“I guess that means Biccel isn’t here either?” Koryn asked glumly.
“He’s with the fleet,” Tariq said tightly.
“Well—now we know why Mylor was so hot to get us back and start the trial. Everyone you know that might have any influence is with the fleet. We’re running out of time. They’ll have closing arguments tomorrow or the next for sure and it isn’t going to take the jury long to come back with a guilty verdict. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect every fucking one of them was on the bastard’s payroll.”
Tariq sent him a pitying glance. “All of them are on his payroll or they wouldn’t be sitting there. Mylor doesn’t like to leave things to chance.”
Koryn stared at him hard for several moments. “This isn’t a joking matter, Tariq! We’re in a hell of a mess here. We’re going to fry—literally.”
“I wasn’t fucking joking! Do I look amused to you?”
“I was actually hoping it was graveyard humor since that’s going to be our next fucking address. You can’t think of anybody else to contact?”
Tariq uttered a disgusted huff and flung himself down on his cot. “I already contacted everybody I could think of. They either ignored my plea or they’re gone. That was the last of them.”
Koryn was silent for a while, digesting that, trying to come to come to terms with their situation. He discovered he couldn’t. Everything that had happened since they’d been seized seemed unreal, more like a nightmare than reality. Even their location in Traitors Gate seemed too surreal to fully grasp. They were the only prisoners—the only two men the ancient prison had held in his lifetime. “How do you suppose they managed to get the vids?”
“I don’t know,” Tariq said tiredly. “Believe me, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure it out. I had the cleaning droids set to sweep for surveillance vids every day. The only thing I can think is that they developed some new technology that the droid couldn’t detect. They couldn’t have used anything long range. I had the entire room shielded.”
“Unless they came up with something that could penetrate the shielding. It was damned poor quality. I don’t know how the fuck anybody could recognize any of us from it.”
“They didn’t have to. He could’ve made anything up at all and they would’ve sworn they recognized us from the vids.”
“But he didn’t and that’s what bothers me. He wouldn’t have known what we were doing and been able to get there before we could pull it off.”
“I think that was where we ran out of luck and he ran in to it. I know somebody on the ship has been giving him regular reports. They wouldn’t have known anything about Emerald at all if that wasn’t the case, but none of the vids are more than a few days prior to when we set the plan up. Like you said, Mylor couldn’t have gotten there between the time he would’ve received that particular report and the time he did. It isn’t possible. He had to have been on the way already and gotten that in route.”
Koryn considered that. “I suppose that means the ruse of sending the woman didn’t work. That was what he was going to use as proof of treason.”
“I think so. But he lucked up and got something even better from whoever’s been reporting to him and managed to get there before you could leave with her.”
Koryn was silent for a little bit. “I wouldn’t mind so much if we had at least succeeded in getting Em to safety. Gods! It’s driving me crazy! I wish to hell I at least had friends in low places and could hire somebody to either kill that son-of-a-bitch or snatch her from under his nose.”
Tariq sat up and stared at him. “My gods, Koryn! You’re brilliant! I could kiss you!”
“Don’t! My mouth’s still sore,” Koryn said, grinning. “What did I say?”
Tariq ignored him, summoning the guard down the hall. “I have an android named Aeon. If you’ll fetch him here to me, I’ll make it worth your time.”
Avarice gleamed in the man’s eyes for a moment and then he frowned. “How are you going to pay me locked up in here? Anyway, don’t they take everything from anybody that commits treason?”
Tariq smiled easily. “Luckily for me, I don’t trust too many people. I have a few … resources they won’t have found.”
The guard glanced up and down the corridor and moved a little closer. “How am I gonna get it? If I go get the android, how can I trust you’ll pay me?”
Tariq frowned. “You know where my estate is?”
The guard nodded.
“In the garden under the fifth stepping stone from the east side of the fountain, you’ll find a small gold box. It’s filled with coins and yours if you go down to the receiving center and find Aeon and send him to me. If you get him here, I’ll tell you where to find something of equal value.”
The guard frowned. “They got guards there!” he said indignantly.
“I didn’t tell you it would be easy,” Tariq said tightly. “It’s a lot of gold, but if you don’t have the balls to go get it ….”
“And you’ll tell me where to find more if I get the android here?”
“You’ll have the gold one way or the other. It isn’t as if I could shortchange you. I’m just saying, the box for the favor. A handsome tip if you show me I can trust you.”
The man nodded. “I can’t leave for another hour. This android’s at the receiving center, you say?”
“Or the nearest whore house. You might want to check that first. Tell him I have something to give him.”
“What have you got in mind?” Koryn asked when the guard had left again and Tariq moved away from the bars and began pacing.
Tariq settled on the bunk next to him. “There’s an ancient woman down in Old Town that I know. She’ll take Em in and take care of her if Aeon can get her out of Mylor’s clutches and I think he might be our only hope of it.”
Koryn looked horrified. “That’s where all the freaks are!”
“And that’s why she’ll be safe there. Cleme can keep her hidden and nobody will ever think to look for her there.”
Koryn considered it for a moment. “You think you can trust her?”
“I know I can. She was my nursemaid.”
Koryn looked horrified all over again. “What the fuck is she doing there if she was your nursemaid?”
Tariq glared at him angrily. “She bore a child long after I was grown. She took it there to keep it from being destroyed—like everyone else down there. I bought her a house and settled a trust on her. She’ll take care of Em for me and help her when the baby comes.”
Koryn looked at him apologetically. “Sorry. I should have known it was something like that.”
“Yes, you should’ve!” Tariq growled, jolting up from the bunk and pacing again.
“I really am sorry. It was just such a shock. Old Town. It’s hard to believe anybody would want to go there.”
Tariq sighed. “They don’t want to. It’s the only place they can go where they won’t be mistreated. Nobody bothers them as long as they don’t have to look at them. They would’ve made her abort the child if they’d known she was pregnant, but she kept it secret. She wanted it even though she knew the chances were high that it was going to be … defective. She finally broke down and begged me to help her. I would’ve made other arrangements. I wanted to, but she insisted. I don’t like her being there, but she says she’s happy.”
“How long since you last saw her?” Koryn asked in surprise.
“I went to see her before I left for Earth. It upsets her if I leave without telling her,” he said a little stiffly when he realized Koryn was staring at him. “What?”
Koryn shrugged. “Nothing. It’s just … I don’t remember my nursemaid,” he confessed.
“Because you had a mother,” Tariq said testily. “I only had Cleme. My mother died when I was an infant and they fucked up her genetic sample and couldn’t regenerate her.”
“I didn’t know that! Gods! How the hell did they manage that?”
“The gods only know! An accident in the lab,
they said. She’d already been cremated. It was too late to get another. That was when they passed the law that no one was to be cremated without three samples being taken. One for regeneration, the other two for insurance—and no more than one in a lab at the time—Terra’s Law?”
“I didn’t know that either. How long have we been friends?”
Tariq sighed. “I don’t know … half our lives, give or take.”
“A hundred and fifty years, at least, and you never told me any of that!”
“It didn’t come up,” Tariq said dryly.
Koryn sighed. “We’re getting old.”
“I’d hoped to get a hell of a lot older.”
“Me, too. Were you planning on going for another one?”
“I hadn’t actually given it any thought, to be honest. Father didn’t approve. He said one lifetime ought to be enough for anybody. He felt differently when mother died.”
“Yeah, well it turns out he was probably right. If the old ones hadn’t been around since fucking forever—and fucking, we wouldn’t be in the fix we are now with our gene pool in such a gods damned mess!”
Tariq released a pained breath. “I’m inclined to agree with you, but I wouldn’t have met Em otherwise. I can’t regret that.”
Koryn blew out a breath. “Maybe if we’d done something differently it would’ve turned out better.”
Tariq uttered a snort. “That’s the problem with these things, Koryn. You take a different path, you get different results. There wasn’t another path that would’ve taken us to Em. There’s no point in what ifs anyway.”
The guard distracted them. “You got a visitor, Lord Tariq.”
Tariq looked at him surprise. He’d said he couldn’t leave for at least an hour. He didn’t believe enough time had passed for him to have found the gold, and Aeon, and made it back, but his heart thudded with hopefulness just the same. “I’ll see him.”
“It ain’t a him. It’s Lady Seana.”
A jolt went through Tariq. “Tell her I’ll see her.”
“Lady Seana? I thought you said you tried everybody you knew and they were either with the fleet or wouldn’t come?”
“I guess she changed her mind,” Tariq said slowly.
“You don’t think she’ll help us?”
Tariq frowned. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t think she can.”
They fell silent as they heard the brisk click of heals against the floor. A few moments later, Lady Seana reached the door. “Oh! My poor baby!” she exclaimed. “This is a horrid place! Just horrid! I don’t know how you can bear it!”
Tariq smiled. “Not much choice, actually,” he said ruefully. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
She gave him a scolding look. “So little faith?”
“Well,” Tariq said, grinning. “I know you, Seana. It’s a horrid place—not the sort of place you like to go.”
She considered it. “Actually, I really, really didn’t want to come, but I’ve sat in that court every day trying to get a chance to speak with you and it looks like there just isn’t going to be a chance. I didn’t want you to … uh ….” She let out a huff a breath. “I am so angry with this … this …!”
“Farce?” Koryn supplied.
She glanced at him and smiled. “Yes! That’s the word I was looking for! It’s a … it’s a … Well, I don’t know the word for it, but mark my words, it is! I wanted to come by and tell you how much I appreciated the gift you sent me! It was so thoughtful of you and I am sooo enjoying it!”
Tariq chuckled. “Not as much as you enjoyed me, I hope?”
“Of course not, baby! You know how much I adore you! Anything I could do for you, I would! You know I would!” Her expression fell. “I’ve been trying to do something to help get you out of here. I really have. If I’d just known about that damned vid! I would’ve had someone take care of it, because that’s all they have, really!”
“Apparently, that’s enough,” Tariq said dryly. He moved closer. “I didn’t figure you could help me get out of this. There is one thing you could help me with, though.”
She lifted her brows. “What?”
Tariq covered her hand. “The breeder Mylor took—Emerald. If you could arrange to have someone remove her from his care, I can pay. I still have resources.”
Anger flashed in her eyes. “Really, Tariq! That’s really, really bad of you! Asking me to risk getting in trouble for your … sex toy!”
“She’s carrying my child, Seana. I’m asking you to protect my child. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”
She studied him thoughtfully. “So you’re saying you don’t care what happens to her afterwards?”
“He’ll need his mother, Seana.”
“Well! As if I couldn’t take care of him!”
“Of course you could. You’ll make a wonderful mother. You’ll want a nursemaid, though, right? You aren’t going to want to spend all your time chasing them around—yours and mine—wiping snotty noses and cleaning their asses.”
Her lips curled. “You can be so crude, Tariq! Honestly!” She frowned thoughtfully. “They are rather nasty little savages when they’re young, though. I’d certainly have to have a nursemaid.”
“You’ll at least consider it?”
She frowned. “I’ll think about it. I have to go now, baby. I think I might catch something in this nasty place if I stay much longer and anyway, that horrid man said I could only have a few minutes.” She glanced up and down the corridor and then stuck her tongue out, waving it at him. Tariq was taken aback until he caught a flash of white. “Kiss me before I go, baby,” she murmured huskily.
Tariq pressed his face to the bars obligingly, opening his mouth over hers when she pressed close on the other side. He smiled at her when she leaned away. “That wasn’t at all satisfactory! I think I may have picked up germs from the bars!” She reached in and patted his cheek. “I’ll come back to see you tomorrow!”
When she’d left, Tariq glanced around and then moved to the bunk where Koryn was sitting and then spat the note she’d passed into his palm.
Koryn looked queasy. “I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t have wanted to kiss her either. She’s old enough to be your mother!”
Tariq snorted. “She’s on her fourth life. She damned near shoved it down my throat. I’d forgotten that tongue.” He patted the note dry on the leg of his pants and carefully unrolled it.
Koryn crowded close to read it over his shoulder, blocking the little light he had.
“Gods damn it, Koryn! I can’t fucking see! You’re blocking the light.”
“Well? What does it say?”
Tariq blinked at it, turned it over and stared at the single word on it. “Unless the ink’s run it says ‘tonight’.”
“Tonight what?”
“That’s all it says. ‘Tonight’.”
“Well, that’s fucking cryptic! A good thing she didn’t shove it down your throat! We would’ve had to wait until tomorrow to read it.”
Tariq sent him a drop dead look. After a moment, he wadded the tiny piece of paper up, put it back in his mouth, and swallowed it.
Koryn was looking at him with his upper lip curled in revulsion. “I can’t believe you ate that.”
“I didn’t think it would be a good idea to leave lying around. They could match the writing.”
“You could’ve flushed it down the toilet.”
“I expect I will, but it’ll be less readable then.”
“I didn’t need to hear that.”
“You brought it up.”
“What do you think she meant?”
Tariq frowned. “I don’t know. She always was a little … unpredictable.”
“You and her were lovers?”
“That was a while back.”
“She was still old as hell.”
Tariq let out an irritated breath. “She was lonely. I was horny. I figured what the hell?”
“So what happened between you two? She seems to still be fond of you
.”
“She nearly fucked me to death and I had to work up an escape plan. That’s when I got transferred to Pater for a while—It cost me a bundle to bribe my senior officer for transfer orders, by the way. By the time I got back, she’d taken a new lover. I’ve managed to evade recapture ever since and maintain a friendship, but I have to watch myself around her.”
Koryn shuddered.
Tariq sent him an annoyed look. “She isn’t that bad. She looks good … for her age. She was a beauty when she was young.”
“Yes, but you weren’t with her then.”
Tariq grinned abruptly. “No, but my cock was lonely. She was easy enough on the eyes and a lot of fun—easy to get along with. I would’ve stayed longer if not for the fact that she’s insatiable. And actually I was pretty happy about that—at first.” He glanced Koryn speculatively. “Don’t tell me you’ve never been with an older woman.”
Koryn looked uncomfortable. “Not that much older.”
“She wasn’t even middle aged at the time,” Tariq said irritably.
“This time around.”
“I didn’t know it was fourth time until later,” Tariq said testily.
“I was with a second timer for a while.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I thought she was my age. It pissed me off when I discovered it was her second time around.”
“Why the hell would it piss you off? What difference does it make?”
Koryn reddened. “I was a virgin at the time.”
“Somebody has to have some experience,” Tariq pointed out dryly. “It isn’t a hell of a lot of fun when neither one of you know what the fuck you’re doing.”
“I take it from that that you were with a virgin the first time.”
Tariq merely grunted. “If we’re doing true confessions here, it’s your turn.”
“I’m a scientist,” Koryn said dryly. “I have led a very boring life. Even I think I’ve had a boring life.”
“Up till now.”
“This isn’t the kind of excitement I always yearned for I can tell you!” Koryn said testily.
Deep Penetration; Alien Breeders I Page 25
