodenny took some beads and twirled them between her fingers. She had been to the Warramala Corroboree before, she and Jem and Dyanne, all of them caught up in the riot of dance, drink, and song. When she followed Senga outside, Warramala’s humid air slapped her in the face like a hot, wet towel. She didn’t need a mirror to see her hair spring into curls. They quickly located the admiral’s flit and slid inside to cold air and tinted windows.

  “Beer?” Senga asked, leaning forward to the small refrigerator. “Compliments of Fleet.”

  “No.” Jodenny stared out past the green and brown landscape toward the Team Space buildings in the distance. They’d stick her in some shit job again, something no one else wanted to do, and it was so much like being on Kookaburra that she didn’t know how she was going to stand it. When something crashed against the nose of the flit it took her a few seconds to turn that way. The tourist who had lost control of his luggage cart began to argue with the Team Space chauffeur.

  “Christ,” Senga said. “Stupid dill.”

  The argument grew more heated. Senga stepped out to intervene. Jodenny squeezed the bridge of her nose, imagining the upcoming months of boredom, scandal, and innuendo. Meanwhile Myell was out there somewhere, maybe still ill from the radiation, maybe needing her help, and what was she doing? Sitting on her ass while others determined the course of her destiny.

  Screw that, she decided, and slid out the side door.

  She threw herself into the crowds and circled back into the terminal. Somehow she had to get some yuros, find out where Quenger and Ishikawa had gone, and stop whatever plans they had. No worries. She had barely gone five steps when she heard someone call, “Kay!”
and Myell grasped her arm. He was dressed like a tourist and had dyed his hair blond.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Looking for Osherman and Chiba.” Jodenny peered at him earnestly. “Hoping to find you.”

  Myell didn’t immediately reply. She saw that he didn’t know whether or not to trust her. Well, she’d certainly given him ample cause for doubt. She wanted to throw her arms around him and beg for forgiveness.

  “Terry—”

  “Come this way.” Myell hustled her down a concourse of tourist stalls and fast-food restaurants. Jodenny looked up for overhead cameras, sure they could be tracked by security forces, but Warramala was one of the least monitored places in the Seven Sisters: they valued privacy and liberty here more than anywhere else.

  “Give me your gib,” Myell said, and when she did he tossed it into a trash can.

  “Hey—” Jodenny protested.

  “Fleet can track it.”

  He hustled her into a rent-a-room, told her to stay there while he got her something to wear, and returned five minutes later with a yellow sundress, a wide-brimmed hat, and a pair of sandals. She changed quickly while he waited outside. When she emerged she said, “I know that fixing the inventory was Strayborn’s idea.”

  Myell’s expression gave her nothing to work with. “We can talk later. We’ve got a boat to catch.”

  “What boat? To where?”

  With one hand holding a duffel bag and another on her arm, Myell walked her along the people-movers. “Port Douglas. It’s where Quenger and Chiba went.”

  “Why don’t we fly up there?” Jodenny asked.

  “Security there is too tight. The gates probably already have your picture.”

  “Don’t we need ID for the boat?” she asked as he stopped by a ticket kiosk.

  “It’s taken care of.” Myell punched in data and waited for plastic tickets to spit out. “I’m Alan Foster and you’re my wife, Noreen.”

  So they had gotten married. Too bad Jodenny didn’t remember the details. She followed Myell down a ramp to the waiting passenger ferry. Four decks high and a hundred meters long, it was the largest ship at the piers. Rust and tan-colored Corroboree banners hung from several railings, and a throng of pilgrims stood at the stern receiving blessings from the river. Do-wops danced and sang on the open deck above them.