The Key (12 page)

Fyn stopped and looked around. “If there are biters on this island, the repair should wait until it’s light.”

Carey stopped. “Biters?”

Fyn shrugged. “That’s what they do, so that’s what I called ‘em.”

Carey got on the radio again. “Sir, we’re going to have to delay the repairs until it’s light again. According to Fyn, night can be…interesting.”

The Colonel was not happy, but agreed there was nothing else to be done. At least while they were inside, they could monitor Dusan activity.

“Maybe he’ll cool off before he sees you,” Carey said, cheerfully. “Lead on, McDuff!”

* * * *

Fyn looked around the upper chamber. If this was a Garradian outpost, then maybe the stories about them were not as wild as he’d thought. Kalian—no, don’t think about him, not here, not now.

Sara seemed oddly wary. Something had happened to her while she was here alone. Why would someone with her…ability to heal…get a headache? And why did she touch the consoles like they were hot, just a quick touch to turn them on? And why wouldn’t the AI, if it existed, let her leave? It didn’t care if he or Carey did.

Carey studied the tracking map, his hands clasped behind his back.

“This is way cool, Donovan.” He looked back at them both. “I wonder what the weapons are like.”

“I know,” Sara said. “I was wishing I hadn’t been so quick about reporting in.” She rubbed her temple, almost absently.

“Thought I told you to take something for that,” Carey said.

“I did, sir. It hasn’t been long enough for it to kick in.”

Fyn was standing in line with her, while a console blocked Carey from having a clear view. He could see her clenching her hand so hard the fingers looked white. She managed a stiff smile.

“Maybe I should look around, see if there’s some place we can sleep tonight.” She looked around. “The couches look a little on the short side.”

“Sure, just don’t wander far.” Carey sat down in front of one of the consoles and tentatively touched the screen. Fyn noted it didn’t respond to him the way it did to Sara.

Sara walked out of the room, moving without her usual grace. With a quick look at Carey, he followed her out and found her in the hall leaning on the banister, her head down, her hands clenched on the wood. Her hair hid her face. Her body looked tight enough to bounce coins off of.

“Sara?”

With an effort, she straightened and turned to face him. She was dead white and still she tried to smile.

“What’s wrong?”

She touched her temple lightly and then dug her fist into the side of her head. “Headache.” She paused, and then ground out, “I’ll be all right in a minute.”

He was about to call Carey when he saw her start to relax. She even managed a smile, though it was a bit on the wan side.

“Wow. I’m not used to getting headaches.” Her gaze did an odd, assessing sweep around her and Fyn had the feeling it wasn’t him she was talking to. “Do you want to take this floor and I’ll go check out the next level down?”

“You sure you’re all right?”

Sara wasn’t sure what she was, but she managed another smile.

“Not great, but good. The meds are starting to do their thing.” After a brief hesitation, Sara started toward the stairs. She had to pass Fyn and it didn’t surprise her when he stopped her, his hand on her arm. She looked up at him as warmth spread through her from the point of contact. In an odd way, it seemed to push the pain back even further. It was kind of nice to be worried over.

He must have felt the change in her because his eyes changed. He released her arm and ran a finger down the side of her face. It was both comforting—and a bit worrying.

She wished she understood better why he’d singled her out for… interest. She wanted to ask him, but it was hard to come up with a non-humiliating way to ask why he seemed to want the homely girl.

Evie used to tell her that there were different kinds of beautiful and the right man would find her the right beautiful for him.

Sara always thought that was a bunch of bull, but maybe Evie was right. She’d been right about most things. It was still hard to wrap her brain housing group around.

“What are you thinking?” Fyn sounded puzzled and maybe a tiny bit annoyed.

She kind of shrugged. “A lot of things, actually.” She hesitated. “You…kind of, seem to…like…well, me.”

At least he seemed to like kissing on her. Maybe that wasn’t the same thing with guys.

He looked surprised at first, and then he smiled. “Is that a problem?”

Sara hesitated again, but it had to be asked. “Why?”

His brows arched in surprise. “What?”

“Well, I mean, I’ve got a temper…and that baggage…” A lot of baggage. Faults, too, but it wouldn’t be wise to list them all. If he did actually like her, why poison the well? “And there’s a lot of women with less…baggage on the
Doolittle.
Mary Kelly is a botanist
and
a former beauty queen. Of beet roots, I think.”

She faltered a bit at the look in his eyes. She couldn’t quite figure it out.

“And there’s Andrea Williams. Another scientist and very beautiful. She’s the blonde you danced with…”

His brows went up.

“Okay, they were a little short, but Sandy Willis is tall and beautiful. She’s head of stellar cartography…” The look in his eyes killed the rest of the sentence.

He looked like he was going to say something, but then stopped and looked over his shoulder toward the doorway to the control room.

“Come in here.” He drew her into a room next door.

The lights came on as they entered, revealing an office with the usual, though very sumptuous, accoutrements. Sara was vaguely aware that one wall was lined with what looked like books, while others had paintings attractively arranged. There was also a fireplace. It was hard to see anything but the look in Fyn’s eyes.

He took her P-90 and set it on the desk, then grabbed both her hands, holding them against his chest.

“You really have no idea, do you?”

“Well, that would be why I asked,” Sara felt bound to point out, wondering if they were talking about the same thing. She could have understood his interest in her when they were first stranded on Kikk and he hadn’t seen anyone for months, but now? He had options. There were points for comparison.

“One of those songs your group sang last night, it could be about you. You really don’t know you’re beautiful, do you?” He sounded amazed.

Sara felt…winded. If she’d have had a hand free, she would have waved it in front of his face to check his vision.

“Who told you that you weren’t beautiful? And why did you believe them?”

“Well,” Sara looked away, then looked back at him, “I do have a mirror. I’ve been looking at this face for years, twenty-eight of them, actually. Well, I probably didn’t look for the first few—”

Actually, the first eight. For those years she’d had parents who thought she was wonderful and beautiful and smart—all the usual things parents believed about their own kids.

Instead of talking, Fyn started to touch her face. First he traced the shape. Then he outlined her nose and mouth. Her mouth might have quivered a bit. The pads of his fingers were rough, but amazingly gentle as he explored her face. He stroked along her eyebrows, and ran his hands into her hair, playing with the strands as if they fascinated him. It felt like he was…erasing homely, painting a new, beautiful reality onto her quivering skin. It wasn’t possible, but it felt wonderful.

When he’d reduced her to a puddle of longing, he finally kissed her. There was passion there, but if it had only been passion, Sara wouldn’t have responded so completely. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t give it a name, but it filled her with delight.

When he finally came up for air, Sara took a shaky breath. “So how come you’re the first one to notice my…great beauty and charm?”

He smiled. “Maybe the gods hid you for me.”

Sara had to smile. “It’s a working…theory, I guess.”

She wished they’d mentioned it to her.

Her radio beeped. “Where are you guys?” Carey asked.

Sara straightened instinctively to attention. “We’re in an…office, sir.”

“Anything of interest?”

Sara grinned at Fyn. “Not sure yet, sir. Are you all right?”

“I’d be better if I could figure this stuff out. Let me know when you find something.”

“Yes, sir.” Sara looked around again, this time paying more attention. She eased away from Fyn, aware of an odd feeling of shyness. She felt him watching her as she went around the desk and pulled open a drawer. It wasn’t a huge shock to find it empty. She turned and pulled out a book. Fyn moved over to look at the paintings on the wall, though she felt him giving her the occasional look, too.

Sara opened the book. Surprisingly little damage there. The script looked a bit like the Kanji, though she couldn’t find a recognizable pattern. She closed it and put it back.

“Well, clearly no where to sleep in here—”

“Sara.”

Something in Fyn’s voice made her uneasy. She walked over next to him.

“What?” He was looking at one of the paintings, so she did, too. Only it was like looking in a mirror. “Whoa.”

She bent closer. There were differences. The woman in the painting had longer hair for one thing. And her eyes were more blue than gray. Sara thought she saw subtle differences in the shape of the face, too. There was a gold plaque at the base that could have been a name. It was in the same script as the book.

“That’s kind of…weird.” She looked at Fyn. “They say everyone has a twin somewhere.”

“If the Garradians left this galaxy, it is possible they went to yours,” Fyn said. “You could be a distant relation.”

“We don’t even know if this is a Garradian outpost.” Sara felt uneasy, though. What if the city had… summoned her? “I wonder who she was.”

Miri.

Sara looked both directions. Fyn didn’t seem to have heard anything. She looked at the plaque, trying to find that name in the script. It was kind of like trying to break a code, but with a name, she began to see a pattern…

“She looks sad,” Fyn slanted a look at her, “the way you do sometimes.”

“I’d almost bet money that what makes her look like that has nothing in common with me.” Sara looked around. “Particularly if she lived here.” It was a long way from some of the trailer parks she’d called home.

“Where are you guys?” Carey sounded a bit…plaintive.

Sara gave Fyn an oh-oh look.

“We’re right next door, sir, in an office. To the right.”

In a moment the door slid open. He looked in.

“You haven’t got very far.”

“Sorry, sir. We got distracted by…all this.” It was partly true.

Carey joined them by the painting. “That looks like you.” He looked back and forth between them a couple of times. He didn’t seem as interested as they were, though. “I’d like to stay close to that tracking map, just in case the Dusan come back. Maybe we can move a couple of those couches in there? If it gets cold, we’ll huddle together for warmth.”

He grinned at them both, as if he suspected some “huddling” had already been going on.

“Or we could pull down some of the wall hangings,” Sara pointed out, relieved at his lack of interest in the painting. Not that couches or hangings were going to be pleasant to sleep on. At least there’d been no tale-tell signs of mice.

Carey and Fyn exchanged “guy” looks.

Her stomach rumbled softly. And they’d left their emergency packs in their ships. It was already full night outside. Great.

“Just how long are the nights?”

“Longer than the days,” Fyn said.

“Maybe there’s a cafeteria?” Carey said hopefully.

Sara sighed. With really old food. “I’ll go look around while you two take care of the couch situation.”

* * * *

When Sara finally rejoined the two guys, she had a better feel for the layout of the building. It was definitely an alien version of an office type building. It was kind of odd what had been left. All the desks she looked at had been cleaned out. But the offices all had paintings and books in them. Some had statuary and in one she found a sort of flute on a stand. The carving was intricate and beautiful.

Sara cleaned the mouthpiece and tried it out. The sound was haunting and beautiful and oddly familiar. She put it back and was going to leave it, but it felt…wrong. It was almost as if it wanted her to take it, but that would be looting. Still, she could show it to Carey as part of her report.

Acting on a hunch, Sara checked out one of the fireplaces and found heaped ash, as if someone had burned a lot of paper. It was the kind of thing someone would do when abandoning a position that could be over run by an enemy.

But it hadn’t been over run.

Who had…hid it?

She’d pulled back the drapes in one office and looked out. Stars winked in the sky, but the landscape was lost in a deep, alien darkness. She’d let the drape fall back into place and moved on, but in her mind she was back in her dream, moving through a city teaming with life. She’d strained to see their faces, but everyone turned away from her. As she’d left, it felt like the cities’ ghosts followed on her heels, trying to tell her something she couldn’t hear.

She reported her findings to Carey and showed him the flute.

He looked at it for a moment, before handing it back to her. “I wonder how it works.”

“It’s not that different from our flutes, sir.” She put it to her lips and played a bit of something that flowed into her mind. The tone was different from an earth flute, deeper and sadder.

Carey quirked a brow at her. “Seems like you’ve made another friend.”

“I can’t keep it, sir.” Sara looked down at it, trying not to look wistful. For a moment it seemed she saw a flute like this one, held in small, fat kid hands and heard a voice telling her to be careful with it. “But it is… interesting.”

“While I can’t officially sanction collecting, if I were to look away and you were to tuck it in your jacket, the world probably wouldn’t stop turning.” Then he grinned at her. “Though if it turns up on eBay, your ass is grass.”

“Yes, sir.” When he looked away, Sara tucked it away, not just because she had permission, but because she knew she was meant to have it. She looked up and caught Fyn watching her and blushed.