Alien Velocity by Robert Appleton

Author:Robert Appleton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

“Take my hand.” Sorcha’s delicate pink fingers reaching from the sleeve of her silk kimono were so feminine, so inviting, they melted away his frustration, reminded him there were better places to be than in the limelight 24/7. All around the sloping grassland behind his Cusco mansion, the chirrups and caws of exotic birds suddenly sounded less like a prying crowd of spectators and more like Nature’s sentries keeping vigil, protecting him. Sorcha had that ability to make the world feel safe when he was with her.

That early summer morning, a spy camera mounted on a toy flying saucer had sneaked under their EMP security net and hovered over Sorcha while she sunbathed. Paparazzi madness. Without blinking, she’d got up and swung her parasol at it, knocked it into the pool.

She was by natural inclination the calm within any storm, and he’d needed her that day more than ever. Holo-messages and courier deliveries had besieged their home after a tabloid had leaked a false rumour about him announcing his retirement from RAM-running. Any other time, any other rumour and he’d have laughed it off without comment, but the past few days had been difficult—the anniversary of his father’s crash had wedged sharply in his thoughts, and he really had been contemplating retirement for the first time.

No, dreading was the word. An abyss over which no bridge existed—or at least none that he could see. But Sorcha, God bless her, could see it.

“I’ve shut off all com-links, set security to level six. No one can phone in. Anyone buzzes the front gate, they’ll get static. We wouldn’t even know if the Earth was under attack.” She led him past the fence encircling the black bears’ reserve, snuggled close to him, arm-in-arm as they headed uphill toward the house. The smell of wet peat was very pleasant. “Charlie, it’s just you and me in the universe. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I was thinking about Dad, about how he didn’t know when to quit. You know, maybe if he hadn’t pushed it like that, maybe if he’d gone with a safer design, he wouldn’t have flipped.” Charlie’s metal stud tumbling through the grid and into the racer’s engine clattered through his mind. He held his breath for too long, finally let it out with an audible gasp and a cough.

“This is about you retiring, isn’t it?” She slid an arm around his waist. “Come on, I’ve got something to show you.”

She ushered him onto the porch elevator and they alighted on the roof balcony, where an oval-shaped burgundy bubble tent—an extra-strong shelter favoured by deep-space survivalists—stood with its door flap tied open. Inside, two of the cosiest sofa chairs he’d ever seen waited side by side. She sank onto one and invited him onto the other.

“Now, tell me what you see,” she said.

“A sunset.” One of the most brilliant and majestic tropical sunsets he’d ever seen, but Charlie didn’t feel much like elaborating. “It’s pretty.”

“And the rainforest?”

A swathe of damp mist

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