Gabriel's Ghost (23 page)

Megan Sybil Baker - 111

“We have a lot of work to do yet,” I told him. “Ren has data on ships inbound to Marker. I want to go over it.”

“You don’t have to. You’re free to go.” He turned his hand, as if he wanted to reach for me but changed his mind. “I mean that. Once we intercept with the
Karn
, you’re free. This ship, ID, whatever you need. I won’t force you to stay. I won’t force you to work with me.”

“And jukors are born and Takas die, but it’s not Chaz’s problem any more? Didn’t you hear anything I said on the bridge?”

He leaned against the wall as if the force of my words had pushed him back.

“I’m not saying I know what those Taka females are going through. That’s an abomination. But I do know what it’s like to be told you’re going to bear a child, or else. I could have had a very nice, comfortable life. With a well-respected, intelligent husband who loved me. Providing I was willing to give up everything that I was, everything I’d worked to become. And then raise a child in the same manner I would as… as a painting I’d loan out to a museum! There’d be my name, on a little thank-you plaque, and I could visit it for free whenever I liked.”

I stood abruptly, swept one hand out. “The fact that my child might have needs, the fact that I might have needs was not to be considered. Others’ feelings be damned, Philip Guthrie would have what he wanted or he’d see me in divorce court. Well, guess what. He saw me in divorce court. And the wisdom I learned from that is this: be careful when someone says they care about you,
only if
. Only if you do what they want. Only if you ask no questions.”

He closed his eyes briefly, shook his head. His lips parted as he started to speak.

I shook my head, too, and spoke before he could. “Did you think at all, Gabriel, before you ripped into my mind, just what my feelings might be? Did you stop to consider that?” I thrust my finger at him. “Or was your anger, your, I don’t know, petulant jealousy, your ego’s temper tantrum more important than anything else? More important than Ren’s life, your life? Drogue’s, Clement’s and all we think is going on at Marker? And if that’s just a little too altruistic for you, was it more important than those promises you made, never to hurt me?”

I shoved my way past him. At the bedroom door I turned, threw my hands out in exasperation. “How in hell would you know what hurts me? You never even bothered to ask.”

Chapter Seventeen

I sent Ren for a soak and a nap. He left the bridge, sensing, no doubt, I was in no mood for a discussion. I sat in my chair and played with the data on the ships flowing into Marker the past few weeks. It kept my mind off Sully’s pained expression when I’d stormed out of my cabin.

Our cabin.

We had two days yet to meet-point. I didn’t want to think how I felt about Gabriel’s bedtime stories. Or more. I had mental duro-hards filled with things I didn’t want to think about, and almost all were tagged with Sully’s name. Better to busy myself playing with data.

Marker was busy, too. Marker was always busy but ships came and went in the usual illogical patterns of repairs. You can’t schedule for when something breaks down or fails.

New ship production was different. That had a definite schedule. But I wasn’t looking at outgoing. I was looking at incoming.

I made a grid and stuck my data in. Then integrated the data Drogue had shown us on Chalford’s
Lucky Seven,
on our way up from Moabar. It took some time, but that was okay, because it kept my mind on a narrow track, kept it away from things I didn’t want to think about. Finally, it all came out to a nice fit. But only if you knew to look for it.

The
Meritorious’
s databanks were crammed with Imperial data. Not as much on Marker as I’d like, but some. I cross-referenced that with the newsbanks every ship grabbed from the beacons. Months, years of it had been stored in my ship and archived. A captain never knew whom she’d run across on patrol. Never knew what she might need to know about them.

It was standard operating procedure when I’d held command. Kingswell had been more lax. But enough was there. I was sure the
Boru Karn
held more.

I’d need that. One name, sometimes as a source of funding, sometimes as an advisory-concept group, kept drifting through my data. It was always an offhand mention, an annotation. Crossley Burke. I couldn’t place it, but I kept seeing it. I might not even have noticed it except years ago Crossley had been a company that produced virtual vid games, the kinds that every station brat hoarded credits to play in the arcade. They were popular when I was a teenager; they lost the market when holo-hybrid sims came out. I couldn’t tie in that Crossley with big money underwriting or with corporate idea farms.

I needed more data. I tapped a note to myself to that effect, tagged it to the file.

Then I went back to Ren’s most recent list of incoming. There was a sequence I’d missed earlier. Not surprising. And not just because it was near end of shift for me.

Sometimes those overfilled mental duro-hards make it tough to keep things straight.

The sequence contained division numericals coded to requisitions. Who, besides the receiving division, would need a list of incomings? It might relate to requisitions and authorizations, if these were shipments, and not repair. But it also might be another office in Marker that needed, for some mystical reason of its own, to know who was coming in, and when.

Megan Sybil Baker - 113

Five of the first eight tandem codes were the same. I dropped them out of the sequence and was entering them into my note-to-myself when I realized I knew them. And knew them well.

God, I
was
mediumly wretched not to recognize them.

Reports of these incoming were all sent in tandem to the office of Commander Thaddeus Lars Bergren. My beloved older brother.

* * *

“You’re off duty. I’ll take over.”

“Hmm?” A nervous quiver fluttered in my chest as I recognized his voice.

Sully waited on my right, hands clasped behind his back. I’d been preoccupied with the data on my screen and didn’t hear him come onto the bridge. Didn’t hear him come up to my chair.

His eyes were still shadowed. “I said I’ll take over. Ren will relieve me.”

“Right.” I knew that. I also knew that I always stayed an extra hour or two, shared tea or a meal with him. I didn’t mention that now. Neither did he.

I unlatched the harness and swung the armpad back. Then stopped while my hand was still on it. The fact that I was sorting out my feelings about him didn’t negate that he needed to know what I’d found in other matters. “I’ve been reexamining the data Ren pulled. There are a couple of things that need deeper work, but they’ll have to wait until we hook up with the
Karn
.”

I pushed out of the chair. “I also found something that doesn’t make sense.” Or maybe I didn’t want it to make sense. “Five of the ships that came in for repairs sent a duplicate notice of their arrival to an office that shouldn’t be concerned with such things. Thad’s office.”

He thought for a moment. “He’s in the hierarchy. There could be a number of reasons why a confirmation would be sent there.”

“Absolutely. But they’re not coded for his division. They’re coded for his office. My brother’s office. His private trans file.”

“You have any idea why?”

“Not in the slightest. But I will find out.”

“I know,” he said softly. “That why I chose you. You’re the best interfering bitch around.”

“No, in the universe, Sullivan. Remember that.” I headed for the corridor. “The best interfering bitch in the universe.” * * *

Sleep didn’t come right away. I stared at Sully’s jacket hanging on the wall. I didn’t realize until I’d flopped down on the bed that part of my mind wondered if it would still be there. If he’d moved his clothes out, taken another cabin. Gotten out of more than just my mind.

Of course, he may have done just that and forgotten the jacket, left it behind in his haste. I could get up out of bed, rummage through his closet and the drawers. I could collect my data, find my answer.

But the answer I sought wouldn’t be found in his closet. I knew that.

So I lay there and stared at his jacket until my eyelids felt too heavy to stay open.

* * *

Megan Sybil Baker - 114

I woke an hour before I was to start my shift. The spicy, pungent aroma of coffee greeted me. A hot mug was on my bedside table. Other than that, the cabin was empty.

Someone had brought me coffee. I didn’t know if it had been Sully or Ren until I picked up the mug. An angel of heart-stars card was propped up behind it.

He should’ve been off duty a few hours ago. But the coffee was hot. Maybe he’d moved his things to another cabin while I slept.

My hand hovered over the latch to his closet then pulled back. I turned and padded to the shower. Some things I can wait to learn. And some things, I realized, maybe I didn’t want to know.

The coffee was still warm when I came out. I gulped it down and in between gulps, pulled on clean clothes.

“Captain’s heading for the bridge.” I waited, wanting to hear that typical Sully rejoinder, ‘Hell’s ass. There goes our card game.’

But all I heard was Ren’s soft: “Acknowledged.”

It wasn’t the same.

* * *

Sully accepted my thanks for the coffee with a soft, gentle gaze and a slight shrug. I didn’t mention the card.

He didn’t bring up our argument. But he and Ren had been playing cards. He only stayed on the bridge long enough to lose another two thousand credits, then left. He was keeping his distance from me. I didn’t know if it was because he thought that’s what I wanted. Or if it was because that’s what he wanted.

I didn’t know why he’d left the heart-stars card. Maybe I should’ve mentioned it. Maybe I should be putting different colors into my rainbow.

Maybe, if I got up the courage, I’d ask Ren.

We were about two shifts from meet-point. I went back to working the data but found nothing new. Ren went over it as well. We played with some theories about the confirmations sent to Thad’s office, but Ren didn’t have Sully’s knowledge of Marker. He did, however, have some knowledge of Sully.

“He’s stopped reading you. He’s afraid to know what you feel.”

I leaned wearily on the armrest. “He should have told me he’s a telepath.”

“He’s been trying to. It’s not easy for him.”

I knew he’d been showing me things in small ways. I thought of how he’d echoed my thoughts when we were on Moabar; his comment about boot camp, his taunt about sibling rivalry with Thad. His ability to know when I was thinking of that night in Port Chalo.

But there were other times when he’d seemed unaware of what I was thinking at all. Selectivity, Ren had told me in his quarters on Moabar Station.

“Peeking,” I said to Ren. “He’s been peeking into my thoughts off and on.”

“And mine, as long as I’ve known him. But it’s not something I fear as you do.”

I’d picked up on the way Ren gave answers before Sully voiced questions. I’d ignored that, or rather didn’t want to face what that might mean. It didn’t fit easily into one of my databoxes. “I’m not afraid—”

Megan Sybil Baker - 115

His slight tilt of his head stopped me. Empath. Who could sense emotions but not their reasons.

“Okay. I have fears. But I’m not afraid of him. I don’t view him as some sort of soul-stealing demon.” Like the painting in Drogue’s monastery.

“Then what are your fears, Chasidah?”

“Ignorance. What I don’t understand. Mistakes I can make because of that. Like I’ve already made. Because I can’t ask questions, find out what he’s thinking, feeling. That’s the advantage he has with me, that I don’t with him.” That’s how he knew I was attracted to him, wanted to comfort him after we’d learned Captain Milo had been killed. That’s how he knew when I was ready to make love to him the first time. “All I can do is guess. He ought to try it sometime. Feel what it’s like to be unsure of why someone’s with you.”

“He knows that now. He’s stopped reading your resonances since the incident with the
Morgan Loviti
. He’s cut himself off from that part of himself, as much as he can. I’ve told him I don’t agree. But he said that’s the only way you won’t be afraid of him, of what he can do. But it’s also teaching him, I think, what uncertainty feels like. It’s a lesson he needs to learn.” Ren flipped off his straps. “Just don’t make it too harsh a lesson for him, Chasidah. Because he learned, long ago, what it feels like to be hurt.”

Ren went off duty with a promise to come back before my shift ended.

Then it was just me and my ship and the starfield in front of me. No more bogies. Thank you, Philip. I picked up the usual traffic in the freighter lanes on the scanners, ran the usual systems checks. And I wondered what Thad was doing watching certain incomings at Marker. That was a grunt’s job. Not second in command in the shipyards.

I wondered what Thad would say if he knew I was sleeping with a mind-fucker, human variety. Yet another disgrace Chaz has brought to the Bergren name, probably.

Marrying Philip was the only correct decision I’d ever made, according to Thad. Divorcing Philip was proof that I was just like my mother.

She’d divorced my father when I was two. Thad was four. The court split us. Lars got Thad, put him into a crèche on Baris Seven. Amaris got me, put me in a playpen in the corner of her office on Marker.

Amaris was career Fleet, but had always been nontraditional. She would’ve liked Ren. She definitely would’ve liked Sully. She wasn’t a woman who scared easily.

I hoped Philip and Thad were right. I hoped I was just like my mother.

* * *

Intraship trilled. Ren’s voice. “I am heading for the bridge. Can I bring you tea, coffee?”

“You’re early. I have two hours to go yet.”

“I’m awake. Tired of soaking. And I enjoy doing my meditations on the quiet of the bridge, where I can feel the stars.”

“All right, all right. I know when I’m not wanted. Come take watch. And thanks, but no. No tea or coffee. I had dinner an hour ago.”