“Don’t cuss.”
“Why not?”
“The rulebook says you have to be at least nineteen and in a profession.”
“What rulebook?”
“The rulebook. The big one. They keep it in Transluna in a glass case in the Hall of Justice. Corporate Boardmembers walk by it each morning, touching the glass with white-gloved fingers. Sometimes the Chairman breathes on the glass, polishing it with his sleeve.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That’s ’cause you’re a smart girl. And like it or not, we’re beating feet out of here.”
Kylee stood, wadded up her blanket, and tossed it onto Talina’s chair. “I’m not going to Port Authority. I’ve sworn to make those people pay for what they did to Rocket.”
“That was Deb Spiro.”
“They made us leave.” Kylee crossed her arms defiantly. “They made you leave. ’Cause you’ve got quetzal molecules. They hate anything quetzal.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want to belabor a point, but Leaper and Diamond aren’t all warm and fuzzy.”
“Quetzals are warm-blooded, Talina. And you know they don’t have hair. Sometimes you don’t make sense.”
“It’s an old saying, kid. Warm and fuzzy. Means they’re not cuddly and nice. Not the sort of happy carnivores you want to snuggle up with.” She paused. “So, you’re telling me your plan is to have Leaper and Diamond eat you?”
A sadness welled in Kylee’s eyes. “Being dead would be better. That’s all.”
“Then, I guess you’ve got nothing to lose, huh?”
Kylee shrugged her thin shoulders, eyes on the ground.
“Yeah, well, I . . .” Talina saw the movement, the characteristic rising and curling column that appeared above the trees to the south.
“Get in the car!” Talina reached for her pack, tossing it in. “Now!”
She slapped her rifle into the rack.
“I’m not . . .” Kylee didn’t have a chance to finish as Talina grabbed the girl around the waist and heaved her into the car. Kylee landed with a hollow thump, tumbling across the deck.
Talina vaulted the rail immediately after, powering up the fans. A stream of the four-winged fliers were lining out, attracted by her movement.
“What are you doing!” Kylee shrieked. “You’re not my mother! You can’t make me—”
“Shut up, kid.” Talina gave the car full throttle, scooting north, weaving between the abandoned sheds, keeping low. She skirted the curved ruin of the Mundo Base dome and shot a look over her shoulder. Kylee clambered high on the back seat, as if ready to leap.
Worse, the damn mobbers were flapping right behind. Reds, yellows, blacks, and violet shades of color—probably their colors for pursuit—were egging on the hindmost.
“Get your ass in the seat and buckle in,” Talina cried over her shoulder. “Got mobbers back there!”
“What?” Kylee was looking scared. Probably wanting to jump, but worried given the speed at which they were traveling.
“Death fliers! That’s what you call them.”
Kylee glanced back, froze as she finally realized the peril.
“If you just hold still, they won’t bother you,” Kylee shouted.
“You’ve got a lot more faith than I do, kid.” Talina arrowed the car back toward the south, building speed. The column of mobbers was still flowing out of the trees. Now they turned in her direction.
She shot a glance back over her shoulder. The mobbers behind were no longer gaining.
“Look!” Kylee pointed. “There’s a bunch hovering over the place where Flash’s body was dragged. Be fitting justice, don’t you think? Leaper and Diamond kill Flash, and then while they’re digesting, the mobbers got them?”
“Yeah.” Quetzals froze, right? Camouflaged themselves. She steered straight for the middle of the mob. If nothing else, she’d splash their rainbow-colored guts all over the front of the aircar. She was up to eighty kph now, grinning with the thrill of combat. The quetzal in her gut was literally vibrating with terror.
Kylee called, “Here they come.”
As Talina shot into the middle of the column she braced for the impact of their bodies. Nothing. To her amazement, the beasts ducked, dodged, flitted to the side, scrambling in all directions. She heard their scimitar-sharp claws striking the aircar’s hull—a hail-like rattling sound—but she didn’t hit a one.
“If that isn’t the damnedest thing. Talk about agility on the wing.”
Talina pulled up on the wheel, turned tightly, and shot a glance over her shoulder. The whole line was strung out behind her.
She aimed the aircar down into the gap between the defensive line of pines and the Donovanian forest. There, in the dead zone between, lay Flash’s torn remains. Most of the polymer skeleton remained intact enough to give the carcass an identity.
Talina dove, picking up speed. Behind her came the pursuing horde, the entire sky behind the racing aircar like a winding ribbon of flashing colors.
A sinking feeling deadened Talina’s gut. How damn fast could the creep-freaking mobbers fly?
She pulled out, skimmed across the top of Flash’s bones, and caught the barest glimpse as the panicked Leaper and Diamond dropped their camouflage. One instant the ground next to Flash’s corpse appeared empty, the next it turned yellow and black, signs of quetzal fear. Knowing they were discovered, the two quetzals broke for the pines. The stream of mobbers split, some chasing the racing quetzals, others flapping for all they were worth in pursuit of the aircar.
“Come on,” Talina growled to herself. “There’s got to be a limit on how fast those bastards can fly.”
She turned north, the throttle all the way forward.
Leaper and Diamond were racing down the causeway, literal streaks as they lined out, mouths like Os and tail vents wide, legs a blur. Their bodies blazed a startling white as they sought to dump the incredible heat their muscles were producing.
A running quetzal could hit up to one hundred and sixty kph for a limited time. Diamond and Leaper were outdistancing the pursuit.
Talina couldn’t help but watch with awe as the two quetzals rounded one of the sheds and dove into a hole torn in the ruins of the Mundo Dome. She was whizzing past when the first of the pursuing mobbers rounded the shed, split into smaller groups, and began searching for their vanished prey.
Over her shoulder, Talina could see her own mobbers hot on the aircar’s tail.
To her amazement, the mobbers, too, had turned blaze-white for better thermoregulation.
And worse, pegged to the dash like the throttle was, she was pulling everything the battery had. Not that there had been a lot of it to start with.
Looking behind, the mobbers were slowly closing the distance.
37
Living with Dan Wirth had provided Allison Chomko with a hard education, especially when it came to men. She considered that as Tamarland Benteen sauntered across the main room on his way to the cage where she sat.
It had been Dan’s chance remark: “There’s two kinds of people. Those who are played for cunts, and the few who play them.”
She and Dan had been lying in bed one morning after an unusually vigorous bout of sex. That had been a couple of months ago. And she’d realized, sharply and instantly, that she was one of the former. Since that day, Allison had carefully, cautiously, begun laying the groundwork necessary to ultimately change her situation. She was, after all, the daughter of two remarkably intelligent parents, both brilliant in their fields. Somehow, after their deaths, she’d devoted herself to Rick, made him the center of her life. After his crushing death, her battered emotions had fixed on little Jessie. Only to lose her to a quetzal through negligence. Somehow, in the wake of that tragedy, she’d allowed Dan Wirth to turn her into a drugged-out, high-cost prostitute and bookkeeper.
&nb
sp; Not exactly the vision of her future that Allison had dreamed as a girl.
As she’d cut back on the drugs, it hit her: She couldn’t go back. Couldn’t undo what she’d become. What she did have was a choice. She could continue to be played until she despised herself enough to end it all, or she could take steps to use her intellect to become a player herself. Surely she had to have some of her parents’ smarts, that innate intelligence.
Allison fully understood that she was in bed with a stone-cold killer and psychopath. Challenging Dan Wirth would be the most dangerous game on the planet.
Now, here came Tamarland Benteen.
“So your name is Allison,” Benteen noted as he leaned an elbow against the cashier’s cage and glanced thoughtfully out at The Jewel’s gaming room. Given that it was midday, only a few of the tables were occupied. Shafts of light angled through the high windows to illuminate the place.
“And you are the scorpion.” Allison gave him a wary, half-lidded look. “Quite a reputation. We’ve never had such a celebrity. Heard they have a death warrant out for you back in Solar System.”
“Does that worry you?”
“Look around. Take Art over there, watching you like he is. Anywhere but Donovan, he’d have a death warrant out in his name. It’s a tough world filled with tough men.” She gave him the slightest trace of a smile. “So, you’ve killed people. If I lifted a hand, Art would take you out this quick.” She snapped her fingers.
“I’m harmless.”
Sure. She knew a dangerous man when one was leaning on her counter. “Sure you are.”
Something made him chuckle. “Let me guess, you like dangerous men.”
“Dan’s as dangerous as they get on Donovan.” Careful, Allison. Don’t underestimate this guy.
“He’s made quite the empire here. He’s got a casino, a whorehouse, interest in a half-dozen mines, and controls a lot of property. He sits on the Port Authority city council, if you can call it that. So, given all the above, what’s wrong with him?”
Her gaze narrowed. “What do you mean, what’s wrong with him?”
“Why isn’t he the big boss, the Chairman, whatever you want to call it?”
She gave him a “you’re not serious” look.
“Hard to believe that a woman of your beauty would be stuck in a hole like this, cashing chips, and turning the occasional trick. Back in Solar System you’d be a Boardmember’s escort in the finest establishments in Transluna.”
“Forget the flattery. I’m the richest woman on Donovan after the Supervisor. Back in Solar System, I could buy you.”
He met her challenging gaze with his own. “I could care a fig for your wealth. I’m interested in power.”
“How is that working out for you? Or, wait, aren’t you throwing out your bedroll in Talina’s wrecked dome? Wandering around in the middle of the day, leaning on my cage? A bit ambitious of you, isn’t it? To be talking about power?” She paused. “Given that I could have your throat cut, and your body left outside the fence, who’s the more powerful here?”
“Cut my throat?” He kept his voice casual. “No one on this ball of rock has the requisite talent.”
She thought he was boasting, tried to keep the skepticism out of her eyes.
“What do you charge for a night?”
“More than that initial fifty Shig advanced you, that’s for sure. And even then, just because you come in with the plunder, chances are you’ll be turned down. Most are.”
“Why?”
“Because I choose.” She lifted a teasing eyebrow. “I’m a businesswoman. If I’m going to take a man into my bed, I’m coming out of it with a nice profit as well as a nice time.”
“Do you gamble?”
“Um, look around.”
“I’m a gambler myself. I think you and I can do business. Along with your wealth, how would you like to be the law in Port Authority? Think dictator. Queen. Whatever authoritarian term you might want to apply to single-party rule.”
She tried to figure his angle. Granted, things were different back in Solar System, but this was Port Authority. Even Dan had come to an understanding of where the limits of his power lay. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Not at all. I’ve taken Shig and Yvette’s measure. And that’s the best Port Authority can offer? Then there’s your man Dan. Clever, but bumbling in his bid to win favor. A school? Just to curry favor with the local families?”
Time to bait him, but not too far. “What would you do?”
“Delegate, provide the funds, and let them know that they can build their own damn school. My suspicion is that those who complained about my governance would simply disappear.”
“And you call that a policy?” His self-assurance intrigued her. She wasn’t sure he understood what he was dealing with in PA, but something in his smooth delivery smacked of confidence and competency.
“Humans are susceptible creatures. Each has a weakness, a fault that can be exploited. Among the most useful is fear. The best way to feed fear is through uncertainty. And when critics begin to mysteriously vanish in the night?” He shrugged. “How much more uncertain can you get than that?”
“You talk a good fight.”
He studied her thoughtfully, softly asked, “Do you really want to play the game? Become not just the second richest woman, but the richest? And most powerful?”
She experienced that tingling moment of excitement. He’d just dangled the bait. Time to raise the ante. “That means you would have to eliminate the Supervisor.”
“I guess it would, wouldn’t it? But everything in its time. For the moment, I’d rather wager with you.”
“Wager what?” Here it came.
“You. In my bed. Willingly, and for free.”
“That will be the day.” Shit, this wasn’t teasing, he meant it.
“You’re a dreamer at heart. I can see it in your eyes. You long for greater things. Dan Wirth is content with his slice of Port Authority. The casino, his money-making interests, but he’s willing to let the others run things. Thinks it’s beneath his dignity.”
“You don’t know Dan very well.”
“Better than you, my love. People like him? I’ve spent my life bringing them down and turning them into my willing servants.”
“Hot air.” But something about him had her warning bells ringing. A year working in The Jewel had sharpened her wits, as if she could detect danger through some sixth sense.
“You want to take my bet? If I win, take control of all of this”—he lifted his upraised palms to indicate The Jewel—“you come to my bed. Join me. Work at my side as my partner.”
Suppose he could eliminate Dan? What then? Where would she be? A line girl like Angelina? She sure as hell wasn’t going to be welcomed back in the community with open arms. “Why me?”
“You lived all your life here. You know Donovan in ways I don’t. I need a second, and you’re the most ravishing thing I’ve seen here. Maybe the smartest, too. Let me guess, since Turalon’s arrival, you’ve gone from nothing to all of this. In another year, why wouldn’t you want the whole show?”
She had half started to believe him, and then broke into laughter. “Yeah, sure. You take all of this over? I’ll bed you. It’d take a miracle.” She pointed. “And you’d have to deal with the likes of Art long before you ever got to Dan. And believe me, you wouldn’t like his kind of trouble. The kind that will find your body out at the edge of the fields, swarmed by invertebrates as they devour your corpse.”
But under the bravado, Allison had a shiver run down her spine. It was something about Tam Benteen, that creeping sensation that she was in the presence of the most dangerous man she’d ever met. That something irrevocable had once again changed in her life, and if she didn’t play it just right, she’d come out of it either dead or forever broken.
38
In the drift wall copper gleamed at the outside, edging imperceptibly into green and then to a metallic gray almost mindful of lead. In the white glare of the arc lights, the remarkable streak of metal was absolutely beautiful. Worth a fortune. And a real pain in the ass. It ran down one side of the tunnel wall and filled the entire face where it continued into the rock.
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Lea Shimodi asked through her suit com. “I would have said it was impossible. But here it is, more wealth than I would have believed could be concentrated in one place.”
Kalico stepped closer, careful of her footing as she crossed the muck, or piled ore, and peered at the vein. “Deadly stuff, eh?” She fought the urge to poke the gray metal.
“You really don’t want to breathe it,” Aurobindo Ghosh told her. “And, Supervisor, you’re looking at a bloody damn fortune right there. That’s pure beryllium surrounded by copper. Like some giant glob of it was blasted out of a star, compacted here as part of the planetary accretion process when Donovan was formed.”
“Ituri said that the beryllium fraction was increasing with depth.”
“Yeah, well, we’re at four hundred and eighty feet. Problem is, we’ve only got four hazard suits. We can’t let anyone down here to stope this out unless they’re suited. That’s why I’ve got this tunnel sealed off with that plastic sheeting.”
“How big do you think this deposit is?” Kalico again resisted the urge to finger the ghostly gray. An alkaline earth metal, beryllium had remarkable properties when mixed with copper, iron, or nickel. And here it was: pure. And no way to know how many metric tons might be waiting to be freed from its rocky confinement.
“No telling, Supervisor. The farther it goes, the more fantastic it is.” Shimodi’s voice communicated the woman’s awe. But then, she’d been starstruck from the moment she stepped off the shuttle at Corporate Mine. Called it a wonderland.
“Wish we had more suits,” Ghosh was muttering.
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