Gates of Hell (20 page)

“Style,” he said to the image in the mirror next to the large closet, “is everything.” The sick face gazing back at him told him he was crazy. He turned from it, and kicked a pile of discarded clothing out of his way. For a moment, he stared down as shirts of bright silk and heavier black material scattered themselves into a different pattern on the carpeted deck. “What am I doing here?” It was like living in a kaleidoscope.

Get on with it
, he ordered himself.
Your life’s not over yet. Take your few hours and use them. Get rid of Kith, at least
. He took a step.

Music filled the room, his head, poured through his soul.

“What’s that you’re playing?” Pilsane questioned. “It’s not familiar.”

Linch lifted his head slowly, fingers still moving across the strings. The music became softer, sadder. Linch’s long face was partly obscured by the fall of his hair. “A lament for the dying.”

Pilsane nodded. “I’ve been hoping what I’d heard about Orlinian games was wrong.”

“So has our stubborn captain.” Linch’s hands stopped moving. In the silence he held the ligret close to his chest, fingers tense on the shining, inlaid surface. “I keep feeding symptoms into the med computer. It keeps telling me the same thing. Whatever happens to him, we find Axylel. Find out what he knows.”

If he expected an argument from Pilsane, he didn’t get it. “Agreed.”

“But then what?”

Pyr took a second step toward the door as the telepathic images faded from his mind. He was definitely going to have to kill Kith for them.

———

He found Kith seated at the bridge’s comm station. Tinna perched beside him on the edge of the panel. Her long, shapely legs were stretched toward the railing across from the station; silver-tipped black hair framed her dark, high-cheekboned face. Pyr valued her considerable skill in information management. Linch would need her. So he paused as he approached Kith, considering how best to separate the Leaguer from a valuable crew member. He would rather make the necessary attack somewhere other than the bridge. He wanted to do as little damage as possible to the ship; once the agreement with Pirate League was broken, repairs and replacement parts would be harder to come by.

He sighed in reaction to the pain lancing through him, and wondered what had happened to his fiery temper and reputation for impulsive behavior. He didn’t know why he didn’t just say to hell with consequences and jump the filthy League bastard. He leaned his head back against the door frame. The hat tipped back on his head.

He was still standing indecisively just inside the entrance to the bridge when Kith’s head came up sharply from the communication’s sensor. “New contact!”

Mik moved swiftly down from the engineering station to peer into the helm sensor. “Indeed we do.” He rubbed his big hands together vigorously. “There’s a second ship following the same trail we are. Can now confirm that there are ships at the end of those sensor trails.”

Tinna whirled around to work at her station. After a moment, she announced, “I’ve got an ID on the larger ship that’s stalking our smaller target. That’s Rike Bruis’s ship.”

“Rich and stupid, as I recall,” Pyr noted.

“I’ve got a plant on board Bruis’s ship,” She smiled at Pyr. “Acquired four months ago. An engineering tech. Did the implant with my own hands, Captain.”

“I’m sure he enjoyed it.”

She preened. Tinna ran a string of implanted informers on quite a few Bucon ships, people who were well-paid for information—and might also someday hear a little code buzzing in their ears. A code that would tell them it was time to betray their ship to the
Raptor
. Or have their head explode if they didn’t.

“You interested in joining this party, Captain?” Mik asked.

Pyr had to bite his tongue to keep from saying no. He glanced over at Kith. The Leaguer would be sure to want in on any boarding party. Pyr recalled that Kith’s personal shield had been slow in responding when he’d tossed him out of the command seat. Perhaps there was a weakness in the device, or Kith’s Rust addiction made him careless with maintenance. Pyr did know that Kith’s greed would make him vulnerable when plundering another ship, open to distraction, ambush. Surely an accident could be arranged for him during a raid.

“ETA on when the big fish catches the smaller one?”

“Forty minutes at most. We can overtake the big fish two hours after that at current speed.”

Pyr stepped down to take the command chair. “I’m interested.” After a moment’s thought he added, “Let’s make our move a little sooner. Increase speed to overtake the raider while it’s busy with the other ship. Put us on top of it in an hour.”

“Aye, Captain.”

A whoop of joy went up from the crew as Mik sent out a call for Linch and Pilsane to come to the bridge. Kith added a ship wide announcement. “Boarding parties, stand by.”

The eagerness in his voice was music to Pyr’s ringing ears. Which hurt. He leaned back in the comfortable chair and closed his eyes. “Wake me up when we have something to kill,” he told the engineer.

———

I never asked you to walk on water.

A confused stranger’s voice mumbled the words in his ear.

You can if you want, but I won’t care.

Not mumbled, sang.

Don’t you hate it when you can’t get a song you don’t even like out of your head?

Some strange woman singing in his head didn’t help the pain any.

Pyr opened his eyes, and struggled upright in the high-backed chair. Even moving slowly and carefully, he could feel the energy drain from him with every small movement. Energy that would never return. He had slept, though it could not have been long, and he found it hard to fight off the dregs of a dream of a singing woman. A quick glance around showed him the bridge crew at their stations, their attention intently focused. A look at the view screen and the row of smaller datascreens surrounding it revealed the two ships they’d followed clearly before them, linked by the thin umbilical of a boarding tube. He saw that the
Raptor
was very nearly in position.

Linch looked over his shoulder from the helm. “Have a nice nap?”

“Were you going to wake me up for the fight?”

Linch shrugged. “You looked comfortable.”

Their gazes locked. “I know what I look like.”

How long have I been out this time?

The thought did not belong to him, or to Linch. Pyr put his hand to his head. “Did you hear that?”

“What?” several voices responded, Mik, Linch, and Pilsane among them.

He accepted that he was hallucinating again and tried to ignore it. “Status?” he asked the anxiously watching bridge crew. One by one they reported that Bruis’s ship was aware of their presence, weapons were being brought to bear on them, and that the
Raptor
was ready for action. At another time he might have found it all mildly exciting. “Activate your little friend, Tinna.”

There was a brief wait while Tinna worked touchpads and waited, an intense look of concentration on her exotic face. Then data-boards all over the bridge began to show changes. “He’s in,” she announced triumphantly.

“Shields disabled on the slaver,” Pilsane announced one of the data readouts.

“Weapons systems down to 30% power,” Kith reported. “Power loss doesn’t register on Bruis’s monitors.”

“Confirmed,” Linch said after thoroughly checking his own sensors. “We have their balls, Captain.”

Pilsane stretched, clasping his hands lazily behind his head. “I like this system. So much less bothersome than nasty, wasteful, space battles.”

“Then you can lead the boarding party,” Pyr told the navigator. Kith growled at losing the assignment he coveted. “Don’t worry,” he added to the Leaguer. “You’ll be going to the party.” He leaned forward, pretending to be intent on the screen when all he actually saw was a dark blur. His vision came back in a few seconds. Next time he knew it wouldn’t come back at all. “Mik?”

He heard a series of clicks from the engineering station. “We’re open.”

“Pilsane.”

The navigator was instantly out of his chair. “Yes, sir?”

Pyr leaned back, using the back of the chair to tip his hat over his face. “Have fun.” He didn’t bother adding that he’d be joining the boarding party himself in a few minutes.

I
am
awake. Where are we now? Looks like a cell. Oh, it is. Slavers. Our situation has not improved, I see. What charming company we keep. What next, lawyers
?

“Pirates,” Pyr answered. He opened his eyes. “Demons!” The bridge was nearly empty. The presence was still inside his head. She was—

Pirates?

—Special.

“Captain?” The question came from Tinna, now manning the helm console.

Pyr grunted his way to his feet. He stared at the image of the slaver ship hanging in the center of the view screen. Time had passed. A mind intruded on his and—

His interest in killing Kith was forgotten. It took all his strength to pull his dead arm out his coat pocket and activate the bracelet’s comm button. “Report.”

“Boarding parties on bridge and engineering,” Pilsane responded instantly. “Minimum resistance. Linch is questioning Bruis. Three casualties—theirs. Rest of ship complement secured and locked in the main hold. Pair of captives from the other ship locked in one of the chattel cells. Slim fare, Captain. At least we have salvage on the two vessels.”

Pyr closed his eyes, seeking through the ragged holes in his shielding. Over there—so strong. He easily picked out the mental signatures of his own kind. Pilsane and Mik were blanked, attention squarely on business. Linch’s mind was linked to the slaver captain, stripping him clean. It was there on the ship with them, shielded now but too powerful to hide from him, not when all his defenses and mental guards gone, the mental energy that was his soul exposed. He could not protect himself from
knowing
there was
something
.

“I’m not dreaming it.” Gold. Precious. Pulse of life. “I’m coming over.”

The worry in the other man’s voice and in his thoughts was raw, painful to Pyr. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Stand by.”

A deep sigh issued out of the comm. “Yes, sir. Standing by.”

———

“Can you stand?”

Pyr caught himself with his good hand before his face hit the deck. Taylre was waiting for him by the Door. The crewman touched Pyr’s shoulder, but backed off at a warning glance.

Pyr climbed to his feet. Through a fog of blurred vision he made out that he was in a common room. His nose had nearly come in contact with a dark blue carpet when he fell through the Door.

“It hurts,” he whispered, closing his burning eyes against the light and Taylre’s gaping face.

She opened her eyes. “I’m hungry.”

“Me, too.” Martin was staring at his reflection in a shiny bulkhead, long legs folded beneath him on the narrow cot across from hers. “Honey,” he said, bemused. “I’ve been thinking.”

How nice
—
being able to think. “It’s crowded in here,” she said, rubbing her temples
.

“They didn’t give us the luxury suite this trip.”

She pointed to her head. “No. In here.”

“I’ve been thinking,” he repeated. He pointed to the reflection in the bulkhead. “That’s not my face.” He looked at her.

She peered closely at him. “Looks like your face to me.”

He shook his head slowly. His expression held fond annoyance. “How old am I, Roxanne?”

“I don’t know. Older than me.”

He nodded.

“
He’s very rude
—
big and lumpy and in the way. Bad tempered, too. Go away. I’m hungry, Martin
.”

He pointed at himself. “This body is seventeen, tops. I was seventeen when we met.”

“I remember. You wouldn’t let me hang around the Belt because I was too young.”

“Twelve was way too young for a pretty girl to be there. Reine should have known better. Strutter and Sting, what a pair you two were.” He looked back at his reflection. “I’ve been wondering why they call me a pretty boy.”

“You are.”

“
I was. I’m an extremely handsome man
—
mature, well-aged, as it were. Or I was… until koltiri Shirah the younger fixed me. I think you did more to me than heal the Sag Fever. Didn’t you
?”

“Why is he so interested? Yes, I’m koltiri. What’s it to you?”

Martin went on doggedly. “I know you’re a koltiri. But why’d you make me younger?”

“Oh, that. I couldn’t help it. You were dying. I had to be thorough, didn’t I?”

“You do that with every healing?”

“
No. Sag Fever confuses me, sometimes. You’re only the second one I’ve screwed up on
—
and I just put you back the way I remembered you
.”

He shook his head. “Thanks, Sting. But I look like a kid. Do you know the kind of teasing I’m going to get at home?” He looked worried. “These slaver’s probably going to sell me into a harem.”

“I don’t feel good, Martin.”

“As a guard.” He moved to her cot and held her close. “You’re doing better, hon,” he soothed. “Almost have your brain back most of the time. Pretty soon you’ll be able to pop out of here.”

“Not without you. Besides, it makes me throw up. There’s something very nasty coming this way. That’s the big bad wolf out there.” She pressed herself closer to him. “Don’t answer the door, okay?”

There was a pale blue of the chattel hold bulkhead in front of him when he expected shiny metal, and an odd notion of huffing and puffing to blow a door down swam briefly through his head before Pyr realized that he was contained within himself once more. The door was there, though. He’d followed the mental scent to where the woman and boy were curled up together on the cot in the small cell beyond the door. He remembered little of the images, thoughts, and words he’d gathered when he pushed his way into her mind. But he remembered the important thing.