Lost Colony Ch. 10

Author's note:

This is chapter ten of my series Lost Colony. Most readers should start with chapter one, but if you want to scroll down to the steamy parts, be my guest!

This is a work of (science) fiction. All characters are over age eighteen. Thanks for reading!

BTW, I recently published a summary of the first eight chapters, so if you're just joining the story and want to catch up without reading those chapters, you can read the summary. Naturally it's full of spoilers; I'd rather you read the entire thing!

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A man who has yet to choose his path.

Sparr drew in a deep breath, both recovering from his exertions climbing the little mountain, and trying to find calm. Below, Santi was indistinct, the dust thrown into the air by its occupants softening all but the most prominent landmarks. The docks were visible, the beneficiaries of sea breezes which kept them from the worst of the haze, but the ships moored at them were little more than dots.

He caught his breath, but Sparr's mind still raced. Too many questions remained unanswered, and those already resolved had only deepened the perilous mystery that Kaybe had become. He could try to distract himself, but he always ended up at the same place, scratching away at the same dead ends.

"A man who has yet to choose his path," was how Aine had referred to him that day in the Origin bathhouse. The brunette had been referring to the local custom of choosing between Stone or Wave, but the comment ate at him. He hadn't chosen. Instead of using Santi as his home, he could have continued his search, going back to Horn Island if necessary to read the digital map once more. With just a few clues he might have found the location of the Odysseus camp on his own, and with the tokens he had collected, be well on his way.

Instead, he had lingered. The fabrication of the air car was more than just an impulsive tactical decision, it gave him an excuse to settle down. Helping Ost with his timber business, and designing the ship with Jance, had been good for his soul, giving him a purpose beyond his own immediate survival. Sparr's friendships with the men and even his flirtatious encounters with Cee gave his life depth. But most of all, he lingered to bask in the easy companionship and intimacy he had with Aine.

Bogg snorted and scratched, the sound pulling Sparr from his reverie. The hike had cleared his head after all. He would allow himself another two weeks to complete the air car. After that, whether by sea or by air, he would head east. He didn't relish the thought of the goodbyes, but he couldn't stay much longer in Santi.

He had chosen his path.

***

Thresher agitator arm

The assassin that Sparr had wrestled with at the opening to the fabricator building had dropped a small pouch of tokens. One at a time, Sparr fed them into the slot.

Thresher agitator arm

Sparr stopped, struck by the coincidence. He had, over the past several months, encountered plenty of duplicate tokens. Parts for farming equipment were particularly common. But he couldn't remember finding two of the same design at the same time. He fed in another token.

Thresher agitator arm

"The fuck?" He poured the remaining tokens into his palm, examining them. Although it was impossible to tell for sure, they did appear to be identical. Sparr hastily fed them into the slot, confirming his guess. The assassin had been carrying a pouch containing fifteen of the exact same token.

Either Calista or Kevin had paid the assassins. The four killers would have required hundreds of tokens, probably more than a thousand, to carry out their mission. How would Calista, or for that matter anyone else, on the Odysseus have acquired so many? It wasn't out of the question that the crew had established contact with the locals and were engaging in trade. In fact, mission protocols identified commerce as a way of supporting a local population without creating a dependency. But thousands of tokens?

"Fuck!" Sparr swore aloud, struck by an idea. He retrieved the ingots he had recovered from the Horn Island mine, once again comparing them to the silver tokens. The two metals were identical. His mind raced.

There were five massive hoppers in the building. Sparr had peered over the edge of each of them weeks earlier, checking how full they were. The last hopper had been almost empty. Cautiously, Sparr climbed into it and began flinging out the few ingots wedged near the bottom. Once empty, he climbed back out again and reversed the process, tossing in the Horn Island ingots. He activated the fabricator and scrolled to the unique part he had discovered weeks earlier.

Fab blank: EMP resistant

He chose it.

Select from list

Just like the first time he had fed the fab blank into the fabricator, the system asked for a design to duplicate. Whatever part he chose, the fabricator would try to mint a token containing the associated design. He selected the same air car chassis rail he had chosen the last time. Previously, the fabricator had claimed insufficient resources. This time, it began to hum. The panel opened, revealing a freshly-minted token. He fed it into the slot to confirm that he had in fact duplicated the token.

Air car chassis rail.

Sparr's head practically swam. It wasn't that duplicating tokens was inherently compelling. Of far greater interest was the fact that he was also producing tokens. If he had enough ore to do so, he could duplicate the chassis rail token a thousand times, in effect making himself one thousand tokens richer. Calista and Kevin must also have figured out how to produce the coins. That's why they had sent drones to Horn Island, to extract and collect the ingots necessary. He had shut down the mine, but by then they had either already obtained as many ingots as they needed, or found another source. It didn't matter. If they could produce tokens, so could he.

With a grin, Sparr got to work.

***

"You built it!" Sparr leaped from the dock to the deck of the raft, careful not to slip through the cracks of the roughly-hewn planks.

"Yeah," Jance said, distracted by two of his crew installing the binding for the tiller. "It'll be a nightmare to steer," he said ruefully, "but it'll get to Caibo all right."

Ost's eepay raft sat just as deep in the water as Jance had predicted, the incredibly dense wood barely buoyant. A heavy sea could swamp the deck, and the stubby mast and sails would catch barely enough wind to move. But under Jance's direction, the raft had been built to be sturdy and safe. Whether it took two weeks or two months to reach Caibo was irrelevant. Once it arrived, the exotic wood raft would be worth a small fortune just from the value of the eepay logs.

"I hope he paid you well," Sparr said, admiring the compact but elevated crew quarters and galley. Whoever crewed the ungainly craft would at least be kept dry and fed.

"Enough," Jance said. "She's like nothing else I ever built. I liked the challenge, and yes, Ost paid me enough to start another project. Here."

Jance led them back to the dock, then along the shoreline farther than Sparr had realized shipbuilding activity took place. Here, a series of stout pylons had been driven into the sand. Between them, the unmistakable outline of a deep-keeled ship was taking shape.

Sparr was stunned. "You're going to kill me if this thing sinks, aren't you?"

"Oh, it'll float," Jance said. Sparr followed the aging captain as he walked the length of the hull, slipping his fingers along the dense eepay timbers that made up the spine of the ship. "The models say so, but more than that..." Jance's voice trailed off, then returned, stronger than before, "it just feels right."

"I can see her beauty already," Sparr said.

For several minutes the two circled the ship's skeleton. Jance excitedly showed Sparr where the keel ended and the tiller began, where he had added extra bracing for the mast, and the line where he would transition from eepay to the lighter timber for the rest of the ship's construction. Sparr envied the man. For Jance, ships and the sea were everything. No doubt as a young man he had been tugged by the twin threads of lust and ambition. Now, exploring the outline of a new ship seemed to stoke within him the same intensity as exploring a new lover's body.

At last, the spell broke. Jance shot Sparr a contented smile and asked, "Tea?"

Back at the cluttered office, Sparr unwrapped a small box, presenting it to Jance. "I don't know much about tea," he admitted, "but the woman at the shop said this is the finest. Seven leaves from seven lands, or something like that."

Jance grinned. "I know that shop. And I know the woman who works there. Slim, red hair, green eyes?"

"Yes," Sparr admitted, flushing slightly.

"Yeah, she could have put a rock in that box and you would have given her twenty tokens."

"She did. I threw out the rock and picked some grass on the way over."

Jance snorted. "No, this is lovely." He inhaled deeply, eyes sliding shut. "Really lovely. I'll put the kettle on." He fussed over the fire. "I take it your life of daring and adventure paid off?"

Sparr wasn't sure what to say. "Maybe. Either way, I appreciate everything you've done for me, giving me a place to build my vehicle."

"I confess," Jance said, joining Sparr at the little table. "I pulled back the tarp the other day. I have no idea what it is you're building in there."

"Wonder myself, sometimes." Sparr hated the idea of deceiving Jance, but could hardly tell the full truth.

"Are you having trouble finding wheels for it?"

"Some of the parts are hard to find. I promise, if it's not finished in two weeks I'll break it back down again and get it out of your way."

Jance shrugged. "It's okay. Everything else in there is easier to find now anyway, since you tidied the place up."

They sat for a moment, the popping of the tea kettle the only sound. Sparr remembered something he wanted to ask.

"Hey, you heard about the commotion in the plaza last week?"

"Sure. Foreigners, everyone's saying. One woman dead, two men fell into the water, fighting. Maybe another guy dead in town. A mess."

"Foreigners from where, Neeva?" From what the first assassin had told him, the Odysseus camp was near a town of that name.

"Mmm?" Jance rose to tend to the kettle. "Who knows. Just heard they arrived from across the sea."

"We don't see many of those ships, right?"

"Right. One or two ships a month from Seille. The journey isn't easy."

"You've taken it?"

"Twice, as a mate. Or was it three times? That was many years ago."

"Do you have a chart?"

Jance raised an eyebrow but fetched a chart from the stack stuffed at one end of his desk. He unrolled it. "The captains from Seille have better charts these days, but this will give you an idea."

The chart was significantly wider than it was tall, intended to cover only the east-west route between Santi and Seille. The top half was unadorned except for a row of wide but lightly drawn arrows pointing west. Sparr gave Jance an inquisitive look.

"There are two halves to the crossing," he explained. "These arrows show the westerlies. Ships coming from Seille steer north until they catch the winds to cross the sea. Once they near land, they turn south for Santi."

"And the east-bound ships?"

"Here," Jance said, drawing his finger from left to right near the bottom of the chart. The talk of ships, winds, and seas energized the aging captain. "Currents, west to east. It can be a trick to avoid the ice, but the currents are reliable. You just need enough wind to steer by."

Sparr gestured toward what looked like a ragged coastline at the very bottom of the chart. "And this is the ice?"

Jance nodded. "Yes, though the entire southern coast isn't frozen. There are a few fjords, islands, and prominences where the ice doesn't have a hold."

The difficulty of what he was considering began to settle into Sparr like a chill. The air car, should he ever complete it, was designed for short flights, not a trans-continental journey. The glimpse at Jance's chart was helpful, but the scale was impossible to determine. Would it take two days of flight? Ten? Any bare patch of land would work for a place to pass an evening, but would he be safe?

A crossing by ship would be safer. When he had begun construction on the air car Sparr had been picturing a destination somewhere over land, not sea. But over time he had fallen in love with the car, with the idea of it. A hundred justifications jostled for prominence. It would be faster than a ship crossing and would keep him away from spying eyes aboard a ship or in port. Once in Yurr, he could safely survey the Odysseus camp, or possibly track Calista herself. He could quickly escape a dangerous situation. Sparr couldn't bring himself to abandon the plan.

"You still with us?" Jance was peering at him, head turned sideways. "Your tea is getting cold."

"Ah, sorry," Sparr muttered. "I was daydreaming." He took a sip.

"Daydreaming about sailing to Seille, perhaps? Getting a glimpse of the Portal? Setting foot on Yurr?"

"The Portal?" The mention of the Precipice's sacred site got his attention.

"Well, yes. I mean, you can't go in but for many travelers it's a highlight."

"Where is it?"

Jance pointed to a black dot at the eastern edge of the ice, close to Seille. "It's visible from ship, especially if the captain is hugging the coastline. And of course, they'll stop in if they're carrying Precipice passengers, which is common."

When Sparr had pictured the Portal in his mind, he had envisioned a peaceful woodland setting. In the center would be a cathedral-like temple, circled with smaller common buildings, studios, kitchens, and accommodations for visiting priests. To learn that instead it was nestled in a remote fjord only deepened the mystery. He shook his head, trying to chase away the temptation to inquire further about the secretive religion. Sparr had spent enough time pursuing Kaybe's mysteries. It was time to pursue his own.

***

"Cee of Shitty Booze Stand!"

It was their shared joke. When Sparr had first met the liquor vendor he had impulsively introduced himself as Alain of Maryland. She had reciprocated by adding 'of Shitty Booze Stand' to her name.

"It's not so shitty anymore," Cee countered.

She wasn't wrong. After purchasing his third consecutive case of liquor from her, Sparr had confessed that he was selling it at a loss, trying to lure new customers to his little shop. The easy cash helped Cee diversify by adding a greater variety of liquors to her stall, including some finer spirits that drew new customers from the town's wealthier patrons.

"Anything new?" Sparr asked. "They say I have a discerning palate."

"They say you're a thirsty moocher, but yeah, try this." She opened an elaborate green bottle almost half a meter tall, pouring two tastings. Like her shop, Cee was looking good lately. Today she was wearing a pair of billowy trousers tied at the knee in the local style, and a simple, half-sheer white blouse which did nothing to hide her enticingly deep cleavage. Her untamed brown hair was everywhere at once.

"Hooo, that's strong!" Sparr gasped, then, as the liquor lingered on his tongue, added, "Oh. Oh, nice. What is it?"

"It's either distilled from figs or infused with them." Cee shook her head. "I'm not sure. My supplier is always at least half drunk."

The native fruit that Sparr's implant translated as 'figs' must have been surprisingly close to an Earth fig. Not only the cloyingly sweet taste, but the musky scent said as much. Such similarities were common enough to intrigue him but were also sources of frustration. To be stranded on an alien world teeming with new species, but unable to properly analyze them, was agonizing to the biologist.

Cee took a small sip, too, then made a show of licking a drop from her finger. She had flirted brazenly with Sparr from their first meeting, and showed no signs of letting up. "By the way," she said, "when do I get my reward for saving your life from those assassins?"

"Funny you should ask," Sparr said, unable to keep a smile from his face. "Can you close up early?"

Cee gaped at him, her expression shifting between skepticism and hope. She made up her mind. "Help me with these!" she said, shoving a crate of bottles at Sparr before lifting one of her own. She led him to her cottage where the two stashed the crates under the bed. Almost before Sparr had set his case down, Cee's hands were on him, running from his neck to chest, and abs.

"Wait, wait," Sparr said, laughing, but also trying to fight back his body's natural response to Cee's touch. "Not here. Can you come with me?"

"Alain, please!" she said, clearly exasperated. "How long have we-"

"Hey, it's not too far, I swear!" He was grinning, enjoying the game more than Cee, and feeling a touch guilty for it.

"Uhhh," she groaned. Cee snagged the bottle of liquor they had sampled earlier. "You're going to drive a liquor vendor to drink." She took a sip, but let Sparr lead her back through the door and into the plaza.

Santi swirled and pressed around them, currents of porters, sailors, merchants, craftsmen, and thieves. A pair of Origin princes loped past, each carrying boxes of provisions.

"You should sell to the temple," Sparr suggested. "Party there every night."

"I've tried, but they buy directly from the same vendors I do. Anyway, I'm content. I got to meet you, didn't I?"

"Aw, you're sweet!" Sparr gestured for the bottle.

"I'd like to find out how sweet you are," Cee said, her flirtatious smile back. "Where are you taking me, by the way?"

He took a sip. "We're almost there." The house he sought wasn't far from the docks, but the terrain was steep. Cee and Sparr stopped more than once, letting Bogg catch up, and regaining their own breath. At last, Sparr stopped before the modestly sized, but well-appointed, home. He knocked.

Cee and Aine regarded each other, both ignoring Sparr. They were more alike than not. Aine was a touch taller, had hair a shade darker, and was several years younger than the liquor vendor. Cee's eyes were a lighter brown, her hair untamed, and her skin was considerably paler than Aine's caramel tone. But both were full-breasted, had playful eyes, a touch of womanly softness, and more than their share of confident sexuality. Sparr found them both beautiful.

"I take it you're friends with Alain?" Cee asked. The meeting with Aine wasn't what she had expected. For a moment she held back, trying to read the situation, to recalibrate her expectations of what the afternoon would hold.

"I'm Aine, yes. Please, come in."

Aine had readied the room for her guests, with a decanter of wine, glassware, and a snack of fried root vegetable slices. Enough light came in through the salvaged glass windows, but Aine nonetheless had set out a pair of squat candles. Their scent reminded Sparr of the afternoon of bliss the couple had spent at the temple of the Origin bathhouse and theater.

"Your home is lovely." Cee took a seat between Aine and Sparr, allowing the former to pour her a glass of wine.

"Mmm, thank you." Aine poured a glass of wine for Sparr, then herself. "But," she added, taking a sip, "I understand I owe you thanks for much more than that."

"Oh?" Cee's eyes flicked to Sparr before snapping back to Aine. "You do?"

"Yes, yes," Aine said. She reached out a hand to rest it on Cee's knee. "I understand from Alain that you were the one who warned him about the assassins."

"Warned me about them, gave me a place to hide, pointed them out to me..." Sparr slid closer to Cee, resting a hand on her thigh.

Again, Cee's eyes moved uncertainly from Aine to Sparr. "Oh, yes. You're, uhhh, welcome."