Seeds of Gaia

by Rick Partlow

  “Citizen Danabri,” Priscilla returned his harsh glare, “I am not here to make your job easier, I am here to accomplish our mission by whatever means necessary.” Her expression softened a bit. “I do apologize for not warning you, but I wasn’t certain if the representative would be a man or a woman, so I couldn’t be sure if I would use the pheromones or not.”

  “Just what other…situations would you use this ability for?” Sam asked as carefully as he could phrase the question, trying to read her expression.

  “I assure you, Captain,” she replied, her eyes frosting over with a look that sent a shiver up Sam’s spine, “that I would never use such measures for anything but the direst of emergencies and under direct orders of my superiors.”

  “You would never need to,” Sam said, and he could see the cold look in her eye soften a bit. He thought he could see a hint of regret in that ice-blue stare.

  “We need to get back,” she said quietly, turning and heading down the street.

  Danabri looked at Sam with something that was almost sympathy and then followed Priscilla. Sam let out a deep sigh, shook his head and set off after them. As if things hadn’t been complicated enough…

  Chapter Six

  “How are you feeling?” Sam asked Devon, sitting on the edge of the table beside her bed. He felt guilty that he hadn’t had a chance to see her since she woke, but if she felt any resentment she didn’t show it.

  “I’m just fine, sir,” she smiled. “Arm is almost like new.” She pulled down the edge of her shirt to show the fading red line that was all that remained of the bone-deep cut she’d suffered from the assassins. “Carlos wanted me to stay in bed till tomorrow just to make sure there were no psychological complications.”

  “Are there any?” Sam wondered, looking her in the eye. “Any nightmares?”

  “Not so far,” she told him. “I mean, it wasn’t something I want to go through every day, but I’m not exactly a cadet on her first training mission.”

  “I don’t know, Devon.” Sam sighed heavily. “The longer this mission goes on, the more I feel like a cadet.”

  “That bad, sir?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow.

  “Nothing seems to make any sense,” he admitted, shaking his head. “I can’t figure out what the Consensus is trying to do, and what scares me is that Mawae and Priscilla can’t figure it out either and they’re both a hell of a lot smarter than I am.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, sir,” Devon said quietly, putting a hand on top of his. “You’re the best commanding officer I’ve ever had.”

  “I appreciate that,” he said, patting her hand. “I really do. But I can’t shake the feeling we’re being manipulated, and I don’t even know who’s doing the manipulating.”

  “From what I gather, you don’t think the Earth contingent here had anything to do with the assassination attempt,” Devon said.

  “It sure didn’t seem like it. But that raises the question, how could anyone have known about that tapestry; and if they did know, why didn’t they do something earlier?”

  “Maybe what we’re dealing with is some faction among the Earthers,” Devon theorized, eyes narrowing, focusing on something outside the bulkheads. “I know we all talk about the Consensus like it’s one big monolithic entity, but they haven’t had a united government for as long as we have. Maybe there’s infighting going on.”

  “That’s a good point,” Sam mused, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. “And we may not even be dealing with solely political factions either; the Naturalist Society has a lot of power in the Consensus government. Hell, they were the ones who started funding the raids on our shipping. We might be looking at a religious rift as well.”

  “Are you going to tell Priscilla about the idea?”

  “I suppose I should,” he muttered without enthusiasm. She had been avoiding his company since their confrontation in the street the day before and he wasn’t eager to face her this soon.

  “She makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t she?” Devon deduced and Sam had to remind himself she couldn’t know what had occurred between the two of them.

  “I don’t know how to deal with her, either on a personal or a professional level,” Sam sighed. He knew he shouldn’t be sharing these sorts of thoughts with a subordinate, but if there was anyone on the crew who he trusted with his personal feelings, it was Devon. “She’s a giant question mark, and not just because she lacks a title.”

  “I know what you mean.” Devon nodded. “But that can’t be easy for her, you know. How would you feel if people constantly didn’t know how to deal with you?”

  “I guess I would feel a bit like Mawae,” Sam said with a chuckle. “Damn, there’s someone else I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t met them. You know something, Devon, it wasn’t just a couple months ago that I thought I had life all figured out and pigeon-holed into nice, neat categories.”

  “Isn’t that always when everything comes flying apart?” she observed wryly.

  “You get better.” Sam patted her on the hand again, standing abruptly. “I need you back on the job tomorrow. You’re obviously the smartest person on this ship.”

  “Well if it took an assassination attempt for you to figure that out,” Devon said with a broad grin, “then it was almost worth it.”

  ***

  “It’s an interesting theory,” Priscilla allowed, dangling her bare feet over the edge of the bunk in her cabin. He’d come to her compartment straight from Devon’s and found her getting ready for bed, dressed in a light, almost transparent shift, her hair disheveled ever so slightly in a way that seemed designed to drive Sam crazy. He was already beginning to sweat and he knew no artificial pheromones were responsible.

  “Yes.” He nodded, trying to drag his thoughts kicking and screaming back to the subject of Devon’s theory. “It would seem to make sense that at least the ambassador and his party were unaware of the attempt, if for no other reason than plausible deniability.”

  “The key is the tapestry,” she declared. “If they waited till now to make a play for it, they must not have known about it till we came here.”

  “You think the other…faction knew about the tapestry and the ones that tried to kill us found out from them after we got here?”

  “Well, we’re just spit-balling here,” she admitted, shrugging, “but knowing something about the Naturalist Society, I would venture a guess that if your navigator’s idea is correct, they would be the ones responsible for the attack. They run the Consensus government in all but name. My question would be who their opposition is, who knew about this but wasn’t telling them?”

  “If there is some sort of opposition party in the Consensus government, why would they keep the threat a secret?”

  “Maybe because they knew we’d find out about it and offer to help,” Priscilla mused.

  “Damn,” Sam breathed, leaning back against the bulkhead, his earlier arousal faded and forgotten as his brain crunched this new data. “I’m just a Patrol Captain, I am way out of my league with all this crap.”

  “You’re doing fine, Sam,” she assured him. “This isn’t exactly your typical diplomatic mission. And I’m afraid I haven’t made it any easier by my actions last night.”

  Sam blinked, taken aback by unspoken apology.

  “I knew what I was doing,” he told her, offering his own. “I think we’re both professional enough to not let it interfere with the mission.”

  Priscilla’s eyes blinked downward in thought for just a moment and then she smiled warmly.

  “I’ll do my best to avoid springing any more surprises on you,” she promised.

  “Don’t say that,” Sam shook his head, stepping over to take her hand in his. “I’ve come to appreciate discovering the surprising things about you.”

  She reached up and guided him down to a kiss that began as a friendly, tender gesture, but gained passion as it persisted. Suddenly the feelings Sam had experienced when he first entered the room returned full force
and he slipped the light shift off of her shoulders, guiding it over her breasts with his open palm and lingering there. She worked at the fastenings of his uniform and he impatiently yanked off the garments, and then bore her down to the bunk beneath him.

  Captain, the voice of the ship’s computer said in an apologetic tone over his neurolink, I hate to bother you at this time of night, but we have an incoming message from the Consensus Embassy.

  Display a ViR image of me, Sam ordered Raven, not pausing in his attentions toward Priscilla, and patch my neurolink signal through a voice simulation.

  Aye sir.

  “This is Captain Avalon,” a visual and audio replica constructed by the Raven’s computer announced over the ship’s communicator.

  The image that appeared in a part of Sam’s mind was, surprisingly enough, not the Consensus Ambassador or one of his secretaries; instead, it was the female security officer he remembered from the meeting.

  “Captain,” she said, “I am Guardian Prime Telia Proctor. I have been designated to accompany you to Harmony Base on Luna for continuation of the negotiations with the Consensus government.”

  “The decision has been made already?” Sam asked in honest surprise. He was so shocked that he actually paused in mid-motion and sat up in bed.

  “What is it?” Priscilla frowned.

  Damn.

  “We’ve got an incoming message from the embassy,” he told her. “They’re going to let us go all the way to Luna for continued negotiations.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Telia Proctor’s image replied, oblivious to his real-time conversation with Priscilla. “I will be reporting to your ship in the morning and we will depart immediately.”

  “With whom will we be meeting?” Priscilla’s ViR representation joined Sam’s in the transmission, Raven’s machinations making it appear she had walked up next to the man.

  “Deputy Minister Tejado will be in charge of negotiations,” Proctor told her. “It will be his decision whether you are allowed to proceed to a further meeting with the Prime Minister. Now if there are no further questions, I must begin preparations to leave.”

  “We look forward to having you aboard,” Priscilla’s image nodded and the transmission ended.

  Priscilla and Sam abruptly found themselves back in her bed. Sam looked down and sighed.

  “What’s wrong?” Priscilla asked, beaming. “It’s great news! I thought they might take weeks to make that decision!”

  “Yeah, it’s wonderful,” Sam nodded. “It’s just that…well, it kind of killed the romance.”

  She glanced down and grinned. “I’m sure there’s something we can do about that,” she said, gathering her knees beneath her and bending down into his lap.

  Sam gasped, the warmth enveloping him like a womb. He felt as if every nerve in his body was crammed into a few centimeters of flesh, and his former arousal quickly returned; but when he tried to pull away, she held onto him and continued her ministrations with even more enthusiasm. Realizing her intentions, Sam leaned back and enjoyed the ride, losing himself in the sensation. When the inevitable happened, Priscilla didn’t pull away, instead letting the results flow into her and gently squeezing him dry.

  “My God,” Sam breathed, finally pulling her into his arms, “that was incredible. You’re incredible.”

  “Would you believe me if I told you I’d never done that before?” she asked teasingly.

  “Right now,” Sam replied with a smile, “I would believe you if you told me you were Spencer’s Fairie Queen brought to life by some Celtic goddess.”

  Sam thought he saw the shadow of a frown pass across her face, and he wondered for a moment if he’d said the wrong thing, but she quickly covered it by pulling him into a passionate kiss.

  “I’m no goddess, Sam,” she whispered, holding him tightly. “I’m a woman. Make me feel like a woman tonight…”

  ***

  “She’s a stiff-backed bruiser, isn’t she?” Arvid muttered, watching on the cockpit’s external monitor as Telia Proctor approach across the fusion-formed concrete. Her starched uniform was spotless and she managed to walk at attention even with a pair of heavy travel bags in her hands.

  “Yeah, well you’d be stiff-backed too,” Carlos told him, eyes locked to the sensor readout, “if you were carrying the kind of cybernetics she is.”

  “What do you mean?” Sam asked, stepping up behind the two men. They turned, startled at the presence of their captain.

  “Well, sir,” Carlos explained with a shrug, “sensor reads show she’s nearly half cybernetic.” He waved at the readout screen, which exhibited a thermal view of the approaching Consensus Security officer. “An eye, an ear, both legs, both arms, heart, looks like one lung, a kidney…major reinforcement of her spine, shoulders and hips. She’s carrying some sort of isotope reactor to power the whole thing.” The medic shook his head. “Gotta be a bitch getting rid of waste heat…she must have some sort of liquid nitrogen coolant system in there.”

  “Can you tell if it’s straight prosthetics,” Sam asked, “or is she boosted?”

  “Gotta be boosted,” Carlos opined. “No need for that much skeletal reinforcement for prosthetics.”

  “The Consensus still uses cybernetic prosthetics?” Arvid asked in disbelief. “That’s barbaric!”

  “Biotech is illegal in the Consensus,” Sam informed the man. “More than illegal, it’s considered an act of religious heresy.” He glanced up at the viewscreen and saw that the woman was nearly to the ship. “All right, enough snooping, let’s go greet our guest properly.” He smiled crookedly. “After all, she could break every one of us in half…”

  Priscilla, Devon and Danabri were already gathered just inside the open hatchway at the head of the boarding ramp, Danabri gabbing at Devon about something or other. The Sensitive seemed to talk to Devon more than anyone else, most likely because she was polite enough to not walk away from him, Sam imagined.

  Sam stepped up next to Priscilla and surreptitiously gave her hand a squeeze. She returned it, giving him a quick smile before putting her business face back on and turning to meet the approaching Consensus officer. Telia Proctor strode up the ramp, halted in front of Priscilla and Sam, and dumped her bags on the deck.

  “I greet you in the holy name of the Human Consensus.” The security officer saluted formally.

  Sam returned her salute, feeling a bit awkward. “Welcome aboard the Resolution Patrol vessel Raven, Guardian Prime Proctor,” he said. “I sincerely hope that your presence will offer all of us a chance to learn more about each other’s cultures.”

  “I am not here to exchange cultural information, Captain Avalon,” she replied with iron in her voice. “I am here in my capacity as a Guardian both to ensure your safety and to ensure the safety of the people of the Consensus from you. The best thing for all concerned will be if our relationship is brief.”

  “Certainly, Guardian Prime,” Priscilla interjected. “Our thanks for clearing up that misconception.”

  “You must follow this course exactly,” Proctor told Sam, handing him a dataspike. “Any deviation from it will be considered an act of war and this ship will be destroyed.”

  “There won’t be any deviation from us,” Sam grunted, tossing the dataspike back to Devon.

  “Our only intent is to aid the Consensus in saving itself from this threat,” Priscilla said. “We will cooperate with you however we must to do this.”

  “Your assurances are wasted on me.” Proctor fixed her with a cold stare. “I have neither the authority nor the inclination to pass them on to my superiors. My only purpose is to do that for which I was created, to guard. You against us, us against you. Do you understand me?”

  Priscilla gave her a look that Sam couldn’t decipher, something between a grin and a grimace. “I understand better than you think, Guardian Prime. Medical Officer Raines,” she nodded to Carlos, “will see you to your cabin.”

  Proctor wordlessly picked up her bags and followed Carlos i
nto the ship, leaving the rest to stand there staring at their wake.

  “Damn,” Sam hissed, still prickling at the security officer’s attitude. “If it isn’t bad enough that we have a walking weapon sent here to spy on us, she’s also a complete and utter prick about it.”

  Danabri turned to Sam, nodding, a sappy smile on his face. “I think I’m in love.”

  Chapter Seven

  “I guess this is some kind of historic occasion,” Sam mused as he and Priscilla sat in the control room, watching the Earth and her moon grow on the forward screens. “Aren’t we the first Resolution citizens to be allowed to land on Luna?”

  “I have a feeling,” Priscilla replied, “that before this is over, we will be up to our necks in historic occasions.”

  “Or court-martialed,” Sam agreed.

  “Or dead,” Devon muttered from her duty station so softly that Sam barely heard her.

  Sam saw Telia glance sharply at the navigator, but the Earthwoman didn’t offer a comment. She hadn’t said half a dozen words on the trip despite Danabri’s best efforts at engaging her in what was, for him, pleasant conversation.

  “So Telia,” Danabri tried again, twisting around in his acceleration couch to speak to her, ignoring the way she scowled when he used her first name, “are the bionics a job requirement or an occupational hazard?”

  Sam’s jaw dropped and even Priscilla, for once, seemed nonplussed. There wasn’t a sound from anyone in the control room as they watched Telia Proctor’s eyes snap wide open and the line of her jaw harden. She seemed to be leaning against her seat restraints, testing to see whether she could break through them, when Danabri spoke again, apparently oblivious to the display.

  “If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.” He shrugged. “I’d just hate to think that someone with the natural genetic gifts you were so obviously born with would have to willingly sacrifice them.” He speared Priscilla with a glance. “It would sadden me to see someone used in that manner.”