Outpost

  Cap was screaming his agony and fear as he tried to buck away, the skewer holding him tightly across its wounded body as the mouthpieces bit into his fatigues.

  Tal vaulted the angular chunk of basalt, dropped to a knee on one side, and shot the thing three more times through the body. It shivered, trembled, and slowly relaxed as its fluids leaked out through the bullet holes.

  “Oh, God!” Cap bellowed, his mouth working like a beached fish’s.

  Seeing the skewer was no more threat, Talina holstered the pistol and carefully peeled the beast’s arms from the fabric of Cap’s coat. Just because the thing was dead didn’t mean the hooked bristles were any less dangerous. As she worked, the slender spike pulled painfully sideways in the tissue of Cap’s upper arm.

  Cap bit off the scream, face working. His jaw muscles bunched and twitched as he clamped his eyes against the pain.

  Easing him down, Talina used her knife to sever the thorn from its tentacle. She grimaced as she extracted it. Cap screamed. Talina inspected the hard black length and tossed it away in disgust. From her pack, she pulled a field dressing and managed to stanch the worst of the bleeding.

  “What was that thing?” Cap asked, sweat already popping from his forehead and cheeks.

  “What we call a skewer. Normally they’re not this big.”

  “Is it poisonous?”

  “Nope. Not to humans.” She gritted her teeth, images of Mitch dying of bacteremia welling from the depths. “The danger’s from your own bacteria. What it dragged off your jacket and skin and left in the wound.”

  He blinked, eyes wavering as if on the verge of passing out. He kept gasping for air. “By God, Tal. That really fucking hurts. I mean . . . really.”

  She took a worried breath, saying, “Just sit for a minute, Cap. Take your time. Get your wits back.”

  He blinked again, lips working.

  She stood, kicked the dead skewer—just because—and climbed up on the rock. Looking north, she shaded her eyes, desperate to see some sign of the Briggs place. Perhaps smoke. Or maybe a rooftop. All that met her gaze were the humped tops of the trees, and in the distance, an irregular bluff that might be the location of the Briggs homestead. Or might not.

  “Tal?” Cap asked, his breathing almost normal. “What next?”

  She pasted a smile on her face to hide the sudden terror that was eating at her soul.

  “It’s not far now,” she lied. “Just a little way to go.”

  “Give me another five minutes,” he told her bluffly. “Just another five. Then I’ll be ready to go.”

  Talina ground her teeth and hopped down from the rock.

  She couldn’t let him see the desperation she was feeling.

  49

  Trish stood beside the ramp extended from one of the grounded shuttles. Its crew worked to disgorge cargo as the skid loaders carried crate after crate to stack along the fence.

  That night, after the woman’s suicide, when she’d arrived at Inga’s, it was to find a dead Skull, his bloody guts leaking out of a slashed stomach.

  “Fair fight,” Inga had said, pointing to where the killer—four sheets drunk—swayed as he was held by several of his fellows. “They both started yelling that they were going to kill each other. First it was shoving, then they both pulled their knives.”

  “What was it about?” Trish asked, turning to the men holding the killer. Winner. Whatever.

  “Fulon and Cates, here, got into it over a shirt. They’re rooming together. Used to be best friends.”

  “How does an argument over a shirt end up in a cutting?”

  “Iss Fulon’s fault,” Cates slurred in his own defense. “Bastard. Talked me into signing onto this shit-sucking death trap.” The man hung his head, sniffing as tears ran down his face. “Nothing left. Nothing but death and this damn rock of a planet.”

  “You gonna arrest him?” one of the men had asked. “Fulon’s dead.”

  “They both wanted to fight, right? Neither one pushed the other into it? Both were willing?” At their nods, she said, “Fair fight. No law against that.”

  “But he killed Fulon!”

  “Who had a knife in his hand, right? And Fulon was trying to kill Cates.”

  The men had blinked stupidly, even Cates, crying as he was and with snot running down his upper lip.

  “The cart’s busy for the moment,” she’d said to Inga. “Soon as old Han Chow drops the suicide off, I’ll have him swing by. Meantime, you men carry Fulon here out to the street, will you?” She paused. “Oh, and you, Cates. Drunk or sober, you’re cleaning the blood and guts off Inga’s floor, you hear?”

  To the others she added, “The rest of you, you make sure it’s spotless when he’s done.”

  They’d looked at her like she was crazy. What the fuck was the matter with the damned Skulls, anyway? Self-defense was a simple concept.

  But then she’d never lived in Solar System. Things were different there.

  She plugged her ears as a second shuttle set down several hundred meters to the north. Eyes squinted, Trish turned away from the blast of carbonized clay and dust and waited while the thrusters were spun down.

  When hearing approached something like normal, she asked the load master standing by the ramp, “How many more are coming?”

  The young man wore standard coveralls with the name Bateman on the left breast. His complexion was spacer-pale, his skull neatly shaved. The guy—perhaps in his late twenties—squinted hazel eyes at the newly arrived shuttle and waved. “We’re working double shifts. Using our shuttles and the one’s we’ve reconditioned on Freelander. The captain’s ordered us to get Freelander’s hold cleared.”

  She tried to understand the look in his hazel eyes, half-panicked and haunted, like a man on the edge.

  Before the newly landed shuttle could completely spool down, he said, “You’re Trish Monagan, right? The security head?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Manny Bateman.” He worked his lips, as if desperate to say something, hands clenching at his sides.

  “Spit it out, load specialist. I could give a bem’s ass what’s cooking on those ships up there. Something’s wrong with Freelander. We all know. The crew’s dead, right?”

  He glanced uncertainly at the shuttle hold where a skid loader was backing slowly down the ramp with a crate in its grapples.

  “You got a place we can talk? Maybe that tavern we’ve all heard so much about?” A pleading lay behind his eyes.

  “Sure.”

  “Off the record?”

  “Sure.”

  Manny turned, the noise level having almost dropped to bearable. “Sun Ho! When you get that cargo stacked I want the main compressor pulled and checked. I think the seal’s about to go.”

  The fellow on the loader turned in his seat, expression confused. “The main compressor? Nothing’s wrong with the—”

  “You heard that whine, right? Like the seal’s about to go?” Manny raised his hands, as if in futility. He carefully said, “Should take about an hour to pull and check. Right? About an hour. Have Shandy alert control that we’ve got a simple mechanical delay.”

  “Oh, right,” Sun Ho agreed, catching on. “About an hour.” The man swallowed hard and fixed nervous eyes on Trish, as if wondering what her role was in the deception. “We got it covered here.”

  Manny turned, licked his lips. “Let’s go check out this tavern.”

  She led the way through the man gate in the fence, shooting wary glances at the load specialist. Even as they approached the admin door, a lieutenant stepped out, Turalon’s patch visible on her shoulder.

  Manny stopped short, throwing up a hand in salute.

  “What’s wrong, Manny? Why are you on this side of the gate?” The woman looked harried herself, tension in the set of her mouth. Eyes hard.

  Trish,
sensing Manny’s near panic, said, “He fell off a crate working a load. Hurt his other shoulder. I’m Trish Monagan. Head of security. I’m taking him to hospital to have Raya x-ray it. Probably just bruised, but figured that since they’re pulling a whatzit to inspect a seal, it wouldn’t hurt to have him checked out.”

  The lieutenant raised an eyebrow, nodded, and said, “He’s your charge. Just get him back before there’s a delay. We’re on a tight schedule.”

  “Come on, Skull,” Trish told Manny, who was now holding his left shoulder at an angle, as if in pain. “This way.”

  She led him through the dome, out into the street, and down the block to Inga’s. As they descended the steps inside the dome, she said, “Your lieutenant didn’t look any too happy either. Something’s really wrong up there. What’s up? And why did you want to talk to me?”

  She walked by the place Fulon had been knifed, satisfied to see the stones so spotless they were a shade lighter than the stained paving around them.

  Trish pulled up Tal’s old stool, acutely aware that it felt like a betrayal. The grief knot tightened under her tongue as she beckoned to Inga for two beers.

  Manny leaned forward on the bar, staring around the insides of the big dome, at the tables, chairs, and benches, and the big board in the back where Inga kept her accounts. “Okay, you know Freelander’s crew was dead. But this rest, if they ever hear it came from me? Officer, they’ll flush me out an airlock and let me die.” He emphasized the words “Do. You. Understand?”

  “Yeah. I get it. We’re not exactly cozy or trusting of The Corporation. I give you my word as a Donovanian. Now, what gives?”

  “Freelander got caught in some kind of time relativity well on the other side. They didn’t just die of old age, Officer Monagan. I mean, they did, and they didn’t. They . . . They went nuts. I saw the temple they made of bones in the crew’s mess. The writing on the walls. The filth.”

  Trish watched the man shiver as he clasped his hands around the beer. “We’re all weirded out. Sure, everyone knows the stories about being marooned aboard ship. Spending eternity drifting out in the black. But they killed the transportees. Five hundred people. Saved their corpses for the hydroponics. And then they made a death cult out of it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. And the officers are doing everything in their power to keep it quiet.” Manny paused. “I’m not afraid of death, Officer. I’ll take the risks. But the Donovan run is jinxed. If we space out of here, Turalon isn’t making it back to Solar System. It’s a doomed ship on a doomed run. We all know it.”

  Trish sipped her beer, that eerie sense of premonition pulling her strings. “So what do you want from me?”

  “What if a bunch of us wanted to stay? Try our fortunes on Donovan? How would you people feel about that?”

  “Glad to have you. But what about your captain? Or her Supervisor with her squad of marines? They might have other ideas about you guys making a breach of contract.”

  Manny’s wince was almost painful. “So, you’d follow their orders? Bring us back?”

  “Look, Manny, here’s how it lines out for us: It’s a gray area. We’re on our own here. Most of us don’t work for The Corporation. We don’t take their orders anymore. But that lady up there still has those marines to enforce her will. If it comes down to the knife’s edge, we’re not going to take a stand on your behalf.”

  She watched the man’s face drop in defeat.

  “On the other hand,” she told him, “if you and your mates should happen to walk off the landing port and disappear? Maybe take one of the aircars we hear is being downloaded? Maybe vanish into the bush? We sure as hell wouldn’t stop you, let alone hunt you down.”

  “Disappear into the bush?” He didn’t seem to get it.

  “There are research stations, um, like settlements. Places that we’ve had to abandon because we didn’t have the people to keep them running. The facilities are pretty basic, but with your technical experience, you could fix them up. Lie low until Turalon spaces. Hell, if it turns out you liked it out there, we’ll give you title to it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Means we’ll give you ownership. You and your people can have it as your private property. No orders. No directives. You’d have to farm, operate the mining facilities, but you’d be welcome to come sell your surplus food and trade any of the metals or gems you mine.”

  “Officer, we don’t know the first thing about farming or mining.”

  “Then figure it out. Find out what you can do.” She took another swig of beer. “At least you’d be out under a sky, with the sun, fresh air, and a chance. But, Manny, you’ve got to understand: This is Donovan. It will try to kill you.”

  He didn’t seem to taste the beer as he drank, eyes fixed on infinity.

  She added, “Maybe it’s a shitty choice, but it’s the best we can do. Float it around among your people. If you decide to choose Donovan, we’ll have somebody ready to show you the way out to the closest station, give you a crash course on what to do, and how to stay alive.”

  “And then what?”

  “Freedom’s a terrible thing, Manny. It means that the rest is up to you.”

  He pursed his lips, nodded, and winced as the sound of another shuttle could be heard building in the west as it came in for a landing.

  50

  Two days. That’s what it had taken Cap and Talina to make it to the bluff she’d seen back where the skewer had attacked them. Only to find another bluff in the distance. And when they made that, another. Talina hadn’t told Cap that any might have been Briggs’ place. It would have been too disheartening when he discovered she was wrong.

  As she climbed the rocky incline toward yet another rise, she swallowed dryly against the desperate thirst that tormented her. She’d allocated all of her water to Cap in a desperate attempt to keep him hydrated. The hope had been that they’d reach Briggs’, but it was increasingly apparent that she would have to take the time to drill into an aquajade and tap a vein. That, or take the time to climb down to the river.

  It didn’t help matters that she could hear the river roaring down in the canyon just off to her right. Nor did Capella; it shot its merciless hot yellow glare down to bake her as she followed the irregular trail.

  The chime seemed to mock her.

  When Talina looked back at Cap, his face dripped sweat, and his blue eyes had taken on a glassy sheen. His left arm rested in the sling she’d made from his jacket. Nevertheless, he still clung to his rifle, and his jaw was set in determination.

  She continued to slow her pace to match his as his energy flagged.

  Around her, the aquajade trees had mostly replaced chabacho. Ferngrass, claw shrub, and sucking scrub now filled in the understory. Down in the canyon the Briggs River could be heard as it tumbled over rocks. Looking back, she could see how far they’d climbed from the lowlands.

  “How you doing, Cap?” she asked, trying to keep the worry from her voice.

  “One foot after the other, Tal,” he said doggedly. “You just lead on.”

  She nodded, chewed on her lips, and turned wary eyes back to the trail, such as it was. Over the years chamois, bushbok, and little herds of fastbreak had beaten a path over the angular basalt that paralleled the river. While traveling on rock lessened the danger of slugs, it added to Cap’s misery as he fought fever and struggled over the uneven footing.

  The man’s arm had swollen, turned red and angry. From the heat in his brow, Tal figured he was running a fever of forty or so.

  “Come on, Cap. Just a little way to go,” she told him. And then, as if in answer to a prayer, she gazed upon the stump: an aquajade, cut off flush with a saw. She grinned, pointing. “One of the Briggs family cut that. We’re close, Cap.”

  “Let’s beat feet, Tal,” he whispered dryly. “I got a little left in me. Don’t want to let
it run out before I get there.”

  Even as he said it, his eyes rolled back in his head. He swayed, and his knees buckled. The rifle clattered from nerveless fingers. She barely managed to ease his collapse as he wilted to the ground.

  “Damn it!” She knelt by his side, fishing for her water bottle. Managed to splash some on his face, lifted it to his hot lips.

  Cap drank, coughed, his focus returning. “Wha’ happened?”

  “You passed out.” She looked around at the surrounding trees, the ferngrass waving in the easterly breeze. The chime had a soft tone, dispersed, as though lazy in the burning midday sun.

  “I can do it,” Cap rasped dryly. “Help me up.”

  She slung her rifle, and then his. Pulling his good arm over her shoulder, she flexed her legs. Together they staggered up, almost toppled. Cap managed to catch himself, and wearily, they started forward.

  Talina could feel his weakness and gritted her teeth. This is not happening to me again. I won’t let it.

  How far to the Briggs’? An hour at this pace? Maybe more?

  If she could get Cap there, to the radio, she could send in a call.

  Glancing up, the sun was right at zenith. If they hurried, if it wasn’t far, she still might have a chance that Trish or Step could fly out before dark with some of the new antibiotic.

  If it wasn’t until morning, well, it would be what it would be.

  The distant boom of a shuttle let her know that Turalon was still in orbit—a great big ship with a well-stocked medical facility fully capable of whipping an infected arm back into health.

  Come on, Max. Hang in there.

  A half hour later, she was panting, sweating, staggering under Cap’s weight as she fought to keep her feet. Cap had started mumbling to himself, tripping over his own feet.

  And then they were down, landing in a heap of loose limbs and clattering rifles.