Turk wasn't expecting the ambush at all. One minute he was alone on the top deck, tasting his first attempt at lemonade, and the next he was looking at Hillary wearing a skin-tight yellow dress that covered far too little. She spun in a circle in front of him, ending with her back to him, showing off the fact that the hem of the dress barely covered her panties. "Well?" She looked over her shoulder at him. "I have to go buy supplies. What do you think? Is this good?"
"No!" He snapped once he got done choking on his lemonade.
"What's wrong with it?" She turned around to face him. "Is the color wrong for me?"
It was a perfect color for her. It was young and flirty and far too little of it. True the women on Paradise wore much less, but they were in private enclaves with high security to protect them from the dregs of society. Here at Ya-ya, they were shoulder to shoulder with the seedier crowd. Paige had moved the Rosetta to a cheaper berth, and their neighbors showed it.
"Go change," he growled at the teenager.
"Why?"
"Because it gives men the wrong idea."
"No, I think that's exactly the idea I want them to get."
"This is not the place for something like that. Go change."
She shook a finger at him. "You are not the boss of me."
Luckily Paige was Hillary's boss, and appeared behind Hillary.
"Look at what Hillary's wearing." Turk wished he didn't sound like a five-year old.
"I know." Paige held out a hand, forestalling him from saying more. "I know. I know."
"You're going let her leave like that?" he asked.
"I can take care of myself," Hillary said as Paige said, "She can take care of herself."
Obviously they were both naïve and delusional. He had no choice; it was clear what he had to do. "I'm going with her."
Paige laughed and kissed him. For a moment, with her soft and warm in his arms, he almost changed his mind. With the Baileys, though, there always seemed an unspoken element to any interaction; he was just starting to perceive it. Paige hadn't told him not to go; the kiss may have even been a reward for declaring would go.
* * *
"It's going to be hard for me to pick up boys if you're along." Hillary complained as they worked through the maze of anchored and moving boats in Ya-ya's busy harbor.
He laughed but didn't add that was the point of him accompanying her. "A man likes to hunt, not be hunted."
"Oh, is that why Paige and you took so long, Oni-chan?"
It still amazed him that none of the Rosetta's crew seemed upset that Paige was sleeping with a Red. He wondered if Paige threatened them with bodily harm to keep them all complacent. While they neither flaunted nor hid their relationship, he wasn't comfortable in talking about it. Discussing it meant defining it and he didn't want his nose pushed into any ugly truths.
"What does oni-chan mean?" he asked instead.
"Big brother." Hillary gave him an impish grin. Did she know how unsettled she was making him? "Do you want to know what the word for little sister is?"
"No." That was a dangerous game to play. "I'm not your big brother."
"You will be if you marry Paige." She gave him another grin and sang, "Oni-chan."
Either Hillary had forgotten that he was a Red or she was even more naïve than he thought. Reds didn't get married. How did Paige think her little sister could go off alone? Or was Paige just as naïve as her sister? That had to be it; else Paige would never let her off the ship wearing such a skimpy outfit.
"I can take care of myself, oni-chan," Hiliary said. "I don't need a big, sweaty brother glowering over my shoulder, chasing everyone away with his evil looks and manly smell."
He gave her a dark look in an attempt to quiet her. "I'm missing what you think passes as a shower to come with you."
"You don't like our shower?"
"No." The Rosetta lacked abundant fresh water, the means to heat it beyond tepid, and anything you could call 'pressure.' Showering was like being repeatedly spit on.
"We could go to the bathhouse!" She veered the boat wildly to head off in a new direction.
"Bathhouse?" The idea of a good shower was appealing, but somehow he didn't this was a good idea.
"Ya-ya has public bathing facilities."
"Really?" There had to be a catch. "What are they like?"
"You pay a fee to get in and can stay as long as you want."
"Why would you want to stay?"
"It feels good to soak in a hot tub. Relax. Talk." She smirked at him. "Wash each others backs."
"They're . . ." he didn't know the word in English. "How you say it? Both sexes?"
"Co-ed. Yes!"
"Nyet!" Good god, Paige would shoot him!
Hilary laughed at his discomfort.
Turk turned his back to her, looked across the harbor and forgot how to breathe.
The Svoboda sat tied off at a dock. The Svoboda hadn't sunk.
He stared dumbfounded at it until he realized that Hilary was going to go past the ship without stopping.
He bolted up. "Stop!"
"Turk!" Hilary cried as the boat rocked wildly under him.
"That's my ship!" He scrambled to the back of the boat and took control of the rudder.
Hillary followed his gaze and went wide-eyed.
The bridge had been sheered off by its collusion with the floating island. Mikhail would have been on the bridge. Had he survived?
There were Reds on guard. The nearest was Rabbit, who recognized him with a stunned look. "Commander Turk? You're alive?"
"Yes, I am." Turk scrambled up onto the dock beside the little tom.
The yearling surprised him by hugging him. "I'm so glad! I'm so glad!"
"What about Captain Volkov?"
"He'll be glad too!" Rabbit misunderstood the question. "I've been worried about him. I know you would want me to keep him safe, so I've been watching him. It's like he's growing smaller and smaller, growing inward. When he went off shift, he said goodbye to me. Like he was leaving."
Oh, that idiot. Of course, Mikhail would have fought to stay together until his crew was safe. Coming to Ya-ya, with all the obvious signs of civilization, would have been "safety." It would release Mikhail from his sense of responsibility. Turk nearly bolted to the ship but realized that he'd be leaving Hillary alone. In that dress.
"Rabbit. This is Hillary. Go with her. Keep her safe. Hillary this is Rabbit. You can trust him. He's a good man."
His responsibilities to one ship covered, he hurried to the Svoboda to save Mikhail from himself.
* * *
Mikhail turned the gun in his hand, feeling the cool metal warm with his touch. Guns were always so messy and uncertain. There was a slim chance he could survive—well—at least back home, on a safe and sane world. The noise would bring people, and medical crews would be summoned, and parts of him might be salvaged—enough most likely for a clone to be made. He laughed tiredly. Perhaps it was just as well he was someplace where that was impossible—he would hate to think of leaving a helpless part of him behind, forced to go through his hell, this time alone. There would be no Turk.
So, was it to be the gun or something less dramatic? The door chimed. He reached over and snapped on the "do not disturb" sign.
There was a slow scratch at the door, a Red running its claws down the panel the same way Turk used to when he locked Turk out of his room.
Mikhail hit the door pad. "What?"
"Misha, let me in."
Interesting. He never had audio hallucinations without being a great deal more medicated. He went cautiously to the door and keyed it open.
Turk filled the door way, smelling of the sea.
Mikhail blinked at him, fighting the sense of relief that wanted to flood through him. Turk couldn't be here. Mikhail must have taken some drugs without remembering it. This had to be some kind of mental trick, the part of his brain that didn't want to die. The hallucination gave an exasperated sigh, took the gun away from Mikhail, and pushed into the
cabin to close the door behind him.
"Turk?" Mikhail gripped his brother's shoulder to reassure himself that he wasn't imagining him. He felt the solid muscle and hard bone.
Turk stunned him by pulling him into a hug that threatened to break bones. "Oh, you stupid little brat," Turk growled into his shoulder. "When am I going to be able to go off and not have to worry about you imploding?"
One sentence, and the floodgates on everything Mikhail had been fighting with, from the darkest pain to giddy relief, burst. Tears like fire washed into his eyes, and he clung to Turk, sobbing.
"Misha. Misha, please stop crying." Turk rubbed his chin along Mikhail's, an old habit of seeking reassurance. "We're both safe and sound. I'm tired. And dirty. And . . .I haven't had a decent shower for weeks."
Mikhail scrubbed at the burning tears. "I should have known that you're too tough for a couple kilometer drop to kill you. You can use my shower. But talk to me."
"Misha."
"I was counting bullets, Turk. I need to hear your voice."
"Fine, fine, fine," Turk groaned and put the pistol back into Mikhail's safe and locked it shut again. He gazed at the cartoon of himself that Mikhail had drawn over the safe. "Oh, Misha . . . I'll leave the door open."
Mikhail sat with his eyes closed, listening to the comforting deep rumble of Turk's voice as he briefly recounted how he fell from the Svoboda and was captured by aliens. Apparently one of the first things that the aliens did was strip him of his combat suit, thus the reason it was broadcasting no life signs. Thankfully, he'd been rescued by Eraphie's cousins who had been trying to get to Fenrir's Rock, but needed to turn back because of engine trouble. It was ironic that Hardin had told Mikhail days ago that the Rosetta had reached Ya-Ya safely. All this time, there were links between them; Mikhail could have found Turk if he'd pursued the right information.
"I found out some information concerning Fenrir," Turk said. "But I thought you were gone. I didn't see the point of finishing the mission."
The dryer snapped on, and Turk used its roar as an excuse to fall quiet.
"We found its crash site." Mikhail broke the silence.
"Fenrir's Rock?" Turk turned off the dryer and came out of the bathroom in Mikhail's bathrobe.
"Yes." Mikhail told him about the crash, using the EM waves to find Fenrir, and investigating the ruins. "It's just a gut feeling, but I'm sure that the work had been done by outsiders."
"Your gut is rarely wrong." Turk paced the room. Where Mikhail liked to keep still while he was thinking—lest his body distract him from an important thought—Turk thought through motion. "We've been repairing the Rosetta and looking for new engines for it. It takes us down to the salvage yards. They spray paint a complex numbering system onto the parts as they're salvaged off wrecks. The marks on Fenrir's engine were from the salvage yards here in Ya-ya."
"Whoever bought the salvage are probably also the people that used them to modify Fenrir's engine."
"Yes."
"I don't suppose that the people running the salvage yard speak Standard."
"I don't know. Paige only talked to them in Japanese."
"Do you think she'll act as a translator for us?"
Turk nodded. "Financially, though, the Baileys are in a tight spot. I want to help them. They've been nothing but good to me. They treated me like I'm family."
"Certainly." Mikhail sighed. Turk had been avoiding asking about the ship, probably trying not to dwell on the things that had depressed Mikhail. "Turk, I—I lost most of our Reds."
Turk studied him for a minute, before tentatively asking, "How many?"
"I have a dozen left. All veterans." Mikhail named them. "I don't know what happened. The last night on Fenrir's Rock, something just . . ..took them right out of the red pits. We searched for hours. Didn't find any trace of them."
"What did surveillance show?"
"Cameras have them there one minute, gone the next. And I shot Butcher."
"What?"
"He was raping Eraphie Bailey. He wouldn't stop. So, I put my gun to his head and pulled the trigger. I killed them. I killed them all. Furtsev. The bridge crew."
Turk leaned forward and gripped his shoulder and gave him a little shake. "Stop it. We're a warship, and this is an important mission, and we all went in with our eyes open."
Mikhail scoffed at the importance of the mission. "A graveyard of ships?"
"Mikhail this place holds so many mysteries. So many possibilities. Alien races that humans are already living in peace with. Alien technology. Alien weapons."
It so Turk-like to make it seem so simple and clear.
* * *
Paige was starting to think that Ceri was more than a little annoyed with her. It had been days since they made Ya-ya and there been no word from her teacher. She'd started repairs, confident that work would be forthcoming. So far, she'd laid out two-thirds of their cash for materials such as a new radio, ship's intercom, refrigerator, and wood to rebuild the crew quarters. If Ceri didn't give her work, they'd be out of money soon.
It filled her with relief to see Oust finally pull up to the dock and tie-off.
"Konichiwa!" Paige called to him and then swore at herself. The Japanese greeting had become habit in just a few days. She knew that Oust preferred English. "Hi Oust!"
Oust waved back. He strolled down the dock, eyeing the boat with faint disbelief. "I still can't believe you gave up everything to go off in this ugly bucket."
"Hey! Don't trash my boat!"
He gave her a steady look. "It's ugly, Paige, and you loved translating."
Oust was mostly Red, but he had enough Blue in him to know the truth when he saw it. She just hated to hear it.
"I love my family more." She told him and herself.
He acknowledged that this was true with a nod of his head.
"I hope you're coming about a job." She forced the subject off herself. "We need the money."
"Yes, I am. Boats coming into harbor are reporting seeing minotaurs on the Outer Banks."
The Outer Banks was a long narrow strip of islands not much more than sand dunes along the coast of Ya-ya. While sheltered from the brunt of storms by the landing, the islands were still too exposed for anyone to live on.
"Minotaurs?" Paige said. "What are they doing on the Outer Banks?"
"That's what the city council wants to know. They're hiring you to go out and talk to the minotaurs. Find out what they want. Settle it in Ya-ya's best interest."
Whatever it was, the humans wanted to get the best out of the deal.
"How much is the city council paying me?" Paige knew that the landing would be paying Ceri more and that her teacher would be taking a cut off the top. It was the price of business.
"Five hundred to go out to the islands, find the minotaurs and find out what they want. There'll be a bonus hundred yen if you can get them to peacefully go away if they have no plans for trading."
In other words, Ya-ya's city council was slightly afraid that the minotaurs planned to lay claim to land that the humans weren't using. As herbivores, the minotaurs lived off land that they terraformed. They were masters of claiming landmass out of the ocean; much of minotaur mainland was in fact ocean floor sectioned off with dikes, drained and farmed.
"If minotaurs want to trade?" Paige ignored the fact that she had no clue how she would get out to the Outer Banks. Taking the Rosetta out would require more money than it was worth in tugboat and pilot fees. The islands were too far, though, to take one of the launches.
"Ya-ya will pay an hourly rate on top of the initial fee for you to negotiate a trade—if they want what the minotaurs are offering."
It could amount to a good deal of money. If Paige didn't know that Ceri refused to leave the city, she might have thought that Ceri was being nice to her.
"Okay, I'll do it. Come on up. Might as well sit and have some lemonade while I sign the contracts."
She used the delay of making the lemonade to consider the deal
. If she signed the contracts, she'd be committed to figuring out how to get to the Outer Banks. No matter how she did it, it was going to cost money. If it wasn't for the possibility of a trade after the initial contact, she would turn it down immediately. Odds were in her favor, though, that the minotaurs weren't trying to claim the land. It went against everything she knew about the aliens.
She served the lemonade. Orin made small talk with Oust while she read over the contracts. It was all standard clauses and penalties. Most Ya-ya business was transacted without such lengthy contracts. There was something about having no idea what was truly being said made people paranoid.
"Do you have a pen?" she asked Oust when she finished.
Orin gave her a look that clearly said 'but how are we getting out to the Outer Banks?'
"All my crew is out at the moment." She accepted Oust's writing set. As she mixed up ink for the brush pen, she said for Orin's sake, "I'll need to wait for them to get back before hiring a boat. I can't leave the Rosetta unattended."
"Speed is of the essence," Oust said. "The city council is afraid that hostilities might flare up if the minotaurs are left to roam unchecked."
Yes, humans tend to kill what made them afraid.
"We'll leave in the hour." Paige promised. She might have to send Orin out to track down some of the crew.
She dipped the brush into the ink and carefully signed her name. They were committed now.
Once the ink was dry, Oust carefully tucked the contract away. "It might be wise if you leave your man behind." He meant Turk. "He's not going to deal well with the minotaurs."
She blushed. Did the entire landing know she was sleeping with Turk? "He's going to have to learn."
"I can take Ceri being with other men much easier than I can deal with her trading with minotaurs," Oust said.
She nodded. Oust was a male Red; he'd understand the mindset better than her. "I'll keep that in mind."
Orin waited until Oust was gone before saying, "I don't like this."
"Even if we don't get the hour rate for the trade, we'll still be ahead. This is a job that Ceri doesn't want. If we do it, she'll owe us a favor. Right now, we need her in our debt."
"The city council knows more about the minotaurs on the Outer Banks than we do. If there was any hint that a trade might be possible, they'd be sending a council member with us. Something could have pissed the minotaurs off and it's a war party."