Greenshift Read online

  So much of life and the world seemed new and fascinating to Mari. She was a born scientist, contemplating the little intricacies that David never stopped to think about. He could listen to the sound of her voice all night. Its rich tone was soft and feminine like her. Of course, it sounded more like a girl’s voice than a woman’s, especially when she was excited, but Mari was only nineteen. The thought brought a little weight to his lightness, making him ask, what am I doing?

  His attraction to Mari unsettled him, not necessarily just because of their age difference—Armadan men usually didn’t settle down until after their fleet service and therefore had to seek out younger amours, though maybe not forty years younger—rather, David feared his captivation with Mari might be a substitute for the Argo Protector, the battleship he’d captained for the past decade. An outsider would say so because of David’s unplanned retirement, but he remained unconvinced. He genuinely enjoyed being around Mari and not just because she dressed so provocatively and had the little body to back it up. The slinky dress that skimmed the top of her thighs, and had no back to speak of, was a perfect example.

  He’d had his share of women over the years, mostly battle maidens, a few Socialites like Mari, but he hadn’t considered really getting to know much about any of them.

  Lyra was the closest.

  Then she betrayed him, though betrayed probably wasn’t harsh enough for a woman who staged a munity on his ship. The fleet eventually released her of all culpability for reasons David was never privy to—a double betrayal.

  Lyra was the reason he left the fleet, his duty, and the only life he’d known. Perhaps that was really why David was drawn to Mari—she was nothing like Lyra Simpra. He’d decide later if that was a good enough reason to become involved with her. Right now he just wanted the warmth to return. He slid his hand across the table to encircle Mari’s. The touch stopped her in mid-sentence and brought her eyes to his.

  The server brought another glass of wine for Mari and a third scotch for David. As he pulled his hand away, Mari grabbed it again and said, “I like you, David.”

  He caught the smile on the server’s face as the man pretended not to listen. Mari’s sudden proclamation and unabashed honesty, even in front of a stranger, made those warm feelings flame a little hotter inside David. They seemed inappropriate for a former fleet officer, but he had never experienced them before, not even with Lyra, and discovered he liked the sensation.

  He waited for the server to depart before responding. “I like you, too.”

  This small admission felt awkward and exposing. He squeezed her hand before letting it go for the safety of his drink.

  “You forgot to say ‘Valhalla!’” She held up her glass.

  David hadn’t expected Mari to know the Armadan funerary toast. “Where did you hear that?”

  “I saw it on a vid. What does it mean?”

  “Actually, I’m not sure of the word’s meaning or origin, only that we normally use it when saying good-bye to fallen comrades.”

  “Oh,” Mari said, lowering her glass a bit.

  “How about ‘to something new’?” He tapped his tumbler against her wine glass. It could have meant Mari’s first time at the Rose of Sharon, but maybe she suspected he toasted to the next step of their relationship. He wanted more than friendship from her, and she was pretty obvious about her intentions toward him, which made her the brave one.

  “Boston Maribu?” A man edged up next to her. His fine features, small frame, and saccharin genteel manner marked him a Socialite. As did the overactive scentbots which smelled like a mixture of musk and smoldering wood. It reminded David of a campfire gone wrong.

  Who told him that would be a good combination? David never did understand the vanity behind scentbots, but admitted he couldn’t imagine Mari without her being awash in citrusy notes.

  “I don’t mean to interrupt.” The look he gave David said he absolutely did mean to interrupt. “But, I can’t believe my luck.”

  “Chairman Zapona, how are you?” Mari sat straighter when she spoke to the man.

  “Dale. Please, after all the time we’ve spent together.”

  “Then you should know to call me Mari,” she said.

  “Of course.”

  Dale took the opportunity to kiss her on the cheek, a gesture much less formal than a peck to the forehead, as was customary in this circumstance, at least as far as David was concerned. He already didn’t like Dale. He liked him even less when the man caressed Mari’s bare shoulder while he spoke.

  “I’m in the market for a hydroponics system. Just purchased another freighter for my mining company. The greenshift has been good for business.” He looked at David from the corner of his eye and gave a little pause.

  “Congratulations?” David dripped a fair amount of sarcasm into his response. He knew very little about the greenshift movement, only that the Embassy decided inter-planetary commerce would benefit from hydroponics upgrades. If a ship didn’t have to stop for supplies so often, like the Bard did, it could be more efficient.

  Dale sniffed. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Dale, this is David Anlow, our ship’s new navigational leader. David, this is Dale Zapona.”

  David gave the chairman a half-nod and received half that in return.

  “It’s good to hear about your new freighter,” Mari said. “Your company is really growing.”

  “More than I could have ever imagined, dear.”

  Now he was calling her dear?

  David missed the next part of the conversation as he contemplated all the things he wanted to call Dale, chairman not making the list. It was only when Dale asked Mari, “Are you still available?” and glanced in David’s direction did their exchange suddenly become more interesting.

  “Yes.” The enthusiastic response brought about an emotion David hadn’t dealt with in years. When she looked at him like he would be pleased by the offer, too, he knew Mari had missed Dale’s innuendo.

  “That’s good news,” Dale said. “Should we meet tomorrow at my home in Wright’s Landing and discuss details?”

  “Sure,” Mari said. “Unless we can’t keep the berth. Do you think there will be a problem rescheduling departure?” she asked David.

  He wanted to say that it was a big problem, that they were already pushing their luck with the dockmaster, plus they’d now be two days later for Geir’s pick up, but David knew he’d already shot down all of these reasons to leave when Sean presented them earlier. It was like his own argument was coming back to bite him.

  “Not a problem at all,” he said.

  “Then see you tomorrow, my dear.” Dale gave Mari another kiss, this one so close to her lips that David’s hand squeezed his glass, ready to smash it into Dale’s artificially perfect nose.

  “Yeah, see you tomorrow,” David said.

  Dale’s smile dissolved as he left.

  Once he was out of earshot, Mari said, “I can’t believe it.” She tapped her blue-tipped fingernails on the table in an excited cadence. “Just when I needed a new client, an old client shows up with a big project. This work could last me the entire year. What an awesome night, don’t you think?”

  “Great night,” he agreed. Or had been.

  He threw back his scotch, letting its odd mix of vanilla and leather burn away the image of Dale standing so close to Mari.

  David remained distracted through dessert. It wasn’t only that he didn’t care for sweets or that Mari talked at length about calibrating hydroponics systems in multiple gravity environments—the technical aspects of which zipped right over David’s head—what bothered David was how a mining company chairman whom Mari hadn’t seen in a year’s time seemed more at ease around her than David did.

  Granted, he and Mari had only met a little more than three weeks ago, but they had spent a lot of time together on the Bard. Every meal, long talks in the elegant common rooms of the former pleasure cruiser, the piloting lessons
on the bridge….

  “Are you going to eat that?” Mari jabbed a fork into the chocolate strawberry layer cake on David’s plate.

  “It’s all yours,” he said, still amazed at how much Socialites enjoyed sugar. It was like a drug to them. Much like how alcohol was to most Armadans. He raised a finger to their server across the room for another double shot while Mari finished his cake. He’d been sharing dessert with her since their first dinner together, which was also his first day on the Bard. She had been aghast that he could let half a slice of buttermilk pie go to waste so made it her mission to take it off his hands. Ever since, he saved all his sweets for her.

  David liked this small part of their history together—what he didn’t like was that she had a history with Dale Zapona.

  “What was it like working with Dale?” David asked, trying to keep his tone nonchalant.

  “Okay. I guess. It was a small project, my first project for hire when I still lived on Deleine.”

  David enjoyed hearing Mari relive this accomplishment. He listened intently to her as he absent-mindedly paid the server and guided Mari onto the boardwalk with a hand on her lower back.

  “Dale offered me a position back then, on one of his freighters, to engineer another hydroponics system. This was before the greenshift movement even. But my family talked me out of it. Said I was too young. I had just turned eighteen so it’s not like I was that young.”

  David looked out over the bay so she couldn’t see the grin forming at the corner of his mouth. He observed this attitude in new fleet recruits all the time—they felt that eighteen, or sixteen, were magic numbers into adulthood. At fifty-nine David still didn’t feel quite like an adult yet. Maybe that attitude was biased, though, considering Mari was out here living life on her own. He’d gotten a ready-made family and career upon entering the fleet in his teens. Mari was doing it all by herself.

  “Anyway, I told Dale I had to pass, cried for a couple of days…” She gave David a quick, embarrassed look as though she hadn’t meant to reveal that part. “Then I took some medical classes, hoping that would make me more employable than my botany specialty.”

  “Did it?” David didn’t know she was a trained medic. For her to have studied everything that she had must have taken all of her childhood. Then again, her mind was incredible. David had always considered himself smart, or at least clever and strategic, but Mari’s knowledge of every subject they discussed amazed him.

  “Not really, but the local mines hired me for a few months as a combination hydroponics specialist-medic.”

  “You don’t find that job description very often,” David mused.

  “On Deleine lots of people do double duty. Maybe because there are more jobs than people willing to move there,” she said, matter-of-factly rather than with resentment. “The mining companies are always trying to keep the work force healthy enough to keep digging. Recently they’ve been investing in ways to grow food underground so the miners can stay down longer and longer. That was actually what prompted the greenshift since the same research could be adapted for spaceships.”

  She paused and looked into the distance for a moment, and David thought he saw a sadness flash across her features. “I don’t know who would want to stay down in those dark and filthy mines for too long, even if it’s just to oversee the equipment.”

  He had heard growing up on Deleine, Upper Caste or not, was tough. No matter where you went on the planet, except maybe the industrialized cities, the economy centered around colossal mining endeavors, and most citizens there derived their income from the mines in one way or another.

  Just when he wanted to ask if she was okay, applause erupted up ahead as three acrobats formed a human tower on top of each other’s shoulders. In perfect Mari style, she shrugged off her solemnness and joined in the cheering. After the trio tumbled back into separate spots, Mari went right onto her next thought.

  “That’s how I got my suite on the Bard. I saved my money for a deposit, bought lab equipment piece by piece, and decided I could be a work-for-hire scientist while seeing the system. And I was still eighteen at the time, so that’s how much my family knew.” Her eyes opened wider and her entire face nearly glowed with pride in the pronouncement.

  “I admire your need for independence,” David said. There was a lot he admired about her.

  A chilled night breeze, laced with music and laughter, blew along the boardwalk as they approached the docks. David welcomed the coolness on his face, but Mari’s slight frame shivered with the ten degree drop in temperature. He wished he’d worn a jacket just so he could make the chivalrous gesture of wrapping it around her.

  “If you’re cold, we can take the ferry back,” he said, glancing toward the string of lights marking the waterway docks.

  “No, I like walking.” She tried to suppress a little chatter to her teeth. “There’s so much to see here, and I like to be right where it’s all happening.”

  He tucked her into his side with an arm around her shoulders, trying to warm her as best as he could. She hugged his waist and leaned her head against his chest. They walked through the buskers and tourists of Shiraz as though being together like this was the most natural of states. Not that being this close to her didn’t make his heart beat a little stronger or his pants fit a little tighter—he’d have to be comatose not to respond to her. Still, he marveled at how right it felt to be with her.

  A traveling drum quartet parading through stopped foot traffic in the middle of the boardwalk. The men and women, dressed in silver with threads of light shimmering along the fabric’s seams, high-stepped while pounding on all sizes and shapes of percussion instruments hanging from harnesses on their shoulders.

  As the performers danced past, David watched the delight shining in Mari’s face. “You’re beautiful.”

  The compliment captured her attention, so he took the opportunity to lean down and kiss her. The wonderful citrusy notes of her scentbots mixed with the sweet smell of chocolate and strawberry layer cake and night-blooming water lilies on the edge of the bay. He moved his mouth over hers gently, testing her reaction. She responded a little shyly, barely parting her lips, but her hand slid up his chest to caress his face.

  The innocence of the moment impacted David more than he expected. The way she slowly explored his mouth, first with her lips, then small darts with the tip of her tongue revealed how much this pleasant action meant to her. His heart pounded faster with the realization. After all these years, all the women he’d touched, none took the time to enjoy a simple kiss as much as Mari did. He, too, had taken the intimacy for granted until this instant.

  The shrill and boom of fireworks filled the night air as if celebrating David and Mari’s moment. He felt Mari smile beneath his lips and opened his eyes to see her peeking up at a golden flower of sparks lighting the blue-black sky above them.

  “Perfect timing,” he said, still pressed against her mouth.

  “Perfect,” was all she said before slipping back into their kiss, not quite as shyly this time.

  Dale called Liu Stavros to confirm his price for a blonde with coral-colored eyes.

  “This girl had the full effect of the vaccine. Though not to my taste, her eyes are certainly unique, even compared to the other two women I procured.”

  “And, she’s blonde, you say?”

  “Sunny blonde with dyed red tips, but that can be cut off if you prefer something more natural.”

  The low laugh which rumbled through Dale’s reporter made his stomach queasy. He knew Liu would want the honor of cutting Mari’s hair himself. And it wouldn’t stop with her red locks. Liu had a sadistic mind that always found new ways to inflict pain upon his conquests.

  Dale tried not to think about the rumors he’d heard regarding Liu’s sport with women. Too many horrible details about the rapes and disfiguring torture. But he couldn’t ignore the memory of seeing one of Liu’s victims for himself. Still bound to the bed, shrieking in her post-coital nakedness, ey
e sockets empty and bloody. That woman had once had coral eyes, too.

  “I’m transmitting a vid of her from earlier tonight.”

  Liu’s sick moan of pleasure made Dale feel a little sorry for Boston Maribu.

  “She’ll cost you double,” Dale said. Hopefully he could make up for recent losses.

  “Happily.”

  That made Dale feel a little less sorry.

  “I’ll have the money transferred into your account once she’s in my possession.”

  Business as usual with Liu.

  “See you soon.”

  As Dale ended his transmission, he thought of how Boston—Mari—had slipped through his fingers last year on Deleine. Her family had been right not to trust him. He wondered if he would have the same problems with the Armadan she was with tonight. If they had a relationship…no, she would have introduced him as her prime or at least as an amour. And, surely any man who was involved with her wouldn’t have stood by while Dale touched and caressed her the way he had. Although David Anlow had regarded him with a certain antagonism, but maybe that was simply the Armadan in him.

  Not that Dale’s interest went further than collecting his finder’s fee on Mari. She was beautiful, yes, even with the exotic eye color, but he couldn’t get past the idea that her genes were somehow polluted. But it was that very adulteration which made Liu willing to pay so high a price for her.

  FIVE

  Apprehension crowded David’s earlier happiness as they drew near the Bard‘s berth. Maybe he wasn’t ready for the others to know about tonight. But how could he tell Mari that without insulting her? He pulled his arm away from her shoulders very delicately and took her small hands in his. “Mari, I think we should keep tonight our secret. I’m afraid the others—”

  “Will ruin it?” she finished.

  He was sure his surprise showed on his face. “So, you think so, too?” For some reason, now that she wanted to keep him a secret, he wanted nothing more than to walk on board and kiss her in full view of anyone who was around, which would probably be no one at this time of night.