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The pair positioned the floating transparent box over his lax body. It began to lower over him like a lid. The moment it had him covered, it flooded with some kind of pink vapor before rising again, lifting Baran with it.
A glowing trid display appeared in midair over him, displaying what was evidently a schematic of Baran’s body. Ominous sections were colored bright red. The two medtechs stepped in close and started touching parts of the trid with their fingers.
Jane watched nervously. At her feet Octopussy meowed pitifully. She bent absently and picked the cat up. The little animal felt warm and solid in her arms.
The skin of one of the medtechs was a bright emerald green. His hands seemed misshapen; she realized he had twelve fingers.
“Is he an alien?” she asked Frieka in a low voice, cuddling Octopussy.
The wolf snorted. “Nan. If he was, he’d look much weirder than that.”
“Oh.”
The glass box began to float away. Automatically Jane started to follow. The female medtech turned toward her and gestured, her tone sharp. Jane shot a questioning look at Frieka. The wolf said something back to the medtech in the same language. The woman replied over her shoulder as she followed the box off down the corridor.
“What was that all about?”
“They’re taking him to the ship’s hospital. He’s going to be in regeneration for the next five or six hours. Then we’ve got a mission.”
“A mission?” Jane gaped at him. “The man was dead a second ago, and they’re going to just patch him up and send him back into combat?”
The wolf glanced up at her as he started down the hall in the opposite direction from the one the medtechs had taken. “Well, yeah.”
“That sucks.”
Freika flicked an ear. “Not compared to the situation we were in ten minutes ago.”
Ten minutes ago, Jane remembered, they were all back on Earth trying to keep the Enforcer from executing her while wondering if the alternative would destroy the universe. “Okay,” she said, “you’ve got me there.”
Sitting on Baran’s bunk several hours later, Jane looked up just as a muscular blond Warlord strode by, stark naked. Catching her stare of wide-eyed amazement, he looked puzzled, then glanced down at himself. When he realized what she was gaping at, the grin he gave her needed no translation whatsoever.
“I,” Freika announced, “am going to tell.”
Covering her burning cheeks with both hands, Jane muttered, “I’m in love, not blind. Jesus, Baran meant it when he said his people are casual about nudity.”
The wolf yawned, revealing impressive fangs. “No reason they shouldn’t be. You all look alike anyway.”
“That was a racist comment. Or maybe a speciesist comment. I’d think somebody from this time would be more...”
Resting his head on his paws, Freika flicked an ear at her. “You’re babbling.”
Jane sighed. “Going nuts does that to me. Shouldn’t Baran be back by now?
“Evidently not, since he isn’t.”
She eyed him as he lay on the bunk beside her. “You’re disgustingly literal, aren’t you?”
The wolf lifted his head and eyed her. “And you’re terrified out of your mind. It’s going to be all right, Jane.”
“Yeah, right.” Absently she stroked Octopussy as the cat coiled in a neurotic, shivering ball in her lap, a thoroughly traumatized Siamese. Jane knew just how she felt.
They sat in a huge round room filled with what looked like several hundred bunks. All around them, people talked, did incomprehensible things with strange bits of equipment, or watched trid images that danced in the air.
Jane had never felt so lonely surrounded by so many people. The fact that they all spoke a language she didn’t understand wasn’t exactly a help, either.
Jane sighed. Her eyes fell on a brawny blond woman on the bunk opposite hers. The woman—a Warfem?—seemed to be making some kind of adjustments to something that looked like a weapon. For all Jane knew, it was actually the twenty-third century equivalent of a Salad Shooter.
“I’m three hundred years in the future, I don’t speak the language, and two of my only three friends in the entire universe have tails,” Jane said.
Freika grunted. “Do not include me in any category with that cat.”
“Methinks the wolf protests too much.” She grinned suddenly, unable to resist the opportunity to twit him, if only to distract herself from her misery. “You know, back home we say that anybody who professes to hate somebody that bad must have a secret....”
“Forget it.”
“Well, you know what Freud would say about all those jokes about eating pussy.”
Freika gave her a look of such horrified revulsion it was all she could do not to fall off the bed laughing. “Sick. You’re just sick. God, we’ve brought a pervert to the future.”
She snickered.
“You take it back.”
“I’m just saying—“
“Get away from me!” He jumped off the bed. “I can’t believe you’d even think something like that. That’s not natural!”
Jane hugged the cat and collapsed into giggles. Octopussy gave her an offended meow and struggled free before leaping onto an empty bunk.
“See?” Freika glared at her. “Even the cat is disgusted.”
“Freika loves puss-y,” she singsonged in a schoolyard chant, unable to resist. “Freika loves—“
“Here I hurry back, thinking you’ll be heartsick with worry,” interrupted a deep male voice, “and instead I find you in hysterics. I’m hurt.”
“Baran!” Jane threw herself off the bed and into his arms.
“Just in time,” the wolf growled, glaring at her. “You can hold her down while I bite her.”
“Actually, I was planning to hold her down while I bite her,” Baran said, pulling her tightly against him.
He felt so big and hard and safe. She burrowed into him, inhaling his clean male scent. No blood, no dirt, just Baran. Drawing back slightly, she looked him over anxiously. No wounds, either. “Boy, medicine in this time is amazing.”
“As long as you’re not dead for too long, yeah.” He looked down at her, searching her face with hot, dark eyes. “God.”
Then she was plastered against him, and he was kissing her with a passion that seemed to singe the roots of her hair. She moaned against his ravenous mouth and twined her body around his, arms around his neck, legs circling his waist.
“Chi di rath ki, Baran!” a strange voice called, and laughed.
“Roughly translated, that means ‘Get a room,’” Freika told them. “Though personally, I wouldn’t want to be alone with her, considering what a deviant she is.”
They ignored him.
Jane finally came up for air while he strung nibbling kisses along her collarbone. “Isn’t there somewhere we can go where we won’t have a fascinated audience?”
“Yeah.” Baran got in a last nibble and lifted his head reluctantly. “Unfortunately, we don’t have time to go there. Frieka and I have to go kill Jutka.”
“Now?” She drew back to study him in dismay. She realized he was dressed in some kind of futuristic black body armor. “But you just got out of the hospital, or sickbay, or whatever they call it here.”
“There’s a war on, Jane,” Baran told her grimly. “And victory will be a lot easier with the general dead.”
New anxiety attacked her. What if something happened to him? They finally had a future together, and now he had to risk it again.
But one of the things she loved about Baran was his devotion to duty. She knew she had to let him do his job, even when it terrified her. Fighting the impulse to, cling harder, she pulled away from him and straightened her shoulders. “So kill the creep and hurry back.”
He grinned, eyes lightening. “Believe me, I’m going to wrap this thing up as quickly as I can.” He reached into one of the pouches attached to his belt and pulled out a small object. “By the way, I’ve got so
mething for you.” He took her hand and put it in her palm. “Had a hell of a time getting my hands on one. Finally just ordered the ship to synthesize it for me.”
Jane opened her fingers and studied the small, curving piece of gold. “It’s ... nice.” What the hell was it?
“It’s a personal comp,” he told her, taking it back from her and taking her chin in one hand. Tilting her head, he slipped the little device around her ear so it rested snugly against her skull. “When I get time, I’ll re-program it for English. Then it’ll be able to teach you Galactic Standard.”
“Oh!” Jane brightened. “That’s neat. How does it...?”
He winced. “Hell, they’re calling us. Freika...”
“Yeah, I’m ready,” the wolf said, moving to join him.
“When will you be back?”
“As soon as we can.” Baran dragged her close again for another hug. Something about the ferocity of it told her he was worried.
Suddenly she remembered Freika referred to the job he and Baran did as “suicide missions.” She lightened her grip, feeling her heart leap in fear. “You come back to me,” she said, her voice low and hard. “I lived for you, Baran Arvid. Now you live for me.”
He drew away and looked down at her, his gaze just as determined as she felt. “I will.” He turned his head, as if hearing a voice she couldn’t. “I’ve got to go.”
Baran turned and strode off down between the bunks, Freika trotting at his heels. Jane watched them go, feeling forlorn. “Bye,” she whispered.
At the other side of the room, the doors slid closed behind them.
She sat down. Octopussy crept out from under the other bunk and jumped into her lap. Gathering the cat against her, she settled back to wait.
Something loud startled Jane awake. She jerked upright on Baran’s bunk and looked around, blinking hard. She couldn’t see the source of the noise, and she had no idea what the hell it was. A warning of some kind?
But none of the people moving around the room reacted. Blinking, she fell back on the bunk and scrubbed her hands hard over her sandy eyes. Her heart still thumped hard from surprise.
Baran was still nowhere to be seen. Where was he? Was he back? Had he been hurt again?
Was he dead?
Calm down, she told herself sternly. Don’t borrow trouble.
As she sat there curled in a ball, Octopussy suddenly jumped onto the mattress. She startled. “Damn, cat, don’t do that to me.”
The Siamese looked at her and meowed plaintively. She sounded hungry. Come to think of it, Jane wouldn’t mind a bite or two, either.
And to make a bad situation worse, she needed to use the bathroom desperately. Unfortunately, she had no idea where it was—or even how to use twenty-third-century plumbing.
He’s not going to come back, her father’s ghost whispered. You’ll be stuck here, unable to speak the language, knowing no one, with no means to support yourself.
Jane felt the rise of helplessness. It was bitterly familiar.
Incompetent. She was so damned incompetent. She’d stranded herself in a time long after everything and everybody she knew had disappeared, without a way to meet even her own most basic needs. And the man she loved was God knows where, fighting and perhaps even dying while she sat in bed and did nothing.
Incompetent, whispered her father’s ghost.
So how did I kill Jack the Ripper?
Jane straightened, remembering the moment when she’d looked into those snake eyes and pulled the trigger.
If I’m so incompetent, how did I trap the most infamous serial killer in history, deliver him to Baran, and finish him off afterward?
For once, her father’s ghost made no reply.
Jane swung her legs off the bed and stood. She could, by God, find a fucking toilet and figure out how to use it.
She looked around until her eyes fell on the brawny blond in the opposite bunk. This time the woman was working on what looked like a futuristic suit of armor, the parts of which were scattered all over her bed.
She’d know where to find a bathroom. The problem was, of course, communication.
Hell with it. Jane would figure it out as she went along.
She stepped over to the woman’s bunk as the Warfem looked up at her in surprise.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” Jane announced, “Can you help me?”
“Ke ta?”
“Bathroom.” Ignoring her instinctive embarrassment, she began making gestures, a couple of which felt remarkably lewd addressed to an utter stranger.
The woman, however, didn’t look the least discomfited. An expression of understanding entered her shimmering cobalt eyes. “Aaah. Sherirqi daritho an dak. Av ka.” She stood up and started across the room.
Jane followed her.
So much for you, William Colby, she thought. I’m done with you now.
She was three hundred years from the life she knew, and the man she loved was off trying to kill a tyrant. But suddenly Jane Colby felt like dancing.
Baran gulped a bottle of Charge as he strode down the corridor, Freika trotting at his heels. The drink was obscenely sweet, but it was loaded with all the nutrients his depleted body needed after that extended session of riatt.
The Xerans had damn near had his ass that time. He’d barely made it off the base before they discovered Jutka’s body, dead with a neat beamer hole in his forehead. If it hadn’t been for the knowledge that Jane was waiting back on the ship, Baran might have ended up taken prisoner.
But he’d been damned if he’d die and leave her alone and friendless, unable even to speak Standard. He’d been determined to get back to her, no matter what he had to do.
So he’d killed a Xeran transport crew, stolen their craft, and roared back to the ship, ducking and darting through Xeran fire in the greatest display of piloting skill he’d ever given in his life.
Now he was finally back home, and all he wanted was to feel her warm and silken body in his arms.
“She’s probably starving,” he said to Frieka. “I should have made sure she had something to eat before I left. That was thoughtless. Hell, I should have made sure she knew how to find the head.”
“And a litter box,” the wolf said. “That stupid cat’s probably shit all over the ship by now. The captain’s gonna shoot her furry ass right out the airlock.”
Baran looked down at his partner and grinned. “Why, Frieka—you actually sound concerned.”
The wolf glared up at him defiantly. “All I’m saying is, Jane wouldn’t like it if they kakked her kitty cat. You know how she is about that useless little hairball.”
Baran poked his tongue into his cheek. “Uh-huh. So you’re not actually concerned about the cat.”
“Of course not.”
“Right.”
“Why would I be? It’s weak and stupid and it’s a cat.”
“And it’s cowardly.”
“Well, no. It got in a couple of really good rakes across my nose once, and I outweigh it by at least ninety kilos. You can’t really say it’s—“ The wolf broke off and eyed him suspiciously. “You’re grinning at me. If you’re getting ready to imply I have some kind of disgusting sexual intentions toward that cat, I’m going to bite you.”
“Well, of course not,” Baran said honestly.
“Good.” Freika sniffed and trotted ahead of him. “Step it up. They’re probably hungry.”
But when they walked into the dormitory deck, Baran realized his bunk was empty. His heart jammed into his throat.
“Where the hell are they?” Frieka said.
“Let’s try the mess. Maybe somebody thought to give them something to eat.”
* * *
They found Jane sitting over the remains of a meal with T’May Vajo. Baran felt that shiver of unease any man feels when he sees the woman he loves with a former bed partner. He pasted a bright expression on his face and walked over to join them.
Jane looked up at his approach. Her face lit with such
joy he had to grin right back. “Baran!” She leaped up and threw herself into his arms.
Closing his eyes, he basked in the sensation of her body pressing against his, warm and solid and safe. His universe settled silently into place.
“Good Goddess,” T’May drawled in Standard, cuddling Octopussy in her lap, “The Death Lord has been domesticated.”
He considered flipping her off, but realized she wouldn’t understand the twenty-first century gesture.
Instead he whispered into Jane’s ear, “God, I missed .you.” His voice sounded hoarse.
“Yeah,” she said, equally strained. “Me, too.”
They fell into a mutual famished kiss, drinking in the sensation of holding each other again, tasting each other again. Being together again.
Dimly he heard Freika’s voice. “So how are you, T’May?”
“Holding steady. Are they always like this?”
“Pretty much”
“It’s kind of... sweet. That, or nauseating.” She sighed. “So much for my fond hopes.”
Reluctantly Baran drew away from Jane’s mouth, silently promising his body it would get more of her very soon. “Hello, T’May,” he said in Standard. ‘Thanks for taking care of her for me.”
T’May waved a hand. “My pleasure. She picks up things fast.” She pointed to one of the colorful mounds on her plate and said to Jane, “Tere va.”
“Unidentifiable vegetable, presumably alien,” Jane said to Baran in English. “Tastes kind of like asparagus with a hint of tangerine.”
T’May shook her head. “I don’t know what she just said, but it sounded like two cats fighting in a sack.”
“That’s English for you,” Freika said.
“So,” Jane said to Baran, “y’all used to sleep together.”
He choked. “You discussed my romantic past between trying to learn Standard?”
She shrugged. “I could tell by the way she says your name.”
“You,” Baran said, “are frightening.”
“The relationship wasn’t all that serious though,” Jane decided. “At least from your end.”
He lifted a brow. “What makes you say that?”
“You don’t look panicky enough.”