The Loranth (Star Sojourner Book 1) (4 page)

“Jules, stop!” Jack called and stood up. “You ever hear of extradition?”

“Yeah!” Chairs scraped behind me. “It keeps me up nights.” I kept going, but my back prickled. I know the large dose of dedicated spiker in Jack's makeup. I also knew this might be my last chance to hold onto my family.

'Since when do you know anything about the law?” a voice grated from the open door.

I tried to push past the blur that was a stocky man blocking the door.

Something hit the back of my legs. It was Jack. I went down and dragged a chair with me. Its Cleocean occupant whistled shrilly and clicked as he fell on top of me and made swimming motions.

“You bastard!” I hissed at Jack and kicked his shoulder.

He rolled the Cleocean off me. His beefy hands grabbed my shirt. “I told you before, I don't want to come after you!”

“Then don't!” My shirt ripped as I twisted, threw him off and got to my feet. “You wouldn't like where I'm going anyway!” I picked up an empty chair. There were a lot of them now, and lifted it with the intention of bashing him if he kept coming. He got up and stumbled backwards, rubbing his shoulder, then nodded to someone behind me.

I threw the chair aside, turned toward the door and racked myself on a stool. Somebody caught my arm and steadied me. I smelled cigar smoke.

“Thanks,” I mumbled through teeth.

“You're welcome,” Hallarin said and blew smoke in my face.

Sitting across from Hallarin, behind his imported oak desk, listening to his cageful of pet lizards scrabble over rocks and up wire mesh, I reflected on changing relationships in the scheme of human affairs.
Al, how could you?
I felt betrayed, though I knew better. I'd known the stakes all along, even if I hadn't admitted it to myself. What was it Jack had said?
Unless you're just fooling yourself.

Fuck him too.

I stared out the window at a distant canyon which broke the late sun's color and left shattered light in deep rifts. I felt shattered myself, having just come out of the high plains' slow tempo, with its drowsy pulse of cold-blooded life, and found that time in humankind's world moved too quickly, had passed over me. It would have felt good to crawl under some dusty sunbaked ledge, forget the day and flow with the slow, primal beat of things.

Hallarin looked up. I'd seen more human kindness in the frozen stare of fish under lake ice.

The day wasn't over yet.

“You're looking a little worse for wear, Rammis. How are things at your dinosaur clinic?” His voice had aged from gravel to cracked mortar.

“Some things could be better, some worse.”

He wiped beads of perspiration from his bare freckled forehead, his tin, gray-streaked hair. Moisture glistened on his heavy jowls. “They keep coming in, do they?” He reached back and turned up the cool lever on the ecobalancer.

“All the time.”

“You find what you're looking for yet?”

“Has any of us?”

He tapped his desk. “I mean the rat with the brain.”

“Oh, the emerging Pantotheria type mammal which might have evolved to inhabit niches in Tartarus' nooks and crannies. Guess I haven't looked in the right cranny yet.”

“Let's say you find it. What's it going to prove?” He drank coffee.

I could've used some. “That perseverance pays off?”

His breath blew steam from the cup. “I talked to the district attorney today.”

I held my face expressionless, but he didn't look up. The silence stretched. I was not about to relieve it. Crotes, I hate these juvenile power games of body language and pregnant pauses.

“He said Judge Adams is due to arrive on Tartarus in one month.” He reached into an open drawer and tossed a case folder onto the desk. “She's already requested the court calendar of cases to be tried.”

There was a hollow feeling in my chest as I watched him open the folder. He took his time, the slimetroll, silently moving his lips as he read. “This one's still under investigation. McGrath's hired a mouth from Earth “He sat back and peered at me. “Criminal negligence. Death of one Randolph C. McGrath.”

And there it was. Like a rapier reaching into the woven threads of my life to quietly sever the mainstay. I realized I was gripping the armrests and relaxed my hands. “You think it was criminal negligence?” I managed to keep my voice even.

He shrugged. “With the evidence we've got, the case looks promising.”

Then why was I here instead of behind bars, awaiting trial? The scramballed bastard loves to watch people squirm, especially Institute scientists. It reaffirms his own sense of worth, I think, and covers feelings of inadequacy about his lack of education. But I wouldn't be sitting here unless there were something he wanted from me. I stared out the window and wondered if I'd ever see that clear sky again. My stomach, already upset from liquor, began to cramp. “Is that why I'm here?” I heard the quiver in my voice and resolved to control it. “To sign a confession that I was criminally negligent? That somehow I knew Randy would try to treat the animals to impress me with his skill? Or maybe I knew the mumbler would turn on him!” I took deep breaths to calm myself, and coughed on cigar smoke. “A confession would make life easy for you, wouldn't it?”

“You ready to sign a confession?” His brows dipped to a frown and he looked genuinely surprised.

Stay in control, Rammis, I told myself, but my shoulders trembled. The crotemunger's just watching for a sign of weakness. I cleared the hoarseness from my throat. “Either charge me or I'm walking. This planet's still under the Worlds Court Constitution and Interstel law.”

The bastard just watched me with that empty stare he's developed over decades. “You know all about your rights, don't you?” He studied the open folder and shook his head. “The guilty ones always do. I think we got enough evidence here for a conviction. In fact,” he looked up, “I've got a meeting with the D.A tomorrow to go over this case. I intend to tell him to prosecute.”

The sense of panic suddenly drained and I felt listless, almost detached. I'd seen caged animals react this way after they'd tried the bars. And tried. “Then why aren't you telling me all this from the other side of a cell?” I ventured.

His jaw muscles twitched. “A cell can be arranged.”

I rubbed a shaky hand over my mouth.
If he had any real evidence against you,
Jack had said,
he'd of brought you in a long time ago.
“Yeah,” I told Hallarin, “when the charges are real. I want to talk to a lawyer.” My stomach was churning from the dinosaur breaths, the cigar smoke, and a large dose of Hallarin. “Either that or I walk.” Actually, I was afraid to stand up. My stomach just might not like it.

“You look green, Rammis. Can't you hold your liquor?”

“I'm not playing your stupid spiker games anymore.” I stood up carefully and kept my eyes on the door as I walked to it. 'You want to continue this conversation, you do it through a court-appointed lawyer.” I showed him the wrist transmitter. “You might have one yourself when I file a complaint. See you at the next public hanging, Chief.” I tried the door.

Locked!

Somehow I was not surprised. I leaned against it and closed my eyes. The feeling that comes when you're about to heave has got to be the closest thing to a lonely death. “Hallarin,” I whispered, “you're a scramballed son of a bitch, but even you must have heard of unlawful detention, so unlock the goddamn door!”

“Watch your mouth, Rammis, or you'll need a doctor instead of a lawyer.” His cheeks hollowed as he relit the dead cigar and sucked in. I willed him to continue the motion, just keep sucking like a fish out of water. Until he sucked the cigar into his throat and turned blue as ice himself.

“Damn native roll,” he muttered. “Pure shit.”

A lizard climbed to the top of the cage but fell back.

Hallarin nodded toward them. “They make you feel at home?”

I didn't answer. But my sympathy was with the cold-blooded animal, not the primate behind the desk as I leaned against the door.

“They got tough hides,” he continued, “and they don't kid themselves about life. Probably got thick skulls too, right?”

“No thicker than some.” Why wouldn't the croteass just say what was on his mind?

“I respect thick skulls, Rammis. What do you respect? That bunch of lily-toed cloudweavers at the Institute? They'd program the ChristLotus Himself into a comp if they could. Reduce Him to a color holo.” He blew smoke. “You think those compjocks could make it on the outside? I mean in the real world?”

“I'm not interested in your views on how science should be done.” I tried the door again. “Don't you believe in laws?”

“They land here dewy-eyed,” he continued, “tripping over their shiny new boots, wanting to know how many cubic centimeters per second the Styx River runs. We got to lead them around by their noses or they'd fall into the goddamned river! And I'm supposed to protect them from things like this!” He jabbed a thumb toward a wall painting. It depicted an attack on the early Cape Leone base by a giant reptile resembling Tyrannosaurus Rex. Security tags lay torn and bleeding at its feet as they fought to stop its advance into the main camp. “Tell
this
customer about laws!”

I'd heard of the incident, but I'd never seen a reptile of that size on Tartarus, or one resembling Tyrannosaurus. I guess that's what you call artistic license. “Life's tough, Hallarin. You need a thick hide and a thick skull. And a good prosecuting attorney if you intend to detain me.”

He set down his empty coffee mug hard. “That's right, Rammis, life's tough. And it doesn't help us worth glotshit that you're out there playing footsies with the dinosaurs.”

Footsies with the dinosaurs? I know a clue when I hear one. Jack had mentioned a scientist lost in the bush.

“If the field parties just stay alert,” I said, “and, uh, keep their stinglers charged, they can safely study the indigenous life forms.”

'Why? So the wildlife can pick their teeth with stinglers after they've eaten?” He glared at me. 'Would you ask that thing you ride if she ate one of Larson's scientists out around Purgatory Canyon?”

And there it was.

“That's grunithe. They're rare, and they don't attack humans unless provoked. Wish I could say the same for some spikers.”

“That's kind of them on both counts.”

I smiled against the feeling of death in my stomach. “Are you having trouble solving a missing person case? Two months, huh? That's a long time.”

He tapped a flatprint photo, picked it up and extended it.

I walked back to the chair, eased myself down and let him hold the print while I studied it. She was about thirty, give or take. Large dark eyes, dark curls around her face. Her expression was solemn, almost sad, as though the camera had caught her during some difficult task. She looked so vulnerable. I took the photo. Her bones were probably keeping some reptile's teeth plaque free by now.

“We fine-combed the whole goddamn area and then some,” he said. “Found her tent, her landslider.” He shook his head disgustedly. “Looks like she took a walk in the wilds with the clothes on her back and her shiny new boots. One of your disciples?”

“I never met her.” Doubt I ever will. I rubbed my forehead hard and tried to hold down the contents of my churning stomach. “You got a wastepaper basket you're not fond of? Preferably not wicker?”

“Christine Saynes,” he said. “Came in with the last Earth expedition.”

I nodded at the framed awards covering the wall behind him. “Are you afraid you might not grab the Settlement Safety Prize this year if the lady's not found? Forget it.” I flipped the photo back on his desk. 'She's dead and eaten by now.”

He clamped down on the cigar and spoke through the rest of his mouth. “You tags at the Institute love to talk about your missions. I got a mission too, Rammis. It's to keep this fucking town and the surrounding wilderness safe for the cloudweavers and make it safer!” He leaned back, tried to puff the clamped cigar, but couldn't.

And we can't find this bitch,
is what he was really saying.

“So maybe a jungle juicer like you might get lucky.”

Out there,
I thought, where trained search and rescue parties had already given up? “Give me one good reason why I should undertake a futile search.”

“You want to take a chance I'm bluffing about the McGrath evidence? Be my guest.”

I shifted in the chair to ease the pain in my stomach. “What I want is your word that if I make an honest effort to find her, and I don't, you stamp the case closed.”

“Don't you mean when you find her, Rammis?”

“I mean what I said.” There was a burning sensation in my throat. I got up. “We'll talk later. Which way's the restroom?”

He closed the folder and tossed it into an open drawer. “We're finished talking. Find her!”

I lifted my left sleeve. “Then get this thing off my wrist and stay off my back.”

He chuckled. Not a pleasant sound. “I ordered enough of those items to clamp all the Institute jocks who go stumbling around out in the bush. Be able to find the dumb fuckers when they get lost in their own backyards.”

I licked dry lips. “What's the code for this thing?”

“When you come back with Saynes.”

I stared at the distant cliff through the window and thought of the endless wild country. He must have read the long breath I let out.

“Keep searching until you find her.”

“What if I do and can't?”

He removed the cigar and carefully ground it out. “Then if I were you,” he said softly, “I wouldn't come back.”

I fingered the transmitter and looked at him.

He folded his hands and smiled.

Something nudged my back and I turned. It was the open door.
How'd he do that?
I wondered on my way to a close public restroom. I pictured a dragon breathing fire. “That's the last dinosaur breath I'll ever inhale,” I muttered and made it to a toilet.

Jack never lies, at least not for his own benefit. If he said the transmitter couldn't be broken, I believe him. But he said nothing about the code being broken. Because he doesn't like to lie. And the serial number plate was visible. Poor design, that.

“Gordie?” I said into the public tel-link.

“Yeah! Whose is it?” he shouted over the laughter, shrieks and blasts of Dinean stonefry behind him.

“Jules!” I shouted back, and held the receiver away from my ear. “Is that the same party you had going six months ago?”

“Juce? Is that you? Where the hell are you? Come on over, this one's better! Hey, tag, I hired a Cleocean prostitute.” I heard the chuckle in his voice. “You got to see this. He's in the pool with Greta Briscuit. You remember Greta?” He laughed. “Well, Greta's got him by the fins, you know. But he's a salt-water fisher and he's sinking, so - “ He laughed so hard he couldn't finish.

“Gordie! You remember Operation QT?”

Gordie had broken into the Institute's personnel computer files when Felice de Silva from Chemistry wouldn't give him her tel number. “You remember I told security there was no way you could have done it because we spent the whole weekend in South Forde?”

“Yeah, so? Wait a minute. What? No!” he told someone. “Denning's next in the barrel. I'm the dental chair.”

“Gordie! Goddammit, will you listen? I made a bet with a spiker for some big creds. He swears I can't break the code on their new police radio transmitter the Institute developed. Are you listening?”

“Yeah, I'm listening, but I'm not liking what I'm hearing.'

“Look, he says it's the latest item for tagging and keeping track of dangerous reptiles that might wander into town, and I figured if anybody could break the code and win me some credits, you could.”

“Juce, what are you getting me into? Wait a minute. Hold it down, you wool thumpers!” He sighed into the receiver. I pictured him pulling on his lower lip. Gordie loves crises, he lives for them, though he won't admit it. By now his lower lip should dangle like a second tongue. “So how much did you bet, tag?”

“Crotes,” I said, “are those sheep I hear?”

He chuckled. “I use them to keep the lawn trimmed.”

“Yeah. Well, it's too late to get in on the action. Look, I've got the serial number of this transmitter right here. It's 503 –“

“You could've put down some creds for me, ole thumper!”

“I didn't have any more to put down. Now dammit. Get a pen.”

* * *

The unlocked transmitter bracelet was in my pocket as I headed for the spacegram office. Hallarin had hit it on the beam, though I don't think he knew it.
If I were you I wouldn't come back without her.

Suppose I sent a spacegram begging Althea to take me back, and she agreed and gave up Charles whatever the fuck his last name was and waited for me to return to Earth?

As I walked by a cafe a singer's melancholy tune gave substance to my own mood. The good smells of Terran cooking wafted out, mixed with the aroma of roses from hanging plants. Rain drummed on empty outdoor table umbrellas.

Suppose I couldn't find Saynes? The criminal lawyer I'd called had explained, in no uncertain terms, that I could be extradited from Earth.

A light drizzle polished the streets clean and turned headlight reflections into yellow streamers that marked the paths of vehicles. I shoved my hands into my pockets and felt water dapple my cheeks as I hunched into my jacket and walked.

Suppose Althea waited for years while I cracked rocks? She was right about Lisa needing a father. Now. But the thought of Al making love to some other tag made a flame rise in my chest.

The night developed a chill as I continued to walk, past stores, a church, to the office. I don't know how these things work. They tell me about dark-energy and ships inside bubbles, and strings at the bottom of all things, but I still think the starship pilots close their eyes and say “I believe, I believe!” And ships journey to solar systems in a blink of time where everyone remains the same age as preflight. And letters get 'grammed to Earth before you have a chance to reconsider their contents.

“Can I help you?” the sallow-complexioned, neatly dressed clerk asked. He looked me over and sniffed as he spread manicured hands on the shiny counter.

I became aware of the dirt ground into my worn blue shirt, the tear at the right shoulder of my jacket.

“Uh, how much to send an Earthgram?”

“How many words, sir?”

I ran a hand through my hair and stared at the scruffy reflection staring back at me from the glass door. Jack had been right. I was thinner. My light-colored hair was long and scraggly. He'd neglected to mention the three-day growth of beard, though. I caught myself scratching it.

The clerk's mouth twitched as he looked up at me. “How many
words
, sir?”

“Uh.” As I approached the counter the clerk wrinkled his nose. Gretch's snort on me.
Rotten almonds
, I thought.

“About a hundred. I think.” I took out the creased letter I'd written, scraped off a smear of dried mud and watched him do a quick calculation on an inset counter comp. From the back room came a steady hum, the faint ice smell of electronics.

I gazed down at waxed tiles and the mud I'd tracked in.

“That will be 270 units deducted from your credcount.” He tapped the counter. “May I have your account number, please?”

“I'm not programmed in. I'll pay cash.”

The look he gave me was reserved for all us smelly Neanderthals grunting in the cave's dark corners while the piercing light of Technology gave the enlightened ones The Good Life.

I returned a dull-witted stare and he dropped his gaze. Giving the folded letter to him was all I had to do. A piece of paper from my hand to his. I stared at it.

He shifted his weight.

Sorry myself, Al,
I'd said in the spacegram. You'll never know how sorry. Love you both. Won't contest the divorce, though. Sorry I wasn't a better husband and father. Tell Lisa Daddy loves her and will always love her. I wish you and Charles the best. Tell Lisa as soon as I make it back to Earth I'll come to visit her.

I handed it to him, waited while he counted words and fed the letter into the drive.

“Fifty-seven words, sir.” He quietly thanked me when I paid him, gave me a receipt and told me to take care of myself.

Those tags aren't supposed to read the 'grams.

I went to Stol's Expedition Outfitters and bought the camping equipment I'd need and a new stingler, fully charged. The clerk agreed to let me pick it up later. I got a hotel room for the night so I could wash up and vib my clothes clean before going out for a meal.

I did none of those things.

Instead I walked Leone's empty streets and listened to voices behind raised windows. The smell of darkness was in my throat.

I turned up my collar, peered down avenues where pools of lamplight diminished in empty distances. I paused, squinted through rain to watch the flash of a lifting ship mark the sky.

I realized I was heading toward the stables and continued there.

At least Gretch's was happy to see me. I sat on straw, my back against her rough hide, and took out Althea's crumpled letter about the divorce. It was dry, stiff along the taped edge. I stared at it in a ray of street light through the stall window. The click of a shod horse's hoof on cement broke the dusty silence. The stable's occupants were mostly Earth breeds, imported as frozen fertilized eggs.

Gretch rolled her head and snorted on the letter. I wiped it on my shirt and stared again.

Tartarus' two moons, Hades and Persephone, a shrouded pair of lovers, were framed in the window as he stalked her through clouds. We had a lot in common, Persephone and I. She'd have to return to Earth before plants could grow, or so the myth went. We had both of us left the things we loved to wither.

I laid my head back on Gretch and closed my eyes. A dream came later. One I've had many times.

The gate of my sanctuary is open. Outside a great red maw waits to snap up animals. They're sliding down between ragged boulders that are shaped like teeth and I'm helpless to stop them. I hear one scream! I feel a terrible guilt as I reach out to her. The look of horror in her eyes as she slides into the maw is burned into my memory. Her mouth forms my name, her face… I always wake up then and the face recedes to haunt some unvisited alley of my mind. Just a dream. I wiped an arm across my sweaty forehead. Just a dream.

* * *

The sun was climbing the Thales Mountains, already steaming the land and ironing it with heat when I dusted straw off my clothes and fed Gretch.

I saddled her and stopped to call a group leader at the Institute's Life Sciences Department to inform her about the possible epizootic plague. I asked her to send out astrobiologists to care for the sick animals at my sanctuary. She agreed, I think because it was a great opportunity to do research on Tartarus' denizens. Whatever. As long as the animals were taken care of.

I stopped at Stol's to pick up my backpack of camping supplies and the new, charged stingler. Yeah, fully charged. Gretch waited impatiently as I ate at a Terran In An' Out, splurging my last creds, then went back to the hotel and showered and shaved. I used my finger to brush my teeth. I even vibed my clothes and brushed my hair. It felt good to be so well scrubbed. But how long would that last?

I tied the camping equipment and provisions behind the saddle and walked down Main Street with Gretch. I saw women, probably on their way to early jobs, turn and glance at me. I smiled. Sometimes well-scrubbed does feel good.

I mounted Gretch and we left Cape Leone while the town was still flushed with sleep. I wondered if I'd ever walk her streets again.

It took us the better part of the day to skirt Burnt Canyons, negotiate Mariah Pass and reach Purgatory Canyon. I fingered the transmitter and watched a Humpback Ground Groat shuffle across Gretch's path as we followed the canyon's rim to Saynes' dig site. His long snout blew sand to uncover insects. Sluggish by nature, he depended on camouflage and his plated hide for protection.

Neither helped him as I lifted the groat by his tail so he couldn't bite me, though his beady eyes were fixed on my hand, and clamped the transmitter around the base of his tail, between plates. He turned when I let him down and chased me, hissing, all the way to Gretch.

Gretch hissed back.

The groat slid to a halt, eyed Gretch and lumbered away, still hissing. He'd work the transmitter free next shedding season.

“I'll look for Christine, Hallarin, but on my terms, not yours, slimeass!”

Gretch seemed edgy when we reached Christine Saynes' dig site. I unsaddled her, but she didn't leave to hunt. I rolled out my sleeping bag in front of Saynes' tent. They'd left it standing just in case she found her way back. I built a small fire, emptied a packet of vegfry, rice and dried eggs into the pan, added oil, seasonings, and breathed the aroma as I listened to it sizzle.

Buttes and mesas grew crimson beneath clots of purple clouds. Darkness crouched in the hollows, had already claimed the dry, ancient sea bed and was gnawing on sedimentary walls. It was a place steeped in time, as indifferent to civilized man's frenetic quests as the great voids between solar systems.

I know a place where spring water wells up through cracks in rocks to form crystal ponds; where prevailing westerly winds gentle the afternoon heat. I've walked in the great silence there, beneath high narctressus and muse trees, through pink sunlight that dapples diremoss in leopard spots.

A person could do worse than live his life in that quiet retreat. Everything I needed to survive was there in the fibrins. A small shelter made of native materials would never be located by air. I could even continue my work, though if I found my mammal, chances are I'd be writing no papers about him.

My only regret would be Al and Lisa. And they were already lost to me. Better off without me. The human hive was no longer my natural environment, I sadly admitted. I'd been in nature's keep too long. I preferred her straightforward dangers to the sly intrigues of the human hive.

The only real threat here was in sudden brinks of loose shale that plunged to the Tartarus River that sliced the canyon floor like a silver blade, quarrying rock to the sea, mining a geologic period so early in the planet's history, there were no fossils.

I got up, went to the canyon's edge, picked up a stone and tossed it over the brink. It was a long time falling. I'd bet a few creds her body was down there, broken on rocks. A careless step, the distraction of a lizard darting past. It seems the canyons always wait, no matter the planet. I pushed down that thought to some back corner of my mind.

What were my chances of finding Saynes' body?

Gretch snorted. She loped past boulders and dead narctressus trunks, then stopped at Saynes' dig site and trumpeted.

I walked toward her. “What's the matter, girl?”

She swung her long neck to stare at me.

I chuckled. Why do we always ask our animals that dumb question? I patted her neck. “It's too late to hunt now.”

She lowered her head and hissed.

“OK, it's not too late.” I realized she was staring past me at the dig site.

Just a dark basin. Wind crawled over the canyon lip, ruffled my hair and rubbed branches together chitinously. Gretch reared, turned and trotted away into the night. “Gretch, it's too cold! Your temperature's not up to hunting speed.”

I felt uneasy without her company and found myself glancing around as I returned to the tent and sat near the fire.

I chuckled at my uneasiness. Take one skittish solid-brained reptilian mount, some dead plants, a little wind, mix well, and the wonderful Terran gray matter begins to conjure ghosts. I'd get a good night's sleep and tomorrow I'd start a serious search, beginning with the canyons. Maybe spend the rest of my life searching.

I felt a sudden chill. A damp breeze fluttered my jacket. Strange for such a dry night. An odor of something gone bad rode by on the wind. I thought of seaweed and mussels rotting on exposed rocks at low tide. I gathered my stuff and brought it into the tent for the night in case of a flash storm, and stumbled as the ground shifted. Rocks scraped sand.