by Celeste Raye
Probably a bad question but it was too late to take that back.
Renall’s hands tugged at the tunic of his suit. He looked away then back at her. He finally spoke. “I know we don’t have any reason to trust each other, or even like each other.”
Her heart sped along. “I would have to agree with that statement.”
He smiled. A real smile. It lifted his cheekbones and lit his remarkable eyes. It changed his entire face, and Clara gaped at him, bemused by the sudden lightness she saw in him.
He said, “Me too. Look, I don’t intend to run this place forever. I have other plans.”
“Do you?” Her spirits plummeted. She had no plans, and if he was there to tell her he was selling the hall, where would that leave her? “Are you selling the hall then?”
“Not now.” His hands dropped to his sides. “I will, eventually. I…I intend to have my own world, well, a shared one with my brothers. That takes much in the way of credits and alliances.”
Hell yes it did. Her mouth dropped open. She blinked a few times. “I see. That’s…” Insane. A whole world? That was beyond mind-boggling. It was also a tricky thing to accomplish in a Federation like the one that aligned some planets with others and against more. She managed to ask, “Is that your…is that why you were angry? You thought I risked too much and that loss that could have happened could have undone some part of your plan.”
“Yes.”
At least he was honest. She had to give him that. She did understand suddenly, and she regretted her action too, but at the same time, she felt a slight frisson of resentment. She asked, “Surely you know that the larger the hand, the easier it will be for me to win my mother’s passage and then for us to win the rest of our family from first serio-max and then your debt. Naturally, that is a large incentive to take more risks.”
“I agree.” His lips, those kissable and clever lips, twisted into a grimace. “I just don’t know what to do about it. The other dealers are indentured for a set number of years. You alone are not. I know you know that and that the terms of your service here are private for that reason. I find myself in a situation where I do not quite know what to do.”
Me too. I don’t know what to do about how I feel about you. Because I want you, and I damn sure can’t trust you, and I am pretty sure you don’t want me. I also have no idea of who started that kiss, and if you regret it. If you wish it had never happened. She cleared her mind of those thoughts. “I see.”
Renall said, “I have an alliance. I must stay in it. So I also must apologize for kissing you. You see, I was not thinking properly.”
Her eyes closed and opened. Hurt came in. “You have an alliance?”
He nodded. “I do. I am already promised to the female child of a ruler of one of the planets in the system I shall be private planeting in. Their laws forbid sexual congress between betrothed, no matter whom that congress may be between. Also, they consider kissing sexual congress. So I have broken that agreement in part, and I have to ask you now to say nothing of it. I would rather forget the whole thing.”
“Me too.” She would. “I don’t want to cause you any…whatever.” Her pulse lowered and slowed. Renall had just made it very clear that he did not want her and that he could never be with her either. Not unless he wanted to toss away something of the magnitude of a private planet. No way was he going to choose a carder he barely knew over that, and she was not sure she could blame him for that.
Renall nodded. Relief was clear on his face. “Thank you.”
He headed for the door and out of it. Clara stood there, arms still wrapped around her body, thinking hard.
The loneliness came back. Her heart hurt. Her life felt gray and colorless and as stale and flat as the air being pumped through the room by the re-circulators. Another tap at the door sounded, and her heart sprang back into life. Was it him? Had he come back to say… “Oh for pity’s sake,” she muttered. “You really need to have an encounter with someone. Anyone. Release some of the tension so you stop mooning over him like an idiot.”
She pressed the button for the door and took her dinner tray. She settled at the table, staring at the food. Back in Old Toronto, she would have killed for that meal. Fresh fruit. Real bread and not just nutrition-loaf. A wedge of sky cheese, a porous and soft cheese made with the milk of goats found on Orbitary’s outer edges. A thin slice of protein shaped in an appealing way and covered with carb-rich gravy flavored with spices. A glass of wine made from actual roots and hanging fruits.
Everything tasted like dust. Everything around her felt hollow and insubstantial. Clara let tears come, her head bowing as she chewed and sipped and wished with all her heart that she and her family had never been caught and separated, and that she had never met Renall—because it was already very clear that he was doing a number on her emotions and that was one more thing she simply could not afford.
Chapter 6
Renall stormed down the hall and into the large office whose wide windows looked down onto the floor of the hall. Instead of seeing a packed house and money, all he could see was Clara.
Kissing her had been foolish. He had just risked everything he had planned. Everything, and not just for himself, but also for his family. Talon, Marik, and Jeval would be furious if they found out.
Then again, they didn’t have the same restrictions upon them that he had on his shoulders. Their betrothals were of massive importance, of course, but their bride families were not of the same mind about purity that his bridal family was. They were free to do whatever they liked while he was bound by a restrictive and archaic belief system that often left his flesh aching.
But until that moment when Clara had stepped into his line of vision, he had not had any true regret over that deal. Now he did, and plenty of it. He was also having trouble recalling exactly why that pact he had made was such a necessary thing. The longing to kiss her again, and far more, was so sharp-edged that he had nearly taken her into his arms there in her chamber.
The only reason he had not was because he was not sure how she had felt about his kissing her. Oh, true, she had responded, but humans could kiss and have sex as they liked, with little thought to lifetime mating. They lived too short of a life to care about those things. They were hasty and rash and driven by impulse.
Much as he was just then.
That he could be so lacking in control of his body irritated him. The erection straining the front of his suit made it very clear that he was, indeed, losing his grip on his emotions and body.
He tensed as an interface call came on. He hit the toggle and barked out a harsh greeting. Talon appeared on the screen. “Renall, bad news.”
Just what he needed. “What is it?”
Talon said, “We’re on the way back. We came too close to getting stripped and then we somehow had to outrun the Gorlites.”
The Gorlites? Renall’s teeth clenched. The Gorlites were without a homeland; their planet had been imploded centuries before. They wandered; taking over whatever ships they could when the one they were on was failing. That they’d tried to take Talon’s had likely been a fatal mistake on their part, but it was a safe bet that now Talon would have to fly stealth all the way back or risk running afoul of any of the Gorlites who were aware he had taken out one of their pilfered ships. They were a vicious race, forever parasitic and outlawed, and they fiercely protected what they thought of as theirs, and they sought revenge like some sought oxygen. “Be safe.”
Talon said, “I will.” He paused, “Renall we may have a larger problem too.”
“Oh?” How could they have a problem larger than the Gorlites?
Talon said, “I found something on the ship. A crypto file.”
“So?” Renall frowned.
Talon’s face took on a look even grimmer than the one it had worn a second ago. “Renall, it was a file that got caught in one of our sweeps. We were sorting, on the day before the Borgites showed up. This file, it doesn’t match any of the women we found or re
scued. In fact, according to the women on this ship, there were only twelve women aboard.’
Uneasiness filtered through him. “Maybe the crew hustled one aboard in secret.”
Talon’s face darkened. “It’s worse than that.”
“How so?”
Confused and on edge, Renall stared at the interface while Talon chewed at his lips. Finally, Talon spoke. “The crypto file is for a high-ranking government official’s daughter. One who had not just a mind wipe, but a complete remake of her memories.”
Renall said, “So where is she?”
Talon said, “I don’t know. She could be any of the women we have or the ones who died. We have to do a spinal match, take fluid. There’s only one way to do that.”
“Remove their chips and use the fluid. So do that.”
Talon hesitated. He glanced around the empty chamber in which he stood. His voice dropped even lower. “Aside from running the risk of having them run away, there’s a larger risk.”
Now he was far past uneasy. “Oh?”
Talon said, “Whoever she is, she was sent for a reason. There’s a circuit notation in the file.”
Renall recoiled. His antenna went up. “You’re saying she’s transmitting information back to whoever sent her.”
Talon said, “Yes, and it may be too late to halt it. Or whoever is pulling her strings.”
Talon signed off. Renall stood stock still, his feet rooted to the spot.
Twelve women. Five were dead. Some had died in the stripping. One had gone from the fast gas. That left them with seven women, any of which could be the cycle spy.
A cycle spy!
His stomach rolled.
It was forbidden.
The wiping of memory was one thing, but implanting fresh ones was tricky and dangerous. The circuits placed into a cycle spy’s brain were placed so that everything the cycle spy saw or heard went into storage that was then transmitted via the circuit to an interface. And those circuits could be very long range. Galaxy wide, in fact.
The part of him that recoiled the hardest was the one who knew that no brain could continue that sort of thing before breaking down. Eventually, usually in a matter of months, the cycle spy would simply wear out. The organic matter in their brain would collapse and liquefy. They’d die abruptly and without warning but all the while inflicting damage on whoever they had been sent to spy upon.
Who could it be?
Not Clara.
Her mother had been right where Clara had said she would be. Her father and brother too. She had skills no mind wipe or memory install could have given her. The muscle between her thumb and forefinger was spring tight, something that dealers only had happen after decades of play.
So not her. The others? He considered that. His heart dropped as he realized that everything could be compromised now. His legal activities notwithstanding, the woman who was a cycle spy would have seen his face, which meant whoever had sent her must have seen it too. And the faces of his brothers.
Now might be the best time to pull stakes and head out.
Not that he could, and staying where he was just then was not such a huge risk. It was possible that the cycle spy was dead. Perhaps she had even been the woman with low rot. He calmed himself by thinking through all the possibilities in as rational a way as possible.
But the only real thought that kept coming back was that he had to make sure that it was not Clara. But if he had her chip removed so soon, she would want to know why. Cycle spies had no idea what they were, but if she felt threatened, the person watching might execute a kill order into her brain.
But it was not Clara. Could not be.
Could it?
Chapter 7
Clara smiled as Lois came into her chamber, proudly bearing a costume on her outstretched arms. Lois said, “Mother made this special for you. She said it seems a shame you have to wear such plain clothes while everyone else gets such pretty stuff, and besides, she had a lot of fabric scraps left over, and they would just go to waste if she didn’t do something with them.”
Clara took a look at the shimmering, multi-hued dress hanging from Lois thin arms. Lois was so sweet and simple. And so obviously pleased by the gift. She took the dress, saying, “Oh, how pretty.”
She held it up. It was pretty but it had been made to cling and shape and hold. Lois clapped her hands. “You like it?”
“I do.” She did. “I’ll wear it to the tables tomorrow.”
Lois said, “I’ll tell Mother.” She paused. Her eyes blinked a few times. Then she sighed. “Mother says we owe you a debt.”
“No, you don’t. Not really.” Clara smiled at the plain young woman and draped the dress over the chair.
Lois asked, “Is it a hunger debt?”
“No. It’s not a debt. You just have to work for Renall for a little while, just like you worked back home. That’s all.”
Lois’ teeth gnawed at her lips. “Will we get to go home?”
No. You can never go home again. Clara knew that Dana and her other daughter were all too aware of that fact. They were likely shielding Lois from the truth though. “Sure you will.”
Lois ducked her head. “I like it here better.”
Clara tilted her head to one side. “You do?”
“It’s so bright and pretty. I never saw so many colors. Mother never did either. She’s happy in the sewing room now. She gets to make things that are pretty.”
The government had long since forbidden bright colors and anything but the regulation one-piece suits they all wore back home; even the people of Old Toronto were not immune from that edict. To do otherwise would be to call attention to themselves, and for people in her profession back there, that was the last thing that was wanted or needed.
The dress drew her eyes again. A smile came upon her lips and her spirits lifted. Since she had been on Orbitary, she had worn plain brown or olive suits, one-piece and familiar in feel. Maybe that was part of the problem.
I can’t go back, she thought, I might as well go forward.
Lois added, “I like the people here too. They don’t say I should go to the sleep facility. No matter how hard I worked before, people always said I would work harder if I was not simple and…” She blinked a few more times. Her shoulders dropped. She rubbed a finger across the palm of one of her hands, her forehead wrinkled in thought. “I like it here.”
Touched by that, Clara said, “I don’t think you have to go if you don’t want to.”
Lois’ lips turned downward. “Mother says she likes the colors here, but she misses Father. I don’t know why. He was never kind to her or us. And he sold us for a debt. A hunger debt.”
Empathy ate at Clara. She took a deep breath. “I know. It isn’t fair.”
Lois burst out. “We didn’t eat it! The foods he got us into hunger debt for. He said him and my brothers needed it more because they work the fields and the generators. But we were hungry too. I’m not hungry at all anymore, and I don’t want to be somewhere that I might get sold again because someone else does.”
Clara opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Lois might have been simple, but that clearly did not stop her from feeling the brunt of the unfair burdens that women back home felt and carried.
Lois said. “I have to go. I get to order dinner tonight. Mother said it was my turn.”
Lois turned toward the door and stopped. Tears glistened in her eyes. She blurted out, “I like to order dinner, and not wait for Father and the others to finish before I get to have dinner.”
Then she fled.
A lump filled Clara’s throat. She looked down at the dress and then shook her head. She was tired, and her bed was practically begging her to get into it. She stripped quickly and headed into the narrow cubicle that was the ionizer. A wave of heated and scented air blew over her. Little scrubbers met her skin. A slim trickle of water appeared over her head. It landed in fine droplets on her body, then the cloths, soft and gentle, came in.
She stepp
ed out of the ionizer, her skin glowing and slightly sore. Back home she would wash in whatever water she could find. Here, every resource was jealously guarded so as to ensure there would be plenty for centuries to come. In a way, she admired that, but in another way, Orbitary felt just as much of a trap as home.
Clara was still thinking those thoughts as she stepped down the stairs the next noon. She paused at the carved doors that would lead her into the hall, nerves getting the better of her.
The dress cupped her body like a well-made glove, shimmering and sparkling. Her breasts were pushed up and out and her already small waist looked smaller still. The long curve of her legs and the slenderness of her arms, bared by the lack of sleeves, were all on display. She’d brushed her hair until it snapped and sparked, and then she’d applied just a dab of the scented air that came from the dispenser on the wall in increments designed to give off just a hint of aroma.
She swallowed hard. The shape of the dress and even her own body felt unfamiliar and far too daring. Maybe she should just go change into something else.
“Are you a visitor?’
She turned at Renall’s voice. His eyes went wide, and then up and down her body. A jolt shot through her. He looked away quickly. He said, “I am so sorry. I did not recognize you at first.”
“Dana made it for me. From the scraps. They would have been thrown away otherwise, and she felt that would be wasteful.”
The words tumbled out of her lips so fast she was not even sure that they had made any sense at all.
Renall looked up again. His eyes were veiled and his expression impassive. “Orbitary committee members will be pleased she was so thoughtful with resources.”
“I suppose.” Her bare shoulder lifted a bit as a trickle of air from a vent blew across it. She had never felt so naked before, not even when she had been naked. Her eyes dropped. She said, “I have to get to the tables.”