Chapter 11

My head seemed to be spinning. I couldn’t believe it. Geelan had been seen recently, on Gaia. That was remarkable. Even more remarkable was the fact of where he’d been seen. Entering the Atlas rimonium mining facility? It just didn’t add up. A million possibilities were swirling in my brain. I couldn’t keep up with them. As soon as I tried to work out one explanation, two or three more popped up.

While I sat there in shock, Colette was already moving. She slapped the intercom near us. “Stop the sequence,” she told the freighter crew. “We’re getting off.” I didn’t really hear the response, I was so caught up in my own sudden mystery, but the back of my brain did register a heated exchange between Colette and the men in the cockpit.

Shortly thereafter, the pilot who had flown our pod re-entered the room we were sitting in. He flew in at full speed, his face painted in rage. “Get out. Now!” he hollered. I guess he expected us to undo our own straps. We did so, me bumbling around a bit, and Colette helped me, as if she was the old hand and I was the rookie.

It was like being hit by a truck. My mind was racing, but I couldn’t really hold onto any single thought long enough to make sense of myself. I was only dimly aware of the goings-on around me, like a dazed accident victim being helped out by calm and experienced professionals. Colette got me strapped into the pod, and barely got herself in before the angry pilot shot away from the freighter and gunned it for the nearest station. He didn’t care where we got off. The sooner he got rid of us, the better. We had disrupted their launch sequence, and it was going to cost them a lot in time and fuel to make the necessary course corrections to get to Sirius IV, and no matter what, they would now be late. I do think that pilot would have dumped us right out the airlock into the vacuum of space if he could have. He seemed incensed that he had to bother taking us back, even if it was to the closest habitable spot, one that may or may not be convenient for us.

Colette seemed to be busy too. She was talking non-stop in her HUD, giving directives, asking questions, making urgent travel arrangements to Gaia, and just generally preparing for our arrival. It all passed by me like a blur, and I didn’t catch much of it. I was now in the hands of this capable and focused professional sitting beside me, and she wasn’t wasting a moment. I decided to relax and let her take care of things. I just tried to digest the shocking news.

The closest airlock for the pod to drop us off in was at a small spacecraft maintenance station. It was an entirely unsuitable drop-off place for us, and Colette argued with the pilot about it, but she soon realized he was going to win this one. So she started making arrangements for a orbit-taxi to come get us and take us to a more suitable transit station, where we could quickly hook up with a ship headed to Gaia. Such ships were much more frequent and easy to come by, and Colette had it settled by the time we were dumped off the maintenance station and the pod sped back to its mother ship for its final intra-orbit trip.

The maintenance workers, captivated by Colette’s good looks and general air of competence, tried to engage her in conversation, but she shooed them away and contacted people on Gaia, crowing about my arrival and making arrangements.

An orbit taxi finally arrived, and got us to a transit station, where we boarded a medium-sized space liner headed for Gaia. She got us through security, got us boarded, and finally settled into our seats.

The ship made its final preparations, then disembarked from the station and trundled its way out of near-Earth orbit, out to a more open space more suitable for igniting its translight engines for the relatively quick trip to Gaia.

Colette had finally settled down, and she placed her hand on mine, as she allowed her head to rest and her eyes close. The warmth and softness of her touch seemed to slow time down, slow my mind down. It grounded me somehow. I started to check back in to my surroundings with all my senses…the vibration of our ship, the sound of the engines, the dry but lightly aromatic air we were breathing. And the beauty of the face that was Colette’s. Her expression was relaxed, in a unique way that suggested both a sense of triumph and profound relief. The kind of repose for a mother that had been fighting the battle of her life, and had won.

Of course, it was just getting started. I had implicitly agreed to go to Gaia, but our agendas still differed. She had one singular goal, and that was to rid Gaia of Atlas, and to get her daughter healed in the process. My singular goal was to find Geelan. It was convenient for her that our goals now seemed to rest in the same geography, but if she wanted to achieve her goal of using me to oust Atlas, she would have to somehow unify our objectives, to make her goal of ousting Atlas the same as mine. Considering her wily tenacity thus far, she just might succeed.

My stomach lurched suddenly as it occurred to me that Colette had set me up, that the video her “assistant” Sash had shown me was fraudulent, or that at least it was not taken where he had said it was. As much as I was growing to like Colette, I couldn’t honestly put something like that past her. After all, she had said they had hooks into the Sirian networks, maybe they pulled it down from there…added the Earth soldiers in to the frame later to make it look legitimate.

I shook my head and pinched the bridge of my nose. I was going to drive myself crazy if I second-guessed every single thing that happened, if I saw a conspiracy in every facial expression or turn of phrase. The bottom line was that my gut had trusted what she had shown me, and I had followed it. Even if I was wrong, I was committed now. The freighter I had chartered a ride on was long gone by now.

What I needed was a drink. I tapped the attendant button and waited. In the meantime, I took another look at Colette’s hand, resting across my knuckles as lightly and warmly as the breath I could see moving in and out of her body. It felt really good to be touched by her like that. It was a sweet touch, the kind of touch that is meant only for giving, with nothing expected in return. Maybe it was a touch of gratitude on her part, or of desperation, a small symptom of a deep desire to cling to me and to all the hope she had invested in me to help her accomplish her ultimate mission. No, I was flattering myself. Making up more stories. I had enough mystery in my life as it was. I decided to go back to my original interpretation, to take her touch for what it was…a simple display of affection, of satisfaction at the way things had turned out and a sign of hope and camaraderie regarding the future we were now embarking on together, platonic though it may be. At least for now.

The attendant arrived and I asked him for a screwdriver with Absolut. The attendant nodded and disappeared.

With my mind back to moving at a normal speed, I recalled the events of the past couple of hours. What was that thing Colette had with her satchel, clutching it like she was, then storing her hand in it when we were on the freighter? That was weird. It was bugging me.

“Colette?” I said softly.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she turned to me. “Yes, Sean.”

“What was that thing with your satchel?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your satchel. You kept grabbing it and sticking your hand in it. What was that all about?”

She looked at me blankly, then her face broke into an embarrassed grin. She reached down and retrieved the bag in question. She opened the top flap, reached in her hand, and pulled out a syringe gun. It was a common medical implement, a light, gray instrument shaped somewhat like a handgun, that accepted a variety of plastic vial-shaped cartridges for delivering medicine or anesthetic easily into a patient’s bloodstream. Colette popped out the cartridge in hers and handed it to me with a slightly sheepish expression. The vial had a label on it, and I glanced at it.
“Rostrazine?” I asked in surprise. Rostrazine was a heavy tranquilizer. It could knock out a horse in a large enough dose.

“I told you, Sean, you were coming with me, one way or the other. I’m glad it didn’t come to that.”

My head shook in confusion. “Just when exactly were you going to use it? We were only a couple minutes away from warping off to Sirius.”

She looked down, with more embarrassment showing. “That was just about when. Sash called me moments before I planned to knock you out.”

I twirled the vial in my hands. “You cut it pretty close. You know, there were several, much easier opportunities to pull something like that.” I looked at her. “Being scrunched together in that tiny pod would have been a good one.”

She nodded knowingly. “I was…scared to. I was still hoping I could talk you out of it.”

I leaned back from her in surprise. “Scared to? Colette Thornbush? I haven’t seen you scared of anything yet.” She laughed, and I smiled at her.

“Besides,” she added, “you just would have woken up hopping mad. I needed you to come of your own free will. I could have lugged you all the way to Gaia, but I couldn’t have made you help me.”

“You can lead an old horse to water, right?”

She nodded, but before she could reply, the attendant appeared and set down the screwdriver in front of me. Seeing that Colette was awake, he asked her if she wanted anything. She politely declined, and he left.

I lifted my drink to her. “Well, here’s to the gutsiest woman I have ever met. And maybe even the most attractive.”

She smiled coyly, then scooped up my hand and brought it to her mouth for a light kiss. Her face was serious, intense. “Thank you, Sean. Thank you for doing this.”

“We’re not out of the woods yet. Remember, I’m here for Geelan. You help me, I’ll help you.”

Her voice was light, with just a trace of playful indignance. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

I toasted her again, then took a refreshing gulp of my sweet iced liquor.