by Autumn Dawn
“Shaved and bathed, too,” Gem said cheerfully, plucking a flower on her way out.
“I heard he ate a whole pie.”
“He’ll work it off.”
“You don’t know that. You might go out to check on him and find him leaning on his shovel.”
“Might. We’ll see. Meanwhile, I have some insurance forms to fill out and I have to call the carpenters back. Did you finish tallying what needed to be replaced?”
The day flew by as usual, and it was hours past noon when she had a moment to check on her new worker. When she asked Jamir if Blue had been inside to eat, the cook shook his head in annoyance.
“He ate an entire roast fowl, a tart, a huge plate of fruit salad and half a loaf of bread. The man is a pit. A pit!”
Well, she hadn’t really been worried that he would skip out on lunch, she realized as she entered the garden. She wondered what he was used to eating. He wasn’t skinny, but wherever he’d been getting his food, it probably wasn’t anything like Jamir’s dishes.
She came to the garden and stopped in her tracks. Blue had taken off his shirt and was on his way to a wicked sunburn; though deeply tanned, his bare skin was no match for Polaris’s fierce afternoon sun. “Hey! You’re turning red, you know.”
He twisted and leaned on his shovel. “Didn’t feel it.”
She averted her eyes from his bare chest. “You’ll feel it tonight. Better put on your shirt before it gets worse. I’ve got some salve that will take the burn away, and tomorrow I’ll give you some blocker.”
“Good idea. I’ll cut these pants into shorts and work like that.”
She glanced at his ripped jeans and imagined him running around in cutoffs and nothing else. Not a good idea. “Why don’t we see if your new clothes are here? Let’s hope they’ll have the right size. I’ll order you some shorts as a bonus.”
Hyna grinned and stuck his shovel in the ground. “You must like me.”
“You appear to be worth the cost,” she allowed, looking at the amount of work he’d gotten done. “Nice job.”
He just shrugged and followed her up to the inn, shirt slung over his shoulder.
The newly purchased clothes had indeed been dropped off, but Gem held them out of reach as he grabbed for them. “Whoa! Shower first or I’ll have to pay for the whole lot.” She couldn’t imagine the clothing store would accept ill-fitting returns that smelled like compost.
At first Blue looked mad, but then his expression became calculating. “Your place or mine?”
Gem shook her head and showed him to the employees’ bathroom. “Soap and towels are inside. Clean up, find the clothes that fit and I’ll take care of the rest. Dinner should be ready soon.”
Her words apparently spurred him. He was out of the bathroom in five minutes, dripping water and dressed in black pants that fit a little too well. The short-sleeved indigo shirt, meant to look plain and utilitarian, looked nothing of the kind as it hung open down the front. He was buttoning his pants as he came out.
Gem twitched uncomfortably. She’d had warning, but she hadn’t been braced for how well he would clean up. Giving herself a mental slap, she said neutrally, “Better, but we’ll have to add shoes to the list. Yours are shot. Hungry?” She led the way to the kitchen table without waiting for an answer, then left him to Jamir’s tender mercies. She had to get away.
Brandy walked in as Gem walked out, saw her expression and glanced into the kitchen. She paused, annoyed. Her eyes were mocking as she stared at Gem. “What did you say you hired him for?” she asked.
Gem flushed. “You know why I didn’t hire him. Stop your teasing.”
Brandy’s face grew serious. “I wasn’t teasing, Gem. Be careful. He’s not lover material.”
The room got hotter. Without a word, Gem hurried to her office, shut herself inside and stared at the wall. She hadn’t hired Hyna Blue for his looks.
A nagging started in her brain, a warning that circled like a pack of taunting children. She hadn’t had a boyfriend in a long time. Blue looked a little too good. He was her employee. Making him anything more would never be right.
She needed a husband. Blue was the leaving kind. Maybe she’d better put Xera in charge of him.
“Not in this millennium,” Xera said firmly. “He looks like an ex-con to me.”
They were standing at the bar, and Jaq just laughed when Gem looked at him in mute appeal. “He’s your project.”
“Fire him,” Brandy suggested brusquely.
“I’m not going to fire him. He did good work today,” Gem said firmly, hating that she was digging her hole of responsibility deeper. “I do have a lot of things to do, though, and he was hired to help pick up the slack that gets missed. If you guys have any extra chores for him, speak up.”
Xera snorted. “You want to turn him into a maid? He’ll quit. I know the type.”
“He could help carry in the new mattresses we ordered, haul in the firebricks for the guestroom hearths, that sort of thing,” Gem suggested. “You don’t have to arm him with a duster and apron.”
Xera smiled but looked thoughtful.
“Brandy, you could introduce him to the brewmaster. He showed an interest. I’m sure he’d be of use cleaning vats and pipes.”
Brandy propped her hip on a table and took a sip of her drink. “You do it.”
Stymied, Gem sighed and gave up. There was no other option. She’d hired him; it was either fire him or put him to good use. She’d do the latter.
It was easy enough to keep him in the garden over the following few days. That way she saw him only a couple of times, when she checked on his work. It was always perfect, which was a surprise, given her early impression of him. His manners did not improve, though.
He winked at her when she showed up in the garden that day. Dressed only in a pair of cut-off shorts, and barefoot besides, he wasn’t shy about showing off his flexed muscles. “You come out here just to see this, don’t you, Blue-eyes?”
“I come out here because no one else wants to deal with you,” she retorted. Looking at the work he’d done, she added, “Looks like you’ll be finished with the garden today. Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to our brewmaster. Brandy is his apprentice. When he retires, the distillery will be hers.”
Hyna’s eyes gleamed.
“I hope you like scrubbing floors,” Gem growled. “Jean Luc will have a mop in your hands for weeks before he lets you do anything else.”
Blue shrugged. “I did worse in prison.”
“Prison?” Gem echoed.
“Theft.” He met her gaze defiantly. “My father kicked me out at fifteen. It was either steal or let strangers bugger me for a twenty. Which would you rather?”
She looked down.
“Don’t worry, they knocked the thieving out of me in prison. I volunteered to join the Space Corps then, and aliens kicked my ass for a couple of years. Ended up becoming a POW for six months on Platoos.” He was silent a moment.
Gem felt sick. Platoos had been the site of one of the ugliest battles in the galaxy. The Galactic Explorers had tried to lay claim to a planet that was already spoken for by a particularly vengeful race. The Intergalactic Council, a group of representatives from different planets formed to promote peace, had finally gotten involved and forced the GE to sign a treaty. The surviving POWs had been released, most given immediate medical discharges.
She took a deep breath. “You look pretty good for having spent six months in a prison camp.”
He smiled without humor. “I was seventy pounds underweight when they released me. These eyes aren’t mine. They’d plucked mine out and chopped off my ears. My lips were sewn shut just two days before I was released.”
A wave of faintness washed over her. She sat on the empty compost cart. “Your arm?”
He waved a hand—not the cybernetic one. “I lost it in battle before all that. Crushed under a track truck. There was nothing left to salvage.” His expression was dark with memory. “The government was
kind enough to replace my eyes with cybernetic implants. I can see colors, but my depth perception will never be what it was.”
He didn’t have to explain his lack of scars—she understood about skin regeneration. “You weave when you walk,” she said softly, finally understanding. “But you haven’t been weaving lately.”
He grimaced. “I finally checked into the clinic the other day. They activated my compensation chip. I haven’t wanted it installed—there were bugs in the early versions and some of the vets went insane. I was finally…” He shrugged. “I had it installed.”
She digested that. “I’m sorry I thought you were a drunk.”
He smiled crookedly. “So, I’m not. Does that mean you’ll go to bed with me?”
“No!” she gasped.
“So much for the aid and comfort due a suffering vet.”
Her eyes narrowed, for she was suddenly suspicious. “Did you make all that up?”
He opened his eyes innocently. “Did I?”
Growling, she turned and headed for the house. He was a liar! Or was he? Maybe it was time she called in a favor.
“Have you got everything?”
Xera looked at Brandy and half smiled. “You asked me that three times already.”
“Well, it’s a little far to come back for something you forgot,” Brandy snapped. “You’d better send us mail every chance you get, and don’t leave anything out.”
“Would I do that?” Xera smiled, in a good mood now that her day to leave had finally arrived. “Are you sure you don’t want to come to the spaceport to see me off?”
“Why? I’d only get to see you for an hour more, at best. Besides, somebody has to look after this place.” Brandy gave her a hug and managed a strained smile. “Be good.”
“I will. I’ll make you proud,” Xera promised, misty-eyed.
“You already have,” Brandy replied, her own eyes shimmering. “Go on with you. You’ll miss your flight.”
Gem picked up one of Xera’s bags and grunted. She dropped it back on the ground with a thud. “What did you pack in here, bricks?”
Xera smirked and hefted the bag onto her shoulder. “You can get the carry-on, shorty.”
“Watch it, squirt. I can still take you,” Gem warned, though she doubted she could. Her sister was six feet tall and built like a tank. She’d also been in martial arts training for years.
The smaller bags were heavy, but Gem made sure she didn’t look like she was straining. It wouldn’t do to let the young ones think they had anything on her.
Hyna Blue met them in the front drive, next to the waiting transport. “I need a few hours off,” he said. “I have some things to do.”
Gem was distracted, so she demanded out of habit, “What?”
“Things,” he replied.
“Like what?”
“Stuff at the clinic,” Blue said. He sounded irritable. “I have an appointment.”
“Oh. Sure,” Gem decided. “I guess Brandy can introduce you to Jean Luc later. We’ve got to go before Xera’s late.”
She wondered why Blue hadn’t mentioned his appointment yesterday but promptly put it out of her mind. She had more important things to consider than what her gardener did with his time. She’d put in a call yesterday to an old school-friend at the cop shop, as the locals referred to their police station. The friend had looked up Blue’s record and confirmed he’d served time in prison with a military transfer, where he’d fought in the Interplanetary Council’s peacekeeping forces. As for the rest, the friend couldn’t say.
“Will you stop thinking about him?” Xera made a face as the transport moved away from The Spark. “At this rate I’ll come back and you’ll be engaged. Gem Harrisdaughter Blue. What a stupid name.”
“You make it sound like I’m in love. I’m not,” Gem retorted. “There’s a mystery about him, is all.”
“A fatal fascination,” Xera agreed dryly. “Forget it. I’m sure I’ll have my share of bad love stories, too. We can laugh about them when I get back.” She grinned. “I can’t believe I’m actually going! Sometimes I thought this day would never get here.”
“We’ll see if you’re still excited when you’re running around at five AM, dressed in that truly ugly uniform.” Gem smiled, knowing her sister better than she implied. Xera would mind neither the schedule nor the clothing.
“I’m not the one who has problems with mornings, remember? I just hope the guy who set the fire gets caught. At least you still have Brandy and Jaq to help you…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Gem said. “The police think it was a one-shot deal. We can hope they’ll know more soon. At any rate, you need to focus on your studies. If you want to learn to pilot a starship, you’d better pay attention. Daydreaming about home might send you crashing into an asteroid or something.”
The transport pulled up at the field. There was a dizzying amount of traffic taking off and landing, both airships that hopped between Polaris’s island asteroids and craft designed for deeper space. Off to the side Gem and Xera could see the construction of a coming spaceport expansion.
They paid the transport driver and entered the far terminal. A stream of passengers lined up for Xera’s off-world flight. A voice came over a loudspeaker, announcing that the ship was boarding.
Gem’s sister took a deep breath. “This is it. Thanks for everything, sis. I love you.” She gave Gem a crushing hug.
Gem sighed and willed her tears not to fall. “I hope the GE appreciates what they’re getting. I’m sending them half my family. I love you. Be strong.”
Her sister gave her another hug and got in line. Gem watched until Xera boarded the big blue ship, then turned away. Xera couldn’t see her now, anyway, so there was no point in waiting.
She could hardly focus as she shuffled out to hail a transport home. Her sadness was overwhelming; it would be at least a year before she saw her sister again, maybe longer. There was no point in hurrying back to mope around the inn. Maybe she should take the day off and just shop or something. Distracted as she was, the first stinging blow to her head was a surprise and she lurched sideways. It felt like she’d been grazed with a small rock. She reached for the bruise—and got tackled by a gorilla.
Gem grunted in pain as the sidewalk caught her hip, but the grassy strip beside the pavement absorbed the worst of the fall. Whoever had grabbed her now rolled and dragged her up behind him, ran them back toward the terminal. He ducked them behind a concrete pillar and pressed her between his body and the stone.
She caught a glimpse of his face. “Blue! What are you—?”
A chip exploded off the stone right by their faces. Hyna Blue moved them to the other side. “Be still! Don’t you know we’re being shot at?”
Shot at? Gem froze, then gingerly reached up to feel her head. A smear of blood came away on her finger. Water replaced her knees.
“Not now,” Blue hissed, holding her upright. “You can wet yourself later.”
That roused her. “I’m not going to—!”
“Wait.” He looked around the pillar. Whatever he saw made him ease out from behind it. “It’s clear. Looks like my buddy Zsak winged him.”
Confused, Gem let Blue drag her out from behind their concrete shield. A big blond guy in an old transport waved at them. “He shot the guy?”
“Just a graze, but we don’t want him coming back for a second try at you. Your attacker shot at you from a transport on the street. As soon as Zsak fired on him, he raced off.”
“Did you see? What are you doing here, anyway?”
Blue towed her toward it, using his body to block hers. “Let’s get out of here before the cops swarm the place. I don’t want to stand around answering stupid questions.”
She didn’t see why not, but he hustled her into the backseat of the roofless transport and slammed the door.
“Hi,” the blond guy said. He had a handlebar mustache and goatee, but his hair was close-cropped.
“Who are you?” Gem demanded,
trying to get her bearings. She touched her wounded head again.
“Get down!” Blue hissed, and shoved her down on the floorboards between his legs. He leaned over where she crouched, covering her. “You don’t need to make it easy for them.”
“Zsak. Nice to meet you,” the blond guy said casually, driving like a maniac. They narrowly missed hitting a big fuel transport.
“Here, let me see that.” Blue shifted so he could inspect her head. He whistled. “You’re lucky the guy wasn’t a better shot.”
“Who would want to shoot me?” Gem asked, bewildered.
He shrugged. “Maybe the guy who tried to burn down your inn?”
“The police thought that was random.”
He looked at the blood on his hand. “This doesn’t look random to me.”
Faintness caught her again.
“Wow, I didn’t know a woman could turn that white.” Blue pulled her against his leg, steadying her. “Relax. If Zsak doesn’t get us killed, we’ll make it to the inn and get you patched up. It’s just a scratch, anyway.”
A fuzzy whiteness was swallowing all her good sense, but one thing nagged at her. “Why were you there?”
His words came from a long way off. “I finished up at the clinic and caught a ride with Zsak. He wanted to check if his bags had arrived yet. They sent them to the wrong planet, you know? Hundreds of years of spaceflight and the idiots still can’t get the luggage on the right ship.”
“I think she passed out.” Hyna Blue tapped Gem’s cheek, but she didn’t move.
“Rough day for a little lady,” Zsak said knowingly. “Probably hasn’t had so much excitement in years.”
“Either that or your ugly face did her in,” Blue agreed. “She’s lucky we showed up when we did.”
“Yeah, lucky.” Zsak laughed.
“Watch it,” Blue warned.
They pulled up the circular drive in front of The Spark with a squeal of brakes. Blue glared at Zsak for the rough stop, then eased out of the vehicle, careful not to bang Gem’s head. She roused as he moved, and looked around fuzzily, but he didn’t dare set her on her feet. By the sickly look of her skin, she was just shy of another fainting spell.
