Mary tapped Devi’s chest.
“She’s down there, deep inside you, waiting to be let out. And my job is to help her get out.”
Devi said nothing. She couldn’t process any of what Mary said.
No one had ever said anything like that to her before.
“Deep down inside our hearts, no matter how much pain we've endured, our love light is as bright as a star. Our hearts don't operate in zero magnitude, Devi. You just have to learn to embrace what's inside.”
The red light of Bartholomew IV illuminated Mary’s face. As they neared the planet, Devi realized that everything Mary told her was true—the thick clouds, smoky and toxic, looked like they were choking the planet. The continents were completely scorched beyond recognition.
She could no longer go home.
It was all too much. She could only shake her head and put her fingers on the cockpit glass, the closest she could come to touching her old home. What was left of her mother, her father, all the memories that she held so dear.
Mary didn’t seem to mind Devi’s silence.
“Let’s fly over your old continent,” she said.
***
Devika put on a pair of sunglasses as a line of people streamed out of the Coppice Woods Adventure Lodge toward the front lawns. Men, women and children, all dressed like tourists.
She adjusted the sunglasses on her nose to conceal her eyes. She’d bought them for cheap in the lodge, along with a rain jacket. She let her hair down, and it fell to her shoulders.
As the crowd gathered, she drifted toward the back.
The tour guide from earlier jumped onto a rock and clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. Seeing Devika, she waved. Devika hesitated, then waved back weakly.
“Hello, hello, hello!” the guide said. “My name is Michiko, and I’m going to be your tour guide for today. You are in one of the most exciting places in the galaxy. The Coppice Woods Biological Preserve contains many of the rainforest species found in the place of our origin: Earth. Of course, we have some alien species of our own, but I think you’ll find that walking through here is like walking through the Amazon rainforest on Earth.”
A few of the tourists whispered to each other, regarding the comment.
“A few ground rules today,” Michiko said. “First, I want everyone to have fun. You paid a lot of money to visit, and I want to make sure you get every penny’s worth. Second, please don’t touch the animals or plants unless I tell you to. Third, I want you to give a warm welcome to my friend, Lara Stella, who has joined us for a short trip today. She’s staying at the Green Lodge, and since that’s one of our sister properties, be sure to take some time and ask her about all the wonderful things they have over there—but especially the arboretum. The arboretum is awesome, is it not, Lara?”
Devika stared at Michiko, her mouth agape. Everyone turned and looked at her with mixed smiles and confusion. She must have looked so weather-beaten to these people, with their freshly pressed safari clothes.
“The arboretum is wonderful,” she said quietly.
Michiko smiled. “Told you! Good to have you with us, Lara. Now follow me and we’ll start our tour of the flower fields.”
Chapter 12
“What do you mean, she escaped?”
Tavin Miloschenko stood at the curved glass of the bridge on his observation ship. The room was covered in darkness except for the glittering instrument panels. Outside, Coppice revolved slowly, a greenish-blue ball in the blackness of space.
Private Kyla Jax bowed her head. Her battle armor was covered in grass stains, and she had twigs and vines in her long auburn hair.
“She shot Ryan, sir,” Kyla said. “He's dead.”
Miloschenko did not turn. He did not have the patience for this today.
“I am supposed to be back on Zachary in two days,” he said. “And I don't need this, do you understand?”
“I understand, sir.”
“All I asked was for you to shoot her out of the sky. You did that, but you didn't plan for the obvious thunderstorms, and you couldn't find her ship in the darkness. Now you tell me that you cannot find her because she ran away.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tavin fingered a golden pendant around his neck. “We have the best military on this side of the universe, and you're letting me down,” he said, looking at a woman on the inside of the pendant. A dark-skinned woman with long hair. He clipped the pendant shut and whipped around.
“If she gets off this planet and starts talking, it's going to be bad news. GALPOL is really going to start crawling up my ass, and I don't need it!”
In the reflection of the glass, he saw Kyla nod.
“You find her, you hear me? I don't care how long it takes you or what you have to do.”
“I will, sir, but I need help.”
Miloschenko frowned. This damned investigator poking around in his affairs was becoming a real problem.
“Help?” he asked, turning around. “What the devil do you mean you need help?”
“I can find her, but I need some support. Ryan's specialty was tracking. We found her because of him.”
“What the hell is your specialty, then?”
“Gunning.”
“Like hell it is.”
Miloschenko paused and folded his arms.
“My staff are all scientists. They couldn't follow a track if it held a sign for them. Do you think I should send one of them to help you? Would that make you feel competent about your abilities?”
“It's hard to take someone in by myself, that's all I'm saying,” Kyla said.
“You're a soldier!” Miloschenko said. “Following orders is what you do!”
Someone cleared their throat.
Miloschenko sighed as he glanced at a man’s shadow in the back of the room.
“This doesn't concern you,” Miloschenko said.
The man stepped forward, and the light of Coppice cast a blue glow on the front of his face. He wore a white suit with a black diagonal stripe across the chest. He had on black designer glasses, a black checkered tie in a thick, fat knot, and he wore his hair in a man-bun.
Florian Macalestern laughed and shook a handful of pecans in his cupped palm before tossing one into his mouth.
“Your handling of this situation has become so laughable that I have no choice but to step in,” Florian said, chewing.
“So you think this involves a corporate solution?” Miloschenko said. “I doubt that. I brought you here to observe, not to comment, Mr. Macalestern.”
“But the answer is so simple, Tavin,” Florian said. “You're supposed to be the genius, not me.”
Miloschenko frowned. He didn't feel like dealing with a corporate brat, either. Ever since Florian had come onboard the ship, he had been observing the ship, its systems and all the weapons, asking about this and that. He’d probably never fired a gun in his life, and all of a sudden he was acting like a weapons expert. To take such pedestrian questions—it was such a drain on his time!
“Out with it,” Miloschenko said, waving his hands.
Florian grinned and tucked the rest of his pecans into his shirt pocket.
“Now, it seems to me,” he said, “that you have a rodent problem.”
“Obviously,” Miloschenko said.
Florian walked with a lilting gait, circling Kyla. The woman trembled as he passed, brushing just a little too close.
“I hate rodents,” Florian said. “The way they scamper and scurry and squeak. And I especially hate how they always seem to find their way into places they shouldn't be.”
Florian kept walking and stopped in front of the glass.
“That's why they invented rat poison, Tavin,” he said. “And exterminators.”
***
Miloschenko, Florian and Kyla stood in front of a giant glass tube in the Specimen Room of the observation ship. Scientists in white lab coats moved about the room, gathering around microscopes and discussing amongst themselves.
>
A broad-chested man slept inside the tube, latched to the wall. His body was a strong suit of gray steel, with molds on the chest and arms that looked like muscles. He was seven feet tall. His skin was scarred and looked as if it had been discolored and disfigured. A long crescent curled across his forehead. It was hard to know what his race or ethnicity was.
“Out of all your weapons,” Florian said, “this one amuses me the most.”
Miloschenko shook his head.
“No. Not this one.”
“Give Kyla here a better gun, then,” Florian said angrily. His demeanor changed, and Miloschenko prepared to deal with an upcoming tantrum.
“He's not ready yet,” Miloschenko said. “We’re months away from a viable test.”
“Why?” Florian asked. “Are you telling me that you wasted my company’s money? Should I tell my auntie that we need to cancel our contract?”
“Your money hasn't gone to waste,” Miloschenko said. “Quite the opposite.”
“It's called proof of concept,” Florian said. “But clearly you don't give a rat’s ass about sound business principles.”
“Proof of concept?” Miloschenko asked.
“You can't aim for perfection,” Florian said. “Scientists just don't get it. Sometimes you have to release your baby into the wild, and hope that it survives.”
“That's awfully cruel, isn't it?” Miloschenko asked.
Florian harrumphed. “Business is cruel, Tavin.”
Their eyes went back to the man sleeping in the tube. The man’s chest rose up and down as he breathed in and out rapidly. The jagged, raised scar on his face looked like a big, blotted tattoo.
“His story is magnificent, you know,” Florian said. “Imagine a Bartholomew Four transplant orphan being murdered by a Bartholomew Four survivor.”
“His radiation burns were the worst the doctors had ever seen,” Miloschenko said. “He should have died.”
“Didn't he spend a bunch of years in therapy?” Florian asked.
“Before the cybernetic implants, yeah. Skin was so badly burned his organs shut down. We replaced them, of course.”
“With my company’s products. Don't leave that out.”
“Sure. He had to learn how to walk again, how to swallow, how to do just about everything. Took years.”
“Ah, but what about the lobotomy?” Florian asked.
“Successful,” Miloschenko said, pointing to a glowing bead of red orbs on the man’s forehead. “We installed neuron blockers just behind the eyes and ears, too. Whatever he sees or hears is now filtered through a sophisticated program that ensures he will always be loyal to the Empire.”
Florian laughed. “I love every time you explain that. It's like you're talking sexy to me.”
Miloschenko cleared his throat. “Trust me, I'm not. But he's not ready yet. He still hasn't passed field tests.”
Florian rubbed Kyla on the shoulder and gave her a massage. The woman looked at him oddly.
“Kyla here said she needed your help. Where I'm from, in the corporate world, we always help each other. Even when it hurts. Because it grows the bottom line, Tavin. You wouldn't sabotage a dear, sweet, beautiful soldier like Kyla, would you?”
“Don't touch me,” Kyla said.
Florian took his hands off her. Then he pointed at the man in the tube.
“Use him, or I'll pull our funding.”
“Fine,” Miloschenko said. “But if this fails, it's on you. Not me.”
“What's this fine gentleman’s name?” Florian asked, smiling eerily in the darkness.
Miloschenko shrugged. “Hell if I know. But around here, we call him Smoke.”
Florian threw another handful of nuts into his mouth. “Is that right? Well, let’s have a drink for dear old Smoke.”
He raised his fist as if it were a glass of alcohol.
“To Smoke,” he said, his eyes wild in the starlight. “And to extermination.”
Chapter 13
“If you look to the left, you’ll see the rare Coppice Orchid,” Michiko said as she drove a double-decker Jeep through the flower fields.
Devika sat on the bottom level, resting her head on the window as eager tourists crowded to the side of the car and took photos. The seats were old and musty, their fabric ripped and torn.
Fire-red flowers lined the grass outside, framed by the rainforest tree line just behind them. The flowers swayed and looked like they were burning.
“When scientists transplanted Earth specimens many years ago, they didn’t expect them to survive,” Michiko said in her intercom. The PA made her voice scratchy. “But what happened was even more amazing. Some species actually evolved into something different. Just as humans had to get used to new homes in the universe, so did plant life. This particular species of orchid thrives on non-Earth planets where the original methane levels were inhabitable for humans. This same species would not be able to survive on Earth, because it absorbs the methane in the soil and then expels it through a process called transpiration. On Earth, there is not much methane. If there were, and if plants there did what these orchids do, humanity wouldn’t be able to live there.”
“Wow,” one of the tourists said.
“Mm hmm,” Michiko said, smiling. “Of course, with technology we made sure that the methane here is no longer harmful, even with abundant plant life.”
Michiko glanced at the tourists in her rearview mirror.
“Lara, be sure to get a photo,” she said.
Devika waved, smiled, and then kept looking out the window.
Just her luck, to find someone who was trying to befriend her.
It always happened like this. Devika wondered, what was it about her personality that drew people to her even though she didn’t want to make friends? Maybe it was because she was Indian and people thought she was exotic.
She sighed, wishing Michiko would drive faster. From what she could tell, they were almost through the flower fields. Already they had seen several species of orchid. The fields smelled floral and fresh, and Devika would have enjoyed the smell except for the fact that she was running for her life.
“As the first part of the tour comes to a close,” Michiko said, “I want you all to know how much we value our flowers here on Coppice, and how much we value you, our customers. Isn’t an orchid such an ideal symbol of the human race? Hearty, delicate, but always so beautiful and resilient…”
Devika rolled her eyes.
A low droning sounded above, like a giant hornet buzzing through the sky.
“Oh,” Michiko said, looking upward.
She stopped the vehicle.
“That’s a spaceship!” she said. “At first I thought it was one of our watering drones.”
Devika looked up.
A gray ship traced across the sky. It was low, lower than it should have been, but high enough that she couldn’t make it out.
“Looks like the pilot wanted to get a closer look at the flowers,” Michiko said.
The tourists on the bus laughed.
Devika shifted uncomfortably.
***
“I have a visual on a field tour,” Kyla said, guiding the ship over the field of flowers. A tactical sight on her eye scanned the inside of the double-decker bus. She saw thermal scans of people inside the Jeep.
“There are approximately twenty people riding in a Jeep. Did you get the coordinates?” she asked.
“I got them,” Miloschenko said through the radio. “It’s possible she could be there, but I doubt it. Too obvious.”
“Permission to send in Smoke,” Kyla said.
“Who the hell do you think I am? A commander? Do whatever the hell you need to do!”
“Roger,” Kyla said.
She put the ship on autopilot and it circled the fields again. She maneuvered her way through the drab, military-grade ship and into the airlock, where Smoke sat against the wall with his eyes closed. A rifle was slung on his back and the red orbs on his forehead glowed.
“You’re up,” she said.
Smoke opened his gray eyes—they had red pupils. He stared at her.
Kyla showed him a blurry, black and white picture of Devika; it looked like it was taken from surveillance as Devika pushed her way through a crowd.
“This is her,” Kyla said.
Smoke took the photo and regarded it. Then he crumpled it up and stood. He towered over Kyla and she stumbled back.
“We want her dead,” Kyla said.
Smoke walked toward the airlock. His steps were powerful and heavy. He grabbed a black hang glider off the wall. Then he knelt and put himself in position.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked finally.
His voice was a mix between robot and human: modulated, tinny. Deep and cold.
Kyla pushed a button on the wall, and the airlock opened.
Smoke jumped out into the wind.
Chapter 14
Mary opened the front door to her home and ushered Devi inside.
The home pod was small and cozy. More cozy than Devi expected. A vase of orchids sat atop a glass coffee table. The couch was worn and sagging, with plastic over it. Stair-stepped on the wall were photos of Mary with other children. On the kitchen counter, an essential oil diffuser shaped like an egg let out a puff of smoke, and the room smelled like oranges.
A black Labrador trotted out from the kitchen to meet them, sniffing Devi’s legs. Devi did not pet it.
“This is Lenny,” Mary said, stooping down to rub his ears. “He's friendly and you'll like him. He's a therapy dog.”
Devi sighed, looking around. This place was nice, but it wasn't home. She didn't know what home meant anymore.
Zero Magnitude (Galaxy Mavericks Book 3) Page 6