Mutineer's Moon

He started hiking once more. It was forty kilometers to his destination, and he wanted to be there by dawn. He needed an ally, and there was one person he could trust—or, if he could not, there was no one in the universe he could—and he wondered how Sean would react when his only brother returned from the dead?

Book Two

Chapter Seven

Dawn bled in the east, and the morning wind was cold as the sandy-haired hiker paused by the mailbox. He studied the small house carefully, with more than human senses, for it was always possible Anu and his mutineers had not, in fact, bought the official verdict on the late Colin MacIntyre.

The morning light strengthened, turning the cobalt sky pewter and rose-blush blue, and he detected absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. His super-sensitive ears recognized the distant thunder of the Denver- Colorado Springs magtrain as it tore through the dawn. Somewhere to the west a long-haul GEV with an off-balance skirt fan whined down the highway. The rattle and clink of glass counter-pointed the hum of a milk truck’s electric motor and birds spoke softly, but every sound was as it should have been, without menace or threat.

Devices within his body sampled far more esoteric data—electronic, thermal, gravitonic—and found nothing. It was possible Anu’s henchmen had contrived some observation system even he couldn’t detect, but only remotely.

He shook himself. He was wasting time, trying to postpone the inevitable.

He adjusted his “knapsack” and walked briskly up the drive, listening to the scrunch of gravel underfoot. Sean’s ancient four-wheel-drive Cadillac Bushmaster was in the carport, even more scratched and dinged than the last time he’d seen it, and he shook his head with an indulgent, off-center smile. Sean would go on paying the emission taxes on his old-fashioned, gasoline-burning hulk until it literally fell apart under him one day. Colin had opted for the glitz, glitter, and excitement of technology’s cutting edge while Sean had chosen the Forestry Service and the preservation of his environment, but it was Sean who clung to his pollution—producing old Caddy like death.

His boots fell crisp and clean in the still morning on the flagged walk, and he opened the screen door onto the enclosed front porch and stepped up into it. He felt his pulse race slightly and automatically adjusted his adrenalin level, then reached out and, very deliberately, pressed the doorbell.

The soft chimes echoed through the house, and he waited, letting his enhanced hearing chart events. He heard the soft thud as Sean’s bare feet hit the floor and the rustle of cloth as he dragged on a pair of pants. Then he heard him padding down the hall, grumbling under his breath at being disturbed at such an ungodly hour. The latch rattled, and then the door swung open.

“Yes?” his brother’s deep voice was as sleepy as his eyes. “What can I—”

Sean MacIntyre froze in mid-word, and the rags of sleep vanished from his sky-blue eyes. The stubble of his red beard stood out boldly as his tanned face paled, and he grabbed the edge of the door frame.

“Morning, Sean,” Colin said softly, a glint of humor mingling with the sudden prickling of his own eyes. “Long time no see.”

Sean MacIntyre sat in his painfully neat bachelor’s kitchen, hugging a mug in both hands, and glanced again at the refrigerator Colin had carted across the kitchen to substantiate his claims. Echoes of disbelief still shadowed his eyes, and he looked a bit embarrassed over the bear hug he had bestowed upon the brother he had believed dead, but he was coming back nicely-helped, no doubt, by the hefty shot of brandy in his coffee.

“Christ on a Harley, Colin,” he said finally, his voice deceptively mild. “That has to be the craziest story anyone ever tried to sell me. You’re damned lucky you came back from the dead to tell it, or I still wouldn’t believe it! Even if you have turned into a one-man moving company.”

“You wouldn’t believe it?! How d’you think I feel about it?”

“There’s that,” Sean agreed, smiling at last. “There’s that.”

Colin felt himself relax as he saw that slow smile. It was the way his big brother had always smiled when things got a bit tight, and he felt his lips twitch as he remembered the time Sean had pulled a trio of much older boys off of him. Colin had, perhaps, been unwise to challenge their adolescent cruelty so openly, but he and Sean had ended up thrashing all three of them. Throughout his boyhood, Colin had looked for that smile when he was in trouble, knowing things couldn’t be all that bad with Sean there to bail him out.

“Well,” Sean said finally, setting down his empty mug, “you always were a scrapper. If this Dahak of yours had to pick somebody, he made a good choice.”

“Right. Sure,” Colin snorted.

“No, I mean it.” Sean doodled on the tabletop with a fingertip. “Look at you. How many people would still be rational—well, as rational as you’ve ever been—after what you’ve been through?”

“Spare my blushes,” Colin growled, and Sean laughed. Then he sobered.

“All right,” he said more seriously. “I’m glad you’re still alive—” their eyes met, warm with an affection they had seldom had to express “—but I don’t imagine you dropped by just to let me know.”

“You’re right,” Colin said. He propped his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “I need help, and you’re the one person I can trust.”

“I can see that, Colin, and I’ll do whatever I can—you know that—but I’m a ranger, not an astronaut. How can I help you find this link of yours?”

“I don’t know that you can,” Colin admitted, “but there are drawbacks to being dead. All of my ID is useless, my accounts are locked—I couldn’t even check into a motel without using bogus identification. In fact —”

“Wait a minute,” Sean interrupted. “I can see where you’d need a base of operations, but couldn’t this Dahak just whip up any documentation you need?”

“Sure, but it wouldn’t help for what I really need to do. Normally, Dahak can get in and out of any Terran computer like a thief, Sean, but he’s cut all his com links now that I’m down here. They’re all stealthed, but we can’t risk anything that might tip off the mutineers now. Besides, he can’t do much with human minds, and you recognized me as soon as you got the sleep out of your eyes—do you think the security people at Shepherd wouldn’t?”

“That’s what you get for being a glamour-ass astronaut. Or not resorting to a little plastic surgery.” Sean studied his brother thoughtfully. “Would’ve been a wonderful chance to improve—extensively—on nature, too.”

“Very funny. Unfortunately, neither Dahak nor I considered it before he tinkered with my gizzards. Even if we had used cosmetic surgery, the last thing I need is to try waltzing my biotechnics past Shepherd’s security!”

“What big teeth you have,” Sean murmured with a grin.

“Ha, ha,” Colin said blightingly. Then his face turned more serious. “Wait till you hear what I need before you get too smartass, Sean.”

Sean MacIntyre sat back at the sudden somberness of Colin’s voice. His brother’s eyes were as serious as his voice, filled with a determination Sean had never seen in them, and he realized that Colin had changed more than simply physically. There was a new edge to him, a … ruthlessness. The gung-ho jet-jockey hot-dog Sean had loved for so many years had found a cause.

No, that wasn’t fair; Colin had always had a cause, but it had been a searching, questing cause. One that burned to push back boundaries, to go further and faster than anyone yet had, yet held a formlessness, a willingness to go wherever the wind blew and open whatever frontier offered. This one was concentrated and intense, almost desperate, waking a focused determination to use the tremendous strength Sean had always known lay fallow within him. For all his achievements, his brother had never truly been challenged. Not like this. Colin had become a driven man, and Sean wondered if, in the process, he might not have found the purpose for which he had been born…