Eden grabbed her towel before it slipped off the barre. “Hadn’t thought of that. Not a bad idea.”
They both stretched in silence for a few minutes.
“To test for the emotional programming thing, you mean,” Tasha said finally.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I think you’re misreading him.” Tasha paused. “I tried kidding around with him yesterday. Didn’t work.”
“He might be able to switch it on or off, depending on where he is.”
“We were on the bridge.”
“Hmm,” Eden said again. If Kel-Paten was circumventing his programming, then he’d most likely not do it with such a large and official audience, and she told Tasha so.
“And he’s not going to get suspicious if the two of us drag him to some small cozy bar and ply him with drinks? We’re U-Cees, Eden. The enemy. Not his perfect, beloved Triad.”
“Speaking of his enemies, I’m having some problems with Captain Serafino.”
“Such as?”
“There are physiological questions I can’t answer.”
“Implant?”
Eden shrugged as best she could while deep in a lunge. “Could be.”
“Then what?”
“It might be because he’s Nasyry.” She lowered her tone, even though there was no one near enough to hear. “And the med-files here are damnably incomplete.”
Tasha shook her head knowingly. “I guess I’m adding this to my shopping list.”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Your wish, Doctor, is my command,” Tasha said, and motioned to the empty treadmills. “Ready?”
They finished their workout without further conversation and then headed to their cabins to shower and change before they had to start their respective shifts at 0800.
Eden’s quarters were closer to the lift; the captain’s quarters were farther down the corridor, next to the admiral’s and the ready room. They stopped at Eden’s door.
“Are we talking to Serafino today?” Tasha asked.
“Not until Cal and I can pin down those unknown readings in his blood. I’m thinking…” She hesitated for a moment, pursing her lips as she attempted to convince herself she was on the right track. “I’m thinking of trying to make some form of telepathic contact with him today, maybe after you and Kel-Paten talk to TeKrain. But I’ll need you to run interference.”
“Got it. But can you make contact with Serafino while his physical self is still awake?”
“It’s not the easiest way,” Eden responded. “But he managed to reach out to me yesterday, shortly after he woke up.” A very brief apology after a rather startling encounter. “According to him, I’m a touch telepath. If I can strengthen that link through physical contact—”
“Not an altogether objectionable task, Doctor,” Tasha teased, her eyebrows raised. “I haven’t seen that much of him lately, but what I remember was damned nice to look at.”
Eden pulled herself up to her full height and looked haughtily down at the shorter woman. “I am a professional, Captain Sebastian!” she teased.
“Keep a bucket of cold water handy,” Tasha retorted, punching her friend good-naturedly on the shoulder before she headed toward her cabin.
“For him or for me?” Eden called out to her.
Tasha stopped at her cabin door. “For both of you! And should you need any help—”
She quickly ducked inside to avoid the balled-up gym towel hurled at her by the professional Dr. Fynn.
TASHA SEBASTIAN’S QUARTERS
Once inside her cabin, Sass was met by another moving projectile. This one was fur-covered.
“No, you cannot have any more food!” Sass told the black and white fidget, who murrupped and purred and, plumy tail aloft, wove in and out of her legs on her way to the shower. He flopped down on her bed when she emerged from the sanifac, presenting his belly to be rubbed. She obliged. His loud purr filled the room, softening as he fell asleep.
Sass mulled over the information Eden had given her as she absently raked her fingers through Tank’s long, silky fur. She kept coming back to the fact that Jace Serafino was Nasyry. Bunch of overblown snobs. Considered themselves far too good to associate with anyone without mind talents. They called regular humans ollims or odoms or something. Ah, oullum. She could hear her old mentor, Gund’jalar, pronouncing the foreign term. Meant blank minds or dead minds. They even lumped the Zingara like Eden into that classification, because the Zingara refused to stop trading with the U-Cees.
Snobs. She couldn’t mesh that with the Jace “’Fino” Serafino she’d known. But she could definitely understand now why he was so damned lucky at cards—and at avoiding any traps the Triad or U-Cees set out for him.
And it might explain the Alliance’s—and PsyServ’s—interest in him. A rogue Nasyry could definitely be a threat to PsyServ. But did the Alliance know what he was when they hired him to work undercover? Did Kel-Paten?
He couldn’t know. It wasn’t mentioned in the briefing. It wasn’t in any of the data provided on the mission. If Kel-Paten knew, he wouldn’t be pushing so hard to interrogate Serafino—at least, not without a PsyServ agent present. So that meant PsyServ left out that one, very important fact when they sent Kel-Paten after Serafino.
Why?
Turning that question over in her mind, she grabbed a clean uniform from her closet. Her comm link pinged as she pulled on her boots.
She flicked on the mike. “Sebastian.”
“Kel-Paten here. My office, ten minutes.”
It wasn’t even 0800 yet and still a full hour away from her usual 0900 briefing with the admiral. She knew that an interrogation of one of Serafino’s crewmembers was on today’s schedule, however. The admiral was obviously anxious to discuss it.
For a moment, she considered spilling what she knew about Serafino. PsyServ’s omission rankled her. Frankly, it carried the stench of someone playing a very dangerous game. If there was anyone who could counter such a game, it was Kel-Paten. And, in spite of all the suppositions floating through Eden’s conversations with Serafino, she trusted Kel-Paten. It was something deeper, something beyond the U-Cees and the Triad. Something beyond the Alliance.
She just…trusted him.
But not enough right now to go against her CMO’s wishes and tell him—warn him—that Serafino was Nasyry. Yet.
“You promise me coffee and I’ll do anything,” she responded lightly.
There was a moment of silence, then: “That can be arranged.”
“Good,” she replied. “On my way. Mahrian blend, black.”
A hissing sound stopped her before she reached the door. She spun around. “Tank?”
Another hiss and a low growl.
She headed back to her bedroom. “Tank?”
The long-furred fidget’s back was arched, his ears flat to his head. Sass followed his wide-eyed gaze…and saw nothing. Nothing but the starfield outside her cabin viewport.
“What’s the matter? You just realize you’re in the space lanes?” She patted his head, shook her own, and left.
Kel-Paten didn’t like to be kept waiting.
Tank trotted around the cabin after MommySass left, sniffing corners, putting his wet nose to the viewports, and then staring nowhere and everywhere. Be alert, Friend Reilly had warned him. Bad Thing watches us with its ugly smelly light.
Tank knew. He scented another drip of ugliness just now, a fetid ripple in the neverwhen. A small one, yes. But there.
Gone now. He looked again through the neverwhen. Perhaps he’d scared it away. He might be only a fidget, but he was growing stronger. He blinked his eyes, searching for something more pleasant.
Friend? Friend?
He felt Reilly’s answering purr.
Play now? Play time?
Play now, came the answer from down the corridor. Come here. Go Blink.
Fun! He swished his tail, remembering to do what Reilly taught him. Stretch. Reach. Sense. Go Blink.
He felt
the neverwhen ruffle his fur. And then he was in Friend Reilly’s cabin, sharing a wet-nosed greeting. Fun! he said again, and pounced on his friend’s back, wrestling the larger furzel to the floor.
SICK BAY
TeKrain Namar’s leathery face brightened as Eden entered his sick-bay cubicle. “Fynn, yes, Doctor. You are. How?” he asked in broken Standard.
It took Eden a moment to rearrange the words. “Fine, thank you, Master TeKrain. And how are you feeling this afternoon?”
“Easier. Pain. Now breathe. Yes. No more.” His thin faced nodded rapidly.
Okay, let’s decipher this one slowly, Eden told herself. “You are in less pain when you breathe, is that correct?”
The thin face nodded again.
“Good. Stay still for a few moments while I check some of your readings.” She held the medicorder near his chest and watched the figures dance across the small screen. Everything appeared as it should for a Tsariian male of his age who’d been through the injuries he’d sustained. She told him as much, adding, “Then there’s no reason Admiral Kel-Paten shouldn’t be able to talk to you.”
“Kel-Paten!” TeKrain suddenly sat straight up in bed. “Fear! Do cannot! Release sick, now I am!” He coughed profusely and theatrically.
“You’re perfectly fine, Master TeKrain,” Eden said, with a strong but soothing tone in her voice.
Bony russet hands grasped the sleeve of her lab coat. “Stay! Me with, Fynn Doctor! All we die now! Soldier Tin, all we die!”
She patted his arm reassuringly, her touch bringing with it the strong sense of fear pervading the Tsariian. “The admiral has just a few questions. There’s nothing to be worried about.”
It was at this point that Cal Monterro stuck his head through the cubicle doorway. “The admiral and Captain Sebastian are here to see TeKrain, if you’ll permit it.”
A yellowed gaze pinned her. “Now?” A keening sound escaped his lips. “Lost, lost! Is lost all!”
“In spite of the noise, I believe Master TeKrain can withstand a few questions,” Eden told Cal, as she tried to dislodge the Tsariian’s long fingers from her wrist. She was unsuccessful in that endeavor until she heard the muffled footsteps come up behind her. TeKrain drew back against his pillow as if a battering ram had been shoved against him. He quickly wrenched the bed covers up under his chin.
Kel-Paten assumed his usual military stance on the left side of TeKrain’s bed and nodded for Eden to stay in place across from him. Tasha came up and stood more casually on the left, one hand resting on the footboard.
“Master TeKrain, I hope you’ve found our medical facilities adequate to your needs,” Kel-Paten began.
“Sick, sick,” TeKrain said weakly.
Eden had no trouble picking up a palpable sense of impending dread. Clearly, the Tsariian was terrified, but whether it was because of who was in the room or because of what he knew, she couldn’t tell at the moment.
“I am sure you wish to give the Alliance your full cooperation,” Kel-Paten said. “Therefore, you’re in no danger.”
“Later me know I! Kill you will!”
“The Triad—the Alliance has no real interest in you, Master TeKrain,” Kel-Paten said, and Eden noted with a mental grin that she and Tasha weren’t the only ones who couldn’t keep straight which team they played on.
“You’ll be released once we reach Panperra. In the meantime, we need to know what you can tell us about Captain Serafino,” Kel-Paten was saying.
Angular shoulders shrugged in a jerky movement. “What you I tell, know? All you, everything, Soldier Tin! Namar, small, stupid!”
“I don’t think you’re stupid, TeKrain,” Kel-Paten said smoothly. “I think you’re intelligent enough that someone like Captain Serafino would want you on his ship. Would trust you.”
“Trust? Hmmph!” The Tsariian jerked his chin in the air as he spoke. “Orders, no! Question not! This, yes do, question? Not!”
Eden saw Kel-Paten glance at her for confirmation. She nodded. As far as her empathic senses could tell, TeKrain was telling the truth. Serafino gave him orders and that was all. He wasn’t allowed to question.
“What kinds of orders, TeKrain?”
Another nervous shrug. “Here go we!” His voice climbed almost comically at the end of the sentence. “Course this, yes take. Course that, no.”
As TeKrain spoke, Eden had her first sense that the Tsariian was, if not lying, then definitely omitting some facts. She shifted position enough to catch Kel-Paten’s brief attention and the captain’s as well.
Tasha spoke before Kel-Paten could. “TeKrain. Enk rankrintar narit t’sor enarin.”
It took Eden a moment to translate the insult—one she knew only because she’d heard Tasha use it before: your tongue and your brain are no longer friends.
Tasha’s pronouncement unleashed a flood of Tsariian words from TeKrain, who in his excitement evidently forgot his professed frailty and released his death grip on the coverlet, waving his hands excitedly as he spoke.
Eden caught only a few words: Money. Betrayal. Hunter. Hunted. And Serafino’s name along with a few others—Admiral Kel-Varen’s for one. But it wasn’t the words she needed to understand; it was the emotions behind them. She signaled to Tasha what she knew with a system they had devised years before—fingers open, truth. Fingers closed, lies.
The hard tone left Tasha’s voice. She moved closer to TeKrain. Kel-Paten stepped back slightly as she inched next to him. Eden knew the admiral’s lethal presence was one of the reasons TeKrain was talking at all.
TeKrain laughed at something Tasha said and seemed to relax. Eden’s hand remained open. TeKrain was telling the truth, whatever that was at this point.
But his next words were laced with a totally different feeling. Eden closed her hand into a fist and, just as quickly, there was a guttural utterance from Tasha.
TeKrain hissed something back that sounded equally nasty. His right hand swung out to grab the captain.
Kel-Paten intercepted the movement with cybernetically enhanced speed, his black-gloved hand clamping on to the narrow wrist. “Touch her and you die.”
The Tsariian paled under his russet skin as he drew in one long, noisy breath of air, no doubt feeling it was his very last. But when after a few moments he was able to take a second breath and then a third, albeit a shaky one, he parted his lips into a taut, stiff smile and puffed out several strained laughs.
“Joke. Yes? Kidding.” His gaze went from Kel-Paten to Tasha. Then he let out a long sigh, as if some deep understanding had just dawned. “Esry’on tura?” he asked her as Kel-Paten released his wrist.
Tasha frowned. “Nalk,” she replied emphatically. No.
Two emotional responses hit Eden at the same time. From TeKrain, it was surprise and disbelief.
From Admiral Kel-Paten, it was a similar jolt of surprise but with a distinct twinge of regret that seemed out of context with what was happening in the room. Whatever it was, it was caused by TeKrain’s last question, which Kel-Paten obviously understood, along with Tasha’s definitive no. An interesting combination, Eden noted. Something else to ask Tasha about.
“I think we have all we need to know from Master TeKrain at this time.” Tasha looked at Kel-Paten, who nodded.
Eden turned to TeKrain. “We appreciate your cooperation. Thank you.”
The thin face nodded rapidly. “Fuck you very much too!”
It was the only Standard phrase he knew in its proper word order, and it was definitely a memorable one.
DR. EDEN FYNN’S OFFICE, SICK BAY
Kel-Paten’s first impulse was to upbraid the Tsariian for his insulting parting comment. But Tasha grabbed his arm and propelled him through the doorway before he could do much more than let out an exasperated grunt.
“He doesn’t mean it!” She shoved him down into a chair in the CMO’s office. “Serafino—or someone—just taught him that to be funny.”
She referred to TeKrain’s parting words. He knew that,
yet it took a moment for her words to sink in and for him to shift his focus from the overly excitable Tsariian to the woman who had him pinned in the office chair. Her hands pushed against his shoulders, her legs were planted between his own, and their combined weight caused the chair to tilt backward slightly, bringing her face inches from his. Their thighs touched in an undeniably intimate manner, and he suddenly forgot everything—Serafino, TeKrain—everything except how little effort it would take to pull her against him and sear her with the rush of heat that coursed through his body.
“Sebastian.” His fingers circled her wrists. His voice was a raspy whisper, and the pause that followed hinted at a deep pain he didn’t mean to let surface.
She straightened. “Admiral? You okay?”
He closed his eyes. For a brief moment, his thumbs traced the lifeline of her pulse. Then he nodded, gently removing her hands from his shoulders and holding them together before releasing her, letting her step away.
“I’m fine.” He ran his hand over his face, then abruptly pushed himself out of the chair, turning his back to Tasha as he sifted disinterestedly through a small pile of case files on Fynn’s desk.
“We need to go over TeKrain’s information.” His voice sounded strong, angry again. It was always easier to be angry. “Get Dr. Fynn—”
“I’m right here,” the CMO said.
He spun around, almost colliding with Tasha, and saw Fynn leaning against the door frame.
“I’m sorry for so rudely commandeering your office,” Tasha said, one hand toward Eden, “but I really thought we were about to witness a murder.” She grinned.
Kel-Paten waited for Fynn to respond to Tasha’s smile. He wasn’t the only one to notice that she didn’t. And he had a very bad feeling about what Fynn did notice.
Tasha’s now-frowning gaze went from Fynn to him, then back to Fynn again. “Just what is going on here?”
“I think,” Fynn said, “that we’re all waiting to find out what TeKrain told you. You were the only one who understood everything he said.” She took her seat and straightened the files on her desk.
Tasha sat also. Kel-Paten remained standing, and Tasha looked up at him. “Sorry. You didn’t understand any of it?”
Games of Command Page 9