Outcast (2 page)

Bonnie's only wish was that he'd realized that before they decided to have a baby.

Sylor had always said he wasn't the marrying kind, which should have been Bonnie's first clue not to trust him — though it was now apparent that was the one thing he'd been completely honest about.

He'd had such grand plans for their future on the newly colonized planet, and he'd infected Bonnie with them. Unfortunately, once she'd been bitten by the bug, he had gotten over it.

Terra Minor had been haggled over for centuries, with several worlds laying claim before it was finally bought outright by a consortium that sent in a team of scientists and ecologists to catalog everything from the insects to the weather patterns. Next they sent in timberdroids to harvest most of the trees on the flatlands, after which they planted tough grasses, creating a savanna.

The climate where Bonnie's property was located was temperate year-round, with one season slightly cooler and rainier than the other. The weather and terrain being similar to Central Africa on Earth, some official had decided that the names of places in the region should sound African in origin. This was more a tribute to the Old World than anything, and while it was doubtful that the names had any actual meaning, if they did, those original meanings had been lost with the passage of time.

The only thing to fear from the weather was the storms, with their heavy rains, high winds, and spectacular lightning, which started the occasional wildfire. Though the fires did serve to keep the savanna from growing back into forest, they were dangerous, and each homestead was required to have a wide firebreak around it for protection.

Living there may have been risky, but the land was fertile, and Bonnie had yet to plant anything that wouldn't grow. Sylor hadn't been interested in farming, preferring the excitement of chasing enocks, but she enjoyed raising the plants as well as the more domesticated livestock. At least they didn't try to take a piece out of her every time her back was turned.

Enocks were what had caught Sylor's fancy from the beginning, though Bonnie now realized that he had seen it as a get-rich-quick scheme, rather than a lifelong pursuit. Much like the ostriches of Earth, enocks were large, flightless birds, but they were far more vicious than any ostrich, with razor-sharp beaks, daggerlike claws, and a belligerent, carnivorous nature. They were dangerous to work around, but their eggs, which were huge and very tasty, were highly prized and brought an excellent return on any investment. The enocks were omnivorous, so they fed them mostly fruits and grain, but occasionally one of Bonnie's chickens would stray into their pen, which meant certain death for the chicken. She'd put wire mesh around the lower part of the fence to keep them apart, though it wasn't always successful. What she needed was a force field, but such things were expensive luxuries, and since chickens were cheap, she'd yet to earn enough money on their eggs to justify the cost.

Just feeding the enocks was an adventure in itself, but gathering their eggs bordered on suicide — which was something Sylor had always enjoyed. Bonnie would throw out feed to distract them, and then he would make a run for the eggs. She'd been doing it alone since he left and had had a number of close calls — as well as the scars to prove it. Even before Sylor left, Captain Jack had noticed the bites on Bonnie's arms when she'd been in Nimbaza last and had sold Bonnie some excellent ointment, but Bonnie was beginning to believe that what she really needed was a suit of armor — which, of course, Jack hadn't had in the hold of her ship, though as a successful interplanetary trader, she had just about everything else.

Bonnie had begun to despair of ever finding a hired hand, but thankfully, her temperamental comlink was actually working the day that Drummond finally called her.

"Got someone for you, Bon-bon!" Drummond said, his raspy voice booming out over the comlink.

"Not Terran, of course, but I think he'll do. Actually, he kinda reminds me of Cat — you know, Captain Jack's husband? — and Leo, too, of course. Anyway, they look like they might be the same species, but so far, this guy hasn't mentioned where he's from. Says he was a slave but earned his freedom, or some such bullshit. He's probably a runaway, but I don't hold with slavery, so it wouldn't matter a hairy rat's ass to me if he was."

"I don't care what he is or where he's from as long as he's honest and able-bodied!" Bonnie declared.

Cat and Leo seemed to be both, but whether all Zetithians were, Bonnie had no idea. According to Jack, there were very few of their kind remaining; their home planet had been destroyed, and their species was nearly extinct.

"Looks able enough, but he's not what you'd call talkative," Drummond reported. "'Course honesty isn't something you can spot just by looking at a man."

"I know," Bonnie sighed. Sylor had been a nice looking man and had seemed sincere, but he'd run out on her eventually, just as all the others had done. No, you couldn't tell by looking. "Handsome is as handsome does — isn't that how that saying goes?"

"Don't know about handsome," Drummond chuckled. "I only know pretty."

"Yeah, well, pretty doesn't always mean anything, either," Bonnie said dryly. "It's what's inside that counts."

"And you've got both."

"Thanks, Drummond," she said wearily, "but I'm really not in the mood to hear that right now." Men had been admiring Bonnie all her life, but as far as she could tell, it hadn't done her a bit of good.

"It's the truth, though," he protested. "Can't say it's not."

"Maybe," Bonnie conceded without much conviction, because if the type of man she tended to attract was any indication, then being pretty was more of a curse than a blessing. Men had always seemed to think that, along with being easy on the eyes, she was also stupid and gullible — and perhaps she had 'been easily taken in — but she had put that past firmly behind her. She would never let another man — of any species — take advantage of her again; her heart, as well as her purse, had been tromped on enough.

"Well, his immigration chip's got everything it should," Drummond went on. "And I was right; he's originally from Zetith. I'm sure Leo and Cat '11 be happy to meet up with him. Hmmm... got something else here... looks like an emancipation decree — hold on while I run it through the translator." Bonnie could see him tapping the screen, grumbling to himself, "Damn backwoods planets... don't even put their legal stuff in Stantongue! How the hell do they expect anyone to read it?" He peered at it intently for a moment.

"Yep, that's what it is, all right. Dated about five years ago. All legal and neat — though it could be a forgery."

"Well, gee, thanks," Bonnie said, rolling her eyes. "That makes me feel so much better."

He grinned into the viewscreen. "Don't it though?"

Drummond had been around a long time, knew every immigrant to the sector, and considered it part of his duties to look after them. He wasn't a clergyman — though in his capacity as magistrate, he did perform the occasional marriage — but tended to view the entire population of the Nimbaza region as his flock. Bonnie figured he'd probably seen it all. Maybe he was better at spotting a liar than he knew. "Does it 7ooMike a forgery?" she inquired.

"Well, no," he conceded, "but they get better at it all the time, though maybe they're really lousy at it where he came from."

"Well, let's hope so," she said fervently. "I need help, not more trouble!"

Drummond leaned closer to peer at her, his eyes distorted by their close proximity to the sensor and his mustache seeming to grow to startling proportions. "Looks like you've already had that," he observed. "What the devil happened to your hair?"

"Got tired of messing with it and cut it off," she said shortly.

"Looks more like you got mad at it," he remarked. Cocking his head to one side he asked hopefully, "What'd you do with it?"

"Gave it to the chickens to line their nests," Bonnie replied. "That's about all it's good for."

Drummond shook his head and sighed. "Wouldn't mind having a lock of it myself," he said.

"Beautiful stuff, that."

"And just what would your wife say if she knew you had a lock of my hair?" Bonnie asked with a wry smile.

"Dunno," he said, scratching his bald spot. "Probably beat the livin' shit out of me. Still... it might be worth it."

"I doubt that," she said with a reluctant chuckle. "Just tell that man how to get here and stop feeding me a line."

"Sure thing, Bon-bon," he grinned.

She hated the nickname — which, unfortunately, was one she'd heard from various people throughout her life — but she liked Drummond, so the irritation she normally felt was missing from her voice when she retorted, "And would you please stop calling me Bon-bon? My name is Bonnie!

How many times do I have to tell you that?"

"A few more, Bon-bon. A few more." Still chuckling, Drummond reached forward and terminated the connection. Bonnie was a feisty little woman, and he liked her more than most. It was too bad she had such lousy taste in men, but then some people just weren't meant to find happiness — no matter how much they might deserve it.

Bonnie was glad that help was finally on the way, but so far all she knew was that he wasn't talkative and, if he looked anything like Cat and Leo, he probably had pointed ears and long, curly hair like they did. They both had fanglike canines that looked as if they could tear a hole in you, too.

But Bonnie had always liked Cat; he was friendly and had a very dry sense of humor, and Captain Jack seemed real taken with him — in fact, Bonnie had hardly ever seen them more than a few meters apart. Their three boys were pretty cute, too — looked just like their dad — and Leo and the witch, Tisana, had three babies, as well: two sons and one daughter. The little girl had her mother's black hair and green eyes, but the boys both had their father's tawny curls — which made Bonnie wonder who her own baby would resemble. Sylor was tall and powerfully built, with jet black hair and rakish good looks, while Bonnie was petite for a Terran female and was as fair as he was dark.

Telling herself it didn't matter, she went back to work.

Bonnie was out weeding the vegetable garden when it occurred to her that she was completely unprepared for her new helper. There was nowhere for him to sleep in her house; no spare bedroom, and not even another bed. She didn't know where to put him, even in the outbuildings, which consisted of the cavernous equipment shed and the henhouse. Then she remembered that he'd been a slave at one time, and perhaps he wouldn't expect a bed or a room to himself. As things stood, the only way Bonnie could give him a room of his own would be for him to help her build it — and pay for it, too, since Sylor had taken the money earmarked for home improvements. Adding two rooms would be better, she decided, because that way everyone could have his own: one for Bonnie, one for her baby, and one for him — whatever his name was.

For now, though, that would just have to wait. They would all be crammed in together, but she knew that the baby wouldn't take up much space for a while, and perhaps a former slave wouldn't object to camping out on the floor.

Having slept badly the night before, Bonnie was exhausted. Dreams had kept biting at her like flies, but snatches of them were all she could remember, and nothing that made any sense at all. Her dreams never did. She had plenty of daydreams, but they weren't romantic and sweet; she'd quit dreaming about love long ago, and now her daydreams were spent going over details. How would she be able to care for enocks in addition to a child? How many eggs would she have to sell to get enough money to add on to the house?

What would she give for a man she could trust?

Her right arm was the first thing that came to mind, but she preferred to keep it, since it was so much more useful to her than any man had ever been. Men had always been trouble, and she had no need for any more of that — or for pretty things, either. She needed stuff she could use, like a new speeder, or a force field for the enocks, or, as always, more money.

Sighing, she bent down to pull a weed that was too close to a bean plant to use her hoe, noting that it was getting harder to bend over, and the baby kicked her sharply to remind her not to squash it.

Maybe she should have used a spray on the weeds, but they were expensive, and, because they weren't good for the environment, there was a limit on how much you could use and where you could use it. Not wanting to be the one to poison the water or foul the air, Bonnie had opted not to use any herbicides at all, but it made her work that much harder.

She and Sylor had been required to attend some extensive orientation classes before they were allowed to build a place of their own and begin farming. There were a multitude of regulations, and although Bonnie felt that she'd signed away most of her freedom, she could understand the need for it. With a staggering number of ruined planets across the galaxy to serve as examples, and Earth itself only having been brought back from the brink of death when the inhabitants made some very tough choices, the powers that be had taken their time and had given considerable thought to the details.

By midday there was still no sign of her new hired hand, so Bonnie ate some lunch and wondered if he'd opted to be deported rather than work for her. Then she remembered what a long walk it was from Nimbaza and wished she could have gone to fetch him — which was what she would have done if the speeder hadn't been so worthless. She had been intending to work on it — even though she wasn't the best mechanic in the world — but the simple fact was that she just hadn't had the time.

After lunch she went out to feed the chickens and noticed that one of them was missing. There were always predators about, but she hadn't had any problems with them for a while; her little border collie, Kipper, had seen to that. Bonnie looked around a bit and finally spotted it — as luck would have it — in the enock pen. Gasping in dismay, she didn't know who she was most annoyed with; the chicken for being so stupid, or the enocks for being so murderous.

Her only consolation was that the enocks were still busy picking at the feed she'd put out for them that morning, and the chicken was at the far side of the enclosure. After throwing out more feed to keep them busy, she went around to the gate. Even though the chicken was close by, she knew the best she could hope to do was herd it toward the gate, because if startled, she would never be able to catch it. With that in mind, she went back to the equipment shed and got the net she and Sylor had used to catch the enocks.