Halcyon Nights (Star Sojourner Book 2)
Page 18
If only she knew, the puta, Carlos thought, and that fool, Bjorn, that the crystals have such great power to control the minds of men. He smiled as he turned the crystal and watched it catch every facet of light in the dim room. Would she bed the officer who had discovered the source-mine to get the location for herself? Someday soon he'd board his private star cruiser and leave this frigid god-abandoned world and all his loyal army. He hated the cold stone walls of Wolf Ridge, and the bottomless stupidity of his miners. One day soon he would send them all on the Big-D, the final mega-dream Trip to Death, and retire to his villa in Mexico back on old Earth.
He watched his mistress through gauzy curtains suspended from the bed's canopy. But not yet. No, there was still work to do. He would strip the source-mine of its silver crystals and use them to control the small minds of Interstel itself. “The day Rammis went to Lost Vegas, Juanita, was the day his former wife remarried. He went there to drown his sorrows.”
“The tequila cure? And call me Johanna.”
“I talked to my contacts in Interstel to find out why the hell they're still busting my balls with agents when I send them their kickbacks every month.”
“Do they want a larger cut?”
“They know better than to ask for more.” He stared, thick brows knitted into a frown, at a velvet painting of a matador. “Unless they're under pressure from the Worlds' Government and are getting ready to invade Wolf Ridge.”
“I thought they kept your operation a secret from the government? Isn't that what you're paying them to do?
“Si, but you put two roaches together in a garbage pail with one secret, and pretty soon a third roach in the next garbage pail hears about it.”
“That's a dumb saying.”
Carlos' thick brows pulled together. “It was one of my mother's sayings.”
Juanita stopped brushing. “If they invade Wolf Ridge, mio amour, is there a seat reserved for me on your private ship?”
“If you learn to behave yourself. They told me Rammis is no agent. He was in Vegas with a full credcard and those motherless rads tried to cream it from him. If they had one brain cell for every ounce of greed – When he got away they said he was I-DEA to cover their asses.”
She gazed at him with eyes as green as emeralds. “I went to see his daughter when they brought her in. Cute kid. Blue eyes. Wonder if she looks like her father?”
Carlos felt the stir of an old jealousy in his chest. He squeezed the crystal as the sting of anger heated his cheeks. “The color of your new contact lenses goes well with your personality, Juanita.”
She smiled. “That's Johanna. I thought you'd like them.”
“So? Would blue eyes make for good fucking material?” She undid the clasp of her satin robe and let the robe fall away. Her sheer violet nightgown swirled like a cape as she turned, enhancing the natural curves of her body. She tossed the brush onto her vanity and walked to the bed. “You know how I like anglo eyes.” She threw him a kiss through gauze, then drew aside the filmy curtain.
“You are a slut, Juanita, good for nothing except fucking. My mother warned me about you.”
She kneeled on the bed and leaned forward to stare at the crystal. “Si, caro.” The soft curve of her breasts were luminous in the crystal's glow. “But then your mother warned you against all women except herself.” She slid a hand along his thigh.
He caught her wrist and the heavy crystal dropped into his lap and scraped his thigh. He winced. “Someday your foul mouth will be shut for good.”
“At your hands?” she whispered and nibbled on his fingers, which still clutched her wrist, then clamped down on the back of his hand with teeth.
Carlos clenched his jaw, squeezed her wrist hard as pain sharpened. He cursed when he felt desire begin.
She released him and breathed through parted lips. “My mother taught me that a real man likes his women slutty.” She slipped a leg over his thighs and sat down on them. “And that a real man finds the test of competition arousing.” She moved her hand across his groin and picked up the crystal. Madre mia. It weighs!” She set it on the bed beside them.
He breathed in. “You learned well at her knee, or whatever part of her anatomy you learned from.” He ran his hands up her legs and met the challenge in her eyes.
“The wisest thing my mother told me,” she said, “was that women go with the man of power, no matter the color of his eyes or the size of his jack.” She raised the crystal. “Is this for me?” She brought it to her mouth, kissed it and touched it with her tongue.
“If you earn it.” Not by all the demons in hell! he thought. He took the crystal, placed it inside the drawer of the night table and closed the drawer. His lips twitched into a smile as the door's lock snapped shut. “You try to fuck this Jules,” he said quietly, “and I will have you ripped open and show you your beating heart, and find myself another puta.” He cupped her breast and felt the nipple through thin material.
She smiled crookedly, drew her hair back behind ears with both hands, lifting her breasts with the motion, and let the hair slide through fingers. “Where, mio toro, on a planet of rough-kneed women in baggy shorts and hiking boots? You like that stringy scarecrow your people captured?” She kissed him lightly, continued kissing him across his lips. “Hmmm? Where will you find a real woman?”
“Willa has a certain charm. Like a fine-boned mare. Perhaps someday – “
She scratched his face lightly with long nails and he drew her down beside him. But with your propensity for making love, pequeña whore,” he said, “I wouldn't have to kill you.” He slipped the nightgown off her shoulder and moved his tongue over her nipple.
She arched against him. “You'd fuck me to death?”
He ran his hand up the inside of her thighs “I would make certain…” He kissed her neck, her breast, knew a moment of disgust with his own rush of desire for her body. “I would make certain that there was no one to bed you, my fine cat.” He pressed himself between her legs and felt the wetness there. “And you would dry up like an unwatered flower.”
She laughed, drew him on top of her and kissed him, again. “When are you going to shave that off?” She yanked on his wiry beard.
He winced. “When you shave this off.” He reached down and squeezed a handful of her pubic hair.
She slapped at his hand. “You are a sadist.”
“I am what you want me to be.” He thrust slowly into her. “Goddamn, you feel good.”
She drew a breath between teeth. “You always know how to end an argument.” She rubbed her hands over his strong arms, his shoulders. “Oh, Carlitto, mia picador!”
He cursed as she dug nails into his back. “How come you develop a Spanish accent when we're in bed?” he whispered. “Wait. Wait! Don't move so fast.” ””It's the language of love, torero.”
“You go through the whole goddamn bullfight when we fuck!” He grasped her buttocks, moved deeper into her and felt the beginning of orgasm. “Goddamn! Don't talk now.”
”Oh, mia matador!” She clung to him and pushed back. “You could never be so cruel as to leave me unloved.”
He drew in a breath as she lifted her legs around him. “Try me!” he gasped as he rolled on top of her and moved faster.
They climaxed together.
Carlos smoked a Puritan bar while they lay on sweaty sheets. “Do you love me because I am a powerful man?”
“Because you're a big man.”
“How do you deal with a man who can influence your mind? I must find out the radius of his telepathy.”
“Are we talking about Jules Rammis?”
“First he told Bjorn he was coming here to join the environmentalists. That's why he took his daughter with him, to give her a better life. When Bjorn didn't believe him, he said he was I-DEA and wanted to cut that fool in on a deal.”
“I-DEA? But you said – “
“Bjorn was going to turn him and his kid over to the dons back on Lost Vegas. He would have said anything under
the circumstances.”
“Carlos, you told me yourself his father-in-law is a former W-CIA agent. That sort of coincidence sounds unlikely.”
“Still, it has to be.” He rolled over to face her and held the lit bar away. “Rammis told Bjorn something,” he said intimately, as though he didn't want anyone else to hear.
She touched his lips and frowned. “You look troubled. Tell me about it.”
He took her perfumed hand and kissed the fingers. “He told Bjorn he was really sent here to negotiate with a silver being.”
“A silver being?” She lifted off the pillow. Her iridescent eyes caught light as they widened. “I've heard rumors from the miners that the crystals are organic.”
“What are you doing talking to my miners?”
“Just talking, Carlos. I am not interested in rough men with dirty, cracked hands who spend their days working in mines.
For once, he believed her. “Si.” He sighed. “I have also heard these rumors. The miners are afraid to go into the silver streams. They say the streams are alive and the mines are haunted.”
She laid back. “This is a demon planet, Carlos. I will be happy when we leave it.” She did him a look.
He kept his face expressionless. Then you will never be happy again, he thought, and inhaled, drawing the healing smoke deep into his lungs where it targeted abnormal cells and began to destroy them.
She propped herself over him on elbows. “How could Rammis possibly know about the crystal mines? No one has gotten off-planet with that information. Have they, Carlos?” She took the bar from his fingers, inhaled and gave it back. “Have they?”
He ran a finger over her lips. “We killed the last stupido who tried it a few days ago at the module's landing site. And no one has access to my personal sat-link. But stupidity seems to be the norm among my people, and one of the great masters of it, Master Bjorn, told Rammis about the mines. Rammis didn't even have to ask!” He sighed disgustedly and laid back. Were Rammis and the alien already implanting subliminal commands in mega-dream systems? he wondered. “You see now why I don't use the dream crystals?”
She smiled and took his Puritan bar, puffed it and didn't give it back.
He reached for the pack of bars on the nightstand and shook out another one. “Rammis claimed the only way to communicate with this creature is through a tel-link. He told Bjorn he could keep the being happy and productive. He means to stay on Halcyon, Juanita.” He lit the bar but forgot to inhale. “That's why he kidnapped his daughter and took her along. By the way, the kid is also a tel. Interesting, no?”
She blew smoke. “Promising, too.”
“When my warriors went into the Kubraen village looking for him and his kid, he gave himself up to protect her. At least that's what they said.” He stared at the ceiling and inhaled. “I cannot believe this man would purposely bring his daughter into a bad situation. I think this silver being wants something that only a telepath can supply.” He rolled his head to stare at her, took a lock of her hair between fingers and felt its silky texture. “I have given this a lot of thought. I think Rammis was summoned here by this alien creature.”
“But if he gave himself up, why isn't he – “
“He used telepathy at the Kubraen village and all my fine young warriors got back into their mantas and left, like a pack of sheep!” He blew out a long breath of smoke. “That's some very powerful shit that hombre has got inside his head. If I can deal with this silver being through Rammis, perhaps I can convince this alien to supply me with all the crystals I can use.” Carlos stared at his image in the ceiling mirror. “I would be remembered as the most powerful man who ever lived, Juanita. More powerful than the president of all the worlds!”
She smiled down at him. “And I would be remembered as your First Lady. But first you must catch Rammis.”
Not my first lady and not my last one. “With his daughter here at Wolf Ridge, I think the hombre will walk into my trap. In time I could run I-DEA, and get those bloodsuckers at Interstel off my back.” He sat up, rested arms on knees and stared at the undilated window which projected a holo of stars. “I-DEA is only the beginning.”
“Interstel itself?” She sat beside him and stroked the bulging muscles of his arm. “Call me Juanita if you like,” she said absently.
Carlos felt a deep sense of satisfaction and power that smoothed the ripples of fear over his ambitious plan. “First I convince Rammis to get me in touch with this alien through his telepathy. Then I find out what the creature wants in return for his crystals. Every animal that lives has desires.”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “Did your mother teach you that?”
”My mother. My mother was an alc-soaked puta. I grew up on the streets. I learned it for myself.”
“I grew up pampered. You learn a lot both ways.”
“We use Rammis' subliminals to convince RECOIL to lay down their weapons and go back to being whatever the hell they were before RECOIL. If Rammis fails, I bring in more mercenaries and we bury this goddamn revolution once and for all.” He ground out the bar in an ashtray.
“What if Rammis doesn't agree to act as interpreter for you? After all, he went straight to Willa Carson after he landed.”
“Hers is the first ranch along the road. You think he knew about the revolution?”
She nodded. “His father-in-law, Carlos.”
Carlos left the bed and strode naked into the bathroom. He gazed at his face in the mirror and wondered how his profile would look on a coin. Better without the beard, he decided. He peed, then walked across the bedroom, pressed a wall button, and watched the window clear to midday. In the gardens below, wrought-iron benches marked paths between carefully nurtured winter avacodo trees and plants with red chili peppers poking through broad leaves.
Beyond, an ivy-covered wall encircled a fieldstone cottage with high windows. He smiled. Above it all hung a green projection of leaves and trees. A canopy that kept the compound invisible to prying RECOIL mantas, and even rebels on horseback in this vast land. Once, a RECOIL manta had come close, but had flown by. Then again, it also kept him prisoner in this godforsaken wilderness! He studied the cottage where the telepathic child and Willa were being kept.
He will come, Carlos thought. The child would do what all of RECOIL could not accomplish. She would guide her father to Wolf Ridge. And then she would tell Willa Carson that he was on his way. How could the stupid ranch chica know that the cottage had ears?
Carlos turned from the window. “When he comes for his daughter, I will use the daughter to make the father do my bidding.”
Juanita smiled crookedly. “And when you are finished with the father, may I have him?”
“When I am finished with the father and the daughter, you may have both their dead bones, puta.”
Chapter Twelve
Daddy? Where are you? I've been trying to talk to you!
Lisa's thoughts came through a tunnel, darkly. I tried to open my eyes, but still couldn't. I'm here, I sent weakly. Are you all right?
I'm OK. I got a lot of toys and even a vis, but there's no Space Bears.
Listen to me. Do you know where you are? There was a pause. Lisa!
I'm…I'm in a house
Are the people…are they being nice to you, baby?
There's the lady here who gave us the horse. Remember? Her name is Willa. She gave me ice cream. It was –
The lady from the ranch?
Uh huh. She gave me ice cream.
Lisa. Can you describe the house to Daddy so I can find you?
It's got blue walls.
Can you go to a window and look outside?
I gotta climb on a chair.
OK, baby. Go there and send me an image of what you see.
Another pause.
She imaged me a white walk lined with wrought-iron benches, trees with winter avacodos, and a meandering vine-covered high wall. Above it all was a canopy of green leaves. Camouflage. Wolf Ridge, all right! The Dream
Czar's compound.
OK, Lisa. Daddy's going to come for you. Be brave, Squiggles.
You going to come now?
I heard the anticipation in her thought.
Not yet. But as soon as I can, baby.
Someone turned my head, lifted my eyelid and shone a light into my eye, then quickly moved the light away.
“He's having trouble waking up, Paul,” I heard.
“No. I suspect he's in a telepathic link with someone. Possibly his daughter.”
“Well, I have to check on my patients from the battle. Two are in intensive care.”
I opened my eyes. “The slimeshit!” I muttered.
“Who, me?” a man's voice asked, “or the tag you were just talking to?”
I blinked up at a man dressed in a white smock, with a stethoscope around his neck. He was short, thickset, with a hooked nose and white sideburns. He had the sort of face you immediately liked.
“Not unless you're the dream czar,” I said. My hand trembled as I touched a gauze pad on my forehead. “He's got my daughter.”
“Yes, we know. The bruise is just a scrape.”
I laid my arm across my eyes. “The bastard's got my little girl.”
“How do you feel?” I glanced at the two windows in the hospital room. Barred. “Are you afraid your patients might commit suicide?”
He smiled. “Considering the food, we don't want to give them the opportunity.”
I looked for the door and my gaze fell on a shiny gold-colored robot guard posted beside it.
“Mister Rammis…may I call you Jules?” the doctor asked.
I rubbed my eyes. “I have to get out of here. I have to find her.”
“First you have to be able to stand up. As your physician, I advise you to put off an escape attempt until you're stronger. Anyway,” he gestured to the 'bot. “George would be hurt if you got past him.”
“What escape attempt? Am I a prisoner here?”
”Suppose we discuss that when you're feeling better? By the way, my name's Doctor Paul Hawkes. How about a hearty meal?”