Sweet Starfire (31 page)

“This isn’t going to look like any neat, clean holotape. Why don’t you start the flamer while I take care of this?” He handed her the tiny can of instant fire he had removed from his loop and turned back to the hopper.

Cidra looked away, busying herself with igniting the emergency flamer. She had it going quickly and adjusted the wide flame to a reasonable level. The fire was very comforting here in the middle of the jungle, she discovered.

Severance was tiring very rapidly. Cidra kept a wary eye on him as he washed his bloodied hands in the bubbling stream. But she said nothing as he doggedly roasted sections of meat on the narrow point of the utility knife.

Cidra listened to the hissing of animal fat and tried to close her nostrils to the smell of roasting meat. When Severance handed her a portion, she took it without a word.

“Careful, it’s hot.” He bit hungrily into the hindquarter he was holding.

Cidra stopped breathing as she took a tiny bite. She’d never eaten meat in her life. Closing her eyes, she chewed woodenly, trying not to taste. On the other side of the small flamer Severance chewed vigorously and watched her. Under his steady gaze she forced herself to swallow the first bite, trying to think of it as medicine.

“We’re very lucky you remembered to bring the utility loop and the pulser with you,” she remarked, trying for light dinner-table conversation. In the shadows the other diners weren’t being nearly so fussy. Their conversations consisted of squeals, growls, hisses, and shrieks. She hoped they would finish quickly.

“It was probably instinct more than luck. It certainly wasn’t careful, foresighted planning. I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time. I just remember feeling undressed. Wearing the loop is second-nature to me. And carrying a pulser on Renaissance has gotten to be an unconscious action.” He finished gnawing on a leg. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” she said tightly, and forced down another bite.

“You look a little green.” He scrutinized her in the flickering light. “Sure you’re okay?”

“Yes.”

His expression softened. “Poor Cidra. Just one new experience after another these days, isn’t it?”

“This trip has turned out slightly different than I had anticipated.”

“What an understatement.”

She felt obliged to hold her own. “But thanks to your unorthodox way of doing things, I might have discovered a shortcut to my goal.” She glanced behind her into the darkened entrance of the circular chamber.

“You think whatever drew us here is the source of the legend you’re chasing?” His eyes were unreadable now in the firelight.

“It’s possible. There was definitely a telepathic sensation involved, don’t you think? I felt the first trickle of it yesterday afternoon while I waited for you. I wonder if the failing deflector screens allowed the call to get through. Maybe deflectors normally block it.”

“But last night the screens were working at full strength.”

“True,” Cidra mused. “But by then the mechanism responsible for projecting the call might have had a fix, so to speak, on our location. Maybe it can’t compete against other distractions, but in the quiet of the night it was able to touch us.”

Severance shrugged and said nothing as he spitted another chunk of hopper and held it over the flame.

Cidra continued, trying to reason out the logic of the situation. “If one or two others in the past have felt that call, they might have told the tale to their friends. Over the years the stories would have grown more involved and complex.”

“Until they reached the point where they made it into the Archives? It’s possible. But if others have heard that call and followed it, why hasn’t anyone discovered this safehold?” Severance asked in a reasonable tone. “I don’t know.”

“Perhaps they heard the call but didn’t follow.” Cidra frowned. “Why wouldn’t they follow? We did.” “We were camped in the vicinity for two nights. The others might have merely caught traces of the call as they went by on a skimmer. The odds are no one’s ever camped in that particular spot before. It might take a while for the call to focus in on a mind and become strong enough to draw someone to this place. If it’s a mechanical device, it might have to tune itself.”

She nodded. “That makes sense.”

“There’s another possibility. Someone may have found this place before but not lived to tell about it. If a man thought that he’d get the same protection going out as he got coming in, he’d be in for a rude surprise. I wasn’t expecting protection, and I was still rudely surprised. Your Ghosts have a nasty sense of humor.”

“I don’t think they would have set a trap to lure intelligent beings here, show them their history, and then leave them unprotected. Perhaps they assumed that whoever found this place would be smart enough to protect themselves on the way back.”

He groaned. “Never make assumptions. Case in point sitting right here in front of you.”

She was shocked at her own words. “Oh, Severance, I never meant to imply that you…”

“That I’m not very bright? Don’t worry. You don’t need to imply it. Facts speak for themselves.”

“Are you always so hard on yourself when things go wrong?”

“Only when they go wrong badly enough to get someone killed.”

“Neither of us has been killed, Severance.”

“I’ll cling to that thought.”

He stood up again and walked back to the stream to wash the grease from his hands. He needed rest very badly, Cidra thought as she unobtrusively put down the uneaten section of her meat. She didn’t think she could swallow any more. Something was very wrong in the region of her stomach.

“Let’s try to get some sleep. Since we don’t know for certain just how reliable this circle is, we’ll take turns keeping watch.”

“I’ll take the first watch,” she volunteered.

He shook his head. “I’m liable to feel worse later on tonight. I’ll need the rest then. I’ll take the first watch while I’ve still got some energy left.” Severance sank down onto the ground with his back to the curving wall. “Turn off the flamer. Don’t want to waste fuel. We’ll use the quartzflash for light.”

“I think the circle is very safe. Nothing has even tried to cross the boundary.” Cidra was only absently aware of what she was saying. Her attention was on the growing nausea that was simmering in her stomach. She was swallowing rapidly now, and her forehead felt damp from something other than the local humidity. “Cidra?”

“It’s all right, Severance. Just give me a minute.” She kept her back to him and walked slowly to the edge of the circle, just beyond the range of the quartzflash.

“Cidra, come back here. What do you think you’re doing?”

At that moment she lost the battle with her stomach. Her first meal of meat exited the way it had entered, leaving Cidra shuddering with unpleasant convulsions. She felt Severance’s good arm around her even before she was finished.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I guess eating meat takes a little practice.”

“I’ll admit you don’t seem to be taking to it as readily as you do to other Wolf ways.” Gently he led her over to the stream, purified some water for her, and started to bathe her face.

“I’ll do it.” Embarrassed, she took the bag of water from him and knelt to finish washing her face and rinsing her mouth. “I’m all right, Severance, honestly. You must be careful not to start that shoulder bleeding again.”

“Yes, Otanna.”

She shot him an uncertain glance and realized that he was smiling laconically. Hastily she finished washing herself. Then she joined him at the wall where he was trying to settle into a reasonably comfortable position with the pulser resting on his drawn-up knee. His other leg was stretched out in front of him. Slowly she sank down beside him.

“You’ll call me when it’s my turn?” she asked.

“I’ll wake you. Try to get some sleep, Cidra. Put your head down on my leg.”

Carefully she obeyed, intensely conscious of the long, smooth muscles of his thigh as she used it as a pillow. She couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say under the circumstances, so she lay very still, listening to the sounds of the darkness and trying not to think of the previous night’s lovemaking. After all, she lectured herself, this was neither the time nor the place to dwell on the emotional and physical intimacy she had found in Severance’s arms.

His arm moved, draping across her shoulder and breasts with casual possessiveness. Cidra flinched and then relaxed. His touch was comforting, she decided, not sensual. She went back to trying not to think of what she had experienced with him.

But she was very much afraid she would never forget that time of pleasure and passion. There had been a raw, primitive response coursing through her last night that had nothing to do with serenity and calm ritual. It was an emotion totally pegged to the man who had held her, and Cidra knew that a lifetime would not be long enough to dim the memories. Severance kept telling her she was a Wolf, like it or not, and last night he had proved it.

“Go to sleep, Cidra. Stop thinking about it.” His hand stroked her arm with reassuring gentleness.

She knew for a fact that he couldn’t read her mind. “Stop thinking about what?”

“Last night.”

She grimaced. “How did you now that’s what I was thinking about?”

He chuckled softly. “It was either that or else you were thinking of what you had for dinner. Since you weren’t showing any signs of getting nauseated, I decided it was probably sex that was keeping you awake.”

“Your ego at work, no doubt.”

“No. Actually it was a lucky guess based on the fact that I was thinking about the same thing.”

“Oh.”

There was a pause before Severance said gently, “It changes everything, you know.”

“I don’t see why it should.” But she was lying and she knew it. He was right. Everything had changed.

“Sweet liar.” He bent his head and brushed her cheek with his lips. “You’re picking up all sorts of new habits, aren’t you? I’ll bet you never told a single lie all the time you lived in Clementia.”

The truth of that observation was disturbing. “I didn’t make this journey to become a Wolf, Severance.”

“I know.” The brief amusement faded from his voice. “I know. Go to sleep.”

She closed her eyes and was surprised to find that she could obey.

When Severance awakened her a few hours later, Cidra stirred stiffly, sitting up slowly and yawning as he shoved the butt of the pulser into her palm. She blinked sleepily, realizing vaguely that in the light of the flash his face looked more drawn and exhausted than it had earlier. She didn’t think his eyes appeared quite as clear, either.

“How are you feeling?”

“Lousy. But I’ll live till morning. Know how to use the pulser?”

“I know the theory, yes.” She was surprised by how cold and heavy it felt in her hand.

“Shoot first if something crosses the edge of the circle. Believe me, I’ll be awake shortly thereafter.” He stretched out along the side of the wall, pillowing his head on her lap as if it were the way he bedded down every night. His eyes closed immediately.

Tentatively Cidra rested her arm on his chest. It seemed to her that he felt very warm. Too warm. She hoped the antiseptic spray she had used earlier was doing its job.

Staying awake with a pulser in one hand proved to be a formidable task. Cidra decided that she had never given enough credit to the heroes in the First Family novels who spent so much time standing guard. The problem was boredom.

Behind her back, the wall of the safehold continued to radiate the warmth it had collected during the day. Rather than being uncomfortable, it was rather pleasant, although by rights the balmy air should have been sufficiently warm. Beyond the edge of the circle, night things moved about their deadly business. Cidra occasionally got disconcerting glimpses of prowling eyes. Fortunately, for her peace of mind, very little else was visible. The circle was holding. The knowledge made her wonder again why the mind call had not provided a safe path back to the campsite.

That thought led to another. She realized that she was totally unaware of any lingering call in her mind. Having served the purpose of drawing the visitors to the safehold, the telepathic lure had dissolved. And with it, perhaps, had dissolved her chances of discovering the truth behind the legend.

If this safehold was the source of those small hints and uncertain promises she had set out to track down, she might be at the end of her quest before it had even properly begun. Furthermore the results of that quest showed every sign of being useless. A faded mind call left by a people who had long since passed into the shadows held little hope of being converted into the magic elixir that would make her a true Harmonic.

There was always the possibility that the mind call was not what had prompted the legends, however. If this safehold had survived the centuries intact, who knew what else might be hidden on Renaissance? She let her mind drift back to the history she had seen in the safehold. The ending bothered her. It wasn’t just a sense of sadness she felt for the passing of a great civilization. Cidra realized that she also felt anger. Deep inside she hadn’t wanted the Ghosts to fade away without a struggle of any kind. Unconsciously she had wanted them to fight back against their fate, not bow serenely to it.

Severance shifted slightly, not waking. She touched his forehead and found it dry and hot. Anxiously she examined the wound. As far as she could tell, no blood was leaking through the plastic adhesive. The flesh around it was swollen and red, but that probably wasn’t unusual under the circumstances. Cidra rested her head against the safehold wall again and stared out into the darkness. Renaissance had a way of forcing a person to view things in fundamental terms. She found maintaining a belief in wispy tales and legends difficult when she was constantly being faced with so many real-life monsters and challenges.

Sooner or later she was going to be forced to decide how far to follow her personal dream. Every step with Teague Severance had an odd way of moving her goal farther from her grasp. Yet she could think of no other method of pursuing her quest. The thought of dropping the search altogether left her feeling shaken. She had dreamed for too many years.