Endless Blue

by Wen Spencer

  "I doubt that if the minotaurs were pissed off, that they would sail a hundred thousand miles and then stop ten miles out of the landing. I've signed the contracts. We're committed."

  Orin glanced behind her and an odd bleakness filled his face. "Paige," he said quietly and lifted his chin to indicate something on the dock.

  She turned and felt her insides go cold. Turk was walking toward the Rosetta. He was in a clean, crisp dark blue uniform. Behind him was a clean, crisp runabout with Reds in combat suits.

  Somehow, against all odds, Turk had found his ship and clearly gone running back to his brother.

  "Fuck." Paige breathed. Turk stopped at the edge of the dock. She went to the railing and looked down at him. Either he didn't care about her as much as she thought, or the idiot hadn't thought it all out yet.

  "You found your brother." Paige supposed he couldn't be faulted, really. If she'd lost Orin, and found him again . . .

  Turk nodded. "He's here with our ship."

  Our ship . Paige nodded. She heard all the undertones. It didn't say why he'd come back with obvious intentions. "So . . .?"

  "We need your help."

  She remembered then how he'd left the boat. Was this subtle blackmail with her little sister hostage? "Where's Hillary?"

  He frowned and glanced to where the launch was normally docked. "I—I guess she's still shopping. I assigned one of my Reds to protect her. A yearling named Rabbit."

  Oh good god, her teenage sister out with a teenage boy? And Turk thought he was protecting Hillary? Men! She pressed her palm to her forehead to ward off a sudden headache. Carve out her heart and set up a major family crisis. At least it wasn't as bad as it could be.

  "We have our own problems we have to deal with," she said.

  "I know. We can pay you and you can use the money to solve your problems."

  "Pay us with what?"

  "Anything we don't need to survive."

  "Anything?" You?

  He nodded, clearly deaf to her unspoken question. "Within reason."

  Gods must hate her. There were so many reasons to say yes, and only the ache in her heart to say no. "Fine. We'll help you. But not right now." At least she had the means to escape him now. "Ceri lined up a job. I need to find a way to get out to the Outer Banks immediately to talk to minotaurs."

  "Minotaurs?" Turk echoed. "As in aliens called minotaur? Are they dangerous?"

  Paige shook her head. "They're big, and pushy and loud, but harmless."

  "Fairly harmless." Orin grumbled.

  Turk pounced on the word. "Fairly?"

  Paige glared at her brother. Didn't he realize that he was making it difficult to get rid of Turk? Or was he hoping that Turk could lend them military backup? Didn't he realize how dangerous that might get? "Fairly."

  "If you could call something that big and that heavily armed harmless." Orin ignored her glare.

  "Are they ever hostile?" Turk asked.

  "We have an alliance with them." Paige said.

  "Which means we make nice by lying through our teeth about our basic nature." Orin said.

  "Orin." Paige growled. "Go find someone to watch the Rosetta while we're gone."

  "You're not taking the Rosetta?" Turk asked.

  My god, it's like swimming in a urchin patch! "No."

  Turk watched Orin go and then trailed behind her as she gathered gear. "You're angry at me."

  "Yes. I'm angry at you."

  "Why?"

  "Why? Why? Because you're leaving me! No. You've already left! You ran back to him and you even didn't stop to think about how hurt I might be. You walk back here and don't even say you're sorry, or goodbye, just that you need my help for him!"

  "I didn't think . . ."

  "Obviously!"

  He pressed up against her, trapping her behind his pinning her to the wall. "Finding Misha doesn't change that I love you."

  Now he says it. She'd been patiently waiting for him to say aloud the words that his body whispered to her. She clenched her fists to keep from hitting him. The stupid idiot.

  Paige fought to keep her voice level. The words clear. "I'm only in Ya-ya until the Rosetta is fixed—and then we leave."

  It finally dawned on him. For a moment he stared at her, stricken. She fought the urge to comfort him even while some small dark part of her soul was glad that he at least was going to feel some of the same pain.

  He took a deep breath, stepped away from her and smoothed down his uniform. "I see." When he looked up, he'd closed off all evidence of his pain except for grief that lingered in his eyes.

  It only served to make her want to hit him more. She wanted him out of her sight before she did something that she'd regret.

  "Go back to your brother and tell him that we'll help him when we get back." 'We' was a safe pronoun, much less dangerous than 'I' at this moment. She was sure the word would stick in her throat if she tried to say it. Could someone choke to death on polite discourse?

  "How are you going?" Turk asked; his voice flat.

  "I don't know yet."

  "How many minotaur are there?"

  "I don't know!"

  "What do they want?"

  "I don't know! I don't know! I don't know!" She fled to the bridge to look at charts. "Nobody knows. That's why they hired me!"

  Annoyingly he followed. "You don't have to do this. We'll be paying you enough money that you can back out of it."

  "I signed a contract. I'm obligated to fulfill it. If I back out of it, it's less likely I can get another translating job. Don't you newcomers understand that relationships stretch across lifetimes? Is it because your universe is so big, that you can break your word and fly away and never see that person ever again?"

  The word 'never' seemed to strike them both like a blow. She stared at the chart but the words all blurred from the tears starting to burn in her eyes. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to cry. She didn't want to cry in front of him; it would only make things worse.

  "Let me help you." Turk said quietly. "We have a small troop lander. We can fly you out. It won't cost you any money."

  She didn't want to say yes, but it would be stupid to say no. They were running too close to being broke and losing everything for her to spurn his offer.

  17

  The Time Has Come

  To Talk of Many Things

  Mikhail found himself wondering exactly how Captain Bailey was related to Eraphie. Captain Bailey turned out to be a beautiful young woman with blonde curls and deep blue eyes. She didn't look like she had any Red in her. Mikhail would have thought that the Red's dark coloring would have been dominant genes, but she could have been third or fourth generation with possibly strong Nordic bloodlines mixed in. Or maybe their fathers were human brothers and only Eraphie was half-Red.

  Mikhail would ask, but Captain Bailey was obviously not thrilled at the idea of helping them. Turk left in a good mood, but came back brooding like a thunderstorm. As they explained to Mikhail about the minotaurs—and not about why they were fighting—the two alternated between giving each other hurt looks and pointedly ignoring the other. Mikhail saw no reason to add fuel to the fire when they so desperately needed Captain Bailey's help.

  Normally Mikhail would have let Turk go solo on a mission that could escalate into violence. He felt, though, he had to act as a buffer between Turk and Captain Bailey.

  "It would be best if I just go out alone." Despite what Captain Bailey said, she sat down beside Turk.

  "The Tigertail is too valuable to risk." Mikhail tried to stay impersonal.

  Still studying the ceiling, Turk growled, "I'm not going to let you go alone."

  "I can take care of myself," she said without looking at Turk and then appealed to Mikhail. "I don't think he should go."

  "I'm Red Commander, I go with my Reds." Turk stated.

  And Mikhail wouldn't want it any other way.

  Captain Bailey frowned at Mikhail as if he had said it aloud. "Fine. Then I need to
lay down rules and you have to obey them. Translating across species is like defusing bombs, I can't have someone running amok or it will all blow up."

  "I understand." Mikhail acknowledged that she wanted rules but didn't agree to them. He would need to hear them first.

  Something in the way she studied him reminded him of his father. Perhaps it was just the blue of her eyes. "Minotaurs are a patriarchal society. A social unit will be a bull, a harem of females, and children. Interactions between social units are through the bulls only. It means that I'm the only that gets to talk."

  Turk gave a bark of laughter. "Your true form is revealed."

  She poked him in the ribs. "Hush you."

  "Since we don't know how to talk to them, I doubt that will be a problem," Mikhail said.

  "You have to stand back and not interfere." Captain Bailey poked Turk to underscore her point. She was building to something.

  "Why would he?" Mikhail asked.

  "The conversation can get physical," Bailey said. "The minotaurs can be very . . .brutish. Whatever happens, unless I go down and don't get back up again, you stay out of it."

  Turk hunched in his seat, stared at the floor, and growled lowly.

  "You can't protect me." Bailey poked him once more.

  Without looking, Turk caught her hand and pressed it his cheek.

  "You can't." She said again, but leaned her head against his shoulder.

  They were lovers! Mikhail realized that the trouble lay not in her helping them but in Turk leaving the Rosetta. Except for childhood crushes that ended badly, Turk had never taken a lover. Women that expressed interest in Turk had always been either maneuvering to get into Mikhail's bed—and be the empire's first Tsarina—or cat fanciers wanting to wallow in perversions. In one little act, Bailey was showing Turk more humane tenderness than any woman had ever done. Leaving Bailey was going to hurt Turk deeply—and his little brother was just realizing it.

  "Sir, we're over the islands," Lieutenant Belokurov said.

  Spread out north and south was a dotted line of islands, only about a kilometer wide, but thirty or forty kilometers long. There was no sign of aliens.

  "They would have been put up some kind of shelter from the sun," Bailey said. "It's blending with the sand."

  "The minotaur would have gotten there somehow. Scan for a boat." Mikhail ordered.

  "Found something." Lieutenant Belokurov brought up an image. A small garish-colored catamaran sat stranded on a reef, a dozen meters from shore. One of the twin hulls had a hole punched into it.

  "Yes, that has to be them," Bailey said. "That's a minotaur craft."

  "Looks human to me," Turk said.

  "A human wouldn't have picked those colors to go together." She pointed out the lime green, orange and pink.

  Mikhail had to agree with her there. "Put us down as close as you can on the island."

  "If they're shipwrecked, at least that explains what they're doing out here." Turk said.

  Captain Bailey shook her head. "Not completely. The minotaur mainland is a hundred thousand miles away. There's no way they could have made it here in that small of a boat. There's has to be another minotaur boat close by—probably a much a bigger one."

  * * *

  The minotaurs had abandoned their small boat. There were tracks in the sand that ran in all directions.

  "I think they went this way." Captain Bailey pointed out that most of the tracks went north. "Please, stay here with Tigertail."

  "I'm coming with you." Turk said in a tone that meant he couldn't be swayed from his decision.

  Captain Bailey must have recognized the tone too. She sighed and nodded. They went off together. Just before they disappeared over the sand dune, she reached out twined her fingers around Turk's.

  Why hadn't Turk told him that about Captain Bailey? Turk was in love; that much was clear. And she seemed genuinely fond of him—if not something much deeper. Could it be that Turk was blind to it all? Or was he refusing to see the truth? It was possible that Turk didn't think any woman would love him because he was a Red.

  Mikhail loved his brother dearly, but there were times he wanted to smack some sense into him. Turk had to see himself as human before the rest of the universe would.

  If it hadn't been for her fur, Mikhail wouldn't have guessed that Eraphie Bailey was a Red. Talking to her, she seemed wholly human. She didn't have the pervasive cat-like behaviors that all Reds—Turk included—displayed. Was it because she wasn't a full-blooded Red, or was it because she wasn't raised in a crèche and subject to their training methods? If the cat thing was learned behavior, then when did Turk pick it up? He had spent only three months in a crèche. Had they laid some subtle pattern down on him then? Or had he picked it up later, when he interacted with their father's house pride? Was it something Mikhail could have prevented, if he had stopped and thought about how much damage it was going to do in the future? The thought stained him with guilt.

  Luckily Lieutenant Belokurov distracted him from the sense of being dirty. "Captain, we have visitors."

  About two kilometers down the beach, five beings were enacting a pantomime of excited discovery. The distant figures were too oddly proportioned to be human, though, with large heads and blocky feet. The beings came running toward Mikhail at an impressive speed. Something about their gait reminded Mikhail of a herd of horses. For a moment, Mikhail thought they were going to run him over. At the last moment, they came to an abrupt stop just out of reach.

  They stood, panting only slightly from their two kilometer run. They were tall with a reddish hide and the heavy square heads of horses. Their oversized ears, however, pointed downwards like a cow's, and the male had a small set of black horns, about ten centimeters in length. Captain Bailey's legendary minotaur. While they had hooves for feet, their hands were long-fingered. They were mammals—the females wore bright colored cloth tied like makeshift bikinis over rounded breasts. The females also had black manes braided into beaded rows. The male had a sarong that covered his sex and a line of stubble to show that his mane had been shorn short.

  They carried spears with metal tips loosely with such ease it seemed as if they'd forgotten they held the weapons. Almost two meters tall, the minotaurs looked down at Mikhail.

  The minotaurs gazed at Mikhail, all talking rapid fire among themselves. Their language was deep and breathy with no word breaks that Mikhail could make out. Their eyes were wide set in their square heads, the large, dark pupil taking up the entire eye. Despite their very alien nature, Mikhail got the impression of wide eyed surprise.

  Mikhail was at a loss what to do next. Alien contact normally meant nefrims, and that was always kill or be killed. Communicating would be good—but without Captain Bailey—how?

  "Hello? Greetings?" His speaking drew the minotaurs' attention. The male fell silent, but the females chattered on, giving the male nudges and pointing at Mikhail with their spears.

  Coffee snapped his rifle up to his shoulder.

  "Hold your fire!" Mikhail cried.

  "So I'm to wait until they stab you with those spears?" Coffee asked.

  "Yes," Mikhail said. "Stand down!"

  "Suit yourself." Coffee lowered his rifle.

  The minotaur apparently didn't recognize the weapon as such because none of them reacted. Or maybe they were too focused on their argument to notice.

  The male finally spoke. Throwing back his shoulder, he bellowed, "Hatanhaalahorthraraaro."

  There was no helpful hand waving or pointing involved. Mikhail couldn't tell if this was a ritual greeting or if the male was giving his name or telling them to bug off their beach.

  Mikhail tapped his chest. "Volkov. I am Volkov."

  The minotaurs looked at him and then scanned the beach. After a few more nudges from the females, the male blew out its breath and bellowed again—slower this time, so that Mikhail could catch the word breaks. "Haala horth ra ra haro."

  Had it just repeated itself?

  "I am Volk
ov. Welcome."

  This brought the minotaurs to complete silence.

  While they stood gazing at one another, the sea birds wheeled overhead, giving their shrill cry.

  So now what? Apparently that was what the minotaurs were asking too—as they put their heads close together and conferred. They seemed to expect him to know what they wanted. Captain Bailey indicated that humans traded with minotaurs often. Perhaps a visual would help.

  Mikhail crouched down in the sand and smoothed out a writing area. He drew out a rough sketch of the stars and stripes symbol that the New Washingtonians loved to paint on everything. If the minotaur had contact with the Georgetown Landing, they would recognize it.

  He looked up to find that he'd lost his audience. The minotaurs were heading for the launch. One of the females was out ahead of the rest, running backwards to point out the troop lander to the others.

  "Captain?" Coffee had his rifle back on his shoulder.

  "Let them near it." Mikhail hoped it wouldn't be a mistake. While the minotaurs were tall and sturdily built, he was sure that the Reds could kill them before they could do any serious harm with their primitive spears. "Call Commander Turk." Mikhail trotted after the minotaurs. "Tell him to bring Captain Bailey here. Quickly."

  * * *

  Paige ran toward where they left the Tigertail, her heart in her throat. She could trust her family to stay calm in the face of a minotaur invasion, but newcomers? It'd been a mistake to bring them. Minotaurs bulls were huge. She wasn't sure what frame of mind these Minotaurs might be in, especially since Ya-ya hadn't been able to establish communication with them earlier.

  Turk was keeping pace with her, talking with his Reds on his comline.

  "Tell them to stay calm," Paige said.

  "I have," Turk said.

  They came over the last sand dune. The minotaurs were gathered in a knot beside the Tigertail, obviously arguing about something. Simply taking the Tigertail? As far as she knew, theft wasn't in the minotaur's mindset, but then, you can only steal from "people." And humans might not classify as people. As she jogged toward them, she noticed that something seemed odd about the minotaurs, but she couldn't put her finger on it. The group consisted of one bull with a harem of four females. A fairly standard group. They had fishing spears but no heavier weapons, which seemed odd.