Still, as she murmured to her mother that she was tired and only wanted to go to bed, she knew this refuge — such as it was — could only be a temporary one. She didn’t know where home was, but she realized now it wasn’t here.
CHAPTER FOUR
Rast set down his handheld and rubbed his forehead. This was one of those days when it felt as if the trinials hanging down his back weighed twice as much as they normally did, and the news his source had just delivered hadn’t done anything to improve matters.
Ganymede. Might as well be right in the heart of old Gaia for all the good the information did him. Perhaps somewhere in the back of his mind he’d had some wild notion that he could go to Lira, speak with her, tell her the five cruisers that had attacked Chlorae II and its people had nothing to do with him. But while a Stacian and a Gaian might meet face to face in the wilder hinterlands of the galaxy, such a thing was completely impossible in the heart of the Gaian system.
For a second or two he entertained the notion of having his source pay to hire a Gaian to approach Lira on Ganymede, but that was just as foolish. For one thing, he knew the more people he brought into his confidence, the greater the chance that one of them could betray him to his superiors. A tumble sanctioned by the admiral was one thing. Openly pursuing the woman he’d been told to forget was quite another.
It was time to let her go. She was safely back home, and it comforted him somewhat to know she had gone back to her family. Even in their brief acquaintance she had seemed so fiercely independent that he found the move unexpected and yet oddly heartening. On Stacia, family was everything — it had to be, to ensure that one’s bloodlines survived even in face of that world’s less than ideal environment. Indeed, some of Admiral sen Trannick’s patronage probably stemmed from Rast’s mother being the admiral’s distant cousin by way of their great-grandsire’s numerous offspring.
Unwelcome as the idea might be, perhaps Admiral sen Trannick was right. Perhaps it was time to forget Lira Jannholm, late of the GDF Valiant.
* * *
For what felt like the hundredth time that night, Lira rolled over, attempting to find a more comfortable spot in the bed. It seemed too soft after the hard, narrow sleeping accommodations in her quarters on the Valiant, the adjustable foam too accommodating. And it didn’t help that every time she closed her eyes, she seemed to catch a ghost-trace of the spicy scent that surrounded Rast sen Drenthan. Her mind playing tricks on her, of course; there wasn’t a Stacian within parsecs of Ganymede, and even if there were, the recyclers and scrubbers and myriad other components of Dome 3’s ventilation system would have made sure that every trace of alien aroma had been thoroughly erased.
This had happened once or twice during her journey here: thinking that she had sensed him somehow, shutting her eyes at night and imagining the heat of his body next to hers. Ridiculous, really. No human male had ever made such an impression on her, so why the hell was she letting this Stacian infest her memories?
She wished there were a way to flush her brain cells the way one might wipe a computer after its memory had been hopelessly compromised. Then she wouldn’t keep replaying those images in her mind, of his hands touching her, his tongue between her legs, the heat of his flesh inside her. Somehow her body didn’t seem to understand what her brain knew — that he had tricked her, betrayed her. That he wasn’t worthy of another thought, let alone this obsession that seemed to have taken hold on some deep, atavistic level she hadn’t even known existed before now.
Her body ached with need. Without even realizing at first what she was doing, she reached lower, touched the damp heat between her legs. Stroked, and stroked, bringing at last the release she needed, even as she acknowledged that this was a counterfeit, a pale substitute for the thing she really wanted. And once it was over, she turned her head into the pillow and wept, crying as silently as she had climaxed, hating Rast sen Drenthan, and hating herself for what she’d allowed him to do to her.
* * *
There had been a formal reception on Syrinara, hosted by the planetary consul, to honor the new commander of the defense force. Strong wine had flowed — Syrinara had begun experimenting with hybridized Eridani grapes — and Rast found himself not quite as steady of head as he might have preferred. The woman who sat next to him at dinner laughed and flirted and made it quite clear that she’d be more than pleased to have him accompany her to her apartments afterward. So he’d gone, thinking in his half-drunken state that it would be a good chance to banish the ghost of Lira Jannholm forever. Surely a night spent in the arms of a Stacian woman should be enough to convince him of where his true interests lay.
But although he’d managed to rise to the occasion, he found his level of enthusiasm not quite what it should be. Oh, he performed well enough, but all he could think of was how different Lira had felt in his embrace, how different she had tasted. How the silk of her hair had trailed across his chest and set him throbbing all over again.
This woman — Rast couldn’t even recall her name — fell asleep soon afterward, and he eased himself out of bed and went to the windows, which functioned more as doors, opening onto a balcony that overlooked a moonlit garden. So unlike their home world, this first colony of Stacia. No, Syrinara had the stamp of Eridani all over it, from the architecture to the manner in which the gardens that surrounded the house had been planted. One might say the Eridanis were generous with their knowledge, but others complained they wanted to make everything over in their image.
In that endeavor they had met their match in the Gaians, who had also developed a cruder form of the subspace drive that allowed starships to travel the galaxy and which also permitted the wide-flung colonies that had sprung up in the centuries following those first thrusts toward the stars. The Gaians possessed their own advanced technologies, while the Stacians, he had to admit, had lagged far behind. This was not a popular viewpoint, and most Stacian histories emphasized his people’s resourcefulness in surviving after the meteor forever changed their planet’s climate. However, one couldn’t argue with the reality that living in caves and hunting by night did not exactly produce the correct conditions for developing computers and spaceships and mechanoids.
At any rate, Stacia did not want to lag behind, and so eagerly took the Eridani technology as it was given, unlike the Gaians, who tinkered with it as it pleased them. These days, most new starships were being built with the Gaian-engineered Gupta drives, which achieved speeds even the Eridanis hadn’t been able to manage. The irony that those drives also powered the Stacian cruisers which had headed off the Chlorae II colonists was not lost on Rast sen Drenthan.
“Why so wakeful?” came a throaty voice from behind him.
He turned to see the woman he had just bedded sitting upright, watching him. She had not bothered to cover her bare torso, and the smooth golden skin of her breasts was turned copper by the ruddy hue of Syrinara’s oversized moon.
Normally such a sight would have made him harden immediately, but now he only gazed at her with dispassion, wondering what sound he had made that had woken her. More of Lira Jannholm’s influence, he supposed, somehow making every other female seem to be a pale imitation of her.
“The moonlight,” he lied. “It’s very bright.”
“True,” she said, nodding. “Your first time on Syrinara?”
“Yes.” He paused, then added, “I believe I told you that at dinner.”
A hesitation of her own, and he had the sudden impression that this hadn’t been a chance encounter, that she had been placed carefully to catch his eye and engage him in conversation. Too bad she hadn’t done a very good job of taking notes.
“So you did.” She smiled, as if at her own foolishness. “I suppose I had a little too much wine.”
Rast didn’t believe that for a second. Oh, he had drunk a good deal, but not so much that he hadn’t noticed she took only one glass for every two of his, and the last one she had left at the table more than half full. Abruptly, he asked, “Wh
o sent you?”
The smile faltered a little, but she managed to tilt her head and give him a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”
“Who made sure you were seated next to me at dinner tonight? Admiral sen Trannick?”
At that question, her smile disappeared altogether. She pursed her lips and looked away from him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do. You’re very attractive, but you’re not a very good liar.”
“I don’t see what the harm is. I would have gone with you even if — ” And she broke off, her flush made more pronounced by the reddish moonlight.
“Even if he hadn’t asked?” Rast finished for her. “And what was the incentive? Did he pay you?”
“I’m not a whore!” she flashed. “There are many women who would have gladly taken my place, but the admiral’s wife is my mother’s sister-daughter. I had the first right.”
“Right to what?” he asked, although he thought he already knew the answer.
“To Rast sen Drenthan, new defender of Syrinara.”
“And that is all?”
“‘All’?” she repeated, her tone innocent — but, as he had already noted, Rast didn’t think much of her skills at prevarication.
“No direction to school me in the attractions of Stacian women? No admonishment to do whatever was necessary to make me forget a certain Gaian female?”
She started a little at that, then stared down at the bedclothes. They, too, were Eridani, he noted absently, fine of weave, intricate in pattern, bits of metallic thread throwing out errant sparkles under the light of Syrinara’s moon.
“Ah,” he said then. Her silence told him all he needed to know.
Without further comment he went to the chair to retrieve his discarded uniform and began to pull it on.
“That’s all?” she demanded, pushing the covers aside and going to stand a few paces away from him. He noted that she had planted herself directly between him and the door. “You would throw this aside for some slaindar?”
The word, directly translated, meant “white meat.” A slur his people used for the Gaians, even though, strictly speaking, not all Gaians could be described as white. But for the Stacians, the word also meant insipid, useless. He knew the woman standing before him had used it on purpose to wound, to provoke him into some sort of response.
He would not allow himself to become angry. Lira Jannholm’s honor was so clear to him that defending it to this female would be a waste of breath. Besides, if he did not acknowledge the remark, then she would have less ammunition to take to the admiral, less proof that Rast truly was still interested in Lira Jannholm.
After fastening the last button of his jacket, he said, “Step aside.”
She didn’t move. In a way, she was magnificent, the fall of her trinials glittering with copper and silver and the dull red sheen of unfaceted carnelian, her breasts rising and falling in angry breaths. A month ago, he would have reached out and taken her again, this time on the floor, against the rug of woven Iradian silk.
Now, though, he only repeated, “Step aside.” A touch of steel entered his tone. “Now.”
Finally she faltered, and moved a few inches to her left. “The admiral will not be pleased.”
“No, I suppose he won’t. But that is my problem, not yours.”
She looked as if she wanted to say something else, but the expression on his face must have been enough to stop her. In silence she stood as he passed her by and went out the door.
Cool night air surrounded him. He stopped under the spreading branches of an unfamiliar, alien tree, and lifted his head to watch Syrinara’s blood-tinged moon for a moment or two.
It was very possible that he had just made a huge mistake. On the other hand, all he felt at the moment was an overwhelming sensation of relief. It would have been too easy to fall into the admiral’s trap. Already Rast was past the age when he should have married and begun his own family. Pressure had begun to increase on him from all sides — parents, sisters, brothers. With the admiral flinging an eligible female of good family at him, he might have succumbed…if it weren’t for Lira Jannholm.
Odd, though, that only a few weeks ago sen Trannick had been so eager for Rast to bed Captain Jannholm, and now seemed equally eager to make sure the two were kept as far apart as possible.
Or perhaps not so odd at all…
* * *
The base on Ganymede was too regulated, too clean and proper to have the equivalent of the spaceport dive bar Lira had seen on tens of other worlds, but the Big Dipper would have to do. Located in Dome 2, next to the shuttle pad that ferried people back and forth from the mining outposts on Io and Europa, it had its share of what Marta Jannholm referred to as “colorful characters” — meaning they made their living by getting their hands dirty. In a figurative sense, of course, as out-system miners used automated equipment to do most of their work. And even if they did use their hands from time to time, those hands would of course be protected by the gloves of an EVA suit.
The miners often traveled from world to world, following the next big strike. In that way, they weren’t much different from the prospectors of old, although the equipment modern-day miners used would have probably made the “forty-niners” Lira had read about in her history texts fall over in their well-worn shoes.
Anyway, since she had to find something to do with herself, and since the legitimate avenues seemed to be closed — a few carefully worded messages to former classmates at the academy had been enough to convince her of that — she decided her next course of action would have to be pursuing some less-than-legitimate avenues. And that meant hanging out at the Big Dipper and looking studiously at loose ends.
It didn’t take too long. After five minutes or so of nursing a reduced-alcohol ale while seated at the end of the bar, she saw a burly character with a week’s worth of stubble on his jaw rise from his own table and amble toward her. He nodded at the barkeep, then remarked, as if to the air in general, “I hear there’s a transport in need of a pilot.”
“That so,” she responded, staring down into the wan suds at the edges of her cup as if they were the most important thing in the world.
“Yeah.”
The stranger was silent as the bartender handed over another pint and then wandered off to the other end of the bar, where a hard-faced man sat a little too close to a pretty redhead who had to be at least two standard decades his junior. They were both drinking watered-down white wine and not looking very happy about it.
“Last pilot got his arm broke in a fight the other night. Owners want that transport gone ASAP. You interested?”
Of course she was, but Lira knew better than to display too much interest. “What’s the cargo?”
The stranger let out a rusty chuckle. “Do you care?”
“I care if it’s going to land me in the MaxSec on Titan.”
“No worries. Spare drive parts, farm equipment. Harmless.”
On the surface, sure. She guessed that “harmless” cargo was hiding some contraband the owner had bribed the proper authorities to make sure was never discovered, but that was just the way these people did business. Once upon a time, she might have cared. Now, all she cared about was getting off Ganymede, away from the no-longer-family that had given her very little refuge after all.
She didn’t even bother to ask the destination. What did it matter, as long as it was away from here?
* * *
In the end, Rast had given in to his curiosity. It was dangerous, and foolish, but he had to know more of her situation, get a message to her somehow. His source assured him that all would be kept confidential, that the message would be directed through so many different channels no one could possibly guess at its origin.
But then the response came back with one simple word.
Gone.
Left Ganymede some five standard days earlier, apparently piloting a rundown freighter with the ludicrously grandiose name of Star of M
adrid, whatever a Madrid was.
Destination: Iradia.
He’d frowned at that piece of intelligence. Iradia seemed the last place he could imagine Lira Jannholm. It was a desert world, much like his own, but blessed with oases scattered across its surface. Those oases had given rise to the moon moth, a huge specimen whose caterpillars produced the fiber woven into some of the galaxy’s finest fabrics. In the oases, life was more or less orderly, but the planet’s expanses of desert provided safe harbor for a good number of the sector’s worst crime lords. If you didn’t have business with the silk bosses, it was best to avoid the place. And yet Lira had gone there, flying an old ship that should have, as far as he could judge based on its build date, been scuttled years ago.
The manifest had listed various piece of equipment required for the farming of the sandleaf trees that provided sustenance for the moths. He guessed there was a good deal more on that ship not listed on the manifest, and wondered if Lira had realized the same thing. Probably — she was far from stupid. But what had led her to abandon the safe haven of Ganymede for the dubious honor of flying contraband to Iradia?
That way lay a headache, and Rast’s scowl deepened. He’d spent the last week making sure everything he did and said was by the book, so as not to attract any more negative attention from Admiral sen Trannick. The admiral had been less than pleased by Rast’s dismissal of the young woman who was his wife’s relation, but he hadn’t said anything openly. No, his disapproval had been displayed in the coolness of his tone, the way he had saved his heartiest laughs for those under his command who hadn’t dared to thwart his wishes.
Rast almost wondered if the admiral might find some way to rescind his gift of Syrinara’s defense post, but so far things had moved along unchanged. And that was why Rast had done everything in his power to avoid provoking any more of his superior officer’s wrath. By maintaining things as they were, perhaps that small bump in the road could be forgotten, put aside.
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