His annoyed smell intensified, but with an unexpected undercurrent: licorice. Eva hadn’t realized she was staring at the floor, but she looked up at him then, fighting the same feelings of hope that she’d had when her mother called.
“Eva, I did not come in here to inform you that I was leaving,” Vakar said. “I wanted to discuss how to convince my superiors to allow me to stay.”
“Oh,” Eva said, her voice small even to her own ears. The rush of relief she felt was soon dwarfed by guilt, and disgust for feeling relieved when she knew she didn’t deserve to keep him to herself. “Are you sure?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied. He hesitated for a moment. “There is more I wish to discuss with you, about your . . . experience on Garilia, but this is urgent.”
Eva nodded, her throat tight with a host of emotions she wasn’t about to untangle.
Taking that as a cue, Vakar sat next to her on her bed, the smell of his annoyance giving way to relief and pensiveness. “I would like to relay to them that I am trailing a former Fridge agent,” Vakar said. “One who escaped from the main facility and may be in possession of data from their experiments. I believe that will more than convince them to allow me to continue on our intended course.”
Eva kicked her sluggish brain until it started working again. “Right. Okay. If you tell them about Josh, they would probably make the connection between him and Sue, which could make your case stronger or weaker, depending.”
“Indeed. I could omit the specific information regarding the identity of my target, but that may be perceived as suspicious and lead to further questions.”
Eva nodded, scratching her head. “The thing is, we need to get Josh out of there and deliver him to my sister. So whatever we tell your people, ideally, won’t make them want him for questioning instead.”
Vakar’s smell gained a dark edge. “They may request that I eliminate him, depending on the nature and extent of the intelligence he provides.”
Eva winced. “Definitely can’t have that.” She flopped backward so she could stare at her fish tank above her bed while she thought. Vakar began to run a claw up and down her leg, until she finally lifted her head to frown at him.
“I can’t concentrate with you doing that,” she said.
“My apologies, I had not even noticed.” He stopped, but his bashful smell sapped any annoyance she’d been feeling right out.
“Thank you,” she said. “Not for that, I mean. You know.”
“I know.”
Eva sat up and hugged him, and he wrapped his arms around her in return, and they sat quietly in her licorice-smelling cabin, sorting things out together for as long as it took.
Chapter 11
Catching Up
Garilia was the paradise of islands that Eva remembered from her first approach so many years earlier, several large clusters of green amid vast oceans of teal and darker blue that hearkened back to the Earth she had seen in still pictures and flat movies, the one scientists were working to bring back via careful terraforming. Its cities and towns were spread out, many of them hardly visible because they were constructed among forests of huge trees whose canopies extended like vast umbrellas to hide what lay beneath. Others floated on the top of the water, and still others were cut into the sides of mountains, and one even sat on a series of icebergs that had been lashed together to travel as a group.
Their destination, Spectrum City, was a new offshoot of the capital, Rilia. Several of its buildings rose to the same height as the trees nearby, and mimicked them in other ways as well. They featured the same kinds of canopies and branches, broad tops with falling cables made of some incredibly strong material, the buildings attached to them or stretching between. But instead of solid trunks covered in overlapping layers of colored bark, the core pillars were also buildings, translucent skyscrapers in brilliant geometric patterns of red and green and gold, the interiors almost entirely visible to anyone passing by.
And many people were passing by, because the whole series of structures was connected by various bridges and ziplines and cable cars that moved laterally as well as between levels. The xana wore harnesses with anchors that could quickly attach to a line and allow them to safely traverse short or long distances through the open air. Small vehicles floated between: the local equivalent of hoverbikes and larger transport pods, sometimes stretching out a tendril that attached to an existing line and let the rider coast up or down among the other individual gliders.
There were also the native creatures, though it seemed like fewer of them were interested in climbing or flitting about than Eva remembered from Rilia. They were likely Attuned, the companions of the xana, who had psychic links between them that were different from the ones xana could create with each other. They could communicate, at least in a rudimentary way given the animals weren’t fully sapient, and they could share emotions empathically to facilitate this communication.
Anything else they might be able to do wasn’t widely known, though Eva was sure of one thing: the Attuned didn’t die when their xana did.
She knew that much from experience.
They touched down in the city’s spaceport, a vast facility atop the crown of a fake tree, made from the same translucent colored materials as the other buildings but arranged to look like a set of wings catching the wind. It was crowded with small pleasure ships and the shuttles from the cruisers full of tourists that waited in orbit far above, with cargo vessels like La Sirena Negra herded into a separate area away from the delicate senses of the leisure class. The planetary customs authorities gave her ship’s credentials no trouble whatsoever, to Eva’s surprise and relief, and within a few minutes her crew was fully geared up and ready to go.
Eva wasn’t ready, emotionally speaking, but she didn’t think she ever would be. But she’d taken her meds and done her breathing exercises and was not about to let the worst fucking day of her life keep her from doing what needed to be done.
They were going to find Josh, and find him here, and that was that.
Everyone gathered in the mess before disembarking, for one last review of the plan. Pink also insisted they all eat something, because Min had checked out the local food situation and apparently the tourist economy had led to special tourist pricing.
“So, here’s the story,” Eva said. “The rebels are still in control—guess I should just call them the government now. It’s a communist structure, more or less. Lashra Damaal is technically a government employee, and the company she runs that makes the Ball Buddies—”
“Pod Pals, for heaven’s sake,” Pink interjected. She was inhaling a plate of beans, greens, and fried things with a speed only mothers and on-call medics could manage. Eva tried to steal a bite but Pink smacked her fork away.
“Fine, the Pod Pals. Sylfe Company is ostensibly owned and operated by the people of Garilia. Damaal also fills some other government roles that I’m not entirely clear on yet, stuff about cultural ambassadorship, for one.” Eva scowled. “And I’m hoping it’s a translator malfunction, but she’s also got a title along the lines of ‘Supreme Executive of the Enhanced Community Outreach Program’ that sounds like the cabrón comités all over again.” She poked at her rice and black beans, which were still slightly too hot to eat.