Gates of Hell (26 page)

“Revolting, yes,” she said, though she hadn’t meant to speak. “Genocide is.”

He pushed away from the wall, not wanting to touch her. She turned, aware of the knife he held in one hand. Now there was a stunner in the other. The look on his face was more hurtful than any weapon could be, though she knew she had nothing to be guilty of. She had no reason to explain to someone who had worked with the Trin. He would never be anyone’s slave or puppet.

“The People are right. You—demons—in the United Systems are barbarians.”

The look he gave her chilled her to the bone. Roxy crossed her arms. “Not every world voted for it.” Controversy still raged in secret and in rumor over the decision. Many of the frontline combatants who’d carried out their oaths were considered war criminals by other members of the Service. Controversy and opposition aside, the secret of Special Order One had remained closely guarded inside MilService. It was agreed that if the media ever got hold of the truth, it might well lead to a civil war.

Until now, that is. Eamon had always feared she was a weak link, that her oath as a doctor would work against her oath to kill Trin. It was one of his reasons for not wanting her to leave the
Tigris
. Maybe his most important one, she decided, as Pyr certainly wasn’t having any trouble getting her to talk about it. The biggest problem with Pyr was that she couldn’t seem to
not
give him anything he wanted. She was definitely going to have to work on that.

“Did you vote for it?” He looked her over with an ugly sneer. “Are all koltiri like you?”

She’d work on defying him later. Right now she needed to tell him the truth. “As a matter of fact, the koltiri of Koltir did approve the Special Order. Pruning of seedling races is sometimes necessary for the strength of the whole. Of course, no koltiri ever expected they’d have to do the pruning themselves. Koltiri’s are trained to be gentle.”

“You’re not.”

“I was. Until I fought a war against the Trin. Terra, on the other hand, voted against Special Order One,” she added, needing to explain both halves of her ancestry. “And my Terran half doesn’t particularly like the notion of a Final Solution for anybody.”

“Terrans!” His sneer grew even uglier, and he spat on the deck. “We’ve heard all about how the Terrans exterminated the Makacheyn.”

“And have you heard what the Makacheyn did to Terra?”

“They were a great warrior race.”

“So great that they made a habit of invading worlds that were just developing space technology and stripping them of every resource. Many times. Terra was only the last world they invaded. We beat them. We beat them fair and square and the price of our not going to war with the oh-so-snotty, non-interfering United Systems was what they stood back and let us do to the Makacheyn, who they were tired of using as their military enforcers anyway.”

“You destroyed the Makacheyn.”

“We most certainly did not. We simply fought them back to the stone age, liberated all their other slave worlds, took over the military arm of the United Systems, and left the Makacheyn to rot on their own homeworld. They still exist—they’re hunting with stone axes and rubbing sticks together to make fire, but they’re still breathing!”

“But the Trin have to all die?”

“Damn right!”

Pyr did not know how he and Roxanne had come to stand toe to toe, shouting at each other in the center of the corridor. He was aware of the absurdity of it all. They were standing only a few feet away from the interrogation room. His reason for bringing Roxanne here had not been to argue with her. He still couldn’t stop himself from shouting one more question. “What the demons did Kith have to do with the Trin?”

“He was a Trin!” she shouted back.

“He was with the Pirate League!”

“Yes? So? He was still a Trin.”

“He was? How do you know?”

“He looked and smelled like one. You know, white skin.” She ran a thumb across her forehead. “Ugly red bumps. Pointy teeth. No nose to speak of. Nasty attitude. Really bad hair.”

“So that’s what a Trin looks like.”

“Fortunately, there’s never been more than a few hundred thousand of that model, though they’ve interfered in untold billions of lives. Very few are unfortunate enough to see one up close. You usually have to hack away layers and layers of puppet races and schemes to get to the corruption at the center, go through thousands of bodies to get to the one Trin they died protecting. Most people who died in the Trin war never saw a Trin,” she added with an awful sadness. “On either side.”

“Then why are you sure Kith didn’t just look like this hated enemy of yours?”

She gave him a caustic look. “I didn’t mistake that he felt like one, thought like one. Every subset has their own mental signature, you know.”

He nodded. “That much I do know.”

———

So Kith was a Trin. Interesting. Irrelevant, but interesting. It was true that he had very little information on the Trin, other than knowing that they were known for the high level of their technology. He’d followed the war from a distance as he patrolled the border between his people and the rest of the galaxy. He knew the war was hard-fought and vicious on both sides, but neither the Trin nor the United Systems meant anything to him. As long as the battles didn’t come near his home, he didn’t care about their killing each other. The only genocide he cared about was any that threatened the People. She’d still killed Kith without Pyr’s permission, and his will superseded any Special Orders aboard the
Raptor
. And it showed him what she was capable of.

“I’d heard the Trin had taken shelter with the League. Quite a comedown. No wonder he was always in such a foul mood.”

“He actually seemed rather nice, for a Trin.”

He almost laughed. Damn the woman, why did she make him laugh? And angry, and curious. She made him question assumptions he wanted to be true. He had enough on his plate without adding the distraction of someone he found interesting.

She was looking at him intently, probing around the edges of his thoughts. “You didn’t know? You—you didn’t know.” She took a step back, and tried to hide a smile. The relief that poured from her was almost overwhelming. He had no idea what she was pleased about. Then the pleasure she tried not to feel turned to wary curiosity. “Where have you been that you don’t know what a Trin looks like?”

“On the Rose border,” he told her, though he knew he should give her no more information about who he was. But then—she’d already been in his soul—and left a part of herself behind. Like a splinter.

She looked at him very steadily for a long time, then reached up and brushed away the long hair that concealed his ears. Ears that came to a delicate, sensitive point. He knew she had not seen anything like them before. Her fingers brushed across the tip of an ear and down the side of his throat. Her touch sent a shock of heat through him, but he stayed still. She had broken Kith’s neck not so long ago, but he didn’t move when she rested her palm against his pulse, even though he knew she felt it quicken.

“Beyond the Rose, I think,” she murmured, and smiled, though it had melancholy in it. “My sister wrote a song called ‘Beyond the Rose.’ It’s about what’s hidden behind it. The nebula. She doesn’t really know.”

“I do.”

She nodded. “I thought you might.”

They were whispering now, and standing closer together than before. That he still held a weapon in each hand was the only thing that kept him from touching her. “It’s a very pretty nebula. That isn’t what we call it, but I’ve seen a rose, and the comparison is apt.”

He’d seen how she’d bewitched Kith and knew there was a chance she was trying something similar here. That’s what he wanted to believe. Pyr closed his eyes, thinking that might break the spell, but it only made him more aware of her presence, close and inviting, as vulnerable and wary of it as he was. He slipped the stunner in his belt, so that he could cup her cheek.

As he did, the door to the interrogation room across the corridor slid open. He opened his eyes to meet Mik’s outraged gaze. The look shocked Pyr back to sanity, reminded him of duty, and warned him that this was not the place or time—

For what?

His response to Roxanne’s thought was to whirl her around and push her into the torture chamber. It was crowded in the small space with the three of them and the monitor that surrounded the padded table in the center of the room.

Roxanne saw the table and froze, staring at it with appalled disgust. “That’s a Pirate League toy. You need a high level telepath to work that thing.” She swallowed. “Which you have no shortage of, actually.” She glanced at Mik. “One of your jobs is to torture people? A nice man like you?” Mik actually blushed at her indignant question. Pyr felt no fear from her, but knew it would come later.

He made himself feel nothing. “Is it ready?” he asked the engineer.

Mik gave a disdainful look at the apparatus he was such an expert at using. He nodded.

“Thank you, Mih-ahr.” He gestured toward the door. “Dismissed.”

Mik’s shoulders tensed, and his gaze flicked between Pyr, Roxanne, and the interrogation table. Pyr saw the worried suspicion in his friend’s dark eyes when Mik’s gaze met his once more. Pyr might have laughed if what Mik was thinking hadn’t been so hurtful to his pride and honor. Nothing, he reminded himself. Feel nothing.
I promise you that I won’t enjoy it
, he thought as he saw the concerned look his friend turned back on the woman.

Neither will I
, Roxanne added, sliding her thoughts with too much ease into the mindlink Pyr shared with one of his own people. “Not that I’m going to put up with being tortured this afternoon. Thank you, but I’ve had my brain washed recently,” she said, taking a step back, only to be blocked by Pyr.

He stood in front of her like a living wall as Mik left and the door closed behind him. Once Mik was gone, Pyr said, backing her toward the table. “This will happen. It is necessary.” He pushed her to sit on the table, where she looked up at him with huge, angry eyes. There was no need for explanations, he needed simply to act. He said, “You pose a danger to my ship.”

“Then I will leave your ship.” She started to rise to her feet. He put a hand on her shoulder, though he let her stand.

He moved very close to her. She might be a bit taller, but he was larger and stronger, a big, broad-shouldered man. He used his size to intimidate. He kept his voice very low as he told her, “You will be controlled. I already told you that you will do as I tell you.”

Roxanne gestured behind them. “You’re being paranoid.” There was still no fear in her. “You’re the one who is afraid,” she told him. “And it’s made you irrational. I’m koltiri, I do not make a habit of killing people.”

“I have to protect my people. No one outside the Rose is to be trusted. That is my Special Order.”

“I saved your life.”

“I know.”

“Stop saying that! Be reasonable, Dhakynn.” She slapped a hand down on the padded surface of the table. “I don’t like pain, but there’s no way you can break me with this thing. There is no reason for this. This is not going to work. And I’d really like to spare us both the headache.”

She accused
him
of being irrational? She participated in genocide. The People must be protected. There would be no Special Orders concerning his world. No contact with outsiders, and no trust that could be betrayed. It was his vowed duty to keep the People safe and secret.

He had learned some of her secrets while she had been inside his mind. “It will work,” he told her as he thrust the knife into her abdomen. “When you are weak enough.”

———

Roxy looked at the knife hilt sticking out of her flesh, and refused to bleed. She then looked at the man who had fallen to his knees in front of her. She wasn’t sure which one of them had just screamed. “That is the second time this week someone has stabbed me,” she told Pyr. “And it’s really starting to piss me off.” His hands were clutching the table on either side of her, and his head came to rest on her knees. She had the most ridiculous urge to stroke his hair comfortingly.

She was saved from this impulse when he raised his head to look at her. “Someone else stabbed you?” The question came in a croak that was painful to hear.

“Yeah. But it wasn’t like we were going steady or anything.”

This was no time for even a vague—stab—at humor. Pyr’s breathing was ragged, the look in his eyes wounded. “I cannot go through with this. I cannot hurt you.”

She couldn’t stop herself from cupping his face in her hands. “I know.”

“I should. For the sake of all the People hold sacred, I should hurt you until you cannot resist, then make you mine.”

“The conditioning would just wear off in a few days,” she told him, and it sounded as if she was trying to reassure him after some perceived failure. “Then you’d have it to do all over again. Besides, I thought you adopted me or something. Right?”

He only felt guiltier after this reminder. “I—claimed you.”

He changed his grip on the table and levered himself slowly to his feet. When Roxanne patted the spot beside her, he sat down with a heavy sigh. His exhaustion was soul deep. His guilt hurt Roxy more than the sharp metal inside her. Pyr ran his hands over his face, then tossed back his long red hair. “I overreacted to your killing Kith, didn’t I?” He stared at the door rather than look at her.

“I’d say so, yes.” Roxy put her hand around the knife hilt, not quite ready to face the ordeal of drawing the thing out.

His gesture took in the torture chamber. “This is no way to repay the woman who saved my life.”

“I know.”

“One who I have named Kaddani.”

“I know.”

“Shut up.” He looked at her, and for some reason she found herself smiling at him. “Perhaps I should have asked for your oath not to kill me or my men.”

“You already have that oath. I am koltiri and Physician. I don’t kill people.”

He put his hand over hers on the knife hilt. His gaze stayed steadily on hers. “Not even people who stab you?”

“I won’t kill you.” She could not stop the wide, evil grin she gave him. “I might make your life hell, but I won’t kill you. But Martin has dibs on Stev Persey. Persey murdered one of our best friends.”