Chapter 19: Kamura
Kamura sat on the balcony of Tessa’s apartment, using the comb Jak had bought her to tease the tangles out of her long hair. She felt guilty, which was ridiculous, but Jak had looked so shocked to learn that she’d used two jars of water for her bath. And that, she thought, had been nowhere near enough.
"So, order more," she told him. "It’s nothing to make a fuss about."
"We can’t order more, not clean drinking water. I’ll have to risk buying water in the market because you just wasted most of Tessa’s weekly ration on your damn bath. You should have used the water in the bathing jar."
He turned and went into the bathroom. Kamura stared after him. How was she supposed to know something like that? At home, water came from a tap. She’d never heard that drinking water was rationed on Shadriss. That certainly hadn’t been the case in the hotel where she’d stayed. She tugged at a tangle, whishing she was already in Tekena, wishing this miserable trip were over. She heard Tessa in the bedroom, rummaging through her closet. Packing, Kamura supposed. Although the Veloran didn’t have nearly as many clothes as Kamura would have expected. Weren’t Hired Companions supposed to have dozens of exquisite outfits so they could be perfectly dressed for any client? Maybe that was only true on Terra, not that she’d ever personally known a Hired Companion before, let alone peered into one’s closet. Or just maybe it meant that she had no idea of what Tessa’s life was really like.
Sighing, she looked though the open doorway to where she could see Jak as he stood naked in the square of sunlight shining through the skylight in Tessa’s bathroom. He was washing with a damp cloth and water from the big brown jug by the door. He was beautiful in his way, she thought as she watched the play of muscles over his long, lean body. He peeled away patches of plasta-skin from his face and leg, revealing new, pink scars beneath. He scrubbed away the remaining flakes, and then washed the accumulated grease and grime out of his red hair.
Now, that was odd, she thought. Those had been fresh red wounds just yesterday.
"Is there any water left for me?" Tessa called from the bedroom.
Kamura saw Jak grin, clearly happy just to hear the sound of her voice. Tessa had slept late, but now that she was awake, she seemed little affected by her ordeal. Reluctantly, Kamura was coming to realize that there were training schools much tougher than the one Grandmother Mobutu ran on Terra.
Tessa came out of the bedroom, barely glancing toward Kamura. All her attention was for Jak.
"Are you hurt?" she demanded. "Let me see."
"I’m fine. Just some scrapes," he assured her.
Kamura knew that she had patched up much worse than a few scrapes on Jak, but this morning it was true. Nearly every wound had healed or was well on the way to doing so. How could that be? Her eyes narrowed as she watched the two of them. Tessa had been dirty and bruised but not much injured. Not so Jak. At the very least, she should be able to see some of the knife slashes from yesterday. He’d healed amazingly quickly. And that was one of the characteristics of an omniphage host.
Jak looked at Tessa as she stood in the doorway and shook the water jar.
"I saved you half," he said, smiling.
After turning the remaining water over to Tessa, Jak wrapped a towel around his waist and gathered up his trousers and vest. He’d rinsed them in the used bathwater, and now he took them to spread on Tessa’s balcony to dry. As he passed Tessa, she ran her soft hand along his arm, and Jak grinned down at her.
Apparently, the new scars itched because he scratched them absently. Yes, Kamura could see that the knife wounds he’d received from n’Tau yesterday were just pink lines. Even the scar on his face seemed smaller today.
He caught her staring at him and raised one eyebrow in inquiry. Quickly, she looked away and pretended to be absorbed in combing her hair.
"Did you leave anything to eat?" he asked her.
"There’s some cheese on the counter."
Although she was hungry, Kamura had just nibbled a bit of it. After the incident with the water jars, it would be too annoying to have Jak to tell her that she’d eaten more than her share. She wasn’t used to poverty. She didn’t want to become used to poverty.
As she braided her hair, she thought furiously. If Jak was part of an omniphage cluster, she had to find the other hosts. And she had to kill them—all of them. How she would locate them, she didn’t know. But once she did, she’d do as Grandmother Mobutu had instructed and then get out of the area.
Kamura was almost certain that Tessa wasn’t part of a cluster. She displayed none of the signs that her Family had learned of at such cost. She healed normally, and she didn’t seem faster or stronger than normal. Nor was she a drooling catatonic with no sense of self. Of course, variations in such things as strength and ability to heal had developed across the span of human settlements. And those variations had grown greater during the millennium of isolation that had followed the fall of the old Confederacy. Could that be why Jak healed so quickly? Maybe he wasn’t part of a cluster after all.
She was surprised by how much relief that thought brought her.
Omniphage Invasion Page 19
