“How far is Rork Springs?” Kylee asked, her hands braced on the dash, intent gaze on the far horizon.
“Five, maybe six hours. It’s on the west side of the Wind Mountains. One of the original research bases was established there. It’s been abandoned for more than a decade now. Last time I was there, the dome was still intact. There was a small garden plot down in the drainage, but who knows what kind of shape it’s in? The important thing is that it has good water. The spring comes out of sandstone. Not much heavy metal. It’s a good place to hole up.”
“Quetzals?”
“Hey, kid. It’s Donovan. The good news is that no one ever reported mobbers there. Doesn’t mean they’re not around. Cap and I had our first encounter with mobbers about fifty kilometers west of Rork Springs.”
“Kalico got her scars fighting death fliers?”
“She did.”
“You like her.”
“That’s the thing about Donovan. You’ve heard the old saying?”
“What saying?”
“That people come to Donovan to find themselves, to die, or to leave. Kalico’s changed since the day she landed here. I think she’s starting to find herself.”
“What about you?”
“Yeah, well that’s a problem. Just about the time I thought I’d found myself, I got infected by quetzals. Since I don’t have a friggin’ clue if I’m coming or going, I’m either about to die or find myself as something new.”
“Don’t die.”
“It’s not in the operational handbook, but the way I keep making people mad? Never can tell. Half of Port Authority wants to chew on a chunk of my butt these days.”
Kylee glanced up with knowing blue eyes. “You killed my father, remember? And that’s supposed to make people love you?”
“Shut up and watch the scenery, kid.”
And then there she was, on the central avenue, Clemenceau’s voice thundering the order. And Pak and Paolo, armed, staring at her with angry, hate-filled, and scared eyes as her pistol raised. That momentary realization in their eyes, the disbelief that they were about to . . .
The jab in her ribs caused the image to vanish, the tree-thick horizon seeming to rise in front of the aircar.
“Wake up, Talina,” Kylee said sharply. “We’re going down. I don’t want to crash.”
Talina jerked the wheel back, putting them into a climb. She felt her heart skip. Fought to clear the images from her brain, but the damn things clung like cobwebs, flickering in and out of her vision.
The image of the Way glyph seemed to lurk in the back of her mind.
“Where were you just now?” Kylee asked.
“In the street. Moments before I shot your father and Paolo. It was so real.” She shook her head. “I justified it by believing it was for the common good. That’s the lie. The Corporation thrives because of it. The greatest good for the greatest number. The algorithms have made us into little walking automatons. Ants and bees. Milling about our hives, serving the Corporate queen, and ignorant of everything that once made us human.”
Kylee gave her a sidelong “you’re just raving” glance.
“Guess you wouldn’t know.” Talina smiled. “And I guess we’re talking. When I talk, I don’t fall into the visions and crash us into the forest.”
So they talked. Kylee told of her adventures with Rocket. What it was like growing up and thinking the whole world was Mundo Base. Talina talked about Chiapas, about the Maya, and her mother, and what it meant to escape to Corporate Security.
She managed to finish the flight, following the curve of the Wind Mountains, around until they intersected the headwaters of Rork River. Next Talina located the long anticline, used it to find the tiny valley where a tributary fault had cracked the sandstone.
She throttled back as the aircar descended toward the canted layer of slickrock. Here a ripple in the formation’s strike had created a sheltered hollow. To Talina’s relief, the dome still stood, perched as it was on bare sandstone. Below it, the springs had been reclaimed by vegetation, trees and brush having retaken any patch of soil. She’d seen Donovanian plants cross slickrock, but they never lingered in the process.
Dropping down, she could see that the door was still closed on the dome; the utility sheds and dormitory out back appeared to be intact as well. The big solar panels atop poles sunk into bedrock appeared to be tracking Capella for maximum energy gain, so the servos must still be working. Hopefully the batteries weren’t fried due to a lack of maintenance.
“Forgot how pretty it is here,” Talina added as she settled the aircar onto the worn sandstone before the dome.
Kylee climbed up on the gunwale, staring around with the kind of curiosity only a child can muster. “Nobody lives here?”
“Not now. This is one of the oldest base camps. A sort of jumping off place for further exploration to the west.”
“Why’d they leave?”
“Ran out of people.” Talina climbed over the side and set foot on the solid stone. “Too many got eaten out in the bush. No ships came with replacements. The last three people here packed up and moved back to PA.”
“Why’d they build on rocks?” Kylee had hopped down next to Talina and was stomping her ad hoc shoe on the stone. “It’s really hard.”
“No slugs, no bems, no skewers, and you can see the quetzals coming. Doesn’t get dangerous until you’re down in the canyon bottom in the brush.”
“You said there’s a garden?”
“Down below the spring. We’ll have to see what’s still alive, or if it has all been crowded out by Donovanian plants.”
Talina reached in, unclipped her rifle from the rack, and was just about to head up to the dome when the big supply crate shifted. Then, before she could react, the lid raised and a gray-matted head popped up.
The face that went with it was long, lined, and possessed of a thick jaw, bushy eyebrows, and startled brown eyes to either side of a patrician nose.
“What the fuck?” Talina asked. “Who the hell are you?”
“I think I’m crippled for life.” The brown eyes fixed first on Talina, and then Kylee where she peered over the aircar’s side. “I really need your help. My legs are so stiff I don’t think I can climb out of this miserable coffin. I may never walk again.”
“I said: Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Doctor Dortmund Weisbacher, Chair of the Department of Planetology, Tubingen University, Transluna.” He shook his head. “And I can’t believe that I was so desperate that I stowed away in a miserable crate to get the hell out of Corporate Mine. So, please, take me to Inga’s so I can drink the memory away before booking passage back up to Vixen.”
44
Inga’s was loud, voices rising and falling. Utensils clattered and plates scraped on the hardwood tables. People were crowded around Flight Officer Seesil Vacquillas. Like all the Vixen crew who came down on rotation, she was the center of attention for the locals.
Somehow, for once, word hadn’t gotten out about Maniken. Maybe Wye Vanveer figured he was in enough trouble with Dan. Not that the clay miner could have done anything to stop it.
Dan shook his head, made a face. He slowly turned the cup he held, trying to think his way through this latest calamity. Beside him, Allison stared dully in the direction of the new kitchen where people were dishing up potatoes, chunky crest gravy, and broccoli. Pancakes were the other item on the menu.
“Surprised he let you out this morning,” Dan told her.
“I told him I had to get ready for work. That I had to go home and get dressed. Thought you’d want to have all the details before you walked into the place. But, I don’t know . . .”
“How’s that?”
“The way Benteen looked at me, like he knew exactly why I wanted to get out of there. And like, well, I was doing just what he wanted me to.”
>
“Canny guy.” He slammed the cup down. “Art’s really dead?”
“I felt Tam get up. He moves like a ghost. Wary like. Knew he went down the hall. Figured he had to pee. Then there’s this loud bang and Art screaming.”
“Art was as good as they get. And you say Benteen was buck-assed naked?”
“The way Benteen moved, it was like a dance. Art swinging that club, Benteen . . .” She shook her head. “I mean I saw. Like they’d rehearsed it all. The way Art’s club whished past Benteen’s head. The way the guy avoided getting whacked was like magic.”
Art’s dead?
The thought was stunning. Who on this gilded ball of rock could take his place? No one. All it had taken was a look from Art, maybe a whispered word, and the chuckleheads were right back in line. Talent like that didn’t just grow on every fart-sucking thorncactus.
“Okay, let’s think.” Dan rubbed his temples. “Who the hell is Benteen, anyway?”
“The scorpion. I can believe it.”
“How’d he fuck? Hard? Possessive? Anything painful or kinky?”
She shook her head. “He said no mash, no eros. So I figured it would be hard and fast the first time. Wasn’t. Takes his time like it’s an art form. Knows his way around a woman’s body. He calls it a poetry of pleasure.”
Her lips quirked. “He was into getting me off as many times as he could. Seemed to make it better for him when he finally came. Hard to believe, but he’s as good as you.”
“Okay, so nothing there we can use.” Dan paused. “Did he say anything? Give anything away?”
She shook her head absently. “Wanted to know about boring stuff. How Port Authority works. Did Shig have any lovers, anyone he cared about. Same about Yvette. Who was the man in her life.”
“Looking for vulnerabilities,” Dan mused. “That’s got to frustrate the hell out of him.”
She turned her worried eyes his way. “What are we going to do, Dan? I mean, it’s going to get out. Mean, deadly old Art went after him in the middle of the night with a club. Naked as a newborn, Benteen took him down. I tell you, the man acted as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Killing Art came across almost like boring routine.”
“How’d he act afterward?”
She laughed dismissively. “My ass barely bounced on the bed before he was hard as a rock and doing me.” She paused. “I mean, he’d just been in a fight for his life. All those chemicals in the limbic system should have made him desperate, right? Survival of life and all.”
“Sex and death do dance hand in hand.”
“Well it wasn’t. It was all slow and sensual. I can’t figure him.”
“I hear that tone in your voice. What’s he offered?”
“To be his queen. Co-ruler. Whatever. I wrote it off. Just talk to get in my bed, you know? Now? Screw me with a skewer but I think he means it.”
“What are you going to do?”
He knew that slight pursing of her lips. She turned her puzzled eyes on his. “I don’t know. You and me, we’re partners. What do you think?”
“What if I asked you to drop some brown cap sap in his whiskey some night? Or maybe cut this throat?”
He watched the interplay of her thoughts, reflected so clearly behind her eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Do you love me?”
She gave him a “you’re not serious” look. “I did once. Back when you first got here. Took me a couple of months to figure out who and what you are. No hard feelings, but you’re as heartless as it turns out I am. I learned a lot from you.”
Who the hell was this new Allison? What the hell had changed her? And more to the point, how had he missed it? The new woman she was turning into upset him almost as much as Art’s death had. What else had he missed while he fucked around building schools?
“So?”
“So here’s what I know about him: He’s using me just the way you used me in the beginning. But you let me work into the business. I keep the books, do the finances, and I get my share. He says he’s going to take Donovan for himself, and I can sit at his side.”
Dan felt his blood run cold. “Pretty tempting offer.”
“Here’s where you and he are different: He’s in it for the power. You’re in it for the money. He doesn’t care what he does to Port Authority or Donovan as long as everyone serves him. He’s meaner, tougher, deadly, and competent. But in the end, I think you’re smarter. You’re in it for the long haul.”
“When did you get so fucking good at reading people?”
“When I finally figured out I wanted to be more than an ornament in your bed. So I started cutting down the drugs, watching you. Really paying attention. You learn a lot about people in a casino.”
“How’d I miss this?”
“Because you weren’t paying attention.”
“Guess I just had a wakeup call.”
“Dan. You need to understand that Benteen will kill you without a second thought.”
“He’s figuring I’m going to shoot him in the back. Whatever I do, it’s going to have to be something a bit more devious.”
“Then you better be more damned clever than you’ve ever been. He’s the most dangerous man on this planet.”
“Yeah, where’s Deb Spiro when I need her, huh?”
“She’s laying in a grave up on cemetery hill. Where you’ll be if you aren’t really careful with this guy.”
He blinked. Shook his head. It was like a bad holo-vid. Once again, some Corporate muckety-muck had shown up to fix the game and take everything he had. Fucking high-bred Corporate bastard.
And then there was Allison. When had she turned into this hard-eyed, no-bullshit woman? Sure, he let her do the books, and sure, she got a piece of the take, but when push came to shove, which side was she going to come down on? His or Benteen’s?
Art is dead?
Winning this thing, taking back what was his, was going to be one of the hardest and trickiest things he’d ever had to do.
45
The pain in Dortmund’s legs had finally subsided to the point that he thought he could walk again. He had propped himself against the side of the aircar, legs like sticks, knees locked, as he took in this latest calamity to befall him.
To call it a rude awakening was an understatement.
He had expected to climb out of his box at Port Authority. Just a short walk across town from the shuttle port and a ride up to Vixen. Instead he found himself in an erosional niche on a sandstone slope, the strike of the formation running roughly north-south, with a dip of about fifteen degrees. A kilometer to the west, the shallow valley was filled with curious green-blue vegetation before another jutting wall of stratified sandstone—this one more yellow in color—indicated yet another anticline that dipped off to the west.
A dome, and behind it a rectangular structure with windows, solar panels, and utility sheds, had all been anchored to solid rock. The slickrock continued to rise to the eastern horizon. It appeared rounded and cracked against the Cap III sky.
To his right, what he took to be the south, the sandstone dropped down three or four meters to a vegetation-choked drainage maybe fifteen meters across. Beyond that, the tan slickrock resumed, running off to the south until it curved out of view.
“I don’t think I have ever endured anything as excruciating as this last day,” he admitted. “It really makes a person respect such a simple action as just being able to breathe.”
“I’ll bet.” The woman called Talina, in her thirties, regarded him through obsidian-hard eyes. Her face reminded him of a disapproving warrior’s. She wore a leather hat that did little to confine a wealth of thick black hair that spilled down her back. Her dress consisted of a worn black uniform of some sort. From the cut of it, it might once have been security issue. Now, however, it looked more like a hobo’s patchwork. Tough quetzal-hi
de boots clad her feet. She carried the rifle like it was part of her, and the holstered pistol, large knife, and pouch-packed utility belt reminded him of the archetypal pirate’s gear.
And then there was the little girl. Kylee. Blond, in oversized yellow overalls, but with a feral look to her oddly inhuman blue eyes, as if she was deciding on whether to slit his throat, or just stick something sharp into his guts.
Now the woman’s fingers tapped on the pistol’s grip as she said, “You still haven’t told me why you’re here. That makes me patently suspicious, let alone the fact that you stowed away in a crate.”
“In addition to my university responsibilities, I chair the Corporate Science and Planetology Advisory Committee and report directly to the Board. I was appointed to head the first scientific survey of Capella III, reporting directly to Boardmember Shayne, and am director of—”
“You came on Vixen. That’s why I’ve never seen you.”
“That’s right, I—”
“I’ve got a deal with the Supervisor. I return all of her runaways. The ones she can still use, she just punishes. The ones that don’t serve a useful purpose, she shoots. Personally. Why do I think you fall into that latter category?”
Dortmund blinked. “I beg your pardon? I told you, I’m Dr. Dort—”
“Hey, you don’t need my pardon.” She rapped a staccato on the pistol butt. “Or maybe you do. I’m not only stuck with your sorry ass, but it’s going to be a day of my time to run you back to Corporate Mine. And then Kalico’s just going to shoot you in the head and toss your corpse over the fence for the invertebrates, like she does.”
“Maybe you should just shoot him now,” the little girl said, her feral blue gaze fixed on Dortmund’s. “Save everyone the effort.”
“There’s that,” the dark-haired woman agreed, and started pulling the pistol.
“Wait! By all that’s right, wait!” Dortmund jerked onto his feet, hands out. Every ache and pain was forgotten. “I’ll do anything you say!”
The woman’s hand retreated from the pistol grip. What might have been a mocking smile flickered at her lips.
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