Guardians (Caretaker Chronicles Book 2) (16 page)

Roughly six meters from where she’d changed
course, Aria broke onto a trail. The deer stood on it directly in front of
them. The sharp hooves of countless animals had cut out the grasses here and
the trail wound in front of them like a ribbon through the sea of green.

Polara pulled her hand free and edged around her
mother, skipping ahead down the trail calling, “I’m going to catch Curly!” Aria
followed her.

The stag stayed just out of reach, bounding ahead
along the trail, which now wound along among a field of the tall curved grass
so dense that even Polara wouldn’t fit between the stalks. When Aria heard the
river turning and rushing away, she tried to leave the trail, to push through
the grasses and follow the river as she had planned, but it was futile. Here
the stalks of grass grew so unyielding that she couldn’t move them. If she
wanted to go that way they’d have to be cut. She only had a pocketknife along
and the day was going quickly. They’d have to start back in a few hours, and
she imagined that she wouldn’t make much progress through the field in that
amount of time.

So they followed Curly down the trail. It was
relatively easy going, and she felt strangely relieved whenever she caught a
glimpse of the big animal ahead of them. Above, from their nests on the edges
of the karst peaks, Minean parrots and songbirds filled the air with their
music, but Aria’s encompassing fear for Ethan blocked them out. She found
herself watching for any sign of the craft, willing a broken windscreen or
strip of fuselage to appear in the jungle of green. But all she saw were the
green and growing things of Minea.

They’d been walking about an hour on the path,
and Polara’s enthusiasm had waned. She was hungry and her feet hurt and she
wanted to stop for a rest. Aria peered down the path. Just ahead, two huge
karst towers stood like castle gates. The path wound through the only gap
between them.

“Let’s get to those rocks,” she told Polara, “and
then we’ll take our rest.” Polara drooped further, hanging her arms down below
her knees and trudging. Aria broke out the secret weapon: “And we’ll have some chei
when we get there!”

Polara brightened, straightened, and quickened
her step. She loved the sweet, gummy candy her mother made from the red chei
fruits. Aria kept some handy for occasions such as this.

As the stag reached the gap between the
mountains, he bounded up a ridge on the right tower, his climbing impossibly
sure and impossibly fast for such a big animal on such a narrow ledge. With one
last glance in their direction, he bounded along the ridge and away, his white
coat becoming a dot, then a speck, then disappearing altogether by the time
they’d reached the towers.

Polara started up the little ridge, fearlessly
following him, but Aria called to her, “No, Lara! We’re not going up there.”

The child obediently, if sullenly, climbed back
down.

“Bye, Curly!” Polara’s voice was startling in the
sudden calm of the forest. Aria noticed, for the first time, that the birds had
quieted. An eerie stillness pervaded the trail leading to the towers.

Aria gathered Polara to her and checked the sonic
stunner that Ethan liked her to carry when she was in the woods. Silence in
wild places was unusual. It often meant the presence of a predator. There were,
Aria knew, big cats on Minea. The path suddenly felt constricting. Knowing they
could only go forward or back along this narrow strip of cleared ground made
her nervous. She hurried along the path, hoping it would open up on the other
side of the facing karst formations.

They entered the gap between the towers slowly,
walking from the brightness of dappled sunlight into the shadow of the
formations. It was cool and damp there, and a relief from hiking through the
hot field of grass. The formations were thick, and Aria couldn’t see where they
ended. She kept a watchful eye on the limestone above them, searching every
ridge for signs of a predator waiting to drop down on them.

When the path widened and golden sun caught them
again in its beams, Aria gasped. They were standing in a sheltered cove, ringed
around by karst peaks. In its center stood a forest of huge pale maroon plants.
They were, Aria supposed, trees, because they had single, woody trunks and
clear apical dominance. But they weren’t typical. Their long, slender trunks
were topped by crowns of soft fluff, like giant dandelion seeds. Long, trailing
branches wept down from them, covered in luxurious white flowers.

Their scent was sweet and light, like apple
blossoms and vanilla. Aria sunk to the ground, pulling the pack with Rigel in
it off her back and getting him out to hold him close. There was no danger, she
realized. The creatures were silent because of her and the children. She felt
the fear slide from her mind as she breathed the fragrant air and looked up at
the tall trees.

For Aria, there was something special, almost
holy, about plants. The way they sprung from such small seeds, the way they
delighted every sense, and the way they offered their myriad gifts to mankind,
filled her with awe. She felt it now, more than she ever had, and as she sat on
the ground, marveling at the grove of giants, she pulled her children to her
and felt tears sting her eyes.

Polara sat beside her mother, and Aria guessed
she sensed the solemnity of the place as well. Aria felt Polara’s little hand
wriggling into her mother’s jacket pocket, discovering and extracting the
packet of chei and looking up for permission. Aria smiled down at her. The
little girl tore it open and sat contentedly, eating, slipping one of the
prized candies into her little brother’s mouth as well.

The trees, which had stood still and calm casting
a steady pattern of dappled light on Aria’s family, began to sway gently in
unison. Aria watched, mesmerized, as the trees arched back and forth with
increasing intensity, moving in an unseen wind.

And as they moved, Aria saw they released tiny
bits of fluff—their seeds—which arced up and over the sides of the karst peaks,
on their way to grow for themselves.

She looked at her children. It had always struck
her how similar humans and plants were. They needed protection and nurturing
when they were small. They needed a safe beginning to grow to their full
potential. She and Ethan had worked hard together to give Polara and Rigel that
beginning. She didn’t want to continue that process without him.

***

Polara and Rigel were exhausted by the time the
little family hiked back to the ship. Dark was coming on, and the pilot made a
comment about leaving without them, but Aria was too tired herself to respond.

She watched the clearing shrink below them as the
little craft rose and spun back toward Coriol. He wasn’t near here. The crews
had searched the first day, and she had searched the last two. There was no
sign of him, the ship, or the crew.

Polara cuddled against her, lost in sleep, and
Rigel’s head was heavy on her shoulder as he drooped in his safeseat on her
other side. As she watched the ship move between the towers, she saw, in the
fading light, the vast tangled jungle of stone and vegetation below her. At
first, she had looked for him behind every stone, sure that she would find him
and this nightmare, so much like her stasis dreams, would end. But now she saw
this place for what it was: an alien planet with reaches yet unknown to anyone.
Ethan was out there somewhere, spending another night away from his home, maybe
hurt. Maybe worse.

Though she tried not to cry when she was with the
children, Aria didn’t stop the tears running down her face. Ethan’s absence
these long days and nights was growing more real to her, and there was no sign
of him in this wild place. What if he didn’t return? What if she was left alone
to raise their children and to send them into the world? It was not something
she thought she could do alone.

She held them tighter, pulling Ethan’s image
closer in her memory as she did so. She didn’t know how to let him go.

Marcos skimmed the messages list when it showed
up. Every message was marked as viewed.

But something wasn’t right. He looked more
carefully. The first one that caught his eye was from Serena. “Craters of the
Untek backcountry.” But she hadn’t sent a message about that trip. He
remembered distinctly being disappointed when he’d come to the ICS expecting
that message and it hadn’t been there.

He selected it, but nothing happened. He tried
again. Nothing. He scrolled down the list. There were more tantalizing subject
lines: “10 Reasons I Love You,” and “I’m Scared About the Stasis Trip Home.”
Then he saw one that chilled him: “Marcos, don’t trust . . .” He
selected it, knowing that it wouldn’t open.

Marcos buzzed in his assistant, Taru. “Where are
these other messages?” The man leaned over Marcos’ shoulder, smelling of sweat
and spices, and peered at the screen, then shook his head, sending his shaggy
dark hair spinning around him.

“I don’t know, Mr. Saras. They should be here. It
looks like someone has been locking them,” Taru said apologetically. “I don’t
have the right permissions to unlock them.”

“Who’s locking them?”

“I can’t tell. Just that it’s from an Earth
account with Admin permissions.”

“Who has those?”

“Just the VPs and up. And Admin Techs, of course.”

Marcos couldn’t stand it. “So my father has those
permissions?”

The tech squirmed. “Yes, sir, of course.”

Marcos swore softly. “You can go,” he said. He
called Veronika into his office.

“My father has been blocking some of my messages,”
Marcos said, pacing.

Veronika nodded, and Marcos had the uneasy
feeling that this wasn’t a surprise to her. “From Serena?”

“Mostly. But there are others, too.”

“You know he doesn’t like you distracted while you’re
trying to work out here. Maybe they were frivolous messages and he didn’t want
you to spend your time—”

“Why does he get to decide what’s frivolous?”
Marcos snapped. He didn’t like her taking his father’s side, especially when
she knew how arbitrary his father could be.

“Because he’s the president of Saras Company
Intergalactic, and you’re only the president of Saras Company Minea,” she said
bluntly.

And you’re only his ex-mistress
,
Marcos thought but didn’t say. His father had little room to criticize in the
frivolity department.

“I want you to find out how I can get them,” he
ordered.

“I’ve got to go do checks in the Health and Human
Services Department right now, but when I get back I’ll see what I can do.”
Veronika adjusted her ruby bracelet as she left the office.

As she left, Marcos wondered if she would. He
knew, had sensed, what she wanted from this job. She wanted the company, and
with it, Coriol. She felt she deserved it as payment for his father’s betrayal.
He wasn’t sure she didn’t. But it was him that Dimitri had appointed President,
and neither of them could change that.

From the side window of his office, Marcos
watched Veronika leave the front gate in the company hovercar before he called
Taru back in, gesturing for the assistant to sit down. Taru looked nervous, as
he always did when Marcos called him in. It was one of the reasons Marcos didn’t
call him in much. The other was that Taru had been Theo’s assistant before
Marcos arrived and Marcos was never sure of his loyalties.

“What would it take for you to get into these
messages?” he asked.

Taru considered. “A raise.”

Marcos swore. “You’d be willing to break in for a
few scrip?” He opened his mouth to fire the man, but the look on Taru’s face,
one of shock, took the words from him.

“No, no, sir, I was just being funny. Er—I
thought I was being funny. I meant that I’d have to get advanced to Admin Tech,
which I should be because I’m running the whole Coriol system, and we need one
here anyway—” Taru stopped speaking.

“I see,” Marcos said. “And, Veronika has to do
that? Or Theo?”

“Yes, sir, they can do it. But you have those
permissions to advance me as well. I was joking because if I advance I do get a
raise.”

Marcos leaned back. “How long would it take?”

“Not long. You just have to go into your Admin
account and change my status.”

Marcos looked at the screen, then back at Taru,
gesturing for him to come around the desk.

Taru was a bit sheepish as he indicated the proper
steps for Marcos to take.

“I feel like I’m giving myself a promotion,” he
said, chuckling.

Marcos didn’t laugh. He was focused on the
messages. “You’re an Admin Tech. Congratulations. Now what?”

Taru walked toward the door of the office. “I’ll
just go update the system and I should be able to unlock those messages
shortly. They’ll appear on your “new” screen.”

Marcos slipped a gar fruit candy in his mouth
while he waited. He tasted its tang and felt a certain satisfaction, having
handled the problem himself. The one good thing about being on Minea was that
his father was too far away to control him. If he wanted something done, he
could do it.

He stood and walked around the room, once, twice.
It was a wide, deep office, with his desk at one end and a seating area of
comfortable Earthleather furniture at the other. Between them was a fireplace
for comfort in the rainy winter season. An etched aluminum photograph of his
parents hung above it. He made a mental note to have it removed and replaced
with a photograph of Serena.

The screen chimed and Marcos tried to slow his
steps as he went to check it. There were all the messages. He began with Serena’s
long-anticipated travelogue about the craters. It was delicious—almost like
hearing her voice. She described their ruggedness, their volcanic activity, in
vivid detail, and he felt, for the first time in a long time, close to her.

He read the ten reasons she loved him, most of
which painted him more generously than he deserved, he realized. He longed to
comfort her fears about her stasis trip home, even though she was nearly done
with it now. He read all the cheerful messages Serena had sent him and sat for
a moment, with his eyes closed, feeling the glow they generated in him.

Finally, Marcos selected the ominous message he
couldn’t open earlier. It was short, but he froze as he read it.

Marcos, don’t trust Veronika. She
doesn’t just want Saras Company. She wants you.

He looked up just as Taru came in. “Sir,” he
said, ducking his head, “I told you wrong.”

Marcos blinked. “What do you mean?”

“The messages were locked from an Earth account,
but the account was accessed from Coriol. Your father didn’t block them, sir,
Ms. Eppes did.”