by Donna Fasano
“What happened to them?”
“If the failure was because of a crappy location, they got a second chance. But of course, that set them back as far as making a success of their spread. We were lucky. We got good farming land. And also it turned out we and a few other homesteads had a catborn deposit. Some guys were angry that we got it.”
“Do they give you trouble?”
“Once a raiding party tried to take over the homestead.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “What happened?”
“Dad and I held them off until the storm troopers came.” He looked toward the door. “Let me load up some equipment, and we’ll go out to the mine.”
“How?”
“In the hauler. I’ll have catborn to bring back.”
“And you said it’s not a mineral?”
“No. It’s an organic deposit laid down over hundreds of years in an ancient forest that disappeared when the climate changed in this area. I think back on Earth they had something similar called peat. They used that for heating their homes. Catborn is combustible, but it’s too expensive to burn for heat. It brings a good price off world for medical use.”
“And how do you get it out?”
“It’s underground. We tunneled in to a deposit and use mechanical equipment to scoop it out.”
She kept her gaze on him. “Why did the mine collapse?”
“Well, catborn is soft. Which means the ground’s not perfectly stable. Dad thought he could get to another deposit that was nearby. The tunnel structure shifted and collapsed.”
“And how do you know that won’t happen to you?”
“I’m careful. And I reinforced the tunnels.”
“But you’ve done this on your own, with no backup.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because nobody wants to help me dig my windfall out of the ground.”
“Even for a cut of the profits?”
“On Palomar, a real man works for himself. You only get a job if you’re desperate. Like that plaguer, Jerry, who tried to kidnap you.”
She shuddered.
“Probably a lot of guys are hoping the mine will get me like it did my father. Then the corporation can move in and take over the site.”
She winced. “Nice.”
“The sooner we get out there, the sooner we get back,” he said.
“All right.”
“This time we’ll both wear comms units. And beamers.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to get the hauler. See if you can get me on our private line.”
She did as he asked, and he answered quickly. He kept the picture on, and she saw him loading some empty bins into the hauler. Then he drove along the farmyard to where she was waiting. When she’d climbed aboard and buckled her harness, he took off, heading away from town. It was a very short flight, to an area of his property that was hidden by low hills. As he dropped down, she saw that the ground had a greenish cast that didn’t look like vegetation.
“The color’s from the catborn?”
“Right.” He was hovering over the area.
“Why aren’t you landing?”
“In a minute.” Still in the air, he got out the comms unit again and did some more fiddling with his fingers.
“I’ve got explosive charges set around the mine. If anybody tries to land without turning them off, they’ll get a nasty surprise.”
“Okay.” She held her breath as they landed, but the hauler didn’t blow up with them in it.
Caleb jumped out and started unloading the bins and the equipment.
When he was finished, he turned to her. “I’d better tell you where I’ve set the close-in charges, because if you step on one, it’s like a land mine.”
“Nice.”
He took her in a circle around the mine entrance, pointing out places where there were depressions in the soil. “And you need to know how to set them off manually,” he said.
“Why?”
“It would take care of a borgan or a granling that got through the force fence.
A good idea, since she’d already tangled with a granling and knew what it could do.
“Which of them is worse?” she asked.
“About the same, in their own way. Both are highly dangerous when they’re hungry and they think you’re unprotected.”
“I won’t be able to get those hand signals for the explosives right,” she blurted.
“I’ll set it for voice activation. For safety, you’ll have to press the red button on the controller. Then you can just say set off number one, set off number two, and so on.” She looked down at the unit and located the red button.
“Which is number one?”
He pointed to his right. “There’s the first one, and they go clockwise around the mine.”
“How many in all?”
“Fifteen.”
“And you’ll keep your unit on?”
“Yeah.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“It shouldn’t be more than three hours.”
oOo
Three hours. A lifetime, Beka thought as she looked at the entrance to the mine which was blocked off by a stout metal barrier. Around it, the doorway was surrounded by a darker shade of the green tinge.
Caleb strode forward, worked his hands over the comms unit and the metal door creaked open. Behind it was what looked like nothing more than a large hole in the side of a hill. Beyond the opening was blackness.
“That’s a natural hill?” she asked.
“Yeah. A lot of it is made of catborn.”
She walked to the mine entrance and peered into the darkness. Caleb came up behind her and shone a light down the tunnel. She could see dirt walls. Every few feet there was a pair of upright timbers with another timber across the top, and above the overhead timbers were sheets of something that formed a ceiling.
“That ceiling wasn’t in place before the accident.”
She turned back to him and saw that while she’d been looking into the tunnel, he’d been loading equipment into a handcart.
“I don’t like this.”
“I’ll be fine.”
She reached for him, pulling him toward her and hanging on tight. She didn’t want him going in there, but she couldn’t think of any way to prevent it.
He wrapped his arms around her and gathered her to him.
“Be careful,” she whispered.
“I will.”
She felt him stir, then ease away and reach into one of the storage containers he’d brought. He pulled out a metal helmet with a light on the front and switched it on.
She gave him a long look, wanting to tell him that she had a bad feeling about this. But she knew he wasn’t going to stay out of the mine because she was having the jitters. He had been on this homestead for almost twenty years—and nine of those years, he’d been running the place the way he wanted to, and doing it very well. She couldn’t expect to walk in and start changing things.
She kept her eyes on him, watching him disappear into the darkness, seeing the light on his helmet and not him.
When he was gone, she wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her shoulders
She thought about the first time they’d made love. And the second. She’d thought each time that everything was going to be all right between them, but somehow that didn’t seem to be true. It was as though caring about her made him question his judgment.
Her comms unit made a chirping sound. She pulled it out of her pocket. When she did, the display cube appeared in the air in front of her. She could see inside the tunnel, as though she was seeing the interior from Caleb’s point of view. She saw his light moving into the darkness and the sides of the tunnel, faintly glowing green in the illumination.
Glad of the contact with him, she kept watching. When the picture winked off, she gasped.
“What happened?”
“I’m fine.” His voice came from the unit. “The catborn’s interfering
with the visuals, but we can still talk to each other.”
“Okay.”
“You might as well wait for me in the hauler.” Caleb’s voice came from the vicinity of her right ear.
“I can’t just sit still.” As she spoke, she glanced around the mine entrance. It looked like Caleb was usually in a hurry to get out of the area and hadn’t spent a lot of time keeping it orderly. “I see some rocks have washed down the hill. I can clear them away while you’re gone.”
“Sure.”
Did he consider that make-work? Or was it something he’d appreciate, like cleaning up the henhouse?
Well, having something constructive to do was better than sitting and waiting.
He had left a shovel in the hauler, and she used it to scoop up some of the smaller rocks and pile them well away from the mine entrance, being careful to stay away from the circle of explosive charges. She alternated shoveling with picking up some of the larger rocks. And as she worked, she kept scanning the landscape, watching out for predators.
The area right around the mine entrance was stripped of vegetation. But thirty meters away there was tall grass and scrubby trees.
She stopped and swiped her hand across her forehead.
“How are you doing?” she asked Caleb.
“It’s going pretty well. I think I can finish up in an hour.”
She could hear him breathing hard and went back to her own project.
When she looked up from her work again, she saw something in the sky that she hadn’t seen before. It looked like a kind of air car. Could it be one of the other men flying his hauler back to his homestead? As she watched it grew larger, and she finally realized that it was heading straight toward the mine.
It set down in the scrub, well away from the force field. A man climbed out. He was wearing a protective suit, heavy boots and a helmet that completely hid his face, reminding her of the cops who had swooped in after the incident with Jerry.
He had something in his hand, and as she watched he pointed it in front of him and moved it back and forth. She heard a sizzling noise and saw lightning flickering over the surface of what must be the invisible barrier Caleb had set up around the mine entrance.
When the barrier was down, he stomped forward, and when he was twenty meters from her, he took off the helmet and tossed it onto the ground.
She gasped when she saw who it was.
Tucker Lowden. The man she had prayed never to see again.
Chapter 10
Caleb must have heard her gasp.
“What’s wrong?” his urgent question rang in her ear.
“Tucker Lowden found me.”
“What? Who?”
Her skin crawled as she looked at the man who was only meters away. She’d worked hard to fool him, and she’d thought it had worked. She’d been wrong.
Lowden was speaking, riveting her attention.
“You thought you could get away from me, but you were sadly mistaken, bitch,” he said, echoing her own thoughts.
“Leave me alone.” She took a step back. She knew Caleb could hear her talking but could he also hear Tucker?
When he stood staring at her with satisfaction, she asked, “How did you get here so fast? It took us a month.”
“A one-man speed ship. It was expensive.” He laughed. “But it will be worth it, getting to flip you again. And do all those things I love. But we’ll take the slow way back and you can have a month to make amends for trying to give me the slip.”
When she sucked in a strangled breath, he kept speaking.
“I thought that guy I hired at the spaceport could bring you to me. But he was a pissant. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”
When he advanced on her, she took another step back. “Your boyfriend’s in the mine. I found out there was a bad accident here with his dad. The poor guy got buried under a slatload of catborn. I think we can arrange the same thing for the son. Nobody will think anything of it. And nobody is going to worry that you’ve disappeared.”
She fought the sick feeling rising in her throat, because she knew that Tucker wasn’t lying. He was perfectly capable of murder—and a whole lot more.
Her beamer was on her hip. As she remembered that, she saw that Tucker had the same thought.
“Use two fingers and take your weapon out of the holster. Drop it on the ground.”
She did as he asked, her mind scrabbling for a way out of this. Would Tucker kill her? She thought not. He wanted her alive, and he wanted to punish her for running away, but she was sure he’d enjoy giving her a painful burn to teach her a lesson.
The comms controller was in her pocket, and she knew she could use it to set off the charges Caleb had planted around the mine area. Too bad he’d already walked past them before she knew who he was. But he’d been wearing a helmet, and she couldn’t just blow up someone who’d arrived on the scene.
Tucker was in front of the explosive charges now. But what if she used them as a distraction?
And what about Caleb?
Tucker must be close enough for Caleb to hear him now. Which Tucker wouldn’t know. And he wouldn’t know how these comms units functioned.
That gave them an advantage, but it also meant Caleb was finding out things about her that she’d been afraid to tell him—learning about her past in the worst possible way. Still she couldn’t worry about that now. The only thing that mattered was saving his life. She had to buy him time to get to the front of the mine.
“If I go with you quietly, will you leave my husband alone?” she asked.
“Your husband! What a joke.”
“It’s not a joke.”
“Well, that makes it more likely that I want to kill him.”
“No!”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because I’m cooperating.”
“Yeah, you’re real cooperative. I’m guessing you let him do anything he wanted with you.”
She didn’t answer.
“Didn’t you?”
“We made love.”
He laughed again. “Yeah, with a man who doesn’t know a furrow from a wellhead.”
Tucker’s focus was on her, and behind him she saw a flicker of movement. A shape rose out of the underbrush, and she was pretty sure she knew what it was. Not a granling. The other thing, a borgan.
The granling was like a bear on old Earth. The borgan was cat like. It was smaller than a granling, with green fir that lay sleek against its streamlined body. It padded silently forward, moving through the scrubby grass with the grace of a predator that knew it was the master of its environment. And with the force field down, it had its opportunity to strike.
“You didn’t think I was going to let you get away, did you, bitch?” her nemesis asked.
“I thought I’d fooled you.”
“Your mistake. You think I couldn’t bribe the information out of someone?”
“I hoped,” she answered because she was trying to keep him talking.
“I’ve brought explosives. That should take care of lover boy.”
“They’ll catch you.”
“I don’t think so. And I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to keep me talking to give your boyfriend a few more minutes of life.”
He took a step to the side. ‘The explosives are in the hauler. We’re going to get them.”
“No.”
“I’ll shoot you.”
“Go ahead. And then I won’t have to worry about you coming after me anymore.”
“In the thigh. That’s not going to feel so good. And then I’ll take care of Caleb Raider.”
In the grass, she saw the borgan crouching down, getting ready to spring. But Tucker must have seen her gaze flick to the threat behind him.
He whirled and gasped as he saw the monster stalking him. Raising his beamer, he shot a hot stream of energy at the beast, hitting it in midair as it leaped.
The animal made a hissing noise and went down, but T
ucker had taken his attention off her. Knowing she had only seconds to act, she tried to calculate the best place to explode one of Caleb’s charges.
Pressing the red button, she shouted, “Five.”
An explosion went off to Tucker’s right. As he staggered back, she dived for the beamer he’d forced her to drop on the ground.
Just as she reached it. Tucker whirled back to her. Before he could shoot her, a stream of fire drilled him in the chest, and he fell backwards into the weeds.
Caleb emerged from the tunnel entrance, his weapon in his hand.
He walked toward Tucker, stood over the man and drilled him again.
Then he pulled his comms unit out of his pocket and moved his fingers over it.
“What is the nature of your emergency?” a voice asked.
“This is Caleb Raider. I am at my catborn mine. Someone came to try and invade the property. I believe he’s from off world. He has explosives in his hauler. I drilled him. You’ll find him just outside the mine entrance. I’m leaving for my homestead. You can come and get him.”
“Got it,” the voice said.
Through the dispassionate speech, Beka stood in stunned silence. Caleb had said nothing about Tucker’s real reason for being here.
When he was finished with the call, he turned to her.
“Come on,” he said in a tight voice.
“Where?”
“Back to the homestead.”
She swallowed hard and walked to the hauler. When she was inside, he used the controller to close the door to the mine. Then he climbed into the other side of the hauler, took the controls and lifted off quickly.
She cut him a sidewise glance as they lifted off and headed for home, seeing the stony expression on his face.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Yeah, I’ll bet.”
The words and the tone of his voice made her feel sick. Sicker than she’d felt when Tucker Lowden had held her at gunpoint. As she huddled in the seat, she fought not to start shaking.
They were back at the farmyard only a few minutes later. Without looking at Caleb, she got out and walked stiff-legged into the house, into the bedroom, where she started opening drawers and taking her clothing out.
She piled them on the bed and then found the crate that she’d put into the storage bay. As she began to stow her things, she blinked back tears. Against all odds, she’d found the right man. Now that she’d lost him, she knew she should have been honest with him from the first.
