Liaison Officer Coryn Leigh was not the fellow the faired-haired man on the Camin had been. Sarah had, on occasion, had the wry thought that Coryn’s father would, no doubt, now approve of his son. He was taking his role as the official responsible for Sarah’s safety, very seriously. Of course, he was getting paid for doing so, and, clearly, he was a person with a strong sense of duty. As he had said a number of times, he believed in doing his homework.
“Joe’s along on his wife’s account just as much as yours,” Coryn replied keeping his tone light, “and Texi is going to guide you off-worlders. He knows the layout of the city, and the places that it’s smart to avoid.”
“Besides which,” the Kordean added, “going with you people gets me from sitting behind a desk, which seems to be all that I’d be doing here, today.”
He grinned at Sarah disarmingly.
“And I get to ask you and Joe questions about space ship mechanics while we walk.”
“Oh well, then. So long as you weren’t dragooned into babysitting duties.” Sarah shot Coryn a defiant glance as she spoke, and the Liaison Officer swallowed a sharp retort before it could slip off his tongue.
He pulled out four small communicators from a drawer, and tossed them to the other side of his desk.
“Each of you, take one. You know the code for the Port Security; use it, if necessary. And grab stunners on your way out the main office; you know where they’re kept.
“And don’t look at me disdainfully like that, Sarah. If you don’t care about your own safety, think of that of your companions. There are dangers out there that could attack any one of you four.”
Jillian shut the door behind the group as they exited, leaving Coryn alone in his office. He dropped into his chair and, just for few moments, buried his face in his hands.
*****
Outside the office building Jillian took her husband aside for a whispered conference.
“Can you and Texi walk, either in front of Sarah and me, or behind, out of earshot, for a few minutes? I want to have a little private conversation with her.”
Joe nodded.
“If you think it’ll do some good,” he agreed. “Methinks that your boss ought to either slap her, or, and I’d recommend this route, take her into his bed for a bit of professional—his old one—attention.”
“Joe, don’t talk like an ass.”
Jillian was annoyed. Sometimes her husband’s origins were painfully obvious. He had grown up on a mining world where women either could handle large machinery as well as the men, or else did not get much respect.
“He can’t do that, even if he was willing, or desperately wanted to,” she said. “She’s his protégé. He’s responsible for her safety, even from his own hormones—and I’m pretty sure that he’s having hormone problems these days on her account. I just want to try to get her to quit baiting him.”
“Is that what you think she’s doing?” Joe asked. “Baiting him? My take is that she has hormonal problems, too, but she’s too inexperienced to realize it.”
Jillian wondered if Joe didn’t have the right of it. It was very doubtful that Sarah was consorting with any man while studying at the Stronghold of a Witch Circle. The green-hooded women, from the little Jillian knew of them, were not particularly open-minded about sex. Although, before coming to Kordea, Sarah had been working on an Explorer ship, and the Explorers were spacers, and spacers were free and easy about sexual relationships. However, they were also sticklers for people’s right to choose who they slept with, and when; if Sarah had chosen to remain virginal while she was with the Explorers, not one of them would have objected. There had, apparently been a nasty little incident, the one that had propelled her into the role which was hers, now, involving some idiot Malloran druggie who had threatened to rape her, but that guy had not been an Explorer, though he had been travelling with them. Hm, maybe that event had traumatized Sarah; Jillian decided to tread a little bit softly in her tete-a-tete. But....
“Why are you behaving like a spoiled child with Coryn?” she blurted out, instead of finessing her approach, when she had caught up with Sarah, and had directed Texi to return to where Joe was trailing them.
Jillian felt like kicking herself. Either the amarto-sensitive girl’s attitude was getting to her, too, or she, herself, had grown overprotective of her boss. Or else, people’s emotions did some weird churning thing on this strange world where night was day, and the bright, hot days had to be the sleeping time.
“Am I behaving like a spoiled child with him?” Sarah sounded surprisingly contrite. “I guess I am, at least, sort of.”
She paused to consider.
“It’s just that he was so much less uptight when I first got to know him,” she then said, slowly. “It felt like we were equals: he had helped to save me from the Organization Hounds, and then when I woke up from my coma, I helped to rescue him from the eyeless creatures on the Planet of the Amartos.”
She paused to look at Jillian, who nodded. She had heard the stories. A person couldn’t work closely with Coryn without having listened to them.
“Then putting the little ship, Camin, back together with the Ranger mechanics was really interesting, and the trip, here, to Kordea was fun, what with Steph cracking jokes half the time.
“Then I had to allow myself to be confined to Ferhil Stones, and I made up my mind to learn stuff as fast as was possible, so that I could return to the real world. But Marlyss keeps saying that she can’t guarantee my safety anywhere other than her Stronghold, for at least another year, yet, no matter how quick a study I am.
“And then Coryn came to inform the Witches that he was now the Kordean-Confederation Liaison Officer, and could give me what protection the Terrans had to offer, whenever I had the leisure to spend a few days in Trahea. I was so thrilled, and I think that Marlyss heaved a sigh of relief at the thought of being rid of me, every now and then.
“And Coryn was acting—like he’s acting! Like he’s my parent, or something! He’s not; he’s only six or seven years older than I am, for crying out loud!”
Sarah surprised herself by feeling the sting of tears behind her eyelids. Surreptitiously she wiped the corners with her pinky fingers, but she did not fool a trained observer, which is what Jillian was.
“Do you realize that Coryn, too, is between a rock and a hard place?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” Sarah countered.
“He took this position that he has—no, he didn’t just take it, he dug it up from under a rock, and threw it in the faces of the Diplomatic Corps officials who had been quietly pretending that it didn’t exist—because he saw that it offered the best opportunity there was to give you a chance to spend some time away from the Witches. Besides, he’s actually doing some real liaising between The Confederation and Kordea, which, truly, should have been happening for a long time before this. Maybe if we of The Confederation had taken our duties towards an affiliate which had given us the ground for a Space Port, seriously, ages ago, things might not have come to the pretty pass that they have. Maybe there would have been more understanding on both sides—but never mind, that’s just my hobby horse, as Joe would say.”
Sarah gave the other young woman a searching glance. It had never occurred to her that Coryn’s second-in-command was anything more than a bright, dedicated Agent who had taken up the position on Kordea for reasons of ambition.
“But, having taken the job that he did,” Jillian ploughed on, “he now is in what is termed an ‘enhanced fiduciary position’ in regards to you. Do you know what that means?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Sarah was not familiar with the phrase which seemed to roll easily off Jillian’s tongue.
“It means that, as far as Confederation rules and regulations go, he might as well be a parent, or a guardian, to you. He could screw things up royally by trying to be your best pal. Some mole with Organization connections, or even just a pissed-off Diplomatic Corps member whose golden goose he killed, could a
ccuse him of using his position of authority to try to influence, and even seduce you.”
“You’ve got to be joking,” Sarah muttered.
“I’m not, Sarah, believe me. I took some law courses before I hired on with The Agency—I changed my mind about holing up in some dusty law office.
“As a citizen of a Confederation world, and a non-Kordean, the fact that you are the person keyed to that pile of amartos now in the hands of the Circle of the Twelve, puts you in a rather interesting position, to say the least. Besides which, you found the cursed things, which makes your connection to them even stronger. They were handed over to Witch Marlyss, even as you were, for safe-keeping.”
That drew a sputter out of Sarah, but Jillian ignored it.
“The Agency supported Coryn’s plan to activate the Liaison Office partly because it was obvious that Confederation had an interest in those Stones, too. Especially in keeping them out of The Organization’s hands. Thus the Kordean-Confederation Liaison Officer—meaning Coryn, of course—is deemed to be the safe-keeper of the Stones, and of you, on the Confederation side. Which makes him the equal of Marlyss in his relationship with you, closer to a parent or a guardian, as I said, than to a good, trusted friend.”
She drew a breath.
“Besides which, to make things really tough on him, Coryn’s fallen in love with you. Don’t snort, Sarah, I’m trained to observe people’s behaviour, and to draw conclusions from what I see. He may not fully realize it himself, but to a person paying attention, it’s obvious what’s going on. And his hands are tied: he cannot even hug or kiss you without setting the stage for a possible disaster which would endanger you again, when the very thing he wants to do is protect you.”
“Oh come on, Jillian, you can’t be serious! Coryn Leigh, ‘til recently, the star of the alyens of Space Station RES, in love with plain ole Sarah, the skinny mechanic from Laurentia, Earth! It is to laugh!”
Only she didn’t much feel like laughing.
“The skinny mechanic from Laurentia, eh?” Jillian giggled. “You know what Joe said after the first time he saw you at the Office? ‘That witchy girl has a lovely ass,’ were his first words, as I recall. The guys who come from the mining worlds, like he does, have no tact—he should have known better than to throw that in his wife’s face! Cost him a bouquet of flowers, and a dinner out. But it made me think, and I guess you can’t see Coryn admire your behind, but I have had plenty of opportunity, and he definitely knows what’s there.
“And you know what they say about the alyens, and the alyenas, that they retire when they come across someone who truly catches their fancy. Well, Coryn’s given up that business, and he’s been behaving in an astonishingly monkish manner for a guy who could crook his little finger indiscriminately in any bar, and get takers.”
“Yeah, that’s true, I guess. About crooking his little finger. At the meeting at Ferhil Stones, Witch Clarisse openly said that if he was selling, she’d buy. And he turned her down flat, though nicely, of course.
“Still....”
Jillian was trying to make her feel better about herself, Sarah thought. Jill was a nice person, but that didn’t mean that she knew everything, though she probably did know a rather lot.
“Just think about what I’ve said, Sarah,” Jillian sighed. “And take pity on my boss, and try to curb your tendency to snipe at him.”
CHAPTER THREE
Sarah was very quiet as the four of them finished traversing the alley that led from the Port area to the Trade City proper. The stalls that lined the alley were full of kitschy, touristy merchandise; Jillian had, on her first walk down it, marvelled that even an out-of-the way, unfrequented planet like Kordea had its kitsch-merchants.
“Nothing here that could be called original,” muttered Texi, as he looked around. “Although these sellers do an amazing amount of business.”
“People on stopovers,” Joe said. “Stuck here for hours, or maybe days, while the ships they are travelling on, get maintained. They go take a look at the Trade City, and realize on the way back that they’ve forgotten to buy any souvenirs. So they stop at a stall or a few, and pick up something from the available selection.”
Texi was a little less contemptuous of the shops in the Trade City, but pointed out that there were none which catered to infants’ necessities.
“For such paraphernalia, one really has to go into Trahea proper. The Trade City does more of its business in the eating, drinking, and entertainment venues. I mean, there are stores which sell necessities, but you can get those at the Port, too.”
“Yeah, and if you’re a traveller looking for toothpaste or soap, you can get the kind you’re used to having at the Port,” added Jillian, “so you’re more likely to buy it there.”
“The Trade City sells more than food and booze,” Joe sniffed. “Anyone willing to spend good coin on a mind-altering experience can get a fix in Trahea Trade City. That’s one of the little, not-so-secret, secrets of the Space Ports.”
Texi shrugged.
“Anyone foolish enough to go big time into that sort of a thing is free to do so, as far as I’m concerned,” he opined. “The more idiots there are walking around in a drug haze, the less competition there is for the good Port jobs.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” Jillian said sharply. “Although anyone who has run into a dork high on tiger-dust might be excused for disagreeing with you.”
Sarah shuddered at the words. She had looked into tiger-dust sodden eyes, and had run into an alien forest to escape what she had seen there. Abruptly she was glad to have the two big men, and the capable Jillian surrounding her. Trahea Trade City was the place where Roger Delmen had bought his stash, according to the Explorers.
She used a finger to press the amarto hanging on her chest, inside her shirt, against the skin. It did not hurt to do a little witchy look-around the group, just in case there was something worrisome nearby. It could not be a very detailed check, she was walking along a city street, not sitting in a meditative pose inside a room. But perhaps she could get a sense of the emotions jangling about them; if there was something disturbing directed at them, she was sure to pick up on it.
That first scan came up with nothing which could be construed as threatening—only people going about their lives—and after it Sarah allowed Joe and Texi to draw her into a discussion about space ship mechanics. Joe was interested in hearing about the work she had done on the Camin 001.
“There are a couple of guys at the shop who worked on her when Steph Clennan brought her to the Port, after she had been through a space battle,” he said. “Clennan got the specs for the ship for them—they were supposed to be top secret, since she’s was a brand new model.”
“There’s a leak somewhere in the Experimental Craft Division,” Sarah said with a shake of her head. “I saw, and studied, during my spare time, the plans for that model, on Space Station XER.”
“Apparently Clennan had said that one of the ships that attacked the Camin was its exact duplicate,” Joe added. “Definitely a leak. He had said that his boss at the Division almost lost his lunch when he had commed that little detail, while asking for the specs for the mechanics.”
“The word is that they haven’t found the leak yet,” chimed in Jillian. “But The Agency has asked Clennan’s new spouse to look for it. Apparently they figure that she’s got the people skills to get someone to drop a hint, and Carovan, the Division Head, is cooperating by escorting her to all the dos that he’s invited to.”
Sarah giggled.
“That great,” she said. “Fiana’s probably insinuating to anyone deemed suspicious that she and the Division Head are having an affair, and because she’s sort of bad, and has lots to hide, it’s fun and safe to tell her things.”
They had crossed the Trade City, and Texi took the lead to usher them down what appeared to be a popular thoroughfare lined with a variety of commercial establishments located on the bottom floors of very old, wooden, multi-store
y buildings.
“Here begins Main Street, and the business district of Old Trahea,” he intoned. “The alleys and lanes on both sides of this street are where the poor people live. But the street itself is a busy road, and the stores along it sell pretty well everything that gets traded in the City. And where it ends, the bigger houses begin, those of the merchants who own these establishments, and those of artisans, and trades people. Beyond them live the rich honchos, the ones who have the means to hire the poor to be their servants.”
“And where, in this set-up of class divisions do you have your home?” asked Joe, looking down the street.
Most of the traffic along it was made up of pedestrians, some of them pulling or pushing carts of purchases. There were a few electric scooters, probably off-planet imports, and the odd browhorn ridden by an arrogant-seeming man. Never a woman, Sarah noted, though the scooters apparently were used by both men and women.
“Hah!” Texi responded. “Not among the tradesmen where my job ought to entitle me to live. My family belongs to the servant-class! If it wasn’t for you off-worlders, I’d be bowing and scraping to someone high and mighty among the mansions! Nance and I rent one of the apartments above the businesses on this very street. We hope, eventually, to buy into one of the developments that are opening up on the outskirts of the city.”
“Yeah, the local hirees at the Port have been talking pretty excitedly about those,” Joe commented. “The Port Officials had been after the City for decades to do something about getting decent housing for the workers who now could afford it, but didn’t want to move into the kind of digs that we foreigners prefer. None of you Kordeans much like our apartments, though we’d built enough, years ago, that some of you could easily have been accommodated.
Love and Intrigue Under the Seven Moons of Kordea Page 5