Grower's Omen (The Fixers, book #2: A KarmaCorp Novel) (7 page)

I
sniffed
the air as we approached the main cafeteria on Xirtaxis Minor. My stomach was currently voting strongly in favor of my plan to meet the science team on neutral ground. “Something smells delish.”

“Good raw materials.” Glenn had come to fetch me from my quarters just as the dinner bell sounded. “And kitchen techs who know what to do with them.”

Anyone raised on Lightbody family dinners knew the power of good food. Maybe this place wasn’t as wobbly as I’d thought on first impressions. Or maybe it was. I was keeping a careful eye on my companion. His mood had shifted slightly on the short walk from my quarters to the caf, or rather his body language had—from affable welcoming committee to something a little closer to guard dog. I couldn’t pick up personal resonances as well as Kish and Iggy, but I was pretty sure about this one. Xirtaxis Minor’s chief medical thought I might need protecting.

I straightened my shoulders and set my face in the cool, dispassionate look they taught all Fixer trainees. Glenn relaxed slightly. Guard dog realizing that the cute and friendly Grower had a spine.

He navigated us neatly into the line of people making their way past a buffet of food that would have done my aunties proud. I grabbed a plate and surveyed my choices. It all looked real, and incredibly good. Lunch on the
Indigo
felt like it had happened sometime last week.

“If you’re not a picky eater, everything’s tasty,” said the woman across the buffet from me.

I glanced up at her with a smile—and then took a more careful second look. I recognized her from Glenn’s files. Shelley Moritz, recent addition to the gardening team in dome Alpha. Solidly middle-aged, glowing work reviews, not remotely prone to outbursts or flights of fancy. Several weeks back she’d pulled up an entire planting of absinthiums because they were talking too loudly—and given a huge shiner to the very large man who’d tried to stop her.

Shelley met my eyes and gave a quiet, abashed shrug.

I read the unspoken message just fine. She was embarrassed by what she’d done—but unlike the leaders of this biome, she was glad help had arrived.

I wasn’t at all sure how much of that I’d be able to provide just yet, but I knew where to start. I held out my plate as Shelley scooped up some shredded beets. She looked a lot surprised, but carefully dropped a spoonful on my plate. I picked up some kind of stuffed, fried tube with tongs and raised an eyebrow her way. She stared at me for a long moment, head tilted, and then held out her plate.

I made my way companionably along the buffet, exchanging spoonfuls with my food buddy, and chuckling at the growly noises my belly was making. We got at least halfway down the line before I realized how many people were watching us. I cast a quick look at Glenn, but he didn’t look concerned—only a little bemused.

Hmm.

I kept going, and kept helping Shelley fill her plate, but now my Fixer radar was up. It didn’t take too long to realize that everyone else neatly piled food on their own plates—and only their own.

Clearly these people weren’t Lightbodies.

Whatever. Fixers were supposed to blend in as much as possible, but I wasn’t going to apologize for disrupting the culture of a buffet line, especially when that culture needed fixing. Tribes shared food, and the good ones shared it with happiness and generosity of spirit. That was a belief well established in me before I could walk, but I’d spent the last ten years in communities all over the quadrant, and that little piece of wisdom hadn’t been wrong yet.

When we reached the end of the buffet, I smiled a thanks to my temporary partner, and then I turned to Glenn. “Where to?”

“Far left corner by the windows.”

There were windows everywhere, but I assumed he meant the particularly spectacular bank of them at the far end of the caf, with what appeared to be a view of a lovely Japanese water garden. I headed that direction, moving slowly enough to make eye contact with the locals, and quickly enough that they didn’t try to stop me.

And learned plenty before I got to the far left corner.

For three hundred people, this was a very quiet cafeteria. What conversation there was stayed at the individual tables, and the people sitting together tended to be wearing skinsuits or lab coats that matched their table mates. If this was an organism, it was one where the cells didn’t talk much and definitely didn’t mingle.

I also saw more evidence of the recent disturbances. One young man with his arm in a cast—if I remembered rightly, he’d gotten in the way of a sleepwalking scientist and been pushed down a stairwell for his efforts. An older woman with curly hair and paranoid eyes, sitting at a table alone.

And those were just the visible wounds.

I was on high alert by the time I reached the table in the far left corner. It was raised on a small dais and surrounded by eight chairs, five of them filled. I navigated to an empty chair with my back to the gardens. For now, information trumped beauty.

I watched five sets of eyes as I set down my plate and took a seat. Politeness, and a veneer of welcome—but unlike Glenn’s genuine warmth, it didn’t run any deeper than that.

Or that was true for four of them, anyhow. The man on my far left was a study in dark and handsome, and as distant as the craters of Pluton.

“This is Mary Louise Bastur, and her husband, John.” Glenn had begun introductions, and I yanked my attention back to where it was supposed to be. “They head up the science team here on Xirtaxis Minor.”

Mary Louise was clearly the force to be reckoned with, and her eyes said she wasn’t yet certain whether she planned to let me do any reckoning or not. “I don’t know what you can do that we haven’t already done, Grower, but we’ll appreciate whatever useful assistance you can provide.”

I was fluent enough in diplomatic fencing to translate that just fine. She wasn’t expecting to find me useful.

Her husband smiled, his eyes kind. “I’ll be happy to show you around our facilities at your convenience. We’ve got some lovely gardens, and a hothouse facility you might find particularly interesting.”

His words were much more pleasant, but they translated exactly the same as hers. If I didn’t want to be pushed into irrelevance here, gently or otherwise, I was going to have to take a stand. I was, however, wise enough not to do it quite yet. I nodded mildly and turned to the next face at the table—fast enough to catch the quickly veiled surprise.

There was a lot of that going around this evening.

“This is Anastasia Toli.” Glenn kept the introductions rolling. “She keeps the labs running smoothly.”

She held out a businesslike hand for me to shake. “Welcome to Xirtaxis Minor, Dr. Lightbody. Everyone calls me Toli. If you need anything during your stay here, I’ll be happy to help you or find someone who can.”

She reminded me very much of the man who headed up our labs back home. Pragmatic, competent, and not remotely scared of skin contact with a Grower. She’d also made sure to recognize me as a scientist with a PhD of my own, which was causing some interesting ripples down the table. I shook her hand, my Talent registering the same personality my eyes had already figured out. “Most people call me Tee.”

It was too bad the labs were low on my suspect list. If the problems here resided in Toli’s domain, they’d be easy enough to deal with. That wasn’t the vibe I was getting from her, however. She wanted me to get this solved, and she’d help in any way she could—but she thought her turf was clean, and my instincts said to believe her.

Which made me very interested in the last two faces at the table, because their turf was the botanical domes. I turned to the man with the sexy face, noting that his eyes were no longer distant, and held out my hand.

He clasped it in both of his, eyes firmly on mine. “Welcome, Dr. Lightbody. I’m Jerome Salmera, the lead researcher here when I’m not out in the domes getting my hands in the dirt.”

His hands didn’t speak of dirt at all—they spoke of something far more primal and dangerous. I could feel every hair on my skin lifting, my Talent raising an unnecessary alert. This was wild overkill, even if the man fancied himself the resident Lothario. And it was blinding my Talent to reading much of anything else.

Time to use my eyes.

I let go of his hand to dampen the energetic overload, and watched his face. A flicker of disappointment maybe, nothing more—and the distance was back. I set my hands down on my thighs, trying to release the crackling energy somewhere reasonable. Touch rarely backfired in my line of business, but this was one of those rare times. “I often play in the dirt back home—I’ll look forward to a tour of your domes as soon as I get the chance. How many are there?” It was an inane question, and one I already knew the answer to, but I needed to get him talking.

Which didn’t happen.

The fifth person at the table, not yet introduced, leaned forward. “We have seven in active operation, one in renewal. Primarily we work on terraforming species here, and we have five domes set to simulate a specific range of ecological conditions that we tend to find on colonizable planets. I manage those, beta testing species that are close to ready for release.” He paused to take a bite of his dinner and then kept talking as he chewed. “The other two are Jerome’s, for plantings still in the very experimental stages.”

It was clear what he thought about anything that raw and messy. I smiled, and wondered if maybe his ordered brain was finding a way to express itself elsewhere. He wouldn’t be the first sensitive found under that kind of rock.

He swallowed and gave me a dirty look. “I’m Gordie, by the way. And whatever the hell is going on here, it’s not happening in my domes.” He glared at the table in general. “None of my people are having these bullshit dreams and behavior problems. They’re all solid.”

Solid wasn’t a defense against psychological trauma, but I’d argue that later if I needed to. In the meantime, he’d raised a point I was curious to push on. “Are there patterns in who has been affected? Particular work zones or living proximities?” I watched the table carefully, interested in how they would react to another question I already knew the answer to.

Gordie just kept glaring, but I could see the other people at the table exchanging looks. They were scientists—and good scientists follow the data, even if they find it distasteful.

In this case, something clearly didn’t taste good.

Jerome offered a charming smile. “They don’t want to tell you that most of the affected people work in the experimental domes.”

I smiled back, utterly confused by the man. He’d changed his skin at least three times since I’d sat down. “That must be difficult, watching the people you work with experience problems you can’t solve.”

I could hear Glenn’s quietly hissed breath beside me. Apparently most people didn’t poke at Dr. Lothario, at least not this directly.

Jerome leaned forward, every inch the amenable, earnest scientist. “Of course it is. It affects the work, and it affects the human climate we work in.”

I was still trying to catch up with the skin shifting. “Tell me about your work.”

He looked over at the two head scientists, clearly handing this one off—and surprising me again.

“We specialize in symbiosis, in engineering species for cooperation and co-dependence.” John Bastur leaned forward, as if suddenly realizing his job as tour guide risked being usurped. “We seek to build terraforming species that can work well together with native life forms.”

Planetary colonization—with respect. I very much supported their goals, even if it didn’t appear to be something they put into practice in their own lives. This cafeteria could have done with a good injection of communal ethos.

Not what I’d come here to fix, but it grated all the same. Human beings are wired to connect, to love, to be a part of something greater. I looked at Glenn and Toli, heads close together in quiet, animated conversation. The ingredients for community lived here, and whatever my stated mission was, I’d be giving those ingredients a push. It was more than how I worked—it was who I was.

I took a bite of my food and tried to keep an open mind. I’d barely begun to explore Xirtaxis Minor—now was the time to be collecting first impressions, not coming to conclusions. And probably not the time to be ignoring the two people in charge, either. I swallowed hastily and turned my attention back to John Bastur. “Tell me about the problems you’ve been having.”

“I believe it was all in our report,” he said smoothly. His wife stiffened beside him.

The report had been a wealth of bland sentences with very little meaning. “I read your briefing, but I always prefer to hear directly from the people who have their finger on the pulse of things.”

I didn’t miss Toli’s discreet eye roll—or John’s chest quietly puffing up. The quintessential bureaucrat, happy to be seen as important. He glanced at Mary Louise. “It was Glenn who first brought the pattern to our attention.”

Gordie was back to scowling. “I’m not convinced anything is going on. Just some people who are weak in the head.”

By believing so, he was weakening his own community and their ability to solve this. His voice was loud enough that I could see the surrounding tables reacting—and there were a lot of uncomfortable shuffles. Not everyone agreed with the folks at the head table.

Which meant that if I wanted to get a read on what was really going on, I needed to head underground.

I looked across the table at Toli. “Mind if I drop by the labs in the morning?”

She looked a little surprised, but nodded. “Sure thing. I’m there by skybreak. Ask anyone, they’ll know where to find me.”

It would give me a place to start, even if I was already betting that the labs weren’t where this would end. I’d place the rest of my bets after I did some thinking.

And took another pass through Glenn’s files.

S
trange
, dark, black. And not.

Couldn’t see, could never see.

Wind on my cheeks, too cool, too hot. Stirrings. Needs. Yearnings.

Feet that refused to move. Stuck in cool darkness, potent dim. Offers of nourishment.

I didn’t want food.

Fingertips yearning for the sky, the color, the bright. Hot edges. Too long in the sky, not enough cool.

Needing different. Desiring new.

Skin too tight, a world too small. Breath that is never quite enough.

Seen, but not seen.

No one understands.

I could feel myself waking up. Cranky, groggy, shuddering as the experience of
other
slithered off into the dark night air.

The details evaporated even as I tried to chase them.

Skin too tight. Breath not enough.

All that remained was feeling. Far too much of it, and not mine. Fractious, hot resonances.

No one understands.

My scientist brain knew that I had just gotten a front-row seat to the little problem happening here on Xirtaxis Minor.

The rest of me, aching with the residues of interrupted sleep and the energies that had crashed into it, wasn’t ready to analyze anything yet.

I stumbled to my feet in the dark, knowing exactly what I did need, and cursing the travel lag that was doubling the gravitational pull of my bed. I managed to make it out of my quarters without walking into a wall—barely.

Scrubbing my eyes with my fists, I lurched into the dimly lit hall and tried to pull up a map in my head. I would sleep again, and soon—but first I needed to shed skin that felt too tight.

There were two places I went when I woke up hard, and since a warm pair of arms wasn’t something I knew how to find here yet, I’d gone for the other option.

I sighed in gratitude as the first set of doors to experimental dome Alpha slid silently open when I approached. Apparently Mary Louise Bastur hadn’t revoked the access she’d very grudgingly given me after dinner. I’d known I would need to wander freely—I just hadn’t realized I’d be doing it in the middle of the night.

I stood patiently as the air intakes did a basic job of giving me a vacuuming.

My chakras felt jostled, disconnected. Kind of like how I generally felt while in a tin can on an interstellar journey. Not how I’d expected to feel in a biome with plenty of very nice dirt.

The doors on the other end of the small decon area opened, and I stepped out, tugged by air that finally smelled right.

The first visuals were stunning.

The dome, on a different diurnal cycle than the main habitat, was just shifting to skydusk, shading the light in the grays and pinks and pearls of the inside of an oyster shell. Gorgeous, understated backdrop to an organic, architectural wonderland. A garden exquisitely planned—and so delightfully random that it teased you to believe it might have been born that way.

I took two careful steps off the pathway into a bed of orange and yellow. Some kind of California poppy hybrid, cheerful and clearly better behaved than its wildly spreading Earth ancestor.

This wasn’t remotely what I’d expected. From Gordie’s description, I’d expected to find dirt and plants subsumed to scientific progress. Nothing could be further from the truth. There was order here, and beauty, and a sense of timeless presence. Plants were likely rotated in and out of this garden on a very regular basis, but the overall resonance was one of harmony, permanence, and productive peace.

It told me more about the man who had created it than meeting him ever had. Which was important, because I’d spent some time before I’d gone to sleep digging into the personnel and incident files again, and I’d placed my bets squarely on Dr. Salmera and his experimental domes.

Now I was going to have to go revise those bets.

I could see here what I hadn’t seen in the cafeteria. A beautiful, interdependent community. It told me two things. First, whatever was wrong on Xirtaxis Minor, I couldn’t believe it came from here. The dreams and behaviors were damaging, hurting a tribe that was already pretty darn dysfunctional. No plant that grew in a garden like this would be causing that.

And whatever I might have felt from Jerome Salmera over dinner, a man who could create this was good people.

I didn’t know yet why he wore so many masks, but my gut, drinking in the tranquil beauty around me, said that I needed to look somewhere else for the roots of the problem. An unhappy underling, maybe, or a project gone wrong.

In the morning, I’d find Toli and tour the labs. Until then, I needed to catch some sleep—the kind without any dream invaders.

Fortunately, I had just the potion for that—and now I had enough peace of mind to use it.

I thanked the dirt I hadn’t even touched, and turned to go. I would be back.