Pets in Space: Cats, Dogs, and Other Worldly Creatures
Page 40
Her gaze had settled on the red diamond insignia on Calypso’s hull. The vessel was registered in the Azures, as were half the illicit ships in the known galaxy.
“Don’t worry,” Taro assured her with a crooked smile. “We’re not pirates.” That was true, though ‘discreet privateers’ wasn’t far off that mark.
Taro ascended the ramp, glancing back at his companion around the StarDog camped out on his shoulder. “You’ll have to scan and disinfect. Cap’s stringent on that.”
“Not a problem.”
He motioned her into the airlock beside him, sealed the outer hatch and flipped several switches on the console. Being trapped in the tight confines didn’t seem to phase Adini. He couldn’t say the same for himself. The gentle floral scent wafting from her hair had his full attention and made his hands twitch at his sides, as if they were being drawn by some invisible force to comb through that dark, shining cascade.
It’s been way too long, Flyboy. Don’t embarrass yourself.
The StarDog gave a startled squeak as scan beams cut through the thick cloud of disinfectant mist, running a brilliant blue beam over their bodies from head to boot. Adini reached up to his shoulder to stroke Katrina in reassurance, the accidental brush of her hand against his cheek taking him to a whole new level of awareness. The light went dark, and a pleasing tone emitted from the com speaker. “Cleared to board.”
Taro shook off his distraction, depressing the call button on the console. “Captain Jordan, requesting permission to bring a visitor onboard.”
“And our visitor would be a competent exterminator?” the skipper queried through the ship’s speaker.
“Born and bred,” Taro replied with a here goes nothing shrug to Adini.
Captain Jordan met them in the corridor when she exited the lift. She stopped in her tracks, parking her hands on her hips. “You’re the exterminator?”
“Not me,” Adini piped up, with an affirming nod at Taro’s shoulder. “She is. Genetically designed to clean your ship of any and all vermin.”
The skipper’s disapproving gaze settled on Taro. “This wasn’t the plan.”
“I know, Cap.” Taro reached up to stroke the StarDog’s thick mane. “Just hear her out.”
“Thank you, Mr. Shall.” Adini took a decisive step forward, curbing the chance of an immediate rejection by the skipper. “Captain Jordan, a human exterminator may spend a few hours on your ship attempting to eradicate vipers, but there’s no guarantee all will be eliminated. In fact, the odds are against it. From what your navigator tells me, you have a nest. That’s a big problem. A snake can go into some very small places a standard exterminator can’t reach. I’m sure you don’t fancy going to space with an odd sand viper or two…or ten…still crawling about and invading your quarters while you sleep, so you need an exterminator who can go where they hide.”
Adini gestured to the StarDog. “Meet Katrina, the perfect solution. She can do the exact job you require. And she’ll keep doing it until the job’s complete. No more vipers. Ever. And no rats or mice or Parolian lizards. Having Katrina onboard means you’ll always have a clean ship.”
“That sounds like a permanent arrangement. I don’t have facilities for an animal on this vessel.”
“She’s very easy care, Captain. Granule trained. It’s instinctive. She’s part feline. I have everything you need for her, right here.” She eased the satchel off her shoulder. “Granule box. Food. Bed. Harness. Leash.”
“I’m sorry, Miss….”
“Kemm.”
“…this sounds like more trouble than I’m willing to take on.”
“Then let me put her to work. Free demonstration.” Adini met Captain Jordan’s critical gaze with a confident smile. “What do you have to lose? Except a few deadly sand vipers.”
Taro dropped his face toward the deck to hide his grin. Oh, she was good.
“All right. You have five tempas. The chronometer’s running,” the captain said, striking a stubborn stance.
Adini turned to Taro and plucked the little StarDog off his shoulder to place her on the deck. “Katrina…find snakes.”
She released the animal, which scurried across the deck with a very weasel-like gait and entered an air duct, wriggling through a gap in the grate that looked impossibly small.
“Venom resistant?” Jordan queried.
“Completely immune,” Adini assured her.
In moments, Katrina came scampering back, dragging a small sand viper in her teeth like a limp rope. She dropped the dead snake at Adini’s feet. Arms crossed and feet firmly planted, the captain didn’t look impressed.
“Go seek!” Adini commanded, and Katrina was off again, this time following the curving corridor wall out of sight. She was back in fifteen sectas with another small viper.
“Drop.”
The little StarDog placed the dead viper a stride from Adini’s shoes. When the snake began to slowly coil in reflex, Katrina pounced, severing the snake’s spine just behind the head.
“Good girl. Seek!” Adini repeated, and the StarDog was off again, this time scaling the bulkhead to squeeze into an overhead conduit. Her third kill was a full grown viper, no doubt the mother of the brood.
“Drop,” Adini instructed, pointing to the captain. The StarDog dropped her catch at the skipper’s feet.
Captain Jordan nudged the big, dead viper with the toe of her deck boot and planted her hands on her hips. “You call her Katrina?”
“After a legendary queen.”
“She was no legend,” the captain murmured, turning a sharp eye on Adini. “Though the Ithians have done their best to bury LaGuardian history.”
“My father has studied the old books. He’s LaGuardian.”
The violet depths of the skipper’s eyes warmed a degree, and she studied Adini as if really seeing her for the first time. “He bestowed this little StarDog with a name of great honor. She’s welcome on my ship.”
Adini traded glances with Taro. “Then…we have a deal?”
“I’ll take her on trial. We’ll be back to settle up, if she works out.”
Adini looked the captain square in the eye. “What assurances do I have that you’ll be back at all?”
“You have my word,” the skipper answered in a low, certain voice.
“Her word is good,” Taro added quietly, when Adini’s attention shifted to him.
“All right.” She gave a guarded nod and fixed her gaze on Taro. “I don’t usually do business this way, but for you, I’ll make an exception. I can see you’re already attached.”
Taro gave her a roguish smile. “Can you?”
“We’ll return from Cunari Nebula in four days,” Captain Jordan said.
Adini raised her chin and her eyes clouded with doubt. “Captain, Cunari Nebula is several thousand light years away. Won’t that take you at least a moon?”
Taro stepped in, careful with his words. “We, uh…we know a shortcut.”
Adini locked gazes with him, her luminous aqua eyes seeming to look right through him. “Really?”
“Really,” Taro affirmed, not breaking eye contact.
After several long moments, Adini faced the captain. “All right. I think we have a deal.” She returned her attention to Taro. “But I wonder if I might speak to you for a moment, Mr. Shall?”
Taro got an approving wave from Captain Jordan and ushered Adini back to the airlock. Outside the Calypso, she turned to face him. “What you claim about your return ETA? You aren’t mocking me?”
“I wouldn’t do that, Adini.”
“Four days?”
“Four days.”
“Well, then…when you return—in four days—and after the captain and I settle up, how about I show you around Carduwa City?”
Taro blinked. Was she asking him out? Or only sealing the deal? A sly grin came to his lips. “Just part of your customer service?”
Adini gave a little laugh. “This isn’t business. This is me asking you if you’d like to
see my town. There’s a lot more to it than hangars and vendor tents.”
Taro leaned back, drawing in a long breath as he deliberated. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been asked out on a date. He’d been asked for sex, yes, but this was a different breed of invitation entirely. Adini seemed interested in him, as a person. Not just in what he could do for her in bed. He gave her his honest reply. “I’m intrigued.”
Her eyes sparkled like a tropical sea warmed by the sun. “Good.”
Taro broke eye contact when Pareen—the ship’s Com—sidled up from the alley. “Got yerself a friend, Shally-boy?”
With a conspiratorial glance at Adini, Taro replied, “Believe I do.”
She gave him a subtle wink.
“Best tear yerself away. Cap buzzed my recall. Think she’s itchin’ to fly.”
“Then I’ll be on my way,” Adini said, offering her hand to Taro. “Navigator Shall, it’s been a pleasure. I’ll look forward to our next meeting.”
Taro ended their strictly professional shake with a subtle squeeze. “So will I.”
Adini added a side of grin to her parting wave and turned for the alley. Taro watched until she’d moved out of sight, blew out the breath that had stalled in his chest, and pivoted to follow Pareen through the scan/dis into the ship.
Captain Jordan eyed him when they entered the Flight Deck a few tempas later. “Watch your step,” she warned.
Taro came to a halt, startled by the mound of dead sand vipers at the center of the deck.
Pareen danced on his toes. “What the—?”
“We’re in the midst of an eradication. Our little StarDog has terminated a half dozen vermin so far.” Captain Jordan looked over Katrina’s handiwork with an arch of her eyebrows. “Little thing is thorough.”
“As promised,” Taro remarked with a told-ya-so smirk.
“Your find, your responsibility, Nav. You get Katrina’s quarters set up somewhere out of the way then get prepped for launch. Dr. Embortyr is en route with his instruments. We’ll be floating before sundown.”
“I’m on it, Skip.”
Pareen gave him a cagey sneer from his Communications chair. “What did ya go and get yerself roped into by that sweet thing, Navvie?”
“Pareen?” Captain Jordan cut in. “You best get to cleaning up our StarDog’s handiwork. We’ve got a flight schedule to keep.”
“Aye.” Pareen curled one corner of his lip and squinted in distaste as he rose to dispose of the pile of dead vipers.
Ten tempas later, Taro had finished setting up Katrina’s feeder, bed, and box in a maintenance closet off the main corridor. Straightening, he punched the control to lock the sliding seal into the open position. “Katrina! Here, girl.” He whistled for their little mascot as the captain approached in the corridor.
The StarDog came skittering down the curved passageway, another viper in her teeth.
“Drop,” Taro said, mimicking Dini’s tone. Katrina dropped the snake at his feet and looked up expectantly. “Good girl.” He lifted her and deposited her inside her quarters. The nimble creature sniffed around her box and bed then began crunching happily on food pellets.
“You best take good care of our little StarDog for your girlfriend.” The captain bent to gingerly lift the limp snake with her thumb and forefinger and turned toward the disposal chute in the corridor wall.
“She’s not my girlfriend, Cap.”
The skipper paused to throw him a look over her shoulder. “Right.” Was that a knowing twinkle in her dark eyes?
The skipper dropped the dead snake into the disposal and hit the purge button. Number seven and counting.
Three
“I’m back.”
Adini looked up from her counter. Taro! Her Flight Authority contact had let her know that Calypso had berthed just fifteen tempas ago. It was hardly the first time a crewie had come looking for her as soon as his ship had set down, but it was the most welcome reappearance she could remember.
“Navigator Shall,” she said, giving him a big smile. “Four days almost to the secta. And you’ve really been to Cunari Nebula and back? How did you do it?”
Taro, who’d shifted forward at her warm greeting, now backed off a half-step. “Sorry. Trade secret.”
“Uh huh,” Adini muttered slyly.
She’d done a bit of research on Calypso in his absence, not that her efforts had turned up much. The ship didn’t seem to have a history prior to the last six moons. Odd. And then there was her unusual name. She’d found vague references in several ancient and now-illegal texts alluding to a stylized form of island music, a legendary marine research vessel, and something about a sea nymph who captured a great hero of mythology. But what had really piqued Adini’s interest was when she plugged ‘Calypso’ into her universal translator and requested a definition. The translator returned: She who hides.
And She Who Hides was a mysterious vessel that could inexplicably travel ten thousand light years—round trip—in only four days. Noteworthy. Even…suspicious. Yet she hadn’t reported these findings to her father. No sense in it. Calypso may be remarkable, but she couldn’t see how the ship posed a threat to her father’s cause.
“Well, I’m very happy to see you back right on schedule.” She noted the absence of a StarDog wrapped around Taro’s oh-so-masculine shoulders and gestured to the empty spot with an open palm. “Good sign or bad that you haven’t brought Katrina back with you?”
“Not to worry. That little girl will be joining the crew. Captain Jordan is completely sold. And I’m here to pay up.”
“Ah.” Adini’s heart sank a bit. This was the point in a transaction where she usually relished setting the hook. But Taro was more than just a customer, and what she normally enjoyed she was dreading when it came to this particular transaction. And this particular navigator. “We need to talk about her price.”
Taro drew himself up, his boyish grin disappearing. “That doesn’t sound like it’s going to be good news.”
“Please understand, Taro, StarDogs aren’t cheap to produce. I’m going to quote you a fair amount, but it may not be…popular…with your captain.”
“Right. Well, name it.”
Adini drew in a deep breath. “Twenty thousand replas.”
Taro coughed and staggered back another step. “Whoa!”
“Hold on.” She raised her hand as if making a pledge. “That’s with my best discount. I know it’s a lot for a private courier to pay. But it’s equivalent to the price of only ten professional exterminations, and you’ll never need to contract another again. So it’s really a bargain.”
“It’s still a lot, Adini. I don’t know if Captain Jordan will pay that much. She only sent me with fifteen thousand replas, and that’s supposed to cover a long list of supplies.”
“I can work out payments,” Adini offered. “Katrina seems to be a good fit with your ship, and I’m confident Captain Jordan would honor the terms. I don’t want to lose this sale, and now that you’ve seen what Katrina can do, I’m sure you don’t want to lose your StarDog.”
Taro dropped his head and tugged at the cuff of his flightsuit. “It’s not a question of wanting. It’s a question of feasibility.”
She angled her body around the counter to eliminate the barrier between them. “Tell you what. I promised to show you around Carduwa City. Why don’t we set aside our negotiations until morning?”
Taro quirked a questioning eyebrow. “Morning?”
“Yeah.” Adini gave him a wary smile. “Maybe just enjoy the fun night on the town I promised you?”
He set his teeth into his bottom lip. She loved the soft questions that played in his deep cinnamon eyes, the half-smile that always seemed at home on his lips. It wasn’t just the way the man filled out his uniform, or the exotic shade of his sun-blessed Tectolian skin. Yeah, okay. He was gorgeous. But working vendor row for three calendars, she’d seen her fair share of lust-worthy crewies and side-tracked countless enthusiastic advances.
Humor. Honesty. Humility.
Adini dropped her eyes when she realized she was staring. And that he hadn’t answered her invitation. Maybe he wasn’t feeling it. Maybe he didn’t—
“I think I like that option,” he finally replied.
“Good.” Their gazes locked and loaded.
“Right. Well.” Taro’s attention seemed to snap back to the here and now. “Let me go place our supply orders and meet you later.” He grazed a hand over his hair. “Where should we meet?”
“Here is good. How about an hour before sundown?”
“That’ll work.”
“Then I’ll see you soon.” She wiggled her fingers in a parting wave before turning her attention to an older man who’d just entered her pavilion.
Midnight found Taro holding Dini’s hand on a transparent vu platform above the Jaden River. The lazy waters flowed beneath their feet in the gentle moonlight. A savory meal of simboli dumplings and Carduwa’s finest magenta wine warmed his belly. Dini’s marine blue eyes warmed the rest of him.
When he’d first caught sight of her in the flowing pastel top, silky skirt, and woven sandals, he’d forgotten to breathe. He’d gone casual too, ditching his uniform for a crisp white linen shirt and tan trousers. From the look of his date’s appreciative once-over, she was equally impressed by his transformation.
Together, they’d strolled the streets of Carduwa City until nightfall, where Adini pointed out some of the sights: the stately river rock dorms of the Carduwa Military Academy, the sleek, rocket-shaped towers of the capital complex, and the lush hanging gardens of Mainstay Park. They’d talked and laughed and joked, their conversation settling into an easy, relaxed cadence. She’d had him sample the native treats—the nutty melt of freshly shaved callo gourds and the tart blast of pulled sugar ribbons—exotic flavors compared to his standard mess rations on Calypso.