Future Prospect (22 page)

“I don’t like anyone. Why do you think I map uninhabited planets?” He tried to joke and immediately regretted his words as soon as he saw her face tighten. Because he wasn’t properly socialized he just kept going. He’d hurt her and that made him angry with himself. “And it’s not as if you like me either.”

As his words landed in her ears, Lia’s eyes narrowed, and she began to push him away. Rather than wrestle her into submission, which would take all morning because she was stronger than she looked, Colan withdrew his hands and held them up in surrender as she rolled off the bed and whirled the robe around herself. In a rush of outrage and cloth, she fled the room, brown hair streaming behind her.

He watched her disappear, his mouth hanging open with unsaid words that might have stopped her. But it was too late. The panel slid closed in a controlled and quiet way, and he began to scan the room for his clothes.
Way to ruin the moment, you idiot
.

* * * *

Lia tried to breathe deeply, but she was having a hard time when all she wanted to do was cry. And how stupid was that reaction? She’d had spontaneous, restorative sex with a man who didn’t like her. A man who thought she didn’t like him in turn. Which was an extremely insulting indictment of what he thought of her as a person.

Anger percolated in her blood like acid, and she stared at the breakfast she’d started in her kitchen before she’d heard him stirring in the bedroom and had gone in to her doom. There was no way she was going to try and cook for him now. Of course, he’d probably have made fun of her amateur efforts anyway, so no harm done.

Shoving ingredients back in her chiller, she missed the noise of him leaving the bedroom and was startled when he slammed something metallic on the counter behind her. She jumped, turned, and was confronted with a simmering Colan Nestor. His eyes narrow, a flush on his cheeks. He stood there, shirt unbuttoned, trousers hanging open, his belt coiled on the countertop between two place settings. He didn’t even have on underwear; she could see the trail of hair leading—

“What’s with you running away?”

“I’m supposed to stay and listen to your misanthropy?”

He took a deep breath, chest swelling, and she staggered with a sudden pang of lust at the sight of the body she’d caressed so recently. Too bad the man inside it was an insensitive hermit.

“What’s all this?” Changing the subject, he gestured at her carefully laid out plates, glasses, and napkins. Oh, how pathetic she’d been to want to care for him as she’d waited for him to wake after a traumatic night, to reciprocate the care he’d given her. Instead, she'd had reckless intercourse with him and been insulted immediately after.

“It was going to be breakfast,” Lia countered as she rapidly gathered up the things, plates rattling and glasses clinking together. She was too rough and shaky to be more careful. “But now it’s nothing. Put on your belt, your pants are falling down.”

He whipped the strip of webbing from the counter with far more force than necessary and threaded it through one loop before he stopped to taunt. “Huh. You liked it well enough when my pants were off.”

With a little shriek of outrage, Lia threw the handful of plates and glasses into the sink where they shattered with a tremendous and satisfying crash. Colan’s eyes widened, and he took a step back as she walked around the counter, raising her arm to point at her door.

“Out! Now! Not another word!”

He opened his mouth to reply when her door pinged. Lurching to a halt, Lia stared at him. Backing around him cautiously, she went to her door, hoping it wasn’t Zashi responding to the noise with a stunner drawn. Checking the monitor, she gusted out a tremendous, aggravated sigh. It was Stev, bright-eyed and well-put together. Not rumpled and distraught as she was.

“Hello, Stev, what is it?”

He grinned into the monitor. “Came to invite you to breakfast. I wanted to hear all about the excitement last night. Are you all right? I thought I heard a crash.”

She sensed Colan come up behind her, the heat from his body matched the anger radiating from him in pulsing red waves.

“Let him in.
He
likes you.” His hissing words in her ear made her cold with rage. Jabbing at the release tab, Lia jerked her elbow back, hoping to catch him in the gut, but he was too agile, dodging to the side as the door opened, and Stev looked in, his grin fading as he took in the sight of the two meters of half-dressed, agitated male standing in her foyer. With a superior nod at the blinking man, Colan strode out of her apartment, boots in hand, trousers bagging, and belt trailing along behind him.

Lia wanted to cry.

* * * *

“Tor, hey Tor, wait!” Colan paused in his retreat down the middle of the muddy street of Pearl, trying to put as much distance between his addled self and the disaster in Lia’s suite, and turned to face Gina Healy. She was trailed by both her boys, who, despite the ruckus of the night before, or perhaps because of it, seemed entirely rested and fit. Colan was exhausted and shaky, but both disabilities were his own damned fault, so he could hardly blame anyone for the contrast. Ermil walked right into his leg and circled his thin arms around Colan’s thigh.

“You’re not blowed up.”

“Not at all.” Colan laid his hand on the little boy’s head and greeted Perrin and Gina all while wondering how many more dishes Lia broke. Or perhaps she was crying on the shoulder of her former lover he’d left her with like an entirely enormous idiot.

“Tor. Have you heard about Riva?”

Dread filled his belly. “Is she—”

“No, she’s improving. She might wake today. But that’s not why I stopped you.” Gina grabbed Perrin’s shirt collar as he tried to drift toward an alley filled with cans of refuse. “Wayde and Rob are in a bit of a situation.”

“What now?”

“They’ve contracted to lead the initial party to the new base camp the settlers are going to construct over in the big cocker forest. I know they’re capable of getting themselves there, but they tend to wander when they feel there are some good shells over the next horizon. I’m concerned they might lose a few new folks before they actually get there. The settlers moved their departure time up because of the recent disturbances, and I can’t really blame them.”

Colan sighed. He knew where this was going. “You want me to go along and keep everyone in a straight line.”

Gina nodded, her stressed expression lifting for a moment. “If you would. The last thing anyone wants, after all that’s happened, is for any more people to be endangered. It would be intensive liaising.”

And it would mean he could get out of town and dramatically cut down on the number of people he’d have to deal with. Especially one female with silky brown hair and outrage in her eye. Done.

“When do they want to leave?”

“Today. And before you go, I need to ask if you’ve decided on what you want to do when it’s time for you to transfer off-planet. No, no.” Gina held up her hands and stopped him before he could speak. “I haven’t released you from your Gamaliel contract yet. I still need you as a liaison for the next month or two, at least. But I also need to put in authorization for your next assignment. Have you decided to take another planet or settle in somewhere and write your guides?”

Colan stayed quiet as he lifted the laughing Ermil up and down out of the muck. The little boy squealed and shrieked each time his shoes made a sucking sound in the mud. Another month or two here? With an angry Lia Frei dogging his every move? “Set me up for a planet again.”

“Really?” Gina narrowed her eyes. “You know that writing up those guides and publishing is the better choice for you, professionally speaking. There will always be more planets to survey, but the longer you go without writing up your planet guides, the more difficult it will be. You’re what, three surveys in and not a book in sight.”

Shrugging and using the motion to pull up Ermil and Perrin, who’d latched on to his other arm, Colan tried to look unconcerned. He was behind in his publishing. So what? He was a field man. He’d always been more comfortable on his own in uncharted territory than sitting at a desk and putting one word after the other. Gina, on the other hand, seemed to produce a study or paper every six months, and as head scientist, she took it upon herself to encourage her staff to mimic her rigorous academic schedule.

“I’ll forward your request when you get back from this trip. Think about it while you’re gone. You’re a good writer when you actually try. There’s no way you’ll have the time to write if you’re surveying, we both know that.”

“I’ve never found it easy to think about proper sentence structure when I’m freezing in a popup tent on some mountainside.”

Gina laughed and called to her boys who had somehow maneuvered themselves to perch on his feet where he’d lifted them up and down, stomp by stomp, the suction sounds of the wet peat all that much louder with the added weight. “Come on guys, you’ve given Colan enough of a physical workout. He’s not used to all the grabbing.”

Glad Gina Healy had no idea of who he’d been recently grabbing and
where
he’d been grabbing her, Colan swung each boy away and let them drop to their feet. Only a little mud splashed each time, but both Perrin and Ermil cackled as if it was the cleverest trick on the planet.

“Bring us back something, Tor!” Ermil called out as he followed his mother down the street toward the science station.

* * * *

Dodging a wallowing transport mired in a mud pit, despite the driver’s enthusiastic application of the accelerator, Lia made her way down the main street of Pearl. She ducked splattering mud from the transport’s whirling tires and passed the nearly complete building located across from Joli’s restaurant. She’d heard one of the new settlers, upon exposure to the looming forests and adhesive sludge of Gamaliel, had decided that prospecting wasn’t for her, and she’d promptly leased her portion rights and reinvested the money in a small lot in Pearl where she was now busily building a new restaurant. Or it might be a supply store, depending on whatever supplies arrived first.

Lia had been immersed in work for the last few days, so she decided to leave the admin complex to get lunch at Joli’s. She hadn’t been in that establishment since she’d been rudely snubbed, but she felt inclined to show some support in the face of Joli’s imminent competition.

Pulling open the uneven door, she entered the long, dim room scented with fermentation and muck. There were a few empty tables, and Lia found one near an available light source. She wanted to be able to see her food as she ate it; although, perhaps some of Joli’s patrons preferred not to look that closely. A young woman with red hair and caramel skin sauntered over and gave Lia a faint nod. Pasting on a smile, Lia requested the day’s special, water, and a half pint of beer. The server flicked a towel at the table and left toward the kitchen’s swinging doors, hopefully to place the order and not take a long break out back.

It had been two weeks since Colan had left town, and Lia was still angry with him. She shifted in her seat, reminded of her encounter with him in this very room. Stars, she was reminded of him and his surly ways whenever she simply walked down the street or passed the science station. She should just go back to the dining hall at the admin center as any reasonable person would have; more variety of dishes, better-prepared food, and much more comfortable surroundings. However, the chance of encountering Stev again, and his efforts to make conversation and rekindle something between them, wore her out. So, here she was, expanding her horizons. Sort of.

The red-haired woman was back, surprising Lia by placing a glass of water and a small tumbler of beer on the table. She didn’t even slosh any vindictively. Nodding thanks, Lia wished she had someone to talk with so she wouldn’t sit here and dwell on how Colan Nestor was an uncivilized scoundrel. An uncivilized scoundrel who had learned her body well in one brief encounter. One and a half brief encounters. Interludes she was ashamed to keep reliving every night before she tried to fall asleep, only to find herself too agitated for anything other than self-administered relief. Heat flared up her cheeks, and Lia wondered if she should have sat in the shadows. She had to stop thinking about him, stop wanting to see him again, hoping that he’d return and beg forgiveness. It wasn’t going to happen.

The door opened with an angle of bright, midday light, and Lia watched as Wayde and Rob ambled in, caked with mud up to the knees and festooned with smears of crushed foliage everywhere else. They glanced around at the muted greetings flung their way by some of the patrons and shuffled to her table, identical grins of delight creasing their faces.

“Wayde, Rob! Where have you been? Sit down!” Lia greeted them happily, genuinely glad to see them and relieved she wouldn’t have to sit alone and dwell on how delicious Colan’s scent was. She never planned on getting close enough to him to take a sniff again, the insensitive clod.

The two men trooped over and dropped into a couple of chairs, requesting water from the server who had trotted over.

“Good to see you, Lia. You miss us?” Wayde asked after he drank half his glass, some water dribbling through the stubble on his chin.

“Of course I did. I’m still waiting to finish our hike.”

Rob nodded and requested stew from the server who had returned with Lia’s dish, and Wayde requested the same along with a pitcher of beer and three glasses. Lia could see the two older men were tired and thirsty, so she let them drink as she inspected her plate. It wasn’t steamed curlers, it wasn’t seasoned lingon strands, but instead, there was a greenish gelatinous mound wriggling on her dish with wizened brown lumps embedded deep inside. It smelled vaguely like a petrochemical, and she wondered for a moment if the staff in the kitchen was playing a prank on her in retaliation for simply existing.

“Oh, sharple pie’s on the menu.” Wayde nodded as he inspected Lia’s meal. “I should have ordered that.”

Lia tried to feel an echo of his enthusiasm, but the thing did not resemble a pie in any way. There was no discernible crust, and the edges of the greenish mass oozed over the edge of the plate and disintegrated.