Deep canyons under caric.., p.1
Deep Canyons: Under Carico's Moons, Book 2, page 1
Contents
Deep Canyons
Copyright © 2022 by Nan C Ballard
Dedication
Map of Carico
Chapter 1
Counterpoint
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Counterpoint
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Counterpoint
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Counterpoint
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Counterpoint
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Counterpoint
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
About the Author
Once Upon a Fang in the West
Unrelenting
Once Upon a Fang in the West-2
Tooth and Claw
Don’t Read This Book
GhostCityGirl
Djinn
Survivors’ Club
The Staff of Fire and Bone
Wrestling Demons
Daughter of Magic
Shadow Girl
Brief Black Candles
21st Century Coastal American Verses
When She Leaves Me
Someone to Watch Over
The Gospel According to St. Rage
Sparks
Going - Green
SuperGuy
The - Supernormal - Legacy: - Book 1 - Dormant
Corporate High School
The Digital Storm
The Sum of Our Gods
Strongly Worded Women: The Best of the Year of Publishing Women: - An Anthology
Shout: - An Anthology of Resistance Poetry and Short Fiction
Denial Kills: - An Anthology of Poetry and Short Fiction
Under Carico’s Moons
Book 2
Deep
Canyons
by
Nan C Ballard
Copyright © 2022 by Nan C Ballard
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by
Not a Pipe Publishing
www.NotAPipePublishing.com
Paperback Edition
ISBN-13: 978-1-956892-18-5
Cover art by Don Aguillo
Photo of Nan C Ballard by Jonathan Billing, PNWPortraitEFX.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
To Mikko Azul
who gave me the right encouragement
at the right time
to get me to finish this
and actually submit it.
Chapter 1
Lee
In the shade of the bulbous-trunked water-finder tree, Annalee “Lee” Vawn-Cory loaded the injector with a dose of immune booster for the injured tarbh calf. The mottled greenish-brown mother shook its head, displaying its helmet of horns with the wicked tips curling out behind its four yellow eyes. At five-two, Lee couldn't even see over its back. A man on horseback distracted the massive animal while another rider roped the calf by its hind legs and dragged it toward Lee, leaving the mama watching anxiously. The thought struck her that Carico was a long ways from the central planet city where she had grown up.
“Whatcha waitin' for, girl? Get in there.” Ike Allred stepped past her with the spray bottle of temp-skin to seal the calf's wound. He showed every one of his seventy-three years of hard living as he shambled across the corral, tall, stooped, and determined. Lee followed him, injector in hand. The rider moved his horse closer to the threatening mother to give them a few seconds to doctor the calf and get clear.
Lee pushed the injector against the soft hide under the calf's neck, avoiding the tougher scales that covered most of the pale yellow and aqua body. With her knee on the animal's neck, she waited for Ike to finish spraying a coating over the gash in the calf's rump. He stepped away and pulled the loop off the calf's back feet. She took her knee off its neck and stepped clear as it bounced up and ran.
“Look out!” someone yelled. The mama tarbh charged the rider. His horse jumped aside, stumbled, and nearly fell. The tarbh headed straight for Lee and Ike.
As the old man scrambled for the fence at a snail's pace, Lee sprinted across in front of the tarbh's nose and drew it away from him. The animal swung its head at her. She dove away, rolled to her feet, and clambered up the fence rails. The tarbh made another pass, hooking at her with a horn, but she was out of reach. The animal laid claim to the center of the pen, raised its blue neck fan irritably, and locked its center two eyes onto Lee while its side eyes kept watch for anything else coming toward the baby now safely against its side. The riders closed in and herded the pair out the gate, clearing the pen.
Lee glanced through the amber-green cloud of dust to see Ike calmly putting the temp-skin spray in the med kit like he hadn't just missed being run down. She snatched the injector from the dirt where she'd dropped it.
“She about taught you who to pay attention to out there,” Ike said gruffly.
“Yeah,” Lee said. “Good thing I'm young and quick.”
“Meaning I'm not?” He cocked a bushy eyebrow.
“Meaning one of us better be.” She shoved the injector at him. He wiped it off and returned it to the kit. They had an uneasy partnership. He could out-grump a tarbh bull but aside from his sarcastic advice about how to live her life, he left her alone. And he had a wealth of knowledge to mine. They managed to get the work done. That was what counted.
A sharp whistle caught her attention. Kieron Dougherty, manager of the Seven Wells Stead, waved to them from across the barnyard. “Looks like the boss wants us,” she said.
“So it does.” Ike scuffed across the corral and opened the gate. She picked up the med kit and followed him, running her fingers through her short, dark hair to shed the dust.
Dougherty met them in the doorway of the main barn. “Come on in out of the sun,” he said. The thick walls of verdigris-colored mud bricks could keep even the summer heat at bay, much less the gentle warmth of the spring morning. He led the way to the feed room, slight and wiry, two and a half decades younger than Ike and older than Lee by about the same. Crinkles from a ready smile and Carico's sun etched his mahogany skin.
Lee put the med kit away while she waited for him to explain what he wanted of them. Ike propped his lean frame on the counter. “I thought you were headed to Portside, boss,” he said.
“I will be tomorrow.” Dougherty grinned. “You two be packed and ready to go after breakfast. I want you to come with me.”
“Us?” Lee said. Portside, Carico's one city, its capitol and space port, was half a day away by skimmer. She got nervous just thinking about all the people.
“What’re you wanting us in Portside for?” Ike asked.
“The public meeting about the upcoming Settlement Plan evaluation. I want your ears and eyes.”
“More off-world interference, if you ask me.” Ike shook his head in disgust.
Dougherty shrugged. “Gotta live with it. The charter gives us one hundred planet years to prove up. We're coming up on year seventy-five.”
“Only sixty-eight from first landing,” Ike said. “I know. I was there.”
“True, but the count starts with the date the Interstellar Coalition adjudicated settlement rights to the Sol-Terra Alliance. It took seven years for the Alliance to put the planet up for bid and for the Carico consortium to get together their expedition and make that first landing.”
“I'm confused,” Lee said. “Is it the Alliance we have to satisfy or the Coalition?” She knew something about how to evaluate a settlement plan but hadn't thought about the larger context since school.
“As long as we meet the base criteria required by the Coalition — self-sufficient, environmentally sustainable, with individual rights of our citizens guaranteed — the Alliance retains the settlement rights. But Carico has to meet the details of the settlement plan or the Alliance could put it back out for bid to new management.”
“And we get kicked out and lose everything we've built.” Ike gestured at the barn around them. “Lousy deal.”
“I call it strong incentive to succeed. So you both come with me tomorrow.”
Lee dreaded both town and the inevitable conflict and controversy that the evaluation would bring. “You don't need me,” she said. “I've only been on Carico three years.”
“You're coming,” he said. “Your training with the Rangers gives you a better understanding of the environmental part of the evaluations than anyone else at Seven Wells. You can have your quarterly meeting with Ro Vinz while we're there.”
“My …” She trailed off. Pointless to argue that. Sh
“Ike,” Dougherty said. “Cook wants to know if you would get out that yeasty of yours and make a batch of biscuits for dinner.”
“I'll go do that, boss. You have a little talk with the girl.” Ike ambled away. Lee held her breath for a moment. Always 'the girl.' Would he ever give her more respect?
Dougherty watched him go before turning back to her. “Lee, you've been away from Seven Wells exactly three times in the year since Seth Reilly left, all to meet with Vinz, and you got him to meet you part way so you didn't have to go to the city. That's not going to convince him that you've recovered.” He waited, arms crossed.
She gave in to the silence. “I like it here.”
“Well, you're overdue to meet with Vinz again, and this time he wants you in Portside.” Dougherty reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. “More importantly, I do want your perspective on what's presented at this gathering. The evaluation is a big thing for Carico.”
Something in his tone got her attention. “You're really not sure we'll pass?” she asked.
“We're behind on some milestones.” Dougherty frowned. “This is our third review. The Alliance could opt to bring in someone who will move faster instead of letting us run our own affairs. We've been slow to occupy our allotted territory, and we still don't manufacture much of what we need.”
“So that's why we do without.” Lee had never gotten used to the lack of basic communications or simple global positioning technology, things that were routine on more developed worlds. Carico’s one satellite only provided coverage in a limited area around Portside.
“Imports aren't only expensive, they don't look good for our self-sufficiency,” Dougherty said.
She managed a grin. “And I thought it was just frontier pride at getting by.”
“Well, maybe some of that too.” He squeezed her shoulder lightly and let his hand drop away. “Anyway, the full review of our progress is about to begin, looking at economics, demographics, and a bunch of other -ics. They are bringing in a full satellite array to capture images of the whole planet over a full year to compare to the previous surveys. And you know a lot about that kind of survey.”
Lee closed her eyes and sighed. “In theory.” She'd rather let her past lie dormant. Carico's General Assembly of Districts contracted with the private provider Central Services for a variety of support, including law enforcement, medical, education, emergency services, and ecological studies, the latter provided by the Ranger Corps. There had been a time when she thought the Rangers would be her life.
“You want me to go, I'll go,” she said. “For the Wells, but I'm not getting involved beyond that. I took my shot at public service a while ago. You know how that turned out.” She veered her mind away from a racketeer named Jerdix, a man who enjoyed power and pain. She was still haunted by thoughts of his big, harsh hands; of the torturous pain-pleasure device he wielded with devastating effect; and of her relief at the sight of his broken body at the bottom of a cliff.
“You had a tough go and suffered for it,” he said, “but you've become one of my best riders and you have some unique expertise. You can help me learn as much as I can from the survey data and help JT Land and Livestock expand their holdings, maybe into some of that unsettled territory.”
“Okay, okay.” She let her trust of Dougherty push back her reluctance. “You can drag me to town, for the Wells.”
“Good. I'll see you after breakfast.”
She and Dougherty left the barn. He headed up the lane toward the houses. Lee trudged across the dusty barnyard. Around it sprawled the office, store, cabins and bunkhouse, the cookhouse with its screened summer kitchen and a big garden plot, the barns and workshops, surrounded by a maze of corrals and pastures. The brilliant chartreuse of lush vegetation lined the ditches that spread the water from the namesake wells across the oasis. Under Dougherty's careful management, it was neat and well-maintained except for the inescapable dust that blew down from the arid, verdigris hills all around.
Lee liked riding for Dougherty. It was physically challenging but uncomplicated, and she was free of the constraints the Ranger organization had placed on her. Dougherty had taken her on when she had known nothing about being a rider and let her find her way. He had trusted her when she hadn't trusted herself.
As for Rodahl Vinz, what did she need to do to get him to release her? Was she suspect just because she liked her solitude? Or did he think, if he waited long enough, she would agree to go back to work for the Rangers?
The idea of Portside and the gathering about the evaluation turned her guts icy even though she had grown up in a far bigger metropolis than Portside. And she remembered a time when she looked forward to the energy and social interactions. Before Jerdix. She shook it off. He was gone, dead. And Portside had nothing to do with that anyway.
A day later, Lee followed Dougherty through the door into the lobby of the Steaders' Inn in Portside, and her feet quit moving. The Inn, like the rest of Portside, was packed with people there for the conference. Too many people. Anxiety fluttered in her chest, like her first day at the Ranger academy years ago. She tightened her fists at her sides and shook her hands out. It helped a little.
Ike stopped short of colliding with her. “Elements, girl, what's the hold up? Scared of a little room full of people?”
To herself, she admitted that she was. She sucked in air, trying to get her share. The voices rumbled; the mass of bodies merged, indistinguishable one from another. She shied from a hand on her shoulder, Ike's hand pushing her into the crush. She forced her feet forward.
She managed to slip between the clusters of people, trying to keep her boss's short-cropped, silver-laced hair in sight. She lost track of Ike behind her. Being only a year or two younger than the dusty hills, he knew about half the people in the room, and they greeted him warmly. Well, he was tall enough to see over heads. He could find her and Dougherty.
She caught up to Dougherty at the check-in kiosk and pulled her soft, green shirt straight. It was the only concession she had made for the trip to town. She didn't own a pair of dress boots like both Dougherty and Ike sported.
“Just in time,” Dougherty said and stepped aside so she could press her thumb on the scanner to register for the room he had reserved for her. A bed, a bath, and privacy — something she had little enough of in the bunkhouse. Maybe this trip wouldn't be so bad after all.
“Meet me back here in half an hour,” Dougherty said. “We'll go over to the Carico Serai for dinner. On JT Land and Livestock since this is business.”
So much for her quiet evening. “How can I pass that up?” Lee said, wishing she had a good answer. Well, the food should be exceptional. He was feeling generous with the company's credit.
She saw Ike hitch his way past a group to get to them.
“How about you?” Dougherty asked. “Dinner?”
“Thanks, boss, but some of us relics are getting together. You're welcome to come if you think you can keep up with us.”
“Stay out of trouble.” Dougherty flashed a smile. He picked up his bag and headed toward the rooms.
“You've got plans?” Ike grinned at Lee. “Meeting your old flame?”
Another of his on-going jibes about her breakup with Seth Reilly. She wished he would let it go. Now it brought anxious quivers to her throat. She hadn't thought about Seth being in town for this. “Dinner with the boss,” she said tightly.
Ike got an odd, almost sad look before he forced a grin. “If I see him, I'll let young Reilly know you're here.”
Lee turned away without comment. No point encouraging him.
As she hurried to get out of the crowded lobby to the relative quiet of the hallway, she heard a woman's voice asking, “Are you Kieron Dougherty?”
Lee looked around to see Dougherty with a woman in Ranger brown, an impeccably neat, willowy figure with thick, blond hair confined in a long braid. Adel Verlane? With the whole Coalition to choose from, Adel was on Carico. Lee's mind hurtled to her years at the Ranger academy on the central world of Oasis where they had been classmates. Her hands clenched.
