The Seeds of Time (21 page)

Clio elbowed herself over to them, got into a crouch. “He just lost it, broke down. Started to rave. He thinks you want to kill him, like a coup. He’s completely berserk. And he’s armed.”

Meng squatted down, cocked her rifle, bracing it on her knee, facing the wires. “He comes through that line, he’s hamburger.”

Liu said, “I don’t see anybody. Where is he?”

“Get Zee and Hillis out here,” Clio said. “Give them guns, and we’ll have a better chance of holding him off.”

Liu gaped at her, looked over at Meng.

“Do it,” Meng said, not moving from her position. Meng unclipped her sidearm, tossed it to Clio.

“They’re all in crew tent,” Liu said. “Guns are in med tent, under the comm unit.”

Clio raced toward the crew tent, opened the tent flap, plunged in. Hillis and Zee were tied back-to-back and gagged. Estevan was lying on a cot, hands tied in front of him.

Clio tore off their gags, then began fumbling at the knots of their bonds.

“Clio,” Hillis said. “You’re alive.”

“Don’t ask me how,” she said, finally working the ropes loose.

Zee pulled her close, hugging her face against his. “Clio …” he said, barely a whisper. Hillis was there too, his arms around them both.

Clio pushed away. “No time to talk. Teeg’s strung out
on my Dive meds. I got him suspicious of Posie and everyone so he shot Posie when we came to the clearing. Liu and Meng are scared of Teeg, they’re lying in wait for him at the perimeter.” She moved over to Estevan, bent down to untie him. “How is he? Thought he was dead.”

“He’ll live,” Hillis said. “Took a slug in his left lung.”

Estevan opened his eyes, managed a crack of a smile at Clio. “I screwed up. I really screwed up, you know?”

“Yeah, we all did. Now we’re going for a rematch,” Clio said. “Can you walk?”

Estevan shook his head. “Naw. I’m useless.”

“Then we carry you.”

Hillis grinned. “The lander. We’re getting the hell out of here, right?”

“To
Babyhawk,”
Clio said. “Vacation’s over.”

“Cripes, you think they’re just going to let us walk out of here?” Zee asked.

“Maybe not without a fight. Somebody get a couple more guns in med tent—under the comm unit—and some extra ammunition.” She looked at Zee. “Meet us at the lander.”

Hillis put up a hand. “No. I’ll go.”

“Goddamn it, Hill,” Clio said. “No stops. No stops at botany. We’re getting out of here, fast.”

“OK, OK, no stops.” And he was out of the tent, running.

Zee and Clio got Estevan out of bed and pulled his arms around their necks.

“What about the others?” Zee asked. “What about Meng and Liu?”

“We’ll wait for them. But we’ll wait in
Babyhawk
. Let’s go.”

They dragged Estevan, groaning, out of the tent. The gauze of rain had separated around the sun’s disk. Steam rose from the ground, whisked away by a light breeze. The odor of crushed fruit too long ripening rode the air. The camp was still, submerged in the din from the world jungle.

Zee bore most of Estevan’s weight on himself,
allowing Clio to hold on to her gun, and attempt to cover their flight.

Up ahead,
Babyhawk
loomed like a riveted metal insect. The bolted, grey, hexagonal body crouched on segmented struts, ready to leap at the sky and take them back to the mother ship.

Clio caught movement to their left, swiveled, saw Hillis, his arms full of weapons. A few clattered to the ground. He left them, running to catch up.

“Get Estevan into the ship,” Clio told Zee, and he obeyed, pulling the big man by his armpits, sliding him up the ramp. The door whooshed open, and then the world stopped.

“Hold it, everybody. Move and you’re dead.”

Teeg stood there, some thirty meters off, with Hillis halfway between him and the lander. Zee paused on the ramp.

Clio’s gun was aimed right at Teeg’s head. But she wasn’t that good a shot, and right now the best target in sight was Hillis.

Teeg stood in back of Liu and Meng. No telling whether they were with him as allies or prisoners.

“Zee, you come on down now,” Teeg said.

Clio spoke under her breath. “Don’t move, Zee. Anything happens, you get in there and power up the lander. Hear me?” He nodded.

Clio shouted, “I’ve got a gun, Teeg, and I’ll kill you if you make a move toward us. I swear I’ll kill you.”

Hillis was frozen in place. His arms were full of the weapons of the camp, yet not one was available, in his hand. He said, “Get in the lander, Clio.”

“Hillis.” Clio tried to pull him toward her with her eyes, tried to imagine how to get him just fifteen meters closer.

“Get in the lander, Clio, you stubborn bitch,” Hillis said. “Don’t get yourself killed on my account. I never cared for you. We were friends for a while, no big deal. Now go.”

Clio’s eyes were so blurry, she couldn’t see Teeg and
the others. Furiously, she wicked the tears away with her sleeve. “Meng, you staying?” Clio asked. “You gonna be Teeg’s baby machine? Bear him a dozen kids and die when you’re forty? You crazy, woman? You gonna take orders from Liu and Teeg for the rest of your life? That your idea of Eden?”

Clio was backing up the ramp. “Just start walking, Hill, just slowly come toward us.”

Hillis remained stock-still.

Teeg shouted, “I don’t want to kill you, Clio, but I will. Just stop where you are. Please.”

“Teeg, get this straight. I’m leaving. You can come too, but I’m leaving. We all need each other. We’re crew, damn it, we’re human. We’re not going to kill each other. We’re going home.”

Teeg started moving in, keeping behind Hillis, shoving Meng and Liu along with him. “Stay here with me, baby,” he said, his voice cracking. “I love you. I always loved you.” He was crying. “Don’t leave me here alone, baby.”

The lander powered up. Clio was at the door.

“Then come with me,” Clio said, crying too, looking at Hillis, looking into his eyes across those fifteen meters.

“Baby, I can’t do that,” Teeg said. “I’m up for hanging, if I go home. They’d hang me, you know they would.”

“Just start walking, Hill,” Clio said.

And Hillis was walking toward her after all, still carrying the guns. He was at the bottom of the ramp.

“No, baby,” Teeg said. “You can’t have him. I can’t have you. Neither can he.”

Clio staggered a few steps down the ramp, pushing her hands out as if to stop him. “God, Teeg! Hillis and I aren’t lovers, we were never lovers!” She saw that Teeg wasn’t listening, that he was just fixed on Hillis, who stood there, still frozen, he and his armload of guns. “We faked it all these years. God, we faked it!”

Hillis took a step onto the ramp and then the shot crackled and Hillis fell, fell slowly, first to his knees, though the back of his head was gone, then full on the ground, and Meng was running, ducking and running as more gunfire
laced the ground. Clio felt herself yanked back into the lander, saw Meng fall on the ramp.

“Get in the pilot chair and climb,” Zee was shouting at her.

Meng was crawling up the ramp, and her body jerked as it was hit again, and she was screaming as Zee hauled her through the lock.

“Close the hatch!” Zee shouted.

Clio hit the Close toggle. The door shifted shut as a staccato pulse of rifle fire clanged against the hull. Clio stared at the control panel, hands limp in her lap.

“Gun it,” Zee said.

Clio looked up at him. “Hillis is dead.” The blinking of the deck lights strobed over Zee’s face, making him Hillis, then Zee, then Hillis.

“Yes,” Zee said, “Hillis is dead. Now take us out of here. It’s what he wanted you to do. Take us home, baby.”

Clio punched in ignition and the lander roared to life, making that great jump up from camp into the calm Niang sky.

Meng shuffled the deck of cards again, arching the cards and making them flutter, like a trapped bird.

“Pretty good for one hand, huh?” Her broken arm was in a cast, but her right arm was itching to play poker. Crew station display screens glowed with readouts that no one cared to read. Only Zee sat at his station, face lit with greenish light, hunched over his keyboard. The other chairs—for Estevan, Liu, Shannon … Hillis—were empty.

Clio sat at the crew conference table with Meng, staring at the one-handed shuffle.

“You folks are a lot of laughs,” Meng said, “but you’re just a few plates short of a picnic.”

“Why don’t you play with yourself, Meng, and we’ll just watch,” Clio said. Meng had been egging her on ever since Captain Russo and Commander Shaw left the crew cabin.
Meng. Miss Chameleon, Miss Main Chance. Watches who’s winning and then chooses sides
.

“Nasty, nasty,” she said. Meng laid down a row of cards. “Could have been a royal flush, except for the eight.” She flicked her eyes up at Zee. “Science never sleeps. Guess you missed your astronomy down there with all those bugs and guns, hey Zee?”

Clio started to respond, got interrupted.

“Yes, I really did,” Zee said, not turning around. “Clear, rational science. I feel like I’m in heaven. Not a plant in sight, and the stars at my fingertips.”

A smile curled at the side of Meng’s mouth. “Yes, rational science. It sure got us out of a jam down there.”

Over Zee’s head. Clio felt her face frozen into a
smirk as she struggled to keep from shoving the cards into Meng’s face.

Captain Russo had been on the flight deck for over an hour, conferencing with Shaw, after grueling individual sessions with Clio, Estevan, Zee, and Meng.

Clio had told the truth about the mutiny, withholding her personal story, her family’s story, and the matter of the overgrown crashed ship, the Niang fatal flaw. Meng, no doubt, had told her own side of it, making Clio out as an unstable, hysterical female, the bringer of doom. One moment charming and flirtatious, the next moment rampaging through camp with gun drawn.

She wondered if Meng had ever intended to play Eve to Posie’s Adam. And if she did, she would never forget that it was Clio who expelled them from the garden. For her own part, Clio trusted Meng like she would a shark in home waters.

“Who knows, maybe we’ll get a bonus,” Meng was saying. “Despite everything, we got a haul. Looks like the best stuff ever. Maybe it was worth a few lives.”

Clio was across the table before Meng could snap down the card in her hand. “I’m gonna break your other arm, you slimeball. Which way you want it pointing?” She had grabbed Meng’s arm behind her back and forced her down to the floor on her knees. Zee flew out of his chair and yanked Clio off Meng, hauling her upright. Meng was huddled on the floor.

“Holy smoke,” Zee said, “take it easy. Haven’t we had enough fighting?”

Clio pulled away from Zee and crouched down by Meng again, grabbing her gently by the collar. “I’m only going to say this once, Meng. My best friend died down there. Shannon and Posie are dead. All murdered by the men you were sucking up to. So you got to figure some of them might still be alive if it wasn’t for you, if you’d worked with us to bring the mission home instead of wagging your ass at the quarterback. So if you don’t go to jail, it’s going to be a gross miscarriage of justice, and I’ll personally see to it that something really bad happens to you.
Like breaking your fingers so you’ll have to use your teeth to shuffle the goddamn cards. You understand me?”

“Get out of my face.” Meng’s eyes were as bland as eggs.

Clio released her, stood up. Zee put his arm around Clio’s shoulder. “Let’s go get something to eat.”

“What about your experiment?”

“Fuck science.”

Clio laughed out loud, grabbed his arm, hugging it as they made their way through the galley hatch. “Don’t ever say that, Zee. You don’t have to say that for me.”

He shrugged. “It was easy.”

They had just filled their cups with galley coffee when Shaw came down the hatch ladder.

“You, Finn,” he said, “captain wants to see you, top deck.” Shaw narrowed his eyes when he spoke to her, as though trying to squeeze belief, or clarity, or something from his picture of her. Something that would explain what happened, how men lose their wits and hunt each other down and the women are possibly both the cause and the victims. How Clio’s story could possibly be the only rational story, and the worst story at the same time.