Gate Quest (Star Kingdom Book 5)

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Casmir, is there anything I can do for you?” Kim whispered, though she knew he wasn’t awake.

  Zee, his constant companion who stood in the shadows near the head of the bed, looked at her but didn’t speak. Kim was glad he was there. She hadn’t forgotten that the odious Ambassador Romano was on board somewhere. Since Rache had found that locator beacon and destroyed it, there was no reason to barter a life for it, but Romano probably still wanted Casmir to die, since he’d messed up his plans at Tiamat Station—and again with the gate.

  Though it was possible Rache would get the blame for that. The last she’d heard, Ishii believed he’d masterminded all those ships showing up to get a piece. But Kim well knew that had been Casmir’s vision for weeks, and she would be shocked if it turned out he wasn’t responsible, at least in some part. She wouldn’t say a word though. Let Rache take the heat. He wouldn’t care. He would be delighted to have Jager blame him.

  “If you want me to find some comic books, just let me know,” Kim said. “I don’t think there’s a bookstore, or any kind of store, on the ship, but I’m sure some of the privates share your tastes. The younger privates.” She smiled and smoothed his blanket, wishing he would wake up and banter with her, argue the literary merits of his beloved superhero adventures.

  Unfortunately, he did not.

  She looked around the silent sickbay, everybody gone save for a nurse on the nightshift. The nurse came in and checked now and then but didn’t say much. Asger, Qin, and even Ishii had been by earlier, spending the evening speaking quietly while Casmir slept. Asger and Ishii had talked about what they would do when they got home—both seemed to feel that getting drunk sounded appealing. Qin had told Kim about her new acquaintance, Sir Bjarke Asger, who also went by Johnny Twelve Toes and was possibly having a romance with Bonita.

  Another time, Kim would have been curious about the knight and Qin’s recent adventures, but she had a hard time holding a conversation or being a good listener. A part of her kept trying to solve the problem before her, wanting to work on some experimental strain of bacteria that could help Casmir. If she’d had months, or even weeks, instead of days, maybe she could have, but she was afraid the only thing she could do was sit here and be supportive. Which seemed like utter bullshit.

  “I know what I’ll do, Casmir. I’m going to compose a letter to Oku. I’ll apologize that I haven’t had a chance to work on her bees, and then I’ll let her know about some of the heroic things you’ve been doing lately. Is there anything in particular you’d like me to throw in? I suppose I better be careful since Royal Intelligence probably reads her messages. You’re wise to only send videos of robots and dogs back and forth.” She looked at Zee. “You never did get Zee to roll on his back for the camera, did you? Maybe he’ll do it for me.”

  She didn’t expect Zee to deign to respond.

  He looked over solemnly. “If this type of frivolity would further Casmir Dabrowski’s chances of surviving his illness and securing me a mate, I would consider such an activity.”

  “Thank you, Zee. I know he would appreciate that.”

  “Do you believe he will recover from his illness?”

  “I hope so.” Kim wished she had a more affirmative answer.

  “He had a seizure in the base, and I did not know how to fix it. I have read your medical databases. The procedures for assisting a person having a seizure are inadequate.”

  “You’re not wrong. We’re better at prevention than at stopping them once they start. But traveling all over the Twelve Systems and being thrust into stressful life-threatening situations isn’t conducive to prevention either.”

  Zee looked down at Casmir and then at her. “If Casmir Dabrowski dies, I will have failed.”

  “There’s nothing you could have done before, and nothing you can do now.”

  “My duty is to protect him, to keep him from dying.”

  “I know.” She wiped her eyes again.

  “If he is gone, I will have only Kim Sato to protect.”

  She looked bleakly at him, not able to find words to respond. She didn’t know if the idea of Zee being around when Casmir was gone was reassuring or depressing. It would be something of him, but it would also be a constant reminder that they had all failed him.

  Why hadn’t she asked to see that woman’s body? To see the face? She’d assumed the obvious dagger wounds were the cause of death. If Casmir hadn’t ridden down in the submarine that had contained the virus, maybe he never would have caught it.

  “Kim?”

  Kim had heard the voice so seldom in recent years that it took her a moment to recognize it. She took a deep breath before she responded, to steady her voice and her feelings. She didn’t know if she wanted company now or not, or if this was the company she would choose.

  “Over here, Mother,” she said.

  Her mother walked in, and Kim pulled a seat around to Casmir’s bed. She wasn’t sure if her mother would stay, but she should invite her to. They’d barely spoken the last time they’d been on a ship together—or in the last ten years, period. Kim’s attempt at starting a meaningful conversation in the base had only resulted in her mother’s proclamation that she was standing on her tail.

  Once she hopped up onto the seat, her mother could see Casmir. “I hope he pulls through. I’ve forgiven him for the egregious fizzop stains he left on my coffee table.”

  “That’s large of you,” Kim murmured, though she wasn’t in the mood to banter, not with anyone except Casmir.

  “I strive to be large, but that’s an elusive goal now.”

  “Yeah.”

  Kim wondered if they should leave the room, if they might be disturbing Casmir’s rest. But she had a feeling he would prefer to have people around him rather than being alone. Kim preferred being alone, but he’d always seen it as more of a punishment, a sign that he’d failed in some social way to acquire friends who would be present whenever he needed them.

  “Your friend was surprisingly sharp down there,” her mother said, “given how advanced his illness was.”

  “What did he do?”

  “To the best of my ability to discern, he was teaching himself the language of the gate builders, so that he could interact with the operating system at the base level. I’m not sure how. We—we in the archaeology field who have studied the gates from the outside for centuries—had no knowledge of that. It’s not anything I was able to share with him. I believe he was surfing around, intuiting and teaching himself.”

  “The gate builders were the original humans from Old Earth, weren’t they?”

  “Mm, that’s one hypothesis, but I believe the artificial intelligences originally built by those humans on Old Earth evolved into something more technologically advanced and sophisticated and that they were the ones to invent the gates and establish the gate network. We may never know what happened to them, or why humans were the ones to settle these systems, and only with a modest level of computer sophistication.” She tilted her head. “Maybe that’s why the astroshamans hadn’t cracked the code yet. For all their technology, they are still humans that all or partially turned themselves into machines, rather than machines that were never anything else and always thought like machines.”

  “Ah.” Another time, Kim might have cared. She couldn’t muster the interest now.

  “You should marry him.”

  Kim blinked. “What?”

  “If he lives, he would make a good mate. You would likely have very intelligent babies.”

  “He’s my best friend, not anyone I’m romantically interested in.” Rache’s face—his real face, not the damn mask—popped into her mind.

  Her mother waved a dismissive hand. “Best friends are better than hunky males that make your heart zing. For women like us, especially. If you’re like me, you’ll prefer a logical choice, someone with whom you share common interests.”

  Since Kim didn’t want to bring up Rache—like everyone else, her mother would be horrified at the prosp
ect of him as a romantic interest—she steered the conversation toward a different topic.

  “Is that what you had with my father? Common interests?”

  “No, and it’s why it didn’t last. I’d never been that interested in physical relationships, you see, but he chose me, and he wasn’t unappealing. He’s handsome and has that enigmatic shinshoku way of his. I’d always been quiet and bookish—yes, I can see your shock—and his attention was flattering. I do not regret the relationship, but I think it would have made more sense for me to marry someone who shared a few of my passions, so we would have something to discuss when we grew bored with sex.”

  Kim glanced warily at Casmir, half-expecting him to have woken up to hear her mother talk about her sex life. She could envision him noshing on popcorn and listening with fascination. But he remained asleep—or unconscious.

  “Oh,” Kim said, sure she should say something, but she had no idea what.

  As odd as it seemed, they’d never had a discussion like this. She remembered her mother visiting when she had been about thirteen and suggesting a book that explained human sexual practices and the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases. The experience had been thankfully brief but horrifying nonetheless.

  “Can’t you meet someone who makes your heart zing and with whom you have shared interests?” Kim wasn’t sure what interests she shared with Rache except for literature, but the fact that he’d actually read her novels—the novels nobody had read—made her believe they could find things to talk about for many years, even if she didn’t know if she had it in her to zing at any man’s touch.

  “I’m sure that happens for many people, but not for ladies like us. We’re scientists, Kim, rational beings. Pleasures of the flesh are— Tell me truthfully, for I’ve never seen you with a man, do you even care about such things?”

  “Not… much.”

  “Find a mate you can talk with and who knows when to leave you to your own devices. That is true happiness, my girl.” Her mother patted her hand, gave something between a wave and a salute to the slumbering Casmir, and hopped down and left.

  Kim didn’t know what to make of the talk, and found the idea that she and her mother were essentially the same to be disconcerting, but Kim was glad she had come by. Their last meeting had been so abbreviated. It felt right that they’d spoken of something consequential, even if Kim had kept her true thoughts to herself.

  A text message popped up on her contact. Kim? It’s Qin. The Stellar Dragon just docked, and Bonita has something for you. Technically, it’s for Casmir.

  I’m still in sickbay. Kim doubted Bonita could have anything useful for Casmir—Viggo had probably ordered some souvenir at Tiamat Station or wherever the ship had been—but everybody who wanted to see Casmir should be able to. She just wished he were awake and aware of the people coming by to give him pats and well wishes.

  We’ll be there shortly.

  “Bonita is coming to see you, Casmir.” Kim smiled. “You better get well. I bet Viggo has something for you to fix.”

  When Qin and Bonita arrived, an armed soldier trailing after them, as if they were extremely suspicious guests, Bonita was indeed carrying something that Viggo must have sent. It was one of the robot vacuums that vroomed around the Dragon picking up microscopic pieces of lint.

  “Don’t ask,” Bonita said as soon as she met Kim’s gaze.

  She walked up and set the vacuum on a foldout tray holding Casmir’s glass of water.

  “I don’t think he’s going to be up to fixing anything tonight,” Kim said.

  “Viggo made me promise to bring one over to keep Casmir company. It doesn’t need fixing. Though I’m sure there’s room for tweaking if he wakes up and is bored.” Bonita raised her eyebrows, as if to ask if he would wake up.

  Kim shrugged, not trusting her voice to speak.

  “Casmir Dabrowski will not be bored when he wakes up,” Zee stated. “I am here, and I have numerous games, puzzles, and videos downloaded that I can share with him.”

  “Yes,” Bonita murmured. “Who wouldn’t be entertained by a six-and-a-half-foot killer robot bodyguard with a media library?”

  “Nobody,” Zee said.

  Qin nudged Bonita and tilted her head toward the entrance to sickbay. Bonita leaned out of Casmir’s little room. Their guard must have retreated.

  “There’s something else I have to give you,” Bonita said quietly. “Imagine my surprise when Viggo arranged for a new cargo all by himself before he left Tiamat Station and, when he showed up at the Eagle to bring me over to the Osprey to get Qin, admitted that a visitor had docked with our freighter recently.”

  Kim had no idea what visitor might have gone to the Dragon, especially if the crew hadn’t been aboard.

  Bonita slipped a large vial out of a pouch on the belt of her galaxy suit and handed it to Kim.

  A simple label called it ImmunoBooster, which Kim wouldn’t have thought much of, but her breath caught when she read the source. Tyrex Labs on Jotunheim Station. They put out some of the most advanced and most effective anti-aging treatments known to man and were also famous for creating the best immune-system-enhancing cocktails. Not the vague “supplements” that so many hucksters sold.

  But how? The station was more than two weeks away.

  “It’s for Casmir, I’m told,” Bonita said. “To help him recover.”

  Suddenly aware of her fingers shaking, Kim cradled the vial with both hands. “I’ll get Dr. Sikou to check it out, just to be sure, and to administer it.” She wanted to rush out right away, since every minute might count with Casmir, but she paused to ask, “Who was your visitor?”

  Anything from Tyrex Labs cost a fortune. She would be shocked if the vial she held sold for less than fifty thousand crowns. The only person she could imagine having that much money and knowing how badly Casmir needed it was—

  “A certain mercenary who knew he’d be shot and his gift destroyed if he tried to deliver it directly to a Kingdom warship,” Bonita said.

  “I… thank you,” Kim said.

  “I’m just the delivery lady.”

  Kim waved and ran off to find Dr. Sikou.

  Later, she would write a message for Rache. And the one she’d promised to send Oku. While she waited for Casmir to recover, she would have time to write several heartfelt messages.

  Asger found Qin on the Stellar Dragon, which was attached to the Osprey via an airlock tube. The gate pieces the Kingdom had claimed for itself were loaded onto one of the other warships and already heading out of the system. Soon, the Osprey would follow, and Asger would return home to report in and face any punishment his superiors had in mind for his less than ideal results on the missions he’d been assigned.

  A part of him wished he could board the Dragon for more than a brief visit and go off with Qin to find criminals to turn in. Asger didn’t think he could take commands from a grumpy bounty hunter captain, but if he were to dedicate his life to collecting bad guys and bringing them to justice, it wouldn’t be that different from what he did as a knight. And his chain-of-command would be much shorter, so there would be little to no politics.

  And he could keep fighting side by side with Qin.

  A few months ago, such a thought would have horrified him, but when she walked into the cargo hold to greet him, he grinned and waved, pleased to see her.

  She had removed her combat armor, and her hair hung down in dark waves that fell around the pointed ears that stuck up through it. Her lack of armor made him aware that she had feminine curves, and even though he should have also been aware of their pronounced differences, like the fur coating the backs of her hands and running up under her sleeves, they didn’t seem that important anymore. What he mostly saw was the young woman who’d run through the branches of the park in Zamek City and hugged a tree just because it was there.

  “Hi, Asger. Did Bonita send you for something? She stayed on the Osprey after we delivered a vial that’s supposed to help Casmir.”

&nb
sp; “I didn’t see her, but that’s good. The vial, I mean. Casmir wasn’t awake when I visited earlier. He looked like he needed something.”

  “Yeah.” Qin shook her head sadly and dropped her gaze.

  Asger stepped forward and clasped her hands, wanting to comfort her. The soft light fur covering her skin was strange but soft and not unappealing. Even if his Kingdom upbringing told him it should be. Her palms were warmer than he expected but free of fur and similar to human palms. No paw pads. But the retractable claws, currently painted forest green and dotted with tiny yellow suns with smiley faces, were definitely not like fingernails.

  Qin looked up, her expression a little wary, her eyes easy to read even though they, too, were as much feline as human. Maybe she was worried about what he thought about her hands. And her. It wasn’t as if he’d gotten off to the best start with her. Guilt swarmed him as he remembered attacking her because he’d mistaken her for another of her kin.

  He rubbed the backs of her hands, and her claws flexed a little. Was that appreciation? An involuntary reflex? He imagined them scraping through his hair and teasing his scalp, and a weird little shiver went through him.

  “I hope Bonita delivered my robot,” came Viggo’s voice from the speakers, “and that it will share good cheer with him.”

  Asger released Qin’s hands with a start as he realized they weren’t alone. Did Viggo have eyes? The ship had cameras, and he could presumably parse the video data, so… yes.

  Heat flushed Asger’s cheeks, and he hoped Qin didn’t know where his thoughts had strayed. She would think he was strange. Or like those pirates who’d slept with her because it was thrilling and exotic or just because they felt they owned her and they could.

  “I didn’t know vacuums were capable of delivering cheer,” Qin said, seemingly unaware of Asger’s thoughts. Good.

  “Robotic vacuums are,” Viggo said. “To those who know how to appreciate robots.”

  “Why did you come?” Qin clasped her hands behind her back. To make them unavailable for holding? Or because she didn’t want him to continue to examine their differences?