The Outback Stars (23 page)

“Not down here,” the first man said. “You're sure she came this way?”

“Someone killed that secbot.”

A third man spoke, answering a question she couldn't hear. “Not yet! Don't let them interfere. They're ours, no one else's.”

“Lieutenant Scott!” It was the second man again. He sounded older and angrier than the others. “It's your duty to cooperate. All we want to do is ask some questions.”

She still didn't think they were local law enforcement. Team Space security? Men from Fleet? Why try to cart her off so quickly and forcibly, and without a good reason? The law-abiding part of her wanted to show herself, clear up any misunderstandings. The cautious part warned her that going off with armed and deceitful strangers was never a good idea.

Footsteps came closer. “Lieutenant, you're just making things worse.”

A radio squawked somewhere. The second man said, “They lost them, fuck them all—we've got to move!”

Running footsteps, a slamming door, and silence. Jodenny waited, listening hard, but they didn't return. After several minutes she dropped to the floor as quietly as possible. There, in the distance, a conveyer belt stretched toward thick rubber flaps. Cautiously, keeping in the shadows, she made her way to it. The warehouse remained quiet and calm. They really had just gone off and left her. She wriggled through the flaps to an empty parking lot and a sky tinged gold with sunset. The fresh air was as refreshing as a drink of cold water.

But she wasn't totally in the clear. A flit was parked at the front of the building and two men were sitting inside. Jodenny pulled back before they could see her. The fence at the back of the parking lot had a gap in it, and on the other side was freight yard where a mag-lev train was beginning to roll away.

Jodenny squeezed through the fence, sprinted after the caboose, grabbed a handrail, and swung up to a small grated platform. “Not so difficult,” she said, to cheer herself up, but when she rattled the caboose door it refused to open. Damn it. The entire train was probably automated, with no human crew onboard to assist her. Because she had no desire to end up on the other side of the planet she leaned over, but the dry hard ground was rushing by faster and faster. Leaping would certainly lead to injury or death.

“Fine,” Jodenny grumbled, and eased herself to a sitting position on the platform. She tried to catch her breath and calm the hammering of her heart. She reached for her gib, hoping to enlist Holland's expertise, but her belt loop was empty. She'd left it in her room, along with the rest of her things.

Jodenny buried her face in her hands until the lights of New Christchurch were gone. The mag-lev raced parallel to the evening traffic on the Bethlehem Parkway, but probably no one could see her sitting on the platform. She was glad that it was a summer night, not the dead of winter, and though her gib was back in her room she at least had her ID and some money. When the train made its first stop or slowed down enough for her to jump safely, she would simply hire a flit and get back to civilization.

And do what? Make a report, she supposed. Face the real police, if they came asking about that secbot. Try to find out who the men were that had followed her into the warehouse, and why they didn't want her to follow Quenger and Nitta.

The caboose shielded her from the wind, but the train's speed had picked up and the ride wasn't as smooth as it might look from afar. The tracks hooked east across dark cornfields. Jodenny tried pinpointing the
Aral Sea
above but its orbit had taken it to the other side of the planet. She consulted her watch. Seventy-two hours until departure. If she didn't make it back before then she would be AWOL, and if she couldn't report to a Team Space office within thirty days she would be labeled a deserter.

“Don't be silly,” she told herself.

Mary River's small gray moon rose above the horizon and cast light onto a distant set of Spheres. The moon, like the Seven Sisters themselves, had been modeled on Earth and its satellite. It reminded her that there were forces and mysteries in the universe much greater than herself, and brought an odd sort of comfort. Some unknown race of beings had made those Spheres, built the Alcheringa, terraformed seven planets for human habitation, and made space travel viable for humans. She didn't believe they still existed, as some did. She didn't believe they were looking out for her or any other human. But she did like to think there was some kind of plan for her life, and that whatever she did, she couldn't mess it up beyond repair.

Jodenny leaned back and relaxed. A short time later the train slowed down at a crossing and she gathered enough courage to hop off. The distance to New Christchurch was too far to walk, but she had seen a farmhouse a few kilometers back and she used the stars to navigate her way. Again she was glad for the mild weather. The farmhouse was brightly lit and surrounded by a dozen or so flits. Noise and fiddle music spilled out of the windows, causing her to hesitate. A group of men had gathered to talk on a side porch, and their voices carried easily on the breeze.

“It's the extremists,” someone was saying. “Giving us all a black eye. We're going to have to branch off, split into our own group.”

Another man disagreed. “Can't split up now. Not now that everyone's realizing how serious the movement is.”

“Serious is making an economic impact,” a third man said. “Not blowing up a ship.”

Startled, Jodenny crouched low behind a bush. They were members of the Colonial Freedom Project, or at least sympathetic to the cause. She fisted her hands and dug her fingernails into her palms. So many dead on the
Yangtze,
all because of terrorists who wanted to strike out against Team Space's monopoly on the Alcheringa. Their senseless violence had served to solidify public opinion against them, but it had come at too dear a cost as far as Jodenny was concerned.

The front door of the farmhouse opened. A small dog barreled out, circled three times to make a spot for urination, and then honed in on Jodenny with furious barks.

“Sparkplug!” a woman called out. “Stop that ruckus!”

Jodenny nearly panicked, wondering whether it would be better to flee or try to hide, but she decided to show herself. “Sorry, that's probably me he's all worried about. I hate to bother you, but I was on my way to New Christchurch and got stranded. I'm looking for a ride.”

An elderly woman with silver braids stepped off the porch and smiled warmly at her. “Sure enough, you're a long way from everywhere. Come on in, child.”

The woman pulled her inside the warm, cozy farmhouse, where adults were waltzing in a large living room that had been cleared of furniture. The shindig looked more like a birthday party or barn social than a clandestine meeting of the CFP. A buffet table filled with a lavish amount of food took up most of the hall, and children in suits and dresses kept darting by to poke their fingers into desserts and frosted cakes. In no short order Jodenny had been steered to a corner chair with a heaping plate of food balanced in her lap.

“My boyfriend and I had a fight—” she tried to explain, but Mrs. Jackson, her hostess, merely handed her a glass of wine.

“The Lord brought you here.” Mrs. Jackson patted her hand. “There's no mistaking that. Now, you eat and drink, and I'll be back in a bit.”

Jodenny drank the wine. Not so bad, really. The fiddlers in the living room stopped for a round of applause, then launched into a new song. A very pregnant woman in a blue dress shuffled by, both hands supporting her back, and Jodenny immediately offered up her chair.

“Thanks,” the woman said, sitting in obvious relief. “You must be the stranger Mrs. Jackson's going on about. I'm Dottie.”

Jodenny offered her hand. She had already decided using her real name wasn't a wise idea. “Kay.”

“Got lost, did you?” Dottie asked.

“More than you can imagine.”

Dottie leaned back. She had a pretty face, pink and glowing the way only pregnant women ever managed. “Well, the last bus went through hours ago. Tomorrow's the Sabbath and no devout believer will drive, but maybe my brother-in-law will take you where you need to go.”

“I'd be very grateful.”

“When my husband wanders through we'll grab him,” Dottie said.

Dottie's husband Colby came by a few minutes later. He looked vaguely familiar to Jodenny, but she figured that after one more glass of wine everyone at the party would look like an old friend. “So how'd you get stranded out here anyway?” Colby asked, a glint in his eye. “Not like it's on the way to anywhere special.”

“Bad luck,” Jodenny said, “compounded with bad timing.”

“Been there myself,” Colby said.

Mrs. Jackson came by with more desserts. “Well, that sounds fine,” she said, upon hearing the plan. “Tonight you can stay here with us, Kay. We'll be having services at sunrise, and it's great having guests.”

Dottie started to lever herself upright. “Actually, we've asked Kay to stay with us. Always a spare sofa around, that's our motto.”

Colby helped his wife up. “Is it? Good. Everyone needs a motto.”

The flit ride to Colby and Dottie's place only took fifteen minutes or so. Jodenny sat in the rear, dead tired but as alert as she could make herself. She was grateful that neither of her hosts were pressing her about the circumstances that had brought her to the countryside, but worried that Colby was one of the men she'd overheard on the porch. It wouldn't do any good at all to deliver herself to the CFP, especially if they found out she was from Team Space. Colby and Dottie spoke softly in the front, their words too low for Jodenny to hear over the engines.

“I don't mean to be an imposition,” Jodenny said. “I can go back to Mrs. Jackson's.”

Dottie turned around and gave her a weary smile. “Don't you worry. I wouldn't leave a pet with that woman, not unless I wanted it proselytized by morning.”

Minutes later Colby was bringing the flit to a stop in front of a low farmhouse set on a hillside. Clouds had gathered overhead, hiding the moon and stars. A man stepped off the farmhouse's front porch as they approached, his features hidden in the dark.

“How'd everything go?” Colby asked, circling around the flit to help Dottie out.

“No structural damage,” the other man said, and Jodenny immediate recognized the voice. Sergeant Myell stepped closer to the light of the flit dome. “They're finally asleep, and if you wake them I'll kill you both.”

“Good,” Colby said. “We brought home a guest, Terry. Hope you don't mind.”

She'd never seen Myell out of uniform before. He was wearing jeans and a cream-colored sweater and was barefoot. He hadn't shaved in a few days, lending him a rough and roguish air, and he had his arms folded across his chest. When he saw her his face went slack with surprise.

Jodenny stepped out of the flit. “Hi, Terry. I'm Kay.”

Myell's expression didn't change. “Hello … Kay.”

Colby helped Dottie lumber inside. Jodenny followed, acutely aware of Myell staring at her. The living room was dark but for a small table lamp.

Dottie asked, “Would you like to take a shower, Kay?”

She glanced down at her grimy trousers. “That would be great. Thanks.”

The water was luxuriously hot but she kept her shower short. Dottie had left clothes for her, including a nightgown covered with red roses and a pink bathrobe with lace collars. When Jodenny emerged from the bathroom, Colby was making up the living-room sofa and Myell was changing the sheets in the guest room. Jodenny stepped in behind him.

“Hello, Kay,” Myell said, stuffing a pillow into a green linen pillowcase. “Tell me why you're not Lieutenant Scott?”

“It has nothing to do with you or your family. I promise.”

He stopped what he was doing and gave her a penetrating gaze. Jodenny tried not to squirm. Myell's eyes were deep brown in the honey light of the bedside lamp, and the beige sweater brought out flecks of gold in his irises. Jodenny wondered what it would be like to listen to the thump of his chest and feel his breath against her neck.

“They don't know about what happened,” Myell said. “Wendy Ford and all that.”

“I won't say anything.”

He stared at her. Jodenny tried to read his mind. Was he as attracted to her as she was to him? If her life was a romance vid, they could share a night of illicit passion, give in to base impulses, break all the rules, and then break them again. But physical desire was a trap that could only lead to trouble, and she had no idea how he really felt about her. Assumptions had certainly gotten her into trouble before.

“I'll be on the sofa if you need anything,” he said, and brushed past her on his way out.

Jodenny wanted to argue—it didn't seem fair for him to give up the guest room for her—but she didn't want to wake the children with an argument. Soon the whole house was dark. Rest came in fitful spurts, and in her dreams she returned to the speeding mag-lev. This time Myell was with her, his arms wrapped around her and his warm voice saying, “It's all right. We'll be fine.” The train took them up into the sky and on a dreamy trip down the Alcheringa. She woke, then, the bedsheets cool against her legs, the window curtains stirring in the breeze. She imagined Myell standing in the doorway, waiting for her invitation.

“Terry?” she asked.

Silence except for the faint tick-tock of a clock somewhere. As Jodenny's eyes grew accustomed to the moonlight she saw the door was closed. Terry Myell had never been standing there with desire in his heart. Jodenny turned over, closed her eyes, and went back to her dreams.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Colby's sofa was fine to sit on but hell for sleeping. Myell punched his pillow and tried to make himself comfortable on a frame that was just a few centimeters too short. He kicked off the blanket and sheets. To the accompaniment of the grandfather clock—had the damn thing always been so loud?—he pondered the presence of Jodenny Scott in the next room. Just when he'd begun to put Underway Stores out of his mind, she had to show up. Sure did look beautiful in Dottie's nightclothes, though. Or maybe it was the fact she wasn't wearing lieutenant bars that made him realize how attracted he was to her. And how much trouble that could cause. Sergeants were not supposed to lust so completely over their lieutenants.