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My RTC rolled out of Città, lifted off, and shot over the dunes, following the two hovercrafts in front. Breeze and Tack rode in one; Gayle, Axel, and Kaylee occupied another.
I’d rendezvoused with the Geo-Tech staff at the office, and Tack had forwarded the dump-site coordinates to my vehicle. “Following by sight is fine, unless we get separated. Then you wouldn’t have any idea where to go.”
“Is your hovercraft turbo-charged? Are you planning on leaving me in your dust?” I joked, but I was glad to get the specific geo-coordinates. I’d need that information to return on my own.
“We wouldn’t leave you intentionally, but dust storms can occur without warning, and visibility drops to zero.”
“If a dust storm hits, land your RTC as soon as you can,” Breeze said. “Don’t continue to fly. You could crash.”
“The sand clogs the intake ports,” Axel explained.
“If you’re ever in the dunes by yourself and there’s a nearby way station—go there and hunker down,” Kaylee advised. “In a dust storm, way stations won’t turn anyone away. They may not have vacancies, but you can shelter in the common room. Storms can drag on for days, so it’s best if you’re not stranded in an RTC.”
“She’s right,” Gayle said.
“Thanks for the warning,” I said, finding their concern surprising since I got the sense they didn’t like me. “Are there any way stations close to the dump site?”
Axel shook his head. “The site isn’t located on any established flight path or near a city. The dump is literally in the middle of nowhere.”
What a relief! At least SEW Solutions had been discreet. It boded well I could get the site cleaned on the QT.
“A SEW Solutions outpost is near the site, but it’s been shut down,” he added.
I’d started to ask why, but then Breeze announced we had to leave, and everyone piled into their vehicles.
I half expected Quint to join us, but, fortunately for my peace of mind, he didn’t. I was even more relieved Bane had failed to materialize. Yesterday’s inquisition had unnerved me. I didn’t understand the rules of the game. Why would he think I would trust him when he’d threatened me, again? He’d all but accused me of disloyalty to the president. I wouldn’t betray her. I would never reveal what I knew. Nobody would believe the single most popular president ever elected had committed the acts she had. I intended to fulfill my duties to the fullest extent I could. Did I dream of escaping the minefield? Of course, but I was a realist.
I’ll know what you’re going to do before you do. The way he’d said it had sent shivers up my spine. He’d been dead serious.
Scarier still—what if he did know? What if he had cyborg mind-reading powers? Government scientists studying psychic ability had reported mind reading wasn’t real. Rather, they’d determined hyper-observant individuals were exceptionally good at noticing nonverbal communication—body language, behavior, tone. But what if the government had lied about mind reading the way they’d lied about UFOs? What if mind reading was possible? What if cyborgs could do it?
When I’d left Earth, I hadn’t told anyone my plans, but Bane had found me on the ship. He’d been waiting for me at Geo-Tech yesterday. How had he known I would be there?
My pulse rate shot through the roof. If he could read my mind, then Jodane might know everything I did because he would have reported to her.
Except...except...he hadn’t shown up at Geo-Tech this morning. I peered out the rear window to check. All clear. Just blue sky and rolling white sand.
I’m getting paranoid.
Nor had Bane shown up at Città City Park. By the time I’d met with my contact, he’d had plenty of time to disembark the ship and track me down—if he’d read my mind. So, really, the only place he’d popped up had been Geo-Tech—and C-Force had kicked him out. Educated guess? Everyone close to the president was aware of her dissatisfaction with Geo-Tech’s inability to control the sand. I’d come to Sajave. Meeting with Geo-Tech was logical, predictable.
I exhaled and relaxed against the seat. I should embrace the calm while I can.
I wouldn’t be able to keep him in the dark much longer. Eventually, he’d find out the sand was alive and sentient and would pass the news to Jodane. Before that happened, I had to come up with a solution to ensure MORE could build the resort. Maybe find a technicality in the international law, in the definition of “intelligent.”
Crows were intelligent. If there had been crows flying around, would that have been reason not to colonize? No.
For god’s sake, it was sand!
I studied the endless miles of white granular ground cover. It reminded me of the gypsum crystals of White Sands National Park in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Those dunes weren’t alive.
That we know of. Has anyone tested it?
Don’t even think it. I couldn’t handle any more problems. I had enough to deal with. I had to get the dump site off Sajave, keep SEW Solutions satisfied, find a way for MORE to build, evade Bane, and keep Jodane happy, so I could continue living.
My goals funneled to the last point. Stay alive.
C-Force’s involvement added an unexpected complication. But weren’t complications always unexpected? If you could predict them, you could head them off before they occurred. However, the organization’s reputation preceded them. C-Force never quit in pursuit of their goal. They would pursue a quarry to the ends of the universe.
However, they had met their match in President Jodane.
When the unstoppable force collided with the immovable object, the impact would be nuclear.
Breeze had alluded that C-Force had been hired out of concern for the president’s reaction to the sand news. Smart lady. She’d not been fooled by Jodane’s public persona like the rest of the populace. I liked and respected Breeze despite the fact we played for opposite teams and our respective goals collided. In other circumstances, we could have been friends.
Friends. What a concept. I had no friends anymore. Not a single one.
Although visible, Breeze and Gayle’s RTCs sailed far enough ahead that it felt like I traveled alone in the dunes. A couple of hours outside of Città, all traces of civilization had vanished. The vast white-white rolling hills seemed to symbolize what my life had become. Empty. Isolated.
I hummed a line from my favorite song. Where do you go when home isn’t home anymore? When all that is certain cannot be.
Ironically, the lyrics were more apropos now than when I used to sing in the choir. I’d given up the activity when I’d accepted the White House position because the long hours didn’t allow for extracurricular activities. Initially, the sacrifice had seemed worth it for the honor of serving my country. Ha.
What do you do when love is no longer true? When all that is certain cannot be.
What do you do when the voice of your heart cannot be heard? When all that is certain cannot be.
I had no home, no safe haven, no place of respite. Friends, former colleagues, choir, professional organizations, a social life were gone. I hadn’t been on a date in years. I saw more of Bane than any other man.
Wasn’t a sign of an abusive relationship cutting the victim off from friends and family? Jodane hadn’t done it deliberately—at least I didn’t think she had—but circumstances and conscience had necessitated distancing myself from my friends and former colleagues for their safety, and, over time, all relationships had withered from lack of nurturance. I would never jeopardize anyone’s safety by revealing anything incriminating, but it had become moot because I no longer had anyone I could confide in.
Except Bane. I can trust him. He told me so. I choked on derisive laughter. Wouldn’t he love to hear all my secrets? He was no more trustworthy than the politician he worked for. Nobody who worked for the president could be considered trustworthy—even me. We’d all compromised our principles.
Which made it incomprehensible that I’d instinctively longed for him when confronted by the scary-eyed Quint Stroud. Bane wouldn’t protect me. He was my adversary, a dangerous foe who’d kill me on command.
He’s not going to get the chance because I’m not going to screw this up! I’ll find a way out. I will! I hugged myself and then squinted out the front window. Grayish mounds stretched across the horizon, dark silhouettes against a pale-blue sky.
I straightened. A few starbursts of light glinted off the mounds. To the far right of me, I spotted a fort-like structure. That must be the SEW Solutions outpost. I jotted a note in my handheld to ask about it when I met with the company’s Sajave site manager tomorrow.
I studied the mountains of detritus on the horizon. As the RTC drew nearer and I could distinguish more detail, the full scope of the problem hit like a whammy. Mountains and mountains of material consumed hundreds, possibly thousands of acres. Windmill blades stuck out of huge piles like pick up sticks. Stacks of electric hovercraft batteries towered like skyscrapers. Shattered glass and twisted metal from solar panels formed gnarled heaps, and drums of god-only-knew-what lay about.
How long have they been dumping this shit?
I had a hunch it had been since before the first city was established. SEW Solutions had received an environmental award for cleaning up old dump sites on Earth. The company had acted like a teenager cleaning his room by hiding the dirty dishes and laundry under the bed. SEW Solutions hadn’t cleaned up hazardous waste—they’d shoved it onto a seemingly lifeless planet, assuming out of sight, out of mind.
They would have gotten away with it if Sajave hadn’t been colonized and Geo-Tech hadn’t stumbled upon the dump. Or been led to it by the sand itself. How had the alien communicated?
Lies of omission were still lies. Neither Dr. Chambers nor Breeze had been fully truthful. As someone with tons of shit to hide, I could spot prevarication and dissembling a mile off.
Maybe I’d get the answers to the mysteries today.
The dunes flattened, giving me an unobstructed view of the area. I spied dozens of abandoned RTCs. This is a hovercraft junkyard, too? But then Breeze and Gayle swooped in and landed among the RTCs—and then I noticed people milling around. Not abandoned vehicles—visitors.
O’Day and company weren’t the only ones here today. Why had I assumed this would be a private showing?
The odds of keeping the disaster under wraps plummeted to almost nil.
My RTC landed with a bump next to the other vehicles. Everyone wore protective face gear, so I donned my filter mask and goggles. I stepped out of my RTC. Even with the mask, the air smelled caustic, and my eyes burned and watered. I blinked and surveyed the shocking sight. Against the backdrop of an unspoiled, pristine planet, the pollution by clean, green energy sources stood out blatant, naked, and horrific. The detritus and hazardous waste formed mountainous piles. The environmental toll for technological advancement was exorbitant, and Earth had forwarded the bill to Sajave.
Tens, maybe hundreds, of millions of spent electric hovercraft batteries, damaged solar panels, windmill blades, and obsolete electronics like comm devices, vid modules, and various other computers had been dumped here. Drums stamped DANGEROUS-HAZARDOUS had tipped over and were leaking. I spied enough plastic trash to shrink-wrap the entire planet.
This was SEW Solution’s lauded, award-winning recycling program? SEW Solutions had sold a gullible, unquestioning public a line of crap. I’d bought it, too. I’d never looked into the details of how materials were recycled—I’d just assumed they were.
Breeze approached, and I squared my shoulders, grateful for the concealment of my filter mask and goggles so she couldn’t see how horrified I was. My face would give me away for sure. “Who are all these people?” I asked, having counted twenty RTCs and two dozen individuals. There were probably more people stomping among the towering piles of waste.
“Site managers from some companies in Città and a few from Stadt and Ville. I invited them.”
“Why?”
“As insurance that this”—she waved her hands at the piles of batteries, windmill blades, and broken solar panels—“will get cleaned up.”
I spotted a familiar face among the crowd. A woman in a seafoam-colored jacket huddled with a man also wearing a pale-green blazer. I had a meeting with the woman tomorrow. “You invited SEW Solutions, too?”
“They did this, so that kind of makes them stakeholders,” Breeze replied with a touch of snark in her tone.
“I promised you I would handle it,” I said.
“I don’t recall any specific promise, and why would I trust one anyway? You’re part of the government conspiracy that allowed this to occur!”
My face heated. I couldn’t deny the accusation. I’d agreed in theory the mess should be cleaned up, but I hadn’t promised. With Jodane pulling my strings, the director would be foolishly naïve to trust anything I said, and Breeze O’Day was no fool. Despite my embarrassment, in a cowardly way, I was relieved she’d forced my hand. With the cat out of the bag, a cover-up was not an option, giving me more leverage over SEW Solutions. Crying and waving its wallet, the company could run to Jodane and pressure her to live up to her campaign promises, but even the all-powerful president couldn’t make this disappear. She’d be forced to publicly condemn the action. No doubt she’d reinvent herself as an environmental crusader.
But, there would be hell to pay. She’d blame me for the debacle. One did not allow the president to fail or look bad. I’d move up several notches on her watch list of possible enemies.
However, standing amidst the defilement of Sajave, my problem didn’t seem to be the biggest issue.
“Listen, you have no reason to believe me, but I promise I will do everything in my power to get this dump site off Sajave,” I vowed.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Breeze replied.
I shifted my feet on the rocky ground. There wasn’t a single speck of sand here. In fact, the entire area was as barren as an asphalt parking lot. Since the beginning of colonization, the settlers had complained of the intrusiveness of the sand. They swept, scooped, bulldozed, and vacuumed it away, but it always came back.
“How did Sew Solutions clear away the sand?” I asked as Gayle joined us.
Breeze and Gayle looked at each other, but their goggles hid their expressions. “What do you mean?” Breeze asked.
I gestured at the barren perimeter. “There’s not a single grain.”
“The sand fled,” Gayle said. “It crawled, it formed dust devils and blew away, but it left because it was being poisoned by toxic metals and chemicals from our green energy sources and recyclables,” she said sarcastically. “Many alien lives were lost; many others are sickened and are still suffering.”
“And you know this how?”
“Because it told me. I saw it!” she said.
There was that phrase again. It wasn’t a slip of the tongue. But had the sand told her, or had she seen it? “How did it tell you?”
Gayle replied, “It communicat—”
“Gayle...” Breeze shook her head.
The astrobiologist planted her hands on her hips. “She needs to know!”
“It won’t make a difference to her or the government,” Breeze said. “But if it did, it wouldn’t be a positive difference. What if the government deems the alien worthy of study and calls in another group of scientists?”
“You’re right.” Gayle exhaled. “They might take it into captivity and experiment on it.”
What the hell is the big secret? It has to be related to the method of communication, but what could it be? Did the alien scrawl symbols in the dunes?
Breeze wasn’t going to crack, but if I could get Gayle Chambers alone...
“Everyone has arrived now,” Breeze said.
While we’d been talking—or rather while they’d been avoiding giving me any information—another RTC had landed.
“We can’t tell you more than what we already have,” Breeze said, and then she and Gayle strode to the small makeshift stage Axel and Tack had erected. “May I have your attention, please,” Breeze called. “Everyone, please gather around, come closer.” She took off her filter mask. “I’m going to remove this so you can hear me better, so I’m going to talk fast.”
I could hear fine. I stayed put to observe.
“You all can see why I brought you out here. This”—she swept her arm out—“is a travesty. The mountains of hazardous waste you see here came from Earth, delivered by SEW Solutions.”
Disapproval rumbled through the crowd, and, almost en masse, heads pivoted toward the two SEW Solutions reps. If scowls were lasers, the reps would have been vaporized. They’d been really stupid to wear their identifying green company jackets.
They looked like they wished for dust devils to carry them away. I wonder if they’d been informed others would be here or if Breeze had blindsided them like she’d done me. The lady played dirty.
“Each of your companies has a stake in Sajave, so I thought you should be informed of what has been happening. Sajave has become Earth’s dumping ground.”
The crowd booed.
“Fortunately, the president’s corporate liaison, Tempest Waters”—she pointed in my direction—“has pledged the full support of the president in removing the dump site.”
Fuck me.
I’d promised to do what I could. I hadn’t mentioned the president. I hadn’t planned on involving her yet. When I did, I needed to present a solution, not a problem. I’d hoped to resolve the matter with SEW Solutions. Sonofabitch.
I held my breath and waited for Breeze to drop the bombshell of the existence of alien life. Frankly, it surprised me she hadn’t led with the news—although now that I thought about it, maybe not so surprising. Company execs were aware of international law, too. If they knew the sand was an intelligent life-form, they’d also realize their business operations on Sajave were doomed. They’d care less about the planet and more about their financial futures. They’d risked a lot to operate a business on Sajave. It had required considerable investment even with the government subsidies and tax credits.
“How soon?” somebody shouted at me. “How soon will this mess be removed?”
“As soon as possible. I’ll be meeting with SEW Solutions to come up with a plan,” I said.
“Meetings? Plan? Isn’t that what the government always says when they wish to avoid doing something?” a woman yelled.
“Yeah, are you going to form a committee to study it until we forget about it?” somebody else jeered.
The hostility rose from the group like the stench wafting from the noxious refuse.
“Why did President Jodane allow this?” a man demanded.
Oh shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. This could not be linked to Jodane.
“I assure you the president did not allow this.” I tiptoed through a public relations minefield. If the president knew of the pollution, then she’d granted tacit approval. If she was unaware, then she was clueless and incompetent. Either way, she looked bad, and I was screwed.
“This will be cleaned up.” I turned toward the SEW Solutions reps, but they’d sneaked away while the crowd had focused their wrath on me.
A man in a blue shirt stepped forward. “I moved my company here partly to get away from stuff like this. Sajave represented a fresh new start. Polluters fouled Earth, and now they’re messing up this planet, too!”
Didn’t you fly a hovercraft to get here? I wanted to retort. Don’t you use electricity? How do you think it’s generated? Aren’t the lights on in your apartment? Isn’t that an electronic device in your hand? By living, every single outraged person here had contributed to the production of pollution. The only difference between them and SEW Solutions was that the company had snookered everyone into believing they were eliminating the waste. The crime was in the cover-up as much as the deed. Except they hadn’t done a very good job covering it up.
Anger rumbled through the crowd, followed by rumble from an RTC, which lifted off and flew away with the reps inside.
“There goes SEW Solutions!” somebody yelled. “They’re showing their true colors, aren’t they?”
“They’re not green; they’re yellow-bellied cowards!” A man shook his fist.
He wasn’t wrong, but I could empathize with why they’d fled. Take me with you!
“How can we believe you’ll do what you say you’re going to do?” blue shirt demanded. “That at the first opportunity you won’t turn tail like SEW Solutions?”
“I give you my word.”
“Your word is worthless. This is the first time anyone from the administration has ever visited Sajave,” another executive said.
That may or may not have been true. I didn’t know of any government officials who’d come here, but I didn’t rule out the possibility of spies.
“All the government does is talk! You’re just some low-level flunky sent to mollify us!”
The crowd’s fury was rising. I zeroed in on Breeze. I’d figured she had organized this shit show to ambush me, but even she looked a little chagrined. However, she wasn’t rushing to my assistance, either. It was me against the mob.
“She’s no flunky. Give her a chance to fix it.” Bane stepped out from behind a mountain of windmill blades.
