“Don’t shoot!” Talbot cried as he faced the two women with their spring-loaded tubes. “I’m Private Mark Talbot, Seventh Corporate Marines, Turalon detail. I’ve never touched a child. We don’t have pedophiles in Solar System anymore.” He winced. “Well, there might be some out on the stations, but most are caught through Corporate psych screening. Weeded out. I swear. I’m not a threat!”
For long moments, the two women watched him, the tubes never wavering.
“What do you think, Su?” the tall, pale woman asked.
“I’d say we go ahead and shoot him,” the petite Asian said, “but that would leave this incredible stink right here at our front door.”
“Good point.” The tall one—who had to be Rebecca—shifted her right foot forward. “If we decide to shoot you, would you do us the favor of walking out beyond the compound first?”
Talbot swallowed hard, that familiar sinking sense of impending disaster in his gut. “This can’t be happening to me.”
Rebecca couldn’t hide the humor anymore. “You’re right, Private. It’s not,” she told him as she flipped a lever that decompressed the springs and lowered her tube. Offering her hand, she said, “I’m Rebecca Smart. This is Su Wang Ho. Welcome to Mundo Research Base. From the looks of you, you must have quite a story to tell.”
He shot a sidelong glance at the still suspicious Kylee. “Pedophile? Really?”
“Dya says—” she started.
Su interrupted. “Dya told you that story when you were a little girl to scare you into behaving, minding your manners, and to keep you diligently involved with your study. Now, can you tell me why she would have chosen that story to frighten you?”
Kylee, wrinkled her nose, looking her age for the first time. “Because it’s the one that yielded the most productive results.”
“Ah,” Rebecca said. “Illumination.” She gestured to Talbot. “Come on in. Let’s get you up to the main floor and check you over. You look just about all done in, Private.”
He blinked, shook his head, struggling to synthesize this. “I’m not hallucinating, am I?”
“How long have you been in the forest?”
“Lost track. Seems forever.”
Su said, “You didn’t survive that long dressed like that.”
“No. My armor ran out of charge this morning. Left it on a rock outcrop just down the hill, the other side of the nightmare.”
“Good armor,” Rebecca murmured as she led the way into the tower base. The round room had a duraplast floor, the tower rising high into the darkness above.
Talbot took in the crowded and stacked boxes—some sialon, others homemade-looking wooden crates. Unidentifiable pieces of equipment lined the walls between the heavy, internal structural supports. Just ahead was an elevator, the cage nothing more than in industrial wire-sided box.
Looking back, he watched Kylee kiss the quetzal on the lips and then wave the creature away before she closed the door and hurried to catch up.
“How does that work? The girl and the quetzal, I mean?”
Rebecca shot him an amused glance. “You came on that last ship?”
“The Turalon, yes.”
“You’re in for a real eye-opener, Private Talbot.”
“Call me Mark, please. How’d you know a ship was here?”
Rebecca waited until Kylee charged in and slid the gate closed before engaging the lift. The cage shimmied in its tracks as it started to rise.
“You can hear the shuttles coming in over half the planet.” Su and Rebecca had backed as far from him as they could, the slight quivers of their nostrils a measure of how used to his own smell he’d become.
“Why didn’t you go into Port Authority? Lots of Wild Ones did.”
“Wild Ones,” Rebecca said softly, a smile on her broad lips. “That’s what we’re called now?”
Talbot, fearing he’d made a mistake, shrugged. Eyes on the structural members as they flashed past, he said, “Hey, I just got here. Since a nightmare got Garcia, the forest ate our aircar, and Shin was killed by slug, I’ve been getting a complete education on how absolutely ignorant a man can be.”
The lift rose through a sialon floor and into a foyer. One of the two light panels had been removed and replaced by a series of what looked like glass jars; they hung by the lids and had been filled with a light green substance that glowed. Homemade lights?
Rebecca pulled the door open, gesturing Mark out. “Shower’s in the bathroom, second door to the right. You’re about Rondo’s size. How about you get cleaned up? By the time you’re finished, we’ll have food and something to drink ready. Then, while Dya checks you over for medical, you can start at the very beginning.”
He took a deep breath, almost at the point of hysterical laughter. It hit him with unaccustomed ferocity: a sense of total relief that weakened his already frail muscles.
“I was ready to die today,” he said, voice shaky. “You wouldn’t believe what it was like out there. This . . . this . . .”—he gestured around at the white hall, hung as it was with work clothing and equipment—“is like a fantastic dream.”
Rebecca crossed her arms. “Don’t get too weepy with relief, Private. We’re hanging on here, but don’t get the idea that you’re saved. You’ve just stumbled from one kind of desperate to another. Now, go get cleaned up, and we’ll talk.”
Chastened, he stepped into the bathroom, seeing a sink, toilet, and shower stall. Small, but utilitarian. Everything orderly. The brushes on the counter looked homemade, as did the folded fabrics that he assumed were towels. No sonic or pheumodrier. Call it rustic old school.
He wearily stripped out of his coveralls, nose prickling at the biting odor, the sloughed skin. In the reflective metal wall that served as a mirror, he stared in horror at his body. The sores were the biggest surprise. That and his half-starved appearance. When had his toenails grown so long?
“God, I’m a mess,” he told himself hoarsely.
“We’ll see what we can do about it,” a voice said behind him.
Talbot whirled around, face-to-face with a blonde woman. In her early thirties, she had Kylee’s eyes. A little shorter than he, she stood about five foot six, her face not unattractive with its upturned nose and good cheeks.
He should have reacted to the way she now studied his body, her critical gaze running down the length of him. “I have some salves that will help when you’re finished.”
He watched her scoop up his clothing, holding the coveralls out at arm’s length. “We’ll get these clean and see if they’re even salvageable.”
Then she turned and walked out. He noticed that she had broad shoulders, like Olympic swimmers did; her body carried muscle unusual for a woman.
Kylee was staring at him from out in the hallway, something thoughtful in her blue gaze. Maybe she was reconsidering her assessment of him as a pedophile.
“Screw vacuum,” he muttered, stepping into the shower.
The controls were familiar, and within moments, warm water was cascading over him. The soap was an old-fashioned bar. And then came the agony of his open wounds.
You’re a marine. Tough it out. Your whole hide is infected.
By the time he was finished, he stood panting, letting the water run over him. He should have stopped, but couldn’t help lingering, arms braced against the walls to support him. The sensation of water running over his skin was like a drug.
When he finally opened his eyes, Rebecca and the blonde, who he assumed was Dya, were standing there, watching.
“Sorry,” he told them as he shut the faucets. “I shouldn’t have wasted the water.”
Rebecca chuckled. “Water? That we’ve got plenty of. Well, along with problems.” To Dya, she asked, “Where do you want to do this?”
“Work bench, solarium.” The blonde beckoned with a flip of her fingers. “Step out here and let us dry you off.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. And this isn’t the stuff of erotic fantasies. We’re a lot more practiced at treating wounds than you are.” Rebecca told him. “I can hear the story you would tell now: ‘And two women carefully patted down my wet skin with towels before leading me by the hand to the solarium. There, in the bathing light of Capella, they made me lay naked on a large table. And as they turned their supple fingers onto my body, I threw my head back and screamed as they took a wire brush to my open and oozing sores.’”
“You’re right,” Talbot told them. “Not the stuff of male fantasies.”
Nor did he find anything erotic about their sober assessment as they patted him dry. Somehow it reminded him more of taking a Corporate Marine physical with the poking, prodding, and technical discussion of various lesions, swollen glands, and general emaciation.
They led him out into the hall, through a door, and into a large room that appeared to be nearly a quarter of the dome with a kitchen area, tables, a line of windows facing Rondo Peak, sofas, chairs and desks . . . and eight large-eyed boys and girls of all sizes and ages.
A sight which stopped him cold. Somehow, the fact he was buck-assed naked before all these children wilted him on the inside.
Dya gave him a tug. “Come on, Private. You’re surrounded by scientists, either budding or established. Beyond that, you’re about to be a lesson.”
“Lesson?”
She and Rebecca led him through a door into a transparent slice of the dome filled with sunlight and plants. The place smelled of rich soil, greenery, and the multitude of flowers. The central bench had been cleared of pots and jars, and a tarp laid out.
“Be our guest,” Dya told him with a gesture.
Even as he swung onto the table, the children were filing in.
“This is Private Mark Talbot, a Corporate Marine from Solar System.” Rebecca began her lecture. “He’s survived in the forest for three months by wearing body armor. Designed for military combat, it has beneficial functions when it comes to Donovan. We will know more after we retrieve it.
“Because Private Talbot could not leave his armor, he has suffered significant epidermal trauma. What is our first concern? How do we respond?”
The oldest boy, brown-haired, with Rebecca’s eyes and jaw, said, “By cleaning the necrotic tissue from the wound, then sterilizing, and finally applying an antibiotic ointment before either dressing or leaving the wound open, depending upon severity.”
“Very good. Now. Step forward and observe as Dya begins the process on the first wound.”
Talbot gritted his teeth as those childish and fascinated eyes all crowded around to watch.
Unlike in Rebecca’s scenario, he didn’t scream. No, he kept his jaws clamped, held his breath, and yes, a couple of times, tears slipped down his cheeks. But he didn’t scream.
Not in front of kids.
Sucking snot, why couldn’t they be like normal kids back in Solar System and watch holo vids about space pirates, heroic Corporate officers, and lost puppies?