Pariah

by W. Michael Gear

  Dortmund swallowed hard, realized he really needed to pee. Somehow, that had been forgotten, though it had become increasingly urgent during the last hour in the crate. Now it threatened to bend him double, let alone cause him even more humiliation.

  Dortmund took a deep breath, wondering how this could get any worse. “Could we continue this discussion after I visit the facilities?” He winced at the pain in his bladder as he tried to straighten. “Even better. Just go ahead and shoot me.”

  God, did he really just say that?

  The woman chuckled, waved. “Yeah, go take a leak. I’d use the off-side of the aircar. No telling what might be lurking around the toilet, and since you’re soft meat, I’d rather that Kylee and I check out the dome before we figure out that a sidewinder might have found its way into the loo.”

  “The offside of the aircar?”

  “What? You’ve never urinated in the great outdoors before?” the woman asked over her shoulder as she strode off toward the dome. “Oh, and Doc, don’t wander off. No sense in getting eaten by something before we can figure out whether or not to shoot you.”

  Dortmund stumbled around to the other side of the aircar. Of all the silly questions. Of course he’d never relieved himself outside. What did that stupid woman think? That it was still the twenty-first century? Even when he went into the field at the re-wilding tracts, they always had portable facilities to keep from impacting the local ecologies.

  He stopped short, sure to keep the bulk of the aircar between himself and the females, looked over his shoulder just to be sure they weren’t watching. Reassured, he saw them enter the dome, and breathed a sigh of relief.

  He pointed himself downhill and froze, eyes on the vegetation-filled drainage. And beyond that, infinity. Anyone could be out there. Perhaps with glasses, watching him.

  His first instinct was to waddle back up to the dome, ask them to check the toilet.

  Oh, sure. Imagine their expressions.

  What the hell has happened to me?

  Dortmund bit his lip, closed his eyes, and let the relief course through his lower body.

  It’s all right. It’s just sandstone. You’re not creating an environmental impact. Nothing is going to suffer for this.

  Was this the culmination of millions of years of primate evolution? A man who felt traumatized by the simple act of urinating in the outdoors?

  Shaking his head, he refastened and turned his steps up the slope toward the dome. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

  Here he was, not back in Port Authority, but carried even deeper into the wilderness. Looking around, he could tell the place was abandoned. No other aircars, no sign of recent habitation.

  He stepped carefully into the dome, glancing around at a bare-bones, faintly dusty, room. It boasted a single utilitarian table, chairs, couch, two windows, a small kitchen with counter and cabinets, a couple of desks, and crates stacked along the back wall. Beside the front door, next to what had to be a rifle rack, were scrawled the words: quetzal, bem, skewer, sidewinder. Below quetzal were seven hash marks, bem had five, skewer three, and sidewinder six.

  Body count? Even the thought made him queasy.

  He made his way through the doorway in the rear and into a hallway. On the left was an obvious laboratory, a few pieces of plastic-wrapped equipment on the back work counter. To his right he discovered a conference room with maps on the wall and a long central table with chairs. Next on the right he found a lavatory with toilets, shower, sinks, and lockers. Equipment room with mostly bare shelves opposite, and finally living quarters in the rear. Two beds, wardrobes, night tables, mirror on the wall.

  Talina had just checked a chest of drawers and turned, stating, “Glad to see nothing ate you.”

  The little girl was peering into a closet as she flipped through the few pairs of hanging overalls. She turned to regard him with those weirdly dismissive eyes.

  “What are we doing here?” Dortmund asked. “I really need to get to Port Authority.”

  “Why?”

  “This is all a disaster. The journey on Vixen, our arrival here to discover that this is a conservationist’s nightmare. I just want to gain passage back to Vixen. I’m willing to live the rest of my life there, write my report, and wait for either another vessel, or for Vixen to space back.”

  “A conservationist’s nightmare? I haven’t heard that term in ages.” Talina snapped her fingers. “Wait. The re-wilding zones. Conservationists. You’re that Weisbacher?”

  “Who’s he?” Kylee asked. “And what’s a conservationist?”

  “Big academic and political kerfuffle that dominated most of the twenty-first century,” Talina told the child. “Conservationists wanted to set aside huge tracts of land for wildlife. Hands off. No human intervention whatsoever. Re-establish an extirpated ecology, and let nature take its course.”

  “What’s extirpated?” the little girl asked before Dortmund could interrupt.

  “Means a species that’s been eliminated from its original range. As the conservationists became more powerful, they used fossil DNA to recreate extinct species. They turned those once-extinct creatures loose in the re-wilded areas in an effort to make the Earth primitive again.”

  “It’s the only way to save the planet,” Dortmund protested.

  “Didn’t work out so well as I understand.” Talina shrugged, pulling back the bedding and staring curiously at it. “No telling how long it’s been since the bedding was washed. Might want to stake this out in the creek for a day or two before we sleep in it.”

  “About getting me back to Port Authority.” Dortmund crossed his arms.

  “Listen”—Talina let the bedding drop—“for the time being, Kylee and I would rather stay away from PA. We didn’t ask you to come here. Didn’t want you here. Maybe you’d better wise up to some things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the fact that we’ve got to recharge the power pack in the aircar before we go anywhere. Like the fact that I meant it: I take Kalico’s runaways back to her. Just knowing that you’d stow away in a crate in an unknown aircar? That you’d do anything to escape Corporate Mine? Means whatever you did, it must be pretty serious. Which, for soft meat, makes you either really stupid or particularly incompetent.”

  “Maybe he’s a pedophile,” Kylee chimed in, her eyes going wide.

  Dortmund choked off his response to Talina’s charge so he could stare wide-eyed at the girl. “A . . . A what am I?”

  “Pedophile.” Kylee regarded him through her not-quite-right eyes. “The kind of man who sexually violates young girls like me. Pedophiles are known to inhabit Solar System, which is, like, where you’re from, right?”

  “But I never . . .”

  “Do you have a daughter?” the girl demanded.

  “No! I never got around to procreating. My career—”

  “My mother told me that most pedophiles don’t have children,” Kylee insisted. Then she shot a questioning look at Talina. “Should we shoot him now?”

  “Not here, kid. We’d have to clean up the blood and brains. Let’s wait and do it when he’s outside, maybe downhill where the rains can wash the mess away.”

  “Are you both mad? Don’t you know who I am? What I . . .”

  But the woman had burst into laughter, managing to say, “Pus in a bucket, Doc. You ought to see the expression on your face. Oh, damn.” And she burst into even louder peals of laughter.

  46

  Trish Monagan was in the mood to bust heads. She’d been awakened that morning by a chime on her com, only to have it followed by Two Spot informing her, “Sorry to wake you, Trish. But Art Maniken was killed at The Jewel last night. They claim it was a fair fight.”

  She’d acknowledged, rolled over, and tossed the covers back. For a moment she’d stared at the left side of her bed. Empty, as it always was. One
of her favorite fantasies was that she would someday find exactly the right guy to awaken with. So far that had been a real no go.

  With Talina vanished who knew where, and perhaps for good—Donovan being what it was—she felt even more achingly alone.

  Not that things were exactly perfect between her and Talina now. Blame the frigging quetzals for that. But damn it, the woman had taken Trish in, given her a direction when all she wanted to do was drown in grief and loneliness after her mother’s death.

  She’d worshipped Talina, which made it all the worse to watch her friend and mentor descend into madness as alien molecules turned the toughest woman on Donovan into a crate-shooting lunatic.

  A fact that just added another layer to Trish’s hatred for quetzals. Not to mention even more guilt. She should have shot straighter that day in the canyon. Had she, Talina wouldn’t be infected and on the run.

  Trish cradled her head in her hands and hated herself. After all the things Tal had done for her, she should have been more supportive. If she could go back, she wouldn’t have stood against Talina that night when Hmong and the rest wanted Rocket dead.

  “I’ll make it up to her,” Trish whispered, straightening, forcing herself onto her feet.

  That is, if she could. If Talina ever came back. People who disappeared into the bush, as often as not, were never seen again.

  “Damn, I’m a real piece of work, aren’t I?”

  She pulled on her clothes, stared at her reflection in the mirror, and managed to make herself look presentable enough to deal with Dan Wirth and the bipedal flotsam he kept at The Jewel.

  Somebody killed Art Maniken? Call that a community service. She was tempted to nominate whomever had done the deed as citizen of the year. Too bad it was just Maniken and not Wirth.

  Thinking that, she strapped on her pistol and headed out the door. Who knew? Maybe there’d be a way to finally pin something on Wirth. Bring the smug bastard down. Or at least put some kind of crimp on his style.

  Morning light slanted in through The Jewel’s high windows as she strode through the front door. The usual crew, looking oddly somber, were tackling their morning chores, stocking the bar, mopping the floors. Neither Wirth nor Allison were in evidence.

  A dapper-looking man, dressed in fancy black, sat at a table in the rear. Someone she’d never seen before. Soft meat. Had to be from the Vixen.

  Tamarland Benteen. From the description she’d been given, it had to be.

  A cup of tea sat beside his hand as he slouched in the chair, one foot braced on another. An amused smile curved his lips, almost mocking. His eyes, however—flat and deadly—had fixed on her like lasers.

  “So Art’s dead, huh?” Trish announced as she stopped by the craps table. “Where’s Wirth?”

  “Not here, Trish,” Vik told her where he washed glasses behind the bar. “He went to see Art buried. But you want to talk to this fella. I’ll go back and get Angelina. She saw the whole thing.”

  Trish walked over, taking the man’s measure. His complete lack of concern set her off. Like he didn’t know who he was talking to, nor care in the least. “Let me guess, you’re Tamarland Benteen.”

  Tam smiled up. “And you are?”

  Angelina, still in her robe, stepped out of the back. Stopped short, looking frightened at sight of Benteen.

  “Trish Monagan. Security second. The story’s started to make the rounds. Word is that you and Art had words yesterday, then, last night, he jumped you in the back hall.”

  “That’s pretty much it.”

  “Go on.”

  “Not much more to it. He tried to kill me. I didn’t let him. End of story.”

  What was it about the guy? Just being close to him made her skin crawl. Trish shot a look at Angelina. “That true?”

  “Yeah. Art had a club. Kept trying to brain Benteen. Cussing and swinging the whole time. I was staring out the door by the time Benteen tripped Art and he went down. Then Benteen kicked Art in the throat. Hard. Crushed his windpipe. Killed him dead.”

  Tam cocked his head inquisitively as Trish turned his way. Art had been known as one of the toughest men in town. Though she couldn’t prove it, she knew he’d killed at least five or six men who’d crossed Wirth, and beaten a score more bloody before dropping them in the alley behind The Jewel.

  Finally she said, “You’re a brave man, Benteen. Dastardly Dan relied on Art to do his less-savory dirty work. Not that Dan isn’t above the occasional strangling and backstabbing himself. He’s not the kind of guy to let something like this go. Not a bygones-be-bygones sort. Yet here you sit drinking tea.”

  And that was a real puzzle. Sure, she’d heard the stories. The guy was called the scorpion. But Solar System tough and Donovan tough were two different things. Still, the way he was watching her, like she was meaningless, some sort of insect? It sent tingles of unease down her spine.

  “Dan and I have established an understanding.”

  “What kind of understanding?”

  “That, Officer Monagan, need not concern you.” He lowered a warning eyebrow. “Now, be on your way.”

  “And what were you doing before the attack?”

  “Enjoying the best fuck a man can have within thirty light-years of Solar System, not that it’s any of your business.” He stood, slamming the chair back.

  Something cold danced up Trish’s spine as she stared into those flat and deadly eyes; a primeval warning tickled in her gut.

  “Remarkable place, this Port Authority,” Benteen told her in a toneless voice. “A fellow named Fred Han Chow and two of his sons brought a cart, picked up Art Maniken’s body from the alley, and trundled it away to the cemetery.”

  The way he spoke, toneless, without pity, ate its way into Trish’s soul.

  “How absolutely and amazingly simple. No muss, no fuss. In Solar System it would have taken a small staff and months to process the forms, write the reports, coordinate the handling of the corpse, official letters from Shayne’s staff to ensure the proper law enforcement agencies were mollified, and even then it still might have gone to a hearing before a security ombudsperson.

  “Lot to be said for Port Authority.” A beat. “Shithole that it is.”

  A tightness squeezed her lungs, as if she couldn’t breathe. Satan would have those eyes. He reeked of evil—pure and undiluted. Like the man was filled with a black malignancy.

  As if he could read her growing distress, Benteen added, “Four hundred and some people. A crappy collection of domes, hovels, and crude buildings, atop all the gold, jewels, and metallic wealth in the universe.

  “Shayne, if you only knew.”

  Trish’s heart was beginning to pound, her mouth gone dry. “Maybe you better be minding that mouth of yours. This shithole, as you call it, is all that you’ve got left. People here—”

  “Now, Art attacked me.” He leaned close, those flat and deadly eyes burning into hers.

  In that crystalline moment, she understood the hunger in Benteen’s heartless soul. That in an instant she’d die. Crushed. Instantly forgotten in the black void of his being.

  “So, are you finished here, or did you come specifically to get into my shit? If that’s your plan, try me.”

  His movement was like a flash; she rocked as he snatched the pistol from her holster, pressed it into her stomach.

  “Bang.”

  Trish stood paralyzed. He’d snuff her like a candle flame—a meaningless gesture with as little thought. Frozen, she could only stare into those terrible eyes, feel them drain her of hope.

  “I’m . . .”

  “You’re shit, little girl. Now get out.”

  Swallowing past the knot, she battled to glance helplessly at Angelina. “Fair fight?”

  Angelina, lips pursed and looking unhappy, nodded.

  “Then that’s all I needed to know,
” Trish barely whispered, and hated herself for it.

  His face a mask of disdain, he tossed her pistol back to her, a mocking grin twisting his lips.

  Trish spun on her heel and stalked out, back stiff, struggling to keep her legs from buckling.

  Outside, she took a deep breath, staggered to the side, and braced her back against the building’s wall while she fought for control. Her hands were shaking where they clutched her pistol, her stomach hard and aching.

  “That’s odd,” she heard Benteen call from inside the building.

  “What is?” Angelina’s voice.

  “Do you think she wears a diaper?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know she pissed herself, but there’s not so much as a drop on the floor. Maybe that’s why she wears those tall boots?”

  Trish sucked air, sweat breaking out on her skin. Ashamed, she stared down at herself. Fought to stop the shaking, and failed.

  All those times she’d faced death, the dangerous men she’d taken down, the times in the bush when her life had hung by a thread, and this one man had gutted her?

  It didn’t make sense. Like he was evil, inhuman, some creature of empty hate. She’d never known such humiliation, that she was not only meaningless, but detestably weak.

  How the hell did he do that to me?

  47

  A light rain fell from the cloud-blackened sky. Talina filled her lungs, smelling the night air. The scent of wet rock, the anise and cardamom of the vegetation, together they filtered like perfume through her nose. Her quetzal-enhanced vision assured her that the wet slickrock was devoid of threats. Quetzals needed some kind of topography or vegetation to hide in; here, even camouflaged, they’d look like a lump where the bare rock had been flat only hours before. The same with a bem or skewer.

  She checked the aircar one last time where she’d hooked it up to the solar chargers. Turned out that the Rork Springs power packs still had almost eighty percent of their original efficiency. She could be charged by morning.

  But did she really want to waste the day taking Weisbacher back to Kalico?