by Lynn Rae
Within a day of the loss of nearly all law enforcement for the agricultural areas, the major had scheduled bare-bones patrols by any off-duty port security officer. Lazlo hadn’t had a day off in weeks. The commander had also requested a full complement of military police to arrive and take over until special elections could be held to establish a new sheriff and hire deputies.
There was much chatter and excitement when the grim contingent had arrived in a dark-gray craft studded with weapons. They took up part of a field near the port for their camp, which was surrounded by spiked walls that they’d thrown up within an hour of their arrival. Lazlo had timed them.
Rumor had it that on their off hours they did forced marches and weapons training in the Outlands. The agricultural workers were thoroughly intimidated and port security nearly was.
Major Sekar looked at Bara Kidd with affection and then turned to Lazlo. “They are. Their commander says they’re growing bored with patrolling fields and warehouses, but she has started them on some survival training near the hot springs to keep them occupied in their off hours. That happens to be a nice segue for this announcement. Lieutenant, in part because of the stellar work you did with recovering the weapons material—”
“And ridding us of Harata!” Citizen Kidd broke in gleefully while Sekar tried unsuccessfully to glare at her. Del grinned at her with shared happiness.
“Because of your stellar work in several areas, I’ve enrolled you in the Academy’s special course on territorial law. You will have to wrap things up here quickly. The session begins in about ten days, but you may want to arrive sooner to acclimate.”
Del stilled beside him as he absorbed this news. Coming on top of the engagement information, he was reeling.
“Thank you, sir, I don’t know what to say.”
“You just did. A thank you is sufficient. I expect you to do very well. A lot of opportunities will come your way if you rank in the top of your class. I use skills I learned from that course every day here on Sayre.”
“Yes sir, I will do my best.” Territorial law? Lazlo hadn’t begun to hope for that training yet—maybe after a few years here on Sayre with a lot of administrative experience to boost his application. But the major had gotten him in with a week to spare.
After successfully completing the course, he could transfer to any new colony and take over all law and order, serving as judge, enforcement—even draft special laws. If he recalled correctly, the initial training was for thirty-five days, then there was remote coursework for five hundred days and a final month of practica and testing. It was a large time commitment, but he had a feeling he could manage it. The major was right. It was an incredible opportunity.
“Then neither one of us have anything to worry about.” The major turned his attention back to Citizen Kidd where he clearly preferred it. “This tart is very good. We should make it again.”
“Yes, darling. Would you like another slice?”
*
Del had agreed to be escorted home by Lazlo because she missed him, and even though she knew he was going to be leaving soon, she would regret not spending time with him while she could. He looked more cheerful once they left his supervisor’s apartment and she realized he’d felt the need to be careful there as much as she had.
They walked close to each other along the corridors, passing a few pedestrians but not rushing or talking much. Del wished he would touch her but gave herself an admonishment. He wasn’t interested in her. He was going away very soon for his new assignment. She’d just be friendly and maybe he would message her a few times.
Del regretted not responding more openly to the overtures he’d made in the last few weeks, but she’d been terribly busy with taking on more cycling shifts and working hard to clear and repair all the damage at her family’s property. She hadn’t had a day to herself, or even an hour other than sleeping, since it had all happened.
So walking with him back to her home would have to suffice. It might be the last time she would ever see him, considering how quickly he was going to have to leave for his training. That thought made her feel desperate and lonely, which was ridiculous since she hadn’t even talked with him since she’d left his apartment that morning a month ago.
“Have you been well, really?” Lazlo asked as they passed a few quick counters busily serving up fragrant coffee and fried dough sprinkled with sugars to big groups of stevedores just coming off their shift. “I couldn’t really tell from your messages.”
“No, yes, I don’t know.” Del stammered a reply, unsure of herself. “I’ve just been so busy it’s hard to know if I am personally doing all right. All my attention has been on getting the family and the business back together. I would’ve liked to have talked with you when you called. I just haven’t had a moment.”
Lazlo nodded, seeming to understand the reasons she hadn’t been able to be chatty with him.
“I’ve been busy too, at least until the military police showed up and picked up the patrols outside the port. We’d been covering them and it was exhausting. Have you had your counseling?”
“Yes, a few sessions. I don’t like it.”
“It gets easier with time, when you’ve gotten to know your counselor and have started to recover.”
“Have you had yours?”
Lazlo nodded, looking calm and content, so Del assumed he was doing well. She wasn’t, not really. She was still nervous. Small rooms made her sweaty, loud noises made her jump, and she would have unexpected flashes of anxiety about her family. And her nightmares were epic. Her counselor said it was normal, but it was still difficult to relax, or to anticipate her feelings would improve.
“Do you need any help at your place?”
“No, not now. Most of the debris has been cleared, the new glass is in the broken windows, we have three vehicles up and running and parts are on the way for the other two. Dee Dee hated having to order and pay for new parts—we’re a family of salvagers, after all. She has really taken over the business side of things while my mother recovers. Which means all I have to do is do what she tells me.” Del smiled at the idea of her sister’s new motivation and determination. Dee Dee wasn’t the carefree woman she had been before the deputies came and shook up their world. “I’ve been doing cycling runs twice a day now since I’ve been back.”
“So no exploring?” Lazlo reached out a hand to guide her away from a loader bot that was trying to back out of a doorway while overloaded with pallets of bagged amaranth.
Del shook her head, wistful at currently being so tied to the port. But her family needed her. “Not yet. But I really want to get back out there. I have all of those places marked where I need to go back and collect samples. There are several I keep seeing in my mind, like visions.”
Del turned and smiled at Lazlo and he grinned back, looking tall and lovely and so attractive that she wanted to cry or grab him, she wasn’t sure which. And he was leaving.
Del realized she had been holding the idea of Lazlo in her mind like a sweet possibility, thinking perhaps sometime in the future something would happen to bring them together. Now that he was leaving for much bigger and much better things than Sayre it never would. Maybe this walk had been a bad idea. They were close to the port gates, which meant her apartment was only a few minutes away.
“You’re the only person I know who dreams about rocks,” Lazlo said in an entirely affectionate way, looking as if he wanted to give her a hug. Del wished he would. Her bruises were healed and the idea of his arms around her, his hands on her, was making her tingle. Just one more time, one more touch.
“I dream about other things too,” Del defended herself and he nodded and kept walking.
“Like what?” They passed through the gates with a nod at the keepers. Now the night sky arched above them—rich purple with stars barely visible in the drifts of orange and gold dust that glowed in the upper atmosphere. Del breathed in the air, enjoying the humid and fragrant contrast of the fields to the filtered and clea
n environment of the port itself, which was sealed and atmospherically controlled for optimum efficiency. Two different worlds and she knew where she belonged.
“You know the reward I got? For finding the weapons?” Del said.
Lazlo nodded as they ambled along past a warehouse still lit and buzzing with loaders and stevedores preparing a shipment of taro for an early-morning freighter.
“I had hoped to use it to attend a mineralogical conference on Weave. That was a dream I had.”
“But that one also includes rocks,” he reminded her with a chuckle, reaching for her elbow as a loader rushed past them, stacked crates of plump and fragrant ginger roots swaying in its arms.
Del grimaced. “You’re right and my other one does too.”
“You only have two dreams?”
“That’s all I can think of right now. I think that dinner used up all of my brainpower. It’s been so long since I’ve had chicken, I’m having a problem paying attention to anything but recalling how good it was.”
Lazlo laughed and guided her closer to the building as they rounded the corner, the Browen property now visible across the service road—mismatched metal walls and gates visible in the lights, damaged but still working, just like Del was.
“You aren’t going to the mineralogical conference?”
“No, those marks are spent already. New parts for the carts.” Lazlo watched her, not commenting or looking at her with pity, which she appreciated tremendously. “I won’t be visiting Weave.” Or seeing you again.
“Should I walk you in?”
“No, someone will be wandering around and anxious to talk with a fresh face and then we’ll have to stand there for fifteen minutes pretending we’re interested.”
“I don’t know. I might be interested. I like your family,” Lazlo offered, sounding game. Del smiled at him. He was simply a nice person. She just couldn’t get over it, or appreciate it enough. Lazlo leaned on the warehouse wall, big shoulders braced against it, looking relaxed as he watched her with kind brown eyes. She wanted to fall against him and bury her face in his chest but that was certainly not the way to end this evening.
“Really?” Del finally replied, hoping to get herself off her lustful thoughts. “They mostly make me a little crazy.”
“Another reason you miss getting to the Outlands.”
“Exactly. They all have expectations of me and jobs for me. When I’m not around them I get to relax.”
Lazlo stopped smiling and touched her arm. “I know these past weeks have been hard. I’m sorry.” He lifted himself off the wall and stepped closer to her, both of his big hands gentle on her shoulders. “I am serious about dinner too. I want to go out with you before I start that class.”
The reality that he was leaving hit her again and she winced inside. “Yes, congratulations on that too. It sounds as if it’s quite an honor.” Lazlo nodded and gave her shoulders a little squeeze before he released her. Del wanted to kick something with disappointment.
“It’ll be a lot of work. I hope I can manage it.”
“You will.” Del automatically encouraged him. He was a wonderfully capable person.
Lazlo looked unconvinced. “You sound pretty sure of that.”
“I am. You will.” Sighing because she really shouldn’t stand there anymore, Del made her excuses. “Good night, Lazlo, it was good to see you.”
“Good night, Del Browen. I’m going to message you about dinner. I know you can’t be too busy to eat.”
*
“I’m coming back. Probably. Unless I’m reassigned after the first class block.” Lazlo sounded irritated and Del feared she was pushing too much. Several times during dinner she’d mentioned his upcoming departure, mostly because she’d been thinking about it with constant distress since their dinner with Major Sekar and Bara Kidd. “It’s just a thirty-five-day introduction, ten months of coursework and another thirty-five-day practica and examination.”
All of that sounded like at least a year away to Del and she shriveled inside. Lazlo, her favorite new person, was leaving and she missed him already. He’d been there with her through some traumatic events and she was getting used to him. She liked knowing he was around the port and she might see him as she went about the family business. She didn’t make friends easily and Lazlo was her friend.
When he’d tracked her down at the compound the day before and insisted she go to dinner with him tonight, Del had been giddy for several hours after he’d left. Just being near him, seeing his eyes light up with happiness when she’d agreed, had filled her with sparks of excitement.
Dee Dee’s advice from earlier in the day echoed in her head. Her sister had told Del to have a wild night with the man before he left, as a going-away present to him and for an experience Del could relive during the many long and lonely days to come. Dee Dee had said a good romp would leave Del in a much-improved state of mind, which she needed since she felt like crying right now as she watched Lazlo’s lovely face as he concentrated on one of his bots.
Being assaulted, stunned and having her family business nearly destroyed had overhauled Del’s sense of what she wanted from her life, just as Dee Dee had refocused afterward. Why not have sex with Lazlo tonight? Why wait for things that are never going to happen?
Del watched Lazlo’s big fingers move as he tried to assemble a wall-walker bot that had fallen and broken when he’d activated it a few minutes ago. They were seated on the floor in his apartment after a wonderful dinner at the self-service snail restaurant, and Lazlo was trying to get some of his experimental surveillance bots to work so Del could see them in action.
He was wearing microspecs as he looked over the device, the magnifying lenses glittering in the lamplight of his living room. Tiny metallic bits and snips of wire were scattered on a chipped dinner plate and the minuscule wall-walker was resting in his hands, looking more like a smashed insect than any sort of spy.
“Regardless,” Del said, not wanting to argue with him about good intentions versus the lures of abandoning dirty and fungal Sayre for living in a much more pleasant place like Weave, where there were beaches and forests and lovely views and pretty girls. At least from what she’d seen in the entertainments. No one had ever made an entertainment about Sayre. “I’ve been thinking about something,” Del started to explain, watching Lazlo nod and continue to study his broken little bot with apparently deep thoughts. “I’ve been thinking about tonight.”
“Yes, I have too. Dinner was good, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was very nice. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Lazlo wasn’t making this easy. His polite niceness was keeping her polite and nice in return, which was hardly flirtatious. Not that she was adept at flirtation. Del needed to approach this as if she were cracking a geode—identify likely pressure points, select the correct spot, use the proper amount of force and then the beautiful interior would be revealed. Or the rock could shatter and she would be left holding dust.
“That’s not all I’ve been thinking about.”
“What else?” He looked up from his project with a grin, his big shoulders hunched. “You probably weren’t thinking you were going to be watching me destroy my latest project. I thought I had these bio-synth joints worked out. There was this new formulation on the advisory panel that was supposed to be impervious to dust contamination. I grew the sheathing last night and it looks as if they’ve developed these microfissures.” He sounded confounded.
“No, I wasn’t anticipating that. Hadn’t really thought about bio-synth joints at all,” Del agreed, feeling more and more nervous the longer it was taking before she communicated to him what she wanted. What approach would work with him? But first things first, she needed to make sure the way was clear. “You aren’t involved with anyone right now, are you, Lazlo?”
Lazlo stopped inspecting his bot and looked at her, one eye comically enlarged by the lens of the microspecs. “You mean intimately? No, I’m not. Not for a while. Why?”
>
Del swallowed hard. Her mouth was dry and her heart was pounding like a drilling hammer. Be brave, she told herself. Try to live tonight. She could have died before and now she wanted to live. And she really wanted him. There was no getting away from it. Lazlo Casta made her hot.
“I’ve been thinking more about something I’d like to do tonight. If you’re agreeable, that is. And if you aren’t, I understand, of course.” Now she felt like her peripheral vision was disappearing. Lazlo kept looking at her—friendly, kind and entirely unaware of what she was about to propose. If she could manage to get the words out.
“Sure, what would you like to do, Del? I have some new entertainments loaded and there’s the new nodule Trixie mentioned. We could go there. It has to be pretty dull watching me mess around with these things.” He lifted the microspec lens from his eye and smiled at her again.
“I’d like to, tonight, I’d like…” Del trailed off. For some reason, the philosophy of making bold choices and living her life was hard to articulate in front of a man you wanted to have intercourse with. Time to pick a spot and hit it.
“What?” Lazlo watched her with good humor glowing in his brown eyes. “What would you like tonight?”
“To be with you,” Del whispered quickly, finally getting it out and sure she was going to collapse with embarrassment right into the plate of miniature bot components in front of her.
“You are with me,” Lazlo replied obliviously, but then must have noticed her blushing because he was suddenly very still and wasn’t wiggling bot parts anymore. “Be with me in what capacity?”
“In an intimate way. Or in whatever way you’re comfortable,” Del managed to say. She hadn’t been very explicit, but at least she was still talking to him and not running for the door.
Lazlo put the broken wall-walker down on the dinner plate and moved the whole mess away from them by pushing it under his sofa. He looked hard at her and she quivered, blinking. Del could tell from the glow in his eyes and the tiny smile on his mouth that he was starting to understand what she was having a hard time saying.
