Gates of Hell (37 page)

“I’d rather we do it together.” She held him close and took comfort in the strength of his embrace. The heat and scent of his skin was distracting. She wanted to make it completely distracting. To give herself—give them—at least a few hours of bliss. They had to get something settled first, for both their sakes, because he was as likely as she was to suddenly revert to responsible adult behavior in the middle of what should be a magnificent, intimate moment. Instead of wasting time with making love in fits and starts, it was best to get things settled now. “But we have to do it for everybody,” she went on. “Your people, the Systems, the Bucons. Everyone.”

“I’ve never been opposed to that. I was looking for a way to save my people first. That’s all.”

“That’s fair. I was going back to Nightingale when you stopped me. I was going to cure the Systems first. But if the Systems government decided not to make the cure universally available, I would see that the koltiri didn’t let them get away with it.”

Pyr shifted his weight and eased her backwards. They settled on their sides, limbs entwined. Roxanne was almost comfortable, except for the aching need coiling through her, and the damnable conscience that wouldn’t let her do anything about it yet. His erection pressed against her stomach. She closed her fingers around it, and began a slow, subtle stroking motion.

Pyr made a small needy sound in response, but his thought was quite coherent when it entered her mind.
You’ve compromised enough
.

Killing Trins is one thing
, she agreed. “That’s as much of my soul as I can sell.”

I know. My soul is yours
. Trust and respect flowed to her through their bond, as intense as physical desire.
And my honor is yours
.

He closed his eyes and simply let her go on touching him for a while. His pleasure seeped through her, giving her pleasure and urging her on. After a while his thoughts surfaced once more.
Do you have the cure
?

Formula for a vaccine. Close to the cure.

“When you find the cure, we will share it with everyone.”

A flash of joy went through Roxanne, but Pyr gave her no time to respond to his words. He kissed her with an intensity that left her gloriously mindless. Fireworks replaced words and all friction between them was the sexual kind. They needed and they gave, desires blended. There was nothing separate about them. He moved over her and into her. She held him and rose to meet him, but at no point did he end and she begin. Not for a long time, and even then they only parted a fractional distance into two separate satiated bodies, tangled up together in the equally tangled bed linen.

“You sure this will keep me from catching it?”

“Pretty sure,” Martin answered Axylel. He stood by the sickbay bed where Axylel sat. He held the hypo in his hand and waited patiently. The vaccination was as much a test of the boy’s progress as it was a precaution against catching Sag Fever again. That Axylel didn’t violently object to having any kind of drugs administered was a good sign of his mental resilience. He certainly didn’t look happy, though.

Axylel looked even more dubious at Martin’s answer. He concentrated on studying Martin’s face rather than look at the injector. “What’s it made from?”

“Rust.”

Axylel flashed him a furious look. “You want me to get hooked again?”

He’d explained about the plague and the drug being a construct. As expected, Axylel showed no surprise, though he made no comment. Now Martin said, “A vaccine is made from a small amount of the disease agent. Rust is already a sort of twisted variation of a vaccination. We just twisted it a little more. One shot will immunize you. No addiction.”

“Everything about this is twisted.” Axylel hopped off the bed and turned his shoulder toward Martin, presenting a bare arm.

Martin administered the shot before Axylel could change his mind. Then he leaned against the bed and watched as Axylel began to pace the room again. He noticed that Axylel never approached the door. They were not locked in the sickbay, but the young man showed no interest in leaving the confined space they shared. Axylel didn’t want to be alone, either. If he was alone, Martin concluded, the humiliating memories he didn’t want to let surface might start working their way up out of the dark.

They were working their way out, quiet-like, with the gentle urging of a nonjudgmental stranger. Martin had done most of the talking during hours of conversation. “They aren’t going to leave you alone much longer,” he said now. “Your friends and your family.”

Axylel stopped pacing and turned to him. “The people I owe a report to, you mean.”

“One and the same, aren’t they? I always have the same problem,” Martin said. “Being married to the executive officer of the
Odyssey
makes it hard to give complete and full reports sometimes.” He stretched his long legs out as far as they would go in the narrow space between the beds. “One time, I calmly and professionally reported that I slept with a woman to obtain much-needed information. Commander Aquilar calmly and professionally noted this information source. Then Rafe Aquilar took me someplace private and beat the shit out of me—and I let him. Fortunately, he didn’t let Reine and Betheny take a turn. Course, Betheny’s pretty forgiving about doing what you have to do, but Reine would have given me one
of those
disappointed looks she’s got a patent on. You know about those kind of looks?” Damn, he was homesick. Talking about family was supposed to be for Axylel’s good, but it didn’t make Martin Braithwaithe feel any better. At least, ensconced aboard a giant sector ship surrounded by its own fleet of warships, they were safe from the plague. Unless he was missing for too much longer, at which point Rafe and maybe the others would come looking for him. He had to get out of here before his family put themselves at risk. Maybe he could get Roxy to teleport back to the
Odyssey
, if he could get her to leave at all. Big if. Her and that big stud elf were—

“I know about those looks.”

Axylel’s answer brought Martin’s attention back to his patient. “Your dad have a gift for looking disappointed?”

“No. Mik.”

“Really?” The engineer was an interesting man, and his relationship with the captain’s son a subject worth pursuing.

Before Martin had a chance to ask another question, the door to sickbay opened. Martin came to his feet as he watched Axylel face the person who entered. Martin turned to see Pilsane crossing the room. The blond alien carried datacubes and had completely dropped his cool Bucon mannerisms.

“Time’s up,” Axylel murmured. There was a flash of mindless panic in his eyes, gone almost before Martin saw it, but resentful-ness remained. Martin watched as the young man squared his shoulders and faced the officer. “You decided we’d talked enough. Was it something you overheard?”

“I wasn’t paying much attention,” Pilsane responded to the implication that he’d been monitoring their conversation. He put the datacubes next to the access slot at the lab station that hooked into the main ship’s computer. “Just background noise while I worked on these.”

“He has the whole ship wired,” Axylel told Martin. “But he usually denies it.”

Martin shrugged. “I never admit to overhearing anything on the
Odyssey
. What they don’t know they can’t court-martial you for. Right, Pilsie?”

“Something like that,” Pilsane said. “You do what you have to when most of your crew are pirates.” He took one of the chairs at the workstation, slotted a cube, and swiveled to look at them. “Time is up, Ax. I’m sorry, I wish I could give you time to recover from what that bastard did to you, but we have to deal with this thing right now. Today.”

“Thing?” Axylel asked. He stood with his arms crossed, a gesture both defensive and defiant. “Which thing is that?”

Martin rubbed the back of his neck. “I can think of three or four emergencies myself. Which one is top of your list, Pilsie?”

“Imminent destruction,” Pilsane said. “We have a fleet surrounding us, ready to escort the
Raptor
to Bucon Prime. Waiting with less and less patience, I might add. If we go to Bucon Prime, the renegades from out on the Rose border won’t be leaving, even if we do have the admiral’s word. I trust him, but his word won’t keep the other warlords around the emperor at bay. We have no friends at court. If we hand over the koltiri to Manalo right now, we’re likely to be shot out of space. All those trader lords that joined Manalo’s fleet know that Pyr is a candidate for taking over Halfor’s job—and they don’t like it. If Manalo leaves without us, we’ll have to fight our way through the trader fleet.” He looked sternly at Axylel. “Away from the border, we are vulnerable. We left the border to find you. Make it worth our while to have found you.”

“No pressure,” Martin said, coming up to put his hand on Axylel’s shoulder without taking his gaze from Pilsane’s. “No pressure at all.”

“Has to be done,” Pilsane said. He concentrated on Axylel. “We have to find the source of the plague and the Rust. For the People, and to use as leverage with the Bucons.”

“It’s more important than politics,” Martin put in. “But I understand your point,” he added at Pilsane’s look. “By being responsible for taking out Halfor, controlling the koltiri’s getting to the emperor,
and
stopping the epidemic, your People will put the Bucons deep enough in debt to do anything you want. They pay their debts.”

“Not just the Bucons will owe us if we stop the plague,” Pilsane replied. “The United Systems is dying as well.”

“Maybe we should let them all die and keep the cure for the People,” Axylel spoke up. “It’s a thought,” he went on as both Martin and Pilsane turned incredulous looks on him. Martin was glad to see that Pilsane didn’t like this idea. Axylel shook off Martin’s touch. “Why not let the demons, with all their wars and scheming, die? All they want to do is use us.”

“And we need to use them. We can’t hide behind the Veil anymore.” Pilsane stood up slowly. “Ax, you’re the one who’s always admired the demons. Outworlders,” he corrected, with a polite nod to Martin. “Studied them.” He chuckled. “Without you, I don’t think I could have learned to think like a Bucon. You
like
the outworlders.”

“Halfor was a bastard,” Martin said. “Every world has people like him. The Halfors of every species are in the minority, even among the Bucon.” Except the Trin, he thought, they are all bastards, and still felt like a hypocrite. “Not everyone on every world the plague touches deserves to die.”

“I don’t deserve to die of Sagouran Fever or to be addicted to Rust,” Pilsane said, reminding Martin that he had yet to be cured by Roxy. “I want to stop this plague for very selfish reasons. And if we do only keep the cure for the People, we still have to destroy the source of the plague. Finding out who and where was your assignment, Ax. You volunteered for the job.”

Axylel spun away from them. “I know that!” He turned back. “I don’t remember anything. Halfor—” He pointed at his head. “Halfor wanted to know what I knew. If I knew anything, I hid it too deep to get back.”

“You better get it back,” Pilsane said. “Because if we can get out of here, we need somewhere to go.” He tapped his stack of datacubes. “Lots of good stuff here, but Halfor didn’t have a clue who makes the Rust he got from his suppliers.”

“What about the suppliers?” Martin asked, professional curiosity piqued. “Stev Persey on that list?”

“First name I looked for. Used it to break the encryption code. Used to think he only had two or three ships and we got one of them. I thought wrong. We need to be able to track these suppliers back to their source. The last message we received from you,” he reminded Axylel, “was that you were close to the source.”

“Was it?” Axylel shook his head in confusion. “The last thing I remember was—I don’t remember the last thing I remember.”

“I spoke to the captain a few minutes ago,” Pilsane said. “Managed to find out the suppliers’ names just after I talked to him. Thought I’d run them past you and see if they shake out any memories before speaking to him again.”

“And he’s sure to be here to talk to me himself pretty soon,” Axylel said. He closed his eyes for a moment, and an expression of weary resignation made him look years older. “He’s going to get into my head.”

“There’s a lot in there you don’t want him to know,” Martin said.

“Don’t want anyone to know,” Axylel said, looking at Pilsane. “Don’t want to know myself.”

“Sit down.” Pilsane gestured toward the chair by the computer console. “Start by going over the list. Maybe that’ll jog a memory.”

So you won’t have to do it for him, Martin thought. He retreated to sit on a bed as Axylel sat down reluctantly to study the datacube. Pilsane moved away from the computer and joined Martin on the bed. They sat and watched Axylel. After a few moments Martin turned his attention away from the young man’s tense profile and ran a scanner over Pilsane, who frowned at him.

“About time you got off the Rust regimen, don’t you think?” Martin asked. “I think I should call Roxy down to heal you.” He checked a chrono. “She’s had plenty of time to rest.”

“You want to get her away from Pyr,” Pilsane guessed.

“I am showing a doctor’s concern for you as a patient with a terminal illness,” Martin replied. “Yes. I want her away from Pyr. Permanently.”

“Not going to happen.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“You and I both.”

Martin took exception to Pilsane’s comment. “She’s a wonderful woman. Gentle. Civilized. Far too good for pirate scum like Pyr.”

Pilsane stroked his jaw. “I’m referring to the psychopathic witch Pyr left here with. Who are you talking about?”

“Same woman, different point of view.”

“Good-looking woman.” Pilsane continued to stroke his jaw. He smiled.

A rush of heat went through Martin at the thought of Roxy, blonde and buxom and legs that went up to—”Yeah,” he said. “Good-looking woman. That Tinna, though,” he went on as a buzz of pleasure went down his spine and settled into a hard ache in his groin. “Now,
that’s
a fine-looking woman.”