by Smith, S. E.
Captain Vardo gave Koi a Wendisan bow. “Chivvier, eh? Fine breed. Welcome aboard.”
It would have seemed strange not to start the sightseeing tour with the starbridge. Not surprisingly, Vardo stood by. Fortunately, Star had no unusual reaction to the crew seats, the jump seats, or the seams between floor and walls. The forward screen was dark. Tomorrow it would illuminate with countless stars and all the nebulosity of the Starcross. Nikka could hardly wait. The stars had their danger, but she knew her way around that kind of danger.
Vardo stayed in the starbridge when Nikka led the way to the crew deck. “The Explorers take trips too long for one crew to stay on duty the whole time,” Nikka explained. “There’s a backup crew who operate the ship while the primary crew rest.”
Star had no unusual reaction to the niches with bunks or anything else, not even the locker with Nikka’s personal effects.
Passenger seats were comfortably soft and supportive in Standard Class. Nikka had heard of passengers smuggling items by slitting the cushions and stuffing something extra into the seat. Star showed a certain amount of interest in several of the seats, but only because people from different places had put interestingly scented shoe soles on the floor.
They checked the galley, which had supply storage compartments at floor level and a second and third tier of compartments holding meals. Standing on the galley counter, Star pointed her sensitive nose toward one of the compartments—and sneezed. “Probably some Goyan spices in that one,” Nikka whispered. “OK, next we do something just a little daring.” She led the way up the spiral stairs to the First Class seating area. First Class passengers tended to object to starliner crew entering their domain. Of course there weren’t any passengers, First Class or otherwise, aboard at this hour of the night before the flight.
There was a bank of secure lockers where privileged passengers could store their valuable personal effects while they dozed or went to the view deck. That was where Star growled.
Koi and Nikka looked at each other.
Star advanced stiff-legged on a tall, narrow locker.
Nikka tapped it. The biometric ID pad glowed. “It’s secured,” Nikka whispered. “These are impossible to open when they’re keyed to someone’s palm print. I’ve never used them. It would cost a lot of money.”
“Nonetheless, try the pad,” Koi suggested.
With a shrug, Nikka put her palm on the pad.
The locker silently opened.
Nikka stared at her hand. “But I never—”
“This plot has had help from the inside, from people in your company who have your biometrics.”
Nikka felt breathless with the implications of that. “They compromised the security mandate in my notebook. They sent Company security people or people dressed like Company security to find me. They used my print to lock this.” She felt mounting anger that anyone in the Company would betray a pilot like that.
Koi knelt and pulled a large block of something heavy and tightly wrapped out of the locker. He quickly picked at the corner of it with a sharp little cosmetic tool. A trace of blue powder trickled out. Star gave another growl, longer and lower than the first. Koi’s eyes widened. “That is no small quantity. There may be a bigger game afoot than just incriminating a pilot. This much of this stuff is valuable enough to subvert people who work here in Starway.” The brick of Obsidian disappeared into Koi’s brocaded handbag. “In the absence of a dummy package to put in its place, you’d best leave the locker open and obviously empty.”
On the way out of the liner, Koi waved at Captain Vardo.
Vardo told Nikka. “Get some rest before flight time.”
“I plan to.” Never had a safe and ordinary bed, even one that was empty apart from herself, seemed so appealing.
When they were out of earshot of Vardo or anyone else, Koi said, “I will take it to Wendisan authorities without delay. I think this is momentous in a very bad way.”
The Gate area was deserted. Or nearly so. Danyel stood up from a chair in the Gate. Nikka hadn’t expected him. Her heart thudded.
He said, “I rebooked myself on another liner to Goya. I’ll meet you there. And then I’ll go Faraway with you.”
She just blinked at him. Am I dreaming? Is all of this a dream and I’m still sleeping off a long hard starflight in the transit hotel?
Koi regrouped faster than Nikka. He said, “Good. Now for the rest of tonight, both of you stay in the safety of the Terminal, for High Heaven’s sake.” His words were deadly serious, but his manner hadn’t changed at all from the act he was doing so well. Any eyes that happened to be on them would have seen a well-dressed, attractive and animated woman friend of a starliner pilot.
When they came to the door to the crew stairwell of the transit hotel, Koi gave them a cheerful wave and put Star down. They disappeared in the direction of the exit from the secured area, Star trotting at Koi’s heels like the proud Chivvier she was.
Nikka looked back. “I’m glad Star is with him.”
Danyel was looking up the stairwell, frowning. The stairwell was narrow, dimly lit, and irregularly shaped. It had been carved out of the back side of the transit hotel as a way for pilots and crew to go to their rooms, without mixing with passengers and without the benefit of an elevator.
On a landing, Danyel suddenly pushed her against the wall. He leaped up the stairs. Only then Nikka recognized a human shadow up there. She heard the unpleasant sound of body blows, grunts and cursing. Then a strange man tumbled onto the landing, curled up and moaning. Down the stairs with him bounced a piece of narrow, heavy pipe with one end wrapped in cloth for a better grip—a street weapon.
Danyel grabbed her hand. “Come on!”
The door to Nikka’s room worked fine.
“I fixed it,” Danyel told her.
If he hadn’t and if she’d been alone with a vicious thug on her heels. . . . Nikka shivered.
“I told you’d I’d get you safely back to your room.”
“You did. How did you know that thug was there?”
“I’m sure it’s common knowledge in Union Starlines that this transit hotel is as insecure as it is. It seemed safe to assume that at least some of our enemies know that too. Pull those curtains. They seal? Good! They won’t show that you’re here even if you turn on the light. Just don’t turn the light on too bright.”
She selected medium-dim. “I take it back.”
“Take what back?” The lighting was just enough for his light tawny skin to contrast with his dark hair and the dark eyebrow quirked up.
“You’re no lapdog.”
He laughed. His laugh had a sharp edge, though. It sounded like an edge of pain.
Nikka blurted, “What made up your mind?”
“I went back to our expensive hotel room in the best level in Starway. I found her asleep. She hates to be woken up in the night. She’d always rather I sleep on a couch than risk waking her up. So I just looked at her. I saw the familiar curves of her. But without her charm focused on me, I realized the pair bond between us is irreparably broken. I’m the kind of man who wants, needs a bond with a woman. On my end, it’s re-formed with you. If you want me.”
His naked honesty brought tears to her eyes. She leaned close to him, brushing his lips with hers.
He reacted instantly, returning her kiss. “Koi said I can act.” His voice was rough with feeling. “But I’m not acting.”
“You have an actor’s face—your features are strong-boned, your eyes are set off by long dark eyebrows, and you have a wide expressive mouth.”
He kissed her harder then. Oh, that was as good a kiss as she’d ever fantasized while remembering the smiling curve of his lips. He held her close. She felt a tremble in his arm muscles—from strong emotion, she thought, all kinds of strong emotion, maybe some of it love. Did he love her? Is that what he meant?
When she shifted to get as close to him as possible, she felt the part of him that obviously wanted to be inside her—or to have her
surrounding him.
“I’m not acting,” he repeated.
“I can tell.” She swayed, balanced between the kind of relief and sexual need she always felt after a dangerous star flight—like usual but even more so, and fueled by the fantasies she’d cherished about this man who was now unbelievably in her arms—and the sense that danger wasn’t over and their enemies were still plotting against them.
He tipped her past the balance point by picking her up and putting her down on the bed. He ran his hands across her shoulders, then began to unbutton her shirt. She did the same to his.
It quickly became obvious that he was eager and able to go all the way.
“How can you be like this when danger isn’t over?” she asked between urgent kisses.
“Males are like that,” he said simply. His voice was low and firm. “It’s the way we’re wired.”
Maybe she had gained some appreciation for male sexual single-mindedness from pilots she’d flown with. Maybe she was sexually single-minded herself. Or maybe it because Danyel was not a lapdog after all that she said, “Yes.”
* * *
Danyel dreamed that he was in the electric jungle of Faxe with Star. The little dog was invisible in a wall of vegetation that sparked every time the wind stirred it. Star was barking at something in there. With the back of his hand he pushed the sparking, electric wall away, sending sharp pain across his knuckles.
He woke up on a hotel room bed, pushing a pile of bedcovers mixed with clothing away backhanded. The skin of his knuckles—scraped in the fistfight with the thug—hurt. Nikka’s long, beautiful, warm body was pressed against him, both of them naked. With a hot rush of joy, he remembered both of them being satiated and falling asleep.
But the sound of a dog barking was coming from just outside the door of the room. Nikka sat up abruptly. “Star?”
“I think so.” He carefully opened the door a few inches. That was enough for Star, who squirted in with a small package in her mouth. The Chivvier put her front paws on the side of the bed to drop the package on the bedclothes.
Nikka pulled out a letter on plastifilm. “It’s a message from Koi.”
“No surprise considering who his messenger is.”
“Well, what he says sure is a surprise. Listen! ‘The thread leads back to a raveled fabric and Heaven only knows the extent of this. I am in hiding. Take Star and keep her safe. Do what I advised you with these names’.”
“What?”
She shook a couple of crystals out of the package. Her eyes widened. “I can’t believe—but look.” She felt for her identity bracelet. One of the crystals fitted into an empty clasp. It was an identity crystal. She studied the small hologram that formed in her cupped hands, responding to her unique palmprints. “This is an identity as someone named Nikka Steel. Steel is approximately the first syllable of my real name. This has a lot of who I really am, but it’s a completely separate identity.” She looked up at him. “Nikka Steel has a trusted companion named Dun Parral.”
He took the other crystal and measured it against his sigident ring. It would fit the setting perfectly. “If I went to the black market to buy identities with all the money I’ve ever had, I don’t think I could afford this.”
“Koi ends with, ‘You provided important news that will help Wendis protect its people and interests. Wendis rewards good deeds’.”
“Unlike Merdis,” Danyel heard himself say. Merdis who could easily forget the love and loyalty he’d always given her. Whenever she got angry or disappointed with him—which had happened more and more often in recent years—she forgot everything he ever did for her. Then he had to apologize to her, please her, and grovel his way back into her good graces. It was like that even when her reasons were trifling or unfair. For using ReXcom to save a woman from SECINTAG and then bedding the woman, Merdis would never forgive him. Far from it. She would seek to mercilessly punish him.
It was sinking in on him how very, very much had changed. Tearing himself from Merdis was going to be a long weeping wound. A wound that had just begun to tear open.
“These are Faraway names. The kind of simple, concrete names people take when they go into the Faraway to find adventure or lose trouble. I always wanted a Faraway name. Before the reality of making a living set in, I dreamed about exploring the Faraway.”
Even in pain, he had to smile at how Nikka’s eyes went wide and wondering. “I’ll make sure you get there,” he said, and remembered what else he needed to do for her. “Right now I have an errand.”
“Koi said stay in the Terminal,” she reminded him.
“I’ll take Star to keep me safe.” His smile felt crooked. He could feel, or imagine, his facial skin aging, the fine tendons around his mouth loosening with resurging age. He hoped Nikka liked the man she would end up with. A man it would be, not a boy, and not a lapdog. “I’ll find you on Goya.” Tenderly, as long as some of the kisses last night, but more gently, he kissed her. “I love you, Nikka.”
* * *
Alone, Nikka turned the light out and opened the edge of the curtain to watch the Gate. She watched as the first of the Gate crew arrived in their work coveralls. Passengers trickled in. Her notebook would chime when it was time for her to wake up and go to work. If she didn’t answer the chime, it would get louder.
More Terminal personnel and more passengers arrived. The passengers milled around in the same fish-school motion as passengers everywhere across the stars and probably all the way back to the days of sailing ships on Earth. Watching them from here, she was alone. Yet she didn’t feel the old sexual restlessness, the ache for a warm embrace. Her skin retained a warm pleasant tingle from Danyel’s touch.
He loves me. Only now did she dare admit to herself how in love with him she’d been for years. The astonishing thing was how much had else had changed in less than a day, less than a star pilot’s rest between flights.
They’d find each other on Goya.
It felt like a long and uncertain way from now to then, though.
6
Years ago Danyel had walked away from a Survey camp in predawn light, across a barren and therefore relatively safe ridge, struggling with how to continue working in the Survey. Two geologists—good scientists and good friends—had just died in the fascinating but relentlessly hazardous wilderness on Faxe.
In Merdis, he had found what seemed like an honorable way out of the Survey. She represented first, new and interesting work; then love; and even, along with everything else, an opportunity to influence the Resource Exploration Company for the good. Exploration had turned into Exploitation anyway.
He needed to walk now. Luckily, he had good reason to walk through Starway.
He was glad Koi had once told him the commands that Star was trained to obey. That had been a year or so ago. The commands were in Old Wendisan, a language little known to outsiders. Danyel had remembered the whole set of commands anyway, impressing Koi when it came up in a later conversation.
“Heel,” he said in Old Wendisan.
Star promptly took the correct position beside and behind his right foot.
“Good dog.”
The corners of the mouth in her slender muzzle seemed to smile.
Besides Star’s sharp senses, he made sure to use his own. Starway could be a dangerously eventful place at night. He didn’t need Koi to tell him that, although Koi seemed extremely well informed about the exact nature of some of the eventualities. Night was turning into early morning, though, with the calm before the day’s storm of interstellar travel. He made his way to the back door of Pavilion restaurant—the door into the kitchen.
Merdis always complained that he had a habit of making friends with people of low status. But it was good to have friends in low places. The staff remembered him from a visit a few weeks ago. They were delighted to feed Star some dog food. Sometimes travelers wanted their pets to eat well too; the pets were lapdogs—or even, in a disparaging phrase Danyel had heard the staff use, yapdogs. Star was
a much finer sort of dog and she charmed them.
The kitchen staff also provided Danyel some sugar, blue food coloring, small amounts of a few other substances, and a plastic wrapper, when he explained that he had a small project to assemble. Assembly accomplished, Danyel and Star left the kitchen with a chorus of well-wishes from the staff. “Good Wendday to you! Safe travel!”
Starway was busier now, with more passengers moving around. Danyel felt a strange reluctance as he went toward the Terminal. Could he really go through with this?
Almost certainly. For one thing, by now he’d broken enough of the clauses in Merdis’ contract to end his career, his prosperity, and his Faxen citizenship—and it was bad to be a stateless person in the Faxen Union.
And he yet felt a compelling pull back to Merdis. “I loved her.”
Star cocked an ear.
“I think she loved me. But her love is the kind that can shut off like a valve.” He regarded a watering system in a lush planter. “I don’t think Nikka is like that.”
Star gave the planter an interested sniff. Just then, Danyel felt a strange shiver through the soles of his shoes. His tired, stressed instincts said earthquake. But that was nonsense. The only earth in Starway was loam cupped in planters like this one.
In the corridor around him, people emerged from doors and leaned from windows, asking each other what just happened. Star barked excitedly. OK, not an earthquake, but something, less natural than a planetary quake. He walked faster. The sooner he reached the Terminal, the better. He had his travel pack. He could go directly to the starliner on which he’d made a one-way reservation to Goya, leaving later today.
“Attention in Starway. Attention.”
The calm feminine voice seemed to come from everywhere. He’d never heard it before. He’d heard about it, though. It was the Voice of Starway—the station’s central, controlling Artificial Intelligence that almost never said anything in public.
