gaian consortium 05 - the titan trap (10 page)

“You needed it. I slept some, too, but not as long, since I spent most of the trip here passed out.”

True. He sounded sheepish, but she saw no reason for him to be. There hadn’t been anything else for him to do on that long, long flight. “Been doing some more shopping, I see.”

That remark made him look even more apologetic. “I suppose I should’ve waited to ask you if it was all right, but since we had absolutely no luggage, no personal items, I figured doing a bit of replenishing our supplies couldn’t hurt too much.”

“No, I appreciate it,” she replied, one hand brushing against the silky fabric of her tunic. “And this is beautiful. Thank you. But how did you pay for everything?”

“Added it to our tab. The hotel management didn’t have a problem with it. I get the distinct impression that we have some sort of fairy godmother watching over us.”

His tone was half-joking, but the expression on his face told Cassidy that he was sincere. She wasn’t sure she would’ve phrased it exactly the same way, but she had the distinct feeling someone was looking out for them. Why, she couldn’t begin to guess, unless it was the way they’d managed to steal that starfighter literally from under its pilot’s nose. She supposed that sort of stunt might earn them a few points with the people who ran Triton base. Fans of the Consortium, they were not.

“I’m willing to go with that for now,” she said. “And if we’re more or less safe here, I say we go get something to eat. I’m starving.”

“As you should be. You were asleep for more than twelve hours.”

Shit. She’d worried it was something like that. “I’m really sorry — ”

“Don’t be. I slept some, as I said, ordered up some halfway decent soup and a sandwich.” The dark eyes were warm, watching her, and she could feel an uncharacteristic blush rise in her cheeks. “But I could definitely do with something a bit more substantial.”

Cassidy nodded, saying, “I’ll get the funds.” As she retrieved the pouch of units and the credit voucher, along with her handheld, she realized she didn’t have anyplace to put them. Neither the tunic nor the pants she wore had any pockets. And of course, being a man, Derek hadn’t thought to get her a new bag to go along with her new clothes. Well, for the time being, she’d slip the voucher inside her bra, and Derek could carry the cash. She wasn’t worried about him taking off with it — after all, where would he go? Five hundred units wasn’t enough to get him anywhere.

Some part of her mind wanted to chide her for even entertaining such a thought. She knew deep down that he would never abandon her and take the money with him, even if the voucher represented a far larger portion of their current assets. Why she was so certain of that, when she’d known him for a total of approximately forty-eight hours, a good portion of which either one of them had been sleep, she wasn’t sure, but something told her Derek Tagawa was an honorable man. Hell, even while she’d been passed out trying to catch up on her sleep, he’d done more to take care of her than her father ever had.

“Can you take these?” she asked, handing the pouch of units to Derek. “Love the outfit, but it’s a little short in the pocket department.”

“Of course,” he replied immediately, and stowed the money in an inner pocket of his jacket. It bulged a little but didn’t look too bad. And she could tell he was surprised and pleased that she’d trusted him with it at all. In an apparent attempt to cover that up, he added, “I did look up where we could eat around here. There’s actually a fairly large hydroponics setup on the far side of the dome, so some of the food is fresh. But if you’re a big meat eater, you’re out of luck.”

She shrugged. Most of the time she couldn’t even afford real meat, and made do with soy substitutes. Going without now wouldn’t be too much of a hardship. “That’s not a problem.”

His expression brightened. “Good. Then there’s a place within walking distance that promises the best eggplant parmesan this side of Naples.”

Having never eaten in Italy, Derek couldn’t really vouch for the authenticity of the food, but it was surprisingly good…especially when you considered it was in a cramped establishment on a side street in Triton’s dome city. There were only six tables, and five of them were occupied when he and Cassidy entered. The host, who also seemed to be the owner, smiled and led them to their seats, tapped a button, and left them to peruse the menu the table displayed on the wall next to them.

“They can’t have real wine out here, can they?” she asked, inspecting the bill of fare with some incredulity. “I mean, the rotgut in that one bar was one thing, but….”

He shrugged. “I’ve never heard of anyone being successful with growing wine grapes hydroponically, but maybe they import it. The prices would suggest that.” It was true, too; he didn’t pretend to be any kind of connoisseur, but he’d gone out to eat in enough establishments on Gaia and on the Moon as well that he knew the owner here was charging approximately five times what a similar bottle would cost on one of the inner planets. “So we don’t have to have any, if you think it’s too much.”

A flash of a grin, one that lit up her hazel eyes even in the dimly lit restaurant. “I’m feeling flush right now. And I think we’ve earned the right to a little celebration, don’t you?”

That was an understatement. The two of them should be dead, but by some miracle they weren’t. If Cassidy didn’t mind being severely gouged for that celebratory bottle of chianti, far be it from him to protest. “Yes, I do think we’ve earned that.”

The owner came back, and they asked for the wine, along with eggplant parmesan and vegetable lasagna. He seemed pleased with their choices…or maybe he was just thrilled someone had been a sucker enough to purchase that overpriced wine…and disappeared back into the kitchen.

“Who knew Triton would be so civilized?” Cassidy remarked, and Derek shook his head.

“Not I, that’s for certain. Everything I’d heard made it sound like the worst of Iradia and the Detroit slums rolled into one.”

“Have you been there?”

“Where? Iradia, or Detroit?”

“Either.”

“Neither,” he told her, realizing that he’d gone to the Moon and back multiple times, and back and forth from Normerica to the Asian continent, but he’d never gone farther east than the Colorado River. Had never really seen the point at the time — immersed in his studies at first, and then volunteering for GARP after he got his doctorate and realized he wanted to do something with it, rather than stay safely in Tucson, teaching bored undergraduates. “How about you?”

She made a face. “I told you — I’ve never even set foot on Gaia.”

The wine made its appearance in that moment, and she fell silent while the owner uncorked the bottle at the table, then poured a measure each for them. After promising a basket of bread, he went back to the kitchen, and Derek lifted a glass, which of course was plastic and not actually glass.

“Well, here’s to seeing new places, then,” he said.

Cassidy raised her glass as well, and they both drank. To his surprise, the wine was good, so it appeared to have survived its journey to Triton unscathed. She nodded, then told him, “I’ll drink to that. I’d just prefer those new places to be something exciting, like Nova Angeles or Paris.”

Her remark sobered him a bit. They’d needed some time to take their bearings, but at some point they would have to decide what to do next, where to go. Or at least, she needed to make that decision. He knew he had to do something to clear his name, to prove he was no murderer. That meant going back to Gaia, an idea he was sure would find no favor with her.

And she looked so beautiful, sitting across the table from him, her dark hair loose over her shoulders, the deep red of the tunic making her skin look like cream and her hazel eyes almost green, that he was loath to say anything that would disturb their current cozy tête-à-tête. “I’m sure either one of those places must be fascinating.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “But….”

“But nothing.”

She wasn’t buying it. Her fingers tightened around the stem of her wine glass, and she took a sip, but Derek could tell her thoughts were elsewhere. “But you don’t have any intention of seeing the galaxy.”

“Not at first,” he admitted. Avoiding the subject was one thing, but he wouldn’t lie to her.

“So what’s your plan?”

Your plan
. Apparently she was back to
you and me
, not
us
. Really, what else could it be? They were practically strangers. She’d saved his life, and somehow he’d figure out a way to repay her, but he was a fool for thinking even for a second that there might be anything else between them but that.

“I need to go back to Gaia, get some real legal representation, get this thing cleared up so I can go on with my life.”

“Are you nuts?” This was delivered in a harsh whisper. Clearly she didn’t want anyone overhearing their conversation, although no one else seemed to be paying much attention to the two of them, or what they were saying. “If you go back, they’ll kill you.”

He’d been expecting that response. The owner came by with the basket of bread at exactly that moment, so Derek couldn’t do anything except smile his thanks, then wait for the man to go away. Cassidy was looking at him expectantly, so he knew he’d have to give her some kind of answer. “I guess that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

Her eyes glittered with anger. “That’s some thanks for saving your ass.”

Oh, hell. “I didn’t mean it that way. You think I don’t know everything you’ve done for me? But I don’t want to live my life on the run, always looking over my shoulder.”

“It’s still better than being shot on sight.” Mouth tight, she took a piece of bread from the basket, broke off a tiny piece, and put it in her mouth without bothering to butter it. Not that the “butter” sitting on the dish in the middle of the table was actually the real thing.

He floundered for something to say. Confrontations had never been his forte, whether they were with his father or the few women he’d attempted to have relationships with over the years. “Maybe. But I guess I’m still enough of an idealist that I want to believe there’s some way to set this right. Bring the guilty parties to justice. And I can’t do that while hiding out in some far-flung section of the galaxy.”

“You think you can take on the entire Consortium?” She didn’t bother to hide the incredulity in her voice.

“No, of course not. But if I can meet up with the underground, utilize their resources — ”

“Because that worked out so well the first time,” she retorted. “In case you hadn’t noticed, your friends blew up my ship and nearly took us with it. So I don’t know who these ‘contacts’ of yours are, but you might want to reevaluate your relationship with them. I don’t think it’s working out.”

He couldn’t argue with her there. However, he was fairly certain that whoever had broken him out of MaxSec had been genuine, had wanted him to expose the scandal of what GARP was actually doing in Hunan Province. Somewhere along the way, there had been a leak, or the Consortium had managed to catch wind of the planned rendezvous near Europa. But just because that had all gone disastrously wrong, it didn’t mean there weren’t good people in the underground, people who would help him…if he could only get in touch with them.

“All right,” he said, settling back in his seat and picking up his glass of wine. “You think my plan’s crazy. So what’s yours?”

“Buy a ship,” she said promptly. “With what we have, we could get a decent used passenger vessel. Not a Sirocco, of course, but something serviceable. And with that we could go anywhere we wanted.”

“And then do what?”

Her brow creased. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, let’s say we have a ship. And let’s say I agree that it’s nuts to try to fix things on Gaia. So we fly away and leave all this mess behind. What happens after that?”

Something in her expression hardened, although her tone was cool enough as she replied, “Whatever you want. You tell me where you want to go, and I’ll drop you off. I’ll even give you a little of what’s left on this voucher to get yourself started. Probably the first thing to do would be to buy a new identity.”

That wasn’t what he’d meant. Or rather, maybe it was, but he hadn’t intended for her to think that he’d want nothing more to do with her. Despite all the insanity that had surrounded them during their time together, he liked her, liked the way she thought on her feet and her hard-nosed way of looking at the galaxy. It was so refreshingly different from the women he’d known back on Gaia, all members of academia like him, all of them worried about their particular place on the professional totem pole, little birds scheming to knock someone else off their perch so they could move up another rung.

It would probably also have helped if she weren’t so damn beautiful.

He cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean to give that impression, Cassidy. I only meant — ”

“Here we are!” broke in the owner, who approached their table, his hands laden with large white plates overflowing with food.

Despite his hunger earlier, Derek found he didn’t have much of an appetite. He managed a smile, though, while Cassidy did the same, saying,

“It all smells great.”

Luckily, the man didn’t seem to notice the tension between the couple seated at the table…or, being a professional, chose to ignore it. Either way, he departed, leaving them alone again.

Cassidy picked up her fork and cut herself a bite of her eggplant parmesan. From the expression on her face, it seemed she suddenly wasn’t all that hungry, either, but knew she needed to force something down.

“Look,” Derek said, lowering his voice. “I know we’re in…kind of a strange place.”

“Triton?” she replied, her tone all innocence.

He stabbed a forkful of his lasagna. “And here I was just thinking one of the reasons I liked you was because you didn’t play games.”

That seemed to get to her. She paused, her gaze fixed on her plate, fork pushing into the food but not actually retrieving any. “Okay. No games. I don’t know what to say, Derek. Part of me is thinking I shouldn’t care, but part of me does.” Another hesitation, and she added, “I mean, care about what happens to you. If you go back to Gaia, they’re going to chew you up and spit you out. Some people would probably call me crazy for trusting you, but I do. I think everything you’ve told me is true, and it sucks, but I can’t help thinking the galaxy would be a better place if you kept on breathing, even if you had to do it very far away from here and using a different name.”