Outpost

  He glanced sidelong, as if gauging Allison’s response, before adding, “Among other things. Like I said, quite the party.”

  Allison glanced away somewhat unsurely, her fist knotting.

  What the hell was that all about? Allison wasn’t the same person Trish had known in school. She’d always been the beauty, the girl everyone instinctively protected. Where she’d been brittle, like walking glass, she was now somehow detached, sort of dreamy. Trish had overheard Felicity say, “You know, the woman’s finally discovering what it’s all about. From the way she talks, that Dan Wirth doesn’t have a flesh-and-blood dick. Allison would have you believe it’s a stick of dynamite. She almost glows just talking about it.”

  Trish wondered what a man with a stick of dynamite for a dick might have been like. Her own experimentations hadn’t come anywhere close.

  “I talked to O’Leary and Igor Stryski.” Trish propped her hand on her pistol. “They said that the last they saw, you were taking Thumbs into the back at Betty’s.”

  “Alli, my love, would you excuse me for a moment? I don’t want to bore you with all this, and I’ll bet Officer Monagan has never seen a craps table.”

  “Sure, beloved,” Allison told him, leaning forward to peck him on the cheek before he stepped down from the high desk. As he did, she shot Trish a shy smile, her blue eyes seeming unnaturally bright, a blush on her pale cheeks.

  Looks more like drugs than love.

  “Can we talk in confidence?” Wirth asked, voice barely above a whisper as he led her away. His entire demeanor had changed. Back was the boyish rogue, the soft-brown-eyed, dimple-chinned devil.

  “That’s the general idea,” she told him, remembering Talina’s warning about the guy.

  “Hey, fellas, take a break,” he said as he approached what Trish now knew was a craps table. She’d heard of them over the years, but this was new to Donovan. Corporate wouldn’t have allowed it.

  The men grinned, then filed for the door.

  “You ever played craps?” He had stopped at one end of the table, having produced a pair of dice, God knew from where.

  “Never have.”

  “Give it a try. Just toss them down yonder.”

  She took them, shook them, and sent them rattling down the table.

  “A six! You’re a natural, Trish.”

  She took a deep breath. “Imagine that. Look. I got a problem. No one has seen Thumbs. Word is you were the last one with him, and you turn up allegedly having ‘bought’ his warehouse.”

  Wirth was already fishing in his belt pouch, fingers producing a duralon document. “Here’s the deed. That’s his signature down there. The smudged thing. Uh . . . he wasn’t exactly a model of grace. Damn near puked on the deed.”

  “And he just signed it over? Just like that?”

  “No, Officer, it wasn’t ‘just like that.’ Listen, you talked to O’Leary and Stryski, right? Then they told you I won that last hand. He and I had bet everything.”

  “That’s what they said.”

  “And did they tell you I gave back about thirty thousand in yuan, gold, and jewels?” He retrieved the dice, casting them to bounce down the table. A seven.

  She watched him, looking for any clue as to his veracity.

  “Yeah,” he continued, “we were all drunk. I wouldn’t have bet my whole stash if I hadn’t been. But I wasn’t drunk enough to take every last yuan the guy had. Thumbs might have some issues with his personality . . . Okay, the guy’s a dick. But he shouldn’t be taken and humiliated either.”

  “Nice of you to think that way.”

  “I don’t need to be a hard-ass, and I want people to know that I play fair. Call it good for business.” He waved around.

  “So, where’s Thumbs?” She watched him like a nightmare might watch a hapless chamois.

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  “Tell me what happened when you and Thumbs went through Betty’s door.”

  “Well, I, uh, took Thumbs back to Angelina’s room.”

  “To do what?”

  He lifted a mocking brow. “Use your imagination, Officer. I didn’t want Thumbs to have any hard feelings about losing that hand. And everyone knows he has a thing for Angelina.”

  “She doesn’t remember that.”

  “Well . . . what does she remember?”

  “You, the next morning.”

  He winced slightly. “Then ask Thumbs.”

  She arched a pissed-looking eyebrow.

  Wirth took a deep breath. “What the fuck? Why does this happen to me? Right when I’m finally getting everything to . . .” He gestured futility. “Shit! All right! We got to her room. Angelina had just finished with a client and was headed out to troll for business. Like just the right timing, you know?”

  “Actually, I don’t.”

  “So we’re in the room, and I’m asking Angelina how much she’d take to spend the whole night with Thumbs. Sort of a sendoff for the guy to remember for the next two years cramped up in Turalon. That’s when Thumbs turns green, says, ‘I gotta puke. I’ll be right back,’ and bolts out the door.”

  “Did he come back?”

  “I don’t know,” he almost whispered, tossing the dice again. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  “Well . . . Angelina and I would have been busy.”

  “So, you spent the entire night with her?”

  He cast a guilty glance at Allison. “I know how it sounds, but I was drunk. And maybe a little pissed off.”

  “At whom?”

  “Allison.” He bent down staring into her eyes. “I know you got a job to do. But being a cop—if you’re a real cop—you know that there’s times people tell you things. Stuff they don’t want bandied around.”

  “Then I guess you’re gonna have to take that risk.”

  “Like I said, quite the party. One of Allison’s friends shared a hit of mash with her earlier in the evening. She was out like a light. Sort of grinning and staring at nothing. Wouldn’t even talk. Some celebration, huh? So I went out to see what was happening, been running a game at Betty’s for some time now. Never. Ever. Tried out the ‘other’ merchandise. Betty will back me up on that.”

  “And?” She gave him a hard-eyed look.

  “And what? Angelina was a bit intoxicated herself. Thumbs was out puking in the back. Next thing I know, she’s got my fly open, and she’s got a mouthful. And then . . . Well, one thing leads to another.”

  He paused, looking guiltily at Allison. “Next thing I know, I wake up, and it’s morning. I panic. Bust ass back to Allison’s and find her still whacked out. So I crawl in bed, and she wakes up a couple of hours later.”

  Trish studied him, looking for any kind of a tell, seeing only guilt as he glanced hollowly at Allison.

  “And you never saw Thumbs again?”

  “No. But as drunk as he was, the guy’s probably still hungover somewhere.” A pause. “Uh, you know he was in a fight. Maybe you might want to ask whoever hit him if there was bad blood? Like, perhaps they took it up again?”

  “Already did. Fig Paloduro was in Maya’s hospital getting his broken nose reset.”

  “Then I’m betting Thumbs will show up after he dries out.”

  Trish took a deep breath. “All right. But let me know if you remember anything.”

  “Check with Angelina.”

  “I already did.” And she said all she remembers is some of the greatest sex she ever had. “Have a good day, Skull. And as long as you didn’t bullshit me, Ali doesn’t need to know.”

  “Yeah, thanks!” he seemed genuinely relieved. “Want to try another toss of the dice? You might be one of those really lucky ones.”

  “Another time.”

  She stepped outside, tilted her head up to Capella’s light, and took a deep breath. Something
about the guy just sent a queer little spasm down her spine.

  “Trish?” her implant inquired.

  “What’s up, Two Spots?”

  “Just had a call in from one of the farmers out in A plot. Says he’s got what’s left of a body. Chased a swarm of invertebrates off of it. Says the ident in the equipment belt is Thumbs Exman’s.”

  32

  Panting for breath, Talina glanced down at the compass she’d clipped to her cuff. There. Just off to the right. That was the way. She stared at the gloomy and dark passage that lay between the myriad of tree trunks. Little more than a low spot in the jumbled roots, it looked like the easiest way forward.

  At first sight, the maze of interlocked roots might have been an impenetrable barrier. Dark-green and waxy, the roots merged into thick boles—giant columns that thrust up into the dim and hazy air. But there were ways around, over, and through them.

  Overhead the branches wove together in an infinite tapestry as they supported the weight of succulent leaves high above the forest floor. A tangle so thick it blotted out the light, leaving the shadowed forest floor in a dim twilight.

  The thrill had started down in her gut. A curious sensation of challenge and excitement. With it came a strange taste in her mouth reminiscent of bitter mint. The blood in her veins had charged . . . but without her consent. She’d experienced the sensation before, when given drugs during medical procedures that had caused areas of her body to respond as if autonomously.

  Was it just that Taggart had brought it to her attention, or did her nose filter more of the forest scents? The medley of delicate sweet and spicy odors played through her as she sniffed. And there, coming from the dark passage, came a slightly more acrid scent.

  Don’t go there.

  Tal stopped. Swallowed her oddly peppermint saliva.

  What’s happening to me?

  She tried to shake it off. Couldn’t. The roots had started to twist toward her and Cap.

  Go, Tal! She told herself. Figure it out later.

  She turned away from the easy-looking path through the roots.

  “S.O.?” Cap Taggart asked cautiously from behind her. He kept sidestepping and glancing down uncertainly as the roots under his feet squirmed.

  “This way,” she said, climbing over the root mass. “But hurry.”

  She leaped, wincing at the pain her in hip, scrambled to the top of another waxy root, and spun around to give Taggart a hand as he sought to follow. The guy was lighter on his feet than she’d imagined as he hauled himself up beside her.

  The root had already begun to move as they dropped down the other side. Rifle in hand, Talina ducked through a low arch and scurried forward. Glanced back as Taggart cleared the already constricting passage. Beneath her feet, the smaller roots shifted as her weight bore down on them.

  That acrid smell back there. As if she knew it.

  “Come on, Tal,” she told herself as she glanced at the compass. She needed to veer more to the right. “Got to keep moving.”

  “Looked better off to the right back there,” Taggart said suggestively.

  “Something wasn’t right.”

  “Not right how?” he asked as they clambered over a bunched root that looked like a broken arm.

  “Can’t tell you.”

  Her vision had taken on that odd quality in the half light. Streaks of glowing green reflected in the ultraviolet, and she caught a faint thermal image of something alive as it scurried away in the shadows.

  Impossible. I should be half-blind down here.

  She felt the quetzal stretching and flexing inside her.

  Was that it?

  She gave an irritated shake of the head, hitching her bruised hip upward as she straddled a root, nearly fell into a hole, and caught herself.

  “Got to move fast, Cap,” she called over her shoulder as she leaped athletically from root to root over the gap. “And don’t miss your step. Fall down there and you’re dead.”

  She reached an exposed outcrop of rock and turned as Cap, rifle held for balance, leaped, root by root, across the shifting footing to land beside her.

  “Son of a fucking bitch,” he gasped, and wiped his sweat-damp face. “I’ve never been this freaked and scared in my whole life. When does this shit end?”

  She glanced down at her compass, sniffed at the breeze, and picked out a hint of unscented air from the right. “Got to be close.”

  She looked back the way they’d come, watched the roots writhe in the gloom. Reflexively, she glanced down at the cracked shale upon which they stood. Rhizomes along the margins of the rock were feeling their way, somehow sensing them. Maybe it was the vibrations? Odors from their feet or clothing? Who knew?

  Move. Follow the air.

  She didn’t question, just hefted her rifle, adjusted her pack, and despite the trembling in her exhausted legs, forced herself to pound off across the matted layer of blue, green, and brown roots. The way was uphill now, growing steeper as she went. The roots thinner here, almost threadlike—unlike back where the thick roots drove down into deep soil.

  Not that that lessened the danger. Thin rhizomatic roots didn’t have the mass and weren’t as deeply anchored; they could move faster and latch hold.

  “Don’t stop, Cap,” she shouted over her shoulder. “And for God’s sake, don’t trip or stumble.”

  He was panting behind her, the sound of his boots hammering on the ground as the climb sapped his energy. The guy might have been muscular, but he’d been exercising in a ship’s gym, not scrambling up hills. He just didn’t have the wind.

  She shut off the pain in her hip, let a surge of panic act as an anesthetic. Ducking and dodging through the thinning trees, the climb grew steeper. Vines—indicative of forest margins—now laced their way up the slim trunks of the aquajade trees that began to appear among the thicker chabacho boles. More light pierced the canopy overhead.

  The thing inside made her duck right, as if it controlled her movements. As she did, Talina recognized a gotcha vine obscured by the shadows.

  “Jink right, Cap! Right!”

  He did. The barbed tendrils barely grazed his fatigues, catching just enough of the fabric to almost trip him. But he caught himself, hammering his way forward on dogged feet.

  “What the hell?” he said through hard gasps.

  “Gotcha vine.”

  She turned her attention to the climb, lungs now laboring as she forced herself up the slope, finding more and more patches of bedrock. Some part of her brain had surrendered to the quetzal—as though an unbidden force were plotting her way through the trees. Each time, at the last instant, she stepped right, or perhaps left—the action completely involuntary—only to realize she’d avoided brown caps, sucking scrub, or chokeya.

  “Follow in my footsteps, Cap,” she called back. “Don’t fuck it up.”

  God, was he going to make it? The guy was stumbling with fatigue, pushing himself on by sheer force of will.

  As they broke out of the trees Cap tripped, sprawled hard, breath exploding as he hit the ground with a thud.

  “Cap?” she called, turning.

  He was open-mouthed, face glowing in her thermal vision, sweat-streaked, eyes almost glazed. Still game, he was almost to his feet when the sidewinder unleashed itself from beneath a sucking shrub off to his right.

  Changing color from mottled green to iridescent turquoise, to purple, to brilliant crimson, the four-meter-long creature was as thick as a fire hose, rubbery. Without feet—and true to its name—it whipped sideways, planted a curled section of body, and propelled itself across the ground with uncanny speed.

  Like a lash, it slapped one end of its length around Cap’s shin. As it flexed to whip the rest of itself around his other leg, Talina jerked her rifle around, shot from the hip.

  The report echoed off through the trees as the exp
losive bullet hit low and blew sharp fragments of shale through the sidewinder’s muscular body.

  It was enough to disrupt and shock the beast.

  Talina shouldered the rifle, took aim, and blew the thing in two before it could recover.

  “Cap, come on!” she shouted as the sucking shrub reached out. The branches were already feeling their way along the sidewinder’s side, fluttering at the wounds.

  “But this thing’s—”

  “What’s left will fall off. Can’t stop yet.” And with that she turned, sprinting up the hill.

  A glance over her shoulder showed Cap hurrying along, slinging wide the leg with the portion of sidewinder. The beast’s bodily fluids leaked out and it grew limp. On his next step, it fell free.

  Then they were out under a clear sky, stumbling and gasping, lungs heaving as she led the way past thorncactus and scrawny aquajade trees. She climbed the last bit of rocky slope at a walk.

  Picking a spot where resistant sandstone overhung the gray shale, she finally unslung her pack and rifle and dropped into the shallow alcove.

  “Fuck me,” she whispered through air-starved lungs. “If I never have to do that again, I’ll call this life a success.”

  “What the hell . . .” Cap threw himself down beside her, sweat trickling down his face, lungs pumping like bellows. “I mean, that thing . . .”

  “Sidewinder,” she told him between breaths. “Wraps around you. As long as you can get to a knife, you can cut it into pieces and get free. Or shoot it apart if you can get a hand on a pistol before it wraps you up.”

  “So it wasn’t going to kill me before you could have got it off?”

  “Nope.” She wiped the sweat from her face. “But, by the time I did, the roots would have had you.”

  “What kind of world is this?” he cried, leaning his head back to gulp air into his frantic lungs.

  She reached for her pack, pulling out her water bottle and sucking down swallows between deep breaths. “Screw me, but that was a close one.”

  “Thought we were dead.” He actually burst out laughing, almost wheezing between breaths. “Haven’t pushed myself that hard since boot camp. Damn, I’m out of shape.”