Sweet Starfire (22 page)

Overcash looked unconvinced, but he obviously wasn’t going to argue. He turned and jumped on board the second skimmer and made ready to loosen the moorings. Twin dracon eyes emerged briefly in the river as if curious. They disappeared again with barely a ripple.

Severance studied Racer as if he were looking at the man through a microscope and didn’t like, what he saw. “Think it will work this time?”

“It’ll work,” Racer said roughly.

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Severance gave every appearance of being only mildly interested.

“Tell you what,” Racer said, glancing at Cidra, who was still standing motionless in front of the tent. “I’ll do you a favor. I’ll take Cidra with me.”

Cidra started, growing cold inside. “No.”

Severance was watching Racer. “And do what? Throw her in the river when you’ve finished with her? She might as well stay with me.”

Racer grinned, sensing that for the first time he had a handle on the situation. He seized it, motioning at Cidra with the pulser. “Get on board the skimmer, Cidra. You don’t want to stay behind. Something in this jungle is going to have your shipmaster for dinner tonight, and you’ll be dessert if you’re hanging around.”

“No,” Cidra said again. She looked to Severance for some support, but he was quiet, almost thoughtful. “I’m staying here.”

“She’s a Harmonic, Racer. If the right people find out you’ve hurt her, there’ll be a reckoning. You know that.”

“I might not have to get rid of her,” Racer temporized, “if she has the sense to keep her mouth shut. Do you, Otanna?” He made the formal title a mockery.

“I don’t understand.” Cidra’s tone was aloof, but her heart was beating much too quickly, and the palms of her hands, folded serenely in front of her, were damp. This was as bad as facing the intruder in the lab had been.

“Sure, you understand. Harmonics are real good at understanding, aren’t they? They’re also real good at keeping their promises. I’m going to take you with me. At the end of the trip you’ll have a choice. Give me your word as a Harmonic that you’ll keep quiet about what happened here this morning and I’ll put you on the next freighter to Clementia. Refuse and I’ll feed you to a dracon.”

“Why don’t you simply leave me here with Severance?”

“Because knowing you’re going to be warming my bunk for a couple of nights will eat him up inside. I want to give him something to think about while he’s waiting for the deflector screens to fail.”

Cidra understood. Racer thought that she and Severance were lovers. He thought he could use her to twist the blade in Severance. She knew in that moment that there was far more between the two men than was obvious. This kind of hatred went back a long way. She shivered and unconsciously stepped closer to Severance. “Go with him, Cidra.”

She was stunned at Severance’s soft, order. “I will not go with him. I work for you. I’m staying here.”

“Cidra, with him you’ve got a chance. Take it.”

“No.”

Overcash snarled. “How long are we going to stand here and chat, Racer?”

“No longer.” Racer lifted the pulser slightly. “Get on board the skimmer, Cidra, or I’ll kill Severance and be done with the whole thing.”

He would do it. Cidra looked into Racer’s face and knew he had been pushed far enough. Any farther and Severance would die. He wouldn’t even have the hours until nightfall that the deflectors could provide. She was trained to analyze a situation and react logically. Without a word she stepped past Severance and walked toward the skimmer.

Racer visibly relaxed, a satisfied expression in his eyes.

“They always say Harmonics are bright. Be interesting to see how good one is in bed. The next couple of nights are going to be amusing. Think about them while you’re waiting for the deflectors to run out of power, Severance.”

“You know what’ll happen if I make it out of here, don’t you, Racer?” Severance asked very softly.

“We both know you’ll never make it out, so there’s no need to worry about it. If I were you, Severance, I’d stop wasting breath on threats and start thinking about how long those deflectors will last without a recharge.” Racer backed to the boat, keeping the pulser trained on Severance.

When he was on board, Overcash slipped the last tethers holding the skimmer in place and moved into the cabin. Cidra stood in the stern, her eyes on Severance as the skimmer’s fuel cells hummed to life. The power packs glowed green beside her in the rear of the boat. She was cold and sick inside. When Severance met her gaze and smiled faintly, she felt an unfamiliar stinging sensation behind her eyes. Her hands tightened in front of her.

“I’ll take the wheel,” Racer said as the skimmer moved away from shore. “This next little surprise has got to be timed properly.” He holstered the pulser as Overcash stepped out of the cabin.

Cidra tensed as the skimmer drifted farther from the bank. Severance was walking back toward the tent. He seemed in no hurry, but Overcash frowned and palmed his own pulser. The base of the weapon glowed red. “What’s he doing?”

“There’s nothing he can do,” Racer told him from inside the cabin.

“I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like it. In another couple of minutes the skimmer will go to the bottom and, with it, any chance he’s got of getting out of this in one piece.”

Cidra listened to the exchange, aware that in typical Wolf fashion both men had assumed that she was incapable of being a threat. They were right. She could not hope to use her Moonlight and Mirrors on both of them at the same time. Not when each man was armed with a pulser. But their attention was not on her, and this was the only opportunity she was going to get. She edged toward the high gunwale of the skimmer. It would be better if she could take off the boots, but that was not possible.

“He’s disappeared!” Overcash yelled. “I think he’s inside the tent. I can’t see what he’s doing.”

“This will bring him out in one renegade hell of a hurry.” Racer activated the control of the small instrument he was holding in one hand. “Watch. I rigged your boat for you, Overcash, before you left Try Again.”

There was a muffled roar. The skimmer left floating near the bank seemed to shudder, and then it imploded with a sickening crunch of diazite and metal. Slowly but inevitably the boat crumpled in on itself and sank into the river. Cidra waited no longer. This was the best chance she was going to get.

Overcash was staring in fascination at the disintegrating skimmer when Cidra went over the side. She launched herself in a smooth, flat arc, aiming for the shallowest possible dive. The last thing she wanted to do was go any deeper into the river than was absolutely necessary. Behind her she caught part of Overcash’s outraged yell. “She’s gone over!”

“Forget her,” Racer yelled back. “She’s dead meat.”

“The renegade bitch!” Overcash raised the pulser. Cidra was on the surface, stroking strongly toward the bank. Her main concern was trying to keep from getting any of the muddy, brakish river water in her mouth. It was Severance’s shouted order that stilled her movements in the water.

“Cidra, stop swimming! Float, damn it. Just float. Don’t splash. Don’t make a sound. Keep yourself on the surface.” She obeyed, glad that the awkward boots seemed bouyant in the water. With practiced ease she floated while she turned toward the shoreline to spot Severance. She didn’t notice if he was there or not; instead she found her gaze locked with a pair of malevolent eyes between her and the bank. A dracon was cruising toward her.

Cidra had never known this kind of terror. Only instinct kept her moving her hands in smooth, gentle sweeps around her midsection. The small movements were sufficient to keep her afloat. But compared to the fear that engulfed her as the dracon approached, drowning seemed a pleasant alternative. She could not yet see anything other than the eyes, but she sensed the vastness of the creature moving toward her. More terrifyingly she sensed its relentless, endless hunger. It wasn’t certain yet whether she constituted a potential meal, and dimly Cidra realized that it was probably because she was floating on the surface like a log rather than behaving like normal prey. Another set of eyes surfaced to Cidra’s right. She wanted to give in to the panic and have done with it. Anything was better than waiting for the dracons to leisurely start sampling her arms and legs. Perhaps they wouldn’t even bother with a sample. Perhaps one of them would simply swallow her in a single gulp. Still she floated, vaguely aware of Overcash’s agitation in the skimmer. Racer hadn’t thrown the boat into motion yet. He kept it hovering behind Cidra, and she knew that he and Overcash were waiting to see how long it would take the dracons to move in on her.

“I’m going to draw some blood,” Overcash announced. “It’ll get things over with a lot sooner.” Standing in the stern of the skimmer, he raised the pulser and aimed it at the floating Cidra.

Everyone’s attention was on Cidra and the dracons. No one noticed Severance when he stepped around the tent, the pulser he’d slept on during the night now in his hand. He aimed the weapon at Overcash and gently squeezed the trigger.

Behind her Cidra heard a man’s scream. A second later there was a loud splash and then, with blinding speed, the dracons were in motion. She closed her eyes, waiting for the horror to engulf her. A pair of eyes passed within inches, and she felt the brush of a huge, scaled body against her leg. But there was no tearing sensation. Another set of eyes flowed past, also ignoring her. Cidra didn’t stop to question fate. Using all her strength to keep her body as much as possible on the surface, she stroked again for the bank.

There was another scream behind her, but Cidra didn’t pause to glance back. She heard the thrashing sounds in the river and, slightly louder, the hum of the skimmer as it was shoved urgently into high speed. The bank seemed very far away.

Then Severance was there, wading into the river and reaching for her. He caught her wrist and dragged her the rest of the way to shore. Cidra wanted to scream as he pulled her up beside him. She automatically turned to see what was happening in the river. There was a flash of a huge, obscene shape that seemed to be made entirely of teeth. And there was something between its jaws, something that had once been human.

“Don’t look.” Severance forced her head against his shoulder. “It’ll all be over in a minute. Just don’t watch.”

Cidra stood shuddering in the circle of his arm, trying not to think of what she had seen and trying even harder not to think of how it might have been her own torn and mutilated body held fast in those fearsome jaws. In the distance she heard the skimmer’s hum fade.

“Racer’s gone,” she gasped, more for something to say than anything else.

“Racer’s good at leaving a friend in an awkward situation. Not that he could have done much for Overcash. Once the dracons sensed blood, nothing on this planet could have stopped them.”

“He was going to shoot me. I heard him say a little blood would get things over more quickly.”

“He was right.”

“You killed him to stop him from shooting me,” she said into his damp shirt. She wasn’t certain which stunned her more, Severance’s killing Overcash or Overcash’s willingness to kill her. Cidra felt dazed.

Severance hesitated. “I would have shot him even if he hadn’t been trying to wound you. I needed something to feed the dracons. In another minute or two they would have decided you were prey, after all.”

“Oh.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“I would have preferred feeding Racer to the river, but I couldn’t get a clear shot at him. Overcash was in the way.”

The awful thrashing sounds died away. Slowly, still afraid to turn and look toward the river, Cidra lifted her head. She realized that she was leaning heavily on Severance, seeking strength in him. “It’s over,” she whispered.

“No,” he answered, gently freeing her to look down into her stricken face, “it’s just beginning. Why did you jump overboard, Cidra?”

“I had no choice. I couldn’t go with him.”

“There was a chance he would have believed you really are a Harmonic, and a chance he would have let you go eventually if you’d given him your promise to keep quiet.”

“Which I would never have done, so there’s no point discussing it, is there?”

“Cidra…”

“Stop it, Severance.” She pushed away from him, still looking anywhere but at the river. “I could not go with him, and that’s all there is to it.”

He touched her cheek, his finger rough on her wet skin. “You would have survived rape, Cidra. I’m not so sure about the jungle.”

A sudden, fierce rage welled up in her. “I would not have survived rape. He would have had to kill me before he succeeded in raping me. Haven’t you ever heard of death before dishonor?”

Severance looked at her. “Not lately.”

“It would have been utterly degrading for me to have submitted to that man in exchange for my life after he’d left you to die. And it would have been equally dishonorable to have given him my promise not to tell the company authorities what had happened.”

“That’s a little extreme under the circumstances.”

“I work for you, Teague Severance. Have you forgotten our contract? I have sworn my loyalty to the firm of Severance Pay, Ltd. It would have been a breach of that act to have let Racer use me. He only wanted to add to your suffering, you know,” Cidra explained, lowering her voice. “And it would have bothered you greatly. Not because I was your lover but because you feel responsible for me. Racer didn’t seem to understand that I am merely your employee.”

“Lately I’ve had trouble understanding that myself.” Severance reached out and wrapped his palms around the nape of Cidra’s neck. He pulled her close and kissed her with a quick roughness that betrayed the tension he had hidden so well all morning. “Sweet Harmony in hell, Cidra Rainforest. I’ve never been so scared in my life as I was when I saw that dracon eyeing you. Don’t ever, ever do that to me again.”

She smiled mistily as he freed her. “I’ll make a note not to go swimming in the near future.”

He stared down at her for another long moment, as if he wanted to say more. Instead he released her and turned toward the tent. “I guess I’d better get moving.”