Authors: Margaret Weis
"Company
coming," he warned Britt.
"Who?"
"The pretty
boy."
"Cripes!"
Britt looked alarmed. "I'm out of here. That guy gives me the
creeps."
"Did I hear
someone mention a midday snack?" asked Raoul, entering the
engineering room. "I made sandwiches." He held in his
bejeweled hands a box containing food and steaming cups of coffee.
Britt gave the
sandwiches a horrified glance, shook his head. "No, thanks. The
boys and me, we've been cooking our own meals." He edged his way
out the door, disappeared in haste.
Raoul gazed
after him. The Little One rustled in his raincoat, shook what
presumably was its head beneath the large hat.
"The Little
One remarks that this man of yours seems to hold an antipathy toward
us."
Xris nodded,
puffed on the twist. "Got a thing against being poisoned. He's
funny that way." Reaching for a sandwich, he removed the twist
from his mouth, took a bite, chewed it stolidly.
"But not
you?" Raoul asked, placing the box upon the console, removing
hard-boiled eggs, fancifully cut slices of pickle, knives and forks,
and silk napkins monogrammed with the liner's name.
"Me,"
said Xris, eyeing the sandwich, "I figure poison would be the
lucky way to go. Don't you, Adonian?"
Raoul smiled in
polite agreement, flipped his long hair back over his shoulders with
a graceful gesture of his hands, then returned to fussing with the
pickles. Xris finished one sandwich, picked up another, paused to
frown at a flickering indicator light.
The cyborg
tapped at the light with the fingernail of his good hand. The light
began to burn steadily. He leaned back in his chair, chewed on the
sandwich, gazed at the Loti.
Raoul was
looking particularly charming today, wearing a long-sleeved silk
blouse tucked into skintight black toreador pants with lace stockings
and six-inch heels.
"I hear you
and your friend there are planning to go in with us when we
reach—what is that name her ladyship calls our destination—the
Stygian caverns."
"Yes."
Raoul was repacking the box that contained additional sandwiches,
redistributing the coffee cups to balance them better. "Your
information is correct."
"You going
in there high heels and all?"
"I
believe," said Raoul pleasantly, "that for the battle I
will change into flats."
Xris grunted,
took the twist from his mouth. "Can you shoot?"
"Oh, dear,
no," said the Loti, the shock sending a mild ripple through his
euphoria. "At least I could," he added, after some
consideration, "but there's simply no telling what I'd hit."
Xris put the
twist back between his lips. "Going to be kind of difficult,
poisoning Corasians, isn't it?"
"I don't
really care much about the Corasians," said Raoul, lifting the
box, preparing to depart. "I trust those who can shoot them will
shoot them. It is Abdiel and his mind-dead disciples against whom the
Little One and I"—he nodded at his diminutive
companion—"have sworn to take revenge."
"And how
are you going to manage that in the middle of a firefight? Run up in
between laser bursts and ask them if they'd like a bite to eat?"
Xris snubbed out the butt end of the twist on the china saucer of the
coffee cup.
"How
amusing." Raoul laughed delicately. "But not to worry. We
have our little ways." He paused, cast a limpid glance at the
sandwich from beneath blue-and green-drenched eyelids. "Enjoy,"
he said, and he and his companion tripped off down the corridor.
Xris looked at
the sandwich, shook his head, shrugged, and finished eating it.
Lighting another twist, he stuck it in his mouth, went back to his
work.
Night watch.
Again.
Brother Daniel
rose from his kneeling posture, grimacing slightly at the tingling
sensation of blood returning to numb legs. Carefully he folded the
leather scourge, whose numerous strips felt incongruously soft in his
hands, soft and wet with blood. He tucked it away, thrusting it in a
nondescript bag that contained a silver chalice, a small dagger, his
prayer book.
"What the
hell are you doing?" Tomi's voice was lucid, only slightly
groggy.
Brother Daniel,
startled, very nearly dropped the bag. Had he miscalculated? Surely,
she should not be coming out of the drug so soon. How many hours,
days had passed? Not that many . . . ? He looked at the clock, but
was confused. He couldn't remember when he'd last given his patient
the injection—an unpardonable sin for a nurse.
He glanced at
the record sheet, kept on the nightstand, at the record made in his
neat, precise handwriting, since he lacked a personal computer that
he would have had aboard
Phoenix.
Yes, he'd miscalculated,
made a mistake.
Silently,
inwardly, he rebuked, reproached himself. Never before had anything
like this occurred. He had been the model, the one all looked to for
support in times of crisis. He was one of the few who had remained
calm during the enemy bombardment of
Phoenix
, one of the few
who had remembered to keep records at all during that terrible time.
Now he was
tailing apart, crumbling, failing his patient, failing himself,
failing God.
Or was God
foiling him? Why weren't his prayers, his desperate prayers, being
answered?
Biting his lips
against the pain, Brother Daniel drew on gingerly a shirt over the
fresh and bleeding wounds that striped his back. The shirt was too
big, fit loosely over the slender frame, fit more loosely than it had
when this voyage of the damned began.
Daniel heard the
sheets rustle. Looking in the mirror, opposite him, he saw Tomi
struggle to prop herself up on her elbows. "I've seen a lot of
weird things in my time," she stated. "I've seen guys who
paid women to whip them, and women who paid guys to whip them, and
just about every combination beyond that, but I never saw anyone whip
himself. You get some sort of sick thrill out of that?"
Daniel did not
respond. Carefully, he buttoned the shirt. Then, carefully, he
prepared the next injection. Turning around, keeping his eyes on the
bed sheet that he would change when the patient was, once again,
comatose, he stepped forward.
"Don't,
please!" Tomi pleaded. Her tone was no longer tough, but soft,
vulnerable, frightened. "Not for a little while, at least. An
hour. Give me an hour. Just to . . . talk. I promise I won't say
anything you don't want to hear. We'll talk about . . . each other.
About you. I want to understand you."
Daniel
hesitated. The hand holding the air injector trembled. He kept his
eyes fixed on the rumpled sheet, but he could see her arm, bare,
round, shapely, muscles well defined, skin dark and smooth against
the lemon-yellow fabric.
"You don't
know how horrible it is," she continued, her tone pitched low.
The hand, numbed by the paralyzer around the wrist, twitched
involuntarily. "I keep thinking, when you give me that drug,
that I'll go to sleep and never wake up. Or that if I do wake up,
it'll be in some Corasian slave—No! I'm sorry. I won't talk
about it! I promise. Tell me, tell me why you did . . . that ... to
yourself. I want to understand you, truly."
Daniel shifted
his line of vision, moving up the arm to the face. Her black eyes,
still clouded somewhat by the drug, held nothing in them that he did
not already hear in her words— fear, desperation, and interest,
an interest in him.
Surely, an hour
wouldn't hurt. He laid the injector down on the nightstand and drew
up his chair, this chair where he had spent so many long and tortured
night watches.
Tomi's arm
moved. If the hand had been capable, it would have reached out to
him. He saw her trying, saw the effort of will that the paralyzers
disrupted at the wrist. His heart twisted within him, the pain of his
self-inflicted wounds could never obviate the pain of his longing.
"You
wouldn't understand," he told her, sitting down, being careful
not to rest his injured back against the cushions.
"Maybe I
would. I had a fight with my boyfriend, once. I went home and I
slammed my fist into a wall. Split my knuckles wide open and punched
a hole in the plasterboard. But it made me feel better. Though I
wished at the time it had been his head instead of the wall I broke."
She sank back on the pillow. "Oh, God! I wish I could think
straight! I know what I want to say. I know this sounds crazy, but is
that why you're hurting yourself? To make yourself feel better?"
"Yes,"
lied Brother Daniel.
"It's me,
isn't it? You want me. And you won't take advantage of me. That's
sweet." Tomi closed her eyes, smiled dreamily. "I never met
a man so sweet. And gentle. I bet you're a real gentle lover. And
sensitive. Your touch." Tomi sighed, stretched, arms, legs, her
body moving beneath the sheets. "You'd know where to touch a
woman so that she—"
Tomi opened her
eyes suddenly. Her voice was husky, muted. "You can have me. We
can be lovers. You know that. So what's the matter? You've never been
with a woman before? But you know about love, don't you? You've
dreamed about it at night You've dreamed about me!" she guessed,
the strange ties that sometimes bind captor and captive providing her
sudden insight.
Daniel stood up.
He didn't know he was standing until he was on his feet, and then he
knew only because he nearly fell. Turning, he gripped the top of the
bureau, bent over it, shaking.
"The real
thing is better. Better than anything you've imagined! Of course,
you'd have to take off these damn paralyzers—"
Daniel raised
his head, saw her face reflected in the mirror, saw—for a split
second—the coldness, the calculation in the black eyes. It was
gone in an instant, when she saw he was watching. But, too late . . .
too late.
Whirling, he
lurched over to the nightstand, grabbed the injector, pressed it
against the woman's arm.
Torni said
nothing, stared up at him. He watched her grimly, waited for the drug
to take effect. Her eyes began to lose their focus, the lids grew
heavy.
"All
right," she murmured. "So I tried. You can't . . . blame
me."
The eyes closed,
flared open. They were clouded, soft. She looked up at him, sighed.
"Such a gentle . . . lover."
She slept.
Brother Daniel
hurled the injector from him. Sinking to his knees, he covered his
face with his hands and sobbed aloud.
Night watch,
another.
Maigrey was
awake. They were near the end of their journey. She sat in her cabin,
located on C deck, next to an anti-grav lift that led directly to the
bridge on the deck above. Two slumbering passengers, a rotund human
male and robust human female in probably their mid-sixties, had been
removed from the cabin to make room for Maigrey. Sparafucile and Agis
had carried them, not without difficulty, to other quarters.
"Lots of
meat on those bones," Sparafucile had stated on his return, his
ugly face split in a grin. "They will not lose much during
hibernation. We take Corasians to see them first, yes?"
Maigrey had
ignored him at the time; the half-breed had a warped sense of humor.
But she found herself remembering that remark every time she entered
the room, every time she saw the man's clothes, hanging in the
closet, the woman's jewels, arranged neatly in a case upon the
vanity, photos of what Maigrey supposed must be grandchildren on the
night-stand. If something went wrong . . .
Nothing was
going to go wrong. Maigrey put the thought firmly out of her mind,
concentrated on completing her calculations on the fuel consumption.
Everything had gone smoothly so far, almost too smoothly. They were
almost three quarters of the way across the Void. Tomorrow or the
next day they would have to leave hyperspace, prepare to enter the
Corasian outer defense perimeter. Maigrey almost wished something
would go wrong between now and then. Nothing major, mind you, but
just enough to propitiate the gods, who—so it was rumored—never
liked to see man grow too content.
She switched on
the small desktop computer.
"Blackjack?"
it said brightly.
"No, bring
up—"
"Craps?
Bridge? Solitaire?"
"No. Bring
up the latest fuel consumption reports."
The computer,
aggrieved, did as it was told.
A knock on the
door interrupted her.
"Enter,"
said Maigrey, her voice activating the controls. "Put it down
there," she ordered, not looking up, thinking it was Raoul with
dinner.
"My lady."
It wasn't Raoul.
Maigrey glanced around, saw Brother Daniel standing in the doorway.
"I need to
talk to you, my lady." His hands were folded, his eyes dutifully
cast down. But when he spoke, he raised his eyes level with hers and
she saw, in the eyes, the shadow of pain.
Maigrey sighed,
supposing that, after all, she should feel thankful. Her prayer had
been answered. Something was undoubtedly wrong.
"What about
your prisoner? You didn't leave her alone?"
"Raoul has
agreed to stay with her for the time being," said Brother
Daniel. "She is sleeping now, anyway."
"Very well.
I'll be with you in a minute. I have to finish this first. Shut the
door and sit down."
Brother Daniel
did as he was told.
Maigrey
endeavored to complete her complex mathematical figuring, but she was
acutely aware of the young priest's presence, though he spoke no
word, made no sound.
"That's
enough for today," she informed the computer, finally. The
numbers swam before her eyes.
"Perhaps
you'd care to wager on whether or not we have enough fuel to make it
back safely to this galaxy?" the computer asked cheerily.
"Double or nothing?"