Starbleached (9 page)

She hesitated.

“What? You want to stay here in the muck? Spend the rest of
your life running from the sucker?”

Rocky and shaky, hope throbbed through her system like a
straight shot of heroin…but something was wrong. For some reason, taking his
hand felt worse, more wrong, than touching the hand of the Overseer.

“Come on.” Mich smiled. “You want to get out of here,
right?”

Reluctantly, she took his hand and held on tight.

*****

Then:

Time was an enemy, Adrienne thought. Every hour between now
and the loss of Holton Station was a shovel of dirt in a grave. She marked it
by vials. Another trial, another attempt, and another near success. After the
second month she knew they were on to human testing…but how could they do that?
How could they dare to give this drug to a human and pair him up with an
Overseer as prey?

She presented this to Miller, who sighed.

“You know, having you in my office with this very question
is like talking to Landry all over again. That was his biggest concern. Are
there any side effects if you’re not fed on?”

“A little extra stress on the system. It speeds up the
metabolism. A couple extra power bars and a nap takes care of it. It only lasts
about six hours.”

“Okay. In that case, we’re going to give it to Alpha Team
before they go on missions. Two, three doses a customer. How long would it take
you to make enough?”

Twenty doses. “A day or so.” She closed her eyes and rubbed
the back of her neck.

Shawn tossed the data pad onto the desk. “How are you
holding up?”

“Well, we have new lines of research going, we have—”

“No, Adry. How are
you
holding up?”

Slowly, she crumpled back into the chair.

“I miss him.” She closed her eyes. Fingers on her neck, pens
sketching circles on her legs and arms and middle. Sweet kisses in false
sunlight. “He had this box of notes, paper notes, and somehow he got it to the
evacuation bay before…” she stopped. “There’s handwritten notes on the margins.
I’m finding his life between the lines of chemical composition.”

“We’re officially listing Bryan as KIA.”  He turned a page
over. “And Mich…MIA is a bit better. We’ve had a sighting on Foster, in one of
the more isolated settlements. He traded a gun and a box of full spectrum
antibiotics for an old beater of a transport ship, and he’s back in the wind.”

“Could he have contacted us if he wanted to?” Adry asked.

“Possibly. He knew our contact there. But a dozen Fangs
showed up, and he booked when the Overseers began tossing the village.”

“Looking for him?”

“Looking for signs of resistance. They’re tolerating human
norm villages because slaved people don’t breed well.”

“You think they’re looking for Mich.”

Shawn hesitated, then smiled. She hated that look. It meant
he wouldn’t answer her question. “We lost a lot of people. Mich isn’t the only
MIA we’re looking for, and he isn’t the only one we’ve found unharmed in
Overseer territory.”

That wasn’t a real answer. Shawn knew something that he
wasn’t spreading around base. But she decided not to push. She was too tired,
too heartsick, and sometimes the general pushed back. “How many people got
lost?”

“Right now? Two hundred thirty. Hopefully that’ll go down
with the next report in. As for the brothers Landry…we’re going to hold Bryan’s
funeral on Gaga. And we’re going to be loud about it. See if we can’t get Mich
to come home.”

“Shawn…the only thing Mich would come back for is to spit on
Bryan’s grave.”

“Well…we have to take what we can get.”

*****

Now:

The swamp was unbelievably nasty. Dank, heavy air. Strange
trees with knobby knee roots poking out of fetid water. The sound of animals
crashing away from the two of them. And this time there was no Overseer to drag
her through the muck when she got bogged down. Mich didn’t even help as he
motored on. His boots terminated at the knee, hers at mid calf. At least her
hands weren’t bound this time. Her toes were swimming in the unimaginable
contents of the swamp, and all she could think about was the illness in the
guts of the Overseer’s village. Her feet were sharing space with it, now,
rubbing elbows with the amoeba. She shuddered.

She felt guilt for leaving. Wasn’t that insane? Stockholm
syndrome. She’d let the damned Overseer get to her. The murderous alien had
shown…what, kindness in its self-interest? Concern for the lives of its cattle?
She dodged a patch of slick green algae, felt the quicksand it hid suck at her
boots. If it truly cared about the people it were eating, it would have left
this place a long time ago.

Wouldn’t it?

“How’d you find me?” she asked, breathless from effort.

“Like I said, I heard an Overseer was offering trade. That’s
rare. Usually they just take what they want. I figured it was worth checking
out. And I really wanted to know how it got its sick hands on my brother’s
gear.”

The words,
why should you care,
died on her lips.
“You weren’t at the ceremony. I was looking for you, too. I wanted to say…” she
trailed off. Say what? Fuck you for ditching your brother? Sorry I abandoned
him, could you not look so happy about it? Not something you wanted to say to
your mentally unstable rescuer while you were still mid rescue.

“I figured you guys were there, working the funeral and
hoping you’d find me. Expecting me to actually bury the bastard was asking a
little much.” He licked his lips, stepping around a fallen log. He seemed more
than a little manic. “Bryan got everything, you know?  He went to med school. I
had to settle for the military. He got the girls. I took his leftovers. He got
the brains and I got nothing, and the few good things I had, he took away from
me.”

“You’re talking about Abrams and shooting your stepfather.”

“And you.” Mich turned around, looking at her with an
intensity that disturbed her, deeply. “I wanted you and he knew it.” Mich took
a step closer. “He targeted you and you went straight to him, arms wide open.”

“Mich…” How to say this nicely? “I like you. I loved Bryan.”

“You loved Bryan because he made you. That’s the way he
works, sunshine. He makes you do what he wants you to, and you are just putty
in the palms of his hands. Everyone was.” He was gesturing wildly. “It didn’t
matter what I did. Only Dad ever saw through him. That’s why Bryan shot him.”

“He was protecting you.”

“Right.” Mich rolled his eyes.

“He was scared of what your stepfather would do—”

“He was jealous. Dad loved me more.”

“When an adult does what he did to you and Bryan, it’s not
love. It’s—”

Mich punched her. Hard. She hit the mud and the wet and the
leaves and felt blood flowing from her nose, her suddenly split lip. She looked
up at him and saw the same man who had slammed her into the wall of the gazebo.
“You don’t get it. And I don’t expect you to get it. You’re nothing more than
my brother’s receptacle.”

Being thrown backwards must have jogged something loose,
because she suddenly understood everything. Shawn Miller’s silence, his
interest in finding Mich. Holton’s fall, Bryan’s destruction, even the attacks
on the human worlds Mich left in his wake. God. She was so blind. Fingers
closed over the Overseer device in her pocket. “No,”  she said, sickly. “I’m
more than that, aren’t I? I’m your ticket home.”

And she pressed the call button, hard.

*****

Then:

Holton glimmered around them, soft and beautiful and serene.
Bryan poured a glass of wine. “See if that’s an improvement, love.”

She didn’t have to try it to know, though she did take a
long, luxurious sip. “Belle Epoch. You shelled out.”

“Yes, I did. Whoever said Earth girls are easy didn’t have a
wine snob for a girlfriend.”

“Hey, Gaga makes a very acceptable Riesling, and Foster’s
ice wines were incredible. You should try their Vigonier.” She pronounced it
right.
Vigon-ay.
“Petroni down in engineering has a bottle. He says he’s
saving it for Foster’s liberation.”

“Sounds like that ought to be a beer.” Bryan sat down,
grinning. “You have no idea how nice it is to have Holton. I grew up on Foster,
with Mich. It wasn’t nearly this nice. Our fortress impenetrable.” He patted a
chrome wall.

She frowned, setting the glass down. “Something’s been
driving me nuts for weeks. Don’t people Jump way too close to the station? I
thought you’d be more worried about accidental intersection.” A bad jump could
leave a ship half in, half out of whatever it jumped to. There was an old story
about a pilot jumping into the heart of a star, and vanishing forever. If that
happened on Holton, they’d all be dead.

Bryan sobered. “We got to get close enough to come in on
atmospherics. Otherwise it’s a subspace trip, and that leaves one hell of a
footprint behind.”

“Could an Overseer trace that back to Holton?” she asked.

“Only if they saw them arrive. And the track would only be
detectible for a few seconds, so they’d need their instrumentation pointed in
the right direction. It’d be like threading the needle with a string that only
lasts a breath. But we don’t want to risk it.”

The waiter arrived, and they ordered. “It’s been a long time
since I ate at a restaurant with silver service.” She said, after the salads
arrived. The dressing was heavenly. “Why are we here?”

“You were talking with Paige Jones the other day.”

“Uh-oh.” She sighed.

“ ‘I feel like I’m just waiting for the axe to fall.’” Bryan
quoted. “If you feel that way, why are you dating me?”

“I like you,” she said, heart sinking. “And I’d like to
spend a few minutes with you if I can…even if that’s all I get.”

“Why think that?” He seemed hurt.

“You don’t stick with one girl, or two girls, or ten.” She
set the champagne down. “Why bring it up? We were having such a good time.”

“Because that’s how I’ve been feeling the past few weeks.
Waiting for you to get tired of me.”

“I’m not.” She said, blushing.

“Mich told me he wanted you the first day you were on
station. He told me to back off. Said it was only fair that he have a shot.
He’s probably a better bet for you. Less married to his work, more--”

She silenced him with a kiss, long and slow and enveloping.
They parted, and she smiled contentedly. “Bryan, I hate to break it to you and
your brother…but Mich never had a prayer.”

They kissed again, and Adry thought when they met, her lucky
stars had formed a line. A perfectly straight, beautiful line.

“Marry me,” Bryan whispered.

Her inner space went supernova. “Dr. Landry. I never thought
you’d ask.”

*****

Now:

It’d be like threading a needle with a string that only
lasts a breath.
Adry stood slowly, feeling adrenaline throb in her veins.

“You flew in a straight line after that fight with Bryan.
You flew straight to a human world when everyone knew better.” Her heart beat
hard against her chest. “You told them where to look. You sold Holton to the
Overseers.”

Mich reached into his holster and pulled out the gun. “Too
bad,” He sighed, and put a round in the chamber. “Now I have to find another
way to get Miller to let me back in. I mean, I could live without the SF now,
but the boss wants me back in and it’s not like I can tell him ‘Eat me.” The
good humor left Mich’s face. “He will.”

“What did they give you?” she slid her hands through the
muck, touching an algae covered rock. Just small enough to hide in the sleeve
of her jacket.

“Bryan. But they were supposed to give me you, too.”

“That’s why it kidnapped me.” She said, calmly, slowly
rising. “To get the enzyme and then hand me over to a fucking mass murderer.”

“I got nothing to do with the renegade or its plans. Our
plan was, they hit the village you and Harris were taking Bryan’s masterpiece
to. I rescue you and go home with open arms…except the renegade shot that in
the ass. Now I have to come up with another one. Also…if
you
put it
together, Miller already knows what I did. So you’re just going to vanish, and
the universe’s going to move on. Same as it did for—”

Adry threw the rock.

It caught him on the temple, a beautiful arch that sent
blood flying like rubies through the twilight gray. She dropped the things
she’d been carrying and booked it, jamming the button on the Overseer’s com
unit over and over again. Would it come for her? She could only pray that it
would. Bullets whizzed past her head, splintering the trees nearby.
Phosphorescent beetles glowed on the tree bark at eye level. One of them was
turned to mush by a nine millimeter bullet. She slipped, got back up. Soon, she
was going to die. Mich would find her, she—

“Here! Doctor!”

She turned. Galina stood at a twisting tree, her feet
planted on firm ground. Adry didn’t need any more prompting than that. She
reached for friendly hands and took them, let them pull her up onto safety.

“The Overseer said—”

“Just run.”

“Yes. To the village. This way.” Galina pointed down the
path. Well worn, camouflaged by the swamp. Maybe Mich wouldn’t find it. Maybe--

A gunshot. Galina screamed, and there was red flowing down
from her shoulder. Spurting, as if it were an artery hit. She collapsed, and
Adrienne went with her. Galina was down for the count, her shoulder at a
terrible angle. Adrienne couldn’t leave her, she was done with that. No more
running from the broken bodies that needed her. Mich climbed onto the path,
looking perturbed. She gulped for air. Galina’s life flowed out between her
fingers.

“Bye-bye, Dr. Parker.” He shouted, pointing the gun. “It was
nice…” he froze, lowering the gun as if it had been lit on fire.