Jeannie Holmes - The Mammoth Book of Futuristic Romance

She looked up automatically when a tone sounded above her. Miflin crawled through the doorway just as the transport’s captain came over the com. “Captain Tyler? We just entered the wormhole. You’ll have about five hours to stretch, talk and get something to eat before we enter the Polaris system. You’re free to turn on the signal jammer. I’d rather not hear the details about why you’re here. Bridge out.”

“Well, at least he’s honest.” Rand shrugged one shoulder as best he could, and started to crawl backwards. “Let’s get out of here into the main hold.”

El pressed a button on the console before taking off her helmet and crawling out of her seat. One foot was completely numb. Even the pressure suits weren’t enough to keep the blood flowing to all her limbs.

At least Javelins had the advantage of mostly using hand controls. The only problem would be if they crashed. After a dozen more hours in the cockpit she didn’t know if she’d be able to walk away. A beep sounded, indicating the signal jammer had finished its search of all available wavelengths, and had implemented a countersignal. They could now talk without being overheard.

She stepped down the gangplank to the overwhelming smell of wheat. When they’d arrived on the transport she’d closed her eyes and imagined she was back in Kansas, standing in her father’s wheat field right at harvest. There was nothing quite like the scent of fresh-cut wheat. Her father had told her stories about wheat grown under blue skies and sunshine, instead of underground in hermetically controlled hydroponic farms housed in towering salt caverns. Maybe one day she’d have her own farm. Once the planet belonged to the humans again.

“You’ve got your eyes closed again. Thinking about a better place to be?” She opened them. Rand was sprawled on a beach lounger, eating a steaming ration of what smelled like beef stew.

“This bubble makes me nervous. There’s more than a hundred tons of wheat surrounding us, held back by nothing but a thin sheet of plastic. One nick and we could be crushed.” El shivered.

He looked up and around and then shrugged. “Then I wouldn’t run with scissors.” She felt her frown deepen when he smiled broadly; that damned infectious smile. He motioned to another antique metal-and-

fabric lounger, folded up and leaning against the Javelin. “Pull up a chair and have some dinner. You got the Chicken à la King, and you’ll be happy to know that no chickens were harmed in the making of the dish. Yum.”

He really had pulled out a ration and started the heater inside. But as hungry as she was, she couldn’t help but distrust him.

He noticed her staring with suspicion at the innocuous brown bag, and let out a small noise. “No, I didn’t poison it. I’ll trade if it’ll make you happier.”

She stared him down for a long moment. “Yeah, actually, it would.” She held out her hand for the beef stew. “I’ll take yours.”

It took him aback. His sapphire-blue eyes showed honest shock. “Wow. You really don’t trust me. I thought you were just objecting to the commander because you were afraid of being alone with me. You know, the whole sexual thing we’ve got going on.”

She felt her face settle into a sneer and couldn’t seem to stop it. “What thing ? Why in the world would I be afraid of you? Besides your obvious odors, that is. I really don’t trust you.” It was such a reflex to deny it. She’d done it the last time they’d met, too.

What was wrong with admitting she was attracted? But no. There were too many good reasons not to get involved with someone like Rand Miflin. He was a criminal. There was no getting around that he didn’t think the rules applied to him. People like him didn’t change their basic nature. Sure, he was charismatic, and he even might believe he was being loyal, but there had to be something in this for him, and that made him dangerous. “Now, are you going to give me the stew, or do you want to admit you’re trying to sabotage this mission?”

He shook his head and straddled the lounger. “From making you dinner to a Stovian saboteur in less than a minute. Screw this.” Dumping the plastimetal fork into the bag, he tossed the meal at her hard. She barely managed to avoid wearing the stew, but tried to school her features so that she didn’t look as embarrassed as she felt. He stood up and stalked to the top of the gangplank.

“Don’t you want the chicken?” She didn’t move from where she stood. She wasn’t positive he was above punching her.

“Why would I? It’s poisoned, right? I’m going to go inside and try to get some sleep. Shame there’s only room for one to do that without using a zero-g bag. You can stay out here with the wheat.” Before she could react, he pushed the code in the wall and the door slammed shut.

Terrific. Just her, a half-container of stew and a hundred tons of wheat. The moment she thought it, the transport made a course correction. The bubble bulged on one side and the top pressed inward until it was nearly touching the ship. Oh, not good.

But there was no way she was going to give in to her fear. The ship would actually withstand the weight of the wheat. It was the lack of air that would kill them if the bubble broke. She opened the one-

way vents on her suit that sucked in oxygen to special bladder compartments. If the bubble failed, she’d at least have a day’s worth of air to give the crew time to dig her out.

El moved the lounger until it was underneath the turanium gangplank, and pulled from a leg pocket the ancient device with the mission details. It would take forever to load. She took a bite of beef stew and grimaced. Probably no cows were harmed either.

A flash of credits appeared on the screen, a melding of a hundred long-defunct company logos in miniature, merged into one larger logo. Who would have thought old analog technology would completely befuddle the best encryption breakers of the Stovian high command? Bits and bytes, competing proprietary codes – hiding things in plain sight. It had been brilliant of the resistance to teach pilots a slew of early proprietary computer language. Xerox, Savin, Altos, Silex and a dozen others. Sort of like twentieth-century pilots learning Morse code.

She was going over the known maps of Stovia for the tenth time when she heard the door above her whoosh open and heavy boots take a few steps. “You really going to stay out here the whole time? I figured you’d be banging on the door to come in long before now.”

El turned off the viewing pad and crawled out from under the gangplank to stretch. “You figured wrong.

I need to learn these maps backward and forward in the time we’ve got. It doesn’t matter whether that happens inside or outside the ship.”

That seemed to interest him. “So you weren’t scared? Not worried you’d be suffocated by the wheat?”

She couldn’t help but shrug as she dragged the lounger out from underneath the plank and folded it.

“Every second of every day I might die. Why be more scared of one thing over another? I took the precautions I could.” When Rand raised his brows, seeming to question her, she elaborated. “Being under the gangplank would give me a few seconds of shelter to put in my breathing tube and turn on my distress beacon. I’ve already stored up about a day’s worth of air in the suit, which also gives me some crush protection. That’s as good a chance as I’d have in the ship.”

He was leaning against the doorway, just watching. She could feel his eyes on her, looking her up and down. It was as though his gaze was hands, flowing over her skin, making her shiver. Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore and glanced at him. He pursed his lips and nodded. “Clever. I wondered what the suit was about – other than to hide your figure. Pity. It’s a hell of a figure.”