Viking (41 page)

Julie’s escort looked, and that was all the doorman needed. An elbow flashed in a
blur, and the apple man was lying sprawled in a heap on the sidewalk. The doorman
frisked him expertly, produced handcuffs from a back pocket, and snapped them on. Then
he turned and smiled, just as Satler burst out of the lobby like a locomotive gone
berserk.

“Julie, it’s a trap,” he was yelling. “Geire’s crooked!” He pulled up short at the
handcuffs, his eyes flying back and forth between doorman and damsel in distress.

Agent Gregory removed his doorman hat with a comical little bow.

“Mrs. Orosco. I met you once before.”

“I remember,” she said.

“This time I think I got the right guy.”

Rafa sat hugging his knees, his bare feet half-buried in cool sand. Overhead, a
layer of fleece was quickly disbanding after spending its moisture in the night. Along the
horizon, a gleaming band arched from the incipient fires of dawn. The air was clear and
warm with the promise of sunrise.

He’d picked the spot hours ago, when the world was inky black except for an
occasional sparkle of Erisa Alpha’s electric blue through the clouds. Because there was
only a mild ring tide on this moonless world, the steady lap of waves deviated little
from the line they’d defined just a couple steps down the beach. He’d been motionless
for a long time, content to listen to the music of the surf and let the beginnings of
morning’s breeze riffle his hair.

At his back, the dimness was alive with the sounds of heavy equipment, calls of
greeting, and the bustle of settlement-rearing. The first scientists had arrived to raw
wilderness, starry-eyed and impatient, almost three months ago; now there was a steady
influx of men and machines. The latest transport had landed under floodlights a few
minutes earlier, its feet settling on a stadium-sized pad of concrete with a clank that
resounded through the jungle. Paths for pedestrian and vehicle traffic crisscrossed a
broad swath of nearby forest, and the geodesic domes of living quarters and
laboratories, mess halls and trading posts, glinted like brobdingnag beetles through
the trees.

Erisan Bay, they were calling this upstart new town and the famous ruins that
resided nearby. Everybody seemed to agree that the alien builders weren’t native to
this planet—they’d left far too little behind to be other than transitory visitors—but
it was the Erisa system where they’d been found, and until more information came to
light, “Erisan” was as good a label as any. They had built a city in the shelter of
this cove, sliced a lookout plateau into the side of the cliff along the promontory,
and then walked away. Nobody knew why or when or how—but with time and luck, they’d
find out.

In parallel with the archeology and anthropology at the ruins, a sizable delegation
of scientists was studying real Erisans—the pufferbellies—with feverish intensity. The
creatures had become somewhat elusive when radio broadcasts began sprouting like weeds
all over the spectrum, and they had not taken kindly to skimmer fly-bys, but they were
clearly intelligent, and meaningful two-way communication seemed achievable in the
not-too-distant future.

Rafa shifted his weight, stretched with sinuous strength, and then leaned back. His
leg, temporarily free from the stiff strutwork lying in a heap beside him, itched and
ached. He was walking again, thanks to modern medicine, but the limp and the scars
would probably never fade completely.

A quiet voice spoke in his ear, bringing a smile to his lips.

“I thought I’d find you out here.”

Rafa continued to face the steadily rolling waves, but his eyes closed in pleasure,
and a certain tenseness left his eyes. Julie’s virtual visits made the loneliness
bearable.

“Guess I’m just a beach bum at heart.”

Her laugh was musical. “I always suspected you were a bit sad to give up that job as
a diver.”

“Hmm. Coaching wasn’t so bad, once you got past the smell of the locker room.”

“The dean called, you know. She says UCLA wants you back, once your quarantine’s up.
If you’re interested, that is.”

Rafa shook his head slowly. “Nah. They’ll do fine without me. Besides, a lame coach
would just get the team’s pity, not their attention. I’d have to ride along behind them
on a golf cart at every workout.”

“I saw Dolores a couple nights ago.”

“What did she say?”

“She was a lot more lucid than normal. Grumbled about the tortillas and the salsa
she gets whenever the rest home serves Mexican.”

Rafa chuckled.
“A Mamá siempre le gustaba el chile más
bravo.
And I have yet to eat a good store-bought tortilla.”

“That’s about what she said. But her language was a bit more colorful. Good thing
the girls don’t speak Spanish very well.” The amusement in Julie’s voice was
unmistakable.

“You took them along?”

“Lauren insisted. She wanted to show Grandma how she’d learned to play checkers. It
was fun to see them all together. I took a vid for you.”

“Did she look healthy?”

Julie hesitated. “Actually, the nurses say her heart’s getting worse. The pacemaker
can only do so much. Their prognosis was pretty pessimistic.”

Rafa nodded, a lump rising in his throat.

“But she asked about you. Called you David. She wanted to know when you’d be coming
back.”

“Did you explain the quarantine?”

“I didn’t have to. She knew there was a waiting period. She’s a mighty shrewd woman,
Rafa. I think she knew all along what the trial was, what it meant for us. And to tell
you the truth, I suspect the sort of ‘coming back’ she had in mind refers to the state
of our marriage more than anything. She just wanted some reassurance that we’d be
together when this was all over.”

Rafa made no attempt to stop the tears that were trickling down his cheeks. “That’s
one assurance I’m ready to give to anyone who’ll listen. Try and keep me quiet.”

“Is this the tight-lipped man I married?” Julie teased.

When Rafa didn’t respond, she positively giggled. “Okay, I spoke too soon. It’s
still you: a real conversational spartan.”

Rafa shrugged awkwardly. “Actually, I’m probably even worse now. It seems like I’ve
been interviewed and debriefed and talked to and talked about until I’m ready to go
cross-eyed.”

“You never did like being the center of attention.”

“It was finally starting to die down to where it was livable. Then news of the claim
settlement broke, and I’ve hardly had a moment to myself.”

MEEGO’s legal rights to the planet had been rescinded as soon as their intrigue came
to light, and the government had stepped in as sole owner without even needing to
invoke eminent domain. Then a friend of Rafa’s, a member of the law school faculty at
UCLA, had contacted him with the bizarre suggestion that he file his own claim to Erisa
Beta II.

Vikings normally had no standing as potential property owners, since they were
exploring for a paycheck. But in Rafa’s case, the employee contract was invalidated by
documentable attempted murder. And he could show proof of independent
occupancy—including meaningful exploration efforts—for the specified interval. The
planet was his for the price of a paltry filing fee.

Of course the government balked. They were exceedingly reluctant to yield deed on
the most valuable piece of real estate ever cataloged. Just the fact that biology on
Erisa Beta II was conducive to human habitation made the planet a gem; the Erisans and
the pufferbellies made it priceless.

If it had come down to a battle of technicalities, the government might have won the
day, even with a rabid team of law school professors on Rafa’s side. But as was bound
to happen, the sensational story of his claim burst onto global headlines and was tried
in the court of public opinion. Almost before thunderstruck bureaucrats could stutter
out a response, they realized that a fight had become political suicide. So they’d
worked out a deal with Rafa: he got everything, everywhere on the planet, as long as it
didn’t show traces of the Erisans; any alien handiwork went to the public. And the
politicians had returned to their lairs, somewhat red of face, to scheme about property
taxes.

 It made Rafa the greatest land baron in history. The ocean lapping at his
toes, the vast stretches of jungle and forest and distant mountains beyond—even the
asteroids that lived in captive orbit beyond the rings—all belonged to him, lock,
stock, and barrel.

But right now, it felt just as confining as the orbiting clean room where he would
go to spend the last three months of quarantine. He opened his eyes to gaze at the
shimmering salt water, and sighed noisily for Julie’s benefit. “Wealth and fame are
only annoying, as far as I’m concerned.”

“I don’t know that it’s all bad. The private channel I call you on doesn’t come
cheap. And a year ago I would have fainted at the cost of three last-minute tickets on
a cross-country shuttle. Now I can travel wherever I want.” There was a twinkle in her
tone.

Rafa snorted. “I’m glad one of us can. There’s not even a spare skimmer around here
so I can get away from the crowd. About all I do is mark off days on the calendar and
answer the door and drink lemonade with reporters who come to visit. They made me cut
the ribbon when they turned on the force field around the perimeter of the
settlement.”

“I thought you didn’t like being alone.”

“I miss Palomita and Mariposa.”

“They miss you. And they need you. My mom’s going to spoil them rotten.”

“Mom, my foot! You’re dad’s the one they’ve got wrapped around their fingers.”

Julie laughed. “And you. They’ve got you in their pocket too.”

The lines around Rafa’s eyes deepened. “Ever since the delivery room. And I’m even
crazier about their mother.”

“I never could understand the connection between love and lunacy.”

“Much madness is divinest sense, so they say. Anyway, I’m head-over-heels for all
three of you. If I had you, I wouldn’t care about the rest of the world.”

“I’ll have the girls call when they get up. It’s hard for them to sit in on our
calls with these staggered schedules. It’s the middle of the night for them right
now.”

“How about for you? You’ve missed a lot of sleep yourself.”

“No more than I used to miss before. You were always ready to trade a few winks for
other activities.” There was a wistful tenderness behind the cracking in Julie’s
voice.

The sun was well above the horizon now, its light bright and radiant. Rafa lay back
on the sand and closed his eyes, a deep sigh escaping from his throat. “I miss you so
much, Estrellita. Sometimes I wake up at nights and the dreams are so real I can almost
feel you next to me. But the bed’s empty, so I come out here and close my eyes and
pretend I’m back at the beach with you the night I proposed. Remember that?”

“I remember.”

There was a long silence.

“I heard someone call this place Rafa’s World the other day. I’m glad to own it, I
suppose, but that’s a foolish name. If there’s one thing this whole mess taught me,
it’s that my life revolves around you; no world could be mine without you in it.”

“Me siento igual,” she murmured, almost too faint to be heard.

“The minute Disease Control gives me a clean bill of health, I’m going to be on the
first ship out of here. Don’t bother meeting me at the spaceport; I’ll buy out the
block around our house and have them land right next door. It’ll demolish everything, I
suppose, but who cares? If I pay the Rutledges enough, do you suppose they’ll let me
squish that hot tub they’re so proud of?”

Julie laughed tearfully at her husband’s fantasy. Rafa’s eyes were still closed, his
lips curved in a mischievous grin. “And Julie—you better get lots of sleep the week
before; once I’m home I’ve got plans for your nocturnal hours. An eighteen-month
separation means lots of pent-up energy.”

“This is sounding pretty good, Rafa. But I can’t wait that long. Eight months is
plenty,” said Julie softly. Then Rafa felt the delicate brush of fingers, trembling as
they ran hesitantly down his arm and across the back of his hand.

For a minute he held his breath, afraid to look, too stunned to speak. Finally he
cracked an eyelid. Backlit by the rising sun and framed by a soaring ring of gold, she
settled gracefully beside him. Her hair glowed. Her eyes were red and misty; he could
see that she’d been crying as they talked. She was wearing a rumpled denim jumpsuit
that still smelled faintly of dust and petroleum from the transport.

Her lips were trembling.

She had never looked more ravishing.

Daniel Hardman was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and grew up along the shores of Lake
Winnebago. As a teenager, he lived in Indiana and Kentucky, where he consumed a steady
diet of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke,
Isaac Asimov, Lloyd Alexander, J. R. R. Tolkien, and C. S. Lewis.

Daniel served as a missionary in New Mexico and Texas, where he came to love the
Spanish language and Latin and Native American cultures. He completed graduate studies
in computational linguistics and holds an MBA from Brigham Young University. He works
as a software architect, designing apps that manage supercomputers and private clouds.
He blogs about professional topics at http://codecraft.co, and tweets as @dhh1128.

Learn more about Daniel's fiction at http://sivanea.com.

Daniel and his wife Linda live in Utah with their seven children and their dog,
Tilly.