The Star King (25 page)

Chapter Seventeen

"You're safe; the rest of my crew is safe," Rom said as he paced the length of their small tent. "I'm not going to jeopardize that by heading off on a revenge-driven crusade."

"I'm not suggesting you do this alone."

"I want no part of galactic politics."

But other than appealing to the
Vash Nadah
rulers for help, the same men who had turned their backs on him decades ago, he had no way to drum up the kind of support he needed to wipe out the Family of the New Day and their illegal weaponry. He just wouldn't see that. Composing her thoughts, Jas tried to come up with enough justification to change his mind. "You're not facing the same enemy you did twenty years ago. Tell them
that.
Beela's involvement with the group is significant. It means Sharron's now recruiting highborn
Vash.
That means he's gained credibility, and that's going to bring him more powerful, more influential followers."

"The presence of that highborn
Vash
woman disturbed me," Rom affirmed.

"It
shocked
you. I was there. I saw it in your face."

Dryly, he said, "I've been living in the frontier. I haven't kept up with which royals have fled courtly life and which ones haven't. Certainly
Vash Nadah
intelligence has kept track. They undoubtedly are aware of the Family of the New Day."

"But not that Sharron's alive."

"Perhaps. Or maybe they've chosen to ignore that fact."

"Idiots." She shoved their extra clothing into a waterproof sack, snatched the sleeping bag, and rolled it up with furious, jerky movements. "The Family of the New Day's not a cult anymore. It's a full-fledged revolution."

"I know this, Jas—"

"Beela said they'd bring the war to us, to our homes, our families!"

"Boasting is the bread and butter of zealotry."

She whirled on him. "Do we take that chance?" she implored. "Do we have the
right
to take that chance?"

Uncertainty etched weary lines on either side of his mouth. Hands clasped behind his back, he halted in front of the open tent flap and stared outside. After long moments of promising silence, he said, "It would take an immense army to locate and destroy his military storehouse."

"Then we'll raise one. Look, you said you never had proof of his evildoings. Well, now you have me. I'll tell them about the medallions, the antimatter bombs, the fun he planned for me after I had his baby. Put me in front of the Great Council—"

"Galactic politics." Rom spat the phrase as if it were a swear word. "Give me the distant frontier, where a man can carve out his own fortune."

And where he could exist far from the reminders of failure that had dogged him all his adult life.

An acute, wistful longing overtook her. She could give him what he wanted, and gain happiness for herself at the same time. Earth qualified as the frontier. They could settle there, live out their lives pretending the galaxy wasn't teetering on the brink of war. But even as she worked up the nerve to invite him home, the mere thought of confining this larger-than-life hero, this once-heir to the galaxy, to her ordinary suburban life in Scottsdale, Arizona, kept her from doing so.

Frustration boiled inside her. She snatched a towel and a packet of soap. "I'm going to the spring to bathe." She prayed she could sort out their dilemma.

Early morning was beautiful on unspoiled Ceres. She wore a pale green dress, one of the outfits she had bought while waiting for the starspeeder to be repaired, a slim, ankle-length garment in a giving fabric designed for space travel. The plush and cozy cloth reflected the dawn light in the slightest of shimmers. It had rained for a while after they'd returned to the tent last night. She remembered listening to the drops drumming on the roof. But it had stopped while they were sleeping, and now only occasional plops of water fell from the tall trees.

She hugged her arms to her chest, inhaling air thick with the rich essence of dampness and plants. But the splendor of the forest brought her no peace. She thought of Rom, the grief and loneliness he'd suffered for so many years, after losing his family as a young man. He'd sacrificed more than anyone had to see Sharron dead. She couldn't blame him for not wanting face the trauma of loss all over again. Could she?

Head down, she marched into the woods. Runoff water from daily rains had carved a narrow path to the spring. But the boggy ground kept her from walking as fast as she would like. Supposedly the snails were now slumbering in their burrows, but she'd rather not meet up with one alone.

A flock of scarlet birds flitted overhead. She turned to watch them, and her flimsy sandals skidded atop a flat boulder made slick with ooze. She fell hard. Feet swerving out from under her, she yelped and slid like a drunken sea otter into a puddle of stagnant water. Sour-smelling muck splashed onto her face and hair. She spat, wiping the back of her hand across her splattered nose and chin. Silver eddies caught her eye as she wobbled upright, microscopic creatures swirling like glitter in the storm she'd created. Amazing, even the algae were gorgeous in this Garden of Eden.

Where the spring formed a small, tepid pool, the water was clean and clear, with a silt-layered bottom as silky as baby powder. After bathing, she leaned against a sun-warmed boulder and squeezed excess water from her dress and hair. Her toes curled in the spongy, moss-covered ground, where dappled sunshine danced. She looked forward to bringing Rom to the spring. He loved water, having grown up on a desert planet where water was considered a luxury, even for a privileged family. They'd spend the afternoon together, relaxing, laughing ... making love. Low in her belly she warmed with the thought. Sensuality was an integral part of her personality, and probably always had been, something she was beginning to see as she learned to express that pas-

sion physically, rather than confining it to a paintbrush.

The warmth changed to a vaguely unsettled twitching in her stomach. What she needed was some
Vash
breakfast stew—and the good-morning kiss she'd forfeited to argue about Sharron. She headed back.

Savory scents met her at the top of the rise. Lost in thought, Rom was stirring the contents of a pot bubbling on a rack over a laser fire. Her stomach rippled with hunger, then a faint nausea. Absently she rubbed her belly as Rom scooped food into two bowls and joined her on a fallen log. She dragged a piece of flat bread through her stew, hoping to rouse her appetite. But her stomach protested, making her skin feel warm and clammy. She set the bowl down.

"Lost your appetite?" Rom inquired. "Now you know why I don't care to argue before breakfast."

"No, it's not that."

Thoughtful, he regarded her. "You hardly ate last night, either."

"Because I was nervous about the snails. This is different." She took several gulps of air to quell her roiling stomach.

"Nauseated?"

She nodded.

Eyes softening with curiosity and concern, he pressed his palm to her forehead. Then he strode into the star-speeder, returning with a bag of medical supplies, dozens of drugs, biochemically and genetically engineered to cure almost every ill imaginable. She'd learned that, because the medications were so effective, most who lived in the central part of the galaxy saw doctors only for severe injury and surgery.

Rom sprayed a scented mist under her nostrils. When she inhaled, her abdomen knotted up, as if someone had punched her in the gut. She shot to her feet and ran to the bushes, her hand pressed over her mouth. She fell to her knees, almost blacking out. Her stomach heaved in great spasms until she was left empty and shaking. She was vaguely aware of Rom's presence behind her, his hands smoothing her damp hair away from her face and neck. Sitting back on her haunches, she closed her eyes and panted.

"The worst is over, angel," he assured her, lifting her to her feet. Her legs wobbled, and she leaned against him as he led her away from the underbrush to a blanket he'd spread over the dirt near the fire.

Her stomach muscles unclenched. After a few uncertain moments, she ventured, "I think the drug's starting to work." But queasiness enveloped her as soon as she sat. "Maybe not."

"The drug acts more swiftly with some individuals than others. It'll catch up." Rom eased her backward, settling her against his chest and within the cradle of his thighs. Her damp dress felt horrible, though it hadn't bothered her before, but she was too unmotivated to change or ask him for help.

"Any better?" he asked.

"No ... it's ... not helping."

He misted her again with the medicine. "Inhale... hold it. That's it. Now let it out slowly." Her pulse pounded in her ears. Rom's wide palms circled over her lower belly. "Perhaps it is something you ate."

"We had the same meals, though." Another queer spasm gripped her middle, and she closed her eyes. "I wonder—it could be too early, I know, but... I could be pregnant"

His hands froze.

Embracing the idea, she said wistfully, "I was so sick with the twins. For months."

His breath caressed the side of her throat. "But Jasmine, I can't—"

"Yeah, well, that's what you were told. In a diagnosis made years ago. But how do you know it's still true? Every woman you've slept with since took precautions against pregnancy, right?"

"Yes, but—"

"It's been some time since we first made love—without protection—and I'm late." She stopped to pant so she wouldn't have to dash to the bushes before she finished. "What if your sperm count's come back? All it takes is one."

"Jasmine—"

She turned slightly. "But what if?"

His hands fanned protectively over her abdomen, his signet ring sparkling in the sunshine. "Jas ... to father a child,
our
child—" He swallowed and held her tighter. "Long ago I'd accepted that such riches would never be mine." His voice held enough pain, enough hope, to bring tears to her eyes.

In that defining moment, she saw her reservations about remaining in space for what they were: she'd believed her family and friends couldn't exist without her because it was a built-in excuse to flee happiness, to flee Rom's love, for fear of being disappointed again. Accepting tliat, she allowed a future she hadn't contemplated to unfold in her mind's eye: Rom, the seasoned warrior, cradling an infant in his muscular arms; then herself, breastfeeding after all these years.

"Can you see us as new parents?" she asked, laughter in her voice. "At our age?"

"Nonsense! We're in our prime." Rom pushed aside her damp hair and pressed his lips to the side of her throat.
"Vash Nadah
delight in large families. We'll have more after this one."

A hot-cold sensation spilled into her middle. Prickles of nausea quickly turned into needles scouring her insides, but she couldn't take the deep breaths necessary to blunt the pain. A hiccup slashed at her insides. She winced, touched quivering fingertips to her lips, and her hand unfurled into a blossom of glistening crimson blood.

She wasn't pregnant; there wasn't going to be a baby. And she might not live to try again to make one. Along with skyrocketing fear, the unspoken understanding flickered between them.

He hoisted her into his strong arms. She must have passed out for a few seconds, for when she came to, she was on her knees, puking her guts out in the bushes.

* * *

Rom waited until Jasmine lifted her head, then dabbed her mouth with a soft towel. Foreboding consumed him. She was bleeding internally—the color had already leached from her lips.

Aboard the starspeeder, he settled her into the bunk. "Try to remember. Did you nibble on something at the spring?" He leaned over her. "Fruit? A blade of grass? Anything at all?"

Her brows drew together. Between what appeared to be spasms of extreme pain, she managed, "Puddle... fell. Swallowed water."

His anxiety spiked. Parasites. Voracious parasites ex-

isted that could consume internal organs in the space of hours. He tucked her in bed, bolted out the door of the starspeeder, and tossed their camping gear in the cargo hold. Then he blasted out of Ceres for Gorgenon Prime, the planet where they'd had the starspeeder repaired, and the only one in the system with a doctor.

With the coordinates entered into the navigation computer, he floated in zero gravity back to the bunk, hunkering down by Jas's side. Inventorying his medical kit, he grabbed a pain-blocker and an antiparasitic. They would buy him time, of which instinct told him he had precious little. He fitted the pain-blocker patch below her jaw, then supped a paper-thin antiparasitic disk under her tongue. "This will help until we get to the doctor," he said, brushing his knuckles over her cheek.

Her midnight hair floated around her head like a halo. Her lips had taken on a bluish tint, and her skin was turning gray. Between breaths, she moaned.

Rom felt helpless, and he detested it. Even if he reached a physician in time, the damage done by then might be extraordinary. By all that was holy, he had no business taking her to Gorgenon Prime. She needed a
Vash Nadah-
trained surgeon, not the run-of-the-mill practitioner he'd no doubt find there.
Vash Nadah
physicians were the best doctors in the galaxy. But he might as well wish for a magic wand. Those renowned, highly skilled individuals were raised from birth to treat the eight rulers and their families—and served them exclusively.

He was one of them, was he not? One of the eight, the once-scion to the B'kahs. No matter how thoroughly his past deeds had sullied his family name, that simple fact remained—blood was blood.

Hand over hand, he propelled himself back to the cockpit and consulted his star map. His mind buzzed with possibilities, while hope thrummed in his veins. Mistraal... yes. The ancestral planet of the family Dar was but a day's journey at maximum speed. It was also his brother-in-law's home, a man he had once considered his close friend.

A man he hadn't spoken to in twenty years.

Not that Rom's life spent on the fringes of civilized space had facilitated familial contact, if Joren had cared to try...

He rotated in the chair to face the bunk. Aside from surrendering what little personal pride he had left, showing up on a
Vash Nadah
homeworld looking for help was in flagrant violation of the mandate that had transformed him from heir to the throne, to outcast. Not to mention that it would amount to outright groveling. But resolve fortified him at the sight of Jas's pain-etched face. The planet Mistraal was his best chance, perhaps his only chance, at finding a surgeon with the skills to save her.
If Joren Bar's star-fighters don't blast me to cosmic dust first.

Willing that dismal prospect from his mind, Rom reached for the navigation console and entered the coordinates for the desolate, windswept planet Mistraal.

* * *

Pushed to maximum speed, the starspeeder shook. Stars stretched to impossible lengths across the forward viewscreen, while Mistraal, a tiny pinprick of light, crept across the navigation display. Rom had kept up the grueling pace all day, while Jas grew slowly colder, weaker.

By now she would have been under a doctor's care

on Gorgenon. Instead she was dying on a thin-sheeted space pilot's bunk. As in poker, the game her people so loved, he had to bet everything on what he could not see. All he could do now was pray that when fate's hand was revealed, the cards were in his favor.

"Unidentified starspeeder, this is Mistraal Control!"

Rom jolted instantly alert.

"You are entering protected space," the controller barked. "State identification."

"Starspeeder, all-purpose class-type M, registration number 18693, M-2A."

"State intentions."

Rom spoke slowly, evenly. "Request permission to land. Medical emergency. I repeat, medical emergency."

"Pilot identification," the controller demanded.

"Romlijhian B'kah."

"Er . . . say again?"

"Romlijhian B'kah." A telling silence followed, and he pictured the conversation that must surely be taking place in the control pod.

Another controller took over, a bit more experienced, as evidenced by her sterner, confident voice. "State pilot identification."

Rom spread his hands on the console and replied. He must have come within interrogation range, for a string of lights then danced across his forward computer panel as Mistraal extracted the information they needed to authenticate his claim.

The sparkles winked out. Minutes of silence dragged into almost half an hour. Then icy shards of dread began to chip away at his confidence. He floated out of the chair and stretched his cramped muscles. He looked back toward Jas. "Patience, angel. Simply a minor bureaucratic snarl. Nothing's changed in the years I've been gone."

The lightness of his tone did not transfer to his heart. He'd gambled that his sister's husband wouldn't turn him away. But what if the years had eradicated what loyalty might linger from friendship and family ties? Joren Dar could refuse him entry.

Easily. Or what if Joren was dead?

Then what?

Perspiration needled his forehead. The other
Vash Nadah
worlds were too distant to be of any use. If Joren turned him away—and he'd be well within his rights— Rom would be forced to take his chances on some forsaken planet. And Jas would die; he knew it as surely as he breathed.

"Attention 18693,
M-2A;—
this is Mistraal—do you read?"

He shoved himself into the chair. "Go."

"You have permission to land. Proceed to checkpoint alpha."

"Copy," Rom said on a sharp exhalation. "Checkpoint alpha." Grabbing the thrust lever, he eased the craft into the landing protocol.

* * *

Fatigued to his very bones, Rom cradled Jas in his arms and strode through the hatch of the starspeeder into a vast anteroom.
Remember that you are a B'kah. The blood of Romjha runs in your veins.
He squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. As his boots echoed off the floor of flawless white crystal, he instinctively searched the group assembling in the chamber for a familiar face, but found none.

"Summon your surgeon," he told the openly curious

palace dwellers, using the most authoritative voice he could muster in his depleted state.

Two men nodded and ran from the room. Irritated, Rom watched them go. Hadn't he transmitted on arrival that he needed a doctor to meet him? Why wasn't one here waiting?

"Rom—it
is
you!"

The familiar, breathy voice cut through the crowd. He steeled himself as the gathering parted for his sister. Melon-hued silk breezed behind her as she hurried toward him. Her hair was piled ornately on the top of her head and partially hidden beneath a filmy veil. Swept back from her face, the style revealed the elegant features of a woman—not the girl he once knew.

He felt a rush of homecoming, a sense of years wasted. Somehow he kept control of his emotions, a far more difficult task now that he'd grown accustomed to revealing them to Jas. "Di—" he said lamely, using her childhood nickname as if days instead of years had passed since they'd last seen each other.

Tears welled in her eyes. "They told me it was you. I was afraid to believe—but by the heavens, you are actually here." She slid one warm, smooth hand over his cheek and traced the contours of his face.

He caught her hand. "Never have you been far from my thoughts."

"Nor you from mine," she whispered.

Her expression of unqualified joy told him what he'd dared not hope. The love between them had survived their years apart.

Swallowing hard, he forced himself to focus on the reason he was here. "Is your surgeon on the way?"

Her gaze veered to Jas, whose hair tumbled nearly to the floor. "Yes." Clearly taken with Jas's startlingly exotic appearance, she asked, "Who is she?"

"My
a'nah."
The words slipped out without forethought.

His sister peered at Jas with heightened interest. Unconsciously Rom hugged Jas more tightly to his chest. Though not formal, the title "wife-without-spoken-vows" would give Jas much-needed status in a society that revolved around rank and family.

He would simply explain everything when she awoke.

"You summoned my surgeon;" Joren called out as he caught up to his wife. His ceremonial robes swirled around his tall, muscular frame as he halted beside her. "The woman is ill?"

"Yes," Rom replied uneasily, unable to tell from Joren's guarded expression what the man thought of his arrival here. "Parasites. The most incredibly voracious species I've seen. My antiparasitic had little to no effect." Desperation slipped into his voice. "I fear that if she is not treated immediately she will die."

Joren flicked his hand and more men ran off, presumably to speed the surgeon's appearance. "I was not informed of the seriousness of her condition. Bello!" he shouted. "Bring the senior controller to me immediately. With the feeble excuse on the tip of his tongue as to why I was given incomplete information." When the man fled the chamber, Joren muttered, "Unlike my space controllers, my surgeon and his staff are the best the galaxy has to offer. We will make the woman well."

"His
a'nah,"
Di supplied pointedly.

The couple exchanged glances. "Your
a'nah,
then. She is welcome here." He sought and held Rom's gaze. Two decades of misgiving shone in his eyes, along with

unequivocal regard and love. "As are you, my brother," he whispered.