"That's you, isn't it," Vasiht'h said against his chest, so low he almost missed it.
"What is?" Lisinthir asked, weary.
Vasith'h rested a spread hand on Lisinthir's chest. "This. All of this that rises when you say that I'm safe. What is it that makes you so sad? I expected a lot of things from you, but not... not that."
Lisinthir managed a smile. "I am a man of many surprises. I have been so told on many occasions."
"And you won't explain it to me," Vasiht'h said. He sat back, looking up at Lisinthir. "You won't talk to anyone about it."
"Trust must be earned, alet." Lisinthir reached past him for the flask. "Not one of you has earned it yet. My courtesy, yes. And my aid in our mutual efforts to protect the Alliance from those who would plunder it. But don't ask for more."
Vasiht'h rested a hand on his wrist before he could drink. "Please don't. I know it hurts, but the hurt can be repaired. It might not feel that way now, but it really can be."
Spoken like an individual without the first notion of the stakes he'd been playing for until now. How relaxing it must be for one's relationships not to be of political significance to two separate empires—three, if one counted his own, and how could he not with the Chatcaava so pleased by Eldritch slaves? Ah yes, his depression could be repaired. By what? An intergalactic peace treaty?
What was he doing here? How could he bear it?
Lisinthir put the flask back down. "Send your partner, if you think it will help. I have my doubts, but I'll make an effort."
Vasiht'h nodded. "All right. And thank you. This... this means a lot to me."
After the Glaseah left, Lisinthir stared at the bottle. He stared at it for a long time before finally rising and going for the hekkret.
CHAPTER 7
Jahir woke in advance of the alarm he'd set, wondering what had pricked him from his restless dreams. Vasiht'h was sleeping alongside him, and heavily from the mindline's quiet: like the sea becalmed, deep and full but with a stillness that made one's gaze skitter over the surface. Some small blessing, that. Jahir sat up, careful of his feet with all the pillows so close to the bunk's edge. The last time they'd slept so close they'd been on Selnor in the tiny apartment he'd been assigned as Mercy Hospital's newest student-resident, and even there they'd had more room to move in the bedroom.
No surprise that Mercy came to mind. The breathlessness, the narrowing of his choices, the urgency of his patients' needs... the drugs... he pressed his thumb to the underside of his brow and wondered if he'd slept enough, to still be so tired. To lie back down did not appeal, though, so he rose and stepped over his partner's body. There was time before he was due to feed his House cousin. He could make a start on the analysis of the hekkret. It would be good to do something productive, something he'd been trained to do, and very definitely something he could do alone.
His interactions with Vasiht'h had always been easy—that ease had been what had intrigued him over a decade ago, when they'd met. Most of their clients they tended to in dreams, but even when he and Vasiht'h engaged them while conscious, it was with the understanding that all the parties involved were seeking the same resolution. It had been a long time since Jahir had come to a conversation with the expectation of a cross purpose. It reminded him unfavorably of all that he'd left behind on the homeworld. A half hour of solitude bent over a console, studying test results, sounded like just what he needed before submitting himself to Lisinthir's untender mercies. One of his strides faltered at the thought, but he ignored it, shook it off. Let himself into the clinic and settled with an exhalation, as in preparation before a vigil. Then he took up a data tablet and began with a visual examination.
When the alarm chirped, it broke him from a fugue that had re-established some semblance of equilibrium. Jahir did not allow himself to question it, but took up the medical kit and went to see to his patient. He would collect his data, receive the patient's self-reported health status, and return here to resume his investigation. That was all that was required, all, in fact, that had been asked of them, given that Lisinthir had not wanted to continue the therapeutic relationship. Nor, he told himself, was it his responsibility to recall his cousin to proper behavior. That was for Lisinthir's father to do, as the last head of Imthereli... or his mother, or the Queen, as the authorities on the Galare side.
The scope of his duties here were comfortably limited. He stepped into the room when the door opened for him, and stopped.
"I thought it would be pointless to hide it from you, so I'm not," Lisinthir said from the couch where he was smoking. He was reclining on it, and taking the entirety of it—more than the entirety, for as Jahir had noticed himself the couches in these rooms were too short for someone of an Eldritch's average height. His cousin had his ankles crossed on one of the arms. He was the very picture of indolence—no, decadence. The only thing missing was—
"Are you also hiding the alcohol?"
"Believe it or not, I'm not drinking." Lisinthir shifted, eyes closed and smoke curling from his nose as from a dragon's. "And that despite having every provocation."
"Have you," Jahir said, and sat on the coffee table. He woke the wand and the tablet. This was why he was here, and that was all.
"You sound unconvinced, cousin."
Jahir's skin prickled at the name. "I apologize for my distraction, alet." He brought the wand over Lisinthir's torso and watched the readings spill onto the tablet, filling the graphs and bars. His fingers skated over the results as they appeared, hoping for better answers and finding only confirmation of his worst projections. There were anomalous readings, however, things he didn't understand about the reaction of the nervous system... until he realized he was collecting data from a man currently under the influence of the drug. That was serendipity; he requested a new barrage of tests, most of which would take some time to complete. They would be faster and more accurate under a halo-arch, of course....
His cousin was watching him.
"Yes?" he said, when he could speak, because he wasn't sure he liked the way Lisinthir looked at him: far too incisively, as if he was privy to secrets Jahir was not.
"Find something interesting?"
"Can you place this wand near your head, please?"
Lisinthir took it from him. Their fingers never touched, but Jahir noted his cousin was far less careful of the separation than another Eldritch would have been. After wedging it amid the cushions, Lisinthir put his free hand behind his head and drew from the hekkret. "Sufficient for your purposes, I trust?"
"It will do, yes. It would be better done in the clinic, but I have noted that the halo-arches are now off standby. I suspect Hea Borden would prefer me not to wake them unless absolutely necessary."
"So my health is no longer an emergent crisis."
"So long as we can keep you on solutions, no." Jahir paused, then said, "As far as I'm aware." He watched the smoke rising from the cigarette, trying not to react to it. An addiction, yes, but a more complicated situation than the ones he was accustomed to treating. How could he dismantle the belief that Lisinthir's addiction was a survival mechanism when it had literally prevented his murder by foreign nationals?
"You develop a very interesting look in your eye when you're thinking through a problem."
The comment broke him from reverie. His cousin studying him again. "I beg your pardon."
"This is your work, then. Your passion. Medicine."
Surprised by the observation, Jahir said, "To heal is to serve life."
Lisinthir smiled and leaned past him to tap the hekkret roll on the back of a data tablet. Jahir watched the ash crumple from its tip with a fascination that bordered revulsion. "Straight from the catechism."
"There was truth in the catechism," Jahir said. "Shall I ignore it because it was Eldritch?"
Lisinthir glanced at him, then relaxed back onto the couch. "And yet you would back away from a healing."
"If you're speaking of your own, you will note that I am here."
<
br /> "Certainly. Tending to my body, but not my spirit." Lisinthir held up a hand. "You will protest that I don't want your help, so it is not lawful for you to give it. I won't argue it. But the healing I'm speaking of isn't mine."
"Then I have not the first notion of what you mean."
Lisinthir sighed smoke, shook his head. "This was never going to work, and I should have said so."
Jahir frowned. "Said so... to whom? And about what?"
"It's of no moment. Is your wand finished? It has chirped. What is it with the Alliance and its singing machines? Everything chimes or warbles or hums."
Jahir plucked up the wand and said, "Lisinthir—what was never going to work?"
Lisinthir eyed him, then looked at the ceiling again. The hand with the cigarette was resting against his brow, the fingers casually curled. "My talking to you about carnal matters."
Appalled, Jahir said, "Whatever gave you the idea that you should?"
"Say 'whoever' and ask again."
The earth dropped from beneath his thoughts, scattering them. Jahir fumbled for some semblance of composure and said, "Not..."
"Your beloved? You know better."
"Vasiht'h. Asked you to help me."
Lisinthir nodded without looking at him, and Jahir sat back, his dismay encompassing. Had he driven his partner to that length by attempting to fight Lisinthir for the hekkret? Surely not? He'd been motivated by old frustrations about their work, yes, but Vasiht'h had seen his passions, knew he harbored them. Why on all the worlds would the Glaseah speak to Lisinthir about anything involving their relationship? Lisinthir, who was practically a stranger to them?
The touch on his face shocked him from his thoughts. Lisinthir had sat up and was facing him now with the backs of two fingers against his cheek, and through that touch conveyed concern like a sheath over something hard and lethal as steel. "Stop," Lisinthir said—commanded—and as quiet as the word was, it was explicitly command. "He was worried that he was unequal to helping you. That was the only motivation driving him, and drive him it did with the cruelest of spurs to come to my door to make the request of me."
"But to you?" Jahir managed.
"He perceived I had experience in the matter that he didn't, is all. If he'd known anyone else who could have helped, I have no doubt they would have found him on their doorstep."
"But he chose you."
"Yes."
Jahir tried to fathom what expertise it was that his dearest friend felt himself unequal to wielding and couldn't begin to guess. He'd divulged his fears to Vasiht'h and been comforted. What more was his partner expecting of himself? And why?
There were fingers on his cheek, and they were moving. "You are touching me."
"I like touching you." Lisinthir smiled, lopsided. "I like touching. I have had rather too little of it lately."
It had become a caress: just a little stroke of those two fingers, soothing. "You are touching me. Without permission."
"You needed comfort," Lisinthir said. "You still need comfort. Besides, you don't want me to ask."
It took a moment to think through his confusion at the caress. "As that would be presumptuous in the extreme, no, I don't."
Lisinthir sighed, lifted those fingers and touched them gently to Jahir's lower lip. "No, cousin. It has nothing to do with presumption. You don't want me to ask for permission because you want me to take it."
Everything in him stilled. Even his heart seemed to pause, floating between strokes.
"You are, in fact, waiting for me to do what I please to you." Lisinthir shook his head, the smallest twitch of his chin. "But I don't rape the innocent."
His throat hurt, smoke and stopped up words. But he whispered, "Do you rape the guilty?"
"And if I said I have?" Lisinthir's finger traced his lip, very light, almost imperceptible. "Will you tell me then that you are guilty?"
Jahir pulled away. "The test should be done. May I have the wand?"
Lisinthir smothered the cigarette and rose. "Get it yourself."
So he did, and took himself out of the room before he could try his client's patience. That was the reason he was leaving, and not at all because of how unnerved he was, though he was also unnerved….
When was the last time his feelings had been quite this tangled about anything? Jahir sighed and returned to the clinic. Vasiht'h would wake soon enough and bring with him that enviable equanimity, and maybe then he could relax. And ask, perhaps, what fear had motivated his partner into Lisinthir's rooms, and to what end? Because Jahir could not imagine what any discussion with his cousin would have accomplished, particularly about something so oblique in its relation to their current problems. Carnal matters? Was Vasiht'h so concerned with his reaction to Lisinthir being free with touch? No, that didn't feel right.
Jahir pressed on the spot beneath his brow that usually relieved his headaches, noted that it didn't work, and sat to resume his work on the tests. He had new data. It would keep him occupied.
The situation remained entirely ridiculous, and Lisinthir no longer had any desire to wait in his quarters for his psychiatrists to corner him, the one with his unwanted worries, the other with his unbearable desires. Let them comfort one another, which is what they needed. He had other concerns, and they took him to the engine room. Navigating the ship by memorized blueprint proved diverting; even a small Fleet ship was more complex than its exterior suggested, and the technology revealed everywhere, even inset in the floor near the wall, drew him out of his head, which is where he preferred to exist.
He was greeted at the hatch by an exhausted-looking Hinichi, who said, "Ambassador? May I help you?"
"Your captain," Lisinthir said. "Is he available?"
"Yes, sir. He's over at the port nacelle feed tube." The wolfine pointed. "There."
"I see him. Thank you."
Well engines were not small. Walking alongside the housing for one made Lisinthir wonder how anyone had ever invented something so complex. The Alliance had its potency, all the more astonishing for the brevity of the lives that powered it. The Chatcaava consumed themselves and others with their savagery, and the Eldritch dwindled into elegant irrelevance... and ignored by them both, save when it suited them, the Pelted labored on, creating these minor miracles out of spare parts and sheer ingenuity. What had the Emperor said once? The creed of your Alliance: we are born weak, therefore let us make strength from bits of metal and philosophy.
Seeing the sleek metal, Lisinthir thought that it was not "his" Alliance. Perhaps he had always had more in common with dragons than with anything more civilized.
The Captain was himself at work, and excused himself to join Lisinthir. "Ambassador. So far we seem to be lucky. Not a thing's so much as ghosted through passive sensor range."
"Let us hope it will remain so. Tell me, Captain. Is there any other way I might be of service? I'm not used to being idle."
The human wiped his head. "Hell, yes, and I haven't had enough time to come back and talk to you about it, either. If you could, I'd appreciate you getting everything that's trapped in your head about the political and military situation over there into some form I can send out as soon as we're either safe or about to be captured. The intelligence you've got is the most valuable asset you could have bought with your time there. We would prefer you to be attached to it to explain it, but if something happens to us…."
"I understand," Lisinthir said. "And yes, I can do that."
"Good. The faster the better. Use the main computer, tag the results to my attention. I'll get Cory to wrap it in a protocol and encrypt it as you add to it. That should give us the ability to dump it on short notice."
"I'll begin immediately."
The man smiled. "We'll get you out of this, Ambassador. But insurance is always prudent."
Lisinthir inclined his head, ignoring the nascent ache. Would he ever be quit of the damnable symptoms? It would almost be worth it to return to the Alliance proper, if only to put paid to his body's com
plaints. "No argument here. Good luck on the repairs."
"Thank you."
So then, a useful task. An interesting one, also; what did the Alliance know of the Chatcaava? Very little still, despite their attempts before his assignment. Lisinthir remembered the briefings prepared for him in advance of his departure and snorted. No, they knew almost nothing, and half of that wrong. Even their information on the military ship classes left a great deal to be desired, unsurprisingly since most of the depredations visited on the Alliance at the border or in neutral territories was perpetrated by pirates, not directly by the Chatcaava themselves. They did make forays of their own, but they were rare in compare.
It would be bittersweet to pick through the memories that had granted him that knowledge, but at least he could live in them a little longer that way. He returned to his cabin, woke the data tablet and considered where to begin. The flask was tempting, but he had made a promise. He drummed his fingers lightly on the table, then decided broad political analysis first. Perhaps by the time he reached the details, the nausea would have abated enough for him to contemplate a meal.
Jahir was deep in analysis of chemical receptors when a protein bar appeared beside his elbow. Starting, he looked up and found his partner sitting across from him, arms folded. The mindline brought him whispers of amusement, resignation, affection like a warm blanket, which made him realize he was cold. Was it him or had it grown colder?
"It's not you," Vasiht'h said. "I stopped to talk to Hea Borden on the way here, see how our clients made out. Apparently the climate control on ships like this works on keeping things warm, not cold, so having it at a lower ebb makes the ambient temperature colder."
"I will need a coat before long," Jahir said. "How are our clients?"
"Doing much better, so Borden's asked us to do another set later this afternoon, if we can...?"
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