Call it a good day. They’d have four acres. Four, miserable, tiny, but inviolate acres. From the original land they’d cleared, that was all that remained.
But, for Corporate Mine, it was a definite start.
Kalico had participated in the planting, all taking place under Su’s critical eyes. They’d had to leave bare ground between the forest and the seedlings. Ground they’d have to defend through out-and-out hard work and savage cutting. But it would buy time for the little pines to take root. In addition, they’d scattered pine needles raked up from beneath the trees at Mundo.
And behind that first line of seedling pines had been planted the first of the black walnuts and oaks. And then a line of fruit tree cuttings. And finally the berry bushes.
Kalico sighed, rubbed the back of her neck as she pushed past the double doors and into her admin dome. Makarov was still in the process of spooling down the shuttle after another trip to Mundo. They’d have more trees to plant tomorrow. The lights had turned on out in the compound, the sound of engines could be heard as the haulers and mucking machines were driven off to the mine by second shift.
Corporate Mine was running at an easy sixty percent production. She could have run the crews at one hundred. But what was the point? The smelter could only process what it could process.
I can have that tram up and running in a couple of months if I dedicate the labor to it.
That notion had its appeal. Especially now that the key to keeping the forest back had been found. It would mean braving the haunted decks aboard Freelander—maybe even overnighting as they built the equipment Fenn Bogarten said they’d need to spin the carbon fiber.
Just the thought of it sent shivers down her spine.
She considered stopping in the cafeteria for a cup of tea, decided against it, and checked in at the radio room, asking, “Anything I should know about?”
The woman looked up. “No, ma’am. Just routine chatter from Port Authority. Su Wang Ho was delivered safely back to PA. Aircar crew opted to stay the night in the PA dormitory rather than fly back in the dark.”
“Smart of them. Glad to know they took my advice. Let me know if something comes up.”
“Of course, ma’am. Oh, cafeteria wanted to know if you’d eaten?”
“Caught a bite down at the smelter. Just a ration bar, but it will do. Tell the kitchen they can shut down.”
Kalico stopped, turned back. “And tell them I said thank you. That I appreciate it, and that I’m sorry they had to wait.”
When did I start giving a damn what the kitchen staff thought?
“That will make their night, ma’am.” The redhead smiled and bent back to her radio.
Radio. Not micrograv or entangled photonics. Just old, antique radio. Like the primitive set they’d left at Mundo should Kylee Simonov decide to sneak out of the forest and call home.
“Yeah, right. As if that would ever happen.”
Kalico stepped into her room, locked her door, and peeled out of her jumpsuit. In the mirror she stopped short. Pus and buckets, she had a smear of dirt running down the side of her nose and across her mobber-scarred right cheek. A place where she’d rubbed with dirt-encrusted hands.
She’d taken part in the planting herself. The job was just too damn important. Hard to believe that was her, digging an actual hole in real dirt with a shovel. She had had to add her labor, symbolically bend her back and help stick those little pines into the ground. Pat the rich red dirt down around the roots and water it.
And she’d looked like this for the rest of the day? And no one had said anything? Hell, none of them had even so much as stared at her. As if she were one of them! Just an ordinary . . .
Kalico swallowed hard.
As if she were one of them.
She remembered Boardmember Taglioni back in Solar System. How he’d looked at her over a succulent, forty-course meal at his private table in Zekko’s. “We’re special in everything we do. In how we think. How we plan. How we eat. Even in the way we conduct our sexual unions. Those others, they will never catch so much as a glimpse, let alone an understanding of what elevates us above their tawdry little lives.”
She grunted her amusement as she undressed. Her lean body was criss-crossed with angry red scars. Taglioni would have been horrified. “Maybe you better see if you can survive on Donovan for a couple of months before you believe that vacuum you used to spew.”
So saying, she stepped into the shower, washed away the day’s sweat, dirt, and grime. What would he say to that? This was the same body he’d taken into his gleaming white sheets. The one he’d fondled, explored so thoroughly with his tongue and lips. If she were to appear in his bed as she was now, could he stand to take her in another eros-induced rut, or would he puke his guts at the thought of her scarred flesh against his?
Same body. Remodling courtesy of Donovan.
Raya could ameliorate the worst of the damage, of course. But Kalico would have to be back in Solar System for a complete cosmetic procedure that would return her skin to its previous perfection. For the time being, feeling reckless, she chose to wear the scars as a badge of honor.
Laughing, she dried with her antique-style towel and padded over to her bed. From the pitcher on her dresser, she poured a glass of water and tucked herself under the covers.
“Lights off,” she ordered, and sank down onto the mattress. A fucking mattress. Not antigrav. Then she sighed in total victory. Pine trees. She’d found the key.
She’d saved the smelter. If the trees grew, she’d have her key to keeping the forest back. It wouldn’t be overnight, but she’d reclaim the lost ground. As more pines grew, she’d scratch out more acreage.
Floating on that euphoric sense of accomplishment, she drifted off into the haze at the edge of . . .
From dreams, Kalico started. Blinked awake.
She checked the time. Middle of the night.
Fishing for her glass on the nightstand, she gulped down water. Gasped as something passed her lips with the last swallow. Spitting it out, she called, “Lights!”
There. On her blanket lay a small, round, black pebble.
But how?
She glanced at the nightstand. The note lay there, perfectly placed so that the edges were parallel to the end table’s.
The block letters were black on white: YOU MIGHT JUST AS EASILY HAVE DRANK POISON. DON’T EVER CROSS ME AGAIN.
But who?
She placed a hand to her throat, considering all of her people. And came up blank.
Spiro!
No. She was dead.
One of Spiro’s . . .
Wirth! It had to be.
She frowned at the pebble.
But who was his agent here? Who could have gotten into her room?
And it hit her: “No one ordinary.”
Someone close.
She smiled, that old predatory sense sharpening around her heart. “Oh, we’re not through with this. Not in the slightest.”
Call this the thrown gauntlet. And if Kalico Aguila was good at anything, it was winning.