“What I’d really like—” Ky paused to eat. And think. What did she really want? Not a beach house on Corleigh. Not on a planet at all. Space, then, but in what sense? When had she felt most alive? “I want excitement,” she said. “Interesting things to do, puzzles to solve, new places. I don’t care about the rank and all the attention, and I don’t want to be stuck in an office day after day, signing papers, solving squabbles.”
“Puzzles? What kind of puzzles?”
“The one I found in Miksland. That whole base the bad guys were using, that we stayed in over the winter? Spaceforce didn’t build it. It was there already when the colonists arrived, with all kinds of tech that’s sort of human and sort of not. Labs full of what I think are templates for different kinds of animals and plants. Our history doesn’t go that far back. They came, they messed with the planet, moved things around, left and came back time and again to add to the life-forms, or maybe other things. And then left. They’d have had to start long before we think humans left Old Earth. Unless Old Earth was one of their other projects, not the original at all.”
“And you want to chase that down? You don’t want to figure out who was behind the trouble here? It’s your home world, and it affects your family.”
“No.” She could hear the tension in her voice. “I don’t want to stay here one day longer than I have to; I want to get off this planet and never come back. It’s their problem; let them deal with it.”
Rafe sighed. “Ky, I know you’ve had a shock—more than one—on this planet and about this planet, but this does not sound like you. You don’t run away from problems—”
“This is different—”
“Hear me out. It’s not like you. It may be you need more time, or better therapy than a rakehell lover can give… have you ever checked into your implant to see if that medical team at Moray left you any guidance?”
“No.”
“Would you look at the indices and see if they did?”
“Why? I didn’t want to come in the first place, and I want to leave—” She heard the rising tone in her voice, and stopped there.
Rafe said nothing for a long moment. “Then—if that’s what you really want, I have a business proposition.”
“A business proposition.” She had her voice under control, but her neck hurt and she had to unclench her hands finger by finger.
“Yes. You have money in the bank. I have money in the bank—same as you. Let’s buy a ship and go.”
“Just like that?” She could not believe he’d given in so quickly; the argument she’d feared wasn’t going to happen. Self-doubt vanished; she felt light as a balloon.
“Yes. Well, after we’ve lolled on the tropical sands another week or so maybe.”
“Now,” Ky said. She pushed back her chair. “Can you think of a better time?”
“I could,” Rafe said, finishing his omelet. “But there’s always another day. Frankly I think starting tomorrow is better than starting at lunchtime. Or the day after?”
“Tomorrow,” Ky said. “I am capable of compromise.”
Rafe laughed. “Fine, then. You cooked; I’ll do the heavy labor of putting stuff in the cleaner.”
A last walk on the beach, a last swim. Clothes in the ’fresher, bags open—everything was ready to go before they slept. Ky woke early, padded out to the main room, and called over to the local office to be sure the plane was ready for them.
“It’s not here, Admiral,” a pleasant female voice said. “It was called back to Port Major overnight.” No strain in that voice; the reason had not been anything dire.
There were other planes on Corleigh, charter craft in town. She had money. “What’s the current charter service’s contact?”
“Admiral—” What might have been a gulp; the voice now sounded strained. “Um—you don’t want to leave. The others are coming; they’ll be here by noon. You could fly back then.” A pause, then, “The plane can be serviced and ready to take off again in a half hour.”
She did want to leave. If wishes grew wings… “Who exactly is coming?”
“Your aunt and your cousin, Admiral. I thought they would have notified you.”
“All they told me was that I could have the house for a while and would not be disturbed.” She could hear the edge in her own voice and softened it deliberately. “Perhaps they will call before they arrive. I hope nothing has happened.”
“Nothing on the news summary,” the voice said.
“Thank you,” Ky said. When she turned, Rafe was watching her from the doorway. “Best-laid plans,” she said. “We’re stranded, and the next arrival is Stella, Helen, and the twins.”
“That’s an odd definition of you won’t be disturbed.”
“My thought exactly. We could call town for transportation and charter a flight out, but I expect they’ll call here and panic if we don’t answer.”
She and Rafe had just time to eat breakfast before the house phone rang again.
Five hours later, the little electric podcar rolled up to the back of the house. Stella and Helen climbed out, and then the twins erupted, shrill voices sending every bird in the trees rocketing away as they ran toward the house.
“Were you like that?” Rafe murmured in Ky’s ear.
“Probably,” Ky said. “But there was only one of me. We’d better help.”
“Not much in this load,” Helen said. “The rest will come later.” She looked around, her expression tense. “Where are the—Oh.” The twins appeared around the corner of the house, one chasing the other, both shrieking, and disappeared again around the next corner.
“We need to tire them out,” Stella said, pulling a couple of insulated cases from the podcar. “Here—this one’s food, Ky. Rafe, the other is your black bag from Aunt Grace’s.”
Once everything was out of the podcar, Stella reset its instructions and it trundled back toward the airstrip. Ky, Rafe, and Stella moved everything inside.
“What’s going on?” Ky asked. Her duffel and Rafe’s were still by the door.
“Problems,” Helen said. “You know that flight recorder you brought back?”
“Yes. What about it?”
“It’s gone missing. And someone broke into our house yesterday when Stella and I had taken the children for their yearly checkups. Nothing was taken, but the alarm didn’t go off and nobody noticed anything wrong until we got back and the side door had been kicked right off the hinges. I’m sorry we interrupted you, but—”
“You didn’t, really,” Ky said. “We were going to leave this morning. New plans, Rafe and I. If you hadn’t arrived, we’d have been in Port Major by now—”
“What plans?” Stella asked, stacking fruit from the cooler onto a platter.
“Well—we’re both at loose ends, so we’re going to buy a ship and go—do things. Explore. Learn new things. Have smaller adventures.” She didn’t want to explain what she’d thought of. This morning it sounded less rational than it had the day before.
“Just how do you plan to finance this?”
Ky grinned. “Space Defense is giving me severance pay and back pay; you owe me for my shares in Vatta, and Rafe’s got money coming from the same kind of sources, since his sister’s taking over as CEO. We realized we could buy a reasonably sized ship, and decided to grab it while we could.”
“Well, you can’t,” Stella said. She glanced sideways at Helen. “Moscoe Confederation has slapped a lien on your Cascadian accounts, pending a court hearing on damages due the family of your aide. I had a call from the local branch of Crown & Spears. Since you’re still a Slotter Key citizen, they won’t allow a foreign government to seize the funds you have here, but they can’t guarantee it’s safe to transfer them to other branches in other jurisdictions. More than that, because I transferred my permanent residence to Cascadia, if your account there isn’t enough to cover whatever a court decides, I’ll have to pay it out of Vatta funds there. My accounts aren’t frozen, but I’ve been served notice of intent to collect on your behalf.”