Lucy A. Snyder - Sparks and Shadows

by Lucy A. Snyder

  She had a little less than ten minutes before the palace patrol would swing past again; it was time to begin. She slipped her low-profile night vision goggles into place, wriggled her fingers into the tight gloves and began to pull herself up the stone wall. She’d first learned to free-climb rocky faces as a child hunting for the tasty bracket fungi that seemed to grow only beneath the most inaccessible overhangs in the mountains outside her home village. The palace wall wasn’t easy; the wet, mossy concrete was slick as sweating flesh. But her gloves worked beautifully; they’d been modeled on a gecko’s atomic-bonding sticky toe pads and could support her entire weight on three fingers. She closed her eyes and focused on the odd rolling grip the gloves required, as if she were trying to knead the concrete. The burn in her shoulders and arms felt good; her body was finally being used the way it was meant to be.

  Nturi crept up on fingertips and tip-toes until she finally chinned herself to the top of the wall. The force-field mere centimeters above was invisible, but she could feel an electric vibration that made her hair stand on end. Next came the tricky part: getting up onto the wall without getting fried.

  She swung sideways and caught her left heel on the wall’s rim, then began to carefully pull and roll her body onto the two-foot-wide ledge. It felt like her wedding night when she and Alex were trying to roll from one position to another without him slipping out of her body.

  No sooner had she swung her other leg up when she heard the flat slap of boots against pavement. The patrol had arrived right on time. She flattened herself against the stone and held her breath.

  The tension was delicious. She’d initially taken up burglary as a necessity; on Novizvezda, no one who wasn’t a pureblood descendant of the original Russian colonists could get a decent job. Nturi’s dark skin and tattoos limited her legitimate prospects to cleaning toilets or washing dishes in low-class establishments. She would never be allowed in the palace even as a scullery maid; girls of her color might be bundled in through the back door under cloak of darkness to please Czar Mikhail’s exotic tastes in whores, but never as legitimate employees.

  Her sex limited her illegitimate prospects to prostitution or theft. She was determined that no man would touch her but her husband, so she joined a burglary ring. It helped salve her conscience that they never robbed ordinary people; most of their jobs were for nobles stealing expensive toys from other nobles.

  She quickly came to discover that sneaking into forbidden places was an incredible thrill. The greater the danger, the bigger the charge she got from it. Some jobs she’d practically come the moment she touched the prize she’d broken in to steal.

  “I’m detecting heat residue,” one soldier said. He sounded bored and sleepy.

  “Scan it,” replied the other.

  Then a whine, and in her peripheral vision she saw a blue glow. “Inconclusive. There’s tracks in the moss. Something might have climbed up,” the first man replied. The glow went out.

  The other grunted. “Probably another rat. The cats’ll eat it.”

  Nturi waited for the patrol to move on. When she was sure they were out of earshot, she peeked into the palace compound. The bottom of the wall was bordered by dense bushes, most likely briar roses. Trees and rocks showed up as a ghostly blue in her goggles. Two large objects forty meters away glowed red: heat sources. Tigers.

  The royal family had long bred Siberian tigers for size and speed. The czar’s cats were unmatched killers. The average royal tiger weighed in at 320 kilograms, was over three meters long, and could sprint 60 kilometers per hour. They had fangs longer than Nturi’s fingers, and claws strong enough to shred plywood.

  If those two heard her hit the ground — and they almost certainly would — they’d be on her in about three seconds. Best to take care of them from aloft. She reached into her vest and pulled out her ceramic dart gun. Each dart contained enough sedative to drop a full-grown tiger for at least five hours. She had no interest in killing the beautiful beasts if she had a choice; besides, a good burglar left as few traces behind as possible, and two dead tigers would hardly go unnoticed.

  She slid the miniature sight onto the barrel of the air pistol and took careful aim. The first tiger was lounging half-asleep and didn’t even flinch as the dart sank into his haunch. The second tiger let out a coughing growl and worried at her flank for a moment before she tumbled onto her side. Satisfied, Nturi removed the sight and tucked the pistol back in its holster.

  She rolled over the side and climbed down on her sticky fingertips. When she was near the bottom, she kicked off the wall to launch herself clear of the briar roses, twisted midair and hit the ground in a shoulder tuck and rolled to her feet.

  Nturi ran over to the drugged tigers. She knelt beside the big female and pulled off her gecko gloves. The tiger’s smell was powerful, wild and rank and musky, and her shallow breath stank of blood from a recent kill.

  Nturi put her bare hands on her flanks and ran her fingers through her shaggy fur. Her muscles felt densely molded, like cast soft metal. The feel of the powerful beast made her shiver. A growl rumbled from deep in the tiger’s chest, but she did not stir.

  She could kill me in a blink, she thought. She could kill me as easily as she turns her head.

  Nturi’s heart beat fast, but she felt no fear, only the sudden swell of desire for her beloved and the thrill of her invasion.

  “I’ll have you soon, my love,” she whispered. She planted a kiss on the top of the tiger’s broad head, removed the dart and sprinted for the palace.

  As she ran, she ratcheted her goggles’ polarization around until the invisible net of detection lasers ahead glowed red in her lenses. In trees above the leading edge of the laser net, she could see the automated sentry weapons, set to blast anything that the lasers didn’t scan as being a tiger, bird, or squirrel. When she was a few meters from the net, she got down on her hands and knees and switched on the false-field generator on her belt. It had been her most expensive purchase, mainly because of its illegality but partly because of the cold fusion cell supporting the device’s immense power consumption.

  The air around Nturi’s body crackled and hazed blue. Her hair stood on end. The field would create the dimensions of a tiger for the detectors’ benefit, but not for very long. The fusion cell would hold out for only a few minutes, and the net extended the remaining hundred yards to the edge of the palace.

  Nturi began to speed-crawl through the net. Sweat ran in an itchy trickling down the groove of her back. She got through just as the field seemed to be faltering a little. She hurried into the bushes bordering the palace, pushed through to the vine-covered stone wall, and began to climb.

  Soon, Nturi was clinging to the third-floor windowsill of her husband’s suite as she contorted to avoid the thin laser beam of the alarm. She held on with one hand while she worked at lifting the steel bar latch through the glass with her electromagnetic multitool. The bar finally rose and fell free with a clink.

  She pushed open the windows and slipped inside the room, which was dark but for a bright band of light streaming from beneath the bathroom door. The Romanovs were creatures of habit and schedule. If the details she’d bought from a recently-sacked chambermaid were correct, Alex would have just finished his fencing lesson and would be taking his evening bath. His older brother and the czar would be downstairs in the library, supposedly going over military reports, but the maid said they were just as likely to be enjoying the company of various prostitutes. Nturi was warmed by news that, as far as the maid knew, Alex had never shown any interest in the palace whores.

  Nturi closed and latched the window behind her and fingertipped down the velvet-covered wall. She could hear the bath faucet running. She landed softly on the thick carpet and surveyed the room through her goggles. A leather couch and reading lamp near the middle of the room. A state-of-the-art sleeping/entertainment pod was nestled in the north corner. A richly-carved wooden writing desk and a comm station filled the opposite corner. Disc
arded clothes, still glowing purple from fading body heat, had been dropped in a trail leading from the hall door to the bathroom.

  Nturi walked to the clothes and picked up the long-sleeved fencing shirt. The silk was damp with sweat; she sniffed it, and instantly went wet when she found the familiar scent of Alex’s flesh.

  She pulled off the goggles, her gloves, her vest. Letting her gear fall to the floor, she unzipped her bodysuit, peeled it away from her perspiring skin, and shucked off her tight climbing sneakers.

  Her nipples went hard in the cool palace air. She ran her hands over her bare body, savoring the delicious tension. She could be found. She could be captured. She could be killed.

  She stepped naked toward the bathroom, the hungry, burning ache for her husband intensifying with every step. When she reached the door, she held her breath, held her head close, listening.

  The faucet was off. She could hear water lapping in a tub, and Alex’s low voice humming. The tune was a Guevaran hunting song she’d taught him soon after they met; he’d never been able to remember all the words.

  She opened the door.

  The bathroom was huge, almost bigger than his room. Her husband was soaking in a big, sunken marble bathtub with golden fixtures. He practically jumped out of his skin at the sound of the opening door and dove toward what looked like a security intercom panel beside the tub—

  —then stopped. He stared at her, his blue eyes wide. He’d had his blond hair trimmed short, almost buzzed to the scalp. His shoulders were broader, his chest deeper and more defined. He still bore their wedding tattoo above his heart.

  “Nturi,” he whispered, then continued in faltering Guevaran: “How did you…?”

  “Through your window,” she replied in Russian. “You look good, Alex. The years have been kind to you.”

  “You look wonderful.” He was staring her up and down as if she were a ghost. His shaft had gone hard, the head peeking up above the water line.

  “We have a lot to talk about, but conversation can wait.” She closed the door behind her, locked it, and stepped toward him, running her hands down her body. Her flesh keened for his touch. “Do you want me, husband?”

  “Yes,” he replied faintly. “I’ve missed you every day I’ve been in this godforsaken place.”

  “Then show me how much you missed me…”

  ***

  Afterward, Nturi lay back in Alexander’s arms as he nuzzled her neck and poured handfuls of blood-warm water over her body.

  “God, I missed you so much,” he whispered, his voice husky.

  “I missed you, too.” A lump rose in her throat, and tears welled in her eyes. Five years. Five long years; so much had happened to both of them, it seemed like virtually a lifetime had gone by. They were practically strangers to each other, now, but at the same time…he was still the Alex she remembered. The same Alex she’d loved and craved every lonely night she’d spent in cold, cramped starship air ducts or in the hot, stuffy room she’d rented above the laundry. Every night, she’d wept at the pain of missing his touch, his smile, the heat of his body, the soft kisses he’d awakened her with to make love to her in grey hours before dawn.

  She took one of his broad, strong hands and kissed his palm. “I never want to be without you again.”

  “We’ll never be separated again, I promise,” he replied, gently rolling her over so she was facing him. They kissed, their hands gently roving over each other’s water-slick bodies.

  He took her hands in his and licked her water-wrinkled fingertips. “You’re starting to prune. We better get you out of here before you melt,” he smiled.

  They got out of the tub and dried each other off with thick white towels, then went into his bedroom and climbed into his sleeping pod.

  “Come away with me,” she said as they snuggled under his blankets. “Leave this place. I can have us on a ship headed for the outer rim in three hours.”

  His smile faded. “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can, you just have to trust me—”

  “No, I can’t.” He took a deep breath. “And I don’t want to. They’d find me, no matter where I went, and I could never forgive myself if Guevara happened all over again.

  “I tried to stop my father from raping your planet, Nturi.” Alex’s voice cracked. “But he wouldn’t listen. And I’m so sorry about your papa — your parents told me to hide, but I should have been there to protect them. I can’t tell you how much I’ve hated myself for what I brought on your family and your people.”

  He cleared his throat. “Did — did your mother and little brother make it?”

  She swallowed against the tide of bitter sorrow rising in her chest. “No. Kiro was killed in the fighting, and my mother…after Kiro died, she lost all hope and stopped eating. She died while they were marching us to the camps. I watched the soldiers burn her body by the side of the road. I didn’t even get to say a proper prayer for her.

  “Your family took everything I ever had, Alex. You were the only thing I could get back. I need you.”

  “I need you, too.” He pulled her close to him. “But I also need to stay here. Even if we did find a place where my father wouldn’t find us, what then? Billions of people suffer under my family’s rule, and I could never do anything to help them if I ran away.”

  Nturi pulled away a little and stared at him. “What can you hope to accomplish here? Your father is—”

  “—an old man who doesn’t listen to anyone else, including his doctors. He’s already had to have his liver replaced twice, and someday they won’t be able to keep him from drinking himself to death. And he’s always pissing the nobles off; a year hasn’t passed when someone hasn’t staged an assassination attempt. And my brother’s got a taste for dueling and racing that’s going to get him killed someday.”

  “‘Someday?’ How long is ‘someday’?” Nturi asked, her eyes narrowing.

  “Twenty years, if my father lasts as long as his father did. But then I’ll be czar, Nturi.” His eyes shone with excitement in the dim light. “I can fix things. I can make Guevara green again, for you and our children.

  “As soon as my family fully trusts me again and lets me take on some real duties, I can start making little changes here and there. If I can help just a few people now, maybe that will start to make up for Guevara.”

  Nturi considered this. “So are you going to cancel the wedding I heard about?”

  Alex’s smile faded. “I can’t. It’s crucial; my father needs me to get married so he can get his hands on the platinum and uranium mines in the Taorane system. If I try to get out of it I’ll have wrecked all the work I’ve done the past two years to get them to trust me—”

  “Damn it!” Nturi exploded. “You said we’d never be separated, yet you say you’re going to marry someone else?”

  “You can still stay with me,” he said quickly. “I want you to stay with me—”

  “As what? Your concubine?” she spat. “I am your wife, and I will not be treated like a whore!”

  “It wouldn’t be like that,” he pleaded. “Neither Princess Duria nor I expect to see much of each other. We’ll just appear together to sign papers and smile at ceremonies. We’ll live separate lives.”

  “What about the part where you’re expected to produce a royal heir to really seal the bargain?” she asked, fuming.

  Alex didn’t say anything.

  “God!” Nturi rolled away from him and slapped the release button on the pod door.

  “Where are you going?” he asked as she rolled out.

  “To the bathroom! Alone!”

  She shut the door in his face and stomped across the room to the bathroom…then stopped. A thick red satin robe hung on a peg beside the door, the back emblazoned with the golden Romanov crest and the front with Alexander’s initials.

  I’ve come too far to give up now, she thought. And I’ll be damned if I’m waiting another 20 years to have my marriage back….

  Nturi glanced at the cloc
k. It was five shy of midnight. If Czar Mikhail and his eldest son Oskar were indeed having a private party in the library, it would just be getting good.

  She snatched up the robe, fluffed her short black hair, and marched for the hallway.

  ***

  “Am I late for de party?” Nturi asked the two guards standing at attention in front of the big double doors leading into the library. Her pidgin accent sounded painfully fake in her own ears, but she hoped the guards would buy it.

  “Where did you come from?” the larger of the two guards growled.

  “Oh, I did need to go to de toilet on de way up from de dock—” Damn, what was the procurer’s name? “—after Meester Korotkov drop me off. And when I come out, Prince Alexander is in de hallway. He tell me to go upstairs wit he. So I do. He just finish wit me.”

  The first guard continued to scowl at her intensely while the other dug a small bioscanner out of his belt pouch.

  “You expect me to believe that Prince Alexander’s been consorting with you?” the first asked scornfully. “He’s never had any truck with whores!”

  “Why you tink I lie?” she protested, her heart hammering in her chest. “This he robe he tell me to wear as proof for you!”

  The second guard ran the scanner up and down her body while he patted her down.

  “Looks like she’s telling the truth,” he said, switching off the device and stepping away. “She’s just been laid, and the semen matches Alexander’s genotype. She’s clean, otherwise.”

  “Huh. Guess there’s a first time for everything. Get in there,” the first guard growled at Nturi. “And you better know how to suck, because they don’t like sloppy seconds.”

  He gave her a shove toward the double doors. She stumbled, straightened up, and took a deep breath. Her whole body was shaking. I could lose everything I have left in here. Don’t screw this up, girl.