Stars Beyond by S. K. Dunstall

Author:S. K. Dunstall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ace
Published: 2020-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

15

ALISTAIR LAUGHTON

Paola arrived in Cam’s hospital room as the genemod machine lights went green.

“There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“There’s a waiting room, you know. Any sane person would use that.” She’d called him a lot of things in their working life, but sane had never been one of them. “You’ve changed, Alistair, since you’ve been away.”

Everyone changed. Alistair was a lot more cynical, less trusting, than he had been, and no wonder. “Maybe it’s your memory of me, versus the reality.”

“It’s not that. It’s . . . you used to care, Alistair. Now you’re . . . I don’t know, you’ve lost your passion.”

Two years scraping to survive, then having the company who’d put you there try to kill you might do that. Besides, he’d never been more passionate about doing his job than he was about finding Nika Rik Terri.

The doctor came up as the genemod machine pinged completion. He checked the readings, then helped Cam out. “All done,” he said. “You’ll have a nice bill at the end of it. Hu-skin is expensive.”

“Thank you.” Alistair handed Cam a pair of coveralls he’d purchased from a vending machine. “Your clothes were wrecked.”

Cam looked at the coveralls as if he’d never seen vending-machine clothes before—he probably hadn’t, even on Zell he’d dressed well—then opened the pack. “What do you think?” he asked Paola. “Too large? Or too small?”

“Doesn’t he know your size?”

“Paola. You have the wrong idea.”

Her link buzzed. She held up her hand. “Got to take this one. It’s a priority three.”

Alistair had taken a number of priority calls in his time. Priority-one calls were major incidents involving a lot of people, such as an explosion that killed everyone at a function, or a large passenger ship being attacked by pirates in legal space. Priority two was for smaller incidents that had a big impact. Shanna Brown’s assassination was one of them. Most of Tamati Woden’s kills were priority twos. Priority three was important, but the impact was limited.

Cam was right. The coveralls were too big, and once they were out of the pack, they fluoresced with an orange luminescence—to Alistair—that increased as they took on the heat from Cam’s body.

“They have?” Paola started to walk, beckoned impatiently to Alistair and Cam when they didn’t immediately follow. “Restrain them. Don’t make a big thing of it, unless they try to escape. And for God’s sake, don’t kill them. I’ll have the Honesty League and the media all over it.”

“Shoes?” Cam asked.

Alistair shook his head.

Cam sighed. “You probably would have got the wrong size anyway.”

“Come on, you two. I need to get back to the office.”

They jogged to catch up to her.

“Did you have something you wanted to say to us?” Alistair asked. “I mean, you came to see me.”

“Or was it to warn us someone was trying to kill us?” Cam asked.

“Of course I want to talk to you.” Paola was almost running herself.

“What’s the hurry?”

“My prisoners have escaped.” She stabbed impatiently at the lift button, stabbed it again.

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