She drew in a deep breath, trying to shake off that image. “Look, we’ve got to decide—”
Her words were interupted by a soft knock on the door. She caught her breath, wondering if whoever it was had heard her whispering to herself. If so, would they think she was crazy, or something worse? At last she mustered her voice and asked who was there.
“Sumi,” came the answer.
She could feel Katlyn taking control of her body with silken ease, like a hand sliding into a cool satin glove. “Come in,” she said, and Jamisia could hear her exulting silently, that such a chance had come before the skip. Many of the Others had thought the Medusan would not come back, although Katlyn had insisted otherwise.
The door slid open and he stood there. She could see at once in his eyes that he was not wholly comfortable in her presence. Jamisia felt sorry for him, but Katlyn assured her that it was a good sign, that men always felt that way when a woman manipulated them. As if they could sense the nature of the game, without quite understanding how to exit from it.
They’re easier to control when they’re like that.
“Come in,” she said softly. It was the kind of tone one used with a frightened animal, luring it close with a promise of safety.
He stood in the doorway for a minute, then took one step into the room. A token concession; it was clear he would rather keep his distance. “Allo told me to check up on you, to see that everything was all right here, before the ainniq.” When she didn’t respond he shifted his weight uneasily from one leg to the other, then offered, “Is it?”
Katlyn looked at him as if she wasn’t quite sure, then glanced back at the straps on the bed. One glance was all it took: hesitant, frightened, female. Instinctively he took a step toward her, which brought him far enough through the threshold that the door whisked shut behind him. Inwardly Katlyn smiled.
“They’re for the dive,” he said. “Nothing to worry about, standard procedure on a private vessel.”
This one was easy to play, Katlyn thought. Almost too easy. If the stakes weren’t so high, it would be downright boring.
“So where are we going?” she asked, honing her voice to a perfect blend of bright curiosity and hesitant dependency. “You said ainniq, so I assume....” She let the rest trail off into silence.
“Paradise Node.” His eyes flickered about the small room, she noticed, focusing on her bag, her headset, her brightly lit computer screen . . . anything but her. “The waystation is a major commercial hub; you can contact your people from there.”
Katlyn took the words at face value, but something in his tone made Verina suddenly wary. Raven stirred inside her. Something’s wrong, Kat, you’d bener. let me talk to him.
No way.
Kat—
“Paradise,” Katlyn mused aloud. She took a step closer to Sumi, one small step in an instant when he wasn’t looking directly at her. Oh, he could back away when he noticed, but this way it would be obvious. Men were the most vulnerable when they felt self-conscious. “I’ve heard about that station, even on Earth. Is it as ...” She fumbled delicately for a word “. . . interesting as the tour pages make it out to be?”
“Interesting?” He seemed to have noticed that she was closer, but he didn’t back up. “That’s a curious way to describe it. I suppose for a Terran it would be.”
“How would you describe it?”
She didn’t even listen to his answer, but flashed up a choice cut from a porn viddie; the images danced before her eyes as she watched him speaking. Some of the Others, repelled, tucked themselves deep inside Jamisia’s mind and refused to watch. Derik muttered a curse and then withdrew in a huff, as he always did when the girls expressed their sexuality. That was all fine with Katlyn, she’d rather do this without them anyway.
He was telling her something about Paradise. She wasn’t even listening, though she nodded her head attentively now and then, and kept her eyes carefully focused on him. Instead she was remembering what she had read about Medusans, and the way their strange particulate sense worked. And she was watching the viddie, its erotic images transposed like a fine veil between her eyes and his. It was one she often ran when someone else had control of the body, enjoying its artistic lewdness in the privacy of her own soul, using the circuits and pathways of brainware that had been assigned specifically to her. Now, however, she was not just watching the viddie itself, but remembering all those other times, and linking up to all the fantasies it had ever inspired. It was a heady tonic. She could feel her body stirring in response, skin suddenly made sensitive by the flush of heat along its surface. He was telling her something about the relative lawlessness on Paradise Station proper, how that was the public perception, but in actual fact the resident Guildmistress had eyes and ears everywhere, and it was said that nothing escaped her notice ... and all the while Katlyn nodded at him, and smiled on cue . . . while the rythym of the bodies moving in her field of vision inspired a similar fevered rhythm in her own heart. ACCELERATED PULSE, her wellseeker warned. ADJUST? She flashed an icon that told it to mind its own business, and smiled.
And now ... yes, she’d guessed right. Her visual wiles might not have gotten much notice from the Medusan, but other signals were coming through loud and clear. Particularly the scent of desire which must even now be rising from her skin, too faint for a Terran to notice, but rich and tantalizing to the Medusan senses.
He seemed to stammer then, as though losing his train of thought. Or perhaps his control? Deep inside her she was aware of Jamisia marveling at the flush of elation this-little game provided, and despite the girl’s own revulsion at where this was heading, she could sense her crouching close to the border which separated Katlyn’s mind from hers, watching with a feverish intensity.
“It’s an indulgent place, I hear.” She was close to him now, so close that the nearer tentacles could feel the touch of her breath on their moist surfaces; she could see them quiver, their surfaces contracting for a second, tasting the chemicals of her life through that precious breeze. Sumi drew in a deep breath and for a moment his eyes seemed to focus elsewhere; she held her own, guessing that this would be the moment in which the whole game was decided. Would he let his body follow the course that instinct preferred, or override it with commands to the med programs, cutting short the flow of hormones which had surely begun? Her heart was pounding, as much from the elation of the hunt as from any more prosaic arousal. Men like this were a sport too precious to deny.
He exhaled slowly, somewhat hoarsely, and a number of tentacles slid forward over his shoulders, daring a more intimate proximity. They seemed ruddier than before, flushed with fresh blood, and they twined about each other endlessly, restlessly, hungry for sensation. A strange and disturbingly alien heat flooded her body, familiar and yet not so. She was distantly aware of Jamisia’s horror, as the girl realized that the man’s very alienness aroused Katlyn now. How could she help the poor girl understand that? It was the thought of tasting the Unknown on her lips, of embracing the Forbidden. What was it like, Katlyn wondered, to feel those gifts of Hausman touching one’s naked skin? Were there other deformities, more secret, which fingers and tongue and eyes might uncover in the course of intimacy? Oh, this was going have rewards all its own, she thought.
“So it’s said,” he whispered hoarsely. She couldn’t even remember the question that had prompted it. Slowly she put up a hand to his face, and touched his cheek, oh so gently. It was a small gesture, but it broke down the last of the barriers between them. As she had intended. His hands moved to her shoulders—large hands, strong hands—and then down to her upper arms, where he grasped her forcefully. She sensed an instant’s hesitation in him, as he satisfied himself that her behavior was indeed the invitation it seemed to be. Or perhaps instead, he needed to satisfy himself that he meant to answer it. Then he leaned down toward her until his lips met hers, and she put her arms up about his broad shoulders in response. Half a dozen warm, moist tendrils began to slither up and about he
r arms, sliding into the sleeves of her jumpsuit and spiraling down towards her body. It was at once repulsive and unbearably erotic, a cocktail of sensation almost too much to bear. Even the taste of his lips was alien to her, a mix of chemicals born not of Earth, but of some tortured realm far from any human shore. She could sense the last barrier of self-control in him coming down as he moved in closer to her, the scent of his own desire now sweet in her nostrils; and his hands moved up to her shoulders to caress her, pulling the neck of her jumpsuit open—
Then pain. Just an instant of it, a stinging sensation, quickly gone. She hardly flinched. But he noticed, and drew back, and looked at her. His right hand stroked her shoulder again, where the reaction seemed to center, a lot more forcefully. And this time a short gasp escaped her lips, as something that felt like a needle stabbed into the tender flesh beneath his thumb.
He stared into her eyes for a moment as if seeking explanation there, and then, when none was forthcoming, reached up to the neck of her jumpsuit and pulled it open, baring her shoulder for his inspection. Several snaps down the.front of the garment broke open as well, baring the flushed, warm curve of a breast. He didn’t notice that. His attention was wholly on the tiny red circle he had found on her skin. “What is this?” he asked.
“Nothing. I pinched it. About two days ago. Nothing to worry about.” She reached for his hand, to urge him away from the spot, but as she did so a flicker of doubt suddenly took root inside her.
The wellseeker should have healed such a thing by now. Shouldn’t it?
His tendrils were cold now, and they withdrew from her arms. The alien lover was gone, and in his place stood a man who was all too familiar with unnamed threats. And his concern over this one was all too clear. “Where were you hurt? How did it happen?”
“Why does that matter?” she demanded. He didn’t answer, so at last she said, “I was going through Immigration at Reijik Station, someone handed me my bag and helped me put it on and the strap pinched—just for a moment—”
It shouldn’t have lasted this long.
He prodded the spot with his thumb, pressing downward. The pain was sharp, and her cry of surprise let him know it.
“Shit,” he muttered. “God damn.”
“What?” she begged him. She was scared now, and the Others who had been cowering within now came to the surface, adding fears of their own. “What is it?”
“Something that should have healed,” he muttered. “Only it hasn’t. You have a wellseeker online? Automatic?”
“Of course,” she managed. She was more and more unnerved by where this was leading, and just about ready to give over her control of the body to Jamisia again. Or whoever. This wasn’t the kind of scene she handled well.
His eyes unfocused for a moment, and she was sure he was sending a message somewhere, relaying the details of his discovery. “What?” she begged.
He didn’t answer, but asked, “Who was with you then?” The level of tension in him was palpable. “Who helped you?”
“I don’t know their names. There were two of them, both Guild—”
He cursed more dramatically then, in a language she didn’t understand. Quaking inwardly, she didn’t know how to respond. “Guild! That’s all we need now.”
The door slid open; it was Calia, with a medkit in hand. “What is it?”
“Some kind of implant, I think. Take a look.” He pushed Katlyn toward the woman, the jumpsuit still pulled low off her shoulder. Calia spared one low glance for her half-bared chest—a look of utter disdain flickered across her face, that encompassed both Katlyn and Sumi—and then focused on the red spot.
“She says she’s had it two days. A spot she pinched.”
Calia prodded the center of the spot with a sharp fingernail. It hurt. “Damage from an external source would have been healed by now.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Their conversation, cold and impersonal, took place as if she were not in the room. Or as if she were some slab of meat being dissected on a cutting table, that couldn’t possibly hear what they said, or care what they meant. “What is it?” she demanded, as much to declare herself a part of the scene again as to get any kind of answer.
They both looked at her; Calia’s eyes were cold, cruel, but Sumi’s held something of sympathy; she clung to that. “Something inside you, I’d guess. Something your Guild friends put there. Calia will dig it out.”
The woman turned away, snapped open the white plastic box she had brought, and laid it on the room’s small table. “Sit her down,” she ordered. The door slid open again as Sumi maneuvered her to the small bed, gently forcing her to sit down on it. It was Allo, and he didn’t look happy.
“What the hell is going on here?” he demanded.
“We may have one more passenger than we knew about,” Calia said, as she withdrew a short silver tube from the case.
“An implant,” Sumi explained, and then added, “maybe.”
“I didn’t know—” Jamisia began.
“Whose?” Allo demanded.
“Don’t know yet.” Calia adjusted some rings at the base of the tube, then nodded her satisfaction at the result. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
Katlyn was gone. And even Jamisia herself wasn’t in full control. An Other stirred, taking up the reins of volition, and Jamisia let her. Fine and good if someone else wanted to handle this, she sure as hell didn’t.
“I didn’t know,” Zusu whimpered.
“Hold her still,” Calia ordered. Something flickered in her eyes that was more than mere efficiency; hate, perhaps? Pleasure that the Earthie was in such a position, restrained by alien hands while she, a Variant, prepared to cut into her flesh? The woman said nothing more as she moved into position, putting the narrower end of the tube against Zusu’s skin, centering it on the red spot . . . but Zusu could sense her hatred all the same.
Then something bit into her flesh, and she cried out. Sumi’s fingers gripped her arms with a strength that was painful, as the silver tongue of the probe cut down into her flesh, following some alien signal. She felt it descend an inch, maybe two, probing around inside her as if searching for something—and then there was an almost inaudible click and Calia muttered, “Got it!” She twisted the tube then, and pain burst inside the muscle of Zusu’s arm. DAMAGE TO LEFT OUTER DELTOID, her wellseeker warned, ANALYZING NOW—She shut it off, not wanting to see the details of the damage scrolling up before her eyes, and whimpered softly as Calia withdrew the tube. This was what she deserved for not being careful enough. This was what she deserved for leaving Earth at all—
And then the tube was gone and so was something else, a small bloody bit that dangled from its tip. It was hardly as thin as a hair, and not even an inch long. As Zusu watched, it seemed to her that the thing squirmed slightly, as if alive, and a small circle of barbed tips flexed open like the struts of a parasol, then closed again. She felt suddenly sick, at the sight of what had just recently been inside her flesh.
“It’s a trace,” Calia announced.
Sumi cursed.
Allo’s voice was all business, cold and clean and utterly devoid of emotion. “Guild?”
“Can’t tell yet. Have to clean it off first.” Calia held it up to the light, where the sharp highlights of direct illumination made it somewhat more visible. “Biotech, I’d guess. It’d have to be, to bypass the wellseeker programs.” She glanced at Zusu, then fixed her eyes on Allo once more. “She really may not have known it was in her.”
“What is it?” Zusu dared. Her voice was trembling. Don’t cry in front of these people. Don’t. It would be bad, bad, bad....
“A trace,” Allo said harshly.
“Someone’s been following you,” Sumi explained. “Or someone wanted to be able to follow you in the future. Probably Guild, from your description. They must have slipped this into you under cover of your little accident; within a day or two you’d never have known it was there. It must have picked up a germ or two on th
e way in or there wouldn’t even have been that much sign of its existence.” “Nasty little sucker,” Calia observed. “So what do we do with it now?”
Allo studied Zusu. She could sense the unspoken question inside him, could feel just how close it came to being voiced. Why are they after you? But there was no point in asking her that, and perhaps he sensed that. At last he turned away from her, and seemed to dismiss her not only from the conversation, but from his entire consciousness. “We’ll stop at some hub station long enough to get rid of it. Slip it on some tourist headed out to nowhere. Damn!” He struck a fist into his open hand. “They may have traced us to that last stop—”
“You want me to warn them—”
“No. No. They probably won’t take any notice of it, not if the girl wasn’t left there. Safer not to draw their attention to things. If they ask, we’ll say it was a social call. I’ll have Tam draw up a dossier on the owner of that station, just in case we have to fake some details for the Pol. Damn!”
He turned to Zusu, his blue-streaked face scowling. “You may have cost us an awful lot here, Jamisia. I think you’d better give some real thought to letting us know what’s going on.” Sumi started to protest; Allo waved him to silence. “At least as much as you know. We can hardly protect you if we don’t know who we’re protecting you from, now, can we?”
Is that what you mean to do? Derik demanded. Protect us? His tone was dry, but he wasn’t in control of the body now, so his sarcasm went unheard. Zusu was in control, and her own response was to whimper softly and draw her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs in a posture that was purely protective. As if someone was about to hit her in the gut, and she couldn’t stand the pain if he did. That was how she felt.
“She doesn’t know anything,” Sumi said softly.
Allo’s lips tightened in a hard line, but he nodded finally, accepting that interpretation. “All right. We’ll talk it out later, see if she does know anything that can shed some light on this situation. For now ... Calia, get that cleaned and IDed and ready for transport. And keep it at body temperature, just in case they’re scanning for possible removal.”
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