What bothered Kalico was that instead of rallying her people, Michaela Hailwood seemed totally at a loss, her eyes fixed on the blue-yellow-and-red monster on the screen. In the picture, Kalico could see that stalk-topped eye. It stared back at her, black, shining, and filled with menace.

20

Talina stood in the doorway of her residential dome and looked out as Fred Han Chow descended her steps to the street. He carefully placed the litter back onto the cart and strapped it down. Fred and Tal had used it to transport Dek from the hospital to her place. Figured it lent a bit more dignity to the occasion than carrying him over her shoulder like a dead chamois.

Just a normal Port Authority afternoon in the neighborhood. Up the street, C’ian Gatlin’s body looked half engulfed where it stuck out from the engine compartment of a backhoe he was working on. Some of the kids were racing down to the main avenue. Capella’s afternoon sun slanted, sending rounded shadows onto the rutted gravel. Clothes had been hung to dry behind Iji’s dome across the street. The botanist was currently in the southern hemisphere with Leah Shimodi, getting a first look at some of the vegetation while the geologist recorded potentially remarkable outcrops.

Why did I bring Dek here?

What was it about her and Derek Taglioni?

“Want him,” Demon hissed from behind her liver.

Yeah, well, just because the quetzal in her gut was a piece of shit didn’t mean he wasn’t right some of the time.

From the very beginning Talina had felt an unsettling attraction. Was it real, or some fancy Taglioni trick? Perhaps a genetically engineered pheromone like the storied Transluna courtesans were supposed to have? Some chemical that triggered sexual interest in a woman’s limbic system? She wouldn’t put such a thing past a Taglioni. Especially since Dek had those dazzling genetically engineered yellow eyes that bordered on green in certain light. And who knew how many other little tweaks had been made to his body?

She watched as Fred Han Chow wheeled the cart off down the street. She didn’t figure that good old Dek needed to know the thing was mostly used for hauling corpses up to the cemetery. Or maybe he already knew and just hadn’t said anything as he was loaded on and then off.

Closing the door, she checked her racked rifles, unbuckled her duty belt with its pistol, knife, and survival gear, and hung it from the chair in her small living room. Dek’s rifle, pistol, and camping gear were stacked in the corner where the breakfast bar jutted out from the dome wall.

Walking into her bedroom, she stopped to lean against the doorframe and cross her arms. “You need anything?”