“I’ll be dipped! Windy, I didn’t know you was working the outskirts. What’d you do, piss in someone’s drink?”
He laughed. “Hey, Company pays top to anyone willing to leave the known universe, don’t knock it. What’s your excuse?”
“Playing chauffeur, thanks so much for reminding me. Anyway, gets me off of the merch runs, nice change of pace,” Irwin said. “At least usually . . .”
Windy laughed again. “Usually? Don’t tell me you’re not enjoying a Jumper, that’s some kind of pilot sacrilege, isn’t it?”
Irwin grinned again. “Actually, I am getting bored, but it’s more the suit, this time. Briggs, Lucas. A real tight-ass. He’s been after me to bend the laws of physics since Zen’s Respite—and no, I was not allowed to enjoy any of the Company amenities, so shut the fuck up.”
When Windy spoke again, some of the humor had bled from his voice. “Hey . . . you know what all this is about? The Assman won’t—”
Irwin interrupted, smiling. “Assman?”
“ASM, you twit. Vincent.”
Cute, she hadn’t heard that one. “Anyway, you were saying?”
Windy pitched his voice even lower. “He won’t tell us what’s going on. Shuttle lands this a.m., he says it comes from XT, but no way they’ve got chambers on
that thing, and the heads up we got says it happened days ago. So they can’t be carrying, right?”
Irwin glanced at the cabin screen before she answered. Everyone was still belted, though Briggs looked constipated as usual, shifting in his seat. Whoever was on that shuttle, he wanted ’em bad.
“Got me,” she said quietly. “Don’t ask, don’t tell, you know? It’s big, though. This guy’s hooked up, had the full service at Zen, priority calls on scramble, two hunks of meat in suits following him to the head, with wipes. And keep shut on this, but we left Zen’s Respite yesterday, dig? Before your ASM put in the call. You wanna make some points, tell him to get his ass out on that deck.”
“He’s been out there for the last twenty minutes, since your comp signal,” Windy said. “Assman’s sweating on this, and I don’t blame him.”
While they were talking, the Sun Jumper had dropped to an LZ alt, the dark treetops spinning beneath them like a corrugated sea. At the edge of her vision, Irwin thought she saw a flash of light somewhere deep in the jungle. It was gone before she could finish turning her head, but it reminded her that she wasn’t getting paid to actually enjoy herself. Time to pay attention.
“Listen, gotta fly,” she said. “You still gonna be on channels after we land?”
“Affirmative.”
“Meet you in ten, then,” she said, and tapped off the ‘com, calling up a list of stats in the same movement. Fan pressure, skis down, bleed flaps flux, the numbers as text as they got. A yawn. Good ol’ Windy, though. Briggs could go play corporate cloak and dagger; she was going to find Windy and see if he still had a taste for cheap whiskey, among other things.
Of all the outposts in the known goddamn universe they pick mine to land on, as if I didn’t have enough to do already,
bringing the Company down on the back of my goddamn neck—
“Do you hear something?”
Kevin Vincent glanced at Cabot, then turned his face back to the star-flecked sky, uninterested in hearing anything unless it was Briggs’s ship. “No.”
Cabot persisted. “I thought I heard . . . like a howl or something.”
Probably Rembert, howling for supper.
To say so would be cruel; Cabot and the missing geologist were friends. Pratt and Rembert hadn’t checked in since before lunch, and day teams were required to put a call in every eight hours, which meant they were officially a couple hours overdue. No big deal, except they wouldn’t answer a 26 hail, the code for, “drop everything and answer your goddamn radio.”
Vincent rubbed the back of his neck, sighing. They’d probably just dropped their damn radio, but it was one more hassle in a day of hassles. He’d have to send out a team if they hadn’t shown by midnight. With any luck at all, Briggs would have his business finished by then and be gone.
Sure, why would he want to stay here? Little operation like this, no frills, he’ll want to be out of here before the dust settles—
His wishful thinking was interrupted when he heard what Cabot had. A distant sound, southwest of the station maybe a couple of klicks—a kind of weird, harsh trilling sound, like nothing he’d ever heard before. Cabot looked at him, a vaguely smug expression in his eyes.
“Mating season?” Vincent asked, knowing that it wasn’t. And he’d never heard a sound like that coming out of a primacet, the only Bunda inhabitant with lungs big enough to project that kind of noise . . .
Before Cabot could do more than shake his head, the lights of a transport ship appeared on the near horizon, followed closely by the rumbling purr of an expensive engine. To hell with strange noises, probably
an injured bird. Vincent had more important things to deal with.
He straightened his shoulders as the small ship moved toward them, wishing he’d never agreed to the admin position. He’d been six months away from his phytobiology doctorate when his theory on the medical applications of bryophytes had crashed and burned. The Bunda position was only two years and the idea of being an ASM had been appealing, a chance to raise his income, to relax far away from the viciously fevered world of scientific patenting . . .
. . . and what 1 got was a shitload of paperwork and the nickname “Assman.” And the joy of groveling before men like Briggs.
The ship was a Sun Jumper, a private-elite. Briggs was definitely the highest suit ever to come to Bunda, the ship worth more than Vincent would see in his lifetime, with extensions. It smoothly moved over the deck, the blast of heated air from its thrusters whipping at their clothes, and set down as gently as an extremely expensive feather.
Before the engines had finished powering down, a ramp slid out from near the back of the ship and the shining metal above it parted, melting to either side. Vincent and Cabot waited, Vincent taking a deep breath, reminding himself that this would be over soon.
Lucas Briggs stepped out onto the ramp looking as cool and elegant as he’d looked over the ‘phone, his impeccably tailored suit the color of dried blood. Two men—two very large men—stepped out behind him, their stone faces and darting gazes telling Vincent who they were. Keene was the blond who’d placed the call on Briggs’s behalf; the other was of some Asian descent that Vincent couldn’t place. Both looked extremely capable.
Vincent cleared his throat and stepped forward, determined to make things pleasant. “Welcome to Bunda,
Mr. Briggs. This is Tom Cabot, our Research Team Coordinator. I hope that you had—”
“Save the pleasantries, Vincent,” Briggs said, stepping close enough that Vincent could smell his subtle cologne. He had that lightly tanned, muscle-stim look that the privileged tended to wear to parties, and an attitude to match. If he noticed Cabot at all, he didn’t bother acknowledging him, and hardly glanced at Vincent’s face.
“Where are they?” Briggs asked, apparently not interested in extending any pleasantries himself.
Terrific. “Deck Seven, sir. As requested, they’ve been isolated and watched since their arrival . . .”
Briggs didn’t seem to be too big on expressing praise, either. Vincent continued, feeling entirely out of his league.
“. . . and, I’m sure you’re eager to—ah, interview them. If you’ll follow me . . . ?”
Briggs looked bored. “Nirasawa, Keene, go with him, search the shuttle. I’ll be along shortly, I want to make sure Irwin refuels before she goes wandering off.”
The bastard was addressing his own people, ignoring him entirely. Vincent gritted his teeth in what he hoped looked like a smile, saw Cabot assume the carefully blank expression of a man on the brink of rolling his eyes.
Lord, please keep this man from ruining my life , . .
Briggs was waiting.
“Of course,” Vincent said, motioning toward the deck’s flight prep room behind them; he’d had it cleaned for Briggs’s arrival, although he was starting to see that trying to impress Lucas Briggs would be a monumental waste of time. “Mr. Cabot, please show Mr. Briggs to Seven when he’s finished his business here. This way, gentlemen.”
The two blank-faced guards followed obediently as Briggs turned around and moved back up the ramp. Cabot looked miserable, but Vincent couldn’t muster
much sympathy for the man; if Briggs decided to fuck with them, file a report on Bunda, “Kevin Vincent” was going to be the name at the top.
Thinking of how great it was going to be when the contract expired on his administrative experience, Vincent led the guards through the efficiently bland prep room, the bizarre sound that he and Cabot had heard a few moments earlier the very last thing on his mind.