Empire of Dust

by Jacey Bedford

  Max met them at the cave mouth.

  “I’m sorry . . . about Lee. I couldn’t do anything. I pulled Gen out.”

  Ben put his hand on Max’s shoulder. “Let’s see to the living first and then worry about the dead.”

  If you were going to get stranded anywhere, then finding a cave like this was pretty lucky. The floor was sandy and level and there was a smallish entrance leading to a large chamber. In the womb of the cave, Gen lay on a springy mattress made of vegetation stuffed into one of the emergency sleep-sacks. Max had rigged a light, using a power pack and parts cannibalized from the airbus, but even a soft glow seemed to hurt Gen’s eyes, so it was positioned well away.

  Ronan glanced at Max as he knelt to check Gen. “How are you?”

  “I think I’ve cracked a couple of ribs. My chest hurts like hell, but if there was any lung damage, I’d probably know about it by now.”

  “You sure would. Here’s a pain blocker. It’ll make you more comfortable while you’re waiting for me to finish with Gen.”

  He tossed a blast pack in Max’s direction and turned his attention to Gen. “Cara, can you monitor me?” he asked.

  Cara linked to him while he investigated Gen. He searched mentally for the injuries that were most in need of healing. Cara never lost her admiration for those who could direct their implant to tap into the electrical energy of someone’s body and redirect the flow to enable the body to heal itself. It was easy for a Healer to lose himself in the job; to put too much energy into the task and drain himself.

  Gen had a deep cut on her forehead, which was inflamed and puffy. Her right hand was severely bruised, probably with a couple of broken fingers. Max had strapped it up and now Ronan checked it, pronounced it satisfactory for the time being, and shaped a protective smart-case around it.

  Throughout the examination Max stayed by Gen. She wouldn’t let go of him with her good hand. Cara’s guts began to churn. It had gone beyond a quick sexual fling. Gen couldn’t hide her emotion while she was in this condition. It was coming off her in waves. As the shots began to take effect, Gen relaxed and let go, but Ben had noticed; Cara could read it in his face.

  Ronan was deep in concentration now, not looking at Gen’s external injuries, but using his psi-tech talents to explore for internal damage. Monitoring nerve and tissue, blood and bone, putting in a fix, where he could. Cara was following him, not really understanding Gen’s internal workings but sensing Ronan’s connection and the power flow. She crouched down by Ronan’s shoulder in the cave, almost unaware of her own body until Ronan straightened up suddenly and, with a wrench, separated his mind from Cara’s. She rocked back on her heels and landed on her backside.

  “What’s wrong?” She scrambled to her knees and shuffled forward, heart thumping.

  “Nothing, sorry,” Ronan said. Just a blip. “Going in again.”

  Cara linked and this time the exam concentrated on Gen’s concussion.

  Max was not familiar with this kind of treatment and he was agitated, giving away his feelings with every twitch, every look. It was just what she’d feared. They didn’t need more complications after the Coburg-Fenec fiasco.

  “Outside. Now!” Ben’s temper had snapped. He grabbed hold of Max by the arm and almost shoved him out into the open air toward the waterfall where their voices would not be heard by the medic. Cara waited until Ronan had finished his examination, then followed. She had things of her own to say to Max Constant. Ben wasn’t going to have all the pleasure of chewing him out. How could Gen have been so stupid after all the warnings? If this got out, neither Gen nor Max would be safe on Olyanda.

  • • •

  Ben wasn’t in a mood to take any bullshit. Lee’s loss was still echoing in his brain—four people dead in two days—and now it seemed as though there was something going on here that was about to make life supremely difficult for everybody. “Okay, let’s have the whole story.” He felt like a parent whose son has just come home after an escapade. The first reaction was to yell at him for causing a fright, even when you knew you should be offering support.

  “What?” Max tried hard, but it wouldn’t work.

  Ben wanted to punch him. “Don’t play innocent with me, Constant. You and Gen.”

  “We’re teammates.”

  Ben heard Cara come up behind them. He could tell she was angry—so angry he was surprised her footprints didn’t sizzle. “I suspected you two, but I didn’t think it had gone this far,” she said.

  “How far?” Ben asked Cara while never taking his eyes off Max.

  “They’re in love. Honest-to-goodness love.” Cara nearly choked on the word.

  “I do love her.” Max said it in a defiant love-can-cure-everything type of voice.

  Ben waved a hand to quiet him. “Before you start to yell that from the rooftops, let me tell you about Erich Coburg.”

  Throughout the story Max’s face grew increasingly pale.

  “Now do you see the problem?” Ben asked.

  He swallowed hard. “It doesn’t make any difference to me and her,” Max said.

  Before Ben could say anything else, Cara snapped. “That makes it better, does it? You’re a selfish bastard.” She was right in Constant’s face, “You could have stopped this before it started. What happens to her after all this?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “I’ll tell you what happens. It’s not enough that she loses you. She keeps thinking how unhappy you are, too. And not a thing in this universe can keep you together. Nothing. Then she loses her career. Then she falls apart, piece by piece.” Cara was white-lipped and shaking with anger. Ben had never seen her like this.

  “That’s what happened to you, wasn’t it?” Max said. Ben’s attention swung from Max to Cara.

  She turned, still angry. There were tears in her eyes. “No, that’s not what happened to me. I didn’t fall apart . . . I was ground into dust.” She stormed off.

  “That’s what you get for messing with Ari van Blaiden,” Max said, almost to himself.

  “Ari van Blaiden?” Ben turned on Max, anger over Gen temporarily pushed aside.

  “Cara’s ex.” He looked at Ben. “You didn’t know?”

  Things began to click into place. “Tell me.”

  “I worked for Alphacorp back on Earth. York office, accounts department. I processed her credit transfers and heard the gossip. You don’t forget a face like Cara Carlinni’s or a presence like van Blaiden’s. I was surprised when van Blaiden ordered a stop on her wages.

  “I didn’t like to say anything when I recognized her here. I thought she might have been kicked out of Alphacorp, but I reckoned that was her own business.”

  A whole lot of questions dissolved into answers. Ari van Blaiden. She was in trouble. They were both in trouble.

  • • •

  Cara sat on a rock and tossed pebbles into the turbulent pool at the base of the waterfall. With each disappearing pebble she cursed the power of love.

  Ben came up beside her. She stared straight ahead and continued to toss pebbles, one by one.

  He sat next to her and reached out one hand. She put a few pebbles into it from the small pile she’d collected, and he tossed one into the water.

  “Is Max all right?” she asked.

  “You were tougher on him than I was.”

  “Yes, sorry, it wasn’t my place.”

  “That’s okay, if you hadn’t been so mad at him, I might have lost it altogether. That was a pretty good show you put on back there.”

  “It wasn’t—a show, I mean.”

  “I’ve never seen you let go quite like that.”

  He threw another pebble.

  “You should have told me about Gen and Max.”

  “It wasn’t my place. I had no proof.”

  “You could have told me what you suspected.”

  “Go running to the boss? I made that mistake once before.”

  Her head began to feel muzzy. The warning signs that she was getting
too close to betraying Ari and his business. Damn, She really wished she could get it out into the open. Ronan said she was ready, but she didn’t feel ready.

  “Do you want to tell me?” Ben’s voice was gentle. She almost fell into it.

  “You know I can’t.”

  “Can’t.”

  “That’s right. Can’t. Look, I don’t like the thought that someone messed with my head, but it seems that they did.”

  “What can be put in there can be taken out again.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  “When you get back . . .”

  “If.”

  “When!”

  “I’m going to collect my pay and hit the first ship for the Rim.”

  She tossed another pebble into the water. When she turned to look at him, he’d gone.

  Everyone was busy with Lee’s body and with Gen and Max. Cara wandered back into Gen’s cave. They’d been lucky to find shelter, and Max wasn’t bad for a rookie settler. He’d managed to rig up a small light using the emergency power pack in the airbus. Cara began to retrieve bits of scattered equipment, leaving the light until last. When she disconnected it, the cave was plunged into darkness. She reached for the cuff-light on her buddysuit. It stabbed into the blackness, illuminating a bright circle on the back wall of the cave. She stopped, frozen by the sight of the half-exposed nodes.

  Her heart began to pound.

  Platinum.

  • • •

  Cara and Ben barely spoke to each other for the whole of the return journey. Ben had been in that cave. He was an experienced surveyor. He’d had every opportunity to discover the platinum, yet he hadn’t said anything. What was he up to?

  It was a tight-lipped little party that returned to Landing.

  Tests confirmed Ronan’s diagnosis of a serious concussion. Gen would make a complete recovery, but needed rest and quiet. Once that was established, Ronan didn’t question Ben’s request to move Gen back to her own room. Cas arranged for a Psi-3 or above to be on duty at all times to monitor her and, if necessary, to engage an isolation bubble that would prevent both intrusion from the outside and accidental spillage of Gen’s thoughts while she was in her weakened state.

  Gen couldn’t concentrate properly or stand loud noises and she was tired all the time, but Ronan said that was normal. Emotional instability was also to be expected and, with the situation as it was at present, Ben tried to forestall problems by keeping her well away from outsiders.

  Cara was the only person who could give Gen a shoulder to cry on. She wished this hadn’t been forced on her, but once Ben had taken the decision to try and cover up the breach of discipline rather than punish it, Gen couldn’t talk to anyone not already in on the secret. She had bouts of tearful depression. Even in her more sensible moments she was miserable. Cara had listened quietly at first, well aware of what a concussion felt like, but she was rapidly running out of patience. She wasn’t the type of person to help anyone sort out their own feelings. Dammit! She couldn’t even sort out her own most of the time.

  “How’s it going?” Cara let herself into Gen’s room on the second day.

  “Headache.” Gen was sitting in the armchair with her knees drawn up under her chin—close enough for Cara to reach out and touch. Her skin held a grayish cast, and her black hair hung, limp and lifeless. She was allowed out of bed now as long as the room was kept dim and quiet.

  “Have you taken . . .”

  “Everything Ronan will give me. I keep trying to remember what happened. The crash, I mean, but I can’t. I’ve got a few strange pictures in my head. Broken birds. Scaly imprints against the glass of the bubble. I hear Lee Gardham shout a warning in my head, and then . . . then nothing. I remember Max was there, though; whenever I woke up, he was there. He held my hand all the time and . . .” Tears began to roll down Gen’s cheeks. She scrubbed them away with a fist. “I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t bear to think that I won’t see Max again once he leaves for the coast. Ben’s sending him to Seaward Base, you know. I’d give anything—anything—to get a return passage to Chenon for him. Would Ben . . .”

  “It’s too late to get a cryo unit for him.”

  “There will be spare . . . now . . . with Lee and Coburg . . .”

  “Implant-wired. Suitable for psi-techs only.”

  “They could be reprogrammed.”

  “Risky without the right equipment. Do you want to get home and find a nine-month corpse where Max ought to be? Of course you don’t.” Lorient had insisted on no return routes for his settlers. He knew that some might want to jump ship, so he’d left no loopholes.

  “There must be something.”

  “Maybe if Max was willing to put up with nine months of staring at the inside of a cabin with the ark crew.”

  “I’m sure he will.”

  “Better wait until Ben’s in a better mood before you suggest it.”

  Cara shook her head, her own frustration rising. Gen was an intelligent woman. She’d had plenty of adult relationships. How come she’d thrown it all away for a smooth-faced settler with a sense of humor?

  “You know, you’re damn lucky Ben is covering this up for you.” Cara perched on the end of the bed. “He’s even giving you the opportunity to say good-bye to Max. It’s more than I’d have done. I’d have had Constant out of here so fast he’d have beaten his own feet to Seaward Base.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like.”

  “No?” Cara tried to hide the rush of pain that she still felt when she thought of Ari. “Even if you’re separated, you have the consolation of knowing that he loves you.”

  “That’s supposed to be a consolation?”

  “You’d prefer it if he didn’t?”

  Gen reached over and took her hand. “What is it? Ben?”

  She shook her head. “You know what our situation is. Ben’s never been anything but fair.” Fair in their personal relationship anyway. She wasn’t sure about the platinum thing. She’d given him a chance to mention it, but he hadn’t. Was Ben as bad as Ari? Was Ari really all that bad?

  “I thought you two were . . . you know. Ben’s a good guy. I should know. Is there someone else?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Someone you love?”

  “No! I don’t know . . . It was much more complicated than that. I can’t help thinking that I might be drawn to him if I saw him again, even though I know it’s the worst thing that could possibly happen. I don’t know what love is anymore.” The muzziness started to build up in Cara’s head again. It’s all right, she told herself. She was talking about feelings, not about Ari. Just feelings.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  DOUBTS

  “Get me the grain stock figures.” Victor Lorient pushed his chair back and rubbed his eyes. “Let’s find out why no one has mentioned it.” He turned and stared out of his office window into the busy street below. Timbertown was starting to feel like a real town. He wished the rest of this year was over and the psi-techs were well and truly gone from Olyanda. Then he sighed. He could wish all he damn-well liked; there was still over half their term to run. Benjamin had him backed up against a wall. Both Jack and Rena had persuaded him, individually—though he suspected them of collusion—to preach forgiveness and tolerance.

  “Victor, dear, this is Jack’s job. He’s already checked the figures twice.” Rena placed a bound ledger on the desk. “The stocks are all accounted for. There’s less in store because two settlements needed resupplying after the storms.”

  “So Benjamin said, but why did he shuttle up to the ark ship to check a shortage. Did he go up there to alter the manifests?”

  “It was months ago. You only have rumor to go on.”

  “And rumor of an extra grain shipment, which should have been here by now.”

  “Everyone has what they need.”

  “What about the psi-techs? The grasping bastards have hung onto all their grain. I think they’re shorting us on livestock, too.”
/>   “There’s no reason they should.”

  “Them being them and us being us is reason enough. Get Jack in here and get rid of that spy in his office.”

  “There’s no . . . Oh, you mean Saedi. She’s only here as a comm-link. She’s a very pleasant young woman. Very helpful.”

  “Get rid of her.”

  • • •

  Cara woke and listened to the sounds of the room. Ben’s breathing was deep and regular, a comfortable pattern. At least, it had been comfortable once, but now she found it irritating. No, irritating wasn’t the word. She thought around the problem and had to admit to herself that she just wasn’t comfortable with Ben anymore.

  With all the important safety concerns for the whole mission, Cara felt mean allowing something personal to eat at her, but in the three days since their return she’d watched Ben when she thought he wasn’t aware of it. He hadn’t logged the possibility of platinum at the mountain site. The recorder from the crashed airbus had mysteriously disappeared, though she knew it was there when they first examined the wreck. She’d seen it.

  Was he trying to cover up the platinum? If so, why? Sometimes she told herself to trust her instincts. Ben was straight. Whatever he did, he had a good reason to do. At other times she recalled that she had thought the same about Ari van Blaiden. She didn’t want to fall into the Ari trap again, get involved, and then regret it.

  Ben rolled over in his bed. She needed to get up and out of their room now, before he awoke. Very quietly she pulled back the covers, grabbed her clothes, and headed for the shower. Five minutes later she was fully dressed and ready to leave.

  “Cara.”

  Ben’s voice froze her hand halfway to the door.

  She heard him sit up, but didn’t look round.

  “We need to talk.”

  “No.”

  “Cara?” He said it softly, but it was still a command.

  She turned around.

  “What’s the matter with you? You’ve hardly said a word to me since we found Gen. Have I done something to upset you?”

  “You’ve been busy. A lot on your mind with Gen and Max and the Coburg thing and people wanting to pull out early and . . .” She realized she wasn’t being very coherent and ground to a halt.