The Tracker's Dilemma: (A Mandrake Company Science Fiction Romance)

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  She dropped the tea bag into her water and pulled up the data from the druid cave, reminding herself that she was supposed to be researching now that Heath wasn’t here to “distract” her. What a pleasing distraction that had been, however. She did feel a little guilty that she hadn’t touched him at all, except to shove his hand into her pants. By the time she’d realized it might be appropriate for her to reciprocate, the shuttle had landed, and there’d been no time for much else. She flushed again, remembering how brazen she’d been in keeping him from running off to the lav for privacy, in wanting to watch him handle his penis in front of her, to sate himself by her side. She’d surprised herself with that, for she’d never cared a whit about looking at a man’s erection before. She remembered her sister trying to get her to watch some pornography that she’d found on the network when Lauren had been about fifteen, and she’d thought it incredibly disgusting. Strange naked people, grunting and groaning and crying out so melodramatically as they thrust and bucked and flung bodily fluids everywhere. She’d experienced absolutely no arousal from that. Yet she’d found it inordinately appealing to look at Heath’s erect penis. She’d even been tempted to reach down and hold it, but there’d been so little time, and his movements had been so urgent—she hadn’t wanted to interrupt him. She’d settled for sliding her tongue over his hard nipple, filling her eyes with the muscular contours of his chest, the hint of sweat glistening on his rich skin as he’d pumped his hand along his thick shaft.

  Lauren shifted her weight, aware that she wasn’t seeing any of the data hovering in the air over her counter and also aware of the moisture between her legs. She was tempted to put down the tea mug and slide her fingers down there, as Heath had, to pleasure herself again. But that was so silly. She was on a mission, and this was the middle of the workday. It was somewhat understandable to have sexual urges with a man in the room, his arms wrapped around her, rubbing and stroking her, but to simply stand here and become aroused? Professionals did not do such things.

  Still, she found her hand straying to her belt. It wouldn’t take long, and who would know?

  The curtain stirred behind her, and Lauren jerked her hand away from her crotch.

  “That data looks familiar,” Hailey said dryly.

  “Does it? Huh.” Lauren took a deep breath, straightened her face, and picked up her tea mug. Only after she believed she appeared composed did she turn around.

  “I thought you said you only found the data on the genetic engineering they were doing on plants.”

  “You’ve been keeping information from me all week.” Lauren sipped the minty tea, willing it to keep her calm as she dealt with her sister. She’d much prefer to be alone in her lab, dealing with her data. And perhaps her thoughts of Heath. “It only seemed fair that I withhold some.”

  Hailey’s lips thinned. “You’ve been withholding everything.”

  “Only access to the strains of bacteria that I developed through months of research.”

  “And the fact that one of your Grenavinians had grown strong enough to hurl logs around with his mind. You don’t think I would like to have known about that? Or to have been warned about what he could do, so I might have known how to fight back?”

  “I had no idea he could do more than roll dice across the floor,” Lauren said, “and I only learned that this morning. I don’t know how you would have fought back, even if you’d known the extent of his abilities.”

  Hailey waved at the tranquilizer gun Lauren had left on the end of the counter—now reloaded. “I might have kept myself armed if I’d known one of the very people I hired to protect me would end up turning on me.”

  “None of us knew that. You’re the one who had an idea all along that people might be after you.”

  “Might.” Hailey’s voice cracked with unexpected emotion. “I didn’t really think...” She swallowed. “I didn’t think I’d be in so much danger, especially with these people here to protect me. That’s why I hired them, at least in part.”

  “Who’s after you exactly, Hailey? If you’d told Mandrake in the beginning, maybe he could have been better prepared and the kidnapping wouldn’t have happened.”

  “I don’t know. I swear. Like I said, I had to make my presentation to numerous parties before I found someone to fund this. The military knows. That’s who I believed I would have to worry about, and since your Captain Mandrake is already known to be at odds with GalCon and the military, I figured he wouldn’t care.” Hailey pushed her hand through her hair, knocking a pin free, but not seeming to notice. She was more rattled than Lauren could remember ever seeing her.

  “Are you all right?” Lauren asked quietly. “I know physically, you only had a few cuts, but he didn’t harm you in any other manner, did he?”

  “No, there wasn’t time for that. He knew your brawny tracker was right behind us. But it was terrifying, being carted off through the jungle like Jane on an erratic and unpredictable Tarzan’s shoulder. And he said the man who wanted to buy me—buy me, as if I’m a box of food rations—had some questions. Like an interrogation. I asked him what would happen if I didn’t know the answers. He just said, ‘Not my problem.’”

  “Speaking as someone who had a very similar experience on this very moon, I empathize,” Lauren said. “You’re wise to stay in the shuttle this time. If someone believes you have some knowledge that could empower him or make him money, then you will definitely be a target.”

  Hailey nodded. “I know. I guess it was just academic until this happened.” She managed a wan smile, looked down, and picked up the fallen hairpin. “I appreciate your empathy. That’s rare from you.” The way she smirked made Lauren suspect that was an insult, though who knew? Maybe Hailey did appreciate it.

  “If there’s nothing else,” Lauren said, “I should get back to reading about the Grenavinian’s early experiments with altering their genes. Unless you simply want to tell me about them.”

  Hailey’s gaze flicked toward the text. “I’ll think about it, but you’ve probably already got what you need.” She turned toward the curtain.

  She hadn’t been gone long when voices sounded outside the shuttle.

  “Ms. Keys?” That was the captain.

  Lauren stepped out of her lab as her sister headed through the hatchway. Curious as to what the men had found, Lauren followed her down the ramp. Captain Mandrake stood at the base with several of his men, including Heath, around him. Heath met Lauren’s eyes and gave her a quick nod, but his face was grim. So was the captain’s.

  “Did you find anything?” Hailey asked.

  Mandrake unfolded his tablet, and a panoramic camera display coalesced in the air above it. Trees, vines, and water, much as they had encountered in the previous canyon, appeared within view. But then the scene changed as the camera operator walked farther down a trail. Smoking rubble came into sight, clouding the air around trees torn from their roots and sprawling in front of a rockslide. A rockslide that looked to have fallen very recently.

  “Is that...?” Hailey started.

  “We believe a second druid cave may have been there,” Mandrake said. “It’s the spot you had highlighted on your map.”

  “Someone got there first and destroyed it?” Hailey gaped at the video as the view shifted, showing more and more devastation.

  “Recently, yes. The ground was still warm. Tick found evidence of explosives that were set, in addition to laser and torpedo fire from a ship.”

  “Were there any druids—any people—there when it happened?” Lauren asked.

  Just because the last cave had been empty didn’t mean that all of them would be. Hailey had made it clear that she believed she would find druids to talk to in at least one of these locations.

  “There were recent prints on a trail leading to the area,” Heath said, “but we couldn’t tell if anyone had been trapped in the rubble.”

  Hailey’s mouth continued to hang open as she stared at the destruction. “I don’t understand,” she whispe
red, truly seeming puzzled. “I can see why someone might want to question me, but the druids shouldn’t even know I’m coming. They shouldn’t know anything of Lo’s experiments—you haven’t published any of that widely yet, have you, Lo?”

  “No, just to my private server.” Lauren decided it wasn’t the time to point out that she hadn’t even intended her sister to have access to those files.

  “I don’t understand,” Hailey repeated. She looked from Mandrake to Ankari to Lauren, skimming past other faces, as well, as if she expected the mercenaries to have the answer to her question.

  “Is it possible someone wants to keep you from starting your experiments?” Mandrake asked. “Further experiments.” He glanced at Heath.

  Lauren almost pointed out that Heath was a part of her experiment, not her sister’s, but whoever was keeping track of Hailey might not see a difference—or care. The person or organization might assume they were working together.

  “Keep me from them?” Hailey pushed a hand through her hair. “Surely, everybody would be excited by the prospect of humans with real measurable extrasensory perception. I assumed the government and countless other organizations might be threats because they wanted to steal the information—and my sister’s bacteria strains—for themselves. But killing the specimens before the experiments can even be started, before any data can be gathered… It doesn’t make sense.”

  That was the first time Hailey had fully admitted she intended to turn these druids into specimens for her experiments. Lauren wasn’t surprised.

  “It could be that someone doesn’t want Grenavinians to have special powers,” Mandrake said.

  Hailey blinked slowly a few times.

  Heath’s eyes widened. “You mean, on account of some of our people still being powerful irked over the destruction of our world? People like Hemlock?”

  “Hemlock’s not the only one,” Mandrake said grimly, coolly. “But GalCon was probably aware of him. I looked him up. He killed a lot of government and military higher-ups before joining us. I almost turned him away because I didn’t need another target on my back, but...”

  “Hard to turn your back on your own people,” Heath said, chewing his gum thoughtfully.

  “He told me he was done hunting people, that he just wanted to make an honest living.” Mandrake snorted. “Apparently, he just wanted to make enough to buy another ship so he could keep hunting, and he didn’t care how he paid for it.”

  Hailey grimaced and rubbed her wrists where the ropes had tied her to that tree.

  “I almost regret...” Heath shook his head.

  “Killing him?” Lauren asked.

  “Well, he kidnapped our employer, so he deserved it. But I suppose it wouldn’t bother me overmuch to know someone with mind powers was out there hunting those who had a hand in destroying a planet. Our planet.”

  Lauren couldn’t condone letting some kidnapper and self-proclaimed assassin go free, so she couldn’t share his regret. But she also hadn’t watched from afar as her entire home world had been blown up.

  Mandrake snapped the tablet shut, the display winking out. “We’ll head out immediately to your third location, Ms. Keys. Under the assumption that someone may already be on the way.”

  Hailey lifted a fist to her mouth, then dropped it, cursing. “I didn’t share the locations I’d researched with anyone. For these people, whoever they are, to have beaten us here… is it possible we were followed?”

  “Looked like the destruction happened a few hours before we got there,” Heath said. “So, they didn’t follow us here.”

  “We’ll assume your data was compromised.” Mandrake waved at his men. “Load up. Delaying could be deadly if there are any people living in that last cave.”

  As the mercenaries hustled into the shuttles, Hailey turned and walked up the ramp slowly, a dazed expression on her face. Was she regretting this entire mission she had created for herself? Lauren knew she would be.

  Chapter 14

  Tick sat in a seat across from Lauren’s lab, eating a tasteless egg log while thinking about Cook Ying’s chocolate chip cookies. He was also thinking about whether Lauren might want company.

  He had poked his head through the curtain earlier and found her curled up on the bed, a blanket pulled to her shoulders as she slept. He had also dozed for an hour in his seat. Darkness was approaching outside again, but he didn’t know if it was because they were flying away from the sun or because a full day had passed. He had lost track of day and night cycles. They were supposedly only a half hour from their next destination, though, so it seemed pointless to contemplate serious sleep. As he skimmed the pages of his novel, he found himself having to re-read the same paragraph again and again, as his mind drifted to other topics. To what he and Lauren had done in that lab earlier. He supposed he should be thinking about the mission and what they would find in this third canyon, but instead, he caught himself thinking of slipping into the lab and joining Lauren on the bed, whether it was big enough for two or not. Surely, they could work something out…

  The curtain stirred, and Lauren stepped out. Her hair was combed and pulled back, her face washed. She looked like she had changed clothes—hers didn’t have bloodstains all over them. Tick looked down at his grimy hands and decided to wait until they returned to the Albatross to further gauge her interest in bedroom activities. He just hoped that she didn’t forget about him when they got back to the ship. She hadn’t been avoiding his eyes or pretending undue busyness since their dalliance in the lab, and he found that promising, but the shuttle did enforce a closeness that the bigger vessel did not.

  He thought she might go up to talk to her sister, but Lauren slid into the seat next to him.

  “I have a good bit to share,” she announced.

  “What?” His mind darted in numerous directions, and it wasn’t until she unfolded her tablet and brought up a text display that he realized she referred to their earlier conversation.

  “Right here. It’s from an article by early Grenavinian geneticists named Peers Crai Houten, Lowe Keller Oldham, and Lang Billings. Apparently, the plant names hadn’t replaced hereditary names yet back then.” She tapped and waved her finger to highlight a passage, then leaned her elbow on the armrest between them. “How does this work? Do I read it aloud to you, do I hand it to you to read, or have your prodigious mental powers already allowed you to consume the information?”

  Tick snorted. “Definitely not that last thing.”

  “I’m new to sharing with—” She glanced toward the seats behind Jamie. Most of the mercenaries were napping before the next bit of activity, but both Ankari and Striker had looked back when Lauren sat down. Busybodies. “I’m new to sharing,” Lauren whispered, pointedly turning her shoulder away from the onlookers.

  “Read it aloud,” Tick said, tickled by the idea, despite the audience. What kind of “good bit” had she found to share?

  Lauren leaned close, her shoulder touching his, and the scent of oranges tickled his nose. He inhaled deeply, catching a hint of her floral shampoo too. How could she smell so good, when he smelled so jungly? Maybe she had a secret shower nozzle in that lab somewhere.

  Realizing she had started reading quietly to him, he bent his head and tried to focus on more than her scent.

  “...have identified the key to the thousands of genetic variants that control intelligence in human subjects, but unanticipated side effects, and a growing concern from the populace as a whole, has resulted in a halt to the experiments.”

  Tick tried to look sage when she finished and looked up—or at least attentive. “This is from the druid databanks? History on my people?”

  “Yes. I’ve skimmed through and not seen anything more specific about the side effects this mentions, but one can’t help but wonder as to what might have happened if some of their subjects started hurling things around with their minds.”

  “Things? Like people?” His ribs ached at the memory of being flung against trees.

&n
bsp; “Perhaps they encouraged the use of objects less likely to be damaged.”

  “Let’s hope.” Tick rubbed his ribs. The repair device had knitted them, but he knew they would ache for a few days. It wasn’t his first time breaking some of them.

  “Do you have any good bits to share with me?” Lauren looked down at his lap, and he almost made a dirty comment before remembering his tablet rested there. He thought about making the comment, anyway, but not with Striker up there, his elbow on his armrest, his chin propped on his fist. Didn’t he have any comics to draw?

  “Ah, of course.” Tick didn’t usually highlight when he read fiction, but he remembered a smirk-worthy chunk of dialogue from a few pages back. “All right, this is between the hero and a city kid he’s trying to educate on starting fires without modern conveniences, like lighters, matches, or fire-starters.”

  “Does he have access to a lab? Because I accidentally started a fire once simply by mixing chemicals that weren’t labeled properly. In retrospect, a teacher-assistant may have sabotaged me, since I was threatening to replace her at the top of the academic rankings.”

  “No labs. They’re stranded in a desert that drops way below freezing at night, and they’re without anything except for a few knives and survival rations not unlike our egg logs.”

  “So they’re in dire straits.”

  “Definitely. All right, so the kid says, ‘I know how to do this, Hoss,’ and takes off his eyeglasses. Apparently, he came from a rim world where laser eye surgery isn’t standard.”

  “Hoss?” Lauren quirked her eyebrows.

  “It’s the hero’s name. Like horse. But Hoss.”