Omniphage Invasion

by Claudette Gilbert

  Chapter 2: Tessa

  There he was, sitting in the shadows on the far side of the room. Tessa let out a small sigh and smiled to hide her relief. Never let fear show; she’d learned that rule early and well. She crossed the crowded room to him, ignoring the noise and the flashes of light from the holos. People who recognized her smiled and called out with invitations to join them. Tessa shook her head and made a pretty face that managed to combine thanks with regretfully declining the invitation. She wove between dancers and priests until she reached the table where Jak waited.

  As always, her eyes first went to his pilot’s medallion, gleaming golden on the smooth, tan skin of his bare chest. A pilot, her own personal pilot; he’d always been her one small chance of escaping this dead-end existence. Tonight, he was her only protection from the trouble she’d brought on herself. She felt as if she were being stalked by a moki, as if she’d fallen into the Ur and was swimming just ahead of a school of ravenous banderri. No, it was worse than that, much worse.

  She sat down and her smile widened as Jak reached behind his head to tighten the leather thong that held back his red hair, as if that might make his unkempt mane presentable. He wore it long, Shadriss-style, although he omitted the beads and braids and colored ribbons the dandies sported. He’d never told her how he felt about her, but Tessa knew anyway. It was her business to know how men felt. Dark and slender, as graceful as a snake and just as deadly, she knew the effect she had on men. She looked over at the big man with the ugly, scar-ruined face. She needed Jak, but it was just business. That was all she would permit herself to feel.

  "I’m hungry enough to eat a lamnan whole," Tessa said as she took the chair across from him. With him, she avoided the sophisticated banter that she used with her clients. She allowed herself to speak like the simple girl she’d been before the slavers took her. "How about you? Have you eaten?"

  Jak grinned, clearly amused at the vision of her eating one of the huge, six-legged hauling lizards.

  "I’ve had enough," he lied.

  "No doubt that was yesterday." Why was he so stubborn about taking a little help from her? "Or maybe it was the day before. You haven’t had much work for the past couple of months."

  She knew he couldn’t argue with that. She was still unhappy that he’d insisted on leaving her care. And even though he’d had a hard time surviving on his own, he seldom let her help him. It made it harder for her to keep track of him. She wanted him to be dependent on her, but Jak seemed to take some stubborn pride in doing everything for himself. Still, he looked grateful when she beckoned to a thin, nervous boy who hurried over.

  Tessa ordered enough food for both of them. More than enough, actually. She had to break herself of this urge to take care of Jak. Annoyed with herself, she scanned the crowd while they waited for their dinner. She was very aware that while she watched the others, Jak watched her. It brought her an odd sense of pleasure, very different from what she felt when she knew she had a client’s regard. How could she expect to manipulate this man when she couldn’t even keep control of her own feelings?

  A passing priest of Nish poured a tankard of ale for Tessa and topped off Jak’s drink. The priest seemed strangely wary of the big foreigner.

  "What have you been doing to the red-robes?"

  He made innocent eyes at her. "Not a thing," he said. "I just asked for a full measure in my tankard, and I got one." He took a drink and returned her question. "And what have you been doing? I thought the festival was one of your busy times."

  "Oh, it is." She rearranged her shawl and touched the bracelets that covered her left forearm. When she was alone, she sometimes counted them. "I’m meeting someone here later tonight. I just wanted . . . ."

  Her voice trailed off. This wasn’t how she’d planned to approach her problem. She was glad to see the boy arrive then with their plates and a platter of steaming lamnan filled full almost to overflowing. Tessa smiled at him. He blushed as he set the platter down.

  "For you pleasure, mistress."

  Their waiter was young, but he was man enough to react to her and see that she had the best of service. Then, she turned back to Jak and, even over the sounds of the bar, she heard Jak’s stomach growl when he smelled the spicy meat with its peppery red sauce. She was sure that he hadn’t expected to eat today. The sight and scent of the food distracted him from their conversation, and Tessa could only be glad. She’d do this her own way once he’d been fed and was feeling grateful.

  "I’ve been thinking," Jak said. He fingered his threadbare vest trying to sound casual, as he swallowed with a gulp that was half hunger, half nerves.

  "That’s unusual," Tessa teased as she heaped food from the platter onto his plate and then a more modest serving onto hers.

  "Actually, I came here tonight to say goodbye to you."

  Tessa’s well-groomed eyebrows arched in surprise, and her hand stopped halfway to her plate. "Goodbye? You’ve found a ship, a berth?" He was leaving her? Her pilot was leaving? No, no, no! She needed Jak. He was the one person on all of Shadriss who would help her. Only years of training and her stubborn will kept the expression of dismay off her face.

  Jak shook his head and took up his fork, waiting for her to start before he began eating.

  "No berth. No one on this backwater planet wants to hire a starship pilot. No more moki hunters either."

  "I’ve heard that you were a most excellent guide."

  If he didn’t have a berth, where was he going? Where could he go?

  "I did all right when hunting in the Waste was in fashion," he said.

  Tessa remembered to take a bite of her own food, and Jak was silent for a few moments as he eased his hunger. The rich, spicy meat was like sand in Tessa’s mouth, but Jak had plenty of appetite. Yes, she thought, it had been a couple of days since he’d had a full belly. She watched the light from the nearest holo as it flickered over his scarred face, hiding the devil green of his eyes and demon red of his hair. That coloring caused him problems on Shadriss, she knew, marked him out immediately as someone to keep at a distance. Then he swallowed a final bite of the lamnan and leaned back in his seat.

  "But that’s finished now," he continued. "The young lords are tired of risking their lives stalking moki. They’d rather hunt things that don’t hunt back. No more wearing moki fangs around their necks to show everyone how tough they are. And part of me is glad that’s over. Killing moki for their meat and hides is one thing; slaughtering the lizards to make ornaments from their teeth and leaving the carcass to rot is just wrong."

  He paused to take a drink from his tankard. Tessa found herself nervously fingering her bracelets and had to force herself to stop. Refusing to give in to her rising panic, she pasted a look of polite inquiry on her face and waited to hear what he had to say.

  "Tessa, I haven’t had a job as a guide for weeks. Nobody wants unskilled labor. That’s me, in case you didn’t recognize the description." He smiled at her, and the scar twisting it into a sneer. "I don’t know how to do a damn thing that’s considered useful on this low-tech world. So, I’m going to head down river and hire out as labor to the farmers."

  "Please, don’t go, Jak. Working for the farmers will only last until the crops are in, if that long."

  No, she ordered herself, don’t beg! But she would not allow him to do this. She took another bite of lamnan and forced herself to swallow it. She knew what it was like to be an outsider. People on Shadriss considered her beautiful, but on her home world, it was a different story.

  The colony on Velora had been founded to breed for a very specific type of beauty, and her sapphire blue eyes were too far from the desired gray-blue, her black hair was too dark, and she was much too short to meet the standards of her people. Any one of those imperfections might have been allowed to pass as an unfortunate blemish, but all three together were too much to bear, or so her father had
thought.

  With an effort of will, Tessa brought her thoughts back into their usual disciplined order. The past was gone; she lived in the present. And if she wanted to keep on living, she had to talk Jak out of this absurd idea. It was suicide! They would both die!

  "I need you here. Really, I do."

  Oh, wonderful, Tessa, she chided herself; you’re as subtle as a lamnan cow in heat. She put one hand on his wrist and saw him catch his breath. So much emotion, she thought, just from a simple touch. She ignored the way her own heart beat faster. Jak’s words come out in a growl.

  "I don’t want your charity, Tessa. And when work for the farmers runs out, I’ll find something else."

  But they both knew he was lying.

  "It isn’t charity I’m offering," she said.

  His pride was going to kill them both. She tightened her hold on the heavy bones of his wrist. He was big, he was strong, and she needed his help. She’d planned to tease him into helping her, to trick him if she had to. What was she thinking? This was Jak. He didn’t understand anything but honesty.

  "I’m in trouble, Jak," she blurted, "bad trouble."

  "What do you mean?" She had his full attention now, and he’d stopped talking about finding work among the farmers.

  "It’s Bolon," she said. "He wants me to be his mistress. He offered me an exclusive contract, luxury apartment, plenty of spending money, and no other clients." She looked at Jak, her sapphire eyes defiant. "I told him he couldn’t buy five minutes of my time."

  "You turned down an exclusive contract with the Regent’s bastard?"

  Tessa nodded.

  Oh yes, she had. Bolon was the bastard son of the Regent, Graff n'Chall. Bolon ruled the criminal underworld of Shadriss while his father reigned over the rest from the Black Palace at Tekena. She’d known the big man was used to getting his own way, but she’d never thought that he’d react so violently to her rejection. Now, Jak was the only thing that stood between her and Bolon’s wrath.

  "Bolon is a big man, bigger even than you. But inside, where it counts, he’s small and twisted. There’s no way I’ll ever let him touch me."

  The underworld leader had always been always odd, but these past few years he’d gone from cold to outright crazy. She’d tried to avoid him, but her business depended on her being noticed. She had a corps of people who were paid to talk about her, about the beautiful, the clever, the daring Tessa. She chose her clients with care, and she made sure that they appreciated the privilege of being able to buy her time. She would not be Bolon’s mistress.

  "I’m a free woman now, not a slave," she said, as much to herself as to Jak.

  Once again, she ran her fingers over the many, jeweled bracelets that nearly covered her left forearm. Not a slave, she repeated to herself, not a slave any longer. She might sell access to her body on occasion, but it was her body to sell or not, as she chose.

  "But you’ve really pissed him off."

  "Oh, yes. He was very angry." She’d expected Bolon to be angry. What she hadn’t expected was homicidal rage, a seething blackness that threatened to destroy her. "He didn’t say anything, just went quiet, and then started playing with one of his toys."

  Tessa took another drink from her tankard, making a moue at the bitter taste.

  "Just watching him play with those children’s toys gives me the shudders. There’s something seriously wrong with that man."

  And all that wrongness was aimed at her. She reached out and took Jak’s hand in both of hers. His hand was warm, the skin roughened by work.

  "I need a bodyguard. I need you, Jak. You’re smart, when you take the trouble to use your brains. You’re quick, and I’ve never seen anyone who can match you for strength."

  Jak shook his head, but he didn’t pull away from her.

  "Tessa, I’m only one man. Bolon has his whole gang. n’Tau alone is probably more than I can handle."

  Tessa frowned. n’Tau the Gambler was Bolon’s right hand man and one of the deadliest fighters in crime lord’s organization. Could n’Tau kill Jak? Another flash of fear went though her, but she shook it off. Jak didn’t give himself enough credit. She needed Jak’s protection. He owed her his life. She’d found him. She’d nursed him back to health. Never mind that it had been the sight of his pilot’s medallion—gleaming atop the wash of blood—that led her to order the ground-car driver to bring him to her apartment. He had to help her!

  "You’re more than you think," she insisted.

  She didn’t say that he was more than he would admit. She’d spent enough time with Jak to know that his strength and his ability to heal went far beyond normal limits. He thought she hadn’t noticed, but Tessa made it her business to notice everything. The downside was that at times his mind seemed simply to go offline, as if he went somewhere else. But that didn’t matter. He was all she had, and she wasn’t going to give him up.

  "Your only real protection is to leave Shadriss," Jak told her. "There’s no place here where you’ll be out of Bolon’s reach, no way that I can protect you from his gang."

  "Leave?" She heard herself give a harsh, high laugh. "I’d love to leave Shadriss." He had no idea how much she wanted to leave this backwater world. "But by the time I buy passage on one of the passenger ships—assuming that one comes through the port before Bolon finds me—I’ll have used every credit have. There’s no way I’m going to leave myself stranded in a strange place without two credits to click together."

  "You’re a courtesan of the first rank. Maybe they’d call it something else on another world, but you’re still a prize. It wouldn’t take long for you to establish yourself in a new city."

  "Jak, it’s sweet to know you have such a high opinion of me, but it takes both time and money to do what you suggest."

  Fleeing Shadriss would mean abandoning years of careful development of her business. She would rather be dead on Shadriss than live as a beggar elsewhere.

  "Please, you don’t have to battle Bolon’s entire gang. And Bolon will probably forget about me in a month or two. So, until then, just be around when I leave my apartment and make them more cautious. That’s not so much is it?"

  She didn’t add that she would pay him for his services. Best not to invoke that stubborn pride. Bolon was afraid of Jak. She didn’t know why, but she read men well enough to be certain of it. If Bolon was afraid, his men would be cautious as well. Having Jak’s protection wasn’t a perfect solution, but it might buy her enough time to think of something better.

  "All right, lady," Jak said. "For whatever I’m worth, you’ve got yourself a bodyguard."

  Tessa smiled with a flash of dazzling white teeth and blue eyes.

  "I thank you," she said, taking his hand in hers again. "You need only stay with me a little while longer tonight. I’m meeting a client here later. He’s a High Lord, and I’ll be safe enough in his company for the night. But come to my place in the morning, and we can work out a schedule. I don’t want to make you feel like you’re shackled to me."

  "Being shackled to you would be a pleasure," Jak said.

  Tessa allowed herself a small sigh of relief. He wasn’t going to leave her. Not yet.

  They sat for a few minutes in silence, Tessa watching the holos, watching the crowd, and Jak watching Tessa. She was still holding his hand. She told herself that she was doing it to cement his promise, but she couldn’t deny the sense of warmth and safety that just touching Jak gave her. Around them, the noise level rose as the crowd grew thicker and drunker on the Regent’s ale. Finally, Tessa made herself squeeze his hand once and let go. She knew that he would do anything she asked.

  Anything.