by Jean Kilczer
Sophia threw her arms around him and laughed. “Saved by the Belle,” she said.
I sat back and didn't know whether to sigh with relief, or groan at that joke. Instead, I wiped my wet cheek and smiled.
We had our ride home.
Chapter Fifteen
The Belle Star, a cargo scow, gnashed her metal teeth and rumbled deep in her belly like an old man with indigestion, sending vibrations racing along ribbed metal beneath our feet.
“Y'all just some lost sheep out there in the bubble?” Captain M. Jackson, a squat man with a stained white beard and a paunch that hung over his belt, gave us suspicious looks as he shuffled down a dimly lit lower deck. Our footsteps echoed through the hollow tube as three silent crewmen followed us.
“Captain,” I said, and stopped him with a hand on his worn blue uniform, “I have to use your Star Positioning System for a priority call to Earth.” I'd told him that when they first picked us up, minutes before, but he'd ignored it.
“Sounds mighty important.” He scratched behind his ear and flicked some crud from his finger. “ `Fraid y'all have to wait till we get to the space station on Denebria. This old lady ain't had a workin' SPS for the life of a dwarf star.”
“Denebria?” I said. “I thought we were heading to Earth? This is urgent, Captain.”
“Got to pick up some passengers on Denebria first.” He narrowed his bloodshot eyes. “This is business, Mr. Rammis.”
I glanced at Sophia and Paulie. Sophia shook her head. Paulie dropped his gaze. I had explained the ramifications to him of widespread bristra on Earth. I think he still felt guilty for his part in this possible disaster.
I took a breath. “Captain, Alpha or Earth Central will reimburse you for the loss of the passenger fees. But this call has to go through!”
He shrugged and continued walking. We followed. The three crewmen followed us, past twisted metal girders, patched breaks in the walls, and a comlink dangling by wires. The foul smell in the air made me think the recyclers weren't working either.
“Y'all know how the government works,” Jackson said as he ambled along. “I'll be feeding the worms an' pushing up daisies 'fore they put the check in my credcount. Sorry, but I got to look out for my own ass. Oh, 'scuse me, Ma'am.” He opened a hall door to a small room. “Here's your quarters, Mr. Rammis.” His gaze slid across Sophia's body. “And the, uh, misses?” He winked.
I leaned against the wall. I had to contact Earth Central before the Mafia stole the bristra tank from the Lab. If Al had talked to his family on Searcher's SPS unit, I would already be too late. My team, back on Equus, didn't know that Al's family planned to rob the Lab specimens. My only hope was that Al couldn't use an SPS unit. Still, with a stop on Denebria, Al and his boys would make it back to Earth before us, and with my message to La Guardia Spaceport, they'd walk away from Searcher free as three vultures.
“Captain Jackson,” Sophia used her authoritative tone and took a step closer to him, “Jules is trying to tell you that your decision could cause a worldwide catastrophe.” She moved even closer, but he held his ground. I had to give her credit, considering the smell of whiskey on his breath. “You're our host,” she said, “and we're grateful to you. But if you don't take us directly to Earth, you could be in for jail time.” She nodded for emphasis.
Jackson narrowed his eyes and I caught a glimmer of the tough-minded captain he once was.
“Miss Rella, or Mrs. Rammis,” he said, using the old labels, “I learned long ago not to depend on the conclusions of strangers who have a stake in those conclusions.” He motioned toward the compartment. “Dinner is in two hours. I expect payment for the food, and the fuel we expended to find your boat and pick you up. Son,” he addressed Paulie, “your berth is next door. Gentlemen.” He nodded at me and Paulie, turned and started back toward the ladder. The three crewmen followed him.
Paulie flicked a thumb at his back. “Gavone!” he whispered. His shoulders sagged and his hair fell over his eyes.
“Get some rest,” I told him. “It's been a trying day all around.”
“To say the least,” Sophia added.
Paulie shrugged. “I don't know what I'm gonna do when we get back to Earth. I'm fish food if the family finds me. Where the hell am I gonna go?”
I patted his shoulder. “We'll get you into the witness protection program.”
“Sure! I'll be shoveling cow shit in Montana.”
“You're young, Paulie,” Sophia said, and you're a handsome man. You'll make a life."
Paulie patted her cheek. “Maybe I'll find a broad…I mean a woman, like you.”
We all laughed.
“Later, Paulie.” I entered the compartment with Sophia and locked the door.
She sat on the bunk and wiped her hands through her hair. “We did what we could, Jules.”
I sat next to her. “I think I could've done more.”
She rubbed my knee. “You always think you could've done more.”
I put my arm around her and breathed in her scent. “Right now I want to do more.” I kissed her cheek.
“Now?”
I smiled. “Now.”
“Don't smile, babe, you know what that does to me. It's not fair.”
I broadened it to an evil grin.
“You are incorrigible.” She ran a hand through my hair. “You need a haircut.”
“Don't get any ideas, woman. This time you don't have Chancey to back you up.” I touched her lips with mine. “And I think I could take you on any time.”
“Oh, yeah, man, you and what army,” she said, imitating Chancey's words and dialect.
I laughed. “You don't have your dive knife with you, dear.”
She took my head in her hands and kissed me. “What you do to me is sinful!” Her expression turned inward, touching on some inner pain. “I thought I lost you back there when Paulie used the stun setting instead of the hot beam.” She traced her fingers across my cheek. “I would give you anything you asked for. I can't help myself.”
“Good. Because I'm asking for you. All of you.” I pressed her face against mine. “I want to be inside you, Sophia. Not just for sex.” I kissed her neck, her lips. “I want to feel you all around me, like another skin. A better one than mine.”
She sighed heavily and pulled me down on top of her. “You don't make sense.” She got her hands under my jacket, my shirt, and ran her nails lightly over my back. Bat had applied new skin after a whipping I'd taken on planet New Lithnia, and Sophia's touch was not painful, just exciting. “You cat!”
She giggled. “My mouse.”
I was ready for her as I sat up and threw off my jacket and shirt. She pulled me back down and held my head as we kissed hard again, as though trying to enter each other. “Whoever invented zippers?” she said as she tried to unzip my pants."
I got my hands around her back and fumbled with the bra clips. “The same idiot who invented bras.” I unclipped it, and ran my hands across her breasts. I took in a breath. “I can't wait much longer, Soph.”
“Then take off those damn pants!” She lifted up and slid her pants and panties down to her knees, then kicked them off. I got out of my pants while she slipped off her blouse.
“Oh, Jules!” She pulled me down on top of her. “Baby. Baby!” she gasped and spread her legs around my hips.
I kissed her breast and sucked on a nipple.
“That's all I can take!” she said, and pushed me inside her.
“Be gentle with me.” I pushed in deeper.
Our lovemaking was more like a cat fight. Maybe it was all the trauma we'd been through, but we both needed this ultimate physical closeness that melded us into one, and the release that came with our orgasms.
We clung to each other for a long while afterwards, relaxed, content, in the face of all the uncertainties that weighed on us and destroyed our peace of mind. Here was a small sanctuary in space and time.
“I love you, Sophia,” I whispered. “My woman. That hasn't been easy for me to s
ay.”
“I know. I know what the death of your sister Ginny did to you. And Joe told me how you grieved inconsolably after Willa's murder.” She held me close. “I know it's difficult for you to commit and maybe get hurt again.”
I could not hold back tears. They slid to her cheeks and I wiped them.
“I feel so quiet inside, Jules. We make our own garden wherever we are.”
I nodded. “With you, it's easy.”
She lifted my chin. “Babe, as long as I'm alive, I'll be there for you.”
“As long as I'm alive,” I whispered, “I'll be your rock to cling to.”
She chuckled.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She turned her face and chuckled again.
“C'mon. What?”
“Oh, the image of you, my reckless adventurer, as a steady rock.”
“I can do it. I can be a rock.”
She pressed her lips, trying not to laugh, but I felt her chest shake.
“Listen, wench,” I lifted onto elbows, “if I'm going to be your husband, you'd better learn to take orders from me and believe every word I say.”
This time she couldn't suppress a laugh. “Is that a proposal?”
“A what? Oh. Well, I meant…uh.”
She pulled me back down and kissed me lightly on the lips. “It's all right. Let's not ruin this perfect moment with a committal.”
* * *
Our worst fears were realized when we docked at the Denebrian outpost station and I put in a call to Earth Central. They'd already been informed that a tank of alien Blackroot had been stolen from the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico.
The sounds of humans and aliens rolling or balancing or levitating their travel bags, laughing as they awaited ships to destinations among the stars, seemed to fade as I considered the consequences. The metallic smell of the air, laced with aromas from open restaurants, just served to turn my stomach.
“They've got it,” I told Sophia and Paulie. “We're too late.”
“The Mafia?” Sophia asked in a hushed voice.
I nodded.
“Mother of God,” Paulie said, “you'll never get it away from them.”
“We've got to,” I told him. “You know where their compound is located. You're our only hope.”
“Then there's no hope!” he shouted. People and aliens alike turned. “What do ya want me to do, turn in my own family? Fuck that! I'm out o' here.”
“Paulie,” I started, “you know the consequences if bristra sprouts spores and they spread across the continents.”
He pointed a finger at me. “This time, you're asking too much.” He bared his chest dramatically, ripping off buttons. “Here! Cut out my heart while you're at it.”
I glanced at Sophia. She raised her brows.
“OK, Paulie,” I said, “you're out of it. Just tell us where the compound is located. We know it's somewhere on Long Island.”
“You don't understand nothing,” he said. “Niente. You call it a compound? Hey, it's my family's home. You understand? There's kids there, my mother, husbands and wives of my brothers and sisters. I was born on the kitchen table in that friggin' compound. What do you know about anything, kraut? You told me yourself you never had a family. So what the hell do you know about anything?”
I bit my lip. “You can't go back there anymore. You know that.”
“Paulie,” Sophia said, “if bristra gets loose, your own family could be at risk.”
Paulie strode away and paused. “You understand what would happen if the police or the CIA came down on them?” he yelled. “You think they're gonna throw up their hands and walk into the friggin' enemies' arms? You don't know shit!”
“They won't have a choice,” I called back.
A young spaceport guard sauntered over, wearing an oversized brown cap and a uniform two sizes too big for his narrow frame. “Is there a problem here?”
“No,” Sophia said innocently. “No problem, officer.”
“They'll send the women and children away,” Paulie yelled, “and they'll stand an' fight till…” He pressed a fist to his mouth and bit a knuckle. “Till the last man is dead! But first they'll take some CIA pricks with them! You understand what I'm sayin'?”
The officer looked from me to Paulie. His blue eyes widened.
I walked toward Paulie, followed by Sophia and the officer, whose hand edged to the butt of his holstered stingler. “Suppose you just give us the location of the Mafia's home base,” I said. “Then you're out of it, OK?”
“You don't know what you're asking.” He turned and brushed past the officer. “Get the fuck outa my way!”
The officer took a step back and almost fell.
Paulie strode toward the boarding gate. “I'll be on the Belle Star if you want me.” He threw back a dismissive wave of his hand.
“Now what?” Sophia asked.
I rubbed my lips as I watched Paulie disappear around a corner, almost knocking over a Cleocean who was balancing on his tails. “We could use truth serum on him,” I said.
“Oh, that's low, Jules.”
“Any lower than thousands of lives lost if bristra produces spores that spread across the continents?”
The officer took my arm and Sophia's. “I'd like you two to accompany me to the guards' quarters for a talk with my captain.”
I took out my wallet and showed him my WCIA badge. “We're on a mission, officer.”
“Oh, wow! A mission?” He released our arms. “Sorry, sir.”
“It's OK,” I said. “You're just doing your job.”
“Thank you,” Sophia gave him a demure smile, “for being so alert and concerned and brave.”
He stared at her for a moment and I could almost see his pupils dilate. Then he touched his wide cap. “Uh, ma'am, sir, have a nice day.” He turned and walked back to his station with the cuffs of his pants flapping.
“I think he has to grow into the job,” Sophia said. “What's going to happen when Paulie wakes up?”
“He'll have no memory of what he said under the influence of the drug. He'll think he just had a pleasant night's sleep.”
I turned back to the SPS wall unit. “Oh, man. I've got to call Joe. By now the transports have landed on Earth. He's not going to be happy when I tell him the news.” I held still for the retinal scan, then punched in his call numbers and sighed, “He's going to kill me. I hope he doesn't hit me this time.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Oh, if I hadn't tried to be a decoy for Searcher, but just gone to the hovair, I wouldn't have gotten us both captured.”
“Well, I followed you willingly.”
“Thing is, if I was in the hovair when the transports landed on Equus, I could've used their SPS to contact Earth Central and warn them of the Mafia's plans.”
“To steal the Lab bristra?”
I nodded.
She took a breath. “Oh. You think he'd really hit you?”
“He did once, on Denebria.” I touched my face. “Made my cheek black and blue. He was mad as hell over something I did.”
She chewed a nail. “Suppose I stay between the two of you? You know, run interference for you.”
“OK. He's going to kill me.”
“I'm glad you're making the call and not me.”
“Thanks.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Now, Joe,” I said, and moved around the Denver Spaceport welcoming buffet table to keep it between us, “remember your blood pressure.”
His face was red beneath the white stubble and the hair hanging over his forehead. “What were you thinking?” He slammed a fist on the table. A vase of red roses tilted and fell. Water trickled between steaming meatballs and stew in hot casserole dishes, loaves of bread in baskets, and bowls of sliced fruit.
“I thought if I played decoy, Joe,” I said, “it would give Chancey and Sophia and Huff and Gabby a chance to make it to the hovair. Then I thought I'd sneak around back and –”
&nbs
p; “What do you mean, you thought?” he shouted. “You never thought in your life.”
Chancey chuckled from where he sat sprawled in a chair. Bat shook his head, picked up his medkit from the counter and set it beside him.
Joe came around the table. “OK,” he said quietly, “come here and tell me what you thought. I'm anxious to hear this.”
I kept the table between us. “Well, I figured,” I began, “I could make it back to the hovair without being seen by the Searcher's crew, and once we were off-planet on a transport, I would contact Earth Central and…” He tried to get closer. I moved back. “And tell them –”
“But you didn't make it, did you?” he said too softly. “No, you got yourself and Sophia captured by the Mafia crew and taken off- planet without delivering your message.” He pushed the table into me. I held it as bowls of fruit rocked. “Didn't you?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Well, things didn't go as planned.”
“If you ever had a plan in your life, your brains would leak out of your ears.” He tried to reach me across the table.
I backed away.
“You want me to hold him down for you, boss?” Chancey asked between chuckles.
“Shut the hell up, Chancey,” I said.
Huff shuffled back from watching a magic show on the center platform with Gabby by his side. “We do not have magic on Kresthaven,” he told her. “Only the magic of water that becomes ice, and the ice that becomes water.”
“That's pretty magical,” Gabby said.
“Yes, someday we will figure that out.” Huff watched Joe and me circle the table. He sat down and pulled a candy bar from his belly pouch. “Is this a Terran ritual, my cub,” he asked me as he unwrapped the bar, “to welcome home the weary long travelers?”
“Yeah, fur ball,” Chancey said, “that's what it is. And for an encore, we're going to watch your cub get his ass kicked.”
Gabby's eyes widened and she crouched behind Huff. Bat sighed and took a blood pressure cuff from out his bag. “Jules is right, Joe. You have to watch your blood pressure.”
Sophia returned from the restroom.
“Soph,” I said in a thin voice, “you still want to run interference?”
