Eternity's Mind (33 page)

“Don't need it,” said the second clan merchant. “Plenty of other sellers.”

“Not at this price.” Iswander braced himself to drop the amount even further, but neither of the traders would have any of it.

“The cost is still unconscionable.” The hard woman shook her head. “No savings would be worth having to deal with the ghosts of clan Duquesne and all those who died at Sheol.”

“Go away then,” Iswander said, and his voice came out with an edge that disappointed him. He preferred to keep his emotions well under the surface. “I have other buyers. You lost your chance.”

When he checked the boards again, though, he discovered that word had spread: he was blacklisted. No one else offered to buy.

Disgusted, he decided to go for a quick dinner alone to reassess. He didn't want to see Londa in this state, not yet. When he tried to enter a restaurant, though, the proprietor stopped him at the door. “Your money's no good here, sir. I'm sure you can find another restaurant where the food is more to your liking.”

Iswander stared at him, cold. “You're turning down a paying customer.”

The proprietor glanced over his shoulder at the numerous occupied tables inside, with customers watching him. “I'm not turning down a paying customer; I'm retaining the ones I have. If I seat you, half my clientele will get up and leave.”

Iswander didn't try to cover his distaste. “This is childish and unprofessional.”

“Roamers stick together,” said the proprietor.

“
I'm
a Roamer!” Iswander nearly shouted.

The other man shrugged. “So you say.”

Iswander just wanted to leave. He would take his ekti and find some other market. Certainly there was a colony planet, an outpost in the Ildiran Empire, or even a Solar Navy ship that would buy it.

He realized that Elisa would have known what to do, but she was gone.

Even in the face of this, Iswander was determined to produce more and more ekti, just to prove a point. His own people couldn't turn him away or destroy him so easily. He was stronger than they were. And he would survive.

 

CHAPTER

55

ELISA ENTURI

The Confederation was hunting her down, but Elisa wasn't afraid—not even concerned. She knew they would never catch her. She was too smart for them, too swift, and if need be, too ruthless.

After being thwarted on Academ, though, Elisa had to reassess what she wanted to do. Merely escaping intact wasn't enough. She couldn't just live her life on the run, one step ahead of the hunters. Elisa had to find something for herself, something that would focus her energies, since everything else had crumbled around her. She would start over, rebuild, and win.

Eventually she would find a way to get Seth back and make Garrison pay for the pain he had caused her, the
shame
he had heaped on her. Elisa didn't know how she'd manage that yet, but she would find a way somehow.

Some might have called it cockiness or sheer arrogance, but only a week after she had escaped pursuit at Academ, Elisa slipped back to Newstation, where she planned to watch and learn. Once she understood what she was dealing with, she would figure out what to do next.

She didn't want to answer questions or fight her way back out if some overambitious Roamer tried to bring her to justice. Elisa didn't feel guilty about what she had done, and she had no interest in explaining her actions. She didn't owe it to anyone—except Lee Iswander, and he had thrown her into a garbage chute.

She changed the registration signal and insignia on her ship in case anyone had noted it last time. Elisa didn't wish to be associated with Iswander Industries anymore, regardless; the company logo was long gone from the hull. She registered at Newstation under a false name and paid the minimal docking fee, using funds she had appropriated from Iswander when she slipped away from his extraction field. Would Iswander even notice or care if she robbed him blind? She suspected his company would soon be bankrupt anyway, and it made sense for her to have a piece of the profits to cover her own expenses. She had earned it. Now she had to find other alternatives so that she could make a living, and Newstation was sure to have them. She felt strangely gratified to be walking right under the Roamers' noses.

Elisa dyed her hair and eyebrows black and wore a head scarf to strengthen her disguise, and she bought a set of comfortable Roamer-style clothes from the first merchant shop she encountered in the station. Many of these people hated her name, but few would know her on sight.

She walked along the crowded decks, listening to the mélange of accents and dialects. So much boisterous conversation, deals being made, business conducted—much of it illicit, no doubt. Elisa remained alert, hoping to hear information she could use or hear of a crew she could join, despite her resentment toward the Roamers. They were unreliable, untrustworthy, and for the most part unambitious. They did have the advantage, however, of working independently and keeping minimal records. She could slip in among them.

She ate by herself in a crowded food court, but the strange spices made her mouth burn, reminding her of some of the things Garrison had cooked. The flavor turned her stomach. She was still angry about how she had been rebuffed when trying to take Seth away from Academ. Her son belonged with her.

In retrospect, she realized she should have simply shot Garrison, Orli, and anyone who stood in her way, but that would have caused problems with Seth, and she simply didn't have the patience to control the boy if he fought her every step of the way.

The unexpected backlash of the wentals had been something she couldn't understand or defend against. She would have to look for another way to retrieve her son. But when she surreptitiously combed through the lists of staff and students at Academ, she found a notation that horrified her.

Seth was gone.

Garrison had taken him away, traveling with Orli Covitz—as if she were the boy's mother! The very concept infuriated Elisa. She would have to confront Jess Tamblyn and Cesca Peroni, demand to know the whereabouts of her boy. She would force them to tell her.

But that would expose her, and she wasn't ready yet. No. She had to be smarter about this.

For four days she remained at Newstation, quietly lurking, eavesdropping on conversations, watching trader ships, observing clan activities. The Roamers had many social centers, gaming rooms of the nongambling variety, and venues for impromptu concerts where the music was often ill tuned but energetic. She didn't know how long she could stand it here.

As she remained unnoticed among them, she was angered to see so many new shipments of ekti-X delivered in tanks from slapped-together pumping facilities at other bloater clusters. She had destroyed the Duquesne operations to protect that trade secret, but now it was out of her hands. She supposed she could become a vigilante and take out one operation after another. In the past she would have done that for Lee Iswander, but she would not bloody her hands on his behalf again. Still, her heart ached because she
would
have done it … if only he'd asked.

When a particularly large shipment of ekti-X arrived, she listened to the background chatter and was surprised to learn that the stardrive fuel came from Iswander Industries. Unable to resist, Elisa tracked him down and eventually found Lee Iswander in a drinking establishment, but she didn't dare approach him. Instead, she maintained her disguise and just watched him from the far side of the bar. She sat in the shadows alone, like a jilted lover, while Iswander met with Roamer traders—and argued with them.

Seeing him sparked a series of strange feelings in her. He had trusted her, relied on her, made her important; Elisa had been an invaluable employee and had done everything Alec Pannebaker could not do. For a long time, Iswander had appreciated her efforts, made her feel special, and she would have done anything for him. To use the silly, superstitious jargon of the Roamer clans, Lee Iswander had been her Guiding Star.

Just watching him now, Elisa felt angry with herself for feeling such a longing to be with him again. But Iswander didn't notice her, and Elisa wasn't sure how he would react if he did.

Later, when she learned that no Roamer clan would buy his ekti, at any price, she felt indignant on his behalf, although she wanted to feel smug about it. She knew she could help make this right—in fact, Elisa could easily have tracked down other customers for him. She had convinced Kett Shipping to be their original distributor, and she could find buyers again. Oh, some uppity customers would refuse to do business with a disgraced outlaw, but others had no such moral compunctions—if the price was right and the flow of ekti-X was steady.

Elisa shook her head. Iswander was no longer part of her life, his problems no longer her concern. He would have to deal with them himself. In order to cut her ties, she would have to find another job, one that had no connection to Lee Iswander whatsoever.

At Newstation she stumbled upon a call for able salvage workers, and as soon as she saw who was asking, she decided to take a chance. Xander Brindle and Terry Handon—two young men she had made rich—had embarked on a wild scheme to create a replacement for Ulio Station. Right now, they were looking for people to comb through the wreckage around Relleker, and that certainly sounded like something she could do.

Xander and Terry had been her business partners for a long time. Besides, they owed her. Yes, that was where she would go, a new start, a worthwhile job—and it would take her away from Newstation. She returned to her ship and flew off to find them.

 

CHAPTER

56

RLINDA KETT

The moment the first black robot ships began bombarding the major cities of Earth, Rlinda knew it was time to go. From the window of her penthouse office in the Kett Shipping tower, she watched the jagged black warships slice like gutting knives across the air. They opened fire, leveling entire city blocks.

She heard the deep thump of a far-off explosion, and at the horizon she saw a flare of white-hot light expanding in a hemispherical vaporization wave. She stared in awed silence for a long moment, then said aloud, “The whole city'll be gone in an hour.”

The robots seemed to enjoy their smaller, sharper strikes as well, as if they found flaying the population of Earth to be as interesting as dealing a death blow. Rlinda hated those damn things … but that was nothing new. Alarms roared through the city, and she decided to get moving.

Gasping, Robb Brindle appeared at her office door. “Rlinda, we've got to head out—now! The robots will wipe out everything around us. Count on it.”

Rlinda didn't need to be told twice. “You two take the
Curiosity.
Load it up with station staff and evac as many as you can.”

“I already sent out the call—but we've got to
move.
” He looked frantic. “Come on!”

Tasia's voice came over the comm. “Robb, where the hell are you? We're leaving!”

He tugged on Rlinda's arm. “We won't abandon you here.”

“Hell, I'm not staying. Do I look like a fool?” She jogged after him, panting heavily, unaccustomed to running. “What I mean is, we've got to take every ship. I'll fly the
Declan's Glory.
We can evacuate more people that way.”

Explosions rumbled out in the city. Even inside the tower, she could hear the screaming buzz of attacking ships. Another vaporization bomb detonated, much closer this time. The glare lasted longer, and she could feel the bulldozer strength of the shock wave when it hit the building. The whole tower shuddered, the lights flickered. Personnel ran through the corridors, some rushing to lifts that would take them down to street level—which was foolish, Rlinda thought, because they would surely be buried under rubble within minutes. Others took the stairs, which was probably just as foolish.

“Get to the launching bays, you idiots!” she shouted at them as she ran. Even so, Kett Shipping did not have enough vessels to take everyone.

Black robot ships roared by, only three blocks away. A nearby skyscraper sporting the logo of a communications company collapsed into rubble and flames as the attacking vessels blasted its midsection. The toppling skyscraper smashed other buildings on its way down.

Rlinda flinched instinctively, remembering how proud she had been to own such a giant tower for Kett Shipping. Now she wished she had built squat and nondescript headquarters. Or something deep underground.

As the robots kept leveling the obvious targets, Kett Shipping personnel rushed into the launching bay: starship mechanics, cargo handlers, pilots who had been on Earth for furlough.

Her blond hair streaked with sweat, Tasia stood at the
Curiosity
's open ramp, crowding people aboard. She already had the ship's engines warmed up, its running lights illuminated. Relief washed over her face when she saw Rlinda and Robb coming. “There you are! Get aboard before I have to make a choice between you and everyone else. We've got to head out.”

“There are five billion people left on Earth, dear girl,” Rlinda said, feeling her lungs burn from the effort of running. “How do you propose we take them all?”

The skies were full of fleeing ships. From the minute the shadow cloud had appeared outside the Lunar Orbital Complex, the populace had watched in horror as the CDF battleships—the most powerful vessels in the fleet—were decimated. Any intelligent person on Earth could see what was coming, and those with the means to do so raced away in private ships. But at least a third of those fleeing vessels had been intercepted and destroyed by the robot vanguard. Not good odds.

Rlinda knew that leaving Earth was still their best option. In the hangar bay,
Declan's Glory
sat waiting. It was a ship she occasionally borrowed, its real captain on indeterminate medical leave; as the head of Kett Shipping, Rlinda wanted to make use of all her available vessels.