Jumper's Hope: Central Galactic Concordance Book 4

by Carol Van Natta

  Hujuru didn’t know it yet, and would likely howl when she found out, but CPS HQ was about to issue an edict forbidding any use of independent contractors in the Covert Operations division. There were too many Davidros in the organization, and too many supervisors who looked the other way. The CPS was taking a beating in the press, right when they were trying to expand the minder testing program to catch the late bloomers who developed their talents after age seventeen. It was much too hard for the agency to fulfill its mission to keep the galactic peace when it couldn’t even keep the peace in its own organization.

  Three subtle flashes in Jane’s left eye alerted her to the time. She was still getting used to the upgraded internal chrono she’d had installed on her second day in Ridderth, but she appreciated its more sophisticated interface.

  “I’m sorry, but I have to leave soon for a meeting off the base.” Jane stood, and Hujuru did as well. “I’m representing the CPS on the Planetary Council Liaison Committee.”

  Hujuru made a face. “Better you than me. The Committee’s construction project scandal has journalists circling like they’re starving jackals after a wounded antelope.”

  “So they are,” Jane agreed. She smiled. “What was the name of that good-for-burying-jackals swamp you mentioned?”

  Hujuru laughed, then became more serious. “I’m going to give you some unsolicited advice, seeing as you’ve only been in Ridderth a couple of weeks. The people of Ridderth lionize and respect the local journalists more than any place else I’ve been. Some of it’s because Ridderth is a hotbed of crookedness, which makes exposing it a very profitable business sector, and some of it’s because they give generously to charities, but I think the biggest reason is because they can take on city hall and win. Ridderth’s government is only marginally worse than the continental or Mabingion government at stomping on citizen foundation rights with gravity boots. Citizens see journalists as their only hope for justice.”

  “Thank you,” said Jane. “That’s good to know.”

  Jane saw the woman out of her offices, then visited her new admin assistant to go over her schedule. She could have done it via a quick call, but Jane was rather enjoying the luxury of developing long-term relationships with her staff, and being able to go home to her family via limousine, rather than interstellar ship. That made her think of Raneel, her ever-loyal and extremely patient wife. Impulsively, she had her assistant order and send flowers, with a simple “thank you” tag. Raneel would know what it meant.

  All of her new colleagues either warned her or commiserated with her about getting involved in the piranha-infested waters of the Mabingion Planetary Council Liaison Committee, but she saw the opportunity hidden in the chaos. If she and the Minder Corps, with its legions of loyal employees and offices in every district in Ridderth, helped them succeed in salvaging the shambles of a project to refurbish and upgrade the woefully neglected Planetary Council administration complex, calls for the twenty-year rotation to skip Ridderth this time would go away. The committee and the city would then owe her and the CPS, and be more inclined to cooperate when the time came to burn out the Ayorinn sickness. It would be in their best interests, too, since the resurgence of the meme was giving unhappy people an outside enemy to blame—the government—instead of taking responsibility for their own personal failures.

  It wouldn’t be easy, but Jane was patient, thorough, and very good with details. The regular CGC military and the CPS, which was technically a military division, but operated much more independently than the Space, Ground, Air, and Water divisions, had considerable economic clout in Ridderth. It was time to put it to good use. With the added skills of the minders in her employ, she could help Ridderth live up to its potential. It would be a much more practical legacy than vague threats in jumbled lines of bad poetry.

  CHAPTER 31

  * Planet: Mabingion * GDAT: 3242.025 *

  JESS LEANED BACK in the office chair and used his new customized percomp to scan through the names one of his algorithms had gleaned from the galactic data nets. “What about Millefleur?” he called out. Once again, he and Kerzanna needed new identities, and she’d said she wanted some say in her name this time. She claimed he’d misspelled “Laraunte,” even though he showed her examples in use.

  “Sounds like a perfume,” she called back. “Jumpers aren’t named for perfume.” The disgust in her tone made him chuckle.

  Decommissioned Jumper Subcaptain Kerzanna Nevarr and retired Minder Corps quartermaster Jessperin Orowitz were living quietly and separately in Branimir. They’d never met, and neither had left that planet in years. Jess and Tuzan were collaborating on fixing any records on Branimir or Mabingion that said otherwise.

  Because of her declining health, Nevarr had just sold her business to two pilots and become a silent partner, and was retiring to a self-sufficient mountain cabin to escape the annoyances of city life.

  Orowitz complained to Branimir’s government about his frozen accounts. The financial affairs division readily believed the obnoxious CPS had mistaken his identity, and ordered his accounts released. He sold his farm to his neighbor and moved to a small flat near the spaceport, from which he might travel from time to time.

  As Kerzanna had pointed out, her cybernetic thigh and her Jumper biometal precluded anything more than surface body mods as a disguise, and Neirra’s miracle cure for waster’s disease only mattered if the patient was an ex-Jumper. Her latest PTVS percentage was twenty-eight percent, a further drop of two percent, despite the stress of a night of physical torture, freeing herself from a murderous crew, searching for him, and helping Tuzan use Jess’s idea to infiltrate Davidro’s den and avenge his sister’s death. The decreasing percentages still weren’t definitive; only time would tell to see if the numbers kept dropping, and how long they stayed that way. And after that, they needed more than one person cured, or she’d be no different from the occasional exceptions the CPS liked to trot out.

  “Aurore?” he called out. She’d asked him to stick to French-sounding names, because she still had a tendency to mutter in Novo French when she was irritated. She made a lousy spy, which was one of the things he treasured about her.

  “Second paternal cousin and a second-line great aunt,” she called. They’d thought it prudent to stay away from any of the Nevarr family names, but he hadn’t counted on how many that eliminated. “Come see if you like this one.”

  He grabbed his empty coffee mug and went down the hall from the tiny borrowed office to the virtual real estate immersion room where Kerzanna was searching for a better place for them to live than hotels. She had more patience for it than he did. Tuzan had arranged the after-hours visit to the cozy broker’s office. Jess was convinced Tuzan’s various companies cleaned half the residences and businesses in Ridderth, and half the population owed him favors. Jess and Kerzanna were in the latter category.

  “How many relatives do you have?” he asked. He put his mug down next to hers on the desk, then moved behind her to wrap his arms around her waist and kiss her ear. Escaped tendrils from her braided crown of blonde hair tickled his nose. He loved the smell of her, the flavor of her skin.

  “If you count babies and marriage alliances, probably hundreds by now. Twins run in the family.” She keyed the display and relaxed against him. The holos lit up and took them on a life-sized virtual walk-through of a modular flat that could be configured to have anywhere from six rooms to ten by simply telling the building comp to make the change. She pointed out the kitchen with tall cabinets and adjustable-height counters suitable for tall people, the high ceilings and adjustable lighting, the multiple secure access points, the rooftop airpad, and the nice view. “We could even have cats. Not LZ and Igandea, though. I saw a story today that had a clip of Bhatta carrying them with her onto her new ship. She’s still a minor celebrity.”

  “Where is the flat?” He kissed behind her ear, and delighted in the catch in her breath. Her responsiveness fueled his, the way it had five years ago. It was eve
n better now, because he could lose himself in loving her and not worry that some subroutine in his bioware would ruin the moment.

  “A mid-rise in Yànzi Shān district. ‘Swallow Hill’ in English. Close to the Canals, which is why it’s affordable, but being on a hill puts it above the waters.” Ridderth’s periodic floods overran the channelized canals, which is why only the desperate lived there.

  They’d agreed to stay in Ridderth for a while, since they were no longer on anyone’s hit parade. After leaving Davidro in the alley, they’d had a long talk with Tuzan, and an even longer discussion by themselves. She was the only living proof of Neirra’s legacy to the galaxy. She was also the keeper of a treasure trove of minder health data, and wanted to share it with minders as the original Minder Veterans Advocates group had intended. Jess had the seed of an idea on how to accomplish it, but he needed Tuzan’s help. And they had to decide what to do with the goldmine of information in Davidro’s journals. They’d already shared some choice bits via Jess’s “unsourced rumors” algorithms.

  “If you like it, I’ll buy it.” He felt her twitch, and remembered their old arguments about money and favors. “Question. Why don’t you like gifts?” He’d only come to realize in the past couple of weeks that she wasn’t rejecting him personally; it had deeper meaning for her.

  She turned in his arms and looked up at him. Her natural blue eyes always made him think of summer, his favorite time of year. “Are you up for this?”

  They’d made a deal to continue asking the hard questions and answering the harder truths that they’d avoided four years ago. “Yes.” He meant it, even if he had to put information-hoarding Jess-the-bomber in a chokehold in his head.

  She smiled and palmed the side of his face. “So fierce.” Her smile fell away. “My first maternal cousin Blandine and I ran away to the big city when we were seventeen, because neither of us fit the small-town, ranch-life mold. She was too lively, and I was too tall.”

  He kissed her forehead. “Not for the Jumpers.”

  “Yes, I fit in there, but that was later. You have to understand that even though Newellia is a Third Wave planet, terraformed and settled three hundred years ago, it’s still in debt to the settlement company because the company cheated. They’re about to lose the final court case on it, but for now, RSI still owns most of the exploitable natural resources, the smaller towns and cities, and the critical infrastructure. Everything has a markup. They lose revenue when families like ours pay off their settlement debt, so they make it easy to buy on credit, which never seems to get paid off. A rate hike here and a quick loan there, and pretty soon, the company owns you again. I was careful, but Blandine likes the finer things and got in over her head. I took a high-paying summer job at one of the few quarries not owned by RSI to make enough money to get her out of debt. It was, uhm, an educational experience, but it got me in shape and taught me how to brawl.”

  He could feel the tension building in her, but he couldn’t do anything other than listen. Secrets nearly destroyed them last time. Nothing she could tell him would make him love her any less.

  “To make a long story short, when I got back, Blandine owed twice as much as before, and had a nasty chems habit on top of it. The people she owed money to had me raped as a message to her. They couldn’t take me in a street fight, but one of their enforcers was a telepath. He compelled me into a utility closet and forced me to do every warped thing he could think of.”

  Jess had to close his eyes and take shallow breaths for a few moments to get control of his overwhelming anger.

  He felt her other hand cupping his cheek, and he looked down at her strong, beautiful face. “I’m okay. It was a long time ago.” She smiled a little. “I told a couple of my Jumper squad mates about it, early on, and funnily enough, right after they took ground leave, I got news from home that the enforcer had died slowly and painfully in a freak accident.”

  He didn’t know what to say, so he just held her for a long moment, letting the heat from her chest fill the hollow in his, letting the scent of her soothe him.

  “So to answer your question, gifts feel like obligations with hidden terms.” She took a step back and waved toward the looping holo around them. “I trust you with my life and my heart, and I admit I want to have hot-connect sex with you in every room of this flat, but buying it would be a big damn gift.”

  Even though they’d exhausted themselves making love a half-dozen times in the past two days, Jess’s hormones stirred at her words. He pulled her in for a heated, open-mouthed kiss and slid a hand under her tunic to cup her breast. He brushed a thumb across her taught nipple through her thin bra. “We’ll lease it.”

  She laughed. “I should have started my sales pitch with the sex.” She kissed him and caressed his ass, then twirled away. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but Jess-the-medic saw a marked improvement in the mechanical fluidity of her joints in the three weeks since he’d seen her get out of the autodoc. She turned off the holo. “My turn for a question?”

  He nodded.

  She sat on the edge of the desk and crossed her arms. “Why don’t you like being a minder?”

  Instinctive fear shot through him, and he breathed through it. Thank the universe she was patient with him, because he hardly knew where to begin.

  “Conditioning, I guess you’d call it. On Rashad Tarana, minders weren’t considered human; they were demons in disguise who were trying to deceive their way onto Ġenna Triq, Paradise Road. Being a minder got you executed in the public square and your relatives sent to the Warriors’ Crusade to be used as sex toys and fodder for field training. I think Prophet Al-Din was a minder himself, probably a sifter and some warped form of empath, and wanted to be the one-eyed emperor in the empire of the blind. He used loyal sifters as ‘God’s Lenses’ to find other minders for purification.” His hands hurt, and he realized he’d clenched them so hard, his fingernails were cutting into his skin. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and shook the tension out.

  He glanced at Kerzanna to see how she was taking it. She nodded once, respectfully. “I’m glad you survived.” She’d told him that Jumpers acknowledged pain for each other, to help ease the burden. It was curiously comforting that she considered him as strong as a Jumper.

  “Because of the years of therapy all Rashad Tarana survivors got, I know, intellectually, that the first thirteen years of my life were filled with a shed-load of shite, but the fear still lurks in the back of my dinosaur brain, trying to protect me. Sort of like one of the bleedovers, in a way.” He shook his head. “The Mandarin language has the same effect. It was the language of demons and, coincidentally, the planetary government the Prophet overthrew. My devout parents offered up my thirteen-year-old sister to be a Chosen One for the Leadership Circle’s harem because her phenomenal skill with languages would help the other young ‘tributes’ adjust. She lasted eighteen months. Speaking Mandarin got her and her newborn baby crucified in the town square.”

  This time, he caught his tension early enough to shake it off before it bunched up his shoulders again. “It ended thirty-eight years ago, and it still twists me in knots. I really am a fractured mess.”

  Kerzanna crossed to him and put strong hands on his shoulders and began kneading them. “I told you before, you’re the most resilient man I’ve ever known. Neither of us is our past.” She stood on her toes to kiss him. “We make our future. I love you, oh delightfully tall and plasma-hot man who hasn’t told me his name.”

  “Josh DiGuilian.” He put his hands on her hips and pulled her closer. “Close enough to ‘Jess,’ in case you forget while in the throes of passion.” He kissed her, then nibbled along her jaw toward her Jumper tattoos.

  She laughed. “Good thinking, since I plan on enjoying lots of throes with you.” She thrust her hips in slow grind against his growing arousal. It was his turn to catch his breath. She kissed his cheek and stepped back. “Come on, let’s clean up and get out of here. Tuzan said dinner would be ready at eight
, and traffic tanks this time of day.”

  She scooped up their mugs and headed toward the small sink to rinse them out. He copied the pertinent details on the flat she liked, then replaced the activity logs with blank ones and powered down the display, leaving it as they’d found it.

  He grabbed their raincoats from the hooks over the solardry unit and handed hers to her. He helped her pull her hood up as an excuse to kiss her again. “What about ‘Jumper Adorabelle’?”

  She growled at him, and he laughed.

  CHAPTER 32

  * Planet: Mabingion * GDAT: 3242.025 *

  THE EX-JUMPER FORMERLY known as Kerzanna leaned against the doorjamb and sipped wine while she watched Jess… oops, Josh and Tuzan argue good-naturedly about some arcane coding thing that was so far over her head that it sounded like a made-up alien language. They were good for each other. Some parts of Jes… Josh still had the social skills of a wolverine, and needed to learn how to be a friend. Tuzan still mourned his sister and needed that friendship. Not that he didn’t have a million friends already, but only a few who didn’t care if he was a scary top-level cleaner and telepath, and hardly any who he could be himself with, or conspire with on computer stuff.

  Neirra’s actions had forced significant vector changes on all of them. Je… dammit, Josh missed his farm. He said he didn’t mind, but she could see that the crowded city sometimes bothered him. Or more specifically, his talent. Like the other categories of minders in the telepathic class, sifters had to learn to contain their talents so they didn’t have to sense others all the time. The one good thing that came from the failsafe shutdown, and the horrendous chance he’d taken by letting the sifter, Zerrell, fix his bioware, was that using the overlays didn’t hurt nearly as much, and his eyes mostly stopped twitching.