Nara

by M. L. Buchman

  Robbie nodded tightly, but she’d watch the man carefully. He in turn nodded his approval as if he could read her decision, implying perhaps he could.

  “Report.”

  It was as if Robbie had suddenly ceased to exist. Levan focused totally on the task at hand. Though one false move and she was sure that she’d find out just how wrong that assessment was.

  “As scans indicated, only the one resident. A male and apparently a large bird, were in residence for eight to ten weeks but have been gone at least seven weeks. We don’t know who, due to your stricture against net interface. A large collection of data was found on the local net, but none was recorded or disturbed per your orders.”

  “Gone eight weeks, Commander.” She nodded toward Robbie. “Otherwise, excellent. Robbie, I haven’t much variety to offer, but would you care to eat with us?”

  “Let’s see. Last I ate was an energy bar yesterday morning.”

  SJ’s laugh sparkled about the clearing. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  # # #

  SJ sipped a chilled, white wine as Robbie polished off her third plate of turkey and trimmings from the flyer’s surprisingly well-stocked larder.

  “Better? Sorry, it’s dinner in my last time zone, I didn’t think to bring breakfast.”

  Robbie settled back into the plush seat that fit even her large frame with a deep sigh. She’d never been in such a transport. A dozen deep leather armchairs grouped around three little tables. The luxury of pale blue carpeting and dark, cherry-wood paneling were belied by the weapons rack at the door and the pilot and gunner who had not left the forward part of the craft. The light whir of the various outside scanners made a constant low background hum during the meal. The squad remained on patrol about the craft, only Levan joining them inside.

  Whatever else was going on, her belly was full and happy. “Dinner in the morning is no problem with me, ma’am. I rarely find time to go foraging for even a guava or mango and too often that means an energy bar for three meals a day.” She patted her belly. “When I remember at all. This was wonderful. Though I’ll have to swim an extra hour with Josiah to keep my girlish figure.”

  SJ had the kindness to laugh. “Good. He’ll like the company. Now there is something I’d like to enlist you in, a little project I’ve gotten started.”

  “After a meal like that, I’d do just about anything.”

  She set aside her wine and straightened her lapels which were already perfectly in place.

  “I need to build a jungle.”

  Robbie tipped her head to the right and left trying to clear the water out of her ears. But there wasn’t any. Was that all this woman was? Some rich bitch with her daddy’s guards?

  “A fancy atrium to amuse your guests at a charity benefit? Why are you wasting my time? Though I appreciate the meal, best I’ve had in a long, long time.”

  Suzie raised a finger. “Remember, ignore the costume and the frame. It’s the mind that has to think bigger, much bigger.”

  “What?” Robbie mocked her in a prissy little voice. “A cute park, perhaps?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked at the glowering Commander Levan, but he gave her no indication of how to judge the sanity of her host.

  “I need a four-and-a-half hectare self-sustaining jungle assembled as a complete, closed-system habitat: flora, fauna, soil, bacteria. All of it.”

  Robbie started to think it over. It was a neat problem, just big enough to be possible. “That’d be forty-five-thousand square meters. Area you could walk the perimeter of in fifteen minutes if the trail were clear. That lets out Josiah. But Harold, Jaron’s parrot, could do well. Let’s see, major tree like Sumaumeira or Ceiba wants maybe four-hundred square meters, that means eighty maximum, course they’d start small, thin them in fifty years.”

  “We’ll move them full grown.”

  Robbie nodded. “Okay. Full grown. They only need a meter of soil to grow in, but I’d go down at least three to guarantee proper drainage and there are some essential bacteria that live down at that level. Starting full grown is easier on the other biota, too. Then you could…”

  She blinked away the mental picture she’d been building. “What am I doing? You’re nuts, lady.” How had she even started to think about such a ridiculous thing? She was getting as bad as Jaron, all snuggled up so deep inside his brain that reality just passed him by while he was watching.

  “Absolutely.”

  Levan actually cracked a slight smile at SJ’s pert reply. But it was wiped away the instant Robbie looked at him. She could recognize the man’s strength, something Robbie of all people could respect, yet he attended this woman like a mama elephant watching over the future king of the herd. Was it possible she should be taken seriously?

  “You want a personal, private jungle of your very own? Why come to me? Can’t you order one from your home nursery?”

  SJ leaned in. “You lost a key word in there, self-sustaining.”

  Robbie waved a hand negligently through the air. “Sure. For how long? Longer than your party? A week? A month? I’m a jungle specialist, not a gardener. Maybe I should go now.”

  Levan’s level gaze informed her that wasn’t a likely option until she was formally dismissed. The woman seemed unperturbed by Robbie’s disbelief.

  “How about a half century for a starter? Perhaps more but certainly not less.”

  Robbie leaned forward and opened her mouth. When nothing came out on her third try, she sat back and tried to shake herself awake.

  “Fifty years?” Her voice was little more than a croak to her own ears.

  “Yes. The estimated travel time to the nearest star with a potentially viable planet.”

  # # #

  “Christ you’re a mess.”

  Bryce knocked back the first half of his beer. “Best shape I’ve been in, in a long time. First beer in six months.” He finished it off, the cool liquid fizzing down his throat leaving a clear calm in its wake.

  “Damn that’s good. Thanks, Perry.”

  “Should be. It’s that same brew you worked out a couple years ago, I’ve just been messing with it a bit. You didn’t let it ferment quite long enough. And smaller tanks gives a sweeter initial taste. Nothing much. But you’re still a mess.”

  Bryce looked out across the moonlit ocean. His boat, won in a card game— which had no women on board, nor any since he took ownership—rode lightly on one of the mooring buoys. A long wake of phosphorescence trailing the stern showed the direction of the lazy ocean current meandering toward far off Chile and other points east.

  “I’m a mess? I’m not a mess.” He poured a fresh beer from the pitcher between them and took a sip before setting down the glass. With the tip of his finger he connected drips of condensation until they built up enough weight to slide down the glass in a long, unpredictable river, but always headed down. Well, that was a bit too real. He brushed his finger dry on his shorts.

  He met Perry’s gaze by the dim candlelight, the only one left to burn after the last patron and the final staffer had been sent away and they’d locked up.

  “I’m the best I’ve ever been.”

  Perry wrapped a massive paw around his glass but didn’t lift it from the table, as if it was held by a force more powerful than the suction from a pool of its own sweat.

  “The best you’ve ever been. Now there’s a fine achievement.”

  “Gimme a break, Perry. I hoping we could have some fun here.”

  “Fun.” He twisted his glass, but still didn’t raise it. “Fun like the night four WEC goons pinned me to a chair and you puked your guts out from just sitting at this same damn table with your old man.”

  “Jesus. That wasn’t one of my better moments.”

  “Better moments, Bryce? Tell me about your better moments since you sat in that chair three years ago. And
, no, girls’ names don’t count unless you married, settled down, maybe even had a kid.”

  “What are you talking about? There’s been lots of good times.”

  “Name three. Hell, name one and I’ll let you off the hook.”

  Bryce snorted in disgust and took another swallow of his beer, but the taste was off. It had gone just a little bit flat or something. Maybe it didn’t take well to warming up.

  “There were plenty. Why there was…” Nothing jumped to mind. He just wasn’t thinking clearly, his first brew after going dry for so long had cut straight to his gray matter without passing his stomach first. Not a single lady even came to mind except for the nice stewardess on the Sussex-Perth run. Or was it Johannesburg to… Either way, that was six months ago, six months dry and celibate.

  “Hasn’t been squat. Has there?”

  “Sailing. It was sweet out on that sea all alone.” Actually he’d almost thrown himself over the side to break the boredom only to be descended on by a major cyclone off Darwin. After that, he’d decided that the boredom of watching the sails and staring at the big, empty ocean might not be so bad. He’d actually kissed the beach when he came ashore this afternoon. Unfortunately Perry had seen that.

  “Okay, I admit it. I’ve had a bit of a dry spell.”

  Perry’s laugh was derisive. “Three years since I saved your sorry ass is a pretty long dry spell. I sold my soul to the devil of the WEC, at least I have an excuse. And I’m not the one running scared. When did you leave home?”

  Bryce chewed on that, but could find no way to avoid the question despite the fact that it would only support Perry’s argument further.

  “Left five years ago when I seventeen.”

  Perry slammed his hand on the table making Bryce jump and knocking over the pitcher. Bryce tried to rescue the beer but was stopped by the massive forefinger Perry was pointing at his chest like a loaded weapon.

  “Five years you’ve been avoiding him. Bullshit! Five years he’s been running your life without having to lift a goddamn finger.” He looked at his own hand, still held like a fake gun. His voice went soft. He spread the other fingers and dropped his hand back to the table.

  “You watch one die under your trigger and you tell yourself he deserved it. By half a hundred you’ve convinced yourself that it’s better for society. Twice that and you’re numb. Twice that and it becomes a sick game. Popping bottles off the old fence.

  “Nobody even shot you and you’ve given up. Every damn one of the poor bastards I’ve killed showed more life than you. More desire to live than you. Some fought like wildcats. Some sacrificed themselves to save wives, children, even pets for Christ’s sake.” Now Perry did drink his beer, throwing half of it down his throat in a single gulp.

  “Goddamn, Bryce, you’re a good kid. Start acting like it. Go out there and find out what’s right for you, not for the old bastard who’s been running you like a puppet for the last twenty-two years.” He left the table and the last dregs of his sweating beer, heading for the back stairs up to his room.

  Bryce tried to focus his eyes. Blinking took forever, but failed to clear his vision. Perry’s broad back retreated across the deck in fits and starts, close one moment, half across in the next blink, gone the moment after that.

  The Old Bastard had run his life. Sure there’d been fun times, but his mother had stood up under horrible living conditions, had sacrificed her chances at a happy life to try to protect her son, even though he wasn’t. Then she’d stayed on to fight back against the Old Bastard. Was she happy with her life? Actually she might be. She certainly appeared happier than he’d ever felt.

  He did have a good moment. He called after Perry, but the man was long gone. There was one dinner with the woman his mother had become.

  He sat unmoving long after the beer had warmed to the same temperature as the sea air and all the condensation had trickled over his fingers to puddle on the table.

  By the time Perry returned with the dawn light, much of the spilled beer had dried as well.

  Chapter 11

  “Hey, Bryce.” Perry’s yell came from somewhere out front.

  “Just a sec.” He finished shredding the coconut and tossed it into a bowl.

  He came out of the back kitchen onto the deck blinking against the bright midday light. Even with the awning turned up to sixty percent, it was painfully bright without sunglasses. The usual late-lunch crowd filled about half the tables, not ordering anything, except sometimes another drink, in the desultory attempts to wait out the afternoon heat.

  Perry waved him toward a table.

  “What do you need? I’m working on dinner prep.”

  “Yea, and having about as much fun as a hernia operation. Right?”

  Bryce wandered over and dropped into the offered chair. “Can’t get shit past you, can I?”

  “Nope. Cappy, this is Bryce. He’s a buddy of mine.”

  “Pretty sad state of affairs, like y’all was saying.”

  Bryce inspected the man. He could have been a down-sized version of Perry. The same face, same big hands, but not the broad-shouldered powerhouse. Instead, he looked like a string-bean of a cowboy who’d just been pulled out of an old western and dumped at the table in the tropics by accident. His sweat-stained cowboy hat pulled low over his sunglass-shielded eyes.

  “My sister’s kid. Never amounted to any good.” Perry’s heavy thumb flicked dismissively toward his nephew.

  “Hey uncle, just because y’all too scared to leave the ground, doesn’t mean everyone has to crawl like a Stone Age man.” He had no particular accent except for the “y’all” affectation. Accents were pretty rare outside of France and the remains of England, where they were still collected like old vids or early computer hardware. Anglese had smoothed everything else out of existence just by the structure of the language.

  Bryce extended a hand. “Well, nice to meet you, Cappy. I’ve got a dinner to prep.”

  Instead of extending his own, Perry’s nephew shed his sunglasses and rode his hat up on his forehead. The lazy cowboy look faded into the shimmering heat of the day.

  “You know anything about mass-drivers or shuttle stowage?”

  Bryce shrugged. He’d never been near either one, but the niggling sensation of latent memory caused him to focus a little deeper on the question. At least it was a bit smoother now. Less chaos between his ears. His time here with Perry was about the closest he’d ever been to happy. Well, maybe content was a better word.

  “I was checked out on shuttle piloting, navigation, and basic shuttle engines about tw—” Twenty years ago while planning his escape routes from the Bermuda fortress. It wasn’t something they’d buy from a twenty-two year old without a lot of explanation. “About a lifetime ago.”

  Perry slapped his shoulder before turning to his nephew. “Boy has hidden depths. Told ya’. And he needs off this rock as bad as you did.” Perry studied him speculatively for a moment.

  “Maybe more.”

  “What’d you learn on?” The easy-going drawl was gone and Bryce could see Perry’s toughness coming to the surface in his nephew. Could you inherit such things?

  “Clayson Mark IV engine in an Imperial six-seater shell.”

  Cappy whistled and dropped back. “That’s a hell of a beast in a six. What in the blessed world did you need with that kind of power?”

  Bryce didn’t want to reveal his sources and Perry came to the rescue.

  “Crazy Dad. Remember Olias’ pap? Worse.”

  “Shit. Sorry, Bryce.” Cappy leaned back and Bryce could see the cowboy slide back over him as he crossed one sandaled foot over the other and slid the sunglasses back into place.

  “So,” Cappy drawled, “If y’all want outta this place, yer welcome to come boost with us. Need an assistant engineer. Some stowage work. Some above board. Some below. They’ve got some cra
zy ass project going up in orbit that you wouldn’t believe. Every shuttle on the planet is on triple shift. And the L5s are screaming because they can’t get any tonnage lifted. We’ve got a week to loft the last L5 can and then they’re on their own. The colonies are already starting to ferry supplies in from the moon. So, if y’all want, we lift tomorrow.”

  Cappy leaned forward once more but left the shades in place. A slow grin crossed his lips.

  “And it’ll get you free of this cussed landcrawler of an uncle.”

  Bryce could remember telling Suzie that the only place he’d be safe from their parent was off-planet. While he knew even that wouldn’t be far enough to escape Bryce Sr.’s long reach, a little distance sounded pretty good.

  This time when he extended his hand Cappy shook it with a good, firm grip.

  # # #

  Jaron hurried down the path. He’d pushed hard since entering the Orinoco drainage basin. Harold had protested when he’d traveled after dark, but he had pushed on for several evenings anyway. Each day, the Orinoco parrots would catch up with them from their night’s roost and soar with Harold as they had that first morning over the Sierra de Curupira pass. This morning, finally sick of the bouncing, the macaw had abandoned any attempt to ride on his shoulder and had followed his progress in great soaring swoops.

  Robbie would be very excited about the Ceiba’s respiration cycles. He’d lived inside one for nearly three months logging the data before he’d unraveled the mechanism. He hoped she was there, it was a little shoddy of him to skip out last season, but he’d really wanted to look at…something. He couldn’t even remember what anymore.

  The problem now was that he’d lost patience and rather than take the time to write everything down only to key it in later, he’d bolted for the station. Two weeks of data were becoming less certain with each passing minute. He’d need all Robbie’s help to make sure he noted the data correctly before it was completely gone.

  He didn’t even notice the other parrots were gone until his momentum had carried him well into the clearing. He and Robbie had cleared the area for a dozen meters around the lab, but now the original half kilometer-wide circle around the ecological station was open once more, with a dozen new buildings he didn’t recognize.