gaian consortium 05 - the titan trap (21 page)

He wouldn’t allow himself to think about just where they might go after they were done with their business in Tucson.

The autocab stopped in front of the station some five minutes later, and Derek swiped their credit voucher over the reader before getting out. Cassidy followed, still silent. Neither did she ask for any assistance climbing out of the cab, but maybe it was because she didn’t need the help. He’d rather think it was that than because she simply didn’t want him touching her. Not that he could really blame her for feeling that way.

At this time of night, the maglev station wasn’t deserted, but neither was it as busy as it would have been during a more civilized time of day. People moved about, but with purpose, not paying any attention to him or Cassidy, or their surroundings. The place had been built during the Industrial Revival period of the late twenty-second century, and it was massive, gray, and thoroughly unappealing. Derek could see Cassidy giving it a once-over and looking unimpressed.

“I want to make a quick call,” he told her, and she nodded. There was a quiet spot behind a blocky pillar a few feet to their left, one that was conveniently out of range of the closest surveillance cam. He sheltered in the lee of the pillar and drew out his handheld, then pulled up his last conversation with their sponsor, hit “reply,” and said, “Are you available?”

A second passed, and then another. Cassidy stood a few feet away, watching him still in silence, but he couldn’t tell what might be passing through her mind at that moment. Her face was blank and quiet, as if she’d decided the best thing to do right then was reveal nothing of what she might be thinking.

What is it now, Dr. Tagawa?

Funny how he could detect a clear note of impatience in those pale blue letters. “Sorry to disturb you,” he said quietly, “but I’m afraid we’re going to need new identities again. We used these ones to check in to the Cosmopolitan, and we’ve left some evidence behind that’s going to stir up some trouble.”

Evidence?

“Evidence named Conrad Waite,” he said tersely.

Is the evidence still breathing?

“Yes.”

No need for new identities. I’ll have someone take care of it.

“You…will?”

Yes. It will be handled, and within the hour. Go ahead with your plans. I assume they involve you leaving Chicago.

“Yes, we’re — ”

No need to tell me. I’m tracking your I.D.s and will know where you’re going.

He supposed he should have thought of that. Then again, he wasn’t really used to living the life of a criminal on the run.

“Got it,” he said after a pause. “I’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”

I have no doubt of that, Dr. Tagawa.

Despite everything, he felt himself smile slightly as he ended the convo and put the handheld back in his pocket. Cassidy had turned away from him and was scanning the enormous heads-up displays above the ticket kiosks.

“I don’t see Tucson listed on there,” she murmured as he approached her.

“It’s not a direct destination. We’ll have to take the maglev to Denver and then take a connecting train.”

She accepted this explanation without comment, probably because her knowledge of Normerican geography was shaky enough that she couldn’t get a clear picture in her head of where they were going. Funny, because he’d heard the schools in Luna City were actually fairly good.

No more time to worry about it now, since he saw from the ticketing display that the next train to Denver was leaving in less than fifteen minutes. He hurried over to the kiosk, Cassidy right behind him, and bought two tickets. They would be leaving from platform 93, which of course was on the opposite side of the station from the ticketing area.

“Come on — we don’t have much time,” he told her, and she picked up her suitcase and followed him, grimly hastening her pace to match his more long-legged stride. He wished there were some way for him to offer to carry her luggage, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t appreciate such a gesture. Probably just as well; he was feeling exhaustion set in with every step, and knew he didn’t have a lot of energy left in reserve.

They climbed into the maglev with approximately four minutes to spare, swiping the extruded plastic of their tickets through the reader at the door as they entered the train. Although Derek had never traveled this exact route, he knew that the maglevs were manned by human stewards who would make periodic sweeps of the cars to make sure all was in order. However, intervention generally wasn’t necessary, as you couldn’t even get on the train without a valid ticket.

The car they entered was not even a quarter full, and he pushed on toward the back, into the least populated section he could find. No point in taking the risk of having their conversation overhead.

At least Cassidy did allow him to swing her suitcase up into the overhead compartment, and he slid his in next to it, then closed the luggage bay. She’d already taken the window seat, which he thought only fair, although he doubt she’d be able to see much. This entire trip would take place in darkness, since they’d be pulling into Denver at around four hundred hours.

Enough time to catch some sleep, but he didn’t know if he’d be able to manage that. The encounter with Waite had drained him and at the same time had left him keyed up, edgy. And although their sponsor had said he — or she — would take care of the man they’d left tied up in the suite at the Cosmopolitan, Derek couldn’t help worrying over the problem in his mind, conjuring scenarios where Waite freed himself and escaped, or knocked over something in the suite and made enough noise that someone came to investigate, or —

“Hey,” Cassidy said, and he looked up. To his relief, the look she gave him now was one of concern, not loathing. “We got away. It’s going to be fine.”

“For now, maybe,” he allowed. She tilted her head, and he added, “That is, our ‘friend’ — he cast a significant glance toward the handheld in his pocket — “said he’d take care of the mess we left behind. So apparently these identities aren’t compromised, and we should be okay. But still — ”

“But you can’t help worrying. I get it.” She reached out and laid one hand on top of his. Only for a few seconds before she lifted it away, but even that brief touch was more reassuring than he cared to admit. Surely she wouldn’t have done that if she were thoroughly disgusted by what he had done to Waite back in their suite. “Still, it sounds as if this person, for whatever reason, is really looking out for us. He — or she — hasn’t steered us wrong yet.”

No, he hadn’t. Which made Derek wonder what was in all this for that person in the shadows, someone who seemed to have a good deal of resources at his fingertips. He couldn’t be connected to the leak back on Europa. So that must mean there were several factions within the underground working independently of one another. It wasn’t that surprising, if you stopped to think about it; such a large, shadowy group wouldn’t tend to be all that homogenous. And in a dynamic like that, he supposed it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to insert a few agents who tricked everyone into thinking they were working for the cause when in fact they were doing just the opposite.

“That’s true,” he replied, when he realized Cassidy was looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to speak. “We would’ve been dead, or caught, a long time before this without his help. I just wish I knew why.”

“Maybe it’s best not to question his motivations right now. As you said, there’ve been plenty of chances for him to reveal our whereabouts to the authorities, but he hasn’t. Instead, he’s done everything he could to keep us safe. So maybe you should stop worrying about it for now, try to get some sleep.”

Practical, sensible words. He knew she was right, but could he release enough of the tension to let himself go, get the rest he knew he needed?

“I think we’re safe here,” she murmured, casting a quick glance around the cabin.

Probably. There wasn’t anyone sitting within three rows of them, and all the people they’d passed hadn’t even bothered to look up from their handhelds or computers. If anyone had been lurking on this train, waiting to spring, most likely they would have done so by now.

“All right,” he told her. “I’ll try.” And he adjusted his seat so it reclined backward, then turned on the heat and the gentle massage function. If that didn’t put him to sleep, nothing would.

She gave him a relieved smile and did the same, clearly impressed with the amenities even these simple seats offered. Well, it was a bit different from the cockpit of a spaceship, even one as sleek and up-to-date as the one they’d left behind in Chicago.

As he drifted off to sleep, he wondered if they’d ever make it back to the Windy City’s spaceport to retrieve it.

When his face went still, eyelashes black crescents against his cheeks, Cassidy knew Derek slept. She also knew she should be doing the same thing, but slumber eluded her, despite her comfortable seat. Dark landscapes flitted by outside the window, lights of passing cities and towns shimmering in the darkness, then gone. It all felt so big, although she knew that was only an illusion. Gaia was really not a very large planet at all, was dwarfed by Jupiter and Saturn and Neptune. But of course man had never settled on any of those gas giants and never could — the conditions would kill an unprotected human being in less than a second.

Here, though, with the central plains of Normerica dashing past the window at a little more than 150 kilometers per hour, Cassidy got a sense of scale quite unlike anything else she’d ever experienced. On the Moon, one could take the underground rail from Luna City to Tranquility Dome, a journey of around an hour, but that distance felt tiny compared to this one. And it would take another not quite three hours to get from Denver to Tucson. With all the distance they were covering now, it was still only a little more than half their journey.

And what would be at the end of it? It was clear that Derek intended to go to his parents with the proof of Waite’s involvement in Theo Karras’ death. She guessed Derek would edit the recording heavily, would take out the torture that resulted in Waite’s confession. At least, that was what she would do if she were in his position. She couldn’t imagine allowing her own father to see the kind of violence she was capable of. But she also couldn’t have imagined that Derek would be able to do any of what he’d done back in their suite at the Continental, so what did that say about her as a judge of character?

Not a hell of a lot, apparently.

She risked a glance over at him, but he slept still. If he was tormented inwardly by the lengths he’d gone to extract that information from Conrad Waite, Derek didn’t show it. His face was calm, peaceful. Studying him like this, she could see how elegant his cheekbones and chin and nose were, how finely molded his lips, how thick his eyelashes. All little details she hadn’t really taken in before now, partly because everything had been happening so fast that she didn’t have much time to really stop and think, and partly because she didn’t want him to catch her staring.

Well, she had plenty of time to stare now.

And what did that say about her? As they’d left the suite after his interrogation of Waite, she’d been shaken by what she’d just witnessed. Now, though, that unease seemed to have disappeared, or at least lessened to a great extent. Was it simply that she’d had time to think about what a piece of shit Conrad Waite really was? Lord knows he hadn’t shown much guilt over the man he’d murdered…and she knew Theo Karras had to be just one of many. There were probably quite a few additional victims scattered around the globe even after Derek had been sent to MaxSec.

Maybe some people would call that situational ethics, but she realized Conrad Waite wasn’t worth shedding any tears over. Derek had indicated that their sponsor’s people would take care of him, but was that Waite’s own brand of “taking care” of something, or would they simply remove him from the Cosmopolitan and then dump him someplace where his handlers could pick him up?

More questions she didn’t have the answers to. She doubted she ever would.

And that’s fine,
she told herself.
You don’t have to know everything. The most important thing to know is that someone’s helping us, someone who seems to have our best interests at heart.

Otherwise, as she’d told Derek a short while earlier, they would’ve been dead a long time ago.

She shifted in her seat, turning back toward the window. Now she was regretting her lack of knowledge about the world that had birthed her ancestors. Maybe if she’d spent a little more time studying Gaia, instead of learning astrogation and new techniques for squeezing a little more speed out of the
Avalon
while at the same time reducing fuel consumption, she wouldn’t feel so lost now. She’d know the names of those cities and towns flashing by, know how many people lived there, whether any of them had ever gone into space, or whether they’d spent their whole lives bounded by Gaian scenery, a blue Gaian sky.

Well, she was lucky in that, she supposed. She’d seen the glitter of far-off sunlight on Saturn’s rings, drifted in blackness pierced by the delicate shimmer of a million stars. She’d watched Gaia rise beyond Luna City’s domes, and seen the ice volcanoes on Io shoot hundreds of meters into its tenuous atmosphere. All of those things made her who she was now, and she knew she would have never given any of them up in exchange for a safe existence here on Gaia’s surface.

Or not so safe,
she thought then.
It wasn’t that safe for Theo Karras…nor Derek.

She wished they were someplace private. If they were, she would lean over and kiss him awake, show him that she understood why he’d stood there and calmly broken Conrad Waite’s fingers. Not because he enjoyed it, but because he knew it was the only way to get to the truth. He wasn’t a Consortium intelligence operative — he didn’t have access to truth serums and mind-control drugs and all the other less damaging but otherwise just as invasive techniques others might have used in a similar situation. No, he only had his hands and his mind, both of which he’d used to brutal effect to get the information he needed.