Starflight (28 page)

Just half a fuel chip bought him three pairs of pants, several pullover shirts, a parcel of socks and shorts, and a knapsack to carry it all in. A bargain, he learned, because Spaulding Fuel cost twice as much on this planet than on Obsidian. Despite the sudden increase in his currency’s value, Doran frowned as he walked away. He couldn’t see any reason for the steep markup. Fuel cost more to transport to remote planets, but not
that
much more.

He found his friends playing carnival games in a field behind the town hall. Kane held a rifle stock in the bend of his shoulder and fired lasers at moving holographic targets in the air. Judging by Cassia’s laughter, he hadn’t landed a shot yet.

“It’s busted or something,” Kane muttered, scrutinizing the rifle’s eyepiece.

“If by ‘it,’ you mean your head,” Cassia said, “then I agree.”

The carny running the booth, a stout man with a barbell piercing in his lower lip and the words
BORN TO KILL
tattooed across his neck, slapped a palm on the counter and growled, “Ain’t nothing wrong with my equipment. Let the lady try.”

Kane made a show of glancing around the field. “Lady? I don’t see a lady here.”

“You scatweed,” Cassia said, snatching the rifle. She jabbed him in the belly with it, then raised the weapon smoothly toward the targets and fired. In response, a bubble exploded into a twinkling shower of fireworks. “See?” she announced, and shoved the gun back at him. “The only thing that’s busted is your aim.”

“You two are such easy marks,” Solara said, burying her hand in a bag of roasted nuts. “The rifle’s laser isn’t calibrated to match the targets.” She pointed a nut at the carny before tossing it into her mouth. “He’s triggering the hits with a foot pedal. It’s the oldest trick in the book.”

The carny gave her a glare that would melt steel. “Are you accusing me of thievery?”

Solara shrugged. “Everyone knows these games are rigged.”

“Rigged?” asked a new voice from behind.

When Doran spun around, his gaze landed on the hardest-looking woman he’d ever seen—not so much unattractive as lethal. He caught himself drawing back. At six feet tall and about thirty years old, she had a striking face with regal cheekbones and an ice-cold smile that would send any lucid man running for his life in the opposite direction.

“I provide the finest traveling amusements in this system,” the woman said. “Anyone who says otherwise is attacking my livelihood, and that of my employees.” Her upper lip curled, revealing an incisor so sharp that she must have filed it. “Do you know what the punishment is for slander, little girl? I could have your tongue slit for this.”

Solara stepped forward with fire in her gaze, but Doran put her behind him and said, “She didn’t mean anything by it.”

The woman’s frigid blue eyes narrowed to slits. “That girl accused my worker of tampering with the game. Now you’re saying she didn’t mean it?”

“No, she didn’t,” Doran told her.

“Then she disparages reputations for fun? I don’t see how that’s any better.”

“We don’t want any trouble. Let’s just—”

“What you want,” she interrupted, “is irrelevant. You’ve got trouble. All that remains to be seen is how you’ll pay for it.”

Doran was considering whether he should grab Solara’s hand and run when Kane slung the laser rifle casually over one shoulder and sauntered up to the woman.

“You’ll have to forgive my cousin,” he said in a voice that dripped honey. He tapped his forehead and let loose that punch-worthy crooked grin of his. “She’s a bit touched by God, as my mum used to say. Never been the same since the black fever of…” He paused, tipping his head in wonder at the woman.

“What are you staring at?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” Kane said. “It’s just…there’s a place on Louron, my home world, where the river meets the sea in a shallow bank of pristine white sand. When the sun hits it just right, the water turns the most incredible shade of blue. It’s almost too beautiful to bear.” He reached toward her face, then pulled back. “I never thought I’d see that color again, until a moment ago, when I looked into your eyes.”

While Doran suppressed the urge to vomit, the woman lifted a hand to her heart and blushed—actually
blushed
—as a soft gasp parted her lips.

She was really falling for this tripe?

“You’re breathtaking,” Kane whispered. “I hope you don’t mind me saying so.”

The woman flapped a dismissive hand.

“You might slap me for this,” Kane murmured, “but I have to tell you…” Then he pressed his mouth to her ear and said something that made her giggle harder than a freshman at a slumber party.

Doran took that as his cue to make an exit.

He retreated a pace, and then another, while towing Solara along with him. Once they reached a safe distance, he flagged Cassia over, and the three of them made their way quickly to the other end of the festival grounds.

“So much for lying low,” Solara said into her bag of nuts.

“Don’t worry about it,” Cassia told her. “Kane could seduce the wings off a bird. It’s his one useful talent.”

“Does he do that often?” Solara asked.

Cassia laughed while helping herself to a handful of nuts. “He’s been charming his way out of trouble since we were kids.”

That caught Doran’s attention. “You grew up together?”

“Yes, but not on Louron. He was lying about that.”

“Where, then?”

The shift in her expression warned that she would dodge the question, which she did with a flick of her wrist. “Just a small colony in another sector. You’ve probably never heard of it.”

Worried she might shut down completely, Doran decided not to press for the planet’s name. Instead, he asked, “How’d you end up on the
Banshee
?”

He noticed that Cassia started rubbing her throat, but she dropped her hand when she saw him watching. Then she fixed her gaze on the ground. “Things are complicated at home. We’ll go back someday, when it all dies down.”

Her typically sharp tone was full of so much sadness that Doran couldn’t bring himself to ask any more questions. Something terrible had obviously prompted her to leave home, and prying information out of her felt like kicking a puppy.

They wandered in silence back to the town square to browse the vendor tables. Cassia’s mood brightened when Kane caught up with them.

“So, did you make a new friend?” she asked with a teasing grin.

Kane wrinkled his nose and stopped to spit on the street. “Yeah. A friend who chews hash leaves. She kissed me, and now I’ll never get the taste out of my mouth.”

“Here,” Solara said, holding out the bag of nuts. “Maybe this will help.”

Cassia intercepted the bag and arched a haughty brow at Kane. “Considering the kind of girls you date, this should be an improvement.”

“You seem to care an awful lot about my love life,” Kane told her, snatching the nuts. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous.”

Cassia drew a breath loud enough to tell anyone within listening distance that Kane had plucked a nerve. “Not in your most twisted fantasies!”

Kane leaned down until their eyes met. “My fantasies aren’t all twisted. I’ll tell you about them if you ask nicely.”

The girl’s lips parted, and then Kane smiled—not the oily grin he used like a weapon, but a barely noticeable curve of his mouth with warmth dancing behind his eyes. Doran had never seen that smile before, so he presumed it was the real thing.

And he’d given it to Cassia.

It was then that Doran understood. Kane was in love with a girl who outranked him by a thousand rungs on the social ladder. It wasn’t clear whether Cassia felt as strongly, but even if she did, she probably wouldn’t let herself get serious with him. Not if she intended to return home. Doran almost felt sorry for the guy. The tension inside their quarters had to be combustive enough to launch a missile. No wonder they fought all the time.

The look Solara gave him said she’d noticed it, too.

Cassia spun around and turned her attention to a jewelry display. Kane barely had time to dodge the girl’s flying dreadlocks when she reached out blindly and clutched his arm.

“Kane,” she breathed, eyes locked on the table.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

They all gathered around the table and watched as Cassia lifted a necklace from its stand. It was a simple design, just a black cord with a blue marbled pendant set in tarnished silver. Doran didn’t see what all the fuss was about.

The vendor, a wrinkled man with tufts of gray chest hair protruding from his collar, swept a hand toward the necklace. “It’s an Eturian prayer stone, used for—”

“I know what it is,” Cassia snapped. “How much?”

He motioned for her to come closer, then whispered in her ear.

“
What?
” she cried, recoiling. “Are you mad? That’s a month’s wages.”

The vendor’s answering shrug said he didn’t care. “It’s a simple issue of supply and demand. No one’s been able to export from Eturia since the war began.”

Cassia’s hand went slack, dropping to her side. “What war?” she asked in barely a whisper. “When did it start? Which kingdoms are fighting?”

Another shrug. “Even if I knew, it wouldn’t change my price.”

Cassia seemed to have stopped breathing. Kane took the necklace from her and hooked it back onto the display, then wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her across the street.

Solara touched Doran’s elbow and stood on tiptoe to reach his ear. “I think it’s obvious where they’re from,” she whispered. “What do you know about Eturia?”

“Nothing,” Doran said. There were more than a hundred colonies within the Solar Territories, and at least a dozen more in the fringe. He’d only studied those that mattered to the company. “Cassia was right. I’ve never heard of it.”

He peered above the crowd and saw Cassia’s face buried in Kane’s chest. An influx of shoppers thickened the street, and when Doran finally lost sight of the pair, he turned to the vendor and asked for more information about Eturia.

“It’s a small colony,” the man said. “On the most beautiful planet you’ll never see.”

“
Never
see?” asked Solara.

“Visitors and immigrants aren’t allowed past the atmosphere shield.” He indicated the wares spread across his table. “That’s what makes these so valuable.”

“What about the war?” Doran asked. “Do you know why they’re fighting?”

The man frowned, likely sensing this wouldn’t result in a sale. “Like I already told your friend, I don’t know anything. And even if I did—”

“It wouldn’t change your price,” Doran finished. He thanked the man and backed into the street with Solara. “So what now?” he asked her. “We could talk to the other vendors. Someone else might know more.”

“We could do that. Or we could enjoy our shore leave.” Pointing at the sky, she added, “That’s a real sun up there, not a lamp to keep us from getting transport madness, but an actual star shining above solid ground.”

“And we only have until morning to soak it in,” Doran agreed. “Point taken.”

“Come on.” She linked their arms and steered him in the other direction, where a giant harvest maze had been erected in a schoolyard. “Let’s lose ourselves in some corn.”

D
oran kept his elbow linked with Solara’s and didn’t let go the entire time they wandered through the maze. Neither of them was in a hurry. They strolled aimlessly among the rows of brown cornstalks while children raced past them toward the finish line. There was no conversation between them, but it was a contented silence. The fresh breeze, the warm rays, and the music of laughter blended into an intoxicating cocktail, and they drank it up until they accidentally found the maze’s exit.

By that time, their stomachs rumbled, so they found a concession stand and loaded up on fire-roasted corn, mulled cider, meat on a stick, and enough fried funnel cake to send them into a sugar coma. They carried their feast to a flat patch of grass and gorged themselves until they lay sprawled in the sun like bloated walruses.

“I might die,” Solara groaned, rubbing her belly. “But I’ll go with a smile.”

Doran loosened his belt a notch, then reclined with an arm folded under his head. “Do me a favor and die tomorrow. That way I’ll have a partner for the barn dance tonight.”

She snorted a dry laugh. “I guess with that face, you never had to learn how to sweet-talk girls.”

“You have to remember I’m speaking Jackass.”

“Well, try it again in English.”

Doran rolled onto his side and took her hand, then pressed it to his chest. “Solara,” he crooned. “Will you do me the honor of accompanying me to a Podunk barn dance tonight? I can’t promise not to step on your feet, but I swear I won’t let you pass out naked in a churchyard.” He winked. “Unless you’re up for that. In which case, you can count on me to make it happen.”

She tried scowling at him, but her lips twitched into a grin. “It’s a good thing I like you, or you’d be dancing alone tonight.”

Her words did funny things to his stomach. “You like me?” he asked, threading their fingers together. “How much?”

“Not enough for naked churchyard shenanigans.”

“That’s a shame.”