by E J Frost
on her. Didn’t you, Kezzy?”
Kez glares pure murder at her sister, but
she doesn’t deny it.
“It was only when their David came back
for round two that she tried to run away and
he nuked her back. What happened, Kez? Did
you change your mind, honey?”
Kez tilts her head to the side. Considers
the question for a moment before she
responds. “Like you did with Jenker? One
minute you were wriggling around on his lap
and the next minute you were screaming for
Ma. You were a great role-model, sis.”
Erin’s hand tightens on the Marie’s
control pad; her knuckles bleach to the color
of bone. “You didn’t need any example of
how to be a slut. It must come naturally.”
“How would you know? You haven’t
seen me since I was twelve. Was it Jenker,
E? Or was it the guy before him, when you
were nine, what was his name?”
“Neither,” Erin spits. “I kept my legs
together. But you? The stories I’ve heard
about you! You must have spread them for
every rag-boy on Kuseros—”
“Girls,” I growl. I don’t know where the
truth lies in any of this, but letting it go on
will only tear Kez’s scars wide. “Enough.”
Kez drops her head until her dreadlocks
hide her face, but Erin snarls at me. “Fuck
off. You don’t tell me when it’s enough.”
I whip out a shiv and shove it up under
her jaw before she has time to blink. Press
the edge into that smooth honey skin. “Say
that again.”
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t try to escape
the sharp edge that’s drawing a bead of
blood from her perfect throat. She holds my
eyes. “I’ll kill you when this is done,” she
whispers.
“Get in line.” I sit back. Tuck the shiv
back into its sheath. “Apologize to Kez.”
“Fuck you.”
I nod at her right arm, which is behind
her back. She’ll have her hand on a weapon.
Probably a small pulse gun. “Draw that and
we’ll see who’s faster.” There’s not really
much question. She’s rusty. I had my blade to
her throat before she had time to react.
“Apologize to your sister.”
Her glacial glare shifts to Kez, who is
staring between us out the front window.
“I’m sorry, Kezzy, if the truth offended you.”
Kez rolls her eyes and says something too
low for me to catch to Banks. Banks snickers
and launches back into his patter. I wait until
Kez responds, take in her tone, which sounds
normal, before I say to Erin, “Now let’s hear
a more important truth. Why didn’t you help
your sister when she ran away from the
foster home?”
Erin releases whatever weapon she’s
clutching. Touches her fingertips to the line
of blood on her neck. She licks a smear of
blood off her fingers and smiles that feral
smile at me. “Last man who cut me? I still
have his balls in my jewelry box.”
“Yawn.” The thought actually makes my
nuts clench. My balls have been threatened
more times than I can remember, but the idea
of a pair of fossilized balls nestled in a box
somewhere gives me a little groin-hitch.
“I couldn’t risk being thrown out of the
Academy,” she says. Her eyes return to the
window and she leans back into the seat’s
padding. Ignoring me.
So Kez was telling the truth. Her sister
wouldn’t shelter her for even one night when
she was homeless and alone at the age of
eleven. That raises a host of other questions,
but I don’t think I’m going to get anything
else out of Erin. And I’m not sure I want to.
Every answer she’s given me has come with
a price tag, and the price is getting too high. I
sit and watch the view for a few minutes
until the industrial domes of Hot Sands
appear on the horizon, then I rise and saunter
back across the ship to sit next to Kez.
Chapter 21
Kez tucks the skimmer into a cove less
than a klick north of Hot Sands. There are a
few plaz and permacrete shacks scattered
along the dunes that ring the cove, but no one
comes out of them to wave, or warn us off,
as the skimmer settles into the shallows.
Kez and I change silently into the
shadow-suits that Shaker has provided.
They’re a very light neopoly that I assume is
waterproof. Guess I’ll find out soon enough.
Banks politely turns his back while we
change. Erin doesn’t. She stares openly at
me. I ignore her, but I’m amused when the
little monster perks up at the sight of Kez’s
sweet, bare tits. Let the venomous bitch get
an eyeful of that.
I help Kez seal the back of her suit. Hold
her mane of dreadlocks out of the way and
run my fingertips over the nape of her neck
before I let her hair swish back down. She
looks up at me, that pale, uncertain stare. I
draw her close and give her a long, deep
kiss. Hold her loosely while she reaches
around and seals up my suit. “Thanks,
kitten.”
She gives me a smile. Still uncertain, but
a little more solid, particularly after a
second kiss.
She helps me unstrap the finboards. We
wrestle a pair of them off the skimmer and
into the water. They’re fucking unwieldy.
Hope they’re easier to manage once we’re in
the water.
We jump from the skimmer’s open hatch
into the water of the cove. Land waist-deep.
Cold sinks its teeth into my bones. The suit’s
waterproof, but not thermal. As I watch, the
suit slowly changes color from solid black to
a rainbow of small swirls.
“Mercury,” Kez says, nodding at the
purple swirls appearing across both our
suits. “Really, really bad. A couple of rivers
must feed into the sea around here. Try to
keep your hands and face out of the water.”
“Great.” That’s not easy when we’re
waist-deep in the toxic surf. And it’s going to
be less easy if I fall off the board into the
drink.
“This is why I stay on land.” Kez surveys
the cove. I’m not sure what she’s looking for,
but I don’t see any sign of trouble. The water
is fairly calm; the tide is no more than a
gentle tug against my legs. In the shadow of
the skimmer, out of the sun’s glare, the
silver-green water is clear enough to see the
bottom: rippled gray sand dotted with darker
rocks. Nothing threatening. I know the bigger
aquatic predators, orclas, spinefish and the
tentacled tegli, can come in to shallow
water, but there’s nothing here to attract
them. The cove looks ba
rren. “Leave surfing
to idiots like Banks and the NoBos,” she
muses.
She’s silent for a moment, staring across
the water, then she looks at me. Her face is
set, jaw hard, mouth compressed into a pink
line. “I want to say something.”
I nod. This will be about the shit her
sister was slinging. I don’t really care where
the truth was in all of that, but if she needs to
vent, I’ll let her get it off her chest.
“I’m not a slut.”
That’s what she’s worried about? I shake
my head. “I never thought you were, kitten.”
“I just . . . what she said, it wasn’t like
that. I know, I always say that, but this really
wasn’t. I did . . . dance. Naked. It was a
party. I wasn’t the only one. But I didn’t do
what she said. I didn’t let anyone . . . I would
never do that. I took my clothes off, that’s all.
And if I was a dumb-ass for taking my
clothes off at a NoBo party, I paid for it a
thousand times over.”
If the scar on her back was the price, it’s
too high, no matter what she did, however it
happened. I don’t know what the truth of it is,
and if Kez doesn’t want to get into the nitty-
gritty, I’ll respect that. There are places in
my past that I don’t want her poking around,
either.
“I just want you to know, it wasn’t like
she said . . .” She looks away across the
waves to the dirty gray shimmer of Hot
Sands, steadies the finboards with the flats of
her hands, then looks at me again. “The way
I’ve been with you . . . I thought you might
believe her.”
“Thought we had trust,” I say slowly. Let
each word sink in.
She looks up at me with those big eyes,
bluer than the ocean. “We do.” The tension
drains out of her and she smiles. “Yeah, we
do. Are we good?”
“We’re good, kitten. Just one thing she
said that interests me.”
“What?” She tilts her head.
“The naked dancing part. When do I get
to see some of that?”
She splashes me. She’s grinning. That’s
better. I don’t want anything her bitch-sister
said to hurt my kitten.
“I know what your sister was tryin’ to
do,” I say. Give a dismissive flick of my
head as I take one of the finboards from her.
It’s nicely stable in the water. The teardrop-
shaped board sits on top of the waves,
bobbing a little. One fin sticks down a meter
into the water and the other protrudes from
the top of the board. “Only person I’m
listening to about you is you, kitten. Now
show me how to use this thing before we turn
into prawns.”
Kez rotates the protruding fin ninety
degrees. Small lights on the edge of the
board flicker on. While the boards warm up,
she says, “What you were saying to her,
about me knowing you?” When I nod, she
smiles. It’s not her big mischievous grin.
This is secretive, sly and very sexy. “It’s not
true. You’re . . . private. I get that. But I liked
that you said it.”
“You know me better than anyone alive,
kitten,” I say. Which is true. And for the first
time in a decade, having someone know me
so well doesn’t bother me. “Probably
shouldn’t have said it, though. It just gave her
an openin’.”
Kez shrugs. “She’d have found one
sooner or later. Wounding me always was
her favorite hobby.” The fins on the boards
slide back to their original position. Kez
grasps hers, tilting the wide end of the board
back in the water. She gets a knee up on the
edge of the board, and it slowly rights itself,
lifting her out of the water.
I follow suit, letting the board carry me
up and out of the toxic water. I kneel on the
board for a moment, finding my balance.
When Kez stands, taking a wide stance on the
board, I follow her lead.
“Three speeds,” Kez tells me. She rotates
the fin to a ten-degree angle and the board
begins to glide across the waves. As she
moves away from me, I can see that the
board’s not actually in the water. It’s floating ten centimeters or so above the surface, held
up by a pale rim of neg cells along the edge
of the board. The bottom fin trails in the
water, slicing through the waves like a
dagger.
Below the surface, the board’s shadow
ripples across the gray sand, and in its wake,
a paler shadow follows, six tentacles
wiggling like ribbons.
“Kez,” I growl. “There’s something in the
water.”
She loops back to me. “That’s a thagni.”
She nods at the wriggling shadow. “Juvenile
tegli. The big ones will eat you. These are
too little to do much more than nip. As long
as you’re not bleeding, they shouldn’t be a
problem. Keep moving, though. They tend to
swarm and they’re a pain to scrape off the
boards.”
I turn the fin on my board; hold on to the
tip for balance as the board begins to move.
The motion is smooth. The board responds
easily as I shift my weight to change
direction. I follow Kez as she loops around
the skimmer in wide arcs. After I’ve gotten
used to directing the board, she shows me the
other two speeds and how to make sharper
turns. There’s a rhythm to it that I eventually
find. The coordination of body and board.
Finally, she pulls up next to the closed
door of the skimmer. Banks, who has been
watching through the skimmer’s rear
window, waves at us. Erin has retreated into
the shadowed interior. Probably recording
another update for Tyng.
“You look solid,” Kez says. “How do
you feel?”
Riding the little board feels anything but
solid, but I nod. “I should be able to keep
up.”
“You do everything well, don’t you?”
I lift an eyebrow at her. “You tell me.”
“No way,” she scoffs. “Your ego doesn’t
need any more stroking.”
“Other parts do.” I check the chrono in
my eye. Twenty-five minutes until we need
to intercept the first bowship. If we’re gonna
fuck, it’ll have to be a serious quickie, just
like last time. I enjoy the occasional quickie,
but I have plans for our next time together,
which involve my finger and Kez’s tight little
ass, so I’ll need some time to warm her up.
Guess I’ll have to content myself with
teasing her for now.
I glance at the top of the skimmer. Raise a
speculative eyebrow. Kez’s big blues follow
my line of sight. Her eyes widen until they’re
&
nbsp; almost round. She cocks her head to the side.
Holds one hand out to frame a question.
“Privacy? Low-flying birds? Sunburn?”
I growl, to keep from chuckling and
giving the game away.
“Okay.” Kez throws up her free hand.
“You know I’m not going to say no to you.
But you’re on top. This is your idea so it’s
your ass in the UV.”
I give in and chuckle. “Think they’d mind
waiting while we go at it?”
She grins, getting the joke. “Oh, no,
definitely not. Erin would probably vid it.”
She rolls the door of the skimmer open and
steps neatly from her board into the skimmer.
Banks appears in the doorway and takes the
finboard when Kez pulls it out of the water.
She steps back so she’s not blocking the
hatch and holds her hand out to me.
I take her hand and step across. The
finboard wobbles as my weight shifts.
Definitely not solid. I drag it in after me,
pass it to Banks and reel Kez in until she’s
pressed against my chest. Our wet shadow-
suits squeak against each other. The sound
echoes inside the little ship; Banks and Erin
glance up sharply. Banks grins and goes back
to stowing the finboards. Erin rolls her eyes
disdainfully before snapping her amber
specs back down over them.
“So that’s a massage, noodles, a naked
dance, and a sunburn-free fuck you owe me,”
I murmur to Kez. “You ever gonna pay up?”
She smiles up at me. Loops her arm
around my neck with another high-pitched
squeak. “You owe me a double-bag of the
universe’s best flash. We’re even.”
“Not even close.” I chuckle. Take one of
her dreadlocks and wrap it around my finger.
I haven’t gotten to tie her to the bed with
them. That’s something to look forward to.
“Here’s how it’s gonna go. I’ll take the rear
stick. You’re on the front stick with the
transponder. You guide us in.”
She nods. Looks a little relieved that I
haven’t asked her to take the main control.
She’s a good flyer, a natural, but she’s still
just a beginner, and shooting that hole will
require some skill. “Aye-firmative.”
“Doubt we’ll be able to see what else’s
under the ship until we get there. Could be in
for a nasty surprise. So you see anything,
even a shadow, you sing out.”
“What do we do if there’s a Mirrormen
ship under there?” she asks. Her little face is
serious.
Kill them all. “Whatever it takes.” I tug