This news rang in her ears like the reverberation of a hangar door slamming shut.
Mikal swallowed a mouthful of the grain and nut mixture. “We were worried about you, Sammie.”
“Right.” She laughed, a mirthless sound that came more from grief than humor. Mikal had been the first one of her father’s crew to acknowledge her. He’d taught her tool slinging and made it possible for her to join her father’s ship. “Like you were worried about me on Sydney-3?”
“I was worried. But I’m not a young man and I knew when your old man died my retirement plan died with him. I needed the job.”
“Right. Gods forbid anyone get in the way of your retirement. ” Samantha pushed away the year old hurt. The touch of Mercury’s hand steadied her. “Okay. Let’s pretend for one minute you really came because you were worried about me, or what was the first excuse, oh yea, to ask for my forgiveness. Well, you can see I’m fine and forgiveness isn’t in the cards for today, so feel free to leave any time.”
Knock fingered the edge of his plate then pushed back from the table. “Okay, Sammie. You have good reason to be furious with us all.” He got to his feet and swatted Mikal on his way past. “Come on.”
Samantha stood to watch him walk out, but he stopped at the opening to Moira’s tent. “One more thing. You should check your father’s lock box. Whatever’s in there has Shred worried. And keep it in the back of your head that, if there is ever anything you need, anything, I won’t let you down again.”
Mikal surprised her when he faced her with real emotion on his face. “And don’t forget, the indies are here for you, too. We were all sad when you joined up on one of them fancy corporate haulers. I mean, don’t expect anything from Shred, but just about anyone else would spin a moon for you. We all loved your old man and you’re the chip off the block.”
Samantha closed her eyes as they left. Her mother’s scent filled the tent and her gown swished softly as she moved. Blinking rapidly, Samantha opened her eyes to take in the subtle hues of color decorating her mother’s skin. How many times had she wished to be more like her serene mother? Instead she became more and more like her father. Even Mikal could see it. Ironically, she was no longer sure exactly who her father had been.
The Treasure, Haverlee, Krena
Gollerra Sector
2210.171
Most buildings outside the port itself had been made of scraps or converted from one purpose to another. The Treasure was housed in a building that had once been a gambling house. The previous owner had installed extra security measures to keep the place honest and to protect profits. Now it protected whatever the indies who frequented the port considered valuable. For some it was credit markers or account numbers. For others it was halo-vid projectors or alien artifacts they hoped would be worth something one day. Samantha didn’t know what her father had considered valuable, but she was about to find out.
She didn’t recognize the guard at the door, but she recognized the one inside.
“Jebedi.” She’d been prepared to be ignored or looked at with pity, but he did neither. His face scrunched in a grin.
“Hey short stuff! Been too long.” He reached over to rub her head the way he had when she’d been thirteen and hanging around the port after her shift at the wormarie.
Mercury tensed beside her, but he managed to let Jebedi finish the motion and withdraw his hand. It was a good thing Lo had waited outside.
“Jebedi, this is Mercury.” She reached over and squeezed Mercury’s hand. “Jebedi has worked here as long as I remember.”
Jebedi laughed, rocking back on his heels. “Surely, not so long as that. I remember you already had engine grease under your nails by the time I first laid eyes on you.”
The familiar teasing went a long way toward putting her at ease when she hadn’t expected anything about clearing her father’s box to be easy. “You’re probably right about that.”
Mercury shifted to edge between them. “We’re here to open her father’s box.”
“So much for easing into the process,” Samantha muttered.
Jebedi kept his smile in place, but he crossed his beefy arms over his barrel chest. He’d picked up on the disapproval of their reminiscing that was radiating from Mercury like a soundless warning siren. “Well, nothing to fear in that box, short stuff. Even if your father stuck a sand-viper in there it’d be dead by now. Those boxes have an airtight seal and no one’s been in his box for at least a year.”
A year. Her father had been gone more than a year. “Is that your way of telling me I put this off too long?” And she’d probably have left it forever if she’d stayed on the
Reliable
slinging tools for some mammoth corporation.
“Na.” He sobered. “You have a right to take your time with something like that.”
Mercury huffed. “Well she’s made up her mind to do it and it’s best to get on with it now that we’re here.”
His hurry surprised her. She didn’t ever recall Mercury rushing her about anything. Even when Knock brought up the topic of the box, Mercury had seemed interested only in so far as she cared.
His voice softened. “Once it’s open you’ll be able to deal with it and your fear will be gone.”
Of course. He could probably smell her apprehension and he always knew what she needed. He was right. Once she knew what she was dealing with, there wouldn’t be anything left to fear. “Good point. Let’s do it.”
“Back wall,” said Jebedi. “Number fifty-two. It’s all set for you.”
She swallowed and nodded.
Samantha led the way. Rows of small doors reached from floor to ceiling. Each one DNA coded. She scanned the numbers and found the box. “This is it.”
She put her hand in position just millimeters from the pad.
She pulled her hand away. “I don’t think—”
“Will it hurt?” Mercury looped one arm around her waist and pulled her back to press all along his chest and thighs.
“Just a prick.”
“Good.” He bent down to speak directly against her ear. “We’ll do it together.”
“But—”
Before she could get anything else out he’d seized her hand. He pulled it up to the pad, laid his hand over hers and pushed forward.
She never felt the prick. His hot breath tickling her neck and the subtle thrust of his hips rubbing his length against her ass distracted her until the box’s seal released with a whispered whoosh.
Mercury pressed a kiss to her temple and stepped back just enough to break the seal of warmth that had connected their bodies. “Time to see what’s inside.”
She pulled open the drawer, holding her breath as if she did expect that sand-viper Jebedi had reassured her wouldn’t be jumping out. He’d been right about the viper, but the neatly organized carrier bit her as surely as any slithering reptile. She could feel the poison spreading under her skin. All that was left was to determine how deadly it’s effects.
She lifted the carrier out. Through the transparent material she could see the title to the
Bucket
and a data-strip with her name. Tears welled in her eyes and threatened to fall, but she managed to swallow down the sudden surge of grief and regret. And then she saw the rest--a half-dozen keys each labeled with a familiar name.
Mercury’s heat returned and his hand settled low on her belly as he looked over her shoulder. “What is it?”
It took her befuddled brain a moment to realize he had no idea what he was looking at. “It’s the
Bucket
. It’s mine.” If she could manage to reclaim it.
“What’s wrong,
courra
? You’re shaking. Doesn’t this ease your doubts about your father’s feelings for you?”
“I wasted so much time being angry.”
“Yes, but you cannot change what is past.”
A startled bubble of laughter escaped her tight throat before the mirth dissolved under the weight of her regret.
Mercury turned her in his arms. “I didn’t mean that to make you laugh.”
“Oh, I know. You just reminded me why I lo—” She choked on the word she had no right to say. Not when she was sharing her bed with two men and had feelings for them both. Two men who might be in her bed, whether they understood it or not, because they needed her. Two men who planned to risk their lives for another woman.
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight against his chest. “Something else in the box is making you sad. Tell me.”
“Key codes for my father’s lovers.” Her voice broke on the end of the sentence. Her father had cared for her, but he had cared for them all. She wasn’t jealous of them, not for her own sake. It wasn’t that at all. But she expected Mercury to come to that conclusion.
He stroked a hand down her spine. “Talk to me. I know you’re hurting and I want to understand.”
“They don’t know,” she tried to explain.
“Of his death.”
“No. I mean…I did make sure they were all notified. All the ones I knew off. But the key codes. If he left them credits or property…”
He cupped her face in his palms. “Don’t blame yourself,
courra
.”
He understood. Her self-pity had caused others to suffer. To think her father had forgotten them and maybe to go without support they’d relied on.
“They were his responsibility, not yours.”
“He counted on me and I let him down.”
“No. He let you down by not making sure you knew how he felt about you.”
Just as she was doing to Mercury. Stars, she was her father’s daughter and making all of his mistakes.
“You can’t change the past,” he said again. “You must change the future.”
“Is that what you’re trying to do?”
“Yes. I let my brothers down. I acted rashly when the counted on me to be clever.” He pulled her close again. “Because of me, my brothers were condemned to die. Because of you, I have a chance to make things right.”
“We all make mistakes.”
“Yes,” he said. “We do.”
But when, she wondered, would she stop making them.
Her father’s ship—no. Her ship…was parked somewhere in the port. A part of Samantha had wanted to hunt down Shred and kick him off the
Bucket
the moment she realized the truth. Ironic since she’d told Chief she’d never do such a thing.
When her anger cooled she realized there’d be no point anyway. “Even though the
Bucket
’s mine,” she explained to Mercury, Lo, and Carn as they headed back to her mother’s home. “I’ll never be able to fly her legitimately again. I could take her, to get us back to Roma. Pillar would back up my claim. But the
Bucket
isn’t a speedy ship. It would take us over a month to get there.”
Carn protested immediately. “We can’t leave Hera alone there for another month.”
“I agree,” she reassured. “Besides that, Owens would be suspicious if the
Bucket
turned up in the Roma port.”
“Agreed,” said Lo.
“Explain about you not being able to fly the
Bucket
again,” said Mercury.
The man didn’t miss a thing.
“Right now I’m wanted for theft on the other side of the border. And the minute Drake or Resler reports my Cerrillian heritage to the Earth Alliance authorities, they’ll pull my license. I can’t even own property of any kind on that side of the border.”
“What about here, in Gollerra territory?”
“I can own the ship, but there’s no work for her here. The Golley have a monopoly on all freight and transport in this sector. They only accept non-Golley ships at the border ports. Shipping anything from here to further inside Golley territory can only been done through one of their authorized carriers.”
When they stepped into her mother’s tent, Moira sat waiting at the table. She had a sealed packet in her hands. Shades of blue and indigo swirled across her skin—a mix of grief and other emotions, but Samantha had never seen this exact combination.
“Mom?”
The tense smile that appeared on Moira’s face aged her. “Come, sit with me.”
Samantha turned to see Lo and Carn backing out through the opening and Mercury waiting for her attention. “We’ll be outside.”
She nodded then sat with her mother. “You know what I found.”
Moira shook her head. “I don’t know for certain, but I can guess.”
Samantha reached out and clutched at her mother’s hand. “The title for the
Bucket
. He left it to me. Shred kicked me off my own ship.”
“You allowed it, Samantha.” Her mother’s voice socked her in the gut. “You let your anger at your father blind you.”
Samantha didn’t know whether to feel betrayed by her words or sad that she’d let this happen. “Did you know?”
“He never spoke of it, but I knew he’d never have left you with nothing.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“You needed to figure it out for yourself. You’ve never been able to see him clearly.”
“You’re right,” said Samantha. “My opinion was always clouded by the knowledge of how he’d hurt you.”
“I never complained,” denied Moira. “I never blamed him for not being able to stay with us.”
“You didn’t have to. I could see your pain every time he left.”
“Yes, I suppose any woman who loves a man is sad when he leaves. Maybe I should have talked to you about it more so you could understand, but you were so angry. You didn’t want to listen.”
Samantha searched her feelings for her father. There was such a jumble of love, respect, animosity. “I’m listening now.”
“I knew your father would never be one to settle on a planet when I met him.” Moira smoothed her hand over the packet. “I allowed myself to become involved anyway. That’s why I never blamed him for leaving. Space, his crew, his ship…they were all a part of him and I loved him as he was.”
“What about the other women? I know you knew about them.”
“Of course I knew,” she lowered her head for a moment, as if the weight of it bowed her spine, then she straightened. “He asked me once to live with him on his ship, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t the place for me. It was after I turned him down that he began seeing the others. I can’t tell you it didn’t hurt. Your father wasn’t a perfect man, but he was a good man. He did so much for others. For all of us.”