“I think you’re making a mistake not wanting to share a cabin with Dameron,” I said after the briefest silence, then put my hands to the top of the long stay-tab that closed his uniform and slowly began opening it. “There are men in this universe who would fight fire and flood to get a chance at a man like the commander, and here I offer you the chance and you don’t even appreciate it.”
My words cut off as his hands came to my face, and when he raised it to his, the hunter’s look was there in his eyes; hunger and unquenchable desire, the intention to take, the intention to continue on until complete satisfaction was attained. It was a statement as raw and direct as a big cat’s scream of challenge in the night, and I didn’t wonder why so many women had flinched away from it. Most women were smart enough to be wary of hunters like him – but I’ve never been smart in that particular way. Valdon saw the answer he was looking for when our eyes met, and a very faint smile touched his lips, then he lifted me in his arms and carried me to the bed.
Valdon had fallen asleep on his stomach, and I was careful not to disturb him when I got up to find my ship’s suit. Before getting up I had spent some time watching him sleep, silently cursing the fact that I had to leave alone rather than take him with me. The man was absolutely incredible, and I still didn’t really understand what had happened between us. I remembered being carried to the bed, remembered having the ship’s suit opened and taken slowly from me, remembered the kisses and touches during the lengthy unveiling.
Somehow I seemed to have missed seeing Valdon getting out of his own things, but I was very aware of his naked body when it was pressed up against mine. By then my breathing wasn’t very steady, and I met his kisses with parted lips, which did even more damage to my breath rate. Somehow his hands and lips had been everywhere and somehow I had lost all say in what we did when. Once or twice he had whispered to me, and I had done exactly as he had asked. All thought ended when he finally entered me, and didn’t begin again until we had both had all we were capable of giving or taking. He had kissed me a final time then, and then had put himself on the bed beside me to sleep, one arm still around me. By the time I was able to get up, he was asleep and his arm was gone.
I turned away from him as I got into, the ship’s suit, not knowing what made him so different from all the other men I’d ever tried.
There had been no resisting him, no ignoring him; he had asked before starting anything, but once he’d gotten his affirmative there had been no stopping him. In a way, sex with Valdon was very demoralizing for a woman, and it might have been a good thing after all that he had to be left behind. He’d made me forget about all sense of dignity and self-esteem when he’d had me in his arms, and that was nothing to make a habit of. I just hoped they wouldn’t give him too hard a time when they found me gone; under other circumstances, he probably could have kept me right there. I closed my ship’s suit and glanced at him one last time, then left the room.
The corridors were as deserted as I’d expected them to be, but once I’d slouched down to where the ships were and entered the bay, I stopped to frown. There wasn’t a guard in sight, and that might not be too good. I could only hope that Dameron had been counting on Valdon to keep me occupied.
I cycled through the lock and headed directly for the control room.
If everything was on the green I could worry about evacuating the ship’s chamber and exit tunnel later. I reached the control console and started to activate the board and my hand stopped in mid-motion.
There was a thick metal cover over the activating switch, and half a dozen leads stretched from the cover to a small, featureless box that sat on the console itself. I’d never seen the cover or box before, but I knew damned well what they were. The cover kept me from activating the controls, and the box would be an alarm of some sort, set, no doubt, to go off if the cover was touched or the box itself was messed with.
I cursed with feeling for a minute, then tried to decide whether or not to tackle that box. It looked as if it couldn’t be approached except from underneath, and moving it was sure to wake it up. I’d be better off diverting the leads, but that presented an entirely different set of problems. Diverting them one at a time would be easier, but there was a greater chance of setting them off that way.
And with all my equipment a long way off, what the hell could I use to divert them?
“You can’t get around it,” a quiet voice said from behind me. “Its completely tamper-proof, and you don’t have a chance.”
“I told you before that I’m resourceful, Val,” I said as I turned to face him. “It would have been better if you’d stayed asleep.”
‘Val’?” he echoed with raised eyebrows. “That isn’t my name.”
“It’s sort of silly to he formal now.” I shrugged, giving him a faint grin. “Not after we’ve gotten to know each other so well.”
“I can’t argue with that,” he agreed, laughing softly with his eyes, too. “Let’s go back and see if there’s anything we missed.”
“Maybe some other time,” I denied with regret. “‘Business before pleasure’ has always been the way I handled things; I’m too old to change now.”
“You don’t look too old,” he said, studying me with his head to one side. “As a matter of fact, you look like you should have been in bed hours ago. Let us return to your accommodations, Missy. It is past time that you retired.”
He stood with his arms folded and a grin on his face, and I couldn’t help returning the grin. He’d switched to Tildorian speech, but we weren’t on Tildor.
“Best that you tend to your own affairs, sir,” I countered and folded my own arms. “I am not a child to be ordered about in such a manner.”
“I do tend to my own affairs,” he assured me. “At this moment you are my affair. You may come willingly or you may come with struggles, but accompany me you shall.”
“I go my own way,” I said and set myself. “No man may interfere with that.”
“I must,” he said, a sad look in his eyes as he got ready to move at me. “I cannot allow you to do something wrong.”
“The rough stuff won’t be necessary,” another voice said from behind Val. We both looked over to see Dameron, and he was shaking his head at me.
“I knew you’d probably try, but I didn’t think you’d try this soon,”
he said, leaning against a bulkhead. “Doesn’t Val suit you?”
“He isn’t bad,” I answered with a shrug. “I’m just not as impressionable as the other girls around here. How did you know I was here?”
“If you think I’ll tell you that, you’re crazy,” Dameron snorted.
“You’re enough trouble just as you are.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” I commented, studying them both. I might be able to take them, but only if I was willing to go all the way; they were too big and well trained to play games with. The only questions was, could I kill them? They had saved my life more than once. Could I now justify to myself the taking of theirs?
“This isn’t the time or the place to discuss it,” Val said, putting his hand out toward me. “Come on, Diana, you look tired. After you’ve had a good night’s rest we can sit around and talk it to death. Or even ignore it. How about it?”
I looked at him for a minute, then looked a Dameron, then finally walked between them and out of the control room. I’d have to take my chances with their friend Phalsyn just as I’d taken my chances with them, but I hurried back to my room so they would not have a chance to catch up to me. I was in no mood for the company of either one of them.
I washed and dressed when I woke up, but didn’t leave the room. I wasn’t pleased with the thought of Dameron’s surveillance system and I wasn’t very hungry. I sat and smoked and fretted about things in general.
It didn’t take more than a couple of hours before my peace and quiet was disturbed. The door slid aside as if I were open for business, and Valdon breezed his way in. I looked at him sourly from the low comfort of the chair I was stretched out in, and took another drag on my cigarette without saying anything.
“Are you trying to make me starve now?” he demanded as he stopped in front of me. “I’ve been waiting for you in the refectory for hours.”
“That’s a shame,” I murmured, putting the cigarette out. “For some reason I don’t remember asking you to wait.”
“Asking isn’t necessary.” he grinned, looking down at me. “I’m a prince of a fellow, remember? Think you’d like to try it on your own this morning? I won’t let you poison yourself.”
“What thoughtfulness,” I murmured, putting the ashtray aside, then I looked at him again and stood up. “Well, why not? It’s getting boring around here.”
He stood aside to let me go first, and he looked all too pleased with himself. I’d have to see what I could do about changing that.
As I’d half expected, Dameron was sitting at a table looking somewhat anxious. When he saw me he brightened a little, but only a very little. He didn’t know how right he was.
“You look like you had a good sleep,” he said heartily as I sat down.
“Have you been thinking things over?”
“I certainly have,” I agreed with a solemn nod. “And my thinking has led me to notice something very interesting. Have you any idea how many different ways it’s possible to put a bomb together from just what you find around you? Not chemically speaking, of course…”
“A bomb?” Dameron yelped, paling a shade or two. “You couldn’t have”
he glanced at a stunned Valdon, looked back at my small, satisfied smile, then jumped up and raced from the room, Val hot on his heels.
I watched them with clinical interest for a minute, then tried my luck with the food box. When the food was delivered, I was happily in solitude then was able to smoke half a cigarette before Dameron and his trusty second came back. Neither one of them looked very happy, and that was even more satisfying than using the food box right.
“The detectors say there isn’t a bomb of any sort, in your quarters,” Dameron growled as he sat opposite me. “You were lying, weren’t you?”
“Not at all!” I protested with injured dignity. “I never said I’d made a bomb, I just commented on how easy it would be. If I ever decide to make one, I won’t comment on it.”
Dameron wearily ran his hand through his hair, and Val leaned back, looking more than annoyed.
“All that trouble for a comment,” Val muttered, his black eyes filled with thunder. “Never in my life have I been more tempted to -” he broke it off, but continued to stare at me.
“A whole lot of trouble could be saved all around,” I mused, lazily blowing smoke at the ceiling. “If certain people suddenly turned reasonable, they’d never have to find out how bad it can get. And believe me, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
“You are not leaving!” Dameron choked out, his face red with suppressed fury. “I don’t care if this entire base is put in jeopardy-you don’t budge until Phalsyn gets here! Valdon! Have her get her possessions together and move her in with you! I want her watched constantly! If there’s any more trouble out of her, I’ll hold you responsible!”
Dameron poked an emphatic finger at Val, pushed away from the table, then stomped out, leaving Val with a dark expression on his face. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the arrangements either, and I was still in a perverse mood.
“I think I’d prefer your lock-up,” I said coldly, beginning to get to my feet. “I’ll tell Dameron…”
“You’ll tell him nothing,” he growled, grabbing my arm and slamming me back down in the seat. “You’ve done enough doing and telling to last everyone for a while. You’ll sit there until I’ve finished eating, and then we’ll get you moved. Not a word out of you until then.”
“The hell you say!” I snarled, at the same time kicking for his kneecap. I was too fed up with being told where I could and couldn’t go and what I could and couldn’t do to worry about what damage I did, but the blow didn’t land square. He moved his leg at the last instant, catching no more than the painful tail end of the shattering move, then brought his foot down hard right on top of mine. I was wearing rubber-soled deck shoes and he was wearing nothing but that one-piece uniform, but I still gasped and clutched at a mashed foot.
“That’s exactly what I do say,” he countered, giving me a look containing all the elements of an electrical storm. “If you try that again, you’ll be limping for a week. Now, keep quiet.”
He reached across me to press buttons on the box, then he leaned back again to wait for the food and stared at me unwaveringly. I turned completely away from him and ignored him totally, then surreptitiously rubbed at my foot.
When he had finished eating, he grabbed my arm and hustled me out of the refectory. I put my few things together without a sound, then was escorted to another room in the residential wing. This room, done in blue-green, brown and white, was considerably bigger, with three low chairs grouped together around a carved, obviously Tildorian table, a long lounge of sorts off to one side by itself, and a larger, more comfortable-looking bed. I dropped my possessions in one corner, walked silently into the very strange but extremely utilitarian bathroom, sat down on the floor, and proceeded to ignore everything.
For the rest of the day, I could occasionally hear Val moving around in the outer room, and he came in every once in a while to check on me. He didn’t say a word and neither did I, but when he brought food in to me, I took it and ate it. But I ate just for the hell of it; my appetite had long since disappeared.
It was just about going-to-bed time when Val came in and bluntly told me that I’d hogged the facilities long enough. I got to my feet and left him to his requirements, and just for curiosity’s sake went to the door to the corridor. It was no real surprise to find that it didn’t open, but I was still pushed a little deeper into the pit. I turned the room light out, groped my way to the corner where I’d left my things, got out of the ship’s suit, and curled up on the floor.
The bathroom door eventually slid open, but the light was partially blocked off by Val’s body as he paused in the doorway. He stood without speaking for a minute or two, then he moved farther out into the room.