Wrapt in Crystal

by Sharon Shinn

  He took the Triumphantes back but did not turn off the motor at the gate. “Tell la senya grande that I’ll be back a little later,” he told Lusalma. “I don’t know when.” She nodded and followed Noches up to the wide porch.

  Back in the hotel room, he showered and changed, then stood for a long time looking at his map on the wall. “If I was Diadeloro,” he said aloud, “where would I be?” His eyes went from the Triumphante temple to the Fidele sanctuary, wondering if that line somehow intersected any of the other markings he had made; but nothing was immediately clear to him. He had no idea where Diadeloro might have gone to ground.

  It was quite late by the time he actually returned to the Triumphante compound, and he did not want to rouse the temple by sounding the bells at the front. Therefore he walked slowly around the exterior of the building, following the path Jovieve had once shown him and catching the heavy, heady scent of the full-blown flowers. The door to her room was open, and there were soft lights on inside—candles, he could tell by the unevenness of the illumination. He knocked on the wood paneling and entered.

  Jovieve was sitting on the couch, concentrating on a fat folder of papers she had propped on her updrawn knees. She looked up at him and smiled, and he felt the smile, as he had felt her kiss, all the way to his bones. He smiled back.

  “What are you working on?” he asked.

  “Applications. Essays from the young women who wish to be novitiates in the fall.”

  “Any good candidates?”

  “I think so. There is a lot that must be done before we will know for sure—interviews with the girls, interviews with their friends and family members, more essays from the finalists—it is a long process.”

  “Well, good luck, then.”

  She smiled again. “You look tired. Are you hungry?”

  “A little.”

  She patted the couch beside her. “Sit down. Let me get you something.”

  So he sat, and she got to her feet and bustled about making him a small dinner just as if she were a fond mother and he a son returned from a day of hard labor. He had not realized until he arrived here how tense he was, but under her light fussing he felt himself relax. He did not think he could move from the sofa now if the whole building were to catch fire.

  “I see by your expression that your last couple of days have not been terribly successful,” she said.

  He grinned. “Depends on your standards of success. Today one of Benito’s men and I captured a criminal-to-be, dealing sophisticated hallucinogens in the most amateur fashion imaginable. Officer Cortez seemed to think the drug was homegrown, but he didn’t tell me what it was called.”

  She nodded sadly. “Sacro sangre, they call it,” she said. “Sacred blood. When the colonists first settled on Semay, they used the drug in certain religious rituals, not realizing how very dangerous it was. Within the first generation it was banned, but people had already gotten a taste for it, you see. We have never totally succeeded in destroying the farms where it is cultivated—and even if we could do that, it grows wild on Semay. I don’t think we will ever be able to erase it completely.”

  He nodded, thoughtfully sipping at the wine she had poured for him. She watched him. “And now,” she added abruptly, “you are wondering about some of the other things I have told you. How the Triumphantes have kept Semay free from civil war and interplanetary strife. You are thinking we should be able to stamp out drug-dealing altogether if we have such influence over our people.”

  He shook his head. “Got it wrong. I’m admiring how well you’ve managed to choke off the drug trade locally. I’ve seen a lot of poverty and small crime since I’ve been ramming around the barrios, but very few junkies. Most of your people seem to avoid the sacro sangre—taking it, anyway. They may be helping to harvest and ship it. But I’d guess you don’t have too many locals setting up these farms and running the export businesses. Most of that talent, most of that money, is probably supplied by off-worlders—what my companion today called out-of-towners.”

  “That’s true,” she said, “but it’s only a minor comfort.”

  He was silent a moment, finishing up his meal and thinking. She watched him for a minute or two, but finally picked up one of her papers and began reading again. He rose to his feet, carried his plate to the kitchen, then returned to sit beside her.

  “Actually,” he said, as if the conversation had not been interrupted by a twenty-minute pause, “this could be your bargaining chip with Interfed.”

  She instantly laid the paper aside. “What do you mean?”

  “You aren’t sure you want to federate, but you know Interfed wants to get a foothold on Semay. Make a deal with the council. Give them a Moonbase—give them a trial period of, oh, five years. Ten years. Tell them you want to see what they can do to help you eradicate the off-world drug trade. Tell them that one of your concerns is the fear that, once Interfed arrives on Semay, the sacro sangre will become more readily available, there will be more people growing it and selling it—because, honestly, that’s the usual pattern. Interfed brings sophistication with it, and drugs are almost always part of the package.”

  “I know,” she said softly.

  “But,” he said forcefully, “they don’t have to be. If the Interfed council knows you want to get rid of drugs, they can set you up the most ruthless force of narcs you ever saw. I can guarantee you that in five years, sacro sangre can be wiped off the planet.”

  “I didn’t think it was possible to ever wholly eliminate something as pervasive as drugs.”

  “Oh, it can be done,” he said. “You just don’t have the resources to devote to the project. I’m not just talking enforcers, you understand, I’m talking planetary biologists who can come in and destroy the spores of every sacro sangre plant on Semay. They can change the chemical makeup of the soil so it will never grow here again.”

  “But—won’t that hurt the planet in other ways? Affect other indigenous life forms?”

  “They’ve done it successfully other places,” he said, shrugging. “Always a risk, I suppose. They can tell you what the risks are, though. Let you choose.”

  Jovieve nodded gravely. It was obvious she was carefully considering his proposal from all angles. “And would the council agree to this, do you think?” she asked. “Tell me, would you be in trouble if I proposed such a bargain, and someone somehow found out you suggested it?”

  He laughed. “Hell, no. Even Raeburn would be delighted if I found something you were willing to negotiate over.”

  “Well, I’m not sure yet,” she said cautiously. “I must discuss it with some others. I admit, it would relieve my mind somewhat—and if we were to make this a condition of federating—Well, it must be discussed.”

  He leaned his head back on the couch and closed his eyes. “Discuss it all you want,” he murmured. “I’m listening.”

  “Are you going to fall asleep on my couch?” she demanded.

  “Maybe,” he admitted. “Is that a bad idea?”

  She laughed lightly. “You rest. I’ll look over my applications.”

  He kept his eyes shut, but he did not actually fall asleep. He felt the cushions give and settle around him as she shifted position, and he heard the slight rustle of the papers in her hands. Through the open door, the garden scents made their meandering way, lush and faintly tropical in contrast to the usual dusty odors of the desert. He wanted to sleep; he wanted to give himself over completely to the plush comfort that was Jovieve; but even though his muscles were loose and his whole body was supine, he could not entirely relax. He was like a man poised on the rim of oblivion, willing himself to fall over the edge, but some vagrant, insistent, plaintive vine had wrapped itself around his ankles and refused to let him fall. He lay still, imagining the ivy twining around his calves and knees, creeping past his waist and insinuating itself under his spread arms. Chest-high, it stopped, winding round and round his heart; a
nd then he knew why he could not sink completely into Jovieve’s undemanding warmth.

  But perhaps he had slept after all. The fantasy of the ivy was dreamlike enough, and when he opened his eyes he was briefly disoriented. Jovieve was standing behind the couch, though he had not noticed her rising. She stood behind him, bent over him, her hair falling across his face and her small hands folded over his chest.

  “Cowen,” she said. “Cowen, are you awake yet?”

  “I’m awake,” he said, though he was still too sleep-dumb to move.

  She laughed softly and patted him on the shoulders. “I think you should go home,” she whispered, kissing him on the top of the head. “You don’t want to be here.”

  “I do,” he protested, sitting up and shaking his head to clear it. She had stepped around to face him, and now she shook her head. She was smiling, though, so it must be all right.

  “You don’t,” she said. “Go home. We’ll talk again after I’ve had a chance to discuss things with the others.”

  In a very few minutes he was back outside, his feet crunching along the gravel walk as he returned to his car. The night air revived him, but he still felt a little dizzy and slightly foolish. He sat for a long time in the sedan before switching on the ignition, wondering if he should go back or just go home. Either way, he decided eventually, Jovieve would forgive him, so he turned on the motor and pulled away.

  But he did not go straight back to the hotel. It was after midnight and he was out, and he could not keep himself from driving the long way around, through the barrios and out to the Fidele temple. But he saw only a few people on the street, young boys and young girls about to get themselves into trouble, older men and women who had found different ways to ruin their lives. He saw no Triumphantes, no Fideles, and in particular not the Fidele he wanted to see. He turned the car back toward the hotel and idled through the empty streets and wondered if he would ever see her again.

  * * *

  * * *

  The third day, like the two before it, was irritating and inconclusive, although at first it had seemed somewhat promising.

  “Si, si, man like that lives here this very day,” Drake was told at the fourth house he and Cortez visited in the morning. The Moonchild exchanged glances with the hombueno; then they both looked back at the wizened old man who was the owner of this particular building.

  “Small?” Drake repeated. “Blond? Star-shaped tattoo on his left cheek?”

  “Yes, yes, the very one,” the old man confirmed, nodding emphatically. “Your man, I know it is.”

  “When will he get home?” Cortez asked.

  “He is here now! He is upstairs sleeping! Take him, take him away with you this very instant.”

  Drake and Cortez glanced at each other again briefly, and Drake nodded slightly. Cortez shrugged and drew his trank gun.

  “No blood,” the landlord said.

  Cortez was annoyed. “No sangre. Nunca hay sangre,” he said sharply. No blood. There is never blood. Drake repressed a smile.

  The two lawmen stealthily climbed the stairs and, following the little landlord’s directions, crept into the suspect’s room. The naked young man lying on the bed was just waking up. He stared at them a moment in high astonishment as they arrayed themselves before him, Drake in a loose fighting crouch and Cortez with his trank gun ready.

  “Soy hombueno,” Cortez announced, but before he could say another word, the young man leapt from the bed and dove for the window. Drake lunged after him, aiming low for the legs so Cortez could have a clear shot at the man’s shoulders. He heard the dart make its soft pinging impact a split second before he crashed into the back of the young man’s knees, and the two of them fell in a slippery, untidy pile in the middle of the floor. The toxin worked quickly, though. The suspect was already lax and dizzy when Drake flipped him to his back to study his face. No star.

  “Que—que—que—” The man panted, unable to form the rest of the sentence. What, he wanted to know. What are you charging me with? What are you doing here? His wide, frightened eyes grew misty and unfocused, though Drake could see how he struggled to stay lucid and hostile.

  Cortez had come over to stand by Drake and peer down at their catch. “What do you think?” the hombueno asked.

  Drake shook his head. “My gut says no. No tattoo, for one thing. And he’s not really a blond. He’s small, though.”

  “Big hands,” the cop observed.

  “Well, let’s take him back to the station anyway. Can’t hurt.”

  They labored briefly to wrap the nude man in a loose pair of khaki trousers, and Cortez hunted up a pair of well-worn shoes as well. By this time, the man was completely unconscious, so they carried him awkwardly down the stairs out toward the hombueno’s car. The little old landlord watched in unrestrained delight as they hauled off his tenant, and he called words of encouragement and advice after them as they navigated the narrow sidewalk to the street.

  Cortez was grinning. “Wonder what he’s really got against this guy,” he said.

  “Probably didn’t pay the rent two months running.”

  They heaved the young man into the car. “Well, you never know,” Cortez said. “Maybe we’ve gotten lucky.”

  But they hadn’t. Lusalma was uncertain, but Nochestrella was positive that this was not the man who had assaulted them on the street. Drake turned the sleeping man’s head so that the left cheek was invisible.

  “Don’t look for the star,” he said. “Look at the face. Look at the hair.”

  “If I heard him talk,” Lusalma said. “I didn’t get a good look at his face, but if I heard him talk—”

  “It isn’t him,” Noches said, and went back to the videos.

  “Well, he wanted to run from us,” Cortez said, unperturbed. “Must have done something.”

  They went out for lunch and returned to find the angry, defiant and frightened young man very much awake. He had spoken, and now both Triumphantes agreed that he was a stranger to them. Cortez still hadn’t given up hope of discovering the man guilty of some felony, but Drake was only interested in one criminal on Semay. He went back to the barrios alone, and sweated through the long afternoon prowling through abandoned buildings in the slums, but nothing caught his attention. Nothing felt like a missing puzzle piece unexpectedly turned up in his hand. Nothing whispered to him of murder and obsession, and so he went back home.

  He ate a solitary dinner and went to bed early, sleeping for a couple of hours. It was past midnight when he woke, tense and restless, and he swung himself out of bed before he even paused to think what he was doing. Well. Well. It was stupid, but there he was, dressed and on his way out the door. If he did not see her tonight or tomorrow night, he would make some excuse to seek her out at the temple in a day or two. He didn’t even know what he would say to her. He just wanted to reassure himself that she was still alive.

  He cruised through the deserted streets toward the Fidele sanctuary, driving slowly because once he arrived at the temple he would have to turn around and go back. He had not had nearly enough sleep to feel truly refreshed, but he was wide awake; he felt like he could work the night through and the next day and not much notice the effects of exhaustion. He pulled up before the temple and turned off the lights, though he left the motor running. Just a moment or two, and then he would go back.

  The moment stretched into ten minutes, and he was just debating whether to turn off the car or return to his hotel, when the door opened and Laura stepped outside.

  Chapter Seventeen

  He felt that brief, painful contraction in his chest that he had come to associate with his first glimpse of her; then it subsided, and he was fine. He watched her close the door and step crisply down the untended walk, and to his surprise she turned away from the direction of the barrios.

  She had traveled only half a block when he drew the car up beside her, catching her in the headlights that h
e had switched back on. She glanced briefly his way, then stopped dead; she had come to recognize that vehicle. He leaned over to unlock the passenger door and push it halfway open.

  “Where to?” he said.

  She stayed where she was on the sidewalk, surveying him through the window. “Were you waiting for me?” she asked.

  “More or less.”

  “How did you know I would be out tonight?”

  “Just guessing. Didn’t want you to be out alone.”

  “I appreciate your concern—”

  “No you don’t,” he replied, grinning. “But you’re stuck with it. Get in.”

  She was clearly annoyed, but just as clearly did not want to make a spectacle of herself, at midnight, walking down the streets of Madrid with a white car cruising slowly behind her. She got in.

  “Where to?” Drake repeated.

  She consulted a note. “Casa Verde.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A tavern, I believe.”

  “In the barrio?”

  “No,” she said coolly. “In the spaceport.”

  He drove on a moment in silence. “Are you going to tell me,” he said at last, “that you were planning to walk from the temple to the spaceport, in the middle of the night, with not a soul along to protect you, and expect to get out of there unmolested?”

  “I have my own soul to protect me,” she said.

  She was being, in that quiet Laura-way, deliberately irritating. “You realize, of course,” he said coldly, “that the spaceport is far more dangerous than the slums ever were. And your Fidele status won’t protect you there, as it might in the barrios.”

  “We got a call for help,” she said. As if that explained everything.

  “I was there with Lise the other day,” he said. “It’s a rough place. Not as rough as some of the spaceports I’ve been in, but very very edgy. I can’t believe you would walk in there unattended.”

  She displayed her arm for him. “I’m wearing my wrist alarm.”