Asylum, page 5
He’d been afraid of that.
3
From the icy tundra behind the military aircraft hangar, Mari sat on her air bike and contemplated the gray smoke rising from the mountains. Unless she was mistaken, it originated from the clifftop she had just searched. Was someone bombing the wreck? Whoever had been approaching in a shuttle as she’d left?
When she’d heard the craft flying in, she’d hurried to leave, not wanting anyone to spot her up there. She had no idea if the Kingdom military had placed some claim on the wreck and would drive off—or shoot—trespassers. Someone had spent a lot of time up there, scavenging and looting the remains.
Fortunately, they hadn’t thought of the science labs as places that held valuables. Mari had found some of her equipment, including her prototype terraformer. The compact spherical device didn’t look like much from the outside, but it held a tiny fusion reactor and had the power to break down the surface layers on a hundred square miles of land, creating rich fertile soil and depositing seeds and growth-enhancing enzymes. Essentially, it could turn a portion of the inhospitable surface of a moon or planet into a thriving garden in a much shorter time period than traditional terraforming technologies.
She was proud of the work she’d done on it and relieved she’d found it still tucked in a cabinet in her lab. By offering this technology to the Kingdom, maybe she truly had a shot at winning asylum. A place in their world and protection from her family, who would doubtless prefer Mari shared nothing with humanity.
The hangar door rattled and started rolling open.
Mari hit reverse on her air bike and nudged it back around the corner. She pulled out a device that activated the same astroshaman stealth technology that hid their base in the Kingdom forest. The air shimmered faintly to her energy-detecting implants as a flexible camouflaging shield enrobed her and the bike. Unless someone came very close, they shouldn’t see her.
Though the technology was powerful, it was good not to move when it was activated, so Mari put the bike on idle as the first of two aircraft roared out of the hangar. Their hulls were painted gray and blue, Kingdom military colors.
As soon as they took off, heading to the mountains to check out the smoke, Mari rode her bike into the hangar. Two aircraft remained parked inside, with voices coming from the other side of them.
She nudged her bike into a corner near stacks of supply crates so she could wait for her opportunity to catch a ride back to the mainland. Earlier, she’d spied on the soldiers and read their schedule, so she knew the same cargo ship that had flown up here to deliver supplies should have been emptied and would be heading back soon.
The voices, both belonging to women, continued on, talking about a mess needing to be cleaned up. At first, Mari took it literally and assumed some chemical spill might be endangering the hangar, but she didn’t smell anything, nor did the women or any cleaning robots come out to attend to messes.
She nudged the bike forward, glad the battery-powered craft ran silently, and found the women—two soldiers in parkas and uniforms—pointing at a wall display. It showed the gray smoke wafting from the snowy clifftop.
The feed had to be coming from the camera of one of the aircraft flying closer, for it was a much better view than Mari had gotten from outside the hangar. Now, she could make out a gray shuttle perched on the cliff—surprisingly, not the one she’d seen arriving as she’d taken off on the bike. It was smoking, recently damaged by weapons fire. More damage appeared to have been done to the Celestial Dart too, though she couldn’t imagine why.
Two figures in parkas came into view. They were working inside an open panel on the back of the shuttle, probably trying to repair it for flight. An uneasy feeling came over Mari. Even though she couldn’t see their faces, they oozed familiarity.
One turned toward the camera, a pale face coming into view for a second, before poking the other. They ran inside, closing the hatch, and an instant later, the shuttle took off.
Mari sank low on her bike. That had been one of her sisters. No, two of her sisters.
How had they known she would come here? Mother must have sent them—and mentioned their sunrise conversation. If their shuttle—that was some rented Kingdom craft, not astroshaman technology—hadn’t been damaged, would they have already found her?
Mari closed her eyes. Her escape had barely begun. She couldn’t let them drag her back.
Now that her mother knew she wanted to leave the community, she wouldn’t let Mari out of her sight again. She would never get another chance at freedom. She hadn’t even done anything on her list yet.
She’d meant to acquire chocolate for her trip up here, or some other delectable human pastry or dessert she’d read about, but she’d received so many odd looks from people in Zamek City that she hadn’t dared do something as prosaic as grocery shopping. On top of that, there were so many people in the Kingdom’s capital. Millions of them in the streets, on the magtrains, in the subways, walking along sidewalks, shopping in stores. And all speaking. So few had communicated with each other via their chips. It had been overwhelming to her senses.
“Didn’t know this duty station would have so much action,” one of the women said, still watching the display.
“The only action I’ve gotten is in Sander’s bunk.”
“Lucky you. He’s a cutie. So earnest, so handsome.”
“He’s earnest in bed too. If I had to get stuck up here in this armpit of an outpost, at least it was with someone with a squeezable ass.”
They shared snickers.
It took Mari a moment to realize they were talking about sex. Even though she’d read books and seen vids, she hadn’t been around people in sexual relationships very much. There were others like her in their teens and twenties who’d been birthed and raised in the astroshaman community and had an interest in such things, but far more were oldsters who’d been born into a normal human existence and come to the Advanced Path later in life. None of them seemed like promising partners, and most of them considered themselves above human biological needs now that they were ascending up the Path. They were experts at frowning with disapproval when any of the youths experimented with amorous activities.
“Be glad you’ve got a bed buddy. All I’ve got are my Moon Melters, and I’ll have to ration my stash.” The soldier rattled a bag of what must have been a food item, for she dug out a piece to toss into her mouth. “If what we unloaded from the supply ship is any indication, we’re not getting anything good for our entire tour of duty.”
“You don’t think the crate labeled firm cakes sounded promising?”
“Not when I dropped it on my foot and it weighed fifty pounds. No good cake could be that heavy.”
“Military rations are meant to be filling. And firm.”
“Like cement bricks.”
The ding of a comm unit came from another room, and the women trooped through a doorway and into a corridor of offices. They’d left something on a table under the display. A package. The aforementioned Moon Melters? What was that? Candy? Chocolate?
Mari eyed the cargo ship she needed to sneak into with her bike. The hatch was closed and likely locked. Her software for thwarting electronic locks would take a minute or so to run, and the soldiers might come back any second, so she shouldn’t dawdle. She knew that, but her curiosity turned that package of candy into a neodymium super magnet.
With great willpower, she made herself ride over to the cargo ship first. She rested her hand against the lock while running a program to find the right combination of electronic signals to order it to open.
From her spot, she could see the label on the candy bag. It was the package of Moon Melters.
The women hadn’t returned yet. Maybe she could—
A breeze whispered through the hangar door, bringing the distant sound of an engine. The soldiers returning?
The lock thunked open, the hatch unsealing and rising as a ramp lowered. She drove her bike inside, a much easier feat than it had been when the cargo area had been full of crates. Only a few crates remained to be unloaded—or maybe they were going back to the mainland for some reason.
Mari tucked her bike against the wall beside them, stepped off, and trotted to the open hatch. She paused on the ramp to look back.
Since she was carrying her cloaking device with her, the bike was now visible. Visible and blatantly out of place in the cargo hold. Any soldier peeking inside would be puzzled about where it had come from. And the sound of an approaching engine was getting louder. The aircraft had to be angling for the hangar.
“This will just take a second,” she whispered, trusting her cloaking technology would continue to make her hard to detect.
As Mari hopped to the ground and ran across the hangar to the table, the display continued to show footage of the cliff. At least one of the military aircraft remained there, recording the area around the wreck. Her sisters must have repaired their shuttle well enough, for it had successfully taken off. Was it possible they knew where she was and were heading here?
“Can’t dawdle,” she whispered.
Mari picked up the package of Moon Melters. It was nearly full. Another reason not to linger. The soldiers would surely return soon for their prize.
She dumped several of the items into her palm. They were brown lumps and didn’t look as appealing as she had expected. They reminded her of animal droppings more than moon rocks. She sniffed the open package, debating if the faintly waxy scent promised something delicious. The contents did smell sweet. Wasn’t there a human expression about appearances—and perhaps scents—being deceiving?
The engine roared closer, and she spun, about to run back into the shuttle with her prize, but she realized she was stealing candies without paying for them. A twinge of guilt came over her. It was a small theft, but…
As she fished into her pockets, depositing the candies and seeking some barter of equal value that she could leave, the pitch of the engine changed. It was landing outside instead of flying into the hangar. Maybe she had a couple more seconds.
She couldn’t leave any of her weapons or various tools behind as payment. They had far more value than lumpy brown candies, and she would need them in her adventures. Her fingers brushed a wrapped rectangular item. Ah ha.
She laid a ration bar on the table. Her people made them out of the edible mushrooms and algae they could easily grow on their spaceships. They weren’t particularly appealing, but they were nutritionally substantive. A soldier would appreciate such a gift.
Mari turned to run back but spotted someone standing in the hangar doorway, someone with a rifle pointing at her. The young man with bronze skin, short black hair, and intent brown eyes wasn’t what she’d expected. He definitely wasn’t an astroshaman or anyone her sisters or mother would have sent. Judging by his mishmash of clothing, none of it appearing warm enough for this climate, he wasn’t a soldier either.
With her camouflage activated, he should have struggled to see her, but that didn’t seem to be the case. He was looking right at her.
Only then did she realize she was standing in front of the display. Her technology could hide her effectively against stationary objects, but the movement on the display had to be a challenge for it to match itself to. He was squinting, so she doubted he could see her well. She risked sliding to the side.
His eyebrows flew up, and the rifle followed her, but its aim was less certain once she was out from in front of the display.
“Stop right there!” It was a whisper instead of a shout, immediately making her positive that he’d sneaked into the area too—and that the soldiers would object to his presence. “I need to… talk to you.”
Sure, he did. With a firearm.
Was this another scavenger who wanted some astroshaman technology? Mari had the urge to sprint toward the cargo ship, but fast movement would also make it difficult for her cloaking technology to compensate. She made herself ease soundlessly toward the open hatch.
He glanced at the door leading to the offices, frowned briefly at the bar on the table next to the rest of the candies, and stepped warily into the hangar. He murmured something into a comm link too quietly for her to hear the words, then trotted in her direction. Though he kept his rifle up, he didn’t fire at her.
She pulled out a compact stunner, opting for that instead of the more painful—and potentially deadly—arc blaster, one of her people’s favored defensive weapons. Thus far, she didn’t know who this man was, but if she started killing Kingdom citizens, the probability of her gaining asylum on their world would plummet.
Unfortunately, he headed straight for the cargo ship and the open hatch. She picked up her pace, but he got there first, springing lightly onto the ramp and glancing inside. His glance turned into a second look, and she knew he’d spotted her air bike. She had no choice but to stun him.
But a second before she squeezed the trigger, he stepped inside. She was off to the side and couldn’t see into the hold yet.
The sound of another engine grew audible. The display on the wall had turned off. The aircraft that had been recording the clifftop had to be flying back. Had the second one chased off her sisters? Mari hoped so.
She hesitated beside the cargo ramp, debating if she wanted to leap inside and stun the man or simply wait for him to come out. If the soldiers returned and found an unconscious body in their ship, they might start searching for her. Her cloaking technology fooled human eyes well, but it wouldn’t stand up well to a hangar full of soldiers with scanners.
A soft clack came from inside. Was he messing with her bike?
Mari leaned around the corner of the hatchway, finger on the trigger, but he startled her both by being right inside and by throwing something at her. A gritty brown powdery substance struck her full in the face and plastered her open eyes and mouth. Whatever it was surprised her with a sweet taste, but that didn’t keep her from stumbling back.
She heard a thump as he leaped down from the ramp, and she fired at him. But with the gritty stuff tearing her eyes, she missed and hit the side of the cargo ship. Her attacker bowled into her, probably seeing her easily in the middle of a brown cloud of powder that hadn’t yet dissipated. Before she could shoot again, he caught her around the waist and knocked her to the ground.
A strong hand tore the stunner from her grip and flung it across the hangar. It clattered far out of her reach as it bounced across the cement floor. He wasn’t a huge hulk of a man, and Mari tried to buck him free, but he was strong, tenacious, and had the body weight advantage, so he succeeded in pinning her to the floor. As she squirmed, she maneuvered her hand toward a pocket, not the one with the candy but the one with her arc blaster.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered, squeezing her tightly as he tried to flip her over and pull her arms behind her back. He managed to get her onto her side, but she fought mightily. She needed to free a hand to grab her weapon. “But your sisters hired me,” he added. “They said you went rogue with their information.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Mari growled, jerking her arm free, “but it’s not true.”
“They said you’re a fugitive. They’re paying to get you back.”
“I’m not a fugitive. You don’t know anything about it. Let me go.”
Mari managed to clip him in the stomach with her elbow. Judging by his gasp and pained grunt, that might have been lower than his stomach. His grip loosened enough for her to grab her arc blaster.
She spun onto her back, startling him, and for a moment, they were face to face in some parody of a lovers’ embrace. He must have realized she’d pulled her weapon free, for he grabbed her wrist. But she fired first, the burst of energy slamming into him like an electrical current and knocking him back.
“Not again!” he gasped around jaws spasming open and closed.
Mari scrambled away as he rolled on the floor, his entire body jerking and flopping about, his face contorted in pain. If he hadn’t just tackled her, she might have felt sympathy for him, but anyone willing to hunt someone down for money, not knowing if they were innocent or guilty, deserved some pain.
Aware of the roar of the engine growing ever louder, Mari sprinted for her stunner. She released the button on her arc blaster as she picked up the less lethal weapon.
The spasms of his body lessened, and from flat on his back, he managed to say, “Thank God. That thing is horrible.”
She stepped into his view and pointed the stunner at his face. “I am not rogue.”
“Uh.” His bleary eyes focused on the muzzle of the weapon. “You didn’t run away from your people with top-secret valuable information?”
“I did not run. I walked away with only the information in my brain.”
“Is it top-secret and valuable?”
She opened her mouth to deliver an indignant answer, but Mother and her siblings might genuinely feel that way. It had been almost ten years since she’d finished her schooling and moved from the derivative work of replicating others’ experiments to running her own and creating devices such as the prototype terraformer.
He must have found her pause condemning, for his wary gaze turned into a suspicious squint, and she could see him trying to figure out how to relieve her of her weapon. She stunned him. He only had time to get half a curse out before losing consciousness.
“Of course the information in my brain is valuable, you idiot.” She should have said that before she shot him.
Alas, there wasn’t time to pin a note with the message to his chest. The engine was roaring closer, and she had no doubt that the aircraft would swing into the hangar. And find the stunned man and start a search unless she could hide his inert form quickly.
Mari grabbed him under the armpits and leaned her body weight into pulling him across the floor. The upgrades to her skeletal system and a few muscular enhancements that Mother had given all of her children helped, but she was not some cybernetically enhanced supersoldier. With much grunting, under-her-breath swearing, and straining of muscles, she dragged him toward the closest stack of crates. As she got him tucked out of sight, the aircraft she had expected roared into the hangar.
