She hastened into her clothes. Maybe she could talk Lar into letting her go over early, when he took the breakfast cart back to the kitchens. Unless . . .
Lokri was lounging in the doorway, his half-shut silver eyes too steady. There was something on his mind.
“Doesn’t Vi’ya have to do some kind o’ experiment with that Lysanter blungebag today?” she asked.
“End of first shift. Soon’s Lysanter calls. Why?”
“Because I plan to spend the time before it in the rec room, of course,” she said. “In case Barrodagh thinks we gotta be locked in this closet while she’s with Lysanter.”
“Better to spend a day with Hreem the Faithless?”
She put her hands on her hips. “What d’you mean by that?”
“What do you mean by it?”
“Well, I plan to get him buzzin’ and let him talk just as much as he wants,” she said. “Which is more than I can say for any of you blits.”
Lokri smiled derisively. “I wouldn’t waste the time. Anything he says is either a lie or what he wants you to hear. He’s only here for one purpose—for Barrodagh to sic on Vi’ya soon’s he possibly can.”
“I know that,” Marim scoffed. “But he’s not the only enemy here. I don’t see you rizzin’ Vi’ya for bunkin’ with that big bone-crusher Anaris.”
Lokri looked grim, but his gaze fell, and she knew she’d scored. She started to pass, smirking in triumph, but his hand shot out and he said in a low voice, “Whatever she’s doing, I know this: she won’t betray us. I don’t think I could say the same about you.”
She looked up at him, and the memory of Ivard reaching past her for him burned right through her. She stuck her elbow out and shoved past him.
Lar appeared with their food. She grabbed her share and plumped down on her bed to eat. She didn’t want to sit at the table; she was tired of the way Montrose and Sedry grinned at each other like a pair of adolescents.
As for the real adolescent, she was disgusted with Ivard. People said she was fickle—hah! Who could blame her for bunking him out when he’d been so disgustingly sick from that Kelly thing on his arm? No one had known what dangers that thing might have carried. What if she’d caught some kind of disease from it? Now that he’d changed so much—really, in his own way he’d turned out more handsome than Lokri—of course she’d want to pair up again!
So then he turns around and picks Lokri, who’d always treated him and his sister like they were vermin.
And look at Vi’ya there, acting like nothing was wrong, nothing had changed. As if no one could see the bruised knuckles on her right hand, and the finger marks on her temple and cheek. No one said anything to her.
When they finished and Lar had gathered the dishes and set the new pot of caf on the warmer for them, Marim said to him, “I’m goin’ to the rec room. Take me by there.”
Lar nodded as he finished stacking the dirty dishes onto the transport vehicle. Before he left, he and Sedry held a rapid exchange via hand sign. Marim felt a flash of annoyance, then she gave a mental shrug. She could have learned all those signs. She knew some of them—but they weren’t really worth knowing. Most of them were just warnings of various sorts, about the Shiidra-chatzers in charge. Morrighon coming—Barrodagh listening—most of the time, who cared? The Bori just plain weren’t that interesting.
The rec room was almost empty. The third-shift crews mostly slept during first, and everyone else seemed to work two shifts now, or almost two. But she didn’t care. She was glad to get away from Lokri’s big mouth and the rest of them.
Hreem showed up halfway through the shift. She’d been playing against the computer, trying a new strategy—well, one she’d learned by watching the Arkad, though it had taken a while to pick apart its components.
A flash of red—so welcome, after all those dull people in their gray and black—and Hreem strode in, looking like he owned the place. She rolled her eyes and made a face of disgust, hiding how glad she was to see him. What really surprised her was how attractive this infamous jacker was. He wore bright clothes, nice and tight. He was a Rifter—he had flash. He was dangerous, yeah, but who wasn’t, in this place? At least he wasn’t dangerous and boring!
Maybe I been with one crew too long. I like Vi‘ya—she kept us safe. But is bein’ safe a good trade for freedom?
As Hreem sat down in the pod opposite hers, an angry thought squirted up from deep inside: I been honest, more than I ever have before, and look how they trust me. Maybe it’s time to move on. And if she could do it while sending a little zap at Lokri and Ivard, she would. Not at Vi’ya. But those others? Hah!
Hreem said, “You told me you had something special. If it’s just more of this game . . .” He jerked a thumb at the console and shrugged in disgust.
She looked around. The three Bori in the room were way on the other side, busy with their own game.
So she pulled her stash out of her pocket and opened the little container.
Hreem looked down and wrinkled his lip. “What’s that?”
“Shh,” she cautioned. “Barrodagh goes crazy-bad when he finds out about this stuff. Call it Black Negus. Take a bite. Tastes like wine-cooked mushrooms. Effect—” She whistled softly, then added, “Who knows what will happen?”
Hreem looked wary and then shrugged again, helping himself to a small amount of the Ur-fruit.
Marim grabbed a bigger handful. She’d already tried every kind because she didn’t care how rizzed she got. Anything that made the time pass faster was great.
They started a game, but halfway through she got a fit of the giggles and couldn’t stop. Hreem kept zapping her ships right and left, and all she could do was laugh. Zap! Pow! She started making wire-dream noises to accompany the exploding ships, and when a pucker formed in the wall behind them and made a long kissing noise, they both started laughing and couldn’t stop.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said, wiping his eyes. “Make a little fun of our own.”
She grinned, feeling that great old fire in the pit of her stomach. How long had it been since she’d had anyone new? Weeks! And this time, the infamous, wicked Hreem the Faithless! What a story that would make back at Flaury’s on Rifthaven—particularly if she could get him talking, and he’d mumble out something he’d really regret later!
She got up, laughing at how unsteady the floor had become. They had a couple of hours before Vi’ya was supposed to report to Lysanter. They could have lots of fun in two hours.
o0o
Barrodagh hastened through the last of his own preparations, so he could be there when Lysanter took Vi’ya to the ship bay to try to un-imprint the ship the Avatar had touched. There seemed to be no free time anymore, waking or sleeping.
The latest problem was one he could do nothing about. The Avatar’s decision to explore the station on his own, guarded only by the Barcan Ogres, had hit Tarkan morale hard by implying that they were unable to fulfill the function to which they dedicated their lives. He’d been able to deflect Chur-Mellikath’s formal complaint with the vid of Anaris’s Chorei powers, but he wasn’t sure where the balance lay now.
It was a bad sign that the Tarkan commander had already begun planning for the Suneater’s defense without informing him of the planning sessions with the heir. Sessions which included Morrighon.
Barrodagh hurried back to his office. For now, Morrighon seemed unassailable. How had he done it? Ugly to look at—which Anaris surely would have taken as an insult, and thus been the less inclined to trust him—with that whining voice, he had been utterly efficient and as utterly obedient. Totally without imagination, preoccupied with the fussiest details and rules. He had been so predictable that everyone in the Catennach hierarchy had regarded him with amused contempt until suddenly he wasn’t.
As soon as the Suneater was powered up and the Avatar in control, it was going to be time to encompass Morrighon’s downfall. First, Barrodagh had to find some way to get a telltale into either Morrighon’s room or
Anaris’s. So far his efforts had been efficiently blocked.
At least Hreem is not as recalcitrant.
Hreem’s room had been prepared with an obvious nark, and one very painstakingly hidden. It had taken Hreem only a few hours to find and destroy the obvious one. He seemed to be too arrogant to look for more. So it was with anticipation that Barrodagh called up the image from that chamber. Hreem, and Marim from Vi’ya’s crew of rejects—what could be more likely to yield something useful?
With a brief burst of static, the image cleared, though the angle was odd, a necessity dictated by the imager being integrated into the door control.
“. . . more Black Negus?” Marim was saying. “I’m havin’ another chunk. Maybe it’ll give me more stayin’ power—if you got the power to make me stay.”
“Let’s see what you got, big-mouth . . .”
On the screen, Marim and Hreem sampled what was obviously two or three different kinds of Ur-fruit. They were talking like drunks, their words slurring, punctuated by helpless fits of laughter.
In between they began undressing one another. After a minute or two of that, Barrodagh was about to let it run into the log, where he could speed through at his leisure later, when something Hreem was saying cut through his impatience.
“. . . naw, I nearly had that cruiser. Nearly. But for a psycho Dol’jharian bent on suicide, I’d have that chatzer now.”
“Su-uuuure,” Marim scoffed.
“Truth—Sodality oath,” Hreem protested drunkenly. “Was a brilliant plan. I blew up that nick Highdwelling to force Ozman off the cruiser, then blew him away with a jiggeree on his ship that Riolo dreamed up. Except for that psycho, I’d be runnin’ a battlecruiser right now.” The Rifter shook his head blearily. “Anyway, even though I did lose it, nobody else got it. And Barrodagh thinks the nicks blew it away.”
“That musta been right after you zapped Dis,” Marim said, adding plaintively, “Why you had to zap Dis? It was as good a base as I ever had anywhere. And Norton was such a nice blit.”
“Because I didn’t want that black-eyed Dol‘jharian vampire you call a captain comin’ after me,” Hreem replied, his voice rough.
“And here we all are.” Marim went off into a long giggling fit. “And Vi’ya wants to play ring-around-the-spin-axis with your guts if she an’ the others get this station goin’.”
Others?
“Others?” Hreem asked. “You mean the brain-burners.”
“Yeah. Sure,” Marim said, slurring her words together. “Our bunch an’ that big chatzer Anaris. Wouldn’t mind a ring around his spin axis. Heyo! I thought you wanted some bunny? A ship with no radiants don’t go nowhere.”
Distracted by the mention of Anaris’s name, Barrodagh scarcely noticed Hreem’s obvious discomfiture, which ordinarily he would have enjoyed.
Anaris? he thought. How did he come into this discussion? He has never been anywhere near the Rifters’ chamber, that I am sure of.
Or had Morrighon somehow gotten around the imagers?
Frowning, Barrodagh watched the Rifters fumble their way toward the bed. But it was soon apparent that Hreem was unable to function.
Marim’s mood changed. She got up, cursing Hreem roundly. Hreem sat there chewing his under lip, then without saying anything, he reached under the bed and pulled out the long case.
When he opened it, Marim froze, then emitted a squeak.
Barrodagh stared, repelled but fascinated. Despite its having been halved, the thing had somehow re-formed itself, like a worm, growing to its old length. Hreem grinned. “So you’re afraid of the real thing?”
“That thing might be real on a Dyzonian dragon, but I ain’t matin’ with one,” Marim declaimed.
“Suit yourself,” Hreem said. “But you’ll go on the rest of your life wondering. And you’ll be wrong about what you missed.”
Marim stood uncertainly, then she swallowed down the remainder of her hallucinogens and flopped back on the bed. Barrodagh’s stomach cramped as he watched Hreem fit the device onto himself and drop onto the little Rifter. She began to shriek in mixed delight and astonishment, writhing enthusiastically. Barrodagh’s eyes widened as a reddish membrane slowly began to grow up around their sweaty forms. Both of them moaned incoherently, their motions lax and uncoordinated with the effects of what was apparently overwhelming pleasure.
Turning away with a shudder of disgust, Barrodagh figured he could send a squad of Tarkans to practice maneuvers in the room and the two perverts wouldn’t notice.
Then he smiled. Why not? Lysanter’s demands for the shestek were becoming more insistent. Very well then.
He tabbed his comm and issued a brief order. Then he sat back, watching in horrified fascination as the membrane enveloped them both and they subsided into immobility. Then he laughed in anticipation as the door slammed open.
The white light of unbelievable pleasure waned and to her utter disgust, Marim found herself back on Desrien.
“I hate this blungesuck of a cesspit,” Marim snarled, kicking at some kind of greenery growing alongside the pathway.
She remembered it all, the ugly sights, the revolting stinks! How could she be back here again? Fronds scattered across the dirt before her, leaving a sharp scent in the air that made her sneeze. She looked down at her toes and saw sticky greenish goo on them.
“Gaah!” she squawked, grubbing her toes into the dirt to clean them. Then she noticed small wiggly things scrabbling wildly in the dirt she’d dug up, and she gave a bellow of disgust. “I hate dirtside, and this place ranks the worst,” she wailed.
Everything about planets offended her. The smells in the unfiltered air, the disgusting way things degraded, and worst of all were the bugs.
Something touched her shoulder. She started and looked. It was Ivard, his face blank, writhing his arms and head weirdly. He honked at her. Marim grimaced and sprinted ahead, shuddering, but Ivard didn’t follow her. Ugh! I bunnied with that?
Ahead, Vi’ya walked along the pathway with the rapid stalk that indicated her own mood was bad. But she did not look back, or say anything. And right on her shadow were the Eya’a. Marim couldn’t guess what they thought, and she had no wish to find out.
Who could she complain to? Lokri was with them again, but his mood was even more vile than Vi’ya’s, and he refused to talk to anyone at all. Marim veered, catching a glimpse of him walking at the very end of the straggling line, his arms folded and a grim look on his face. His eyes stayed straight ahead of him.
Jaim, following behind Marim, also did not speak, but unlike Lokri he scanned back and forth, breathing deeply. He had grown up on Rifthaven, and dirtballs spinning around suns were just as alien for him as for her. But he really seemed to like weather and the unplanned clutter of geography. And he didn’t seem to notice the rot or the myriad tiny creatures doing their best to eat him, she thought irritably, slapping at a tickle on her cheek.
As for that cursed Schoolboy—damn him anyway, for cheating her out of that coin—she hoped he looked as sour as he usually did. His father was huffing and puffing, and Montrose smiling.
As for the Arkad, who knew—or cared—what he thought? He’s a prisoner, the same as us, she thought with mean satisfaction as the greenery cleared away before a tall stone building. She liked the Arkad as a person, thought he was attractive and entertaining, but ever since Nukiel’s nicks had grabbed the Telvarna, Brandon was no longer Vi’ya’s tame nick, he was one of them. You could see they all thought so. Including him. Only he was the worst kind of nick, one with a flashy title but no actual power. He couldn’t get them freed, so she hoped he suffered, too. Fair’s fair.
Ahead, Vi’ya hauled on one of the big doors into the building and walked in. The others followed.
Of course they had to go in. But Marim sidled glances here and there. With any luck, this place would lull those Shiidra-chatzing Marine guards into looking at the sights, and she could skip out altogether. Telvarna can be flown single, she thought with satisfac
tion. I know. I rewired that myself.
She felt a brief reluctance. She’d miss Lokri, even in his radioactive mood. And Montrose. And Vi’ya. Though she wasn’t much company, she was a decent captain, and Marim loved watching her in action. And then it was a jolt to think of leaving behind her share of the take from the sale of the Palace artifacts. But then the nicks might just latch onto that money; she didn’t believe in all the yabber about them only taking outlawed or smuggled goods. She knew they’d gone over the ship from bow to radiants, removing anything they considered illegal by their inexplicable lights. Some of it she could attribute to outright thievery. Except they didn’t take everything, which made little sense. She would have stripped it clean if she’d been them.
But right now the guards were vigilant, so she couldn’t linger and duck aside.
Inside, the others stopped, not because of imminent danger, but simply from the size of the building.
She glanced upward, at the vaulted groins curving overhead, and then away; to someone who had lived in an environment whose dimensions measured in kilometers, this building was just a typical dirtbound construct, small and gloomy.
Mutters of awe, made in hushed tones, banished her annoyance.
Watching the others stare upward tickled her humor. She wished that they were all at the Scerren habitat, looking at some real dimension.
A small woman dressed in black approached. Marim sneaked a look at the guards. They were watching the woman. She grinned, then turned around to look the place over for possibilities.
Spotting a narrow door on the other side, she sauntered toward it, quickening her step when she saw narrow stairs within.
The bell tower! Wouldn’t these robed nullwits keep their treasure up high? And wouldn’t they have a treasure? Her vague recollection of religious folk was that they were enormously wealthy.
The Thrones of Kronos Page 40