Outpost

  They appeared as a flicker of movement at the edge of Talina’s vision. Darting and gliding shapes, bits of light green and semitranslucent shadows. As they flew into full view she could see that they came as a flock. Tens of them swooping and darting among the branches. They weren’t very big, none larger than the common raven back on Earth—but instead of black they each radiated a full spectrum of colors, the intensity and pattern of which made them particularly hard to track.

  “What the . . . ?” Cap whispered.

  Immediately the lead flier flipped its colorful wings, changing course. Wings? Four of them. Two on each side, fore and aft, and crap, did they ever make the creature agile in the air. They flew like nothing Talina had ever seen, literally turning back on their tracks, jinking sideways as if batted.

  Cap was smart enough to go mum as the first of the flock darted in to hover overhead.

  Careful. The word formed in her thoughts.

  Talina narrowed her eyes. The things had to be damned dangerous.

  She sensed the quetzal’s terror.

  It probably wasn’t an eternity—maybe only ten or fifteen seconds as the beasts collected, hovered, and stared down at Talina and Cap where they lay prone and exposed on the branch. One flapped down to eye level, and Talina stared into its three-eyed face. In response, the flier burst into vivid colors—blues, golden hues, yellows and black. She’d never seen anything so vivid, so intense, all radiating as it spread wicked jaws filled with rows of bladelike teeth.

  The tension was broken by a shriek as a tree clinger on a nearby branch lost its nerve and leaped away.

  One second the flock was hovering just above, the next the creatures were gone like a shot. Talina forgot herself, lifted her head and watched the chase. The tree clinger catapulted itself from branch to branch, the horde of fliers hotly in pursuit.

  “Holy shit,” Cap whispered from behind, “would you look at that?”

  Talina wouldn’t have believed that animals could move that fast, the tree clinger ricocheting from branch to branch in a blur. Despite that, the flock of predators couldn’t have been a fraction of a second behind.

  She craned her neck to watch as they dropped down through the branches. And there the tree clinger found salvation; it bounced off what looked like a green lump at the axial branch of a chabacho limb.

  The lump reacted, shifted, colors splashing, before it betrayed itself as a young quetzal. As the tree clinger propelled itself away, the quetzal hissed, mouth open at the violation. It snapped up the closest of the fliers, crushing it in tooth-filled jaws.

  Just as fast, the rest of the fliers were all over it, slashing with the hooklike blades at the tips of their omnicolor wings. The quetzal screamed.

  Talina went rigid.

  Cap asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Didn’t you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “That scream.”

  “Tal, all I hear is the forest and those things chittering as they mob that . . . well, whatever it is.”

  Talina watched in fascinated horror as the fliers mobbed the young quetzal. Bite, strike, and flail as it might, the quetzal was simply overwhelmed.

  “They’re eating their way into that, uh . . .” Cap’s voice rasped hoarsely.

  “It’s a quetzal, Cap. Couple of years old.”

  “That’s a quetzal? A terrible and feared quetzal? And those things are killing it?”

  “Yeah. Holy shit, huh?” Talina’s heart was pounding. Crap. She’d been face-to-face with one of the things.

  “What do you call those flying things?”

  “Never seen them before, Cap. They’re new.”

  “Thought quetzals were the dominant predators on Donovan.”

  “So did we,” she answered. And who knew that quetzals could climb trees?

  Go, the voice inside her whispered. She didn’t need the sense of urgency to spur her onward.

  Talina climbed shakily to her feet, muscles unsteady with fear as she crouched low and scuttled for the thick tangle of vines up ahead.

  “They just mobbed that thing,” Cap kept repeating behind her. “If they’d have come for us? I mean, how can a person defend themselves against those things?”

  “Why didn’t they attack us?” she asked the quetzal.

  Didn’t know.

  “Didn’t know what? What we were?”

  The thing played with her emotions, filling her with a sense of disgusted amusement, and something unbidden insisted, They will learn.

  “Shit,” was all she could say in response.

  They needed a pod, a big one, and some way to cut it in half and get it down to the river. As she looked around for one, a terrible fear was eating away down in her belly. For the first time, she was deeply, truly frightened, and so, too, was the quetzal lurking down in her soul.

  37

  For three days now, Trish and Step had piloted the aircar westward from Port Authority. Each morning at dawn they were in the air. Trish insisted. Step had been willing in the beginning. But he’d worried that she pushed the batteries to the limit, refusing to let them return until dusk. At the end of the second day, he’d told her, “One more day, Trish. That’s all.”

  Six days! That’s how long Talina and the marine had been missing. The growing sense of despair in Trish’s gut was like a yawning wound.

  And it wasn’t like she and Step hadn’t looked. They had crisscrossed the route Tal would have taken up Mainway Canyon, searched the crags and depths for wreckage, and then through Best Pass and down the Grand River to the Briggs homestead.

  At the wheel, she’d avoided the forest where it spread over the wide plain until last. Mostly because if Tal had gone down in it, chances were good that she was dead.

  “Trish?” Step said as they worked a series of transects across the forest south of the river.

  “Yeah.” She was leaning out, looking down at the green mass of leaves that rose in mounded lumps. It gave the forest top a soft, almost inviting look. Hard to believe that in places, the ground lay another three hundred feet below.

  “If she went down here, you know there’d be nothing to see. By now the branches would have mended, healed any damage her aircar would have caused.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’re not thinking, girl.” Step resettled his muscular body, binoculars hanging from one hand as he stared over the side. “I really hate this. Now is not the time for us to have a battery problem.”

  “It’s Talina. You know, just as well as I do, that if it was the other way around, she’d be looking.”

  Step shot her an evaluative glance. “Yeah, I know. But that’s forest down there. Not even Talina . . .”

  He stopped when she raised a threatening hand. Out of habit, she noted that they were down to twenty-seven percent in the battery. Worse, the sun was slanting in the west. How long did they have?

  “She’s pretty special, I’ll agree,” Step told her. “And you’ve done the best you could. But Trish, the last thing Tal would want was anyone losing their lives on her account.”

  “I know.”

  “Not that much light left.” Step indicated the west.

  “When Dad died, Tal pretty much took me under her wing. Damn it, Step. Sometimes you owe people more than you can tell them. Me? But for Talina, who the hell knows. I might be turning tricks at Betty’s just to keep my belly full. Looking back, I wasn’t in any better position than Angelina was.”

  He leaned out, using the binoculars to scan a hole in the tree cover. “Angelina was always out for a good time. You had that serious streak. Talina knew. We all did. And once you started following her around, she’d have cracked your skull if you hadn’t lived up to your potential.”

  “I always wanted to be like her.”

  Dryly, Step said, “Yeah? Well, you’ve got a
real good start on it. Now, are we going back before our battery fizzles and we drop down into the darkness and die?”

  Trish, reflexively checked the battery again. Twenty-five percent.

  “So,” she mused, “let’s say you were following the river. And bang, the battery starts to fry.” She straightened, staring out across the canopy, noting the distant outcrops slightly to the west. Yes, that’s what she’d do.

  “Hang on, Step.” Trish pulled them into a turn, lining out for the knobs.

  “Uh, that’s enough, Trish.” He took a position beside her, checking the battery. “We’re at twenty-five percent. It’s late. We’ll be racing darkness as it is to get back.”

  “Gotta check something.”

  “Trish,” Step snapped. “Did you hear me?”

  “Yeah, Step. Loud and clear.” She gave him a sour look. “All right, damn it. She’s probably dead. I get that. Let me check this one last thing, okay? Then we’ll head for home, and I’ll carve her tombstone. But let me do this.”

  He gave her his flinty look, then it collapsed into a smile. “You really are a lot like her, you know? If it was anyone but you . . .”

  “Yeah, you’d smack me, grab the wheel, and head us home.”

  “You know I always give you more leeway than the others.”

  “Not that it’s doing you any good. I know how you look at me. Sorry. You’re not my type. Not to mention how much older you are. If I want a man, I want him to be a one-woman-at-a-time sort who isn’t in hock to a murdering psychopath.”

  “I call it the raw idealism of youth.”

  “I call it self-preservation.” She paused. “How much are you in hock to Wirth?”

  “Actually, I’m not.” Step’s eyes narrowed as he fixed on the rocky outcrops sticking up from the forest. “Barely. I caught on in time. He’s damned good. I think he’s got an implant. Something that allows him to rig the games so that he can win or lose as much as he wants, when he wants. I may like taking a chance just as much as the next guy, but I’m not playing a rigged game.”

  “Tal said he was a human quetzal. You got proof he’s rigging the games?”

  “Nope. You’d have to have one hell of a statistical program and monitor his games for a period of time, and even in the end it would tell you that his winnings were just improbable, but not impossible.”

  “So why do you hang out there?”

  “Maybe because you won’t marry me and fill my evenings with meaning.” He gave her a wink and lecherous smile that told her he was kidding. “But seriously, Trish. I know, just like everyone else does, that he killed Thumbs. So, here’s the deal: I’m letting you risk my life to check these outcrops. In return, you save yours by backing off Dan Wirth.”

  “Back off?”

  “Yeah. He killed Thumbs in a way we’re not going to be able to prove. What worries me is that you’re going to keep pushing, and eventually we’ll find your dead body lying out in some field.” His lips twitched. “That would break all of our hearts.”

  “Let him get away with it?”

  “For now.” Step shrugged as they neared the first of the sandstone anticlines. “Wait for the right time. No one, no matter how smart, is perfect forever. It’s Donovan.”

  “You know what Tal would do.”

  “She’d walk in and shoot his ass. You’re not Tal. And he might shoot you first. He’s got a pistol wired under his desk. Trust me. Dan Wirth likes to control the odds. Now, have we got a deal? Or do I reach over and muscle you out of the way and do the smart thing, which is head for home?”

  He could outwrestle her for the wheel. She’d have no recourse but to shoot him if she wanted to make an issue out of it. And, damn it, miscreant whoring drunk that he was, he was still Step. She might not approve of the way he lived his life, but he’d always been there for her, for the people of Port Authority. And yes, for Talina, as well. His had been the shoulder Talina had cried on when they buried Mitch.

  “All right. I’ll back off Wirth.”

  “Assuming we can still make it back before running out of battery, I’ll call that a victory.”

  She was watching the charge level as they rounded the first of the buttes. At twenty percent, she’d have to call it. Step had been right. Tal wouldn’t want her going down in a place like this. Not with Step along, too.

  That sense of futility tightened in her gut. The moment she rolled the wheel and headed them back toward Best Pass it would be like a declaration.

  I’m sorry, Tal. So very sorry.

  She curled them around the second of the outcrops, searching vainly for a waving human being on the slope, or atop the angular sandstone. Nothing but bare rock, shale, and a scattering of aquajade trees on the lower slopes greeted her quest.

  Trish swallowed hard, her heart lead-heavy. She’d tightened her grip on the wheel. The battery meter had just dropped to twenty percent. Time to go.

  “Holy shit,” Step cried, pointing.

  Trish still didn’t see it. “What?”

  “Look! There!” Step was almost bouncing, the aircar rocking under his weight.

  Then Trish saw the cold smear of ash that indicated a fire. And just below it, laid out in brown sandstone blocks atop the gray layers of shale, she made out the words: GONE TO BRIGGS.

  38

  It couldn’t have been working better. Dan Wirth smiled down from his elevated chair at the men and women filling his gambling den. He’d called it “The Jewel” and proclaimed that fact through the big sign he’d had painted and hung out front.

  Not only that, but people were flocking to his place. The Jewel was a novelty and a welcome relief from the usual haunts of the cafeteria and the tavern. Not only was it the new diversion, but it appealed. Especially on Donovan where life was a gamble each and every day. These people were used to taking risks, and it wasn’t as if they had a lot to lose. For the hardcore locals, it wasn’t life-ending if they got cleaned out at the tables. Gold? Emeralds? Diamonds? There were more of those for the taking. It just meant outfitting and spending another half year out in the bush, drilling away in the mines, or prospecting for a new strike.

  For the truly down-and-out, losing it all meant that no matter how far they might fall, The Corporation still owed them a trip back to Solar System and a healthy bonus for filling out their contracts when they arrived back at Transluna.

  Assuming, that is, that they wanted to consign their sorry asses to the Turalon and take the uncomfortably long odds that they’d actually arrive back home.

  Even with that depressing probability, a new sense of hope was in the air. Word was that Freelander had finally arrived. Supervisor Aguila might have wanted to keep it under wraps, but it turned out that keeping a secret—even under orders—wasn’t as easy as it was back in Solar System. Donovan wasn’t The Corporation.

  Everyone knew that something had gone terribly awry with Freelander, though just what hadn’t made its way through the net of censorship and down to the gossip channels yet. All anyone knew was that she was in-system, headed for orbit, and that something was very, very wrong.

  Dan nodded as Betty Able stepped in the door, glanced around, and made her way to his elevated perch in the rear. Dan touched his forehead in salute and said, “My office in the back. It’s a better place to talk.”

  As he stepped down from his chair to follow, speculation about Freelander was the major topic of conversation at each of the tables. It was either that, or what terrible fate had befallen Talina Perez and Cap Taggart out in the bush.

  He’d despised Taggart not only because he was Corporate law, but because the marine had hopped right into Nandi’s bed. No doubt the bitch had told Taggart all the gory details. As to Talina Perez, it was something about her—that sense that of all the people on Donovan she was the one he needed to fear the most.

  Under his breath he whispered, “May y
ou both be rotting quetzal shit in the forest.”

  People nodded warily. They understood. Trish Monagan’s investigation had come to nothing. Thumbs Exman’s ghost might have walked with him, a constant reminder that Dan Wirth was never to be taken for granted.

  Allison—decked out in a revealing silver outfit that emphasized her breasts—sat on the stool behind the window in the cashier’s cage, exchanging chips for gold and gems. He liked it that she dressed to emphasize her sexuality. Liked it even more when other men stared enviously at her, knowing all the while that she was filling Dan Wirth’s bed and not their own.

  To his surprise, she’d taken to the role of cashier, apparently dazzled by her sudden status as one of the most wealthy and influential of Donovan’s citizens.

  Just off the hallway, his small office was outfitted not only with a desk, table, and chairs, but also a safe that he’d had bolted to the floor for chips and money.

  Betty Able seated herself across from his desk. Like so many others, she had taken to walking over to try her luck at his tables. At the moment she owed the Jewel nineteen thousand two hundred and fifty SDRs. A number Dan had allowed to slowly accrue as he skillfully manipulated her favorite game of monte.

  “What do you hear, Betty?” he asked as he stepped into his private warren, closed the door behind them for privacy, and poured a glass of brandy. This was the first of a new stock Inga had distilled from a better-than-average grape harvest.

  “Freelander is the talk of the whole town.”

  “Anything new?” He seated himself opposite the madam as he took the woman’s measure. She appeared to have the slightly glassy eyes left behind after a good dose of mash.

  “Speculation runs the gamut from plague, to mutiny, to mechanical failure, rampant insanity, famine, radiation poisoning, and even alien contact in some universe where Freelander had been waylaid, boarded, and then managed to escape.”

  “Aliens, huh?” He shrugged. “What do you want to bet they got bounced back into Solar System by a glitch? That it reset itself, and the ship immediately inverted again?”