Star Crossed

by C. Gockel

  Nothing. His skin felt surprisingly cool against her hand. Just as she was wondering if she should maybe ping someone for help, she saw a slow change in his expression. His lost look faded and his focus gelled on her, and his eyes met hers. His full regard rocked her.

  “Mairwen,” he said, as if he was deeply amazed and relieved to see her.

  When she would have dropped her hand, he caught it with his own and leaned his face into her palm. “Bíddu. Wait. Give me a moment.”

  The side of his face felt warmer than before, and his dark hair against her fingers felt more wiry than it looked.

  He loosened the pressure on her hand, but curled his fingers around hers as he stood. She rose with him.

  “You haven’t exactly seen me at my best.” He squeezed her fingers and let go, then wiped the moisture from his face. He didn’t seem to be embarrassed by his tears, which was good, she guessed. She noticed his eyes weren’t actually hazel, they were a remarkable mix of blue and green that blended into hazel from a distance. She added the scent of his tears to her imprint of him, and helplessly wondered why even as she did it.

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I need to see the back of the victim and into the kitchen.”

  He took deliberate, careful steps to the vantage point he was looking for, looking back at her a couple of times as if using her as a reference point. He crouched and did the sweeping scans with his eyes again.

  Her hand felt cold, so she put her glove back on. It didn’t match the warmth of Foxe’s skin, and the emptiness in her chest was back.

  Now that he wasn’t so close and inundating her senses, she detected the old scents of two other people who’d been in the room recently. She’d have to get closer to the body to know if the scents were of her killers. From the look of the wounds and the faint smell of burned flesh, they’d used a machinist’s laserwire for the torture. There was also a mix of scents, predominantly gun oil, graphite, and metal dust, smells she associated with projectile weapons. Mercs or an armed crew, perhaps.

  Foxe apparently had seen all he needed and stepped back to her, stopping close enough for her to feel his body heat. “We need to notify the police, but I need a quick look through the rest of the apartment first. Come on.”

  There wasn’t much to see, although once away from the powerful odors of death, Mairwen knew the two people she’d scented earlier had been sleeping in the apartment lately, one in the bedroom and one on the couch.

  Back near the front door, Foxe live-pinged Zheer and told her what they’d found. Zheer promised to put the company lawyer on alert in case the police took the impetuous notion to detain or charge them.

  Next, he called the police, identified himself as a La Plata investigator, and explained he’d found the body of a woman. He agreed to wait in the hallway for the police and not touch anything further.

  Foxe focused on Mairwen once again. “I’m sorry, but it’s going to be a long night.”

  She had the feeling he wanted to close the distance between them and pull her to him. Or perhaps she was just projecting what she wanted, despite her wary brain hissing very, very bad idea.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he replied, as if he was vastly surprised by it. “It’s hard to explain, but I want to. I will. Just not now.”

  She could sympathize with that. She still didn’t know what to tell him about what happened with the berserker. A thought occurred to her. “It might be simpler if the police think I’m just a driver.”

  He gave her a faint smile. “Simple is good.”

  He scanned the crime scene again, and looked to be in control of whatever had sent him off the deep end before. “Unless they get lucky, it’ll take them weeks to figure all this out.”

  She got the distinct impression he already had.

  They left the apartment, pulled the door almost closed, and waited in the hallway as instructed. He sat on the floor and leaned his back against the wall, his elbows resting on his bent knees. He looked cold and drained. She wasn’t accustomed to sitting, so she stood and waited, smothering an uncharacteristic impulse to pace. Foxe was a bad influence on her.

  Eighteen minutes later, she heard four people walking together in the first corridor from the lift, along with the jangle of metal and creak of leather that spoke of a police officer’s uniform.

  “Incoming,” she said, just loud enough for Foxe to hear.

  He gave her a small, knowing smile in recognition of the fact that he hadn’t heard anything but knew she had. She gave him a tiny shrug to tell him she didn’t care if he knew, then smoothed her face and body to dull impassivity.

  Luka handed a fork to Mairwen and invited her to sit at his modest round dining room table. He liked the sound of her first name, he decided. It was nice to like the name of the woman who’d saved him.

  The delectable smell of the best Cantonese takeout in town filled the room. That smell was the only thing keeping him from giving in to the chills that inevitably came in the aftermath of a bad incident with his talent. He used his chopsticks to serve himself more steamed rice, then dumped the container of duck and snow peas over it.

  “I can’t believe you’ve never eaten this.”

  “Sheltered life.” She sampled a small bite of fried rice. “This is good.” She sounded surprised, and took a larger forkful.

  He was glad all she wanted was water to drink. He might have been tempted by a good glass of wine, and it never went well with his talent.

  The evening with the police had been every bit as long as he’d predicted. It was always interesting, being on the other side of the interview table, but knowing what the police were thinking and recognizing the tactics.

  The detectives would have been much happier if they’d found any reason at all to think he had something to do with the woman’s death, but he was cooperative, and his alibi was good. He was asked the same questions a half-dozen times by three different people at the scene and again in the interview room at the station house.

  He kept it simple, repeating that he was following up on a lead in a confidential investigation and had stumbled across the body. He’d never met Vadra Amhur, and didn’t know if the victim was her or not. No, neither he nor his driver had touched anything or seen anyone else. Yes, he’d briefly looked through the rest of the apartment in case someone else needed help. No, he couldn’t discuss the nature of the confidential investigation, but they could put in a request to La Plata’s lawyers if they liked. He knew his rights and volunteered nothing.

  At the scene, he’d refused to go back into the apartment again. Considering one of their rookies had nearly passed out, the detectives couldn’t justify forcing a civilian to do it. If it hadn’t been for Mairwen, he knew he’d still be lost in the sights and sounds from the talent-driven phantasms. As the interrogation had progressed, he was privately amused at seeing her turn taciturnity into an art form. He could tell the various interviewers had mutually concluded she was possibly hard of hearing and probably dumb as a rock.

  She was many surprising things, thought Luka as he ate the last bite, but dumb wasn’t one of them. Solitary, inscrutable, and impossibly lethal, if he believed what he thought he’d seen her do in front of the chems shop three days ago, but most definitely not dumb.

  He was pleased to see she’d polished off the entire carton of fried rice with enjoyment. It was the first time he’d seen her show a preference for anything. A gust of wind rattled tree branches at his windows, and he shivered involuntarily.

  She gave him a clinically assessing look, but there was concern behind it. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” he said reflexively, then remembered he’d promised her honesty. “No. I’m always cold after...” He hesitated, groping for the right words.

  “A hard day?” A corner of her mouth quirked with gentle humor.

  He couldn’t help but smile back, but the moment didn’t last. “After I lose control of the visions.”


  “The visions that enable you to reconstruct a crime scene without instruments?” There was no accusation in her question, just a clarification of fact.

  “Yeah, those.” He wasn’t surprised she’d figured out that part, as observant as she was. “It’s a talent. A unique minder talent if you accept what my telepath mother believed, or non-existent if you go by both rounds of Citizen Protection Service minder testing. Up until a year ago, it was there when I needed it and went away when I didn’t. Then I pushed it hard for a case, harder than I ever had, and now it’s strong. Stronger than I am where violence is involved.”

  “The ‘Collector’ case?”

  He sighed. “Yes, the ‘Collector’ case. Has everyone in the galaxy seen that helvítis publication?” It had turned the case into a bloody, salacious melodrama, complete with ultra-color evidence holos and tri-D reenactments, and was still selling billions of copies across the galaxy. “Velasco’s practically memorized it.”

  “No. I read the court transcript.”

  He was startled. “Why?”

  “When I was assigned to you, I researched reconstruction. I found your journal articles, and the citations led me to your court appearances. It was your last case of record.”

  He didn’t know why he was surprised. This was the woman who’d somehow made time to read the million-word Etonver traffic study because her job now included driving him places.

  He felt restless, but he forced himself to stay seated. “Ever since then, my talent is always running. I can’t shut it off. It’s like constantly getting information from everything around you. I’ve learned to not think about the low-level data, like knowing Seshulla sneaks smokes on the executive balcony, or that you walk the perimeter of my townhouse building before your shift because you know the others don’t.”

  He pushed away from the table and began pacing. “Maybe it’s some sort of stress trauma tangled up with my talent because of... Now when there’s violence, the possibilities I imagine are like mórar… you might call them malevolent ghosts, forcing me to live their pain or their anger or fear, and they swamp me. I see them, hear them, feel them, and they drag me under. Like at the warehouse. Like today.”

  “I provided external stimulus,” she said. “It must have helped you focus.”

  He stopped pacing to look at her. He knew this side of his talent scared people, himself included. It was why he’d avoided using it in the last year, hoping it would cure itself, since self-medicating had been both destructive and useless. He was deeply relieved she was taking this all in stride. Better than he was, most days.

  “When I got out of rehab after that pervert stabbed me, I tried to go back to work, but I was useless for any case with violence. My talent has always been attuned to it, to violence, but it got worse. I’d go into overload. All they could do was sedate me and haul me back to the mind shop.”

  He’d come to hate waking up in medical beds.

  “I resigned my commission and was looking around for a new career, except my friend Leo convinced Zheer to hire me. I agreed on condition that I don’t do violence cases.” He sighed. “This hasn’t been a good week for that.”

  “You said external stimulus didn’t used to help. What changed?”

  He froze in mid-step as a strong flash of intuition provided the answer. He turned to look at her.

  “You.”

  He sensed she was shocked, though she hid it well.

  He settled back into his chair, facing her. “Twice now, you disrupted the visions, helped me keep my talent iced. Believe me, the mind-shop therapists and my coworkers tried everything they could think of before, and nothing worked. I tried everything.” Including focusing on a co-worker when his talent ran amuck. It had never worked before meeting Mairwen, with her preternatural calm. “If you hadn’t been there to bring me back, I’d still be in that apartment, and catatonic by now.”

  “How am I different?” she asked. Was she alarmed? Skeptical? Her body and face were too still to read.

  His intuition twitched. “Maybe it’s because you have exceptional control.”

  A succession of emotions flitted across her face, too fast for him to sort out, before her expression went flat. “I can’t be what you need.”

  He hadn’t realized until she said that how much he’d been hoping for her to accept him and want to stay.

  It was unrealistic to expect someone he’d only known for a week, admittedly an intense week, to... He didn’t even know what he wanted, except she intrigued him. Teased him. Attracted him. Offered salvation.

  Despair weighed on him, and his head felt too heavy to hold it up.

  “Foxe,” she said, compelling him to look up at her. She was leaning toward him, a soft, serious expression on her face. “You can’t become dependent on me to control your talent. It’s not safe.” She touched her fingertips to his knee. “I won’t always be with you.”

  She wasn’t leaving. Relief flooded him, and suddenly he was touch-starved for her. He took wrapped her hand in both of his. It took all he had not to pull her closer, but he didn’t know how long she’d let him live after that. He consoled himself by memorizing the shape and grace of her hand as he held it. Her fingers were slender with short, unadorned nails.

  He wanted to keep her there, but knew he couldn’t. “I didn’t look at the schedule. Will I see you tomorrow?” He twitched a smile at her. “No more spaceport trips, I promise.”

  She frowned and gently pulled her hand free.

  “There’s something you should know.” Her tone said she wasn’t sure how he would react. “It’s about your case.”

  She briefly rubbed her upper chest, as if it pained her.

  “My case?” He was reeling, which happened a lot around her.

  “In the spaceport, the lead mercenary who talked with Green. His orders concerned you, and he was expecting payment from Loyduk Pharma.”

  He searched her expression, but she was back to her usual sphynxlike self. “When did... oh. Your errand.” What she said certainly fit with his theory that whole deal had been twisted, and confirmed that Loyduk was a linchpin. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me where you got your information?”

  She shook her head. It irritated him that she hadn’t trusted him, but he couldn’t fault her for keeping secrets. He had plenty of those, though one less after tonight.

  He might have pressed her, but a wave of exhaustion rolled through him, and another shiver.

  “I’m wrecked,” he said ruefully. He rolled his shoulders to ease the soreness of his neck muscles. He felt like he’d been run over by a cross-town metro.

  “It’s after midnight. We can talk tomorrow,” she told him. “Go to bed, Foxe.”

  He took her words to mean she was on shift.

  “Call me Luka.” At her raised eyebrow, he amended, “In private, at least.”

  She sighed. “Fine. Go to bed, Luka.” Her demeanor reminded him of caregivers everywhere.

  Luka nodded and forced himself to his feet, then remembered something. “Ah, helvítis, I have to check in with Zheer to let her know we’re free. She’s still got the lawyer on standby.”

  Mairwen was already neatly putting her chair back. “I did that in the vehicle, as soon as we left the station. She was still at the office.” She gave him a real smile. It was small, but it was the first he’d ever seen from her. “What language do you keep swearing in? It’s not Russian or Swedish.”

  “Icelandic. My mother’s family. Sorry. I still think in it sometimes when I'm tired or stressed.” He would have asked what other languages she knew, but a yawn overtook him.

  “Go.” She pointed toward his bedroom.

  He smiled again, more grateful than he could say that she was there. He trudged toward the hallway as she retrieved her overcoat from the hook near the front door. Just as he got there, she said, “Thank you.”

  He turned and looked at her, confused. “For what?”

  “Your trust.” Her expression was soft a
s she finished buttoning her coat, dimmed the lights, and walked out the front door, pulling it quietly closed.

  Her simple words threatened to break him. He warned himself that he knew precious little about her. He didn’t know if she was in a relationship, or why she’d buried herself in a dead-end job on the night shift, or how many knives she wore to bed. She was far too comfortable with death, and probably had enough secrets to drag a ship down from orbit.

  But if he was honest, he knew he wouldn’t remember a single one of those objections if he got the chance to kiss her.

  On that dreadfully cheerful note, he left his clothes in a heap and collapsed into bed.

  7 * Planet: Rekoria * GDAT 3237.034 *

  HILDREE FANNAR HAD to admit that, if she was going to be personally supervising jobs in the field, the penthouse of the best hotel in Rekoria’s first city of Etonver made a comfortable base of operations. Rekoria was old enough to be a well-established and civilized world, but not so old it had become insular and hidebound like most of the First Thirty. Etonver was large and sprawling with a rich and varied culture.

  She sipped an exquisitely brewed cup of real coffee as she looked out over the skyline that rose out of the morning fog like an impressionist painting. She was naked and knew she looked good that way. She was a regular customer of an exclusive bodyshop on Mabingion. The room service cart still had some delightful treats she could share with her sleepy bed partners, a talented male and female exciter pair she’d selected from the hotel’s companionship menu. Their minder ability to stimulate her and each other with a mere touch was phenomenal.

  The full-service penthouse and the companions were some of the bribes she had let Loyduk Pharma use to entice her back on the project, after Harado’s spectacular incompetence had nearly blown everything sky high.

  In her carefully worded termination notice, she’d reported Harado’s interference and blunders in exact, high-res detail, making sure that he took ownership for every one of them. Even if he’d been the insatiable sex toy of the entire executive suite, her report ensured they couldn’t have justified his continued involvement to their board and stockholders. Especially when his incompetence had come perilously close to connecting Loyduk Pharma to multiple murders.