So it was that the Garnet Hyde’s shuttle settled onto a landing pad just outside one of the northern towns of Arbonatura late in the morning. The town was called Chance and it had, apparently, been the first major development on the planet after colonisation about two hundred and fifty years earlier. That was the main reason it hosted the planet’s university, a sprawling complex of buildings and fields, primarily devoted to agricultural research.
Wallace was aboard. He wanted to talk to David Reman, which was a reason other than ‘taking a break,’ so his trip had been planned first. Gillian had decided that it was always good to see another university, so she was going too. Aneka and Ella were mainly just along for the ride, though Ella was Gillian’s assistant. Aneka still had such enthusiasm for different planets that no one could deny her visits to them. Shannon was along as pilot, and they had their guide, Peters, with them, which made quite the busload for Anthony Shaw who had come out to the airfield to pick them up.
‘You didn’t have to come out to be our taxi service,’ Gillian said to the politician.
Shaw gave her a shrug. ‘Our distinguished visitors from New Earth? Yeah, I did.’ He nodded to Wallace. ‘Reman is waiting for you, Doctor Wallace. Impatiently, I might add.’
Wallace smiled. ‘Let’s not keep the man waiting then.’
Chance was the kind of thing you expected to see in Hollywood films set in small towns in the middle of America. There were no buildings taller than two stories, the streets were wide. As they headed in through the northern side they were surrounded by single-storey houses which looked to Aneka as though they had seen better days, though the structures seemed solid and most of them had up-to-date paintwork. There was pride in the place; it had just been there for a long time and there was not that much spare cash going around.
‘It’s a nice little town,’ she commented.
‘You’ll get prettier and more modern over on Sapphira Vista,’ Shaw replied, a hint of pride in his voice, ‘but not with such nice people. People here care about their town. And they’re damn proud that they host the university. Oldest settlement on the planet.’
The town centre definitely looked like something out of the Mid-West, except that the buildings were largely Plascrete and various structural plastics. Aneka had seen little of New Earth, and Harriamon and Corax were underground. This place, the first major aboveground settlement she had seen outside the core, looked more like home. Not her home, maybe, but Old Earth. There was another thing about it that differentiated it from New Earth.
Aneka leaned towards Ella and lowered her voice. ‘You know, the people here wear clothes.’
Ella giggled. ‘We wear clothes.’
‘Yes, but they wear clothes which are actually opaque and not glued to the skin. This place could be an ordinary town in America.’
The big car, which Aneka would have classed as a pick-up of some sort, except that it was fully enclosed with two wide, bench seats behind the driver, turned left as they left the town’s central business district. There was no auto-drive on this vehicle; Shaw was doing all the driving. The thing seemed to have an automatic gearbox, but that was about it. From the sound of it, it was powered off some sort of internal combustion engine as well.
And then they were driving through a lot of low buildings. They were old-looking, probably built when the town was and with a sense of grandeur. The university too had the feeling of an American university campus rather than the high-tech, Star Trek look of the University of New Earth. There were trees between the buildings to provide shade, and students sitting under them. This looked more like New England than the Mid-West, but it still felt more like home than any other place Aneka had been.
Shaw pulled up in front of a large, low building with huge windows and mock brickwork walls. ‘This is the sciences building. Most of what goes on here is agricultural. Not much call for theoretical work, literature, that kind of thing, but we cater for it.’
‘Mister Reman has written several very interesting papers,’ Wallace said. ‘His work is exceptional, even compared to theoreticians from the core and the Torem seats of learning.’
‘Oh, we’re proud of him. Anyway, I can take you through to his office. Is everyone coming?’
‘I will,’ Gillian replied.
‘I think I’d like to stay out here in the sun,’ Ella said looking out at the dappled light coming down through the trees. ‘Even if I wish I’d changed clothes.’
Peters looked torn. ‘I guess I should go in.’
‘I’ll drop them off and come out to make sure Miss Narrows doesn’t get into trouble,’ Shaw offered. ‘I’m not exactly into all that science stuff.’
‘I’ll stick with Ella,’ Aneka said, opening the door. ‘I’m not a scientist either.’
‘Right,’ Shaw said. ‘I’ll be out in five or ten minutes. Don’t stray too far.’
Ella was following Aneka out of the door. ‘We’ll be right here, under a tree.’
Stretched out under the nearest tree she could find, Ella closed her eyes and smiled. Even if she was dressed in one of the Xinti shipsuits, it felt good to be out in real sunlight. ‘Is this place really like Old Earth?’
‘Bits of Old Earth. Mostly places I’ve seen on TV and in movies, uh, vids.’
‘I’ve been around you long enough to know what TV was,’ Ella pointed out, grinning.
‘Huh, yeah. This place looks kind of like some of the Ivy League universities they always seemed to be showing on TV. I’m not exactly sure what the Ivy League actually was. I think maybe Harvard was in it. The buildings here are fake brick instead of real brick, and I don’t think we’d have got the looks we’re getting here.’
‘You’re half-naked, I’m in a figure-hugging vacuum suit, and they’re dressed to meet their virgin aunts. A few looks aren’t surprising.’
‘There’s less lust and more suspicion.’
‘Oh. They probably don’t see many core worlders.’
‘We aren’t, but I don’t suppose they know that.’ Shrugging, Aneka settled down beside her girlfriend, but she did not close her eyes. Something felt off and, with the warning Winter had given her, she was taking no chances. Should have brought a gun.
‘I don’t think that would have gone down well,’ Al commented. ‘Peters is armed if it comes to that, and you are not exactly helpless.’
‘True, but using the pulse weapon would take some explaining.’
‘Not if you use the lethal mode. No visible effect and it’ll be days before they figure out anything odd happened.’
‘That’s still a last resort.’
It took Shaw seven minutes and sixteen seconds to emerge from the sciences building. Aneka noticed that most of the academics around the area relaxed noticeably as soon as he was with them. It seemed that having a local politician nearby gave some sort of stamp of approval.
‘Are you two happy here?’ he asked. ‘We can take a walk around campus if you like.’
Ella stretched and climbed to her feet. ‘Sure. It’s a lovely campus. Aneka says it reminds her of places on Old Earth.’
That seemed to impress the man. ‘Really? The architects were building something modern when it was put up, but that was over a century ago.’
Aneka stood up, smiling. ‘Not many places I’ve seen remind me of home. And actually, this doesn’t, but it reminds me of places I’ve seen.’ She sighed. ‘Still, I’ve a new home now. Ella’s flat is gorgeous, but I’m still not really used to living in a city.’
They started off towards a fountain they could see across the grass, not quickly, no one was in a hurry. ‘No real cities in Arbonatura,’ Shaw said. ‘We’ve a population of thirteen million spread across a huge area. There’s a small city over on Sapphira Vista, but here it’s towns and farmsteads. A lot of the population live on the farms.’
‘It sounds idyllic,’ Ella commented, though Aneka knew she quite liked Yorkbridge where she lived.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. We work hard. Sapph
ira has a pretty eccentric orbit and making sure the crops grow is a fairly complicated process. Irrigation in the summer, just surviving through the winter. Animals have a hard time in the cold months. You’ve arrived in late spring. You’re lucky. It’ll get really hot in another month.’
‘I don’t mind hot,’ Ella replied, grinning. ‘Though I get the feeling nude sunbathing might be frowned upon.’
‘Uh… Well…’
Aneka’s eyes caught the slight glint of sunlight on metal and her attention snapped to the gun in the hands of a man who did not really look like a student. She saw the weapon rising, saw that its owner had clothes more like a farm worker than an academic, saw his expression of fear mixed with determination. She was moving before she realised it, closing the distance between herself and the gunman. He had not even seen her, his focus was elsewhere. Aneka realised with a start that he was aiming for Shaw.
‘Gun!’ The word snapped through the air as Aneka took the final pace. The only person who reacted was the gunman, his attention suddenly drawn to the tall, white-haired woman who was suddenly so close. His focus broken, he had no idea what to do as her left hand wrapped around the barrel of his pistol, twisting it upward, and her right struck his wrist briefly paralysing his fingers. The gun came free; Aneka was dimly aware of an identification image appearing in-vision stating that it was a seven-point-five millimetre caseless automatic with zero threat potential to her. Her fist was busy burying itself in the would-be assassin’s solar plexus as she took in the information. As he doubled over her elbow slammed into his back, and then he was down and her knee was pinning him while she put him in a hammer lock.
Suddenly there was noise. Men and women were screaming; Aneka thought one of them might have been Ella. Looking up at Shaw she yelled, ‘Don’t just stand there, get some cops!’
~~~
‘That was… amazing!’ Ella said, again. ‘I mean, I didn’t even really see him and then he was just… Wham! On the floor.’
‘That’s what I used to do for a living, Ella,’ Aneka replied.
‘Take down gunmen?’ Shaw asked.
‘I did personal protection details, hostage rescue, that kind of thing. I guess the training never lets go. Why would someone want you dead, Representative?’
‘A very good question,’ Peters put in. He had quietly and with no fuss taken over the investigation from the Peacekeepers, leaving them to cart off the gunman.
‘I… You’re sure he was after me?’
‘Absolutely sure,’ Aneka told him. ‘He didn’t even know I was there until I was standing in his face.’
‘Well… No, I don’t think anyone…’
‘You’re selling yourself short, sir,’ Peters said. ‘You’ve made a few enemies since coming to office.’ Well, it seemed the security people on Sapphira were actually up to their job. ‘You had strong support to get into the position, but the guy you beat came from one of the old farming families. Word is they aren’t pleased.’
‘I didn’t think you had elections anymore,’ Aneka interjected.
‘We don’t,’ Ella replied. ‘When one Representative leaves office, however, the replacement comes from a pool of candidates and is selected by a committee of the other Representatives and the world’s Senator. There can be a lot of political jockeying to get in.’
‘Then there’s the pressure you’ve been putting on the local smugglers.’ Peters went on. ‘Either of those groups could have sent someone after you.’
‘Smugglers?’ Aneka asked.
‘They traffic drugs into the Federation, people out. Every so often one of their operations gets nailed, but they’re good, slick. Representative Shaw has been putting additional funds into a task force that’s trying to take them out for good.’
Aneka nodded. ‘Maybe this guy was put up to it, but he didn’t come directly from either of those. I’d expect a hired assassin from a family operation. An outsider with no connection to them. A professional gang would send a professional too. This was a guy with a low-tech pistol. You’ll need to interrogate him to find out why he did it, but I suspect he’s just nuts.’
‘Nuts?’ Shaw said, frowning. ‘Why would anyone decide to kill me because they were insane?’
‘Lots of reasons. You’re a popular politician in the public eye. Shoot you and they get their face plastered all over your news networks. Maybe it was to impress a friend, or a girl. The Secret Service, uh, the people charged with protecting one of the heads of state on Old Earth, they used to call them “jackals.” They were hard to protect against because they were just ordinary people, right up until they shot someone. There was one guy shot someone famous because he thought it would impress an actress he was fixated on. They usually turn out to be psychologically disturbed.’
‘It wouldn’t happen in the core,’ Ella commented. ‘That kind of behaviour is detected in childhood and treated.’
Shaw’s eyes narrowed. ‘Huh. I’d expect a necro to come out with a comment like that.’
Aneka saw the hurt in Ella’s eyes and spoke first. ‘I realise you’re in shock, but there’s no need to be rude. Ella was born on Harriamon. It’s an underground mining colony on the Rim. She’s quite well aware of the less perfect medical and educational systems you have because she grew up with them.’
‘I… apologise, Miss Narrows. I’m not quite myself.’
‘I’m a psychologist,’ Ella replied. ‘I can understand your disorientation. And I don’t really look like a lunyen wan nijen.’
‘I really must learn Rimmic,’ Aneka said. She pointed at Shaw. ‘And you should think about getting a bodyguard.’
The Representative grimaced, sighed, and then turned a grin on Aneka. ‘I don’t suppose you’re available?’
‘I have enough trouble keeping myself alive,’ Aneka replied wryly. ‘I don’t need someone else to worry about.’
~~~
‘What did you mean?’ Ella asked. She was curled up in the crook of Aneka’s arm as they lay on their bunk. ‘You said you had enough trouble keeping yourself alive.’
‘Winter’s message. She tracked down the mercs who attacked us on Corax. She thinks someone else is trying to get their hands on me. Doesn’t know who yet.’
Ella’s voice took on a slightly accusing tone. ‘And you were planning on telling me when?’
‘When we got back to New Earth. She didn’t think there was any chance of them getting someone here fast enough and I didn’t want to worry you until you needed to be worried.’
‘So when you saw that man…’
‘I was a little surprised when I realised he was targeting Shaw, yes. I think if my brain was slower I wouldn’t have worked it out until afterwards.’
The annoyance was gone in an instant; that was so Ella. ‘Thank Vashma for a Xinti combat chassis, again.’
‘Oh no, that was all me. I’m faster now, but I didn’t need to be. I could have done that when I was Human.’
‘Wow.’ There was silence for a second. ‘I’ve never really seen you… work before. There was that guy you pulled off me on Odanari, but I couldn’t see anything really. He just went backwards into darkness and died. This time… You just… moved. Like you knew exactly what you were doing and how to deal with him. I’ve never seen you like that.’
‘Sobering isn’t it? You’re sharing your bed with a trained killing machine on a hair trigger.’
Ella shifted, snuggling tighter against Aneka’s side. ‘You didn’t kill him.’
‘I could have. In about ten different ways. I’m lethal. I was even before the Xinti gave me super-strength and a virtually indestructible body.’
‘Maybe,’ Ella said softly, ‘but I don’t think I’ve ever felt safer.’
FScV Garnet Hyde, 10.11.524 FSC.
The flight back to New Earth was going to take just over thirty-eight days and Ella had decided the day before they left Sapphira that she was going to stay awake. She claimed the reason was entirely educational. She was going to speak Rimmi
c the whole time until Aneka’s translation software had it figured out and she could understand it. Al estimated that it would take no longer than two days to reach the same competence in the language as Ella, but the redhead was clearly in one of her affectionate moods and putting her in cold sleep for a relatively short trip would have been cruel. It was Drake’s decision, ultimately, but he was not that mean either.
‘If she comes out of this “educational” trip only able to translate moans, expletives, and the names of erogenous zones I’ll never let you stay awake again,’ Drake told Ella as he settled into his plastic coffin. He was the last one in, as always.
‘I’ve got Cassandra to keep me in line,’ Ella replied.
‘She doesn’t know any Rimmic,’ Drake told her, ‘so we will be conducting tests of Aneka’s vocabulary when we wake up.’
Ella pouted briefly and then added, ‘I honestly don’t think even I could spend thirty-eight days doing nothing but sex.’
Drake’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t try,’ he said firmly, and then flashed her a grin before lying back in the pod.
Ella grinned back, and waited for the pod to close and Drake’s eyes to close before she headed for the door of the cold-sleep room. ‘Aggy, you can close down the air circulation in here.’
‘Thank you, Ella,’ Aggy said from the ceiling. ‘Aneka is currently in the hold area and has asked that you make your way there.’
‘The hold?’ Ella frowned.
‘Yes, Ella. The pressurised section, obviously.’
Confused, Ella headed down one of the ladders between decks to the hold area. She found Aneka pulling the last of four thick, padded mats into place in the middle of the hold. The tall robot woman was stripped down to just her leotard, her boots and leggings lying near one of the walls.
‘Aneka? What’s up?’
Aneka grinned at her. ‘I figured that if you’re teaching me Rimmic, I should teach you something too. So you’re going to learn some self-defence.’
The Cold Steel Mind Page 22
