“Thanks.” I gave him a grin he couldn’t see and tugged on his braid the way Sully often tugged on mine.
“Anyway, as Pops’s daughter, her intentions, her allegiances, were never in question.”
“Until now.”
“Until now.”
“Did she program a worm?”
“I don’t know. Sully doesn’t know. The grid board she brought was heavily damaged during the systems failure.”
“Is Sully going to talk to her?”
“Lazlo’s appearance interests him more. Whatever Ilsa did, if anything, was more than likely at Lazlo’s instigation. It’s Lazlo, or really Burke, we must be concerned about. Ilsa was simply a means, a method. It’s also quite possible she’s not even aware she did anything wrong.”
I knew that. Someone posing as a parts supplier could have presented her with a new and improved grid. Or optic feed. Or sensor link. And she’d put it on the Karn. At that point, she was still trying to get into Sully’s bed. Not be a mourner at his funeral.
I finished his braid, retied the thin leather band at the bottom. “Better?”
He reached back, ran his hand down its smooth length. “Much.”
“And you? I think you’re wearing your worry colors.”
He leaned back against the cushion and looked up at me with his clouded silver eyes. I didn’t think Gregor had been the only one emitting anger, perhaps even hatred, at being probed empathically. Ren had felt it, taken it all, directed at himself. For Sully’s sake.
“Things will be a bit tense for a while. They all felt safe, thought my blindness protected them. Now they feel their privacy is compromised.” He hesitated. “Gregor is threatening to leave, to stay on Dock Five.”
“Leave?” Gregor knew that Gabriel Ross Sullivan was alive, posing as Ross Winthrop. Gregor knew that Chaz Bergren was no longer on Moabar. And that we were headed for Marker, with the intention of destroying a portion of the Imperial Fleet shipyards.
Gregor definitely knew too much.
“Wasn’t there any way you could have accomplished the same results, reading them, without their knowledge?” I hadn’t felt Sully slip into my mind, my thoughts, at all in Trel’s bar.
“Sully’d already done that, the first time he talked to them. But for a deep mind probe, physical contact is sometimes necessary. More so because Sully couldn’t touch them without giving away what he is. The contact had to come through me, my hand on their arm. For that reason, too, it was still an inaccurate link.”
“No one caught the fact that you were touching Sully too?” I would have. I saw it in Sully’s cabin back at the Moabar Temple. I just didn’t know I was seeing them link at that time.
“I wasn’t touching Sully. Ours was purely a mind link.”
“You just said a deeper probe needs physical contact. How could Sully read without touching you?”
Ren hesitated. “Sully is a very high-level Ragkiril. He can work through another’s mental link if a ky’an—that is, a permissive bond—has been established. Physical contact enhances that but it’s not required.”
I knew there were Ragkir and Ragkiril. And thought that was all there was. “There are additional levels of Ragkiril?”
“In both Ragkir and Ragkiril, yes. Sully told me he explained the differences to you.”
“It’s not sinking in, I guess. I do know some Ragkirils can heal.”
“For which I am forever grateful.” Ren smiled wistfully. “I have yet so much to learn, so much to experience. I wasn’t ready to leave this existence yet.” He tilted his face. His voice became softer, rain trickling over maiisar blossoms, ruffled by the breezes. “I would miss Sully. And I would miss you, Chasidah. You have become very precious to me.”
I kissed him lightly on the forehead. “If Dorsie doesn’t adopt you, I will.”
He smiled, almost shyly, flustered. Very un-Ren. “So, to continue with your lesson, yes, there are different levels. Both with Ragkir and Ragkiril. Sully, being a high-level Ragkiril, can work outside certain physical parameters.”
I thought for a moment. And that thought contained five angels of heart-stars cards. “Can a high-level Ragkiril manipulate matter?”
“What has he said when you’ve asked him this question?”
“I haven’t asked. It just occurred to me.” It also occurred to me that Ren’s question was, in itself, an affirmative. Or else he would’ve simply said “no.” Almost mind-boggling. Matter manipulation. That would explain his wins in cards on Dock Five. And his losses to Ren, who would catch such “tricks.” “You know how he feels about questions, Ren. There are times he’s willing to talk. There are times, I think, it’s just too painful.”
“The pain comes from a fear of rejection. I think you know this.”
“Mistakes can be made through ignorance, lack of information,” I countered.
“He knows this too. I can’t find that balance for you. That’s something you and Sully must find for yourselves.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “How can I adopt you, act like your mother, when most of the time you sound so much wiser than I do?”
“I am more than honored just to be considered your friend. Besides, it would pain me to know that you and Dorsie would be fighting over me.”
A grin. A half smirk. I recognized it. Ren had his own Sully grin.
I punched him playfully on the shoulder as I stood to leave. “You’ve been hanging around Sullivan too much, you know that?”
Sully wasn’t in our cabin or the ready room. When I asked Marsh, on duty on the bridge, where Sully was, he only shrugged. His eyes wouldn’t meet mine.
“Did he go back on dock?”
Marsh glanced at the console. The Karn was running through the usual predeparture systems checks, with two hours to go. “He didn’t key out at the airlock, no.”
I started to turn, hesitated. “Marsh, Ren’s okay. Don’t judge him like that.”
Something hard flitted across Marsh’s features. “Sure.”
“I’ve been through it too—a mind scan. You know Sully wouldn’t have asked him to do it if it weren’t absolutely necessary.”
“It wasn’t necessary. Not with me. Dorsie and I’ve been with him for too long. That’s the only reason I’m still sitting here. For Sully. Not for that mind-fucker.”
I remembered that prejudice. I used to have it. It seemed like another lifetime ago.
I went down a deck. Aubry was in engineering, alone. The gym was empty. Crew cabins came after that, but I didn’t bother checking them. I could hear voices—loud, angry—coming from Dorsie’s galley.
“It was none of his fucking business, Sully. I told you. You want to know something, you ask. You don’t like my answer, you tell me to hit the docks. That’s the only way I’ve ever worked.”
“You know it was necessary.”
“I know you suddenly changed the rules. And I don’t like these new ones.”
I hesitated in the doorway. Gregor straddled a chair, his wide hands gripping the back. He was in profile to me and didn’t see me. But Dorsie, next to him, did, though she didn’t acknowledge my presence. She sat, arms across her chest, her face sullen. Her gaze traveled disinterestedly over me.
Sully stood on the other side of the table, hands shoved into his pockets. His mouth was a tight line. “No one walks off this ship right now. I can’t risk it.”
“And I can’t risk having my brains fried by some mind-fucker because maybe he doesn’t like the way I answer a question. Maybe he doesn’t like the way I scratch my ass.” Gregor jabbed a finger at Sully. “I saw these fuckers during the war. I worked interrogation security. I know what they do!”
Gregor suddenly turned, saw me. “You didn’t turn him loose on her, did you?”
“He did.” I stepped into the mess hall, spoke before Sully could.
Gregor’s eyes glittered with anger. “I didn’t see you get called in for a private chat with our favorite Stolorth.”
“Chaz
went through a mind scan right after it happened.” Sully took a step closer to the table. “That’s how I knew she didn’t program a worm into the datapad.”
“You found one there!” Gregor challenged.
“I found traces of what a worm could do. Which could be the residue of the program causing the sabotage. Or it could be the pad taking the same damage we did since it was hooked into the hologrid when the Karn’s systems went down.”
I remember Sully stating it was a possibility, though a remote one. The damage could’ve come from an upload or a download.
“Further”—Sully leaned his palms flat against the table—“Chaz wasn’t on board when this ship was at Pops’s for repair. Chaz didn’t know Ilsa. And she sure as hell doesn’t know Lazlo.”
Gregor’s eyes narrowed. “Some mind-fucker tell you that?”
Sully nodded slowly. “Some mind-fucker told me that.” He straightened and shoved his hands back into his pockets.
I headed for the table on Sully’s left while he argued with Gregor. There was undisguised loathing on Gregor’s face. Gregor hated Ren. And didn’t realize that, by doing so, he also condemned Sully.
“This is what it comes down to,” Gregor said heatedly. “You said you want me to stay. Fine. But only if that mind-fucker leaves.”
“Ren stays. You stay. There are no options here.”
Gregor studied Sully as if measuring him up. Perhaps remembering the hand that had pinned him to the pilot’s chair. “Then I want him locked in the brig. Aubry agrees with me. So does Marsh.”
“Unacceptable.”
I recognized that word, that tone. Sully was losing patience.
“Then I walk. We all walk.”
His mouth tight, Sully asked, “Dorsie?”
I couldn’t believe Dorsie would back Gregor. She was friends with Ren, teased him. But she’d been silent since I arrived. I hadn’t heard her voice in the corridor. And she hadn’t seemed pleased to see me when I’d walked in.
If Dorsie left, Ren would be hurt. Terribly hurt.
“You told us he couldn’t do those things.” Her voice was strained.
“The fact that he can—this is more important than everything else he is?” Sully’s voice softened. I knew he wasn’t only asking about Ren. “Because of something he can’t change about himself, something he was born to be, you condemn him?”
Dorsie knotted her hands together, her gaze on the movement of her fingers.
“Dorsie,” I said. “Sully asked Ren for his help in this. It wasn’t as if Ren just decided one day to go rummaging around in your thoughts. Or Gregor’s. Or mine.”
“But he could have,” Gregor put in bitterly. “He could have. Anytime in the past. Anytime he wants to. That’s what he is, a mind-fucker. You’re Fleet, Bergren. You know what they can do.”
The Grizni flashed into my hand. I angled it at Gregor. “I could also have killed you anytime in the past few weeks. Anytime in the past few hours. That’s part of what I am. But it’s not the only thing I am.”
I slapped the Grizni back around my wrist and looked at Dorsie again. “Is anyone here ready to let go of their childish fears and think about the larger issues? The Empire is breeding jukors again. And someone is trying to kill us because we want to stop that. That scares me one hell of a lot more than a blind empath.”
“It’s going to take some getting used to,” Dorsie said uncertainly, after a moment. “But I’m willing to try.”
Gregor slammed his hand on the back of his chair, shoved himself to his feet. “Fools, all of you.” He glared at Dorsie, at me, then finally at Sully. “You don’t know what they can do. I do. Destroying minds is nothing. They can melt your skin right off your body. Without touching you. They can take this, this chair.” He wrenched it from the deck lock. “Make it into a laser rifle. Kill you with it. Or worse. Into a nightmare, some image they pull from your mind. Torture you with it.”
He pushed it aside, roughly. It fell sideways, clanged against the decking. “And they can also,” he said, as silence descended, “change what they look like. I’ve seen what they really look like.” This last he aimed at Dorsie, then spun on his heels, stalked for the door.
He stopped just short of the corridor and turned. “You know those jukors you’re so anxious to kill? Ugly things, aren’t they?” He threw one more hard look at Dorsie. “Not at all like your blue-haired pretty boy.” He paused. “Or are they?”
He strode down the corridor, his boot steps as hard and jarring as his words.
Dorsie’s brow furrowed. Troubled. Worried. Frightened. I wanted to tell her that Gregor had exaggerated, misusing the old legends about soul-stealers, mythical shape-shifters, but Sully spoke first.
“Ren’s not some kind of demon.” Sully’s voice was kind yet firm. “He can’t—”
Intraship trilled, echoing in the corridor. The sound halted Sully’s words.
Dorsie stood, reached for the comm panel on the counter behind her. “Galley. Dorsie.” Her voice was flat, lacking its usual buoyancy.
“He’s there?” It was Marsh, looking for Sully.
“Yes.”
“Tell him Verno’s on board. With that Sister woman.”
“Acknowledged,” Sully said, loud enough for Marsh to hear him.
“We’ve got clearance coming through, fifteen minutes. Any changes?”
I knew he meant more than just departure instructions. He wanted to know if anyone was leaving the crew. Or being confined to the brig.
“Confirm our slot, Marsh. Fifteen minutes. I’ll be on the bridge in five.”
26
Sully. Worried and troubled, anger simmering just below the surface. Sully. Afraid.
I didn’t have a grain of empathic ability in my body, but I knew Sully, knew the dark, haunted look in his eyes as he glanced at me, then headed for the door. I hesitated only long enough to reach for Dorsie, squeeze the hand she held out to me. I wished I knew how to send those warm, comforting spirals Ren could. Sully could.
I sprinted for the corridor and caught up with him at the stairs. When I slipped my hand into his, his skin was cold.
“Hold up for a few minutes. Marsh knows the routine. Verno will be there.”
He took his foot off the stair tread and leaned wearily against the stairwell wall. He was distant, nothing coming through his touch but a deep chill. A defensive mechanism. He was shutting himself off from all the emotions churning through the ship.
“They’re staying,” I told him. “Forget about anything else that was said.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to. Gregor’s always going to find something—”
“Not Gregor. Dorsie. She was ready to walk out.”
“She was afraid.”
“Of Ren. She was the only one who would even talk to him when I brought him on board. She was the only one who’d sit at a table with him. Share a meal, a drink with him. Laugh with him. Be his friend.” He shoved himself away from the wall. “I just destroyed that. He doesn’t know yet, but he’ll sense it. Her rejection is going to scar him deeply.”
“I’m sure he’s faced that before,” I said softly.
His eyes were hard, infinite. “She’s not rejecting him because of what he is. She’s rejecting him because of me. Because of what I am.” His voice suddenly rasped. “How can I call myself his friend and permit that?”
Intraship trilled again in the corridors. “Ten minutes to push-back, Sully-sir.”
“Fuck.” Sully yanked his hand from mine and pounded up the stairs.
Aux thrusters fired, angling us. The Boru Karn slid away from Dock Five, sublights on idle but ready, bridge crew at stations but quiet, thinking, fearing, wishing, hoping …
Not Ren. Ren was in his quarters until things calmed down. Not Gregor, even though he was first pilot. Marsh sat his shift for now. Sully sat nowhere, not at engineering, not at any one place on the bridge, but walked, pacing, making small, meaningless adjustments on the boards.
I sat at communications, flirted with departure control as if nothing was wrong, as if Sully wasn’t mired in his own personal Hell, a ghost who suddenly realized his very transparency placed those who stood behind him at risk.
We hit outer beacon, downloaded the news banks, the advisories, the gossip. Everything that had happened in the past thirty minutes since we’d left Dock Five.
Verno keyed in the course change and headed for the inner lanes. For Marker.
Three days. Three days until we could save the universe from the virulent infection of jukors. Three days to try to work some healing miracles on board.
Sully. Ren. Nothing was dearer to me right now. Not even my own life.
Sully left the bridge when we hit the lanes. Work to do, he announced, on the hologrid in the ready room. I tried to catch his glance. His gaze swept over me, then turned away. I knew he needed some time alone. I gave it to him.
Aubry wandered in early. I let him take communications and went down to the galley again. I didn’t know what to say to Dorsie. But I did want to tell her I’d been afraid of Ren once too. That I’d learned to see beyond that.
She was stacking supplies in a back room and straightened when I came in.
“Got a minute?” I motioned to the tables in the mess hall.
Her fists clenched, not in anger, I could tell, but indecision. She didn’t know if she was ready to talk about this. Yet.
“It’ll make you feel better,” I told her.
I told her more: how I’d bolted out of my chair at the monastery, uncoiled my dagger when I saw Ren. How I’d watched him on the Lucky Seven. How he’d diverted the MOC officer’s attention on station. How he’d gone to the dock to find out what happened to Milo. And how his calm presence pervaded it all. I told her I’d slept in a cot in Ren’s cabin, knowing he was an empath, knowing he could read me. And that he’d read my sadness, early in the morning. Tried to ease my pain. Tried to assuage my fears. And tenderly, gently, ever-so-cautiously touched my face because he wanted to see a human woman.
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