The Outback Stars

CHAPTER


THIRTY-ONE





E

verything was arranged in short order. “My launch will take you down to Waipata,” Ganambarr said. “I was expected to travel on it, but I’ll go down with the rest of the colony in the tower. This diplomatic visa will allow you to bypass Customs and Immigration, and then you’ll be free to begin your search.”



“Are you sure you’re up to it, Terry?” Chaplain Mow asked, having been summoned to Ganambarr’s suite as soon as Myell showed up, sweating and shaking, on the doorstep.




“No problem.” Myell was sitting on the sofa because his legs felt rubbery after the walk over, and he wasn’t sure they could support him much longer. He fumbled for the ouroboros pendant that had been in his mother’s jewelry box. “Can I ask you one last thing? Have you ever seen this before?”



Ganambarr examined it carefully. “The craftsmanship is very good. I don’t know who made it, or who it belonged to.” He gazed at the map of Old Australia. “We’ve lost so much, you know. From the time the Europeans first sent their convicts, through the systematic trampling of rights under so-called modern law, to the Debasement. The sons and daughters of the land left it, sometimes against their will, sometimes by choice. What is a land without its children, Sergeant? What is a land with no one left to respect it?”



Myell didn’t know how to respond. Chaplain Mow cleared her throat. Ganambarr shook himself from a reverie and said, “The launch is waiting. You should hurry.” He gave the pendant back. “Hold it tight, and perhaps you’ll find your answer someday.”



“Yes, sir. Thank you for all of your assistance.”



Myell had asked Gallivan and Timrin to stay out in the passage to keep them from being implicated in his crimes. They were still wait-ing for him, heads bowed low in conversation, when he emerged from Ganambarr’s quarters.



“Don’t ask,” Myell said. “If you don’t know, you can’t be charged with anything.”



“F*ck them,” Gallivan said. “What can they do? Keep me in Team Space against my will?”



“They could,” Myell said. “It’s called administrative hold. And you, Mick, could jeopardize your pension. Thanks for your help. I’ll take it from here.”



Timrin scratched his jaw. “I don’t like it.”



Myell squeezed his shoulder. “I know.” To Gallivan he said, “Take care of yourself.”



Gallivan said, “The same to you. And good luck with your lieu-tenant.”



His lieutenant. No, not his anymore. In Ganambarr’s launch Myell curled up in a seat, pulled his civilian jacket tighter, and watched the Aral Sea recede in the vidscreen. The radiation sickness was still with him, making his bones watery and his muscles ache, but the worst was past. He fell asleep and woke when they touched down. Koo, nestled inside his shirt pocket, poked her head out in interest.



“The governor asked me to give you this,” the pilot said, and handed over a package full of paperwork and yuros. “Said you’d be needing it.”



As promised, the visa got him past the all counters and clerks without even having to log his DNA. The Waipata terminal, a sprawl-ing complex that linked air, sea, space, and rail transportation, was so busy that he began to feel dizzy under the onslaught of voices, music, advertisements, and announcements. The Corroboree and the World Cup had brought an influx of extra visitors, many of whom were headed for the Wondjina Spheres to the north. He stood, momentarily overwhelmed, wondering how he was possibly going to find Chiba and the others while avoiding the Shore Patrol, who would surely be searching for him soon.



He knew one way. It was a beginning point where he had none, a resource that Chiba and Quenger didn’t have. To use it he only had to put aside a lifetime of humiliation and trust Colby, who was so many light-years away. He had to recognize the person he’d once been, and keep that person from coming into existence again.



The alternative was letting Chiba and Quenger get away with it all, in which case he might as well have remained on the Aral Sea and en-dured Jodenny’s scorn.



Didn’t mean he had to like it. Didn’t mean he could quell the but-terflies in his stomach, or maybe that was just the radiation sickness again.



Myell checked the map kiosk, took an escalator down two levels, and rode a people-mover for several minutes. When he was far from the space gates he located a public comm and asked for city informa-tion. The address he wanted was unlisted. He ran another query, rode the people-mover to yet another terminal, located an employee entrance for the port workers, and went inside. A shift manager took his request and told him to wait.



He waited with his hands in his pockets and Koo resting her little weight against his heart. After a few minutes a thin man in faded overalls approached. He was older than Myell expected, his complex-ion weathered by hard living and the strength of Warramala’s sun, but his features hadn’t changed at all over the course of a decade. What did surprise him was his brother’s height. Ever since leaving Baiame he’d remembered him as a giant, but now he seemed only a centimeter or two taller than Myell.



“Terry,” the man said.



“Daris.”



“I didn’t think—” A mixture of regret and guilt crossed Daris’s face. “I didn’t think you’d want to ever see me again.”



“I didn’t come so you could make amends.” Myell made sure every word was hard and tight. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say about the past. All I want is to find some people. Can you help, or should I leave?”



Daris’s cheeks reddened and he ducked his head. “I’ll try.”



“I’m looking for Chief Petty Officer Massimo Chiba, Lieutenant David Quenger, and Lieutenant Commander Samuel Osherman, all from the Aral Sea. They would have arrived here on the first shuttle yesterday. I need to know where they went or where they are now.”



Daris nodded. “Sit down in the lounge there. It may take a bit.”



Anger surged through him—he sure as hell didn’t take orders from Daris—but just as quickly the hot spark faded, and Myell sat down on a lumpy red sofa. He rubbed his face with his hands and ignored the fear that the Shore Patrol was closing in on him as he waited. He helped himself to a cup of bland-tasting coffee as a few minutes turned into a half hour. Koo wriggled in his pocket and he took her outside into the thick Waipata afternoon.



“I think this is where you and I part company.” He put her down at the base of a shrub. “Things might get hairy from here on in.”



She gazed at him, flicked her tail, and darted off.



“You don’t have to be so sentimental,” Myell called after her.



Back in the lounge, a half hour turned into an hour and then ninety minutes. He went outside a few times but Koo didn’t return. Myell tried some snacks from the machine, but they tasted oily and his stomach threatened another revolt. Employees came and went, bitching about their jobs and coworkers. Myell was thinking about leaving when Daris returned and said, “Two of them bought tickets to Port Douglas and flew up last night. Nothing up there but the Corroboree. The other one, Osherman, I don’t know, is probably still in the city. He didn’t leave this terminal under his own name, at any rate.”



Myell rose. “That’s all I needed to know.”



Daris caught his arm. Myell jerked free and almost swung out, but Daris backed away.



“Sorry.” Daris held up both hands. “But don’t leave. While I was pulling the info up, your name flashed across the security list. The Shore Patrol, terminal guards, and Waipata City Police are all looking for you. They’ll catch you if you’re on the streets. Stay the night and I’ll try to get you some credentials.”




Myell eyed him warily. “Stay where?”



“I have an apartment.”



No. He wouldn’t put himself in that kind of position. Just being in the same room as Daris made him feel jittery, like a small electric shock was being run through him from scalp to toes.



“I have a friend,” Daris said. “He does good work, fast. You’ll need ID.”



Myell stared past Daris to a bulletin board full of handwritten announcements. Transportation for sale. Someone looking for a room-mate. Common sense warred with ingrained fear. Yet he was no longer a child, unable to fend for himself.



“I can help,” Daris said, more softly. He looked broken, suddenly, and so much like their father that Myell nearly shuddered.



“All right,” Myell said. “Let’s go.”



* * * *



D

aris lived twenty minutes from the terminal. They took a P-train three stops and walked the rest of the way in the thick, swampy air of sunset. Brightly colored parrots flitted from roof to roof above them in a neighborhood that was prefab and bland. At a convenience store they stopped to pick up food and supplies. Daris’s apartment was on the second floor of a corner complex. Just three rooms, neat but impersonal, with stacks of paperbacks piled up in corners and on shelves.



“People leave them,” Daris said. “At the terminal. The cleaners throw them away.”



The sofa was long and hard, but it would do. Daris disappeared into the bathroom and Myell was left only with the hum of the cli-mate control, a little too cold for his taste. He wished he was at Colby’s house instead of this drab apartment. He wished he was any-where else, in fact.



Daris returned. “You want some dinner?”



“No. Why don’t you have a vid?”



“There’s never anything interesting to watch.”



To fill the silence Daris tuned the radio to evening news. Myell leaned back with absolutely no intention of dozing off, but the next thing he knew, Daris was sitting in the side chair, reading a flattened book while tearing at the crusts of a tomato sandwich. The quirk was as familiar to Myell as his own hands.



“Want a sandwich?” Daris asked.



“No,” Myell said. “Are you going to ask why the Shore Patrol is af-ter me?”



“No.”



“You’re not curious?”



“I’m curious,” Daris said, not meeting his gaze. “But it’s none of my business.”



Damn straight. The old Daris would have demanded every detail, voiced unsolicited and wrongheaded suggestions, and insulted him for getting into such a predicament.



“My friend Lem will be by in an hour or so,” Daris said. “He’ll want at least a thousand yuros. If you don’t have the money, I could get it on credit.”



“Why would you do that?”



“Because,” Daris replied, with a shrug.



Myell tried half a sandwich, but the tomatoes tasted metallic. He forced down some soy milk instead. Had to keep his strength up, at least until he found Chiba. In the bathroom he pulled out the coloring kit he’d bought at the store and dyed his hair blond. He had just fin-ished when Lem, a stooped man with corkscrew black curls, dropped by as promised with a bag full of equipment. He set his gear up on the coffee table.



“Just for you?” Lem asked.



Myell thought hard. “Can you make one up for a woman I know?”



“You got her picture?”



He didn’t, but he knew there were public vids of her from the Yangtze disaster.



“Easy enough.” Lem pulled down Jodenny’s picture in seconds.

“Same last name, how’s that? You just got married.”



The two IDs cost him much of Ganambarr’s money, but the job was done within minutes. Lem took off into the night. Daris pulled some sheets and a blanket from the closet and said, “I usually turn in early. You take the bedroom, and I’ll take the sofa.”



“Why?”



“So you can lock the door,” Daris said.



“Your front door doesn’t lock?” Myell asked, perplexed. Then he caught on. “Oh. Do I need to?”



Daris locked gazes with him.



“No. I’ll never raise my hand to you again, Terry. If I do, God or you or anyone can strike me dead.”



Myell heard the conviction in that promise, understood that this was the closest Daris was going to get to an apology, and knew that Chaplain Mow would urge him to accept, forgive, and move forward.



“Fine,” Myell said. “I’ll take the bedroom.”



He did, in fact, lock the door. Just because he could. Myell didn’t like the idea of sleeping on Daris’s bed and so he spread the blankets on the floor and stared at the dark ceiling. He heard nothing from the other apartments, no music or conversation or arguments. He curled up on his side, the blankets tight around his shoulders, the fake iden-tity cards heavy in his pocket. In the morning he would go back to the terminal, find a flight up to Port Douglas, somehow find Chiba, resolve everything.



Not everything, perhaps. Not his relationship with Daris, sound asleep in the other room. That was a knot too twisted to be worked out in one night. Still awake at midnight, he went out to the living room. Daris was sitting by a light with a book, but he didn’t look as if he’d been reading it.



“Say you’re sorry,” Myell said, “and mean it.”



“I’m sorry.”



“What for?”



Daris didn’t flinch. “For hitting you. For belittling and humiliating you. For being an a*shole of a brother, day in and day out. For ruin-ing everything. For not being a man when Mom died and Dad started drinking.”



Myell replied, “You were only fifteen when she died. That wasn’t your fault.”



“The rest of it was.”



In the dark apartment, with only the whisper of the climate con-trol vents to fill the air, Myell felt something soothe over the raw, scraped feeling he’d been carrying with him for so long.



“Can you forgive me?” Daris asked.



“I’ll think about it,” Myell replied.



* * * *