The Lost (The Maauro Chronicles Book 3)

by Edward McKeown

  The vehicles positioned ramps around us and three Veru hopped up to meet us. They all spoke Confed Standard and the customs interview was brief and formal. They did not seem to notice anything about Maauro or the rest of us. The extensive weapons cache onboard was noticed and we were sternly admonished that this was a well-policed world and not even stunners were to be carried planetside.

  Our cargo has been put up on the net long before we landed and those items that had sold were carried off by stevedores to the warehouses. As yet we made no pretense of looking for any further cargo for ourselves.

  “Well we are down,” Dusko said, looking at the rolling gentle seas beyond the breakwater outside the spaceport. “Now what do we do?”

  “I will attempt to infiltrate any networks I can locate and seek for information,” Maauro added. “This will take time as I wish to be undetected. Dusko should approach the local criminal classes as he would be most effective at that. If you run into any Guild, withdraw using my name. I do not believe you will be attacked.

  “Wrik and Olivia should duplicate my efforts in the actual world. Seek for information about Bexlaw and the Isadora. It will likely be fruitless, but your making such efforts will be expected and it may then be easier for me to do so virtually. And you may, with your non-linear ways of doing things, discover things I cannot.

  “Be wary, we cannot go armed here. Yet if we are to be effective, we must fan out and find what we can.”

  We left Maauro in what looked like a contemplative pose on the bridge. Since it risked suspicion if we stayed aboard the ship, we decided to head into town. We took coms and folding knives in our pockets, unable to bring any better weapons. We’d even ditch the knives before returning. Spaceport security would be far less concerned with what we carried into town then what we carried back into a secured area.

  The port was a far cry from the usual primitive ones I’d put in at on the frontier. A slidewalk took the three of us to a monorail that whisked us over the causeway and the sparkling waters of the lagoon into the canaled city. At the end of the monorail, we stood outside, glad for our sunglasses and brimmed caps as we looked at the city. Everything looked new, sitting in and about the water, which was clear down to several feet. We could see small fish swim lazily. Light bounced back in eye-hurting ways from the glass and water.

  Voit-Veru hopped or waddled around in bright-colored clothing. This near the spaceport, I did see some other Confed species; two Frokossi walked by, the sunlight shimmering off the lizard-like beings’ skin. An Okaran, with his fur close-clipped, panted as he stood on the deck of a nearby boat. In the distance I saw what were either humans or Denlenns walking away from us. Still more than ninety percent of the beings in sight were Veru.

  Olivia smiled. “Venice, this isn’t.”

  I looked a question at her.

  She waved an arm. “This is all metal and steel, Venice is ancient stone. The water here is way clearer, also no brawny, handsome men poling gondolas along and singing in Italian.”

  Dusko and I looked at each other and shrugged.

  “See that restaurant there,” I pointed to a bistro with outside seating. The sign over it read, The Galactic, all species served. “Let’s meet there at 2200 shiptime unless one of us gets a lead.”

  Dusko nodded and without a word walked off. Instinct would guide the longtime criminal to the Lowport and the sort of contacts he could effectively use.

  I looked Olivia over, as she took off her light ship-jacket and tied it around her waist. Her pale arms were muscular in the bright sunlight and she produced a sunscreen spray and quickly applied it. I turned down the container. My shirt was long-sleeved but so light I barely felt it.

  “Where to?” she asked.

  “Maauro is checking all the port records that can be electronically tapped. Dusko will see what he can weasel out of dockers or anyone that worked on Bexlaw’s ship. My thought is for us to hit the commercial end of things, where they bought supplies, any repairs, maybe the hotel they stayed at. Then we check the university here.”

  She snorted. “Might as well knock on the local ISM office door while we’re at it.”

  I grimaced. “The further we can stay from them, the better.”

  We spent the rest of the day checking chandlers, suppliers and other repair outfits, occasionally calling Maauro for leads as to where payments had been made by Bexlaw. We found little that the official records didn’t cover. Bexlaw hadn’t been forthcoming with information. The only real excitement was when one of the chandlers mentioned that it had been Maximillian who’d come in to contract for foodstuffs. So he had been alive when the Isadora lifted off.

  But that was the only information of interest that surfaced. As the sun drooped toward the horizon, we boarded a local waterbus and headed back to the Galactic. I felt a little winded and sunburned from a day on the water and more than a little tired. Olivia chided me about the sun and insisted on giving me a going over with a sprayer. I had to admit the sunscreen felt good as it repaired the cellular damage and blocked the setting sun’s rays.

  We sat at the Galactic waiting for Dusko. The day had been long and toward the end of it I had begun thinking of Jaelle. Maybe it was partly brought on by spending the day with Olivia, who seemed more attractive by the day. Her manner toward me had become more open and friendly the longer we voyaged together. Today, at points had assumed some of the characteristics of a date, sightseeing, lunch out. Maybe if we had not planned to meet the others here we’d have found reasons for a more romantic ending to the evening.

  Did I want to? That question kept jumping back into my face. At first the answer had been, no. It was too complicated, it was disloyal, but then came the doubts. First, my girlfriend was getting pregnant by one of her own. She’d given me her permission for me to be with a human woman. Olivia was here and seemed interested despite what she’d said when we first took off—”

  “What are you thinking about?” Olivia asked.

  And I wondered what she had seen in my face.

  “Ah, wondering where Dusko is.”

  “Really?” she said. “I must be losing my touch.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “First night off ship, you and me together all day and you’re thinking about Dusko?”

  “Other things may have crossed my mind.”

  “You know we don’t have to stay on the ship tonight. There are certain things that we can leave planetside when we go back up. I know what I said when I came aboard and I still mean part of that. I want to keep it uncomplicated.”

  “Is it ever?” I wondered.

  She shrugged. “It can be. I prefer it that way.”

  “I’m not sure what I prefer,” I said with a sigh. “Things seem to turn out different for me than what I expect.”

  “You dated out of your species,” she said. “Isn’t that the basic recipe for the unexpected?”

  “I guess I thought it would be easier than it is,” I said, moodily clinking the ice in my glass. “To the extent I ever thought about it at all.”

  “It’s not even that easy between two people in the same species. I found it hard making a go of it for four years with a husband from my planet, my species, hell, he was another Marine.”

  “You’ve been married?” I asked, struck by the thought.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Too early. It didn’t last, and he wasn’t a stand-by-his-girl type when I went down the tubes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks. Look, I don’t doubt that Jaelle loves you in whatever fashion Nekoan’s love, but you’re missing a bigger picture.”

  “What would that be?”

  “You sure you want to hear this?”

  “Might as well, looks like there’s nothing good on the Tri-dee tonight.”

  Olivia looked at me. “Ok spaceman, I warned you. Fasten your take-hold be
lt; this is going to leave a mark.

  “Jaelle has life just the way she likes it. She’s free of her father’s domination. She’ll have kits by a male of her choice that she can then be free of beyond some legal obligations, most of which don’t come into play until the kits are near adult. Meanwhile she has a reasonably successful human male, who fulfills her emotional and sexual needs, yet will never interfere with her trade business, her future or her natural family. She couldn’t have arranged her life better if she’d planned it from the start.”

  I stared at her.

  “Your mouth is hanging open.”

  I closed it. “I believe she loves me.”

  “Consortship isn’t marriage Wrik. Probably she sees it as a permanent part of her life. Probably. But you better realize that may be contingent on things staying the way she likes them.”

  “She’s not selfish.”

  “Didn’t say she was, but she’s gonna have children soon, you’re going to be number two to them anyway.”

  I shook my head. “I can navigate a starship. I can’t seem to navigate women.”

  Olivia shrugged. “Bartender, same again.” She turned back to me as he poured more vodka. “You’ve got some growing up to do.”

  “I want to make this work.”

  “Then you better realize that you have to make it work as a Nekoan and human. Stop seeing her as a human with fangs and a tail. She’s going to have to stop seeing you as a Nekoan with ears in the wrong place.”

  I smiled as I knocked back the drink. “You know you are the most unlikely shrink I have ever met.”

  Olivia surprised me with a wicked grin. “I know men. Three brothers and Dad. Boys were after me from as soon as I strapped on a training bra. There isn’t much about guys I don’t understand.”

  She drained her glass and put it down. “I’m going back to the ship. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “What’s your hurry?”

  She looked me over. “You’re not ready.”

  “Huh?”

  “If you don’t know, don’t worry about it. Don’t spend any more time here. Nothing good happens in bars.”

  “Maauro says the same thing.”

  “Then you’re about to hear it again,” she said, over her departing shoulder.

  I looked toward the entrance. Maauro was there and the expression on her face was not happy. By the time I looked back, Olivia had vanished.

  Maauro walked up and sat down. The bartender looked at her as if he was about to ask for an ID.

  “She’ll just have a Virgin Mary,” I said. “We’re not going to stay long.”

  The bartender nodded. “What about you?”

  “I’m switching to Ginger Ale.”

  “Good enough,” he nodded.

  Maauro’s expression relented some. “I am pleased to see you discontinuing the alcohol.”

  “Wasn’t doing much good anyway.”

  “Does it ever?” she asked.

  “Only for short periods, if then.”

  The drinks slid in front of us.

  The guy next to us looked at Maauro. “Hey babe, what are you doing with this guy?”

  Maauro reached over and put her hand over his metal beer tankard and crushed it into a small ball. Fluid sloshed from between her fingertips. “I am not in a good mood. Go away.”

  The guy stood, eyes-wide and walked away quickly.

  “Something wrong?” I said. Taking a sip of what passed for ginger ale.

  “I have been infiltrating nets all day which can be frustrating and occasionally painful. Dusko called in, he has found some dubious company he prefers, but no useful information. He will not be returning to the ship tonight.” She drank the Virgin Mary, gave it a curious look and sipped some more.

  “Is that a problem?” I asked. While I had come a long way in forgiving Dusko for the things that lay between us in the past, the Dua-Denlenn was from a species that regarded trust as a character flaw. It didn’t do to forget that.

  “I do not believe so. He retains his healthy and sensible fear of me and we are not in a location or position where he could gain an advantage from selling us out. Not that outweighs the risks to his personal security. Without my protection, the Guild would likely find him and revenge themselves upon him for his actions with us.”

  “I find,” she said, then hesitated, “that I am unsettled by Olivia’s presence on the ship.”

  “And here I thought it was just me,” I said, trying for lightness.

  “I do not know her, or fully trust her, yet must rely on her. Beyond that her presence threatens additional vectors in the orbit that you, Jaelle and I have assumed about each other. Possibly deliberately and on instructions from Candace.”

  I hadn’t considered that and stopped myself from the quick denial that I wanted to issue. How well did I really know Olivia? How much of the tension between us was being young and healthy and the only two of our kind on the ship and how much might be a manipulation at Candace’s instigation to gain greater control over us?

  “For what it is worth,” I said mildly. “I don’t think that is likely. I don’t see Olivia doing something like that.”

  “Wrik, I sometime believe that you are naïve in matters involving females and that you invest them with virtues, merely because of their femininity, that they may not possess.”

  “Possibly, I seem to recall giving an almost endless supply of expensive yellow silk ribbons to a certain killer-android from the depths of time, just because she was so cute.”

  “My point exactly,” she said, sipping her drink.

  “None of which you are wearing tonight,” I noted.

  “They are precious to me,” she said. “I try not to wear them in dangerous places where they might be destroyed.”

  “Couldn’t you just retexturize some of your hair to simulate one?”

  “Of course but then it wouldn’t be the ones you gave me.”

  I laughed lightly. “Maauro, never tell me that you were not created female.”

  She sighed, then smiled back at me. “Shall we sit outside for a while? I have not seen these stars before.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I turned to the bartender. “Same again to go.”

  “OK,” he looked at the crushed tankard. “How’d that happen?”

  “He must not have liked the beer,” Maauro said.

  The bartender grumbled, took the mashed tankard, and pitched it.

  I paid the tab and grabbing a handful of pretzels, followed Maauro out. We walked onto a long pier, carrying our drinks. I found a bench and we sat, side by side. I passed her a pretzel. The sky was very dark and the stars seemed bright, the sea sloshed around in a comforting surration. I spent a few seconds thinking regretfully of Olivia’s offer and the splendid body I’d seen in exercise clothes.

  Somehow danger and complications seemed to recede with my small friend next to me. She drew her legs up to her chin on the fortunately sturdy bench and looked very young. It was hard to believe she’d first looked on stars when my ancestors were living in caves.

  We didn’t speak, just sat in the comfortable silence with our drinks and pretzels, watching boats and ships move across the sea and sky. Maauro kept most of her attention for her beloved stars. After a few minutes, I put an arm around her. She felt soft and warm, save for part of her left arm, which had been replaced with an Infestor robot arm after the original had been blown off. I left my hand on her left arm. I never wanted her to feel self-conscious about it. We sat that way for a long, peaceful time that I think we both needed.

  Chapter 13

  The next day Maauro returned to her hacking and scanning. Dusko appeared at the ship, asked Maauro for money and gems to spread around, and vanished again.

  Olivia and I met at the ramp to the ship. By tacit agreement, we
said nothing about last night’s conversation and kept things light. Today we would get out of the port area and see more of the city proper. We boarded a public airboat at the main dock. The area was full of Veru in their colorful clothes. Though they were omnivores like us, there was an odd smell about them that reminded me of cattle.

  Perhaps they didn’t like the smell of us either. The Veru aboard shuffled away from us. I didn’t know if this was a manifestation of hostility or not. I could read nothing in the patch-like eyes and muzzle faces that stared at us. The machine pulled smoothly from the dock and whisked its way up the canals. We stayed up on the open front deck. Many of the Veru went inside the glassed and air-conditioned cabin, the view probably of little interest to the frequent commuters among them.

  For all the charm of buildings and water, I could see what Olivia meant about the city. It was mostly of recent manufacture, laid out in the orderly and rational way of new colonies. Homeworlds or older colonies had a more organic feel to them, with small, winding streets, odd buildings and other quaint features. This world was laid out with broad avenues and low, wide buildings. Veru were of human height but tailed, with hopping legs that were long and awkward compared to human legs, so the buildings were like stretched versions of what one would expect on most worlds. Doorways needed to be wider, rooms bigger. Even the airboat we stood on could have held four times as many bipeds as marsupial-like Veru.

  “Don’t get kicked by any of these guys,” Olivia whispered, barely audible over the motor and the splashing of water shoved aside by the airfans. She showed no sign of worry however, smiling at the bright day and enjoying the sea air.