I slowly turn back to face him. “What did you call me?”
Rocha’s eyes dart up to mine with renewed dislike. “Horn-headed.”
“That’s what I thought you said,” I reply, starting to turn back toward Raybuck. It’s not the first time I’ve heard the speciesist comment referring to my people’s S-shaped, gazelle-like horns, and it probably won’t be the last time either.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, diablo-fekker,” Rocha says under his breath, thinking I won’t be able to hear him. But that just shows how fekkin’ little he knows about daemons.
“Oh now you’re looking to start a row,” I shout as I throw myself at him. Not giving a fekk that my hands are restrained behind my back.
My shoulder makes contact with the tanned skin of his face as we both go down.
“Get off me, you filthy-blooded, diablo-horned hell-spawn!” Rocha curses as he tries to throw me off him. Practically spitting the slur.
I jam my knee into him. “Call me filthy-blooded one more time, you—!”
Raybuck grabs hold of my left horn near its base right above my ear, and jerks me to my feet. She’s extraordinarily strong for a human woman, and solidly built to boot.
“Fekkin’ aliens!” Rocha curses as he gets to his feet. His nose streaming blood down the front of his navy-blue uniform.
“Aliens?! My people have been on Earth just as long as you humans hav—!” Raybuck holds me securely in place, her hand still firmly clamped over the spiraling, dark lapis-blue ridged surface of my horn. And as if her grip on it isn’t enough, I feel something hard press into the small of my back.
“Now, I’ve had a really bad day, Mr. Corkoran—if that even is your name—so I really wouldn’t give me any excuse to incapacitate you. Again.”
Ensign Raybuck holds her IdentiBand toward the sensor. Barely waiting for the door to slide past me before yanking me by the horn into a small three-by-three meter security office devoid of even a single touch of individuality. The stringent utilitarianism of it putting me on edge; its rigid uniformity reminding me why I sought out the Bohemian Undercity of Sashai Var the Terra-second I could.
The only trace of life in the room is a middle-aged human woman—her tanned skin a shade or two darker the warm tawny color of my own. She sits behind a long thin desk, reviewing something on a large back-tinted photonic display. The badge over her heart cycling slowly between the last name designator Das, the rank Lieutenant Commander, and LS Quantum.
Raybuck forces me down into a chair in front of the desk. Finally releasing her hold on my horn. As she does, the Lieutenant Commander glares past the display at me. “Who’s he?”
“A stowaway, Commander,” Raybuck answers.
“Really?” Das questions as she taps the base of the photonic display, closing whatever she had been viewing before we entered the office. The device becoming no more than a thin piece metal on the surface of the desk.
I chance a look over my shoulder at Raybuck. “I am not a stowaway.”
“Then how did you come to find yourself on this ship Mr.—?” Lieutenant Commander Das questions.
I look back toward Das. “Corkoran. Kealan Corkoran, Third—”
“He claims he’s something called a channel,” Rocha offers dubiously.
“Does he now?” Das asks with a twitch of amusement.
I glare over my shoulder at Rocha. “That’s a chancell you daft plonker. Shawn-cell,” I say slowly. “It’s really not that hard to say.” I look at him appraisingly. “Or maybe for you it is.”
“Why you smart-mouthed—”
“Gentlemen,” Das barks sternly.
I turn back to face her. “As I was trying to say, I’m Kealan Corkoran, Third Chancell of Sashai Var.”
“Well at least we know part of your story is true,” Das states, her expression unreadable.
I arch an eyebrow. “Which part?”
She gestures to my dark lapis-blue horns. “The part about you being a Kalodaemon.”
My other eyebrow joins the first. “You’re a Truth Seer?”
Das sighs. “No, Mr. Corkoran. However, Centrina Lenses are standard issue for all security personnel on LS Quantum.”
“Oh really? Then how come this fekkwit couldn’t see my horns earlier?” I ask as I jerk my head toward Rocha.
Das’ eyes zero in on him. “Ensign Rocha, would you care to explain why you aren’t wearing your required eyewear?” Das asks, completely devoid of amusement.
“They’re unnatural,” Rocha replies with a slight sneer.
I look over my shoulder at him. “You are aware you’re currently traveling through the vac of space in a big metal bird, fueled by a tiny artificial star, right?” I point out, letting derision coat my tone.
“Mr. Corkoran,” Das snaps sternly, and I return my attention to her. She opens her mouth to continue, but pauses for a moment. She’s staring directly into my eyes. Something you really shouldn’t do if you’re human and wearing Centrina Lenses. Especially with a Toresha Astari daemon.
I unleash a small bit of my influence. Release me.
Das blinks a few times, but doesn’t look away. “Ensign Raybuck, would you please remove his restraints?”
“Commander?” Raybuck questions.
“Do as I say, Ensign. I’m fairly certain Mr. Corkoran has no intention of harming me.”
“Not you maybe,” Rocha mumbles under his breath.
I smile charmingly at Das. “No intention in the least.”
Raybuck leans in, her lips close to my ear as she presses her index finger to the bio-lock on the ZapCuffs. “One wrong move and I’m incapacitating you, just so you know,” she warns as I feel the cuffs release.
“Now, Mr. Corkoran, without an IdentiBand there’s no way for me to verify your identity until we come into range of the next GCP substation,” Das continues in a gentler voice, using the acronym for the Galactic Coalition of Planets.
“You could take my word for it,” I suggest as I flash her a charismatic grin.
The corners of her lips tug up as though she is suppressing a smile. “You know I can’t do that.”
“It was worth a shot,” I reply with an unconcerned shrug as I rest my chin on my right palm. Not breaking eye contact for a Terra-sec.
“Wrist, please,” she requests.
I extend my left wrist to her slowly, trying not to appear too eager. Because the moment she touches my skin my escape is going to get a whole fekk of a lot easier.
“A purple rabbit,” Das comments as she takes hold of my arm, looking at the tiny purple tattoo on my left wrist. “The ladies must love you.”
“The safety of my sexual partners is always one of my top priorities,” I reply, letting the full force of my influence hit her. A daemon’s ability to influence human emotions is normally enough to smooth over any situation. But a Toresha Astari like me? Well, that’s something extra special.
Das’ lips part as a deep blush spreads across her cheeks. And I know she’s imagining what it would be like to be my partner for a night. But then her head jerks back a few centimeters, and her lips press together in a firm line.
“If only keeping track of your IdentiBand was also such a high priority,” Das states as she clicks a two centimeter wide band around my left wrist.
Fekk! She has an influence inhibitor. I grimace. I should have guessed someone like her would have the Galactic Authority tech specifically designed to combat and inhibit a daemon’s natural ability to beguile her species. It’s always a gamble using it since our ability isn't mind control—it can’t make someone do something they never would. It just influences them to give in to their desires. To ignore their inhibitions.
Das is about to pull her hands away from mine when she seems to finally notice the other small tattoo on my wrist. “And this one?” she asks, tapping it.
I let out a heavy, defeated sigh. “It means I can’t be a donor.” A Fallen Star mark means a lot more than that, but only to the people who matter.
/>
“Of course not, that would mutate the recipient’s DNA to make them into a Kalodaemon.”
I shake my head. “For my own kind.” Das raises an eyebrow. “Let’s just say I have an incompatible blood type,” I clarify as I run my finger over the dark-blue symbol with three Egyptian lotus tipped spirals joined together in the center.
“And your blood’s effect on other humanoids?” Das asks in a harsh voice, the playfulness that was once there, gone. “I have a duty to maintain the safety of the passengers and crew aboard this ship, and if there’s someone carrying a potentially disastrous pathogen—”
“My blood is only potentially deadly to my own kind. To everyone else it’s perfectly harmless,” I interrupt.
Das continues to glare at me with narrowed eyes for a long moment, but then her expression changes abruptly. And I know in an instant that she’s run a visual lex on the symbol. That she’s learned the truth and sad history of my daemon subspecies, and the stigma surrounding bearing such a mark. That my blood amounts to a potentially catastrophic death sentence to my own people. That it was used by her species as a weapon against us during the Great Emergence.
Das releases my arm slowly, and I can feel her guilt like a heavy weight on my own chest. Because Toresha Astari abilities cut both ways. In having a greater capacity to influence her, I in turn make myself more vulnerable to feel her emotions.
Das swallows hard. “Ensign Raybuck, Ensign Rocha, please take Mr. Corkoran up to the Cosmic Cabaret on the Xventure Entertainment deck. I’m sure they can find some use for him until we reach the next GCP starport.”
“But—“ Rocha starts to protest.
“That’s an order, Ensign,” she counters firmly.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Two
KEALAN
“What fekkin’ genius thought that was a good idea?” I comment sarcastically as we step off one of the central lifts. My stomach reeling, and my heart beating uncomfortably fast. The moment the lift had emerged from the lower decks to the main ship atrium, the photonic glass of the entire lift had became completely transparent. Giving the nauseating appearance that we were floating unsupported up through the air for hundreds of meters.
“Aww, is the pretty boy afraid of heights?” Ensign Rocha asks mockingly.
I glare at him with complete loathing as I try to keep from hurling the contents of my stomach all over the smooth polished floor of the deck.
We haven’t gone more than a dozen meters when Ensign Raybuck suddenly curses, startling us both.
Rocha shifts his brown-eyes away from me. “What is it?”
“Some idiot started a fight in the Siren’s Last Call,” Raybuck answers as she taps the comm in her left ear. “I’ll be there in five Terra-minutes,” she replies to the person on the other end of the comm before turning toward us. “Rocha, I have to take care of this, you take him on to the Cosmic Cabaret.”
Rocha grins at me like this might be his lucky day.
Oh just jet me now, I groan inwardly.
Raybuck grips his shoulder. “Don’t touch him, Rocha. Quantum doesn’t tolerate speciesism, and he isn’t worth getting port-dumped over.”
I press my index finger to my newly issued IdentiBand, launching its start protocols. Greetings User appears across the sleek surface of the band. Normally it would display my name. However, apparently Lieutenant Commander Das was too distracted to actually input that info into my band. A crooked smile spread across my lips.
Ensign Rocha looks over at me as the photonic display of the IdentiBand projects across my forearm. “What are you doing?” Rocha asks suspiciously.
“Resetting the language to Daemotic,” I lie as I set my last name designator to “Mishra” instead of “Corkoran.” A name I’ve used frequently since I started working with Uncle Jaime, and one he insisted I use if I should ever find myself off-moon.
“Why?” he asks with clear derision.
“Because that’s the preferred primary language for us horn-headed types,” I answer with no small amount of irony as I type across my skin.
“Well good luck with that,” Rocha snorts. “That’s a basic GCP issued band. All it’s good for is storing vital identifying data, processing simple monetary transactions…oh and tracking your movement on this ship. So don’t try going anywhere other than this deck.”
I stop typing abruptly. “You’re kidding?”
“Not even slightly.”
Not taking his word for it, I go back to my previous actions. But he’s shockingly truthful, the tech is as basic as it comes.
Gods, it can’t even make calls! ‘Course this far out from Awai Sashai who the fekk would I call anyways?
I glare in disgust at the insultingly primitive tech I’ve been shackled with.
“Please say you’re going to attempt to remove it? Because I’d actually pay to see you get zapped with that level of voltage,” Rocha says way too gleefully.
“Are you trying to imply I removed my previous IdentiBand of my own volition?” I ask with derision. “Like it’s seriously not occurred to you that maybe I was kidnapped, stripped of my band, and dumped in that shipping container against my will?”
He narrows his eyes at me like he’s daring me to try something. “The innocent victim gambit might have worked on Commander Das, but I see right through you.”
“And what do you see?”
“You’re either a con artist or you’re delusional. But either way you’re no good for this ship, and I’m going to prove it.”
“Wow, thanks for that enlightening bit of deduction, Sherlock,” I state with extreme sarcasm.
His brow furrows in confusion. “What’s a Sherlock?”
“Oh for the love of—never mind,” I huff, quickening my pace toward the glittering vintage marquee in front of us that reads Cosmic Cabaret.
“Sorry, after Port Luna I’m all full up,” the bartender—Trine—says with a frown, her shoulders sagging. She—like all the others—had seemed keen to hire me until Rocha loudly mentioned I was an illegal stowaway.
“Don’t worry about it,” I sigh in defeat as I turn, and slump down onto the red velvet bar stool.
So this is the galaxy-famous Cosmic Cabaret? It’s impressive even in its post-night state. The sanitation bots scurrying across the dark wooden floor, collecting discarded feathers, glitter, and other more…unusual detritus. The thousands of replica Edison bulbs giving the whole venue a warm golden glow. I let my eyes unfocus until the cabaret becomes nothing than a series of blurry colors. Imagining what the Shadowdust would look like with such lighting.
“You should ask her.”
I swing my head back toward the bar. “Her who?”
Trine leans across the bar top—her face so close to mine I could kiss her—and points toward the stage. “Her.”
I turn my head slowly past Trine’s—our noses brushing—as I follow the trajectory of her finger.
“Now it might be against company policy for me to hire illegal stowaways,” she says softly, her lips brushing the skin beneath my ear like she knows exactly how sensitive that area is on a daemon. “But I heard she might be looking for an assistant.”
A deliriously pleasant shiver runs down my spine, and I suck in a sharp breath. “Thanks for the tip.”
“Anytime sahavi,” Trine says with a warm laugh as she returns to her post-night clean up.
I force my attention to the circular stage at the very center of the cabaret before I get myself into even more trouble just as a beautiful Polynesian daemon moves out of the shadows. Her feet turned out in the standard gait of a professionally trained ballerina. But unlike a pro, her waist-length mass of curls is unbound. And as it shifts with her movement, the teal ombré covering the bottom third of her hair enhances its likeness to water.
She holds her body with all the stiff ingrained grace of a ballerina for a few heartbeats before all that seems to melt away. Revealing something quite different underneath. Her body moving through the ai
r like ink through water. And whereas before she had my curiosity, now she has my full and undivided attention like a master illusionist.
As she moves, stretching out her body, her loose scooped-neck shirt makes her look even more doll-like than her short stature already makes her appear. But the way her almost indecently tiny black dance shorts hug the curve of her ass clearly says she’s all woman.
The dancer bends her body back until her hands reach the floor, and then she pushes off. Her legs falling open into a carefully controlled split. She balances on both hands for a moment before extending the left one out to her side. The rest of her body perfectly still as if the balancing act is no harder than breathing. The dancer continues to balance on one hand for a long moment before lowering herself to the floor, and then arching back up like a seal.
Both my eyebrows rise up. Apparently she’s a gymnast as well.
“Impressive isn’t she?” Trine says adoringly as she leans on the counter beside me again.
“Quite,” I agree breathlessly as the dancer bends herself into another sensuous shape.
“Just wait till you see her on the aerial hoop.”
I turn toward Trine. “Aerial hoop?”
“If you’ve never seen a performance on one you’re in for a treat when they rehearse later,” she says with a playful smile before returning to her work. The ruffles of her bustle skirt swishing as she moves.
When I turn back to the dancer I see that she’s no longer stretching, but dancing despite the silence in the cabaret. She moves slowly and gracefully across the raised stage, her moments sensuous and fluid as water. And then suddenly her body pops, her movements jagged, sharp, and syncopated. After a few eight counts she returns to the smooth movements, showing off the superior strength of her curvy legs. And as the abrupt shift from soft to hard movements happens again I realize what she’s dancing to even though I can’t hear the music. Because it’s one of my favorites.
“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music,” I quote in Daemotic as my eyes continue to track her movements across the stage.
Cosmic Cabaret Page 28
