/* Big Country "Far From Me to You" _Why the Long Face?_ (1995) */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presents UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES EXILE STAR-CROSSED Part III: Goodyear (Pop. 225) Benjamin D. Hutchins (c) 2010 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2356 UNKNOWN LOCATION_ Gryphon and Tali were a block or so into town when a tall, rawboned, coffee-colored but slightly Asian-looking man came out of one of the buildings a bit further up and walked toward them. He was dressed in ordinary, utilitarian civvies, like the rest of the handful of people they'd seen so far, and had a blaster strapped to his hip, a well-battered campaign hat on his head, and an old-fashioned star-shaped badge pinned to his synleather jacket. "Howdy," he said. "You folks lost?" "You have no idea," said Tali. "We got bounced out of hyperspace a few days ago," said Gryphon, gesturing vaguely back over his shoulder at the gas giant. "Barely got to the ground in one piece." "Oh, that was you? We picked up some chatter about that on the Blue Suns freq. They're not very happy with you." Here it comes, thought Gryphon, but he kept his voice neutral as he replied, "Is that so." "Yeah, it's so." The man grinned. "And that suits me just fine. My name's Scott Chen. I guess you could say I'm the sheriff here. Official title's 'Chief of Colony Security', but you know how it goes. Anyway, we've had a lot of trouble with those bastards, so anybody who puts their nose out of joint is okay by me." He offered a hand. "Welcome to Goodyear." Gryphon shook it. "Dan Harris," he said. "This is Tali." "Tali'Shukra nar Kythera," Tali filled in. "Nice to meet you." Chen inclined his head politely. "Welcome to our little town, ma'am. Uh, it is ma'am? Sorry if I'm off-base there. We don't havea lot of aliens in these parts. In fact, the only one in town is old Doc Solus." Tali nodded. "It is. Thank you." She looked around at the neatly arranged prefabs and packed-earth streets. Apart from the sky, the dirt, and the extravagantly wasted space the streets represented, it didn't look all that different from one of the habitation holds on the Kythera. "I like what you've done with the place." Chen eyed her for a moment, as if not sure whether she was making fun of him; then he grinned and said, "C'mon to the town office, Mayor Millandra will want to meet you. We don't get newcomers often. Or ever." "How long have the Blue Suns been here?" Gryphon asked as they followed Chen toward what he guessed was the town hall - it was the only three-story building in town, and didn't look like a prefab, though it was made of the same sort of alloy sheets and universal windows. "Six months," said Chen. "Christ only knows how they found their way to this system, it's not even near any regular trade route. Same way you did, maybe. They didn't crash, though. Their ship is parked about a hundred miles upspin." He gestured in the direction Gryphon and Tali had come from. "Every couple of weeks they come over here and try to take over, but Doc Solus cracked their comm encryption, so we always know when they're coming, and so far they haven't been able to get a foothold. You made my life easier taking out their gunship." "Happy to help," said Gryphon dryly. They entered the town hall; Tali was struck by how much the inside looked like the corridors of a starship, particularly the doors. Seeing her looking around, Chen said, "Not bad, eh? All that's left of the good ship Goodyear Sojourner." "This was your colony ship?" she said. "Yup. Everything we could salvage from her after the crash. Millandra did the architecture and Doc Solus and I did most of the welding." "Nice." "Here we go. Mayor's office," Chen explained. The door at the end of the hall they'd just come down was labeled CAPTAIN; another relic from shipboard days. He rapped on the bulkhead and said, "Madame Mayor? Guests to see you, Your Honor." "Get in here and stop screwing around," a woman's voice with a trace of a Concord Dawn accent replied. They entered to see a tall, silver-haired woman standing behind a large desk covered in holopanels and old-fashioned stacks of documents. She raised an eyebrow. "Well, this is a surprise. You must be the ones who crashed up in Armstrong Cwm the other day. Surprised you're still alive. I'm Millandra Caspian. I'm more or less in charge around here." Gryphon introduced himself, more or less, and Tali. "Happy to have you," said Millandra, though she didn't really seem to be. "Welcome to the accidental paradise." "I've never seen a space habitat like this before," said Tali. "But what do you mean, accidental?" "We didn't plan to come here. Didn't even know this ring was here. As far as I know, -nobody's- ever seen anything like it. I certainly hadn't when we found it." "The same thing happened to us as you," Chen explained. "We were heading out to the Rim to join another colony when we tripped over Substance." "Substance?" Tali asked. "Super-Neptune up there," he said, gesturing to the window. "The gas giant. That's what we call it, anyway. As far as I know it never had an official name, apart from Scandia-CN38 III." "Mm. Whoever was driving did a good job getting you down alive," said Gryphon. "Thanks," Chen said. "Did my best. We didn't all make it, but 223 out of 240 isn't too bad." His words sounded flippant, but his expression was dead serious. "Not on a day like that," Gryphon agreed. "Why didn't you call for rescue?" Tali wondered. "We wouldn't have volunteered to help colonize the Rim if we wanted a lot of company," Millandra said with a sardonic smile. "Once we recovered from the shock, we had a confab and decided that we might as well just stay here. We had everything we'd need to establish a settlement, and nobody knew where we were, so we decided to go for it. We could probably have cobbled together a hyperwave transmitter from the wreckage, but there's been no need. This is -real- frontier living, not being coddled by the Colonial Authority and badgered by the Federation. It's been ten years of hard graft, but we're making it - on our own wits and our own sweat." "'Course, now we've got the Blue Suns to contend with." Chen sighed. "I got picked for security duty because I'm the only one of us with military experience - I did two hitches in the United Earth Marine Corps - and I've been lucky so far, but hardcore mercs are out of my league." He surveyed Gryphon's armor and Tali's gear. "I don't suppose you guys happen to be vets." "I've done this and that," Gryphon said, giving Millandra a thoughtful look. "All quarians are veterans," Tali said. "Our entire nation is a navy." Chen looked interested. "Oh? Like the Freespacers?" "Sort of," Tali replied, her tone indicating that it was a topic she had grown very tired of talking about at some much earlier point in her life. "If you're asking us for help against the Blue Suns, I'm up for it," said Gryphon. "I don't think we need to be that hasty," Millandra cut in with a hard look at Chen. "Besides, you look exhausted. Scott, why don't you take them to Spare 14? They should have a chance to clean up and get some rest before anything else." Gryphon and Tali exchanged a look, then followed Chen out. "Sorry about that," Chen said as he led them back out of the town hall. "Millandra's a little jumpy about newcomers. Like I said, you're okay by me." "It's understandable," said Tali. "And she's right, we could use the rest. We've been hiking through the forest for the better part of a week." "Well, all righty." They followed Chen through the streets of Goodyear, feeling the curious but not hostile looks of townsfolk as they went, until they came to a little prefab block house, just like the others, at the very end of one of the radial streets. "Here she is, Spare 14. So called for obvious reasons; we had more hab modules than we needed, but we decided to put them all up anyway, just in case. We'll have population growth -one- of these days." Chen grinned. "If we haven't got there yet, it ain't for lack of tryin'." He went slightly red as he realized he was in mixed company and added, "Uh, sorry, ma'am." Then, overrunning his own embarrassment, he went on hastily, "Power's already on, and when I get back to my office I'll turn on the water. If you want something to eat, there are standard supplies in there already, or you can stop by Old Man Fredriksen's store across from the town office if you've got credits." "You've got an economy?" Tali asked, sounding curious rather than skeptical. "In a colony this size?" "Not much of one," Chen admitted, "but Fredriksen still has some stock he was planning to sell on Zodokren, and for the last year or so we've been able to get enough of a surplus out of the farm to support some craftspeople. Myla Van Horn, for instance, she's our weaver. Makes some beautiful fabrics out of the native fibers. Nothing quite as nice as what you've got there," he added, gesturing to the intricately embroidered hood covering Tali's helmet, "but maybe you might like to stop by and take a look." He seemed to realize he'd strayed off the beam again and made himself brisk. "Anyway, you just make yourselves at home. Don't worry about anything. We'll have plenty of warning if the Suns come at us again. Oh! Yeah, speaking of, if you need anything medic-wise, Doc Solus's office is next door to Fredriksen's. He's always happy to chat." Chen looked slightly rueful. "Sometimes too happy." Gryphon thanked him and assured him that they'd be fine. He gave them the code for Spare 14's front door and took himself off. Gryphon and Tali stood looking at each other for a couple of seconds, just taking it all in, and then Gryphon shrugged, keyed the code, and they went in. Spare 14 was as standard inside as out, a comfortable but rather spartan little three-room dwelling. One room did triple duty as kitchen, dining room, and living room; the other two were little bedrooms, each with a double bunk and a desk, with a tiny but functional bathroom wedged in between them. A few moments after they entered, the indicator light on the house's master control board denoting the water supply changed from red to green. "I call dibs on the shower," Gryphon remarked, pulling off his CVR helmet. "You're very funny," Tali replied sarcastically. "I -could- use it, you know. I'd just have to go in alone, seal the room and disinfect everything first." Gryphon sighed. "So much for conserving water," he said mournfully, then went into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. He was gone for twenty minutes, and when he returned, it was with wet hair, a towel wrapped around his midsection, and a distinct air of feeling more like a civilized life form. "All yours," he said. Tali, sitting at the table in what he supposed an optimistic or fanciful real estate agent would call the breakfast nook, made a dismissive gesture, firmly engrossed in something she was doing to her omni-tool. He went into one of the bedrooms, opened the closet, and found to his delight that it was full of standard-issue clothes to go with the standard-issue house - sturdy coveralls with a lot of pockets and a wide range of adjustable seams, perfect for the colonist on the go. He dressed and went back out to the kitchen, where he took stock of the pantry. The standard supplies were fairly basic, but compared to rat bars, it was like finding himself suddenly delivered into a sort of culinary heaven. He started rummaging around to see if he had everything he'd need to whip together a decent niikarta shyam, found that he did, and gleefully set to work. "I wish I could cook for you," he remarked as he started frying up the noodles. "It seems so rude not to." "It smells good, but I'd better not," Tali said. "You can smell it?" "Of course. My air supply is processed, but not completely self-contained unless I use the emergency cutoff. Otherwise I'd have to keep topping up my oxygen supply every couple of hours, or use a chemical synthesizer. Besides, being able to smell things is useful. In some situations aboard ship, it can save your life. You should know that - you've been a spacer a lot longer than I have." "You wear that suit even when you're at home? I thought it was a... pilgrimage thing. Mingling with the dirty aliens and all." Tali shook her head. "No, we wear them all the time. Almost all the time. From puberty on. Getting your first suit is a big deal. It means you can leave the isolation area and become a productive member of society." She plucked at the fabric wrapping of one of her upper sleeves. "This -particular- one is relatively new - it was made for my pilgrimage - but I've worn one or another almost continuously since I was twelve." "Wow. I've spent a lot of time in CVR, but I don't think I could hack that." He tipped the noodles into a bowl, searched for a hoop, didn't find one, and contented himself with a fork, then carried the bowl and a glass of water around to sit opposite her at the table. "When it's all you know, it seems normal after a while," Tali said. "Some of us never really adapt, but... well, that problem is usually self-correcting. Not to be too ruthlessly Darwinian about it." "So... you never see each other's faces?" "Not often. Showing another quarian your face is a gesture of profound trust. More than that, it shows that you're willing to be ill to show that trust. Any outside exposure is enough to make us at least slightly sick. Not usually very badly, or for long, but still." She put an elbow on the table, propped her chin on her fist, and regarded him. "Imagine if there was... say a 70/30 chance you'd get a cold every time you kissed your lover. You'd need pretty strong motivation. It's inconvenient; even maddening. But it makes every time you -are- willing to risk it a special occasion." She paused, looking down at the table. "Or so I'm told. I've... never liked anyone that much." "Well, you're young," Gryphon remarked casually, taking a forkful of noodles. "Once you finish your pilgrimage and get back to the fleet, the boys'll be lining up." Tali ducked her head with embarrassment. "Stop." "Seriously," Gryphon said. "You've got nothing to worry about." "I'm -not- worried about it," she replied, a little hotly. "I was just saying. How did we end up talking about this anyway? I don't ask you about human mating habits." He shrugged. "You brought it up. I just asked how often you see each other." Grinning archly over his bowl of shyam, he added, "If there's a dirty joke there, you made it yourself." Tali threw up her hands. "You are impossible." Then, returning her chin to her hand, she looked at him thoughtfully and added, "And not at all what I would expect of such an infamous criminal." "Would you believe me if I told you I was framed? That it was all part of an elaborate plot to destroy the Wedge Defense Force?" "I might. I just might." She rezzed up her omni-tool again and examined it. "I checked my starchart database. This system is in the Kresge sector. Not that far from the Migrant Fleet, oddly enough - they're mining the asteroid belt in an uninhabited system on the other side of the sector. Anyway, we're about thirty parsecs driftward of the Terminus. Nowhere -near- the hyperspace route from Omega to Deneb. We must have had some major drive problems even before we hit Substance's mass shadow." "Mm. Yeah, we weren't in hyperspace anywhere near long enough to cover that distance normally. We must have hit a microfold or some kind of quantum tunnelling phenomenon." Gryphon shook his head. "We're even luckier not to be free fractals than I thought." He yawned. "Guh. Millandra was right, I'm all in." He got up, took his bowl and glass to the sink, and went to one of the bedroom doors. "You have a room preference?" "No," said Tali. "Well, good night, then." "Good night." Gryphon shuffled off to bed, reveling in the very notion of being able to crawl under covers, on a mattress that wasn't made of inflated duravulc, not wearing his CVR-3 underglove. Still, despite the comfort and the fatigue, he found it hard to get to sleep immediately. His mind was revolving too many things, and he had to wait for them all to slow down a bit before he could start dropping off. He was just about to give up and start pacing when he heard the door cycle, hiss-click-hiss, and quiet tread approach to the side of the bed. There was a soft "tunk" as some object was placed on the bedside table. "... now the Shipping Forecast, issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, at double-oh one five on Thursday the 2nd February 2356. There are warnings of gales... " He felt the mattress shift under Tali's weight as she arranged herself behind him, not touching, but close, and snuggled down under the covers. "You're sure you wouldn't rather have your own room?" he asked. "Shh. Go to sleep. What are you going to do, anyway?" she asked with a smile in her voice. "I'm wearing a space suit." "... Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger: cyclonic three or four, increasing five or six at times, occasionally seven in Dogger. Moderate, occasionally rough... " THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2356 GOODYEAR_ Having gone unsummoned through the night and into the morning, and lacking much of anything else to do, Gryphon and Tali went for a walk around midday, seeking a better feel for life in Goodyear. It seemed to be a fairly sleepy little town, though Gryphon supposed that at this time of day most of the people were probably working on the farm, wherever that might be in relation to the town itself. It didn't take very long to cover the entire tidy little grid of streets, and the sights themselves weren't that arresting, what with every house in town looking exactly like every other, apart for some decorations and accents the residents had added to individualize their dwellings a bit. Presently they found themselves downtown, standing in the square in front of the town hall. This was fronted onto by four buildings, besides the hall itself: all were prefabs like the others in town, but their frontages had been modified with larger windows and signs denoting their functions. Apart from Fredriksen's Emporium, there were the security office, Charley's (Gryphon guessed that was a restaurant and/or tavern; even a town this size must have one), and one simply labeled with the international blue Star of Life. "That must be the clinic," Gryphon said. "Let's go meet the famous Doc Solus." The clinic had the same exterior dimensions as Spare 14, but the interior was laid out differently; there were no bedrooms and no kitchen, the inside space all given over to one big room except for the modular bathroom tucked into the far corner. There was a reception desk, but nobody sat at it, and a couple of biobeds such as could be found in any reasonable-sized starship's sickbay, also unoccupied. The rest of the room was given over to a small but well-equipped and tidy science lab, again reminiscent of those to be found on starships, marked off with a structure resembling a shop counter. Gryphon guessed that the equipment here had also been salvaged in large part from the Goodyear Sojourner. The only person in attendance proved to be a salarian, who was over in the lab engrossed in something under the microscope when they entered. "Yes!" he cried in response to the door chime. "Be right with you. Have a seat. Try not to bleed on the floor too much. Have to do my own mopping up." "We're not bleeding," said Tali. The salarian's head snapped up at the sound of her voice; he turned and blinked his large, dark eyes rapidly. "Newcomers," he said. "Interesting. A human and a quarian. Traveling together! Also interesting. Mates? No. Surely not. Quarian barely mature, encounter suit practically new. On pilgrimage." As he spoke, rapidly and apparently to himself, he crossed the lab until he stood on the opposite side of the counter, regarding them keenly. Now that he was closer, Gryphon and Tali could see that he was quite elderly (which for a salarian meant anything upward of 35), with heavily wrinkled skin, and clearly well-traveled. He had a couple of pronounced facial scars and one of the horns atop his head was missing - and now that they returned his scrutiny, they were surprised to see that all four of his limbs appeared to be mechanical from the middle joints down. None of that seemed to slow him down, though, and the look in his eyes was anything but an oldster's absent-minded gaze. He gave the instant impression of a very sharp customer - nobody's fool. "Must be survivors from the crash in Armstrong Cwm last week," he concluded. "Means one a great pilot, both lucky. Tough. Long walk here from Armstrong Cwm." "I don't know that I'm a great pilot," Gryphon said, "but I'll admit to being lucky sometimes. Are you Dr. Solus?" "Yes," said the salarian. He walked around the end of the counter to join them in the "lobby" and added, "More formally Mordin Solus, MD, Ph.D., FFCS, et cetera. Don't need to stand on ceremony. Mordin is fine. Everyone here calls me Doc. And you are?" "Tali'Shukra nar Kythera," said Tali. "Pleased to meet you." "Charmed. Keelah se'lai," said Mordin, bowing. "Er... Keelah se'lai," Tali replied, taken slightly aback that he knew the phrase, even if he wasn't quite using it correctly. "Dan Harris," said Gryphon, offering a hand. Mordin tilted his head and regarded Gryphon critically for a long moment, as though thinking something over. Then he shook the hand firmly and said, "Pleasure, Mr. Harris. Welcome to Goodyear. Any medical needs? As I said, long walk here from Armstrong. Treacherous terrain, cold weather, survived spacecraft crash... " Gryphon shook his head. "We're fine. I had a suit of CVR-3, and Tali's encounter suit is tougher than it looks." Mordin smiled. "Yes," he said warmly, "marvel of environmental engineering. Always admired quarian life support engineers. Do such excellent work with limited resources." "You and the other colonists don't seem to have done such a bad job in that regard yourselves," said Tali. "Yes," Mordin agreed again. "Remarkable. Helping found Goodyear proudest achievement of my career to date. Joined group bound for Zodokren intending to retire on distant colony. This is much more satisfying. Challenging scientific work; productive use of time. Really making a difference to these people. Good use of decade. Looking forward to next one with renewed enthusiasm." Gryphon eyed him skeptically - based on what he knew about salarian biology, he doubted Mordin Solus had a next decade to look forward to - but whatever made him happy. And being here certainly did; the slender salarian seemed to swell with pride at the mere mention of the town. "Is there a lot of science to be done in a place like this?" Gryphon asked. "As much as I could ask for," Mordin assured him. "Had to adapt local environment to sustain human agriculture before pre-existing supplies ran out. Race against time! Equipment damaged, some pieces improvised entirely - had to spend first six months building tools to build tools." The old salarian beamed happily. "Got job done with time to spare. -Incredibly- fulfilling. As I said - proudest achievement of my career." Tali looked up from examining one of the pieces of equipment on the workbench in the corner. "What do you mean, adapt the local environment? I know it's a little cold for farming, but we assumed it was winter." "It -is- winter. Local climate mild enough that modern agricultural techniques can overcome adverse conditions. Problem not climatological but chemical. Flora native to Halo based on dextro-amino acids. Like quarian biology, as it happens," he added in a now-I-think- of-it tone. "Would have poisoned colonists. And me, for that matter. Had to figure out a way to clear a sufficiently large area and make it hospitable to Earth plants before supplies ran out. Succeeded! Now cultivating more than 200 acres. Corn, barley, soybeans, khalt, fruit trees. Next month, opening new field for melons, one for tomatoes." Gryphon and Tali glanced at each other, then back to Mordin. "Somebody built an artificial ring habitat with dextro-amino plant life?" Gryphon asked. "Unless it was seeded later," said Mordin, shrugging. "Impossible to tell from currently available data. Original builders unknown. Estimate the structure is at least 50,000 years old. Maybe older! Great mystery, but haven't had time to delve into it at length. Too busy keeping colonists alive." "You called it Halo," said Tali. "Named by Captain Caspian when we arrived," Mordin explained. "Reference to human mythology. Divine beings appear with circle of light above heads." He gestured illustratively above his own. "Similar to quarian legends of deified ancestors with glowing eyes." She nodded, understanding. "Our first sight of the construct from space was at considerable distance. No surface detail visible, only ring of reflected sunlight. Ship barely controllable, losing atmosphere; finding habitable environment within crash landing range seemed like divine intervention to many human crew members." Gryphon smiled slightly. "I know the feeling." "So." Mordin tapped his fingertips together briskly. "Don't wish to be rude, but have much work to do. If you don't need medical attention, why are you here?" "We just wanted to say hello. We may be in town for a while, assuming Mayor Caspian doesn't throw us out, and you seem to be one of the leading citizens." Mordin ducked his head modestly. "Wouldn't go that far. Do what I can. Own neck also on block, after all." Then, regarding Gryphon thoughtfully, he added, "Not without influence, though. Will see to it that you aren't ejected." "Thanks. Why?" "Practical considerations, primarily. Will need help against Blue Suns. You two are survivors. Proved that just by getting this far. Could be valuable members of community." He smirked slightly. "If not, humans have saying: better that you're -inside- the tent pissing -out.-" Gryphon laughed. "You have a point." Then, sobering slightly, he said, "I have something that might help you out against the Suns, but it'll take some getting at. If it's still there. The Suns may have salvaged it themselves by now, in which case we're in even bigger trouble." Mordin looked interested. "Tell me more," he said. "You're crazy if you think I'm going to let you wander back out into the forest with two of the most valuable citizens of Goodyear," said Millandra Caspian flatly. "We'd be sitting ducks if the Suns decided to pay us a visit. Even if you came back, and I'm not entirely convinced that you would." She folded her arms and gave Gryphon a cool staredown. "There's a lot more to your little story than you've let on so far. Nobody just happens to end up on Halo with a heavy weapon and a quarian sidekick." I knew this would happen, Gryphon grumbled to himself, but all he said out loud was, "I never claimed to be a saint. But I do want to help you out, and this is the best way I can think of to do it. If the Blue Suns get hold of my cargo, we're all going to wish we'd taken the trouble to go get it first." "You crashed last week. They've probably got it already." "Not necessarily," said Mordin. "Mr. Harris destroyed their gunship. Believe it was their only one. Crash site in difficult location - Armstrong Cwm hard to reach by surface transport from upspin side of Mount Aldrin. Blue Suns have no reason to think anything valuable left behind. Unlikely to mount salvage effort for its own sake." Millandra shook her head. "I still don't like it. It smells like some kind of setup. He gets you and Scott out into the wilderness and God knows what happens, and -then- what? The rest of us are easy meat for the Suns without you two." "Risk I'm willing to take," said Mordin flatly. "Me too," Chen put in. "Come on, Millandra. These two are okay. You're just being paranoid." Or she recognizes me, Gryphon thought, but isn't quite consciously aware of it. He caught Tali giving him a sidelong glance and knew she was thinking the same thing. What she said in the next few seconds, though, left him flat- footed: "I'll stay here as your hostage," she told Millandra flatly. "If he doesn't bring your people back, you can kill me." "What?!" said Gryphon and Millandra together. They looked at each other, then both turned to Tali. "Forget it," said Gryphon. "I don't want the damn thing -or- their trust that bad. That's all I need is for us to hit some kind of a snag, end up behind schedule... " He gestured to Millandra. "She gets antsy and you get aced for no reason. No. Unacceptable." "I don't remember asking your permission," said Tali frostily. "(ooOOoo,)" said Chen under his breath, earning a fierce but only momentary glare from Millandra. "Tali - " Gryphon looked at Millandra. "Would you excuse us for a second, please?" Then he took the quarian's arm and led her into the corner of the room. "Tali, look, I appreciate the gesture, but there's got to be another way we can do this. Between the two of us we've risked your life enough times this week." "It's the only way we're going to get her to trust us," Tali replied. "And if anything happens here while you're gone, I'll be here to help them out. You know it makes sense." An edge of dark amusement creeping into her voice, she put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Don't wimp out on me now, space hero." He regarded her for a moment with an expression combining irritation and a sort of mild awe, then grinned. He resisted an urge to chuck her under the chin on the grounds that it was an unbelievably patronizing and anachronistic thing to do, something he should strike from his manifest of mannerisms altogether; she might have read Kipling, but she probably hadn't seen many mid-20th-century Earth movies. Instead, he put his palm briefly to the side of her helmet, as he might've touched a human woman's cheek. "You're a firecracker," he said fondly. "A dangerous and inscrutable interplanetary woman of mystery." "Dogged and relentless," Tali replied. "When I'm not locked in a tube." He sighed. "I don't like it, but you've convinced me," he said. "Let's go see if we can sell it." Millandra still didn't like it, but when Tali dumped her scattergun on the mayor's desk and showed that she was dead serious, she relented. "Lock her up and detail a deputy to watch her before you leave, Scott," she ordered Chen. Then, turning to Gryphon, she said, "You've got 48 hours, Mr. Harris." "Understood," he replied stiffly. Then, leaning forward slightly, he fixed her eyes with his and said, "I'm doing this because I want to be a friend to this colony. But I want you to know this, Captain Caspian: If anything happens to Tali while I'm gone, you won't have to worry about the Blue Suns any more. -I- will be your worst enemy." Then, after one lingering approximation of eye contact with Tali, he turned and left. Mordin shook his head. "Mutual suspicion unnecessary. Counterproductive. Regrettable." He regarded Tali and smiled. "Ruthlessly elegant solution to problem, though. Admire that." She nodded coolly, thankful that her visor kept anyone from seeing how utterly scared she was by what she'd just done. Then he surprised her by saying to Millandra, "Any harm to our quarian guest will earn my antipathy as well." "Uh... yeah. C'mon, orders are orders," said Chen awkwardly. Once they were out of the building, he said, "Seems like I'm apologizing to you guys for Millandra every time you see her, but I'm really sorry about this." "I've been in worse corners," Tali replied with a confidence she did not entirely feel. Oh, she trusted Gryphon not to abandon her, there was no question of that; he'd had countless chances to do so, starting from the very moment they first saw each other through the duracrys of that cryotube door. He could've just walked away and left her to her fate then and there, which would've meant that by now she'd most likely have killed herself rather than submit to some batarian pervert's whim - another sad footnote on the roster of the Kythera, another youngster who left on the pilgrimage and never came home. He'd saved her life, by her count, three times already. But there was his own objection; if something went wrong on his mission, the consequences to her could be disastrous. But the die was cast, and she really did believe it was the only workable answer to Millandra's intransigence. Chen showed her into one of the Security Office's two cells, which were basically the bedrooms of the house configuration with their windows sealed and their doors replaced by forcefield grids. It was reasonably comfortable, and the deputy on duty, a young woman named Prakusya, seemed sympathetic enough. "Don't worry about a thing," Chen told her after he locked her in. "We'll be back before you know it." "You'd better be," Tali replied; and then, with a kind of bravado that should've been laughable coming from a caged teenager, she added, "If anything happens to him out there, you'll answer to me." Chen gazed through the forcefield at the ghostly reflections of her eyes behind her visor, and somehow he couldn't find it in himself to laugh. "Message received, ma'am," he said, saluting. "I'll take good care of him." WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2356 ARMSTRONG CWM_ What had taken Gryphon and Tali several days of steady hiking was the work of less than one to backtrack in Goodyear's lone ground vehicle, an Ares Landmaster. Partly that was simply because of the Landmaster's far-superior ground-covering capabilities, and partly it was because they had a homing signal to track, enabling them to go straight there, instead of relying on the mixture of orienteering and old-fashioned guesswork that had eventually led Gryphon and Tali to Goodyear. When they arrived, they saw that the remains of the Blue Suns gunship and its pilot had been removed from the bottom of the slope, but up on the cwm itself, the wrecked Ranger appeared to have been left alone. The wind and an inch or so of fresh snow had wiped away Gryphon's and Tali's footprints, but there were no others in evidence either, and the snow on the wreck itself was undisturbed. Chen parked the Landmaster a few yards away, where the slope was flattest, and he, Gryphon, and Mordin dismounted to look it over. "Hmm," said Mordin thoughtfully. "ExoSalusia Ranger. Could be useful salvage besides the cargo. Wish we had more time. Could call Millandra and ask - no. Signaling dangerous this close to Blue Suns camp. And she might assume duress on my part. Can't risk it. Oh well! Do what we can." They set to work dismantling the wreckage, having decided, after a quick strategy session, that it'd be quicker and simpler to take the upper surfaces apart than to try overturning the wreck and accessing the cargo hatch. This, Mordin pointed out, was almost certainly jammed or fused shut in the crash anyway, and besides, going in through the top would give them access to the reactor and other components that might be worth salvaging along the way. It was sweaty, tricky, time-consuming work, but not too difficult. The spaceframe's structural integrity was already badly compromised, and anything that might've been hot had had plenty of time to cool. By dusk they'd exposed the upper bulkhead of the hold, which would have to be torched away to get at the payload. "Well, it's obvious we won't be able to get this done before dark," said Chen, surveying the sky. "Work lights in the Landmaster," said Mordin. "You set them up. I'll start planning cuts." "Sure thing, Doc. Be right back." As Chen walked down the slope toward the Landmaster, he tossed back over his shoulder, "Don't wander off, now!" Mordin waited until he was out of earshot, pretending to measure the bulkhead with a laser tape. Then he straightened up and turned to Gryphon, who was engrossed in an inventory of the parts they'd removed to get this far - most potentially useful among them the Cyclone he'd been forced to abandon with the wreck, which appeared to be intact in storage mode. "Before Mr. Chen comes back," he said calmly, "you and I need to talk... Commander." Gryphon could have tried to brazen it out, but he'd already formed too much respect for the old salarian's intellect to bother. Instead, he simply asked, "How long have you known?" "Knew when you came into my clinic," Mordin replied. "Reviewed your case when I was with STG. Never forget a face." "You were with the Special Tasks Group?" "Twenty years. Scientific consultant, field operative. Not important right now. Time limited. I need to know: What are your intentions?" "I intend to get my heavy weapon out of this wreck, take it back to Goodyear, and try to come up with a way to protect the colony with it. Beyond that?" Gryphon shrugged. "I have no idea. I haven't had a plan since before you were born. Sorry, hatched. I'm not going to kill everyone in the colony some dark night, though, if that's what you're wondering." "No. If that suspicion were credible? Would've eliminated you already." The calmly matter-of-fact way Mordin said it made Gryphon suspect that he'd at least have a chance if he decided to try it. He remembered working with STG agents back in the day. They weren't people to take lightly, cheery salarian mannerisms or no. "Believe you're sincere," Mordin went on. "Other conclusions don't fit available data. Don't know where or how you met Tali'Shukra, but nonverbal behavior cues indicate she believes life-debt exists between you. Very interesting. Mutual affection plainly evident as well." The salarian shook his head. "Inconsistent with 'Butcher of Musashi' persona. Always felt case was inconclusive anyway. Needs more study." "Then why confront me now?" Gryphon asked. "Wanted you to be aware that I know. Others don't. Millandra suspicious of you, but doesn't know why. Don't intend to enlighten her." He held up a forestalling hand. "Not on your side, per se; but willing to be convinced. Maintaining open mind while data remain to be analyzed." "Sorry, Doc," said Chen as he came huffing back up the slope with a tripod-mounted work light balanced on each shoulder. "Had some trouble tracking down both power packs. Whoever took the Landmaster out last didn't re-stow the equipment bay properly." "Kowalczyk," said Mordin sadly - then shot Gryphon a wink that went entirely undetected by the sheriff. "Found them, anyway. Let's get them set up." Working alternate shifts at the torch, Gryphon and Mordin took a couple of hours to cut away the bomb bay bulkhead, after which it was a fairly simple job to extract the SPARTAN Laser in its transport case with a gravity clamp. "Well, the case is in good shape," Gryphon observed. He popped the locks and opened the lid; the laser, its fusion cell charger, and all the other accoutrements were still nestled inside, right where they belonged. "Nothing appears amiss," said Mordin. "Is that a SPARTAN Laser?!" Chen asked, then whistled. "Sweet." Gryphon nodded and locked up the case. "We can give it a thorough checkout when we get back to Goodyear. Let's get this stuff loaded and get out of here." He glanced at his watch. "We've got... 20 hours." "Once we're back in the woods, I'll com ahead and let them know we're coming back. That ought to calm Millandra down a little," Chen offered. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2356 GOODYEAR SECURITY OFFICE_ Tali wasn't having too bad a time, considering that she was locked up under what was effectively a suspended death sentence. It helped that by her standards, the quarters weren't particularly close; this much space for a single person, with what amounted (since the other cell was unoccupied) to a private fresher, would have been considered downright decadent back on the Kythera. If nothing else, it gave her the first opportunity to take some space and time entirely by herself and sort out the events of the last few days in her mind. Gryphon had given her plenty of space during their long walk from Armstrong Cwm, but opportunities to be truly, entirely alone were rare for quarians, and she had a lot of mental notes to organize. She didn't think she'd want to spend a lot of time this way, but if ever she had to, this was the right time. She was lying on the bunk in her cell, listening to Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A Minor on her omni-tool and thinking, when the forcefield sealing her cell suddenly winked out and Millandra Caspian stalked into the room, a blaster pistol in her hand. "Get up," Millandra ordered her, gesturing with the pistol. Tali paused the playback and did as instructed. "Is there a problem?" she asked, pleased with herself for keeping her voice so calm and even. "You're going to think so," Millandra replied. "Your pal Harris set us up, and that's bad news for you." /* Juno Reactor "Pistolero" _Shango_ (2000) */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presented UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES EXILE Star-Crossed Part III: Goodyear (Pop. 225) To be continued in Part IV: Bad Day in Goodyear E P U (colour) 2010