Law of Survival

by Kristine Smith

  Jani tried to ease out of Lucien’s grasp, but as soon as she pulled one wrist away, he grabbed the other. “He won’t allow his personal feelings to affect his treatment of you.”

  “Oh yeah? Are these the same personal feelings that didn’t affect your treatment?” Blood rose in Lucien’s cheeks, warming his pallor.

  “You’re just another patient—I’m the incredible ongoing experiment.” Jani worked her wrist free, but she had to bend close to Lucien in order to do so, which gave him a chance to grab the hem of her jacket. “Damn it—will you knock it off!”

  “I’ve missed you.” Weak as he was, Lucien still pulled with enough force to drag her down beside him on the bed.

  “Let me go!” Jani tried to work his fingers loose, but he outmaneuvered her once more by releasing the jacket and capturing both her wrists in a surprisingly strong grip. “I thought you were ready to faint.”

  “See? You’re here five minutes, and I’m already feeling better.” He slid his hands up her arms until he caught hold just above her elbows. “Take me home with you, and I’ll be back to full strength in a week.” He pulled her down to him. Because of the angle, his lips found her throat first, leaving a tracery of fire behind as they moved over the underside of her jaw and her chin, then settled over her mouth.

  And then there was one… Jani tried to pull away, but Lucien’s grip tightened. She’d have to wrench free and retreat to the middle of the room to ensure that he couldn’t grab anything else, and that would make him wonder why she didn’t want him to touch her. Then he’d start asking questions, like why hadn’t she tried to visit him sooner, and what had she been doing since the shooting?

  He let loose her arms. One hand moved to the back of her neck to guide her closer, while the other slid over the front of her jacket and settled over her breast, massaging it with a light, experienced touch.

  Damn it! Jani’s body reacted in fits and starts, warming to Lucien’s taste and feel and her own arousal, then chilling as the memories intruded. Of the bottom drawer of a dresser, and fifteen objects nestled in their displays.

  And then there was one…She braced her hands on either side of Lucien’s head and tried to push away. But her hands wouldn’t listen to her thinking brain—instead they worked through his hair, then under his head, embracing him, holding him closer—

  “My apologies for the interruption.”

  Jani broke away from Lucien and twisted around to find John looming in the doorway, his long face a stern blank. Val peered from behind him, eyes widened in a what the hell do you think you’re doing glare.

  “I disagree with your assessment, Val. It appears Mr. Pascal may be fit for release after all.” John closed in on the side of the bed. His eyes, filmed tiger’s eye brown to match the day’s tan shirt and trousers, never left Lucien’s face. “How are you feeling today, Mr. Pascal, aside from the obvious?”

  “John.” Jani worked Lucien’s distraction to her advantage, easing off the bed and into the nearby visitor’s chair.

  “Sorry.” John didn’t look apologetic. He didn’t look at Jani, either, instead alternating his gaze between Lucien and the recording board that Val had shoved into his hands. “And the impediment to discharge is what?”

  “Well, for one thing, the doctors and nurses are all here, not on Armour Place.” Val shot Jani another aggravated look. “He suffered renal trauma. He’s showing blood in his urine—”

  “His hematuria’s microscopic. The trauma proved relatively minor—the point of impact was too low to cause much damage.” John glowered toward the bed. “That being said, Mr. Pascal, I really would not move around any more than absolutely necessary if I were you.”

  Lucien, who at that point had been trying to sit up, sank back against his pillows like a deflating balloon.

  John returned to studying the board display. “He is receiving regular standard monitoring. Dressing changes—they’re not as necessary as you think, Val. With his augmentation helping to speed things along, his wound has undergone a week’s worth of healing in a day. He won’t even need a dressing by the day after tomorrow—enough new skin cells will have bonded to the support to make it unnecessary.”

  “But John, his peritoneum—”

  “The rupture was small—Osgood sealed it completely—”

  Jani sat quietly, ignoring Lucien’s attempts to catch her eye. I don’t want him in my flat. But if she came right out and said that, Lucien would know she didn’t want him near her, that she suspected him of something.

  On the other hand…keeping Lucien in plain sight had its advantages. Think of this professionally, not personally. As the object of both Angevin’s admiration and Steve’s animosity, he would be carefully watched. In hospital, or as an outpatient at Sheridan, he could get up to anything. In her flat, his activities would be limited.

  What did I tell Derringer…keep your friends close and your enemies closer. It only remained to be determined on which side of the line Lucien belonged.

  “John, he’s not one hundred percent ours to discharge.” Val had wandered to the opposite side of the room and hoisted himself atop the lowboy dresser. “Service Medical has a say in when he leaves and where he spends his post-discharge recovery.”

  “So cart him out to Sheridan and get their buy-in. He can’t be approved for active duty yet—he may as well stay in the city for a few days.” Before Val could argue out from under, John pulled a stylus from his medcoat pocket and impressed his scrawl onto the board input. “Have Liu arrange an ambulance to Sheridan. While they’ve got him, Croydon and the set-up team can install all the necessary equipment at Armour Place. He can be settled in a couple of hours.”

  Val dismounted the dresser. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. I—” He glanced at Lucien, whose look at him had grown more focused, and fell silent.

  “It’s done. In the works.” John walked to the door, handing off the recording board to Val on the way. “You wanted him so badly, you’ve got him. He’s all yours.”

  It took Jani a few seconds to realize that John had directed the comment at her.

  “This is the most ridiculous bloody thing I ever heard.” Steve had fully recovered from his nicstick mishap and had been making up for lost talk time ever since Jani had returned to her flat to break the news. “He belongs at Sheridan—let them haul his freight till he’s cleared fer active.”

  Jani peeked around the open doorway into the newly furnished spare bedroom, where “Croydon, Outpatient Services” and her team outfitted the French Quarter-style bed with detachable rails and a mattress that folded up like a chair or flattened at the touch of a pad. Rails had also been added to various points in the adjoining bath, attached with specialty bondings that would dissolve when exposed to ultra-high frequency vibration, leaving the walls “as clean as you please, ma’am.” They had also installed a comport that patched through directly to Neoclona by touch or voice, and a small cooler stocked with nutritionals.

  “It’s possible that once Service Medical gets their hands on him, they won’t let him leave.” Jani stepped to one side as Croydon and crew bustled out of the bedroom, skimdolly of tools and equipment in tow. “I doubt he’s been debriefed yet, and I’m sure Service Investigational has initiated their own inquiry into the shooting.”

  “Live in hope.” Steve shoved an unactivated ’stick in his mouth and fell in behind the installers.

  Die in despair. Jamira Shah Kilian used to pluck that saying out of the air at the damnedest times. Her daughter Jani hadn’t liked it any better back then than she did now.

  She entered the main room to find Angevin standing by the desk, holding a recording board.

  “More calls. First, Colonel Derringer.”

  Jani stopped in the middle of the floor and covered her face with her hands. You sent the skimmer for me this morning, and I wasn’t here. Now you’re going to get me. “Shit.”

  “That’s what I thought. What a creep. He said sorry that he missed your appointment
this morning, but all hell had broken loose at Diplo because of the shooting. He wants to meet tomorrow. He said the idomeni embassy’s locked Tsecha down, again because of the shooting. Says you and he need to ‘rethink,’ whatever that means.”

  The relief of reprieve evaporated. “They’ve pulled Nema out of the public eye?” Jani walked to her desk and sat heavily. “Did Derringer say for how long?”

  “He didn’t say much of anything. He said he’d prefer not to deal with staff. I almost told him what he could do with his staff, and his gold eagle, but I didn’t want to get you into trouble.”

  Oh, you couldn’t make matters any worse, trust me. Jani wondered if Derringer had heard any interesting news about The Nema Letter, or whether she’d have to prompt him herself to rescan it. Oh look! The pattern’s changed. It’s not an idomeni document—it’s just deteriorating. She would have given a great deal to receive a call like that. A great deal.

  “Jani?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Devinham said thanks for the report but that it wasn’t what he wanted and he won’t pay the delivery half of his bill.” Angevin looked up from her board and crossed her eyes.

  “It’s exactly what he asked for and I have the comport recordings to prove it.” Jani ran a hand over the curiously uncluttered surface of her desk, the result of Angevin’s organizing. “But I knew he’d be trouble. That’s why I charged him double my usual rate and made him pay half upfront.”

  “So you aren’t going to file a complaint against him with Registry?”

  “No. I’ll just spread his name around. Within a month, not even the deregistered dexxies will take his business.”

  “Good.” Angevin nodded agreement as she continued down her list. “Niall Pierce called to say he would have been by today, but he couldn’t get away from Sheridan. He said you’d understand.”

  “I do.” Jani checked her timepiece and wondered where her parents were. Still in transit from Mars? Docked at Luna, and checking their timepieces as well?

  “He also asked me how you were. I told him you had just squirted out from under and were out and about, so you must be OK. That made him laugh.” Angevin studied the display a little too carefully. “He seems nice.”

  Jani crumpled a sheet of notepaper and slow-motioned a throw at Angevin’s head. “He has a girlfriend.”

  “Hmm.” Another tickmark on the board input. “Kern Standish from Treasury. Allow me to quote. ‘I heard what happened. If you think you’re going to get away from me that easily, think again.’” Angevin glanced up. “Is he serious?”

  “Yes and no.” Jani grinned. “That’s just his way of letting me know I’m still clean and green as far as he’s concerned.”

  “As if you wouldn’t be.” Angevin frowned at the display. “You did have two cancellations, both from AgMin.”

  “If I recall, they’re looking into negotiating food transport rights through newly leased idomeni GateWays. If they don’t need me now, they sure as hell will later.”

  “Confidence. I like it.” Angevin hoisted her stylus in an “up theirs” gesture. “Last and definitely least, Roni—”

  Jani felt a jolt. “She called?”

  “You know her?” Angevin shrugged. “She wasn’t real talkative. She said she mispunched, that she had been trying to reach a bookstore down the street, that the code’s only one character off.”

  “Did she say anything else?”

  “She just started nattering, like she sometimes does. Said she had to get to the bookstore tonight before it closed at seven. Then she cut off.” Angevin made another entry into the board, then shut it down. “That’s it.”

  Jani directed her splintered attention to her desktop. “I have two analyses due tomorrow.”

  Steve chose that moment to emerge from the kitchen, half-eaten sandwich in one hand, juice dispo in the other. “I done a draft fer one of them. Since it were about Guernsey doc protocols, I figured I were qualified.” He took an extra-large bite in answer to Jani’s look of surprise. “Well, I had to do something today, didn’t I? ’Sides furnishing the place fer visitors who belong elsewhere.” He grimaced around a mouthful of ’cress and chutney. “Don’t get yer hopes up. I left you the other one to do all by yerself. Wouldn’t try to analyze Pathen Haárin contract practices on the best day I ever had.”

  Jani slipped off the seat and walked across the room to the window. She could see the bookstore from there. One character off—does that mean six o’clock instead of seven, Roni, or does it mean eight?

  A soft jostle of her elbow made Jani flinch. She turned to find Angevin gazing up at her with the look of worry that had become her baseline expression over the last twenty-four hours.

  “I pulled all the pertinent data together. If you want to get started…?”

  “Is that really what Roni said? One character off?”

  Angevin’s eyes narrowed. “What is it with her?”

  “I just want to know what she said. Exactly what she said.”

  “Why—?” Angevin pressed a hand to her forehead. “She said the code was one character off—one character off—one—high!” The hand dropped. “High. Like I wish I was right now.” She grabbed Jani by the arm. “Now let’s do some work before you lose all your clients and I have to send all my beautiful furniture back.”

  It felt good to work. Afterward, Jani even took the time to make herself her first hot meal since Gaetan’s. She knew she strove to stay busy in order to keep her mind off all the things rattling around in her head. Her parents. Nema. Lucien. Her eight-up meeting with Roni. The ploy even worked to an extent. Unfortunately, it couldn’t work forever.

  “Jan?” Steve stuck his head in the kitchen door. “He’s here.” No need to say who “he” was.

  Lucien made his entry in a skimchair pushed by Val Parini, who was in turn backed up by two Neoclona orderlies. “I’m here through the weekend. Then I have to report back, and they may decide to keep me.”

  “Live in hope,” Steve muttered again. Jani wanted to ask him if he knew the rest of the damned saying.

  As Val crossed the floor, his brow arched higher and higher. “And furniture finds Armour Place. Which room?”

  “Down the hall, second right.” Jani took note of Val’s careful eyeballing. Full report to be submitted to John, she felt sure, along with the singular item that Lucien had been put up in his own room, not hers.

  The skimchair wouldn’t fit through the narrow doorway, so the orderlies took over. They hoisted Lucien as though he was a small boy and not a grown man and deposited him on the bed. They then checked the Outpatient installations while Val evaluated the patient’s condition and made notes in a handheld.

  Surrounded by medical bustle, the patient himself looked worn and a little bewildered. Lucien had exchanged his castoff casuals for Main Hospital-issue pajamas and robe—he sat in bed looking like the heir apparent who had just been awakened and told the King is dead, long live the King. His eyes met Jani’s, and he smiled warmly.

  Le Blond. Jani forced herself to smile back.

  Then Val tucked away his handheld and herded everyone out. “The patient needs his rest.” He put his arm around Jani and steered her toward the door. “Let me give you the rundown.” He prodded her into the hallway ahead of him, then grabbed her arm to stop her as she tried to follow the orderlies to the lift. “We can talk over here.” He directed her to the window at the hallway’s end, and pulled her down next to him as he took a seat on the sill.

  “He can walk around a little, starting tomorrow. This place has a roof garden—he could putter around up there. His appetite’s going to be voracious due to the rate at which he’s healing. His temper may be short, too, because of the fatigue and assorted chemical imbalances.” Val grinned at her, and shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this—when it comes to augie cascades, you wrote the book.”

  Jani took his hand and squeezed it. “Thanks, Val.” She flinched when he squeezed back hard enough to hurt.


  “Be careful.” The humor left his face—he looked nervy, his temper bubbling just beneath the surface. “And if you need anything, and I mean anything, just call.”

  Jani laughed, partly from stress and partly from the surprise at having a firmly held conviction blown out of the water. “Funny. I always thought you liked Lucien.”

  “Like?” Val chewed his lower lip. “He floors me. I could watch him forever. I’m not dead, Jan. Neither are you, apparently. That’s some face to wake up next to.”

  “But?”

  “But I’ve been the Valentin Parini for almost twenty years, and I’ve been dodging stuff like him since I banked my first million.” Val’s chiseled face took on a sad cast. “They tell you everything you want to hear, and they know how to show you the face you want to see. Even when you know in your bones that you can’t trust them, you still try, because you can’t accept the fact that they can’t feel and that there’s nothing, nothing, that they won’t do to insure their survival. All I ever had at stake was some money, and maybe my heart.” His eyes clouded as some buried memory surfaced. “But never my life.” He raised her hand to his cheek. “If I thought I could convince you to move in with me for a few days…?”

  Jani freed her hand, then brushed a finger under Val’s chin. “And leave Steve and Angevin alone with him?”

  “He might torture them a little, like the cat he is. But they’re not what he wants.” Val sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “John is so eaten up with jealousy right now that he can’t see straight. Otherwise, he’d tell you what I’m telling you. We’re just a call away. We can do everything the big boys do, but in the end, we’re not as…accountable.”

  Jani sat back against the window bracket and regarded her old friend through a new filter. “Val? I always thought you were the nice one.”

  Val stood. “If anything ever happened to you, John would tear this city apart.” He looked down on her with a fondness that had developed improbably and withstood separation and medical disasters and the passage of time. “But he’d have to beat me to it.” He bent over and kissed her, then turned and walked with a heavy step toward the lift.