by Calinda B
He stopped by the woman’s body and turned her over with a shove of his boot. Her body rolled to rest face up, her bright silks fluttering one last time in the hot wind.
“Darry, make sure you get a close-up” Tal said. “Now c’mon, Snake Eyes. I need to get on board. Think the heat’s gettin’ t’me.” His voice slurred on the last few words.
Scala whirled, peering into his eyes. Alarm was an icy chill that seized her heart and squeezed, hard. She forgot the dead woman, forgot everything but the man swaying on his feet in the brutal sun.
“Tal?” He was pale under his tattoos, his pupils dilated until his eyes were nearly black. “What’s wrong?”
“Tal?” echoed Trix.
“Hang on,” Scala told him, dragging him onto the swaying platform of the hoverpad. She braced herself as he sagged against her. “I’ve got you. Darry, get us up to the ship!”
“On it. Hang on to him.”
Afterward, she never remembered the ride up to the Z, just that when they emerged into the cabin, Darry and Trix were waiting to catch Tal, who sagged from Scala’s arms, his eyes rolling back in his head. His weight bore Scala down to the floor with him. She scrambled to her knees, her hand clutching his.
“Lay him out flat,” Darry ordered. “Trix, go get the medkit. Dalg, link the resort and see if they’ve got a medtech.”
“I don’t smell blood,” Scala said, searching frantically for any sign of a wound.
“No,” Darry said grimly. “I don’t think that’s what this is.”
Time became a blur of activity. Trix raced back with the medkit, which Darry used to check Tal’s vitals, while she got an oxygen mask on Tal. They found no wound, but his heart rate was irregular, he had a high fever and his breathing became more torturous by the moment. His body was rigid, his arms and legs twitching.
When small red streaks began to appear on the unmarked areas of his skin, Scala froze, then let out a cry of rage. “No!”
“What?” Darry demanded.
“This is serpent venom,” she told them. “Not a wraith or he’d be dead, but a—a, I don’t know, a sand viper, maybe. He needs anti-venin now, or he’ll die. We need a medcenter.”
“Dalg,” Darry yelled, rising to his knees.
“Already taking off,” Dalg bellowed from the cockpit. “Strap him down and hang on.”
The Z lifted into air, already veering to the north. “Headed to Raavel,” Dalg updated them. “ETA thirty three and a half minutes.”
“He doesn’t have that much time,” Scala called, terror crushing her in its grip as Tal convulsed, his body rigid, horrible noises emerging from his throat, audible even through the oxygen mask. His eyes were half open, but unfocused, the whites streaked with red.
“I’m pushing her as fast as she’ll go” Dalg roared.
Scala shook her head. “We’ll never make it.”
Trix keened, a horrible sound of despair and grief. Darry stared at Tal, his face bone-white. Both frozen by their fear for the man who led them, cared for them. Someone had to act, and oh, goddess, it was going to have to be her. No matter how scared she was.
“Okay. I know what to do,” Scala said, trying to sound positive, decisive despite the terror rising in suffocating waves as Tal struggled for breath. “We Serps produce our own anti-venin. We need to give him a transfusion of my blood.” It might work. They had nothing else.
Darry gaped. “You do—I mean, you can? But—but what if you have the wrong blood type? We might kill him.” He was already delving into the medkit, though, his body ahead of his mind.
He pressed a monitor to the inside of her wrist and Tal’s. “All right. Checking blood types.”
“Wait,” Trix cried. “Serp—she’s Serp. Tal’s not. Won’t that kill him?”
“He told me he’s a mongrel,” Scala insisted, watching the monitors. “And as fast as he can move, I’m sure he’s got Serp in him somewhere.” He had to … because otherwise what they were about to do might kill him as fast as the serpent venom.
“We can’t risk it,” Trix insisted. “We can’t.
“Stop it,” Darry snapped, already ripping the monitor from Scala’s arm and fastening the tourniquet on. “We have to try, baby. Tal’s tough. And if we do nothing …” He would certainly die. The words hung silent between them, punctuated by the horrible wheeze of Tal’s struggle for breath.
“Blood types in the eighty percentile range,” Darry said. “Close enough.”
“Thank the goddess,” Scala said. “But—but wait. We need, ah, something to thin it. I’m all Serp, remember. Too much of my blood might kill him.”
“All right, that’s good info. Give me your arm,” Darry demanded, already grabbing a device from the medkit. “Trix, tourniquet. And a vial of the plasmacore. We’ll send your blood through that.”
Her gaze fastened to Tal’s face, Scala pressed one hand to his struggling heart as Darry jabbed her with a needle, connected a length of tubing through a container of plasmacore, and injected another needle in Tal’s quivering arm.
“Here we go,” Darry said. “I’m going to monitor the amount, so you don’t give too much. God, I hope you don’t have any trace substances he can’t tolerate.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Trix wept, crouching by Tal’s head, holding his arm still with all her weight. “Just help him. Help him. If this doesn’t work ...”
“He won’t die,” Scala said. “He can’t. I won’t let him.”
She leaned over, her mouth to his ear. “You hear me, Tal Darkrunner? You die, and I’ll come into hell after you, just to kick your ass.”
He strained for breath and convulsed again, harder.
Time dragged, a blur of hanging over Tal. Scala grew dizzy, and laid down beside him, her gaze on his face. “Don’t stop,” she mumbled. “Don’t stop. Take as much … as he needs.”
Then everything went dark.
* * *
She woke when someone jostled her. She opened her eyes to see a young Serpentian in a white uniform smiling down at her. Weirdly, everything behind him was sterile and white as well.
“Welcome back,” he said. “No, no, don’t move. You’ll disconnect the intravenous pump.”
“Where am I?” she slurred. “Tal? Where’s Tal?”
“Hmm? Oh, your friend with no anti-venin?” The tech smiled at her. “No idea.”
He hummed to himself as he watched a holoreadout behind her head.
Scala lunged up, grasped one of his ears and fell back on the gurney, pulling his head down close to hers. “Is. He. Alive?” she hissed.
“Hey,” he protested. “That hurts.”
He removed her fingers from his ear and gave her a reproving frown.
“You tourists,” he said. “So careless, and then so impatient. Try that again and I’ll sedate you.”
“I might be a tourist now, but I’m also an ex-ships guard,” she said through her teeth, “Tell me, or I’ll show you hurt.”
“All right, all right, calm down.” He flicked controls on a holovid readout. “You need to lie quietly. You lost a great deal of blood. Next time, don’t be so generous, hmm?”
Scala gritted her teeth to hold back a scream.
“Ah, here he is,” the tech said. “Yes, yes. He’s alive, all right. In recovery. Right next door, matter of fact.”
Scala didn’t wait for more. She gave a swift, comprehensive glance at the venous pump floating beside her gurney and rolled off the far side of the bed, carrying it with her. A wave of dizziness nearly carried her to the floor, but she caught herself and headed for the door.
“Hey,” called the tech indignantly. “Come back here. You’re in no shape to be ambulating.”
Through sheer force of will, she made it out of her room, into the passageway, and into the next room. It seemed to be full of people, but they soon sorted themselves into two medtechs, and Darry and Trix, clinging together in a corner.
“Scala,” Darry said, the first to notice her. “What are you
doing up?”
Trix came to put a supportive arm around Scala. “She needed to see him.”
Darry moved in on Scala’s other side, sliding his arm under hers, carefully avoiding the pump apparatus. She felt him press a kiss to her hair. “Of course she did.”
Scala peered through the arms of the techs leaning over Tal. “Is he … what are they doing?”
“Just monitoring him,” Darry said. “He’s gonna be okay, babe. You saved his life.”
“We … we all did,” she managed. Then her legs turned to liquid, and over her head Darry called out, “Need a hoverchair here, please. Hero down.”
* * *
The next time she woke, she felt much better. No pump and no annoying tech. The room was lit only with glowlamps.
She could hear med apparatus beeping, though. She turned her head, and then stared, rapt. In a bed next to hers lay Tal. He was still hooked up to monitors, but she could see his chest moving under the sheet, in a regular rhythm. He was sleeping. Not dead, nor dying. Just resting.
Turning on to her side, she tucked her hand under her cheek and watched him sleep. It was one of the most beautiful sights she’d ever seen.
“Hey,” said a soft voice in her ear. It was Darry, leaning over her. His hair was damp and he smelled fresh and clean. “How’re you doing?”
She smiled at him. “I’m fine.”
“Good.” He kissed her, his lips warm and soft, and tasting of coffee. Then he smiled down at her, and stroked her cheek. “Been waiting for days to do that.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You smell wonderful. Bet I don’t.”
He sobered. “Babe, you’re alive. That makes you the sweetest flower in this place. And you oughtta see some of the bouquets by the bedsides.”
“Serpentians love flowers,” she said. She looked over at Tal again. “Is Tal… will he recover fully?”
“That’s what the docs are saying,” Darry said, stroking her arm, his hand warm and strong and comforting. “Hey, you oughtta see this. You won’t believe what took him down.”
“Where’s Trix?” she asked.
“She’s catching some sleep. Dalg’s with the Z.”
“Oh, good. I thought … maybe you were all in jail, and Tal and I were headed there next too.”
“Nah, they don’t know a thing,” he assured her.
He helped her sit up with pillows behind her back, scooted up on the bed beside her, and then opened a link to a holovid.
“This is when we brought him in,” he told her in a hushed voice.
She watched with fascination as medtechs clustered around Tal, monitors beeping, tech floating around him, various patches attached to his nude torso.
“Hmm,” the medtech said in a voice of deep interest. He stopped moving his sensors over Tal’s body. “I can’t seem to find a wound site.”
“I noticed that,” another said. “Could he have ingested the venom?”
The holocam zoomed in on Tal’s cheek. “There’s a trace of something on his skin. Take a sample of that.”
“Slidi’s lip gloss,” Scala realized, horror dawning. “Did she …?” Meeting her eyes, Darry nodded.
“Well, if you say so. But it looks like cosmetics to me.” The tech carefully scraped the gloss from Tal’s cheek, and placed the blade in a small receptacle. The controls hummed busily. Then a brilliant red light glowed, and an alarm began to beep.
The techs all stared. One tech finally shut it off. “I’ve certainly never come across this before. Bit by a serpent wearing cosmetics.” He chuckled at his own joke, then cleared his throat nervously. “What I want to know is, which one of you, er, bit him?”
The holocam swerved to Trix and Darry, huddled near the door. Darry opened his mouth and then closed it, looking lost.
“It was an accident,” Trix said. “We were fooling around with, um, some aphrodisiacs we bought in Sunspot City.” She fluttered her lashes at the tech and leaned closer so he could see down the front of her halter. Her voice lowered to a sultry whisper. “I guess we’d better be more careful, huh?”
He blinked. “I think that would be wise,” he said to her breasts. “Uh, I have some safe botanicals I could show you—I mean, share with you.”
“About the patient,” Darry said, scowling at the man. “Is he going to be all right?”
The Serp ripped his gaze from Trix’s cleavage. “Ah, yes, as a matter of fact, we think so. He needs to remain here, of course, for fluids and rest. And careful monitoring.”
Darry broke the link.
“So Slidi poisoned him with her lip gloss,” Scala said. “Wow, that’s … beyond evil.”
“He’ll be okay, though,” Darry said, giving her a warm hug. “We’ll make sure he is.”
”I know,” she said. “I just wish that bitch was still alive, so I could kill her again.”
Darry chuckled. “You and me both, babe.”
Chapter 14
Scala closed the door of her cubby and sat on the edge of her bunk. She thought longingly of lying back and letting her eyes close. She’d hardly slept for the last few days. All of them had taken turns hovering at Tal’s bedside and gulping coffee in the medcenter galley.
Instead, she opened a link and waited for her ‘cousin’ to answer. Now that Tal was going to live, time to get on with her own life. Because soon it would be time for her to go. She just … couldn’t bear to do it quite yet. She’d be travelling with him and the others to their home. Then she’d find another craft looking for crew and head back out.
Tal had awakened that afternoon and even sipped some protein drink through a straw. He looked like a pale ghost of himself, but he was alive. His first words were to ‘get him out of that place’, so they had. They’d ferried him to the Z in a medhovie, and carried him to his bed. And as much as she wanted to just sit and watch him take every breath, she didn’t have that luxury. That was for Trix and Darry.
So she locked herself in her bunk and opened a link. It was time for her to find out if she’d earned her freedom.
Daarla appeared with a strange look on her face.
“We’re headed back to Earth II,” Scala said abruptly. She didn’t have the energy to pretend any more.
“Yes,” Daarla said. “So I hear. Um, I know you can’t talk right now,” Here she placed a finger over her lips in an elaborately casual gesture. “So I just wanted to say how happy I am for you.”
Scala froze. The woman was telling her not to speak openly. She clenched her teeth. Of course. Suspicious bastard that he was, Tal had probably surveilled every conversation she’d had with her handler so far. Why stop now, just because he was recovering from near death?
“Wait,” she said, her tired brain finally snagging on what the Serp had actually said aloud. “You’re … happy for me?”
Daarla trailed her fingers down her throat and tapped the side with her fingertips. “Yeah, I have some great news. Bebe has invited you stop in when you’re on Earth II. You know, and maybe stay with him while you look for a new position. There’s an opening in his firm.”
Bebe … B. B. Bronc Berenson, the LodeStar security guy who’d been on the panel of interrogators. He was on Earth II.
“Uh. It’s okay for me to go there?” she asked. What about the chip? Hells, what about her mission?
“Has it, um, been long enough?” She traced the scar on her throat with her fingers.
The other woman tapped her own neck again and nodded meaningfully. “Yeah, the former person in that position is inactive, so they’re looking for someone new. He said to tell you there are lots of jobs there. Although they found a person for one position.”
Scala closed her eyes for a moment. The chip had been deactivated. She’d done what they wanted. She was free.
She covered her eyes with her hands. Hells, it would be nice to be human once in a while, so she could just cry her eyes out.
Finally. Oh, goddess, finally.
It took her a long moment, but finally she took a
deep, shaky breath and lowered her hands. She knew she probably looked crazed, but hey, it wasn’t the worst thing that had happened to her lately.
“Thanks,” she managed. “I ... just thanks. I’ll, um, check in with BeBe when I get there.” She wouldn’t, because she never wanted to see another LodeStar employee as long as she lived, even for a decent job. “And I’m glad they found that other person.”
Daarla smiled, the first truly friendly smile Scala had received from her. “Everyone is happy about that. Goodbye, cuz. And stay out of trouble, okay?”
Scala huffed a laugh that turned into a sob. “Yeah, I’ll, uh, try.”
The other woman broke the link, and Scala sank back onto her bed. She stared blindly at the ceiling over her head.
She was free.
And she certain that Daarla meant that Logan Stark had been found, so it was safe for Tal to return to New Seattle.
Scala sniffled again. Little did ‘BeBe’ and Joran Stark and the IBI agent know that Tal was no threat to anyone right now. And she sure as hells wasn’t going to tell them. She would never reveal Tal’s vulnerability, to anyone.
She was free. The words continued to echo in her mind, like a beautiful melody. Oh, how she wanted to share it with someone. With Tal. She wanted to be able to tell him, and watch his hard face light up with joy for her.
Yeah, that was never gonna happen.
But maybe she could at least stay with him until he was fully recovered, just to make sure he was safe. Although she needed to remember, no matter how he’d pursued her out here, he would no doubt be surrounded by his sycophants in New Seattle.
He wouldn’t even be able to pick her out of the crowd of females vying for his attentions. On this depressing thought, she closed her eyes and let sleep take her.
* * *
Tal felt like shit. He knew he was recovering well from the snake venom the Serp had slipped him, but he didn’t feel like it. He felt as if he’d been in a head on crash with the Z. His head ached, his skin hurt—hells, even his bones ached.
The Z hummed around him, and the monitors near the ceiling glowed with readouts that showed they were enroute to Earth II, two days out.
And one of the females who was supposed to be pampering him was standing by his bed scowling at him, arms crossed.
