allies and enemies 02 - rogues (37 page)

The simpler solution would be to neutralize Corsair and assume control of the vessel. Certainly if this primate could operate the tech, then they could as well.

Jon blew out beleaguered sigh. “Ty, let him do the plotting.”

Sela clenched her jaw. There was no talking him out of this. He had closed up.

“Fine.” With quiet anger, she pushed the navsys back to face Corsair. “But I watch all of it.”

“Sweetling, you can watch anything you want.” His lecherous tone made her wonder what breaking his jaw would sound like. “It’s only fair after I saw yours.”

Of course, he was still fixated on having seen her partially clothed. Raised in a gender-mixed group since birth, Sela held none of the concerns on modesty that the conscripts or Kindred held. In fact, it seemed to bother Jon more that another man had seen her shirtless. Ridiculous. Did he think her squad had showered with their utilities on?

Jon placed a hand on Corsair’s shoulder: “I wouldn’t talk to her like that. Not a good idea.”

Sela stretched a vulpine grin at him.

87

Jon, the things that I do for you.

Sela leaned against the doorway to what would have been the bunkroom on their own Cass. She recognized something like a homesick twinge.

The darkened room inside had been reconfigured. There was a wide pallet-style bed on a raised platform. Jon slept sprawled across the covers. The moment they were underway, slipping into the strange space created by the jdrive device, Jon had wandered in here to collapse.

She watched the steady rise and fall of his chest. The light picked out the perfect angle of his jaw and the handsome profile she had committed to memory. A simple nameless warmth flooded out all reason when it came to him.

The coincidental appearance of Corsair perturbed her. He had intervened on Jon’s behalf. It was very likely that Koenii’s play would have been to hold Jon hostage for the return of the funds or to ensure Sela’s compliance. To Corsair, she felt no gratitude or sense of obligation. Only hostility. The half-breed was far too pleased with himself. He would bear watching. Her impulse was to eliminate him. Even if he were not a threat now, she had seen little evidence that his motivations were entirely noble. Corsair told her that the jdrive reduced a weeklong trip with multiple flexer changes to a journey of just over sixteen hours. Sela would keep watch during every moment of that.

Erelah. Even resurrected, you do more damage.

The girl reemerged like a collapsed star, invisible, but exuding an undeniable force on everything that wandered too close to it. It was her involvement with Ravstar that had been the catalyst for Jon’s branding as traitor and Sela’s subsequent defection.

Erelah. Always Erelah.
Even when she was presumed dead, she had a way of being the third person in the room. Her silent ghost witnessed every argument, every loving exchange.

And now, magically resurrected, she exuded her influence from the other end of the Reaches. Again, she pulled them in a new and reckless direction.

Hope had found a means to infect Jon once more. That old Jon of strange buoyancy and ready laughter had begun to resurface in pieces, delicate as the new flesh over a wound. Sela feared what was on the horizon would crush it. In turn, she would destroy anything that threatened this man.

Let the bad things come. Let them try. They will have to deal with me.

PART X

88

Erelah faced the flat gray sky and tried to imagine summer’s warmth. After Asher’s departure, autumn had settled into the region insidiously, the days growing cooler and shorter.

A gust of wind charged her. She shrank deeper into the heavy folds of his jacket. It was enormous on her. It smelled of him; somehow that made it warmer.

She was not supposed to leave the bunker. Picus would rail at her when she returned—about being exposed out in the weather, genetics barely stitched together. Degradation held in check with his patient doctoring.

Erelah wanted—
needed—
to get out of that cave with its thick metal walls and flat, recycled air. Especially this morning. She did not intend to go far. She felt too tired to venture past the small clearing at the mouth of the bunker’s entrance.

The place, for all of the homey touches and decadent foods supplied by Kelta, was a prison, and Erelah had seen her fill of that. At first, her trips to the splicer’s secure keep were supposed to be periodic, to receive the treatments. However, news had spread of a bounty placed on a young woman bearing her description and the sighting of mercs had become nearly a daily occurrence. Kelta’s home was no longer a safe harbor. Therefore, in the bunker Erelah remained, counting more days of feeling her illness grow than fade.

Picus was a reluctant host. It was no secret he preferred being on his own. For all of his respect and perhaps poorly veiled affection for Kelta, he was an inept to all others. Erelah’s presence made him nervous, which resulted in his withdrawing to various “projects” that required his attention. When they did interact, he had an unnatural and annoying knack of telling her exactly what she did not want to hear. His observations were seldom restricted to less volatile subjects. Picus often launched into conversations without preamble. It made it easier for Erelah to understand why he was the recluse he was; no one would willingly seek out his company.

In the early days of her confinement, Erelah had explored the overflowing workbenches of his sanctum. Only half of the equipment she understood; the remainder was eerily familiar from the time she had spent in Tristic’s medlabs. She avoided those spaces.

Perhaps he
knew
.

He was always examining specimens of her blood. Asking all manner of prying questions.

He had been especially callous this morning.

“How can such a bright girl hold such misguided faith in that boy?” he muttered, leaning over the contents of a cargo bin, digging through the chaotic piles of junked tech. A comment meant to be overheard. By
boy
he meant Asher, of course.

Erelah did not look up from the centuries-old schematics of an atmospheric runner. It was a beautiful vessel, classic design, and a discovery that would have ordinarily elated her. But her head pounded. That morning’s meal, like the others of the past few days, did not want to simply stay down. His latest provocation was not helping her mood.

“I trust him. That is sufficient, Mr. Picus.” She tried to be polite to him, for Kelta’s sake. He was so tiresome and curmudgeonly.

Picus grunted to himself and stopped rummaging. There was a victorious rattle as he found whatever he’d been seeking. “Your brave hero is already three weeks overdue.”

Not the only thing overdue.

“He’ll return. I know it.” Erelah kept her voice even. “Any day. Hadelia has many large settlements.”

“You’ve been saying that since Kelta moved you in here.” He gestured randomly with the broken tech device in hand. “Lady Veradin, it’s quite possible he will not return.”

“What makes you think
you
can judge him?” she shot back, suddenly furious.

“It’s not a
judgment
. It is
fact
. Send a man, alone, out there amid that black and death. All the best intentions in the Known Worlds mean nothing to the reality of the matter.”

“When I wish your insights, Mr. Picus, I will ask them,” Erelah hissed. “Excuse me.”

She did not wait for more of a response. Rising swiftly enough to upset her chair, she stalked back to the tiny room she had been using as a bedroom. She held her anger in check and did not slam the door. When she came back out, he was gone. This past week, he had taken to shutting himself away with some engrossing project in one of the side rooms. The door to it was always locked. This suited Erelah just fine.

For now, she just wanted a sky above her head instead of the overhanging press of rock. The anxiousness was still there, the worry. Picus’s needling had not helped it.

Black and death.

Asher, please be safe. I need you here, especially now.

She shut her eyes, feeling the tears build. It was easier to do this out here. There was no way she was going to cry in front of Picus. When she opened them, she nearly collided with a tiny blond shape.

Mim.
Erelah made a stumbling side step. “What are you doing here?”

The girl did nothing in the way of offering an apology. She turned her maroon eyes up at Erelah. Dressed in a thin tunic over leggings, the child did not seem bothered by the new onset of cold weather.

“You’re not ‘posed to be outside without no one.” Mim folded her arms and sank her weight onto one foot.

Erelah stooped to the girl’s-eye view. “And I thought I told you not to follow me. It’s not polite.”

Mim raised a delicate eyebrow. “Miss Kelta said this was special circus…circle…”

“Circumstance?” Erelah finished, sighing.

The girl gave an enthusiastic nod.

Mim canted her head, tiny mouth puckered in thought. She looked her up and down.

“What is it?”

“Your colors look all funny…wrong-like.” She waved her hands, fingers wriggling.

“Wrong?” Erelah stiffened. Mim was not Neesa, and Fates-willing would never abuse her talents that way. In fact, she’d forged a strange kinship with the child. They both had abilities, different in nature. For the child it was a basic matter of her existence, part of her, like a limb. Not a cruel trick that had been forced upon her.

What would it be like, to be born that way, and to not have your life wedged into a shape it was not meant for?

“I mean in the wrong places. You have colors over your tummy.” Mim patted Erelah’s stomach in a playful motion. “Like when momma—”

“Kelta sent you to find me, then?” Erelah pivoted, pulling Asher’s coat closed. A quick glance told her the air was free of the surveillance bot Picus used to guard the approach to the keep. But Fates knew what else the paranoid man employed out here to eavesdrop.

“And the mech-man.” Mim’s nose wrinkled. It was plain she also held little regard for the splicer. “It’s important.”

Erelah’s heart pushed into her throat. “Has Asher sent word?”

The girl wound her hand into Erelah’s gloved one and tugged her back to the entrance. “Not yet.”

The elation evaporated.

Mim gave her a sharp look. “Don’t be sad. It’s a bad color on you.” She tugged harder. “Come on.”

89

Kelta waited in the entrance to the bunker. Her plain brown wimple fluttered in the icy wind. The signature mirth was gone as she hugged her elbows against the cold. Erelah need not employ the Sight to realize that something was wrong.

Her ribs knit. She was always glad to see Kelta, but today she guessed would be an exception. Her anxiety freshened.

Do they know? I’ve been so careful…

“Come in from this weather!” She shooed Mim inside with a gentle swat and faced Erelah.

“What is it?”

Kelta pursed her lips. “Come. Let’s get you warm.” She slipped an arm around Erelah’s shoulders.

Warm was not a problem. Lately her body could not seem to decide what temperature it wanted to be. One moment she froze to the bone. The next her skin seemed to boil away.

She allowed Kelta to guide her deeper into the organized chaos of the vault.

A mechanical hum announced Picus’s approach from the direction of his “special project.” He wheeled around the corner of an overburdened shelving unit. There was an eagerness to him that Erelah found instinctively repugnant.

“Well?” He regarded Kelta, impatient. “Have you told her?”

“Told me what?” A prickling sensation moved across her scalp. Her pulse quickened. “You’re scaring me.”

“There’s nothing to be frightened of, dear.” Kelta reached out to pat Erelah in a comforting gesture.

A decision had been made
about
her. A hard one. Kelta bore the burden of speaking it.

“Then tell me.”

“Perhaps if we simply show her,” Kelta said to Picus. With an irritated huff, he pivoted his chair. It rolled out of sight around the corner, in the direction of the small locked workroom.

“Kelta?” Her throat tightened.

“Come.” Kelta pulled her along. Erelah followed.

The room was frigid. A rectangular box, its sides coated in frost, practically filled the space. Resting on its longest side, it was big enough to house a body. Like a crypt. This was what that horrid man was working on. The icy air seemed to coat her throat.

Kelta bowed her head as tears glimmered in her eyes.

“What is this?” Erelah swallowed. Her words came out with small puffs of steam.

But she knew. Although she had never used one, she had seen schematics of them employed by long-haulers from the era of sub drives, when travel meant decades between systems.

A coldsleep box.

They had fallen out of use with the adoption of velo tech. Now they could only be found on EEVs or ship infirmaries, where they were used to preserve the terminally ill to prolong life and suspend any further progress of disease.

“I’ve run the numbers. It does not look good,” Picus launched. He prodded at an interface, intent on the information he saw there. “You’ve got days, perhaps.”

“Lecco!” Kelta admonished. She turned to Erelah. “If there were any other way, dear girl…”

“You want me to go into coldsleep?” Her body felt numb. It was as if she were already wrapped in that frigid miniature death.

“It’s more efficient than that barbaric mechanism. It’s a specialized system. I had to tinker to fit your…species. Human metabolism differs somewhat from Eugenes. Less efficient.” He prattled on. The pride that filled his voice only made Erelah’s skin crawl. He was looking at her like a lab animal again, an interesting project. “Once I configured the—”

“How long?” Erelah snapped. She stepped up to its side. An oblong portal of thick glass showed a padded interior lit with dim blue. She shuddered at the thought of being sealed in the tiny space with only the darkness as company.