Guardians (Caretaker Chronicles Book 2) (39 page)

Ethan couldn’t get in to talk to Theo for two
days. When he did, the VP was having an early morning drink in his office, and
he was in an expansive mood. “We’re going into business with the aliens,” he
said, obviously aware of Ethan’s earlier conversation with Saras.

Ethan nodded. “But you didn’t show him the Yynium
block I sent with you. Why not?” he asked.

Theo threw an arm around his shoulders. “I didn’t
think we could trust them.”

“Trust who?” Ethan’s eyes narrowed, and he
stepped away from Theo. “The Vala?”

“No.” Theo leaned in conspiratorially. “Saras.
Veronika. Especially Veronika.”

It seemed natural that they were rivals, but this
seemed paranoid. “Why not?” Ethan asked bluntly.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Ethan,”
Theo said, his eyes darkening, “but Veronika wanted you dead. She knew you
would be a Governor she couldn’t bribe, and having you in that position is just
too much of a threat to the company.” Theo shook his head. “She loves the
company. But you can’t blame her. Since old Mr. Saras back on Earth dumped her and
sent her out here to Minea to babysit his son, she doesn’t really have anything
else. Although she’d like to get involved with Marcos and solve both her
problems at once.”

“Both problems?”

“She wants the company and she wants to get back
at Dimitri.” The soft clunk of Theo’s empty glass echoed through the office.

Ethan’s head was spinning. Maybe Veronika had
hired Brynn. But Veronika knew her way around the system legally. Would she
really kill to get her way? And Ethan was inclined to believe that Maggie was
right. Brynn hadn’t meant to kill him, she’d been aiming for Maggie when he
stepped in her way. Would Veronika know about the leaked reports?

His missive went off. Pulling it from his pocket,
he saw a message from Brynn, full of errors. All it said was
help. Warehouse
78, Refinery st.

Theo raised his eyebrows. “Aria need you to pick
up some sweetbean milk on the way home?”

“No, it’s a friend of mine. A surveyor. Brynn.
She says she needs help.” He wondered if he should have said that.

He was relieved that Theo seemed uninterested. “You
should go then, and don’t worry about Veronika. I told her that you weren’t a
threat, and she’s found another Governor to bribe. I think you’ll be fine.”

Ethan considered for a moment. “Theo,” he said, “I
might need your help.”

Theo nodded. “Sure. What can I do?”

“You’ve got a car, right?”

“Right. A nice one.”

“Well, if you’re up for it, the girl who messaged
me is on Refinery Street, and the train doesn’t run down there, so it would
help me out if you’d give me a ride.” Ethan considered, and then told Theo the
truth. “Also, she may have been hired by Veronika. This could be a trap, and I’m
not sure I should go alone.”

Theo raised his eyebrows. “You live an exciting
life, Ethan.” The tall man walked to his desk and extracted, from the top
drawer, a shining silver handgun. “Maybe we’d better take this along.”

***

They arrived in the industrial district in record
time. Ethan had a fleeting flash of envy for Theo’s hovercar, but it was
forgotten when he saw the abandoned warehouse that bore the address Brynn had
given them. It had obviously been overtaken by Taim at some point, though the
plants were gone now. The door was gone, too. Ethan entered as fast as he could
and inside he could see that the equipment had been dismantled and scrubbed,
but not reassembled. It lay in piles with cleaning rags and empty bottles of
Zam.

The infestation must have been particularly bad. The
building was a loss, and crews had started, at some point, to tear it down.
Sunlight streamed in through a gaping hole in the roof.

Ethan heard a small sound and turned to see Brynn
in a shadowy corner, her brown hair hanging in front of her face, bound at the
ankles and wrists. She had been crying.

“It’s all right, Brynn. It’s all right,” Ethan
said. “We’re going to get you out of here.” When she looked up, there was
remorse in her eyes.

“Gaynes grabbed me when I left the office. He
dumped me here. I didn’t know who to call. You’re the only person on the whole
planet I really trust. I’m sorry, Ethan. I’m sorry,” she said.

“I know.” He reached for her wrists. “Brynn, I
think Veronika Eppes is behind all this. Did she—” Ethan stopped as Brynn’s
eyes filled with terror. He turned and braced himself, expecting to see
Veronika.

Only Theo stood behind him, but when Theo turned,
the flash of the gun in his hand showed Ethan his mistake. He stood and placed
himself squarely in front of Brynn.

“It was you then,” Ethan said with resignation in
his voice. “You were trying to get rid of Maggie.”

Theo smiled, and Ethan, even now, couldn’t see a
trace of insincerity in it. “This seems to be what happens when you delegate an
important job to someone incompetent. Everything ends up a mess.” He tilted his
head to look around Ethan at the girl in the corner. “You’re useless, Brynn. I
really should have done it myself.”

“So now it’s me you want rid of?” Ethan took a
careful step toward the door, but Theo waved him away with the gun.

“You and anyone else who might insinuate that I’m
not acting in the best interest of the Saras Company,” Theo said smoothly,
tilting his head to indicate Brynn behind Ethan. Theo looked at Ethan, his
eyebrows drawing together in concern. “Or that might value the Vala over a
lucrative shipping contract with the Asgre.”

“You’re working for the Asgre?” Ethan spat their
name out.

“Not
for
the Asgre.
With
the Asgre,”
Theo said, trying to steady the gun in his shaking hand. “They aren’t as bad as
people make them out to be, although the gas that they use on their ship causes
some serious side effects.” He laughed, gesturing at his own shaking hand. “Galo,
their leader, just wants to be able to run the business that he has spent so
long building.”

Ethan nodded. “Like you do. I see.”

Theo’s jaw set and his next sentence was a snarl.
“You don’t see. Nobody sees. I left everything to come out here. I built this
city, this company, and then the boss’s brat shows up and takes over. You don’t
know how that feels.”

Ethan tried to think of something to say, but
Theo didn’t pause long enough to let him speak.

“It must be tough living with all your
hallucinations, Ethan. You have had a rough time of it since you left Earth. I
can see why you wouldn’t want to go on.”

So that’s how he would play it. A staged suicide.
Ethan scoffed. “You think anyone will fall for that?”

“You’ve been through a lot, and we have the
psychiatric evaluations to prove it. Not even the Colony Offices will question
it. Especially if you’re having a fling with the girl from the cave. In fact,
maybe she shot you.”

“Theo!” Brynn called from the corner. “Theo,
leave him alone. He’s a good person.”

“I know,” Theo said, again with genuine
sincerity. “I know he’s a good person. That’s why he wanted to stop the mining
to cure the sickness and why he wants to save the Vala at the expense of the
company. He is a good person. That’s what makes him a threat to everything I’ve
worked for.”

Ethan watched as the man walked calmly to the
center of the rubbish-filled room. “This used to be a lab. Now look at it,
broken and twisted and useless.”

There was that word again. Theo’s pride had him
convinced that he knew what was worthwhile and what was not. And also who was
worthwhile and who was not. Another idea occurred to Ethan.

“You’re the final signature on the hiring line,
too, aren’t you, Theo?”

Theo nodded, closing his eyes in false humility. “I
am.”

“You kept my passengers from getting work. Why?”

Theo’s eyes flashed, and he enunciated every word
clearly. “They are unnecessary. Do you know how many years I spent creating the
perfect city on this planet? The perfect business plan? The perfect personnel
plan with no redundancies? I was president of this company for five years. I
made sure that all the parts of my company fit together into a precisely
functioning machine. And then the UEG dumps a whole shipload of passengers here
that clog up that machine. Passengers that have no useful skills. You know
that. That’s why they were chosen for Ship 12-22. They were expendable, just
like their Caretaker.”

Ethan nodded slowly, feeling the sting of Theo’s
words. A rumble caught his attention and he glanced up. The Asgre ship had
descended into the atmosphere again. Its shadow fell across the building and
the blaring communications channel filled the air around them with the scraping
of Galo’s voice.

“My understanding of languages is useless,” Ethan
said, “because you have no need of someone who can decipher what it is that the
Asgre ship up there is broadcasting right now.”

In reality, Ethan had heard it before, through
the translator. It was actually broadcasting a message to the Vala, that Galo
was coming for them, and that they should give themselves up now if they wanted
mercy, but Ethan played the bluff. “That was your name, just now, in the Asgre
language, wasn’t it Theo?”

Theo tipped his head up, taking in the bulk of
the armored ship as it lowered itself slowly toward the city. Though it was
still high above them, its thrusters made the windows vibrate as it eased out
of the sky.

In that moment, when Theo was looking up, Ethan
launched himself toward the gun, knocking it aside and driving his shoulder
hard into Theo’s stomach. Together, they fell backwards, writhing for control
of the weapon, rolling through the jagged heap of trash on the floor.

Ethan felt the sharp press of rubble in his back
as Theo, lighter than him by about thirty pounds, but tenacious, flipped him
over and grappled for the gun. Ethan wrenched it from Theo’s hand and tossed it
as high and as wide as he could.

A blow to the temple sent Ethan’s vision
spinning. If he didn’t stop this soon, the Asgre would be in the streets before
he could help the ground crews intercept them.

“Quit, Theo! It’s too late! They’re here, and they’re
going to take this city apart if we don’t get out there!”

“Not my city,” Theo growled through clenched
teeth. “I’ll give them the Vala and they’ll be on their way.”

An image of the pale Vala child, chained in the cage
on the bottom of the Asgre ship flooded Ethan’s memory. Entangled with it was
an image of the Vala in his cottage and an image of his own children—an image
of all children, whose safety was the responsibility of all adults. A fury
built within him, and he didn’t stop it. A heartbeat before the energy beam
shot out of his palms, he placed them on Theo’s chest.

The acrid smell of burnt flesh arced into the air
as Theo shot backwards, landing with a sickening thud on the rubble a few feet
away. Ethan’s energy ebbed and he slumped against the uneven floor himself,
sucking in air and feeling relief wash over him.

He would never have believed that he could use
his energy against another human without remorse. It scared him that it was so,
but his desire to keep safe the innocent was all-consuming.

And Theo was particularly distasteful. He had
pretended to be Ethan’s friend. Ethan knew from his conversations with Chip the
salesman that everyone persuaded and controlled others in some way. In the end,
he much preferred Veronika’s straightforward, if harsh, honesty to Theo’s
manipulations.

He heard a scuffling from the corner and
struggled to his feet, feeling the slick trickle of blood slide down his temple
and cheek. Brynn had managed to untie her ankles, and she was working on her
wrists. He didn’t know what to say to her, didn’t want to look at her. Those
days of dark anguish after the caves, when he couldn’t move or speak, were her
fault. It was made worse by his knowledge that she had intended to kill Maggie.

He reached for a shard of shattered glass,
wrapping the ties from her ankles around it to avoid slicing his hands, and
sawed through the tie on her wrists.

“Ethan—” she began, but he silenced her with a
raised hand and walked out into the night, climbing into Theo’s car and leaving
her to find her own way.

***

 Daniel heard the rumble of the ship descending.
A heavy hand pounded on the apartment door. “Volunteer troops! Get to the base!
The Asgre are coming!”

Nallie, clutching
her doll, threw herself into her brother’s arms. “Don’t leave, Daniel! Don’t
leave us here!”

They had been on
their own in the apartment so much since his mother died. And since Gaynes’
threats, he had left them under strict instructions not to open the door if he
wasn’t home. The fear in his voice had finally seeped into theirs, and it
pierced him to hear it.

“It’s okay, baby, I
won’t. I won’t. We’re going to see Reverend Hardy. Remember?”

Merelda spoke up. “Remember
Nallie? With the bells?”