Release (21 page)

* * *

Gordic reached across the table to refill Ariana’s wine glass. “So we’ve been boarded by the Intergalactic Police at this point, right?”

Ariana was sitting at a table with Keirth, Gordic, and Gordic’s wife Winda. They’d just eaten a large meal, the remnants of which were scattered over the table. Gordic had begun telling stories about Keirth, who he regarded as insanely daring. The dining room on the space station was warmly lit and cozy. Ariana relaxed in the glow of a full stomach and the fuzzy head of a few glasses of wine.

“No,” said Keirth, laughing, “we decided all this before they boarded us. Because you wanted to dump the guns.”

“Damned straight I wanted to dump the guns.” Gordic refilled Keirth’s wine glass and then his own. “When you’re smuggling illegal weapons and the authorities show up, you don’t play games. No evidence, no arrest, mate.”

“But this was after we’d gone through hell to get the guns in the first place. I wasn’t dumping those guns. No way.” Keirth took a sip of wine, stretching out in his chair.

Ariana had never seen him like this, relaxed and laughing. She liked it.

“Well, anyway,” said Gordic to Ariana and Winda, who hadn’t heard this story yet, “Keirth decides we can snow the Intergalactic Police. So he goes to meet them when they board the ship, and he starts doing this voice...” Gordic collapsed in laughter at the memory. “Show them the voice.”

Keirth was laughing too. He sat up in his chair, struggling to get his features to relax. In a high-pitched drawling voice he said, “Oh, Mr. Policeman, welcome to our ship. Are you all so strong and handsome?”

Ariana guffawed. “You did
not
.”

Gordic was nearly falling out of his chair from laughing so hard. “He was so damned good at it, too, that was the thing. And you should have seen the police officers after that. They’re all backing away from him, completely freaked out.”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” said Keirth. “I wasn’t dumping those guns.”

“Yeah, it worked,” said Gordic. “He tells the police that our cargo is sex toys, and they let us go. They don’t even check our cargo bay. They can’t get out of there fast enough.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Ariana, smiling at Keirth.

Keirth spread his hands. “Believe it, sweetheart.”

She glared at him. “I thought you’d stopped calling me that.”

“Never,” said Keirth.

Winda got up from her chair and began to gather up some of the dishes from the table. She bent down and kissed Gordic on the top of his head. “Well, I’m just glad you’re not smuggling guns anymore. I’d be out of my mind with worry.”

Gordic wrapped an arm around her waist and squeezed her quickly. “Me too. I can’t say I miss being in danger all the time.”

Ariana wasn’t used to seeing such casual displays of closeness at the dinner table. Husbands and wives were usually quite formal with each other back in the sector. She liked it. It was as warm and cozy as the dining room.

Gordic got up too, picking up a few more dishes. Keirth started to move as well, but Gordic put a finger in his face. “You stay put. You’re our guests. You don’t help clear the table.”

Another thing Ariana wasn’t used to. Servants served food and cleared the table in her world. But as she watched Gordic and Winda together, their devotion to each other clear on their faces, it made her feel a strange hunger for that shared intimacy. Actually seeing to one’s own primary needs together. Cleaning up after oneself, it suddenly seemed to her, was a symbol of being in touch with reality, being real. Everything about the culture at the sector was removed from reality. It was caught up in stupid rules and customs, but none of those things really mattered. The people of the sector pretended they mattered—maybe they even believed it. But without those rules, they would survive. Real work meant survival, and it was almost as if her family and the others on the sector had created false urgency to fill the need of doing something that ensured survival.

The table clear, Gordic and Winda sat back down at the table. Gordic had brought another bottle of wine, which he was opening.

“So, how did you two meet?” asked Keirth.

Winda and Gordic exchanged a look, smiling.

“Winda tells this story better than me,” said Gordic. He’d opened the wine, and he topped off his own glass and offered the bottle to everyone else. Keirth took some more, but Ariana’s glass was still quite full.

“There’s no story,” said Winda, sipping at her wine.

“Sure there’s a story,” said Keirth. “There’s got to be a story.”

“We met at a bar on Trill,” said Winda. She turned to Ariana. “That’s the biggest planet in the Pyrneth Sector.” She shrugged. “He was really arrogant, and I hated him, but he kept buying me drinks every time I saw him and telling me about the amazing space station he lived on. Eventually, he wore me down, and I came home with him. I pretty much never left.”

“I’m not arrogant,” said Gordic.

Winda sipped some wine, giggling. “You
are
arrogant.”

“No,” said Gordic. “I’m confident.” He slung his arm over the back of Winda’s chair.

“So,” said Keirth, “you gave up the smuggling business, then? Just like that?”

Winda and Gordic looked at each other again, as if they were deciding how to answer the question. They seemed to be able to communicate just by looking into each other’s eyes. Ariana had never seen anything like it before.

“You know, when I got into dealing illegal weapons, I had this idea that it would be a big adventure all the time.” Gordic ran a finger around the edge of his glass. “After I almost got myself killed the fifth time, I started feeling like the adventure aspect wasn’t exactly worth it, you know? It wasn’t what I’d expected it to be in the end.”

Keirth looked into his wine.

Ariana wondered what he was thinking.

“What are you going to do now?” Gordic asked. “Ever since I met you, Transman, you’ve been focused on your revenge. Now it’s done. So now what?”

Keirth laughed, but it was a kind of hollow sound. “I never thought beyond it, you know. I always figured they’d capture me, and I’d get killed. Oddly, I find I’m not quite ready to die.”

“Who is ready to die, mate?” Gordic took a drink of wine. “Well, you’ll have to stay off the radar for a bit, that’s no question. They certainly are looking for you.”

* * *

After the women had gone to bed, Keirth and Gordic sat in Gordic’s den smoking cigars. Keirth stared up at guns that Gordic had hanging on the wall, and the two reminisced for hours. Keirth had to admit that Gordic was the last man he would have expected to find in domestic bliss. When he’d known Gordic, he’d been a confirmed bachelor who seemed to live for danger. Keirth had never expected Gordic to settle down, but he couldn’t deny that Gordic seemed happier than he’d ever been. And he and Winda were comfortable in a way that he wasn’t really used to. Keirth supposed he hadn’t had much occasion in his life to witness happily married couples.

Still, it was strange. Keirth had spent enough time planetside with Gordic, watching him seduce random women on a host of planets. In the morning, Gordic had always been ready to leave. On to the next adventure. He’d always seemed content to leave women out of it. What had changed? Why had Gordic completely shifted his life to be with Winda?

Finally, as the conversation about their shared hijinks began to wane, Keirth had to ask about it. “You met Winda in a bar, then?”

Gordic’s face transformed into a relaxed smile at the mention of Winda. “You should have seen her, mate. She had the sharpest tongue of any woman I’d ever met. She simply wouldn’t be charmed by me. And, as you know, I’ve charmed quite a few women in my time.”

“So that was what made her special? The fact that she didn’t want you?”

Gordic chuckled. “Trust Transman to cut to the heart of the matter.” He leaned back in his easy chair, puffing on his cigar. “Maybe you’re right. I didn’t go to that bar looking for a wife, that’s for sure. But once I saw her... I don’t know. I couldn’t get her out of my head, mate. The more she refused me, the more determined I became to get her.”

Keirth wasn’t sure he understood. “But you’ve changed, Gordic. Your whole life is different. And wanting this woman made you do that?”

“Transman the Monk wouldn’t get it, of course,” said Gordic. “You’ve never looked at a women twice the whole time I’ve known you. Sometimes I wondered if that act you put on for the police that time didn’t have a kernel of truth.”

Alarmed, Keirth shifted in his chair. “Absolutely not.”

Gordic shrugged. “It’s really okay, Transman. You’ve never made me feel uncomfortable. If your taste runs that way—”

“I’m not attracted to men,” Keirth cut him off.

“Sorry,” said Gordic.

Keirth shook his head. “No, it’s fine.” He puffed on his own cigar. “But you chased women all over the galaxy. And none of them convinced you to stop smuggling guns until Winda.”

“Right,” said Gordic. He was quiet for a minute. “I don’t really know why that is, mate. Maybe it was her. Maybe I was just waiting for the right woman. Or maybe I’d gotten sick of it, you know? Chased all the time, dumping cargo, being on the run from the authorities. It got old. Maybe I was looking for someone or something to change it. I don’t know. But I wouldn’t go back to smuggling, that’s for sure.” He cocked his head to the side. “Why are you asking me this, mate? This have something to do with the girl you brought along?”

Did it? Keirth had to admit that if he wasn’t chasing Risciter across the galaxy, being transitory lost some of its appeal. And if he weren’t planning on dying, there was less of a reason not to get involved with a woman. He remembered Ariana in his bed the night before... “She’s been through a lot. She’s not ready for anything like that.”

Gordic raised his eyebrows. “I don’t believe it. Transman the Monk has a crush on a girl.”

Keirth shot him a dirty look. “Please, Gordic.”

But then Gordic got serious. “What do you mean, she’s been through a lot?”

Keirth studied his knuckles. “My revenge plan didn’t exactly work with Risciter. It wasn’t like I wanted. I didn’t tie him up and torture him. It was more like I pulled him off Ariana, got his knife, and stabbed him to death.”

Gordic grimaced. “It’s a good thing you killed that bastard.”

Keirth nodded. “But to pursue her now, after what happened, it would be obscene.”

Gordic puffed at his cigar. “That’s a touchy situation all right. I guess she’s pretty distant.”

“No, that’s the thing,” said Keirth. “She’s not distant. She’s... she keeps trying to get close to me, she—But how could she possibly know what she wants after what Risciter did to her?”

Gordic didn’t answer.

Keirth got up out of his chair. “Not to mention the fact that I’m wanted for murder. I can’t promise her anything. I could be captured at any time.”

Gordic got out of his chair too. He put a hand on Keirth’s shoulder. “These things tend to work out, mate. Come on, I’ll show you your room. It’s late.”

Keirth let his friend lead him to his bedroom and got some clean bandages for his shoulder wound. He cleaned it and redressed it before he lay down. But long after he’d curled up in bed, he thought about Winda and Gordic. Could it really be like that between a man and woman? Could it just be easy and comfortable, no party taking advantage of the other?

He’d never given women much thought. What was the point? He’d always assumed he’d be living a short life during which he’d accomplish nothing but killing Risciter. Since Risciter was dead, and Keirth found himself with a strong desire to keep surviving, he realized he was going to have to give some thought to the idea of women in general.

He’d always told himself that he didn’t bed women because he was too honorable to use them and hurt them. It was true that he’d seen enough of that kind of behavior from men when he was growing up to find it cowardly and reprehensible. But if he were truly honest with himself, he found himself slightly disgusted by the act of sex in and of itself. It seemed so bestial, designed in some elemental way to force a woman into submission. He didn’t want to hurt women. He didn’t want to hurt Ariana. And the thought of taking her like that...it seemed...

He remembered a conversation with Lilla, years ago, when she’d tried to thank him for some service he’d provided for her by suggesting he sleep with one of the women. Of course he’d refused. He remembered railing about how he wouldn’t make one woman miserable to take his pleasure on her and various other noble sentiments. And Lilla had gotten angry. She’d said that there might be a reason women would choose a profession pleasuring men besides desperation. “Have you never considered a woman might not enjoy it?” she’d spat at him.

He couldn’t believe that any did, and he’d told her so.

“Perhaps some women aren’t built for one man,” Lilla had said to him. “Perhaps some women enjoy a variety. Perhaps some women choose not to be tied down, to treat the world as an adventure and to sample every cock in it.” She’d been angry.

The truth was that Keirth had spent his life viewing sex as a disgusting thing that men forced women to endure. But maybe he was being narrow minded to think that sex was really so horrible. After all, as Lilla had pointed out, it was a necessary part of reproduction. And so many people did it, seemingly enjoying it, so...

He gulped, thinking of the soft springy give of Ariana’s breast when he’d touched it. He liked the way she felt. If she really did desire it, perhaps he wouldn’t be hurting her if he bedded her.

But that would complicate things, wouldn’t it? What would he do with Ariana afterwards? Surely, she wouldn’t want to jaunt about the galaxy, running from the authorities for the rest of her days, would she? And would he want her around him forever? The girl annoyed him beyond belief occasionally. There was also the matter of her being a duke’s daughter. Her family would never stop looking for her.

Of course, Risciter had told his comm that Ariana was dead. Perhaps they wouldn’t be looking for her anymore.

Keirth shook himself. What was he thinking? He’d been right at first. He’d been right all along. Ariana had been traumatized. She was clinging to him because he was the only thing that hadn’t hurt her. She’d get over her infatuation with him soon enough. He oughtn’t plan their life out just because he’d been tempted by her body.