Virgin (32 page)

***

But that night, lying in bed with Dax, Ava began to have doubts. “Are you sure you want to do this? We could give the stone to someone else…”

Dax cut right to the heart of the matter. “Do you know of anyone you could trust with such an important artifact?”

“I certainly wouldn’t trust Joss—and like he said, it would be hard to tell which side anyone was on.” Sighing, she snuggled closer, resting her head on his chest. “We don’t have any choice, do we?”

“Not if you’re in favor of bringing about the New Age. You are, aren’t you?”

She raised her head to look him in the eye. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Obviously some people think it’s a bad idea, or they wouldn’t be fighting.”

“True.” Ava rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m still trying to figure out where my father came into all of this. Did he know it would turn out this way? And which side was he on? Did he leave the stone with me for safekeeping until the right time, or did he want it to disappear forever?”

“If he’d wanted that, he could have dropped it into the sea on any number of worlds, or cast it into an active volcano. Leaving it in your care indicates that he wanted it kept safe.”

Ava nodded soberly. “And if he were killed, no one else would know where to look for it. Too bad he didn’t leave any instructions with the stone. Makes you wonder if fate might have taken a hand in all of this. It’s as if I was meant to have it, and then I was meant to…”

His fingertips grazed her cheek. “Find me?”

Ava nodded, leaning into his hand. It felt so warm, so strong… as though nothing bad could ever happen as long as they were together. In that instant, her doubts vanished without a trace, only to be replaced with a firm resolve. “Do you feel that?” she whispered. “That sense of belonging, of powerful, righteous purpose… I’ve never felt such a thing before.”

“Like you know that what is happening was meant to be? The complete and utter rightness of it all?”

She nodded in reply. “Yeah. That.” Gazing deeply into his eyes, she went on, “Thanks for letting me talk about this, Dax. I just needed to say it out loud—to convince myself that we’re doing the right thing.” Laughing lightly, she added, “You know what seems wrong now? My ever thinking about going back to Russ.”

“It got you aboard my ship,” Dax reminded her. “In that way, it was the perfect thing to do.”

“It wasn’t so much that it was a bad idea…” She paused, considering her words carefully. “I’m beginning to wonder… I mean, it wasn’t Russ’s fault that I left him. I think it was part of the ‘plan’ somehow, but—”

Dax shook his head. “I disagree. He doesn’t deserve you—perhaps he never did.”

Ava glanced up at him in surprise. “What makes you say that? Russ is a good man. He didn’t leave me. I was the one who left him.”

“Yes, but he let you go.” Taking her hand, he kissed her palm. “I won’t make that mistake.”

Ava felt a glow of warmth curl through her body and out to the tips of her hair. She had needed this discussion to solidify her determination, but more than that, she’d needed to acknowledge the bond between them. Just the sound of his voice and his touch—his very presence—thrilled her, comforted her, and, above all, empowered her. With Dax at her side, she was capable of anything—even saving the world.

Chapter 20

Dax’s first thought as they approached Aquerei was to wonder where on that vast, watery world he could possibly land his ship. There were no continents that he could see, merely a scattering of islands here and there. Granted, some of them were fairly large, but they were rocky and mountainous. Landing the
Valorcry
on any of them seemed foolhardy, if not impossible. The computer wasn’t much help either; even a schematic of the planet didn’t reveal where the spaceports, if any, were located. “Get Joss up here,” Dax told Waroun. “I’m not ditching this ship in the ocean.”

Entering a standard orbit, he gazed down at the surface as it rolled away beneath him. As a boy growing up on a ship where large quantities of water simply didn’t exist, Dax had used water only for washing and drinking. His experience with Ava on the beach had taught him that it could also be recreational, but to live on a world that was almost entirely covered with water was beyond his air-breathing, land-dwelling comprehension.

The more he saw of Aquerei, the less he liked it. There were odd, shimmering spots dotting the seas, but the equatorial regions were covered with raging, continent-sized storms. Flying through one of them was not on his list of things to do for entertainment—especially not with passengers aboard.

Just about the time Dax was considering dropping Joss and the stone on Rhashdelfi in an escape pod, Joss entered the bridge. Dax had never transported an Aquerei before, particularly one who was making the most of the fact that he had been coerced into coming with them. His assessment of Joss hadn’t changed much during the voyage; he was a hedonistic fop who was still whining about having to return to his war-torn homeworld. Dax had regretted the decision to bring him along from the very beginning, particularly when he’d had the audacity to tell Kots to modify the one small pool the
Valorcry
had to meet his own personal specifications—which essentially meant turning it into a saltwater aquarium. Not that there hadn’t been a few aquariums in the botanical gardens to supply the fish, but turning them loose in the pool seemed ridiculous.

Dax knew that Kots could put everything back to normal once Joss was gone, but though Dax himself had never put so much as a toe in that pool and wouldn’t have cared about the changes, Teke and Diokut had complained. Apparently they didn’t mind the salt water, but the fish bothered them a great deal, particularly when they began nibbling on the Kitnock’s toes as they swam.

Mealtimes had been a nightmare. Joss ate seafood that wasn’t even dead, let alone cooked, and how Kots managed to provide it was a mystery. Threldigan, who was fond of sushi, was the only one not totally repulsed by it, but even he had turned a little green when the Aquerei began crunching on the shells. The Kitnock knuckle-cracking had reached annoying levels, and Quinn’s rude behavior had quadrupled. Ava hadn’t said much, but Dax suspected that Joss wasn’t one of her favorite people either, since he had managed to commandeer every single bottle of Aquerei water aboard for his own personal consumption. About the only time they got any relief from his incessant demands was during the night, and even then, Kots tended to hide out with Dax and Ava to avoid him.

Any other time this wouldn’t have been a problem, but Kots seemed to think that Dax needed advice on lovemaking and would occasionally buzz if he thought Dax was doing something incorrectly. Ava, bless her, had been quick to tell Kots to buzz off, particularly when he interrupted her concentration just prior to orgasm.

Consequently, when Joss finally showed up on the bridge, Dax was ready to strangle him with his own tentacles. “Where the hell are we supposed to land?”

Joss chuckled. “Why, at the Rhashdelfi spaceport, of course.”

“May I remind you that this is supposed to be a covert operation?” Dax didn’t bother to hide his sarcasm. Memories of his vision were quite clear. Danger, deception, and death awaited them all. To be careless was unthinkable.

“True,” said Joss. “And I doubt they’d let us land so near the temple anyway. Too much hostile activity there.”

Waroun began making popping noises with his fingertips. Obviously Dax wasn’t the only one annoyed with Joss. “Well, then, would you mind telling us which is the closest port to the temple without being
too
close?”

“Hmm, let me think…” Joss tapped his chin with a webbed finger. “Mirolar, I believe. It’s about fifty clicks from there to the temple, and we’d have to swim, but—”

“Haven’t you been paying attention?” Dax thundered. “Swimming isn’t an option!”

“Well, I suppose we could rent a boat. The tourist industry isn’t what it used to be, but we may be able to find one to take you landers there.”

“Oh, so we’re
landers
now,” said Waroun. “You don’t have to make it sound like such a dirty word.”

“I’m beginning to get a better feel for which side you’re on, Joss.”

“I meant no such thing!” Joss exclaimed. “It’s just a way of referring to non-Aquerei!”

“Sure it is,” Waroun mocked. “We always used the term offworlders on my planet. It sounds much less prejudiced.”

Dax let out a long, exasperated breath. He’d never needed one before, but there was always the chance… “Kots! Do we have a boat?”

Kots’s affirmative beep came over the comsystem instantly.

“Thanks be to Leon!” Waroun said gratefully. “That slimy-tentacled son of a drayl was about to drown us all!”

“Now who’s sounding prejudiced?” Joss demanded. “Captain, I take serious offense!”

“Noted.” Dax leaned forward over the pilot’s console, pinching the bridge of his nose. If he made it through this alive, he was never going to let another Aquerei on his ship again—unless Ava had some relatives there. Otherwise, it was a no go.

***

“Why is it that the bad guys always get all the breaks?” Vandig lamented.

“No clue,” Eantle replied, “but they usually do.”

“How Ridan managed to miss them when they landed…” Vandig’s tentacles writhed with anger. “What an incompetent!”

“He was relying on the spaceport logs, and there are at least six ports on Rhylos,” Eantle reminded him. “He couldn’t possibly be in all of them at once.”

Vandig shook his head. “The way we’re spread out across half the sector, it’s a miracle there are any of us left on Aquerei at all. I’ll be so damn glad when this Great Alignment shit is over…”

“Now, now,” Eantle said soothingly. “Don’t get your tentacles in a knot. We’ll find them.”

“And then what? Tell them they’ve fallen in with a—”

Eantle cut him off. “Joss has never claimed allegiance to any faction. You know that.”

“Just because we know it doesn’t mean it’s true,” Vandig said. “And to think, that slippery bastard must have just walked right up to her and told her everything. It boggles the mind.”

“Well, if any of us had been there, we could have done the same thing,” Eantle said reasonably. “At least Ridan spotted Junosk and was smart enough to follow him; otherwise, we wouldn’t have heard about any of this. It would have been better had he been close enough to catch up to Joss and the others before they boarded their ship, but this was
our
lucky break. We will make the best of it.”

“That’s what we get for playing it safe,” Vandig grumbled. “We should have put a tail on Junosk from the beginning. It would have made things a lot easier.”

“That’s hindsight,” Eantle said. “How were we to know they were so close?”

Vandig ignored this, giving voice to his most pressing concern. “Tell me again that Joss isn’t on their side, because if he is, we might as well give up right now.”

Eantle was adamant. “He isn’t a member of Opps and I won’t give up. We owe it to Sliv to find his daughter and help her if we can.”

Vandig snorted.
“If
we find her. What are the odds?”

“My dear Vandig, it is useless to play the odds in this matter. We must employ logic. Now, think: If you had the stone and were going to the temple, where would you land?”

“Mirolar,” Vandig replied. “But I’m sure the Opps will be there too.”

“Of course they will. They’re everywhere, but so are we.”

Vandig shook his head sadly. “I just wish we could be sure that Joss wasn’t leading them into a trap.”

“It might not be such a bad thing if he was.” Eantle smiled as a plan began to form in his mind. “In fact, it might be the best thing that could happen.”

Vandig’s tentacles stopped moving altogether. “I’m getting confused.”

Eantle laughed. “With any luck, so will the Opps.”

***

Dax contacted the port authority at Mirolar, but the news was grim. “No starships are allowed to land on Aquerei until further notice.”

“Anywhere?” said Joss.

“Anywhere,” Dax snapped. “And I suppose you knew this?”

“Well, I’ve heard rumors, but—”

“They were obviously true. What are your planetary defenses like?”

Joss shrugged. “Minimal. It’s not like we’ve ever been at war with anyone but ourselves.”

“So it’s unlikely that we’d get blown out of the sky; just arrested when we land. Is there any place we could land covertly?”

“Yeah, like there’s so much
land
to choose from,” Waroun snickered.

Joss seemed uneasy. “Well, I do have contacts on one of the bases, but—”

“Call them,” Dax said, punching the comlink. “Now.”

“Um, what do you mean by ‘bases’?” Waroun asked.

Joss pointed at the viewscreen. “Do you see those flat spots on the sea? Those are the bases.”