Finders Keepers (8 page)

She was hurting. Of all the Godless, soulless creatures in civilized space, he should be the last one to offer her comfort. He wasn’t even sure he knew how.

He only knew he had to try.

5

Trilby wrapped the faded purple quilt around her shoulders and leaned against the padded bulkhead. She could still feel the slight vibration of the interstellar drives, a reassuring, familiar feeling. She needed that right now. The one swallow of gin she’d managed to get down was little comfort. The tall glass on her bedside table had tiny droplets of water speckled on its exterior like clusters of elongated stars. The ice cubes shifted, tinkling, cracking.

Her cabin door chimed. The overhead readout was blank. With only herself and Dezi on board there never had been a need for her to activate the ID system, even if it had worked. And when Jagan had been there, her cabin was his as well.

Now there was her Zafharin lieutenant, though her visitor could just as easily be Dezi.

Her
Zafharin lieutenant. He was not, she admonished herself as she trundled to the door,
her
lieutenant. More than likely he was some Zafharin female’s lieutenant. One he was obviously anxious to get back to. He probably saw her mourning as a tactic to delay him.

She tapped at the access pad on the wall. The door slid to the left. Light from the corridor spilled into the dim cabin and she looked up, blinking. Tall. Broad shoulders. Definitely the Zafharin lieutenant.

At least she had the presence of mind not to call him
hers
again.

She took a step backward, snagged her heel on the edge of the quilt, and stumbled, arms flailing. She was abruptly caught up in strong arms and drawn against a familiar black jacket and white shirt. Was she, she wondered as his arms wrapped around her, going to spend her life with her nose forever in this man’s chest?

Women usually didn’t throw themselves into Rhis’s arms. Rafi would’ve no doubt approved of the way Rhis caught Trilby tightly against him, and taken it as a positive sign of things to come.

But Rhis was a realist. It wasn’t his charm but a bulky purple quilt snaking around Trilby’s boots that had precipitated their current embrace.

“Are you all right?”

She pushed away from him and gathered the tangled quilt in her arms. “I’m not drunk, if that’s what you’re thinking. Clumsy. A bit . . .” She paused, then sighed loudly. “A bit off balance, in more ways than one. But no, not drunk.” She motioned to her glass as she plopped down on her bed. “One swallow made it down. Any more and I think it might decide to come back up.”

“I’m not—it would be okay if you were drunk.” Rhis recognized the defensiveness in her tone. That dismayed him, though it rarely had before. People’s feelings were unimportant. But this wasn’t just people. This was Trilby Elliot. “It’s not easy to hear such news of someone you’ve known almost your whole life.” He glanced around for something to sit on. Next to her, on her bed, was an inviting option, and for that very reason he rejected it. He still had this urge to take that small, purple-swaddled form back into his arms.

He sought an alternative. He’d never been in her cabin before. It was about the size of the one she’d assigned him, with a double bed along the back wall. Shelving, six drawers, and a closet were on the left. Her quarters lacked any semblance of luxury, just like the rest of her ship.

Unless you counted the purple quilt as a luxury. The muted glow from a small bedside lamp and from her computer screen, which was swiveled toward her, showed it wrapped around her like a protecting cocoon. The square shaft of light from the corridor highlighted the threadbare spots in the thin gray carpeting. As his eyes finally adjusted, he saw a larger plush toy felinar that lay on its side on the bed next to her. And in the corner, a single metal-back chair clipped to a deck lock.

He stepped on the release to unlatch it from the floor and dragged it over, straddling it as he faced her.

“This won’t cause you any delays, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She drew her knees up under her chin. “I’m not in a position to go chasing after Carina. Or the ’Sko. We’ll make Rumor on time.”

“That’s not why I came to talk to you. Tell me about Carina.”

“Why? Do you think you know her or something?”

He responded with a small shake of his head. “I think it might help for you to talk of her.”

She was silent, and he could read the distrust in her eyes. No doubt she was wondering who had named Rhis Vanur chief psychiatrist.

“I’ve known her for years. But you knew that, didn’t you?” Again a silence, but a thoughtful one this time. “Dezi,” she said knowingly.

“I probably would have guessed anyway.”

“Yeah, well, Carina is someone Dezi categorizes as one of my ‘wilder’ friends.”

Rhis remembered how the ’droid had described the now-subdued woman before him:
She’s a good girl, truly she is. A bit wild at times . . .

“More wild than you?”

“Yeah. Wilder than me. Couple of years younger than me too. She’s really a stunning girl. Woman,” she corrected herself, and rummaged through a drawer in her nightstand. “Here.” She handed him a thin holograph, then tabbed the light up a notch so he could see.

Five people filled the picture taken in a bar. Neadi’s bar, he assumed, recognizing the golden face of the woman standing behind the counter. A taller dark-haired man was on her left. Potted plants quivered overhead from an unseen breeze, green fronds and a variety of brightly colored blossoms trailing down on the right side, almost touching the shoulder of a portly, red-bearded man with bright blue eyes. The man’s shirt had a GGA logo on the front. Next to him, perched on a stool, was Trilby, laughing, batting away the hand of an exotically beautiful woman on her right who was trying to pour a glass of clear liquid on Trilby’s head.

The woman had to be Carina. Her glossy brown hair was long, curling about her shoulders and, as she moved, falling in more curls to her waist. Without her high cheekbones and full mouth, her face would appear almost too thin. But the combination, and her large, almond-shaped dark blue eyes, gave her instead a mysterious, almost regal look.

He immediately pegged her as vain, though he recognized he had no valid reason to do so. But there was something in her face that reminded him of Malika. Something in the way she looked at the people around her, appraising them, categorizing them.

She had a beauty not unlike Malika’s as well: dark and sultry. Trilby, next to her, was so different. Like a ray of light, or a bright moon in a dark sky.

Trilby sparkled. When he’d first seen her, through a haze of pain in sick bay, he’d thought she was pretty. Sweet.

Truth was, he admitted with some reluctance, she was more than that. She was enchanting. Enchantingly beautiful.

He felt a heat rise in his body, brought his concentration back to the problem at hand. Carina.

“Carina is the mischief-maker, yes?”

“Carina is the mischief-maker, yes.” She mimicked his accent, lightly rolling the
r
, drawing out the
i
.
“Vad,”
she added.

His surprise was genuine. “You speak—”

“Only
yes
,
no,
and
another beer, please
. Plus an assortment of useful curses.” She grinned. “All the necessaries, courtesy of Leo.” She pointed to the dark-haired man next to Neadi.

She was smiling now. The quilt had slipped from around her shoulders and she released the tense grip on her knees. Something warm stirred inside Rhis’s chest. He’d made her feel better. Odd how that also made him feel different too.

“And what was
Dasja
Carina trying to do?” he asked, bringing her attention back to the holo.

“
Dasja
is Miss?”

“Lady. But as in a title, not as in a gender. It can be a title of heritage, or of graciousness.” He’d not had to explain his language in a long time. “Honored woman,” he said finally. “
Dasjon
is for a man. Lord. Honored man.”

Trilby nodded. “
Dasja
Carina would probably laugh her ass off if you referred to her as a lady. She was trying to water me. To get me to grow.” She pointed to the lush green plants. “She’s always bringing plants to Neadi and Leo. She’s got a pretty good hydroponics section on the
Dream
—” She stopped. “Well, that’s probably gone now.”

The small, bright glow faded from her face. Rhis felt the lack of its warmth, wanted it to return.

“So she waters you?” He forced a smile. “And this? Who is this with the beard?” It wasn’t Jagan Grantforth. He’d known what Grantforth looked like even before he’d seen Trilby’s files. Jagan Grantforth’s well-groomed form was frequently seen on the televid next to his politically well-placed uncle, Garold, now Chief Secretary of Trade in the Conclave.

“That’s Chaser. He’s a med-tech at GGA HQ on Bagrond. He comes back to Rumor once in a while. Carina, Chaser, and I grew up together there. In Port Rumor.” She took the holo from him, studied it again. “Seems like a long time ago. Growing up, that is. Not this holo. This was only a few months ago.”

“A birthday?” Rhis guessed, trying to fit the holo into the timeline of Trilby’s
J
files.

“Hmm? Oh, no. I had—well, it was just another wild party.”

He heard her stop mid-sentence, heard the attempted lightness in her tone. There was a reason for that party, one she wasn’t willing to share. He had a feeling it had to do with Grantforth. Or, rather, Grantforth’s absence.

“Where was Dezi?”

“Getting more liquor, where else?”

“So
Dasja
Neadi does not have him tend bar?”

“
Dasjon
Leonid,” she said, and Rhis nodded at her use of the term, “takes Dezi back to the kitchen to teach him to cook. That’s been an ongoing project. You probably noticed I do most of the cooking on board.”

“A food replicator would be easier, no?”

“A food replicator would cost money, yes.” She held up one hand and ticked items off on her fingers. “I need a new long-range sensor optical diffuser, new short-range optical filters, and my portside scanner’s on its last legs. I only have one really working crystal splicer—”

“That I know well,” Rhis cut in dryly.

“—and the main cargo door needs to be removed and rehung because some fool crashed a forklift into it last month, and if it falls off on my way to Bagrond I’m in deep shit. My AGSs need to be completely overhauled and have new stands put on, and,” she added, giving him a wary glance, “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but only one of my laser rifles works and my ion-cannon reservoir is down below half.

“And you ask about a replicator?” She exhaled a sharp laugh. “Rhis-my-boy, talk to me about a fully charged complement of Lady-Fives instead. Then I wouldn’t be worrying about the ion cannon.”

He knew the
Venture
was in bad shape. But her lack of defense options startled him. Only one working laser rifle and a dying ion cannon. “I thought your Conclave outlawed LD-Five torpedoes after the war.”

“Oh, they did. But they’re not out here in the lanes, I am. And when they cut back on funds and manpower for patrols in Gensiira . . .”

She didn’t have to finish her sentence. Rhis knew. The Conclave was turning its back on a region that had little to offer in the way of profits or pleasures. Not like the inner worlds of Quivera or Bagrond. All part of the Lissade Quadrant. Lissade was the United Intergalactic Conclave’s home base and as different from Gensiira as the
Venture
was from the
Razalka
.

Then something that had bothered him about Neadi’s message came back into mind. “How did
Dasja
Neadi know to warn you and
Bella’s Dream
? Yes, I know, in a spaceport bar she would hear talk. But talk so specific?”

“How do you think Port Rumor got its name? Not because of Neadi’s bar, which is called Flyboy’s, by the way. It’s because we’re close to where the borders of Gensiira, your own Yanir System, and the ’Sko’s Eilni intersect. Conclave. Zafharin. Ycsko.” She touched three invisible points in the air as she said the names. “That’s the only place that happens. And Port Rumor’s the closest cold beer.”

The star charts played through Rhis’s mind, showing that same intersection. And now, from what he’d learned from her ship’s charts, traders’ lanes he’d not been aware of.

“There are ’Sko expatriates who jump ship and look for refuge on Rumor, though not many,” Trilby continued. “Lots more Zafharin expats who don’t want the formalities of your Empire. And the usual assortment of bastards that results when the Conclave is thrown in. You may think your Empire is a safe distance away on Verahznar, Rhis. But believe me, anything you know there, we know of, sooner or later, on Rumor. And very often sooner. Freighters carry more than cargo, you know.”

He did. It had never been brought home quite so well before. “And so Neadi hears . . . ?”

“What Quivera or any of the political higher-ups are not yet willing to release. Or admit. And she heard that someone in the Conclave is looking to make some real profits. Knock out all the short-haulers like me. With ’Sko help.”

Rhis straightened, his hands curling tightly around the top metal bar of the chair. Suddenly duty took on a very personal meaning. “Tell me,” he said, his voice suddenly serious, almost flat. “Tell me everything
Dasja
Neadi said.”