allies and enemies 02 - rogues (27 page)

“She told me her name is Tilley. At first.”

Wren chortled. Like it was an inside joke. He sobered once he realized Rachel’s scrutiny. “An alias. Her real name is Erelah Veradin and it is vitally important to this installation…probably to the entire UEC…that she be taken into custody.”

Rachel frowned. “Why? What do you want with her?”

At this, Wren folded the cover shut on his tablet and tucked it under his arm. He didn’t seem to notice her questions. “They escaped the mining facility in a vehicle equipped with an IS drive. Korbyn appeared injured. Where might they have fled?”

Something told her holding back would be a smart idea. The rational part of her told her that she was helping people she’d just met over her own kind and her paranoia was the manifestation of PTSD after the shit show her life had been for the past two years.

Yet her fellow Humans weren’t behaving in a humanitarian way, especially Wren.

Why was
he
here questioning her? Didn’t he have a security officer, someone that questioned people for a living?

There was something
very
wrong here. Watching this man move, and talk, she got the absurd sense that this wasn’t so much Wren, but someone
pretending
at being Wren.

“We didn’t exactly sign each other’s yearbooks,” she heard herself say.

This earned another odd head twitch from him.

 “I’ll let you consider your options, doctor.” He cast a look around the sealed door and Spartan interior of her (let’s face it) cell. “Perhaps some time to think will help you clear your thoughts. You’ve been through a considerable ordeal.”

Maybe she should have told him what she knew about Erelah. Perhaps they would be more humane in their manhunt. Someone had experimented on her genetics, and twisted them into something new and frightening. It was also killing her. She could have also told him that Korbyn, in spite of his storied criminal past, would probably do anything to keep Erelah safe. Something else had solidified between them and it was bad news for anyone that got in the way of that.

63

“There are sixteen separate ion trails departing the mining facility. With the filters you devised, sir, we’ve been able to isolate the freshest. Ten of those lead to locations further away from Guild-held regions.”

Tristic forced Wren’s face into a bland mask as the ensign droned on, telling her things she’d already surmised. The ineptitude, coupled with the primitive nature of their technology, was staggering at times. How had they managed to capture an entire Sceeloid outpost?

She considered her patience formidable, one of her greatest attributes, but it was not limitless. When she finally found her chance to leave Maynard’s dying body in favor of Wren, she had anticipated little resistance. For one that appeared so delicate, the captain’s conscience was stubborn. Daily, he struggled to regain possession of his body. Moments like this one, surrounded by his fellow Humans, were the most difficult. He thought he could signal them somehow, like a trapped man attempting to call out for rescue. Eventually, he would tire and fall to silence. Today, he was especially active. Tristic blamed the trying interview with the Northway female.

She hid her frustration with her host by pacing along the bank of archaic devices that they amusingly called their “long array.” Its range was paltry compared to even the most simple of Regime tech. At this rate, she would have burned through the entire command crew before they claimed the Veradin girl.

“That leaves six.” Tristic rubbed a thick, primate hand over the base of her skull. Wren’s struggle against her evoked a new fierce pain there. It dug in with scythe-cat claws.

“Those are the ones we’re considering as candidates, sir.” His eyes narrowed. The pitch to his voice was wary.

Was he suspicious?

His nametape indicated his surname was Childs. She made a note of it. They all started to look the same to her. Each one as idiotic as the last.

How had they made it this far in their graceless plodding?

“How long?” She forced the language they called English from her throat, adding the drawl that grated her nerves, but one they seemed to expect from Wren.

“Weeks, if we get lucky.”

“You will make this a priority.”

“Yes, sir, but—”

“Place a bounty on Erelah Veradin. She must be captured undamaged.”

“A
bounty
, sir?” Childs’s doubt was evident. “Major Snowden never would have—”

“Snowden is dead.” Tristic bent over the young man. It was so difficult not to snarl. She felt her jaw twitch as the host fought.

“The Reaches will not obey your rules and edicts. The resources are there. We need only harness them: bounty hunters, mercenaries. Life in those dusty hardscrabble worlds is desperate.” She stretched Wren’s mouth into a smile. Childs folded back against his chair. “Where there is desperation, there is opportunity.”

PART VIII

64

By the time they reached Narasmina, Erelah was bone-weary. She wanted nothing more than to sleep, but there was no safe place on the ship to lock herself away. Asher had earned her distrust. She refused to speak with him unless it was related to the flight of the Cassandra.

As the hours progressed, he became paler. She watched his actions become slow and fumbling. Yet, he insisted on navigating.

On the vids, she glimpsed a world covered by vast oceans, dotted in green clusters of islands. They flew into the night side of the planet, littered by strings of light. They landed in a port with few empty loading docks. Towering stacks of cargo containers circled the yard. Freighters occupied most of the slips. Only a few figures moved about. The local hour felt late.

At the hatch, she tucked the pulse gun into the belt of her shipsuit.

Asher noticed. “You won’t need that. Not here. Narasmina’s only a bad place to be if you’re a fish.”

She kept the gun anyway.

No more surprises from Asher Korbyn. Or anyone else.

Speaking to him, even looking at him, freshened the deep-seated sting.

Miri, granter of mercies, help me to forgive.

In silence, they descended the cargo ramp. The warm night air bore the distinct tang of salt. Dark shapes of birds called against the deep purple sky.

The elderly Eugenes man standing under the dock light seemed as though he had been there for centuries. As if his only purpose in life had been the wait there. Asher strode up to him. The two men regarded each other in silence. The man’s somber brown eyes flitted to Erelah.

She sensed the curiosity he directed at her, but he said nothing as he gestured to a ground car idling nearby. Moves sluggish, Asher climbed inside. Erelah hesitated. The elderly man was dressed simply in a loose-fitting tunic decorated with an embroidered patch over the left breast: a sea demon grappling with a dragon. A Kindred crest.

He carried no visible weapons. The ground car was rusted but in good repair, a model that was most likely considered an antique when Uncle was a boy. The man said nothing, simply waited expectantly.

Wary, she climbed inside the darkened interior.

As the vehicle started, Asher slumped in the seat beside her. His head rolled against her shoulder. Irritated at his presumption, she wanted to push him off her, but stopped at the clammy coolness of his skin. Her stomach tightened.
Miri, protect him.

The freight yard gave way to towering houses, built shoulder to shoulder. Then the vehicle plunged into a solid dark as they entered a tunnel. When the car stopped, Erelah climbed out. The driver was joined by another man, just as old. Mutely they aided Asher from the car. A door opened in the wall nearby. Bright light spilled out, but she saw little of the room beyond. When she followed, the valet stepped in her way. He gestured with an open hand, a silent bid for her to go with him instead.

“Where are you taking him?”

“He will be well tended to, my lady.” A thick accent burdened the words, but he spoke in High Eugenes.

Erelah stiffened.
Does he know who I am? How?

The way he addressed her was a courtesy only, she decided. There was nothing threatening about him, only a sense of duty and perhaps a detached curiosity. He had the manner of a servant used to conducting business for his master without question. Something about him reminded her of Uncle’s stodgy valet back on Argos.

Regardless, she checked that the pulse gun was still wedged into her belt. She rubbed her damp palms against her thighs and followed him. Where else was there to go in this place full of strangers?

Sconces drove back the shadows of a long corridor. The air was thick with damp and age. Her knuckles brushed rough, cool stone. They climbed a flight of stairs that opened into a new room that smelled of habra peppers and baking bread. The curved shapes of jars and metal pots glinted under the mellow light. A large kitchen. The commonness of it drove a sudden pang of homesickness through her. She thought of Old Sissa’s orderly sun-warmed kitchen.

They did not linger, passing into a hallway where he picked up a small glowsphere. Its amber glow lit their way up a long narrow stretch of stairs. Finally, they stopped before double doors, hung with heavy brass hinges. Carved in fine detail on the wood was the same Kindred crest he bore on his tunic.

The valet opened the doors and moved aside. “My lady.”

She hesitated. “What is this place?”

His dark eyes glinted under the light of the glowsphere as he handed it to her. His face was unreadable. “Safe.”

Erelah felt a sense of protectiveness from him. He was a keeper of secrets great and small under the mantle of loyalty.
But to whom?

She stepped into the room. The door swung shut on quiet hinges. She expected to hear the snap of a lock behind her but it opened easily when she tried the handle.

Safe.

She found the latch on her side. Locked it.

The sphere carved out dark shapes of furniture. Underfoot, pale tiles gleamed. A monstrous bed, piled high with pillows and blankets, filled the corner. Allowing the sphere to drift to a spot within reach, she sank onto the edge of the soft mattress. She tucked the pulse gun beneath a pillow. The baleful red eye of the ready light burned from its hiding space.

I should inspect the room, look for dangers.

In a moment.

Erelah leaned back against the pile of cushions, intent to rest for a moment.

65

Sunlight pressed against her eyelids. Erelah surfaced from sleep. She wanted to remain that way forever, to melt into the bedclothes. The memory of the night before seeped in around her. She sat up too quickly. A wave of vertigo hit. Her stomach was queasy with hunger.

Erelah moved to the side of the bed. Regardless of the warmth of the room, the stone floor was cool under her bare feet. Her boots rested like tired animals on a woven rug nearby.

When did I take them off?

In the full onslaught of daylight, the mystery of the room dissolved. Lofty ceilings painted with birds and winged mythical beasts greeted her. The walls were a sun-faded blue. An elaborate tapestry of the Fates dominated one corner. The far wall, hung with airy curtains, opened onto a terrace. Fragments of voices fluttered in from the world beyond.

The woodsy spice of sabet vine oil lingered on the air. Tucked to the side of the tapestry, she found a small altar to the Fates. Three tiny bronze figures stood arm in arm. Beneath them tiny clay lamps sat unlit, flames died away. Erelah traced a fingertip over the head of each woman:
Nyxa. Metauri. Natus.

Miri was missing, of course.

The prayer came to her, a rote memory since childhood.
I thank you for the light of this new day—

She froze. A squat table nearby was burdened under platters and bowls of food.

Was that here last night?

It alarmed her that someone had come and gone from the room as she lay asleep and vulnerable. Erelah went back to the bed and found the gun beneath the pillow, just as she hidden it.

For a moment, she considered tucking it back into her belt. Then left it on a small table in easy reach.

Her gnawing stomach drew her back to the table of food. How long had it been since she’d last eaten?

Some of the dishes she recognized, others were a mystery. There was a bowl of candied sabron figs, a decanter of red-melon juice, dainty pastries that resembled the thumb cakes Old Sissa would make. Erelah took an experimental nibble of one. She shut her eyes. Ambrosia. The delicate crumble of the crust and the overpowering sweet of the honey and citrus.

Shameless, she stood at the table, crunching through two more and showering the floor with crumbs. She slowed long enough to swallow some juice before eying the candied figs. Scooping one out of the bowl, she munched on it and set out to explore the rest of the room.

There were other pieces of mismatched furniture beside the bed and chair. Most of the pieces were once fine, ornately carved wood or artfully worked metal. All bore some mar: a dent here, a scratch there. The overall impression was one of careworn elegance. These were relics of another time, but cherished. Here and there, she spotted the same Kindred crest. Uncle would have been able to identify the heraldry right away.

Movement in the corner of her eye. Erelah startled. She caught her reflection in a silver quartz mirror.
Is that me?

It had been ages since she had last seen her reflection this way.

She stepped closer. A painfully thin figure clad in a dingy shipsuit with sunken cheeks and dark shadows beneath her eyes mimicked her moves. She smoothed the tangled mass of her hair and pulled it off her neck into a loose knot. It was a mild improvement.

Pushing aside one of the gauzy curtains, she emerged under a full torrent of sunlight and made her way to the balcony’s rail. The view was staggering in its openness, as if she had dwelt in a cave for eons and only now saw the sky. A vista of buildings in varying shapes and ages clustered along a terraced, rocky hillside encircling a bustling harbor. Like tiny children’s toys with white sails, the water vessels glided over its emerald water. Verdant flowering gardens crowned the roofs of buildings. A street stretched down the slope of the hill and past a curve, its destination obscured by smaller buildings painted in faded pastels. Sleek birds darted and hovered, their cries adding to the noise of the bustling streets below. Figures spilled off the pavement into the road in a moving open-air market. The occasional ground car, as old as the one from last night, wove through the crush of bodies.