Outpost

  So had others.

  One of the reasons the Briggses lived out here stemmed from the time Chaco had killed a man who had been a little too obsessed with Madison.

  “A little brown boy,” Cap whispered weakly. “Sitting in the tree.”

  “Tip,” Chaco agreed. “I swear. That kid has a sense for things out in the bush.” He gestured. “Come on, Mad, let’s let the Captain rest.”

  He led the way past the door where fourteen-year-old Flip—the oldest son—watched. Behind him, Maria, three, stood with large eyes and her finger in her mouth.

  Talina leaned down over Cap and took his hand. “Like I told you before, Trish is on the way. You’re safe, Cap. We made it.”

  “Knew you would, Tal,” he whispered drowsily.

  She bent over and kissed him on the lips, adding, “You sleep now. Help’s on the way.”

  He gave a slight nod.

  She let go of his hand and stepped out into the late afternoon sun.

  Chaco was seated next to Madison under one of the ramadas that overlooked the garden. Immediately behind, to the north, the land rose precipitously, the slope cracked and rugged with outcrops where the crust had been violently uplifted. In all, it really was a stunning vista.

  “Drink?” Chaco called, lifting a glass from a cooler.

  Talina walked wearily over, every muscle in her body aching. More than anything, she wanted to curl up next to Cap and sleep for a couple of months. Damn, how long had it been since she’d felt an exhaustion like this?

  “You look beat, Tal,” Madison told Talina as she stepped into the ramada’s shade and seated herself.

  Chaco handed her the glass, trickles of water beading on the outsides, foam covering the amber liquid within.

  “What is this?”

  “Homebrew.” He gestured. “Our barley field is just over yonder on the other side of the aircar pad. Not sure about the quality of the hops, though. I don’t think we got enough rain last season.”

  “Beer, huh?” She sipped, lifted an eyebrow in approbation. “I’ve dreamed of this taste for the last couple of weeks.”

  “Not sure it will do you any favors,” Madison told her as she shifted the little girl to her other breast. “Whipped as you look, it might put you out like a light.”

  “I’ll take my chance,” Tal told her. “It’ll do my blood sugar good.”

  Chaco was staring at her, an eerie light in his eyes. “You crossed the forest, huh? Trish kept calling. Telling us to keep an eye out for you. Tip said he’d see if he could find you.”

  “Cap really see him?”

  “Brown boy?” Madison shrugged, her attention on her baby. “That’s pretty much him.”

  “Where is he?”

  Chaco turned his weather-lined eyes south. “Out there somewhere. If you hadn’t already made it here, he’d have come at a run. Knowing him, he probably checked on Taggart, kept an eye until we got there. Made sure nothing happened to him.”

  “Why didn’t he show?” Talina asked, taking another swallow of nirvana.

  “He doesn’t like people,” Madison told her. “He does his lessons. Usually finishes a week’s worth of studies in two or three days. Then he’s gone.” A tilt of her head indicated the bush. “Out there.”

  “Chaco told you about my run-in with the quetzal? That worry you? That Tip’s out there with it?”

  “That quetzal, he hangs around,” Chaco said without inflection. “He doesn’t bother us. Tip, he seems to get along with it. Freaked the piss out of us the first time we saw them together. That was a couple of years ago. Never had any trouble with it. It shows up when we trap chamois. Helps drive them into the trap. Then, after we butcher, we leave it a couple of carcasses.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  Chaco’s eyes still had that eerie look. “What about the one inside you?”

  “Not sure what it’s all about.” Tal had told Chaco the whole story as they wheeled the cart out to pick up Cap.

  “They’re all different,” Chaco told her with a dismissive shrug.

  “They eat people.”

  “We eat chamois, bushbok, and crest. So what?”

  That he could say it so simply set Talina back a pace. Wild Ones were always a little weird and crazy.

  “What do they want?” Tal wondered, her alien vision sharpening as she caught movement out in the trees. From the flickers of color, it was nothing more than flock of scarlet fliers.

  “Don’t know,” Madison told her. “You’re still worried about Tip, aren’t you? He’s got to be who he’s going to be, Tal. Flip, well, he’s headed back to Port Authority when he’s old enough. He’s got town in his blood. But Tip? He belongs to Donovan.”

  “For all we know,” Chaco added, “he’s the future.”

  54

  Trish sat with one cheek atop the lab table, her leg swinging. She’d tossed her ponytail back and crossed her arms as Raya worked on her patients.

  The fan hummed, and the lights buzzed softly overhead as Raya scurried around the examining room.

  Okay, a miracle had happened. Talina and Cap Taggart had walked out of the bush after nearly two weeks. More incredible, in the process they’d crossed approximately fifty kilometers of dense forest, river, and uplands.

  But at what price? Trish studied her old friend through narrowed eyes. Tal was different. Changed. Something almost feral about her. Not to mention the crazy stuff coming out of her mouth, like the French-kissing quetzal. Or the fact that she’d clearly been screwing Cap Taggart. The guy who had arrested her and was going to stand her up against a wall and shoot her for murder and treason.

  Tal’s personal life is her business.

  Bullshit. It rankled. Seemed like a betrayal. Letting a Skull into her bed? Captain of the marines no less? It was like a saint lowering herself to bedding a pimp.

  God, Talina! If you’re that desperate for sex, use something with a battery that vibrates.

  Trish turned her attention to the big marine. He was a Skull, not even handsome. Definitely not worthy of Talina. Trish wondered if she’d ever hated a man as much as she did him.

  The guy’s swollen arm was now under Raya’s care. She’d drained it, irrigated it, and shot him full of the new antibiotics. Analgesics had brought the captain’s fever down. When he spoke now, it was lucid, unlike the muttered ravings she’d listened to as she flew Tal and the marine back to Port Authority from Chaco Briggs’ landing pad.

  And all that way Tal had sat in the back, holding Taggart’s head, talking softly. Call it absolutely infuriating.

  What the hell, Tal? Him?

  She could hear another of the shuttles as it winged in with another load from Freelander. They were running out of room on the shuttle pad. Shit was stacked everywhere around the perimeter. The place was a mess of crates, containers, and pieces of machinery and equipment.

  The chemist, Cheng, walked in at that point, his round countenance in an unusual scowl. His too-small nose still looked out of place on the broad spread of his face. The man was nearing fifty, the first gray showing prematurely at his temples.

  He gave Trish a wink, then walked over to where Talina reclined on one of the examining tables. She swung her feet to the floor, sitting up and greeting Cheng with an expectant gaze.

  “What have you got?” Talina asked.

  “Molecules,” he told her. “Proteins. Quetzal-specific. Your saliva and blood are loaded with them.”

  “But not an infection?” Raya asked, looking up from where she monitored Taggart’s temperature.

  “Maybe you could call it that. It’s Donovan,” Cheng replied laconically. “What do I tell you? Talina, given what I’m seeing in your serology, it’s like you are producing them.”

  “How?” Raya asked, stepping around.

  “Without more tests,” Cheng told h
er, “I haven’t a clue. Tal has new, protein-specific molecules in her blood, but her immune system isn’t reacting. It’s not developing titers. The quetzal-specific proteins aren’t causing a reaction among the T cells and antibodies. Never seen anything like it.”

  “What kind of molecules?” Talina asked, her gaze going absent.

  “Like I said: the information-bearing genetic codes. We have DNA, Donovanian life has three molecular chains. To put it in descriptive terms, it’s actually an S-twist, tri-molecular thread, but it pretty much works the same way as DNA. Unzips, codes proteins and regulates metabolic processes, and conveys information from one generation to another.”

  “Conveys information?” Talina seemed to be chewing on something inside. “And you say I’m making it, and it’s in my saliva?”

  “In your sebaceous glands, too,” Cheng added. “I recovered them from a skin swab.”

  “A quetzal inside you,” Trish said. “That’s what you told me after we pulled you out of that canyon.”

  Was that why Tal was screwing Taggart? She was infected? Somehow out of her mind?

  Cheng lifted a skeptical eyebrow. He glanced at Raya. “You did bloodwork on her after that?”

  “Just the usual screen for metal toxins.” Raya’s expression pinched. “She was disoriented, slightly fevered, her lymph nodes were swollen as if from an allergic reaction, but I chalked that up to the trauma. Maybe some reaction from the thorn punctures and lacerations.”

  “She had quetzal blood all over her head,” Trish told them. “And when I got on scene, the thing had its head pressed against hers. Forehead to forehead.”

  “Mouth to mouth?” Tal asked, the vacant look still haunting her gaze.

  “Well, sort of. It’s tongue was, like, really close to your lips. And then . . . You remember? I shot it? You said you’d been inside the thing’s head? That the bullet impact was really rude?”

  Talina leaned forward and dropped her head into her hands. “Okay, so I’m infected with quetzal. I mean, the thing talks to me. Tells me things.”

  Trish glanced uncomfortably at Cheng.

  Cheng however, dropped to a knee, staring earnestly at her. “Talks to you how?”

  “Hell,” Talina muttered, “I just thought I was slightly nuts.”

  “It’s there,” Cap added from his bed. “Like a second sense. Time after time, Tal’s quetzal kept us from disaster. Each time, she’d say the quetzal warned her. If it hadn’t, the mobbers would have gotten us for sure.”

  “What are mobbers?” Cheng asked.

  “Nasty new life-form we found in the deep forest,” Talina said, head still down. “Carnivores. Four wings with scimitar-like claws. Fly like maniacs and travel in packs. Even quetzals are terrified of them.”

  “What else terrifies quetzals?” Trish asked, barely keeping the disbelief from her voice.

  “Water,” Talina said softly. “The thing was nearly catatonic while we were out on the river. Wouldn’t let me get into the canoe.”

  “Do you know how this sounds, Tal?”

  Talina lifted her head, eyes glittering. “Trish, it’s real. Inside me.”

  Cap shifted on his bed. “I’m new here, but from the beginning you’ve been telling me about the Wild Ones. That they have some sort of truce with the quetzals, with Donovan itself. I was mostly out of it, but I remember when Chaco Briggs showed up with Tal and wheeled me back to his homestead. Tal kept talking about being, uh, kissed by the quetzal. And Chaco, unconcerned, says, ‘Yeah, he hangs around.’”

  Cheng seemed locked in his head. “If it’s true, that would explain some things.”

  “What things?” Raya demanded.

  “Been concerned,” Cheng told her. “Thought maybe it was molecules that just passed through the gut wall. But I always get Donovanian proteins in the bloodwork I run on the Wild Ones. The longer they’re out there, the higher the frequencies. Thing is, I can’t isolate any effect on the people.”

  “So, what do we do about it?” Raya asked.

  “I don’t know,” Cheng told her. He turned to Talina. “Do you notice any difference? I mean physically? Any decrease in ability? Loss of balance or appetite? Disorientation? Any loss of coordination?”

  “Just the opposite. I swear I can see into the ultraviolet and infrared ranges. And my vision is sharper. So is my hearing. I have a lot better sense of balance. And the way I taste things is . . . uh, I guess you’d say richer. And there’s almost like a second sense, just a feeling I get.”

  Raya asked, “What about the dreams? The last time we talked about this, you said they were really vivid.”

  “Sometimes I dream I’m a quetzal. Like I’m hunting. Just me and the bush, a sort of fantastic in-the-now experience.”

  “If anything,” Cap told them, “she’s remarkably fit. I’m in good shape. She walked me into the ground out there. Balance? Coordination? You should have seen some of the things we crossed. And I’ll swear to that second sense of hers.”

  Cheng reached out, took Talina’s hands. “You said it talks to you. How?”

  “Thoughts. But, Cheng, they’re simple. Like when I ask it about Allison’s baby. Why it ate it. It just says ‘empty.’ I don’t know what that means.”

  “If it’s not a delusion,” Trish made herself say what the others wouldn’t. “I mean, how do molecules form words in our language in your brain? That’s done by nerves, right? Synapses triggering. RNA and what all.”

  Cheng nodded. “All those things.”

  Talina laughed, almost bitterly. “People, what if we’re thinking about this all wrong?”

  “How’s that?” Raya asked.

  “We’ve spent years now busting our asses, trying to understand Donovan and how it works.” Talina pressed her palms together. “So, what if the inverse is true?” She looked around, meeting all of their glances. “What if Donovan is trying to understand us?”

  Cheng nodded. “I think I have a whole new set of research paradigms.”

  Trying to understand us? Trish swallowed hard, skeptical gaze on Talina.

  “Whoa,” Cap said anxiously as he sat up in his bed. “People, keep in mind. I’m a military guy. I think differently.”

  “How so, Max?” Talina turned to give him her entire attention.

  Max? She called him Max? Trish almost made a face. She was really starting to hate the guy.

  “In the military we study to understand. Just like you people are doing here. Dr. Cheng, you’re trying to work out Donovan’s chemistry, right? And you’re doing it so that you can exploit it. The mining people are doing the same with the geology, the botanists seeking to understand the plants so that we can use them. In the military we’re taught to learn all that we can about the enemy so that we can destroy them.”

  He paused, then asked, “So, what’re the quetzals’ goals in all this? Did they infect Talina out of a love for science? Knowledge for the sake of knowledge? Or because we’re a threat that they need to deal with? Perhaps defeat and drive off their world?”

  “Well, that just sucks methane,” Trish whispered. “Tal, are you a spy?”

  Talina had gone as pale as the polar snows.

  55

  Aboard the Turalon, Kalico Aguila stared coldly across the table in the captain’s lounge. Captain Taggart—freshly returned from the dead and looking the worse for it—sat in his uniform, his left arm immobilized in a sling.

  Dr. Tyler had checked him out in the medical bay, pronounced Dr. Turnienko’s work satisfactory, and released him for “administrative” duty.

  Now the marine sat at full attention, a grim smile playing at his lips, eyes fixed distantly as marines were trained to do when being disciplined.

  “Just what the hell were you thinking?” Kalico demanded.

  The smile flickered, a break in his expression. To her surprise, he said gentl
y, “Can we go off the record, ma’am?”

  She arched an eyebrow, her stomach queasy and dyspeptic as it had been since the discoveries aboard Freelander. “Is there any reason I shouldn’t have you busted down to private, or even tossed out on your ass and left on this vile ball of rock?”

  “How many personnel are you missing?”

  She started, wondering how he knew. Who’d told him. She had ordered Abibi to keep the desertions quiet, tell the rest of the crew that the missing individuals had been “reassigned” for at least as long as they could string out the ruse. Hopefully just long enough to space.

  “Do you know something about it, Captain? Or”—and her blood ran cold—“is this something you’ve orchestrated to sabotage me?”

  The smile was back, amused. “No, ma’am. So, since we’re off the record, let me start at the beginning. I wanted to see Donovan. And I had one tiny window. It should have been a simple trip. Fly out, pick up a pregnant woman, fly back.”

  “But the aircar crashed.”

  “Correct. I got more than I bargained for.”

  “Including Officer Perez, if the rumors are true.” She tilted her head suggestively. “Thought she was on your shit list.”

  “She’s more than she seems,” Taggart said, wincing as he shifted his arm and relaxed. “The whole planet is.”

  He paused, then said, “Freelander got caught in a time trap? Some weird relativity? More than a hundred years? Officers dead by suicide, a macabre death cult, temples made of bones, shuttles vanishing beyond the inversion? Your crew slipping away in drips and drabs every time a shuttle makes planet? Damn it, Kalico, it’s all falling apart.”

  Kalico? That was way over the line. She felt a crystalline crack in her composure. “Not to mention my captain of marines traipsing off for a nature hike when I needed him the most.”

  “You didn’t need me. Spiro already gave me a full report. So, since we’re off the record, I’ll give you mine. You’re hanging on by a thread. I can see it in you. Brittle, like an overstressed pane of glass. Just the smallest tap, and you’re about to shatter into a thousand pieces.”