Contact Imminent (16 page)

He palmed open one panel and it swept aside, revealing a huge curve of a bedroom, the far wall floor-to-ceiling glass facing the bay. Decorated in blues and greens shot with coral, it included its own sitting room and, upon further examination, a bathroom larger than some flats in which Jani had lived.

“Nice.” She tossed her duffel atop the bed, walked to the dresser and noted, with a stab of discomfort, that she looked as worn and battered as she felt. “More than nice. Lovely. Really.”

Brondt positioned himself just inside the doorway. “I should have told you everything. I'm sorry. I thought seeing the hybrids, this place, would slow you down for at least a couple of hours. I was wrong.” He pressed a hand to the side of his face. “Boy, was I wrong.”

“You think I'm not affected?” Jani perched on the edge of
the bed. “I'm…stunned doesn't begin to cover it. But a situation has developed that needs to be headed off quickly—I don't have time to sit back and marvel at it all.”

“Is that the sort of life you lead back in Chicago? Never a chance to breathe?” Brondt jerked his chin toward the view out the window. “It's different here.”

“No, it's not. Put two or more bodies in the same room, you get what you've got here now. Same race. Different race. Different species. It doesn't matter.”

“Isn't there anything here you like?”

“I'm not cold anymore.” Jani dragged her duffel onto her lap. “And the view across the bay is very pretty.”

Brondt eyed her with something that struck her as perilously close to pity. “Glories of the evening to you, ná Kièrshia. If you wish to leave in the morning, all you have to do is say so.” He reached into his trouser pockets, removing Jani's shooter from one and the disconnected charge packet from the other. He walked to the dresser, set them down, then left.

Jani sat on the bed for a time, staring at nothing. Her anger had receded, leaving edginess and a certain heaviness of limb behind, mood and sensation that reminded her of post-augie letdown.

She finally stood, duffel still in hand. Walked to the dresser and retrieved her shooter. Adjourned to the bathroom, undressed, and showered off the grime and sweat. Dragged on an ancient Service T-shirt and a slightly newer pair of base casual shorts to serve as sleepwear. Returned to the bedroom and lay her trouser suit on a chair atop her duffel. “No need to unpack.” She wouldn't be staying.

She opened the window, and felt the warm breeze off the water, touched with the scent of storm. “Rain tonight.” She adjusted the pane to close in case water came in, then doused the lights. Tucked her shooter beneath her pillow, then lay atop the bed. If she listened closely enough, she could hear the waves and the occasional cry of a seabird.

“Ná Kièrshia! Ná Kièrshia!”

Jani's eyes snapped open, her heart thudding as the bang of a fist against a door panel shook the air.

“Ná Kièrshia!”

She sat up. Pushed her legs over the side of the bed. Grabbed her shooter from under her pillow and stood.

“Ná Kièrshia!”

She stilled. Felt cool tile beneath her bare feet. Heard the patter of rain outside the window. Her head cleared. “Kièrshia. That's me.” She sat back down, one hand over her mouth, and waited for her heart to slow.

“Ná Kièr—!”

Jani dropped her hand.
“Wait a minute!”
She stood once more, tucking her shooter into the waistband of her shorts as she walked to the door.

The panel slid aside to reveal Brondt standing bleary-eyed in the hallway. “Enclave security detected a skimmer headed this way. Two males. Humanish.” He wore civvies, a long-sleeve pullover, and baggy trousers, topped off by a shoulder holster complete with shooter. “I thought you'd want to meet them personally.”

 

“I instructed the guards to hold them at the property boundary, and to inform them that you were on your way.” Brondt guided the four-seater down the path, then turned onto a wider road paved with crushed stone. “They won't try anything heroic, will they?”

“Depends how convincing your guards are.” Jani watched the road by the light of the skimmer headlamps. “Are they hybrid from the human side, or from the Haárin?”

“Both.” Brondt accelerated, sending rain droplets skittering across the coated windscreen. “But one of them is former Service. She should be able to keep the lid on things.”

They coursed through the dark, the enclave receding into the distance, its brightness supplanted by the inset illumins in the road itself. It lay before them, like a ribbon of pale gold, the rain changed to silver needles by its light.

Jani hugged her duffel close. She'd dragged on a coverall over her shorts and T-shirt, plunged her bare feet into her boots, and followed Brondt to the skimmer in a daze of movement. Now she battled a lingering sense that the hounds closed in from behind.
That's just memory
. Remembrance of other late night escapes, hangover from her time on the run.
No one's after me anymore
. That didn't hold true, however, for the other occupant of the vehicle. “Speaking of Service,” she looked at Brondt, who kept his eyes on the road, “you might have been looking at a medical discharge before you decided to give me a guided tour of the Haárin side of Elyas Station. But at this point I'm thinking desertion of post as well as whatever other minor charges the Judge Advocate can dig out of his desk drawer.”

Brondt glanced at her. “Not kidnapping?” When Jani didn't reply, a change came over him, a subtle shift as though some tension left him. Then he twitched one shoulder in a not-quite shrug. “I did what I had to. When the time comes, I'll pay the price.”

“You and Hamil both.” Jani squinted through the rain, on the lookout for shapes in the distance. “Are you the only active-duty hybrids?”

“It's just the two of us. For now.” Brondt decelerated as the outlines of a checkpoint dome shimmered in the distance. “Pierce and Shroud—will you be going with them?”

“I think it may be best.” Jani sat up straighter as several figures resolved in the misty half-light.
Everyone seems to be talking calmly. No bodies laid out by the roadside
. She searched for a telltale white head—her breath caught when she saw John look toward their approaching skimmer.

“I wish it had worked out differently.” Brondt halted the vehicle in the middle of the road, then slowly rotated it so it faced back toward the enclave. “Pardon me if I don't get out. Pierce won't react kindly to seeing me, and I don't want to give myself over to the JA just yet.” He fingered the steering mech. “Don't cast us aside too quickly. Please.”

“I'm not unmoved. No one could see the things I have and remain so.” Jani popped her gullwing and pushed it upward. “But ná Gisa has helped put both you and the Elyan Haárin in a difficult position, and she doesn't strike me as someone inclined to back down.” She slid out of the skimmer—the warm rain brushed her face and spattered her coverall. “I'll talk to Feyó. That's all I can promise.”

“I'll carry that promise to those who think as I do.” Brondt lifted one hand from the mech. “Glories of the early morning to you, ná Kièrshia.” He accelerated as soon as Jani slammed down the gullwing, and sped back toward the enclave.

Jani waited until the skimmer had dwindled to a slice of shadow against the light of the road. Then she hefted her duffel and headed for the checkpoint dome.
When shall we three meet again?
She looked to the sky.
No thunder. No lightning
. Only the rain.

“We had just left Fort Karistos Command when we saw the flares play out over the bay.” Niall broke away from the small group and walked toward her, impeccable in tan desertweights. “I knew it had to be you.”

“Are you all right?” John followed close behind. “We tried to contact the enclave using codes Feyó gave us, but no one responded.” He looked less natty than usual, in drab
grey trousers and short-sleeve shirt, the shine of his hair quenched by the wet.

“I'm fine.” Jani gestured a quick
Be quiet
out of sight of the enclave guards, who watched her with the same perplexed agitation as had their brethren back at the house. Either they had witnessed her fits of idomeni temper, or good news traveled fast. “Let's go.” She headed for the skimmer, a white four-door with the bland lines of the vehicle pool, popped the gullwing and piled into the rear seat.

Niall slipped in behind the steering mech and yanked his door closed. “Was that Brondt who drove you here?” He twisted around to look back at Jani, the overhead light defining his bloodshot eyes. “He and that bastard Hamil are mine.”

Jani held her tongue until John got in and closed his door, then bent over her duffel to hide her face from the guards as Niall kicked the skimmer out of standby and circled around onto the road. Odds were that the hybrids didn't possess a directed pickup or any other sort of long distance monitoring device, but her on-the-run paranoia still rode her shoulder and she couldn't make herself take the chance. “Brondt is Feyó's mole,” she said after they moved some distance down the road. “He's the one who told her about Gisa's plan to kidnap me. He also let Feyó know that I had made it to the enclave safe and sound.”

“His last year's physical raised some eyebrows at the Service medical facility.” John grabbed a dispo cloth from an in-dash compartment and used it to towel his wet hair. “Some of the test results could have been attributed to various metabolic disorders, but to have them all show up in one person at one time captured attention.” He lowered the passenger mirror and watched Jani as he checked his eyefilms. “At the time, no one suspected hybridization. They all thought that big white house across the bay was simply home to some Haárin-human experimental living arrangement, and being Elyan, they shrugged and looked the other way. Lately they've been putting two and two together and
not liking the answers.” He let loose a grumbling sigh. “Needless to say, they think I'm involved. One reason it took us so long to hook up with you is because I've spent most of the evening sitting in a room packed with lawyers and Service investigators.”

Jani sat quiet, aware of the stiff way Niall held himself, the stillness of his hands on the steering mech.

“I had to tell him, Jan.” John's voice guttered in resignation. “You disappeared, and we had no idea where Brondt had taken you. The dockmaster shut down the human side of the station to keep shuttles from leaving, but she has no authority over the Haárin section, and they ignore her unless she insists with intent. Niall threw the threat of Service intervention into the mix, but by the time we convinced the Haárin to cooperate, your shuttle had already broken away.”

Jani slowly raised her gaze until it met Niall's in the rearview.

“I knew you were hiding something from me.” His voice came soft, his Victorian twang barely noticeable. “A colony of hybrids, courtesy of Eamon DeVries. Imagine.”

“Until—” Jani's face burned. Her throat tightened. “Until I met Brondt, I thought there was only one hybrid.”

“Ah well. Only one.” Niall shrugged. “That makes all the difference, doesn't it?” He reached into his front shirt pocket and removed his nicstick case. “That would be the young man with the flat green eyes whose image Doctor Shroud was kind enough to finally show me an hour or so ago.” He shook out a 'stick and crunched the tip.

“His name's Torin.” Jani sat back and rested her head against the seat.

“How many are there?” John's voice held a tension that indicated he didn't really want to hear the answer.

“Fifty-seven.” Jani monitored John's reflection in his mirror, watched his eyes close, his mouth set in a thin line. “Eamon's living with them. He built the big white house across the bay. The outbuildings. He's quite pleased with himself.”

“Is he?” John folded his arms and slumped in his seat, the darkness of his thoughts reflected in his shadowed face.

“You have a busy day ahead,” Niall said, this time ignoring Jani's reflection in the rearview. “First, Feyó wants to see you. Then some members of the Service Investigative Bureau are hoping you can spare them a few minutes of your valuable time.” He chewed his 'stick, working it from one side of his mouth to the other, his usual agitated tic.

“You don't need to talk to them.” John glanced over his shoulder at her. “The head of Neoclona Legal referred me to a good firm—we can stop by their offices after you speak with Feyó.”

Jani felt her gut roil as her temper flared. She tried to fight it down, then wondered why she bothered. Such was as she was now. The hell with pretending otherwise. “I haven't done anything wrong, I don't require legal assistance, and I'll thank you to stop trying to think of new and better ways to lock me down!” She cut off John's protest with a two-fingered Sìah gesture that looked scatologically humanish enough to draw a double take from Niall.

They fell silent, each prey to their own grievances. After a time, they turned off the main road, the vehicle shuddering as it left skimtrack control. They shot across the scrub, the road receding into the distance behind them, thinning to a thread of gold. Ahead, the beam of the skimmer headlamps sliced the darkness, bringing a narrow arc of the scrubland to day-life.

Then Niall banked the vehicle through a short maze of rocks and down a long, winding decline. Shimmering reflection filled their sightline as they neared the bay. The skimmer shook once more as they broke out over the water, and they fast-floated toward the distant lights of Karistos.

 

Thalassa had taken its architectural lead from its big sister across the water—that struck Jani as soon as she caught sight of the first bright domes of Karistos, backlit by security lighting and dotting the cliff like a scatter of party balloons.
Linking them were the same steep, winding streets, only more numerous. Serving as contrast were the same blocky white and tan commercial buildings and houses, only taller and more complex, and separated by parks and plazas instead of rock and scrub.

And Karistos has different trees
. Jani leaned forward so she could see them out the window as Niall steered up a steep incline. They were stuck like clusters of onlookers near the intersections of roads, tall and spindly, with stiff, swordlike leaves of the same red-green hue as the Thalassan scrub. They reminded her of the palm trees she'd seen in holo Vees, and she watched them drift past until Niall's mutterings broke the silence that had claimed them since she'd snapped at John.

“The streets in this city”—Niall tapped the vehicle directional array with one finger—“would make a plate of spaghetti look organized.”

“It's all the one-way streets.” John craned his neck as they passed yet another park. “I think I recognize that fountain. Neoclona should be just on the other side. More or less. I say forget the signs and directionals and just turn where you have to. It's still dark. There's no traffic. I'll take the hit if we're stopped.”

Minor traffic violations proved the order of the early day. Scant minutes later the three of them trudged across the Neoclona garage, boarded the lift, and floated up ten floors to the penthouse flat.

“Coffee,” John said as the door slid aside, revealing a sitting room in cream and blue that complimented Karistos's bayside ambience. “Then a war council.” He shouldered into the kitchen, Jani and Niall in close pursuit, and assembled the brewer with a speed born of practice. “But first, I really, really need a shower.” He left just as the heady aroma of too much caffeine infused the air, and seemed surprised to find Jani at his heels when he cut down a hallway and stopped before a double-wide door panel.

“I don't want to be alone with Niall just yet.” Jani pushed
past him into the room, slowing as she took in the large bed that dominated the decor. “Just give me a few minutes.” She steered to the opposite side and dropped her duffel atop the dresser. “You wouldn't happen to have a cleaner, would you?” She dragged her grimy trouser suit out of her bag. “I think I should dress for my meeting with Feyó.”

“No more ‘coverall for every occasion'?” John grinned weakly as he walked to a seemingly blank section of wall and touched it—a panel swung outward, revealing tiered racks of hangered suits and filled shoe racks. “Can't help you with the cleaner, I'm afraid, but you're welcome to root around in here.”

Jani peered into the closet, feeling as inadequate to the task as she usually did when it came to the right clothes. “You keep all this stuff here in case you happen to drop by?”