“You can’t always see them, that’s what Sister Berri told me. They grow them from that light they use to kill people. She says they’re shape-shifters. Like Gregor said.”
I leaned my palms on her desk. “Dorsie. Ren is harmless. He reads empathic emotional resonances. It’s like seeing a rainbow around your body. That’s the only thing he can do. I swear to you.”
“I want to believe that, Chaz. But if there are shape-shifters, and if they look like jukors—”
“If Ren were a shape-shifting jukor, I’d help Berri kill him.” I didn’t know how to make myself any plainer. I couldn’t believe Dorsie thought those old scare tales were true.
“Ren couldn’t shape-shift if he wanted to,” said a voice tiredly behind me. Sully leaned against Dorsie’s office doorway. “He’s not going to sprout wings. But he’s also not going to demand you be his friend. That’s something you’re going to have to offer yourself.”
Dorsie nodded, then straightened a stack of datatabs on her desk, not meeting my gaze. “Yeah, you’re right. Thanks.”
I followed Sully out. “How’s Ren?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets, struggled with his emotions. I knew the animosity directed at Ren disturbed him deeply. Finally, he let out a short, frustrated sigh. “Upset but trying to be his usual placid self. He’d heard, like we all had, only good things about Sister Berri Solaria. No one warned us she was a religious fanatic.”
“She isn’t, to her own people.”
“Agreed.” He headed for engineering. Aubry’s desk was empty. “I had Verno call him up to the bridge to recalibrate something minor,” he said when I glanced toward Aubry’s station. “I have to recalibrate something major.”
Primary codes. Sully was changing the Karn’s primaries.
“What happened?”
He glanced up from the console. “I saw Gregor talking to Berri Solaria.”
There were three ways to access the Karn’s primaries. From the bridge, from engineering, and from the console in Sully’s cabin. He wasn’t taking any chances. He’d already been to the bridge.
We went back to his cabin, recoded the primaries for the third and final time. Sully and I now were the only ones who could initiate a course change, send any outgoing transmits, take the ship through a jumpgate. Gregor was no doubt going to react to the latter. But as we had only one jumpgate between here and Marker, it wasn’t an argument we’d have to repeat.
“Verno told me he didn’t know Berri long enough to talk in detail about families. He met her at services, ship blessings. They discussed music or meditation methods.”
Sully keyed in a request for a mug of tea, then paced in front of the couch. “It was Ren’s idea to use Verno to help get answers from the Taka, who wouldn’t always talk to either of us. Drogue approved. But Verno’s a monk. He’s not trained, he’s not used to how I work. He wasn’t even supposed to be here this run.”
I remembered Berri saying she’d expected Verno to be at Peyhar’s with her. “Maybe once he speaks to her, she’ll calm down.”
He sipped his tea. “She just has to get us through the shipyard main terminal. That’s all I’m asking. After that, she can go perform purity rites on every damned dock in the yards for all I care.”
“We’ve only got six more hours to jump. And thirty-six after that to Marker. We’ll make it.”
I took the Karn into jump. The ship, as expected, performed beautifully. Her crew, less so.
Gregor was off the bridge. Sully admitted the only reason he was even on board was because once Sully, Ren, and myself went into the shipyards, someone still had to pilot the ship, come back, and get us at meetpoint. It was too risky to leave the Karn at Marker Terminal. Which meant codes would have to be amended, again. Which meant we had to trust Gregor to come back and get us.
To avoid further incidents, Ren voluntarily confined himself to his cabin.
I had yet to notice Dorsie visit him. I avoided Berri. Her sweetness now seemed simpering; her innocence, arrogant. But Gregor and Aubry didn’t seem to feel that. She flirted quite openly with them, I noted with surprise. In a sweet and innocent way, of course. Yet she had very little to do with Verno. He was tainted, probably, by his friendship with Ren.
Her attitude toward Sully vacillated. She persisted in calling him Brother Sudral, as if she needed to remind him what he’d once been. She seemed to want him to ally himself with her. Renounce his worldly ways. She said her meditations clearly showed her that she was on a holy mission. And that Sully, and the jukors at Marker, were a part of that. But she was also dismissive of him. He was, after all, no longer one of her lofty peers.
We came out of jump no happier than when we went in. Except for Berri Solaria, handing out blessings.
Thirty-two hours to Marker.
It was bedtime, but both of us were too keyed up to be tired. We’d left Verno and Marsh on the bridge, then retired to our cabin because if we didn’t get some sleep we’d be in no shape to face whatever waited for us at Marker. Sully was restless, pacing the cabin, fiddling with a stack of chart disks. I handed him my hairbrush as a means to distract him. He accepted it, kneeling behind me in the middle of the bed as he brushed out my hair.
“Are Englarian clergy celibate?”
The brush slowed and I heard something that was a cross between a sigh and a wry chuckle of laughter. After what had happened in the past few hours, his chuckle was a welcome sound. “Still thinking about that?”
“Don’t you know?”
“I only peek when necessary and when I have your permission.”
“Then maybe I’m not asking about you. Berri’s been getting rather friendly with Gregor.”
“Jealous?”
I flailed my arm behind me and somehow managed to cuff him on the shoulder.
“Settle down, you wicked woman. I think she’s looking to convert him. Bedding him would mean breaking her vows.”
“Then celibacy is a part of the vows?”
A few long strokes of the brush preceded his answer. “Yes.”
Surprise rippled through me and I knew he felt it. I wanted to make sure he felt it. Little by little, I tried to use more nonverbal means to communicate with him. Let him know, in my own way, that I was comfortable with the hidden part of Gabriel Ross Sullivan. Hoping maybe if I was, he would be.
“And, yes, they were part of mine too,” he added, to my unasked question.
“Why?” Sully was a naturally sensual person. A touch person, always with a hand on my arm or at my waist. Celibacy seemed totally uncharacteristic. “Don’t tell me it was because some painting told you to be.”
“Okay. I won’t.” He ran his fingers through my hair.
“Sully …”
“My parents have an estate in Sylvadae.”
As did a handful of other exorbitantly wealthy people, like the emperor. “So?”
“It was staffed by Takas.”
“Englarians?”
“They’d take me to services.”
“Your parents didn’t mind?”
“My parents weren’t around.” There was a derisive note in his voice.
I’d seen holovids of some of the mansions in Sylvadae. And pictured, for the first time, a young boy all alone. Going to Englarian services, hearing about demonic mind talents and unholy lights. And waking up one morning to find rainbows coursing over his body.
I clasped the hand that absently toyed with my hair and held it tightly. I sent love, approval. Not pity. “Did you join the church as a gesture to the Takas who looked after you?”
“Partly. I think I felt that since they cared about me, their beliefs must be the right ones. Even though they didn’t know what I was.”
“A Ragkiril.” He hated the word. I felt something go cold in him whenever I said it. It was that which damned him. What Berri called the darkness inside him. I still couldn’t understand why.
“I took it as a sign. A cure. If I were devout enough, the abbot would remove this
curse from me.”
I brought his arm around my waist and leaned against him. “Then where would I be? Unhappily married to Philip? Dying on Moabar? Horrified with myself, because I’d killed Kingswell and Tessa Paxton? And maybe worst of all, I would’ve watched Ren die of fluid shock and been unable to do anything.”
He rested his face against the top of my head but said nothing. Then suddenly he sent something through me I’d never felt from him before. A growing, out-flowing sense of respite, a thawing, a cleansing. Like starlight, bursting through a clouded night sky.
“Should I list more?” I asked softly.
Yes. For the first time since the Loviti incident, his voice was in my mind. Gentle. Shamed. Needy. But strong, full of a sincerity and pride. A pride that needed the knowledge that he had done the right thing. Especially after all the hatred he’d felt aimed at Ren. And because of Ren, at himself.
“Where would I be without you to love me? To make me crazy because you send these fireworks through me with your thoughts? Other women must have told you—”
“Just you. No one else.”
“You never …”
“Not sharing my emotions, touching someone’s, no.” He hesitated. You have all of me. All that I am is yours.
His voice in my mind was as clear as if he’d spoken out loud. It didn’t frighten me. I understood what he told me and why he was telling me this way. Not just Sully’s body, but his mind. More than that. His trust. And my trust, in that I didn’t fear what he was. That I loved him with all that he was.
That he loved me enough to trust me with all that he was.
Like a ship sliding toward the edge of a jumpgate, we’d cautiously approached this point where love and trust and faith merged. We could only pass through it together. That was his offer. All of him. For all of me.
“You can have all of me too. Every last whirlwind in there, if you want it.”
He pushed my hair to one side, nuzzled his face into my shoulder. Breathed. Sent warm rushes in and over me. Tingles. Heat. But still he held back something.
I want. Desperately I want this with you, Chasidah. Angel. But this is a very deep link. You must be sure.
“I am.”
We have time. Just knowing you’re willing is enough for me.
“But not for me. I want all of you.”
He groaned softly. His hands stroked, caressed, explored me outwardly while warmth began to build, pulse. I pushed him down on the bed and stroked him in return. My mouth caressed a fire on his body.
His mind sent me his passion, mixed it with my own. Blended it, hard fire with sweet fire. I felt something stronger than the warmth that always flowed through my veins at his touch.
It felt molten. Yet it was incredibly delicate, like the whisper of a flame. It traced and retraced every inch of my body as if he knew me, yet didn’t.
Because he didn’t. This wasn’t Sully the mercenary. This was Gabriel Ross Sullivan, touching with gentle fervency the edges of my mind with his own as we made love. Then slowly, going deeper, claiming everything I was as his own. It was as if his breath was mine, the beating of his heart was mine.
I relaxed into his strength, his power. And I invited him in.
Not yet, Chasidah-angel.
He rolled on top of me, all hard male, heated skin. That made me shift my focus outward, to the physical. I could smell the soap from his shower, clean and slightly salty, like the taste of him.
I wrapped my legs around him, took his mouth as he entered me, but it was slow. Very slow. Long, hard, and deliriously slow.
I arched against him. Waves of heat built, threatened to crash. He held me, poised, almost breathless …
Then body sensations and mind sensations merged, collided with a rush of incredible pleasure. I was soaring. Felt him soaring, rising. Felt as if a thousand wings beat against my skin, inside my skin, inside my heart.
I felt his passion crest as if it were my own. It was my own, flowing into his. Flowing from him. For a moment I glimpsed my own face as if through his eyes, my hair drifting like a cloud around me, down my arms, over his. Behind us and around us, gray fuzzy soft everywhere.
And then gray fuzzy soft exploded into bright silver stars, a thousand, a million. I closed my eyes and still they danced through my lids, sparkling. We plunged through them, clinging to each other. Spiraling upward.
The spiraling slowed. A warm wind rushed over me, past me, around me. Gentling me. Caressing me. I’d felt that wind before, but couldn’t quite remember where.
I heard a sound, a soft hush, softer than our breathing. I’d heard that soft hush before, but couldn’t quite remember when.
The wind caressed me again. Flowed down across my body. Moved up.
I had to know. My eyelids fluttered open. The darkness of Sully’s infinite eyes was all I saw.
“Hush, Chasidah.” He kissed my eyelids closed. “Don’t … don’t look. Just let me love you.”
Warmth again. Caressing me. Surrounding me. Floating with me, rocking me gently. I felt safe. Loved. Incredibly complete. Both of us.
All that I am is yours.
I woke with Sully, warm, behind me. I turned, curled my fists into his chest, and nuzzled my head under his chin.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“Is it that time already?”
“You saw the clock when you turned over.” He laughed quietly.
“Damn.” I sighed theatrically, aware of his gentle presence in my mind. And that he’d seen the clock’s red numbers through my eyes. “Yeah. Coffee.”
Sully and I met Dorsie in the corridor between Gregor’s cabin and Ren’s. She had a pot of coffee in her hand. I hoped it was a good sign.
“How’s Ren?”
“Haven’t seen him yet. Marsh asked me to bring this to the bridge.” She flashed a tight smile and moved past us.
I turned to watch her go. Sully’s hand on my shoulder sent warmth seeping through in small waves. “You tried. I did too. There’s not much more we can do.”
The anguish in his eyes mirrored my own.
Eighteen hours.
28
Marker Shipyards was actually five starports of varying sizes on the fringe of the Aldanthian Drifts, a rich asteroid field that was the source for both metals and fuels. It was surrounded by security beacons and backed up by Fleet security patrols. The beacons would scan you, then warn you.
The security patrols would target you and, if you were lucky, just shoot your engines out so you could live to be interrogated.
Marker-1 was the largest starport, a cylindrical core out from which jutted the larger repair hangars and new-ship bays like thick, ungainly branches on a tree. Marker-2 was smaller, an administrative and residential facility a short shuttle hop from M-1. Commander Thad Bergren lived and worked in M-2. So did more than three hundred other people, both military and civilian. Marker-3 and -4 were secondary residential and repair facilities for smaller ships and less-prestigious workers. Techs, dockworkers, and Takas were usually housed in M-3.
M-5, also called Marker Outer Terminal, hung on the edge. Not dissimilar to Dock Five, it was long, like a mining raft. Three beacons guided us in. They were friendlier than the beacons surrounding the rest of the shipyards.
But then, we also squawked the right entry codes. Winthrop’s Gallant Explorer, in service to the Englarian Church.
I watched the news vids we’d snagged from the latest beacon while we waited for dock space to clear. The Karn, now the Explorer, was a small ship compared to the commercial liners and freighters also queuing for space. We were also, therefore, low priority.
Welcome to Imperial News Watch. Top stories for in-system viewers.
Another mysterious rape and murder in a spaceport in Baris. And another mysterious disk left on the woman’s body.
I flipped off the vid, glanced at the Englarian robes draped over the bed. Brother Sudral and Sister Chadra would accompany Sister Berri through security. Sully was in engineering, maki
ng sure this time my forged medical files were up to date.
I brought up the schematics on Marker-2. I knew the place by heart; I’d grown up there. But there had been some changes in the past few years. Changes I didn’t know about, even when I’d visited Thad. Changes that had built private research labs with Crossley Burke money in a section of M-2 that used to be nothing but storage holds.
It had taken us two weeks of sifting every bit of data we could get, but that’s where we believed the primary jukor labs were.
We didn’t even want to think about the secondary one yet—the one we believed was on a ship, movable, but not yet completed.
We had to start with what we did know. If we were lucky, we’d find evidence filling in the gaps about what we didn’t know.
I reviewed the files Sully had tagged. There might not be another chance after this. My first selection was the vidclip of Hayden Burke at the party. Lazlo was there, in one frame, briefly. Sully had tagged it but I wanted to look for the man on my own, make sure I could pick his face out of a crowd.
I slowed the vid down, scanned it. It was easy to pick out Hayden, even with his back turned. I searched for Lazlo, not seeing him at first. Then I did.
But something else caught my eye, just before that.
Something that flitted through my mind with the briefest recognition, the kind you can’t directly identify but only feel. Not so much the recognition of a face, but of a stance, an arrogant tilt of a chin. A woman talking to Hayden, leaning on his arm, her face upturned. Seduction was all but written on her forehead. She was beautiful, her features highlighted by elaborate makeup, her long honey-blond hair curling at her shoulders. Her slender figure draped in a dress of a rich, shimmery blue fabric.
I was wrong. She didn’t look familiar at all. Maybe it was because her hair color reminded me of Ilsa’s. But that was the only thing that did.
I went back, picked up Lazlo in the vid, and studied him. The vid shifted and I lost him in the crowd, then picked him up again a few minutes later. This time, the blonde in the rich blue dress was just stepping past him, her hand briefly on his shoulder. Her back was to the camera; I couldn’t see her face but I recognized the dress as well as the elegance of her movements.
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