Gates of Hell (23 page)

“I know how you feel,” he told her, and found himself touching her shoulder with a comforting gesture he hadn’t meant to make. He didn’t mean to lie down beside her, either, and put his arms around her to lend her his body warmth. He knew that she didn’t intend to roll over and settle her long frame so naturally against his. The heavy weight of her hair covered them like a blanket. She sighed, the warmth of her breath brushed against his cheek, and caused him to shiver and turn his face quickly away.

When he tried to sit up, she thought,
Didn’t you tell Pilsie you were going to take a nap
?

That was a joke.

You know how to joke, Mr. Titanium shields?

Don’t push me, Roxanne
. He put all the fierce intimidation that was part of his nature into the thought, but he held her closer. Minutes passed, and her silence, the withdrawal of the touch of her mind, disturbed him. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, aware of his loneliness as he had not been for a long time.

When Kristi buzzed the door, he got up and took the tray of food from her. The koltiri remained curled on the bed, wrapped in black leather, too deeply asleep to stir when he set the tray on the table by the bed. The scent of warm meat and hot coffee made his mouth water, and he wondered how long it had been since he’d last eaten. He ended up wolfing down most of the food, standing over the tray like an animal ready to defend its kill, and not bothering with utensils. He did manage to leave Roxanne a small portion of the meat and all of the carafe of coffee.

When he was done, he stretched and smiled, and decided to leave the sleeping woman be for now. The food would be there for her when she woke. No, he owed her better treatment than that. He’d make sure Kristi brought her more food. And fresh linens for the bed, he added, noticing the sour smell of his sickness.

He changed into clothing free of bloody meat drippings before leaving his quarters. He combed out his hair and chose a peacock blue silk shirt and black leather vest. He looked self-confident, gaudy, and utterly Bucon. Linch was waiting outside Pyr’s door, the koltiri’s gangly young companion next to him. The pair of them leaned against the bulkhead, arms crossed, posed with equal, studied casualness. The three of them looked each other over with the merest, casual flick of the eyes. It was a wonder they weren’t all wearing sunglasses. It appeared he wasn’t the only one in a mood to project cool attitude. He knew Roxanne would snicker at the sight of them.

Linch looked Pyr over once more, then graced him with one of his knife-edge smiles. “I told you you needed a woman.”

“Shouldn’t you be on the bridge?” Pyr asked his second in command.

“You told Pilsane to set a course. You didn’t say anything about engaging engines.” Linch stood up straight, not so he could come to attention, but so that he could give a faintly sarcastic shrug. “Been waiting here for your orders, Captain.”

“You’ve been eavesdropping.”

Linch’s smile widened a little. “Trying to.”

Pyr’s gaze flicked to Martin. “What’s he doing here?”

“Real reason I’m here,” Linch admitted. “Boy’s been making a fuss about looking after his sister-in-law. Pilsane said she needed looking after, and you don’t have the time. Martin says it’s his duty to look after her. He claims to be a physician.”

“I’m a doctor. Roxanne’s a Physician. That’s a title in the United Systems. It means—”

“He knows what it means,” Linch interrupted.

Pyr considered quickly. He had ample proof that the koltiri was not the invulnerable goddess of legend. It made sense that she traveled with someone who could care for her after she cared for others. He looked the youngster over critically. Martin looked calmly back, but most of his attention was focused on the woman in the room behind Pyr. Martin did not seem harmless, but Pyr did not sense him to be a threat or challenge to his own possession of the koltiri. Besides, the two were kindred, loyal to each other, but not linked in any way.

Pyr stepped away from the door, opened it, and gestured for Martin to go in. The young man sped inside, and Pyr locked it behind him. He gave his attention to Linch. He fingered the bottle of Rust in his vest pocket, and recalled that people besides the koltiri had needs. “Call Mik and Pilsane to the common,” he told the second in command. “We have some catching up to do.”

“Roxy? Sweetheart, we need to talk. If you can wake up now, please try. I don’t know how much time we have. Wake up.”

The hand on her shoulder was not the one she needed it to be. Now, there was an odd and confusing concept. Roxy turned over with a snarl. “Why do people keep asking me to do that?” She sat up. “Okay, I’m awake. Do I want to be? No.” She peered past Martin’s shoulder to take in the strange yet familiar room. “Nice bit of barbaric splendor we have here. Man needs a housekeeper, though. Is the coffee still hot?” She noticed that she was wrapped in leather, and briefly wondered why. Then she remembered—healings and conversations and everything—and wished she was still blissfully incoherent, the way Sagouran Fever usually made her. And why wasn’t she? By rights she should be dead after what the bad-tempered redhead had put her through.

“Poison.”

“What?” Martin asked, and handed her a steaming cup of coffee.

“Thanks.” She gulped it down, and then gobbled down the plate of rare steak he passed to her. She didn’t know what the meat was, but it was delicious.

“What poison?”

Roxy wiped a hand across the back of her mouth, then concentrated her attention on her brother-in-law. “Why do I keep waking up in other men’s bedrooms?”

“Well, if you didn’t keep passing out… “

She pushed a heavy fall of hair away from her face. “A great many people would be dead,” she finished for him. She was not in the mood for being humble and self-effacing about her talents. “I feel like my old self again,” she murmured, glaring at Martin. “And you have no idea how bad that can be for civilization as we know it.”

“Civilization as we know it is going to hell,” Martin pointed out. “Or haven’t you noticed? For the second time in a decade,” he added sadly.

She nodded grim agreement. Then she mouthed, “Can we talk?” He nodded, indicating that the captain’s quarters were free of listening devices, as far as he could tell. Satisfied with his skill, she went on. “We have to get word about the plague/Rust connection to MedService—and the government,” she added, before he could point out the political and military implications of what she’d learned. “And I suppose you’re going to want us to bust out of here and continue Glover’s mission to save his emperor.” He nodded, and she frowned. Putting a stop to the spread of Sagouran Fever was her top priority. “We’re going to have to actually leave,” she added before he could voice the suggestion she thought he was about to make. “I’m not going to be able to get any telepathy past the big fella. Not for a while, anyway.” She tapped a finger against her forehead. “He’s a very strong telepath, and I’m not yet up to being sneaky.”

“Better not to try telepathic communication right now.”

Martin looked with fond pride upon his sister-in-law as she sat cross-legged on the bed, cradling an empty mug in her hands. Her appearance was changing as he watched, gold hair regaining some of its luster, flesh taking on a healthier tint, filling out a bit around her cheekbones and throat. And her eyes were full of shrewd intelligence and the wicked humor he loved so much. He had grown so used to dealing with a confused, half-dead healer that he’d forgotten for a while that she was one of the sharp-minded, sharp-tongued, clever, quick-on-the-uptake Shirah sisters.

“By big fella, I take it you mean Captain Pyr. Glover mentioned him. His comments were enlightening, but not encouraging for our current situation. Seems we’re in the clutches of the most dangerous renegade out on the Rose border. And his crew’s very thorough at searching prisoners, I might add. My best guess is that Pyr’s decided to come in off the border to make a stab at widening his territory, or gotten involved in the quiet little civil war the Bucons are waging. That’s his bed you’re in,” he added.

“Pyr.” She repeated the name a few times, as though tasting it and trying it out on her tongue. Martin noticed that she did not seem particularly disturbed by his bad news. She nodded thoughtfully, smiling faintly. “Pyr. Red hair and fire inside him. Suits him. You know, even when I was inside him, I couldn’t get his name out of him. Normally, that kind of information just sort of flows through the link. Names are one of the few things we remember when we sever the connection. That way, we can respond politely when people send us thank you notes. Which he won’t.”

“I bet.” He poured her more coffee, and some for himself. “I think this bunch has a weird custom about names. He made a big deal about knowing your name. His crew’s been worried about him, so getting them to talk to the kid who was making a noise about helping the woman who saved his life wasn’t too hard.” He glanced at a mirror across the room. “This new look has the advantage of making me appear harmless.” He continued to talk over Roxy’s laughter. “According to Linch and Pilsane, acknowledging your name means Pyr’s claimed you as personal property—or under his protection, or as a member of his clan. Mostly they speak Standard, but my translator couldn’t make out what they were talking about all of the time.”

“Well, at least we’re not engaged,” she said, and fiddled with her wedding ring.

Martin laughed, and wished it didn’t sound a little nervous. “Yeah.” He took her hands in his to still their nervous fidgeting. She’d dropped the mug and let the last dregs of coffee spill onto the bed. He said, “I thought I knew a lot about the Bucons, but this name thing is new to me.” She tensed, and gave him a strange look that set warning signals off inside him. “What?”

“What back at you. What are you talking about? Pyr isn’t Bucon.”

Martin rose to his feet, nerves stretched tight. He did not like not being in control. He was missing things; important details were slipping right past him. He
hated
lack of information. He
really hated
when he didn’t pick up on every clue and nuance in a situation. He didn’t give in to the urge to pace restlessly. He also didn’t give in to the urge to insist to Roxanne that of course their captor was a Bucon. She’d been in the man’s head, inside his cells and DNA. If she said this pirate who Glover assumed was one of his own kind was no such thing, Martin Braithwaithe believed her. He just didn’t get it. What was he missing?

“All right,” he said as Roxy watched him anxiously, reacting to the tension radiating from him. He made a reasonably good effort to calm down for the empath’s sake as he added, “What is he?”

She rubbed the back of her neck, and chuckled. “Oh, I think there’s any number of answers to that. But the one thing I can definitively tell you is that the man is no more Bucon than your or I.”

Martin considered. “I don’t know, Roxy. The Bucon Empire is larger than we thought. More secretive. Could be that there are more types of Bucons than we know about.”

“Could be,” she agreed. “But I seriously doubt it. The koltiri have been in contact with the Bucon for over two thousand years. The Bucons have been a spacefaring people for longer than that. They consisted of ten different subsets of the Genesis originally. The meeting of those ten subsets Engendered the current Bucon Body/Soul structure. Excuse me, Terran,” she corrected when Martin frowned at her language. “Forgive me for such politically incorrect wording. What I meant to say is that the Bucon Empire consisted originally of humanoids from ten different star systems who formed trade alliances, interbred, and blended their culture over several thousand years of interaction to create what we now call the Bucon Empire. Bucons are physically identical to twenty percent of the subsets of the Genesis. That twenty percent includes Terrans,” she added. “But not whatever subset Pyr belongs to.”

“But the Bucon territory is bigger than we thought. Older. That’s new information to the United Systems.”

“Not among koltiri. You forget how long my mother’s people have been around. We’ve only been allied with the United Systems for five of the Systems’ paltry little eight-hundred-year history.”

He tried not to sound annoyed as he asked, “If the koltiri know this stuff already, why haven’t they passed the information on to the United Systems?”

She shrugged. “Nobody asked?” She drew herself up proudly. “You forget, Koltir is ruled by a theocracy of half-mad telempathic demi-goddesses with their own secret agenda. We have our reasons for our silence.”

He crossed his arms. “Oh, yeah? What?”

“Damned if I know.”

“And why are you telling me?”

She grinned. “It’s okay to talk to you. You’re family. And Pyr is no more Bucon than you or I are. I can tell you that much. And I really don’t know anything about Bucon history. Koltiri are interested in studying the Neshama Seeding, so of course I know the biological history of every race we’ve run into. Helps in healing,” she added. “And don’t tell me Reine hasn’t told you at least some of this stuff in the last sixteen years.”

“Sort of,” he conceded. “I remember her saying that the Trin were the first race she’d heard of that the koltiri hadn’t already encountered. She then told me not to ask what she meant,” he added.

“And now we’ve met another.” Slowly, and very carefully, Roxanne swung her legs over the side of the bed and rose to her feet. Martin offered his hand to help, but she waved him away. He watched her as she walked around Captain Pyr’s quarters, moving as though she thought she might shatter if she wasn’t careful. It was painful to watch, and a marvel as well. Dr. Martin Braithwaithe knew very well that the koltiri Captain Pyr had taken off the slave ship had been very close to death. Her swift recovery puzzled and alarmed as much as it delighted him.

“Did I mention that he’s a telepath?” she questioned as she fingered objects and looked in drawers and cabinets.

“You mentioned it. His senior officers have been showing the signs. I wondered about so many Bucon telepaths in one place. They don’t have that many to spread around—unless there’s more telepathy among the Bucon than we know about.”