Slave Empire III - The Shrike (30 page)

“Why are you
crying?” he asked.

“I’d like some
privacy inside my own head,” she muttered.

“Sorry. It’s a
bad habit. It’s how I used to find out what was going to happen to
me sometimes. It only works on unshielded minds, but I’m always
scanning.”

“God…
Everything you do, or don’t do, is connected to your past, isn’t
it?”

He released her
and stepped back. “Yes. Unfortunately, it’s what made me what I am.
That’s not what you’re upset about, though, is it?”

“Stay out of my
head, Tarke.”

“I’m not
prying. That’s why I’m asking.”

“And I’m not
going to tell you. It’s my problem, and I’ll deal with it. I’m
entitled to a few secrets, aren’t I? You’ve still got loads.”

“Maybe I can
help.”

She shook her
head. “You can’t. I need some time alone to think.”

He leant on the
console and folded his arms, lowering his eyes to the floor. “This
is about what happened last night, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t
matter what it’s about. I need a few days alone.”

“This is why I
didn’t want to let you get too close to me. I was afraid this would
happen. Every time I tell you something from my past, it makes it
worse. There’s just so much shit in it. If you need time alone, and
you think it will help, go. I don’t blame you for… finding it hard
to be around someone who only has horror stories to tell. Just…
don’t run away from me again, Rayne.”

“I can’t, can
I? I have your face in my memory, and so many will try to get it.
Maybe not the Atlanteans anymore, but the Draycons and the Endless
Life Cult and any other shithead who’s got a bounty on your
head.”

“No,” he said.
“You’re free to leave if you want. I’ll never keep anyone with me
against their will. I want you to be with me because you want to,
not because you feel you don’t have a choice. Shadowen will keep
you safe, and I’ll assign an escort.” The pain in his voice tore
her heart.

“I’m not
running away. I just need some time alone, to sort out my
feelings.”

“All right.
Shadowen can always find me when you’re ready to return. I want you
to, Rayne, remember that. No matter what you sensed, or think you
now know, don’t make assumptions without asking me about it first.
If something troubles you so much that you want to run away, I’ll
tell you what you want to know, because losing you would be far
worse than… anything.” He straightened, and golden light swallowed
him.

Rawn smiled as
Rayne came to his bedside and took his hand. “Hey, sis, it’s good
to see you.”

Her eyes
flitted over the medical equipment beside his hospital bed. His
right leg was in a cast to mid-thigh, and raised on pulleys. “What
have you done to yourself?”

He shrugged.
“Just a skiing accident in the mountains on Mansure. Nothing to
worry about. A clean break, the docs said. I’ll be on my feet in a
week.”

“So why did
they bring you to Atlan?”

“Better care,
apparently. I am, after all, your brother. Maybe they hoped you’d
visit if I was here.”

“Yeah.” She
glanced around at the private hospital room whose sterile whiteness
was hard on the eyes. A smiling Council delegation had met her
outside the hospital when she arrived, and a contingent of priests
had presented her with a garland and a long, flowery speech. She
had almost forgotten how unpleasant all the hype of being the
Golden Child could be.

Rawn squeezed
her hand. “How are you?”

She sat on the
chair. “Okay.”

“Just okay? I
hope you aren’t too upset about leaving your hubby to come and see
me.”

She pulled a
face. “I was spending some alone time, anyway, orbiting Earth.”

“Now that’s a
depressing place.” He looked concerned. “Nothing wrong on Cloud
Nine, I hope?”

“Just a few
speed bumps.”

“Speed bumps
are good. You did kind of rush into it.”

“Yeah, I didn’t
realise what I was getting into.” She sighed. “He’s an emperor,
Raw. It’s hard to take. I mean, at first I didn’t realise, because
he keeps such a low profile, but then he had to sort out a problem
on one of his planets, and… the crowds… It was awesome, but
scary.”

He chuckled.
“So now you’re the Golden Child
and
an empress. Way to go,
sis! Who would have thought a couple of raiders from Earth would
end up being so important. Not me, of course, I just bask in your
reflected glory.”

She snorted and
smiled. “So, how have you been? Do you have a new girlfriend
yet?”

“Well, there is
a cute little girl who…”

Rayne listened
to him relate the tale of his latest conquest with half an ear,
glancing around again with deep unease. She was not supposed to
come to Atlan. Tarke had warned her not to, but that was because of
the danger of them reading the information in her memories. Now
they knew they could not do that, and she did not think they would
try it again. Still, being in the lair of his worst enemies made
her uneasy. She had spent five days orbiting Earth, remembering her
life there and trying to figure out how she was going to cope with
Tarke. She could not leave him; the thought was even worse than the
prospect of having his company, yet being apart from him for the
rest of her life.

They could
still share a lot, though, and she had spent long hours talking to
him on the space line. Mostly, they had discussed shared interests,
and his husky voice had kept her sane, even if there was no image
to go with it, due to the risk of the communications being tapped.
The memory of his kiss haunted her, and she dreamt about it almost
every night, since she always remembered it when she fell asleep.
She tried to forget about the dread she had sensed. He, more than
any of the slaves he rescued, would suffer the aftermath of the
slavers’ torture for the rest of his days, and now she would,
too.

Rayne became
aware that Rawn had fallen silent, and turned her attention back to
him.

He smiled.
“Where did you go? You looked like you were a million miles
away.”

“Sorry. I’ve
got a lot on my mind.”

“I know my life
is pretty humdrum compared to yours, but sheesh, you could make an
effort, hey. Anyway, visiting hours are over.” He nodded at a
stern-faced nurse who stood at the end of his bed. “They want to
give me a bath.”

“Right.” She
rose and bent to kiss his cheek. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“Cool. Try to
leave your problems at the door this time, huh?”

“I will.”

He gripped her
hand when she went to turn away. “You can always talk to me, if you
want.”

She forced a
smile. “I can’t, but thanks. I’ll figure it out.”

“If only you
had found some normal guy, you’d have the whole house and kids
thing, now.”

“I’ll see you
tomorrow.” She headed for the door, and the nurse watched her
go.

In the
corridor, she marched towards the hospital entrance, keen to escape
its antiseptic smell and sterile atmosphere. The hospital, like
most public buildings on Atlan, had no transfer points inside it,
since the Net was not used for planetary transportation. The
traffic would have been too great and there was a danger of
overlapping transfers. That was why public aircars were available.
There was a transfer point just up the street, however. Of course,
she could have ordered Shadowen to transfer her from anywhere, but
there was no need, and it was frowned upon.

A passing
orderly sprayed something in her face, and she gasped, turning to
rebuke him. The world spun away into blackness.

Chapter Fourteen

The Shrike
walked along a corridor on the slaver space station Pertal,
notorious for its menu of carnal depravities. Since Rayne had left,
he had flung himself into his work, and ordered Vidan to return to
Ironia to prevent his second-in-command from hovering over him like
a drel-bear with one cub. Two of his cruisers orbited the base, and
Scimarin was docked at one of the many spaceports. The Mansurian
slaver who owned the base strolled at his side, extolling the
virtues of the unsavoury goodies he had on offer. As always, Tarke
had been accorded every courtesy, as the most powerful slaver lord
in the galaxy, renowned for buying low-grade slaves in bulk. His
rivals probably assumed he sold them to the Saurians on the Outer
Rim, or at least someone who made them vanish without a trace. They
did not care what he did with them; his money was good.

Tarke missed
Rayne, and spent his days looking forward to speaking to her on the
space line every night. It had only been a week, but his longing to
see her in person was becoming intolerable. The very thing he had
dreaded had happened, and he blamed himself. He should never have
told her anything about his past. He had promised himself he would
not, and then he had told her about two of his experiences on the
same day. He also cursed the stupid reaction that had ruined such a
special moment. Just when he had thought he was making progress,
she had surprised him and triggered a reflex. Nor would he ever be
able to convince her it was all right. She had seen his scars, and
she probably knew the experiences he had told her about were
amongst his less horrendous, because he would not speak about the
truly horrific ones, and he had plenty of those. He had seen it in
her mind when he had gone aboard Shadowen. She thought she was
hurting him, and that horrified her.

During her
battle with the Envoy, Rayne had been in contact with a slave mind:
the Crystal Ship, a gentle, fragile being that had been forced to
obey through pain. She had shared its pain, and that, he feared,
had given her an unusual insight into his reasons for wanting to be
alone, which made their relationship so much more difficult. He was
not the only damaged person in it, and now his past had driven her
away. Trust him, he thought bitterly, to fall in love with a
beautiful, special girl who was the one person in the galaxy who
would not be able to deal with his mental scars. She needed someone
solid and dependable, who could give her the happiness she
deserved, not a broken shadow of a man with a nightmare for a
past.

Yesterday he
had received an alarming report from one of the cruisers he had
assigned to escort her. Rayne had gone to Atlan. Her brother had
been injured, and she, naturally, had rushed to his side. His
cruisers could do nothing to prevent her, short of crippling
Shadowen, and he would never authorise that. He had ordered the
cruisers back to base and warned her to be careful. Rebuking her
would only alienate her even more. He could only hope the
Atlanteans would not try to probe her mind again, after their last,
disastrous attempt. If they harmed her, they would answer to him,
and they knew it. His oath was still in effect, and always would
be. That did not stop him worrying about her. He shook himself from
his thoughts and returned his attention to his host, who gestured
to a doorway ahead.

“Here we are.
I’m sure you’ll be pleased with them.”

“I’m always
pleased with the wares you find, Gromall,” Tarke said. “You have a
knack for sourcing better-quality burnouts than most.”

Gromall smiled,
revealing a set of large false teeth, since he was a Dravel-Saurian
cross with shiny grey skin and frilly ears, an amphibian, thanks to
his Dravel mother, while his Saurian father had given him the
ability to walk upright on large webbed feet. His lack of dentition
came from his mother, whose race had evolved in the mud of a sludge
world in the Tarman Quadrant. Tarke would never understand how such
weird crossbreeds came to be. The door ahead slid open, and Gromall
led him into a vast slave pen where hundreds of unfortunates
languished in communal enclosures. He was a level above them, able
to look down on them, and a network of walkways gave access to all
the pens. Each one held about a hundred slaves, Tarke calculated as
he stopped at the railing to study the merchandise. Most were thin,
unkempt females with matted hair and blank eyes.

“From the
Verdar Moon,” Gromall explained. “They were there for the miners’
use, but this batch is pretty much worthless. The miners suffer
from
shindar
disease, and these are all infected. Good for
fodder, though.”

Tarke nodded.
“Two regals apiece.”

“I was thinking
four, actually.”

“Two. My
clients aren’t partial to diseased food.”

Gromall
shrugged. “Fine.” He went to the next pen, which again held mostly
females, these in better condition, some still wearing cosmetics
and sparkly clothes. “From -”

“I don’t really
care,” Tarke interrupted. “Some pleasure club, I’m sure. Four
apiece for these, and don’t bother to ask for six. They’re all
burnouts and addicted to Stardust.”

Gromall made a
glugging sound that passed for laughter. “No one can fool you, eh,
Shrike. Not that I was going to try, of course.”

Tarke gazed
across the vast warehouse. “I really don’t have time to inspect all
of them. I have pressing business. Let’s say three apiece for the
rest.”

“Some of them
are worth far more. I have fifty gladiators from -”

“Fine, four
regals apiece, and that’s my final offer.”

Gromall gave a
whistling sigh through his single nostril “You drive a hard
bargain. All right, four apiece.”

“I’m sure you
only paid one apiece for the ones you didn’t steal.” The Shrike
swung away. “I’ll send a transport for them. It will be here
tomorrow. Contact Vidan on Ironia for the money.”

Gromall hurried
after him. “We must drink to seal the deal, Shrike. It will only
take a moment of your time, and I have some specials, too.”

Tarke followed
the slaver further down the corridor and into a deviant den, one of
the places he hated the most, where rich clients satisfied their
debauched cravings. The conditioned air stung his nose and the
familiar scent of pain and fear made his stomach clench. Dark blue
carpet stretched away between pale green screened alcoves to a
distant bar counter where well-dressed men and women chatted and
drank. The ceiling gave off a pale pink glow, and soft music wafted
from all around. The sounds emanating from the alcoves sickened
him, and a few miserable-looking, pretty young slave girls and boys
sat in a huddle in an open area. Tarke turned down the audio
pickups in the mask to try to block out the sounds. Gromall raised
an arm and snapped his webbed fingers at a serving slave, who
hurried over.