Jarvis was waiting for him with a sour expression when he returned to Raider Bunker Five. His men were quiet, knowing that Tarek had taken punishment yet again to give them a break. They loved him for it, but it made them feel guilty. More than that, it made them all angry at Griffin.
"What was it this time?" Jarvis asked, leaning casually against the metal-frame bunk bed that they shared.
Tarek tossed his skyboard onto his bed, a sagging hammock of springs and wire that had seen continuous use for nearly eighty years. He flopped down after it for a few minute's rest, since he would not be sleeping tonight. "Night patrol." He shut his eyes. The springs creaked as he made himself comfortable. Around him in the bunker, the poor little bed was surrounded by opulent embroidered curtains, rolls of furs, tapestries, piles of luxury trade goods still in the crate which looked completely out of place in the dirty old hall. A pirate den for a pirate king.
"You want me to get you something to eat?"
"Yah, a biscuit and gravy or something."
Jarvis smiled slowly at Tarek, the only hint of real affection she usually showed. They were officially a couple, reman and rella for survival's sake but nothing more, as were all such matches in the Jelka. She'd chosen him because he was a 'boarding god. He'd chosen her because she was a tarring good sidekick and had never let him down. Plus, she had a lot of strange useful contacts when he needed them. Down deep, they stayed together because they had always admired one another.
"You gotta stop taking this skorry from Griffin, Tare."
One golden eye cracked open to look at her. "What am I gunna do? The man owns half the lower drakes."
"That's a constructive attitude."
"Look, he's always going to see me as a fourteen year old kid. He thinks he saved me and gave me everything I have."
"Did he?" Her sarcasm was pointed.
"No!" He glared fully at her, glancing behind her at the men, then lowered his voice. "You and me, we worked for this and you know it. That man can't 'board worth skorry."
"He's a pretty good racer."
"Anyone can go fast in a straight line."
Jarvis smiled at him again, the expression cold on a face that rarely used it. Cold, but sincere. "I'm just saying you have to throw him off someday, Tarek, become your own man. He's not your father."
"No, really Jarvis?" Mock amazement. "Holy Valya, I didn't know that!"
"Stuff a roll in it."
"What am I supposed to do, jump on the guy and beat him up? He's got fifteen goons in shouting distance, I can't take them all."
"I don't mean leaping on him and beating him senseless."
"Is there another way?"
Jarvis had to smile. So typically Tarek. "One of these days," she promised him, and turned to leave.
Tarek watched Jarvis for a moment, listening to his men laugh and joke with one another as they relaxed, then curled to prop himself up on his elbows. "Why don't you do something about him?"
That stopped her cold. She looked at the long communal room, her men pulling off boots and lighting cigs, unwrapping leather padding and getting comfortable. She returned to her reman, their bunks crammed into a semi-private corner behind a few storage cabinets, hidden by rich curtains. Owning the entire bunker was a perk of being Raiders, a step above normal Patrollers. "What do you mean?"
He became wry. "Come on, Jarvis. Don't play innocent with me. I know you're more than you seem. You've been playing a game I've never seen with pieces I can't pin down, but I know you can snap your fingers and skorry happens. That incident with the kitchen maid? The Eagle's traitor?"
Jarvis glanced at the other men and made a quick, terse sign with her hand. "Outside, if you want to talk about this Tarek," she whispered. Then she left.
Her reman scowled, climbing out of the creaky bed with curiosity. Was she finally going to tell him something? Jarvis had been mysterious since the day they'd met, but at first Tarek had assumed it was because he was also withholding information. The truth was that Tarek didn't remember his past, he'd been hit on the head at the age of thirteen so hard that it had erased his entire childhood. With nothing to tell, he'd pretended he didn't want to talk about it.
She on the other hand had secrets in her midnight black eyes, deep things that flowed and connected without a sound in the underground tunnels of Jelka base, moving at her command. She was running an operation and had been for years. It irritated him somewhat that after all the years of flying and fighting together, all the blood they'd shared, she still couldn't quite trust him with everything.
She waited for him on the edge of the roof, staring upward at the star-bright sky with a newly lit cig in one hand. For once her mirrored perfectly round goggles hung around her neck, revealing wary dark eyes that had gained a permanent squint against the sun. The goggles were some kind of Oldage artifact that had optical enhancers in them, so she usually wore them even in the dark. Tarek knew they had another purpose as well; she was for some reason always trying to disguise her features.
He sat down on the low wall at the edge of the roof, slouched, with raised brows. The tattered, dusty old black coat he always wore fluttered in the cool breezes. "So?"
"What do you want me to do about him?"
"Dumping him in the Southside reservoir would be nice."
A slight smile. "I remember how we used to sit and plan his demise together when we were young. It was cute."
"I'm still planning it."
"You don't mean that."
"Look, the man's a criminal; he should at least be brought before the Northvalley council and imprisoned." Tarek didn't say it too loudly. "Tell me you have caker on him."
Jarvis blew smoke toward the first visible stars after the twilight, reading their positions, considering the glowing bodies of three of the seven planets that hung in the sky like gods. She'd taken up skycasting as a hobby a long time ago and was often seen staring at the sky.
When he got no response Tarek pressed the issue. "Jarvis, we know the man is a murderer. He's killed in cold blood. I watched him do it once."
"When you were fourteen?"
He glowered at the rooftop. "Griffin was just a little gang-leader back then. He caught me and another guy, an old glare that was helping me, stealing from his supplies. We had to, we were starving. I didn't know the old glare very well, but he'd told me he knew the way in and the way out.
"Evidentially Griffin knew him too. He'd stolen from him many times. This time he didn't get away with it. Griffin caught us both. He only beat me until I blacked out, but the other guy?." He clenched his fists, knuckles showing through the ripped gloves that had no fingers. He looked at them, pale white scars on his knuckles. A lot of scars.
"I'm not saying he doesn't deserve ultimate punishment," Jarvis agreed quietly. "I'm just saying I can't do it right now."
"But you're saying you can do it." Now they were whispering.
"Possibly. But not now."
"Why?"
She smoked, looking at him. Her eyes were just an icy glint in the starlight. "Because I need him."
"Oh?" Tarek stood to confront her, crossing his arms at his full six foot three inch height. He frowned down at her, wisps of his wild hair throwing sharp shadows across his face. "And what the Von are you doing with Griffin behind my back, rella?"
Her smile was mischievous. "Are you jealous?"
"If your taste is that bad?."
She snorted. "I've got a deal with him, that's all. Running trade. Why do you think I always have cigs?"
"He's running cigs for you?" Tarek said in disbelief, disgusted. "Why not use our guys in Eden? The ones we fence our take through?"
She shrugged loosely. "It's business."
He shook his head, shuffling away without direction. "Slam it, Jarvis. Why bother? I wouldn't do business with that drak if? if?."
"If it makes you feel any better, Tarek," Jarvis said softly, her voice barely carrying in the cool night air, "he's redeye as soo
n as I don't need him anymore."
"And when will that be, huh?"
She stared upward at the planets, the faint scattering of mackerel clouds, watching her smoke rise. "The rack is barred. It's going to be a prestigious day tomorrow for promotion."
He huffed. "Yah. Right. When the Imperial Heir shows up." He walked away, fuming.
She watched him go, a slow sad grimace pulling on one side of her mouth. "I'd tell you, Tarek, I'd tell you everything," she whispered. "But I know you. You'd lose your head, and you'd blurt it out in a moment of anger. I can't afford that. Everything balances on the point of a knife right now, my friend, everything. My future, your future, and the future of the Jelka."
She turned back to the stars. Idly she pulled a foot-long Jelka-knife out of a sheath on her leg and flipped it end for end, a nervous habit. It was the symbol of her pack, something she always had with her, a knife older than she was, nicked and scarred. If only she could tell him that it wasn't just a Jelka-knife? it was the original.
Her eyes traced constellation lines and the scarred luminous surfaces of the heavenly bodies that were rising above the eastern cliffwall, searching among them for the moment she'd been waiting for all of her life.