Starbridge

by A. C. Crispin

  and I almost paid the price for your recklessness."

  Mahree felt a flare of indignation. "I said I was sorry, Rob! I think you're overreacting. I could have died, but the fact is, I didn't. Why are you going on like this?"

  He sat perfectly still, head bowed, shoulders taut, for long seconds, then he looked up. "Because I love you, dammit," he said softly. "And if you had died . . ."he trailed off, unable to finish.

  Mahree gazed at him numbly. Her heart felt as though it needed a jolt from the pacer to get it started again. Don't be stupid, she thought, finally. He just means "love" in the way I love Dhurrrkk'. Don't make a fool of yourself . . .

  She had to wet her lips before she could produce any sound. "Love?" she said faintly. "What do you mean, 'love'?"

  Rob's expression was a study in mingled exasperation and affection. "Love as in, 'I've fallen in love with you,' what else?"

  This can't be happening. Not to me. "You're kidding."

  "Would I kid about that? Hell no, I'm not kidding."

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  She stared at him, stunned. Her shock must have been evident, for he crawled over to put an arm around her. "Hey, I guess I shouldn't have dropped it on you like that. Actually, I've felt that way for some time, but I only realized it yesterday, when I thought about what losing you would mean."

  He peered at her face in the dimness. "This was a helluva shock, wasn't it?

  Maybe I shouldn't have said anything," he muttered, sounding increasingly nervous. "Uh, listen, Mahree, I don't expect ... uh ..." He cleared his throat.

  "What I'm trying to say, is ... oh, damn . . . that ... I know you don't . . . well, that . . ."

  Mahree began to shake all over. "Rob," she managed to say between chattering teeth, "Be quiet!!"

  He dropped his arm. "Look, I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

  "I'm dazed ... or something," Mahree managed to whisper. "Oh, Rob . . . can too much happiness be fatal?" Summoning up all her courage, she slid her arms around his neck and leaned her forehead against his shoulder, enunciating each word precisely: "I love you, too. I have loved you since the first moment I saw you, when I bypassed security and watched your personnel interview vidrecord."

  "Oh," he said, sounding surprised, then his chest heaved with a long sigh of relief. He gathered her into his arms, holding her.

  "Look at me," he ordered, minutes later, his breath warm on her cheek. "I want to see your face when you say it."

  Mahree raised her head. "I ... I love you, Rob," she whispered, then she smiled incredulously. "It was hard, saying it out loud, after concentrating all this time on not saying it."

  "Why didn't you?"

  She chuckled. "What do you think I am? Crazy? You treated me like a kid sister, remember?"

  He smiled. "Oh, yeah. I forgot. What an asshole I was." His smile broadened into a grin. "I think that's when I first began to fall in love with you."

  "When?"

  "When you called me an asshole. Even though I tried not to, I couldn't help seeing you as a woman from that moment on . . ."

  Mahree began to laugh. "Don't laugh," he said dryly.

  "Why not?"

  "Because I want to kiss you, and it's difficult getting up the nerve to kiss a woman who's laughing at you."

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  Mahree stopped immediately.

  Rob turned his head, and their lips met. His mouth was warm and gentle against hers, and after a moment she relaxed and closed her eyes.

  Gradually, he become more demanding, parting her lips, softly at first, then more insistently. Mahree made a small, inarticulate sound as his tongue touched hers, sending a jolt of pleasure through her body.

  By the time he drew away they were both breathing heavily, only partly because of the thin air. "I didn't know ..." she murmured. "I didn't know it would be like that. I didn't know I could feel like this."

  His dark eyes never left her face as his fingertips traced the line of her jaw, then her lips, using the lightest of-touches. Mahree closed her eyes again as he stroked the contours of her throat. "Are you going to make love to me?"

  she whispered. "I want you to."

  She heard Rob suck in an exasperated breath, then he abruptly pulled away. Mahree opened her eyes to find him sitting at arm's length from her, wearing a most peculiar expression--rueful and resigned and tender, all at the same time. "I wish I could," he muttered. "Nothing would please me more."

  "Then why not?" she demanded, puzzled and a little indignant. "You've got an implant, don't you?"

  "Of course," he said. "But ... Mahree ... sex requires a fair amount of physical exertion. Even if I thought I could ... uh ... perform ... here"--he waved an arm at Rosinante's cramped bridge--"which I'm not sure I could, worrying about whether Dhurrrkk' would walk in at any moment, delighted to have the chance to observe human mating practices ..." He gave a gasp of choked laughter. "The bottom line, my love, is that we don't have enough damned oxygen. We can't afford to waste that much air!"

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  CHAPTER 15

  Diplomatic Immunity and Other Creature

  Comforts

  I'm nervous as a cat and dirty as a pig--but none of that matters, because Rob loves me! I can't believe how lucky I am! And soon, we'll be at our destination. Dhurrrkk' says we'll be in visual range of Shassiszss in about thirty minutes.

  The suspense is terrible! Will the Mizari welcome us? Or will they decide it's in their best interest to side with the Simiu? What will the other CLS

  members think of the human race?

  Could we be in danger? All of a sudden, I'm scared . . .

  By its own request, Doctor Blanket is locked in the hydroponics lab. The Avernian wanted to enter what it calls a "resting state" for the next four or five days, so it could assimilate its new knowledge. From the moment that it crawled up onto its plants, it became completely unresponsive to thoughts or touches. Its glow faded away. If it hadn't warned us ahead of time, I'd have thought it was dead.

  Even though it's been long, hard, and painful, I wouldn't have missed this trip. I've learned a lot.

  Before I left Jolie, I was always trying to act adult, and I fretted constantly that people wouldn't think I was grownup. But now that I know that I'm a fully mature human being, I've quit worrying about it.

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  (When I expressed some of this to Rob, he said that was a tremendous relief to him. If I weren't an adult, he announced, too solemnly, he'd have to give me up because aboard Rosinante he feels like he's eighty--always short of breath, chilled, and peering at things.)

  Mizari verb conjugations keep running through my head like a litany.

  Only minutes to go, now . . .

  "Holy shit!" Rob exclaimed. "That's a space station? It makes Station One look like a postage stamp, Dhurrrkk'!"

  Both the Simiu and Mahree turned to regard him, puzzled. "Postage stamp?"

  they said, together.

  The doctor shrugged. "Sorry. An ancient method of mail delivery. My father's got a collection handed down from before the First Martian Colony."

  Dhurrrkk' was still puzzled. "But what does your father need with a collection of elderly males?" he asked, clearly baffled.

  Mahree snickered loudly, and Rob gave her a disgusted glance. "I was referring to something about this big." He measured off a space between thumb and forefinger.

  "Most interesting," Dhurrrkk' murmured, giving Mahree a sometimes-humans-are-crazy look.

  "At any rate," she said, before Rob could dig himself in deeper, "you're right.

  That station is really huge."

  The structure was a gigantic circular blot against the pale yellow- green disk of Shassiszss. It consisted of two vast, spoked wheelwithin-wheel-within-wheel shapes, each placed at right angles to the other. "Like a tremendous gyroscope," Mahree breathed.

  From the amount of the planet it obscured, it was obvious the station was gargantuan, but it wasn't until Mahree noticed one of the amber, hammerheaded Simiu craft approaching it
that she got any true perspective on its size. Thousands and thousands of people could live on that thing, she thought. Maybe hundreds of thousands.

  "It is indeed very large," Dhurrrkk' was saying. "Holovids do not convey the true scale. But, as the headquarters of the CLS, that station houses many different representatives, their staffs, and their vehicles. As well as the headquarters for all CLS functions, such as the League Irenics--those who safeguard the peace and the laws that are made by the member worlds."

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  "That structure is the actual headquarters?" Rob asked. "But I thought it would be on the planet."

  "Oh, no," Dhurrrkk' told them. "It is much more practical to employ an orbiting body as CLS headquarters. Many races require lesser gravity, and such conditions are easier to create in space, as you know, than on the surface of a world."

  "Yes," said Rob, "and there's always fear of a possible mutation of an alien microbe. Quarantines are easier in space."

  The Simiu glanced again at the space station, steadily looming closer. "Also, there is a symbolic value in having the fundamental structure of the headquarters sunk into the soil of no world, but floating free in space."

  "I just can't believe the size of it," Rob said. "Was it deliberately designed and built to be this large?"

  "Oh, no," Dhurrrkk' said. "Originally, there was only that central disk that now forms the innermost hub of the station. When the CLS was formed, the Mizari donated their station as a base from which to begin League headquarters.

  Financial support from many worlds gradually built this structure you see now."

  The Simiu swung himself into his pilot's cradle, preparatory to overseeing and assisting the functioning of the computers that were bringing Rosinante closer and closer to her assigned berth.

  The tension in the little control room mounted as their vessel was allowed to proceed to her designated docking cradle without escort or hindrance.

  When they were safely docked, Dhurrrkk' crawled out of his cradle with a sigh.

  "Dhurrrkk'," Mahree said, speaking Simiu slowly, so that Rob could follow her words, "do you think we might be in any danger?"

  "I very much doubt it," Dhurrrkk' said. "You two are representatives of a hitherto undiscovered sentient species--as such, you and your world represent a potential treasure trove of new talent, resources, technology, and ideas to the CLS. They will safeguard your lives with extreme care."

  "Dhurrrkk'," Mahree said, around a cold lump that seemed to have congealed in her throat, "I was talking about all three of us, and you knew it.

  Give me a straight answer."

  "I do not know, FriendMahree. I am now a criminal--a thief and a liar. Those are serious offenses, for which I might spend several years serving the public good, until I could regain my

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  honor. Being dishonored and outcast by my family would be bad enough, but also . . ."he hesitated, "the Council will regard me as a traitor, and the penalties for treason are much more severe."

  "How severe?"

  Dhurrrkk' was silent.

  "He might have to face a professional gladiator in the Arena." Rob said, in halting Simiu. He switched to English. "Rhrrrkkeet mentioned that might happen to her.'' He ran a hand through his hair, frowning. "But it might never come to that ..."

  "What do you mean?" Mahree asked.

  "Dhurrrkk' is the only CLS citizen who has sided openly with us ... who knows the full truth of what has happened. It might be in the best interests of the Simiu Council for him to meet with an unfortunate accident. Or simply disappear."

  Fear enclosed Mahree's heart like a cage of ice. "Simiu wouldn't do that,"

  she protested. "It would be too dishonorable."

  "There are Simiu, like that gladiator Hekkk'eesh, who act as little more than professional assassins, remember?"

  "Dhurrrkk', is what he's suggesting possible?"

  "I honestly do not know, FriendMahree," the Simiu said.

  Mahree envisioned a contingent of Simiu waiting outside Rosinante's airlock, and her throat tightened. "Dhurrrkk'," she said impulsively, her mind racing, "why don't you just let Rob and me go out there by ourselves? You can just take off again as soon as we're gone! You've got plenty of food, and Doctor Blanket can provide you with oxygen indefinitely. Why don't you just get away while you can?"

  "You are forgetting fuel, FriendMahree," the Simiu said, his violet eyes bleak.

  "But surely you could get fuel in some other nearby system. You told us that the Mizari S.V. drive is standard for most CLS worlds! Have you got any League currency?"

  "Some," Dhurrrkk' said, "but what you are suggesting is impossible, my friend. We do not have enough fuel left to allow even one transition from realspace to metaspace. There is no way around that lack."

  Mahree sighed. "Oh. That's that, then, isn't it?" she muttered. "But, FriendDhurrrkk', I'm afraid for you!"

  Dhurrrkk' nodded. "I knew what consequences I might face." He stripped off his makeshift robe. "Come, let's go."

  The alien turned and left the control room, his four-footed

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  strides somehow shortened and tentative, leaving the two humans to stare after him. Mahree shook her head as she pulled off her own robe and straightened her travel-worn clothing. "Dammit, Rob," she burst out, "if they're out there waiting for Dhurrrkk', they'll just take him! We may never see him again!"

  "I know," he agreed, picking up his bag.

  "Can't we ... fight, or something?"

  "Simiu are the wrong height for a fistfight," Rob pointed out as they walked down the corridor toward the airlock.

  "I've never hit anyone anyway," she admitted miserably. "Have you?"

  "I boxed in college. Welterweight. But a real fight? No." He shook his head.

  "We can't, Mahree. Remember how strong they are."

  As Dhurrrkk' ushered them into Rosinante's airlock, Mahree's heart was pounding. Rob was pale, but his jaw was set and his eyes were steady and resolute.

  When the doors split apart, Mahree and her friends peered tensely out, then relaxed slightly as they saw that there was no one waiting for them. They emerged into a rounded tunnel that blazed brightly with white light. The gravity was approximately Jolie-normal. The air was quite warm, rather dry, and rich with oxygen. It's a good thing we didn't bring Doctor Blanket, Mahree thought, squinting in the brightness after so many days in the near-darkness aboard Rosinante. The walls of the tunnel were a reflective white; the floor was shiny and black.

  As they stood crowded together outside the airlock, blinking and staring, enjoying the welcome warmth of their surroundings while wondering what to do, a thick layer of blue mist began issuing from the walls. Soon the entire corridor was obscured by a sapphire fog.

  A voice spoke echoingly in sibilant Simiu: "Please step through the decontamination vapor. We regret the necessity for this procedure, and request your patience. Do not inhale as you move through the vapor. Thank you for helping us."

  The three travelers looked at one another. "What did it say?" Rob asked. "I caught only the first part."

  Mahree repeated the message. Rob shrugged. "What the hell," he muttered, and strode into the mist. Moments later, Mahree heard his voice magnified by the curving walls. "Tell Dhurrrkk' it's okay!" he yelled. "Come on through, there's someone waiting for us. A Mizari. No Simiu."

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  Quickly, Mahree plunged into the decontamination vapor. The stuff felt warm and damp on her skin, and made her eyes prickle, so she shut them as she moved forward. Midway through she was conscious of a soft hum, and a bright light flashed. Three more steps, and she was past the light and out of the vapor. She could hear Dhurrrkk' behind her, his nails clicking softly against the polished black material of the floor.

  Mahree opened her eyes as she felt air against her skin again. The featureless corridor was filled with a golden light that radiated from the being awaiting them.

  So that's a Mizari. Mahree examined the sinuous form of the al
ien, eyes widening. But the holo-vids never conveyed that they were so utterly gorgeous!

  The alien who faced them was a female. Mahree recognized that fact immediately because of the being's lack of the vestigial dorsal ridge.

  Beneath the aurulent glow (some kind of protective field), the Mizari's scales shimmered silvery white, with brilliant diamonds of scarlet, black, and orange patterning her back. She had lifted the first third of her body, and the humans could see the tiny gripping appendages that roughened the scales of her underside.

  The being's eyes were black, unblinking and pupilless, and nearly on a level with Mahree's head. The head itself was wedge-shaped, blunt-nosed, and surrounded by the thick cloud of moving "tentacles" that were the Mizari equivalent of hands and fingers. The sensitive appendages waved outward, surrounding the being's head and continuing down her "neck," many over half a meter in length. The "tentacles" were black, scarlet, and orange, and each was tipped with the silvery white. They moved so constantly that Mahree could not see whether they were scaled or not.

  The alien's overall length was impressive, well over five meters. Her body lay stretched behind her as a counterbalance to her raised head, but, as the three travelers stopped before her, she slowly, deliberately, coiled her lower length, scales sliding over one another with a sinuous whisper.

  "God, she's beautiful!" Rob whispered, grinning with unconcealed delight.

  Then he gave a half-smothered laugh, and muttered something that sounded like, "Snakes ... why'd they have to be snakes?"

  Mahree jabbed him with her elbow, wanting to hush him, but

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  "shhhhh!" in Mizari meant "I itch from shedding," and she didn't think that would be an appropriate first comment. Instead, she placed her steepled hands together over her head and bowed from the waist, as Dhurrrkk' had shown them. "Greetings," she said, in Mizari. (What the ancient phrase literally meant was "good hunting," but Mizari no longer devoured live prey.

  For hundreds of centuries they had existed on synthetic forms of protein.) The being raised all her tentacles over her head and then gracefully dipped the first meter of her body. "Greetings," she said, in her own language. Her needlelike fangs were even longer than Dhurrrkk's, though they were now folded back into her mouth so they were barely visible as she spoke. "In my own name, and the name of my people, the"--she hissed the Mizari name for themselves--"and as a duly authorized representative of the Cooperative League of Systems, it is my honor and pleasure to welcome you to this place representing the spirit of our unity. I am Shirazz, the Guest Liaison for the League. I deeply regret that I must remain encased within this bioprotection field, but that is as much for your safety as it is my own."