Slip Point (9 page)

“We can’t even talk to each other.” But she keyed the speakers. “Keaton, can you bring Quynh to the bridge?”

While they waited, Jayce said, “The Purists have a number of stances about the human race, besides not wanting to interact with the Bellers. They find the Speaker’s mutation offensive. Some claim it makes her non-human.”

Quynh and the doctor arrived as Shayalin thought over how the idea of a human woman married to a mutant would strike them. Enough to want that wife dead?

Jayce and Quynh immediately fell into a terse conversation.

“What’s happening?” Keaton asked Shayalin quietly.

“Pirates are chasing us.” She grimaced at the irony. “Jayce is about to explain why they’re going to fire on us once they’re close enough.”

Keaton’s eyes widened, but her reply was cut off by Jayce.

“It’s not Quynh that some Purist factions want to kill,” he said. Quynh, standing beside him with her hands resting on her abdomen, looked remarkably tense for someone who wasn’t a target for murder. “It’s the child.”

“Because the child might have a chance of speaking the aliens’ language?” Shayalin asked. “Because she shares the mutation?”

“She shares more than the mutation. She’s the Speaker’s clone.”

Keaton gasped. Shayalin’s surprise pushed her to her feet. She couldn’t help staring at Quynh, who nodded unhappily. Human cloning was illegal, mostly for the protection of the clones, who would otherwise be cut up for spare parts. But the Senate almost needn’t have bothered—it was notoriously difficult to manage a viable clone. Clearly an exception had been made for the Speaker, whose mutation was too precious to risk losing.

“So she’s the insurance policy for a treaty with the aliens.”

Quynh glanced at Jayce, who translated, then looked at Shayalin directly as she spoke.

“So the Senate sees it, yes,” Jayce relayed for Quynh. “But Nala and I see it as protecting our daughter. We hope she’ll be part of the long-term cooperation between our people and the Bellers. But perhaps by then we’ll have learned how to speak freely with each other.”

“You’re not worried about…” Shayalin gestured helplessly, trying to encompass all the potential consequences stemming from this child’s origins.

Quynh seemed to understand even without a translation of that unfinished sentence. “We’ll treat her as her own person,” she said firmly, with Jayce translating. “As much as I love Nala, one of her is enough. We just wanted a child, and the premier was persuasive about going this route. She promised full support. She didn’t mention any of this happening, but I suppose she couldn’t have known the quarantine would declared.”

So this had been the previous premier’s scheme. And no wonder Quynh had gone to Cuoramin, which would have been able—in terms of both medical technology and ethics—to arrange the conception.

“All right.” Shayalin scrubbed at her face. “So you might be seen as an abomination—sorry, Quynh—and we really should avoid that ship that’s closing in on us, since it might just attack us within a few minutes.”

Keaton finally spoke, her face pale. “We’ll get out of your way.”

Shayalin didn’t spare them any more thought as they left the bridge.

“There’s an asteroid belt in this system,” Jayce said, perusing his console. “We should be able to use it for cover.”

“The belt isn’t all that dense, and by the time we reach it they’ll be pretty close. I don’t think we’ll be able to hide.”

“But we can duck out of sight long enough for a slip.”

“I can’t manage the calculations while steering behind an asteroid,” she objected.

He smiled. “I’ll pilot. Your math has always been better anyway.”

“You think I’ll let you fly my ship?”

“Be reasonable, Shay.” He put a hand on hers, warm and callused. None of her crew would have dared touch her so, but none of her crew would have caused an answering heat to shoot up her entire arm. She let herself linger momentarily in that warmth before drawing away.

“I know, I’m being irrational.” There were pilots on her crew who usually handled the
Adannaya
. But this was Jayce. Giving up her ship to him meant something different. “Fine. One tiny scratch, though, and I’ll repair it with your own hide.”

“It’ll give your ship a motley look,” Jayce said.

Good thing she’d already transferred navigational controls over to him, or that comment might have made her change her mind.

Jayce steered the ship comfortably, showing no sign that his usual vessel was far smaller and nimbler. Behind them came the Pangur.

“There,” she said, sighting an asteroid just large enough in diameter. “You’ll have to swing around it pretty close.”

“I can do it. I’ll follow this trajectory.” Numbers scrolled by on her console. “Get the slip coordinates, dammit!”

Shayalin tore her eyes from the sensor screens and began calculating like a four-dimensional madwoman.

The
Adannaya
suddenly lurched to one side.

Shayalin grabbed at her console. “What are you doing?”

“They fired,” Jayce said shortly. “I thought you didn’t want your ship hit.”

She dug her stylus furiously into the tablet. Then her hand jerked and drew a long, jagged line across her work as the ship twisted and banked. Aequiti were not meant to spiral—merchant ships rarely had to execute fancy maneuvers—but that was exactly what they were doing. Shayalin refused to check the sensors and focused on her numbers, even as the
Adannaya
abruptly lifted up and dipped down again, as though it were hiccoughing.

Throughout the gyrations, though, there was never the telltale shudder of her ship getting struck.

She didn’t have time to double-check her figures, as she usually liked to do, so she fed them directly into the console. “I’m done,” she said. Now they had to wait for just the right moment when they’d be obscured from the Pangur’s sensors. “Are we still going to make the same spot you originally mapped out?”

“Now,” Jayce said, and Shayalin’s hands reflexively triggered the slip.

She almost dissolved in relief as her screens told her they were near the Atian spoke. They were on the wrong side of the barricade, but given her haste in making the calculations, their position was near-miraculous. Another slip, calculated with more care, would take them where they needed.

Jayce turned to her, grinning. “That was tight for a moment or two back there.” But despite the strain it must have taken on him, he looked easy and relaxed in his seat. As though he belonged there as the pilot of her ship.

She had to admit she never would have been able to avoid the pirates like he had—her nerves still sang with exhilaration from that flight. And she couldn’t remember ever being this infuriated with him.

She stood and stalked out of the bridge.

He came after her, of course. He tried to grasp her shoulder but she spun around, jerking away from him. He gave her a measuring look and crossed his arms, unprovokable. “What’s wrong? You’re acting like I’ve got the plague.”

“What would you prefer?” she asked, letting her voice go silky. “Something more like this?”

She picked up his hand. With a look of surprise, he let her. She folded down his fingers except for the index and brought it to her lips. Before he could pull away, she enclosed it in the hot wetness of her mouth and, keeping her eyes on his, sucked.

He groaned. The sound stirred her—she remembered drawing that noise out of him while on her knees before him, back on Centuris, and the same thrill was there in eliciting this response from him. She’d meant to stalk away at this point, but she’d take the game just a little further, torment him just a little more…

She twisted her head from side to side as she dragged her lips up the length of his finger, her tongue swirling as well. When she reached the tip she let her teeth graze his skin lightly. She felt his body jerk in response.

Then she repeated it on the next finger, taking her time.

When all five of his fingers were wet, so was she. Did he still taste the same? Her hand drifted downward. It snagged on his belt. With its holster and gun.

She fiercely reminded herself who he was—a Corps pilot who happened to be assigned to her commission, not just her old lover—and pulled back.

“Well,” she said, trying to keep her tone light, “that was fun.” But her voice trembled on the last word, and when she tried to brush past him she made the mistake of staying within reach.

He slapped one palm on the wall just in front of her. Then he set his other hand behind her. She turned to face him, backing up against the wall. He had her trapped in the space between his arms.

“Don’t you remember what they say on Centuris?” he said, almost pleasantly. His smile had an edge.

She had to try twice before she could speak. “Finish what you start.”

His mouth descended upon hers. She responded by parting her lips and pressing her body to his. Feeling the hard ridge of his erection brought a brief relief, then even greater hunger. She arched her hips, rubbing herself against that hardness. There were just a few layers of cloth between them…

She squirmed in his hold, trying to get more of him, but he misunderstood it as an attempt at escape and transferred his hold on her wrists into one hand. The other, now free, slipped under her shirt and cupped her breast. The feel of skin upon skin was shocking and she tried to move her head to one side to gasp, but he only took the opportunity to move his lips to her neck.

That was unfair. He knew that was a sensitive spot for her. She melted against him and moaned. Loudly.

They paused like the guilty teenagers they’d once been, wondering if they’d been overheard, but there was only silence.

Shayalin took this as license to work at his belt, but he set her aside with barely a glance and left her staring after him.

He returned almost immediately, his face set in grim lines.

“Quynh’s gone.”

“What?” Her arousal extinguished, she went into the room to see for herself. The doctor wasn’t there either. There was no sign of a struggle—the bed was still neatly made. “Maybe they’re just somewhere else.”

They divided the ship between them and met up again in Quynh’s cabin all too soon with equally grim expressions.

“Keaton’s gone, too, and so is her kit, so at least whoever took them must care about Quynh and her baby’s health.”

Shayalin felt a sudden chill. “No. Keaton’s the one who took her. The shuttle’s gone.”

“Her own doctor?”

“The premier warned me that Purists had infiltrated everywhere,” Shayalin said. “Even here, I guess.” She hadn’t thought his words would apply to his own handpicked members of this mission.

“Why didn’t she just kill them, then?” Jayce asked.

“Remember how strongly she felt about how we shouldn’t kill anyone on Cuoramin?” They’d all been agreed on that point, but Keaton had made the first, loud objection even before their planning had gotten underway. “I think she really does hold life to be sacrosanct. She’s an obstetrician, after all.”

“On the other hand,” he said slowly, “I think finding out the baby was a clone truly horrified her. She didn’t say a word in that conversation.”

“She didn’t know already?”

He shook his head. “The premier didn’t want me to tell her. He wanted to be sure she would join us. There aren’t all that many Atian doctors with her specialty on other side of the barricade.”

“So where would she have gone?”

“We need to figure that out fast,” he said, heading for the bridge.

She looked around the empty room one last time in frustration, then whirled on Jayce. “What kind of guard are you?”

He turned to face her. “Do you really want to stand around and blame me,” he said, “or do you want to actually start trying to find her?”

She swallowed the rest of her anger. He was right—they had to move quickly to try to recover Quynh. And she was as much at fault for distracting him. “Sorry. Let’s find her.”

It wasn’t too hard to guess. Their slip had brought them close enough to a barricade ship for a shuttle to make it. The other spokes had already demonstrated their distrust of Atian negotiations with the aliens. Keaton would have likely counted on a kinder reception of whatever beliefs she held.

Worse, the
Adannaya
’s power stores had been drained by the fast flying and the slip, so they couldn’t go much faster than cruising speed. With its head start, the shuttle would probably reach the barricade ship before they could catch it.

“I can’t believe we let her stroll off the ship,” Shayalin said, pacing. “Maybe the doctor slipped us an aphrodisiac.”

Jayce shot her a fierce look. “Don’t do that.”

She took an involuntary step backward. “Do what?”

“Tell me that this—” He closed the distance between them and jerked her into his arms, kissing her with brazen possession and setting her senses ablaze with the feel of his body against hers. “Don’t try to tell me that this wasn’t started years ago,” he breathed. “Don’t pretend that this is something chemical someone else concocted. Don’t act like you don’t want me for any other reason than that you do.” He claimed her mouth again.

She rammed an elbow into his stomach and spun out of his hold.

“Sorry,” she said after a minute of watching him lean against the wall, pale. She’d panicked because he’d been right—their attraction was nothing new or artificial—but she wasn’t about to admit it.

He didn’t open his eyes. “That’s all right. It’ll help me remember not to grab you in the future.”

His lack of anger immediately melted hers. She walked up to him and touched his cheek very gently, which made him look at her.

“In the future,” she said, “if you want me moaning about how much I want you…well, yeah, there are better ways of accomplishing that.”

There was a familiar gleam in his eye now. She had just dared him, and he had just accepted the challenge.

“Right now,” she said hastily, “we have other business to take care of.”

He nodded, tamping down on that smoldering heat, but she knew it would flare back up later. She forced her breathing to calm.

“So we need to get on that ship,” she said.