gaian consortium 06 - zhore deception (11 page)

The Sirocco flew in low, skimming over night-dark forests and lakes that glittered under the light of Zhoraan’s two moons, both of them thin crescents. Even though Gabriel had assured her that the little ship’s stealth technology could beat any sensors the Zhore had, Trinity couldn’t help wondering what would happen if they were detected. Would the Zhore shoot them down?

No, that didn’t sound right. They were a planet of pacifists, from what she’d been told. They didn’t believe in war, in weapons. Why the Consortium hadn’t attempted to overrun Zhoraan, she didn’t know for sure, but she had a feeling it was because the Eridanis would be sure to step in if Gaia ever attempted any hostile maneuvers in that direction. And while that race of lavender-skinned aliens might seem too cultured to get its hands dirty in an inter-system conflict, Trinity had her doubts. As, most likely, her government’s leaders did as well. They wanted to keep expanding their areas of control, not get locked in a wasteful battle over a planet that, in the Consortium’s eyes, probably wasn’t worth all that much.

Her destination was a small transit station some twenty kilometers from Torzhaan, her home for the next few weeks, or months…however long it took to achieve the mission objective. From the station she could take a maglev train to the provincial capital, then slip into the apartment Gabriel’s people had procured for her. What kind of hacking that had involved, she had no idea, but it was probably along the same lines as giving her a false identity and being able to insert that identity into a new life and a new place of business on this alien world.

The Sirocco dipped lower, heading for a small wood about a kilometer away from the transit station. By now it was getting late in this part of the planet, around twenty-two hundred local time. But there was one last train that was supposed to come through in approximately half an hour.

Trinity had to be on that train.

She reached down and retrieved the bag she had stowed under her seat. It carried two changes of clothing and assorted undergarments. That was all. She’d have to purchase everything else she needed in Torzhaan. Her handheld was already supplied with the credit voucher she would use.

“No money on Zhoraan,” Gabriel had told her. He’d worn a faint sneer at the time. On Gaia, money was power. Most likely he didn’t know what to make of a world where currency wasn’t required, where everyone was taken care of despite what they did or didn’t contribute to society.

Trinity hadn’t bothered to react to his obvious disdain. And now she was only relieved that she wouldn’t have to work with unfamiliar currency as well, could simply wave her handheld over the reader at a shop or restaurant and have everything more or less magically handled.

“Almost there,” he murmured. “Get ready.”

Nodding, she got up from her seat. The Sirocco wouldn’t even stop, but would only come in to hover a meter or so off the ground. The hatch would open, and she’d jump out. No one should be around to see the maneuver, and then she’d go on to the transit station and wait calmly there for the maglev, thoughts shielded and giving no indication that the Zhore now had a stranger in their midst.

Here, she would be the alien.

The bag felt heavy in her hand, even though in reality it contained very little. She walked over to the hatch and grasped the handle embedded in the wall next to it. Gabriel rose from his seat as well, and stood a half-meter or so away from her. Why, she wasn’t sure. Maybe he thought she’d lose her nerve at the last minute, and so waited there to give her a final shove off the ship if necessary.

That wouldn’t happen, though. She might be terrified, but she wasn’t about to let him see it. Not that he could…not with her covered from head to toe in those stifling Zhore robes.

A buzzer sounded, and the hatchway opened. They were just skimming the ground, low bushes and grasses seeming to shimmer in the pastel moonlight. She had no idea who the pilot was, but he had to be a master, to hug the ground like this in a ship designed to travel the spaces between the stars.

“Now!” Gabriel said.

She didn’t stop to think. He’d already shown her how to make her jump and then roll with it so she wouldn’t sprain an ankle or bruise an arm.

The ground was surprisingly soft. Trinity heard her bag land with a
thump
a few feet away from her, and then she was rolling in the grass, coming to rest within a second or two, her gaze fixed skyward. That was just enough to reveal the Sirocco skimming away, picking up speed as it rose. A few seconds passed, and it had already disappeared into a bank of low-hanging clouds.

She was alone.

For some reason, her legs were shaking. She ignored them and got to her feet anyway, brushing at her robes as she did so. Bits of grass and dirt — both of which appeared eerily similar to their Gaian counterparts — fell away with magical ease. Was the fabric treated somehow, or were the fibers it was woven from somehow impervious to soil and other grime?

That was one thing Gabriel hadn’t told her; maybe he didn’t know, or maybe he’d simply decided that particular detail wasn’t important. Whatever the case, she was glad she wouldn’t show up at the transit station looking like someone who’d been rolled by a mugger. Not that there were probably any muggers on Zhoraan.

She went and retrieved her bag, then fished the handheld out of her pocket, using her free hand. A few swipes, and the navigation display popped up, indicating that she should move to her left and then walk approximately .43 kilometers to reach her destination.

All that was written in Zhore characters, of course. But because of the language conditioning she’d been given, her mind processed it as easily as if she’d been reading Galactic Standard.

The night air was cool but not cold, and smelled sweet. Had she ever smelled air like that? She didn’t think so. That required acres and acres of green growing things, and there hadn’t been much that was green in Barstow. Maybe once, before it became the new capital of the western region after the rising oceans swallowed half the West Coast, but now it was just like any other city, kilometers of pavement and glass and steel, with only a few half-hearted parks here and there to break up the urban sprawl.

Her new boots were surprisingly comfortable, and now she was glad of the warm cloak she wore. Yes, it did drag in the grass a bit, and once or twice got caught on a bush and had to be tugged free. Even with all that, Trinity relaxed into the garment as she walked, glad now of the chance to acclimate herself with no one watching or judging.

In no time, it seemed, she saw the outlines of the transit station appearing through the darkness. All the lamps around it were turned downward, as if to prevent too much stray illumination from traveling upward into the night sky. The building itself had smooth, curved lines, and a dome of pearlescent glass that seemed to glow from within. It was surprisingly beautiful.

Pretty fancy for a transit station,
she thought, then shrugged. The Zhore were supposed to be great lovers of beauty, of harmony. Probably they didn’t want some squat, functional-looking structure cluttering up the countryside.

As Trinity approached the entrance, the doors slid open. At first she thought the place was deserted, and began to let out a breath of relief. Then she spotted a robed figure sitting quietly on one of the soft-cushioned chairs, and almost stopped short. No, wait — she couldn’t act surprised. How was she supposed to act? She couldn’t smile, obviously. The Zhore had a formal greeting that Gabriel had taught her — “your presence honors me” — but that seemed a little much for a chance meeting with someone in a train station.

She settled for a quiet nod at the Zhore, and, to her relief, the Zhore nodded back but didn’t speak. Trinity walked as calmly as she could to a chair near the door, then lowered herself into it.

Her first encounter with one of the aliens, and it looked as if she’d survived it.

That was only the first hurdle, though. Still, she couldn’t help feeling somewhat cheered as the train slid into the station a few minutes later, and the other Zhore got up and followed her quietly into the closest car. Inside, it was furnished in soothing shades of soft gray-blue and tan, and the seat was even more comfortable than the one she’d been sitting on back in the waiting area.

Clearly, the Zhore didn’t have to worry about anyone vandalizing their train cars or their public spaces. Trinity gazed out the window and watched the dark landscape flash by. Odd how there could be miles and miles of open country like this. In one of her briefing sessions, Gabriel had told her that the best estimate the Consortium had for the population of Zhoraan was around thirty million. So strange, when the greater Southwest area back on Gaia had twice that many people living there.

No population pressure driving the Zhore out toward the stars. No, they had the exact opposite problem. Trinity shifted uneasily in her seat and thought of the Zhore sitting a few seats away from her. From the alien’s height, she’d guessed it must be male, but she couldn’t know for certain. And what did he — or she — look like under those robes? Trinity had only seen that one specimen, so she had no idea how much variation there was in the Zhores’ features and overall appearance.

She’d never know for certain, of course. Even if she did get close enough to one Zhore male to be intimate with him, she would see only that one. They never revealed their faces to anyone except their immediate families and their bonded mates, and, perhaps, a few very close friends.

Trinity doubted she’d be here long enough to make any friends at all, let alone close ones.

The train ride only took half an hour. After once again consulting the navigation app on her handheld, she got off at the indicated station, then made her way down the street. It was quite late by then, with only a few of the hooded aliens on the sidewalks around her. Well, not sidewalks exactly, not as she knew them, but open areas planted with a low sort of ground cover that was cushiony underfoot. It felt good, especially since she had more than a kilometer to go to reach her destination.

Eventually, the little dot on the app turned green, and she knew she had arrived at the building where Gabriel’s team had procured an apartment for her. It was fairly tall for a Zhore structure, maybe thirty stories or more.

Unlike any apartment building she’d ever lived in, there was no external security. She passed through a set of glass doors and into a lobby area with walls of some sort of polished stone and a large reflecting pool in the center, with flowering shrubs growing in planters all around it. After a lifetime of living in dingy flats, Trinity thought the place appeared almost impossibly clean and perfect.

But she knew she couldn’t stand there and stare, as much as she might have liked to. Her apartment was on the sixteenth floor, so she selected that button from the control panel inside the glass-walled lift.

It rose smoothly, climbing up an open shaft that had some sort of trailing vines hanging down on all sides, except the one wall where the elevator car was actually attached. Yes, she’d been told that the Zhore were lovers of nature and must have it around them at all times, but until she’d now seen it for herself, she hadn’t really comprehended the scope of that love.

The elevator made a soft chiming sound when it reached her floor. Trinity got out and stopped, looking around in some confusion. She’d been expecting the standard hallway with doors to the various apartments opening off it, but there was nothing like that here. Only a small lobby area, with the ubiquitous planters, and a single door in the wall opposite the elevator.

Since she didn’t know what else to do, she took her handheld and put it up against the screen on the control panel next to the door. Another soft chime, and the door swung inward.

And then she was in — well, she knew it must be her apartment, since it was the code on her handheld that had opened the door, but the place was so huge it must take up the entire floor. And here she’d thought the Zhore must be packed in the building, since it had so many stories. But no, it was simply that each apartment apparently took up a single floor. There weren’t hundreds of the aliens living here, but thirty at the very most.

She realized her mouth had dropped open, and so she shut it. As she moved into the main living area, lights came on overhead, triggered by her presence. Soft lights, nothing intrusive, but enough so she could see the polished stone floor underfoot, the furniture in more gentle shades of sand and beige, the color provided by the flowering vegetation that grew in planters along the walls and in containers on top of the tables. And was that a waterfall cascading down one wall in the dining area?

Yes, it was. All right, really a wall fountain, flowing over what looked like polished slate or the Zhore equivalent. The kitchen had a refrigeration unit and dish sanitizer and convective cooktop. Everything sleek and polished, looking like something from a holo set, too perfect to be real. Actually, the whole place seemed like the sort of apartment where a very important Consortium official might live, not a lowly admin.

Then again, the Zhore didn’t seem to consider anyone lowly. In their minds, everyone deserved to live in a place this lovely.

Trinity went from room to room, marveling at everything. The bedroom alone was bigger than the dumpy little apartment she’d called home when she lived in Barstow, and was far more elegant.

In silence, she hung up the few garments she’d brought with her, then went into the dressing area. A large mirror covered one wall, although she had to wonder what the Zhore needed with mirrors, when they hid their faces from each other and wore the same thing day in and day out.

Then she undid the silvery clasp that held her own cloak shut and deliberately set it down on the dressing table. Slowly, she pulled off the robe and hung it from a hook on the wall. For a long time she stood there, surveying her alien face in the mirror. Right then she was bone-tired, after that jarring exit from the spaceship that had brought her here, and all the walking that came afterward. That was one good thing about the Zhore skin that covered her own, though; she couldn’t see any shadows under her eyes, any trace of weariness at all, except possibly in the droop of her mouth. It was still so odd to see herself looking this way, to have to consciously search for the contours of the face she remembered, shrouded under that dark, glimmering skin.