Change State by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Author:Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: liaden, space opera
Publisher: Pinbeam Books
Published: 2021-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

Command Decision

Steve Miller

"Daltrey’s still waiting in holding orbit. Wants to know why we haven’t solved this yet! If the CMEs clear up he figures they can be down in thirty hours or so."

The intel officer, Lizardi, spoke low, just in case someone had a mic working nearby. She and her companion leaned against a rail fence at the top of steep slope, observing.

Bjarni, the ad hoc planetary specialist—by dint of being the only member of the unit to have been on world before—nodded.

"I had a note, too. Says Righteous Bispham’s making noises re contract specs. Daltrey still wants to be there to turn the Nameless over to the Bispham, and the Bispham wants to Name them before they act. Silly damn. . ."

"Local custom," she said, with more than a little asperity.

After a pause, "You know, I think Daltrey’s hoping to get out. If he gave me terms I’d buy him out. I think we could keep it together just fine."

The specialist nodded. Everyone always says they want a chance to be the boss.

"Any luck?" she asked after a moment of silence.

Bjarni took a deep breath, recalled his mission. His sensitive nose tried, but disappointed.

The planet smelled green when it didn’t stink of sulfur from the open wounds of the tectonics. The seacoasts and islands smelled green with the giant seasonal rafts of seaweed spicing the tricky winds, the brief plains had smelled green with the waves of grasses. . .and now the mountains smelled green of the great bristling tar-spotted pine analogues and the moss-walled rocks of the upswept basalt.

Years since he’d first smelled it as a traveling student. This time—he’d had a sunny tour so far instead of a war, landing ships aground and mired in swamp after taking damage from the stellar storms that had grounded both sides as far as the mercenary units went. They’d managed to get their hovercraft out of the landing ship, but were on the wrong side of the mountain when those comms went haywire and some of them crisped, grounding them the second time.

Elsewhere around the planet the green scent might be over-ridden with the scent of blood, of burning fields, of weapons cobbled out of machines meant for peace, the ozone of overworked electronics and overlay. This mountain had none of those, being as comfortably rural as a rustic guided tour.

The scent he really sought, the one that had intoxicated him on his private visit to InAJam as a youthful wandering philosophy student, was the cusp of green fungi. He’d been entranced by InAJam; he had some of the language and loved it, and more, he loved the food and admired the people. He even dreamed about the place. The most frequent dream was about the ripple he’d seen, when the fragrance of the carpet growths intensified and the colors changed as the spores of one generation fell on the neighboring growths from another, changing them.

"I smell something," Major Lizardi said, but her nose still had a hard time separating the wood flavoring from the aroma of over-cooked meat, as he’d seen at dinner the night before.

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