Lady Lure (4 page)

Perri had not expected to like Halvo. Liking
him made her task infinitely more difficult. Worse, she had never
thought to find him so attractive. She had been told that Admiral
Halvo Gibal was overweight, out of condition, and no physical
threat to her. He had also been described as an aging parasite who
was fattening himself on the Jurisdiction Service and indulging
himself in an unnecessary rest cure after suffering minor
wounds.

The man she had captured was bone thin. His
handsome, chiseled face was marked by lines of pain. His every
movement was controlled and cautious, as if he took great care to
avoid further discomfort. Perri could see that, far from being
minor, Halvo’s wounds had been terrible. She could also tell that
he was determined not to give in to the threat of permanent
disability.

Nor was he as old as she had been led to
believe. True, the dark hair at his temples was liberally streaked
with silver, but that only made him look distinguished. The
Demarians were a beautiful Race and Halvo was no exception, not
even when he was angry – and he was angry most of the time.

The discrepancies between the information
given to her by the Chief Hierarch and the reality of Halvo’s
presence puzzled Perri, generating a disquieting sense of
unease.

She had tried to be kind to Halvo. Knowing
Rolli would stop any attempt their prisoner might make to take over
the
Space Dragon
and escape, Perri no longer kept her weapon
pointed at Halvo whenever they were together in the galley or the
cockpit.

She allowed him to avoid the restraining
bands of the bench, letting him sleep in a real bed in one of the
three private cabins. Perri tried to keep all of their
conversations pleasant.

Halvo was unmoved by her efforts to be
agreeable. He constantly demanded facts she was unwilling or unable
to reveal. Mealtimes were especially disturbing, perhaps because of
the forced intimacy of a galley too small for more than one person
to occupy with any degree of comfort.

At the moment, Halvo stood in the galley,
glaring at her out of shadowy gray eyes. He hung onto the edge of
the table as if he would fall without its support, and when he
bared even white teeth in a fierce snarl he reminded her of a
Demarian leopard-wolf, the fabled beast from his home planet that
could swallow a human in two gulps. Perri decided she would in the
future eat all of her meals alone in her own cabin if she must to
avoid Halvo’s simmering resentment and persistent questions.

“Tell me, Perri, how much are you being paid
for this piratical venture?” Halvo growled.

“You do not understand. I had no choice.” It
was what she always said in response to his questions. As usual, he
snorted at the platitudes she repeated so patiently.

“Then make me understand,” he said in a tone
that told her why he had become an admiral at such a young age.

Never had Perri met a man so single-minded.
For the past three days, while they rushed through space toward
Regula, he had been so relentless in his questioning of her that
she wished it were possible to use Starthruster constantly instead
of just in short, occasional bursts of power. Rolli had warned her
that the stress of using Starthruster too often or too long could
cause the aging
Space Dragon
to disintegrate. Thus, she
would have to endure Halvo’s persistent questions for another two
or three days. Perri knew Halvo was physically weak, and she
controlled the only weapon on board, yet she was beginning to fear
he would eventually defeat her by the strength of his will alone.
Looking into Halvo’s eyes, she almost called for Rolli to come and
help her.

“I deserve an explanation,” Halvo said.

“I cannot—”

“Tell me what to expect on Regula,” he said.
“At least let me be mentally prepared.”

There was something about him – the habit of
command, she supposed – that finally convinced her to respond with
a few bits and pieces of a truth she would have preferred to keep
entirely hidden from him until the last possible moment.

“The Regulan Hierarchy wants you,” she
said.

“You have already told me as much.” He
sounded thoroughly exasperated. “Why do they want me?”

“I am not sure exactly what they plan to do
with you,” Perri said, stalling while she tried to compose a simple
explanation.

“Oh?” The single syllable demanded that she
continue.

“It is an exchange, you see.” Put that way,
the whole situation did sound simple.

“An exchange,” he said, “of myself for
someone else? I know I have a fair-size ego, Perri, but who could
be valuable enough to be exchanged for the Admiral of the Fleet? Is
some Race outside the Jurisdiction holding an important Regulan
official and demanding me in return for that person’s life?”

“It has nothing to do with Races outside the
Jurisdiction,” Perri said, offering another crumb of information.
She watched him consider her response before he began asking
questions again. She could not avoid a flare of sympathy for the
man. So often in her own life she had questioned – and questioned
again – and received unsatisfactory answers or no answers at all.
It troubled Perri to discover that basic similarity of character
between herself and a person whom she ought to think of as a
dangerous enemy. She did not doubt that, if he could find a way to
escape from her, Halvo would be ruthless about doing so. But if
Halvo escaped, Elyr would die. Perri reminded herself never to
forget that frightening fact.

“I can understand why the Regulans wouldn’t
want to commit a ship with their own markings to an illegal
enterprise like this one,” Halvo said, “but why send a lone woman
and a robot to abduct me, especially when Regulans don’t think much
of the mental abilities of females?”

“I was sent because I am the one who cares
most.”

“You?” His shrewd eyes threatened to expose
all of her secrets. “For whom am I to be exchanged then? Your
parents perhaps? A dear friend? Or is it a lover?”

“It would be better if we did not talk about
this any longer.”

“That is what you always say when my
questions get too close to the truth. What you mean when you say,
‘Don’t talk,’ is that you are ashamed to admit what you are
involved in.” Halvo ran a hand through his hair in a gesture of
pure frustration. “I am rapidly reaching the end of my patience
with this situation.”

Again he glared at her, making Perri wish she
could shrink to atom size, or disappear altogether. He was right.
She was ashamed of what she was doing, but she could see no other
way. She was forced to depend upon the Chief Hierarch to keep the
promises he had made to her.

With a sound of utter disgust, Halvo spun on
his heel and took a step toward the hatch leading out of the
galley. The movement was cut short. Halvo swayed, gasping, and put
his hands up to his head.

“Cursed dizziness,” he rasped, swallowing
hard.

“What causes it?” Perri asked, glad of a
chance to change the subject. “I know you were injured in
combat.”

“Injured?” Halvo groped for the chair in
which he usually sat, found it, and dropped into it with a sigh. He
fixed Perri with the cold glance she was becoming accustomed to
seeing from him. “I was torn to pieces, as good as dead. There have
been times during the last year when I have wished the medics had
never found me.”

“How can you say such a thing?” she cried,
shocked by his intensity.

“Because it’s true,” Halvo said between
gritted teeth. “A quick, clean death would have been infinitely
preferable to what I went through.”

“What, exactly, happened?” Perri met his
eyes, determined not to flinch before the rage and the pain she
could see there. Perhaps if she could make him talk about himself,
he would stop questioning her. And perhaps talking about his
injuries would ease his anger. Because she was not used to people
answering her constant questions, she was a little surprised at how
readily Halvo began to speak.

“We were fighting pirates who had massed on
the Styxian border to attack one of our space stations,” Halvo
said. “Purely by chance a quarter of the Jurisdiction Fleet was
nearby. Why the pirates didn’t know about our presence I can’t say.
Perhaps their intelligence reports were faulty. We held a quick
conference and decided to take advantage of the opportunity to
dispose of a worsening menace to space travelers.”

“The pirates were defeated,” Perri said. “I
do know that much. The news was the talk of Regula for days.” She
saw no reason to add that not everyone she knew had rejoiced over
the defeat of the pirates. She had not understood Elyr’s attitude
about the battle, but he had told her that her questions on the
matter were so silly they were not worthy of answers.

“I was informed later that it was a great
victory,” Halvo said. “I do not remember the end of the
battle.”

“Because you were so badly wounded,” she
said, still meeting his eyes. There was a flash of something
between them, an odd connection forming. She did not have time to
think about it before Halvo was talking again, and she was
listening with growing horror.

“When the bridge of the Jurisdiction flagship
was blown up, my left leg was torn off at the hip, I was thrown
onto my face, and my back was broken by falling debris. My inner
ear was all but destroyed by the blast. It took months, and three
operations, before I could hear again.

“But the ship’s medics saved me,” Halvo said.
“They got me to a hospital planet where my leg was reattached and
my spine rearticulated. Then the therapy began. Have you ever been
severely injured, Perri?”

“Not like that, but I can imagine—”

“No, you can’t. Shall I tell you what it’s
like? After the surgery is over, they wrap you in elastic bands and
make you stay flat on your back for days on end,” Halvo said as if
he were talking to himself, reliving the pain and the despair.
“Then they take the bands off and stand you up and tell you to
walk. But your injured leg is completely numb and you stand there
trying to wiggle your toes or flex your ankle so you can take a
step, but nothing happens. For the first time in your life your own
body refuses to obey you and you slowly begin to understand that
the connections between your leg and your brain have been severed
and will have to be restored – and only the most intense therapy
can accomplish that restoration.

“They dump you into a pool of warm water and
a nurse who is a sadist in disguise moves your leg for hours at a
time, day after day, until your skin is permanently red and
wrinkled, like the carapace of a Jugarian crab, and you understand
at last why Jugarian crabs are so testy. You lie in bed at night
crying from the pain, so they give you drugs to help you sleep. But
when morning comes and they want you up and working again, you are
too groggy from those drugs to put two thoughts together.

“Still you keep on trying to force your body
to move as it should, because the nurses won’t let you stop trying.
A year later, when your back still aches every day and your balance
is never dependable, the doctors discharge you. Then comes the real
injury, worse than anything that has gone before.” Halvo paused for
a moment, and when he went on, his voice was drenched in
bitterness. “When you are finally able to report to Fleet
Headquarters, the officials there tell you that you will never
again be fit to command a ship, so they are retiring you from
active duty. Do you know where I was going when you kidnapped me,
Perri?”

“You were heading for Capital,” she
whispered, too shaken by this passionate account of his sufferings
to speak more loudly.

“Yes, to Capital, to my formal retirement
ceremony. In the grand old Jurisdiction tradition, I was asked to
name my own successor as Admiral of the Fleet, while I was to be
permanently consigned to a desk job,” Halvo said, and Perri had
never heard such grief in anyone’s voice. “After all I’ve done for
the Jurisdiction, after all I’ve been through, they were finished
with me. And now, as the gravestone of my career, you have
kidnapped me in order to exchange me for someone whose name you
refuse to tell me!”

She sat there, close to tears of sympathy for
him, gazing into his tormented eyes. Suddenly remembering a method
her dear old nurse, Melri, had used with her when she was a child,
Perri knew what Halvo needed to snap him out of his mood.

“Admiral,” she said as coldly as she could,
“I have never met a man who felt so sorry for himself!”

“I am not absorbed by self-pity,” he said. “I
got over that a long time ago. Now I am angry. I am furious at the
way I have been treated by my own people and even more outraged by
what you have done to me.”

“It was necessary.” She faced his glare,
aware once again of the bond that was slowly, irresistibly, forming
between them.

“I have told you what you want to know,”
Halvo said. “I have answered your questions. Now I insist that you
do the same for me. Tell me why you abducted me.”

“Oh, please,” she whispered, “can’t you wait
until we reach Regula?”

She could not look at him any longer. She
lowered her gaze to the tabletop instead. She had become remarkably
tough and determined during the past twenty days or so, while she
and Rolli searched through space for the
Krontar,
and then,
having located it, tracked it to a spot where they could waylay it
without concern about interference from another ship. Perri did not
like what she was doing, but her mission had to be completed.
Still, she could not help the sympathy she felt for Halvo. What was
going to happen when they reached Regula was not fair to him. Not
for the first time since beginning this venture, Perri wished she
could think of some other way to secure Elyr’s release.