“Consider this.” He unclasped his hands, splaying them apart. “I saved Philip Guthrie’s life.”
“We all worked to save Philip’s life.”
“What would you do, Chasidah Bergren Guthrie, to keep him alive?”
Fear shot through me. I couldn’t help it. Fear and a rage so deep it burned worse than my hatred for Tage. I knew he felt it.
“I would kill you,” I said tightly, “to keep him alive.”
Del smiled lazily. “Interesting answer.”
He straightened, took two steps slowly back, and then turned and strode for the hatchway. It opened—illogically—with a flick of his hand in the air and a slight glittering of silver haze.
I stood by my chair, heart pounding, mouth dry, muscles rigid, hands fisted hard by my side, Grizni tingling with more intensity than it ever had before.
But it wasn’t the Grizni I needed.
I rounded the chair quickly and headed for the ready room, slapping the palm pad so hard pain shot up my arm. The double doors opened. I punched my code into the locked storage compartment recessed in the bulkhead and pulled out the rifle Philip had brought on board. The Kyi-killer.
I closed the storage compartment and slung the strap over my shoulder.
This was my answer. And his.
I didn’t have a lot of time. I didn’t want to be seen walking around with the rifle. I didn’t want questions. I wanted one more answer, and that answer would be a yes to the question: can you duplicate this?
If the answer was no, I’d have to take my chances. Keep it with me or at least stow it where Philip or I could get it easily. This ship wasn’t that big.
I couldn’t spend time thinking about this. I had to act, get it done. Not have my thoughts betray the only chance I had. Philip had. Sully had. Because I knew who Del would force to kill Philip.
I checked intraship again. Philip was still asleep. He’d probably only gotten to bed a few hours ago. Shit. He was such a grouch when you woke him too early.
I pinged Marsh in the gym. “Can you sit the bridge for me for ten minutes, maybe twenty? I have to do some urgent work in my cabin.”
“Sure, Captain. On my way up.”
I hugged the rifle to my side and darted into the corridor then down the forward stairs. Marsh, coming from the gym, would likely use the aft set.
Philip’s cabin door was closed. I keyed in the emergency override and slipped inside, well aware that Del might be monitoring everything I did. I had no choice.
The cabin was dark except for the muted glow of floorlights leading to the lav. It was enough that I saw a large shape in the bed.
“Philip?” I called softly.
Grouch or not, abruptly waking a sleeping Fleet officer was a good way to get your windpipe crushed.
“Hmm? Chaz?” His voice was raspy.
“It’s me. Sorry.” I walked carefully around another lumpy shape I knew was the chair, then stopped at the foot of the bed.
He rolled over. My eyes had adjusted to the low light. He was bare-chested. Probably completely naked under the sheet, unless he’d changed his habits.
“You couldn’t possibly be here for the reason I’d like you to be. At least, not carrying that.” He levered up on his elbows. “Trouble?”
“We need another one of these. And we need it yesterday.”
“Regarth?”
“Yes.”
Philip sat up, the sheet falling to his waist. “Lights, medium.”
The room brightened but not so much a man coming out of a dead sleep would feel pain.
“Can you duplicate it?” I asked. I’d seen him do it before, cobble weapons out of the damnedest things. And the power pack on the rifle was sizable. He should be able to siphon off some of it. I only needed enough for one or two shots.
“What did Regarth do?”
“That’s not important.”
“It’s important to me.”
I sighed and sat on the edge of his bed, angling around to face him. I rested the rifle against my thigh. “He admitted to me that he’s Sully’s guri. He wants to show me worlds of pleasure. The usual crap.”
“This happen just now?”
“I was alone on the bridge. I didn’t hear him come in until he locked the hatch.”
Philip sucked in a hard breath. The muscles on his arms and shoulders bunched.
“He didn’t touch me. At least, not physically. It was mostly…talk.”
“Goddamned Ragkiril filth.”
The last time Philip had used that expression, it had been leveled at Sully, and I’d argued with him. I wasn’t going to argue with him now.
“Philip, I don’t have much time. I need to be back on the bridge. Can you duplicate this?”
He studied my face while I spoke. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing.”
He pinned me with his best steely eyed admiral’s glare.
Damn him. He had a right to know. Officer to officer. But sitting here with him half-naked, unshaven and sleep-rumpled, it was easy to let the personal, the protective side, slip in.
“He threatened to kill you unless I cooperate.”
“Me?”
I guess that wasn’t the answer he was expecting. I nodded. “Likely, he’d force Sully to do it. Some kind of test. Final exam. I almost put the Grizni in his back when he left.” Or shot him. Or both. But Del would be expecting that, I was sure. I didn’t want to give him a reason to leave me dying with a smile on my face.
“Does Sullivan know this?”
I shook my head. “I came straight here.”
“I’m thrilled to be your first choice in times of trouble, but it would help if he was on our side.”
“I don’t know where Sully is, Guth. When he and Del do their training, they don’t register on ship’s internal sensors. The whole time Del was on the bridge with me, I didn’t see Sully’s ID anywhere on the ship. So he’s still in that woo-woo place which, the last time I found it, was in the shuttle bay. God knows where they have it now.”
“You found that woo-woo place or Sullivan took you in?”
“Most times he takes me in when we, you know.”
“Make love.”
“Yeah.” I cringed. God, Bergren, grow up. “But the last time I couldn’t find him, Gregor had beaten him within an inch of his life. So when he disappeared again I forced the issue. I walked in the shuttle bay and the next thing I knew, there I was. Everything was all silvery and glittery and strange.”
Philip had leaned forward and was scrubbing at his hair with his hands. “Okay,” he said, raising his face. “Let me get dressed. I don’t like what I’m hearing here at all.”
“But can you duplicate this?” I picked up the rifle.
He leaned to his right and pulled out the bedside drawer. I caught a glimpse of bare hip. Habits hadn’t changed. “I told you there were three prototypes. That rifle and two smaller ones.” He drew out the dual holster I remembered him wearing when he jumped off the pinnace’s broken ramp way, and hadn’t seen since. “These,” he said, pulling out one of the boxy pistols, “are the smaller ones.”
I almost kissed my ex-husband, then and there. “Do they know you have them?”
“Only if they’re reading us now. I’ve deliberately kept them in here so I wouldn’t think about it. And it wasn’t Sullivan I was hiding them from,” he added.
I stood, pulling my laser pistol out of my holster, shoving the small Kyi-killer in. I held out my laser. “Hang on to this for me. Unless you need it?”
He motioned to his shoulder holster draped over the back of one of the chairs. “Got one. Tuck it in the back of your pants, under your shirt for now.”
“You mean walk around like you do?”
He grinned. I used to call him my personal arsenal. Then his grin faded.
“Chaz. I don’t know what would happen if you discharged that. We don’t know range, aftereffects, residual effects. That’s something Sullivan, Marsh, and I tal
ked about last night. Or this morning.” He rubbed his eyes then looked up at me. “Sullivan has to know about this.”
“It could be hours before I see him again.”
“We may have to force the issue. Put the rifle back in the ready room. Is Ren awake?”
Ren. God, yes. I wanted to smack myself in the head with the rifle for being stupid. “He’s in the galley with Dorsie. I’ll get him. Meet us in the ready room. Ten minutes okay?”
“Make it five. I have new clothes I can’t wait to wear.”
Ren was deeply troubled. He sat at the ready room table, hands folded. The winds of an approaching storm churned the usually placid water-tones in his voice. “I left Stol as a child but of course, I’ve read of the traditional guri requirements. But I never thought…” and he turned clouded eyes toward Philip and me. “We’re not on Stol. This is not a clan dynamic. And the Serians—”
“Were rulers for centuries,” Philip put in. He had his double holster wrapped around his hips. His gray coverall was open to the waist, revealing the matching thermal shirt underneath. The coverall’s sleeves were rolled up, showing a few inches of the gray thermal’s sleeves and Philip’s muscular forearms. “Their word was law. Their requests were honored without hesitation. Regarth probably thinks Chaz should be flattered by his proposition.”
“Chasidah, I am so very sorry. I feel ashamed to be Stolorth.”
I sent rainbows across the table. “Del should be ashamed, not you.”
“It is his tradition. That is the only excuse I have,” Ren said. “And I pray this doesn’t come to violence. It shouldn’t have to. It’s a misunderstanding.”
“There was no misunderstanding. He asked me what I would do to keep Philip alive. I understood very clearly what he was saying as well as what he wasn’t.”
“Can you reach Sullivan?” Philip asked.
“I can’t promise Del won’t know.”
Philip shrugged. “If he does, then this issue will come to a head that much sooner.”
“I need a moment in prayer. Please.” Ren leaned his elbows on the table and rested his forehead on his fingertips.
My heart pained for Ren, for his abrupt disillusionment, for his shame at what was being forced on his friends by one of his own kind. It was easy to forget, looking at him so tall and strong, that the thirty years he’d lived were not exactly translatable to myself at age thirty. Or Philip. Or…Thad. Stolorths had much longer life spans. Ren had seen thirty years, but physically and emotionally, he’d yet to reach twenty-one as we understood it. He was still a young man, and one who had spent most of his life sheltered in a monastery. This was a lot of pressure on him.
He raised his face. “Yes. I’m calmer now. Let me see what I can do.” Ren closed his eyes, resumed his prayerful position again. But this time I suspected he wasn’t seeking guidance from Abbot Eng.
After a moment he looked up again. “Sully knows I’m very upset about something. That’s all he knows, and if Del was listening, I believe that’s all he’d sense as well. It should bring Sully here, but it might be five minutes or two hours.”
It was ten minutes.
The door from the corridor opened. My hand went to my Grizni, Philip’s to his pistol. Sully stepped in, alone. The door closed behind him as his dark gaze swept the room. He frowned.
“Can you shield us, this room, from Regarth?” Philip asked him.
Chasidah?
Sully, do it, please. I’ll explain everything. I’m fine. You’re fine. I sent my usual sloppy rainbows. Ren’s fine.
The tension in his shoulders relaxed a little.
“Yes.” His eyes snapped to infinite dark and a silver haze glistened over his skin. No lightning bolts, no translucence. I hadn’t told Philip about that, but then he’d been studying Ragkirils. He probably knew.
More silver haze sparkled in barely perceptible clusters around the room. But the room was brightly lit. It was something I saw more out of the corner of my eyes than head on.
Sully swiveled a chair around and sat next to me. “What’s wrong?”
“We could tell you,” Philip said, “but she’s your ky’sara. She can show you in far less time. Just let the memory run, Chaz, and don’t edit it to be kind.”
I tucked my hand in Sully’s, taking in his warmth, his concern, and replayed the entire incident, leaving nothing out, not my fear, not my hatred, not my disgust. And not the fact that I had a Kyi-killer sitting on my hip.
Sully was breathing rapidly, his mouth a thin line. The glow around his skin increased in small patches. His grip on me tightened, but I couldn’t hear his thoughts. He just sat there, staring at me, his fingers locked around mine.
“I know it’s tradition,” Ren said softly, “but it’s wrong. And we are not part of a clan.”
“He’s gone too far.” Sully’s voice was bitter. He released my hand and shoved himself abruptly out of the chair. He stalked to the end of the table, stopped. Turned back. “I understand tradition. I offered him your friendship. Your friendship, as I would to a brother. A link with him as you do with Ren. Not…Chasidah, you must believe me. I never offered him your body.”
“Even friendship, Sullivan, you should have asked her first,” Philip said, his tone flat.
“It wouldn’t have mattered.” I glanced at Philip on my left. “Del linked with me, very intimately, from the moment he met me on Narfial.”
“He told me he was concerned for our safety,” Sully said.
“I’m sure that was partly true. But he’s been in my mind, Sully, many times since then. And those times had nothing to do with safety and everything to do with his own pleasure. I told you about them. You said he’s teasing me. You asked me to treat him with respect. Well, I’m sorry, but when someone threatens to kill my friend unless I agree to a sexual liaison, then that’s not teasing. That’s blackmail. That’s rape. And I don’t respect someone who does that.”
He stood there, hands fisted at his waist. Anger roiled through the link between us then stopped, like a window slammed shut. I knew what he did.
Sully, talk to me. Don’t shut me out.
I can’t, Chasidah. You don’t what to know what I’m thinking right now. You sure as hell don’t want to experience what I’m feeling.
The link went dead again. He turned his face away, one hand grasping the back of a chair as he stared at an indefinable point on the wall that separated the ready room from the bridge.
He turned back once more. “I’ll handle it.” His voice held a deathly quiet note.
“Sullivan, a word of caution, if you’ll listen to the old man.” Philip leaned on the table. “We talked last night in terms of weapons, but if you confront Regarth in the Kyi while you’re still tied to this ship, the results may be the same. We may be stuck here, permanently. Or whatever you do could backwash and destroy the ship. The training he’s putting you through is not the same as two Kyi locked in battle. And it will be a battle, because someone like the Serian-Prime will not give up his claim on a ky’sara easily. Not after he’s seen what she’s done for you.”
Sully’s eyes narrowed but he said nothing.
“I’m guessing here,” Philip continued, “that he sees you have the potential to be stronger than he is. He can’t risk that. It threatens him. It threatens the innate power balance of Clan Serian that you’re now part of because you’ve taken the Bond of Brothers with him. Am I correct on that?”
The Bond of Brothers?
A slight flick of Sully’s fingers in an aimless gesture. “There are so few Kyi here in the Empire. It seemed a logical thing to do.”
“Do I want to know what this Bond of Brothers is?” I asked, not without trepidation, and not without a twinge of my own anger. Damn you, Sullivan, it would be nice for you to ask me before you go adopting people into our family!
“Sully and I have one,” Ren said, his voice placid, reassuring. “It’s nothing bad. It’s a promise of protection, of trust. It’s somewhat like the oath you take wh
en you join Fleet.”
Ren, I wanted for a brother. Del, I didn’t.
“Unbond,” I told told Sully. “Serve him notice.”
He wiped one hand over his face. “It’s not that simple.”
“Go AWOL,” I persisted.
“It’s not that simple.” This, from Philip. “It’s not unlike a ky’saran link.”
I stared at Philip, the import of his words hitting me, hard. Then I stared at Sully. “You’re fucking kidding me, right? I’m stuck with that son of a bitch calling me lover in my head until one of us dies?” Now, I was angry. Now, yes, I began to see Sully as complicit in this.
“I thought I was protecting you, Chasidah.” Sully’s voice had an edge to it. “Protecting Ren. It would give us resources. I saw the Empire falling apart. I saw Fleet not far behind. The church is splitting, Purity against Reformed. The Serians have been through this before. They have healed rifts between hundreds of clans. They have even sacrificed their own lives to do so. Del has this knowledge, and the few Kyi that are here are all Serians or Delkavras. His people. My people. Your people.”
He slammed his hand against the back of the chair. “Goddamn it! I wanted to be on the winning side, just for once.”
“My people? You sold me to the Serians?” I couldn’t believe what I was saying.
“I didn’t sell you. We’re part of them now. Ren is too. I had to. His own clan rejected him. He’s dead to the Ackravaros. By Ragkir law, he shouldn’t even use the clan name in his. Plus, he’s blind. If something happened to me, he could get killed on open dock. But branded as a Serian or a Delkavra, other Ragkir won’t dare try. I did it to save your lives!”
I looked at Ren, gave him a mental nudge. Did he know? No. His elegant face wore a startled expression.
“Thank you, Sully,” Ren said softly. “I know you meant well.”
Sully gripped the back of the chair with both hands and, with a soft but harsh epithet, dropped his gaze to the tabletop. Or seat of the chair. Or another galaxy in a distant corner of the universe somewhere under the Karn’s decking.
I put my own face in my hands. God. The road to hell was paved with good intentions.
“I understand what you were trying to do, Sullivan,” Philip said. “It’s not without merit. I’ve had to form a number of allegiances in my career that held potential for disaster if not properly handled. And I can’t honestly say I’d have done anything different if I were in your position. You had a unique and urgent problem. Regarth represented a workable solution. That solution, however, has now become a new problem.”
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