"Thanks, ghost." He thrust the canteen against Six's chest.
Staggering, he swore in Spanish. "Find another name for me."
"Tell me your mortal name then."
"You know I can't." Six scratched his cheek. "Gotta protect my family. If your kind knew who they were, they'd slaughter them. You wouldn't, but them?"
Now they were getting somewhere. "So you do trust me?"
"Pi, there's more honor in your left big toe than your entire race combined." He tipped up the flask but then paused. "No offense."
"None taken. But we're stranded, my friend. Unless a miracle happens, by the time we get off, your family will be long dead." He added, "No offense."
Six finished his drink and plugged the container. "None taken. Sorry. Can't do it." He lifted the strap back over his head and settled it onto his shoulder, the canteen at his back. "Seriously, Pi, your people hear you call me you-know-what, it'll give away I was Ghost Corps. We both know what they'll do to me."
Chapter Two
"Trust me, my friend." Pietas brushed at his nose. "You can't hide what you are."
The man's pungent sweat almost blocked the stink of his fear. Ultras had been bred to have no body smell, which allowed them to infiltrate and spy, attributes humans desired in warrior-slaves but later found disastrous in warrior-rebels. Ultras could pass undetected among humans but humans could not pass among them. Once the party entered the caldera they'd come face to face with other Ultras, few of whom loved humans and all of whom hated Ghost Corps.
Six lifted one arm and sniffed. "Nothing. You have a touchy nose, Ultra."
"Touchy? When was the last time either of us bathed with soap?"
"Maybe... Day before last week?"
"Even if you bathed, they'd know. Calling you something else won't make a difference. Besides, my sister knows. She'll broadcast it."
"Si. She hates me. Mira. Look." Six's gaze flicked left. "You see how they all watch me? How your sister glares at me? They respect you or they'd have killed me already. Before the day's out, she'll try to come between us and tell you I'm trouble."
"You're right."
"Yes, she will. She and-- Wait." Six turned a questioning look on him. "You believe me?"
"I've spent over a year in your presence every day. I know the kind of man you are. Since I was sixteen, wherever my sister was, I was halfway across the galaxy from her. There's a reason for that." Her betrayal deserved no forgiveness.
"Thanks for believing me. Not sure your people will offer the same courtesy."
"Any of them would kill you if they had a chance. Ghost Corps had one rule: kill Ultras. We had the same rule about ghosts."
Six threw up his hands, a string of Spanish expletives flying from his mouth. "I'm pleased my death will amuse you."
"Before they so much as touch you, mi compañero, they will have to slay me first." In Spanish, he added, "I am not so easy to kill. You say you trust me. Take your time. Know for sure."
The man's white smile blazed in response. "Si. Always."
"Good." Wincing, Pietas stretched to ease cramps in his back.
His sister stood. "Tas!" she called up to him. She'd started using her childhood name for him since they'd reconnected the day before. "Are you hurt?"
A quick telepathic scan from Joss swept over him before he realized it was there. Pietas had still been a teenager when she'd trained him to shield his mind from those with her gift. Not that he'd ever been able to block her. She was far too powerful, but today, she'd read him with no more difficulty than a hunter spying trail signs. He'd been near no telepaths for over a year.
His affinity with Six had made him careless and he'd neglected the basic lessons Joss had taught him.
It wasn't a lack of trust. Trust had never been an issue with Joss.
He treasured her, but he ought not to have been so unguarded and open. Vulnerable.
"Pietas." Joss stood. The waves of emotion he picked up from her held love and concern in equal measure. And disappointment. "You're injured."
He ducked his head, a schoolboy who'd forgotten his lessons. Admit mortals had damaged him? Never. Neither would he lie about it. He'd take better care to hide the pain.
"Don't worry about me." Whistling, he circled a finger in the air. "Let's go! Long climb ahead." He leaped down from the rocks. "Joss, you lead." Last thing he wanted was her behind him, using him as an object of focus.
What telepaths focused upon, they controlled.
Armand joined Joss at the lead, Six walked beside Pietas, and Dessy took up the rear alongside Philippe.
For the next hour, they climbed rugged ground littered with black lava bombs, the spewed remains of the ancient caldera. The chunks of jettisoned rock varied in size from teardrops to small houses. The wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped, but so far, the rain held off. Weaving around boulders, they stepped over minor cracks and jumped over deeper ones.
Sharp stones crunched under his bare feet.
Once they reached sandy soil and the start of shrub with orange blossoms, Pietas stooped to examine dense florets of a blooming plant.
"Look, Six. Helichrysum. There are over six hundred species of this plant on Earth. They come in every color except blue, although my mother's been working on that. You'd know it as Strawflower or Immortelle. It's edible as a seasoning." He picked a leaf, sniffed it, held it for Six to smell.
"Reminds me of my abuela's kitchen. Like rosemary."
"Your grandmother might have found it useful. The oil is good for arthritis. Joint pain. Clear skin." Standing, Pietas brushed off his hands. Minutes later, he stopped again. "There's a break in the growth over there." He picked his way around rocks and went down on one knee.
Six squatted beside him, boots crunching the dry soil. "You know, we'd have made it here a lot quicker if you didn't have to study every plant we came across."
"I don't study them. I identify them. But I'm not looking at plants here." He pointed. "This is a trail. The tracks are from ungulates. Popular with terraformers. They put them on every colonized world. These are artiodactyla, to be precise. Bovidae. I suspect a derivative of aepyceros melampus."
"You know, Pi, when you say things like that, you think you're explaining, but you're really not."
"Animals with split hooves, ghost. Even-toed. Lightweight impalas. Antelopes."
"What, you couldn't say antelopes?"
"I just did." Pietas got up, dusted off his ragged pants.
Six stood. "So, this is how it's going to be?"
The other immortals had gathered a small distance away. Pietas shot them a glare and they scattered, pretending not to listen.
He returned his attention to Six. "How what's going to be?"
"You're back among your own people, so you're showing off your three thousand years of education."
"Hard to do since I'm not yet two thousand. My mother was chief scientist in the terraforming industry. She fed me taxonomy along with my milk."
"Taxonomy?"
"Classification of organisms by structure and origin. As in, I'm Ceramin perpetualis. You're Humanus originalis. Or you were. Your metamorphosis makes you Humanus pseudo-perpetualis, or something similar. I thought mortals taught this."
"Well, excuse me! But my fourteen years of school didn't quite prepare me for the level of science you take for granted."
"You have that much education?"
Six's dark eyes narrowed.
Despite himself, Pietas laughed. Drawing Six away from the others, he leaned in close. "I apologize. I was showing off."
"Thank you. My point."
"No, no. I wasn't apologizing for speaking above your level of understanding. I teach you. Do I not?"
"Well, yeah, so what's the apology for?"
"Showing off. Joking with you. Most of them," he nodded toward the four immortals, "have never had what I have."
"Which is?"
Did the man not see it? Pietas smiled. "A human friend."
Six's qui
ck grin flared into view, but before he spoke, Joss waved to them.
"Pietas!" She pointed to her left. "I found the opening. We're almost there."
Grumbling in Spanish, Six leaned in closer. "She's been saying 'almost there' for hours, amigo. Not a mapmaker, is she? But," he cast Joss an appreciative glance, "muy bonita, no?"
"Si. Gorgeous. And a master telepath who can crush a windpipe with one thought."
The man clutched his throat.
"Let's go." Pietas slapped him on the arm. "The last time I kept this lady waiting--" He broke off, unwilling to reveal the pleasurable punishment to which she had subjected him. How to phrase it without a lie?
Six sputtered in frustrated Spanish, asking for detail.
Pietas held up a hand. "Let's put it this way, amigo. I wouldn't like seeing her do that to you."
Chapter Three
Pietas didn't sleep with Joss until he was twenty, but he fell in love with her at first sight.
He was sixteen. She was ageless.
The older woman had plucked him off the streets, fed and clothed him, given him a job and dignity.
That wasn't why he'd slept with her. It had taken several years to become her lover because he didn't know how to ask and he would have rather faced perma-death as a virgin than be shot down by that woman.
His father had woefully neglected his education about women. Joss told him later he'd been too young to know what he wanted and she'd promised herself she wouldn't make the first move.
This time, he knew how it was done, had no intention of waiting, and knew exactly what he wanted. Her.
As Pietas hiked beside Joss, he recalled their first meeting. He'd been standing in lines to join work crews. Being ignored, crowded out, shoved aside. For days. With no work history or experience, no identification and no sponsor, no one would hire him. That meant no money, no bed, and no meal tickets.
Worse, he had no uniform. Among the polished soldiers and officers, his thin shirt and ragged pants screamed civilian.
He'd been thrown out with nothing but the clothes he wore. The shredded and bloodstained cloth on his back announced to the world he'd been beaten. They must see him as a slacker who wouldn't work.
Weapons, though, those he had. Lucky for him, the boots he'd worn had a hidden sheath which held his best blade. Obtaining more weapons hadn't been difficult. He'd wagered his fighting skills to gain those. Nobody took a beating better. Pietas might not get in the first punch, but he always got back up. More times than the other guy was willing to, or could.
In his right front pocket, he had a scarred and scratched up Puma Slimline Ought Six with a full magazine of double-stings. Folded up in his left, a Primary Star flipper knife. The pearl handle had six deep notches that age had stained. Judging by the dark color, it'd been with blood. He'd wondered, but after he claimed it, he'd looked into the bleak eyes of the older Ultra who'd lost it and decided not to ask.
But a job? To quote Six, nada.
He refused to sell his weapons. Those would keep him alive and feed him. Criminals bought falsified documents. He'd either earn his keep or he'd starve. Once you sell your honor, nothing else has value.
The day had grown late and it had started raining. Pietas ducked into a covered alley and huddled near the wall for protection from the wind. Across the street, a food cart sold soured, day-old leavings from some posh restaurant in the nearby human district.
Ultras, the mightiest warriors the galaxy had ever seen, paid for scraps. Ate the garbage humans discarded. No way he'd do that.
Two days ago, he'd caught himself walking toward it, turned himself around and marched himself away.
A female soldier passing by slowed, looked him up and down, and then stopped. She wore an officer's uniform: simple black jacket, white blouse, black skirt, shiny shoes. One ribbon on the left, dark blue with a single yellow stripe bordered by two red. Gedunk, Ultras called it. Throwaway. Given to everyone who enlisted during the last war. It meant nothing more than you were brave enough to sign your name.
"Hello, there. Are you looking for work?"
Pietas stood taller, finger-combing his hair. "Yes, ma'am."
She entered the alley, gesturing for him to accompany her.
He turned to follow, staggering with dizziness. No matter what kind of work she needed done, he would do it, hungry or not. Once they reached the alley's deepest end, she hiked up her skirt and held out paper money.
It took a moment for it to register what she expected him to do. He'd been around no women other than his mother and sister. Did people...did they do that...in an alley? Surely not. He must be mistaken. She needed something else and he had misunderstood.
When he hesitated, she waved the money at him. "I don't have all day, do you want this or not?"
People respect an honorable man. His mother's voice played in his memory. If they don't respect you, they have no honor in themselves.
"What's the matter?" She offered the money again. "Come on, pretty boy. This has to be more than you usually get."
Clenching his fists, he turned and strode away from her, not slowing until he reached the Ultra union hall. There, he dropped onto the ground in the drizzling rain. Arms on upraised knees, he rested his head on them, fighting to control his rising anger.
That's his offer of work?
What was wrong with people?
"Hello?" called a female voice.
"I am not for sale!" He swept back his wet hair and glared up at her.
"That's good to know." The woman who looked down at him was not the one who'd offered to buy him. This one wore a white dress uniform.
Pietas clambered to his feet. Faint with hunger, he braced himself against the wall.
Kind blue eyes seemed to look through him. Unlike his, her blond hair held tones of gold instead of white. A beam of sunshine sneaked through the clouds and wrapped her in blazing light. Seeing her, a man could believe in angels.
He stood straighter and pushed wet hair out of his face. "Sorry."
"Don't be. Are you Pietas?"
"I am." Was this someone who could hire him? Her left chest sported a brace of ribbons as wide as his hand, most related to weaponry. He must not look slipshod. He drew his sodden hair into a tail and tossed it over his shoulder. Wiping wet hands on wetter clothes, he held himself in as military-correct a posture as he could manage. "How do you know me, ma'am?"
"From your mother's description."
"My mother?" Homesickness arose in him so strong he staggered. He caught himself and straightened. He might be new to the greater Ultra world, but he hadn't been raised a fool. He kept his distance. "If you know her, what's her name? What's my father's name?"
"Helia and Mahikos. Your mother and I were created at the same time. She was scientist class and I was warrior, but we became friends. I introduced her to Mahikos. Thankfully, she doesn't hold that against me." A wry smile tilted her mouth. "She called me, said she had a son named Pietas and a daughter named Dessy. She said you and your father had a fight and she asked me to look for you. She sends her love."
Hearing her speak took him back to the warm safety of his mother's presence. "You're Joss Avaton."
"That's right."
How often had his mother spoken of this woman? And always with reverence.
"Mother talks about you all the time. She misses you. She said you were the sister she wished she had."
"Did she?" Love and amusement came through the aether, as warm and embracing as his mother's. "I'm glad to know that. I wish she'd told me about you before now."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. That isn't your fault."
"Is Mother here? Have you seen her?"
"No. But she was worried so I said I'd find you. I should have tried the work halls first."
Surely it wasn't wrong to fall in love so fast. Mother had said not to trust strange women, and from his experience with the one earlier, she'd been right. But this was Joss. Her friend and heart-sister.
/> Pietas took two steps toward her, checked himself.
When Joss offered her hand, he took it.
She clasped both of hers around his.
The moment she touched him he felt some inner part of him reach toward her, a sprout beneath the dark earth yearning for sun. He'd had no idea at the time she was using her gift of Clarity to help him see his path.
All he knew was he would survive. He could do anything. His life was not over. This amazing woman cared about him.
"Thank you for looking for me. Finding me."
"My pleasure." She slid her fingertips down his jaw, out to the dimple in his chin. "Let's get you off these streets, find you a meal, then bathed and into some dry clothes. We'll call your mother. She gave me a private link to her no one else knows about."
"You mean my father doesn't know about."
"You don't need to worry about your father." Joss took his hand. "You're safe. You're with me now."
With her? His heart did somersaults.
Yet at the thought of his father, his stomach still tightened with dread.
Chapter Four
Walking beside Joss now, nineteen hundred years later, Pietas had the same sense of stomach-butterflies and walking-on-air he'd experienced then. And the same shadowy dread of seeing his father.
"Pietas?" Joss nudged his arm. "What are you thinking? I can't read you."
He took a deep breath, let it all out. Why worry her with things she could not control? He changed the subject. "I've missed you."
"I missed you too." She wrapped an arm around one of his. "Think we can find some time to be alone?"
"I know so."
Joss kissed him, but pulled away with an uncharacteristic blush. "I shouldn't have done that. We're both on duty. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. On this world in our state, we'll have to be on duty every minute. And off it at the same time." He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. "How far now?"
"We're close." She pointed toward the hill. "The entrance is over that way. It rarely rains in the caldera. We'll be fine once we get there."
How he longed to absorb Joss's sweet warmth and gentle touch. In the past, he'd have placed one arm across her shoulders and drawn her close, but his brutal imprisonment had robbed him of that movement. He could raise neither arm without piercing pain, not even to fasten his own hair.
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