Trilby was too, though she said nothing for now. Tivahr’s mission—the one that had dropped him in her lap on Avanar—had taken him from the Syar Colonies to Szedcafar. Now they were headed back to Syar again. She hoped Szed wasn’t the next stop on their travel plans. The ’Sko were even more serious about finders keepers than she was.
22
Loading ’droids and antigrav pallets buzzed under and around Shadow’s Quest. Trilby leaned against a set of servo-stairs and thought wistfully of Dezi. But it was Jagan’s voice she heard, soft in her ear.
“You don’t need to supervise the loading, Tril. How about you and I hop the next pod to the terminal, do some dinner, catch up on old times?”
Trilby turned. With all the clank and clatter, she hadn’t heard Jagan come up behind her. Last she’d seen him, he was arranging his luggage in the crews’ quarters, a deck below the bridge. Then Dallon was going to show him how to use the comm terminal in the Quest’s small mess so he could send out his contracts to GGA legal on Bagrond. She’d left the ship purposely to get away from him. But now here he was, still in his expensive dark blue suit and pale blue band-collared shirt. All very trendy. All completely out of place in a starfreighter cargo hangar.
She crossed her arms over her chest, her fingers resting against the new ship’s patches on her sleeves. “All of us will go over in a bit. But if you’re hungry, go on ahead. Dallon will give you a ship badge. We’ll call you when we’re on our way.”
The eyes that studied her face spoke of a different kind of hunger. He patted his left breast pocket. “Already got one. How about the others catch up with us later?”
“Thanks, but no, Jagan.” There was the loud clang of a cargo-bay door shutting. She turned away, grateful for the distraction. She had no intention of going anywhere with Jagan Grantforth, alone. It was bad enough he’d be on the ship for a septi, tolerable only because, as Tivahr said, he was their guarantee of safety. At least until they got to the Colonies.
Tivahr and Mitkanos were talking to a loading ’droid across the hangar. They had their backs to her, but as if he felt her watching him, or as if, even more, he knew who stood beside her, Tivahr looked over his shoulder in her direction. He reached for Mitkanos’s arm, leaned over, and spoke to the burly man.
Then he pivoted on his heels, heading toward her. He wore the same dark gray service jacket she did, the same type of dark gray flight suit. Basic, functional freighter clothing. Definitely not trendy.
Yet on him it looked somehow … different. As if the fabric knew it should also bear a set of bright captain’s stars. Five of them. Senior captain.
“You don’t want to go, or he won’t let you?” There was a distinct peevishness in Jagan’s tone. The last time Trilby had heard that, he was saying, Mother always said …
She glanced back at Jagan. “How’s your mother? And while we’re on the subject, how’s Zalia?”
“You don’t understand—”
“You’re right, I don’t,” she snapped.
He dropped his gaze, chewed for a moment on his lower lip, looking decidedly uncomfortable. She softened her tone, even though she knew he deserved her anger. “You have your life. I have mine. Let’s keep it that way, okay?”
“And is he, this Vanur, part of your life now?” He jerked his chin in the direction of the man striding closer.
“He owns the ship. And he’s … a friend.” She found herself struggling with the word. But she didn’t know what term to use in place of it. “He understands my goals.” That much was true. Khyrhis Tivahr understood her love of her ship, the lure of star travel, the freedom of life in the lanes. And her need to find out what happened to Carina, whatever the cost.
“He’s probably just using you, Tril. I mean, look at the facts. He’s got one ship, maybe a little spare money or some investor he’s bamboozled. And where’d you meet him—doing runs to Degvar, you said, right? You’re out of your element. Hell, you don’t even speak the language. Then, after your ship’s attacked, he’s there with this offer. Am I right?”
As off base as Jagan’s suppositions were, they still rankled her. Possibly because, while the facts were wrong, she remembered Tivahr pretending to be Rhis Vanur. She had felt used. Bamboozled. She pushed the hurt away. “It really doesn’t matter—”
“You let him fuck you before or after he offered you the job?”
Her closed fist cracked hard against his jaw before she was even aware she’d swung her arm.
Jagan staggered backward, his flailing arms tangling in the servo-stair railing. Heavy footsteps thudded quickly behind her, coming closer.
“You bitch!” Jagan tried to jerk his arm free of the metal stanchion. There was a slight ripping sound. “You Gods damned bitch!”
“Grantforth!” Tivahr shoved Trilby aside, grabbed a handful of Jagan’s suit jacket. Jagan struggled to stand and push Tivahr away at the same time.
Trilby was breathing hard. She sucked on her raw knuckles and watched Jagan try ineffectively to wriggle out of Tivahr’s grasp. Shit, but her hand hurt!
Still, hitting Jagan had felt so good.
“What’s going on?” Tivahr bellowed at Jagan. He had a two-handed grasp on the man’s suit. The front of the jacket pulled away from the long tear in the sleeve, revealing the lighter shirt underneath.
Jagan glared up at Tivahr. “Bitch hit me.”
Tivahr looked back at Trilby, his dark eyes glittering dangerously. “Explain.”
She took her hand out of her mouth. “It’s personal.”
“Personal.” He clearly didn’t like her response.
“Leave it go, Tiv—Vanur.” In the heat of the moment, she almost said Tivahr. Damnation! She had to watch herself. She drew in a long, slow breath.
Tivahr let go of Jagan, releasing his hold on the fabric as if he’d touched something slimy. Jagan took a step to his right, but Tivahr’s arm shot out, blocking him. “Wait. I am not through yet.”
“Hey, friend.” Jagan twisted his mouth into a frown. “I’m the victim here, remember? I’m also,” and he raised his fingers to gingerly touch the darkening bruise on his chin, “your employer.”
“A contract to haul freight doesn’t give you the right to abuse someone,” Tivahr said through clenched teeth. He lowered his arm.
“She hit me!”
“But I guarantee you provoked her.”
Jagan stared past Tivahr, directly at Trilby. She made sure she met his gaze, head held high. If he knew what was good for him, he’d shut up now. Questioning Tivahr over his employment methods, and his relationship with her, just might get his other sleeve torn.
Jagan seemed to finally realize that as well. He dropped his gaze and studied the tips of his boots, or the streaks and stains on the hangar floor, for all Trilby knew. “Yeah, well, there was something between us at one time,” he said when he looked up. “I’m sure she told you.”
Tivahr said nothing, but Trilby felt, for the first time, something very frightening in his silence. It was a condemning, accusatory silence. She could imagine whole squadrons of ensigns quaking in their boots.
“Maybe I had it coming,” Jagan said finally. He massaged his jaw. “We were a pretty hot item for a while. Guess she hasn’t forgotten that.” He voice held a note of bravado.
Trilby wanted to throw up. Or clock him again. She spun on her heels and stomped back toward the rampway.
Rhis watched Trilby head for the ship, then turned back to Jagan. “Stay away from her.” It was clearly a command, not a request.
The blond-haired man shrugged. “It was just a little lover’s spat. She’ll get over it.”
Rhis read Jagan’s message loud and clear: I had her first. I can take her back again. If he didn’t need Jagan to find out what GGA and the ’Sko were planning, he would’ve gladly thrown him across the hangar. In pieces.
But Jagan also, he knew, needed Trilby and the information from Trilby’s ship. He’d have to make sure Jagan wasn’t planning any late-nigh
t rendezvous to gain her cooperation.
“I will not repeat myself. You will stay away from her. Or I will have you confined to your cabin.”
“You’re not the captain. She is.” Jagan dismissed him with a slanted glance, strode back toward the ship. Back toward Trilby.
In three steps Rhis was behind him, his hand clamped on Jagan’s shoulder. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Jagan jerked back. “To change my jacket. Friend. And then to get myself a drink.” His fists clenched, then relaxed. He shrugged. “Since Tril’s not interested, I’m sure I can find some sweet little thing who is.”
Rhis saw the shift in mood, the way Jagan’s gaze darted impatiently over his shoulder. The man’s anger simmered just below the surface. Hell, Rhis was clearly provoking him. Stupidly. He could blow this whole mission if he weren’t careful. Because provoking Grantforth he was. But Grantforth wasn’t rising to the bait.
He wanted to. The tense set of his shoulders, the clenching of his fists, the way he bit off the ends of his words. The way “friend” sounded anything but friendly.
Jagan Grantforth wanted to fight almost as badly as Rhis wanted to fight with him. But something held him back. He had, as Patruzius noted, an agenda. Rhis felt that strongly now. Almost as strongly as something else: that agenda was based on fear.
Rhis deliberately took a step back, gave Jagan some space. “Chevienko has many long, cold nights. You should have no trouble to find some Saldikan lady looking to stay warm, no?”
Jagan seemed to accept that as the closest thing he was going to get to an apology. “That’s my plan. We have a seven o’clock departure?”
“Correct. But you will not be needed on the bridge, so if you choose to sleep late—”
“Just as long as I’m not in the captain’s cabin, right?” He laughed, but it had a brittle note.
In spite of all his training, all his mental chastisings, Rhis tensed visibly.
“Just kidding.” Jagan raised his hands in mock self-defense. “It took me awhile, but I caught on, okay? You and Tril. Who am I to say anything about that? I mean, she’s a decent piece of ass. Just be careful when you finally get bored with her.” He rubbed his jaw. “She’s got a mean right hook.”
In pieces. Torn, shredded, dismembered, and strewn about the cargo hangar. Flattened into the grit-covered floor by the wheels of uncaring cargo ’droids. Rhis held on to that image of Jagan for a moment while he froze a smile onto his face.
No, better yet, he’d drag Grantforth back to the Razalka somehow. His ship had a specially designed training chamber with holosims that exactly duplicated the harsh, jagged outcroppings in the mountains on Stegor. He wouldn’t even bring a weapon. Just his fists. The mountain sands were red. He’d work on Jagan Grantforth until the man’s body and the ground were virtually indistinguishable.
His forced smile became almost genuine. “I am glad we understand each other. And your advice is noted.”
He let Jagan trudge back to the ship, unaccompanied. Let him think he trusted him, believed him, or, at least, understood him, man to man.
But he’d watch him, very carefully. Jagan had an agenda. And Trilby was but a small part of it.
Rhis waited five minutes before climbing the ramp to Shadow’s Quest. By that time Jagan should be down on the crew deck. He touched the CLS panel to the right of the main air lock on the cargo level and keyed in a request for Trilby’s location. She was in her quarters.
He tapped his ship badge. “Vanur to Captain Elliot.”
“Elliot.” She sounded tired. No doubt dealing with Jagan was a strain for her.
“It’s Rhis. I’ll be there in five minutes. I want to stop by the bridge first.” And his quarters as well, but he didn’t mention that. He tabbed off, without giving her a chance to say no.
He took the lift up, found Farra in her seat at communications, with a clear view through the forward viewports of everything that had transpired between Trilby, Jagan, and himself.
“Dasjon,” she greeted him. They all knew not to use any other title while Jagan was on board. Just as they all knew to pretend to speak less Standard than they did, with Patruzius being the exception.
They also spoke to each other only in Zafharish.
“Everything’s a go for 0700?” he asked.
“Affirmative, sir.”
“And the loading?”
“Uncle Yavo’s code-sealing the last of the containers in Hold Three now.”
He nodded. “Dinner in an hour, my treat. I leave where to you and your uncle. Tell Patruzius too. We’ll seal the ship and meet at the ramp at”—he glanced at the time stamp on her screen—“1845.”
“And Dasjon Grantforth?”
“I believe he has alternate plans.”
“Probably for the best.” Farra grinned, then motioned out the forward viewport. “Our captain has good reflexes.”
In Rhis’s estimation, Trilby Elliot had many fine qualities, reflexes notwithstanding. He stood in front of her quarters, one hand hidden behind his back. He touched the palm pad on the side of the door with the other. It chimed softly.
The door slid open.
“Don’t start with me.” Her eyes were shadowed underneath. She’d doffed her gray service jacket. It hung haphazardly over the arm of the small couch in her sitting area.
He fought the desire to pull her into his arms, surround her pain with his hardness, his certainty that nothing would ever hurt her again. But he had something to give her first. “May I come in?”
She stepped aside, nodding, motioned him in.
He hesitated. Tension and fatigue wrapped around her like a suffocating cloak. His timing with his surprise was either perfect, or abysmal.
He pulled his hand from behind his back, held the small, plush felinar out to her. Its red ribbon dangled through his fingers.
She gasped softly, reached for it, but at the last moment she hesitated. Brought her gaze up to his. He could see a light film of tears shimmering in her eyes.
He tried to smile. His throat felt tight. “I thought you might want this,” he managed to get out.
Her fingers closed around the small toy that had decorated her bridge. “Thank you.” She clutched it against her chest, glanced up at him again. There was a tinge of warmth in her eyes now, and a small flush of color on her cheeks. She sighed. “I mean that. Thank you.”
The thin screen on the low table in front of her couch was activated. He glanced at it as he followed her into the room: Zafharish vocabulary lessons.
The small smile he permitted to play across his lips was nothing compared to the warmth that spread through his chest. He hoped that learning his language meant she wanted to stay in the Empire. With him. Maybe his timing with the toy was better than he’d realized.
She propped the plush felinar against one edge of the screen, picked up her empty coffee cup. “Want some? I was just going to get a refill.” Her tone was light, but without any real energy behind it.
“Yav chalkon gara reling, viek.” He casually requested a cup of tea, trying to sound, not teacher to student, but as if speaking Zafharish to her were an ordinary occurrence. He wanted it to be.
She was already turning. “Yellow tea or that black—oh! Sorry.” She shrugged. “I understand better than I answer.”
He stepped closer. “It takes practice.” He wrapped his fingers over hers as she held the cup.
She pulled away. “I’m surrounded with it here. But I’ll probably forget it all once I get back to Port Rumor.” She pushed her cup into the replicator, ordered coffee. “You never said: black tea or yellow?”
“Trilby-chenka—”
“Don’t, please.”
He was silent a moment, tried to read her discomfort in the straight line of her back, in the set of her shoulders. She was pushing him away again. “I’m not.” Asking. Prying. Condemning. “Black tea is fine.”
She keyed in the request.
He waited until she handed him the s
teaming cup. “We will have dinner off ship tonight, 1845. I told Farra to choose where,” he added, when he realized his first comment sounded too much like an order. “Grantforth’s already left, for places unknown.”
She relaxed a little, sat down on the couch in front of the screen on the low table. Picked up the little felinar again, smoothed its fur. “I don’t know if I’ll last a septi without killing him.” She tabbed off the screen. It slid from sight.
He grinned, eased down next to her on the couch. “You’d not lack help.”
“The best the Imperial Fleet and Stegzarda have to offer?” She leaned back against the overstuffed cushions, a wry smile on her lips. It faded. “It’s none of my business,” she said after a moment, “but can I ask you something?”
He forced himself to relax, to ignore the one question he feared her asking. At least asking now, when things were so tenuous between them. He didn’t need anything else to drive her away. Or make her look at him with disgust, as Malika had.
“Ask,” he told her easily, as if his very life didn’t hang in the balance.
“What’s the problem between you and the Stegzarda?”
He soundlessly let out the breath he’d been holding. The Stegzarda? That’s all she wanted to know? He felt as if, for once, he’d received a reprieve from his habitual spot on the divine shit list. “The Stegzarda are primarily ground and security forces. The Fleet patrols Imperial space. When it comes to certain outposts and stations, we share jurisdiction.”
“I know that. But what’s the problem? And don’t tell me it’s just common rivalry.”
Oh. That. He turned the cup around in his hands. “It’s rather complicated.”
“Then just give me the basics. I can probably figure out the rest.”
She’d been talking to Mitkanos. He could hear that clearly now in the even tone in her voice, could see it in the slight tilt of her chin. She’d been given an opinion, a strong opinion. He tried to keep his recital impartial.
“The Stegzarda base and academy are in the Yanir Quadrant. Have been for over two hundred fifty years. The Fleet was much smaller then. We didn’t have ships with the long-range capabilities we do now. As the Fleet expanded, especially in the last ten, fifteen years, we rightfully took over jurisdiction in Yanir, as we did with all the outlying quadrants in the Empire.”
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