Outpost

  He tilted his head. “It’s a hard world, S.O. Let me think. Wait, it’s coming to me. As I recall, the last guy on The Corporation’s payroll that you went out with? I think it was established that you put a bullet in his brain. Me, I was following orders in the investigation of a mutiny. But we learn, don’t we? Maybe there’s reasons for both of our actions.”

  He pinned her with hard eyes. “I’m willing to beg, trade, or buy a trip out there. Now, you can be a bitch and bust my balls, or let me come along for the ride. Your call.”

  Something about his earnest, level gaze caused her to nod. “Call me a fool. Stow your gear. But it’s just out and back. Chaco and Madison Briggs have a farm about two hundred and eighty klicks out. Kind of a cool place. They built a cliff house in a vertical canyon wall. Easily defensible. Rain water that runs down the cliff collects in a cistern. They’ve got a nice garden patch on the cap rock above. This is their fourth kid coming.”

  He slung his pack onto the deck, clambered over the gunwale, and racked his rifle—a sleek military automatic with a forty-round magazine.

  Talina shook her head. “I’m probably going to regret this.”

  “Yeah, S.O., that’s kind of how life works, isn’t it?”

  “You always so cheery?” She took the control wheel with one hand while she pushed the throttle forward with the other. The fans spun up, blowing dust from beneath the vehicle.

  As the car rose, she spun it around, gaining altitude as she headed out toward the southwest. Leaving the last of the fields behind, they crossed over the brush.

  “There you go, Taggart.” She indicated the blue-green maze of vegetation. “That’s the bush. Wild, free, and dangerous.”

  He was staring over the side, a thoughtful interest reflected in his expression. “I have to admire them. People like these Briggs folks that you’re talking about. How do they do it? Living out there all alone? I mean, it’s just them, right? Who do they ever see? Or are there other Wild Ones close by?”

  “Just them. They get into town every six months or so. We’ll get a call that they have a load of trade, and would we be willing to send an aircar to pick them up.”

  “What kind of trade?”

  At her reluctance, he added, “Oh, come on. Kalico has effectively signed the whole damn world over to you guys. I could give a fig. But I really want to know. For me. What do they trade?”

  “Gold mostly. They’re sitting on a pretty impressive vein. Chaco built a water-powered mill down in the canyon bottom to crush the ore. Madison tans chamois hides, does some sewing.”

  “Do the kids go to school?”

  “Not in the traditional sense. They’re being taught to read, do math, chemistry, and geology. But the big lessons are in how to stay alive. Can’t remember how old the kids are. But the boys can survive on Donovan with only a knife and rope. On this world, that’s like genius.”

  Taggart didn’t respond but only nodded.

  She studied him from the corner of her eye as they wound up one of the canyons in the Blood Mountains and broke out on the flats above the sandstone cap rock. Ahead of them, the higher Wind Mountains rose like a row of jutting teeth—as if they’d been formed to saw at the very sky.

  “Those are the Winds up ahead.” She pointed as they skimmed over aquajade and chabacho trees that turned their branches, as if following the aircar as it passed. “They form sort of a semicircle around Port Authority and the bay. About a million years ago one big honking asteroid slammed into Donovan where the bay sits today. Fractured the surface like a bullet does glass. The Winds are part of the deep crust that was thrust up. Absolutely loaded with threads of rare-earth elements, gold, lead, platinum, copper, you name it. And, of course, the volcanism that resulted is what spewed all that clay that’s so valuable back home.”

  “They use it for making qubit computer matrix,” Taggart told her. “That and superhard temperature-resistant ceramics.”

  Yeah, Skull, as the people who mine it, we really do know what it’s used for.

  She bit off a grin as they swooped over a herd of chamois that exploded in all directions like a sunburst beneath them.

  “Chamois!” Taggart cried in delight. “They’re beautiful! And my God, are they fast or what? Almost outrunning us.”

  He was staring down at the ones they overtook as they darted between the trees.

  “They have to be able to outrun predators. The quetzal is faster, but a chamois is more maneuverable. The things have three-hundred-and-sixty-degree vision. At the last instant before a quetzal grabs them, they jink right or left. Quetzals can’t change course as quickly.”

  “How do you ever catch them?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “When it comes to bagging chamois, a bullet is faster than even a quetzal. And people like Chaco and Madison? They trap them. Doesn’t matter how fast a critter is when it’s in a trap.”

  She pulled the wheel back, gaining elevation as they passed over fractured and uplifted beds of sandstone and shot into Mainway Canyon.

  “This is the best route through the mountains,” she told Taggart. “This canyon leads to Best Pass. Aptly, if not exotically, named, it’s the easiest and safest way west through the Winds.”

  He was fixed on the almost vitreous walls of rock that rose to either side. Pinkish red gave way to black swirls and large veins of white that were intersected by greens, blues, and blood red.

  “The colors are different metal-bearing minerals,” she told him. “Black is manganese and molybdenum mixed with nickel and lead. Greens are the copper-heavy ores, and the reds are iron.”

  Around them the tall peaks towered, tufts of cloud streaming from their tops.

  “Damn rugged country,” Taggart noted as he inspected the jagged rock, sheer walls, and shadow-black depths below them.

  “No one has crossed these on foot yet, that’s for sure.”

  “Whoever finally does, that’s going to be one tough bastard,” he amended as Talina piloted them through the narrow V of the pass. The winds were always bad in here.

  After passing through, they started descending in calmer air and followed a canyon created by the fracturing of great uplifted blocks of bedrock.

  “You’re literally traveling up through time,” she told him. “We’re still in deep crustal rock here, but keep your eyes open. Up ahead you’ll see a band of orange sandstone. That’s two-billion-year-old ocean bottom. Then each superimposed layer we pass marks a different geological epoch up to the present when we break out onto open ground.”

  “Do you ever get used to that smell?”

  “What smell?”

  “That kind of perfume? Sort of like cardamom and anise.”

  “I guess you do, because I stopped smelling it years ago. But yeah, it’s there when I sniff for it. It’s the vegetation, the musk bush, thorncactus, aquajade, blue nasty, and gotcha vine.”

  “Nightmares, biteya bush, cutthroat flower, gotcha vine, you gotta love the names.” He shot her a smile. “And yes, S.O., I get it. I’m soft meat and don’t have the smarts of a ten-year-old with a knife and a rope.”

  “Keep that attitude and you might make it a whole year on Donovan.”

  “Odds makers are giving Turalon less than a one in five chance of making it back to Solar System.” He stared pensively at the passing levels of sandstone, dolomite, and shales. “I owe you for this, S.O. I really wanted to see something of Donovan before heading back.”

  “You are welcome, Captain.” She found herself oddly touched by the earnest tone in his voice. “Why’d you volunteer for this trip in the first place?”

  “I could tell you it was the excitement of seeing a far-off world.”

  “But that would be a lie, right?”

  “Yeah.” A grim smile played at his lips, as if he were arguing with himself. “I was assigned. That’s the euphemism for being punis
hed.” He hesitated. “My commanding officer prior to this trip, the good Major Creamer, sent us out to knock a bunch of asteroid miners back into line. They’d ‘requisitioned’ some pretty expensive Corporate property. Sounds familiar, huh?”

  Having just “requisitioned” an entire planet, she didn’t think it was her duty to comment.

  “Problem was, good ol’ Major Creamer, unknown to me, told the miscreants at Beemer Station they could hand over the collector and all the ore, or twenty hours later, Corporate security was going to hit them with a full squad.”

  She watched the corners of his eyes tighten before he said, “Being so warned, they used that time to set demolition charges in several of the asteroids along our most likely route of approach. It wasn’t explosions that did the damage, mind you, but the mass of debris it blew into our path.”

  “How many did you lose?”

  “Twenty-two. Good people.” He frowned at the layers of gray-white shale they were now passing. “Changes you when people you care about, and under your command, die in your arms. What was left of us weren’t in the mood for what you’d call negotiation when we breached their little station a couple of hours later.”

  He studied her from the corner of his eye, then admitted: “The image of blasted bodies in freefall lives with you. Sort of clings to the soul. Especially the leaking corpses of the children.”

  “And good ol’ Major Creamer?”

  “I didn’t so much as lay a finger on him, let alone beat the ever-loving shit out of him like he deserved. It wasn’t just my people, but what we did to those miners. None of it had to happen. We could have just arrived unannounced, taken our stuff, arrested the ringleaders, and it would have been over. Problem was, he just couldn’t take constructive criticism, especially when I gave it to him in front of a Boardmember.”

  “Thought they taught you guys better than that.”

  He grinned sheepishly. “You know, you people scared the shit out of me that day we had you on trial. I thought it was going to happen all over again, but this time it was going to be me that was carried out feet first along with the rest of you.”

  “Did I ever tell you that you and the Supervisor are assholes?”

  “Nope. But no one’s around, so this would be a very good time if you absolutely had to get it off your chest.”

  “You and the Supervisor are assholes. Wouldn’t want to leave any doubt in your mind should you ever have the slightest question.”

  He was grinning, that sparkle back in his eyes as they broke out into the flats; the river flowed below them as it snaked through a thick forest of chabacho trees. Scarlet fliers burst from the blue-green foliage, their crimson wings glittering, rudder-like tails flipping behind them.

  “Is everything colorful here?”

  “You bet. And just about as deadly.”

  “This place kind of grows on you, doesn’t it?”

  “What are you going to go back to, Captain?”

  “Money. A pile of it. Every second I’m gone, the SDRs just pile up.”

  “And then what? You gonna retire?”

  “I’m only thirty. Maybe go into personal security. Bodyguard for one of the Boardmembers.”

  “Spend the rest of your life standing behind his shoulder? Doing advances at his mistress’s house?”

  “Or boyfriend’s.”

  “Wow! I can see how that would attract a man like you. How your every waking hour will be filled with excitement and satisfaction. Almost makes me wish I was you.”

  He winced. “Do you think you could get a little more disgust in your voice? Maybe slur the words a little, or nasalize, or something?”

  “Might be that I could. Now that you mention it.”

  The warning buzzer went off, the charge light flashing on the dash. “Shit!”

  “What’s that?”

  “Power failure. Battery’s shorted internally and overheating. Got to put down.”

  She cranked the wheel, hearing the strain in the rotors, heading out away from the thick forest around the river. Ahead lay nothing but an unbroken field of trees.

  Damn it, Tal! How much time have we got?

  She could see hilly uplands no more than a couple of kilometers to the south. Not that they had a chance of making it that far. “Look for a hole in the trees, Captain. We’ve only got seconds of flight left.”

  “Got it. There!”

  She saw it the same time he did. Veered right.

  Come on! Come on! Keep us aloft! Just a little while longer!

  She corkscrewed down into the opening, dropping into shade, feeling a growing heat through the deck.

  “Get your gear, Taggart. When we touch down, bail!”

  “Copy.”

  The rotors failed a couple of meters shy of the ground. They dropped like a rock, slammed into a bulge of root. The car tilted, slid sideways and crashed into the root mat at a steep angle.

  Talina was thrown against the gunwale. Pain shot through her hip as she cart wheeled over the side and flipped onto her shoulder in the soft lacery of intertwined roots. She had a vague image of Taggart tumbling into another of the roots, his pack bouncing beside him.

  For a moment, she just lay there, trying to gather her wits. Then the pain came blasting up from her hip. “Fuck me!” she gasped, forcing herself to sit up.

  The down side of the aircar had sliced through the roots and was embedded in the loose organic soil. The rest of the craft slanted at a thirty degree angle, but was falling as the damaged root tried to squirm away from the insult.

  “Cap? You all right?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  “I think. Yeah.” He winced. “What the hell went wrong?”

  “Old equipment pushed past its recommended service life. But we should have had some warning. Like it wouldn’t take a charge. Or wasn’t holding one. Listen, we’ve got to get away from here.”

  She forced herself up on her good leg. The one that was still healing from being broken. Gingerly, she moved her right leg. Hip and femur seemed intact, but damn she was going to have a bruise.

  She watched him clamber to his feet, shaking his head. A blue-green streak on his cheek marked the spot where it had banged into the unforgiving root.

  Talina hopped over, pulled her rifle from the rack, and snagged her pack where the gunwale had stopped it. Slinging the gun, she pulled Taggart’s rifle free and tossed it to him.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to stay by the aircar? Wait for rescue?”

  She pointed. “See the way these roots are moving?”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “The trees are trying to figure out what just happened. When they do, they’re going to engulf the vehicle. And us, too, if we’re in the vicinity.”

  He stared in thinly veiled disbelief at the slowly twisting roots. “No shit? They’re alive?”

  “Skulls,” she whispered in despair. And now she was stuck with one. The kindest thing would be to turn and blow his brains out with a pistol shot.

  She reached for the emergency kit hatch, only to see smoke streaming from beneath the lid. She cursed as the hot metal burned her fingers. As she backed away, the seat cushions browned and burst into flame.

  “Got to get out of here,” she called.

  Each step was excruciating as she led the way to a low gap in the already writhing root mass. As she looked back over her shoulder, it was to see the aircar glowing red as the battery melted. The roots were recoiling from the heat, squirming away, leaving the disabled craft to burn and smolder on the disturbed ground. Overhead the branches were turning, exposing their leaves to the energy they could absorb from the rising heat.

  “What next?” Taggart asked.

  “High ground two klicks south.” She took a breath. “Stop too long and the roots will get us. It’s that high ground or nothing. Assu
ming we live long enough to get there.”

  “And what are the chances of that?”

  “Does the term ‘fucking grim’ mean anything to you?”

  31

  The sound of tapping hammers and whining drills filled the air as Trish stepped inside Thumbs Exman’s old core-drill warehouse. The place had the cardamom and cinnamon smell of sawdust. Four men were working on chabacho-wood tables; another was fitting what looked like a wheel to a vertical spindle that rose out of a long-defunct centrifuge.

  In the back she could see the subject of her inquiry. Dan Wirth sat at a raised desk, Allison perched at his side as they stared at an oversized ledger book. It took Trish a moment to recognize the volume as a bound core log. The sort used for recording cuttings when, for whatever reason, a computer wasn’t an option.

  She strode past the four guys working on one of the tables and wondered what the hell it was. Big, oval shaped, it was more like an oversized, straight-sided bathtub, and one of the guys was pressing some sort of scrounged padding around the oval circumference.

  She stopped before the elevated desk, announcing, “Hey, Allison, how’s it going?”

  The blonde looked up and smiled, her eyes brightening as she said, “Hey, yourself, Trish. Can you believe? We’re going into business.”

  Dan Wirth studied Trish through emotionless and uncaring brown eyes, as if she were some sort of nonentity.

  “Really glad to hear that, Al.” Trish looked around. “Thumbs rent the place to you?”

  “Purchased,” Wirth said with a curious formality. “After a fashion.”

  “I heard you won it in a poker game.” Trish arched an eyebrow.

  Wirth glanced sidelong at Allison. “And if you heard that, why ask if I was renting?”

  Trish glanced around, taking in the space. “You don’t happen to know where Thumbs is, do you?”

  “Haven’t seen him since the other night,” Wirth replied mildly. “Quite the party. The man was a little wobbly. Something about the whiskey he drank. There seemed to be a lot of whiskey that night. Or maybe it was because someone smacked him in the head. He had a most colorful bruise on his cheek.”