She crossed her arms and gave him an unenthusiastic look. “I think it should be a rule that if someone new is piloting that a notice be posted. If I’m going to die, I want to know in advance.”
He opened his mouth to retort, but Yvonne beat him to it. “Very cute. Go see if Elizabeth wants to help you move the shipment onto the lift. Davey and I will finish and then head out to meet with the contact.”
Grace made a parting shot about narrowly escaping fiery death and then disappeared.
He helped Yvonne as best he could with the shutdown sequence. He only half-understood what he was doing, despite knowing the procedure. Spaceships were big, complicated machines with a lot of moving parts and systems to let them do their job. Keeping one flying was way outside his pay grade.
He snuck a glance at Yvonne out of the corner of his eye. She looked fine, but he could see the tension in her forehead. He knew that Bright Crater was on the bottom of her list of places to visit, regardless of her claims. “You okay?” he finally asked.
“Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the obvious reason.”
She sighed and stood up. “I appreciate your concern, but I really am okay.”
“Are you?” She tried to leave, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “I’m not blind, you know. I know it’s been hard. I just...” He struggled for words. “We’re a family, sort of, and I know there’s nothing I can do, but I wish there was.”
She smiled. The genuine sort that Davey didn’t think he had seen cross her face in months. She stepped into the hall. “Meet me at the port airlock,” she said over her shoulder.
He watched her go and then ran to his room to arm himself. They were on the ground, which meant Matthew expected him to be on top of things. He may not have been able to help Yvonne with whatever she was dealing with, but he could at least keep her safe.
“YOU WEREN’T KIDDING,” Elizabeth said as she pushed the massive cargo container across the hold using the grav pallet. “This is fun.” She’d operated plenty of heavy machinery on the farm, but most of that was mechanized. This one let you handle hefty cargo like it was nothing with just your bare hands.
Grace was all smiles. “Push it another foot toward me. There we go.”
Elizabeth let go of the handle and walked over to the garden while they waited on Yvonne and Davey. Always being on the go, yet taking your home with you, was a strange and new feeling for her. In the past, she’d only rarely been out of Arizona, let alone off Mars. Travel held an air of excitement to her, but she suspected it would soon become wearisome. She wondered how Matthew lived with a ship as his home. No open sky or feel of the sun on your skin. She glanced at the meager rows of the garden. And very little soil between your fingers.
She had once provided a refuge for the Sparrow, a second home. A harbor in a universe of turmoil. And now that house was gone forever. She turned over the possibilities for the hundredth time. She could return to Mars, once it was safe, and rebuild, but it would never be the same. The farmhands would resow the fields when the proper season came, but she hardly needed to be there for that. She wasn’t getting any younger, and there would come a time when she would only get in the way. Perhaps she already did. And then there was Antioch. Bishop Elias had offered her a permanent home and begged her to stay and teach. It was a tempting offer, but one she wasn’t prepared to take yet. It would be like abandoning Albert on Mars.
Behind her, she heard Grace’s comm. Elizabeth brushed the dirt from her hands and walked back to the center of the hold. “Ready to go?” she asked.
Grace nodded and pressed the control to lower the lift. “Davey says Yvonne’s still dealing with the official side of things, but they’re ready to accept the shipment.”
Elizabeth wasn’t impressed with her first view of Ceres. The hangar was little more than a warehouse with a retractable ceiling. It smelled damp and metallic, and there was a chill in the air. When the lift bottomed out, Grace pushed the refrigerated container out from under the shadow of the Sparrow. “Where are we going with this?” she shouted to Yvonne and Davey who were talking to the buyer. He waved them over.
“Here’s your shipment,” Yvonne said to a portly man with a suit and a sharply defined widow’s peak.
“Excellent!” he said. “I’m sure you don’t mind if we verify the authenticity of the ice before you leave.”
“Naturally,” Yvonne said.
“Very good. Mineral and trace element analysis will take two to three days.”
Elizabeth saw the slight shift in Yvonne’s posture. She must have been hoping to get out of here sooner. “I see,” she said. “Well, the sooner, the better. Davey, Grace, give them a hand with the cargo.” She passed a tablet back to the receiver and then turned away.
“Not what you were expecting?” Elizabeth asked.
“I’m used to a few hours wait in a situation like this, not a few days and...” She looked around and then hugged her arms to herself.
Elizabeth knew what Bright Crater meant to her. “In the meantime, what do we do?”
“We wait. I’ve let Matthew know we’ve arrived. I’ll update on the delay later. They just got to Mars themselves.”
“I don’t see any harm in a slight delay,” she said.
“A day on the ground is a day where we’re spending money and not making it,” Yvonne countered.
Elizabeth just raised an eyebrow. Matthew was right about her being driven. “Well either way, can we still make that stop by a commercial district? Everything on Enceladus was more expensive than I was willing to pay. Even the soap.”
“I’ll have to check a map to see exactly where we are, but there are a few areas of the city that would probably be safe enough. I have a list that needs addressing anyway.”
“Not without me,” Davey said as he and Grace rejoined them.
Yvonne scoffed. “I lived here with Tomas for two years and by myself for one. We’ll be fine.”
“And Matthew put me in charge of ground security,” he said, shaking his head.
“Is Davey pulling rank?” Grace asked. “Because I’m going to enjoy watching him get shot down.”
Elizabeth looked back and forth between Yvonne and Davey, wondering if there really was about to be an argument, but the woman sighed and nodded. “Fine. Grace, keep an eye on the Sparrow. We’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Really?” she said, giving them all a withering glare. “You guys are going to go have fun, and you’re going to leave me here.”
“It’s a supply run. It’s not supposed to be fun. And remember, the last time we came to Ceres, you got lost on a weeks long side trip.”
Grace kicked at the ground. “Just don’t take too long.” She turned and shuffled back to the ship, clearly not very enthusiastic about it.
“The day isn’t getting any younger,” Yvonne said. “Let’s get moving.”
A half-hour later, they pulled up to a commercial market. It had been a little uncomfortable for the three of them on the back of Davey’s bike. His face had turned red when Elizabeth teased him about taking two older women out on the town, but outside of paying for a cab, they didn’t have any other options. She watched the passing scenery as they drove through the narrow canyons of Bright Crater. She’d seen pictures of the crowded cities of Ceres before, but seeing it firsthand was a sobering experience. This was the underworld that Davey and Grace had grown up in. That Yvonne had lost her husband in. Mars had so far escaped most of the solar system’s misery, but with a single misspoken word from a glib politician, war could change everything.
The market was built into a series of ledges extending up the wall of the canyon. Local boutiques were nested into the face of the stone, and street vendors peddled their colorful wares from carts. Elizabeth purchased a few personal effects as well as a viridian poncho. After visiting a few moons, it was becoming apparent that everywhere was colder than Mars, and it was no wonder Matthew never went without one.
“I have everything I need, thank you.” She frowned and looked around. “Where’s Yvonne?”
He gestured with his head toward the edge overlooking the canyon. Yvonne stood with her back to them, hands gripping the rail. Her posture was wrong, stiff and unnatural. “I think this is more your domain,” he said.
Elizabeth patted him on the arm and joined the other woman. Neither said a word for several minutes. Elizabeth waited patiently, watching the lights of the traffic pass on the main road forty meters beneath their overlook.
“Like mother, like son,” Yvonne finally said.
“You like the poncho,” she replied. “It was always cold on Ganymede, and Enceladus and Ceres aren’t any better. But no, we’re only so much alike.”
Yvonne raised an eyebrow but nodded. She turned again to the railing and pointed out the outdoor dining area on the level beneath them. “Thomas and I used to shop here,” Yvonne said. She gestured at an outdoor dining area on the level beneath them. “We would always eat at that Italian place. Do you know what he would order every time? Chicken strips.” She lowered her voice in a facsimile of a man’s. “Why try something new when I know I’ll love this?”
Elizabeth laughed softly at that. “When Albert and I first married, I was an adjunct professor at Flagstaff’s local college. Most of our meals came hot from a microwave.”
Yvonne made a surprised hum in her throat. “You’ve come a long way.”
“I had to once Albert started drinking.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“Ancient history,” Elizabeth said, making a dismissive gesture. “That was a battle fought, lost, and then won at the last when Albert found his peace.”
There was another cool silence between them, one that Elizabeth was reluctant to break. The rush hour traffic had passed, and the noise of the street and the crowds had faded from a bustle to a steady murmur.
“And how did you win your peace?” Yvonne asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“It wasn’t easy. In fact, it nearly cost my soul.”
Elizabeth looked to where Davey stood leaned against a light pole a short distance away. He gave her a questioning look. She smiled and mouthed the words ‘It’s all right’ to him. Regardless of how good he was at reading lips, he got the message and relaxed. She looked back at the street below. “After Albert died and Matthew abandoned me for the priesthood, I hated even the idea of God...”
THE PROXIMITY ALARM went off, and Grace turned the volume down on the radio. She reached across to where her tablet sat on the couch beside her and pulled up the security system. She and Yvonne had figured out how to feed quite a few of the Sparrow’s systems to a portable device. Either Matthew had no idea how to do that, or he’d never bothered.
Which meant she didn’t feel the need to run to the cockpit to see who was outside. She pulled up the camera to see a man in a black cowboy hat standing expectantly at the bottom of the portside ramp. Whitaker.
“What’s that creep up to now?” she groaned under her breath. She turned on the outside intercom. May as well ask him. “What are you up to, creep?”
Whitaker laughed. “A warm welcome as always. I’d like to have a discussion with Matthew. If you could tell him I’m here, I would greatly appreciate it.”
Hmm. Okay, she was in a pickle. For once, it seemed like Whitaker was working on bad information, bad enough to be off on Matthew’s whereabouts by several million kilometers. At least that meant that the ruse of them taking the commercial flight worked. If Whitaker hadn’t seen it coming, surely no one else would. She wasn’t about to let him in on the secret.
“Taking a nap. Or something,” she said dismissively. “You can leave a message.”
Whitaker frowned at the camera and took a few steps up the ramp.
“I can electrify that ramp, you know,” Grace said, almost regretting warning him because it sure would be fun to do.
He stopped his advance but didn’t retreat. “This is important, Grace.”
“So tell me, and I’ll make sure the relevant parties are informed.”
He took a sudden step back. “He’s not here?”
Oh, she’d messed up. “That’s not—”
“He and Abigail went back to Mars. And here I came bearing proof of his killer’s identity. I see that information reached him through other means.” He saluted the camera. “Very well. Thank you, Grace you’ve been of great—”
The crack of a gunshot rang out. Whitaker’s hat popped off like the wind had caught it, and he stumbled forward up the ramp. Grace nearly leaped off the couch. Had he just been shot? By who? But no, he was on his feet again. He reached for the hat, but someone in the distance shouted something indistinct, and he froze for a brief second. Then he turned and ran up the ramp.
“Grace! Open up! Now!”
“What’s going on?”
“Please!”
She heard the panic in his voice. Someone worse than Whitaker was out there? She made a snap decision and ran to the airlock and mashed the panel to open it. Whitaker stumbled in and barely made it through before she closed it again. Grace got the briefest look outside at a small army of armed men before the bulkhead sealed shut.
She whirled on Whitaker and grabbed him with her bracelet, pinning him to the wall. “What’s your game? Talk!”
“Those are Logan’s men,” he said, struggling against her invisible grip.
She let him go and ran back to the common room to pick up her dropped tablet. “If you do anything I don’t like, I’ll crush you like a bug,” she warned as she adjusted the camera outside. “Umm not only is it Logan’s men, but the jerk himself is standing at the front. And he has your hat.”
“Let me see that,” Whitaker said, coming up behind her.
Logan replaced his own hat with Whitaker’s, frowned for a moment as if concentrating, and then shrugged. Whitaker visibly relaxed.
Grace hadn’t missed that detail. “Looks like that’s where you keep the Helm of Hades. Don’t act surprised. We did our research after the hospital stunt.”
“Guilty as charged. Thankfully it will take him some time to figure out how to use it.” Whitaker said. “In the meantime...”
“Are you going to help me defend the Sparrow?” Grace asked. “Because if not, I’m going to lock you in a storage closet and forget about you.”
The villain held out his palms and gave her a smile that looked almost sheepish. “Unarmed as always. I don’t provide Matthew or Abigail any reason to consider me a threat to their safety, remember?”
“Matthew’s right. You are useless.” Of course, he’d never said that, but given the hurt look on Whitaker’s face, it was totally worth saying. She grabbed her comm. The sooner Davey got here to give her backup, the better. She frowned when she only got static.
“They have a jammer,” Whitaker observed.
“Thanks, I never would have figured that out if you weren’t here to hold my hand. Do you really expect me to believe that you showed up literally seconds before these guys?”
“That’s exactly what happened. Matthew’s bad luck appears to have rubbed off on me.”
“Weren’t you the cause of that bad luck originally?”
That shut him up. Grace pulled the cameras back up. Logan stood in front of the airlock at the top of the ramp. Idiot. She had a response to that. With a few taps, she brought up the command to electrify the ramp. “Have fun,” she said and pushed the button.
Logan didn’t so much as twitch. He waved at the camera.
Honestly, did all of their enemies have to show up when she was on watch? At this point, it was only a matter of time before White Void made an appearance. Grace turned on the intercom. “You can stop waving. I’m not blind. If you want to talk, I’m listening. If you’re after this jerk, I’m more than willing to hand him over for a price.”
“Good to hear your vo
ice, Ms. Anderson,” Logan said. “And I’m sorry, but I have no use for that charlatan, though I won’t mind taking him into custody. I’m here to borrow the Sparrow, but I promise to leave its crew unharmed and return it when I’m done.”
“No thanks.”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t making an offer. You see, Cole made the mistake of allowing me on the Sparrow back at Ceres. He should have kept a closer eye on me because it was a simple matter to install a backdoor entrance in the computer.” He motioned at the airlock, and to Grace’s horror, it opened. “Now it’s about thirty of us to the two of you. I’d rather you not put up a fight. I know what those miracles of yours are capable of, but even you won’t win at those odds.” He motioned to his men, and they charged up the ramp, weapons drawn.
Grace glanced at Whitaker. He wasn’t in control for once, and the look on his face said he didn’t care for being on the receiving end of a sudden twist. “You’re not going to go down without a fight, are you?” he asked. She shook her head, and at that, he sighed. “I was afraid of that.”
SHE SHOULDN’T BE HERE. It was madness, and only more grief could come of it, but Yvonne made a call and tracked down the one person that might be able to answer the question that needed answering. She sat alone in a booth at a diner on the south side of Bright Crater. The old clinic she ran with Tomas was less than two kilometers away. The rough neighborhood they’d lived in was making Davey more nervous by the minute. He and Elizabeth sat a few tables away, out of earshot, but nearby in case they were needed. Yvonne still didn’t think she needed protection in a place she had lived, but there was no point arguing with him when he was in duty mode.
The diner itself was unremarkable, the kind that humanity had been building for over three centuries at this point, and served food greasy enough to induce a heart attack in a single visit. The walls were adorned with local memorabilia, most in need of a good dusting. She sipped at the tea she’d felt obligated to order while she waited, heart hammering.
Finally, a waitress approached the table and took off her apron. She was a young woman, probably in her early thirties, with beautiful olive skin. Yvonne had seen her only once before, three years ago. The woman slid into the booth across from her. “Ms. Naude. I gotta admit I never expected to see you again. There’s not much we have to be friendly over.”
After Moses: Wormwood Page 35
