Unbound (25 page)

“—I have no need to eat.”

“Then you can keep me company.” Keeping a hand on his arm, she headed for the airlock.

“You . . . are not taking your craft?” Just asking seemed to take a major effort for Romir, but at least he was pulling out of that downward spiral. His back straightened, alertness seeping into his eyes with a force of will.

“The grav sled? Not this time. I’m tired of port food, so I thought we’d look around to see what else is available. Easier to do that walking. Who knows where we’ll end up. Let’s start there.” She pointed to the commercial arcade at the edge of the starport. Besides, if they flew, he wouldn’t see much of his people.

Romir wouldn’t say anything, but he had to be curious about the fate of the people he’d saved, and the Lomidari were their descendants. She could help him satisfy that curiosity; the cost of an off-ship meal—extortionately high in the Inner Worlds and on planet—was minor compared to that. This would be his only chance, since she had no intention of returning to Lomida in the future. A sudden fear gripped her: unless he remained behind. Here she was plotting a course on the assumption he’d continue crewing with her after he was free. What if he preferred to stay on Lomida?

A port robocab pulled over. The automated transports roved the landing field, serving the shuttles of the passenger liners and the ships that didn’t have a grav sled or an aircar. She usually didn’t resort to a robocab, preferring the independence of piloting herself, but they were a necessity if one was afoot. The starport was a city in itself, rivaling Yasra in size; it had to be to accommodate all the space traffic. They rode it to the arcade, Asrial now beset by doubts.

Chaos was her first impression of the arcade. It spanned two sides of the starport and was mobbed by a miscellany of races that more than anything proved they were on an Inner World. Even for a spacer like her, standing among this multitude was overwhelming.

Romir caught her arm, pulling her out of the way of a pair of scarred Hagnash shoving through the crowd. “Where do you wish to eat?”

Not here. Most of the people were spacers. “Let’s walk around. See what’s available.”

After a short stroll, the number of spacers petered out to be replaced by just as many grounders, but it still wasn’t what she had in mind. She left the arcade for the streets beyond.

Once outside the arcade’s walls, the atmosphere changed immediately. The low buildings along the streets began their steady climb toward the spires in the heart of Yasra. But this close to the starport, they had a good view of the Lomidar capital and its manufactured mountains.

Asrial followed her nose to a small sidewalk eatery that promised fast, cheap food and hearty servings. Authentic Lomidar food—or as authentic as one might get so close to port. She watched Romir as she ate, feasting on the expressions that escaped his restraint as much as on the meal before her.

She’d been right in thinking he needed to see the Lomidari in order to accept his people’s survival. It wasn’t the same as reuniting with his family, but that would have been impossible, even back in his time.

In light of Romir’s pleasure, she didn’t regret her decision until later, after they walked around a bit, exploring one of the broad boulevards tucked behind the industrial area surrounding the starport. The deeper they went into Yasra, the more people there were in the streets, as if the open spaces attracted the rowdy throngs. There were as many on a station—probably—but in space the corridors and limited lines of sight hid the reality.

Here, she felt as if a spotlight were focused on them. She wasn’t imagining the attention: the grounders turned and stared openly, the ruder ones going so far as to point their fingers—at her. Some dared come closer—into punching range—too close, as though they had no concept of personal space. So much for the myth of Inner World cosmopolitan sophistication.

Only grounders were staring, and not at Romir.
First the chase from Salima, then the barrage of requests for interviews, now this? Don’t tell me they recognize my face?

Glaring at the rude bastards, Asrial forged ahead.
“Keep moving. Don’t get pinned down,”
an inner voice trained by years on the Rim whispered in the back of her mind.

Crap, maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea, after all. She’d just wanted to pass time while the comp worked on translating the light text she’d recorded, to distract Romir from his shock and show him that the descendants of his people flourished. But they were drawing a crowd. This was more serious than a bunch of Inner World grounder snobs gawking at spacers.

All this interest made her fingers itch for her stunner.

Romir seemed to pick up on her unease, lagging to take a position behind and to her left. He was protecting her again.

The small hairs on the back of her neck stood on end half a beat before the twinge in her gut. What she would give to be able to attribute her concern to paranoia . . .

Of course, life was seldom that easy. If it were, there wouldn’t be a man lurking among the bystanders, pretending not to trail them.

She didn’t like the look of him. Dressed all in corporate black that failed to conceal the weapons on his person, the grounder moved with an economy of motion that boded trouble—a trained fighter, not simply a brawler. And he wasn’t alone.

“What is it?”

Asrial glanced back at Romir, noting the deceptive boredom shuttering his eyes. “We’re being followed.”

If she hadn’t been looking at him, she’d have missed the silver ferocity that flashed beneath his thick, black lashes, an intimation of the man whose memories were dominated by war and enslavement, death and destruction. A man who’d been used as a weapon against his own people. He’d suffered so much. Surely he’d faced more than his fair share of violence.

She could feel the net closing in on them, invisible for the time being but drawing tight. Instinctively, she headed for the starport and safety. But each change in direction found more lurkers all around. And once they realized she’d spotted them, they didn’t try too hard to hide their numbers from her.

The men herding them used her scruples against her, the presence of innocent grounders limiting her options. The only way she and Romir could escape was if she were willing to stun people whose only offense was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She’d hoped they would hesitate to try anything in public, but the muscle that oozed out between the nooks and crannies of the gathering crowd like seeping old hydraulic fluid was obviously corporate hire, not mere port toughs—an expensively outfitted private army and willing to advertise that fact.

Flight had never looked so tempting. “That’s far enough.” Keeping a hand on her stunner, Asrial checked around for a way out, but they were surrounded with no help forthcoming from the clueless bystanders.

One of the professional muscle gestured sharply at his companions, stopping them in their tracks, as he stepped closer. “Come with us. My principal wishes a word. It should be profitable for both of you,” he informed her in an emotionless monotone that told her more than she wanted to know about the situation.

If his delivery wasn’t enough, his stone face wiped clean of all expression set her internal alarms flashing red. “Sorry, not for hire. Try the port.” She sidestepped, staying out of reach.

Romir pulled her behind him, shielding her with his body. The glance he shot her conveyed an offer to take her away.

“We must insist,
Sraya
Dilaryn.”

More men stepped out of the murmuring crowd, heavily armed, their high-power stunners worn openly. Hers could kill if set at full power, fired at point-blank range at a major neural cluster, say the base of the skull at the top of the spinal cord. Theirs looked to be brute force military models that weren’t so finicky about aiming.

Frigging crap, they knew who she was—moreover, they had addressed her as a sovreine . . . just like those avatars wanting an interview. Any way she looked at it, that was bad.

Worse, they were corporate muscle! That was
very
bad. It wasn’t just her gut screaming at her; her skin desperately wanted to crawl off her arms. She’d been afraid something like this would happen.

Asrial preferred to avoid grounder politics, especially Lomidar politics. Especially after everything she’d heard from her father. And this situation had all the tag marks of politics. If she had her way, she’d run far and fast in the opposite direction. Except it didn’t look like that was an option at the moment. These men would be able to find her no matter how fast she ran. After all, she’d eventually have to return to the
Castel
.

On Lomida, she had nowhere else to go. She couldn’t leave her ship behind.

Frigging,
freaking
crap. There was no other choice. She had to play along for the moment.

With a sinking feeling of inevitability, she caught Romir’s wrist and shook her head minutely. If it were known he was more than an ordinary man, if they knew he was a djinn, who knew what they would do, how far they would go?

If they stole his prison . . .

Besides, she might need his powers later. She felt a twinge of guilt. So much for her high-minded ideals about believing Romir was a man. In a pinch of trouble, here she was, thinking of him as some sort of secret weapon.

Loud speculation rose behind the wall of professional muscle surrounding them. Stone Face ignored it, his mouth moving silently with subvocalized instructions, the result of which was immediately obvious.

A hover limo swooped out of the air traffic, long and black, wide stretches of glass tinted for privacy. Extravagant. It grounded with barely a whisper. A line appeared by the rear compartment, spreading into a door that opened like a mouth.

She’d seen more inviting maws in the Rim, though none that smelled this rich.

Stone Face stood by the door, as mannerly as a court attendant in her mother’s stories. But there was no mistaking the demand in his posture: if she didn’t enter by her own power, they would force her inside.

Romir stepped to her side, placing his body between her and the rest of the muscle. If she gave the word, he would fight—here in this very public place before countless witnesses, living and electronic.

Unwilling to risk Romir’s discovery, Asrial stepped in, sliding to the far side to make space for Romir. Leather gave way under her, petal smooth and yielding, the ultimate of luxury, to slaughter an animal for such an outrageously ordinary purpose—merely because they could.

She crossed her arms, chiding herself for being surprised. This was the Inner Worlds, after all, and Lomida, at that. Carbon silk upholstery would be the exception here.

Romir settled beside her, a solid warmth against her side. He slung an arm around her shoulders, his thoughts unreadable, as he studied the hover limo’s ostentatious luxury.

Stone Face followed him inside, taking a seat across from them, and the door sealed shut with a hush behind him. The limo took to the air at his word; obviously he was no mere flunky.

The rapid ascent pressed her deeper into the extravagant seat, making her wonder if the driver harbored illusions of space flight. It certainly felt like it. Faster than she liked they were threading the maze of spires that rose in the heart of Yasra, the limo a dark blotch on flashing glassteel windows—too fast for her to get her bearings. Seen through the hover limo’s dark windows, the people on the streets below looked like sand grains borne by artificial rivers and just as powerless against the whims of those who commanded those rivers to flow.

Stone Face kept silent the whole trip, a watchful presence impossible to ignore as his eyes shifted between her and Romir and back thoughtfully. She could see him weighing the connection between them, then identifying weak points and calculating the odds. The brains behind the professional muscle. He probably thought he could use Romir to control her.

Asrial gritted her teeth as the steel weight of understanding sank home: Stone Face would be right, too. If they knew what Romir was and could lay their hands on his prison, she’d do anything they wanted, to save him. Somehow, without her knowing, Romir had wound his way into her heart.

So perhaps she didn’t consider him just a secret weapon after all?

The limo landed on a parking deck, the rooftop beside one of the numerous spires that littered Yasra. Her gut clenched, her sense of foreboding ratcheting higher. Most of these spires were owned by one corporation or another. Given who held the power in Lomida, she had a strong suspicion which one owned this particular building.

Several aircars landed around them and discharged a throng of heavily armed professional muscle. She swore silently. She should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. She’d gambled that riding in the limo would reduce their numbers, since it could only accommodate so many, but obviously Stone Face had taken that into account in his planning.

Like an oxygen bottle running down, the trap was drawing tighter around her, a circuit closing, whether she wanted it to or not. Their options were few and getting fewer.

When they got out, Stone Face’s men surged forward to surround them, shoulder to shoulder, a solid wall of black suits, like a protective detail. They weren’t taking any chances. Too bad she couldn’t believe they were there to protect them.

The quibbling did little to distract her from their situation. Outnumbered, unless she chose to expose Romir’s secret. Definitely outgunned. But hopefully not outwitted.

Their entourage swept them through various security checkpoints, their flouting of standard procedures reinforcing Asrial’s suspicions of their principal’s standing. No mere admin bod could have endorsed such behavior and survived.

Romir kept an arm around her. He said nothing, but the grim look in his eyes announced to one and all that they would have to go through him to get at her. None of the muscle took him up on the challenge.