Edge World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 14) Read online

  Galina wasn’t listening to him. I could have told him that. She was in one of her strange, scary moods. Her eyes darted this way and that, and I knew she was having a whole lot of dark thoughts all at once.

  “Uh… Tribune?” I asked, becoming concerned.

  In the meantime, Bevan approached us and began to make his ill-fated pitch. “We must study this. It’s such an amazing opportunity. Imagine! We’ll rewrite all of Earth’s history. We’ll see the past in an all-new way. We weren’t just annexed by the Galactics, we were part of the Empire from the beginning. I’m sure they never thought we were significant enough to bother with until we developed advanced tech of our own, but—”

  Galina stepped toward him suddenly. Her finger came up, and she pointed it at his nose. “Do you know what you are, Bevan?”

  “Um… I like to think of myself as a man of science. Sure, I’m not the greatest mind to walk the Earth—or even the Moon, but—”

  Her finger began to wag. “Wrong. You’re what people call a loose end. A frayed bit of thread that can’t be allowed to unravel everything else.”

  “Huh?”

  Galina turned to me. She glanced down at my sidearm. “Do it.”

  Our eyes met, and I blinked in surprise.

  “Aw now, come on, sir. He’s the nicest hog I’ve met in a decade. Let me just explain things to him.”

  “You’ve gone soft, McGill. I’m disgusted.”

  So saying, Galina took my pistol out of my holster—I could have stopped her, but she was my commanding officer after all—and she aimed it at Bevan.

  Shocked, the slack-jawed hog lifted his hands in the air.

  “Put your hands down, you idiot!” Galina told him.

  He did so, looking around in bewilderment. “Sir, if I—”

  “Shut up. Take that drill from the ground—yes, that one. Hand it to me.”

  Galina took the drill, and she put it to her knee. She buzzed it for a few seconds. The spot on her tough spacer suit was torn through. The diamond bit had done its work. She handed the drill to Bevan and put that free hand on the leaking hole.

  “It’s frigging freezing,” she complained.

  “Look, sir,” Bevan said. “I don’t know if you’re feeling well, but that was self-injury. You’ll have to take that to the medical people upstairs—and you might want to take a sedative, or something.”

  “What? Do you think I have PMS? You’re an even bigger fool than I thought.”

  “Galina, come on,” I said, trying again. “Cut him a break. You hired him, after all.”

  “Yes, and that was a huge error. I can’t fix it the easy way. Not now, McGill. This genie is going to be stuffed back into its bottle—with or without Veteran Bevan’s help.”

  Then, she lifted her gun toward the hog again. “Step closer to me,” she said. “Take my weapon. Go on—take it!”

  I could have told him to run, but it probably wouldn’t have mattered. Bevan reached out a shaking glove—and Galina shot him in the faceplate. His helmet vented and bubbled redly. Exposed to the frozen airless void inside the chamber, his blood began to boil before he hit the deck.

  I put my hands on my knees and bent over him. “Bevan? You dead yet? Wave a finger or something if you’re in pain—I’ll finish you off.”

  Bevan didn’t do or say anything intelligible. He sort of curled up and shivered a little.

  “That was plain mean, Galina.”

  “Shut up. It was necessary. Rest assured, I’m not going to blame you this time. I take full responsibility for this fuck-up, McGill.”

  “Well… that’s a nice change.”

  Nodding, Galina turned to address the scientists. “Call security. This man attempted to assault me. He’s an assassin, I suspect. See? Look at my leg. I might have asphyxiated.”

  I sighed. Her lies were often like that, ham-handed and over the top. As a near professional liar, I found her amateur efforts embarrassing at times.

  But she stuck with it. She had turned off her suit audio, but she played the video to some goons sent down from the upper decks. They looked baffled, but her rank saw her through. I probably wouldn’t have gotten away with this kind of blatant bullshitting—but she did.

  Once Bevan had been properly disposed of, Galina demanded that the crews cover up what they’d found. They did so in a dazed fashion.

  Following her and fretting, I left the chamber at the bottom of the Moon crater. I felt kind of bad about Bevan, to tell the truth. Sure, he was a hog and he therefore served Hegemony and all—but his heart hadn’t been in it. That had been clear from the start.

  -8-

  “I tell you, that killing just didn’t seem right to me, sir.”

  “You big hypocritical baby. You kill people all the time—especially hogs. Often, you do it just for fun.”

  “Well… yeah. But Bevan was different. He’s never going to understand why you did that to him.”

  Galina laughed. It was an evil sound. Right away, my radar went up. I got the feeling her dark plans hadn’t yet fully played out.

  “You’re right, McGill,” she said. “He’s never going to understand what happened to him—his data, in fact, is going to be tragically lost.”

  I got up, and I grabbed her arms. Surprisingly, she didn’t start sputtering and hissing threats. She looked kind of turned on, in fact.

  “Get out of that stupid suit,” she said.

  She unzipped hers, and I watched as she did it. Galina Turov was a startling woman. She often blew hot and cold, like a Spring day in Denver. She was pretty, too. Really pretty. Every time she got a wrinkle or something, she got herself killed and revived young again. In all likelihood, she was the best damned looking woman I’d ever been with.

  “Uh…” I said, eyeing her as more and more undergarments and finally skin was revealed.

  She was turned on, I realized. She’d killed a guy, and she figured she’d solved a big problem at the same time. When I grabbed her she’d interpreted it as a sign that I was thinking the same way.

  Now, I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a proud man when it comes to taking advantage of a lady’s good mood. Over the decades, I’d come to understand a fella had to move when the girl was in the right mental zone—but this was just too much.

  I let go of her and straightened. I turned away from her.

  “What’s this?” Galina asked, circling around to face me again. “Are you having some kind of breakdown?”

  “It’s just not right. You’re talking about perming Bevan, aren’t you?”

  She shrugged. “Probably not… I’ll just have his data lost for a month or two. When he comes back, he’ll be back pushing a mop around Central somewhere. I’ll have someone edit his files, deleting everything recent.”

  I sighed. I knew she could do what she was talking about. That was wrong, sure, but it wasn’t as bad as perming the poor little hog.

  “Are you feeling better now?” she asked. “Now that you know I’m not going to perm your little pet?”

  “Yeah… you promise?”

  She looked furtive for a moment, then shrugged. “Will it improve your mood?”

  “Sure will.”

  “Okay then, I promise.”

  I gave her a half-smile, and I let her paw at me again for a minute. Finally, after putting on a show of being sulky, which seemed to drive her half-crazy, I grabbed her and gave her what she wanted. When it was over, we lingered, embracing and sharing beads of sweat.

  “It’s been a long time,” she said. “Are you glad to be with me again?”

  “Kinda.”

  “Oh for God’s sake, stop moping.”

  She climbed off me and showered. I didn’t join her, as there wasn’t room for two—but I watched her. I had to admit, she could put on a great show in a showering tube if she wanted to.

  When she climbed out, I took my shower, and she began talking a mile a minute.

  “Killing Bevan isn’t the end of it. We’ll have to come up with
a good way of getting Floramel and her crew off this rock. Have you got any ideas as to how to manage it?”

  “Why not just shoot her, too?”

  Galina snorted at me, pulling a bra up from the floor and over her hips. I was never sure how or why women did that.

  “That would be hard to explain,” she said. “We’ll have to do something less direct.”

  “We? What do I have to do with this?”

  “Well… Etta is here. She’s part of the team. Don’t you want to be involved?”

  A dark look came over my features. I didn’t answer her right away. She was turned away from me at that moment, fussing with her shoes. I took that opportunity to step out of the shower tube and stand over her, warm water running off my lengthy person.

  I put a heavy, drippy hand on her shoulder. She startled and turned around. She caught the look in my eye—and she froze.

  “I didn’t mean anything by that,” she said, almost whispering.

  Galina knew me well. She was a stone-cold killer—but so was I. When a person—any person—whispered a threat concerning my family, well sir, their lives weren’t worth spit. And Galina knew that.

  “I didn’t mean anything, James. Get ahold of yourself.”

  I sucked in a breath, and I nodded. Then I faked a smile, for good measure. My hand lifted off her shoulder, which was wet after my touch.

  “Of course you didn’t,” I said in a mild tone. “Have you got another towel handy?”

  A few minutes later we were hopping down the passageways of the Moon base. I’d given Galina my best suggestion—she hadn’t liked it, but she’d understood right off it was her best shot.

  We moved to where Etta was setting up the miniaturized casting device. She told us Floramel wasn’t there. She’d gone to the LIDAR room.

  Frowning, we made our way to the science center. Floramel was indeed there, working on the equipment.

  Modern LIDAR was an amazing technology. It was most often used these days to mine for minerals or find archeological sites on distant worlds. Today, it was operating in a new capacity.

  “There you are,” Floramel said when we entered. “Etta said you were looking for me. I hope I’m not about to have a startling accident.”

  Galina narrowed her eyes like a cat when you flick its ears.

  In truth, the remark had surprised me as well. Floramel wasn’t like she used to be. She wasn’t as innocent about the dark ways of Earthlings. She obviously suspected what had happened to Bevan wasn’t entirely straightforward.

  “I only defend myself when I’m attacked,” Galina said.

  “Of course, Tribune. What can I help you with?”

  Turov ran her eyes over the LIDAR equipment. “What are you doing in here?”

  Floramel turned back toward the glowing screens. “It’s quite surprising, but the science crew here has focused primarily on the crater walls—did you know that?”

  “No, but it makes sense.”

  “Yes, to a degree. The crater walls are already disrupted, they’re easy to dig into and full of water and minerals…”

  “What is your point, Floramel?”

  “My point is they never dug down into the depths of this crater—they’ve never focused all their beams downward to do a full scan of what’s underneath this base.”

  “Are you doing that now?” Galina asked in a falsely sweet voice.

  “Yes. My team has discovered that you’ve ordered the excavation work filled in. We’re naturally curious about mysteries, so we decided to take a look at what we were missing. Do you know what we found? What our scanners have revealed?”

  Galina compressed her lips. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  “Look here.”

  Floramel swept a long arm toward the monitors, and our eyes followed the gesture. A blue, white and gray scan began to scroll by. There were lumps, a lot of them. They were shaped into rounded modules.

  “Looks like eggs in an egg-carton,” I said, staring at the image and scratching my chin.

  “Well said, James,” Floramel said. “We believe these are ancient bodies.”

  “Uh… what kind of bodies?”

  “Not of men, clearly. See the spherical trunk, the numerous limbs?”

  I squinted. I’d seen X-rays and the like before. They were always hard to make out for me.

  “They’re not men?” Galina asked. “What are they?”

  Floramel turned slowly toward us. She had a device in her hand.

  Instantly, Galina bared her teeth in rage. “That’s a deep-link pick-up! Who are you spying for?”

  Floramel pretended to be startled by the object in her hand. “Oh, so it is. I’ve been using this to transcribe all my findings. Everyone in the labs down at Central is very curious about the anomalies you’ve discovered on the Moon.”

  Galina’s hand strayed to her gun again. I reached out a seemingly gentle hand and clamped onto her wrist. She couldn’t draw her gun if she’d tried.

  “Just tell us what they are, Floramel,” I said.

  She nodded, and she pointed back to the scans. “Six limbs. All with similar appendages. One bulbous body, with an equally bulbous head on top. These beings were soft, but they were also agile and intelligent.”

  “Wait a second,” I said, staring. “You’re not serious?”

  “What, what?” Galina demanded in frustration.

  I turned to her. “She’s saying they’re Mogwa. She’s found a vast burial ground of Mogwa—dead soldiers, probably.”

  “That’s exactly right, James,” Floramel said, flashing me a smile. “Everyone down at the labs in Central is buzzing about this discovery.”

  -9-

  “That giraffe-necked bitch!” Galina complained as we left the LIDAR center. “I should have gotten rid of her when I had the chance. How did I ever let you convince me to bring her back to life last year?”

  “Uh…”

  Galina stopped suddenly, and she whirled to face me. Her head was full of evil thoughts, I could tell. “She did something like this to you back then, didn’t she? Something pissy and superior—no wonder you clubbed her to death.”

  “Clubbed? Look, Galina, I never—”

  “Okay, okay. You threw a punch, maybe, and fractured her skull by accident—whatever. I don’t want to hear about it. But I will say, after today, I can understand how you could have been brought to such a point of rage.”

  I rolled my eyes, deciding it was best just to change the topic. The truth was Etta had murdered Floramel, not me. I’d been universally blamed by everyone involved, however, partly because I’d never offered a good explanation. It was just one of those things parents got caught up in to protect their kids sometimes.

  “She’s planned it all carefully,” Galina went on, half talking to herself. “Sure, I could have her killed in a dozen ways—but it wouldn’t change the situation. She’s alerted Central, and those lab-rat nerds will be frothing to come up here and investigate what we’ve found.”

  “Yeah… but aren’t you the least bit curious yourself? I mean, a Skay ship and graveyard full of Mogwa? It’s quite a story.”

  “It’s a nightmare. A worst-case scenario for all of us.”

  “How so?”

  “James, I know your brain doesn’t always work right. But just try this one time, okay? Lay out for me what’s likely to happen over the next month or two.”

  “Uh… more scientists will come up here from Central?”

  “Right, good. Keep going. I’ll ready a fire-extinguisher in case your head begins smoking.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. They’ll poke around, dig down to the Mogwa graveyard, maybe. They’ll take pictures and samples.”

  “Right, right. And who will they tell about this?”

  “Probably not the news grids. They’ll want to keep it secret. But the Hegemony bigwigs will learn of it.”

  “Of course they will,” she said. “The political animals always sniff out something new. What wi
ll they do?”

  “Uh… they’ll fight over who gets to examine the tech? Become legalistic over who owns what, and what we should tell the Galactics?”

  There, she put her finger up into my face. “There you go. Finally. You have struck upon the problem.”

  “Huh…? What do we care who wins a turf war over a bunch of fossils?”

  “No, you idiot! They’ll tell the Mogwa! Someone will do it. Just as your stork-like ex-girlfriend blabbed to Central today, they’ll tell others—nonhumans, I mean.”

  “Oh… I suppose that could happen. So what?”

  “So… Imagine this, a long lost expedition of heroes has been discovered on Earth’s back porch. The Skay seem to have been here, at war with Mogwa. What will happen if this news makes it to Trantor?”

  “Hmm… they’ll probably send out a delegation—of Nairbs.”

  “Exactly. And what will the Nairbs think of all this?”

  “It will be some kind of violation. Some kind of permit will be missing, or maybe there will be salvage laws involved…”

  My faced changed as I considered it. The Nairbs were a race of bureaucrats that served the Galactics. They were overzealous in every respect. No violation, technicality or harmless accident was too small to be blown out of proportion by them.

  “They’ll climb all over us and blame us for something…”

  “Yes! Now you know why I shot Bevan.”

  To my surprise, I found myself nodding and following after that nasty little woman. I didn’t like her methods, but she wasn’t crazy like most people thought. She was crazy like a fox—a murderous she-fox, that is.

  “What are we going to do now, Galina?”

  She chewed on her lower lip. “I don’t know yet. It might be that there’s nothing we can do. This disaster might be something that can’t be controlled.”

  “Uh… there’s something else,” I said.

  “What?”

  I showed her my tapper, which was buzzing in vibrate mode. There was an incoming message there from Floramel.

  “A booty call?” Galina exclaimed, grabbing my arms with claw-like fingers. “I’ll kill her. It’s not even noon yet.”