by Lynn Rae
Of course, Del couldn’t tell her sister the only reason Lazlo was in her orbit was to complete an assignment for his commander and for her to hopefully earn some marks. There was no relationship developing between them—it was just a business transaction. So it wasn’t really a lie when she assured Dee Dee that yes, she would give it a chance, because there was nothing there to begin with. For this, Del got an enthusiastic hug from her sister, repeated assurances that her packages would be dropped off first thing, and then Dee Dee was gone, off to meet up with some lucky man for some fun.
Del sat back down after she left, feeling lonelier and more unsettled than usual. She didn’t want anybody or need anybody in her life. Her work was too odd and erratic. She was too odd and myopic. All she had ever wanted to do—explore her planet, learn about its geology and collect mineralogical things—she was doing and fairly successfully. Del didn’t need anything else.
*
“I could get used to this,” Del croaked as she carefully sipped her coffee and sniffed in the decadent aroma. Casta arrived at the meet-up spot yet again with coffee and accompaniments, cheerful and eager to start the day. He’d volunteered to drive and was busy negotiating the rough ground along the direction she’d indicated. It was early, barely light, and the coffee was a blessing. Del had taken one too many sips of whiskey the night before and was feeling muzzy-headed.
“Count on it then,” Lazlo assured her and accelerated over a relatively smooth patch of ancient floodplain. The level and compacted soil under their tires was a lovely shade of gray-green lavender and Del smiled. If she had made the correct calculations, this flood had occurred about eighteen thousand years ago. Of course, no one but her cared about an ancient alluvial incident but it was fascinating to think—
“Why are you smiling?” Lazlo asked, glancing at her. She squinted at him through her shades and shrugged. She’d seen better-looking men. It was just getting hard to remember what any of them had looked like when Lieutenant Lazlo Casta sat next to her and glowed with good health and happiness and a wonderful smile.
“Nothing. It’s boring.”
“It’s a long drive. I’ll listen.”
Del shifted in her seat to face him a bit better. He looked sincere. Of course, he always looked sincere, but she decided to give him a chance anyway. “I was just thinking about this floodplain and wondering if my estimates of the latest alluvial deposit are correct.”
“How old is it?”
“This area doesn’t flood very often, since the nearest river—the Box, about a kilometer away over there—is large enough to handle nearly any amount of precipitation. My guess, based on some core samples and analysis of sediments of the last event that could have produced flow all the way over here, is—” She paused, realizing how boring it must sound to him as she chattered. “You’re just being polite, aren’t you?”
Lazlo smiled but kept his eyes on the ground ahead of them, watching for obstacles and trying to avoid blue-haze lichen patches. Stars, he had a dimple. How was that fair? And he’d been paying attention when she’d asked him not to drive over blue-haze lichen if he could help it. Del had read that they were rare and grew at a rate of only a couple of millimeters per year, so she did her best to not damage them. And now ultra-nice and charmingly dimpled Lazlo Casta was doing the same.
“I am curious. I never thought much about this sort of thing until I met you, but it’s interesting.” Lazlo reached out for his own coffee cup.
“Oh.” Del realized she actually believed him. “My best guess is that it’s about eighteen thousand years old. But hydrogeology isn’t really my interest.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” She took a breath. “And there are lots of tiny olivine crystals in the material and I have no idea where they might have come from.”
“What’s olivine?” If Del had been less wary, she would have categorized Lazlo’s tone as genuinely curious. She’d never met anyone who had listened to her talk this much without changing the subject. Other than men trying to soften her up enough to get her pants unbuttoned.
“A mineral, magnesium iron silicate. The composition of this particular deposit seems to indicate that it might have come from an extraterrestrial event,” Del finished explaining and took a sip of her drink so she would be quiet and not spoil the moment with an excess of geology.
“Is that a fancy way of saying a meteorite?” When Lazlo furrowed his brow and looked ever so confused, Del realized he was teasing her and she laughed. All right, she was being pedantic.
“I don’t know about fancy, but yes, it probably was a meteorite. I should have just said that.”
“So did you get your training in this at the main Academy or a closer branch?” Lazlo made a slight course correction to avoid some basalt.
Del felt uncomfortable with the question and hesitated too long. Lazlo looked over at her. “What, did you not finish your degree?”
“No. I don’t have one. I never went.” There, she’d admitted an embarrassing fact. Lazlo was too easy to talk with. No wonder people confessed all their crimes to him.
Lazlo looked confused, or she assumed he was confused since she could only see a small swath of his face not covered by hat, shades and a wrapped scarf. There was enough exposed to show off his dimple however. “Why didn’t you go?”
“Because my family needed me here, to work.” Del certainly wasn’t going to tell him that she had stopped her schooling at the small port school as soon as she was legally allowed, to work full time in the cycling business. It was embarrassing to be as uneducated as she was, especially whenever she encountered someone from off-planet who was so obviously well-rounded and sophisticated like Lazlo Casta. Her family had never had, and never would have, excess funds to send her or any of her siblings to the Academy. Del already felt like a rube any time she dealt with a portie. That was why she preferred to stay outside the gates at the family home, or go even farther afield into the Outlands where it didn’t matter.
“You mean you learned all of this on your own, with no classes or instructors?”
Del nodded and decided not to say anything else. She certainly wasn’t going to tell him of her ambition to take some actual classes, invest in more equipment and perhaps even travel to a conference in the future. Those were her big plans, easily mocked by anyone who took those privileges as natural entitlements.
“That’s impressive,” Lazlo rumbled as he gave her a long look before turning his attention back to his driving.
“Not really.”
“Yes it is. I bet you could show some of those emeriti a few things they don’t know.” Del shook her head, embarrassed in a different way at his praise. At least he wouldn’t be able to see her blushing under her wrapped scarf.
Lazlo kept driving, slowing his pace a bit as they reached the ground rising toward the towering outcrops they needed to search that day. Pinkish-gray rocks and boulders began to litter the area. Del mentioned they were quartzite and Lazlo nodded again, struggling a bit to maneuver the cart around a particularly large boulder thrusting out of the ground like a striking fist.
This section of the Outlands was gorgeous—enormous eroded cliff faces and canyons, brightly colored contrasting layers of sediment, lots of wind and movement. There were fewer algae and fungi here. Del guessed it was due to the dryness of the higher elevation but she’d never made a study of it.
“Help me find a nice big piece of quartzite that we can use to hide this cart,” Lazlo asked and Del nodded, immediately scanning for something to suit their needs. They parked between two specimens the size of houses and unloaded their equipment. As Del pulled on her pack and adjusted her tools, Lazlo spread a speckled and textured sheet over the cart to conceal it even further. Then he reached back in and pulled out a longish battered case and strapped it on his back over his own pack.
“What’s that?”
“Rifle. Twinshot 850, old but very reliable.”
Del took a breath and looked at Lazlo
’s face, his eyes concealed by his shades. He looked big and imposing and entirely ready to shoot something. Del swallowed back a flutter of nervousness.
Lazlo read the tension in her when she noticed the weapon. Del probably didn’t realize that he’d already been carrying a stunner in a holster at his hip and there was also a ceramic knife in his boot. But the rifle was obvious and intimidating and accurate at long distances, which was the whole point of carrying it. Time to bring up a sensitive subject. At the major’s insistence and his own inclinations, Lazlo brought along an extra stunner today, a simple model that was easy for a beginner to use.
“Del, I was wondering if you wanted to carry something, in case we run into trouble.”
Del tightened up even more and put her little hands on her hips. “You mean some sort of weapon.”
“Right.” Lazlo stayed quiet at that point, letting her decide what she wanted to do. She had joked before that she was a pacifist, so he didn’t want to push her into anything. But both he and Major Sekar agreed it would be better to give Del the option of arming herself.
“And the trouble we might run into would be a person I would have to injure in some way?”
“Yes, to protect yourself.”
“Or protect you,” she replied with a quirk of her curvy lips. Del Browen was a spicy one.
“Or you could protect me.” Lazlo waited again.
“That would sort of be part of my job, since the Outlands is my area of expertise. But I was expecting to protect you from thermals, sand shifts, falling rocks or fungal outbreaks. Not a person.” She frowned and took a deep breath. “Someone with a weapon of their own that they would know how to use.”
“Right. If someone is coming after us, they’re going to be prepared to gain control over us.” Lazlo didn’t mention that if Sheriff Harata was after them, he’d likely injure them to get information, or worse. Out here, anything could happen and no one would be able to find the bodies. “And they would use whatever force they wanted.”
“I don’t know how to use a stunner, or a rifle either.” Admitting her inexperience was a good sign. Lazlo was glad she hadn’t said no outright. She just might agree to carry the stunner. Del took a step closer to him and peered at the rifle case. “That looks pretty big to me.”
“I brought a simple stunner, if you want to try it.” Lazlo pulled out the Melgonic and showed it to her, pointing out the trigger and charge buttons. Del touched it with the tip of a finger and hunched her shoulders as if she expected it to explode with the contact.
“Here, take a shot with it. It recharges in less than a tenth of a second. This is the dangerous end, this is the trigger.” Lazlo handed over the weapon and pointed at a nearby rock. “Shoot at that.”
Del lifted the stunner in her hands, curled a thin finger around the trigger and took a decent stance, which he did not try to improve. Let her give it a try first. Del took a deep breath and sighted on the rock. But she did not pull.
“That looks like a nice piece of basalt. Unusual.” Glancing his way, Del quirked an eyebrow. Was she not going to shoot a rock?
“If you hit it, you’ll just knock it over. You won’t hurt it. It’s just an electromagnetic pulse.” Lazlo tried to reassure her and she twisted back to contemplate the rock. He tried not to be amused that she apparently didn’t want to damage a geological specimen.
“I don’t know.”
“Stun bolts don’t even permanently injure people, just knock them out. How would it hurt some chunk of rock?”
“Not just some rock. It’s basalt, from the core of this planet. It’s probably at least three billion—” Del was winding up to another information dump about geology and Lazlo wanted to see her fire the stunner in the next few hours.
“Del, shoot the rock.” Lazlo allowed a bit of edge to harden his voice, just as he did whenever he wanted one of the new recruits to pay attention.
With a start, she pressed the trigger. The stunner whirred and the rock tipped over, neat and clean.
“Great!” It was a decent first shot. “You do that with someone threatening you and you’ll be fine.” Del looked unconvinced as she shrugged and tried to hand back the stunner.
“No, no. Try it again but first, you’ll do better if you shift your feet like this.” Using little bumps and nudges on her thin and uncooperative body, Lazlo soon had Del positioned in a regulation posture and she agreed to try a few more shots. He gave her some praise to boost her confidence while trying to ignore how nice she smelled. Del again tried to hand the stunner back to him.
“That one is yours. I have my own. Put it on your belt. Here’s the holster.” In his enthusiasm, Lazlo started to unfasten her belt to thread on the stunner holster, but Del’s hands gripped his and she caught his eye. “Sorry. You can do that yourself.”
Lazlo stepped back, feeling abashed that he’d handled her so casually. He’d gotten too familiar when he’d adjusted her stance. Del eased a step away and got the equipment lined up on her belt. With a careful touch, Lazlo adjusted the placement along her hip so nothing rubbed or interfered with the draw.
“I don’t know if I can use that thing on someone,” Del said in a low voice. “I’m not comfortable with it.”
“What would you be comfortable with?” he asked, quickly cataloging the other weapons he had stashed on his person—two extra blades in his pack, sonic stars at his belt next to plenty of ties. Certainly enough to share.
“Maybe I already have something. Let me show you what I have that might work,” Del offered after watching him for a moment. She sounded enthusiastic again.
His guide began to pull bladed instruments from various pockets and loops. “Here is my rock pick. It has a pointed tip and the other end is a square hammer. This is my chisel head. It’s more of a blade and it weighs less but it’s still over six hundred grams. Here’s my basic knife.” She pulled a dull-purple blade out of her boot, holstered in the exact same location as his own. It was an old, hard titanite blade, well-sharpened with a tight hide handle. Del handed it over to him and he admired it for a moment before handing it back. The rock hammers were rugged pieces of equipment. They looked more than capable of smashing any sort of body part she cared to swing at. Lazlo was a little excited by her arsenal.
“It’s a good knife. I like it. And I have some other stuff in my pack, but I can’t get at that very quickly, so I guess it doesn’t count.” Del frowned a bit and Lazlo wanted to give her a hug of congratulations for her unconventional armory.
“And you feel as though you could use these things?”
“Yes, if I had to. I know how to handle all of them better than a stunner like yours.”
“Then I don’t think you need to borrow any more of my weapons.” Lazlo smiled at her again, enjoying this moment very much. She was a self-reliant person, which only made sense when he considered that she came out here alone so often. And she was refreshingly honest and direct, which was such a change from Serra’s wild moods and deceptions. His former lover had been excitingly unpredictable at first, but that devolved into outright mania at the end. Not that he should be comparing the two.
“But I want you to keep the stunner. Just in case. Until we’re finished with the job.” Lazlo encouraged her, trying to look wise. He was relieved when she nodded.
“So we’re set?” Del asked, bouncing a little on her feet, looking energetic enough to hike for several hours without a break.
“One more thing. Let’s keep our datpads off, just on the chance someone is scanning for activity out here.”
“Who would have a scanner that powerful?”
“Sheriff Harata.”
“Of course.” Del powered down her electronic and then took off her pack and rummaged inside, finally pulling out some rolled-up pieces of paper. “Old-style maps,” she explained. “So we can note our search grid. I drew them up last night.”
Laughing now, Lazlo wanted to pat her on the back for being so prepared but that seemed too personal, so inst
ead he just nodded and let her take the lead, up into the light-red cliffs and hopefully to the hidden weapons they needed to find.
Chapter Six
“Stars, I’m grimy,” Lazlo grumbled, smacking at his clothing as billows of pink dust swirled around him. Del nodded and rinsed her mouth with water. She was too dry to speak. They’d spent more than four hours searching a depressingly small section and had nothing to show for it, other than a coating of powdery debris and some bruises on shins and fingers. She hadn’t seen anything man-made since they’d left the cart behind.
Peachy-pink stone cliffs rose around them in frozen waves, the wind whistling along their surfaces with a hiss. They stopped for a break in a more open area covered with green sand. Del settled herself to the ground slowly, sighing with relief as she got her weight off her feet for the first time in hours. Lazlo sank down next to her and started to drink and she couldn’t help but watch his throat as he swallowed. Even his neck looked strong. Tendons stood out on his big hands as he gripped the bottle, shifting as he—
Giving herself a tired shake, Del looked around them for something to distract herself. She spied an interesting-looking aggregate about a meter away but she was too relaxed to reach for it at the moment.
“What did we accomplish this morning?” Del asked. It wasn’t the smartest question but she wasn’t feeling so bright at the moment.
“We certainly discovered what we’re looking for is not anywhere we’ve been,” Lazlo joked as he settled back on his elbows and stretched out his long legs.
Del huffed out a laugh. How could he be so lighthearted after such a frustrating morning? “Let’s eat something. I’m very hungry.”
Del rummaged in her pack and found some packs of soyjerk, coconut milk and spicy dried peas. Lazlo had brought along a large assortment of freezecheese, crackers, flaked fruits, milkfoam bars, three fresh apples and a bag of cookies, slightly crushed. She was impressed by the assortment and when he suggested that they share, Del was happy to oblige. His food was much better than hers. They ate and drank in silence. Once he finished the last apple, Casta settled back, took his shades off and looked at her.
