But Ren, celibate? I thought of the body outlined by the tight shirt and slim fatigue pants. What a waste if he was.
Sully’s voice was low in my ear. “That better be me you’re thinking about.”
Oh, shit. I jabbed him with my elbow. “I’m a married woman. Behave.”
Dorsie asked Berri about Peyhar’s.
“We do have a small celebration here on dock, for our brothers and sisters.” She glanced up at Verno. “I’d hoped … well, I’d thought Brother Verno was staying for that. Then, next I heard, your ship had left. I—that is, we missed you, Brother.”
Verno finally drew his gaze from Berri’s. “I felt guided to accompany my ship. I hope you didn’t mind, Sully-sir.”
Sully-sir. Berri must have learned Sully’s identity from Verno. Drogue had also known, I remembered. Evidently it wasn’t a secret in the Englarian community.
“It’s always a help to have you on board,” Sully said.
Verno was almost tireless, like most Takas. Double shifts were his usual mode. I could have used him on the Meritorious. But Takas weren’t permitted to serve in the Imperial Fleet, other than as security guards on starports. And there was no Meritorious for me to command any longer. I pushed away that small heartache.
We finished the pitcher, ordered another. Talked about life on the rim, about ore-miners and jumpjockeys, the main populace of Dock Five. About pubs that had been here forever, about pubs that lasted a week and closed. About a barge that had had a systems foul-up and rammed the dock instead of pulling away two weeks ago. For a moment that piqued my interest. But it turned out the pilot was more fouled up than the systems. Honeylace.
We finished the second pitcher and stood. Dorsie needed to head back, with supplies due in. Sister Berri touched my arm. “I would be honored to show you our small temple.”
I caught Sully’s slight nod. “I’d like that. Thank you.”
“Drogue sends his blessings,” Sully added as we emerged into the corridor.
“Guardian Drogue. A hardworking man, dedicated to the church. He’s out at Moabar now, I hear. I didn’t realize you knew him.”
“We’ve been working supplies on the rim. But I met him, many years ago, at Calfedar.”
“Calfedar. Ah, yes, he ran the Purity Project. Did you work on a supply ship in Dafir?”
“I trained under Drogue, as a novitiate.”
“You aspired to take the robe?” Berri regarded him in undisguised surprise that mirrored my own earlier.
“Yes.”
Sully’s admission clearly startled Berri. She stopped walking, seemed to realize she shouldn’t have, and quickened her steps. “Well. Praise the stars. Do you ever regret not taking the robe?”
“There have been times I regret renouncing it. Though not lately,” he added.
This time I was shocked. I’d assumed by what he said earlier that he’d studied but never taken his vows. Never become a real pray-every-day member of the clergy.
“Close your mouth, Chaz.” He grabbed my neck in an affectionate headlock, kissed the top of my head.
Berri appeared equally flustered, saying nothing until we stopped at the next bank of lifts. As usual, the lines were long. “Verno never told me you took the robe. Would you mind if I ask what name you took?”
“Sudral.”
Berri’s eyes brightened. “The name of the Immaculate Cloak. That which bound the winged demons, nullified their unholy light. Excellent choice. That shall be the subject of my meditation tonight. Thank you, Brother.”
We stepped into the lift with Berri blessing everyone left and right.
The temple was about the size of the one on Moabar Station, but round rather than square. No services were under way. A few Takans—and several humans, I noted with surprise—sat silently, in meditation. Cloying incense that I remembered well drifted from two burners dangling from the ceiling.
The raised platform was curved, with the same backlit arch-and-stave on the wall behind it. A series of small paintings ran down the left wall. I followed Berri.
She stopped at the first painting, touched my elbow, whispered. “Here, of course, is the beloved abbot, in meditation to the stars. And this next one shows his first battle with a soul-stealer, in the sacred Valley of the Tunnels.” A few more steps and a painting similar to the one in Drogue’s monastery. The winged demon with the stave impaled in his back. This one’s face was upturned, though, and had an uncanny resemblance to a screaming jukor.
“This last shows the purity process.”
Another soul-stealer, kneeling, and the abbot’s red cloak partially draped over his form, dimming the glow of the demon’s unholy silver light. The long sword in the abbot’s grip was just about to connect with the demon’s neck.
“That looks like beheading.”
“Of course.” Berri’s gaze was serene. “The only way to purify the vileness is to disconnect the creatures’ filthy minds from their bodies while they are in their true form. The cloak, you see, constrains their shape-shifting powers. The holy sword, the boru karn, completes the process.”
Sully was talking to Verno at the entrance to the temple. So he didn’t hear Berri’s words, didn’t see me hesitate, lose my step, almost as she had earlier.
Boru karn. The abbot’s holy sword of purity. Sudral. The abbot’s holy cloak of purity.
And a poet mercenary pirate smuggler lover monk. Who was also a Ragkiril.
I didn’t need any more questions right now. But they hovered again, beating their wings like little frenzied demons in my brain.
It wasn’t the fifteen minutes of Berri’s impassioned pleadings in the temple office that swayed Sully into agreeing she could come with us to Marker. It was the fact that she was going there anyway. Legitimately. Englarians were opening a temple in Marker to service the Takan shipyard workers.
“Providential,” Verno said, grinning.
We could toss our plans for a surreptitious infiltration of the Fleet yards. We could walk in, unchallenged, bearing the arch-and-stave.
“I’m surprised Drogue didn’t mention the new temple,” Sully commented to her.
“Not surprising at all. The Marker temple has been my project now for almost two years. But it’s in-system, under Guardian Lon. Moabar operates under our out-system venue.”
“Sister Berri’s done much fund-raising,” Verno added. “I’d always heard of the wonderful Sister Berri Solaria. But until we met six months ago, I didn’t understand how very hard she’s worked for this.”
“The abbot guides me in his mercy, in all that I do,” she said sedately. But she blushed.
Verno stayed behind to help Berri finish her duties. Sully wanted to spend a few more hours on dock, then head out. He never spent more than ten hours, he told me as we headed for the lifts, in any one stationary location, unless his ship was in for repairs. We’d already been on dock for six.
“Escalator?” he asked, seeing the lines.
I nodded. We turned. A cluster of female techs passed us by, but not without a few blatantly appreciative stares at Sully.
He grinned when I looked back at him. He’d seen the women, and me watching them.
“Sully …”
“Hmm?”
“How long were you a monk?”
A few more steps, and he was still grinning. “This surprises you, doesn’t it?”
He knew damned well it did. He just wanted to hear me admit it. “I know you. Intimately. So yes.” I paused. “How long?”
“Eight years, three months. Do you want weeks, days?” He asked the question over his shoulder, turning, because I’d stopped in the middle of the corridor.
“Eight years?”
“Eight years, three months.” He thought for a moment. “Two weeks, four days? Or was it three weeks, four days?”
“If you’re lying to me about this—”
“I never lie.”
No. He just told me bits and pieces. “Why didn’t you tell me before this?”
He stepped closer. “I’m not exactly comfortable with much of my past. I think you know that,” he said softly. “Plus, I didn’t think it was important.”
“It’s not.” We started walking again. “It’s just that I sometimes wonder if I’m ever going to figure you out.”
“I hope not,” he said with a wicked Sully grin. He took my hand and sent spirals of warmth up my arm.
We went to a pub up on Red Level. A long, narrow bar with, I was surprised to see, a Stolorth male behind it. He had bright, clear, silver eyes. In spite of everything I knew about Ren, about Ragkirils, a shudder went up my spine.
Sully motioned me to a bar stool, then took the one next to mine, unlatching it from the deck lock. He pulled his close, draping his arm over my shoulder.
“Two brown ales, Trel.” He nodded to the bartender.
Like Ren, Trel’s bluish hair was long, braided. But it was thin, his hairline receded. His lean features lacked Ren’s elegance, and so appeared harsh.
“Ross Winthrop,” Trel answered. “Didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
“Didn’t expect to see me so soon, or didn’t expect to see me alive?”
Trel glanced at me. Reading me, that much I was sure. I was in Fleet-captain mode, keeping my emotions flat. If he was a Ragkir or a Ragkiril I couldn’t tell. Sully, I was sure, could. The fact that Trel called him “Ross Winthrop” told me it was likely he was a basic empath or, at best, a Ragkir. Or else he’d know Sully lied about his identity.
The Stolorth shrugged at Sully’s question and glanced at me again.
“My wife, Trel. Talk to her as you’d talk to me.”
Trel raised one eyebrow. “Newly married?”
“Very.”
Trel relaxed a bit, his mouth curving into a half smile. “She’s still fighting that leash, Winthrop. You may not know that, but you know I can tell.”
Sully’s eyes widened in innocent distress. “Chaz. You told me you wanted to get married.”
Trel had picked up on my inadvertent flinch when Sully called me his wife. I knew he was kidding, using it as a cover for a reason. But it still made me feel funny inside. “I did. I do. It’s just that—”
“Bad first marriage.” Sully gave Trel a knowing look. “At least, I hope that’s what it is.”
“I can find out for you.” He held out his webbed hand toward me.
I jerked backward.
Trel seemed pleased. Not like Ren, who didn’t want to hurt, didn’t want to cause discomfort. Trel seemed to like the fact I was afraid of him.
“So why are you surprised to see me, old friend?” Sully moved back to the original conversation. “Who did I so piss off last time I was here that they threatened to come after me?”
“Besides Junior and the twelve thousand he lost to you in cards?”
Before I could stop them, the words were out of my mouth. “You won at cards?”
I was rewarded with another affronted look.
“Don’t know your new husband too well, do you?” Trel set a tall ale in front of me and one in front of Sully. “Took Junior for twelve thousand last time he was in. Took Junior and Scaper for twenty a few months before that. And those are only the big games that I know about.”
“Amazing,” I said.
“Thank you, my angel.” His finger traced small circles on my shoulder. “So Junior said he was going to hunt me down?”
“Not that I heard.”
“Then who’s asking questions about me?”
Trel ran his wide hand over his head. “Running a little low on supplies these days.”
Sully pulled out his thin comm pad from the front pocket of his jacket, tapped it on. “Your man signed for a playbox two hours ago. You might want to check your back room. We’ll wait. Ale’s cold.”
Trel straightened, nodded, and left.
Playbox. Smuggler’s term for a couple of containers of honeylace. “He knows Newlin?” I asked quietly but with obvious sarcasm. I’d just participated in an illegal drug sale with my new husband.
“No. But I’m sure they could be good friends.”
I leaned toward him as if seeking a kiss. “Ragkir?” I breathed the word against his lips.
He kissed me, shaking his head in a small negative movement, then pulled back slightly. “Base-level empath. Not to worry. I’ve got you covered.” He tickled my shoulder with his fingers again.
Trel came back, looking satisfied. Then his smile faded. He leaned his elbows on the bar, brought his face close to Sully’s. “Someone’s been asking about you. Not by name. Description. And not in here. But I’ve heard.”
“Describe him.”
“Human. Shorter than you. Light hair, eyes. Beard. Looks like a hundred other jumpjockeys on dock except he tries to act quiet, stupid. And he’s not. He’s a fighter. Wears his shirts extra big, to cover the muscles. He can move real fast when he wants to. I watched him for a while. He was talking to Ilsa.”
“Who else did he talk to?”
“Junior told him nothing. Don’t know who else.”
“How long ago?”
Trel thought. “I didn’t notice him until Junior said something, and that was the day after your ship left last time. But when I saw him, that’s when I remembered seeing him with Ilsa. And you were still here, because that’s the night you took Junior for the twelve thousand.”
“He was here while I was? While my ship was still in dock?”
Trel nodded. “At Pops’s you were, right?”
“He stayed two, three days, after the Echo left?”
But Sully and Ren, I knew, left on Milo’s ship. While the man hunting Sully watched the Boru Karn. While Pops’s daughter, Ilsa, who wanted to be on Sully’s list of women, had access to the Boru Karn, as one of Pops’s employees. Would Marsh or Gregor question her appearance at the docks? Would they stop her if she tried to get on board, perhaps even offer her a tour of the ship, of their cabins? Or had she been a guest in Sully’s cabin before and knew her way around?
Did she have the skills to initiate a worm program? Or did she even need to get on board? She had access to any parts going into the Karn. She had access to the ship’s schematics in her father’s databases. She would have been on board before Kingswell’s pad was, but she could have tinkered with the hologrid in the ready room… .
Sully’s firm grip on my arm halted my thoughts. Shit. Trel was an empath. I’d momentarily forgotten that. I tamped down my speculations and sipped my ale. Sully wrapped up the conversation. I accepted Trel’s congratulations like the blushing bride I was supposed to be and walked out, still snugged against him.
“Sorry,” I said softly. “Sorry. Sorry.” I was a Fleet officer. I knew better. But there were no regs against speculating in Fleet. “Once I grabbed what he was saying, I couldn’t stop analyzing it.”
He stepped out of the flow of traffic to wrap his arms around me. “Your mind is like a little whirlwind, do you know that? Everything gets sucked in, sorted, flung around, resorted, categorized.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was … fascinating.” He paused. “You’re not angry with me?”
Why would I—Because he’d been in my mind. Reading my thoughts. Watching me sort them, fling them around. Doing what I’d told him not to. But then I had rescinded that order. “No. You had to do that, because of Trel, is that right?”
“You don’t know how to block your thoughts, your emotions. Trel’s abilities, as long as he’s not touching you, are about on the level of Ren’s. I had to put up a temporary wall.”
I looked up at his infinitely dark eyes. “I didn’t even know.”
“Couldn’t tell?”
“No.”
“Neither could Tessa.”
A worry, one I still held on to. Young Tessa. Her mind in shreds, Philip had said.
Philip had lied. Or else someone had lied to Philip.
I closed my eyes, releasing the worry from my mental duro-hard, letting it go. The
n wondered again why I thought Sully had told me nothing about himself. He had, he’d been telling me volumes. I just didn’t know how to listen. “Thank you,” I said softly.
“You’re welcome, angel. Now, let’s get moving. I’ve got to talk to Gregor and Marsh again. Ask them some direct questions in a manner they’re not going to like. About Ilsa. And Lazlo.”
“Lazlo?”
“Lazlo. A quiet but not stupid man with a beard. And a muscular build he doesn’t want anyone to notice. My cousin Hayden’s personal bodyguard.”
25
I met Ren in the corridor as he left the ready room, his usual peaceful demeanor clearly troubled. He looked rumpled, his braid unraveling as if he’d been running his fingers through his hair. He’d been in there with Sully and Marsh, then Aubry and then Gregor, for almost two hours.
I’d been in the bridge hatchway a half hour earlier when Gregor barged out of the room and strode angrily down the corridor, his “goddamned filthy mind-fucker” litany echoing as he headed for his cabin.
His comment, I knew, had been aimed at Ren. No one knew Sully was the one doing the probing.
I touched Ren’s arm. “Want me to get you a mug of hot tea?”
“Please. It would be much appreciated.”
I brought it to his cabin. He was in one of the padded chairs next to the couch, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. I put the tea on the low table in front of him and went in search of his comb.
He sipped it as I perched on the arm of his chair, untied his braid, and began combing it out. Slowly, his shoulders relaxed, his breathing became less shallow, constricted.
“Since everyone left the room still alive, I gather none of them helped Ilsa, or this Lazlo, set a worm into the Karn.”
Ren sighed. “Both Gregor and Aubry knew Ilsa came on board. Neither remembered seeing Lazlo with her. Neither says Ilsa was left alone long enough to do any harm, but she was on the bridge. She did bring some grid boards. And as she’d been on this ship before …”
My hands hesitated only slightly, but he caught it.
“Not that way, Chasidah. She has never been Sully’s lover, though not for lack of effort on her part. But she knows Marsh from when he worked on another ship.”
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