Senescence (Jezebel's Ladder Book 5) (36 page)

Laura woke to sunlight streaming through a gap in the yellow
window blinds. She stretched like a satisfied cat, reaching for Stu. His side
of the bed was empty. For a terrible moment, she panicked. She poked her head
into the hall. She smelled tea brewing but no sign of her lover … husband.
“Where is he?”

“Clarify,” requested a neutral
voice from the nightstand.

“You take commands from me?” asked
Laura.

“Brother Stewart has authorized you
for all functions except navigation.”

“Where is Stewart?” she asked
cautiously.

“Harvesting chicken eggs and
patrolling for lizard predators.”

“Are you Snowflake?”

“Yes, Laura Stewart-mate.”

“Just Laura, please. Are you
feeling better now?”

“Better than what? Specify
comparator and scale.”

“Your functions seem improved since
Stu patched you up. What percent of normal operation have you recovered in your
damaged areas?”

“Fifty-one, primarily due to
improved connectivity. Progress should continue at approximately one-third of
the remaining connections per day. Sixty-seven percent by tomorrow.
Seventy-eight by the next—”

“Happy to hear that.” In truth, the
math made her head swim a bit, but she wanted to connect with her husband’s
family. “Stu was very concerned about you when we were on Earth.”

“Earth has many risk factors we
cannot predict or control. Mother Mercy was greatly worried about Brother
Stewart.”

Laura padded into the kitchen.
Steward had left an upside-down teacup with jars of honey and brownish sugar.
When she flipped the cup, she found a pink flower inside. Smiling, she tucked
the flower behind her ear and poured herself a cup. Making herself at home, she
wandered to the window and peeked out at the coops. Suddenly, there was a
flurry of action and an explosion of white.

Chickens erupted eight meters into
the air, squawking and shedding feathers. For the sake of modesty, Laura
grabbed the checkered tablecloth on the way past and ran out the back door into
the fenced yard.

The birds dropped from the sky in
slow motion, flapping to slow their fall.
Are they flying?
Something the
size and shape of a submarine sandwich crashed onto the fence.

Behind a large oak, Stu whooped and
blew off the tip of his finger as if it were a gunslinger’s pistol. Then he
scooped up a large lizard by the tail. “Barbeque at the cafeteria tonight! The
trick is to wait until they pounce, and you can use their own energy against
them.”

“Are you okay?” Laura asked.

“Sure, just playing cowboys and
Indians with the—Wow!” He jogged over to the back door. “You might want to put
something on. People in the tents could see you.”

In the dim light approaching the
house the night before, she hadn’t noticed the array of green tents lining the
path from the house to the hollow in the hills.
Oops
. Blocking any view
from beyond, he hung the lizard from a hook and opened the door for her.

As she scampered into the bedroom,
his eyes roved over her exposed behind. Knowing he was watching, she added a
little extra motion while she picked up her clothes.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” he
said.

“Fishing for another round
already?” she teased. “You promised me dinner, but I’m so weak from hunger, I
might not be able to fend off your advances.”

“I wouldn’t—” he protested.

She kissed his cheek. “I know. Get
my brush, will you? If other people are going to see me, I want to look
presentable. Someone has been messing up my hair for hours.”

Sheepish, he disappeared while she
slid into her jumper. A few moments later, he returned with a different brush
with a tortoiseshell pattern on the back. “I couldn’t find yours in all the
boxes, but you can borrow mine.”

“Were you throwing grenades at
those lizards?” she asked.

“Huh? No weapons are allowed on
this side of the landing bay,” Stu replied. “I just disable gravity while
they’re jumping. Their own energy kills them.”

“Lizards don’t fly so much as they
plummet.”

“Exactly,” Stu said. Gazing at her
with admiration, he asked, “Before we eat, could you do me a personal favor?”

“Mmm. We’re partners. You can ask
me for anything,” she said, expecting a romantic request.

Holding her hand, he asked, “I know
I’m doing this out of order, but they were busy before. Could you please come
with me to meet my parents?”

“Of course,” Laura said. Then she
glanced at her outfit. “Maybe I should change into something a little more
elegant.”

“You’re perfect the way you are,”
he said.

Laura let him lead her out the
back. “You’re biased.”

Together, they crossed the yard and
exited through the back gate. Built into a niche of the mountainside was an
eight-sided barn. The outer ring of the shelter held barrels of flour and drums
of olive oil. The interior had high windows and barrels of apples. Laura said,
“This is just a storage—” Then she saw the incredible frescoes behind the boxes
and barrels.

“Sojiro painted each of the couples
as Greek myths,” Stu explained.

“This is better than a trip to the
Louvre. The Rape of Persephone—that’s the nurse. Zeus is my father. With that
beard, he could be Monty.” Recognizing winged Eros seducing a princess, she
said, “Oh. Being in love made your mother radiant.”

“Thank you,” said a woman’s voice
from a triangular archway in the mountainside.

Laura swallowed. “That opening
wasn’t there a moment ago.”

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Stu
said. “This is the entrance to the backup control room.”

“Are we going in?” Laura asked.

“No,” said the woman’s voice. “I
want my son to enjoy a long life with his chosen bond.”

“Thank you. You don’t even know
me.”

“I know your parents, and my son.
He says you saved his life a few times.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Call me Mercy.”

“Are you … dead?”

“Transcended. To take control of
the starship, some of us had to
become
it.”

Laura looked over at Stu. His face
was a mask. “But you can come back?”

“After thirteen years of
integration, the journey is somewhat one-directional.”

“You gave your life so we could
have
Sanctuary
?” Through her lingering link with Stu, she could feel the
sting of this wound.

“So my family and friends could survive.
Before that, I had five blissful years with my family. I can’t complain.”

She couldn’t help but mist up,
imagining a woman with a loving husband and child giving them up. “Does it hurt
to see them and not be able to touch?”

“It hurts more when I know Stu’s in
trouble or lonely and I can’t help.”

Laura wrapped an arm around her
husband. “I’ll be here for that.”

“Thank you.”

“No,” Laura replied. “Thank you for
raising a gentleman.”

“That was Lou,” Mercy said. “He
can’t talk right now because he’s evading searchers. If Stewart is anything
like his father, he’ll make a lot of mistakes, but you’ll never be able to stay
mad at him long.”

Kaguya was already in the shuttle when Stu wandered in,
fifteen minutes before the launch deadline. Because of the device wrapped
around her throat, her voice had the whiskey edge from Salome’s earlier
disguise. “You look pleasantly rumpled.”

She had to be referring to his hair
because his clothes were hidden under the spacesuit.

Stu had hoped to check the repair patches
Risa had placed to make the leaky shuttle spaceworthy, but there was no time
left. He clipped into the pilot’s chair and fumbled with his headset. “Status?”

“Backwards.”

His mouthpiece was, indeed,
pointing the wrong way, and he corrected his mistake. “How was your induction
into the ranks of ethics enforcement?”

“Yvette was very gentle, and I
didn’t experience any seizures. My mind is still adjusting, like dilated pupils
after a visit to the eye doctor. Full integration takes days. Oddly enough,
Eowyn was my biggest helper in the infirmary. She fights the effects of the
Page every day, and she truly regretted threatening me. After I compulsively
told her several things my father has done to me, she knows we’re on the same
side. We’re not friends, but we can trust each other enough for this mission.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for
your ceremony.” Stu flipped switches and checked assorted air and energy
levels. “I sent Monty to hold your hand.”

“Thank you. He thinks a lot of you.
Maybe you could introduce him to one of your little friends, like that Fiona
girl.”

Stu grimaced. “Monty isn’t ready
for that kind of interaction yet. He looks big on the outside, but he’s younger
than me. I asked him to keep an eye on Joan while I’m gone. She sort of
represents my childhood here. If he spends enough time with her, I’m hoping
he’ll recover some of the innocent times he missed in prison.”

Zeiss entered. “Your mouth to God’s
ear, son.” The commander closed the airlock and muted comms so Oleander,
Yvette, Sif, Eowyn, Mo, and the smoker couldn’t hear. The smoker was a Somalian
who had bypassed the UN training program and committed a large number of
offenses such as providing secure communications and laundering money for
diamond smugglers. “Kaguya’s halfway through the preflight checklist. She can
finish while we talk.”

“Sir?”

“No more Gravity Boy stunts. I
don’t want my daughter to be a widow. Wait for our diversion to land.”

Stu had helped to develop the plan,
but he repeated his orders from the top. “Yes, sir. We land when all eyes are
on you. We use UN credentials to gain access to Koku’s regeneration center.
Yvette and Oleander can change into sneak suits to infiltrate. Smokey has
skills in Mind-Machine interface and can crack bank security if we have to
improvise.” The criminal had agreed to help in exchange for his freedom and a large
bonus. “The Chinese will melt parts of Koku’s brain on both the Moon and Earth.
From our end, Oleander has the explosives. Mo and Sif will carry the big guns.
I’m the nexus, the eyes and ears. While Yvette hooks Kaguya to the machine, the
rest of us stand guard in layers. Are you here to give us the dendrite
headset?” The device was the only one of its kind on
Sanctuary
, and
humans didn’t have the skill set to produce another.

“Yvette is carrying the crown of
thorns in a cloaked case.”

“Okay, then when the NERO ship
picks us up for the return trip, I’ll set up a time capsule with the data
stored in my wrist computer.”

Zeiss handed Stu a tablet with four
sets of coordinates relative to the moon base. “These are for your eyes only.”

“Different rendezvous locations for
our return.”

“We don’t trust several of our
allies, and you may not have radio access on the way back. Your choice of
meeting location will tell us what we need to know. Location one tells us you
managed a clean escape. Location two means that your ship may be infected or
tracked by Koku. Location three indicates someone is forcing you to fly under
duress.”

“And four?”

Zeiss squeezed the bridge of his
nose. “If you’re captured, it’s the one you’ll reveal under torture.”

Stu committed the digit strings to
memory. To him, they were as simple as north, east, west, and south directional
vectors. He prayed things didn’t go south. “What if I’m knocked unconscious and
Kaguya escapes with my body?”

“She can use the radio frequency
and encryption key we gave her. She can’t be entrusted with sensitive
information right now. This list is for you—in case you can’t tell us what’s
happening verbally,” Zeiss said. “A few minutes before docking, we’ll send Joan
out for a sweep of your ship.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

****

In exchange for Mary Smith’s peaceful surrender, the amiable
Brazilian President agreed to allow Luca Maurier’s transport from the city
hospital to the more advanced air force hospital on Governor’s Island in
Guanabara Bay. Both Smith and her accomplice could be held on the base until
her trial. Given the dozen medical professionals and well-wishers who wanted to
ensure their safe arrival, the government borrowed one of the small ferries
that normally plied this route. They placed a handful of guards aboard, but the
bulk of the escort consisted of two destroyers and a helicopter gunship. Two
shuttles also flew high cover against orbital assault. Jets were on standby. No
one would accuse the president of failing to protect his most infamous citizen
to guarantee her day in court.

When Mary recognized two of the
guards and the ferry pilot, her mood went from resignation to hope. All the
male police indulged in free coffee and doughnuts at the dockside vendor. When
she approached the stand, the vendor shook his head and offered her a fortune
cookie instead.

The strip of paper warned of sea
sickness and proclaimed a series of lucky numbers.

Every sense stood at alert. The weather
was overcast, but whites stood out in the ultraviolet that leaked through. The
flags on the poles cracked and fluttered in a steady breeze. The outboard
motors in the flat, ugly boat growled as the ferry awoke, and the crew forced
her to don a horrid neon-chartreuse life vest with all the other civilians.
Guards forced her into the pilot’s cabin to prevent any suicide attempt.

“Patient and prisoners secured,”
the head police officer in riot gear announced into his lapel. He and a
no-nonsense woman in similar gear framed the door. Others paced the deck
outside.

The pilot spoke to the harbormaster
in Portuguese. “Request priority clearance. I want to drop this trouble off and
get back here before the storm hits.”

“Radar looks good for a few hours
yet, but because of your prisoners, you have the channel all to yourself.”

The air force liaison with an
earbud of his own said, “All fishing vessels have been cleared from
shoulder-missile range of the channel. Proceed.”

The pilot glanced at the police
officer licking powdered sugar from his fingers and said, “The jet skis and
tour boats are pretty thick, so I’ll have to use kid gloves until we’re past
the buoys. You might as well take a seat.” Indeed, she had to halt the boat
twice to give larger craft a wide berth.

Mary put a hand to her stomach and
groaned occasionally.

About a third of the way into the
bay, where the seagulls thinned, the pilot said, “Do they really think a cruise
ship was going to launch a rocket at us?”

Soon after, the windsock on deck
tried to tear itself apart. Over the radio, the harbormaster said, “You were
right about that storm. One popped up out of nowhere. You might want to veer
off toward the closest dock.”

“Negative,” said the air force
officer. “We arrive as planned. You can ride out the storm at our facility.”

The guards outside had disappeared,
but the deck was heaving in high waves.

The pilot reported a string of
numbers to the harbormaster that matched those in the fortune cookie.

Faking a wretch, Mary doubled over.

The pilot shouted at the head cop,
“Get her to the head fast, or you’ll be mopping my bridge.”

Once she was latched inside the
tiny bathroom, the scuffle began. She heard shouts of warning and at least one
Taser. The female officer tapped on the door. “Clear.”

Shaking and a little queasy for
real, Mary emerged. “What can I do to help?”

The pilot gunned the engines. “The
drugs took longer to kick in than expected. We’re running behind. Truss those
two up in the bright-orange vests and throw them into the lifeboat with the
others.”

The muscular Latina officer
stripped out of her uniform top and clipped into a chartreuse vest. “My code
name is Beatrice, and I’ll be your guide.” Her gun belt was clearly visible in
the small of her back.

Mary glimpsed the image on radar.
“You’re heading
into
the storm.”

“Yes, ma’am, and nothing is going
to be left of this vessel but matchsticks. I’ll never work in transportation or
for the government again.” She smiled warmly. “But the night will be safe.”

“You could come with us.”

“Someone has to steer the
lifeboat.”

Without warning, the pilot shut
down the engines. The ship bobbed like a child’s toy. “Take her below with the
others. I have to abandon ship.”

As Mary climbed down the stairs,
Beatrice said, “The medical team in the ambulance has oxygen masks.”

Are we climbing onto a
submarine?
When Mary spotted a strange man in an orange life vest beside
the door to the vehicle area, she drew Beatrice’s gun from the back holster.
“You’re not Nyx.”

The door guard raised his hands.
“No,
senhorita
. Nyx didn’t have the manpower, so they asked us for
help.”

This could be another kidnapping
.
“Who do you work for?”

“My tribe.”

Beatrice pushed the gun’s muzzle
down. “Diego is with Earth First, a member of one of the displaced tribes.”

“What?”

“When you had the sisterhood
investigate their organization a few weeks ago, we found out our organizations
had more in common than we realized. We’re pooling resources.” To Diego,
Beatrice said, “Don’t worry. You were never in any danger. The gun won’t fire
without my fingerprint.”

Mary handed the weapon back to its
owner. “I’m sorry. I don’t go with anyone I don’t know.”

“He’s wearing orange. That means
he’ll be staying with the pilot,” Beatrice explained.

“Then he can leave now.”

Beatrice nodded, and Diego sprinted
for the lifeboat. Only when the craft was lowered over the side did Mary relax.

“Come on. We’re late,” Beatrice
said.

A whistling in the sky made Mary
look up into the blackness. She grabbed the railing tightly.

Then the world turned upside down.

****

For many minutes, Mary floated in the churning cold,
uncertain where her next breath would come from, but the storm was gone.
Eventually, a man in a spacesuit pulled her from the water and carried her to a
smooth, dry, enamel-white cave. Doctor Auckland checked her over and said,
“That’s the last one. Everyone out and we’ll release the wreckage.”

Mary clenched his arm so hard she
could see her blue fingernails turn white. “Where am I?”

“Inside
Sanctuary’s
landing
bay. Welcome to your first alien abduction. Your sister scooped you up, ferry
and seawater alike.”

“Mercy masterminded a jailbreak for
me?”

“Officially, the freak storm
capsized your ride, and you died at sea,” the doctor explained. “We have a dry
outfit inside with your name on it. A lot of people will be glad to see you.
When you weren’t with the other invitees, we almost gave up, but Laura told us
where to find you.”

The in-law in question bounced over
and wrapped her in a towel. “After orientation, you can stay in our house.”
Laura was dressed in green and glowing with joy. “What would you like to do
first?”

“That’s hard to say. I’ve been Mira
for so long, I’m not sure what
I
like anymore. When can I see Mercy?”

Laura glanced at the doctor. “She’s
pretty busy running the ship right now.”

“The saltwater is going to have to
be filtered before we can use it, and all that chlorine is dangerous to
handle,” he added.

“I’ve waited twenty years for her.
What’s a few more hours?” Mary said.

Laura took her arm. “Mira will be
waiting for us in Olympus. There’s so much she wants to say to you.”