by Lyn Gala
Reaching down, Tom got the pebble that was him and moved it from Da’shay’s room to the door of the engine room. “He may have gotten in, but he didn’t get in without me knowing about it,” Tom said firmly. She smiled.
“He offers to leave the ship he entered without authorization. He expresses regret at attracting unwanted attention.” She picked up her intruder pebble and went to move him out of the crude sand drawing.
“Ah, hell no. He was in the engine room of the ship. He ain’t getting off the ship until I find out what he’s done.”
Da’shay looked up at him, her lower lip caught between her teeth as if she was expecting something, but Tom sure didn’t know what. With a sigh, she put the pebble back down right next to Tom’s pebble. “Rules dictate intruders must be put off,” she said, but the way she said it—all slow and unsure—made Tom think that maybe she wasn’t agreeing with that particular rule.
“Don’t really care what Command wants,” Tom said firmly. “If someone’s that interested in the Kratos, I want to know why. I ain’t going to turn them loose without that answer and I don’t think the captain would either.
Da’shay shifted around so that she was leaning against his leg, one of her hands still holding his leash while she used the other one to trace triangles on his pants. “Need a definition for the new rule.”
“A definition?”
She nodded.
Tom leaned back on his low sleeping pad and looked at Da’shay sitting on the ground. He wasn’t good with words and she wanted him to define a rule. In general, genta liked precision with words, so he tried to think carefully. “If someone is in the ship and has had access to doing things that could harm us, I want some time to ask them some real specific questions about why they’re there.”
“What if the unauthorized person says he wanted to observe the mechanics of a quantum engine?”
“That’s the stupidest excuse I ever heard. I ain’t buying that.”
“What if the unauthorized person is ten and has a brain full of quantum numbers, always thinking like Becca?”
“A kid sneaked on the Kratos?” Tom didn’t believe that. If they ever found a kid smart enough to crack Tom’s security codes, Command was going to recruit him to be some sort of genius. However, if it did happen that way, Tom wouldn’t be too quick to shoot the kid in the knee…not the way he would with some thief he found in the same place. “If he really was a stupid kid getting too curious, I’d let the captain deal with it.”
“What if the unauthorized person had an audiotap and handheld all full of pirate files?”
Tom snorted. “Locals handle stupid petty shit like signal boosting. I’d put handcuffs on him and toss him out the hatch.”
“What if unauthorized person looked at you with undilated pupils and a steady heart rate and said they wanted nothing and had just accidentally arrived there?” She pointed at the engine room.
“No fucking way. I ain’t going to let that answer stand because it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Define that rule,” she said.
“Well…I reckon if someone is poking around, I want some time to ask them some real specific questions about why and I’m not letting them go until I get answers that make sense to me.” He thought about that for a second. “That or until someone from Command figures out that I’m off the rulebook and sends me direct orders.”
Da’shay pushed herself up from the ground and sat on the sleeping pad next to him, her hand resting on his knee alongside Tom’s own hand. “A good rule should be followed. Never stop watching people who poke around until you can determine the why of their poking.”
Narrowing his eyes, Tom tried to figure out why they were having this conversation. As much as he liked knowing that someone on the ship understood that sometimes a person had to go beyond Command’s rulebook, this wasn’t really the place for a long discussion. He wasn’t even sure why they were out here at all.
“Deals. Give and take. The exchange of services.” She was so close that he could feel her warm breath against his skin. “I want you to play at being an obedient slave—be an…actor.”
“You’ll take us to Ramsay, then?”
Da’shay looked down at her diagram and Tom wondered if her mind had just jumped to a new topic. Leaning down, she carefully picked up each pebble and held them out for him. Tom opened his hand, and she placed each rock in the center his palm. Then she reached down and rubbed her drawing out. In its place, she drew a giant circle. Reaching over, she took a pebble from him.
“Ramsay,” she said, putting the pebble inside the circle about a quarter of the way down from the top. She took each pebble from his palm, named it and put it in the same spot until she had a pile inside her circle and Tom only had the larger stone that had been the unauthorized intruder.
“We need him?” Tom asked. Da’shay shook her head and he tossed the stone to the side and wiped his hand on his pants.
From out of her pocket, she pulled another rock. “Totally and completely fucking crazy people,” she said and then she counted out four rocks and made a separate pile in the circle, close to the one where she’d put the Kratos’ crew. Her hand tightened around his leash until her knuckles turned white and she turned to look at him. “What’s the rule?”
“Well, fuck. Either you’re making more sense or I’m turning crazy enough to follow some part of that brain of yours. You’re saying that we need to show them some reason why we’re here?”
She nodded.
“Solid tactical reason for spreading a bit of disinformation,” Tom said. “We can do that from the Kratos.”
She shook her head. “Kratos is the hatch. Out. Away. If we’re in the Kratos, we…Totally and completely fucking crazy people…” Her face twisted as words seemed completely to fail her.
“They’ll blast us into atoms just on the chance that we’re taking some information we found and running,” Tom finished for her. He wasn’t surprised when she nodded. “We need to contact Ramsay,” he said firmly.
She shook her head again. If she was telling the truth about not being able to talk because of someone ripping out little parts of her brain, Tom was going to find whoever had done that operation and pull their guts out because talking to Da’shay was just about the most annoying experience of his life.
“I’m boss. You’re slave. Ramsay is driver.” She stopped and picked up one of the four pebbles she’d used for whatever bad guys she believed were watching them. “Let them look to me for logical reason. If they look to Ramsay…” She hit another of those ideas that she couldn’t say.
“Is it like in the cell, what you told me then? If they look too close at Ramsay there’s something in him that’s going to blow our cover?”
She nodded.
With a sigh, Tom shook his head. “I ain’t getting just why I’m safe if Ramsay ain’t. He’s a lot better with this undercover shit than I am.”
“That’s why you’re better.” Da’shay reached up and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Diamond reflects like a spotlight, blinding the ants in the corners.”
And this was the woman Tom was considering trusting with his life and his freedom. Then again, maybe he could have some sympathy. There were times he knew something and he just couldn’t rightly explain it. It was never a good feeling and Da’shay lived with that frustration every day. Da’shay tilted her head and looked down at him.
Reaching up, he rubbed the mark on his chest. “We’re going to talk to Ramsay eventually, right?”
She nodded. “Driver takes us home. Promise. I promised to come for you and I did.”
“I supposed you did,” Tom admitted. “I guess there really ain’t much choice. But I’m telling you, you need to be real specific about what kind of acting you expect out of me because I hate this slavery shit.”
She ran her fingers over his chest until her fingertips brushed against his slave mark, tracing the outside edge of the lasered tattoo. The ink had trace minerals in it that would m
ake it easier to scan for him and they gave the mark an odd shimmering quality so that the color shifted from deep blues to purples and reds, all swirls and straight lines and angles intertwined in a knot. The skin around it was still a bit pink, but it was fading fast so the dark lines and curves stood out in contrast to his lighter skin.
“Not hate. All cat’s cradle,” Da’shay whispered. “Tangles can be untangled.” She gave a sad little smile before standing up, his leash in hand. “Be a Tom-slave.”
“Yeah, you just have to tell me what that means.”
“You already know. Thoughts in white.” Turning around, she dropped his leash and headed out of the shelter.
“Da’shay?” Tom called after her, but she kept walking. He stood up so fast that he almost clocked himself on the transmission of the sand car before he remembered to watch his head. “Shit.” He hurried out after her, but she was halfway up the western dune and walking away. The sunrise made her long shadow glide over the white sands, and for a second, it looked as if she were dancing with her own shadow. It seemed lonely, dancing alone.
“Well crap. I guess I get to pack up camp alone.” With a sigh, Tom turned toward their shelter and started pulling down the windbreaks.
Chapter Sixteen
Da’shay walked into the center of the room and stopped, her gaze stuck on a painting over the bed.
“Seems a waste of space for the one bed. You could get five or six decent rooms out of a space like this,” Tom pointed out as he put several large bags by the door.
She didn’t answer him, but she did study the room. Walking over to one wall, she laid her hand flat against the stone and then followed a vein of something glittery that the stonecutters had revealed as they’d cut each room out of the mountain.
“Wonder how thick the wall is,” Tom locked the hall door and then headed to the wall, rapping a knuckle against it. It sounded solid enough.
“Mice gnawing out caverns.”
“Yep,” Tom agreed without really bothering to try to figure out what she was saying. This morning they’d managed to communicate pretty damn well, but now she was back to muttering random phrases.
“Smelling bad,” she said, but before Tom could ask whether she was talking about him or herself, she turned and vanished into the bathroom, sliding the metal door shut behind her. Right then, she was talking about her own smell.
Tom figured they both were a little ripe. He was wearing the same clothes he’d been arrested in. She’d given him back the shirt when they’d reached the city and he could smell the sour clinging to it. He’d once told Ramsay that he could smell fear, like old fish or rancid oil. The captain had told him he was imagining things, but Tom could smell that same sour on his shirt now.
Walking over to the bags, Tom used a foot to push them in front of the door to slow down any intruders who might feel like barging in, but then he wasn’t quite sure what he should do. He didn’t want to change clothes because he figured anything he put on would smell as bad as him pretty damn quick. While Tom never did mind a little human stink, he’d passed the point of being decent a long time past.
With nothing else to do, Tom got down on his knees and started running his hands over the stone walls. You could make a bug that was so flat that it seemed to vanish into a flat surface, but they hadn’t made one yet that didn’t either put off some heat or vibrate to shed the extra heat. A palm was about the best way to find any listening device.
He worked the bottom third of the room, running his hands over the walls and the dresser, between the mattresses and under the carpet. By the time Da’shay came out, Tom had covered most of the room and was kneeling near the bed feeling along the steel base. “Searching for—” He stopped when he looked up to see Da’shay standing naked in the open doorway.
Despite the explosion that had left her near-bald weeks ago, her hair was down to just past her shoulders, water dripping from black tips over her skin. She wasn’t Tom’s normal definition of beauty, but his cock was warming up to the idea fast. Her breasts were high with large nipples. They were almost flesh colored as the blue faded out. The blue intensified in an irregular stripe between her breasts and down her stomach. It narrowed until it crossed her bellybutton and then widened out to meet the black curled hair between her legs.
She stepped forward, and Tom could see the muscles stretch and flex under her skin. Naked, she looked strong and sleek, almost like the cats that would run wild on the farm when he’d been a boy. She stopped after taking two steps, her dark eyes staring at him, and Tom swallowed.
“Should get dressed,” he said, proud that he’d kept his voice even. It weren’t any kind of fair for her to walk around naked like that. After all, Tom had come to understand a long time ago that he had very limited control over his body, and if she did this too much, he was going to have a hard time thinking straight with all his blood in his cock.
“Glittering so bright that all the corners hide in shadow.” She looked at him as though that was supposed to mean something.
“Mind if I take a shower?” He stood up slow, his cock aching.
She tilted her head to the side and wrinkled her nose. “Clothing stained with memories like scabs, should discard.”
That was about the sanest thing she’d said since they’d hit Capital City again. “Ain’t even going to argue that,” he said as he headed for the bathroom, his gaze fixed on the track above the bathroom door that allowed the metal to slide shut. As he passed her, she reached out and let her hand rest against his arm, and he stopped, praying that she wasn’t about to start in with her petting again. She’d developed an odd habit of just wanting to touch him, but she held him for a second and then let him go.
Hurrying into the bathroom, he closed the door before starting to strip. Shit. Shit and more shit. He shouldn’t feel so much for a woman who he’d tried to get kicked off the ship a week ago. Tom dropped his shirt to the ground and studied himself in the mirror. The tattoo seemed to shimmer under the lights, the largest curve undulating in red and purple.
The design was centered over his heart and at least twice as large as any he’d seen on any other slave, taking up about half the skin over the pectoral. A curve like one of the music symbols he sometimes saw on instrument shops started under his collarbone and then turned into a hook shape that circled his nipple. A dozen little tattooed chains seemed to hang from the bottom of the curve, each following the skin up under the pectoral and then ending right before his abdominal muscles. Around the main curve, another line darted off and swirled around. Despite all Tom’s protests, the woman had followed Da’shay’s instructions to make the mark pretty.
He ran his fingers over the skin and could feel the slight raised texture where the embedded metallic inks had settled between layers of skin. Tom had always liked that when he took off his shirt that women had watched him. As long as he didn’t open his mouth and say something stupid, Tom could pretty much get any woman’s attention. He thought about Becca. Well, almost any woman. Tom knew he was an attractive man; it was like genetics compensating him for being an idiot when it came to understanding women.
However, he wondered how they’d see him now. Plenty of men got tattoos or brands. First ship he’d ever been on was a freighter that stank of musk ox. It had a communications expert—a signal booster, really—and he had a doxy’s name carved into his hip so that it scarred up in straight lines and fancy letters. Apparently he’d been real drunk and the doxy had breasts that hung halfway to her waist, big ones that a man could get his hands around. He lied and told women it was the name of his first love, a girl who’d gone and died. They’d always get this soft look in their eyes, like a man stupid enough to carve a woman’s name in his flesh was something special.
They wouldn’t look at Tom like that. This mark with the shifting ink was a slave sign. They’d see him and think he was a slave or had been a slave. They’d wonder who’d owned him and maybe they’d think he’d run from the slave worlds. The worst ones wou
ld be those who looked at him with pity and wondered if someone hadn’t done something to him. Tom had seen enough slave ships to know how ugly slavery could get, and every woman who saw him would wonder which of those horrors had been traced out on his body.
Tom unbuttoned his pants and realized that his need to come had largely vanished. His cock hung limp as he scratched his balls. He really did stink.
Pushing aside thoughts of things he couldn’t really control, he grabbed a scrubber, found the least flowery soap he could and then hit the dispenser and the water at the same time. Ignoring any guilt at the amount of water he was wasting, Tom washed every inch clean. His face itched from the rough beard that was growing in and his hair was actually a little too long, but he scrubbed his face and hair clean and figured he’d worry about the rest later.
His skin was pink and starting to pucker up before Tom finally turned the shower off. An air cycle blasted him with enough warm air to knock most of the water off, leaving him damp and hot. Stepping out of the shower, he grabbed a towel and rubbed himself free of the last clinging drops. His clothes were gone, so Da’shay had been in here. That woman could move unnaturally quiet when she wanted, but even more irritating, Tom didn’t have clothes. However, he sure wasn’t going to play the blushing virgin. Wrapping the towel around his waist and tucking the ends in, he pushed open the door and strode out into the main room.
“You got clothes for me?” he asked, his arms crossed. Da’shay was lying on her back in the middle of the bed, her head hanging off the side as she stared at him. At least she’d put some clothes on, a tight uniform that reminded Tom of the one she’d been wearing in the pictures of that massacre she’d carried out on the slaver ship.
“Yep,” she said, but she didn’t move.