The Catalyst (Targon Tales) (6 page)

He looked into the dish without interest. "Smells like feet."

"You’re missing out on some fine feet." She winked. "That was a pretty little thing you picked up last night."

"What thing?"

"Some genetic mix-up from Bellac. With a tail."

"Was
that
what that was?"

"Lucky for you I didn't let her have her way with you." She bit into a piece of fruit.

"How can you eat?" He averted his eyes. "Uh oh."

"What? Gonna puke?"

"If you're done with that we could go. Like now, maybe."

"What–"

"That Magra over there knows me.  Get up, don't rush."

They pulled their capes around their shoulders and traded the cozy comfort of the eatery for Khom Arat’s perpetually damp streets. "What was that all about? Was that man a rebel?"

Seth looked over his shoulder. "Hmm, yeah. Not one of my favorites. He’d like to cut my… nose off."

"Lovely." She peered through the fog. "Can we leave this pit now?"

He stopped briefly to consult his wrist array. "I suppose."

Nova's curiosity grew as Seth continued to check the time during their walk back to the airfield. A glance at his array told her that it was set to the standard timing of the plane and not to the rhythm of Aikhor's slow rotation. She soon saw the scuffed hull of Seth's much repaired and modified Dutchman through the fog still seeping through the town. 

"Damn," Seth said. "Listen, I forgot to do something. Can you get the ship ready for takeoff?"

"Where are you going now?"

“Over there," he said and pressed his hand against the Dutchman's key plate. "Don't worry about it. I won’t be long." He disappeared into the mist before she could object.

Nova boarded the Dutchman, annoyed by his secrecy and convinced that whatever he was up to was bound to be trouble. She called Khom Arat’s traffic control and cleared their takeoff before completing pre-flight. It kept her occupied; Seth's ship was a quirky bit of machinery and things just didn't seem to be where they should.

She was interrupted by the com system. An incoming message announced itself with a loud, persistent buzzing. Nova opened the line, not even sure of the Dutchman's I.D. "Sethran Kada residence," she said finally.

"Nova!"

"Seth? Where are you? Why are you calling here?"

"Take the Dutchman up and try to get telemetry on me. I’m on the harbor side of the city. There is some kind of shipyard out there, then a long road leading up the coast. You should be able to pick up my signal."

"I won't be able to see anything," she objected.

"Maybe you should have set your interface the first time I suggested it. Hurry up now." He seemed out of breath.

"What's going on?" Nova signaled her intent to launch and rose into the air as soon as she received final clearance. "I'm heading north now. I see the sea. Sort of. It's a lovely shade of gray."

"There is an open field ahead of me. You can land there to pick me up. Try to–" Nova heard a jumble of voices in the background, some shouting and then the sound of weapons.

"Seth!"

"You could hurry up a little, honey." He sounded as though he was running.

"There is the road." Nova checked the navigational screens. "You should be able to see me now." He showed as a moving target near a steep row of contour lines on her grid. She nosed the Dutchman down and switched to real-vid. Mist swirled below her, rarely clearing long enough for her to see the ground. "This is less than good," she informed him and tipped the Dutchman on its side. "I can't see you."

She caught a glimpse of red in the gray mass below. Seth had discarded his jacket, not only making himself visible to her but also pointing out his position to his pursuers. Nova saw several shapes converging on Seth; the flash of their lasers lit the fog like lightning, diffusing ineffectively. A slow grin spread over Nova's face when she turned the Dutchman toward Seth's hunters. She let the plane crash-dive only to pull it up into a hovering mode at the last possible moment, forcing the men to dive for cover. It tested her skill against Aikhor’s unfamiliar gravity and her limited experience with his plane but Seth seemed to have faith in her abilities and kept running. She swooped back and repeated the maneuver to give him a chance to gain some distance. Using her guns to chase them off would have been easier but not half as much fun. At last, she spun the Dutchman and landed it on the far side of the field.

"I love this ship!" She lowered the plane’s exit ramp to let Seth aboard and hurried to the door. He gained the ramp and then turned back. "Come on, what are you waiting for?" His pursuers, recovered from the surprise of her aerial acrobatics, were now running toward the ship. A projectile glanced off the Dutchman’s hull with a high-pitched whine. She recognized the small device in Seth's hand as a remote control detonator.

"Listen." He punched a sequence of number symbols onto the unit. Seconds later a fog-muffled roar of thunder reached her ears. Any echo from it was immediately absorbed by the mist. "Let's go! The town will be closed off in no time. Hurry!" He shoved her into the Dutchman and raised the gate.

"What was that?"

Seth jumped into the cockpit. "Sit down. I don't have time to explain." He barely balanced the ship's interior before he used the emergency thrusters to gain additional velocity. Nova gritted her teeth. It was a clumsy, dangerous maneuver and she doubted that even Seth would dare execute it on any of the Union's strictly ruled airfields. She waited for the Dutchman to disintegrate into its components on the way out of Aikhor’s atmosphere.

The ship quieted. She opened her eyes. A cup floated past her, spilling its contents in glossy beads as it turned. A paper map wrapped itself gently around her head. She unbuckled herself from her chair and floated back to the lounge to catch some of the weapons that Seth hadn’t put away. At least he had minded the safety switches.

"If this place wasn't such a mess your life would be a whole lot easier." She groped for a boot. 

He shifted the Dutchman's power to spin up the gravity. Nova and the countless floating objects settled softly onto the floor of the cabin. "Pretty smooth, eh?" He adjusted their course and came up from the cockpit. With gravity once more restored, the cabin was twice the cluttered disorder than usual. Sighing, he began to sort through the heaps of clothes and tools on the floor. "That was some fancy flying there, Nova. Your triangles are well deserved."

"I think you'd better explain what the hell you blew up down there."

"Just a place I didn't like. This soggy weather ruined the detonator I wanted to use. I'll have to remember that in the future."

"A place you didn't like?" she said in astonishment. "Have you forgotten who I am? I am a Union officer, dammit. A cop! You can't just do that right under my nose. How dare you?"

He laughed. "I'm already under arrest so I thought one more fiendish act wouldn't matter.  Although I’ll point out once again that this isn’t a Union planet, Officer." His eyes shone brightly as he chuckled to himself and continued to rearrange his cabin. Nova's ripe selection of curses seemed to roll off his back like water.

"You have a foul mouth for such a pretty woman," he said finally. "Comes from hanging out with pilots for so long. If you’re done with that, I can explain.”

"I know what I need to know about you. I need your help right now but that doesn't mean I approve of you. You've caused a lot of harm to a lot of people. Don't make me part of that, you pirate."

"There are reasons."

"Like what? Because Tharron pays so well for your services? If anyone had told me six years ago that you'd become a traitor I would have laughed. Well, it isn't funny."

Seth's expression hardened and his eyes gleamed dangerously in a deep violet when he turned to her. "That place I blew up down there was one of Tharron's labs. I've been looking for it for months and being your personal chauffeur wasn’t going to cause me any more delays. In case you don't know, he owns a little Terran called Comori whose favorite pastime is to tinker with viruses and drugs and all types of nasty bugs. The kind Tharron likes to throw at Union settlements now and again. I thought I'd try to stop him for a while."

Nova bent to pick up a tangle of clothes. She did not look at him. "Why?"

"Because I don't like Tharron, either."

She carried the bundle toward the cargo door. "And yet you work for him." She released the door and then opened one of the storage bays.

"Uh, Nova–"

"What the hell is all this?"

He hurried into the cargo hold to find her leaning against a spring-loaded door to keep it from shutting.

The small storage chamber was stacked to the ceiling with long guns bundled carelessly in strips of cloth. Crates of what looked like thousands of rounds of projectile ammunition and rail gun power packs were secured to the floor. Some of the weapons were completely unfamiliar to Nova but at this point she had no thought for expanding her knowledge of firearms. She pried the lid off a plastic case embossed with Centauri ciphers. "Seth!"

The box contained dozens of sealed glass vials. She held one to the light. "You are gun running!" she accused. "Don't tell me this is your personal arsenal. That rail hasn’t even been released yet. And this thing! We're into germ warfare now? Chemical? Drugs maybe? Not enough money in green stuff?"

He took the vial from her to replace it carefully in its padded compartment.

"Well?"

"I stole it on Aikhor. Before I went out to the lab. It was a lucky find, nothing more." He pulled her away from the door to let it shut again and returned to the main cabin. "People shouldn't leave things lying around unguarded."

"Stole it? That is Union issue."

"Most rebel arsenal is Union issue."

"You stole this from rebels?"

"From people selling to rebels."

"Is that what you were doing half the night? Getting drunk and loading contraband?"

"Well, yes. Mostly. Don’t forget the part about blowing things up."

"You don't care what I think of you, do you?" she snapped angrily. "I don't understand you at all."

He frowned. "Understand me? I thought you knew me so well. Between us, I'm not the one who needs to be understood." He came to stand very close to her, searching her face, looking for someone he once knew. "What's happened to you? There isn't a soft spot left on you. You used to have a sense of humor. Where did that go? Don't expect me to stand in line with your squad pals. You of all people know me better than that."

"You left a long time ago. Things change. People change. Even if you haven't."

"I don't believe that," he said more softly. "You're in there somewhere, Red." He lifted his hand as if to touch her face but then placed it on her shoulder instead. "What did they do to you? Does this come from living in barracks for too long, marching up and down in front of Air Command brass for a few years? What happened to you on Bellac?"

She regarded him silently, aware of his hand, as deeply affected by his presence as she had been so many years ago. She could feel the warmth of his spirit as clearly as she could feel the warmth of his body only a handspan from her own. A flood of memories poured into her mind, letting her relive a few weeks of happy moments in just a few seconds. Why was it that, every time they touched, even by accident, she was instantly transported six years into the past when they could do little
but
touch each other?

She pulled away and forced a perky note into her voice. "Nothing happened. I'm a Union soldier and you'd better remember that. It's all there is." She dropped onto the lounger. "I’m too tired to argue with you. You're a better arguer than I am, anyway."

"Tired? You just got up a couple of hours ago."

"All that gravity, I guess. Or the weather down there."

"You look awfully pale. Do you hurt anywhere?"

She shook her head. “Just the sting I got on the freighter."

"Sting?"

She pointed at her neck. "Sting. Bite. Whatever it was that the thing in the box gave me."

He stared at her, stunned. “And you didn’t think to mention that earlier?"

She frowned. "What did you think it was?"

"It looks like someone took a stunner to you, nothing more." He crouched and pulled the bandage from her skin to peer at it closely. "Yes, I can see the hole now. I thought it was a blister or something that had broken. What were you thinking? That thing lived in a water ash soup, Nova. Didn't you think it might be poisonous, too?"

"Not much I can do about it way out here, can I? I really don’t love the idea of finding some clinic run by rebels. I'll be fine till I get to the base on Magra." She stood up, but too quickly. He caught her when she swayed on her feet as a wave of dizziness robbed her of her balance. He lowered her back down onto the lounger.

"We’re changing course for Targon," he said. "They’ve got the best xenobiology labs in the sector."

"You know if we go to Targon I'll have to make some sort of report on you, if they haven't identified you already. And tell them about the guns."

"Ah, so that is your scheme! Very clever, Lieutenant."

"I'm serious, Seth."

He shrugged. "I can't think of any way to get you there faster. We'll lose another day if we go to Magra first."

She looked up at him, blinking tiredly. "You'd do that? Go into Targon? For me?"

"Let's try some air. I don't know if it's such a great idea for you to sleep so much." He went into the cargo hold and returned with a small oxygen bottle.

She let him fasten a mask over her mouth and nose and then curled up in a corner of the lounger. "Just a little nap," she said. "Wake me for the jump."

Chapter Five

Nova was glad when the orange ball that was Targon appeared on their screens. This sponge-like planet riddled with subterranean, water-filled cave systems served as the military hub of Trans-Targon and the largest base in the sector. There was no reason to settle on the bland, inhospitable surface; those who needed to live nearby chose Odar, a not-too distant moon. Targon's close proximity to some of the most vital charted jumpsites made it a strategically well-placed headquarter, the absence of civilian targets made it an easily maintained one.