The Complete Razia Series, page 6
"We?" Lyssa said, looking over her shoulder. A teenage boy, about sixteen, with neatly combed sandy blond hair walked behind them with an excited grin on his face. Lyssa had never seen the kid before, but he looked slightly familiar.
Pymus was smiling at her in his odd, fake way that he did. "May we walk over to your laboratory for a chat?"
"I’m actually on my way out," Lyssa said, hoping to make a quick escape and avoid any associated annoying conversations about her father.
Unfortunately, Pymus was quicker than she was, and wrapped his arm tight around her shoulder, marching her down the opposite way. "Dr. Peate, I have excellent news!" he said, squeezing her for emphasis.
"Does it involve you removing your arm?" she grumbled, trying, unsuccessfully, to get away from him.
"I have been able to grant you an opportunity most DSEs aren't able to have until they've at least ten years' experience. But I pulled a few strings, made a few calls, and cashed in favors from the highest levels in the Academy! This experience—"
Enough was enough. "Get on with it."
"Fine." Pymus placed his now free hand onto the boy’s shoulder. "This is your new intern, Dr. Peate."
Lyssa blinked. She'd expected a lot of things to come out of his mouth, but that was not one of them. "Intern?"
"Intern!" Dr. Pymus repeated. "As you’ll recall, the DSE internship semester is one of the most important periods in a young DSE's education. Learning side by side with an actual DSE as well," he sighed dramatically, "you just can't get that kind of education in a classroom."
"Uh-huh," Lyssa said, catching sight of the boy. He was wide-eyed and innocent and kept looking up at Pymus adoringly. "So what, I take him for a few days a week?"
"Oh, please, Dr. Peate!" Pymus laughed obnoxiously. "He'll be with you constantly. How else is he supposed to learn?"
"Say what now?" Lyssa said, anxiety bubbling in her chest. "When you say constantly, do you mean—"
"Go on every excavation, assist on every analysis, support you on every presentation. I daresay you two will become quite close."
"I'm sorry," Lyssa said, shaking her head. "I can't take on an intern right now."
"You don't have a choice," Pymus said, handing her a stack of papers in a file folder. "The Academy notified you several times of the impending internship."
She snatched it from him quickly. Maybe she should check her mail more often.
"We spoke about it last week, remember?"
Lyssa surely wasn't expected to remember every conversation she had with him, but she was damned sure she never heard anything about an intern. She hastily flipped through the papers, praying she'd stumble upon a loophole that could get her out of this. Pymus' odious signature was all over the forms, mocking her. "I mean you can't…you can't just sign for me on this sort of thing—"
"In the event that a DSE cannot be located, his superior may sign in his absence," Pymus quoted. "You’ll find it all in the paperwork."
"This is unbelievable," she grumbled, flipping through the notes. "What in Leveman's Vortex am I supposed to do with him?"
"What you normally do," Pymus replied, a conniving smile curling on his face.
Lyssa stopped her frantic searching of the paperwork and narrowed her eyes. How convenient that Pymus should be saddling her with an intern—especially after the trouble he would've had to go through to get it approved. She was only two years out of the Academy. That wasn't near enough experience to even have anything of value to teach a student.
That asshole was spying on her to get information on her father.
Pymus seemed to have sensed that his plan was discovered, as he quickly turned to the boy. "Well, take copious notes, son. They will be considered part of your grade at the end of the semester."
"I’m sure they’ll also be part of your upcoming published works on Sostas Peate," Lyssa muttered, loud enough for Pymus to hear.
He cleared his throat and nodded at Lyssa, before turning and scurrying down the hall.
Lyssa angrily watched him go and contemplated the unfairness that was her life right now. As if things couldn't get any worse for her, she now had a permanent set of prying eyes on her that was going to report every little movement she made straight back to Pymus.
For the next six months.
"So...?"
"What do you want?" She growled, baring her teeth.
He closed his mouth and followed after her, keeping two or three steps behind.
"Whatever deal you struck with Pymus, you aren’t going to get it," she snapped, not bothering to look back at him. "So don’t get any funny ideas."
"I’m..." His voice was high and squeaky. He cleared his throat, and it came out a little deeper. "I don't have any deal with him?"
"Oh, I’m sure Pymus is getting something out of this," Lyssa grumbled.
"I am very indebted to him for arranging this internship, but—"
"So this was your idea?" she asked, whirling on him, finally. "And why did you decide on me?"
"You mean you don’t recognize me?" he said, his voice going high again and very timid.
"Am I supposed to?" she snapped.
"Well, yeah," he said, shrugging. "I’m your brother."
"...excuse me?"
"Your brother?" he repeated. "Vel?"
"Brother?" It was no wonder she halfway recognized him—all twenty-four of the Peate siblings looked similar, except for her. "Which one are you again?"
"Vel?" he said. "I was born eighteenth?"
"Oh, little brother!" Lyssa smiled, dangerously.
"Yes!" He grinned, but before he could say another word, she exploded in the middle of the hall.
"You have six older brothers, you idiot! Six to choose from! What in Leveman's are you thinking?"
Vel cowered, and even though he was taller than she was, he seemed to be a lot smaller. Two DSEs walking by gave them an odd look but kept walking, "S-seven…"
"What?"
"Beas got his degree six months ago." He swallowed. "But technically, only two, because a DSE must have ten years of experience...only Dr. Pymus made an exception for..." He trailed off, skin slowly paling with every heaving breath Lyssa took.
Lyssa stepped back from him, licking her lips angrily and trying not to explode.
"Look, I don’t know if you know this, but the rest of the family don't like me very much. So if this is some kind of teenage rebellion—"
"Dr. Peate." Vel laughed, much more maturely than a sixteen year old should have. "You are seriously overreacting. Mother was fine with allowing the internship to proceed."
"Was she really?" Lyssa said. "Because Dorst sure seemed pissed off about it last week."
Vel smiled, and Lyssa saw something behind his eyes. "I know there is some...bad blood in the family. But I hardly think that's an excuse to overlook your stunning qualifications as a DSE."
"Uh-huh," Lyssa said, seeing right through his sycophantic behavior. First of all, she was hardly the most upstanding DSE in the family—extracurricular activities or not. More importantly, there was something in her gut telling her he wasn't to be trusted. The sooner she could lose him, the better.
"So, shall we get started on our first excavation?" Vel asked, happily.
Lyssa smiled devilishly. She was going to make him wish he had never even heard the name Dr. Lyssandra Peate.
***
"And Jinjina had her fifth child last month, I think?" Vel prattled on, as he had since they'd left the Academy some three hours earlier.
Lyssa, utilizing the skill she'd developed in school to drown out obnoxious noises, was focused on searching for a really terrible planet for them to excavate. Something that was filled with big creatures or massive storms—anything that would permanently scar her obnoxious little intern and make him beg anyone who would listen to get him out of the internship.
She heard him ask her a question, and momentarily stepped out of her thoughts.
"What?" she snapped.
"I asked if you could believe there were fifteen children under the age of ten in the house!" Vel said.
Lyssa grimaced, then returned to the list of planets in the star system. Some of them were gaseous planets, others inhabitable because of proximity or distance to the star. She paused on some of the moons, as those could be inhabitable from time to time, but this system was fruitless.
Vel was asking her a question again.
"Dr. Peate, you're just so focused!" He laughed. "I wondered if you were planning on coming to Mother’s birthday this year."
"Uh no," Lyssa said, finally speaking.
"But why not?" Vel asked. "You haven’t been home in ages. I'm sure she would just love to see you!"
"I think it would be better for all parties involved if I didn’t."
"Dr. Peate, you're a treasure!" Vel laughed again, and Lyssa thought momentarily about leaving him on one of the gas giants.
She tried to return her attention to the planets, but he was talking. Again.
"So have you chosen a planet yet?" Vel asked. Out the corner of her eye, she saw him with pad and pencil in hand, leaning forward to capture her every word.
"Looking," she mumbled, sliding lower in her chair.
Suddenly, her sensors beeped, and Lyssa couldn’t help the smile that grew on her face. Leveman’s Vortex was a speck in the distance, but it was growing. She hadn't even considered using her greatest weapon...
"Actually, we’re not going to excavate a planet," Lyssa said, nonchalantly.
"We’re not?"
"No," Lyssa said, motioning toward the rapidly approaching Vortex.
"Oh my...are we going to study Leveman's Vortex?"
"That's what Pymus asked you to do, isn't it?" Lyssa said, bringing up the application to track the angle of entry. As she spoke, she carefully guided herself into the green. "Learn all the secrets of the Vortex?"
"Dr. Peate, we don't seem to be slowing down," Vel said, a hint of nervousness in his voice as the beeping from the sensors grew more frantic.
"Why would we slow down?" Lyssa said, feeling the pressure increase. "We're going in!"
"W-What?" Vel yelled, as the sensor warnings screeched. The stars were flying by so fast now that they became little white streamers, mixing in with the white debris from the outer arms of Leveman’s vortex until the screen was all white.
"That's what Sostas was studying!" she said, looking back at him. "He found a way to get past the Vortex. We're going to meet him there!"
The pressure inside the ship was increasing, but Lyssa remained standing even as it pressed at her. One eye was glued on her green sensor.
"We are?" Vel's excitement was palpable. He didn’t seem to notice the increase in pressure. "I can’t believe it. I’m finally going to meet my father. I don’t even know what—"
"Oh no," Lyssa said nervously, her eyes still on the green. "Oh, oh no."
"What?"
"I...I..." Lyssa turned around to look at him."The...the ship is off...I miscalculated the angle..."
"W-what?"
"There’s a formula," she stammered, her hands steady on the joystick. "The precise angle of entry—weight of the ship, proximity to other celestial bodies. I…I miscalculated it…"
"What does that mean?"
"I don’t think we’re going to make it," Lyssa said, turning back to look at him with the most panicked expression she could muster.
"Then pray, dear sister, and let us hope our souls are light from a life well lived," Vel said, immediately dipping his head to prayer. "O great Divine Being, please guide our souls so that we may ascend to heaven. I have followed your lead and lived a good life. I have been kind and pious and—"
The green turned to red and Lyssa quickly turned on her thrusters. The force of the engines pushed her down into her chair, and she landed in a heap, laughing, even as Vel continued to pray.
She looked back at him, still chuckling as he slowly opened one eye and looked at her. The ship stopped shaking, and the stars were whirring by faster than before.
"W-what just happened?" Vel asked, terror still in his voice. "Did...were you..."
She threw him a look and turned the ship back on auto-pilot. "Using the gravitational pull from the Vortex to slingshot us to the planet," she said simply. "Uses less fuel that way."
Vel's mouth dropped open. "That's...that sounds awfully dangerous."
"Eh." She shrugged.
"So we're not going to meet Father in Leveman's Vortex?" Vel asked, sounding disappointed.
"Well, you can go meet him there if you want. I'm sure that's where he is," she scoffed.
"Meaning he—"
"Meaning he's dead," she snapped. She paused, then added, "Probably."
Vel didn't respond. Lyssa waited for a few moments before turning back to look at him. He was staring at the ground, his face a mix of disappointment, embarrassment, and anger. She watched him take a deep breath and force his face back to a smile.
"Well, Dr. Pymus did say you had a unique sense of humor."
"I'm sure he did," she said, turning back to watching the stars go by, a little perturbed that she hadn't rattled him more.
***
"So where should we start?" Vel asked, holding his pen and paper at the ready. They'd landed at the first excavation site on the planet—a thick, sticky jungle. Lyssa had hoped the bugs and the temperature would get to him as Leveman’s Vortex hadn't, but so far, he seemed as chipper and happy as the moment they'd left the Academy.
Time for Plan B.
"Well, the first thing we should start with is why you didn’t do an air quality analysis," Lyssa said, turning to look at him.
"W-what?"
"An air quality analysis," Lyssa said, melodramatically rolling her eyes. "As I sit here breathing poisonous air…"
"Well, I would need a sensor for that," Vel said nervously. "I can’t tell the pollutant concentration without—"
"If it wasn't breathable, we would be dead by now," Lyssa cut him off, shaking her head. "You sure have a lot to learn about the dangers of being a DSE."
"Dr. Peate, you wouldn’t bring me to a planet where the air wasn't breathable."
"What if this was a test?" Lyssa said, folding her arms across her chest. "Or I had forgotten to do the air quality calculation?"
"You didn’t, though—"
"Well," she said with a superior glance. "What if I had?"
"Then we would both be dead?"
"Damn straight we would be," Lyssa said, acting like she was walking back onto her ship. "You clearly are not ready for an internship. I’m going to—"
"Dr. Peate, you're so funny." Vel didn't seem the least bit concerned for the air quality nor Lyssa's growl of frustration. "So what are we going to analyze first? I can vouch for the air…"
Lyssa turned around, annoyed. "Start with the damned tree leaves."
"Ah!" Vel said, pulling gloves and a plastic bag from his bag. "I do love carbon analysis."
She grumbled as he systematically picked leaves from different trees, carefully writing key features about each tree before placing the leaves in the bags. Lyssa, who'd always used her father’s sensors to analyze plants on the spot, rolled her eyes and began trudging through the forest.
"Are you going to pull some leaves?" Vel asked, curiously.
"You’re the intern," Lyssa snapped, angrily pushing branches out of the way.
"Of course." Vel laughed, taking three steps forward and selecting another leaf. "So how much data do you normally collect at an excavation site?"
"Enough," she responded, annoyed that he was taking so long.
"But what's enough for the Academy? Planets are huge. How do you know when you've gotten a representative sample?"
"Planets are closed environments," Lyssa said. "So once you've got the basic chemical and biological composition of things, you've got enough to sell it."
"Oh." Vel stopped, staring at her. "But doesn’t the Academy require a minimum of four excavation sites in order to be certified for sale?"
Lyssa sighed and kept walking, shoving leaves and branches out of her way.
"It just…doesn’t seem very thorough."
"Well, that's for the buyer to worry about," Lyssa said, looking up at the sky. "If I spent all my time getting every single detail about a planet, I'd be here for weeks."
"Isn't that what you're supposed to do?"
She opened her mouth to say one thing, but then thought better of it and replied, "Yes."
"But you only bring in three planets a quarter," Vel said, nonchalantly looking at a plant.
"The required minimum to stay active in the Academy, yes," Lyssa said, knowing where this conversation was going.
"So if you're only bringing in three planets a quarter, and you're not doing a full excavation... What are you doing?"
"The DSE Academy stipulates a quota of three planets per quarter to maintain good standing." She didn’t have to answer to him the way she had to answer to Pymus. "Therefore, I only excavate three planets per quarter."
"I see," Vel said, nodding. "So do you think we’ll find any sign of animal life?"
"Animal life usually finds you."
"They taught us in our Fauna Interactivity Class that usually native species are usually scared by the sound of the ship," Vel said, as if quoting a book. "It’s rare that you’ll run into them in the wild."
"Yeah, they say that not to scare you." Lyssa smirked, pushing the brush away as they ventured further into the dense forest. "The reality is, over two hundred DSE die every year on planets."
"That’s not right…"
"Look it up. Between the animal life, the dangerous terrain, and simply being all alone on a planet, billions of miles away from anyone who could help you—"
"Most DSEs," Vel corrected her, not sounding the least bit scared, "have staff and partners that go with them on planets."
Lyssa turned to look at him. "Yes, but DSEs are often left on an excavation site all by themselves. And by the time their teams come to retrieve them…it’s too late."
"Dr. Peate, I know what you’re trying to do."
She snorted and turned away from him. "Uh-huh, and what's that?"
"Mother does the same thing. She worries about us out in the field. But I believe firmly that the Great Creator has a plan and—"
