Girl Gone Nova (40 page)

His mouth twitched at the edges, but in a smile or frustration, she couldn’t tell.

“You look well.”

She didn’t know how to take that. “Well” hadn’t been what she was going for.

“Plumbing and chocolate on tap. I’m blooming awesome.” The contrast of bored tone and the sassy words got a choke out of one of the men watching her.

His rueful smile was charming. “I have plumbing.” He gestured toward the ship at his back.

Doc took her time studying the ship. She redirected her gaze to Conan, and said, still in her flat, professor tone, “I believe I mentioned before that size does matter?” She paused, giving him a chance to mention his big ship. He didn’t, so she added, “As does the truth.”

He stiffened. “What have I told you that is not true?”

Doc arched her brows again. “That you didn’t have a ship.” Her gaze drifted past him to his ship. “Looks like a ship. Flies like a ship. You just called it a ship. That would make it…a ship.”

“It is true I did conceal certain information from you when we were on Feldstar. I had no reason to trust you.”

“You still shouldn’t. Not after shooting me, kidnapping me and taking away my plumbing for four long days. And nights.”

He gave a look that bordered on frustrated. “You are very attached to plumbing.”

Having to sit to pee made most women that way. “So?”

“There are other things that are important.”

“True, but decent plumbing makes everything important better.” While it was fun to torment him, the plumbing causality loop wasn’t getting them where they needed to go. She shifted gears without losing her flat tones. “You went to a lot of trouble to talk to me.”

His gaze narrowed. “It was no trouble.”

“If you’d gone any deeper, you’d have lost the use of your fingers.”

He tried to look puzzled. Didn’t do it very well.

“When you cut your hand. On purpose.” He opened his mouth, possibly to deny it, so she arched her brows. “Please don’t insult my intelligence by pretending that was an accident.” She smiled the prim nasty smile. “You’re lucky I didn’t order some tests into places you didn’t know you had.”

His eyes widened. His lids hooded his gaze. His sigh was pointed. “Is your General the leader of your people?”

“He is the leader of our people here.”

“I wish to negotiate with him.”

So what? Time to sweep the woman aside and let the real men talk? He wasn’t even good at making third contact with her. Or was this fourth? She didn’t know whether to count the near Dorothy moment as contact or not.

“I’ll get him for you.”

His nod didn’t border on arrogant. It owned arrogant.

She did
boring walk
to the General, felt Conan’s gaze hooked into her ass every step it took to get there, the way it had been on Feldstar. She hadn’t like it then, didn’t like it now. She paused by the three men, made sure her voice was pitched low and asked, “Can I kick his ass, sir?”

“What did he do?”

“Everything he could to annoy me.” She took a deep breath. It wasn’t that calming with Conan still in sniffing distance. “He wants to talk to you.”

* * * * *

Vidor watched her walk away, saw her stop by her General, knew they watched him as she spoke. Was her General wise? He was a soldier. It was there in his bearing, in the authority he wore as easily as his uniform.

She respected him. That was clear. Her relationship to the other two men was less clear, though he sensed connections between them both. The big one, the older one was protective. The other soldier felt something, too. She had not looked at him, nor had he looked at her, but there was something about him that made antagonism prickle on the surface of his skin. Next to the three of them, she looked small, and absurdly fragile. He’d taken her captive, but these men had sent her out alone, had put her at risk of capture and still she gave them her loyalty. Perhaps it was a female weakness.

Her aspect, her clothes, everything about her irritated, which is what she’d planned. She tamped out all that was female, hoping to provoke him. He would not be provoked. She was strong. He knew this, but despite her strength, he’d been able to tag her. He could track her. She would not be able to leave this ship, except with him, and to a destination of
his
choice. He would not be able to go home, but she would not trouble his people.

It was a fair trade. They both lost something, gained something.

As predicted, their technology was more advanced than anything here. He did not desire to go to war with any of them. If he could accomplish his mission, he’d be happy to leave this galaxy behind. The past year had been long and tedious.

Her General approached now, with the two men flanking him, their demeanor protective. She did not come with them. Perhaps she did understand some things.

She can’t be forced.

Bana’s words echoed in his head. He must persuade her people that she
must
leave with him. It was the only solution. Her General’s gaze bored into Vidor in a way that reminded him of his father. It took effort to meet it.

Vidor recognized the power play. He crossed his arms, arched his brows in an unspoken request to be introduced to his companions.

Her General ignored it. “I understand you want to talk to me.”

Vidor nodded once.

“Then talk.”

“I want my wife.”

The stone face changed not at all. “Your wife?”

Vidor hesitated, then his gaze shifted to hers. “My wife. Delilah.” No one moved, but he felt tension in their stillness, an infusion of menace filtering into the air around him. “Oliver.” He paused. “Clementyne. Doctor Clementyne. Though she prefers to be called Doc.”

Despite the risk, it was a relief to name her.

Her General knew how to use silence. He waited many long moments before lifting a hand, crooking one finger. Delilah came, though in no great hurry.

“Are you married to this man, Doc?”

She let her bored gaze trail over him, from top to bottom. “No.”

Vidor ignored this byplay. “I have named her my wife. If you withhold her from me, I will destroy your ships.” He looked at her, hoping to catch her unaware. “The ship that carried you from Feldstar scanned my ship. You know I can do this.” He expected threats. He got silence. He answered as if they had threatened him. “My ship does not require a pilot to attack. If I do not return within the designated time, it will carry out my final orders.”

“You will die with us,” her General said, his voice almost indifferent.

“Everyone dies.”

Delilah’s brows arched. “Original.”

He ignored her. “In addition to my wife, I require two more of your females.”

“Two more females.” The tone was flat, the menace in the air spiked again.

“Young. Comely. Fertile.”

“Can I kick his ass
now
, sir?”

She had not moved and her tone was calm, not unlike the calm before the storm that had ripped Feldstar apart.

“I’m tempted to let you.”

“You can choose to save your people, or die with them.” He looked at her now, ignoring the others. He held the power position. Surely they could see this? “If you attempt to leave this ship, if you try to transport to the outpost, I will know it. My ship will also know it and attack.”

“I’ll bet there’s a deadline. He likes deadlines, sir.”

“Is there a deadline?” Her General sounded calm, looked calm, but he wasn’t calm. He couldn’t be calm.

“I will give you four hours to identify the females and contact me to arrange transport.”

“Hours.”

Delilah’s tone was odd, the look she exchanged with her General different as well. He sensed currents, but he had them cornered. They had no room to move. Their currents, how they felt did not matter. What they did, that was what mattered now.

“Why don’t you want me to go down to the outpost, Conan?”

Before this day finished, she
would
say his name.

Doc felt the three of them staring at her as they left the bay. She tried to ignore it, but it wasn’t easy. When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she turned and glared at them.

“What?”

“You started a war?” The General sounded more dazed than surprised.

“You’re taking
his
word? An alien from another galaxy? I do stealth. I am
covert.
There is no way I’d start a big, noisy war.
If
I went to his planet, which I also dispute.”

Briggs arched a brow. It was very Spock of him.

“Okay,
if
I went there—which I didn’t—I might—
might—
have given them a nudge if I thought it would help me.”

Hel blinked.

“I said I was sorry.” She put her hands on her hips. “Is it my fault he can’t forgive and forget?”

Hel frowned. “Why would someone exile Delilah to Keltinar?”

“I don’t know.” Halliwell turned his attention on Doc. “I thought
Smith
went to Keltinar. How the hell did you end up there?”

I didn’t
, she wanted to say, even when the peeps weighed in on Conan’s side. Okay, so the evidence was compelling. “He did go to Keltinar.”

“You both went to Keltinar, but somehow failed to meet? Hell, maybe we’ve all been to Keltinar.” He rubbed the top of his head, but his hair wasn’t long enough hair to ruffle. “I feel like my head is going to explode!”

“I know the feeling.” Doc knew she sounded like a sulky six year old—an unfamiliar sensation.

No one said anything more until they reached the General’s ready room. Their arrival coincided with Conan’s return to his ship. Doc stared at the tracking screen.

“He thinks we don’t know about the other ships.” There ought to be a way to use that. Her brain and her peeps began sifting through possibilities.

“Doc.” This through gritted teeth.

She looked up. “Sir?”

“What makes you believe it was Smith who contaminated their society? We have evidence it was
you
.”

“From a guy flying in a ship designed by
Smith.”

“You’ve seen his design specs.”

“A cursory look. It would take more than some vague knowledge of his design to make those ships happen.” Given enough time she might be able to come up with an FTL—faster-than-light—drive, but ships were about more than drives and design. There was plumbing and air filtration and weapons and material. There were tons of things she’d never needed to know that she’d need to know to design and manufacture a ship. She could multitask, but build ships
and
start a war? She dedicated half a thought stream to the idea and had to admit it wasn’t totally outside the realm of her possibility. Enough of a long shot she felt comfortable not admitting it, though.

“You’ve taken more than a cursory look in the last few days. As much as it pains me to say this, you haven’t gone there yet.”

It did look like it hurt him to say that. And what she had to say wasn’t going to help that.

“I’m not the person who contaminated their society.” He opened his mouth, probably to scream, so she rushed into an explanation, though she was pretty sure it wouldn’t explain anything. “If I did go there, I’m a different version of me than the one they met. Or will meet.”

His mouth worked for a few seconds. “And you know this how?”

“Well, for one thing, this version of me met Conan. If he’d met me before, he’d have remembered me, so it was a first for him, too. And if I’m the reason they came here, then meeting me, capturing me, has already resulted in an altered me. Even knowing I went to Keltinar and started a war makes me a different me from that me. If I were to go there now, it would create a reality different from this one. Not that I plan to go. Sir.”

The General stared her for what felt like a long time. “I should have retired, but no, I had to make this trip one last time.”

At least he didn’t shoot her. Of course there was still time for that. Neither Briggs nor Hel dared look amused, though Doc sensed they were. Briggs could afford to be amused. He didn’t have to figure it out. Hel just had a dark sense of humor. It was another reason she liked him.

Halliwell took a breath that might be meant to be calming. “What the hell did you just say?”

“You need to understand, sir, that all I have are theories of how time works, and how it might be changed. No one I know has traveled through time.” She frowned. “Well, except me, but since I haven’t done it yet, technically, I still don’t know anyone who’s done it. And I’m still not sure I did it.” Okay, that didn’t come out quite the way she’d wanted.

Her peeps and her thoughts circled what they knew. It didn’t help that much. There was a chicken or the egg problem with the set up, no question. Though, just because Conan hadn’t mentioned Smith, didn’t mean they hadn’t met at some point. There was no way to know what impact their separate trips through the portal had made on the present reality. It was even possible that they’d both traveled through the portal, but not met. Time could have split into divergent realities. There was no way to
know.

She rubbed between her brows as her peeps helped her organize her thoughts. Once again, it sounded better inside her head than out loud.

The General blinked. Maybe that’s all he could manage.

What bothered Doc the most, she realized, was Smith’s notes on who could help solve the problem. That act took on a more sinister cast, with this new twist. Had time split, merged or become…fluid? Could opposing goals make time lose cohesion? She and time did have an uneasy relationship. Was it possible it was a side effect of time becoming unstable as different…forces…sought to fix it?

“I can only theorize, sir, but Conan is here on a ship that
Smith designed
and he’s looking for
me
.” His eye twitched. Doc’s did, too. “Maybe we can exist in disparate realities because time is fluxing, and it will remain that way until the disparities are resolved.” Now he looked at her like she was crazy. Also fair. She felt a bit crazy. “Maybe I have to go through the portal and stop him from going through
and
stop someone from sending
me
through to make time gel again.”