by Rick Partlow
I stared at him, wondering if maybe everything that had happened had imbalanced him. This whole plan sounded like the rantings of one of the conspiracy theory loons who paid for their own show on the indie nets back in Trans Angeles. But everything that he’d said about the Corporate Council, I knew was absolutely true. And someone high up in their Executive Board obviously thought that what he had was dangerous; otherwise, they wouldn’t have sent me.
“Show me.”
Chapter Twelve
I stared out the back of the swaying, bucking cargo truck at the cold, grey dawn hanging over the black trunks of imported Earth trees that lined the rough, rutted mountain road. I’d been on Thunderhead for nearly a week, I reflected dolorously, and I still hadn’t seen the sun.
I tried not to look at the others; I knew they were staring, and I didn’t blame them. We were crammed onto parallel bench seats lining both sides of the truck’s cargo compartment, with a guard at the end of each of them “for our protection,” according to Gramps. At least they weren’t pointing their weapons at us, though they were both armed. Gramps trusted me, but that didn’t yet extend to any of the others. I’d offered to ride with them to make sure there were no incidents along the way.
“This Abuelo,” Yassa said from beside me, too softly for others to hear over the shuddering vibration of the truck, “is really your great-grandfather? The one you told me about on Inferno? Master Gunnery Sergeant Torres?”
I nodded. I hadn’t had time to spell the whole situation out yet, but I had told them that much before we’d loaded on the truck.
“He came out here to get away from my mother.”
“She makes friends wherever she goes, doesn’t she?” Yassa chuckled.
Then she fell silent for a moment, frowning. I thought she’d gone off into a funk, which I’d seen her do a few times since we’d arrived. Then I felt her hand on my forearm and looked down at it.
“Munroe,” she said, “have you wondered about the odds of this being a coincidence?”
I squinted at her in confusion. I was still reeling from everything that had happened and my mind wasn’t working at its fastest.
“Think about it,” she insisted, her grip tightening. “Cowboy must have known who Abuelo was. He had to. That’s the real reason he sent you instead of going himself, because he knew Torres wouldn’t kill you.”
“Jesus,” I hissed, feeling my gut tightening at the idea. It was just the sort of thing Cowboy would do. But… “What did he think would happen when I found out?” I objected. “I’m not going to kill my great-grandfather, and he’s not going to hand over what he considers his best chance at fighting the Corporate Council just because I ask him nicely.”
“That part, I don’t know,” she admitted. “I just think you need to keep your head on a swivel. Things aren’t what they seem.”
“I trust Gramps,” I told her flatly. “He’s the one thing I could count on when I was growing up. I’m not ready to believe he’s changed in just a few years.”
I noticed one of the guards staring at me and I stopped talking. I’d told Yassa I trusted Gramps, but I didn’t know which of his men were loyal to him and which were still in Constantine’s pocket.
I could feel the trucks shuddering in the wind as the little caravan climbed higher into the mountains, and the trees began to thin out; the ones that still remained grew shorter and thicker, huddling against the constant battering. The trees weren’t native, and neither was most of the flora or fauna in the river valleys. The immigrants had brought it with them and it had taken over the places it could live, just as we had. Up here though, in the wind, only the native life remained. I could see it growing flat along the rocks, coloring them green and red and purple as it clung to them and melded with them, breaking down the outer layer and feeding on it in ways that I couldn’t imagine and no Commonwealth scientist had ever had the chance to study.
Nothing moved above ground up here except us, and we were moving pretty slowly, swerving in the grip of the wind. The guards didn’t seem bothered by it, but I could see Sanders, Victor, Kurt and Ibanez looking around nervously. Bobbi chewed on a ration bar with a bored expression; she never seemed to let anything get to her, but that was probably half a put-on. Kane might have been asleep for all I could tell, and Yassa…I couldn’t read her well enough to know.
Once we began heading down the other side of the pass, the raging howl of the wind died to a distant whistle behind the sheltering rock and I could feel the relief like a general exhalation of a held breath from everyone in the truck. The road became rougher and muddier the lower we went, as trees grew taller and the soil thicker, until the rock walls closed in on the road from either side and we were driving through water almost a meter deep. Sprays fanned off the rear wheels on either side and I could feel a few drops touch the bare skin of my face.
“Hope it doesn’t get much deeper,” Sanders said, eyeing the road behind us, “or we’ll be swimming back here.”
The guard sitting on the seat across from me looked at him with amusement but said nothing.
The water didn’t get any deeper and in fact, everything around us seemed to get dryer, the soil thinning out and turning sandier as the rock became redder and coarser. I even thought I saw a bit of the system’s primary star peeking out from the cloud cover, though that could have been wishful thinking.
The road began to twist and turn with the course of an old river bed, and I was restless enough that I checked the time on my ‘link. We’d been driving for nearly five hours and it was well past mid-day here; I realized all I’d eaten today was a ration bar and I was starving. We’d also only had one bathroom break and the pounding of the rough road hadn’t helped matters.
I was about to say something to the guards about taking another stop when the truck began to slow down. Curious, I moved to the open end of the cargo compartment and hung off an inside handle as I leaned out and saw we’d stopped at what looked like a gate built of mesh wire fence across the road. Ahead of us were two other vehicles, an all-terrain rover that I knew was Gramps---he’d offered me the chance to ride with him---and another truck that was carrying Constantine and the rest of the party.
“Sit down,” the guard on my side grumbled.
I ignored him, watching as the woman at the gate spoke to someone on a hardwired line, then moved aside and hit a control to lift the gate.
“I said,” the guard beside me grunted, yanking on my arm and pulling me back inside, “sit the fuck down.”
He was short-tempered and ugly, with a face like a bulldog and a neck about as big around as my thigh. I went with the pull and used it to spin me around into a left hook that smacked him across the temple next to his right eye. He went down heavy and hard, thumping into the metal floorboards of the truck. I shook out my sore knuckles and looked down at him with a snarl twisting my face.
I wish I could say I calculated that move, that I did it to establish my position as Abuelo’s family to those who might still be loyal to Constantine. But the truth was, I just don’t like being pushed around, whether it was by my mother or some mook in the Pirate Worlds who thought a gun made him a tough guy. Luckily, I have the genes and the training to keep that inclination from getting my ass kicked on a regular basis.
The other guard swore and made a move for his gun, but Kane’s hand covered his and the butt of the gun and squeezed, just slightly. The man’s eyes went wide and his face paled.
“Slow,” was all Kane said, and he let loose just slightly.
The guard released his fingers from the gun butt and moved his hand away. Bobbi reached over and pulled the pistol out of its holster, and Kane moved his hand away from the man, sitting back as if nothing had happened. Yassa relieved the one I’d hit of his weapon and he groaned in response, hands going to his head.
I fought against a smile. It was nice knowing they had my back, particularly Kane.
I felt the truck start moving again, and I grabbed the handle to steady m
yself, looking down at the guards. The one I’d hit stared up at me, some rage in his eyes but more than a little fear as well.
“What’s your name?” I asked him. He didn’t respond and I put my foot on his chest and pressed down slightly. “What’s your name?” I repeated.
“Julio,” he grunted resentfully.
“Julio, I’m not here to start any trouble,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm despite the surge of anger and adrenalin that was making my pulse pound in my head loud enough to drown out the truck engine. “But don’t fuck with me. Abuelo wouldn’t like it, and more importantly, next time I’ll kill you.”
I stepped off Julio’s chest and he started to roll to his knees, but Bobbi nudged him with the barrel of the gun she’d appropriated.
“Stay down.”
The trucks rolled on for another three or four kilometers down the road, and as they did, the walls widened out around the road, and I could tell that we were driving into what had to be a fairly large box canyon. Grass grew high in the fields beside the road, and I nearly laughed when I saw the first horse grazing on it. It was an appaloosa, spotted white on black, its legs long and powerful. Then there was another, an Arabian, all black, pure speed in every sleek line of him; then a mare, pure white.
I did laugh then. Gramps had always loved his horses; I think it was one of the few indulgences for which he dipped into the family fortune. Getting them here, though…
Yassa whistled, low and appreciative.
“Beautiful animals,” she said.
The trucks curved around and parked, and out the back I could see the ranch. It looked like it took up the better part of at least twenty or thirty hectares, with the main building three stories tall and hand-built from local wood, with a brick chimney. Storage sheds and barns stretched out behind the main ranch-house and bunkhouses spread out on either side, connected with concrete pads to keep the walkways out of the mud even in the wet season.
The walls of the canyon were over a kilometer away, maybe two, but at their crest I could see the swiftly turning vanes of windmills. I figured that was what powered the place; on this planet, wind was a reliable natural resource.
I hopped down, the soft, springy soil absorbing my fall, then motioned for the guards to follow me.
“Ditch the guns,” I told Yassa and Bobbi.
Yassa stripped the magazine out of hers, cleared the chamber, then tossed it into the back of the cargo compartment. Bobbi shrugged and did the same, looking as if she thought it was a stupid idea, but following orders anyway.
I could see the guards’ eyes follow the arc of the pistols into the truck as they climbed down, but they kept moving away, especially when Kane dropped down.
“What do you think of my home away from home?” Gramps asked me, walking over from his rover. Behind him, Constantine stood with arms crossed, staring at me with a carefully blank expression. I wondered what it was concealing.
“It must have cost you a fortune to get those horses out here,” I commented.
“Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” he demurred. “I bought them as fertilized eggs and used an incubator.” He shrugged, smiling at the animals as he watched them across the pasture. “It’s not home without horses.” He turned to his personal bodyguard, a slender, older man with soft features and a look of hardened experience to him. “Nathan, please take our guests to the dining room and get them something to eat. They’re probably hungry after that ride. I have business to discuss with my great-grandson.”
“Yes, sir,” Nathan said, his voice softly accented.
He waved for my people to follow, and they looked to me for confirmation.
“It’s fine,” I told them. “Get some food, I’ll be there to brief you soon.”
The rest of Gramps’ party dispersed to their jobs and I followed him back around the ranch-house to the largest of the barns, a huge building constructed from sheet metal. The main doors were open at the moment, and I could see horses in a few of the stalls inside. One of them, a huge Percheron, tossed its head as Gramps entered the barn, scraping at the floor with a giant hoof.
“Easy, boy,” Gramps said to the gigantic animal, reaching over the stall door to pat him affectionately on the neck as we passed.
“What are you going to do about Constantine?” I asked, following him through to a set of huge, metal double-doors set with an expensive-looking biometric lock.
“What do you think I should do, son?” His tone and the look he gave me were familiar; I’d heard and seen them many times when we’d been backpacking in the Rockies or horseback riding in the high desert and the time had come to make a decision about where to set up camp or which trail to take. He was assessing me the way the black-hats had in Force Recon training.
“You can’t keep him around.” My voice was matter-of-fact and clinical, but all I could see was Constantine’s fist going through Seth’s chest. “He won’t put up with you slapping him down or demoting him; he’ll act against you. You have to either send him out on the next ship, or kill him.”
“You speak so easily of killing another human,” he said, pressing his hand to the lock’s ID plate. “The last time I saw you, you were near panic over killing Konrad. Have you changed so much, Ty?”
“I’m not Ty anymore,” I told him by way of reply. “My name is Munroe.”
The doors began to swing outward with a low-pitched hum of servos straining against the mass of the BiPhase Carbide plastrons. A light flickered on inside what looked like some sort of cargo elevator about ten meters square, and Gramps stepped inside, his footsteps hollow on the bare, metal floor.
He touched a control on the inside of the front wall and the doors shut with a vibration I could feel in my chest, then the whole compartment shuddered and began to descend.
“When the hell did you have time to build this?” I wondered. He’d only been in charge here a couple years.
“I didn’t,” he admitted. “Crowley built it to hold the thing over a decade ago. I just built the barn on top of it.”
“What was he like?”
“Crowley?” Gramps cocked an eyebrow in surprise at the question. “He was a man who’d been playing a role so long, he became it. He started out as a businessman, but tried to keep everyone in line by pretending to be a ruthless pirate cabal leader. He was never that good at it, and in the end, he lost control.”
“We all wind up becoming the people we pretend to be,” I said, half to myself.
“I’m beginning to see that.”
The lift stopped with a jolt and light flooded in as the doors swung aside. The chamber inside was larger than I thought it would be, probably fifty meters long and half that again wide, and the walls were bare rock; it had started as a natural cavern, and Crowley or someone had dug it out. And dumped something big right in the middle of it.
The thing was alien in a way that nothing I’d seen on the Tahni home-world ever was, something that hadn’t just come from a non-human but from a mind totally different than any humanoid. It was a shape that almost seemed to shed my eyes, defying description, but if I were forced to come up with a word for it, I guess it would have been…a seed pod? It was more an idea that came to mind than a specific shape; but once it was there, I couldn’t shake it.
My gaze was drawn to it, so much that I almost didn’t notice the other people in the chamber. I saw the equipment first, surrounding the thing, things I didn’t understand any more than the ship, but at least I could tell they were the works of humanity. I followed the wiring from the equipment back to the computers analyzing it, and from there back to the half a dozen or so people monitoring it. They all looked around at our entrance, but only one rose from her seat to meet us.
She was an older woman, but one who’d been raised on Earth or one of the major colonies, because she didn’t look her age. She’d been engineered before birth to be attractive and athletic, so her family had money or power, or both; but she made no effort to accentuate those characteristics and she wa
s out here, responding to either Gramps’ offer of money or the challenge represented by the artifact. That told me that she’d either been dissatisfied with the life her status had offered her back there, or she’d disgraced them and had been kicked out to make her own way. Either way, I could empathize.
“Back again already?” The woman asked. “I thought you had problems to take care of back in town.”
“Heather, meet my problem,” Gramps said, waving towards me. “This is my great-grandson, T…” He stumbled over the word. “…Munroe. Munroe, this is Dr. Heather Erenreich, my chief researcher.”
“Didn’t know the boss had a great grandson,” Erenreich raised an eyebrow as she took my hand in welcome. “Nice to meet you, Munroe.”
“You too, Doctor,” I said.
“Heather,” she corrected me. “Everyone in here’s got a doctorate in something-or-other.”
“Where in the hell did Crowley find this thing?” I asked, looking back at the pod. It was hard to make myself look away for too long.
“Independent mineral scout brought it to him,” Gramps said. “Figured he’d pay more for it than the mining companies.”
“I still can’t believe sometimes,” Erenreich murmured, “that he had the only Predecessor artifact ever found sitting in a hole in the ground for twenty years.”
“You’ve been studying it how long now, Heather?” I wondered.
“Almost two years,” she said, following my gaze to the pod. “Every day of it, just about. Can’t tear myself away.”
“Two years,” I repeated. “Do you have any idea what it is?”
“I know exactly what it is,” she said, chuckling. “I wouldn’t be much good at my job if I didn’t.” She stepped closer to the object. I felt a surge of alarm, like somehow just being close to the thing was dangerous, like it would reach out and swallow her up.
She reached out a hand and trailed her fingers across its strangely grooved surface almost lovingly.
