Skyla gave him a hard stare. "Yeah, well, don't. They'd pick you clean in a minute."
Staffa growled something to himself, and added aloud, "You and I have different thoughts concerning that. What could be different in dealing with Tybalt, or Sassa, or Roma? It's all negotiations, be they for a loaf of bread or the dispositon of an empire. Human thought patterns are the same, whether a free man's, a monarch's, or a mendicant's."
Skyla seated herself before him, taking his hands in hers. "Listen," she probed him with her blue eyes, seeing his frustration. "I've been out there.
It's. . . . Staffa, I can't explain. I guess it has to be experienced, but it's not like dealing with Sassa the God-Emperor. It's, well, the rules are different."
He nodded, but she wasn't sure he'd heard. "But people . . . trust, don't they? I've seen the holos where people do things without constantly. ... I guess I don't know how to say it."
"I think I understand. You mean like the Companions do. They have a code of behavior—shared values. Yes, and trust. Among the Companions, we care for our own, depend on each other. So do people out there, but you have to know the subtle rules of the game." She paused. "Staffa, what brought all this on?"
He glanced past her, seeing something in his mind. "My Achilles' heel."
"What?"
He gave her a ghost of a grin. "Nothing.
"Chrysla?"
He gave her a hollow look that wrenched. "Chrysla's dead."
"You don't know that."
He chuckled hoarsely. "I think I do. The source was rather explicit." His brow knitted. "You know, I've mourned her for so long it doesn't even bother me now. I should be torn in two . . . but inside is only emptiness where she used to be."
Skyla's heart skipped and she said gently, "Twenty years is a long time. What about your son?"
He glanced at her, the old steel in his eyes. "I'm going to find him. One way or another, I swear I'll do it."
"We'll find him." She wished she could mean that. After so many years and all of Staffa's resources, where else could they look?
Staffa's expression hardened. "You'll have to take responsibility for the Companions. Can you do it?"
Good. At least you know you're not one hundred percent. That makes things easier. "Of course. We've got some of the best psychological talent in Free Space here. They'll figure out what the Praetor's game was. I can handle the rest. If things get too busy, I'll delegate some tasks to Tasha." And I'll put that on record in case I have to haul you down to psych bound and gagged.
A grim smile curled his lips. "Good. I knew I could count on you."
"Always, Staffa." In more ways than you could know, and I'm going to find out what the Praetor did to you if I have to move stars and worlds to do it.
The room looked fuzzy when Sinklar first opened his eyes. He blinked to clear his vision and found himself in a medical rehab unit. Parts of his body prickled as if electricity were running through them. Most of his view of the rom was blocked by the white bulk of the machine, but he could see sickly green paint overhead. The soft murmur of voices and the periodic clicking of metal on tin trays could be heard in his good ear. A wad of cotton might have been stuffed in the other.
"About time," a familiar voice said from the side. "They said you'd be coming to about now."
"Gretta?" He turned his head and there she was, standing beside the unit, a relieved smile on her face. If anything, she looked better than he remembered.
Her hair had been washed until it gleamed in the light, accenting the crystal blue of her eyes. Her skin had a healthy glow and the formfitting uniform did nothing to hide the seductive curves of her athletic body.
"The same. I just came by to see how you were doing. Mac's over at Division headquarters or he'd be here, too."
Sink swallowed and tried to ignore the funny feeling in his body. So many parts were numb. Nothing responded when he tried to move. Anesthetized? Or. . . . He nerved himself and asked, "What about. ... I mean, am I all right? Is everything. ..."
She grinned, a twinkle in her blue eyes. "You're going to be fine.
Everything's still attached to your body—and functional." Her manner grew serious. "And I want you to know that you and I still have a date coming."
"What about you and Mac?"
She reached up with a slim hand and pulled her long hair back. "Mac and I—we're friends Sink. I imagine we always will be. We've been through a lot."
She reached down to stroke Sinklar's forehead. "Want me to be honest?"
Sinklar gave her a suspicious glance. "Well, I suppose so. I don't know. What are you talking about?"
To his immense pleasure, she continued to stroke his forehead. Her fingers felt delightfully cool. "Sink, my father is what you'd call a lower level bureaucrat on Ashtan. Until the day he dies, he'll continue to try and work his way up the ladder to be a middle level bureaucrat." She frowned. "I guess you'd say he lacks that spark, that innovative ability to seize opportunity and use it. Mac's like that. He's hard working, bright, but he'll always be the perfect lieutenant." She studied him through cool blue eyes. "I want more."
Sink wished he could squirm; unfortunately, the machine not only immobilized his body, but it pinned him in place like a biological specimen. "Why me?
You're a beautiful woman. You could have anyone you wanted."
She snorted and shook her head. "Maybe I could. Did it ever occur to you that a woman might want to build a partnership with a man? I like you. You make me think. When I look into your eyes, I see a depth I don't see in many men's eyes. I think you're kind, and strong, and terribly attractive as a result.
You can give me what I want out of life—and I think I can give you a lot in return. At least, I'd like the chance to find out if that's the case."
Sinklar squinted uneasily. "You make it sound terribly cold and calculating, like you were buying property or something."
Her grin brought dimples to her cheeks. "Given the way your mind works, what's a girl to do? I checked my arsenal of options and immediately discarded batting my eyes, wiggling my hips, or playing hard to get, and after what we went through, the delicate and frail female in need of protection would have come across a little silly, don't you think?"
The memory of Gretta coolly firing down a stairwell came to mind. He could recall the grim determination on her smudged face as she picked off assailants with practiced ease.
Gretta crossed her arms, leaned on the rehab unit, and studied him. "Besides, it's not like I'm making a proposal. We've got a lot stacked against us ...
like Targa, for one. We've got to stay alive. Second, I might not like you once I get to know you. And third, who's Anatolia?"
Sink jerked. "Huh? How could you know about her?"
Gretta lifted an eyebrow. "You talk in your sleep."
Sink felt himself blushing. "I only met her once. She's a behavioral geneticist on Rega."
"And you gave her a sample of genetic material, I suppose?"
"Yes."
"I thought you were a virgin."
"Not that kind of sample!"
"You in love with her?"
"NO!" Or was he? And if so, in love with what? A dream image?
Gretta grinned and bent down to kiss him on the forehead. "I've got to beat feet back to the barracks. I'll tell Mac you're doing fine. I checked with the staff here. They say you'll be out in another week or so." She grinned and added, "See you then . . . partner."
With a flip of her long brown hair, she disappeared around the curve of the white rehab unit.
"That true?" A gruff male voice asked.
"Huh?" Sink looked over at the burly man in the unit beside his.
"You really a virgin?"
Staffa slipped into the command chair of the single-seat CV courier vessel and looked up at the screen that dominated the overhead panels. Green lights glowed on each of the systems. The stat boards showed the vessel ready for spacing. Staffa powered up the reactors.
The CV
consisted of nothing more than a cockpit with a small cargo bay, toilet, bunk, and canteen with a fold-out table to dispense food. The command nacelle perched at the tip of a 0.5 kilometer long tube forward of the drives.
Behind the lean streamlined body, two fusion reactors rested beneath hydrogen fuel pods on either side of a large null-singularity generator. The CV had atmospheric capabilities and only the barest minimum of defensive shielding—adequate for fending off space debris and long-range intership fire.
He accessed the cargo monitor out of wary habit. The muffled shape of a big man lay tightly bound under wraps of Vermilion export canvas. Bound as he was, the captive would need an energy knife to cut his way free. Heavy straps secured the bundle against the bulkhead. Staffa's practiced eye had measured the dosage perfectly. He had taken no chances in ensuring his "passenger" wouldn't awaken until long after Staffa slipped away into the anonymous crowds portside. By the time anyone tied the Lord Commander to the hijacking of the CV, Staffa would be well on his way from Etaria to Targa—and the search for his son.
He hesitated to enter the initiation sequence as he looked up at the docking lights. That eerie sensation of premonition rilled him. He could imagine Skyla's initial panic when she realized he'd disappeared. Then she'd find the message he'd left on time delay. And, yes, she'd curse him up one side and down the other. Ah, how those azure eyes would bum—and the Rotted Gods help anyone who crossed her in that mood. A curious warmth filled Staffa's breast.
She looked more beautiful when she was mad.
Pride filled him. He could leave the Itreatic Asteroids in no more capable hands. Over the years, he'd come to depend on her, and never had it become more apparent than during the time since he'd faced the Praetor.
Skyla had beefed up the security—enough that he'd had the Rotted Gods own time slipping away without security knowing. But then, a crafty fox like the Lord Commander always left himself an escape hole.
"Good-bye, Skyla. Take care of them."
He hit the clearance sequence and pressed the flight initiation program.
In the overhead screen he watched the lights and background of the dock slip away as the tractors pushed him out into the black vacuum. The square of white docking lights glared in contrast to the black skeletons of gantries and the rocky blue-gray surface of the asteroid, cratered from countless years of Itreatic bombardment.
"Son, I'm coming for you," he whispered. His expression tensed at the curious sensation of loss that deadened his soul. A tightness choked the back of his throat.
Careful, Staffa. That's emotion playing with you, dulling your judgment. Think clearly. It's all in your mind. Steeling himself, armor-suited fingers tapped course corrections into the main navigational comm. Satisfied with the mathematics, he reached up and caressed the smooth surface of the worry-cap.
He could feel its subliminal warmth and pressure as he placed it on his head.
Familiar sensations of the ship's movement and functions filtered tendrils into his mind.
One by one he ran through the checklist and triggered the lasers which fused hydrogen into helium in the reactors. Building thrust, he dialed the reaction to a fine stream and tightened the bounce-back collars that collided photons and particles in the reaction mass, shooting plasma rearward past lightspeed.
The CV turned in a wide arc before lancing off into the interstellar depths—a violent jet of Cherenkov radiation and quantum distortion the only evidence of passage.
Myles Roma, Legate Prima Excellence of his Holiness Sassa the Second, nerved himself to smile at the honor guard of smartly dressed Companions. His stomach turned uneasily at their powerful presence. Behind each of the stem expressions, behind the scarred faces (why didn't their medical personnel see to such disfigurements?) he just knew that they were sneering and snickering at his fat body. What did they expect? Should he appear as a starving pauper? Corpulence—in Sassa—was a sign of prosperity. Especially in times like these when so many worlds were starving.
He gave them another smile as he waddled past their tight ranks to the gravcar. And to think! Why each of them must have killed a hundred men with their cold-blooded hands alone. Not to mention the ones they had brutally blown apart. He fought his desire to shudder—and won.
It had been an honor when the Holy Sassa appointed him to this mission, but to stand face-to-face with these killers left a frightening sensation of vulnerability in his fat belly. Dealing with court intrigue on Sassa didn't compare to this.
Behind Myes Roma his band of attendants and courtiers flocked from the lock in carnival mood, happy at the chance to lord it over barbarians with their fine dress and refined manners.
Myles glanced about, seeking the Lord Commander, and stopped when a beautiful woman who stood at the head of the reception committee caught his eye and held it. His heart skipped a beat as he studied her. Hair like iced gold had been braided into a tight shimmering coil about her left arm. She wore formfitting white, stitched with glittering thread and remarkable Sylenian jewels—nothing else sparkled in so many brilliant colors. A golden choker hugged her graceful neck. With a start he recognized it to be a helmet field collar for a space suit. By the Holy Sassa, her whole outfit consisted of battle armor suitable for hard vacuum! At the same time, it displayed her body most remarkably. He tore his gaze from the swell of high breasts and let his eyes trace the narrow waist and flat belly, the swell of her hips, and then down those marvelous long, muscular legs. She had a lithe tigress look about her that fascinated him and caused his pulse to race.
He inclined his head and graced her with one of his finest smiles. She returned his greeting—and almost brazenly at that. Well, he would have to speak to the Lord Commander after they had concluded their business—or even before. What a pleasure it would be to have that incredibly beautiful woman attend to his needs. After all, the Legate admitted to himself, the courtesans he'd brought with him would always be there.
This azureeyed jewel with so perfect a body would only be his so long as he was in the Lord Commander's base.
He waited patiently, eyes searching for the Lord Commander between bouts of speculation on the blonde beauty. To his surprise it was she who stepped forward when his company finally managed to organize behind him.
She walked up to the gravcar and her long-limbed grace only fueled his lust—her hips swinging just enough to entice without being blatant. Her movements, he realized, were not an affectation, but her nature. She bowed low, incredibe blue eyes meeting his without the least hesitation.
Her voice carried firmly through the room. "My Lord Myles Roma, Legate Prima Excellence to His Holiness Sassa the Second, I am Wing Commander Skyla Lyma.
In the name of the Lord Commander, I bid you welcome to the holdings of the Itreatic Asteroids. As a token of the respect in which we hold His Holiness, we have taken the liberty of placing quarters at the disposal of yourself and your staff. The Lord Commander sends his regards and hopes that you will find all to your satisfaction. The Lord Commander sends his most sincere regrets and apologies as he was detained by his duties and responsibilities to the station and was unable to meet you in person. Should you need any assistance, feel free to ask for me and I shall insure your stay to be a pleasant one."
She bowed again, hand to her shapely breast.
Myles Roma smiled easily. The Lord Commander was detained? Staffa did not come on the run to meet Sassa's Legate? Indeed? Did the mercenary upstart think.
... Or wait. Might it not be cunning on Staffa's part? Perhaps this was a means of raising the ante? A shrewd move by an expert businessman to drive a harder bargain for his services?
"We are most delighted Wing Commander. It is our pleasure to accept your fine hospitality. We look forward to long and profitable meetings with the Lord Commander and his officers. I fear, however, that it has been a tiring journey. Your offer of hospitality falls like rain on the tortured sands of Etaria and refreshes us with expectations."
She bowed again.
"Then I shall not delay you Legate Prima Excellence." She lifted a hand and the gravcar trundled past the saluting ranks of Companions and into the maze that made up the main station of Itreata. His face like a mask, Myles glanced uneasily at the polished white walls. Why do I have the feeling that she was lying?
Skyla Lyma stalked into the comm room and scowled around at the operators who bent over the banks. "Damn it! Where the hell is he?"
Monitors displayed various station functions while security personnel kept track of deep space detectors and security systems. Other technicians studied readouts from the power plants. The communications net shunted signals from all across Free Space over to the intelligence branch. As always, the place hummed, except now, Skyla could feel the tension.
One of the signal women looked up, headset covering most of a wealth of thick red hair. "Wing Commander, we've tried everywhere. I even took the liberty of sending a man to his private quarters." Her face tightened as if she fought the urge to wince. "We've got teams scouring the whole complex. Other teams are searching the factories, the storage casks, maintenance sheds . . .
everything we can think of." She shook her head, baffled. "It's as if ... as if he just dropped into hyperspace."
Skyla knotted a fist at her side, feeling foolish in the scintillating bejeweled battle armor. Worse, it reflected like a broken rainbow across the banks of computers. "Keep at it. We've got until tomorrow to get him down here to entertain that pus-gutted buffoon." Turning, she stalked out into the central corridor, caught a shuttle, and sent it streaking to her quarters.