Sweet Starfire (7 page)

“I couldn’t agree more.” The first man started for the rear of the cabin where the inside cargo hatch was located.

The valuable shipment lay undefended. It was
COD
, Severance had said. He would get nothing for it if it wasn’t delivered. With a kind of stark clarity Cidra realized that she had to act. In Severance’s absence she was in charge of his ship. “Guard the castle,” he had told her.

Yet these men were official representatives of Lovelorn law. The law was one of the few formalized institutions Wolves had. It was to be respected. Harmonics knew it often fell short of the ideal, but that was no excuse for failing to honor it. Still, she felt she had to do something.

“Wait,” Cidra called urgently as the first man was about to step into the cargo bay. “I must protest this action. I insist you wait until Teague Severance returns. This is his ship and his cargo. You must discuss this with him.”

“Why don’t I just go ahead and put her out?” Des unholstered his weapon and calmly pointed it at Cidra.

“Forget it. She’s not going to get in our way. Give me a hand, Des. I knew we should have brought a servocart. This thing’s heavy.”

“Please,” Cidra said, “I’m asking one last time that you wait and take this up with the ship’s master.”

“Shut up, lady. You’re beginning to annoy me. Why don’t you meditate or something?” Des started to follow his companion into the cargo bay.

Fred suddenly leapt from Cidra’s lap, undulating with incredible speed across the cabin floor. Des whirled around, aiming his sidearm at the small creature.

“No!” Cidra stopped debating the philosophical quandary in which she found herself. Her hand swept out, yanking at the Screamer trigger imbedded in the wall behind her.

And then she found out why the shipboard defense system was called a Screamer. She was barely aware of the strangled cries of the two safeguards. Her own mind was suddenly bursting with the screams of every nerve in her body.

She had never experienced anything approaching such pain, and after the first few seconds, it held her totally immobilized. Lights flashed in front of her eyes, her ears seemed to hear every harsh, discordant sound in the universe, and her skin was on fire with a rash that made her want to claw at herself with her own nails. But she couldn’t even move her hand far enough to switch off the screamer. Cidra could only sit on the bunk and struggle to maintain some hint of sanity, for a primitive part of her was still alert enough to fear being driven insane by the cacophony. And that was the most terrifying prospect of all.

Instinctively she mentally grabbed for and clung to the intense discipline that was a fundamental part of her Harmonic training, using it to search for and find a thin sliver of consciousness and sanity to guide her through the pain. A true Harmonic would not have been able to apply her training under such fearsome circumstances. It was an ironic indication of Cidra’s lack of true talent that she could use the training now in a way for which it had never been intended. But Cidra was not contemplating the right or wrong of it all; she was simply holding on for her life.

Severance was worried even before he got out of the runner. He stood for a moment on the curb, the small courier pack locked to his wrist. Then he fished the computer remote out of his utility loop. The tiny notation on the screen informed him calmly that the Screamer had been activated. He stared at the object in his hand, unable to believe what he was seeing. He picked up the package of preserved vegetarian meals he’d wasted valuable time purchasing on the way back to the ship and broke into a run.

Severance Pay sat in heavy shadow on the landing field, giving no hint that all was pain and chaos aboard. The Screamer put out no audible sound. When Severance punched the remote to open the hatch, he found that it hadn’t been locked. Had Cidra left the ship after all? The knowledge infuriated him, but he found himself praying that she had. If she was still on board when the Screamer had activated, she would be limp, quivering marshjelly by now. He knew what the Screamer could do to the most hardened of Wolves. He couldn’t bring himself to imagine what it would do to someone who was almost a Harmonic in so many ways.

Damning everything and everyone around him, Severance used the Screamer’s remote to cancel the defense system. But he knew that if Cidra was inside, the damage had been done. He leapt aboard, his eyes sweeping the ominously still cabin.

For an instant he couldn’t see his passenger. She wasn’t on her bunk and she wasn’t lying on the floor. He saw the prone bodies of two men near the open cargo bay before he realized that Cidra was slumped on his bunk.

“Damn it to a renegade’s hell. Cidra. Cidra.” He crouched beside the berth, searching for her throat pulse. It beat far too rapidly beneath his fingers. The stiffness in her body alarmed him more than anything else. She should be unconscious by now. Even a minute of the Screamer’s effects was sufficient to knock most people out. Yet the tension in her body indicated that on some level she was still aware, still trying to fight the nerve-jamming impulses even though they had ceased. He began stroking her, petting her as if she were a wild creature he was trying to soothe and tame. There was no quick remedy for the Screamer’s damage. It took time to recover. Victims knocked unconscious generally awoke a long time later with a headache that could only be described as violent.

“Cidra, can you hear me? It’s over. Listen to me. It’s over. Let go, lady. Let go.”

Severance caught a brief movement out of the corner of his eye. He glanced toward the cargo bay and saw Fred release the leg on which he had been gnawing. The rockrug flowed toward his master. “What the hell happened in here?” Severance asked softly, wishing the rockrug could answer.

Fred hummed a little in response and undulated up into the bunk to settle on Cidra’s stomach. Then he began shifting his pliable body in a rhythm that didn’t take him anywhere but seemed to emulate the stroking movements Severance’s hands were making.

“It’s all right, Cidra. It’s all over. Can you hear me? All over. You’re safe now.”

Very slowly some of the unnatural tension seemed to seep from her body. Beneath his hand Severance could feel the gradual unknowing of the muscles in her arms. Her head began to move restlessly. He kept talking to her, muttering meaningless words of comfort. Even though he knew there was no instant cure for the Screamer’s results, Severance decided to get Cidra to the nearest med facility. If nothing else, they could tranquilize her into unconsciousness.

Her lashes lifted just as he started to get to his feet. Instantly he knelt again beside the bunk.

“Cidra?”

She seemed to have trouble focusing on him, but at last she realized who was beside her. Her lips moved, shaping soundless words. She touched her tongue to the dry surfaces and tried again.

“Is the castle… safe?”

“Everything’s safe, Cidra. Don’t try to talk. Just try to sleep. It’s the only way out of this. Try to sleep.”

“I know you left Fred in command,” she whispered, “but they were going to shoot him. There wasn’t anybody left… except me.”

Relief poured through Severance as he realized that she was starting to breathe normally. It didn’t look as though he would need the med facility after all. Gently he continued stroking her.

“We’ll talk about it when you wake up. Go to sleep, Cidra. Close your eyes and go to sleep.”

He watched her relax slowly into unconsciousness, and then he got to his feet once more. He studied the two men lying near the cargo bay while he unlatched the courier pack he had just picked up from a patron. It was being sent to Renaissance, and die shipper had been most anxious that it travel under computer lock. To humor him Severance had performed the little drama of latching the pack to his wrist. It was an ancient shipping custom that could still impress customers although Severance privately thought it wasn’t very practical as a security technique. But it seemed to have reassured the patron. It had also taken up precious time.

Dumping the pack carelessly into a nearby storage bin, Severance went toward the cargo bay to investigate the intrusion that had apparently caused Cidra to pull the Screamer. With the toe of his boot he nudged one of the unconscious uniformed men onto his back. Then he went down on one knee and pulled out the man’s certification card.

For a long time Severance studied the port security identification. It appeared almost genuine. It would easily have fooled Cidra, who wasn’t accustomed to double-checking a stranger’s ID.

The second man was sprawled halfway through the cargo bay opening. His arm still lay across the shipping container bearing the red
COD
seal.

Suddenly it all made sense to Teague Severance.

All except one small matter.

Twenty minutes later, as Severance Pay lifted off for the long trip to Renaissance, Severance was still pondering the fact that Cidra Rainforest must have gone against everything she had ever been taught when she’d used the Screamer to stop two safeguards from stealing the shipment.

A postman could do worse than go into space with a woman who was willing to risk her life for the mail.

Cidra’s first thought when she awoke was that a giant torla had accidentally stepped on her head. Such a thing could only happen accidentally, as torlas were too stupid to do anything on purpose except eat. They were also too stupid to move once they had accidentally stepped on someone. So, of course, Cidra assumed, the beast was still crushing her.

Unless, of course, this was the first assault in a war of revenge against the human population of Lovelady. If it was, Cidra could hardly blame them. The big, dumb, placid torlas had become a prime source of meat shortly after the First Families arrived. Knowing torlas, it might have taken them two hundred years to wake up to the fact that they had an enemy.

“I’m a vegetarian.” Cidra didn’t even try to open her eyes as she squeaked her protest. The torla on her head didn’t move.

“I know,” came the response from somewhere to her right.

“Just one more problem. Here, I’ve got some ‘gesics. They won’t knock you out like that oblivo stuff does, but they’ll help the headache. Open your mouth, Cidra. They have to dissolve under your tongue.”

A strong, sinewy arm slid under her shoulders, lifting her. The pain in Cidra’s head changed from a steady state of heavy pressure into sharp bolts of lightning. Tears burned beneath Cidra’s eyes. The humiliation washed over her, momentarily more intense than even the agony in her head.

“I apologize,” she gritted.

“For what?” Severance asked, calmly shoving two small objects under Cidra’s tongue. “The tears? Forget it. Most people would be screaming about now.”

Cidra sensed a faint fizzing sensation as the tablets dissolved. Experimentally she lifted her lashes and found herself looking up into Teague Severance’s gray eyes. He didn’t appear especially pleased with her as he knelt beside the lower bunk, cradling her in one arm. There was a grimness around the edges of his mouth.

“The act of screaming would only make it worse,” Cidra explained with grave logic. She managed to blink back the incipient tears.

“It can’t be as bad now as it was when you cranked on the Screamer. Saints in hell, lady, that thing must have ripped you apart.”

“I thought that’s exactly what it was doing.” Automatically she looked down at herself. The black-and-silver surplice was a mess, stained in places from her damp, perspiring body. The finely spun crystal-moss fabric looked as crumpled as she felt. But she seemed to be all in one piece. Then she realized she didn’t feel quite right even though nothing appeared to be missing. “Are we in space?”

‘Two hours out of Lovelady. I’ve got the grav on.”

Severance steadied her with one hand while his other went to her braided coronet.

The artificial gravity explained the faint strangeness she was feeling. “What are you doing?” Belatedly Cidra realized that Severance was freeing the fireberyl comb in her hair.

“I thought your head might feel a little better if you loosen those braids.” He tossed the expensive comb down onto the bunk beside her and deftly began unpinning her hair.

The intimate touch of his hands was vaguely alarming. Cidra wasn’t accustomed to much physical contact. Harmonics had a great respect for the privacy of another person’s body. Instinctively she tried to draw away from Severance. His grip on her shoulders tightened in response.

“Hold still. I’ll have these down in a minute.”

“I’ll do it.” She lifted her hand to her hair, trying to take over the small task. Her fingers came in contact with his, tangling for an instant. He ignored her efforts, pushing her hand aside. She felt the roughness of his scars.

“I’ve almost got it. This must be harder to put together than a coalition of free miners on
QED
. How long does it take every morning?” Two long braids tumbled free, falling down over Cidra’s breasts. As if intrigued by the intricate braiding, Severance’s fingers followed the line of one braid all the way down to the tip. His hand hovered there, filling Cidra’s body with a new tension.

Her concentration was abruptly torn between the pain in her head and her intense awareness of the proximity of Teague’s fingers. She realized that she was holding her breath, knowing that if she inhaled, she would thrust herself against his hand.

“I work my hair during the first morning change.” She couldn’t think of anything else to do except answer his question. He was beginning to unwind the individual braids now, starting from the bottom and moving upward. Cidra drew a small sigh of relief as the masculine fingers moved to her shoulder. She could risk breathing again.

“Well, you’ll have plenty of time on this trip to fool with your hair. How’s the head?”

“Better.”

“Good. With any luck no one will find those two fake guards for a whole day or two. They won’t have any ‘gesics to help with the headaches.” There was a certain distinct satisfaction in Severance’s voice.

Cidra looked up at him as her hair loosened beneath his touch. “Fake guards? They didn’t represent port security at Lovelorn?”