Loralynn Kennakris 1: The Alecto Initiative (14 page)

It was a mildly insistent undulating tone that woke her
uncounted hours later. It did not wake her abruptly so she came to
consciousness little by little, her body still rocking in the water that had
maintained its perfect temperature. She felt immensely rested, better than she
could ever remember feeling, and she had no idea what the sound was as she lay
there, eyes closed, until consciousness took hold fully and she realized it was
a calling card.

She almost leapt from the tub and bolted wet, pink and naked
into the living space where the card lay caroling on a short side table by the
couch. But it was not Mariwen’s card. It was Huron’s and the disappointment,
mixed now with embarrassment, started to cool the adrenal burst in her veins.
She picked his card up, shook a last tremor out of her shoulders, and tapped
ACCEPT
.

Huron’s face appeared and for several seconds looked
perfectly blank. She didn’t understand it. Feeling awkward, she ran a finger
across her lips. “Hi, Huron.”

 “Hi Kris,” he said, now with a perfectly neutral smile. “Am
I interrupting anything?”

“No.” Kris shook her head and put the card back down on the
side table so she could wring out her long wet hair. “I was just taking a
bath.”

“I see.”

Glowering defensively, she scraped water droplets off her
torso with the edges of her hands and shook them. “I’ve only had a bath once
before,” she said, justifying her outrageous, perhaps even wicked, extravagance.

“Well, you can take just as many as you like,” Huron replied
with a wider smile. “But I suggest you up the collagen mix if you’re going to
take more than three a day—that is, if you don’t want your skin to shrivel
up.”

She flicked more water off, her mouth crimped to one side.
“You’re teasing me again.”

“No, actually I’m not. You really can if you want.”

She snorted and sleeked back her wet hair. “And who’s gonna
pay for all that?”

“Well . . .” He smoothed the hair over his temple. “You
could say it’s on the house.”

“Okay.” She shook her head in disbelief. “If you say so.”

“Anyway,” Huron went on, “the reason I’m calling is that I
wanted to know if you were serious about learning to fly.”

“What?” The scowl vanished instantly and she grinned down at
the little card on the table. “Yes! Can I?”

“Ah . . . yeah. You can,” Huron said with a vaguely
quizzical look. “I have a friend who gives flying lessons. His name is Fred Heink—a
good guy, good flyer. I flew with him a lot, back when he was in the Service.
His rates are reasonable—maybe a bit more than some—but worth it. I’ve talked
to him and he might be willing to give you a break. If you want, I’ll give you
his number.”

“Yes!” Kris almost shrieked, literally bouncing with joy in
a tiny circle. Then suddenly she stopped. “I mean, how much is it? Is it still
a lot?”

“Oh, I think you can afford it. You should have your first
disbursement soon, if it’s not in your account already. Fred’s lessons usually
run about five hundred for the introductory course—that’s four weeks.”

“Oh! Okay!” Kris was rosy with delight. “When can I start?”
Smothering a giggle, she finally settled down on the end of the couch.

“I’ll let you work that out with Fred. I’ve sent you his
number. Call him whenever you like. He already knows who you are.”

She giggled again, making little fists and wiggling them
gleefully. “Thank you, Huron! Really! I really—I don’t know how to . . .”

Huron just smiled benignly. “That’s alright, Kris, you don’t
have to thank me. Or you can thank me by becoming a good pilot. We could use
another good pilot.”

Kris laughed, a peal of pure joy.

“Just one thing though, Kris.”

“What?” Her smile dimmed a touch as a hint of some new
suspicion crept in.

“You
do
know that the video on these cards is two-way
unless you blank it, right?”

Her forehead crimped with puzzlement. “Yeah—of course it
is.”

“Oh. Okay.” Huron pursed his lips and nodded. “Well, I’ll
tell Fred to expect your call.”

Her face relaxed back into a smile, not quite so giddy now
but maturing into the warm glow of real happiness. “Thanks, Huron. Talk soon?”

“Oh, you can count on it. Bye, Kris.”

“Bye.”

Huron killed the link, shook his head in wonderment, and
tapped up Fred on his private line. Fred Heink was a grizzled warrant officer with
a limp; an old Service friend recently retired, and he had never been known for
an especially cheerful nature or for having a great deal of forbearance. So
when he saw his friend’s still smiling, slightly pink face his first thought
was that Huron, if not actually drunk, was certainly in an uncharacteristically
cheerful condition.

“Hello, Rafe. Been having a fine day, have you?”

“You could say that, Fred.”

“Must be nice.”

“No complaints. But I’m calling because I just spoke with
Kris—you remember her—and you have a student—a pretty enthusiastic student,
at that. If you feel like giving her a bit of a break, let me know and I’ll
cover it. Just don’t mention that I have to anyone—especially her. Okay?”

“Means that much to you, does she?”

“Well she’s different, Fred. I gave her your number and I
think you can expect to hear from her pretty soon.”

Fred pursed his mouth. Huron wasn’t normally given either to
early drinking or enthusiasms, and he was having to rethink the root of his
friend’s cheerfulness. “Looking forward to it.”

“And Fred, there’s one more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“She likes baths.”

“Okay.” Fred’s face compressed into a frown. This was not
something that usually came up in regard to prospective flight students. “So?”

“So if she calls after she’s taken one—or even
while
she’s taking one—just try to ignore it.”

Fred’s eyebrows climbed almost to his receding hairline.
“Okay?”

“Like I said, she’s
different
.”

“Thanks for the heads up.”

“Anytime. Catch ya over the top.”

“You too, Rafe.”

Eelusis Cosmodrome
Nedaema, Pleiades Sector

Kris sat cooling her heels in the No.4 hanger of a
small private cosmodrome a few dozen klicks north of Nemeton. Cooling her heels
literally, because in her eagerness to begin her third week of flight lessons,
she had arrived already wearing her flight suit, not counting on the
unseasonably warm weather and that it would take forty-five minutes longer than
expected to clear the traffic pattern for her lesson.

So she sat in the big open hanger, baked by the afternoon
heat radiating from the melt-rock paving, sweating and fidgeting until it
occurred to her to remove her boots and gloves—the only parts of the suit that
would readily come off—and find a place to sit where she could dangle her bare
feet over a ventilation shaft. It may have looked a little ridiculous but Kris
wasn’t concerned about appearances. She was going to try out a new trainer
today, her instructor having concluded that after ten lessons in an old placid
air-breather that couldn’t even break 15 kilometers altitude, she could handle
something a little hotter. The new trainer was still an air-breather—it
wouldn’t do suborbital—but the online specs promised a considerable
improvement. So it would take a lot more than waiting almost an hour in the
heat in an uncomfortable flight suit to cloud her happiness.

As it was, the only cloud was Mariwen, who still hadn’t
called back, but that was a modest cloud and even so, it was getting thin and
wispy under the joyful glare of learning to fly, unlimited baths (it hadn’t
quite sunk in until a few days ago that Nedaema was a
water
planet) and
the fact that Mariwen was preoccupied with these hearings she was going to
testify at, which Kris was hearing more and more about, and which were at least
partially responsible for today’s delay.

As Mariwen had told her, they concerned the slaver problem
and were intended to galvanize public opinion into supporting the measures
necessary to eradicate slaving in the Outworlds once and for all, and they were
to last for three days. In attendance would be dignitaries from all over the
League. A good chunk of the Grand Senate would be there and senior
representatives from all the voting worlds, along with the Archon and the
Scholiast, of course, and the Outworld governors. And the weight of the
security needed to protect all these high-value targets was certainly impeding
daily life and making just getting around—or getting a flight lesson—a
terrific pain.

Huron, when she asked about them, had been cynical. He
rather thought that the voters hardly needed to be galvanized into supporting
the slavers’ eradication. But he did see how it would help the political images
of the people involved—he called it
grandstanding
—and given what Kris
had learned about his political connections, she thought he was almost
certainly right.

But probably the biggest factor in dulling her
disappointment over Mariwen was knowing that a call was more than she could
reasonably expect anyway. Mariwen in her element was necessarily different than
Mariwen in Kris’s element. But Kris was not sure she liked Mariwen’s element—she
was
sure she didn’t like Lora Comargo. She knew it might be completely
irrational, but the way Mariwen had seemed to freeze when Lora spoke to her and
the look that crossed her face afterward—the whole change that came over her—bothered
Kris deeply. There was something about Lora’s tone; about the way she had
addressed Mariwen, that almost reminded Kris of Trench: a sort of
off-handedness like you were speaking to a pet, to something you
owned
.

Kris felt a tremor just remembering it.

It was absurd to think that Mariwen, of all people, would be
married to anyone who even remotely thought of her that way and Kris could not
account for it. But neither could she trust herself. Trench came back, often
forcefully, at odd times and for no apparent reason. She would be perfectly
fine for days and then something—a gesture, a phrase, a smell, almost anything
really—would trigger a sudden visceral, almost tactile memory of him that would
leave her shaking. She would be tense and jittery for hours after, going in
fear of the next innocent trivial event that would again raise Trench from the
dead. The rehab shrinks had told her to expect that, of course; they had taught
her exercises that were supposed to help and maybe they did—a bit. But they
were nothing to a long hot soak and there had been days when she swore she
would never leave the tub.

Hearing familiar voices outside at last broke this
unpleasant reverie and she looked up with a happy expectant grin as two men
walked through the hanger entrance. One was indeed her flight instructor but
the other was Huron, and he was wearing a flight suit and carrying his helmet.
Her expectant grin morphed into a questioning and candidly suspicious look.

“Hi Kris,” Huron called out, smiling.

“Hello Huron.” He certainly looked friendly but Kris was not
yet sure how far she trusted the Navy Department’s motives. “What brings you
here?”

Huron grinned wider. “You do. I’m here to save you some money.”
He waved the flight helmet at her instructor. “Fred here says it’s okay.” Fred
laughed and said something Kris could not quite catch—the ending sounded like:
“. . . can afford it.”

“Money?”

“Yeah. I thought I’d take you up today.”

“Oh . . .”

“Don’t mind, do you?”

“No!” Kris blurted, the pulse going fast in her neck. Take
her up? A famous fighter pilot? “I mean—that’s fine. Great!”

“Didn’t think you’d object.” He laughed. “Get your boots on.
We’ve got clearance in five.”

As Kris fumbled into her boots and gloves—her fingers
weren’t working as well as they might—Huron passed a few quiet words with Fred
and they shook hands. “See you back here in a couple of hours, Fred.”

Fred chuckled low. “Have a good flight, Lieutenant.”

Flying with Huron would have been surprise enough, but the
real surprise did not become evident until they were out of the hanger and
halfway through the jet park. Kris had assumed Huron would take the trainer
Fred had scheduled but they walked right past it toward a sleek midnight-black
two-man flyer off by itself near the edge of the apron.

“Are we taking
that
?” Kris asked, almost breathless,
the color mounting in her cheeks.

“Actually, you’re taking it,” Huron replied with a glint in
his eye. “I’m just along for the ride.”

They walked around the beautiful little craft doing their
ground check and Kris took it all in with a thumping heart: from the ogive nose
to the two scramjets alongside the tailfin; the short semi-retractable wings
and shielded thrusters in the fuselage. This was the real thing: a low-orbit
capable high-performance kite. She had to suppress a giggle as they climbed in
via the wings and Huron helped her strap into the pilot’s seat.

“Now two things,” he said as he strapped into the other
chair. “One: we are staying on
this
planet today. Your ceiling is sixty
klicks—I see stars and you’re grounded. Be a good girl and we’ll see about
taking it over the top another day.”

Kris nodded as solemnly as she could. “Okay.”

“Two,” Huron continued, “You’ll notice there’s no co-pilot’s
controls in this thing. If you screw up, it’s all on you.” As the full meaning
of that and the implications for this lesson began to settle in Kris, her
excitement changed key and she swallowed. “Okay.”

“Good to go?”

Kris nodded. “Good to go. Sir.”

Huron chuckled. “Nice touch.”

Huron talked her through the preflight checks; she asked
ATC for takeoff clearance and received it, then warmed up the scramjets while
she taxied onto the jetway using thrusters. Huron gave her instructions in a calm
professional voice, and as they reached the launch line and she engaged the
brakes to allow the scramjets to spin up to a hypersonic whine, he said, “Hear
that? The pitch?”