gaian consortium 05 - the titan trap Read online

She gave him a relieved smile and did the same, clearly impressed with the amenities even these simple seats offered. Well, it was a bit different from the cockpit of a spaceship, even one as sleek and up-to-date as the one they’d left behind in Chicago.

  As he drifted off to sleep, he wondered if they’d ever make it back to the Windy City’s spaceport to retrieve it.

  * * *

  When his face went still, eyelashes black crescents against his cheeks, Cassidy knew Derek slept. She also knew she should be doing the same thing, but slumber eluded her, despite her comfortable seat. Dark landscapes flitted by outside the window, lights of passing cities and towns shimmering in the darkness, then gone. It all felt so big, although she knew that was only an illusion. Gaia was really not a very large planet at all, was dwarfed by Jupiter and Saturn and Neptune. But of course man had never settled on any of those gas giants and never could — the conditions would kill an unprotected human being in less than a second.

  Here, though, with the central plains of Normerica dashing past the window at a little more than 150 kilometers per hour, Cassidy got a sense of scale quite unlike anything else she’d ever experienced. On the Moon, one could take the underground rail from Luna City to Tranquility Dome, a journey of around an hour, but that distance felt tiny compared to this one. And it would take another not quite three hours to get from Denver to Tucson. With all the distance they were covering now, it was still only a little more than half their journey.

  And what would be at the end of it? It was clear that Derek intended to go to his parents with the proof of Waite’s involvement in Theo Karras’ death. She guessed Derek would edit the recording heavily, would take out the torture that resulted in Waite’s confession. At least, that was what she would do if she were in his position. She couldn’t imagine allowing her own father to see the kind of violence she was capable of. But she also couldn’t have imagined that Derek would be able to do any of what he’d done back in their suite at the Continental, so what did that say about her as a judge of character?

  Not a hell of a lot, apparently.

  She risked a glance over at him, but he slept still. If he was tormented inwardly by the lengths he’d gone to extract that information from Conrad Waite, Derek didn’t show it. His face was calm, peaceful. Studying him like this, she could see how elegant his cheekbones and chin and nose were, how finely molded his lips, how thick his eyelashes. All little details she hadn’t really taken in before now, partly because everything had been happening so fast that she didn’t have much time to really stop and think, and partly because she didn’t want him to catch her staring.

  Well, she had plenty of time to stare now.

  And what did that say about her? As they’d left the suite after his interrogation of Waite, she’d been shaken by what she’d just witnessed. Now, though, that unease seemed to have disappeared, or at least lessened to a great extent. Was it simply that she’d had time to think about what a piece of shit Conrad Waite really was? Lord knows he hadn’t shown much guilt over the man he’d murdered…and she knew Theo Karras had to be just one of many. There were probably quite a few additional victims scattered around the globe even after Derek had been sent to MaxSec.

  Maybe some people would call that situational ethics, but she realized Conrad Waite wasn’t worth shedding any tears over. Derek had indicated that their sponsor’s people would take care of him, but was that Waite’s own brand of “taking care” of something, or would they simply remove him from the Cosmopolitan and then dump him someplace where his handlers could pick him up?

  More questions she didn’t have the answers to. She doubted she ever would.

  And that’s fine, she told herself. You don’t have to know everything. The most important thing to know is that someone’s helping us, someone who seems to have our best interests at heart.

  Otherwise, as she’d told Derek a short while earlier, they would’ve been dead a long time ago.

  She shifted in her seat, turning back toward the window. Now she was regretting her lack of knowledge about the world that had birthed her ancestors. Maybe if she’d spent a little more time studying Gaia, instead of learning astrogation and new techniques for squeezing a little more speed out of the Avalon while at the same time reducing fuel consumption, she wouldn’t feel so lost now. She’d know the names of those cities and towns flashing by, know how many people lived there, whether any of them had ever gone into space, or whether they’d spent their whole lives bounded by Gaian scenery, a blue Gaian sky.

  Well, she was lucky in that, she supposed. She’d seen the glitter of far-off sunlight on Saturn’s rings, drifted in blackness pierced by the delicate shimmer of a million stars. She’d watched Gaia rise beyond Luna City’s domes, and seen the ice volcanoes on Io shoot hundreds of meters into its tenuous atmosphere. All of those things made her who she was now, and she knew she would have never given any of them up in exchange for a safe existence here on Gaia’s surface.

  Or not so safe, she thought then. It wasn’t that safe for Theo Karras…nor Derek.

  She wished they were someplace private. If they were, she would lean over and kiss him awake, show him that she understood why he’d stood there and calmly broken Conrad Waite’s fingers. Not because he enjoyed it, but because he knew it was the only way to get to the truth. He wasn’t a Consortium intelligence operative — he didn’t have access to truth serums and mind-control drugs and all the other less damaging but otherwise just as invasive techniques others might have used in a similar situation. No, he only had his hands and his mind, both of which he’d used to brutal effect to get the information he needed.

  But because they were on this train, and only fifteen feet away or so were other passengers either nodding in their own seats or trying to occupy themselves with watching a vid or catching up on work or whatever else it took to fill up the time, Cassidy settled for touching her forefinger to her lips, placing it gently on the back of Derek’s hand, and then removing it just as quickly so she wouldn’t wake him up. He stirred, but only a little, and she knew she needed to take her cue from him. There were still about two hours left before they reached Denver, and she might as well rest up now.

  She had no idea what to expect when they reached Tucson.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Temperatures in Chicago had been mild, as it was now late September on Gaia, and the northern hemisphere of the planet was tilting toward winter. Here in Tucson, though, it was warm and dry, fiercely bright, and Cassidy wished she’d thought to purchase some protective lenses in one of those boutiques on Lakeshore Drive. Sunglasses…that’s what they called them here on Gaia.

  They’d switched trains in Denver without incident, and arrived in this bright desert city a little before eight hundred hours. They’d checked their luggage into an automated storage locker at the station, although she wasn’t sure why.

  Autocabs were queued up at the station, so that wasn’t an issue, although she saw Derek cast a somewhat longing look at the aircar rental station.

  “Why don’t we get one of those, if you prefer it?” she asked in an undertone. It was much busier here than in Chicago, not because Tucson was a larger city, but because they’d arrived right in the middle of the morning rush as people were heading in to work.

  “Can’t,” he said shortly. “All aircar rentals require a biometric scan at check-in. We’ll take an autocab part of the way and walk the rest. That way it won’t have an accurate record of our destination.”

  Maybe at some point she’d get used to the way everything was watched and recorded here on Gaia. Sure, there was surveillance on Luna City, but not to the extent she’d seen here. Then again, on the Moon, there were only so many places you could go. A fugitive might flee to a different domed population center, but there were only seventeen in all. Sooner or later, you’d be tracked down. Whereas here….

  Here you’d have a whole planet to lose yourself in. No wonder the authorities wanted to remove every opportunity for a person
to slip the net. She had to hope Derek knew what he was doing, that they’d get out of Tucson before anyone figured out they’d been here.

  An autocab stopped in response to Derek’s hail, and they climbed into the back seat. He gave the cab a destination, but Cassidy didn’t pay too much attention to what it was, since they were heading someplace entirely different.

  But at least it was daylight, so she could stare out the window at the streets passing by outside, so different from the row after row of towering high-rises they’d left behind in Chicago. Yes, there were tall buildings here, especially clustered off to their left in what she assumed must be some sort of downtown district, but what caught her eye more than anything were the mountain ranges that surrounded the town. She’d seen mountains before, on the Moon and on Mars, but these felt bigger somehow, were deeply hued and majestic, and seemed to have some sort of vegetation growing on them.

  The median at the center of the street had spiky vegetation growing in it as well, something that looked as if it should have been growing on an alien world, not Gaia itself. “What are those?” she asked as they passed by another one.

  An expression of amusement passed over Derek’s face, although before then he’d looked somber and far away. “Saguaro cactus. The lower ones are called prickly pear. They grow a fruit that’s edible.”

  “Really?” It looked so very inedible, what with those spines all over the place.

  “Really. I used to know a bar that made a mean margarita with them.”

  Maybe at some point she’d get used to not knowing much of anything about Gaia. Trying not to feel like an idiot, she echoed, “Margarita?”

  “A drink made with tequila and a sweet and sour mix. It’s a local tradition. Maybe if we have time we can stop in one of the local bars and have one.”

  That sounded like fun, and also refreshingly normal. Which meant she doubted they’d have time for a margarita, prickly pear or otherwise. Still, it was something pleasant to think about.

  The cab took them past the downtown area, out into what were clearly residential districts. Having spent her whole life in domed cities where space was at a premium, she could only stare at how spread out everything was here, how every house sat on its own plot of land, with its neighbors a respectable distance away, not stacked on top of each other like the condo compounds in Luna City or the modular residences on Ganymede. And in front of those houses were more cactus planted in what she assumed were meant to be aesthetically pleasing patterns, although she couldn’t quite figure those out. There were potted shrubs in Luna City, carefully spaced and even more carefully watched, but that was the extent of her exposure to gardening.

  “What do you think?” Derek asked.

  “It’s big. Alive, in a way that Chicago wasn’t. If it weren’t for the lake outside and the size of the building, I could’ve said the Cosmopolitan was tucked in a dome somewhere. Even when I went outside, it didn’t feel as if I was outside.”

  “I can see that. I was never much for big cities. You get spoiled when you grow up with this kind of view.” His glance strayed to the mountains far off in the distance, and Cassidy couldn’t really blame him. She knew she wanted to keep staring, to drink in this place that felt so alien and yet was the home world of her race.

  The autocab turned a corner and came to a stop in front of a house with a high wall of some sort of smooth, pale substance. Molded duracrete? She wasn’t sure; she’d never made much study of Gaian construction techniques. Far more interesting was the vining shrub that covered half of the wall, and the bright, bright pink flowers studded along its length. She had no idea anything that vivid grew naturally.

  They got out, and as they began to walk, she understood why Derek had had them leave their luggage behind. It would’t have been much fun to drag the heavy cases along in the heat, and since they were now going through a residential area without much foot traffic, the two of them would have looked extremely conspicuous, walking along with a couple of large suitcases in tow.

  It was also warm, almost uncomfortably so. In the past she’d complained about the Avalon’s balky temperature regulator, but running a couple of degrees too warm was far different from the heat she was experiencing now. It had to be almost thirty degrees out there. Sweat was already beginning to drip down her back.

  Apparently, Derek noticed her discomfort, because he said, “Maybe you should take your jacket off.”

  She should have thought of that earlier. Too used to having the temperature around her adjusted to what she was wearing rather than vice versa, she supposed. Pausing, she undid the tabs holding the jacket closed, then shrugged out of it and draped it over one arm. That was better, although she wished the shirt she’d been wearing under it didn’t have long sleeves.

  “It’s not too far. Just another block.”

  It seemed that a “block” down here on Gaia was far longer than the units with the same name used in Luna City. She trudged along, squinting in the bright sunshine. “How do people live here?” she asked. “It’s so hot and sunny.”

  “Believe it or not, a lot of people enjoy this kind of weather. But then, they dress for it, too.” He sent her an encouraging smile. “Well, that, and our houses have good climate control. Speaking of which, here we are.”

  He nodded toward a large, sprawling structure with square outlines, surrounded by another one of those high walls. In the center of the front wall was a large gate made of black metal twisted into elegant shapes, and through that gate she could spy more cactus and other plants she could’t identify.

  “That’s your parents’ house?” she asked. It was so large, she couldn’t imagine all that space being for just two people. But then, if this was where Derek and his sister had grown up, then at one time it might not have seemed so big.

  “Yes,” he said, and this time she noted an undercurrent of tension in his voice, whereas before this he had sounded fairly relaxed.

  “So…what now?”

  “We go in.”

  He moved past her and went to the gate, then lifted the latch and entered the yard on the other side. How odd that the gate was just open like that, with no visible security measures she could see. Was that how they normally did things in Tucson, or were the Tagawas more trusting than usual?

  Judging by what Derek had told her so far about his father, she kind of doubted that was the reason.

  The front door was protected by a keypad, but Derek typed in a code and the door opened inward. Cool air drifted out toward them, and Cassidy permitted herself a small sigh of relief. At least they wouldn’t be sweltering once they were inside. At the same time, she wondered if this was the best way to approach things…to simply walk in, when Derek’s parents still thought him locked up on the other side of the Solar System.

  Then again, it wasn’t as if calling ahead to warn them had been a viable option. Had they been informed of his jail break? She sort of doubted it, since that was the sort of screw-up the government preferred not to advertise.

  The house was quiet, the background hum of the cooling unit the only sound she could hear. No distant noise of a vid being watched, no soft music while someone worked.

  Maybe that was it. Derek had said his father was an engineer and his mother a surgeon. It was quite possible they’d already left for the day.

  “Do you think they’re out?” she asked softly. And if they were, what then? The thought of just sitting here and waiting for them to come home seemed a bit creepy.

  “They’re retired,” he replied, sounding mystified. “It’s a little early for them to be running errands, but….”

  Since she had no idea what a typical day for a retired Gaian entailed, Cassidy could only shrug and wait. This was his house — or at least had been, once upon a time — so it was really up to him to decide what to do next.

  “Mom?” he called out. “Dad?”

  If the silence that greeted his call weren’t so unnerving, Cassidy would have been tempted to smile. It was somehow i
ncongruous to hear him addressing his parents like that, grown man that he was. Then again, her own father would have given her what-for if she’d attempted to call him by his first name, no matter that she was legally an adult, so she didn’t know why Derek should be any different.

  Frowning, he moved down the central corridor of the house, one that opened out on either side into a series of rooms, one clearly an office, the other a sitting area of some sort. It was difficult not to stare, because it was all so very different from what she was used to, from the floor of some dark red ceramic tile to the woven hangings on the walls and the furniture that looked as if it had been made of real wood. Real. That was how it felt to her, as if everything in the house had been made by human hands out of natural materials, rather than extruded of plastic or composite in a factory somewhere. It was strange, but very beautiful in its way.

  They continued to the kitchen, a mixture of up-to-date appliances and natural tile, everything spotlessly clean. It had a small sitting area off to one side, with a table for two, and on that table sat two mugs. So Derek’s parents must have been here recently, and most likely planned on coming back. She couldn’t imagine they’d leave those mugs out like that otherwise, not when the rest of the place was so tidy.

  The kitchen overlooked a casual room with a sofa and a couple of chairs, and a vid-screen mounted on one wall. Directly opposite this was a wall of glass — but then Cassidy saw two figures approaching it, talking and smiling, and the wall slid aside. Not a wall at all, then, but an automated doorway of some sort.

  It was a woman in front, carrying some sort of long-stemmed flowers in one hand, flowers she must have just gathered in the garden out back. She came inside, took a few steps into the room…and then seemed to notice Derek and Cassidy where they were standing in the kitchen. Her eyes widened, and she let out a gasp, the flowers falling from her hand.

  “My God,” she said, standing there and staring at her son as if she’d seen a ghost. Well, Derek was probably not too far removed from a ghost in his parents’ eyes. Cassidy doubted that they’d ever expected to see him alive again.