Nightsword
Page 40
He had come on this jaunt for her—part of him hoping that he could find out why such a frustrating woman held his fascination so completely. There was someone beyond the training and the discipline and the cold efficiency that he longed to know. Now he wondered if he ever would.
The silence was long as they sat.
“Merinda?”
“Yes, Griffiths.”
“I’m sorry about Targ. You did everything you could.”
“It wasn’t enough.”
“No … but it was everything. How much more than everything is there to give?”
Merinda looked across to him.
Griffiths shrugged.
She smiled.
He looked away, embarrassed at his own embarrassment, if that were possible. He felt like a schoolboy on his first date all over again.
“Look, back when I asked you about killing me … was all that Targ said true?”
“You mean about my not killing you just so Targ couldn’t get control of the Mantle?”
“Yeah.”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
Merinda laughed again. It was a sound that Griffiths had not often heard. She had a musical laugh, warm and generous, when she allowed herself the comfort. “Well, partly, at any rate. The truth is that I’ve been rather selfish lately. It’s been pretty hard keeping you alive these last few weeks but we’ve seemed to manage. The truth is that my luck with intimate relationships has never been very good.”
Griffiths brightened. “Well, hey! I’m a pretty lucky guy!”
“Oh, really!” Merinda scoffed. “I’ve seen your luck, Griffiths. Your record on good fortune isn’t your most endearing quality.”
“Well, then,” Griffiths suggested hopefully, “what is?”
“That you’re funny.”
“Funny!”
She laughed and the dark room seemed to brighten for him once more. “Yes. A part of me wishes we could just stay here forever, just the two of us with the entire galaxy spinning around us.”
“Well,” Griffiths said with a grudging sigh, “it seems as though your wish has come true.”
“No, Griffiths, we’ve got to get back to the Mantle and discover the location of the Starshield.”
“What?”
“I had hoped to keep the Nightsword safely hidden,” Merinda explained earnestly. “I hoped to move it before Targ could get to it, but there was no time. Now that it’s out in the galaxy, it’s only a matter of time before someone takes it and uses it.”
“Kheoghi’s got it and intends to take it to the minotaurs,” Griffiths said as he considered the problem. “The device won’t work for nonhumans—their genetics won’t bond.”
“Yes,” Merinda agreed, “but they don’t know that. They’ll eventually decide that the Nightsword is a fake and sell it off to someone. The Order most likely. Someone will eventually use it. The Starshield is the only device that is known historically that could counter it.”
“Well,” Griffiths said, “it won’t do to ask the Mantle. The Mantle doesn’t know.”
“You’re sure?”
“Hey, you’re talking to the prophet here!” Griffiths said. “However, I do have a little surprise for you.”
“What surprise?”
“Well … all these walls,” Griffiths gestured, “are covered with the history of the Lokan Crusade and the Lost Empire. Would you believe that I discovered the location of the Starshield two days ago?”
“Yes,” she smiled, “I think I would. Where?”
Griffiths smiled and looked around casually.
“All right!” Merinda punched him in the arm. “Tell! Where?”
The punch was a bit harder than Griffiths thought necessary, but he took it for play. “Would you believe … my own planet?”
“Earth?”
“Yep.”
“Your Earth?”
“The very same.”
“By the Nine!”
“Too bad, I guess.” Griffiths gestured around them. “We’re the only two people in the entire galaxy who know where the Starshield is and here we are stuck without so much as a tow.”
“I could just kiss you, Griffiths!”
Griffiths smiled warmly. “Well, please do! I’m a little hardpressed to understand just how you’d do that through a vac suit … Hey! Where are you going?”
“Come on! We’ve got to get to the landing bay!”
“Merinda? Why?”
“Because I’ve got a little surprise for you!”
Griffiths found himself standing once more on the hull of Lokan’s massive ship. It was surprising, he thought, how short the distance was between the throne room and the landing bay when you did not have to deal with the dead in between.
“Great! So we’re out in space,” Griffiths said. “What is it you wanted to show me?”
“Watch,” she said.
He watched. For a while nothing happened. Then he saw it. Something moving among the thousands of dead ships. It shifted, turned, moved again. Its course was somewhat sporadic, but it was definitely coming closer. Suddenly it moved directly toward them, growing larger by the moment. The shape was the familiar saucer form of a Lost Empire ship. It slowed, wheeled, and then came to hover directly over their heads.
A voice suddenly boomed through his vac suit helmet.
“Hey, Captain!”
Griffiths’s eyes went wide. He glanced toward Merinda.
She nodded and smiled.
“Lewis?”
“Damn straight, flyboy,” came the answer. “You know, my mother always warned me about picking up hitchhikers—especially in bad neighborhoods. I should just leave you here.”
“How the hell did you get here?” Griffiths yelled.
“Your friend Neskat worked it all out. She figured you both might need a lift later on. After we took this bucket off that Settlement Ship, we just waited until the fireworks died down and followed you here. We’ve been waiting for two days for her signal … Say, what have you two been up to for the last two days?”
“Lewis!” Griffiths said with feigned shock. “In a vac suit? Just how much could we be doing?”
“For two days? Innovating,” came Ellerby’s voice. “I’m cycling the airlock now. We should have you aboard in about two minutes.”
The great iris doors above them began to open.
Griffiths turned to Merinda. “Merinda, I …”
Merinda looked at him, her head cocked to one side. “Not now, Griffiths, we’re in the middle of a rescue! What’s more, I’m the one doing the rescuing. I believe that it is therefore up to me to dictate the terms of the reward.”
“Indeed?” Griffiths asked. “You seem pretty sure of yourself.”
“I’ve known success and failure, Griffiths,” Merinda said. “I’m not perfect or invincible. That’s sometimes a hard lesson to learn. But I do learn—and that’s something.”
“Very well, then, my rescuer, my life is yours. Name your reward.”
Merinda smiled. “I don’t think I want to own your life, Jeremy, but I might be interested in sharing it. I have a hunch that getting to know you could be a real adventure … and I know just where to start.”
“Where?”
“By taking off these vac suits!” Merinda said, smiling at him, as she climbed through the airlock hatch.
This novel is dedicated
with our thanks and appreciation to:
James G. Ashworth
Donald Campbell
Jamie Chambers
“Falcon”
“Hayz”
David P. Hudyma, Jr.
Matt Karlov
James Kenny
Shawn McGee
Robert Ravens
Elton Robb
Glenn Robb
Tom Schruefer
David Shanahan
Frank Torkel
Oliver Zimprich
“Zordoz”
for their contributions to this novel.
Also to
Joel Goldberger and his crew at Infomagic and to all the Sifters and Sentients of the Greater Galaxy.
You make the universe what it is today.
http://www.starshield.com
By Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman:
The Death Gate Cycle
The Dragonlance® Series
The Starshield Series
THE MANTLE OF KENDIS-DAI*
NIGHTSWORD*
*Published by Ballantine Books