Space Wrangler (9 page)

“TJ wants to re-activate them too.”

“Huh?”

“He told me so when he walked me home last night.” She allowed the information to sink in, smiling when she saw a hint of something—relief, maybe?—in the wrangler's green eyes. He had expected her to stay with TJ. To sleep with him. And somehow it mattered to him that she had waited at least one night.

He cleared his throat, then said, “Re-activating them is almost as crazy as melting them down, which is what the politicians on Earth want to do. But bring them back to life? Who knows what they'd do?”

“TJ says we can nuke them if anything goes wrong.”

“What if we
can't
nuke them? What if the Destroyers left them alive because they
can't
be completely stopped? Then we're dead, right? Your brother always said we should leave them alone until we understand every single possible nuance. And even then,” he added more philosophically, “maybe we can't do anything. Maybe this is all that's left of them.”

“No.” Alexia eyed the amazing robots with quiet confidence. “They're in some sort of suspended animation. Waiting…”

“Just like Trent?”

“Hmmm?”

Rick turned her to face him. “You think he's still in stasis, right? In the capsule? It's been five years, Alexia. It just doesn't make sense.”

“I don't think he's in the capsule. I think the sinkhole has several destinations, and he went to one of the other ones.” She arched an eyebrow, warning him not to dismiss her. “Twenty-five years ago, people scoffed at my father because he theorized the existence of
one
sinkhole. Now it's an accepted reality. So why not several paths within the same hole?”

“Your father proved it was a naturally occurring phenomenon. So it's like Sensie said. The odds of it connecting
three
life-supporting solar systems are astronomical. Your brother himself said that.”

“So what? He's smart, but not infallible.”

“He'd want you to stop looking at some point,” he insisted, but something in her glare must have stopped him.

“If you thought a member of your search-and-rescue team survived that copter crash, would
you
stop looking for them? Ever?”

“Huh?”

She winced. “I shouldn't have said that. I know it's not the same—”

“It's fine.”

“I get carried away—”

“I started it,” he reminded her, his voice surprisingly warm. “You want to believe your brother's alive. I get that. I just think Trent himself would want you to stop.”

“If the situation were reversed,
he'd
never stop looking for
me
.”

“Are you so sure?” He rested his hands on her hips. “I'm just trying to be honest with you, you know. It would be easier to just tell you what you want to hear—”

“Then do that.”

“Huh?” His green eyes widened. “You want me to lie to you?”

She tried for a teasing smile despite a sting of tears. “Not lie. Just humor me, please? I think it's what I need at this point.”

“Okay.” He nodded solemnly. “It's a deal.”

She bit her lip, pleased at the futile arrangement. Everyone was always so honest with her—so painfully, annoyingly intent on ruining her hope. Her future. She had dreamed of finding someone besides Lorenzo Nolo to share her belief in Trent's survival, but in the absence of that, being humored sounded strangely agreeable.

His gaze cleared. “You're missing the Titans.”

“What? Oh!” She spun away, embarrassed at the show of emotion. Then she demanded, “Are you still going to let me touch one?”

In answer, he handed her a mask and goggles. “Put these on, just the way I showed you. Then Sensie can open the shield.”

Chapter Six

The first thing Alexia noticed about the outside air was the press of humidity. The second? The stench penetrating right through her mask. “Ugh, it's like sulfur times ten.”

Rick chuckled. “And as a bonus, it's poisonous to all living things. We think the Destroyers added it to the existing environment. To discourage anyone who found this place and wanted to colonize it.”

“Maybe it's natural, and the Destroyers were immune to the poison,” she countered pensively.

“Sea-Mont's scientists don't think so. I've talked to them during my stopovers, and they insist nothing can live here aside from primitive bog insects and slimy plants. The Destroyers themselves must have been amazingly complex, so odds are the poison wasn't here during the golden age of their civilization.” Raising his voice, he said, “Okay, Sensie, bring us in close. Slowly. That's right…”

The ship lived up to its name, drifting right over to a huge gray arm on one of the monstrous giants.

“Just a little more,” Rick coaxed. “And be ready to take off if more thugs join the party.”

“Yes, Captain.”

He turned to Alexia. “Ready? You can take off one glove, and touch the damn thing for exactly five seconds. Got it?”

“Okay.” She leaned over the deck rail until she was within inches of the Titan. At this range, she could finally see the blue blaze of bio-metal mixed into its armor, and it was enough to make her pulse race. But her goggles were so steamy she couldn't make out the details, so she pulled them off along with one glove. Ignoring Rick's curses, she ran her fingertips over the smooth, hard surface, surprised that it felt icy rather than warm. For some reason, she had expected the Titans to feel lifelike—hard, yes, but vibrant.

“Maybe your soul is still alive,” she told the huge machine, mesmerized by such powerful imagery, and doubly pleased by the unearthly blue shimmer that greeted her unprotected eyes. “I wish I knew why you guys were here. Did you chase the Destroyers away? Did you win the battle but lose the war? Can you even hear what I'm saying?”

“That's it.” Rick hauled her back and growled, “Sensie? Close the shield.
Now
.”

Alexia grinned into his rugged face, still exuberant at having touched greatness, at least for a moment. “I'd hug you but I've got poison on my hand,” she told him happily.

“Yeah, you're a riot. Just get your ass into the shower, will you? And for the record—” he paused for sarcastic emphasis, “—
this
is why I stay away from complicated females.”

She followed him to the ship's gleaming, tile-lined bathroom and watched as he activated a profusion of water jets and steam.

“Let me show you how to wash your suit and dispose of it,” he said in a no-nonsense tone. “Then I'll give you some privacy.”

She glanced back toward the viewing deck where a loud roar had erupted. “What's
that
?”

“My first mate, swabbing the deck.”

“Pardon?”

“Sensie's hosing it down to get rid of any contamination. It's her favorite part of the job.”

“Oh.” Alexia gave a fond sigh, charmed by the robot's silly persona. She wondered if the Sea-Mont sentient and the one at NASA were this way too. If so, that amazing detail had been kept from the public in general and from the forty-five-percent owner in particular. “She's so amazing, Rick. You're lucky to have her.”

“Come on.” He took her by the wrist and led her into the steaming water—suit, headgear and all. “There are two bars of soap, see? This gray one is for decon. Lather up, including your equipment and hair, and once everything's clean, take off the equipment and leave it on the shower floor. Then you can wash your skin with the white soap. There's conditioner for your hair in that dispenser on the wall. Got it?”

She nodded.

“Okay, so…lather up. Like this.” Pulling her arm up, he rubbed the gray soap briskly along the sleeve of her paper-thin suit.

“You mean like this?” she asked, taking the soap from him and moving it in a slow, circular pattern on his fabric-covered chest. She meant it as a joke, but the rock-hard feel of his muscles distracted her. And while she knew she should stop, she kept going, the circles widening, her fingertips exploring, lower and lower. She didn't mean it, of course, but if he didn't stop her—

And then he
did
stop her, not just by grabbing her hand, but by growling, “Cut it out. And turn around.” Once she was facing away from him, he said in a cold voice, “Wash your suit and hair.”

Chastised but also amused, she followed his orders, carefully scrubbing her mask, then dropping it to the ground and lathering every inch of her uniform and hair.

He reached over her shoulder to commandeer the gray soap. “Don't turn around.”

“I won't.”

He had apparently decided to wash his own suit while she waited. She wasn't crazy about being dominated this way, but knew she had provoked it. Plus, all she had to do was turn around, or start undressing, and she was fairly certain the balance of power would shift again.

And then what?
she challenged herself.
Just leave the poor guy alone. He traveled millions of miles to get away from relationships. And you don't want one either.

Still, it annoyed her when a distinctive rustle told her his suit had been tossed to the ground, followed by his mask and goggles. Even then he didn't leave, but rather, seemed to have switched to the white soap as though in no hurry at all.

Finally he stepped out of the shower and after a few more seconds said, “Okay, you can turn around.”

For some reason, she felt almost shy, even though
she
was still fully clothed. But she didn't want to miss anything so she glanced over her shoulder in time to see him walk out of the room and into his sleeping quarters with a towel tied around his waist and nothing covering his muscled shoulders and back.

His final instructions were, “Leave all the gear on the floor, wash up and get dressed. You can wear your civvies or one of the flight suits. If you want to blow dry, there's a switch on the wall.”

Frustrated, she scrubbed down, then stripped off her suit, refusing to waste any more time figuring him out. Lathering up again with the white soap, she rinsed thoroughly, then conditioned her hair. Finally, she flipped the blow-dry switch and let the warm air swirl around her, soothing her ruffled emotions.

“It's
your
loss, cowboy,” she murmured, but she knew it wasn't true. He wasn't aroused by her antics, he was annoyed.

And maybe that was for the best.

By the time she finished dressing in her own clothes, she was seething over the way he had treated her. In his defense, she shouldn't have teased him. But in
her
defense, they had been in a
shower
together. Lathering up! With sexual tension bordering on psychosis. And
he
had touched
her
first, hadn't he?

She decided to savor the slight victory. She had seen him half naked in all his muscular glory. All
he'd
seen was a water-soaked suit.

Yet when she entered the main compartment and saw that he had opened the front panel of her ACT, as though he couldn't wait to seal her up, she felt a sting of embarrassment. A cup of tea first would have been nice. Maybe even an apology, because despite everything, his behavior had been rude, hadn't it?

Hoping that her cheeks weren't red, she strode over to the capsule and backed into the hollowed-out cavity without even looking at him, preferring to imagine a contrite—or at least surprised—expression on his face.

But when he walked over to her and began strapping her into the shell, she couldn't resist a little harmless eye contact, especially because she loved seeing those green irises up close.

“I have some advice for you,” he told her calmly.

“Uh oh.” She bit back a smile. “Let's hear it.”

“Here on D-side, things are different. Because of the bio-girls. Up here, when a girl flirts with a guy, it's a sure thing. We get used to that. We
like
it.” His eyes flashed. “I've been here eighteen months. TJ Seaton has been here for
three full years
. He's wired differently than the guys you know on Earth. So keep that in mind.”

She stared, speechless at the bizarrely insulting statement. Then he gave her a brisk nod and activated the cover, which slid into place.

Only after the capsule was horizontal to the deck did she respond, muttering, “What a grouch.”

“He has been very moody since he met you.”

“Oh! Sorry, Sensie. I forgot you were there.”

“I am always here.”

“Of course.” Alexia laughed ruefully. “Does that mean you saw the whole shower scene?”

“I see everything that happens on the
Drifter
, unless the captain instructs me otherwise.”

Alexia grimaced, amused despite her embarrassment. “Hey, Sensie, can I ask you a question? Confidentially?”

“I do not keep secrets from the captain.”

“Fine, blab away. I was just wondering about my brother—”

“He is almost certainly dead.”

“I know, I know.” She took a deep breath. “I said something earlier that I've been saying a lot over the past few years. That if
I
had been the one to disappear in the sinkhole, Trent would never stop looking for me. Not ever. But I wonder now, is that true?”

“It is an interesting question.”

“Is it something you could figure out from what you know about his personality?”

“One moment please.”

Alexia felt a wave of fondness for her cyber-critic. Apparently, Sensie was actually researching the issue.

“No hurry,” she murmured as the pressure in the shell increased and the heavily medicated air took effect. “I'm dozing off. From the sedative, I guess.”

“I have an answer whenever you wish to hear it.”

“Oh!” Adrenaline effectively counteracted the drug. “Tell me.”

The computer spoke in a clear, unemotional tone. “Records indicate that Trent Montoya was always concerned about the victims of the sinkhole. He supervised a team dedicated to the problem, and Trent himself spent ten percent of his time on it. If you—his only blood relative—had fallen victim to the phenomenon, he would have devoted himself to rescuing you, perhaps even at great personal risk—”

“That's what I thought!”

“He would have done so for at least fourteen days.”

“Pardon?”

“The capsule would have sustained you for that long, assuming it wasn't vaporized. After that, the odds of your survival would have significantly diminished, but still, it appears he would have worked long hours on the problem thereafter, partially because of the possibility that your capsule miraculously came to rest in a place—a planet, a ship, a moon—where you could exist without life support. Over time, I believe his focus would have shifted, so that he would continue to study the phenomenon, but as a
tribute
to you rather than as a means of finding you again, alive.”

Tears streamed down Alexia's cheek. “That sounds like him. And it means so much, Sensie. Of
course
he wouldn't have looked for me. But for an answer? He would have done that. Tirelessly, right? And as a tribute—wow, that's just so loving, at least for Trent.”

“You should not cry in an ACT, Alexia.”

“Sorry.” She laughed through her tears. “Would he have had me declared dead?”

“For what purpose? He had your power of attorney to exercise your twenty-five-percent share in the company. I suppose he could have held a memorial service, but he was neither sentimental nor religious so I doubt even that would have occurred.”

“So I'd still be alive in the eyes of the law?” Alexia began to weep again. “You'll never know, Sensie. This means so much.”

“You must not cry, Alexia. You must relax. Your respiration is dropping as is your pulse, all of which shows the sedative is working. Close your eyes now. Have sweet dreams. Everything will look better when you awaken.”

Alexia bit her lip, surprised and pleased by the advice. It sounded like something her mother would have said at bedtime long ago. And so she murmured “Sensie?”

“Go to sleep, Alexia. I will be here when you wake up.”

By the time her ACT shell was opened by Rick, Alexia wasn't just awake. She felt invigorated. And despite some residual humiliation over the lecture he had given her, she also felt inspired.

By Sensie.

“Come and have some tea.” Rick motioned to the table, where two steaming mugs awaited them. “How do you feel?”

“Wonderful,” she admitted. But she still took his arm to steady herself on her rocky legs.

Once they were both seated, she told him, “We need to talk.”

“Yeah, I can't believe what I said to you. I had no right—”

“No, no. That's forgotten.” She smiled at the earnest expression on his face. “You can't help it if you're antisocial.”

“True. So what do you want to talk about?”

“Did Sensie tell you about the conversation we had in the shell?”

He shook his head, his expression as baffled as it was adorable. “Don't tell me she insulted you again?”

“Hardly.” A lump formed in Alexia's throat. “We talked about Trent. She knows him so well, Rick. I guess because he designed her. But it was more than that. When I was dozing off, she said things to me that my mom used to say at bedtime. And she used the same tone. The same voice. It was wonderful.” She sighed and added in a louder voice, “Thanks, Sensie.”

“I don't understand what you're saying,” the computer chastised her.

“I know. That's the best part.” Alexia took Rick's hand in her own. “I think Trent embedded something in Sensie's programming. Mom's cadence, her expressions, her gentleness. I
felt
it, and it felt wonderful.”