“No man of conscience, or of honor, leaves someone to die a slow, agonizing death,” he said, his voice honed to a keen, lethal edge. “Not when he can prevent it.”
Silence.
Ari nodded. Point definitely to Seaghdh but not against her.
Her father lowered himself to his chair.
Seaghdh waved Pietre to the table. “If we’ve cleared up the question of open revolt, have a seat. No point missing supper.”
Pietre stared at him, then at Ari. Very slowly, he edged to the table and sat down.
“You didn’t poison our friend’s supper, did you, Captain?” Seaghdh inquired as he eased into the chair she’d vacated.
“Not yet,” she replied, sliding bowls in front of him and Turrel.
“Thanks,” Turrel said. “Pass the bread.”
“My appreciation, Captain,” Seaghdh said. “You haven’t eaten. Join us.”
With the tension running so high, she’d never be able to choke anything down, but Ari retrieved her stew and slid into the only empty seat between Turrel and Seaghdh. Without looking at her or asking, Seaghdh dumped a slab of bread into her bowl.
She peered sideways at him. He ate, his gaze going from scientist to scientist.
“He’s right,” Turrel growled. “You got over a lot. No one would know, ’cept you still look like a prisoner. Eat.”
Desolation stabbed through her chest. Did she really? True, she’d developed a distinct loathing for mirrors. During captivity, her skin had turned sallow from malnutrition. The Chekydran had assured that most of her hair had come out in clumps. She’d been a towhead all her life with eyes so pale they were silver rather than blue. They’d taken advantage of the fact that bright light caused significant pain in someone with her eye color.
She’d flattered herself that she’d made progress at the hospital. She still had to wear specially designed lenses to protect her eyes in sunlight, but she could go outside, something she’d been unable to do when she’d first been freed. She’d shorn her remaining hair brutally short. It was growing in curly, something she knew by feel. After a month in the hospital, she’d been able to look at her hands and arms and see familiar translucent, rosy skin that freckled. Her once lush figure had been skeletal when she’d been let go, but she’d put on weight. Still, she had to admit that even after three months’ freedom, she had trouble eating.
Maybe her initial avoidance of mirrors had become habit. She hadn’t assessed her own appearance since the time at the hospital that she’d caught sight of the frightening scarecrow she’d become. Breathing around the ache in her chest, Ari wondered if she had any hope of approaching normal ever again.
“Thanks for saying so,” she managed to choke out. She had to take her arms from around her torso to pull the bread out of her stew and pick up her spoon.
“Captain Idylle recommended allowing you to begin experiments, Dr. Idylle,” Seaghdh said. His voice wrapped around her, urging her to hold together, to not break down in front of her family.
She stiffened her spine. He’d done it again. Used his voice talent. To help, this time, rather than to control. It was more of an offer, like a hand extended to help her up. She accepted it gratefully. It made her feel strong before the fear that she’d never be able to stand up to her family on her own took over. She glanced at him.
He peered back, looking like a man trying to decide why he felt he could trust her after only a few hours’ acquaintance when her father and his hostile crew sat facing them. Ari knew the feeling. Some of the bleakness lifted from her shoulders.
Seaghdh looked down the table at her father. “The captain indicated that your cargo bay is an enclosed atmosphere.”
“Yes.” Her father bit the word out.
“Tell me about your experiments.”
“I doubt I can explain it so you would understand,” her dad shot.
Ari drew a sharp breath.
Seaghdh cut off her reprimand with a look. “Ari thought your work against Chekydran pathogens was important, Doctor. I am sorry to find your priorities have changed.”
She raised her eyebrows at her father. He wanted to ignore the jibe. She could see it in the set of his jaw. He glanced at her. His shoulders drooped and he shook his head.
“With the limited facilities aboard ship,” her dad said, sounding weary, “we do little more than catalogue specimens and prepare them for experiments in the labs at the university.”
“It saves us important time and effort in the labs, Dr. Idylle,” Jayleia protested. “We have a very efficient system. It takes advantage of each of our specialties.”
“Estimated hours to complete the work?” Seaghdh demanded.
“Would we have Ari?” Raj asked.
She shook her head. “Pulling watch.”
“More work than can be completed in one trip, then,” Raj answered.
Turrel glanced down at her. “What’s a ship’s captain do with experiments?”
“Slide and specimen prep,” Pietre sneered.
She nodded. “Menial labor. Too obtuse for anything more.”
Jayleia snorted and grinned at her. “The big, important Prowler captain leaves out the fact that her career doesn’t allow time to master the specific and delicate techniques we’ve developed.”
“Too busy running a ship and crew,” Raj added, joining in the teasing. “The lot of us would be menial labor on her Prowler.”
“What’s your command?” Turrel asked, scraping the bottom of his bowl.
Ari hesitated. In part, she hated remembering she wasn’t captain of anything anymore. It was just a rank. Another part of her shrank from admitting which ship she’d commanded. They’d pulled their share of taking potshots at Claugh spies through the years. It was possible she’d been responsible for killing their friends.
“Though I never understood her drive to a life of violence,” her father said, “Alex has done well in her chosen profession. She commanded the Prowler Balykkal.”
“The Balykkal?” Turrel gaped at her.
She felt like she had two heads. Ari dropped her bread into her bowl, threw her napkin on the table, and shoved herself to her feet. “By the Twelve Gods, Dad!” she swore. “When I do not answer a question, could you please respect that there are things I might not want the entire sector to know?”
“Cease your blasphemy on my ship,” her father commanded, pinning her with a glare.
She stared at him. He was taking a thirty-two-year-old woman to task for swearing. And she was letting him. They were stripping her bare, her family and friends, before an enemy who’d masqueraded for a short time as an ally. When she got her command back, it would still be her job to hunt down and eliminate men like Cullin Seaghdh. And maybe, if she got back on the bridge of her own Prowler, she could be certain that duty kept her as far from her family as she wanted to go. It was a bracing thought.
Ari turned and walked out of the room.
“YOU’RE not asleep.”
She blinked. Seaghdh. Inside the door of her cabin. A door she’d locked. Fatigue made her slow to quash the thrill that shivered through her. Stop that. “What are you doing here?”
“You’ve been very cooperative, captain of the Balykkal, and I thank you. Did you really imagine I’d give you eight to ten hours alone to plot my capture?” He cocked his head and frowned. “What is that noise?”
She tabbed down the ambient sound and leaned back in her chair. “Mating songs of a tiny amphibian native to Gloquess. You’ll notice I’m not captain of anything at the moment, and you’re going to have a tough time sleeping in here.”
His keen gaze tried to pry past her defenses. “Because you need a mundane, distinctly non-Chekydran sound playing while you sleep? Do you want the lights left on, too?”
“No,” she said too quickly, jumping up from her chair as he sauntered in her direction. Funny. She equated darkness with safety. When the lights came on, the Chekydran came for her. She desperately did not want to have to explain.
>
He obligingly dropped the subject. “That is a much nicer outfit than the coveralls,” he said, grinning.
Shorts and a T-shirt from the last energy blade competition she’d won. Both so worn as to barely qualify as articles of clothing. Had she thought things through after walking out on her family, she’d have realized Seaghdh couldn’t sleep anywhere but right here. She’d have done the same thing had their positions been reversed. Cursing, she rubbed her aching forehead and flung a gesture at the bed. “Help yourself.”
“I won’t take your bed from you. Unless you’d be willing to share?”
“Sleep where you like, Seaghdh,” she growled, “but don’t touch me no matter what you hear.”
The teasing grin winked out of existence. The calculating, half-indignant set of his shoulders suggested he’d heard more than her words. A flash of memory of the Chekydran waiting until she slept and then yanking her physically from her cell brought her hackles up. Adrenaline flooded her stomach.
Again, Seaghdh’s golden gaze pierced the chinks in her armor, seeing far too much. Smoothing the goose bumps on her arms, she looked away.
“I value my hide. How do I wake you if there’s need?” he asked.
Ari glanced at him. No sarcasm in his voice. No arrogance, at least, not in the question. He took her at her word and that made a tight place in her chest soften. “I don’t know. I guess you could always use a glass of water . . .”
“I would not,” he countered, his shoulders hunched in indignation.
At least she knew he wouldn’t risk touching her to wake her.
“Where will you sleep?” It wasn’t a casual question. The easygoing, look-I’m-not-a-threat way he’d asked told her just how important the answer was.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
“The closet.”
“You are not.”
“Not now that I’ve told you, no,” she said.
A light went on in his eyes and the stubborn lines etched around his mouth disappeared. He nodded. “Will it bother you if I get cleaned up before bed?”
“No.”
“Turn out the lights and go to sleep,” he suggested as he wandered into the head. He glanced back, that damned grin on his face. “If only to preserve your maidenly modesty, my dear. I didn’t bring anything to sleep in.”
Ari laughed and closed scratchy eyes as the door shut behind him. Memory offered a detailed portrait of Cullin Seaghdh’s lean, muscular body emerging from decon in the cargo bay. Heat shimmered through her.
“Mmm. Point to you,” she murmured at the closed bathroom door.
CHAPTER 8
AS the shower came on in the head, Ari debated the wisdom of setting the psych lock on the door. She finally enabled it, reasoning that she’d never sleep anyway. She could cycle through the test and disable the lock before Seaghdh woke. If she couldn’t pass the psych test, he deserved to have a woman driven mad by the Chekydran on his hands. Before coffee.
She wrapped a silky, down comforter around her, grabbed her pillows, killed the room light and sat on the floor, her back to the corner behind the desk. She’d positioned it for maximum cover just before this trip. With another person in the room, she felt like she needed it.
The comforter warmed her. Tension drained from her body. Luxury had taken on new meaning after three months as a Chekydran prisoner. Too much and she felt smothered, too little and she flashed back to the filthy, cramped cell. She tended to be a wholly unpleasant person during flashbacks. More than one medi had to be treated for a broken nose because of her. She’d apologized each time it had happened but couldn’t help noticing that her nurses had gotten burlier the longer she’d stayed in the hospital.
The shower and then the dryer shut off. She fought the anxiety rising in her gut but couldn’t stop the gasp when the door to the head opened and light from the bathroom stabbed through the dark cabin. She caught a brief glimpse of him silhouetted in the doorway.
“Sorry,” Seaghdh murmured. He slapped the control panel and she stared into darkness once more.
He stumbled across the cabin and ran into the bed. He swore. The mattress sighed as he settled his weight on it and fumbled with blankets. He yawned so hard, his jaw popped. The clean spice and musk scent of his presence wrapped around her. His breathing deepened and slowed.
It made her smile. He’d given her a non-Chekydran sound to listen to in the dark. It eased her jagged nerves, warming, soothing. She let the tension drain from her body, allowed the ebb and flow of his breath to shelter her.
“One question,” he said, his tone lazy and relaxed. “What the Three Hells is between you and Pietre?”
He surprised a mirthless laugh from her. She hugged her knees to her chest. With her voice bouncing off walls and furniture, she hoped he wouldn’t be able to place her in the dark. “Long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“He and I have been coming to Occaltus with Dad for five years. I was on the first run as a young officer aboard the Balykkal.”
“Never send a science ship into the unknown without escort?” Seaghdh surmised. “Makes sense, but five years? That’s a long time.”
“Ioccal was an old colony world,” she said. “Hosted a population of nearly a billion.”
“What?” Surprise sharpened his tone.
“Our first mission was fact-finding, based on some ancient records in an old aboveground building being torn down. Among other things, the archaeologists found a list of colony ships sent from Tagreth. We had antique charts and a reasonable idea of where the ships went. Occaltus interested Tagreth Federated due to its proximity to Chekydran space. We’d hoped to find a thriving civilization and new allies. When we got there, the mission turned archaeological.”
“No one? No native culture?”
“Not a soul and no indications of other intelligent life that we’ve found. Just as well. You know TFC. When something gets in our way, we don’t wait around to come to understanding.”
“Scorch first, ask questions later?” he asked, his tone droll.
“It’s why we have so many colonies and the Claugh so few,” she said. “But it is also why we lack the diversity of your people.”
He shifted in the bedclothes. “I’ve never heard an officer of the Armada describe it as a ‘lack’ before.”
“Personal assessment,” she hedged. “Maybe tactical. We’re a methodical people. Makes for great scientists and for a very capable military . . .”
“Makes for a military that’s a true thorn in my side,” he interrupted.
“We have more ships and more personnel,” she said, “but your military is lighter, faster, more agile. It’s adaptable.”
He drew in an audible breath. “We focus on knowledge and understanding.”
“TFC is concerned primarily with superior firepower and price tag,” she finished. “That meant that when we discovered that Ioccal was a dead world with reasonable soil fertility and a moderate climate, TFC marked it for colonization. The ionosphere was more than adequate to filter out radiation. We were just finishing up digs . . .”
“When you discovered the world was plagued.”
“Yes.”
Seaghdh blew out an audible breath. “What happened?”
“I watched my crewmates die in slow, bloody agony, that’s what happened.” Her voice broke. She bit her lip. That had been so long ago. She thought she’d gotten over it.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he rumbled. “No wonder they promoted you. You got the survivors out.”
She shook her head and then realized he couldn’t see it. “No. They promoted me because I got a Prowler Class ship back to Tagreth without being detected by the Chekydran. I was very clear on my duty in those days. If the survivors had listened to me, I wouldn’t have lived for Tagreth Command to promote.”
“You were going to destroy everything?”
“Rather than fly infected ships back to an inhabited world? Yes. We�
��d already determined that those of us who’d survived weren’t carriers. The disease either killed or missed altogether. To this day, we don’t know why we’re immune.”
“Your father, Pietre, Raj, Jayleia, and you,” Seaghdh murmured, a frown in his voice.
“We were clean, but the ships had become carriers.”
“The plague isn’t destroyed in vacuum?”
“What’s outside the ship, yes. We’d tracked it in on our clothes, our shoes. It was everywhere. By the time quarantine kicked in, our sick and dying had shed incredible volumes of the disease into the ventilation and sanitation systems. We couldn’t guarantee that normal disinfection routines, the UV and shielded irradiation of the O2 recycling and generating systems, could handle it. Watch one person die from it and you’d never gamble with several billion lives by putting down someplace without knowing for sure.”
“So Raj came up with the radiation bath.”
“Yes. We were bickering about our lack of options. I’d locked Pietre in my cabin aboard the Balykkal, but he’d managed to get into the communications channel . . .”
“You and Pietre were alone on that Prowler?”
“Yes.”
Seaghdh laughed. “You wouldn’t sleep with him.”
“Not even on a bet and certainly not after I’d just buried my first commanding officer.”
“Why lock him . . . ?”
“He was incensed that I was willing to fly us into the sun and tried to take command from me,” she said. “He’d destroy a civilization if it meant he didn’t have to sacrifice himself. He wanted to believe that medical facilities on a central world could find a cure before we’d wiped out seventy to eighty percent of the population. I clubbed him over the head, hauled his ass to the nearest cabin, and locked him down.”
It sounded like Seaghdh sat up in the bed. “You single-handed a Prowler from Occaltus to Tagreth? Ari, that’s one hundred hours.”
“Yes, it is.”
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