Page 48 of Pets in Space 10

Aday and a half of data deep-diving left Amalena feeling like one of the ruffled fan palms in the building hallways, overly compacted and root-bound.

The walls of her office, usually a comfortable sanctuary, were beginning to feel more like a cage.

The company’s recent tighter security meant the sensitive HuMed project files she was combing through could only be accessed from a campus terminal.

Which meant chaining herself to her desk instead of curling up at home in her comfortable lounge chair, with Merix taking full advantage of her lap.

HuMed’s archived digital records would have the answers, but she couldn’t think of a plausibly innocent reason to be granted access, especially records from another department and from two decades ago.

She leaned back, the synth-leather of her increasingly uncomfortable chair squeaking in protest. A human drug with addictive properties was a red alert for liability. On the other hand, if it solved a widespread and debilitating problem, the side effects might be worth it. But what did she know?

She didn’t often get headaches, but she had one now. Her knowledge of human medicine hardly went beyond buying pain meds from the chems shop, but she knew bad procedure when she saw it. Flawed data meant Sainik, or whoever was selling or leasing the drug concept, would be making decisions blind.

An impulse to talk to Gaerynx almost made her call up his pingref.

He’d probably had more than one animal pharmacology class and, unlike her, hadn’t slept through any of them.

He’d have a clearer perspective on the science, if not the ethics.

She wished they’d made a concrete plan to compare notes, but their dinner had ended on a note of personal connection that felt both promising and perilous.

In the privacy of her own thoughts, she could admit that the faint spark of attraction she’d always felt for Gaerynx had been fanned into a tiny, fluttering flame.

It was a fire she couldn’t afford to stoke.

In another life, maybe. In this one, with her previous history and the current upheaval at RyoGenomica, that door had to remain shut, sealed, and reinforced with incalloy armor.

She shook her head to chase those thoughts away to focus on an important appointment that afternoon.

With patient persistence, she’d finally secured a speaker slot at the quarterly meeting of the Ivyar East Continental Agrarian Cooperative Association.

It was a golden opportunity to represent RyoGenomica and build relationships with key producers.

The more agricultural problems they talked about, the more opportunities her team would have to design promising compounds that would eventually offer solutions.

As far as she knew, RyoGenomica’s method of generating new ideas was unique on Ivyar, and possibly in the whole galactic pharma industry.

She pulled up the meeting details on her screen to confirm the new location, since they’d had to move it due to a scheduling conflict at the original venue. Deciding that a direct call was faster than wading through her message queue, she keyed the audio pingref for the association.

“Ivyar Ag Co-op, Sayavong speaking.” The voice on the other end sounded frayed, like a rope stretched to its breaking point.

“Hello, Sayavong, this is Amalena Kirilov from RyoGenomica. I’m just calling to confirm the new location for this afternoon’s meeting, and to check that you got my presentation file.”

A heavy sigh came through the speaker. “Oh, hell’s bells. You didn’t get the alert? The meeting’s been canceled.”

Amalena’s heart sank. “Canceled? Is there a problem?”

“Word came down from the board about an hour ago. No reason given. I’ve been scrambling to notify everyone, but you know how it is. Half the members are probably already on their way here, and I’m the one who’ll have to tell the bad news in person.”

“Oh, sorry to hear that,” Amalena said, smothering her disappointment. “My sympathies. Please let me know when it’s rescheduled.”

“Will do.”

She ended the call and slumped back in her chair, staring out at the beckoning green campus. It had taken her the better part of the winter to get that invitation.

The cancellation was probably a coincidence, a simple case of disorganization or bad communications. But she couldn’t rule out the fact that rumors were probably already in the air about RyoGenomica’s unexpected turmoil. Not even cedar tree pollen could spread as fast as juicy bad news.

Amalena shoved back from her desk, the headache reminding her that hunching over display screens was bad for her health. She needed distance.

A few minutes later, she was lifting her flitter from the campus stacker.

She banked into the flow of midday air traffic and connected to the city’s traffic control system to let it pick the best route to her favorite small café in the hills overlooking the city.

Real food, an exotic garden on a comfortable patio, and no corporate buzzwords on the menu.

Just as the flitter merged into the commuter airspace, her company tablet chimed. Because she’d synced it to her flitter out of habit, Pharras’s face immediately appeared on the front console’s large display.

“Amalena? Can you talk?” Pharras’s clipped words and hard expression said this was more than her usual complaint of the day.

Amalena’s shoulders tightened. “Of course. What’s up?”

“Did you know about the memo?” Pharras asked, a blade-sharp edge to her tone.

“What memo?” Amalena kept her expression neutral. She hadn’t checked comms before leaving, but she had a sinking feeling as to what it said.

“From Sainik and Dequer. All of Ag Support and Animal Support are being moved to HuMed projects. Effective the day after tomorrow.” Her expression darkened. “Well, all except you and Triplo.”

“No, I didn’t know. Thank you for telling me.

” The implied accusation that she and Gaerynx were getting special treatment rankled.

“If the memo left me and Gaerynx off the list because we’re about to be encouraged to explore external employment opportunities, it’s been an honor working with you.

” The woman was sometimes a pain in the ass, to be honest, but her brilliance was unquestionable.

Amalena’s courteous response seemed to make Pharras realize she might have been rude.

Her tone softened. “Yeah, well, I heard about four more HuMed resignations this morning. I think the execs are panicking.” She paused to take a deep breath.

“And they’re about to lose one more. I’m sorry, Amalena.

You’ve been a good boss. I wanted you to hear it from me first. My resignation is going in right after this. ”

Dismay weighted her gut, but Amalena kept it off her face. “I appreciate the advance notice. Good luck in whatever is next for you.”

Pharras mumbled thanks and disconnected. The console’s display faded back to transparent.

Her fingers found Gaerynx’s personal pingref on her wristcomp before she’d even consciously decided to call him. He answered on the second tone, his face appearing briefly as a hologram above her wrist until it switched to the console display.

He looked as stressed as she felt. “I’m guessing you’ve read the memo.”

“Not yet,” she replied, “but I heard about it, including that our names are noticeably absent. I’m in the air on the way to lunch.

Pharras called to tell me, right before sending her formal exit notice.

She said HuMed is losing more staff, too.

That puts them at, what, one-third of their original numbers? ”

Gaerynx pushed a stray lock of wavy hair off his forehead.

“I doubt they’ll be the last. I expect to lose two of my team by the end of the day.

” He blew out a noisy breath. “I can’t believe Dequer and Sainik thought rapid changes like this would go well.

Maybe they really are trying to tank the company. ”

The disillusioned part of Amalena’s brain, a legacy from her never-happy mother, surfaced a thought. “At this rate, they’ll have to hire more guards just to escort all the staff eviction exits.” Or maybe they’d cut costs and save the “honor” for her and Gaerynx.

He made a rude noise, then momentarily glanced off-screen. “Can we continue this in a couple of minutes? I need coffee.”

“I’ll park and call back.” She scanned the traffic control system for the nearest public landing pad and changed her destination. “TCS says six minutes. Is that long enough?”

“That works.” His image faded.

Amalena added a stop to her flight plan, then took control of the flitter above a high-rise public stacker and landed on the roof pad.

She touched down in the short-term wait zone and opaqued the flitter’s windows.

After paying the requisite parking fee, she pinged Gaerynx, making sure the private encryption for her personal comms was turned on.

An encrypted channel icon glowed reassuringly when his head and shoulders filled the main display again, meaning he, too, was concerned about privacy.

From the background, it looked like he’d stepped outside, too.

The company security team should be pleased that their “security mindset” training campaign was effective.