Salvaged Destiny (3 page)

“I apologize if I misrepresented myself. I’m not here to
cause you any trouble and I’m sorry if I gave you that impression.” Now he looked
very sincere. Del wasn’t sure why, but she bought it.

“You aren’t. You didn’t. It’s me. I’m just tired from my
trip. And maybe I’m paranoid.” And out of practice talking with people who
weren’t related to her.

“And that’s exactly why I hope you will help me.” Lazlo
glanced around and lowered his voice. “I need a guide out there to help me find
some things.”

“What things?”

“I can’t tell you until you sign a confidentiality
agreement.”

“Despite Dee Dee’s intuition that you’re not a rapist or a killer,
I’m not at all sure that I want to go traipsing out there alone with you if you
can’t even tell me what you’re looking for.”

“Once you sign it I will be able to tell you everything.”

“Everything?”

“Everything to do with this particular project.” He smiled again
and she raised her glass to her mouth so she wouldn’t smile back. He really had
a nice face, much more suited to friendliness than menace.

“How long would this take?”

“I don’t know.”

“How far out?”

“I don’t know. I have some vague directions, but I can’t
show you until—”

“I sign, right.” Del thought about this. “Is this an
official thing or are you doing this on your own time?”

“Official but secret.”

“How much?”

“How much what?”

“How much are you going to pay me if I agree to this bizarre
task?”

“Ah, that we would have to negotiate, after…”

“I sign. How in the galaxy am I supposed to make an
intelligent decision if I have no information?”

“I don’t know. Sorry.” Lazlo made an uncertain gesture with
his big hands and she shook her head at him, frustrated but somehow not willing
to kick him out of the stone-lined booth quite yet.

Del looked over at the bar and saw that Dee Dee was watching
and waiting for a signal to return, a plate of something hot and steaming next
to her. “Normally I would simply leap at this wonderful opportunity but I can
see my sister has managed to land us something to eat and I’m tired and hungry.
So if you’ll excuse me, Citizen Casta, I’m going to have to delay making a
decision. Although with the lack of details I’m not sure how more time to think
is going to make things clearer to me.”

“So you’ll think about it?”

“Sure I will.” She was going to give it less consideration
than whatever she was going to eat in the next few minutes but she would think
about it. Whatever Dee Dee had managed to coerce from the tiny bunker kitchen
would be delicious. Dealing with this weird situation was not.

“Thank you.” Lazlo looked so grateful, as if she’d already
agreed to help him, she almost liked him for a moment. But that was foolish
thinking and Del shut it down.

Del nodded to her sister and the security officer stood as
she approached.

“You aren’t leaving us, are you, Lazlo?” Dee Dee asked as
she sat down a plate of dumplings. They looked and smelled as if they might be
filled with something savory. And by the asteroids of Alon, there were two
dipping sauces. Taking a sniff of the little treasures, Del thought she might
have even detected a hint of pork. What had they done to deserve such
indulgences?

“Stay and eat—there’s plenty,” Dee Dee encouraged the big
man and Del repressed her urge to wave him off. Del didn’t want to share. She
was hungry and this was the first fresh food she’d had in nearly three days.

“No thank you. I’ve taken up enough of your evening. It was
a pleasure to meet you, Citizen Browen.” The security officer shook Dee Dee’s
hand and then looked at Del with hope glowing in his whiskey-colored eyes. “Can
I call you tomorrow?”

“No. I’ll call you.” Stars, she wanted to eat, those
dumplings smelled divine.

“You don’t have my information.”

“I figured that was only available after I signed.”

Lazlo guffawed and she smiled in return. No, he wasn’t such
a terrible fellow after all. But she had no time for some mysterious trip with
a strange man. Not that he seemed strange—Lieutenant Casta was a courteous
specimen. But she wanted her dinner and she had family business in the morning.

“May I?” She nodded and he keyed his info into the datpad
she held out to him. “Good night.” He smiled again and turned and left the
Bunker with long strides. Most of the people in the bar watched him leave with
varying levels of subtlety. Since he had just been at their table, Del didn’t
have to pretend she wasn’t tracking his exit.

“So, what do you think of him?” Dee Dee’s interrupted her
dark thoughts with a perky trill.

“Who? The security guy?”

“Yes, the well-formed, nice man with lovely manners who just
gave you his data. What do you think?”

“I think he’s up to something. And I’m hungry.”

Lazlo woke up feeling pressure to get started on his new
assignment. He needed to have Delphine Browen sign on as his guide and they
needed to start, today if possible. He knew she wasn’t going to call him—her
reluctance was obvious when he’d tried to talk with her the night before. Delphine’s
suspicion and reserve were such a contrast to her outgoing and cheerful sister.

But she was his only choice. The other person whom Citizen
Kidd had suggested had a few criminal convictions and he wasn’t going to risk
his project with someone who had broken the law. Of course Citizen Browen might
be a criminal too, but she had at least managed to avoid being caught.

Delphine definitely gave off a slight aura of someone who
was familiar with the gray areas of life. She was also pretty, if you liked
smallish women with thoughtful eyes and suspicious natures—something Lazlo
recently realized he did.

So rather than wait for a call that would never come, he
headed back to the Browen family compound outside the port gates. He’d gone
there last night to track her down and had found her mother who was directing
the sorting of trash on a conveyer belt. Citizen Browen the elder had looked
him over closely and suggested he try the Bunker with a twinkle in her eye,
where her eldest daughter had been as predicted.

Unlike her jolly mother and friendly little sister, he had
failed to impress Delphine last night—so this morning he needed to be perfect.

After a brisk walk from the port security checkpoint, Lazlo
entered the metal gates of the Browen facility, noticing again the signs it had
once been a small private spaceport—wide, reinforced landing deck, mechanical
bays and a few low warehouses beyond them half-tucked into the ground. It was
all surrounded by mismatched sheets of opaque fencing. But instead of ships and
flight crews, it was now filled with an overwhelming variety of junk—gutted
carts, stacks of metal and resin, crates filled with who knew what. It was also
hot, humid and smelled like spilled hydraulic fluid.

Lazlo noticed some people gathered around a clunky old
transport and he walked their way, spotting Del in the driver’s seat nodding as
she looked over a display while an older man talked with her. A slim girl who
looked about thirteen was stacking empty containers in the bed of the transport
and Lazlo smiled at her when she looked at him. She blushed and kept stacking.

Del noticed him next and rolled her eyes but kept nodding
and checking the display. The older man seemed to be reminding her about
something to do with oil, but he stopped talking when he saw Lazlo.

Lazlo introduced himself and discovered that he was Del’s
father, Nige Browen. The older man was about Del’s height and he stood as if
his hip hurt. He looked Lazlo over with sharp gray eyes.

“What can I do for you, Citizen Casta?”

“He’s not just a citizen, Pa. He’s a lieutenant with port
security,” Del broke in, either giving her father a heads-up about law
enforcement or trying to needle Lazlo about his title. Probably both. She
seemed to be an efficient person.

“Security, eh? Are you here about some crime or other,
Lieutenant?”

“No sir, I’m here to speak with Citizen Browen.”

Nige Browen nodded and glanced at his daughter, who was
scowling at him. “That’s fine then. Hey, Luti, are you done back there?” The
young girl messing with the containers mumbled agreement and Nige Browen tapped
the door of the transport. “All right then, Del, you’re ready to go. Lieutenant
Casta, I’ll leave you to it.” Then he turned and left, favoring his left leg as
he disappeared between some stacked crates, Luti following him. Lazlo looked
back at Del and saw her frown as she watched her father limp away.

“How was he injured?”

“Rock fall in the Outlands.” She sighed and studied him, her
sharp gray eyes very similar to her father’s. “Why are you here? I said I would
call you.”

“There is a bit of urgency with this project.”
And I knew
you had no intention of calling me.

“I have a bit of urgency of my own. I need to get to work
now.”

“Doing what?” If he could keep her talking, he had a chance
to work in something interesting enough to entice her to sign off and really
look at the mission parameters. What that something could be was beyond him at
the moment—Del was distracting him with her stare and general posture
indicating she would be happy to start the vehicle and drive away.

“Picking up and dropping off. I have to collect bio-waste
from restaurants and take it out to the pig farm and the composter.” Delphine
was terse and distracted as she secured her display under the seat of the
transport and then adjusted the straps on one of her boots.

“I could come along and help, then we could get started.”

“I haven’t agreed to work with you and I know I haven’t
signed your confidentiality agreement yet.”

Lazlo realized she’d said “yet”, a slip that meant she was
considering it. “Sign it now and you will have my help all day. I can explain
everything as we go.” He tried to be charming. He wasn’t all that good at it—he
usually approached people too honestly to charm them. But he really wanted Citizen
Browen to work with him. The more time he spent with her, the more right it
felt. She would be a good guide.

Delphine shook her head and glared up at the girders in the
ceiling of the bay. Deep in the cavernous space, someone started pounding on
some metal and yelled at someone named Reesi to watch out. There was a
tremendous crash followed by laughter, which seemed to make her reach a
decision. “Okay, I’ll sign and you can come with me and explain things. This place
is an echoing madhouse crawling with people.”

“Thank you.” Lazlo hopped up into the cab of the transport
and called up the agreement, which Del read through thoroughly, signed and
handed back to him. She quickly backed the transport out of the bay and out the
gates. She warned him to hold on as she accelerated toward the port entrance,
slowing only to be waved through, and then they were back inside. The air was
suddenly cooler and less humid and plenty of people and vehicles traveled along
the Boulevard. She took a sudden turn into a side service corridor and he
almost fell out.

“I told you to hold on. Scoot over here and stay on your
seat.” She spared a glance at him. “I won’t contaminate you with anything.”

“I didn’t think you would,” Lazlo replied, inching closer to
her on the bench and trying not to slide into her as she turned another corner
to enter a narrow-access corridor. She was small and he was large and he didn’t
want to crush her.

Del brought the cart to a halt and hopped out to knock on a
plain gray door in the stone wall. As it squeaked on its hinges, a man in a
smock opened the door with a smile and started to haul tubs of chopped-up,
leafy-green odds and ends to the back of the transport. Del grabbed a few empty
tubs and carried them to the door, then had the man sign off on her datpad. The
tubs smelled slightly fermented and sloshed when she flung them up into the
transporter’s bed. It all happened so quickly that Lazlo didn’t have time to
get out and help. She was back in and driving before the man had even closed
his door.

“That was quick.”

“No need to dawdle. Tell me about this project,” was her
clipped reply. Delphine Browen was efficient and focused in a no-frills form. She
actually reminded him of Major Sekar. A pretty, nonlethal Sekar.

“In the condensed version—someone, somewhere in the
bureaucracy has discovered there are some old military items here on Sayre they
want back. They contain some rare elements that we can’t get from AR-42 anymore
and they need those materials for future equipment development.” He paused and
looked at her as she drove along. She looked skeptical. That was a good sign—he
was equally unsure of the idea. “These things are out in the Outlands and I
need your help as a guide to find them. I have some general coordinates for
three possible locations. Some old storage spaces, concealed and probably built
as caches for war games.”

“So what you’re actually saying is that the military lost
some weapons, wants them back to make new weapons and you need me to get you to
some unknown location and back again with this salvage.”

He nodded. That was an accurate summary. She was smart as
well as fast.

“What if I’m a pacifist and I think that lost weapons should
stay lost?”

“Are you?”

Delphine grimaced and stopped the cart at another door. Off
she went, knocking on the door, grabbing empty tubs, loading full tubs—this
time mostly soupy tomato bits. Lazlo got off the cart and followed her around,
unable to get ahead of her enough to actually help with anything.

“I’ll help you,” Lazlo offered again. “Just give me some
warning so I can get out quick enough.”

Del nodded, intrigued enough by his proposal to want to
speed up the collection so she could have some time to contemplate the issue. “Just
do an equal exchange of the containers at the next one. You’ll probably mess up
your nice clothes though.” She looked him over.

Lieutenant Lazlo Casta looked like he belonged in a
professionally shot digima — digital image—for some recruiting push for security.
He was neatly groomed, with perfectly tailored clothes, and was fit and glowing
with good health and goodwill. It seemed as if the Congressional anthem should
start to play whenever he smiled. She felt like a shabby little creature next
to him.

Del started up the old transport again, hoping that the
rewire would hold through the rest of the run. Her pa had warned her it had
been temperamental and she certainly didn’t want to have a breakdown with Casta
sitting next to her. He’d probably call in a mechanic, trying to be proper and
helpful, and it would end up costing her a fortune her family couldn’t afford.

“So are you a pacifist?” he asked with genuine-sounding
curiosity.

“In theory yes. But we don’t live in a theoretical world, do
we?”

“No we don’t. What else would you like to know?”

“Why me?”

“Bara Kidd, with Information Services, recommended you and
one other person.”

Del nodded. She knew who Citizen Kidd was. The information
officer had helped her numerous times with finding old geology reports and
bringing in reference works for her to study. “Who was the other person she
recommended, or is that confidential?”

He smiled at her and she tried not to notice how nice he
looked. Liking Lieutenant Casta wasn’t a good idea. Even contemplating helping
him was probably not a good idea. And she always stuck with good ideas. But he
was very nice and Dee Dee was right, he smelled good too. Although in
comparison to tubs of discarded and just-beginning-to-ferment vegetables, just
about anything would smell good.

“Avo Kirk.”

“Oh yes. Avo.” Del nodded, not saying she thought bright and
shiny Casta over there should stay away from Kirk and all his kin. They weren’t
especially bad people, just more arrogant than untrustworthy. Avo would talk a
good scenario, head out in the wrong direction, forget to take moisture pullers
and end up stranded somewhere far distant. She had gone out twice in the last
year to rescue the man, although he preferred to call it assistance. In all
fairness she really couldn’t leave the lieutenant to the minimal expertise of
Avo Kirk. Casta’s inevitable injuries and dehydration and lack of success would
be on her conscience.

“You know him?”

“Oh yes.”

“And what do you think of him?”

“That would be confidential.”

“I’ll sign a nondisclosure agreement,” he joked with a
wicked grin as she slowed at their next stop.
Stop being cute
, she
wanted to warn him, but decided to be inscrutable and keep her mouth shut.

“Time to work. Grab some of those green canisters. We’re
getting used cooking oil here.” She started the exchange with Citizen Beem at
the bakery on the Boulevard and he asked if they could manage to take some
extra containers of old stale baked goods. Del glanced at her transporter’s
bed, looked over her list of stops to go and agreed, making a notation on the
form. There would be just enough room.

Beem was so pleased to get more discards out of the back of
his shop that he gave her a bag of cookies after she and Casta had loaded the
last of the biologics on the vehicle. He promised that they were made fresh
that very morning but Del didn’t really care. She’d eaten plenty of outdated
food while growing up.

“What’s that?” The security officer pointed at the paper bag
on the seat between them as they drove away.

“Cookies. But we don’t eat until we’re done. Our hands are
dirty.”

“What kind of cookies?”

She looked over at him, struck by his good-natured interest.
She’d never really thought someone in law enforcement would be so—well, nice. Harata’s
henchmen were universally boorish and rude. They also tended to leer and grab. “I
don’t know. I just thanked Beem. We have to keep moving.”

“Right.” Lazlo shifted on his seat a little as she turned
down a more open avenue, which meant she had to slow down because there were
more pedestrians and obstacles. Getting out earlier this morning would have
been better, but she had been so tired last night that she’d slept in too late
and now felt as if she would be playing catch-up all day.

“Can I take a peek?” the big man asked as one of his hands
started to slide across the seat toward her. Toward the bag.

Del shrugged, trying not to smile and keeping her attention
on the swerving pushcarts, weaving bots, wandering folk and stacked crates
filling the corridor. Narrowly avoiding a slow-moving pedal car with enormous
bundles of rough fabric tied to it, Del shook her head. It would be good to get
back into another service corridor. She heard the bag rattle and glanced over
as he closed it up. He was a big guy and probably hungry all the time.