Blood Will Tell (15 page)

Still, the official held up his tablet one last time, obviously rereading the manifest Thorn had sent to the spaceport authority. “Resupply for the mining colony on Nylos, huh?”

“Right.”

The spaceport official made a few final notations, then tucked the data pad under his arm. “Logged and noted, Captain Marr. Callia Spaceport Authority welcomes you to Chistan Major. Information for off-world visitors can be found on the local net, channel 185.”

Thorn inclined his head. “Thanks.”

And finally the troublesome official took himself off, replacing the cap on his head before he stepped out into the persistent rain showers.

Miala turned to Thorn. “What—”

“Not now. Gather up your things—we’re getting out of here.”

So even though she was full of questions—the most important being,
where the hell are all our units?
—she remained silent while she retrieved the shabby duffel that was her only luggage and followed Eryk Thorn out into the rain.

It was cold, and the raindrops felt like fine needles on her bare arms. She shivered, thinking it would have been nice if Thorn could have warned her about the climate on this world. Still, she supposed he’d had more important things on his mind.

The spaceport itself was a mess. One-half of the complex seemed to have slid down a hillside and was now closed off by bands of glowing green tape. Everywhere she looked she saw crowds of annoyed tourists, some human, some Eridani, and even several hooded and cloaked Zhore, most of them standing in queues and looking as if they wanted to be anywhere but here.

Great vacation spot, Thorn
, she thought, but decided it was better to save her arguments until they were somewhere private.

They had no trouble getting a mech-operated taxi. Most people seemed to be leaving Chistan Major, not arriving, and there were fleets of the compact little aircars circling the spaceport.

“The Eridani Majesty,” Thorn said to the mechanoid cabbie, and Miala raised an eyebrow.

“Sounds posh,” she commented.

He gave her a very small smile. “You’ll see.”

Up in the taxi’s driver’s compartment the mech cabbie began burbling away cheerfully. “Eridani Majesty, sure...you’re lucky, the Majesty survived the waves, high ground, you know. Just ten minutes, and they’ll be glad to see you…tourists running away like
boojins
off a sinking ship...who’d’ve thought a series of underwater earthquakes could have made so much trouble...”

“Earthquakes?” Thorn interrupted. Until then he’d been leaning back against the seat, lids half-closed as if to block out some of the mech’s babbling, but he sat up suddenly, black eyes narrowing.

“That’s what they’re saying,” the mech responded cheerfully. It was a model Miala didn’t recognize, a spindly little thing with four arms and a narrow, flattened head. “Whole series of them…fault line they didn’t even know was there…totally wiped out the Unis Islands. Tidal waves everywhere. Chistan Major’s still here just because it’s mostly on high ground.”

“Any aftershocks?” Thorn’s eyes were still narrowed; Miala could almost see the tension in his body.

“Oh, sure. Not that you’ll feel ’em in the Majesty, as long as the floor doesn’t collapse.” The mech’s jolly tones never altered during the relaying of this information—probably it had been programmed to be artificially cheerful at all times.

“That’s reassuring,” Miala muttered.

“Are we almost there?” Thorn grated.
 

Although he seemed to have relaxed slightly once he began to realize that the worst of the natural disaster was already over, it was clear he would have liked nothing better than to blow the head off the garrulous mech. Maybe Eridanis—who had colonized Callia—liked their mechs talkative, unlike the quiet, unobtrusive models Miala had seen on Iradia.

“Just ’round this corner.”

And sure enough, the mech took the bend at a speed Miala wasn’t sure was entirely safe, and the Eridani Majesty stood before them.

Up until that time, the largest structure she had ever seen was Mast’s compound. The Majesty would have dwarfed the former monastery with just one wing. It was a huge edifice of white stone—or possibly white concrete made to look like stone—that had been built on a bluff overlooking the ocean. Three domes that appeared to be made of multicolored glass topped the mammoth structure, although Miala couldn’t be certain of the materials, since the dimming light and still pouring rain made it difficult to see details clearly.

The taxi whooshed to a stop under a portico whose underside had been decorated in a complex mosaic depicting some sort of alien marine life. Apparently the Eridani Majesty eschewed mech labor, for it was a young Eridani man who opened the car door for Miala and offered her a gloved hand, helping her out onto an elaborate runner of intricately worked design.

“Welcome to the Eridani Majesty!” he announced.

“Uh…thank you,” she replied, allowing him to retrieve her battered duffel from the floor of the back seat, feeling even more acutely aware of the rumpled garments she wore and the sad state of her hair. She brushed at the wrinkles on her tunic, then added in what she hoped were space-weary traveler tones, “
Such
a dreadful flight! I thought we’d never get here.”

From the back seat she heard something that sounded suspiciously like a snort. The porter leaned down as if to help Thorn out of the taxi, then backed up quickly after receiving a freezing stare from the mercenary. Thorn unfolded himself from the back of the cab, still glaring at the nervous young man.

“Thanks,” Eryk Thorn said finally, and tossed a five-unit chip at the porter, who caught it and looked relieved that Thorn hadn’t thrown anything incendiary at him.

“Great people skills, Thorn,” Miala said, once they were safely out of earshot.

“That’s ‘Captain Marr,’” he replied, not bothering to look back at her. “Don’t forget it.”

Yes, sir!
she thought, but remained silent as she trailed after him across the enormous marble-paved lobby of the hotel. In here the walls seemed to be made entirely of glass, encasing tanks of what she assumed were the more colorful examples of local marine life, while overhead huge glass globes cast a warm light across the enormous room.

It seemed to take forever to get to the main desk. There was a lot of real estate to cover, although the lobby was conspicuously empty, with staff obviously outnumbering guests at least three to one. Again, the clerk who waited for them was Eridani, this time a young woman probably not too many years older than Miala herself, although impossibly more elegant, with her dark purple hair in an intricate knot high on her head and a sparkling white suit that Miala knew would have been stained in about five minutes if she’d been the one wearing it.

“Reservations?” she asked.

For a second Miala wasn’t sure what Thorn was doing, exactly, and then she realized he was smiling. It was such a rare expression that she gave him a startled look. Then she realized exactly what he was up to.

“Well, I don’t exactly have any, but I was hoping you could help me out—” And he slid a credit chip across the counter.

Apparently Miala wasn’t the only one to be affected by that smile. The clerk looked at Thorn and returned the smile with one of her own. “Well, sir, we do have some rooms available—”

“Excellent.”

The clerk swiped the credit chip, and her eyes widened slightly. Then she tapped away at her keyboard. “In fact, given the present situation—that is, the Eridani Majesty values your patronage, sir. We’d like to offer you a free upgrade to one of our governor’s suites by way of thanks.”

“Well, thank you—” and here Thorn leaned in a little closer, as if to take a better look at the glowing letters on her name tag, “—Selchen. I do appreciate it.”

She blushed, her pale lavender skin turning a darker purple high on her cheekbones. “Oh, it’s no problem, sir.” Then she handed a coded security card and the credit chip back to him. “Please let us know if there’s anything we can do to make your stay here more comfortable.”

“Will do.” He pocketed the card and the chip, then gestured for Miala to follow him toward the bank of elevators that stood at the far end of the lobby.

Once they were safely inside, Miala turned to her companion. “All right, where is Eryk Thorn, and what have you done with him?”

Again that flash of teeth. “That’s ‘Captain Marr,’ Miala. And I didn’t deviate from my standard procedures—I merely analyzed the situation and then used the approach I had determined would work best.”

“Whatever you say,” she replied. Maybe that was true, but she’d gotten the feeling Thorn had positively enjoyed cranking up the old charm to get what he wanted from that clerk.

Once she saw the suite, however, she was not inclined to argue with Thorn’s methods. The main bedroom alone could have swallowed up her old house in Aldis Nova, and the bathroom was so large she wondered whether they were supposed to sleep in there as well, especially since there was an elegant little lounging couch placed against one wall of the dressing area. Best of all, though, the suite’s far wall was made entirely of glass and overlooked the ocean, now dark as blood in the last light of the setting sun.

“All right, I forgive you,” she said finally, after returning to the sleeping area.

“For what?”

“For flirting with that clerk.” Miala took another look around the sumptuously decorated chamber, from the blue-green hangings of some foreign, shimmering fabric on the walls to the vases of flowers that stood on the bedside tables. Their blue and purple blooms gave the room a delicate, spicy scent, at once alien and enticing. “Actually, considering how nice this suite is, I forgive you for anything you might ever have done wrong.”

“That’s a lot of forgiving.”

He was most certainly correct in that, she thought, but at the moment she didn’t care. “But I really have to know,” she continued. “Where the hell are all our units?”

“Still safely in the cargo hold.”

“Excuse me?” What load of moth droppings was he trying to sell her now? “I don’t remember seeing any units—just a bunch of mining equipment.”

“Don’t forget the sand skimmer parts,” he said, setting the synth-hide bag he had brought with him on the foot of the bed.
 

“Whatever. So what did you do with the units?”

“I didn’t do anything with them.”

Miala gave him an unbelieving stare.

Finally, he appeared to relent and said, “I told you I’m prepared. I always carry a few cases of what looks like legitimate cargo around with me, something to match whatever fake cargo manifest I’m currently using.”

“But he picked those cases at random!” she protested.

“Did he?” Thorn returned, with a lift of the eyebrow.

“What, did you use some sort of hypnosis on him or something?”

“No. Most customs officials are lazy and invariably choose cases toward the front of the cargo hold.”

Miala took a breath. “Fine, but he also had you open up one in the very back. What about that one?”

“Finest hologram projectors money can buy.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“It’s true. Since they’re projecting a fixed image, the fidelity is very high. And they fit right under the lid of just about any crate or container you’re trying to disguise. Can’t tell it from the real thing, unless you try to stick your hand in it.”

“And what happens if someone sticks their hand in it?”

“Their hand gets shot off.”

Well, that was more like the Thorn she knew and loved. “Subtle.”

“Whatever works.”

There wasn’t much arguing with that, she knew. Frowning, she gazed up at him, at the expression of complete unconcern on his face. “You seem pretty casual about walking around where everyone can see you,” she commented.

He shrugged. “It’s hard for people to recognize you when no one knows what you look like.”

Again, she couldn’t really dispute that statement. It was true, after all. She hadn’t seen Eryk Thorn’s face until she had removed the dark wrappings he’d worn since the moment she first laid eyes on him in Mast’s compound. For all she knew, he’d spent his entire adult life hidden that way. If that were the case, then who would know what he looked like once he set the disguise aside? Besides, she was fairly certain that the well-starched staff of the Eridani Majesty would have been less than thrilled if one of the galaxy’s most notorious mercenaries suddenly appeared in the lobby and demanded a room. Odd that in this case Thorn’s true face was his best disguise.

“So what about the earthquakes?” she inquired, sitting down on the foot of the bed and pulling off her sandals. The carpet felt indescribably soft under her feet.

“I haven’t felt any aftershocks since we got here. Have you?”

“That’s not very reassuring, Thorn,” she said, her tone a gentle rebuke.

“Just making a comment.” Even as he replied, he stepped toward the enormous suite-spanning windows and touched a small control pad in the wall. The glass gradually darkened to black, blotting out the dim view of the night-shrouded harbor beyond. “Better,” he said.

“I liked the view,” she protested.

“You can’t see anything at night anyway. It was too exposed for my taste.”

Miala wondered whether she would ever win an argument with Thorn and decided probably not. Still, she was determined to enjoy herself. She was off Iradia, after all, and right now she was living in luxury she had never imagined, let alone seen with her own eyes. “So what now?” she asked.

Was that a swift glance he gave toward her, toward the bed? Miala couldn’t be sure, and in any case he actually moved away from her, toward the communications console embedded in the elegant little carved table across the room. “I thought I’d introduce you to an interesting off-world custom. It’s called room service.”

Later—much later, actually, after a divine meal of which Miala recognized nothing but enjoyed everything, too many glasses of some glorious fizzing wine Thorn said was imported all the way from Gaia itself, a leisurely soak in the bathtub (which did fit two very comfortably, as Eryk Thorn had pointed out), followed by a prolonged session in a bed that was even more comfortable than the one in Mast’s compound, Miala lay back against the pillows, certain that she had never felt so contented in her life. She tried to think if there was anything that could have made the evening better and decided that was impossible.