by C. Gockel
Still, having once steeled herself to face him—after a protracted grooming session in the dressing area of the slave girls’ quarters, when it seemed no matter what she did her hair would not behave itself—she was nonplussed to see that he was gone. The pieces of the broken mech had been gathered up and stacked neatly in a corner, and the bed itself was likewise made up, with the sheets pulled taut over the pillow and the coarse, dark blanket tucked in with military precision.
Well, at least he’s not a slob, she thought, but still she felt a stab of irritation. Who did he think he was, anyway, getting up and roaming around the compound when he was barely healed? She would have thought he’d sleep until early afternoon after the excitement of the previous night, but once again he’d proven her wrong.
She found him in the security station, of course. He sat in front of the main viewscreen, fast-forwarding through a series of images that looked as if they’d been taken from the cameras that watched the front palace gates.
He looked up as she approached. The bulky bandages were gone. The skin that had been hidden underneath was still mottled and red in patches, but the healing process was obviously further along than she had thought. Somewhere he’d found a loose-fitting shirt and pants in standard-issue Iradian beige to cover himself. In the mundane garments he should have looked less exotic, less alien, but somehow their very ordinariness only served to contrast with the swarthy skin, the unusual cast to his features. Miala found herself wondering where exactly on Gaia his forebears had come from.
She opened her lips to speak and found her mouth oddly dry. She swallowed, then said, “You should be in bed.”
“No time for that.” He turned back to the images that scrolled in front of him.
“What are you doing, anyway?” she asked, moving farther into the room. Somehow it was easier to approach him when he wasn’t looking directly at her.
“Going through the old security logs. I’m trying to see if our friends from last night ever paid Mast a visit while he was still alive.”
“Know thy enemy?” she asked, and was rewarded with a quick approving glance.
“Right. But I’ve gone through eight standard months of these logs, and so far nothing. Doesn’t mean much, of course. People in Mast’s circle can hold grudges for a long time. Could be a crony of Mendel Bronson’s.”
“Who’s that?”
“The boss who thought it would be a good idea to attack Mast as he was dropping prisoners off the Malverdine Cliffs. All that accomplished was killing everyone on both sides. Well, present company excepted.” He leaned forward once more, dark eyes flickering as he scanned the images on the screen.
Typical that Thorn wouldn’t find anything unusual about being the sole survivor of probably the worst crime lord face-off in the last twenty years. She opened her mouth to ask how he had accomplished that particular feat, then decided he probably wouldn’t tell her. Fine. Instead, she forced her gaze away from his profile, which was actually very fine, with the firm chin and long, strong nose, and made herself look at the viewscreen as well.
It was amazing what a collection of scum had come to call on Mast. Most of them seemed to have come to pay him sort of tribute. The great majority of the visitors revealed on the security cameras brought various boxes of loot—hard currency, precious metals, drugs, skeins of moon-moth silk—all of which were handed over to the security guards and secreted away somewhere in the vaults. The display brought home to her just how much treasure they were probably sitting on, as well as her continuing failure to recover it.
“I’m going for some breakfast,” she said at last, when it grew obvious he didn’t care to indulge her in any more conversation. “You want any?”
Still he did not look up. “Sure. And some coffee, if you’ve got it.”
Back to kitchen drudge, she thought, but, after all, she had offered. They had to eat, and he was showing remarkable signs of improvement. Probably he was relieved that at least now he could be an active member of the team; she couldn’t begin to comprehend how the forced inactivity had probably chafed at him. If the mech were still functioning, she was sure it would have had a few choice words about Thorn getting up so soon, let alone removing the bandages, but in the final analysis it was the mercenary’s body, and he should have the power to decide what he was or wasn’t capable of. He didn’t seem be in a great deal of discomfort—not that that meant anything. Thorn had to be in the sort of pain that would have brought screams from lesser men before he’d allow even a grimace.
Considering the erstwhile crime lord’s bulk, it wasn’t too surprising that Mast had hoarded off-world delicacies the same way he’d hoarded cash and narcotics. In the kitchen’s refrigeration units she’d found rare aged cheeses from Gaia itself, some kind of creamy sweet dessert topped by swirled nuts, and filets of the tenderest herd animals from Archeron, known for its vast grasslands.
None of that seemed appropriate for breakfast, but there was still the bread she had made a few days earlier, as well as the makings of leth, a common grain-based hot dish common on Iradia. For protein she added several wedges of creamy cheese to the tray she had set aside to take back to Thorn in the guard chamber. During all these preparations, the coffee brewed away, sending its rich bitter-chocolate aroma into the air. In the process it woke up Miala’s stomach, which strenuously protested the lean rations she’d been feeding herself lately. She ate her own bowl of leth standing up as she waited for the coffee to finish brewing. It was enough to keep her going until noontime, and she wanted to get back to work as soon as she took Thorn’s food to him.
That thought brought to her the uncomfortable realization that the computer console where she did all her hacking was located in the same chamber where the mercenary was even now viewing the security recordings. True, the two workstations were situated on opposite sides of the room. However, up until now she had always had complete solitude in which to work, and she wasn’t sure how well she’d do knowing that Thorn would be less than ten feet away from her as she pounded away at the elusive code. Still, there wasn’t much she could do about it, save order Thorn out of the security station, and she wasn’t sure she had the courage to do that.
Once the coffee had finished brewing, she poured it into two large mugs, one for her and one for Thorn, and set them both on the tray. The route from the kitchens to the security station was somewhat long and circuitous, but Miala had no doubt she could follow it in her sleep. She had gone that way far too many times already.
At least the mercenary did her the courtesy of looking up and nodding when she came in with his breakfast.
“That smells good,” he said.
“Well, it’s nothing fancy, but it should be better than whatever liquids the mech was pumping into you,” she replied, relieved that she sounded relatively normal. Paradoxically, she found it easier to be with him now. There was certainly nothing in his voice or manner to suggest he had any idea that her feelings for him had undergone a significant alteration the night before. Maybe she would be able to get out of this without making a complete fool of herself after all.
Thorn turned away from her, attention consumed by his breakfast and the ever-changing images that flickered across the viewscreen. Miala hesitated for a moment, then realized he would not bother to say anything else to her because right now he had better things to do with his time.
Biting back a caustic remark about leaving a tip for the waitress, she clutched her own mug of coffee somewhat grimly as she crossed the room to take her usual position at the main computer console. After logging in, she sat staring at the screen for a few moments, frowning. Even though fewer than ten hours had passed since the last time she sat in front of this screen, it felt as if it had been ten days. How could she concentrate? How could she follow the unending streams of numbers and symbols, picking each one apart until she found the missing bits of data she could finally reassemble into the code that would unlock Mast’s vaults?
Thorn was silent as always
, but still she could hear each creak of the chair as he shifted his weight, the light tapping of his fingers on the keyboard—even, Miala fancied, an occasional sigh as yet another sequence of images revealed nothing. She typed in a few lines of code, then another, feeling she had to do something. He wasn’t holding a gun to her head, she thought, but he might as well have been. There was no way she could think with him in the room.
“Excuse me,” she said at last.
He looked around, one eyebrow lifted slightly.
“Look, I know you’re trying to help, but I just can’t concentrate with you in here. Sorry,” she added lamely, although his impassive features certainly had not invited any apology.
To her dismay, Thorn rose from his seat and came toward her. Then he paused a few steps away, arms crossed over his chest. He was not particularly tall, although he topped her by more than a few inches, but she hadn’t realized before now how well-built he was, how much strength was in the heavily muscled arms and chest. Of course, up until now most of his physique had been concealed by layers of bandages.
He regarded her narrowly for a moment, the dark eyes unreadable. Then he looked from her to the streams of data that flowed over the computer screen, and back again. “Right,” he said finally, and turned and left without another word, pausing only to gather up the empty breakfast dishes and pile them on the tray. Then he was gone.
Miala hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until the door whooshed shut behind him. Once she realized she truly was alone again, she let the breath out and shut her eyes, trembling slightly. The man definitely had a knack for intimidation, whether he intended it or not.
“Okay, then,” she said softly. “Let’s do this.”
After all, Thorn had granted her the gift of solitude. Now it was up to her to use it wisely.
“Miala.”
She pushed at the rough hand that clasped her shoulder, not really comprehending at first whose it was. “I’m almost ready,” she muttered, then realized she was face down on the keyboard, her left arm the only thing protecting her cheek from myriad square indentations from the individual keys. She sat up, pushing the chair straight back into Thorn’s midsection.
“Easy now,” he admonished. He must have been standing behind her, reaching down to nudge her awake.
“What—what time is it?” Her brain still felt fuzzy. After Thorn had gone she had buried herself in the code, working at it, teasing it, all to no avail. Every pathway she had gone down seemed to be a dead end.
The hours had passed, and at one point she had begun to feel hungry again, but the pangs disappeared after a while as she continued to work. Some time later her eyelids had started to droop, and she had fought the weariness, forcing herself on, sure that the answer was almost within her grasp. At some point, she supposed, she must have simply passed out from exhaustion.
“Past midnight,” he said. “I thought I’d leave you to work, but when I came back in from going over my ship, I saw the light still on, so—” He frowned at her. “Making yourself sick isn’t going to get us out of here any sooner.”
“I’m okay,” she countered, even though she felt anything but all right. Now that she was awake, she felt ravenously hungry, and so dizzy she was afraid she’d have a hard time standing up.
He didn’t bother to reply, instead handing her some kind of rough sandwich he had apparently cobbled together for her from the supplies in the kitchen.
“Thanks,” she said, and took a bite. Surprisingly, it was good. She took another bite, accepted a cup of water he produced from a tray he had brought in with him, and drank deeply. After a few minutes she began to feel a little more human. “I guess that wasn’t very smart of me,” she added, even as her cheeks flushed with the admission.
“No,” he agreed.
Miala noticed that he had discarded the baggy Iradian-style clothing he had worn earlier and was clad instead in a close-fitting dark jumpsuit. Well, he had mentioned going out to check on his ship. Apparently he’d been able to scare up a change of clothes while he was out there. “Is your ship all right?” she asked. The last thing they needed was for their only off-world transport to have been damaged in the attack.
He nodded. “The landing pad’s inside the security perimeter, so it’s okay.” To her surprise, he touched her shoulder briefly, then said, “Come on. You need to get to sleep.”
The touch had been fleeting, but she could still feel the weight of his hand of her shoulder. Miala stood, a little surprised at how shaky her knees felt, how stiff her back was. It would feel good to lie down on a proper bed.
She stumbled a bit as she tried to maneuver past Thorn and the chair in which she had been sitting, and he reached out to put a steadying hand on her elbow.
“I’m all right,” she protested. As tired as she was, she couldn’t trust her reactions right now. Better to keep contact with him to a minimum.
He withdrew his hand, but remained close behind her as she made her way to the main staircase and began the climb to her room on the third floor. Perhaps he was worried she would trip and fall on the stairs—a distinct possibility in her current condition, she thought.
All the way up she clung grimly to the handrail, as much pulling herself along as actually walking up the steps. The part of her mind she’d begun to despise wondered idly whether he would catch her if she tripped and fell, and what it would feel like to have those strong arms close around her and hold her securely. Good thing she hadn’t taken complete leave of her senses yet, because she knew deep down she would never allow herself to do anything so foolish.
Finally—after she felt as if she’d climbed twenty flights of stairs instead of just two—they paused outside the doorway to the slave girls’ dormitory. Thorn eyed the portal with some curiosity, then asked, “Why up here? The guest chambers on the second floor are easier to get to.”
There was nothing in his face save a mild interest, but Miala still hesitated a moment before replying. “I—I didn’t have much in the way of clothes, and there’s a good deal here in the closets that I can use. So I just decided to stay up here.” Of course she’d never admit that she would have felt odd sleeping on the same floor of the compound as he, even though they would have been separated by at least ten rooms.
“Mmm,” was all he said, and again she got the feeling he was secretly amused by her. Perhaps he was imagining some of Genna’s more creative outfits and wondering whether he’d ever see her in one of those.
Not a chance in hell, she thought, so keep dreaming, Thorn!
“Good night,” she said then, making sure her voice sounded firm and in control. No sense in giving him any further ideas.
Once again she thought of how alone the two of them were here. It had been much easier when he was an invalid. Then at least she had known what the boundaries were between them. Now he was suddenly an active part of her life, and although part of her craved his company, she couldn’t help but be a little afraid of him as well. It had only been a few evenings ago that he’d threatened to hold a gun to her head, after all, although of course he hadn’t done anything remotely that sinister. Still, she began to wonder what would happen if he ever started to look at her as a woman and not just as the means to Mast’s treasure.
“’Night,” he said, and again his face was impassive, giving no hint of what he was thinking. Without another word he turned and headed back down the stairs, leaving Miala to stare after him in the darkness.
After a moment she stepped inside the dormitory, then pressed the controls to shut the door. For the first time she realized the door had no lock. It made sense, of course; in Mast’s mind, his slaves were property, with no more right to privacy than a mech or a pack animal. But the lack of security bothered her more than she cared to admit, even though she realized that a simple door lock was certainly not enough to deter a man like Eryk Thorn. If he wanted to get inside, he would, and that was that.
Perversely, the thought did not comfort her. She would
have preferred a lock, ineffectual as it might prove to be. Perhaps she should move to one of the guest quarters on the floor below. Then she noted that she couldn’t possibly move her room now, or Thorn would be sure to comment.
“Damn him, anyway,” she muttered, as she moved into the room and pulled out the simple long shirt she had been using to sleep in. Even though she knew the door was shut and the windows securely shuttered and latched, Miala still felt exposed. She changed as quickly as she could and resisted the impulse to pull the covers up to her chin. It was way too hot for that, especially since the vents to the slave girls’ quarters had been partially blocked so they wouldn’t use up too much of the precious air conditioning.
Tired as she was, sleep seemed to elude her. Every time she shut her eyelids, she’d suddenly hear a sound from the corridor outside, and then she would startle, eyes flying open, straining to see something—anything—in the darkened room. Of course nothing was there, so she’d slide back down against the coarse sheets, heart pounding irrationally in her chest.
She shut her eyes and told herself she was being ridiculous; Thorn was probably dead asleep in his own room, and she should be sleeping as well. Sure, she was a little afraid of him, even as she felt some attraction to him, but he certainly did not seem to share her feelings. She needed to realize he had no reason to come here to her room. No, she was just exhausted and not thinking rationally. She would wake up in the morning and feel like a complete idiot.
And it was with these no-nonsense words echoing in her mind that she was finally able to fall into an uneasy sleep, one in which no specter of Eryk Thorn haunted her dreams. Instead, she dreamed that she wandered the halls of Mast’s compound, certain each doorway led to freedom, only to find all of them barred against her. In her dream she finally collapsed in some dim and forgotten corridor, weeping, certain she would be trapped here forever in a nightmare of her own making.