LC01 Sweet Starfire

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “Moonlight,” she said, thinking of the dance patterns that had recently subdued Scates, “is something I have been taught how to chase.”

  Severance groaned. “I should have had the ship off the ground the minute I had the mail on board. I knew this was going to be a mistake.”

  “Then why did you change your mind and come after me?”

  “When I think of a sufficiently sound answer, you’ll be the first to know.” And with that, the runner that had been slowing as it neared the port terminal slid to a stop.

  A few minutes later, her pack of clothing in hand, Cidra followed Severance toward the small, streamlined mail ship. She watched as he punched codes into both a computer remote and the gadget he’d used on Scates. Then he led her aboard.

  The interior lights came on as they stepped over the threshold. Cidra stood looking around at the compact, painfully limited cabin space and wondered for the first time if she had really given due consideration to the problems of living in such confined quarters with another human being, and a Wolf at that. She was still worrying the question when the scruffy rug beneath her feet moved abruptly. Startled, Cidra glanced down in time to see the motley piece of rug silently display three rows of tiny needle teeth.

  “Watch out for Fred,” Severance said as she backed hastily. “He hates being mistaken for a rug.”

  “Fred?” She watched the creature move in an undulating motion toward the seat in front of the command console.

  “Fredalius is his full name. But I just call him Fred.”

  “Who named him?” she asked.

  “My brother,” Severance answered, his back to Cidra as he stowed away his pack.

  “Does your brother fly with you occasionally?”

  “Not anymore,” he answered in a clipped tone. “He’s dead.”

  “Oh.” It didn’t take a Harmonic’s empathic abilities to realize that she had blundered onto a painfully raw topic. Automatically Cidra sought to soothe the discomfort she had caused. “I’m sorry, Severance. I had no idea. It was thoughtless of me to ask after him. I seem to be causing a great deal of unpleasantness tonight.”

  “Forget it.” He busied himself with sealing the ship. “Stow your packs under my bunk for now. That’s where I had the ale put, so you’ll have to fiddle a bit to find room. We’ll decide what to do with those damn books later. Right now I just want to get off the ground.”

  “We’re leaving for Renaissance?”

  “First we’re hopping over to Lovelorn. I got word of another good shipment. Then we’ll off-planet for Renaissance. Once we’re in space we’ll have two solid weeks to drive each other crazy. If we reach Renaissance without having murdered each other, we’ll talk about extending the contract.”

  Cidra decided that this wasn’t the time to argue her intention to stay aboard. It also didn’t appear to be a good time to discuss the exact nature of the contract she had apparently entered into. She finished shoving her travel packs under the safety net beneath Severance’s bunk. It wasn’t easy. The crate of Renaissance Rose ale took up a great deal of room: Cidra wondered if Severance intended to drink all of it before reaching Renaissance. The thought was unsettling.

  Then she took the single passenger seat located behind and to the left of the pilot’s seat. Fascinated, she watched Severance run fluidly through the pre-liftoff procedures. It seemed to her that the computer had barely signaled that permission had been received to take Severance Pay into the air before they were, indeed, off the ground.

  The lights of Port Valentine hung beneath them for a moment and then receded into the distance as Severance set a course that would take the ship to the mountain town of Lovelorn. Cidra knew that within the confines of the planet’s atmospheric envelope Severance Pay was powered by standard jet engines. Only when the ship thrust into the freedom of space could they safely switch to the distance-crunching power of the STATR drive. Cidra studied Severance covertly. She admitted to herself now that he had been occupying her thoughts since the moment she had met him.

  He was all business as he worked, his intent expression illuminated by the glow of the console lights. She was aware of being strangely fascinated by him in a way that was new to her, and the knowledge was disquieting. She should be viewing him simply as a man with whom she was doing business, but Cidra was honest enough and uneasy enough to admit that her reaction to him right from the start was far more jumbled and complex than such a simple arrangement warranted.

  When he had first been pointed out in the tavern, she had experienced serious doubts about approaching him. It was obvious from the start that he was a hard man, a true Wolf. There was an aggressive harshness about him that made it clear he was a man who had not been softened or refined by too much contact with Harmonic values or ways. But she also sensed a quietly brooding element deep within Severance and wondered what had happened in his past to cause it. Something told Cidra it would be instinctive in Severance to avoid those ritualized behavior patterns and codes of conduct favored by people who tried to emulate Harmonics. He would have his own way of doing things, his own code of ethics and standards. And he would stick to it.

  The people whom she had questioned at Port Valentine had been in agreement about one thing when it came to Teague Severance: He was a man of his word, and among Wolves that meant something. It had to mean something. It was all the general population had when it came to insuring trust. Wolves were forced to depend upon such things as reputation and experience to judge their acquaintances. They could never be completely certain of each other. They were forever denied the unique telepathic communion of minds that allowed Harmonics to establish such firm bonds between themselves. Trust was implicit in the way Harmonics lived and communicated; it was an unavoidable given, because they could know each other’s minds. But when trust existed absolutely between a man and a woman, and was combined with the indefinable chemistry of shared pleasures and intellectual interests, it could lead to a lifelong commitment that was unique among mankind.

  Cidra’s parents shared that type of commitment. Talina Peacetree and Garn Oquist had a bond between them that Cidra had always longed to experience, herself, with the right man. Knowing that was impossible as long as she lacked true Harmonic telepathy had been the misery of her life. And her determination to overcome her own shortcomings was the driving force of her existence.

  The covenant of marriage had taken on new meanings as Harmonic society had evolved. It stood now as so many Harmonic ways did, as an ideal. Wolves frequently used portions of the formal Harmonic wedding ceremony for their own nuptials.

  Harmonics had always appeared at random in the human population. For countless generations many had died young. Others were driven insane by their instinctive efforts to reconcile reality with the inner harmony they saw in the world around them. A few had lived lives that appeared normal to others who never guessed at the effort it took to survive as a Harmonic among Wolves.

  Special aptitudes and genius were common among Harmonics, and a few of the early ones had been strong enough to achieve a great deal before they died. Usually the achievements came in spite of a life racked with trauma and mental strife. Many others had simply perished without ever flowering.

  The world of Wolves was a harsh one and true Harmonics seldom coped well. A few hundred years ago, just prior to the unprecedented outpouring of mankind into the galaxy, it had been recognized that both Harmonics and Wolves fared better if they lived a separated, if symbiotic, existence. When the first of the beautiful, interstellar shimmer ships had left the home star system carrying colonists to new worlds, they had carried small contingents of Harmonics aboard.

  No one had been egocentric enough to believe that the galaxy could be colonized into a tightly knit empire. Distances were too vast, and the demands of different worlds required too much physical and emotional adaptation, and the streak of independence in human nature was too strong. But the early planners had felt the need to insure that the best of what was human w
ent with the colonists. Sending a small group of Harmonics along with each colony ship had not only guaranteed philosophical continuity, it had also provided a resident brain trust for each new world.

  But, beyond that, each world had proved unique. Cidra knew from her work in the Archives that the Stanza Nine social structure was different in sometimes subtle, sometimes elaborate, ways from that of the home worlds. And since the ability to maintain contact with the home planets had been lost, the distinctions between Stanza Nine and other human systems no longer seemed to matter. Adaptation meant survival. And both Harmonics and Wolves believed in survival.

  The crash of the colony ship that first reached the Stanza Nine system had been a complete disaster. Not only did the home planets believe there had been no survivors, but the First Families, thus isolated, had been deprived of much of the technology that should have been their heritage. The need to dig in and establish a foothold on a new planet without the aid of the machines that would have made the task relatively simple had bred a rugged sense of independence in the colonists. That sense of independence had even permeated the Harmonic contingent of the culture, where it was quietly accepted that each individual had both the privilege and the responsibility of achieving success on his own.

  Technology had developed erratically from the bits and pieces of information left in the heavily damaged data banks after the crash of the colony ship. Regaining spaceflight had been of paramount importance because the human population was intent on establishing itself throughout the Stanza Nine system. After finding the remains of the Ghosts it had become even more important to determine if humans were going to have to share Stanza Nine with anyone or anything else. It had taken a hundred and fifty Lovelady years to get back into space, and the secret of the faster-than-light speeds that had brought the colonists to Lovelady had still not been found.

  The majority of the population, the Wolves, respected the levels to which the Harmonics raised human virtues because the seed of those virtues lay in all humans. When a Wolf viewed a Harmonic, he saw the best of himself; he saw the most valuable essence of his own nature developed and channeled. Intelligence, integrity, honesty, serenity, and an appreciation for every element of the universe were traits to be protected and respected. Every human knew this. Not every human reacted in a positive manner to the knowledge, but none could avoid it.

  Cidra drew the first deep breath she’d allowed herself since the man called Scates had lied his way into her hotel room. She was tired, but the adrenaline was still flowing through her system. Through the cabin window she could see the white disc of Lovelady’s single moon, Gigolo. That small, dead world was also shining on Lovelady’s southern town of Clementia. Her home was a serene, protected landscape of beauty and order. There lay everything she understood and loved. For a moment her heart yearned for another glimpse of the delicate fountains and the formal gardens that lined the white stone paths. But she had never been truly a citizen of Clementia. The magic of it had been denied her, even though she had been raised in its midst and taught its ways. Her own shortcomings had been pointed out quite graphically this evening.

  Severance finished one last procedure at the command console and then swung around in his seat to face her.

  “You look exhausted. Maybe you’d better grab a nap before we reach Lovelorn.”

  “I couldn’t possibly sleep.”

  “Still seeing Scates coming at you?” he asked gruffly. “Don’t worry. You’re safe now.”

  “It’s not that.” She glanced out into the darkness and then back at Severance. “Do you realize that tonight was the first time in my life I’ve done violence to another human being?”

  “You’ve led a sheltered life.”

  “It’s not funny, Severance.”

  He sighed. “I know. But it’s not the end of the universe, either.”

  “Perhaps not, but it worries me.”

  “Listen, Cidra, you want to worry? Worry about what would have happened if you hadn’t had all that fancy Moonlight and Mirrors training. Now that’s something to fret about.”

  “You don’t understand,” she snapped. “I should be begging for a shot of oblivo. I should be flat out on the floor, half catatonic.”

  “And instead you’re just sitting there shaking like a leaf?”

  “Don’t laugh at me, Teague Severance.” She was near tears now, and the knowledge infuriated her. Quickly she used her years of training to regain her self-control. “I want to be one of them. All my life I have been trained in the ways of the Serene path. Surely I have some Harmonic sensitivity in me. I was born to Harmonics. Yet tonight I used the ways of a beautiful dance to hurt someone else.”

  “Who was trying to hurt you. It’s called self-defense, Cidra, and I know enough about Harmonics to know that they’re not philosophically opposed to self-defense. They’re just lousy at being able to act on that belief. Be damned grateful that your only problem right now is that you’ve got the jitters instead of a full-scale anxiety attack. I’ve seen what happens to a Harmonic who runs into real violence and it’s not very pleasant.”

  She eyed him curiously. “When did you see a Harmonic deal with genuine violence?”

  Severance ran a hand through his thick black hair, his face drawn, gray eyes suddenly bleak. “My brother was one of those random occurrences you mentioned earlier. A Harmonic born among Wolves.”

  “Why wasn’t he sent to Clementia?” she asked, frowning. “It’s a long story, and I’m not in the mood to tell it right now. Take a nap, Cidra.”

  “I don’t think I can sleep yet.”

  “Suit yourself. I’m going to sack out for a few minutes. It’s been a long night.”

  Severance got to his feet and brushed past her, heading for the sleeping area at the rear of the cabin. He unlatched the upper sleeping berth so that she could climb into it if she changed her mind, and then he threw himself down onto the lower bunk. He was already half asleep when he felt Fred undulating up onto the bed to drape himself over his master’s feet.

  Severance awoke once during the flight and realized that Cidra hadn’t tried to nap. He peered through the gloom of the dimly lit cabin and saw her seated cross-legged on the metal deck. Her eyes were closed in silent meditation.

  Probably still worrying about Scates and how she’d handled the situation, Severance reasoned in sleepy irritation. She looked very soft and gentle sitting there with her black-and-silver gown flowing around her. A little lost. But it would have taken a fair measure of strength and coordination to throw Scates. She couldn’t be all sweetness and light, even if she wanted to believe she was.

  Beneath the fine crystal-moss fabric of the robe she wore, he could see the rounded upsweep of her breasts. It seemed to him that the womanly curves would fit his hands perfectly. Then he recalled what she’d said about Wolves being very interested in sex. Severance turned over to face the wall and ordered himself to go back to sleep.

  THREE

  Cidra felt the shift in altitude and speed as Severance Pay automatically began its approach. The subtle changes jerked her out of the meditative trance she had been using to calm her mind and body. Opening her eyes, she saw new console lights wink on, while others changed color. For the first time she noticed there was a second computer on board. It didn’t appear to be involved with the landing operation, either. A glance over her shoulder told her that the ship’s master was still sound asleep.

  She got to her feet, feeling delightfully rested, and went to the nearest viewing port. A few scattered lights in the distance heralded the presence of Lovelorn, a manufacturing town that had been located near the ore-rich deposits of the continent’s western mountains. Beyond the mountains lay an ocean that extended most of the way around Lovelady. It was almost totally unexplored, although research indicated it would ultimately prove even richer in raw materials than the continents.

  There was a lot of Lovelady waiting to be thoroughly explored and even more of Renaissance and QED. Beyond the t
hree close-in planets lay one other, Liquid Assets, a frozen ocean of a world that lacked a breathable atmosphere. It hadn’t experienced more than a few exploratory landings so far. The Stanza Nine system was still a frontier, its population centers small, even on Lovelady, which was its most heavily populated planet.

  Cidra felt a glimmer of excitement rush through her. She was on her way, off in search of a legend. For the first time she acknowledged that the search, itself, was going to prove fascinating.

  The ship altered course again, and this time Cidra turned around a little anxiously to see if Severance had awakened. When she saw him lying spread-eagle on his stomach, face to the cabin hull, she decided to act. She went over to the bunk and reached down to touch his shoulder, only to find she had made a terrible mistake.

  There was no startled shout or sleepy, questioning groan. Severance simply exploded off the bunk at the touch of her hand. He was on the deck, feet spaced apart in a fighter’s crouch, before Cidra quite realized what had happened. The small weapon he had used on Scates was in his right hand. Somehow he had gotten it out of the utility loop he’d hung beside the bunk.

  Cidra froze, not daring to breathe as his eyes flickered in recognition. With a muttered oath Severance dropped the black metal object back into his loop. The poised tension went out of his body. On the bunk Fred exposed his teeth briefly, and then went back to posing as a rug.

  “A few more surprises like that, Cidra, and one of us isn’t going to make it as far as Renaissance.”