Supergiant (Gigaparsec Book 2)

by Scott Rhine

  “Can’t put that genie back in the bottle. My restaurant started as an idle comment I made about wishing I could get decent ice cream. She just took over from there.”

  “Is being an avalanche a bad thing?” Roz asked.

  “I prefer to call her a hurricane of fun,” Herb said, adjusting his tie. “Just go with it. There are no elephants this time.”

  “I meant, is Max going to have this problem with me?”

  “It’s not a problem if you love someone. Ooo, Mandarin oranges, my favorite. How did she manage those?”

  Shortly before the big presentation, Roz sat on the platform holding Max’s hand, flanked by four-meter-tall photos of prison children. She whispered to him, “Where’s Kesh?”

  Cutting a dashing figure in his formal attire, Max replied, “Some of his underworld contacts hinted they may have more recent maps of the prison colony.” Casually, he brushed a strand of hair away from her face.

  Roz shivered, and not just from the cool breeze coming from the Cupid ice sculpture. The intimacy made her pulse race. “So is Echo the culprit, or are decorations going to be falling from the ceiling when I kiss you?”

  Reflexively, Max glanced at the ceiling to check for hazards. “Echo investigated. Turns out the autonomic systems of the ship are tied to her more tightly than we imagined.”

  Roz blinked. “You mean if she dies, all life-support systems in Sphere of Influence shut down as well?”

  “Yes. We’re putting in more gardens and emergency heaters until she can shift some of the control systems over to you and me.”

  “When will that be?”

  “We’re taking the first step with our engagement tonight,” Max explained.

  “You mean this is real?”

  Max sighed. He interrupted the master of ceremonies to grab the microphone. “I’m afraid we’ve allowed all of this fanfare to overshadow the real reason for our party tonight.” He paused to allow the AI translator time to catch up. Then, he knelt on the stage before her. Max held out the biggest ring she had ever seen, a silver trefoil inset with three of the large diamonds from the ruined tennis bracelet—one stone for each member of the triad. “Shiraz Mendez, querida, would you do me the incredible honor of being my female mate?”

  The translators would convert this to the more acceptable “wife.”

  Roz stared for a moment. “Our lives are one. Where you go, so do I.”

  He slipped the ring on her finger, and the TV lights flared to catch the glint of the stones. Still no L word, but this just got real. The kiss brought her to tears on camera.

  The rest of the night was a blur. Overwhelmed, Roz left early with Ivy.

  Chapter 29 – Alien Anatomy Lessons

  Back at the hotel, Roz changed for bed while Ivy swept the room for bugs. The spy gave her a clean bill of health. “You’re secure. The walls in here are even mu-shielded so out-of-body travelers can’t eavesdrop.”

  Roz stopped brushing her hair. “You mean Echo can’t see us?”

  “Neither can my people,” Ivy said. “Is there something you wanted to discuss in private?”

  This might be the last time Roz would ever be unobserved in her life. “What do your Anodyne spy people know about the Magi?”

  “What do you need to know?”

  Roz waved her arms. “Everything. I’m marrying one, for God’s sake, and I know nothing about them. They take mysterious to a whole new level. No other species are allowed on their worlds. I don’t even know how they reproduce.”

  Ivy put away the scanning gear Reuben had loaned her. “I can’t share all my family secrets just because I like you, honey. You need to give me something in return.”

  The secrets Roz did know about the Magi were sacred. What could she offer that might interest Ivy? “Echo’s original triad met with Black Ram Xerxes.”

  “The big guy himself? That must have been almost 150 years ago. Why?”

  “Together, the four developed the theoretical underpinnings to both the subbasement drive and the device used to destroy that star in the Mnamnabo system.”

  “Holy crap. Do you think Reuben knows?”

  Roz shrugged.

  Ivy took a deep breath and sat beside her on the bed. “Okay, but you can’t tell anyone this secret, except Max when it’s time for you to get pregnant.”

  “I promise.”

  “We suspect the child inherits mitochondrial DNA from the neutral. Her contributions also mitigate recessive genes.”

  Three sets of donors for one child. “How did you find out?”

  “Rumors from my sister in medical branch,” Ivy whispered. “We can’t let the Magi suspect what we know, or my whole lineage might disappear.”

  “I’ll take it to my grave.”

  “You can’t even tell your children,” Ivy said. “We believe the Magi have world memories like Laurelin. Your children might function as living records as well. Do you still want to know?”

  Roz considered millions of dead philosophers all aiding the Magi in solving the Enigma. But I cracked the last part because none of them ever held the implementation in person, never got their hands dirty. That’s something Humans were good for. “I may not want to, but I need to.”

  Ivy paced the bedroom. “When Sanctuary returned to Earth after the test on Labyrinth, the crew faced accusations of illegal genetic manipulation. They founded the Anodyne colony rather than face the UN charges.”

  “Those claims were bogus if I remember.” Roz struggled to recall her interplanetary history class. “Because he had so many psi talents, as the first Human born in space, Stewart Llewellyn would have died without certain treatments. He shared the technique with Earth, and it quickly became the standard for psi prenatal care.”

  “History glosses over the other child born on that mission, Joan Dahlstrom. Shortly before he died, the doctor on Labyrinth injected Joan’s mother with a treatment that was supposed to make the complex Llewellyn process unnecessary. The pregnancy went so smoothly that no one suspected the real goal of the experiment until Joan reached her teens. She failed to develop breasts or begin her period.”

  “She was a neutral like Echo? How is that possible?”

  “Dr. Baatjies was a mad nanotech genius, with emphasis on the mad,” Ivy said, hugging herself nervously. “He found evidence of a Magi crash that had happened on Labyrinth about a thousand years ago. Since he believed the Magi couldn’t be trusted, he used poor Joan to smuggle that evidence off planet.”

  “Humans and Magi might be reproductively compatible?” That certainly changed the prospect of this marriage. “So Max might be able to knock up Echo and me at the same time?”

  Ivy shrugged. “Chromosome counts and stuff are above my security level. Maybe that’s why Joan was sterile, like a mule. A donkey can cross with a horse, but the line doesn’t continue.”

  “Then how does this three-parent sex work?”

  “I don’t know about Magi, but when Laura Llewellyn was pregnant with twins, she needed blood. As one of two candidates that had never contracted an Earth disease, Joan volunteered. She had always loved Stewart and didn’t want to see his children suffer.”

  Rising to her feet, Roz connected the dots. She knew from earlier discussions that the Llewellyn twins had been a fluke. Each of their parents’ seven talents had a 50 percent chance of manifesting, yet they developed only one—a very deep and powerful form of Collective Unconscious. “Joan’s blood carried some of the mitochondrial DNA from the crash site, enabling children of the same egg to communicate with each other over any distance. You’re descended from the twins.” People had reason to mistake Ivy for a Magi.

  “Joan’s death founded the Laurelin world memory. Our bond with her blood is why we’re all buried in her stand of trees. We join that memory. This secret is why I can’t let my blood fall into the wrong hands and why most of our agents die young if we’re injured in the field.” Ivy turned her face away. “Why I’m a freak.”

  Roz embraced her fri
end. “You’re not a freak. My own children are probably going to be like you. I could never look down on you … on family.”

  For the first time in their friendship, Ivy let her guard down completely and wept.

  ****

  At three hours past midnight, the buzz of her ship’s communicator from the hotel nightstand woke Roz. She fumbled to stick it in her ear and not wake Ivy who was lying on the other side of the huge bed. “Huh?”

  Max said, “I need you. Your eye for detail. Downstairs.”

  Roz bolted upright. “What is it? What happened?”

  “God, we shouldn’t have let Kesh go to the cigar club alone. I’m in the back room now. I need your help finding them fast.”

  She was already hopping into a repair jumpsuit and prodding her roommate. “What are you looking for?”

  “Kesh’s fingertips. They declawed him without anesthesia. Any tips I can find in the next hour we can reattach in the regeneration pod on the ship.” Roz recalled the huge tank in the captain’s suite, next to the lone cryogenic sleeper leftover from the last owner. Max sent the club’s GPS coordinates to her wrist unit. “After that, I’ll have to order prosthetics. Deke is waiting in the shuttle to take off as soon as we have the parts.” She had a dozen questions but no time for any of them.

  “Come in the back,” Max said before terminating the link.

  Roz hopped into her boots as she told Ivy, “Knock on Mom’s door. Tell her emergency evacuation. Meet at the shuttle in under sixty minutes.” She opted for the armored jacket, just in case.

  “Screw the luggage. I’m getting you to the exfiltration site safely,” Ivy said, throwing on shorts and a jacket, with not even a T-shirt beneath. The snug jacket resembled latex, accentuating her curves.

  Growling with frustration, Roz pounded on her mother’s door. Herb answered, wearing red boxers and a pistol. She struggled to block out the image. “Someone tortured Kesh. Get everyone and everything back to the shuttle.”

  Ivy tossed her room card to the former cop as she followed Roz to the swank elevator. As they descended, Roz called the front desk for a cab. The club was only a few blocks away, but they would need to race to the spaceport afterward.

  As they crossed the lobby, Roz said, “You look like a hooker in that jacket. Are you chewing gum?”

  “I always maintain the character.”

  The lights in front of the cigar club were out. The cab dropped them in the alley behind, and Roz asked the driver to wait.

  The nearest door had been sheared from its hinges and set awkwardly back in place. “Max is this way.”

  Ivy helped her move the broken door aside. Before they proceeded into the dark, Ivy said, “I sense Max and six Saurians.” She handed Roz a dark, metallic ovoid. “You can’t pull your disappearing trick when someone is watching you. If anything goes wrong, drop this smoke bomb and bail.”

  Roz nodded, with no intention of abandoning her boyfriend. He had taken so long to find. Who knew if she would ever find another? “I’ll be a ninja.” She followed the trail of zip-tied and unconscious Saurians down the hall until she found her fiancé.

  He crouched under a round table covered in white game tiles. Saurian ball chairs had rolled away, and four of the aliens were tied up behind the bar. When Max spotted the ladies, he handed Roz a pair of surgical gloves and a specimen bottle. “I’ve found five of the eight claw tips.”

  Ivy had a weapon out already. “I’ll cover our backs while you search. Did they torture him for information on us or because he was gay?”

  Max shook his head. “Neither. When we couldn’t dock at Cocytus, it was the second missed payment on the loan. Mutilation is the standard punishment. Evidently his brother Zrulkesh missed one before, and he had to carry a Blue Claw crew as insurance. We annoyed them when we violated that restriction. If Kesh misses a third payment, they’ll kill him.”

  “God, I told Kesh they wouldn’t care if he skipped a month or two,” Roz said. “This is my fault.”

  “No. Stop. I can’t keep you from getting hysterical and find his fingers.”

  Ivy interceded. “She’s never been on a battlefield before, but she’ll do fine. Why aren’t you helping Kesh now?”

  “When I found Kesh in the alley, I contacted Deke. A certain female doctor was already with him, fully dressed.”

  Swallowing the hurt, Roz nudged the piles of poker chips and snack food on the floor. “Where did you discover the first five tips?”

  “These guys were using them to bet with.”

  Roz forced out all emotion. “There’s not a lot of blood.”

  “Saurian ceremonial knives are very sharp.”

  “I mean in this room. It’s too tidy. They did the deed in another room and brought the trophies back here to play.”

  Max grabbed her in a brief embrace. “You’re a genius, as usual.” He ran into the bathroom. The mirror and counter had been splattered with blood. Roz couldn’t look as he rummaged through the trash. “I’m sorry I reacted so emotionally. I’m protective of my team. Hellfire. They botched this one. Took them two tries. He must have wiggled. This one, too. Blasted amateurs.”

  Roz turned her head, heaving up the exquisite engagement banquet into a toilet.

  “How do we get even with these guys?” asked Ivy. “Pose them naked in a daisy chain and post the pictures on the web?”

  “No. We stay professional and avoid really pissing them off,” Max replied, bottling the final claw nub.

  Bored, Ivy called Deke on her comm. “Package inbound.”

  As they sidestepped the bodies of two guards, Roz asked, “Did you really take out all six of these Saurian gangsters yourself?”

  “Eh, the security measures were mainly geared for keeping out Bats, not Humans. Reuben took over their cameras. He helped me ambush the guards, and then he set off the fire alarm. The last few were fish in a barrel.” As he peeled off the bloody gloves, Max had an edge to him that both frightened and excited Roz.

  In the alley, Roz nodded to the cab. Holding hands, she led Max to the back seat.

  Ivy climbed in the front seat with her zipper half undone. The gray-muzzled cabby wouldn’t be able to describe any of the other fares based on where he was staring.

  Max asked, “How fast can you get to the spaceport?”

  The cabbie said, “Hold on.”

  While they swerved through the streets at high speed, Roz had time to consider the sequence of events. “Why didn’t you call us sooner?”

  “I needed to keep you safe,” Max whispered in English.

  “I’m glad you didn’t get hurt, but you risked every life in our triad when you invaded that club.” Roz held up her ring. “We make decisions together that affect all of us, or this doesn’t work.”

  He nodded his understanding.

  Chapter 30 – Wishes

  Deke and Roz both worked the bridge controls in order to depart as soon as possible. Roz whispered, “I’m sorry about what happened to Kesh, but I’m glad we left early. Every day that passes here, I worry we’re signing Crakik’s death sentence.”

  “The average prisoner survives four years,” Deke quoted from the documentary.

  Roz flipped switches as she confirmed their fuel and water for the voyage. “He’s a middle-aged physics professor. The sooner the better.”

  “We’re short doctors.”

  “We have your lady, Max, a sick intern, and two nuns. That should be enough,” Roz said. “Any others we can pick up when we stop at the world with the big church.”

  Deke rolled through a complex traffic pattern without batting an eyelash. “We need to install beds and air scrubbers in the cargo slices, as well as reinforcing the physical security between the cargo level and the crew.”

  “The longer we wait on that, the less we pay in extra fuel and the more we earn on cargo. We’ll have the retrofit done at the shipyard, as planned. I’ve already indicated most of the improvements in red marker.” Until safeguards were in place, no one could v
isit Echo’s hidden level. Roz had climbed down the shaft to block access with a metal plate. She had also welded shut the door to the quantum tubes and stacked crates to hide what remained. “What’s really bothering you? A couple of the families on Aviar’s list were willing to pay half the adult cost for each child of theirs we rescue. That’s a win, and we won’t need to break the law.”

  “The governor agreed too easily, and I don’t trust his soldiers,” Deke said, clearing the last layer of spacecraft in the holding pattern. “Someone is going to attack us. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the crown, pirates, or Saurian mob. We need better defenses.”

  “Trust me. I do this for a living. Our linked Icarus fields deflect most lasers and nukes. Armor against high explosives is too expensive to carry because of the added acceleration and deceleration fuel costs.”

  Deke said, “In war time, our haulers used ice armor, which could be converted to propulsion in an emergency.”

  “With fifty crewmen and heavy bots to move the hull pieces. Plus, Bat designs place jets in the rear and armor in the front. This sphere is dotted with thrusters in every direction.”

  Sighing, Deke switched off his display. “Pilot, the helm is yours.”

  Roz steered the ship away from the hubward trade line that ran toward Magi space. “Heading into the spin of the spiral arm. Next stop, Cardiam.”

  “Confirming course to nexus-point two.”

  Everything became a blur of routine as she approached the next jump site. However, now Max ate breakfast with her and her family after her daily workout.

  Family. She glanced down at her new ring for the tenth time that hour. I’m going to be a wife. How weird is that? Would she take Max’s false last name or Echo’s unknown surname? How could she be ready for a new life where she didn’t even know what people would call her?

  ****

  At Cardiam, the ship loaded three shuttle reactors. Roz studied the reactor manual in order to find a way to stow them safely. Without the thermal controller to liquefy the radioactive salts, the system remained inert and safe from meltdown. The factory even gave her the remote shutdown codes in the event of an emergency. Yenang or Grady guarded the reactors at all times. Trusting Ivy, Roz didn’t bother herself with the remainder of the cargo.