Her tone, her look, the warm pressure of her hands, left no doubt what that something was. The uncertainty smoothed out of his features to be replaced by another look, not solemn, but deeply earnest and not to be trifled with. “I would have, but—considering everything that’s happened—I felt it’s not my place to bring that up just yet. I don’t want to cause unnecessary complications.”
“I understand. And thanks. But . . .” The hand on the back of his neck pulled him closer. “Look, Rafe”—bending her neck so their foreheads touched, her voice the barest whisper—“I know this may not work. I know it could be a big fuckin’ mistake. But I just died. It focuses the mind, y’know?”
He made a soft sound as if he’d been holding his breath. She felt a tear slip through her closed eyelids and eased the pressure of the hand holding them together.
“So if that’s what you think—that this is gonna be too complicated—walk out that door now and we’ll go back to where we were—no harm, I promise. Or kiss me.”
He kissed her.
A minute later he felt her lips curve into a smile against his own. “See? Wasn’t that easy?”
Opening his eyes, he smiled to match hers. “Am I allowed to point out that technically you haven’t answered my question yet?”
“No, you’re not.” She twined her arms tighter around his neck and kissed the warm lips again. “In a minute? ‘Kay?”
“Just a minute?.”
“Dunno. Try again.” They did. “Well, guess what?”
He gathered her in, holding her by the armsful. “What?”
“Gonna take more than a minute.” Her fingers attacked his buttons.
“Loralynn—”
“Very good!” Buttons defeated, his zippers yielded under her assault.
“—you are aware we’re in a hospital and the doors here do not lock?”
The assault did not pause. “So what? You care about the three-grade rule or something?”
“No, actually. Check your pillow.”
She did, her fingers momentarily halting in their incursion. “Huh?”
“The other one.”
“Oh.” A lieutenant’s twin gold bars were pinned there. “When did that happen?”
“Late last week.”
Her eyes came back to his; her hand, having claimed its objective, achieved its liberation. “So what’s the problem?”
“No problem.” He shifted forward, giving her more room to work.
“Okay, then. I’m certified totally operational. Totally.” She breathed the syllables softly in his ear.
Hospital attire has this one virtue: it’s easy to remove. Even with one hand.
A sweep of her unengaged arm sent pillows tumbling. Maneuvering him onto the bed, her palms inexorably pressed him back against the mattress. Smiling as his hands coasted up her flanks to seize the high ground after a brief reconnaissance—thumb and trigger finger engaging each coral-tinted peak, which rose to the occasion—he looked up into her eyes, at the luminous emotions simmering there.
“I suppose they were right about one thing.”
“Whazzat?”—the index finger of one hand coasting over the old break in the bridge of his nose while her other hand, by a smooth flank movement, retook the salient it had briefly relinquished and stroked slowly.
“You are crazy.”
“I know.” Sighing, she leaned into his grip and shuffled up along his recumbent torso until her knees were well above and outside his shoulders. “Don’cha love it?”
“Yes,” he murmured as she poised there for a trio of seconds, her breath catching high in her throat before she began to lower her hips those few crucial inches; and again in that brief interval while speech was still possible: “Yes, I do.”
Some minutes later, amidst the soft and rhythmic cries that at times broke out rather less softly and were often punctuated by sweetly uttered gasps or a delighted whimper escaping through clenched teeth—sounds that would occasionally overflow the room and waft faintly to the bend in the corridor where Rachel stood watch with a medical periodical, making her smile—he had his answer.
And it was: Yes.
# # #
Free Excerpt: Absalom’s Hundred
(The Death of Nestor Mankho)
Please enjoy this free excerpt from Absalom’s Hundred: the Death of Nestor Mankho, the new Loralynn Kennakris adventure, coming soon to Amazon Kindle!
Cap’n Absalom—
Erupted from a ghosty nothingness upon that land there beneath the frost and tore hisself a dwelling (tore violently—as one would say raped) as though that land—on which he forced his strange creeping brood—were his own bitch. (His own bitch he wouldn’a share.) And that land—forever called Absalom’s Hundred thereafter—turned on him—for that he had raped her—and took his wits and ears and eyes and teeth (but most of all his teeth) and sent him drooling and witless back to that ghosty nothingness
—what consumed him . . .
As related by persons unknown,
on Rimmon, Outworlds Border Zone
Prologue:
A Conference of the Powers
Crystal City, Outer N-Ring;
Gamma Hydras, Hydra Border Zone
Commander Trin Wesselby, Director, Pleiades Sector Intelligence Group, lay back against the mattress of a bed in a third-rate hostelry, located in the inaptly named Crystal City, and sighed. Nick Taliaferro, the retired Chief Inspector of the Nedaeman Bureau of Public Safety, lying next to her, emitted a self-satisfied chuckle. The tiny room, which existed for a single purpose and rented by the half-hour (with an hour minimum), was short on furniture, space, and everything else. The bed and a small lavatory niche took up most of it, and the appurtenances provided by the management were limited to three towels, one of which could be rigged across the niche’s entrance by guests with a yen for privacy. The floor would do as a place to put your clothes—if you wanted something more, you had no business being there.
Price was not the principal draw of such an accommodation. Convenience was a prime factor, but more importantly, privacy was guaranteed. Only untraceable forms of payment were accepted, and anonymous entry and exit were provided; you could even get a full digital history of where else you’d been and what you’d been doing, if you needed an alibi. That, of course, cost extra—a lot extra.
Such extreme measures were a trifle ridiculous. Why Crystal City existed and what went on there were well known. In the first effusions following the late war, when there was much talk of a ‘peace dividend’ and new opportunities were appearing in abundance, a group of speculators bought a sizeable rock on the outskirts of the system in which Outbound Station resided, and there built a fantastical edifice which was to offer supplies, lodging, and entertainment to the streams of traffic they thought would soon begin to transit the junction. In addition, it would serve as a domicile for those who did the offering. A great orbital exchange was to be built, to facilitate the transshipment of cargo, with financial services, escrow agents and insurers close to hand. Business of all kinds would be encouraged to establish satellite offices there to profit from this new and expanding hub of commerce.
The speculators went bankrupt, of course, with the initial phase of their planned development about a third complete. Sold at auction, it garnered twelve percent of the initial outlay, which many considered generous, and fell into the hands of those rather more seedy (but eminently realistic) enterprises that congregate near military outstations. The Colonial Expeditionary Forces, seeing the evident benefits of having some creature comforts so close at hand (New Madras, then the next closest installation, was three days away, and the Pleiades, on the other side of Merope, two days farther still), suppressed the more flagrant iniquities, but otherwise left the proprietors alone.
That made it a convenient place for Trin and Nick to arrange a rendezvous, both physically and tactically. For some months, Trin had been resident here at Outbound Station, instead of her more usual post at Pleiades Sector HQ back i
n Nemeton, on the League Homeworld of Nedaema. Partly, this was to provide direct support to Third Fleet, which was currently stationed at Outbound, but it was also because she and Nick were pursuing an altogether more obscure and private agenda, one which only a tiny handful of close personal acquaintances knew anything about. Her immediate superior, Admiral Joss PrenTalien, commander in chief of Pleiades Sector, was one of these, as was the Chief of Naval Operations, Fleet Admiral Westover, both of whom strongly endorsed her reticence. Lieutenant Commander Rafe Huron (a close personal friend) and Sergeant Major Fred Yu of the 101st Special Operations Brigade (the Strike Rangers), and leader of Covert Action Team 5 (CAT 5, the CEF’s premier SPEC-Ops unit), completed the roster of those who were ‘in the know’.
What they knew—and the reason for the extreme secrecy (most especially from any official organs, including the Admiralty itself)—was that almost a year and a half ago, Trin and Nick had found strong evidence of a Halith mole operating far up in the League’s government. The key to uncovering this person was Nestor Mankho, a terrorist warlord who almost certainly knew the mole’s identity. This had led to an attempt by CAT 5 to apprehend him at his base on the remote planet of Rephidim, shortly before the war started. The attempt failed, and Trin and Nick, who was no longer encumbered by holding an official position, had continued the pursuit in a highly clandestine and entirely unofficial manner—hence these irregular meetings.
Accordingly, for the past year or more, Nick and Trin had been allowing the more fertile imaginations among their acquaintances to wrap themselves around the idea that they were carrying on a clandestine affaire. Given Trin’s reputation for being cold, prim, and mercilessly efficient, this notion was interesting enough to attract attention, implausible enough to be believed, and distracting enough to be useful.
Nick’s chuckle was occasioned by reading the pages of hardcopy crammed with tiny precise writing that Trin had given him shortly after they locked themselves in, and Trin’s sigh was her response to how he intended to make use of the information she had supplied.
“Nick, aren’t you getting a little old for this kind of stunt?”
That information was an appreciation of the state of affairs on Cathcar, a major settlement in the nearby Praesepe Cluster where slavers came to refit and resupply, indulge in some recreation, and ply their trade. Mankho had taken refuge there after the raid on Rephidim, and their lack of progress in finding even a hint of a trail after he’d arrived on Cathcar had vexed Trin deeply. That is, until she uncovered indications that their failure was due to the simplest of reasons: Mankho, it now appeared, had never left. Why Mankho had chosen, or been compelled, to remain on Cathcar was obscure, and this obscurity Nick proposed to investigate. Personally.
He smiled and refolded the tissue-thin pages. “Sure you just aren’t jealous you can’t come along? Maybe a little bit?”
“Maybe not at all,” Trin snorted. “We don’t all have a foolish youth we long to revisit.”
He handed the hardcopy back to her. “Yeah. Damn shame, that. Who’s this Robin Volt?”
“Something of an enigma—”
“—wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in a mystery?”
“Let’s not get carried away here, Nick.”
“If you insist.”
“I do.” Trin drew in a soft breath. “She appeared a few years ago as the newest player in Cathcar’s upper echelon. RUMINT—and I’m not even sure I should call it that—says that she was once the property of a ‘slaver captain’ named Riker.”
“A captain’s bitch?” He made no attempt to hide the incredulity in his voice.
“That is the vernacular for it, yes. But we suspect Riker actually refers to Absalom Riker—”
“The big crime boss on Rimmon?”
Trin allowed the interruption. “Yes. As far as personal history, beyond that rumor, I got no hits at all.”
Nick grunted. A contemplative grunt.
“So we know almost nothing reliable about her, other than that she’s quite ambitious, seems to have an unusually high degree of charisma, and a gift for myth-making.”
“No surprise there.” Nick sat up. “I think I’ll call on a fella I know—we worked some cases with him years back. Hell of a nice guy.”
“May I ask? Or is this an entirely private connection?”
“Not at all. It’s Antoine Rathor, Mariwen Rathor’s brother. He’s the lead analyst in OTI.”
“Oh.” Trin was aware that Mariwen had an older brother, but not that he worked in the Terran Office of TransStellar Issues. “Then you’ll be shipping out directly.”
“I reckon so. Fred Yu asked me to do him a favor if I chanced to be out that way soon—this is a good time to oblige him.”
Trin sat up as well and reached for her shoes. “Take care of yourself, Nick.”
“Gotta. Can’t stick anyone else with that job.”
I wouldn’t say that. And she didn’t.
Chapter One: Shadow Trackers
Remember Arroyo!
Northern California Territory;
Western Federal District, Terra, Sol
Antoine Rathor paused with his hand on the entry pad of Mariwen's room and turned back a second time. There in the bed lay Mariwen, asleep and looking so peaceful that it was next to impossible to reconcile with what he knew of her actual state. Beside the bed sat their mother, her long, dark gray hair, shot through with a wide silver streak, unbound so that it fell about her small frame like a cloak, holding his sister’s hand in both of hers.
“Are you sure there is nothing else I can get you?” he inquired, keeping his voice just above a murmur.
Amari Rathor twisted to face him, keeping a hold on Mariwen’s hand. Her face, its contours formed by a lifelong habit of cheerfulness that even the past two years had not been able to fully erase, was still remarkably smooth for all her years. Now, it wore a pensive smile.
“We are quite fine, I think.” Her voice was light and musical, its lilting intonation, which inclined to singsong, so much like Mariwen’s and so unlike his own. “No need to trouble yourself further.”
“Not even a last cup of chai?” He smiled as he offered it, as if part of an old and cherished play.
His mother dipped her head; her dark shining eyes could still produce an impish gleam. “Not even a last cup of chai.”
“As you wish.” His tone became more conversational. “I’ll be in Simla through the day after tomorrow. Then I’m at the office all next week and will return here for the weekend.”
“Of course, dear”—with a motherly bow of the head.
“Is there anything from the house I can get you?” Their mother lived in Simla, in the brightly painted two-story house with a steeply peaked red roof where he and Mariwen had both been born.
“Not that I can think.”
“Call if you do.”
“Certainly, dear. You should go before it gets any later. And try not to worry so much. It will be as it will be.”
Things usually are. But Antoine just smiled and stepped through the room’s doorway with a parting nod, closing it by hand as gently as possible.
“Everything quite alright, sir?” asked the night attendant at the front desk.
“Perfectly, Carol. I’ll be back weekend after next. Have a good week.”
“You also, sir. Of course, we’ll notify you immediately if there is the slightest change.”
“Thank you, Carol. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, sir.”
He palmed open the two armored doors of the reinforced entrance and stepped into the garden outside, the stars overhead glimmering through the security enclosure. Taking out his xel, he tapped up his escort.
“Evening, sir,” the man answered. “All correct?”
“Yes, thank you, Watts. Everything in order?”
“Signed, sealed and delivered, sir. The flyer’s warmed up and waiting. The bots are up, all is green, and we can promise you clear air from here to Simla.”
“Very good.”
“Sure you wouldn’t like some company on this jaunt?”
It was unusual for Antoine to pilot himself on these flights, but tonight he just wanted to be alone. Besides, it wouldn’t do to become over-reliant on others. “Not this time, thank you.”
“Very good, sir. Lyllith and Sean are standing by at the other end.”
“Excellent. Anything else?”
“Just this—a call came through for you about an hour ago. Unregistered device but looks clean. Said it was a Mr. Taliaferro.”
“Nikolai Taliaferro?”
“No first name. I put it under query and hold. Would you like me to release it, sir?”
“Route it to me in my car.”
“Wilco, sir.”
“Goodnight, Watts.”
“Have a nice flight, sir.”
Crossing the garden in the enclosure’s eerie greenish-purple light, he popped the hatches of his groundcar and slid into the driver’s compartment. Sealing them, he tapped the car’s console to life while the engines warmed up. The call was there, and a trace showed it as originating from Colombo, of all places. Of course, if it was Nick Taliaferro and he was calling for the reason Antoine thought he was, that was no guarantee of anything. He listened to the message, ran a print on it, and the system produced an opinion that it was a live voice and the speaker was who he claimed to be.
He took out his xel, brought up the contact screen and pressed CALL.
Nick answered almost immediately. The call automatically locked in secure mode, but only at the most basic encryption level. Nick wasn’t using his own device then. It was probably a resort line—a lot of them provided unregistered devices to give their guests a false sense of privacy.
“Hello Nick. You appear to be in Sri Lanka.”
“I know. It was Ceylon last time I was here. They seem to have a devil of a time making up their minds.”
Loralynn Kennakris 3: Asylum Page 50