by C. Gockel
She sent a beseeching look in Thorn’s direction, and the mercenary nodded slightly. He raised the wine glass to his mouth once more and drank, then said, “I got into trouble often as not, myself. Let me tell you about this one time I had a tangle with a crime lord called Gared Tomas—”
And he launched into a tale she would have thought highly unlikely if anyone else had told it. Knowing Thorn, however, it was probably no more than the simple truth.
The rest of the evening passed quietly enough. Jerem still had homework, although he protested mightily having to do it at all, considering Thorn’s presence in the house. But after the mercenary reminded Jerem that he had promised to stay for as long as he could and would most likely be here far longer than just this one night, Jerem had taken himself off to his room, looking very put upon.
His absence left Miala staring awkwardly at Thorn and wondering what on earth they would do next. The table had been cleared and the kitchen tidied. She had no other necessary tasks to distract her. On a normal evening she would have retired to her office if Jerem had his own schoolwork to occupy him, or, lacking that, they would have sat down and watched a vid together. But none of those homely pursuits seemed at all appropriate for Eryk Thorn.
He spoke first. “He’s a good kid.”
How had Thorn known exactly the right thing to say? Miala smiled. “I think so.”
“But a handful,” he added.
“Were you any different?” she countered, and a corner of the mercenary’s mouth lifted.
An odd expression crossed Thorn’s dark eyes. “Worse. Much worse.”
“Care to elaborate?” Despite her diffidence, Miala moved closer to the mercenary. His expression—as much of it as there was, at least—seemed to be an odd mixture of bitterness and wry humor.
Thorn shook his head. “That’s a story for another night. Past is done, anyhow.” Then he looked over at her, and again she saw that quirk at the corner of his mouth. “What’s the kid’s bedtime?”
Puzzled, Miala slowly replied, “Usually around 21:00. Sometimes half-past, if he has a lot of homework.”
Thorn’s gaze slid past her to the chrono on the kitchen wall. “So about two standard.”
She nodded, and then her brain caught up to what he was driving at. No doubt the harsh overhead lighting in the kitchen illuminated her sudden blush perfectly.
“I didn’t rescue you from Murgan to worry about some kid playing chaperone,” Thorn said, and the sudden swift look he gave her made the blood flame even further in her cheeks. “I need to check on a few things. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Check on what?” she asked, but she knew he probably wouldn’t give her a straight answer.
But he surprised her. “My ship, for one. The rest isn’t important.”
“Of course not.”
Thorn pulled her to him then, and kissed her hard on the mouth. She didn’t have time to react before he released her and began to move toward the front door.
“Don’t you need the code?” she asked desperately.
“Sixteen two aught five, right?”
It was pointless asking how he had gotten the key code to her home security system. He’d only give her another one of those infuriating smirks. Instead, Miala watched him slip away into the night, feeling still the pressure of his mouth against hers, and forced herself to wait.
Hours passed. Jerem was finally put to bed at almost 22:00, protesting that he wanted to see his father before he went to sleep. It was only after Miala showed her son that truly the two of them were the only ones in the house that he settled down and at least pretended to go to sleep, although his sulky expression boded ill for Thorn. Her explanation that the mercenary had business to take care of had not sat very well with the boy, but it was the only excuse she could give Jerem. Truth be told, she wasn’t altogether thrilled with the situation herself. So the high and mighty mercenary couldn’t bear to spend a few quiet hours in the house with her? Too dull, perhaps? At least she wasn’t so boring that he didn’t want to spend the night with her!
Fuming, she returned to her own bedroom suite and prepared herself for bed. She was tired, and if Thorn thought she was going to stay up until all hours waiting for him to return, well, then, he was in for a little surprise. Her anger didn’t prevent her from donning an expensive nightgown of black synth-silk and Castopol lace, but she told herself it was just in case. After all, she’d been waiting for this night for more than eight years, and she wasn’t about to look like a frump just because Thorn had abandoned her for a few hours.
Sleep took its time in coming, but the feel of her comfortable, familiar bed soon lulled Miala away into oblivion. She therefore had no idea how much time had passed before she sensed movement in the room and sat up, blinking in the soft semidarkness. Ever since Jerem had been a baby she’d kept a small lamp on its lowest setting in one corner of the chamber in case she had to get up in the middle of the night and look in on him. It wasn’t difficult for her to make out Thorn’s form at the foot of the bed, where he seemed to have paused, looking uncertain.
This is a hell of a time for him to develop a sense of propriety, she thought, and pushed back at the quilted bedcover. “I’m right here, Thorn,” she snapped, wondering what in the galaxy he was waiting for.
He turned toward her. “Miala...” His voice sounded hoarser than usual, and she reached immediately for the button to turn on the bedside lamp.
As the light flooded the room, she looked back over at Thorn and gasped as he began to sag toward the floor. Heart beating a mad staccato in her breast, she hurled herself out of bed in a vain attempt to catch him before he collapsed completely. She caught him, but his weight was too much for her, and she fell to the floor with him, even as she realized the entire left side of his jumpsuit was stained with dark blood.
19
Shock didn’t prevent Miala from exclaiming, “What the hell—” as she began to pull at the fastenings on Thorn’s jumpsuit.
“S’all right,” he muttered. “Other guys look worse than me.”
Miala didn’t have a hard time believing that—it was Eryk Thorn she held in her arms, after all—but she didn’t waste time with replies. Instead, her fingers wrestled with the pressure tabs and snaps, slipping once or twice from the blood that soaked his garments. Once she had the jumpsuit removed, she could see the gaping wound that slashed from below the ribcage on the left and upward to the right. If they had come in at him from even a slightly different angle, he’d probably be dead. As it was, she didn’t know exactly what to do, but reached up and yanked one of the pillows off the bed, then hurriedly removed its case and pressed the wad of fabric against the wound in the mercenary’s chest.
“Damn molecular blades,” Thorn said, his eyes narrow slits in the half-darkness. “Bad?”
“You’ve probably had worse,” she replied. “But I need to get you to a hospital. You’re losing a lot of blood.”
“No,” he said immediately, clutching her arm with a grip that seemed unnaturally strong, given his current condition. “No hospitals.”
“So I just let you bleed to death in my bedroom? This isn’t exactly a scraped knee that I can just put a bandage on, Thorn!” Fear had sharpened her tone, and Miala lowered her voice before she went on, “One of my neighbors is a physician. Can I at least call him?”
The mercenary shut his eyes for a moment, and at first Miala worried he might have fainted. She should have known he was made of tougher stuff than that. After a few seconds he nodded, and said, “If you can trust him.”
I hope so, she thought. But although she knew Quin Lassiter slightly—his son Alic was one of Jerem’s best friends—it was one thing to let your son sleep over at someone’s house or share a backyard grill fest on Founder’s Day and quite another to go to that same person’s house in the middle of the night to patch up a wounded mercenary. Still, she knew she had no choice.
“He’s a friend,” she answered, after a short pause. “I’
ll think up some story to tell him. But first we need to get you off the floor.”
She saw his mouth tighten slightly, but he didn’t protest. Keeping her right arm firmly placed around his upper body, Miala slowly staggered to her feet, pulling Thorn upward as she went. He was trying to help, she could tell, and luckily he still had some strength left in his legs—just enough to maneuver himself onto the bed, where he collapsed in a heap on top of the covers. She guided his left hand to keep pressure on the makeshift bandage she’d fashioned out of the pillowcase, then wrestled with the bedding until she had him covered as well as she could. Her knowledge of first aid was far from complete, but she knew he had to keep warm or risk going into shock.
“I’ll go downstairs to make the call,” she said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she said. “Whatever you do—don’t move. I’m locking the door behind me.”
“Gun,” he replied, with a weak gesture toward the jumpsuit.
At first Miala wasn’t sure what he meant, then realized there must have been a holdout weapon hidden somewhere in the garment. She went immediately to the discarded heap of fabric on the floor and searched it quickly, feeling the distinctive shape of a small sidearm in a pocket concealed by a seam. Fumbling with the awkward configuration, she drew it out after a moment and handed it to Thorn.
“Just a precaution,” he murmured. “Didn’t see anyone following.”
Miala uttered a silent prayer of thanks once she heard that, for she had already begun to worry that whoever had attacked Thorn had friends who might be along at any moment to finish the job. At least the mercenary had entered the house quietly, and her son had a tendency to sleep like someone pumped full of high-octane tranquilizers, so she thought she could slip downstairs without him noticing.
Quickly she leaned down and gave Thorn a swift kiss of reassurance, then hurried to her wardrobe and pulled out a loose long-sleeved tunic and baggy pair of pants, an outfit usually reserved for the rare days when she planned to stay at home. Not wanting to waste time with a proper pair of shoes, she slid her feet into a pair of sandals and then went out, making sure the door was locked behind her.
The house was dark and still, and Miala slipped downstairs quickly, her feet quiet on the carpeted steps. Then she went into her office, shut the door, and flicked on the lights.
Of course she already had the Lassiters’ number keyed into her comm, since Jerem spent a good deal of time at their home, but even as the readout displayed their comm code Miala hesitated, her finger hovering over the “send” button. She had to decide what would be the best approach. Obviously the complete truth was out of the question. On the other hand, she couldn’t hide the fact that Thorn had been sliced open by a molecular blade, the sort of weapon one didn’t usually encounter on Nova Angeles. Actually, crime of any sort was rare on this civilized and well-regulated world. The risks were too high, the payoff too low. The few lurid stories Miala had seen on Nova Angeles’ news channels usually involved crimes of passion, not underworld activity. It was better to engage in that sort of business on a world that didn’t possess such a well-trained, highly motivated police force. Not enough profit in it here.
Still, muggings did occur every once in a great while, and usually near the spaceport, which was where Thorn had been attacked. She thought it best to leave it at that, and give Quin Lassiter the mercenary’s false name of Galen Marr. He would be an old friend from Iradia, come to visit her, and some unknown thugs had jumped him as he left his ship in the dark hours of the night...
Gathering her breath, she pushed down on the button and waited as she heard it buzz once, twice, three times. They won’t answer, she thought. It’s the middle of the night...they’ll think it’s a mistake... Never mind that the calls which came at such times were usually those that couldn’t be ignored, those which told of accidents, of trauma, of unexpected death...
But then the call went through, and Miala found herself staring at Quin Lassiter’s half-puzzled, half-annoyed features. He was a man some ten standard years older than she, with his son’s fair hair and sharp features. The annoyance in his eyes turned to worry as he recognized her. “Miala?” he asked. “Is something wrong with Jerem?”
“No,” she said swiftly. “Jerem’s fine. But I do have sort of a situation here—”
“What is it?”
“A—a friend,” she faltered. “He’s been hurt. I was wondering—I was hoping maybe you could come over and help me.”
“Hurt?” he repeated, with a frown. “Why didn’t you call a medical transport?”
Damn. She’d been afraid he would ask something like that. “It’s a little complicated, Quin.” She took a breath and continued, “Please. I don’t dare leave him too long—it’s bad—” And then she stopped, knowing if she went on any longer the lump in her throat would turn into outright sobs, and she wouldn’t be of any use to anyone.
A slight hesitation, and then Lassiter nodded. “All right. I’ll get over there quick as I can. Could you at least tell me what the problem is?”
Well, he would know soon enough. “A chest wound. From a molecular blade.”
Her neighbor’s eyebrows went up, but he seemed to restrain himself from any further comment. “Got it. I’m leaving now.”
And the screen went blank. Miala stepped away from the comm and went to the front door to await Lassiter’s arrival. She wondered if she should go back up and check on Thorn, but she didn’t dare leave the front door unlocked, and she didn’t want to be upstairs when the doctor arrived. All she could do was stand there, consumed by worry, and hope that Lassiter would be as fast as he had said he would.
His assurances turned out to be real. More quickly than she had thought possible, a small knock sounded at the front door. Obviously he was being careful and had avoided using the much louder door chime.
She hit the button for the door, and Lassiter stepped in, wearing a loose shirt over what looked like the bottom half of his sleeping garments and holding a hard-sided case, no doubt filled with medical supplies. He wasted no time on preliminaries, asking only, “Where is he?”
“Upstairs.”
And she led the way back to her room, where she unlocked the door and went immediately to the bed. “I’ve brought Doctor Lassiter,” she said.
Thorn nodded, although he didn’t open his eyes. As he had during those tense hours immediately following his ordeal at the Malverdine Cliffs, he seemed focused on himself, directing his energies inward.
Lassiter set his case down on the table next to the bed, carelessly pushing a lamp and her chronometer to one side. With swift, deft hands he lifted the makeshift bandage Miala had placed against the wound. She thought she saw the doctor’s lips thin a bit as he took in the extent of the damage, but he said nothing as he lifted out a spray hypo and shot something into Thorn’s arm.
Miala raised her eyebrows in question, and Lassiter said, “Simple anti-infection agent. Wound looks clean, but I don’t know about that pillowcase.”
At once she opened her mouth to defend the cleanliness of her bedding, then thought better of it. The man must know what he was doing, after all. Although medical mechanoids taken over many of the basic health-care tasks in the galaxy, Miala had found here on Nova Angeles the prevailing thought was that anything a mech could do, a living sentient being could do better. Having one’s health-care needs taken care of by a mechanoid instead of a live doctor smacked of the lower class, or the sort of thing practiced out on the frontier but not here on a civilized world. Quin Lassiter had a very successful practice catering to the upper levels of Rilsport society, although Miala herself went to a different doctor, simply because she would have felt odd seeing someone socially who knew all the intimate details of her or her son’s medical history.
She wondered suddenly whether he’d ever had to patch up a molecular-blade wound before...
Whether or not he had didn’t seem to be a problem, however. After applying a topical anesthetic, Lassiter worked swiftly, clea
nsing the deep slice through Thorn’s chest muscles, then running a micro laser-cauterizer over the gash to draw the torn muscles back together again. After that he brought out some antiseptic patches and applied them to the wound.
Throughout these ministrations the mercenary remained silent, his face showing no hint of the pain he was most likely suffering. It was only when Lassiter brought out a second hypo-spray that he spoke. “No tranqs.”
Lassiter lifted an eyebrow. “You need to rest. This is only a mild soporific—it’ll wear off in a few hours.”
“No.”
The doctor looked across at Miala, obviously expecting her to be the voice of reason here. But she knew there was no arguing with Thorn. Instead she shook her head slowly, and Lassiter lifted his shoulders, as if to say, Your funeral.
When he spoke, though, his tone was mild enough. “Then make sure you stay flat on your back, and don’t move.” Lassiter’s gaze shifted to Miala. “If I might speak to you for a moment?”
Unwillingly, she nodded. Then she glanced over at Thorn. He looked pale under the usual dusky olive of his skin, but at least he didn’t have those frightening black circles under his eyes, the ones she remembered all too well from the time after his ordeal in the Iradian desert. It would probably be safe to leave him for a while.
So she followed Lassiter out into the hallway and shut the door behind them. The doctor paused on the landing, and glanced down the corridor. Jerem’s door was closed all the way, however, and Lassiter nodded, as if he were satisfied that they would be able to have a discussion in confidence.
Without preamble, the doctor asked, “He’s Jerem’s father, isn’t he?”
Shocked, Miala stared back at her neighbor. How could he possibly have known? But even as she asked herself the question, she realized that a man far less perceptive than Quin Lassiter probably could have recognized the extraordinary resemblance between father and son. And the Lassiters had known Jerem almost all his life.
