Salvo: A Sci-Fi Romance (The Jekh Saga Book 3) Page 8

  The shopkeeper Allan poked his head out from the hallway, and grin. “My father-in-law. He’s the local doctor, so he’s tied up most of the time.” Allan disappeared again, probably into the COM room where locals who didn’t have strong communications equipment on their properties could make long-distance contact with people on, and sometimes off, Jekh.

  Marco pointed at the void Allan had left. “He was human, just like that guy with the dog.”

  “Yep.” Owen rooted some more in the crate until he found a length of pipe of suitable diameter. The entire plumbing system at the cottage needed to be overhauled, but he wasn’t going to do that without Trigrian requesting that he do so. For all Owen knew, Trigrian had plans to raze the place and build something else. Trigrian had already started offering plots on the farm to people he knew and trusted, including Erin. The land the cottage was on was a good location for anyone who wanted to both be near the road and also have easy access to the fields. The main farmhouse was situated more centrally on the lot.

  “What’s the population breakdown around here?” Marco asked. “Not like Buinet?”

  “Nah.” Owen grabbed his parts, tossed them into a basket, and then made his way toward the coffee shelf. He suspected there wouldn’t be anything left, but Courtney had told him to look, anyway. They were running low at the farm.

  Again.

  “Erin works for the local government, such that it is. She did a very unofficial census a couple of weeks ago. Nothing too precise, but no one had done once since Terrans came here, and she wanted to know what kind of resources the village needed.”

  “Mostly human, then?”

  Owen clucked his tongue and squinted at the greasy label on the singular bag of ground coffee. Looked like decaf to him, but he took the bag anyway, figuring the addicts at the farm could drink it as a placebo. They were stretched thin on their coffee supply ever since the regular shipments from Earth had halted due to the riots. Trigrian had an experimental crop growing, but whether or not it’d yield enough to satisfy the ravenous McGarry appetites was yet to be determined.

  “Actually,” Owen said, “only about twenty-five percent of the population here and in the nearby farms is purely Terran. Forty percent is Jekhan. The rest are Terran-Jekhan offspring. Probably sixty percent male, forty percent female. Still better odds than in Buinet. About eighty percent male there right now, according to Granddad.”

  “Should be fifty-one percent female, like on Earth, right?”

  Owen grunted and moved on to check out the various tools people had brought in to consign. Nothing looked interesting enough to buy—not even to take apart for components—so he left things where they were. “Not going to get anywhere near fifty-one here. The Tyneali fucked up the birth frequency to make the hybrids’ birth ratio more like theirs, and they should have tipped the rate the other way. Every Jekhan man needs both a male and female lover to keep his hormones stable, but a Jekhan woman doesn’t need a lover at all.”

  “Ah, so a lady would probably feel obligated to shack up with some guys, even if she’s not feelin’ them,” Marco said.

  “Exactly. Otherwise, the population…” Owen mimicked the sound of an explosion.

  “Sheesh.” Marco cringed.

  “Mm-hmm. Jekhans are pretty practical on the whole, but from what I’ve gleaned, they’re nowhere near as practical as the Tyneali.”

  “You’re right,” Allan said as he passed. “The Tyneali don’t get feelings mixed up in the business. They’re just trying to resolve their biological imperative by any means necessary, and everyone gets with the program.”

  “Allan Rowe,” Owen said, crooking his thumb toward the brothers standing nearby, “meet Luke and Marco Cipriani. They hijacked a government vehicle from D.C. eleven days ago to bring us intel about the Jekhan lady trade.”

  “F’real?” Allan held out his hand for them to shake.

  Luke laughed and gave Allan’s hand a hearty squeeze. “Couldn’t let the McGarrys have all the fun, right? I was getting bored being good.”

  “Your mother must be so proud,” Owen said.

  “I’m sure she will be when she finds out.”

  Owen took the puppy and dropped him into the basket so Luke could have full use of both of his hands.

  “How do you two know Owen?” Allan asked.

  “Grew up in the same neighborhood,” Marco said. “You know how things go. We had our own little syndicate. When shit hit the fan, our pop told us to make sure we watched the McGarrys’ backs, you know? We tried the best we could.”

  “They were the only friends we had sometimes,” Owen said.

  “They’re damn good friends to follow you halfway across the galaxy,” Allan said.

  “Nah.” Luke smirked, leaned his backside against a rack of leather work boots, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe I just got tired of seeing Ma count her rosary beads over these knuckleheads.”

  “Always blame Mom, right?” Allan asked. “Maybe Freud was right about some things. So, what kinda work do you do? Your haircut is suspiciously short. I used to have one just like it.”

  “Yeah?” Luke’s low, quiet response came on a delay, and his smirk fell away. Owen had known him a long time, and Luke had always been the same. He was all about the fun and games, but if he felt threatened, he turned dangerously serious in an instant.

  Owen could understand his skepticism, but he insinuated his body a bit between the two men, just in case Luke didn’t read Allan as neutral and benign before Allan opened his mouth again.

  “I’m not ashamed to say what I am,” Allan said levelly. “Most of the men around here—the Terran ones, I mean—came during the early recon and surge. I’d guess that ninety-five percent of us are deserters. We weren’t looking for this place. We were just trying to get over the mountain because we were pretty sure we could hide out closer to the coast. We couldn’t make it that far, though. We ran out of damn near everything. Food. Fuel. Effort.” He cringed, as if the recollection aggravated a wound that wouldn’t heal. “The folks here—the Jekhan folks—they took us in.”

  “And now you cover for them?” Marco asked.

  Allan turned his hands over in a noncommittal fashion, keeping his gaze fixed on Luke’s.

  Trust had to be earned with time and effort, but they were on Jekh. Rules had to be broken sometimes for the sake of progress, but that was a lesson Luke had to learn on his own. Owen hoped he learned it quickly.

  “We do the best we can and pretend they’re not here when strangers roll in,” Allan said. “Sucks to make them disappear even for a little while, but that keeps them safe. Hopefully one day, they can come out of the shadows and dudes like me can resume their lurking ways. I’m not pretty enough to be anybody’s poster boy, anyway. I’m sure my wife would agree.”

  “Your wife,” Luke murmured. “She’s Jekhan.”

  “Yep. Prettiest lady in Little Gitano in my opinion, but I can admit I’m a little biased. I’ve got two damned fine kids who my mother can’t even show off, and that ain’t right.”

  No one said anything for a minute, maybe two. Time was harder to gauge when moments were measured by the reluctant blinks and uneven breaths of posturing instead of by seconds.

  They may have kept on like that, staring at each other and each wondering if they were three against one, or two against two or one against one against two, but the dog sneezed and drew Luke’s gaze down to the basket.

  “Gesundheit, little playa.”

  “Probably the dust,” Allan said, shrugging. “Can’t get good help around here. Not enough personnel to go around.”

  Luke’s nod came slowly. “Yeah, I know what that’s like. Sometimes my ma takes pity on me and cleans up my place while I’m at work.” He let out a breath and passed a hand through his mussed hair. “I’m not in the armed forces, though to some folks, there isn’t much difference. I’m FBI.” Luke’s standard grin stretched his lips once more, likely at Allan’s muttered oath. “Look, I’m not
here to disrupt anything, all right? If you folks don’t have a problem with me, I won’t have one with you. Negative meddling isn’t my style, and besides.” He shrugged. “I tend to work more for Luca James Cipriani more than the US government.”

  Marco let his eyes cross. “Oh, boy.”

  “Seriously. If I were going to come here to be a shit stain,” Luke said, “I would have tried to haul ass to here a year ago when Owen started feeding me questions about the off-planet trade here.”

  “So you’re here…why?” Allan asked.

  Luke gave Owen his eloquent “Help me out here” look.

  “I hate having to the play the role of intermediary,” Owen grumbled.

  “You should be used to it,” Marco said. “You’ve been explaining Luke to folks since you were both six. That’s more than twenty-five years of experience. You’re a master bullshit specialist.”

  Luke pantomimed pulling a cigarette from behind his ear, lighting it, and then blowing the fake smoke toward his brother. The cigarette was his middle finger.

  Owen raked his free hand through his hair and pinned his gaze on the ceiling rafter overhead. “You don’t need to worry about Luke, Allan. Granddad would tell you that, too. The Ciprianis don’t make trouble.” He closed his eyes and grimaced. “At least, no trouble with a wide impact.”

  Marco chuckled.

  Owen forced some air through his closed lips and fixed his gaze on Allan, who’d cocked a brow. “Luke’s got some reports with specific coordinates where some of the missing Jekhan women may be held.”

  “You serious?” Allan asked.

  “Swear to God. Serious as a heart attack,” Luke said. “The reports are encrypted, though. I kinda pulled the documents, overwrote the files using some junky code just to have something take up space, and then I somehow ended up with Musketeers Two and Three as my mission crew. We figured why should we let the McGarrys steal all the glory, right? Bada-bing, bada-boom, we’re here.”

  Allan’s moustache quivered from the smile he was trying, but failing, to suppress. He may have figured out just that quickly that encouraging Luke’s reckless schemes wasn’t wise.

  “We need to figure out how to break the encryption,” Luke said, wearing a severe mien again, and completely without affectation.

  That was Luke: carefree in one second, and holding the weight of the world on his shoulders in the next. Mike had always found that concerning. He’d always whisper to Owen, “He’s all right, right?” and Owen could only shrug. That was the way Luke had always been. He obviously had moods that were operated on manual transmission instead of automatic. Most people needed transition time.

  “Rough stuff, even for me,” Luke continued. He stared out the door toward the sound of feminine laughter. A couple of deserters’ daughters, probably, who ran the nursery next door.

  “My computer at home wasn’t powerful enough to decode the documents, and not even Precious could do much with it.”

  “Who the hell is Precious?” Allan asked.

  Owen approached the counter, and Allan took his spot behind the register.

  “Precious Cipriani.” Owen freed the puppy out of the basket and handed the rest of the items to Allan. “Musketeer Number Three. She’s at the farm recovering from jet lag. Or…rocket lag. Whatever.”

  Allan whistled low and tossed Owen’s flange from one hand to the other. “Better watch out for her. Once folks start catching wind that there’s a new lady around—”

  “They’ll discover just as quickly that she’s a man-hating shrew,” Luke said.

  “Be nice,” Owen scolded, knowing that doing so was pointless. The Ciprianis were the most violently loving group of siblings he knew. They’d fought like cats and dogs as kids, and still did, just with words rather than smacks.

  “Hey,” Luke said. “Her words, not mine. Blows my mind that Ma’s sweet little Precious who used to love playing hopscotch in sparkly, patent leather Mary Janes and frilly dresses with pink ribbons spends her evenings with her hand in her pants, vegging in front of a projector screen.”

  “She’s still your ma’s sweet little Precious.”

  “And ain’t that some shit?” Marco put his beer on the counter. “She nags us about giving her grandchildren, and Precious gets off without so much as a grumble.”

  “Is that why you really left Earth?” Allan chuckled and rang up the beer first. “To escape your mother’s nagging?”

  Marco looked away guiltily.

  Luke rocked back on his heels and whistled.

  “Uh-huh.” Allan snorted. “If your ma’s like mine, she’ll find a way to judge you all the way from Earth.” He tossed a few dusty packs of puppy piddle pads onto the counter and looked pointedly to Owen. “You’ll want those if your new critter’ll be spending time indoors.”

  “Fuck.” Owen scratched his itchy chin through his beard and sighed. “Not cheap, are they?”

  “Nope. I doubt we’ll be getting any more in with the trade situation being what it is, but Courtney’ll need them.”

  “I guess so. Jerry tends to run outside all day and sleep indoors, but I guess we can’t expect this pathetic runt of a puppy to brave the elements yet. Half Shepherd or not, he looks like a lapdog to me.”

  The puppy, seated on his hindquarters atop the counter, stopped scratching his ear and looked at Owen.

  He was cute, probably. The ladies at the main house on the farm would gush over him.

  “Don’t get attached,” Owen said to the dog. “I’m not your mommy.”

  “Heh, heh.” Allan gave the little mutt’s chin a scratch. “I was gonna warn you that Kurt was on the hunt for you but you showed up before I could make a call to the farm. He’d been carrying this puppy around all morning. A couple of ladies in town actually asked about him, but I think Kurt wanted to punish you McGarrys for letting Jerry roam.”

  Owen rolled his eyes. “I’m sure he made a pretty penny selling the others from the litter. There aren’t that many dogs around here.”

  “Of course he did. He’s not stupid.” Allan finished checking them out and tossed Owen a hemp bag for his newly acquired junk. “Keep me apprised of what trouble you’re getting into. I don’t know if there are any guys around here who specialized in cracking code back when we were active servicemen. Even if there are, whatever you brought with you might be too new for them to make heads or tails of. Still, I might be able to find someone who can consult.”

  “I’ll give you a call,” Owen said.

  “Don’t be a stranger.” Allan gave him a lazy salute.

  Owen headed with the Ciprianis toward the exit, stopping just in front of the wide open door. There was a stand of walking sticks he hadn’t noticed there before, but the bright pink sign proclaiming “LOCALLY MADE” was nearly impossible to miss.

  Each stick had been carved into a different shape, some simple, some ornate. Some very long for hiking, and some shorter, meant to provide support for walkers whose bodies didn’t move the way they’d been designed.

  He pulled a stick that was pale and narrow from the box. The top barely hit his thigh. Flowers decorated the wood. They were crudely carved in a style particular to Little Gitano, but pretty. Feminine.

  “Nice cane,” Luke said.

  “Yeah. Terran wood.” Owen tested the heft in his hand. Light, but strong. “The locals here don’t let anything go to waste. The wood probably came out of something they salvaged.”

  “I didn’t think you were the accessorizing type.”

  “I’m not,” Owen said. “I just…wanted to take a closer look.”

  He’d wanted to look because he’d pictured a certain little fool furrowing her brow as she gripped the stick and tapped the ground ahead of her with it to guide her steps. He knew, though, that the last place Ais needed to be was outside, and certainly not on her own.

  He rubbed his thumb over the polished handle. Perhaps some part of his brain that’d been necrotized by space travel had asserted ownership of the product, and
he didn’t want to put it back.

  “She could get around the house with it, too,” he muttered.

  “Who?” Luke asked.

  “No one.”

  “You sure?”

  Owen didn’t respond. He turned toward the rear of the shop and held up the stick. “Allan, how much?”

  “A local guy made those. They’re on consignment. I know for a fact he’ll let me take payment in Headron’s pastries, if you want to run that past your bro-in-law, but otherwise, thirty credits.”

  Owen ran his fingertips over a trio of carved petals, wondering if she would even be able to make out what they were.

  He pictured her passing her hands down the length, and the way she scrunched her nose and pursed her lips when she explored things with her touch. He pictured the way her red rose eyes went wide with revelatory joy when she puzzled out what things were.

  And the way she smiled for so long afterward over something seeing people took for granted. Something Owen took for granted.

  He passed his fingers over the petals again and noted the few round pips carved along the vines.

  Berries.

  He scoffed.

  He’d never been one to pay attention to signs, but that one was hard to ignore.

  “Yeah. I’ll pull a box of pastries from the deep freezer. Just tell me where to drop them off.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  By the time Owen finally returned, Ais had run out of things to throw.

  The throwing had made her feel so much better.

  “What the fuck?” His tall outline darkened the doorway of the hunter’s cottage. Hours prior, she might have been pleased to see him, but the possibility had passed as her hunger intensified.

  She emitted a quiet harrumph, and remained curled on the bench near the closet with her cloak pulled around her and her chin propped atop her knees.

  He closed the door, set down some parcels, and immediately dug his fingers into his hair. “What in the hell did you do in here?”

  She closed her eyes, cringing at the growl of her stomach.

  For two hours—maybe three—she’d been calm and patient. She’d occupied herself by listening to articles on the tablet computer and by staring out the window, trying to make out shapes and colors, but then she’d gotten hungry. She was always so hungry.