He studied her for a moment, feeling his muscles twitch. He was getting a very bad feeling about this sunny room and this mother of Keza’s. The sun had shone in his farmer cell, too, but the chains had still hurt like hell. Taking a deep breath, he asked again with forced calm, “Where’s Keza?”
“You’ll see her shortly. You and I need to talk first. Will you sit?”
Humor reappeared around her mouth and Stryker sat in response to it. He’d be damned if he let this woman see how unnerved he really was. What bothered him most was Keza’s absence. If she’d brought him home—and with her mother sitting a short distance away, that was the only conclusion he could reach—than why the hell wasn’t she here with him?
“This is Kaska,” he stated and watched the woman nod. “Why am I here?”
“Because, as I said before, you are a very lucky man. My daughter rescued you.”
“How long until the Collectors get here?”
“They’ve already arrived,” she answered and smiled faintly when his head jerked up. “They’re waiting at our clearing station for word on whether or not we find you to be an acceptable candidate.”
He blinked at her then narrowed his eyes. “What does that mean?”
She tipped her head to one side, eyes running over him with steely speculation. “That means if I don’t like what I hear, you go back to being a band zombie.”
He tensed, hands clenching into fists before he could stop them. The band was gone. It was obvious that Myelle and company had removed it. He should be playing nice with this woman, but there was a taunting edge in her voice that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “So what do you want?” he rasped with more aggression than was wise.
She gave him a humorless smile. “The truth.”
“About what?”
“Everything. Let’s start with your roots and work our way up from there. Your records aren’t very clear—where were you born?”
“The ass end of nowhere,” he growled, feeling his muscles bunch and release.
She looked down, lips pressed together as if she was hiding a smile. Stryker felt the breath leave his chest like he’d been punched. He remembered Keza making the same gesture and it hurt something deep inside.
“Does the ass end of nowhere have a name?”
“Beraltis Four.”
“Hmm. Do you have family?”
“No.”
She raised her eyes and lifted an eyebrow. “Elaborate please.”
“Seems pretty clear to me. I have no family. I was in the system from the time I was born.”
A crease formed between her brows. “You were an orphan, a foster child?”
“Never fostered. Institution raised.”
She sat forward, resting an elbow on her crossed knees and studying him as though this was a point of keen interest instead of a tired old story that could have been told by millions of others. “Why didn’t anyone foster or adopt you?”
Stryker blinked at her. “An ugly mug and a bad attitude. What the hell does it matter? Why do you need to know this stuff?”
“Please be cooperative, Mr. Stryker,” she said with chilly warning. “You have run out of second chances.” When he said nothing, only clenched his jaw and kept his mouth shut, she gave him a nod. “What is your education level?”
He stared at her, annoyed and baffled by the question. “Candidate for what?” he asked in return, his voice abrupt and harsh.
She narrowed her eyes on him. “Your record says that you didn’t receive any adult education, just child preparatory in the orphanages.”
“If you have that kinda detail, you don’t need to be asking me this shit.”
“I’m asking you to confirm the information that we have and to get some idea of your character. Which so far hasn’t impressed me much. Why are you being so belligerent?”
She looked and sounded like she was at the end of her patience, her amber eyes snapping with temper. Well, he probably couldn’t make it any worse by telling her the truth. Besides, he wasn’t that damned impressed either. How the hell had his Keza survived this dictatorial bitch?
“I don’t trust you,” he said bluntly, holding her gaze. “I don’t trust your motives. This feels like a trap to me.”
She settled back in her chair, the anger fading from her face to be replaced by thoughtfulness. She tipped her head, studying him while she absently smoothed the dark cloth of her pants. “Well,” she said in a musing tone, “now we’re getting somewhere.” She paused, still eyeing him like an adversary. “According to your record, you have not been trained for anything specific.”
He raised his eyebrows, his lips twitching as he controlled a smirk. “Just a Jack-of-all-trades,” he drawled.
She rolled her eyes. “So you’re good at breaking into places, stealing things, and assaulting people. Quite the resume. Have you done any legitimate work?”
“I’ve held a few jobs, yeah.”
“Such as?”
“Pretty sure that’s in the record, too.”
“Did you enjoy any of them?”
He blinked at her again, thrown by the question. Why the hell would she ask him something like that? “Uh…what?”
“Did you like doing any of your jobs? For example, I think you were a shuttle pilot for a short while. Was that something you enjoyed and would want to do again?”
“It was all right. Mostly it was cover for a yank job on this sweet piece of hardware.”
She gave him a look of mild disgust. “Criminal motives aside, did you like any of your legitimate jobs?”
Stryker shifted uneasily, still baffled by her question. Then he shrugged. “Construct work wasn’t too bad.”
“What did you like about it?”
“Lady, what the hell does this have to—?”
“Just answer the damned question,” she said in a hard voice.
He ran a hand through his hair, feeling distinctly uncomfortable and almost embarrassed, as though he was exposing some private part of himself. He was wearing only thin pants and was naked otherwise, but he hadn’t felt exposed until now. The tile under his feet felt noticeably cooler. “I liked to see how things came together. Even if it was just a block of a station, ugly as sin.”
She nodded and there was a spark in her eye that worried him. Was that a good or bad spark?
“So why didn’t you stay with construct work?”
“Didn’t pay as well.”
“Is that why you did all those things on your record, because crime pays?”
The undertone of disgust in her otherwise even voice scraped over his nerves like nails of salt. He ground his teeth and studied her with rude thoroughness, from the top of her sleek head to the tips of her well-clad toes. “You got a good life here. Never gone hungry, never gone dirty, never wanted for nothin’. You ever scrub yourself with ship abrasive just to get the itch and fleas and lice off? Ever eat those damned lice ‘cause you can’t remember when you ate last?”
Her eyelashes flickered, but that was her only change in expression. “I’m aware that you had a difficult life. That doesn’t justify murdering a prominent citizen.”
He snorted. “Sure as hell does. It ain’t murder to defend yourself.”
“Self defense?” she asked in dubious tones, her eyebrows rising coolly. “The man was found in the privacy of his home, strangled with an item of his own clothing, no weapon in sight. There was no sign of a prior struggle—it appeared as though he’d been taken by surprise. Sounds to me like he was the one in need of self defense.”
He bared his teeth in a humorless grin. “I had half a dozen hitters on my ass, courtesy of your prominent citizen. Only way to save my neck was cut off their payday.”
Her brows came together in a quick frown. “Hitters?”
“Hired killers.”
“Why?”
He sighed, gripping the edge of the bed to stop himself from leaping to his feet and prowling the room like a caged cat. “What’s it matter?
”
“Humor me,” she said dryly.
He scowled at her and twitched his shoulders in an abrupt shrug. “I stole a shipment of his. Didn’t know it was his or I woulda left it alone—he’s the kind of shark you swim wide when you see ‘em. Guess he didn’t take kindly to me snagging goods he’d worked so hard to steal himself.”
“So you’re saying he was a criminal, too? Why didn’t you tell the courts?”
Stryker ran a rough hand over his face. “Lady, you can’t be this stupid. I give out info like that and the rest of the sharks would have a feeding frenzy.”
Myelle narrowed her eyes, studying him with a cool speculation that made him grind his teeth again. Then she glanced towards the window with a noncommittal hum. “Your record does not give a religious orientation. Do you have one?”
“The place I grew up was Kessuite, but I’m not anything.”
She returned her attention to him and gave a slow, rather unsettling smile. “Kessu. Interesting. Kaska was named after our Goddess, Kaskeshynut. Did you know that in ancient mythology, Kessu was once our Goddess’s lover?”
He tried to keep all expression from his face but the look on hers was making him severely uncomfortable. That trapped sensation was tightening his skin again. He said nothing, just watched her warily.
She stood and moved over to the window, giving him her back while she stared out. “You are physically an excellent specimen. My concern is your background. Who will you harm if given the chance?”
Specimen? He shifted restlessly. “I would never hurt Keza.”
She turned her head, looking at him over her shoulder. “That remains to be seen,” she said quietly. Then she moved back to the chair, sitting straight and rigid, eyes focused on him with a grimness that shot alarm through his system. “I need to give you some history on our people.”
Stryker swore, jerking to his feet and heading for the door. “I’ve had enough of this shit. I’m going to find Keza.” But the door wouldn’t open. He turned a menacing snarl on Keza’s mother, but she ignored his threatening stance. As if it was impossible that he’d hurt her. He thought about it, thought about fisting a hand in her shirt and shaking her like a rag doll, demanding his release. But the damn woman had Keza’s eyes and he realized she was right—he couldn’t hurt her.
“This shit has an immediate impact on your situation. I suggest you sit and listen.”
He glared at her instead, hands fisting rhythmically.
She looked away toward the window again, her profile cool and composed. “When Kaska was colonized a millennia ago, our population was equally male and female. But over the centuries, we stopped producing males in any great quantity. Today, our population consists of less than five percent Kaskan-born males and one percent fertile males. We have never found a medical or environmental reason for this to be happening.”
Stryker opened his mouth to snarl that she could choke on her history lesson for all he cared, but something in her face stopped him. Or maybe it was something in her body language. Instead of lounging in her seat as she’d done before with casual grace and arrogance, she was sitting bolt upright, hands clasped tightly together. He thought about what she was saying and wondered why he’d never heard this before. Everything he’d heard about Kaska said that they were matrilineal to a fault, that they rejected their males and kept their population mostly female on purpose. But he’d never met a Kaskan male in the outworlds, reject or otherwise.
“We are a religious people,” she said with strange care, still not looking at him. “Ours is a goddess of fertility and wisdom. To insult the natural order by medical interference—in-vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, genetic manipulation, and such—is to insult our goddess’s will. Our belief is that she has caused this situation in order to teach us, to guide us to better wisdom.”
She paused, shooting him an almost wary look out of the corner of her eye.
He shifted in place, running rough fingers through his hair. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked, not bothering to curb the rasp of baffled annoyance in his voice.
“Universal Legislature has given us special dispensation, since our needs are driven by both our religious beliefs and by medical necessity. If one of our citizens finds a likely candidate who is willing to come to Kaska, no matter what their previous associations or crimes, we are allowed to keep them here. Provided, of course, that they never leave.”
Stryker’s heart gave a wild leap and resumed its previous thunderous course. “Never leave?”
“Your choice is simple—life on Kaska or life in mental containment.”
“Candidate for what?” he asked tightly, his body humming with tension.
She sent him a measuring glance then stood and moved to the door. It opened for her. “To produce a child with a Kaskan female.” She paused on the threshold, turning to face him in mild inquiry. “Would you like something to drink or eat?”
Stryker stared at her, his skin prickling with what might have been terror or maybe elation. “You want me for stud service,” he stated in a flat, toneless voice.
“Yes,” she answered in kind without blinking. “Let’s leave this room—it’s stuffy. We need to find you some clothes to wear.”
She made a little impatient wave with her hand and Stryker crossed the threshold into the wide hallway beyond with slow caution.
“Your medical tests indicate that you’re in excellent genetic condition and capable of producing offspring,” she said in a bizarrely rational voice while she headed down the light, airy hallway. “Physically, you appear to be an excellent candidate, but as I’ve mentioned, my concern is for how you will fit into our society. Your past isn’t exactly spotless.”
“Keza did this?” he asked with dim outrage. She’d brought him here for this?
“She was trying to save you,” she answered, flicking him an icy glance. “I’m still not sure why. If you aren’t willing to be her mate, there are a whole host of women waiting for a decent partner. You can have your choice. Providing I agree to let you stay at all.”
He barely heard her threat, his mind latching onto another part of her speech. “Her mate?” His ears were buzzing strangely. He felt as though he’d stepped off a sudden drop and was freefalling. He put out a hand and caught at an archway, but the cool, solid feel of the structure did not negate the sensation of an endless drop.
Myelle turned to him, hands on hips as she studied him with a grim set to her features. “She’s changed and I don’t like it,” she announced as if this was his fault. “She was always my most serious child but she barely smiles anymore. Are you to blame for this?”
“I don’t know,” he answered without thought. His focus was elsewhere, his internal fall still unchecked. “She wants me to be her mate?”
She made an impatient sound as if he was being dense and wiped his question away with a wave of her hand. “She’s always rescuing wild animals. She never admits that sometimes they can’t be rescued.”
He stared at her with an unnamable fury in his chest, an anger that seemed to have no source. “Where is she?” he growled for what felt like the millionth time.
She measured his expression, his hostile stance, and sighed. Looking away from him, she said, “House, show me Keza’s location, please.”
An image materialized against the pale background of one wall, solidifying into a scene that took him completely by surprise, though when he thought of it later he knew it shouldn’t have. Keza was in a cave-like place, dim with shadows and reflected light. She sat on a stone ledge, her legs dangling into restless, gray-blue water. A shape drifted beside her, one limb lifted to rest on her knee while she stroked the creature with a gentle hand. He recognized the shape from her tattoo—she’d called it a selkie, after an old legend. As he watched, the creature rested its head on her thigh in a gesture of pure trust and love.
“It’s not so amazing that they remember her,” Myelle murmured at his side. “What’s amazing is that t
hey knew she was back. Most stopped coming to the grotto about a year after she left.”
He felt her scrutiny but he couldn’t take his eyes off Keza. She was the same, yet so different he had trouble reconciling it. A tight ponytail contained her silky hair and a wetsuit of bright blue and black covered her slim body from throat to feet. But those were only the superficial differences. Her face was serene, though there was a hint of sadness in her posture. She sat with familiar ease and stroked the animal with a relaxed confidence he’d never seen in her before. Keza was back where she belonged.
Light of Kaska Page 15