Emerald Twilight: Bundled Edition

by Ashley, Celia

  With an angry expletive, Sterne smacked the control grid, eliminating the image. “You know what I can do to you, don’t you? My orders are obeyed, without question, and you’re not exactly within Code, a crime in and of itself.”

  Burke shrugged. “You asked me here for a reason. What is it?”

  Sterne spun in his chair again, bringing another image onto the screen. Raising his eyes to it, Burke sat up with an involuntary hiss through his teeth. Sterne had accessed information on every assignment he had ever worked, for whom, the fee, what the job had entailed, information twisted from the people he had worked for in ways Burke didn’t care to imagine.

  “Insurance,” Sterne said. “In case you’re wondering. Never trust a Drifter, isn’t that what they say?”

  And never trust a man who hires one. Burke gritted his teeth and leaned back in his chair again. “Why not get to the point, Sterne?”

  “Revered,” Sterne reminded him.

  Burke ignored the rebuke with silence. He wasn’t a Talian. He didn’t really care about their politics and Orders. Shifting in his seat, Sterne leaned forward, pulling at his eyebrow with thumb and forefinger. Suddenly the man moved, bringing a new image to the screen, one that took Burke as much by surprise as the list of assignments had done. Sterne’s teeth appeared between his lips in a malicious parody of a smile.

  “My bond-wife, Conlan. Look closely at her.”

  Abandoning his relaxed posture, Burke sat forward, elbows on his thighs and hands between his knees as he inspected the image of Arad Sterne’s wife. A lovely Talian, but one of mixed blood. Even he could see that. Like many Talian women, she possessed bi-colored hair, but hers was mostly golden, braided over one shoulder, the frosty blue family mark delineating noble lineage shining among the coils. She had the Talian’s slanted eyes, but her cheekbones were not quite as uncommonly high and her eyes were not dark. Beneath the double growth of lashes designed by nature to keep out the ever-present desert sand, he suspected they might be green. She held something in her hand. He knew he had looked too long at her face, her smile, when his stomach began to churn.

  Sterne cleared his throat. “My wife,” he repeated.

  “Yes, I got that. What about her?”

  “Her name, the name I chose for her in the bonding ceremony when she was a child, is Resa Andrea. Her birth name, which of course she used until the actual ceremony of marriage when she reached age is Hallandra. Of the Ser Irese. You have heard of them?”

  Burke shook his head.

  “You haven’t? Surprising. Do you think she’s pretty, Conlan?”

  Burke knew he was being baited. He refused to answer. Soon enough Sterne would get to the point. Most likely he wanted his lady followed. Probably suspected her of infidelity. Burke’s eyes strayed back to the screen.

  Sterne also looked again to the image with a bland expression. “A cold, deceitful woman, my wife. Soon to be my wife no more, if you do your job. I want to be rid of her for good. You understand what that means.”

  “If it means murder, you’ve got the wrong boy, Sterne,” Burke said icily.

  Sterne rose from behind the desk with a rough laugh and a placating gesture. “No, no. I’ve toyed with the idea, but only in extreme anger. It make no sense, no sense at all. No, what I want is an annulment, but as a High Official I cannot obtain one and still retain my position. Except if she commits adultery. The laws here in Talia are very strict concerning that, as you may or may not be aware. Even in Citadel Code—”

  “I know about Citadel Code,” Burke interrupted. “But if you’ll check that little record you have of my past history, you’ll note that prostitution is not my game either.”

  “That is not what I’m suggesting. You don’t have to sleep with my wife, just give testimony to that effect.”

  A flare of red hazed Burke’s vision.

  “Sen Conlan,” Sterne began, rising to pace in front of his wife’s portrait, “the deal I wish to make is this, and it will be a bargain well struck, well worth your while. Within the hour, you will give testimony of adultery with information I supply. The transmission of the recording will be delayed and will not coincide with your appearance here.”

  “So why give it now?”

  “I wouldn’t want you to change your mind once you leave.” Sterne paused to smile at the portrait. “Not only that, but I will arrange for you to meet my wife at an appointed time where you will be ‘discovered’ to support this testimony, which will appear to be a confession made later on. I’m sure you understand now.”

  Only too well. “And then you will see that I am also punished for my part in this little affair? Excuse the pun.”

  Sterne slammed his fist down on top of the desk. The glass teetered and fell, darkening the weave of the carpet with liquid. “If I release what I know about your past to certain peer authorities you could be paying for the rest of your natural life. As it is, I am asking something very simple of you, for which you will receive a small fortune in payment. Your apprehension will be short-lived, and you will not be punished. You have my word on that.”

  “Your word? Probably worth no more than a bovine’s front tooth.”

  Sterne clenched his hands into fists, relaxing them with visible effort. “You are aware that the penalty for adultery is more severe here on the Talian Peninsula than anywhere else on Citadel. But I know when to be magnanimous. I will graciously choose to allow the bitch to return home to her family. Only then can I divorce her. My position will not permit it otherwise. Her family will likely know the truth, of course, but there will be nothing they can do. On the other hand, they might not believe her at all.”

  Burke stood up, facing the man, trying to see into his eyes, veiled and hooded by their heavy lids. “You can’t pay me enough.”

  “Based on what I know of you, I could arrange for your arrest now.”

  Burke turned and walked slowly toward the door.

  “However,” Arad called after him, “I haven’t the time to find another Drifter with a history like yours. That doesn’t mean you have me, Conlan. I’ve got you. Right up against the wall.”

  Burke kept walking, only pausing when the door didn’t open. He glanced around for the key pad. Behind him, he heard Sterne pour himself another drink, glass chattering against glass.

  “You’ll strike this bargain or lose your freedom. You couldn’t live with that, could you? Here.”

  Despite himself, Burke glanced over his shoulder and saw Sterne yank open a drawer and remove a small notebook.

  “Primitive, but I couldn’t afford to have any of this floating around in data banks. It’s the information you’ll need to make your testimony. Take it. You haven’t any choice, Drifter. None at all.”

  Burke crossed to the desk and took the book. Lips curling in contempt, he tossed it onto the floor. “Not interested.” He strode back to the door. If he still had his impulse he might have blasted the lock open. Sterne’s next words, however, drove all thought of departure from him.

  “What about Lese, Conlan? What about your daughter?”

  II.

  THE DEAL

  Cold with shock, Burke turned slowly around.

  “What will happen to your daughter, Drifter, while you rot in some cell in the Zebulon Facility? Have you given any thought to that in your career choice? I suppose I could always take her in here. Out of the kindness of my heart, of course.”

  The room careened in front of Burke’s eyes in a blood-red haze. His fury felt like fire, a physical heat, flame burning through his body. Adrenalin pulsed into his veins, exploded in his brain. He took a step closer. “You threaten my daughter, Sterne? I’ll kill you.”

  Sterne’s gaze began a frantic search around the chamber. Apparently he had turned the monitoring system off due to the nature of the conversation. Burke grinned. They were of a size, the two of them, but Burke was lean and hard where Sterne had led a sedentary life for too long. The decanter sat too far away for Sterne to make a grab for it, eve
n if the bottle could be used effectively, and the control dome for the alarm signal remained out of reach on the opposite side of the window frame. Perspiration dampened Sterne’s forehead.

  “Look, Conlan,” the man said quickly, stepping back, “don’t do anything stupid. The end result will be the same. She’ll be alone, bound forever to the Sisters of Oriana, and that’s something you don’t want, is it? Stop where you are and pick up the notebook. You haven’t any choice.”

  Sterne had balled the cloth of his robe into his fists but as he saw Burke falter he released the material, turning swiftly to activate the screen again. Several women moved across the field of the lens’ vision, dressed alike in shimmering white, hair worn long and braided into coronets. Behind them, riotous pink blooms contrasted starkly to the gray stone walls of the abbey.

  “Watch, Conlan. This is a live transmission. You may even see your daughter.”

  Burke halted, swinging his gaze to the screen. He tried to keep his expression impassive, to betray nothing as he watched the Sisters pacing in procession through the laymen’s garden. The sun had not yet reached the horizon, but cast their shadows before them. The tallest woman of the group turned her face toward the Inter-quadrant Transmit Eye and for a moment seemed to be looking straight at him. Burke’s spine stiffened. Casara. Lese couldn’t be far behind.

  Suddenly the mystic stopped, spinning about as a broad smile broke across her severe countenance. Burke’s heart thumped in his breast. A ten-year-old child dressed in a white shirt and sandals skipped into the peripheral field of the Eye, stumbled, righted herself, and ran to meet the smiling Casara. Lese’s fingers flew in silent communication, occasionally pausing for thought or to press a stray tendril of fine blond hair from her forehead.

  Small for her age, Lese had eyes as blue as a midnight sky, a dimple in her left cheek, a slight space separating her front teeth. The birthmark beneath her right arm flared when angry or excited. He remembered, even now, what her small hands felt like in his own, remembered, too, her gentle spirit, kept innocent and protected by her environment. She showed signs of the abilities of her mother, he’d been told. And, like her mother, gone now, Lese was mute. It made a difference in the Sisterhood. It made her special.

  Burke lowered his eyelids. Sterne had it wrong. Burke didn’t care that Lese lived in the Sisterhood. She was better off with them than with him, a man incapable of providing her with a home. What mattered most now was that she didn’t fall into Sterne’s hands.

  Burke held out his palm. The view screen went blank. Sterne retrieved and dropped the notebook onto his hand. Thumbing back through the pages to the first, Burke stared down at the cramped, unpracticed script. Blinking to focus, he began to read. He felt sick.

  * * *

  Arad had already called twice from his own rooms at the opposite end of their apartment, impatience growing. Hallie ignored him, fingering the fading bruise above her left breast. Her frown deepened. When he called again, she snatched a silk gown of maroon interwoven with silver from a hanger and slipped into it. The cool material draped over her skin, long sleeves coming to a point over the back of each hand. She searched about with her toes, managing to slip on a pair of flat-heeled shoes as she turned her head to tell her husband she’d be there shortly. She closed her mouth without speaking and reached for a small box tucked away on the shelf. Inside, she kept a few odd pieces of jewelry of sentimental value. She removed an oxinite bracelet from the metal box and fastened it around her upper arm.

  Arad despised cheap jewelry.

  Any of the affection and admiration she’d acquired for Arad after she’d been bonded to him had disintegrated in the years of their marriage. On a daily basis, she tried not to be disagreeable when he was being pleasant, and attempted to avoid him when he was not. The latter was often difficult, for as the wife of the Revered she had to be ever at his side in official capacity. Unofficially, he demanded even more of her when he could. Once she had taken pleasure in their intimacy. She never would again.

  Leaving the large closet, Hallie paused before a mirrored glass to study her reflection. She did not consider herself an unattractive woman, though she understood she never would be a beauty by Talian standards. She possessed none of the classic features, marked instead by the blood of her maternal ancestors, a fact which Arad reminded her of often. Shrugging at her reflection, she gave her hair a tug to straighten the blue streak running through the braid, then turned on her heel and left the room.

  Soles of her shoes tapping the bare floor of the corridor, she made her way to the main living square and crossed the textured rug carpeting in silence. Outside Arad’s door, she paused to listen to the voices within. Arad’s booming voice could not be contained, even in a whisper. The other voice was female.

  Suddenly the door opened. Hallie stepped back. At the opposite side of the room a narrow exit to the corridor beyond gently closed.

  “Come in, Resa.”

  Arad’s pleasant tone sent an instant spark of suspicion to Hallie’s brain. She adjusted the neckline of her gown. Arad’s gaze appraised her from head to toe, lingering only briefly on the bangle bracelet, then away without rebuke.

  “You look very acceptable tonight, Resa. Would you help me with my hair?”

  She wanted to ask him why he hadn’t had his concubine attend to the task, but walked into the room in silence, coming to a halt behind the low chair where Arad had seated himself. Watching her in the mirror, he plucked at the heavy necklace of pale moonstones around his throat.

  “Something amiss, Wife?” His gaze held on the yellowing bruise above her gown’s neckline.

  In silence, Hallie took the brush from her husband’s hand and began to brush the hair up from his nape and forehead into a single mass between her fingers at his crown. With a deft twist she fastened a band to it so the hair looped over her wrist, then positioned the straight locks in a centered tail down the back of his head and slipped the headgear of Office into place.

  “There,” she said, avoiding his eyes in the mirror, “how’s that?”

  “Perfect.” He rose, pausing to look down at her, catching himself mid-frown to force a smile to his lips.

  She lifted her chin. “Are you unwell?”

  He extended his arm to her, tucking her stiff fingers into his elbow when she hesitated. “Your concern is touching, my dear. But I couldn’t be better.”

  Together they walked to the moding tube. Once inside, she sank wearily back against the cushions of the chair as the private transport began a lateral motion, speeding from the apartments of the Officials to the older, taller structure of the Quadrate itself, the only building in the entirety of Talia to have been constructed to a height above three levels. Hallie gazed through the clear vitrine windows at the passing vista. The Quadrate stood nearly on the edge of the city where nothing obstructed the view of the desert. Pure white beneath the stars, the dunes stood mountainous and ever-changing in the dry winds. A large star burned on the horizon, almost like a moon.

  Zebulon. The more romantic and innocent called it The Emerald, because of a slight anomaly of atmosphere that gave it a greenish cast. Not a star, but a planet. A lovely sight at night, shining over the desert in twin orbit with Citadel around Arias, but Hallie had heard stories over the years about the planet’s purpose. She shivered, clutching her hands together on her lap.

  “Arad,” she said, as the transport neared its destination.

  “Hmm?”

  “Hester will be at the dinner tonight. Her jacki’s had pups.”

  “And?”

  Will Arad refuse you? Hester asked when Hallie had discussed acquisition of a pup with her. Hallie knew he wouldn’t. At first. No, it was his habit to permit her to believe she would receive a thing that would please her, only to withdraw his anticipated compliance when her joy was at its zenith. One day, she would stop asking. Maybe it should be this one.

  Clearing her throat, Hallie offered a vague response, pretending she had merely been p
assing comment. As the car reached the Quadrate the transport dropped, coming to a cushioned halt at ground level. An attendant waited outside to meet them. Once again Arad took Hallie’s hand, tucking it inside his elbow. The attendant hurried to open the doors to the dining hall where small, informal yet official gatherings were held. The ornate metal slid away to reveal the circular chamber, well illuminated and ventilated, with a high, cantilevered ceiling. In the center of the room a round table had been set for twenty-four in black and crimson, the mark of the regime on each plate. The stand-bys from which dinner would be served were already laden with steaming, covered platters. Guests lingered at one end of the room, awaiting the Revered’s arrival. Hallie exchanged a long and significant look with Hester across the floor and shifted her body weight over one foot.

  “Stand up straight, Resa,” Arad whispered loudly.

  Embarrassed and annoyed at being chastised, she straightened her back, glaring angrily ahead. The harried attendant slipped past the two of them to make his announcement. Outside, the pale vista of the desert was visible through the doors. A whirlwind of white sand sped across the horizon. A whirlwind at night was an ill omen, some said.

  Hallie lifted her chin. “Once, I respected you, Arad,” she whispered. “Admired you. Once, too, I sat at my father’s right, a proud member of the Ser Irese. I don’t know who I am, anymore.”

  Arad snorted, patting her hand. “There, there, Resa. Maybe it’s time you grew up.” He led her down into the room.

  * * *

  The pyraxzine lamp made an illuminated circle in the table’s center. Three Talian coins glittered on the black laminate surface. A nimble hand entered the circle to remove one, depositing a heavy glass of frothy brown liquid with an audible thump. Remaining hidden in the shadows beyond the light, Burke spoke. “Thanks. Got the time?”

  “For what, sen?” The barkeep’s voice was sarcastic as he flipped the coin between his fingers before dropping it onto the tray in his left hand.