Galactic Thunder by Cameron Cooper (best book club books txt) 📗

I wasn’t the only one with the same bright idea. Lyth sat at the family table, in his usual spot, a bottle of what was probably scotch, and a half-empty whiskey glass. The bottle had little left in it.

I moved over to the table and slid onto the bench, into my usual place.

Lyth tilted his head, examining me. “Shoulda had a steak, Colonel.” His words were clear. Too clear. He was controlling his speech with iron discipline, but he was definitely feeling the effects.

“Seems to me you should follow your own advice. How long have you been sitting here in the dark?” There were very few lights showing.

“I had th’lights turned down,” he replied. “Too bright.”

“Probably just as well.” I looked up as the waitress arrived but closed my mouth as she put a plate in front of me. Steak and mushrooms. I lifted my chin. “Are you listening in, Lyssa?”

“Watching over Lyth, Colonel,” Lyssa replied. “His judgement is impaired, and there are fools with guns who have access to me at the moment.” Disapproval was rich in her voice, either for Lyth’s inebriation, the fools with the guns, or me for allowing them the access that bothered her. Likely, all three.

“Thank you for the steak,” I said instead of berating her for listening in. I sawed off a piece and chewed. When the flavors of garlic and perfectly seared red meat hit my tongue, I realized how hungry I really was and quickly ate another three bites, while Lyth refilled his glass with the last of the bottle’s contents.

When I could speak, I said, “Do you want to tell me all of it now?”

Lyth looked at me. Then away.

“For the record, I don’t think you’re a fool. Not even when it comes to Juliyana. But I do want to understand what’s going on. Things don’t add up.”

“No,” Lyth breathed. “They don’t, do they?” He sipped.

I took another mouthful and waited. Often, silence was enough to prompt people into talking. Yet Lyth wasn’t the newt he’d once been. He was a leader of men, now. He steered policy for the Laxman Institute, while Arnold Laxman did what he loved most—he played with the science and pushed the frontier where humans and technology met.

So Lyth normally wouldn’t leap to fill a silence just because it was there, but he was drunk enough that Lyssa was on standby to catch him when he crashed, so maybe he just might.

Lyth used his thumb nail to scratch at the corner of the label on the bottle. “I’m guessing, but it’s a good guess…Juliyana hasn’t told you that she’s using her third clone, now.”

Shock slithered through me. “She’s used…killed…two clones? And her own original body? What the hell…!” The more I thought about it, the more appalled I became. How could anyone be that reckless? That cavalier? Clone bodies were not cheap. Not everyone got to have them for that fact alone. Although with Lyth as the director of the Institute who grew them, it was different for Juliyana, but still…!

Lyth nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at me. “It might have been simpler if her addiction was for alcohol or one of the weirder psychotropics out there, but that’s not what she looks for.”

“Risk,” I whispered.

“Anything that spikes adrenaline on a regular basis,” Lyth said. “I was actually relieved when Lyssa tossed her off the ship. I thought it would slow Juliyana down. Instead, it drove her further away. She didn’t have Lyssa watching out for her, after that.”

His nail scraped across the bottle, making me wince.

“You and she let me think that she was hauling freight.”

“It started that way,” Lyth said.

“It wasn’t enough,” I guessed. Hauling freight was pretty mundane, once you had a few contracts in place and didn’t have to hustle for work.

“At first it was just the odd merc contract here and there,” Lyth added. He glanced at me. “Yeong Lewis tossed her one or two.”

A name from my past. “He’s well connected.” He was more than just connected. He ran a vast mercenary outfit of his own and various grey-hat enterprises. He’d once made a great deal of money supplying arms to the two Imperial forces—the Rangers and the Shield. I wondered briefly what he was doing these days. Yeong Lewis was very good at looking out for himself, so I didn’t wonder for long. Clearly, he had enough business interests that he could still afford to hire outside mercenary outfits.

“Is that when Calpurnia started working for Juliyana?” I asked Lyth. “She’s made for action.”

Lyth’s thumb stopped scratching, although he didn’t look at me. He was trying to be urbane and understanding, but the male territorial instinct was a strong one.

“It’s okay to resent the shit out of her,” I added, just in case he was piling more guilt upon his conscience for that, too. “Anyone would, in your situation.”

His thumb started moving again, and he concentrated on chipping away at the label with fiendish focus. “She makes me want to ram the working end of an atomic probe into my gut and twist, just to get rid of the…the…”

I rested my hand on his forearm, the one that wasn’t working on the bottle.

Lyth’s jaw flexed.

“It would be just as natural to want to stick the probe into her gut,” I said gently.

“Why?” Lyth asked, surprised into looking at me directly. He was genuinely puzzled. “She didn’t do anything but take a job.”

I sat back. I had forgotten how utterly reasonable Lyth could be. “You’re still a nice man,” I concluded, letting admiration touch my voice.

He shook his head. “I might have been once. Now I’m…” He shrugged. “A realist.”

“When it’s convenient, perhaps,” I argued.

The corner of his mouth lifted. “The reason I won’t ram the probe into Calpurnia’s guts? She’s got internal armor lining. It would be a waste of time and a good atomic probe.”

I laughed. “Okay, you’re a pragmatist. But I still think it’s a veneer.”

He pushed the scraped bottle away from him and