Worlds Apart (ThreeCon)

by Carmen Webster Buxton

  Rishi had hopes the doctor’s high-handedness would work, but Praxiteles paid no attention.

  “It seems to me,” he said, “that there’s no use in having a machine that heals you so quickly if you can’t benefit from it. I don’t want to stay here. This place smells of sickness, and I’m not sick.”

  The doctor looked him over. “You do look much better.” She sounded almost annoyed. “But it’s ridiculous to say that you can go home now. We need to keep you under observation.”

  “There are many people where I live,” Praxiteles said, unperturbed. “They can observe me.”

  Whatever Dr. Chiang might have said in answer was lost when the door chimed again, then opened to admit Qualhuan.

  The Miloran took in the scene quickly. “Everything okay, Prax?”

  Praxiteles nodded. “I’m ready to go home now.”

  “He most certainly is not!” Dr. Chiang said indignantly. “He can’t go home until tomorrow at the very earliest.”

  Qualhuan surveyed Praxiteles. “He looks okay to me. How’s your arm, Prax?”

  “It’s still sore,” Praxiteles said, “but I try not to use it. Will you take me home, Qualhuan?”

  Qualhuan looked to Rishi. “What do you think, Mistress?”

  Rishi was torn. On the one hand, she didn’t want Praxiteles to take any chances. On the other hand, he seemed much better, and he was looking at her expectantly. Rishi wavered.

  “Does he really need to stay here?” she asked the doctor. “I can have a medtech or a doctor staying at the house for as long as you say.”

  Dr. Chiang looked miffed at the suggestion that the medical profession was available at a moment’s notice if only one had enough money. “I suppose, if you could find someone qualified, it would be acceptable.”

  Rishi made Praxiteles sit down on the bed while she made some calls. The Golden Hawk was back on Subidar and she wanted to see if Dr. Warchovsky could come to stay at the estate. It took Rishi four calls, but she finally reached her. She broke the connection in triumph.

  “There,” she said. “I have a doctor who’ll come out to my house in an hour and stay for at least two days. Will that be adequate?”

  “Is he qualified?” Dr. Chiang asked.

  “She’s very qualified,” Rishi said. “She’s used to trauma wounds, too.”

  Dr. Chiang agreed reluctantly that Praxiteles could go home in such circumstances, and Rishi began to make more arrangements.

  It was evening by the time they got Praxiteles home. Dr. Warchovsky was there already, waiting by the landing port when Qualhuan set down the flyter.

  She insisted on walking with Praxiteles to his room. Rishi wanted to come, too, but Praxiteles objected.

  Qualhuan took Rishi a little aside.

  “Let him go with the doctor, Mistress,” he advised. “He may say he’s fine, but he looks tired to me. He’ll rest better if he doesn’t have to worry about you.”

  Rishi looked at Praxiteles and decided that he did look a little tired. “All right. Will you go with them in case Praxiteles is difficult?”

  “Certainly, Mistress,” Qualhuan said.

  Rishi watched them go. She had become very dependent on her security staff, she realized. Were they being helpful because they considered Praxiteles a friend, or did they actually care about her?

  She decided to be grateful for what she had, and not to waste any energy worrying about the why of it. Instead she went back to her office to see if Merschachh was still there. The Shuratanian had gone for the day, but he had left her a detailed message on several things that needed her attention. Rishi sat down and went to work. She was still there when Hari strolled into the office.

  “Back at work, I see?” Hari asked.

  Rishi looked up. “Yes. We brought Praxiteles back home.”

  “I know,” Hari said. “Rurhahn cleared it with me before he admitted Dr. Warchovsky. Are you sure it was a good idea to bring Prax here? I thought they wanted him to stay a few days?”

  “They did,” Rishi said. “But he started to fret, so it seemed best to let him come home.”

  Hari threw himself down in the chair next to her desk, propped his feet on a table, and tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling.

  Rishi looked at him critically. “You look tired, Hari. Why are you still here? I thought Anika went home?”

  He grunted without moving at all. “She did. And I am tired. I’m too old to get up before the crack of dawn and spend all day dealing with the Shembor bureaucracy.”

  All day? Worry nagged at Rishi again. Was there some new trouble she didn’t know about? “Has Arnuchh been bothering you again? She was putting Praxiteles through the wringer when I got to the hospital.”

  Hari lowered his chin to look at her. “I heard. She told me a little about it herself when she called me. She unbent enough to say that you’d been surprisingly cooperative.”

  “Do you think she still suspects Praxiteles?”

  “I don’t know,” Hari admitted. “But I know she’s open to other ideas. She called to ask me if we had fired anyone from the staff lately. That’s when I remembered Beecher.”

  “Beecher!” Rishi said the name with a surge of hope. “That’s right! It wasn’t that long ago, either.”

  Hari sat up straight in his chair. “When I thought about it, I had to admit he was a prime candidate. He was enough of a systems expert that he would know damn well how to find out the resonator frequency. Plus, he left before you and Prax began your intimate relationship, to use Captain Arnuchh’s words. He wouldn’t have expected Prax to be there at that hour.”

  Rishi tapped her stylus on her chin. “Did you tell her that?”

  “Not yet. I will, though. It came to me later, along with another thought. The fight that got Prax into trouble—Beecher started that on purpose. He said whatever it took to make Prax mad enough to go for him. He could have been trying to get fired.”

  It sounded plausible enough. “But if Beecher planned it, why would he be mad enough to sell us out for letting him go?”

  Hari shook his head. “I don’t think he was mad, I think he was greedy. Remember, we showed Beecher the door right after we let him out of his room when his three days were up. He wouldn’t have had time to go back and research the resonator frequency between getting loose and walking out the door for the last time. I took him out of all the access systems right away, too, so there’s no question that he snuck back in or anything. But if he had planned the whole thing ahead of time, he could have had it all set up.”

  “Do you really think he’s the leak?” It sounded so tempting.

  “It’s a possibility,” Hari said. “I’m just trying to think of a way to tell Arnuchh about Beecher without making Prax sound like a homicidal maniac.”

  “You’ll think of a way.” A sudden shiver came over Rishi as she thought about living the next few days in a house that might harbor a traitor. “I hope it is Beecher. But one way or another, we have to find out who sold us out.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Prax found it annoying to be an invalid. He succeeded in keeping Dr. Warchovsky at bay only by promising not to run or otherwise exert himself. He tried to report for work, but he discovered he had been relegated to a status called sick leave. Rishi was busy with her own work, so there wasn’t much for Prax to do.

  After two days where Prax did almost nothing but read, the doctor finally departed. Left to his own devices, Prax went for a walk around the estate. He wanted very much to run, but he had promised not to, so he walked briskly instead. He went back into the house at mid-morning to see who was off duty.

  He was coming down the main corridor when he saw Wolly carrying two large clothes cases into the empty room across the hall from his. This surprised Prax because he knew Wolly had a family and lived in an apartment away from the estate. Usually he
slept on the estate only when he was on call, and he never brought more than a small carryall for that.

  Down the hall, Chio came out of his own door and saw Prax. “Hello, Prax,” Chio said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine,” Prax said. “The doctor said I can go back to work in a few days if my arm is better. I can start using it a little now.”

  Chio tisked at him, sounding a lot like Prax’s mother. “Why push it? Why not just take it easy for awhile?”

  Prax shook his head. “I don’t like to be idle. Not for long, anyway.”

  “Some of us are better at it than you are,” Chio said with a grin. “I’m on call today. Want to try that new card game I taught you?”

  Prax agreed, as he had nothing better to do. They went to the common room. As Chio was dealing the cards, Prax asked him about Wolly.

  Chio shrugged fatalistically. “His wife threw him out. Wolly said she got tired of his weird hours and his being gone for so long at a stretch. She was convinced he was fooling around on her.”

  “Do you mean she thought he had another woman?” Prax asked, not entirely sure what fooling around meant.

  “Yup. For all I know, she’s right. Not everybody sees marriage the same way. I was married once, but we got all that worked out ahead of time.”

  Prax knew that outlanders were more casual than the Elliniká about marriage, but still the idea that Chio could have been married and never mentioned it took him by surprise. “When were you married?”

  “When I was in ThreeCon,” Chio said. “I met a woman who liked a lot of the same things I did. We were good in bed, and it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. The only thing was, we had both agreed we could have other friends, if you know what I mean. After a while, it seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth to be married.”

  Prax couldn’t imagine an arrangement such as Chio had described. He played with only half his mind on the game and lost.

  They played three more hands, and Prax finally won the last one. When Chio went to take a nap, Prax took his book reader and read until lunchtime. He went inside for lunch but returned as soon as the meal was over.

  By dinner time, the enforced idleness had made Prax restless. He had always been able to work off energy with physical exercise, but now that outlet was blocked, and Rishi wasn’t around to distract him. Hari’s friends had invited her to a formal dinner they were giving in honor of his marriage. Some of the staff teased Prax about slumming by eating his dinner in the staff dining room, but he did a good job of ignoring them.

  The dining room emptied quickly as several of the staff had plans to go out. Nakamura was one of the two guards detailed to accompany Rishi to the dinner, and Tinibu was bored by himself.

  “Who wants to go into town?” Tinibu asked.

  “I’ll go,” Prax said. Rishi wouldn’t be back until quite late anyway.

  Tinibu rubbed his chin and eyed Prax speculatively. “Are you sure you’re up to it? You were hurt pretty bad. I know because I saw it.”

  “I’m fine,” Prax said, holding back a scowl. “I wish everyone would stop asking how I am.”

  “I’ll go, too,” Ogilvy said, “in case Prax passes out and you have to carry him to the flyter.”

  “I’d like to go, but I’m on patrol duty tonight,” Chio said, studying the display on his com.

  Tinibu turned to Wolly, who had sat through dinner without speaking.

  “Want to come with us, Wolly?” the big Terran asked. “It’d do you good to get out.”

  “Where are you going?” Wollongong asked.

  “Mickey’s,” Tinibu said, “since Chio won’t be around to insist we go somewhere where a woman is paid to sit with him.”

  Chio didn’t even look up from his com, but Lidiya surprised Prax by rising to Chio’s defense. “I notice you’re not content to sit home by yourself, Jomo,” she said, rising to her feet literally as well. “Be careful I don’t tell Ingrid you’re stepping out on her.”

  Tinibu only grinned and repeated his offer to Wolly.

  Wollongong hesitated but shook his head. “No, thanks. I’ll pass. I’m too tired to go out.”

  “Come on,” Tinibu urged. “It’s no good sitting around here moping. If your wife thinks you’re out having a good time without her, you might as well do it.”

  Wollongong flushed but shook his head. “No. I just started reading a really good book. I’ll just stay here and finish it.”

  Prax knew that Wollongong was lying, but he didn’t feel a need to mention it to Tinibu. If Wolly didn’t want to go out with them, that was his business.

  Halfway to the flyter pad, they saw an autocab setting down. Qualhuan got out. Prax realized he must be coming home from spending the day with Trifuar.

  “Hey, Qualhuan,” Tinibu called as they reached the flyter he had checked out. “Want to go to Mickey’s?”

  The Miloran walked over and surveyed the group. “Are you going to be late? I have early watch.”

  Tinibu grinned and shook his head. “No way. We’re just going to have a few drinks and then head home. Mistress Trahn would skin us alive if we kept Prax out late in his condition.”

  Such overt solicitude annoyed Prax. “I’m not a child. No one has to look after me.”

  “Sure, Prax,” Tinibu said pacifically.

  Qualhuan scratched his chin. “Okay, why not?” He climbed into the flyter after Ogilvy as Tinibu took the controls.

  They found a place to park the flyter right near Mickey’s. The four of them headed into the bar as a group. Prax had been there a few times, so he knew what to expect. Mickey’s was much noisier than the Twin Moons, and the other bars that the Trahn security staff frequented. Tinibu liked it because the drinks were cheap. Qualhuan liked it because they carried a hard-to-find brand of Miloran whiskey.

  There was no table free, so they drank at the bar.

  Prax ordered Shuratanian ale. He was annoyed when, halfway through his ale, he caught Tinibu watching him surreptitiously. “What are you looking at?”

  “You,” Tinibu said with a grin. “You seem to be holding up all right.”

  Prax swore in Elliniká. Tinibu took no offense; he simply ordered another drink, leaned over with his elbows on the bar, and went back to surveying the room.

  A tall Terran woman, with a very shapely figure and black hair that came down to her waist approached the bar and ordered a drink. Prax would have described her as interesting-looking rather than pretty. She was standing right next to him, and she made a point to brush against his arm when she picked up her drink. Prax moved away.

  The woman smiled invitingly. “I haven’t seen you in here before. Care to join me for a drink?”

  Prax shook his head. “No, thanks anyway.”

  She frowned. “What’s wrong? You the shy type?”

  Tinibu laughed and straightened up. “You don’t know the half of it. Besides, he’s got a woman at home who’d take your eyes out if she knew you were making a play for him.”

  The tall woman turned her attention to Tinibu. Her gaze scanned him from head to foot. Tinibu was a lot to take in. “How about you? You don’t look shy at all.”

  Tinibu just grinned and shook his head. “Sorry. My woman would ignore you and go straight for my throat.”

  The woman looked disgusted. “Do you all have women at home? Why bother to come out if you’re already so well taken care of?”

  “I’m available,” Ogilvy said. “Absolutely no one waiting up for me.”

  The woman looked him over and seemed to like what she saw. “All right. Bring your drink over to my table and let’s talk.”

  Qualhuan smiled as he watched them walk off together. “Good thing Chio didn’t come. He’d start getting morose about now.”

  They watched Ogilvy and the woman drinking and talking together. They seemed
to be getting along well. Ogilvy was speaking and the woman laughed at whatever he said.

  After two more drinks, Qualhuan was ready to call it a night. “I have to get up damn early. Let’s head back.”

  They stopped at the tall woman’s table, but Ogilvy wasn’t ready to leave yet.

  “You go ahead,” he said. “We’re just getting acquainted. I’ll find my way home by myself.”

  Qualhuan, Prax, and Tinibu went out the door. Prax took a deep breath, glad to be outside again. Even city air was better than the stale, flat air inside Mickey’s.

  They had started for the flyter when two men stepped out of an alley just as they passed it. Tinibu was closest to the alley. Something about them must have alerted him to trouble because he shouted a warning to the others and stepped forward.

  The first man leveled a weapon at the big Terran and fired. Tinibu collapsed onto the ground. At the same time, the other man raised a different weapon and fired it at Prax. Prax tried to roll out of the way, but he felt something graze his neck. When he tried to come up out of his crouch, it felt as if someone had put weights on his limbs. Whatever it was that was making him so groggy didn’t dull the pain in his right arm when he tried to raise it.

  Qualhuan gave an angry roar and jumped forward. The first attacker tried to fire his weapon, but it seemed to have no effect. Qualhuan reached him and snatched the weapon, tossing it away from him in disgust. Then he grabbed the man by the neck and throttled him. Prax wanted to go to Qualhuan’s aid, but he had difficulty even standing up.

  The second man aimed his weapon at the Miloran and fired. Qualhuan dropped the first attacker and touched his chest as if it hurt. He shook his head back and forth, then turned his attention to the second attacker. Before the man could fire again, Qualhuan wrenched the weapon from his hand. The second attacker took off running, and in a few seconds, his companion picked himself up off the ground and followed him.

  Prax propped himself up against the wall of the alley to keep from falling. Tinibu lay unconscious on the ground while Qualhuan stood, rocking on his feet.