Ancestor (15 page)

Instead of taking them up the fore or aft ladder, Sara pushed and held a button on the inside hull. Machinery whined as the ten-by-ten platform lowered via a telescoping hydraulic pole mounted at each corner.

“We use this for heavy stuff,” Sara said. “Or when someone is gimpy and needs to go up to the infirmary.”

They walked onto the platform’s metal-grate floor. Sara pushed and held a button mounted on one of the hydraulic poles and they rode up.

When the platform reached the top, Colding looked aft at the thousand square feet of second-deck lab space. A large flat-panel monitor, eight feet wide by five feet high, dominated the rear bulkhead. Soft fluorescent lights illuminated gleaming metal equipment, black lab tables, small computer screens and white cabinets, all packed perfectly into the C-5’s arcing hull.

Already lost in code, Jian sat in an exact copy of her seven-monitor computer station. Rhumkorrf moved from machine to machine, running his hands over the various surfaces, staring for a second, then nodding with satisfaction and moving on to the next. Colding felt a bloom of pride at seeing his design brought to life, and at seeing Jian and Rhumkorrf’s apparent approval.

“You packed this baby tight,” Sara said. “I don’t know what any of this shit is for, but it sure looks expensive.”

Colding nodded. “You have no idea.”

“Come on,” Sara said. “Bunk room is between the lab and the cockpit.” She walked through a narrow hallway and pointed out the C-5’s features: a tiny galley, an infirmary with two beds, a bunk room with three bunks, and a small room that had two couches and a flat-panel TV mounted on the wall. A video game console and a rack of games sat in a small entertainment center on the floor below the TV.

“Now we’re talking,” Andy said. He immediately sat down and fired up a game of Madden.

“Damn,” Gunther said. “This plane is huge.”

Colding nodded. “That’s why we picked it. With our payload it will do over thirty-five hundred miles without refueling. Gives us a massive range. And we’re encapsulated—we do all the work right onboard.”

Sara pointed to a laptop sitting on a wall-mounted table. “If you want to write, Gunther, there you go.”

“Actually, I’m beat,” he said. “Think I’ll get some sleep.”

Maybe Andy could quickly forget Brady’s death, but Gunther looked haunted. How long had he known Brady? Five years? Ten? Colding felt the loss like a fist in his chest, but he’d known the man not even two years and they had never been tight friends. Gunther had to be hurting bad.

“Gun,” Colding said. “I’m really sorry about Brady.”

Gun nodded a silent
thanks
. He shuffled off to the bunk room.

Sara gently grabbed the back of Colding’s right arm. “Come on.” She walked him the few feet to the small infirmary and pointed at one of the two metal beds. He sat. Without a word, she helped him out of his ruined parka. Bits of white down feathers escaped and floated in the air. She grabbed some surgical scissors and cut away his torn, bloody shirt.

She wore no perfume, but this close the scent of her skin filled his nose. She smelled just like she had two and a half years ago.

He craned his neck to get a good look at the wound. The edge of the axe blade had cut him from his left shoulder to his sternum. He’d been lucky. If the point had gone just a bit deeper, it would have sliced his pectoral in half. Sara cleaned the cut.

“Do I need stitches?”

Sara shook her head. “Basically a glorified scratch.”

Her hands moved delicately across his skin, wiping away the still-oozing blood. She picked bits of white down feathers out of the cut before gently smearing antibiotic ointment on the wound. It hurt, but the touch of her fingertips felt relaxing. She quickly finished the job, wrapping gauze across the wound and around his chest, then sealing it in place with surgical tape.

Despite her delicate touch, she radiated hostility. He had to talk to her, smooth things out. “Listen, Sara, I—”

“Don’t bother. You got what you wanted—me, and through me, a crew for this plane.”

Was that what she thought? That he’d just
used
her? “That’s not how it was.”

“Oh?” She stood straight and looked him in the eye. With his ass sitting on the table, her head was just a little above his. “That’s not how it was? Then how was it, Peej?”

Peej
. That strange nickname she started calling him after they’d had sex. He’d thought the name cute then. Now he found it uncomfortable.

“Call me P. J., please.”

“Excuse me?”

“Uh … well, you know. The last time you called me Peej, we … uh …”

She tilted her head and smiled the way you’d smile at some loudmouth in a bar right before you smacked him in the nose.

“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll give you a choice. I can call you Peej, or I can call you Mister Rotten Fucking Piece of Shit That Treated Me Like a Used-up Whore. How’s that?”

Colding just blinked. “Uh … that’s not … I mean … that’s not what it was.”

She crossed her arms. “Then what was it? Used your magic cock to get me to sign the contract?”

He felt his face get all hot. Clarissa had never talked like that.

“So,” Sara said. “Which name would you prefer?”

He just wanted to end this conversation, and right now. “Peej will be fine.”

“I thought so. Now go get some sleep. I’ll send someone to wake you when we get close to Black Manitou.”

Sara strode out of the infirmary and turned left, toward the cockpit. Colding watched her go, watched the only woman—besides his wife—he’d slept with in the last six years.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he deserved it. And then he remembered Brady’s dead body, remembered how he’d kicked in Erika Hoel’s ribs, remembered that Fischer would keep hunting for all of them. Those things were far more important than worrying about Sara Purinam’s feelings.

He hopped off the bed and walked to the bunk room. Gunther was already snoring. The noise didn’t keep Colding awake for long.

“STOP IT, HANDS.”

Jian’s bloody hands ignored her. They kept sewing. The needle pricks were worse this time, each one a piercing sting she felt clear down to the bone. Wet red dampened the panda body’s black-and-white fur.

“Stop it, hands.”

She finished sewing. Just like the time before, and the times before that, the mishmash creature’s big black eyes fluttered to life, blinking like a drunken man awakening to the noonday sun.

Evil
.

Jian felt evil pouring off the thing like the acrid stench of a skunk. She wanted to move, to run, but her body obeyed no better than her possessed hands.

Evil enough to kill her. And wasn’t that what she truly deserved?

The creature looked at her. It opened its wide mouth.

Jian started to scream.

SARA AND ALONZO sat in the C-5 cockpit. The equipment-packed space smelled of artificial pine thanks to the green, tree-shaped car air freshener Alonzo had hung off the overhead systems panel.

Sara could feel the tension pouring off her copilot, and she’d had just about enough.

“Out with it, ’Zo,” she said. “You’ve been biting your tongue for hours. If you’ve got something to say, say it.”

He examined his instruments, making a show of looking very closely at everything in front of him. Sara let the silence hang. She just stared at him.

The cockpit door opened. Miller and Cappy came in. Normally, they didn’t come up to the cockpit during a flight.

“Well, well, well,” Sara said. “The gang’s all here. I bet you’re ready to talk now, hey ’Zo?”

Alonzo nodded. “You actually need us to say it?”

“Say what, exactly?”

Miller laughed a small laugh. “We’re
sooooo
reserved and mysterious. See if you can guess what we’re thinking.”

“Yeah,” Cappy said. “See if you can guess and shit.”

“Let’s see,” Sara said, rubbing her chin and looking up. “The spirits tell me … you’re concerned that we’re transporting a genetic experiment that we know nothing about?”

“Bzzzz,”
Alonzo said. “Wrong, but thanks for playing.”

“Come on, guys, enough. Talk to me. Miller, sit your ass down and spill.”

Miller took the observer seat, which was right behind the copilot seat. “Sure, the genetics stuff freaks me out,” he said. “But I signed up for that. I knew what I was getting into.”

Cappy remained standing. He crossed his arms over his chest. “What we
didn’t
sign up for, chickee-poo, was flying Fred into a fucking combat zone, complete with burning buildings and dead bodies, then loading up casualties and flying out fast. A
new
Fred isn’t built for hot-zone operations like that, let alone a rebuilt one. You know this.”

Fred
was a nickname for the entire C-5 line—it stood for
Fucking Ridiculous Economic Disaster
. The planes normally required around sixteen hours of maintenance for each hour of flight time. Their modified version was updated with state-of-the-art gear top to bottom, so it was easier to maintain, but Miller was still dead-on: this plane was not designed for combat operations. But what could they do about it now? Sara shrugged, wondering if she looked as nonchalant as she hoped.

Alonzo didn’t appreciate the attitude. “Sara, a man
died
back there. This is supposed to be a science experiment, not an action movie.”

It was Sara’s turn to look away, to overly examine the instruments. She and the boys had been together for seven years. They’d been in her C-5 crew during their days in the air force. When they all got out, they’d pooled their money and bought a 747 that had been converted for pure cargo hauling. There had been plenty of shipping offers from drug smugglers, but Sara and the boys never took those jobs. Most of their income came from FedEx and UPS, when those companies had an overflow of cargo that absolutely,
positively
had to be there overnight.

They owned their own company, controlled their own destiny, and that had been a thrilling feeling. Unfortunately, drops in shipping demands worldwide caught them unprepared. They quickly fell behind on payments and were in danger of losing everything.

Then P. J. Colding had come a’calling. Her knight in shining armor. If Sara and her crew agreed to help rebuild Genada’s Frankenstein C-5, the company would pay off the 747 completely
and
give each of them a six-figure salary just to be on retainer. All she and her three closest friends had to do was keep the C-5 in top condition and be ready to fly on a moment’s notice.

“We made a deal, guys,” Sara said. “We took Genada’s money. A
lot
of it. It’s not like the Paglione brothers can open the Yellow Pages and just go find another crew for this bird.”

“The
Pagliones?”
Alonzo said. “You sure you don’t mean
Colding?
We’re not blind, Sara. We’ve seen you hook up with guys before, but you had a
major
shine-on for that big geek.”

“Fuck you,” Sara said. “I screwed up once. No way I’m hitting that again, and even if I do, you know goddamn well that wouldn’t influence my decision. Bottom line is we can’t be replaced. If we quit, we’re leaving Genada in the lurch.”

“I know that, boss,” Miller said. “But people are willing to
kill
for this shit.”

“Yeah,” Cappy said. “Willing to
kill
. And the freakin’ U.S. government? Military, maybe? Who is this Colonel Fischer cat, anyway?”

“And how about that burning body?” Alonzo asked. “That kind of thing ain’t our business.”

She put her fingers on her temples and rubbed. Alonzo was right. They were
all
right, but they were also fresh out of options. “Guys, this situation sucks for us, but if we just stay cool and finish the job, we
own
our 747 free and clear. I’m willing to take risks to make that happen. If we bail, we lose everything we’ve struggled for. Me? To be blunt, I’d rather die first. But if you guys want out, say the word and we walk as soon as we land.”

She stared at each of them in turn. It had to be a group decision. She couldn’t coerce them one way or another, nor would she. These men were her family, the brothers she’d never had.

They all looked at the ground, the equipment, anywhere but at Sara. None of them wanted to work for someone else ever again. But how far were they willing to go for that?

She leaned out of her seat and stared hard at Alonzo. “Well? I can’t decide this for you. Make a decision.”

Alonzo seemed to shrink into his seat. He hated to be put on the spot. “I like being my own boss. But you have to promise us that if it gets crazy,
that this whole burning body thing was anything other than a onetime fluke, then we’re out. Deal?”

Sara nodded.

“Well then, fuck it,” Alonzo said. “We all look out for each other. We finish the job. I’m in.”

Sara turned to stare at the Twins, but she already knew their answer.

“I agree with ’Zo,” Miller said. “Fuck it, I’m in.”

Cappy gave a thumbs-up. “Me too. I’ll even throw in a mandatory
fuck it
just so I can swear like all the cool kids.”

Sara laughed. “Okay, now that we have that cleared up, let’s do our jobs. I’m going to check on Jian and Rhumkorrf. ’Zo, you keep flying. Cappy and Miller, go check on that drunk-ass Tim Feely. If he’s still out, just leave him in the crash chair.”

Sara followed Cappy and Miller out of the cockpit. They descended the fore ladder to the lower deck while Sara walked to the upper-deck lab.

THE TIGER ARM and the baby arm simultaneously reached up, toward her face. Bent sewing needles sprouted from the finger/paw tips.

“No,” Jian whimpered. “No, please no …”

Needles sank into her shoulders. The wide mouth opened and leaned in toward her face.

Breath like a puppy’s.

Long teeth wet with saliva.

Jian lost her grip on the stuffed monstrosity. The creature fell to the grass. It landed on all fours and started to scramble toward her, hissing in anger, black eyes narrow with hatred and hunger.

Finally, all her pain and suffering would end …