Faring Soul - Science Fiction Romance (16 page)

Brant drank. “You either fuck
everything that moves because it keeps up a nice shield of fake
intimacy that no one can get past, or someone has already got past
the shield and you’re in complete denial.”

Bedivere put the bottle down slowly.
“We’re not talking about sex anymore, are we?”

Brant gave him a big smile. “Bright
lad.” He drank deeply.

“I don’t get to fall in love,” Bedivere
said slowly. “That’s not…it isn’t something I get to do.”

“Just watch and absorb, huh?”

“Excuse me?”

“Just out of curiosity, how long have
you known Catherine for?”

“Ninety-nine standard years and a few
months. And now you’re
not
changing subjects, are you?”

“Ninety-nine years. That’s a long time.
And you two have never…?”

Bedivere looked genuinely shocked.
“No.”

“Is that because you already know her
so well, there’s no need for sex?”

Bedivere glanced around. Toward the
door.

“Oh, you can get up and walk away from
this
table,” Brant assured him. “But that’s not going to
take you away from what’s making you want to go.”

Bedivere was breathing harder now. He
stared into the brandy.

Brant finished off his glassful and put
the glass down gently. “One of the two of you needs to stop
pretending. Or you’re just going to go on being unhappy for another
ninety-nine years.”

“I’m not unhappy,” Bedivere said
quickly.

Brant leaned forward. “You’re not
happy, big guy. You’re not even
content
. You stay tucked
away inside this ship, up on the flight deck, like all the
navigating and pilot skills in the galaxy are going to make up for
the big hole in your middle.”

Bedivere got to his feet, showing only
the slightest hint of clumsiness. “You don’t understand. Things
like…love and…” He shook his head. “It’s impossible,” he said
flatly and walked away.

Brant didn’t try to make him stay. He
watched Bedivere’s retreating back and poured another drink.
“Impossible? Glave said the human race was doomed, too,” he
murmured and drank.

Drusiss II, Drusiss Binary. FY
10.070

They emerged from the gate into normal
space at just under light speed, with relativistic tremors rippling
through the ship and the artificial gravity barely able to
compensate. It was one of the highest risk defense maneuvers
Catherine had ever seen, but Bedivere hadn’t even discussed it with
her. He sat at the controls, his expression grim and his gaze on
the readouts.

He had been avoiding her the entire
jump. Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. He’d spent most of his
time on the flight deck and while he was there, there wasn’t any
reason for her to check in. It was just a coincidence that they had
not run into each other anywhere else on the ship, especially the
common room. But that might be because she had spent a lot of time
in her stateroom.

Most of the time, Catherine had been
reading and researching. The search for the answer to “what’s
next?” had suddenly felt urgent and overwhelming. After all, she
reasoned, this next stop at Drusiss would be the last stage of her
commitment to Bedivere and would severe all her current connections
and relationships. She needed direction.

But no answers had presented themselves
and she had found herself mired in mindless entertainment instead.
History books. Novels. Vapid shows that had been distracting for as
long as they had lasted. She even worked her way through every
painstaking report Lilly had sent the College and had come to the
conclusion that Lilly was quite as young and innocent as she had
first seemed.

They had not resolved how the
Federation had found them so quickly on Sunittara and while that
remained a mystery, there was always a chance the Federation would
re-acquire them at the other end of the jump. Despite that risk,
Catherine was almost relieved when they emerged from the jump into
normal space, even at the structure-bending velocity Bedivere was
using.

He quickly realigned the ship, sheering
around the gravity well of the smaller of the two stars, which
didn’t diminish their speed at all. He curved off on a flattened
hyperbolic course toward the planet Drusiss II, the only inhabited
one in the system.

Catherine stayed on the flight deck
long enough to establish that there were no Federation ships for as
far as their sensors could reach, which was a lot farther out than
the ship’s original specs listed. Then she called Brant and Lilly
to the common room.

Brant was the first to arrive.

“Drusiss in two hours,” Catherine told
him. “I thought it was time to let you in on the need-to-know
stuff.”

Brant’s smile was touched with
cynicism. “I didn’t think we were here for the manolillies.”

Manolillies were Drusiss’ major export
and the card that had dealt them into the Federation. The flowers
were sensitive to pheromones and would change color to match the
nearest person.

“I adore manolillies,” Lilly said,
coming into the room. “Growing up, I thought I had been named after
them. What color do they turn for you?”

Catherine grimaced. “A dreadful puce
green that reminds me of vomit.”

Brant grinned.

“They say you can make them change the
color they display for you,” Lilly said. “If you eat acid-based
foods, they do. I’ve seen it.”

“I think I’m acid enough, thanks,”
Catherine said dryly. “Sit down, both of you.”

Brant sat on the edge of the
upholstered bench on the far wall and leaned on his arms. “Of
course, Drusiss is famous for one other export,” he said.

Lilly frowned. “Illegal mules? That’s a
myth, isn’t it? Everyone knows about it, so it can’t be true.”

“Normally, I’d agree,” Brant said. “But
we’re not here for the flowers and Drusiss offers nothing
else.”

“You mean they really do farm illegal
mules? Here? When everyone knows about it?”

“They’re called bootleg mules,”
Catherine said. “A couple of centuries ago, if you needed a
bootleg, this was the only place to come. After a few College and
Ammonite raids—” She glanced at Brant, but he just stared straight
back at her. “—the number of farms dropped down to almost nothing.
But the trade never completely evaporated. Brant, of course, would
have known about that as an enforcer.”

Brant crossed his arms. “The directors
thought it was better to let the few farms that survived stay in
business and keep an eye on them. It was useful to know who wanted
a bootleg mule.”

“Did that monitoring include spies on
the ground?” Catherine asked.

Brant considered her. “Did you hire me
for my combat skills, or my enforcer history?”

“I’m going to need combat skills,”
Catherine assured him. “It’s just happenstance that you’re an
ex-Staffer. You offered that as a selling point when you took the
job, so you can’t withdraw the expertise now.”

Brant scowled. “They weren’t using
spies when I was with them. That doesn’t mean they don’t use them
now.”

Catherine gave a small shrug. “It
doesn’t really matter, anyway. I don’t think the Staff of Ammon are
in the Federation’s pocket any more than the College is. I’m just
wondering what you’ll do if you spot someone you know.”

“Ignore them, most likely. I’ll be too
embarrassed about what I’m doing,” Brant said bluntly. “We’re
really buying a bootleg mule?”

“We really are,” Catherine said.

“He couldn’t get one the normal
way?”

“No. Don’t ask me why because that’s
something I won’t explain. The people we’re dealing with are
understandably twitchy, which is why I wanted you along. Lilly, I’m
going to need you there, too. Once we have the mule, it will be up
to you to make sure it gets back to the ship.”

Lilly twisted her hands together. “All
right,” she said softly. “Can I ask a question?”

Catherine nodded.

“The College told me your first stop
inside the Federation, three years ago, was Harrivalé, where you
went through a full course of rejuvenation. But it takes years to
grow a mule to full maturity.”

“Harrivalé was the first and only world
where I registered as me,” Catherine told her. “But Drusiss was our
first stop. We’ll be picking the mule up early.”

“Then you’re not just going to steal
someone else’s mule?” Brant asked.

Catherine held her face still, hiding
her shock. “No. It’s Bedivere’s mule.”

“Then if you’re just buying a bootleg
mule, why do you need me?” he asked. “If you ignore the fact that
you’re not using a registered and certified mule farm, which tends
to annoy the Federation, it’s a straight-forward business
transaction.”

Catherine headed for the door.
“Dirtside in a hundred and twelve minutes. It’s cold on Drusiss, by
the way. Wear your warmest.”

Lilly turned her head slowly, taking in
the countryside laid out beyond the cargo ramp. “Oh…it’s beautiful!
It’s so…”

“Bucolic,” Brant said shortly, looking
out as he checked the charge on his fletchette gun and shoved it
back into the holster on his hip. Catherine wondered if he had
concealed weapons anywhere else on his body, but she approved of
the open display of weaponry. The LDA was a superior fletchette
weapon and the nano-fletchettes it fired tended to make even the
meanest enemy pause to reconsider.

She was going in with no open weapons,
but that was the point of having Brant with them, especially as
Bedivere refused to carry any weapon at all, even a concealed one
for emergencies. Bedivere stood behind them on the ramp, wearing a
heavy fur-lined coat and boots. He hadn’t spoken to her since
appearing at the top of the ramp and striding down to where they
were prepping to leave.

Catherine thought he looked tired, but
she had learned long ago that trying to coax him to take care of
his physical needs was like trying to contain a supernova. His
stubborn streak would kick in because he thought he knew better
than anyone could advise him.

So she ignored the hint of darkness
under his eyes and looked out at the landscape.

They were deep inside the green belt,
the rich farming land where food crops and the essential
manolillies were grown. There were fields of them here, all budding
and close to maturity. Without the influence of a nearby human, the
buds were all a pale green color and their conical shapes were
waving in a fresh wind blowing from the nearby hills, bobbing atop
the long stalks. The wind swept over the fields like an invisible
hand, stroking the flowers so they bent like napped fabric, showing
sweeps of darker, then lighter patches.

There was what looked like a farmhouse
with a good collection of barns, stables and out-buildings all
around it, about three kilometers ahead.

Bedivere had landed the ship straddling
a stream, to avoid damaging any of the crops on either side. The
chances that their landing had not been noted were next to zero and
as she studied the farmhouse, she saw a trio of ground cars pull
out of the yard next to it and head in their direction, kicking up
plumes of dust that were swept away by the wind.

“We’re on,” she murmured and took one
last glance at Bedivere.

He caught her glance, but his
expression didn’t change. “I suppose it’s too late to say I’ve
changed my mind?”

Catherine felt her jaw unhinge and her
lips part in surprise. Then she spotted the smallest of warm
twinkles in his eyes. “You’re joking!” Relief touched her. If he
could joke, then his distance and moodiness wasn’t as dire as she
had been imagining it to be.

“I’m joking,” he confirmed softly.

The ground cars were coming closer.
There was a cart track paralleling the stream that the ship’s
landing struts were planted upon. The cars were at the far end of
the track.

“Let’s meet them away from the ship,”
Brant suggested. “I don’t like the idea of them being close enough
to lob some exploding nasty into the interior.”

“There’s a thought,” Bedivere murmured
and strode down the ramp and stepped out onto the ground. They
followed him as he struck out down the track.

There were manolilly crops on either
side. Lilly veered off toward the side of the track to study them.
As she bent over them, the buds in front of her changed to a soft
pink color. The color rippled outward in a semicircle. She laughed
and the pink turned darker and shimmered outward again, until it
faded slowly back to soft green.

“Amazing,” Bedivere said. He had come
to a stop in the middle of the track.

Brant was behind them, guarding their
rear. “I thought you said the lillies turned puce green for you?”
he called out.

Catherine looked at him and he pointed
to the field on the other side of the track.

She turned to look. So did Bedivere.
The manolillies closest to her were a soft, deep purple and the
color was spreading out like a glorious spill of ink.

“They’ve never done that before,” she
murmured. “It must be Bedivere who is affecting them. Look, the
point where the change started isn’t directly in front of me.”

“It’s not in front of me, either,”
Bedivere said, from his position five meters down the track.

“It has to be both of you,” Brant
said.

“I’ve never heard of two people
changing them at once,” Lilly said.

The noise of the ground cars was
growing louder.

“About sixty seconds,” Brant murmured
and his hand tightened on the grip of the gun.

They waited.

The cars halted fifteen meters away.
The canopies opened on all three, but only one person got out. He
was a short, grossly obese man, dressed in an oversized coat that
made him seem even larger. The tiny boots protruding beneath the
hem of the coat looked childlike and incapable of carrying his
weight. But he walked swiftly toward them, his completely bald head
gleaming in the fitful sunlight peeking through the clouds
overhead.