Sparks in Cosmic Dust (3 page)

“Through this last alley.” She guided him down the side of a nude modeling salon.

So much for Little Miss Innocent.

Two filthy-looking men wearing mining vests and knuckledusters darted out from behind a pile of discarded refuse-bots, blocking the path. A sickly laugh from behind cut short Clay’s urge to turn and run in that direction.

He back-stepped to the dented metal wall, held Lyssa to one side. His shoulders and chest rose, tautened, filled with something flammable. He didn’t have a traditional weapon to fend them off with, but if they tried anything, he wouldn’t be responsible.

“Paw either of us, you die.” He threatened to rip open his carrier.

They inched closer. One of them scraped knuckledusters along the stained metal wall. A distant steam whistle hit its crescendo and then died.

Lyssa stole out of his grip and spun away, her pale voluptuous figure so vulnerable in the hostile matrix of shadows and wire fencing.

“Stay with me. What are you
doing
?” He offered her his outstretched hand. “Stay close to me. If they come near us, I’ll—”

Click.

She turned and pointed a snub-nosed Webley at Clay’s chest. A short-range but powerful magno-pistol, a lethal little something she’d hidden in her smalls.

Cold shock, a jab of shame, sank him back onto his heels. Her whole bashful-virgin routine in Pure Shores, a calculated, rehearsed performance, right down to the shaking hands and twitching lips, shot molten rage through his arms.

He’d play along, pick his moment, then rip the bitch apart.

“Nothing you could have done,” she explained. “We marked you days ago, soon as we saw your tattoo.”

Clay clasped his right forearm, rubbed the sleeve’s fabric up and down, fuming at his stupidity. But what could
they
know about it? His escape? Surely the APB hadn’t trickled this far from the inner colonies.

“Oh, yeah? Saw a tattoo, did you? Well worth mugging a guy for, I’ve gotta say. Genius. Tell me again why you’re broke-dick.” He had to see what they knew.

Lyssa lifted her hand, stayed her goons’ angry advance. “You’re not fooling anyone, Clayton.” Her piercing hazel eyes settled on his package. “You’re carrying a Kuiper Wells tattoo, and the only Kuiper Wells operatives out this far are agents. Moles and assholes. Killers doing corporate dirty work so those Kuiper pricks can destabilize the entire frontier. So which are you? A mole or an asshole?”

“An asshole.”

She grinned and kicked an open can of soda at his shins. The pink liquid fizzed out, frothed on his boots. “We know from experience…all Kuiper assholes carry travel money.” She raised her aim to his forehead. “Where’s your lockbox, asshole?”

“Giving your dad a roof for the night.”

“Funny man. I won’t ask again.”

Clay fingered the magno-clasp inside his plastic bag, ready to fling the contents open.

“It was the flattery that did it,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Yes, you said you liked my name. I’ve always thought Lyssa Foaloak was a dumb name, like something you say when you’re drunk and puking behind a tree, but you liked it.”

He couldn’t reply. The broad wasn’t making a lick of sense.

“And that’s why I have to shoot,” she went on. “Much as I hate to do it…well, not really.” With lightning pivots she aimed and blasted bolts into all three goons, exploding their chests. Then she tucked her Webley back into her panty holster and said to Clay, “Thank you. You were great.”

Light-headed, he sank to the ground and let out the gasp he’d been holding. One long, vital sigh of relief lasted him until Lyssa reached two of the goons. When he saw her rummaging through their pockets and orifices, he yelled, “Who the fuck
are
you?”

She ignored him, instead collected a handful of partial credits and mineral fragments from the corpses. One goon had a gold tooth—she snatched a shard from a broken bottle and dug that out, too. When she returned, her reply sent shivers down Clay’s spine: “I’m the girl you’ve made a promise to. Don’t let me down.”

“N-no. Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Follow me. We’re getting off this rock.”

After scrubbing his sweaty palms on his jacket, he got up and quick-walked ahead of her to the final corpse. Until he could get a handle on who this crazy broad was, he’d have to play along. If this was to be some kind of business enterprise, he’d better start pulling his weight. He checked the gobshite head to toe but found only a room key and a token for a free case of Bolshoi brandy. “Next one’s on me,” he said.

Lyssa narrowed her eyes at him, then gave an enigmatic nod. “I won’t ask you why you’re on the run. You don’t try and run out on me,
ever.
Clear?”

“All right. But tell me something first—what convinced you I wasn’t a Kuiper spy?”

“That’s easy.”

“How?”

“You’re not an asshole.” She took his arm, gave him a peck on the lips. “And whatever happens, fella, keep it that way.”

Solomon’s eyes wrenched open at another sharp tail end of a dream. He dreaded these potent natural wake-ups as much as he needed them—like receiving blunt advice from his dad, they made him sit up straight and reassess his life’s path whether he wanted to or not. This one was particularly brutal, self-effacing to the point of cruelty. His heart floundered. He rubbed his sore chest with trembling hands, dashed over to the sink and swilled his face with icy water.

His orders were clear. Today, he would tell Maggie how he felt. He would purge the months of agony and doubt and faux futures in a single confession. Honesty was always the best policy. If his dad had stood for anything, that was it.

Honesty. Backed up by the Good Book.

But
Christ,
what if she turned him down?

He stripped naked, glimpsed himself in the askew wardrobe mirror. Growing up, he’d been such a skinny lad, too skinny. Now he had huge ripped shoulders and an upper body to die for, the product of seven years of mining on moons the old-fashioned way—pickaxe, low-g drill, brawn, oxygen and endless eighteen-hour days.

His suck-bait room didn’t have hot water or a shower so he placed a lather cube under the tap, filled the sink with cold water and wiped his entire body down using suds on a wet face cloth. More cuts and bruises than he could count. This was only his third day on Kappa Max after shuttling in from a year-long contract on Crichton’s Folly. He’d actually preferred it on that twilight moon. At least there he’d been well-liked, among people he knew. The Christian settlers held Mass every night and, more often than not, practiced what they preached. Here it was dog-eat-dog, a place for expelling regrets with extreme prejudice. He’d been mugged upon arrival, literally seconds after stepping foot off the shuttle, and his reaction proved how little all those sermons mattered out here—he’d have quickly gone to heaven a sap if he hadn’t broken the scumbag’s jaw.

Solomon shaved his beard, wet his hair and parted it with his nails, clipped his nails, then opened his mouth wide and braced his custom-made teeth-cleaner into place inside. As soon as he bit down, the mechanism started up, its tickly whir pleasant as always. The tiny overlapping brushes all still worked, seven years on. Staring into the mirror, he shuddered when he remembered this contraption was his last physical memento of his old life on Earth. At the count of twenty he relaxed his bite and plucked the frame out, rinsed it under the tap.

He changed into his Sunday best and immediately left the room, knowing full well the longer he sat around scripting what he’d say, the less chance he’d have of going through with it. That wasn’t idle speculation. Solomon knew it from experience. Oh, how he knew it. During the past six months of watching Maggie from a distance, making excuses to run into her in the recreation dome on Crichton’s Folly, where she’d worked as an
au pair
for the resort administrator’s children, he’d suffered this torture routine at least once a week. Something had always transpired to thwart him.

But not today.

Today he would have a different future.

Today,
she would be his.

Moisture streamed down the dirty, curved red-and-black roof of the Delfin maze, its massive spine-like structure stretching the full length of the town’s upper tier, more than a mile. Its reputation had reached even Crichton’s Folly, a moon millions of miles away. The preacher there had dedicated an entire sermon to the Delfin’s sinful bacchanalian nature, using it to illustrate the devil’s infinite reach across space. Wherever man went, he brought prurience and sin with him. Varinia Wilcox,
uber
-temptress, was the epitome of everything Eve had ruined for Adam—mortal sin up for sale, forbidden fruit in female guise, begging to be peeled, devoured, ravaged, etc.

Nope, the old preacher clearly wasn’t getting any.

Solomon had never bought into that side of the religion. Sex wasn’t something to be ashamed of. Quite the contrary, it made perfect sense on every level—physical, emotional, spiritual—and it kept a traveler sane in deep space, where long periods might pass between partners. Relationships of every conceivable kind had developed around him wherever he’d worked. He’d never perceived anything sordid or sinful about any of them, despite what had been drummed into his morals as a boy. Some of his best friends had surprised him with their pansexual liaisons. But neither had he ever accepted an advance from another man, nor, during his stay on Crichton’s Folly, had he so much as touched a woman in lust.

He pondered that all the way to the Pyramid Hotel-restaurant, the premier establishment on Kappa Max, where Maggie worked as a hatcheck girl. Roly-poly couriers raced in and out of the freight entrance carrying bottles and shrink-wrapped suits. The foyer itself was empty but for the fagged-out maitre d’ and a roly-poly concierge, the latter tattooed gold and black. They waited at the elevator. Soft maroon carpet, varnished woodwork, pristine holo-booths—it was the plushest place Solomon had seen in years.

He spied Maggie and ghosted to a halt. Sexily dressed in a blue spandex all-in-one and a black waistcoat, she flitted between the locker cubes as they rotated, sorting automatically to match the patrons’ proximities to the front desk. She had to be ready to hand anything over at a moment’s notice. Busy work ordinarily. Today?

Solomon snatched a breath and loosened his tight shoulders. She was right there, but she hadn’t seen him. Oh God, this was it. No turning back now. Either he left this foyer with the girl of his dreams or he lost her forever. No pressure. No rehearsals. No, that shit got in the way. But what could he
say?
Hell. Figuring it out beforehand really was the best way after all.
Asshole.
Too late. His fingertips tingled and merged with the starched cuffs in his grip. Two adamant tides, past and future, reared up and threatened to crush him like the Red Sea from the Bible.

Hey, Maggie. I was wondering…if you’re not doing anything later, when your shift finishes, would you like to, you know…have me…with a meal? I mean have a meal with me?

Hey, Maggie. Wow, you look great. You know…I always wanted to ask you out on Crichton. I promised myself I’d do it as soon as we got off. I mean left. How about it?

Hey, Maggie. Fancy grabbing something to eat later? There’s somewhere I need to bite you.

Hey, Maggie. Will you marry me?

Hey, Maggie. Will you
—

He stopped dead. His body sagged. Maggie was busier than he’d realized—with another desk clerk—the two of them alone behind a door that eased open without their knowledge. The bastard’s hands were all over her bare breasts, and he was pounding her against the door frame, making her moan. Solomon looked twice in disbelief, horror chipping away at his heart. The shock propped him up for a moment, wouldn’t let him collapse. Another employee swept up round the back of the cube lockers.

So this was the end of Maggie’s shift? Or just break time? He stole away in a plush fog. At his most exposed, his most vulnerable, he didn’t have a chance. In an instant the walls came crashing down and swept her away and she was lost to him forever.

He didn’t remember leaving the hotel or how he got back to the Delfin or why he’d ever obsessed about Maggie in the first place. But he had obsessed. All those months of agonizing, dreading she’d turn him down, were now expunged. But were they? It had all happened so quickly. What now?

A gaping hole, bigger than himself, ached inside. It throbbed with bitter fury. All those months wasted in piety and fucking celibacy on Crichton’s Folly screamed out, begging to be avenged. To be sated.

The primal red-and-black curves of the bacchanalian maze stretched hundreds of yards uphill. The main entrance was up there, shrouded in steam. A gateway to outright carnality and wickedness the likes of which Preacher McDougall would explode at the sight of. Fuck him. Fuck all those self-righteous be-this-way-or-else fucks. Fuck Dad. Fuck Maggie, that cock-tease fucking
slut.

He bolted uphill and didn’t stop until he’d reached the permanently open double doors of the Delfin. All manner of sleaze-heavers and half-naked regulars loitered in the dark but surprisingly well-kept foyer. An overpowering smell of cheap perfume enveloped him. Ahead, a holo-display of two Amazon women cat fighting naked on a pedestal drew tongues from mouths and hands down trousers around the foyer’s perimeter. Solomon scoffed. They were all burned out, probably penniless or smogged to the gills. But he was raring to go, in tiptop physical shape, and he had money. A full year’s wages.

In scrolling neon lights the name VARINIA WILCOX blazed over the front desk, followed by Next Vacancy…10:30 E.T…50 Credit Buy-in…Twenty Game Limit. Reaching into his shoulder belt, he retrieved a handful of his fifty-credit octagonal discs. Enough to get him started. The epitome of carnal sin? She was worth a shot. And if he couldn’t win her, he’d at least be able to search out the hottest hooker on Kappa Max and slake his lust in style.

“Hold your horses.” Varinia yawned the miserable morning away, plucked her chewing gum from her open mouth and stuck it under the console. “Okay, let the next genius in,” she advised the usher over the intercom.

At her lowest ebb in some time, she wished for the day to end so she could soak for a few hours in the Delfin’s centrifugal VIP whirlpool tub, a spinning bathhouse with a three-sixty ring of warm water she could slide about in and forget which way was up. Archie had promised she could have it to herself for once.

But it was barely ten-thirty, at least five clients shy of wrap-up, and the previous two had already given her enough shit for a week. The first, a girl barely of age, had stripped naked for Varinia before a single card had been dealt. She’d then started to pleasure herself against the glass. Not that that hadn’t happened before, but the following sleaze-heaver had
also
forced a security intervention. An elderly man, probably spending his last clips just to buy into the game, had swallowed a suicide capsule after winning four garments from Varinia. At least he’d died with a smile on his face, his last vision one of a half-naked fairytale princess. Looking back, it was a little sweet, a lot creepy, and not something she wanted to go through again anytime soon.

The guest door swung open while she readjusted her long pleated blond hair over her left shoulder. It fell onto the purple sand. Rapunzel at ground level.

She sighed. A year and still counting—the gig was never-ending and her contract was binding until she lost five matches. Five times naked. Five times had by a complete stranger. She shuddered, suddenly missing her hope chest in her bedroom long ago, the pink and girly knickknacks cluttering her dresser.

The next player strode in with real purpose, aiming to prove himself. She’d seen the type a hundred times—insecure, egged on by his drinking buddies, reckless at cards. A few early wins, a few glimpses of her bare curves and he’d bet the farm on a whim. In and out in no time. But…

When he drew closer, she liked what she saw. Clean-shaven, handsome with wide blue-gray eyes and a cleft chin, black hair wet and parted, altogether rather dashing. He also wore one of those bargain travel suits that rolled up easily into one’s carrier, good for church or dinner out among the mid-to-lower strata of civilized folk. Ten times smarter than anything she’d seen on the other side of her glass since the toffs had migrated back to 100z weeks ago.

“Morning, gorgeous.” She meant it for once.

The notion gripped her and wouldn’t let go. What if she…no, that was jumping the gun. A debonair sleaze-heaver was still a sleaze-heaver.

“Hi,” he replied.

Varinia blew him a kiss. “If you want me, it’s a fifty-credit buy-in each round, maximum twenty rounds. Ten wins will make me yours, gorgeous—and you can have me anywhere, any way you like.” He nodded, loosened his shirt collar. “Shall we begin, handsome?” She beckoned.

The stranger rested his questing glance on her hands—again, unusual for a client—then found her eyes with a piercing stare. Not a leer, mind—a look of genuine curiosity and wonder. He was lovely, broad-shouldered and quite young, mid-twenties. A fine male specimen to brighten up her day.

“Ready whenever you are.” She pressed the shuffle button on her console.

He sank his first credit disc into the slot, swallowed hard and hit the button for deal. Varinia counted eleven remaining discs in his stack. Damn. Unless he doubled a bet, he could only afford to lose three rounds before he lost the chance to have her. So what? More earnings for her. But she fidgeted on her stool, unable to settle into that familiar breezy mindset.

This game was different. Her morning had been so shitty, the job had wearied her so much these last few weeks, this fleeting encounter shouldered more opportunity than was healthy. But damn it, she had to lose
sometime,
if only to escape this place. If she was still under contract when Archie relocated, he’d drag her with him to some other back-of-beyond rock. No question. The guy was nothing if not fecund when it came to his assets.

What if she let the stranger win?

The idea dangled between them, a tempting counterpart to the key hanging on her side of the glass. Hmm. It would require careful execution. Arch would be notified if she lost more than seven or eight rounds in a row, and, knowing him, the fire alarm would accidentally go off just before she slapped down her final losing hand. But
what if it didn’t?
What if she lost the last few hands quickly, without fanfare? Her breath hitched. Butterflies in her stomach shot to her fingertips, electrically charging them. Could this be her chance…?

Click.
The cards surfaced. Her first hand was a complete dud. “I’m afraid I’ll have to twist.” She spoke to the cards, not eyeing her opponent right away, not batting her lashes for him. When was the last time that had happened?

“Same here.” He frowned, drew two cards, sighed, discarded two. He peered up and set Varinia’s heart racing. “Okay, that’s me.” He tapped his knuckles on the console, signifying he was sticking.