“The Union offers re-education to anyone displaced by moral reforms.”
“Is that what they’re calling it? Re-education?” His lips twisted in grim parody of a smile. “Is that what they told you? You were being ‘re-educated’?”
She blinked, and shook her head. “I—was only there because I was wounded. I was found.” Her voice went a little shaky at the memory.
“Found?” he asked quietly. Not unsympathetically. “On the Capitol after the attack?”
“Under a pile of rubble somewhere in the midlevels near the equatorial zones.” Her words became clipped. “When our excesses provoked the Marauders to attack.”
“So instead of searching for your family or loved ones, the Union simply shipped you off to a camp?”
“I took a long time to heal.” She dropped an unconscious hand to the tube on her belt that held her inhibs. “All of the Capitol was in chaos.” It was for her own protection, they told her. Due to her—condition. Besides, she didn’t remember any family, and no one had come looking. The Union’s given me a good life. I do my job, collect my pay, and live safe. “Anyway, it’s an opportunity those people on Tenraye could have, too. Everybody could have it.”
“Everybody except psypaths.”
“I won’t feel pity for you,” she snapped. “It’s you people who brought the Marauders so far into Union space.”
“Why do people continue to believe that stupid rumor that psypaths are in league with the Marauders?” Micah jerked on the repulsor-cuffs, his own frustration nearly getting the better of him. The field keeping his arms and legs immobilized emitted a low whine at being strained. “Don’t you think if that were the case, we’d all be living as kings among them? We don’t even know who or what they are—not any more than anyone else in the Union.” Listen to me, he thought, speaking as if psypaths were ever a community—a people united in any way, shape, or form.
We used to be. We had laws, and watchfolk to uphold those laws. We had monasteries where young with our gifts could be trained properly, instead of left to deal with their talents unsupervised or used by whomever could control them. He shoved the old resentments back down where they couldn’t tease forth the anger that made him want to lash out with his mind.
Because that hurt. When he first awoke to the collar, he immediately attempted to free himself and was rewarded with a feedback loop of enough intense mental energy that he might as well have been physically hit with a brick right between the eyes. He hadn’t tried that again. Even the smaller, more passive uses of his talents had netted him nausea and a blinding, constant headache. That was when he turned to counting the dimples in the deckplates.
She was shaking her head. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You must think we’re little more than herd animals.”
Feedback loop notwithstanding, his scowl deepened to the point of making his face ache. “Herd animals? Treska, I’m sorry, but what in the nine hells of dark space are you talking about? Not even the propaganda stories paint psypaths in light that bad!”
She didn’t meet his eyes, instead focusing on the protein cubes in the little cup. “You can invade another’s mind with no more effort than a blink of your eyelids.” She closed her own eyes as if to emulate. “You can pull a person’s deepest secrets out of them, and they can’t do a damn thing to stop you.” Her eyes flashed as she opened her lids again. “You can crawl into their heads and make them do things against their will. We’re not even herd animals to you, are we? We’re puppets. With strings you can pull for your own amusement.”
He struggled for words. No one—except maybe the Prime Minister—had half as much loathing for psypaths. “Treska, I can assure you that psypaths are far from—”
“Shut up, mindsnake,” she said. “I’ve already talked too much. Here.” She shoved the cup of protein cubes at his chest. “Eat it so you don’t die before I get you to Prime. I can’t afford another dead mindsnake on my hands.”
“I suppose I should be grateful that in this case your greed encourages compassion.”
He abandoned the futile search behind her eyes and stared down at the cup of food product in her hand, then glanced back up, one eyebrow lifted. “My apologies. I’d take them from you, but I haven’t got a free hand.”
She scowled.
“You could, of course, free my hands.”
“Fat chance, mindsnake.” She sniffed.
“Then your only other option is to feed me yourself.”
She looked down at the cup, up to his face, and down at the cup again. “Feed you?”
He grinned, a flash of teeth that held no mirth. “I have no means to feed myself. Are you going to starve me?”
“I should,” she hissed, using two fingers to pull a jiggling cube from the cup. “But I get a higher bounty for a live one, so here.”
She shoved the cube past his lips and forced him to swallow or choke. The tasteless blob of protein slid down his throat with little physical resistance, but his imagination made up for it, and he wished he hadn’t compared the rations to Ligellian swamp sludge. He swallowed again, this time to keep the wretched thing down.
She noticed his reaction and a glint entered her eyes. “Here.” Her voice sweetened to simpering insincerity. “Have another.”
The protein cubes, too viscous to be resisted with pressed lips, filled his mouth and slid down his throat in rapid succession. “Aaugh!” he mumbled, turning his head from her questing, protein-filled fingers. “Stop! Enough!”
It was her turn to raise an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t want to be accused of starving my prisoner.”
It was hard to swallow past the lump of protein-residue in his throat, and he badly wished for a dental sonic-wand. “One or two of those is enough to feed a person for an entire day. You’ve just given me five!”
“Six,” she said, shoving the last cube into his mouth. “To be sure.”
Micah discovered something enlightening in that moment—the monks at the monastery often preached that information came from both within and without, and at the most unusual of circumstances. She wasn’t what he thought she’d be, and he didn’t have to play by the rules he’d set for himself.
He bit her fingers.
Not hard, but just enough pressure with his teeth to make it uncomfortable for her, should she decide to pull them free.
She didn’t, and he pressed his advantage. Closing his lips around her digits, he sucked lightly, tasting the salt from her fingertips, all the while keeping an eye on her startled expression.
Something flickered in her eyes before she jerked her finger out of his mouth. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Excellent question.
His eyes were flat when he replied. “An old Tenrayan custom. Kissing one’s fingers is a compliment to the chef. And as my own fingers were out of reach…” He silently dared her to challenge the half-truth.
She accepted that challenge. “Those were ration cubes,” she said. “You’d have to be insane to—” A chime sounded from the ship’s comm system. She sighed and blew her hair out of her eyes. “You’re lucky this is Fumaru and I have to pilot the ship.”
She turned on her boot heel and stomped out of the cargo hold. Pausing, she folded her arms and half-turned. “By the way,” she said, “On Agata, kissing your fingers is a polite way to tell a chef to fuck off.”
“Then you’ll have to decide whether or not I’m engaging in Tenrayan or Agatan custom.”
She threw the cup at him.
The sooner I get to Capitol, the happier I’ll be. She shook her hand lightly, trying to shake off the sensory memory of his teeth scraping against her fingers.
In spite of her intent to annoy, there was something so intimate about having your fingers in another person’s mouth, a fact driven home as soon as his lips closed her fingers between them. Suddenly the pads of her fingers were caught in dark moistness, with the supple muscle of his tongue curling around them. The shock of pure sensual delight flashed throug
h her so fast, the Voice didn’t even have time to chastise.
In the quiet of the cockpit, she checked the ship’s position. Fumaru was a backwater. The unassuming mudball magnified on her viewscreen showed little in the way of features on the dwarf planet’s surface. Only patches of brown, broken up by patches of browner brown. The readout said it had water and a breathable atmosphere that was a little thin, but that was about it. The planetoid didn’t have much. She wondered why there was a Jumpgate even in the orbit at all. But the Jumpgates were millions of standard years old, and the architects who’d built them were long erased from anywhere in the system.
What Fumaru did have, was moonlets. She dodged them now. Little asteroids that orbited the tiny planetoid in crazy ellipses that sometimes carried them in the path of the starships waiting for the Jumpgate. She wondered if one of the asteroids had ever fallen into a Jumpgate. Naah. Someone would have heard about it if an asteroid suddenly appeared in one of the Jumpgate queues. She giggled, reminded of the reaction of the Galladance station when she showed up, threatening to detain her for paperwork.
The automated station simply sent out a ping every few standard minutes. Any ships requesting Jump simply had to send a ping with a request, and the computer would log it and open the Jumpgate. Just to ensure no surprises, she logged her own request. The packet bounced back immediately and registered as waiting for confirmation. She left it there and avoided the piloting couch. The chair wasn’t as comfortable or as sensual. The chair didn’t force her to remember ghostly hands on her body in places she wouldn’t allow them to touch.
But the chair didn’t stop her from replaying Micah’s lips closing over her fingers. She would never look at a protein cube the same way again. She dozed off in the chair, as uncomfortable as it was, and dreamed.
The place of silks and perfumed breezes usually came to her in visions, but this time something heavy rode the air, an impending storm charged the atmosphere. Wherever she was, silks billowed above her and the air was heavy and hothouse-humid on her skin.
He licked her fingertips, cleaning them of corona-rose nectar one by one, and raising her pulse to a fever-pitch with every subsequent movement of his tongue. “What shall we try next?”
Even breathing felt languid, liquid. “I had no idea we could find such pleasures with simple sugars and plant proteins!” Her own voice sounded high and breathless.
“Everything is pleasure when tasted on your skin.” The warmth of his cheek pressing against hers should have been uncomfortably hot, but the closer she was to him, the more delight she felt, heat be damned.
A sudden jolt of fear pierced the haze like the lightning that flickered outside. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
He lifted his head and she read confusion in his eyes. “Shall I stop?”
“No. Yes. No. Only you.” She hugged her knees to her chest as the storm grew louder, and someone began calling her name. “I don’t want to do this for anyone else.” She lifted her eyes to his. “Don’t force me.”
“I would never—” She heard her name again and the voice turned into a thing to pursue, because the woman called her name, first with a question, then with a reprimand, and finally in rage, shrieking her name over and over in the rainy wind that whipped through the halls.
But Treska couldn’t understand her. She knew the woman called her name, but when she tried to hear the syllables, the intonations, the sounds that made up her name, all she heard was rain.
Necessary Agility
She was called Huntress. Feared throughout the inner orbits, all the way to the frontier. Doors opened when she flashed her wrist tattoo, and any that stayed shut against the tattoo, opened with a little prodding from the other wrist, with the tiny rocket launcher attached to it. She was respected. She was feared. She was a Vice Hunter. She carried the full power of the Union’s authority and might, directly from the Prime Minister himself, and could walk, unmolested, through the halls of power on a dozen different worlds.
But she couldn’t seem to walk through the cockpit door on her own ship.
She’d faced planetary governors with scores of sycophants, personal armies, and corruption blocking her every step of the way, and blasted through them as if they were glittersilk. But she couldn’t confront one lone prisoner, helpless in cuffs and rendered unconscious, because every time she did, he shook every belief she had right to her core.
Yet confront him, she must, because he was the only thing that stood between her and the ship’s tiny refresher cubicle, and she really needed to go.
Urgency of the most basic kind prompted her to open the panel between the cockpit and the main cabin.
His head hung low on his chest, his breathing, even. She darted from the door to the other end of the cabin. Her fingers were on the latch to the necessary when his voice smoothed over her skin like a fine coating of body oil. “I wondered when you’d emerge from your shell again.”
She covered her jump with a turn. “I wouldn’t be so eager to see me if I were you.”
“I’ve counted the dimples on the floor tiles eighty-four times. I’d much rather count your dimples. You’ve got two, you know. But they only come out when you smile, so I don’t imagine very many beings in the system have seen them.”
She pressed her lips together. “I could make some marks on you, if you’re looking for things to count.”
His eyes glimmered. She couldn’t decide whether they were blue or gray or even green. They seemed to shift with his mood. Like sneak-lizards, blending in with their environment. “Could I count them before I passed out from blood loss?”
“Probably not. Anyway, I promised to deliver you unmarked. I think the Director wants to use you as a rug in his study.”
“Is that what this Director does with psypaths? Uses us as upholstery?”
“Of course not,” she snapped. “You’ll be humanely treated until—”
“Until what?”
“Until you can be neutralized,” she finished.
“And how does your precious Union ‘neutralize’ a psypath?” His tone was even and light, but she heard an edge to it. The first time she’d heard anything but amusement or flirtation from him. I can use that. I must use that. I need to keep the upper hand.
“You’ll be remanded to a secure facility for further processing.”
“Into protein cubes? Because if that’s the case, then my last request is for you to eat me.”
She gaped. “Did you just—”
He blinked, his face the very picture of innocence. “I only want the chance for my flesh to touch your lips, and if I have to do it as a protein cube—”
“Ugh! Just stop!” She swallowed past the sudden curdling in her stomach. “Protein cubes are not people! I don’t care what the rumors all say.”
“Neither are psypaths, according to your Union.”
“Well, they wouldn’t make you into a protein cube, anyway.” She forced herself to breathe past the nauseating idea of eating something that used to be a someone. “You’re far too stringy-looking to be good eating.”
His tawny eyebrows went up. “You could let me down. Give me some real food. You know, for fattening-up purposes.”
“That’s disgusting. You’re disgusting.” She slid back the panel to the necessary. “I’m going in here, now. Goodbye.”
Several minutes later, still in the necessary, she heard him shift. “Treska? The Union isn’t so cruel that you’d forbid me to go in there next, is it?”
It was damn difficult to maneuver in the tiny cubicle at the best of times, but with bulky magnetic restraints, it was even harder. It didn’t help that she stood behind him, one foot keeping the door from sliding shut and affording him privacy of any kind. “Get a move on,” she snapped.
His shoulder blades itched. “This isn’t something I usually do on command, or in front of an audience.” He sent a glance over his shoulder. “Are you critiquing my technique?”
She rolled her eyes. “Just hurry
up. We’re already in queue for the Jumpgate. I won’t lose our spot because you can’t—can’t—” she faltered, then continued at a louder volume over the sudden…background noise. “Double suns, man, how much have you got saved up?”
“That isn’t me.” Micah shook, and the whole ship shook with him. Wow. Either I’m more impressive than Xenna lets me believe, or—
The ship rocked again, this time righting itself with a loud prox-alarm. He turned, tucking by reflex as he met her eyes, his own realization reflected in her gaze.
“By the Jewel—we’re under attack!” She backed away as he came out of the cubicle. She held her arm up and aimed her wrist darts at him. “If you try anything, we’re both spaced. Back to the wall.”
He dragged his feet because the magna cuffs were heavy, because he didn’t want to go back to the wall, and because the floor suddenly turned into an upward ramp. “You said yourself—we’re both spaced. I think I’m the lesser of two threats right now, don’t you?”
“Tell that to all the people who died in the Marauder attacks.”
His teeth ground together. He was saved from a tired argument by the emergency comm channel echoing through the ship. “Special Affairs vessel, surrender and prepare to be boarded.”
“On whose authority?” Treska’s chin went up and she sent a glare to the disembodied voice. He had to admire her pluck.
Emergency comm transmitted without manual prompting when opened, so when Micah spoke, he did so in a whisper. “Treska, that’s a Riktorian voice. Can’t you hear the secondary vocal intonations?”
Sure enough, the reply that came back was definitely non-standard. “On the authority of the twelve laser cannons ready to rip your hull in half!”
Her eyes met his. “You said yourself, if I try anything, we’re both spaced. I’d rather take my chances at being turned into a protein cube than be certain of becoming a Riktorian’s next meal.”
The Chase (Huntress of the Star Empire Episodes 1-3) Page 12
