Outpost

  “When does it end?”

  “When you reach Samadhi, illumination.”

  “Right. And then what?”

  “Sublime indifference.”

  She slapped a knee, laughing. “Got to hand it to you, Shig. You and your Buddhist—”

  “What I just explained was Hindu.”

  “Damn, why do I even bother?”

  They turned as Yvette stepped out of Shig’s office door and called, “The Supervisor’s shuttle has just detached from Turalon. Twenty minutes, people.”

  “Be right there.” Shig acknowledged with a wave.

  Talina snapped him a salute, adding, “Here’s to illumination, boss. Let’s give ’em hell.”

  She watched as Shig walked away; then she collected her crutches and rose to study the bands of high cirrus across Donovan’s sky.

  As the shuttle came in, its low roar would rise in the distance. Everyone on Donovan would know, including the quetzals. The people who’d taken to the bush, the “Wild Ones,” would hear that whistling scream over half the planet. Some had left to escape The Corporation’s regulations and laws. Others had just been seduced by Donovan. Then there were those who had gone off to prove themselves. In the days to come each landing would announce the resupply. By ones and twos the Wild Ones would come in to trade and see what was new. Then, restocked with what they could afford, they’d drift out again. Back to their haunts and homesteads.

  Some would never return, having fallen prey to quetzals, bems, nightmares, slugs, or any of the growing list of Donovan’s deadly flora and fauna. Others got lost, injured, died of exposure, thirst, poisoning, drowning, or any of the myriads of mishaps that could befall a human in the wilds.

  Time to check with Trish one last time. As Talina turned, her gaze fixed on the distant line of brush.

  The quetzal flared its wide collar in a display of bright crimson, then ran stripes of pearlescent white and orange along its body. Even across the distance, Talina could feel the creature’s intent stare, could almost see those three shining eyes.

  The uneasy presence inside her stirred, as if awakened. Her lungs filled, throat tightening into a hiss that she consciously stopped short.

  “What do you care?” she asked it.

  Did she only imagine a whistle of rage?

  “God, it’s like I’m turning into a quetzal,” she chided herself.

  When asked about it, the Wild Ones would shrug and say, “Quetzals? I don’t know. It’s just a thing. Like a truce. We don’t bother them, they don’t bother us.”

  Which had never made sense.

  She had the unsettling premonition that this was more than just a bump on the head. Maybe it was time to go see Raya, see if . . .

  “Talina?” came the call in her earpiece. “Get your butt in here. We got fifteen minutes.”

  “Yeah, I’m coming, Yvette.”

  She shot one last glance at the quetzal and gave the distant creature a nod.

  The Corporation was coming. Some things were more dangerous than quetzals.

  9

  Cap Taggart—by virtue of rank—got the right-hand seat in the row of three behind the shuttle’s pilot and copilot. G-force pressed him into the cushion as the pilot raised the craft’s blunt nose and ploughed into Donovan’s atmosphere. Remarkably adaptive, the seat had conformed to his combat armor.

  Through the window, Cap was able to watch as they curled around the planet. Donovan was a green world, mottled with browns, tans, and grays that gave way to deep blues as the shuttle shot out over the oceans. In so many ways Donovan reminded him of Earth—and in so many ways it was totally alien: oddly configured, the colors slightly off, and the polar caps smaller due to the planet’s fifteen-degree inclination. Like Earth, Donovan also had a moon, which, while smaller, orbited closer and at higher relative speed, which drove different tidal and climatic forces.

  Unlike Earth, Cap could detect no trace of human beings. The first thing a person noticed while descending to Earth was the agricultural patchwork of fields, the long sinuous Vs of water behind dammed rivers, then the occasional gray-brown patch of city, followed by the linear profusion of power lines and roads. Finally the buildings could be discerned.

  On Donovan he saw only wilderness, the patterns of the geology, watersheds, and lakes, all shaded by varying hues of blue-green vegetation.

  The untouched nature of the world sent a queasy unease along his spine. Cap had never set foot in a place that wasn’t “human.” Sure, he’d been to the wilderness areas on Earth. Trained in them. But rescue was just a com call away, his every move monitored by command and control. Down deep he knew that “wilderness” or not, people had been trotting through that very environment for tens of thousands of millennia before he got there.

  Donovan was . . . different.

  The shuttle banked, wings glowing, and the gs increased. Through his window he could see the circular body of water called “the Gulf.” It marked Donovan Corporate Port Authority’s location. Like a bite out of the continent, the Gulf was an ancient meteor impact; one that had punctured the planet’s crust, not only bringing rare-earth elements to the surface, but triggering volcanism that produced a remarkably pure volcanic clay that—when superheated in vacuum—baked into an incredible ceramic that would cut diamond like it was butter.

  While the deceptively calm waters of the Gulf filled the east, the western horizon rose in a series of jagged-peaked mountain ranges. Following the curve of the Gulf to the south, however, one found impenetrable jungle. And in the north uplands composed a landscape of ragged chaparral cloaking uplifted sandstone ridges. Beyond that the country consisted of eroded and dissected mesas and buttes. The vegetation then gave way to the steppe, and finally to the distant polar region.

  The shuttle shifted attitude and changed pitch as it tightened its approach.

  There! Cap could see it now. Just a spot of difference. Tiny against the wilderness. The first thing was the open-pit clay mine, a pale gray crater in the background of aqua. Then its haul road running south. Yes, those were cleared fields by the dimple that slowly formed into a settlement. Settlement? Only thirty years old, Port Authority reminded him of pictures he’d seen of old Iron Age forts. A deep ditch—backed by a tall fence studded with guard towers—surrounded the town on all sides except where the shuttle port stuck out like a stubbed thumb. Occasional breaks were apparently gates in the fortifications.

  The place consisted of low domes from the original colony and newer structures built of native stone and wood. He’d seen the pictures and called the architectural style “Donovan primitive.” The streets—laid out in a Cartesian grid—remained rutted dirt. Just outside the fence, opposite the shuttle field, he could see a lot where aircars and various vehicles were parked in lines. Between town and the brushland, crops were being grown in addition to those in the big inflated greenhouses in the settlement’s rear.

  Whatever was going on, this was obviously an ordered society, not a chaotic rabble. Some form of government had survived.

  Cap pitched forward as the pilot deftly dropped toward the shuttle port. To Cap’s amazement, dust blew out in great clouds as the shuttle settled onto the dirt.

  Not concrete. Not sialon. But fucking dirt!

  “Jesus,” he whispered. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”

  “Thank God the atomic accelerators are sealed,” the copilot, a trim thirty-year-old woman, muttered.

  “Welcome to Donovan,” the pilot called over his com. “Please keep your seats for a moment while we shut down.”

  Where she sat in the middle seat, Kalico Aguila glanced at Cap and suggestively raised her eyebrows. “Well, we’re here, Captain. What on Earth do you think we’re going to find?”

  “Nothing on Earth, that’s for sure.” He gave her a crooked smile.

  The shuttle’s whine vanished into silen
ce. “All clear,” the pilot called.

  “After you, Cap,” Kalico told him.

  He unbuckled and stood before plucking his helmet from the gear bin and clamping it on his head. Then he slung his weapons and ducked through the hatch into the main cabin. His marines were already suited, waiting on his orders, mirrored helmets turned in his direction.

  “All right, people. Tactical deployment. Squad one, take point. You know the drill, children. Let’s go.”

  He watched as Lieutenant Spiro leaped out of her seat, squad one merging behind her. A sense of pride filled him as they undogged the cabin door, dropped the ramp, and filed out in smooth order. Second squad was hot on their heels, followed by third and fourth, and then it was his turn. Clearing the door, he unslung his rifle and trotted down to the ground where his team had a firing perimeter established, weapons up and hot, eyes in all directions.

  And . . . nothing.

  Cap studied his tactical screens where they projected on his heads-up displays. People were waiting on the other side of the fence, a couple hundred of them, all packed in behind a solid wall of sialon crates. And, yep, they all had weapons.

  Even as he watched, three people detached from the crowd and unchained a small “man gate” in the larger main gate in the chain-link and stepped out, walking easily toward his deployment.

  Two tall women and a short man, they approached with their hands extended, palms out. Only the young woman—the one with black hair—was armed, a pistol holstered at her hip. As if to soften any threat, a cast on her leg imparted a pronounced limp.

  “Shit!” Deb Spiro wondered through her battle com. “What are they wearing?”

  “Sort of like the circus,” Sean Finnegan muttered.

  “Or freak show,” Mark Talbot added.

  “Quiet, people,” Cap ordered, and started forward.

  They did look like a freak show, dressed as they were in worn coveralls with leather patches and iridescent rainbow boots. Only the crippled woman had on anything that passed for a uniform, and Cap hadn’t seen that style in years.

  Passing through his squad he met the three at the halfway point, rifle at parade rest.

  The second woman, older, maybe fifty, her thick blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, said, “We surrender, soldier. Bit melodramatic for an entry, don’t you think?”

  “Welcome to Donovan,” the short, round-faced fellow of obvious Indian ancestry greeted. “Captain, if you wouldn’t mind, could you remove your helmet? The reflection is good enough I can see that I didn’t shave this morning.”

  “Stay frosty, kids,” Cap ordered into his com before he shifted his rifle, slung it, and undogged his helmet. Lifting it off his head, he got his initial whiff of Donovan’s air. First thing he noticed was the slight scent of spice, and then the fresh tang of soil and moisture. Damn, he’d missed real air.

  “Captain Max Taggart, Corporate Security,” he introduced. “Forgive the manner of our arrival.” He let a cold smile play at his lips. “We weren’t sure what sort of reception we’d receive. And I notice that all of your people are armed.”

  “I’m Yvette Dushane,” the tall blonde said with a slight nod. “This is Shig.” A slight hesitation before she added, “Mosadek” as an afterthought.

  “Glad to meet you, Captain Taggart,” Shig said.

  “I’m Talina Perez,” the younger black-haired pistol-packer told him. “Port Authority security.”

  He fixed on her for the first time, taking in the cast and the fact that her uniform was so antiquated and worn it was almost a mockery. The pistol on her hip, however, had the wear-polished look of a familiar tool. Meeting her gaze, he found himself eye-to-eye with some . . . thing. A presence. Hard, deadly, almost invincible.

  And then it passed, leaving him shaken and uneasy as he gave the woman a nod. Even though her dark eyes were now fully human, nothing about her could be taken for granted. It was a quality she had, unimpressed by his armor, or the troops behind him. As if he weren’t shit on her shoe after the things she’d seen. He’d never felt the like.

  And worse, she seemed to see right through him.

  “Who’s in charge here?” Cap asked, flustered and off balance.

  “We all are,” Shig told him through an inoffensive smile. The man’s eyes drifted beyond the troops to the shuttle. “I would assume the Supervisor is with you? Do come. We have her office ready. There is a great deal to do. And no doubt your people would love to set foot on land again.”

  “Is there a hurry?” Cap asked.

  “We’ll have to shut down at dusk,” Perez told him crisply.

  “We have lights,” Cap told her.

  She hitched a half step closer, and he could see a pink scar still healing on the side of her head. With a finger she pointed past the shuttle. “Not more than ten minutes before you touched down, we had a quetzal just out from that brush. It’s there. As I speak. Watching. Wondering. Sniffing the odors of soft meat.”

  The way she said it sent another shiver through Cap’s bones. “Ma’am. Ms. Perez . . . Do you even have a rank? I don’t give a damn about any quetzal. If it gets within a half a klick, my people will turn it into charred crisps. My concern is a couple hundred armed civilians just back of that fence.”

  Talina raised a hand, apparently to stop both Shig and Yvette from interrupting. “You and your people are new here. I get it. I was new once myself. There’s a reason we call you ‘soft meat.’ Nothing derogatory. It’s just the way it is.”

  “Talina?” Shig asked softly.

  She lifted her stilling hand higher, hot black gaze never leaving Cap’s. “Now, stand your troops down, Captain, and tell the Supervisor that she’s welcome to disembark, make her introductions, and join us in the admin building.”

  “How do I know she’ll be safe?”

  “Because I give you my word.”

  He still hesitated, but an instant later, Kalico’s voice in his earpiece stated, “It’s all right, Cap. I’m coming. Either that or we look like idiots.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” To his squad he barked, “Attennn-shun!”

  Crisp to the point of perfection, they clicked heels together, clapping their weapons to port arms. Heads straight, backs arched, their mirrored visors reflected beams of Capella’s harsh light.

  Cap never let his attention waver, eyes locked on Perez’s as Kalico walked down the ramp. As they were trained, his squad peeled off one by one and formed around her when she walked past. When Kalico stopped before the trio, she used voice amplification to announce, “I am Supervisor Kalico Aguila. I come bearing The Corporation’s charter and with the intention of resuming the proper administration of Donovan and its resources. It is with pleasure that I arrive here, and I look forward to working with each and every one of you as we return this colony to order and security. You are right, we have a lot to do, so let us get right to work.”

  Kalico paused, the wind ruffling her hair in a most unbecoming way. Of course, she wouldn’t have thought of the wind, not after two years in the Turalon, or her years in Transluna before that.

  “Yvette Dushane, Shig Mosadek, Talina Perez.” She singled them out one by one. “It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance. If you will lead forward.”

  Another gust of wind whipped her hair around her face, blinding her and raising havoc with her high collar and the flaring shoulders of her expensive gray suit. It ruined any impression of power and authority Kalico might have hoped to make.

  Talina Perez was smiling, something hard and predatory in her eyes.

  Cap ground his teeth as the Donovanians turned and led the way. This was madness. They were headed for that fence where a couple hundred armed civilians waited. Any one of them could lift a weapon, shoot Kalico down. There’d be no warning.

  As if Perez’s word carried that kind of weight.

  Only then did Cap se
e that Kalico’s spiked heels were sinking in the weathered clay soil, causing the Supervisor to wobble and fight for balance.

  What else hasn’t Kalico Aguila anticipated?

  10

  The light stabbed into Dan Wirth’s eyes. Damn! Capella was bright! And he was looking right into it. Judiciously, he stepped off the ramp, stumbling slightly in Donovan’s point-nine-five gravity. Not only that, but moving was different. For two years he’d been living in Turalon. And for six months before that, on a station. Both maintained g-force by rotation, which meant that a person inherently learned to correct for angular acceleration. It affected everything: balance, how to pour coffee, how to throw something, even how to walk. Directions became spinward and anti-spinward.

  “Christ in the mud, Wirth,” Stryski grumbled behind him. “It’s bad enough we had to wait another day. Would you get out of the fucking way?”

  Dan wobbled his way forward, his knees feeling slightly off. But the smell! The air was sweet, like perfume and spice. His nose had suddenly come to life after a long dormancy. And the colors! Everywhere he looked, even the wilted bluish-green plants at his feet.

  I’ve lived for two years without colors.

  The notion shocked him. Even in prison there had been colors.

  He stopped short where an auburn-haired young woman was calling out, “Form a line! That’s it. Next line over here.”

  Dan took a moment to appreciate her. She must have been just shy of twenty and tanned, green-eyed, with broad, strong-looking shoulders. Nice tits and ass. In his terms, she was the kind of woman who screamed for healthy sex. Right up to the moment she passed close and fixed him with a flinty and dismissively cold gaze.

  What was he? Moldy meat?

  Not that he could hold the thought. This was Donovan! Not Transluna, not Mars, or Io, mind you, but the farthest habitable planet from Earth. An alien world. One where humans didn’t need to cocoon themselves in a safe environment and build a biome. This planet would become the new Eden.

  Stryski pushed ahead of him in line, raising his hands to the slightly greener-than-Earth sky. “Yeeeehaaawww! We made it!”