“Shall we?” he asked.
“Leg up, miss?” asked the groom, a teen-age girl like most of the barn help. The place seemed full of them, in love with horses, dogs and the outdoors.
Shasti felt a stab of envy looking at the groom’s open, friendly face. It would have been nice to grow up like that, she thought. “No need,” she said putting a foot in the stirrup and vaulting easily into the saddle.
“Nicely done,” the groom said.
The comment amused Shasti; she gave the girl a small smile.
“Let’s head up the coast,” Fenaday wheeling his horse about. “I have a place in mind.”
They took a dirt road down to the beach. The Connemara coast of New Eire possessed a rocky, storm-tossed coast with an austere beauty. They rode out onto the sand and gravel, pushing the horses into a canter. The art of riding came back to her quickly. She’d loved training with the horses, riding was one of her few pleasant memories of Olympia. I wonder if they still have them at Denshi, she thought. There’d been talk of phasing out the horses before she escaped.
They galloped along the waterline for a while, throwing up spray which even the horses seemed to enjoy.
“How do you like New Eire so far?” Fenaday grinned, when they slowed to ease the horses. The wind tugged at his brown hair.
“It is so different,” she said. “I’ve lived my life in spaceports, ships, bases of one kind or another. It’s a new experience to be in a real home.”
“I suppose so. It didn’t seem like much of a home when I was growing up in it. Especially after my mother died. Maybe,” he said shyly, “you and I will do better.”
Shasti couldn’t think of anything to say.
He let the awkward moment drop. “If I remember right, there’s a good spot for a picnic on that bluff.” They turned their horses toward the hill, taking a narrow, rough path winding up from the beach.
They dismounted, tying the horses off in a dell, safe from the wind, with plenty of grass to crop. Fenaday and Shasti unloaded the saddlebags and he untied a gray blanket as well. They walked further toward the top of the bluff. Fenaday cast about a little before finding the spot.
“Here it is,” he called, spreading some red-gold bushes apart. They entered a little natural hollow just back from the cliff, sheltered from the wind by the cliff face, allowing a view of the sea and its whitecaps.
He unrolled the thick blanket he’d brought, and she joined him on it. The saddlebags yielded a treasure of cold chicken, bread, white wine, apples and cheese.
She looked at his face as he poured a glass for her. It seemed younger these days, less pinched and worn with worry and strain. He both laughed and smiled more.
“What are you thinking?” Fenaday asked, handing her a wineglass and breaking her reverie.
She took the glass and shifted closer. Their shoulders touched. “New worlds,” she replied, “so many new worlds for me.”
He didn’t speak. His hand touched her face, brushing her night-black hair back.
Shasti felt something stir in her. She sipped the wine, then put the glass on a rock behind her. “That’s a nice soft blanket you brought,” she said.
“Thick too,” he replied, setting down his glass.
“Big enough to wrap around us,” she observed, “not that it’s very cold.”
“Want to work up an appetite?” he said mischievously.
Their lips met and they kissed, excitement building in them as they opened each other’s clothes. They rolled on the blanket, encouraged by the cool air. His hands gently and firmly touched her body. She held him close, pleased by how quickly he became hard in her hands. She slid under him after a few minutes.
“I want you,” she said. “I want you inside me now.” She spread her legs and arched her back, taking him in. Their tongues met and danced, heat building in them. His motion quickened as they built toward climax. Every sensation seemed so clear to her. The taste, the feel of him, the texture of the blanket under her back, the arch of blue sky over his shoulder. She felt the muscles of his back under her hands; she slid them down to grasp his butt, hard from a lifetime of stances and kicks.
Ah, she thought, I’ve never made love like this, so free, so simple. It feels like I am giving myself up to the sky. Joy welled up in her; her eyes rolled up as her body took possession. Pleasure rippled out in waves. She cried out as he went rigid filling her with a sudden heat. They collapsed together, catching their breath then laughing from sheer happiness.
They lay together, he resting above her on his elbows. A habit, she realized with a hint of jealously, learned from smaller and more fragile women. She pulled him close, savoring the feel of his weight, not wanting him to withdraw from on and in her…
*****
The pencil snapped in Shasti’s hand. She looked at the drawing pad with her lover’s face, then back up at the night sky where he circled the world she’d become stranded on. I must be mad, she thought, to have cast all that to the wind only to come here and face torture and death. Fool, she thought in sudden anguish. Why?
You know, whispered the dark, cold part of her soul. Even the happiest memories of Fenaday and his gentle lovemaking can’t make the other ones disappear: the older ones of Pard, the rapes, the pain and the degradation. Have you forgotten being caged? Forgotten the sting of leather on your skin? Sometimes a sight, sound or smell would take her back to Pard. She’d freeze in the act of making love, her body becoming strange and foreign to her. It was why she’d rarely had sex. The memories had never intruded with Fenaday, but she feared that someday they might, marring things forever.
I cannot be free while Pard lives, she thought, I can’t. I am sorry Robert, sorry. You’ve come for me, all this way, all this danger, for me. Love? she wondered. Her mind skittered around the word like a frightened animal. Even her breathing grew rapid. Is this what normals feel, she wondered, what all their poetry and songs meant? Why did she feel sick? Afraid?
She realized the fear was mostly for him, so near Pard and his allies. There was fear for herself as well, for venturing out of the unseen, defended places of her soul and beginning to feel.
Chapter Twelve
Paula Kallian made her way from the elevator bank, slowly, painfully, desperate for her own door. She was one of the rare employees given an apartment in Denshi’s high desert complex. It was considered quite a perk. Most others had to take the shuttles down to the bridge over which passed the one road to the complex. From there, they took a MagLev into Marathon or its suburbs. Today she was paying for her privileges. Antebei had returned from the space station in a fury, the worst she had ever experienced. It meant he was out of favor with Pard again, seriously so.
Bitterness and regret welled up in her. She had jumped at the chance for a job in Denshi, hardly believing her luck when Antebei himself hired her out of a janitorial job after a chance meeting. It was better than anything the unsanctioned child of parents with defective genes could hope for. College was beyond her means. Her parents, laboring in jobs little better than her own, could not help her. Her father was often ill, making the family financial situation sometimes desperate. She remembered him sitting on the porch of their small home, bent double with coughing. Her mother making cup after cup of hot tea to ease the spasms.
Then came Antebei, tall, handsome and interested in helping her. How naive, she thought, how utterly naive.
She came to Denshi as his secretary and personal assistant. Money, for the first time in her life, was plentiful. Decent medical care held her father’s illness at bay, abating her mother’s tears and worry. Paula’s family was secure as never before.
Antebei’s attentions flattered her at first, then frightened her as they grew in intensity. Eventually, he made no more pretense of seducing her, taking her when he felt like it. Each time grew more violent, though afterward he was often apologetic, showering her with gifts and attention. It was, he insisted, their secret. If she complained or told anyone, he warned, she would fin
d herself out on the street, her family again condemned to poverty and neglect.
Who could she turn to anyway? Antebei headed Section Seven, Denshi Internal Security, a veritable prince among the Engineered. She was genetic garbage, barely an adult, in Denshi on sufferance. She might simply disappear, as did many inconvenient to Denshi. Worse, they might strike at her family. Torn between terrors of poverty, death and Antebei’s lust, she chose to suffer alone, in silence.
She reached the door of her sanctuary and passed through. Pain caught her as she reached her living room. She went to down on one knee, with a soft moan, leaning against a couch. A wetness spread down the back of her thigh. Oh god, she thought, I’m bleeding again. She started to sob quietly. “I can’t live like this anymore,” she whispered.
“Maybe you won’t have to,” said a deep, resonant voice.
Her head snapped up in terror. On the other couch, so still she hadn’t sensed him, sat Mikhail Vaughn, Head of Section Three, Special Operations. Abruptly, she realized he was not alone. A tautly built Asian woman, older than her, stood in the shadows behind him. Her eyes glittered in reflected streetlight.
“Don’t be afraid and don’t turn on the light,” he said.
She nodded, carefully not moving.
“There is nothing to fear,” Vaughn repeated softly. He leaned forward till his clear blue eyes were in the light. “You know if we had any ill intent, you would never have seen us or known anything. Please, sit.”
She crept up onto the couch, wincing.
“Antebei is a brute,” Vaughn said, distaste on his face.
“I have no complaints,” she whispered back, looking down. This is bad, she thought. Vaughn is Antebei’s chief rival. He’s signed my death warrant by his presence in my apartment. Despair welled up in her soul. She knew Antebei had her watched, as he watched everything.
“Please go away,” she whimpered, “he’ll kill me.”
“He will kill you,” Vaughn replied. “As he has the others before you. You know that. It is only a matter of time.”
She shook her head mutely.
“He will,” Vaughn said with certainty. “But not because of our presence. Your watcher is busy with a healthy young man in an apartment several floors below. It seems the duty has become tedious for her. The electronic devices have been circumvented. No one detected us. We are quite adept at being invisible.”
A spasm of pain crossed her face.
“You need medical attention,” Vaughn said.
“It’s nothing. I fell,” she replied.
“It’s torture, sexual torture,” Vaughn said. “He’s like that. It ends one way, a string of broken toys left by a sick child.”
A spark lit in her, and she looked into the Denshi lord’s eyes. “What? A flaw in the Engineered?”
The Asian woman shifted, Vaughn stilled her with a slight gesture.
“We are not perfect,” Vaughn said stiffly, “just more capable. Our friend Antebei believes he is a law unto himself. Personally, I think he is insane.”
“What do you want?” she asked.
“To help you.”
She gave a small bitter laugh, astonished by her own daring.
To her surprise, Vaughn smiled. “So, you are not a fool. Clearly, I want you, your access to Antebei’s files and plans.”
She shook her head. “Just kill me. It will be easier than what he’ll do to me.”
“I’m offering you a way out,” Vaughn said. “You know why Antebei wants you, you know he hates wanting you. One day he will snap and you’ll die. I’ve seen it before.”
“I do what he wants,” she replied, stubbornly.
“It’s not a protection. It wasn’t for his governess when he was fifteen.”
“What do you want from me?” she cried. “What recourse do I have, genetic trash that you think me? I’m all my family has to keep them off the street, my father is ill...”
“What will happen to them when he kills you?” Vaughn shrugged.
She stared at the floor.
“Listen,” he said. It brought her eyes off the floor to meet his, which in turn seemed to disconcert the big man. He’s probably never seen anyone with two different color eyes before, she thought. No recessives need apply.
“I am Engineered and Assassin. There are more corpses in my past than even I care to remember, but I am offering you a way out. As I see it, you have no choice. My way may lead to death, but there is at least a chance.
“Antebei is a madman.” Vaughn leaned forward, his eyes locked on hers. “I don’t know why Pard cannot see it. He cannot be allowed to rise to the control of Denshi. We would go from being the scalpel of a surgeon, to a butcher’s cleaver. I am going to stop him, and if you want to live, you’ll help me.”
“Or you’ll kill me,” she said dully.
“No,” Vaughn replied, “I won’t have to do a thing. If you tell him that you turned me away, he will be so enraged by my touching on his weak spot that he’d kill you even if he believed you. If you don’t tell him, then you play Russian Roulette every time you walk into his office.
“A time of crisis is coming. I feel it. A sword is hanging over Denshi and Pard. Its name is Fenaday. Another enemy is on our world already. Antebei has been provoked by Fenaday, as has Pard. Pard is smart enough to ignore it. Antebei is too vain to do so. He will strike back, seeking Pard’s favor or to salve his own ego. That would be a disaster for Denshi.”
“You do not need to be a steady source of information. Such are always eventually found. I want you for one task, one mission. When and if Antebei moves to strike at Fenaday, you will inform me by contacting Tanaka here on a secured channel we will arrange. You dial the number she hands you and ask for Channel Z. It is untraceable in the complex and encrypted.”
“What do I get out of this?” she asked.
“For starters, ownership of your body. I’ll better that with two-hundred thousand Confederate standard credits, relocation offworld for you and your family, or to a position with my office, under our protection, at twice your salary.”
“If Antebei comes out on top?” she asked.
“Then you and I will be discussing our foolhardiness in hell,” he replied impatiently.
Paula thought of herself, bent over Antebei’s desk. His body pounding hers with no thought or care, his hands pressing down hard on the back of her neck.
“Almost to the breaking point,” she murmured to herself in sudden realization.
Vaughn’s eyes bored into hers, as if he could read her thoughts.
“He is going to kill me,” she said, as if in surprise, the barriers her unconscious raised against the thought finally falling.
“Yes,” Vaughn nodded.
“I’ll do it,” she said, her mouth a hard, bitter line. “Not because I believe you or your promises, Denshi Lord. I’ve never seen any honesty or compassion in any of you, but because he is going to kill me, and none of you will do a damn thing about it. This way at least, maybe I’ll finally hurt him back.”
Her nerve broke and she looked away. “Get out,” she whispered.
*****
Vaughn stood, quelling his temper with effort. No one spoke so to him and lived, beside Pard and his masters. To be upbraided by this short, over-built piece of genetic trash, without even matching eyes, was almost more than he could take. How Antebei could desire her soft, almost fat, body eluded him. He nodded curtly to her and strode to the door.
Tanaka followed. She placed the paper with the contact number next to the woman and whispered something to her. Kallian did not look up.
They slipped into the hallway, then to the stairwell. On the floor below, they boarded a service elevator where the security systems were locked out, dropping to the sub-basement.
Misa Tanaka looked sidewise at him. “You’ll do it, won’t you? You are going to help her?”
Vaughn looked at her in surprise, then shrugged. “She did not believe me and threw my offer back in my face. Why do yo
u care what happens to that pathetic creature?” he replied, still nettled by how she had spoken to him.
“We have much in common,” she said.
Vaughn looked at her in puzzlement, “You? You have nothing in common with that woman.”
“Really?” she replied. “What could I do, if you were to use me so?”
“I assume,” Vaughn said with a surprised laugh, “you’d kill me.”
She looked at him flatly. “Me, alone, against a Fourth Generation Engineered? I’d have little chance. Even if I won, I would be hunted by all of Denshi. My family would be slaughtered. No, for all my skill, I am no safer than she is. I have no more protection than your word.”
Vaughn stared, at a loss for words.
“You will keep your promise?” she persisted.
“What did you say to her as we left?” he asked.
Her mouth drew into a grim line, but her voice remained toneless. “I said, trust Vaughn. That was my word of honor given, Lord. Is it worthless, too?”
Vaughn went hot with rage, then cold. Tanaka had been with him since he was fifteen. Next to Pard, she was the person he knew the longest. He valued her, and not just for her skill and the protection she provided his back. He had learned much from her. She was twenty years older than he, with a wider experience of the world. Standard humans and the Selected used the word friend; it came hard to him, even as a thought.
Vaughn knew he had crossed some invisible line, trespassed on those assumptions that normal people—people raised by families—real people, maintained with each other. It was a familiar feeling. Raised in a crèche with only the disinterested benevolence of doctors and other professionals, he simply did not understand much of human relations.
Tanaka’s face remained hard and closed to him. Disappointment and disapproval showed in her body and her downcast eyes.
They strode out of the elevator, he in the lead. He felt her, with that situational sense developed in the Fourth Generation, as a small, hot shadow at his back, an angry, silent presence. Suddenly, he stopped and rounded on her. For a second, he was surprised to see real fear in her eyes.
Fearful Symmetry (The Robert Fenaday and Shasti Rainhell Chronicle Book 2) Page 17