Poisoned Pawn (10 page)

“You aren’t just a pilot, like you said you were. I saw the way you handled that gun.”

“I expected you to slug him, not scream,” he said, referring to man number one that afternoon.

“It worked.”

He rocked his chair back. “Does it really matter, Dace? Does it make that big of a difference to you if I do work for someone else?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because.” I couldn’t find the words I wanted.

“I’m not going to influence any decisions you make, Dace. You still decide where to go and when.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because you hired me to fly your ship. Good night, Captain,” he said and left me without answers.

I swiveled the chair and accessed the computer. Whatever he’d done should have left some traces that I could track. I asked for all the files accessed that afternoon. The computer beeped and brought up a whole stack of tourist videos about business opportunities on Shamustel. I couldn’t help grinning, even as I grumbled with frustration. Clark was thorough.

I opened each file, thinking maybe he hadn’t been thorough enough. He was. I finished the stack and sat back. It was all tourist videos, nothing like what I’d seen him going through that afternoon. No hints of who he really worked for, although the kind of information he’d gathered made me quite sure he was Patrol. I reached to turn off the computer. The message light was blinking.

I called up the message. Clark’s face popped up on the computer.

“I knew you’d be checking up on me,” the recording said. “So I left this for you. I asked for information on Malcolm Tayvis. His file is restricted, nobody gets information on him without going through his current commander. Sorry.” The recording ended. I shut the computer off.

I sighed. I would have to wait, until chance brought us together or until I ran into Lowell again.

I dimmed the lights and went to bed. The ship was running well enough I didn’t have to sit in the cockpit all night.

The trip to Ytirus went without problems, at least from the engines. Clark’s book was unbelievable, boring, and not worth reading after chapter five. I handed it back to him. He took it without comment and put it in a pocket. He moved a piece on the Crystals board.

Jasyn groaned. “So much for that strategy.”

I wandered, bored. I looked at the storage lockers above the cushioned bench. Jasyn had traced out a pattern of flowers but hadn’t gotten around to painting them yet. I opened one of the lockers and pawed through the boxes inside.

“Where did you put the paints?” I asked Jasyn.

“For the stencils? Try under the bench.”

“What stencils?” Clark asked. “Your move.”

“If I can,” Jasyn said. “Flowers on the locker doors. Brighten the place up a bit.”

“Makes perfect sense,” Clark said, and kept a straight face for about three seconds.

“It’s something to do,” I said as I pulled out the bin with paints in it. I picked a bright yellow and started. By the fourth flower, they started looking like flowers, not blobs of paint. At least to me.

By the time the reentry alarm sounded the next day, I’d done a whole bouquet of yellow and had moved on to blue and red.

“Not bad, if you like blobs,” Clark said behind me.

“He’s teasing you,” Jasyn said, glaring at the back of his head as he sat in the copilot’s chair. “If he’s serious, he’s eating your cooking for a week. They look…” She studied them while I put the paints away. “Interesting.”

“They don’t look like flowers?” I asked, a bit miffed at both of them.

“Not any I’ve ever seen,” she answered truthfully.

I frowned at my masterpiece. “They don’t, do they?”

“You’ve got paint on your nose,” she said.

The ship beeped impatiently. I put the bin away and took my seat.

Ytirus was a terraformed planet, with regular bands of ocean and green land. Whoever had done the terraforming hadn’t even tried to make it look natural. The landing field was its own island, surrounded by shallow blue ocean. We were given a berth to one side, away from the larger freighters.

The ship lurched on touchdown. I knew my good luck had lasted too long.

“Do you want help with the engine?” Jasyn asked as we shut things down.

“Go ahead and take care of the cargo,” I said. “It shouldn’t be much. I think it’s just that pump and the valve. Probably stuck open.”

“Do I get shore leave here or am I confined to the ship?” Clark asked.

“Think you can keep him out of trouble, Jasyn?” I asked as I made note of the engine readings.

“More fun to see what trouble I can get him into.”

“Why do I suddenly feel very nervous?” Clark asked.

“Ready to go?” Jasyn gave him her dazzling smile.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

I set the engine levels where I wanted them, after calling port authority to warn them I was doing some minor repairs. It wasn’t enough to cause problems unless someone walked too close to the ship. I needed the engines hot in order to check the valve and pump.

I crawled into the engine and found the faulty pump. It only needed a bit of oil. The valve was a different problem. I shut the engines down and pulled it apart. The membrane had given out, not surprising considering how old the valve had to be. I found a replacement sheet of membrane and made a new filter for the valve.

I finished faster than I expected. Jasyn was back with the buyer for the ceramics. Clark helped shift the crates. I walked out to watch, wiping grease off my hands onto a rag.

Ytirus had a very pleasant climate, not surprising since it was all artificially maintained. The air was warm, balmy. A gentle breeze teased my hair.

The buyer for the ceramics was a small intense woman who watched every crate closely as Clark shifted them out of the hold. She attached a small maglev unit to each one to move them into the back of a large ground truck. Jasyn stood by with a clipboard and checked crate numbers as they were unloaded. Clark seemed to enjoy working his muscles, so I went back inside. I did make a note to look into buying a couple of the little maglev units the buyer had. They would come in handy.

The cargo was unloaded by the time the sun set. Clark shifted the rest back into balance and closed up the hatch. Jasyn brought in the credit slip. I was tempted to sign a contract with Juntis Shoot, except he was located a bit too close to people who wanted my head. Jasyn spent a few minutes updating our account.

“We’re in the black, Dace,” she said. “Including the amount I still owe Lady Rina. I also found a buyer for some of the jewelry in the small cargo hold. She wasn’t very interested in more than a few to try. Good thing since we’d have to go back to Tebros to get more.”

I remembered the fluttery butterfly necklace. I’d forgotten it after the excitement on Shamustel. I ducked into my cabin and pulled it out. “What do you think of this?” I let the necklace float near Jasyn. The strands of gold caught the light, thin traces of sparkle in the air. The creature fluttered its lavender wings and looked almost alive.

“It’s absolutely marvelous.” Jasyn took it gently and watched it float and flutter in the air. “Where did you get it?”

“A jewelry shop on Shamustel was full of them. The owner gave me one, I’m not quite sure why, except I said they were incredible.” I watched the wings flutter. Something about the woman who made them tugged at my mind. Some detail that connected to something else I couldn’t place.

“We have to go back to Shamustel.” Her breath made it float higher, wings trembling.

“They won’t let us land.”

“Then I’ll talk to them.”

“What’s for dinner?” Clark asked from the doorway. He looked tired and sweaty.

Jasyn stood, the necklace floating in her hands. “Let’s celebrate. Ytirus has some very good restaurants. And we can afford it. I know exactly what you should wear, Dace.”

“A nice clean shipsuit,” I said.

Her smile grew teeth. She pulled me into my cabin.

“Wear this.” She handed me the imitation Partha silk dress. Clouds of red, orange, yellow, and gold spilled from my hands.

“I can’t wear this.”

“You can and you will,” she said. “I’ll let you wear those new boots I bought you on Viya with it. You probably don’t own any other shoes.”

“You’ll let me?”

She didn’t bother to answer. She left and I knew that if I didn’t wear the dress, she would be upset with me and that would make life very uncomfortable for the foreseeable future. I put the dress on.

It slithered around me, soft and slippery and utterly unlike anything I’d ever worn before. The skirt was layer upon layer of gossamer fine pieces that fluttered and shifted with every movement, a lot like the necklace I’d given Jasyn. The bodice was tight fitting, the sleeves more fluttering bits. It covered me, but in such a way that I was very aware of my curves underneath. I took the comb to my hair, determined to tame it. For once, it went where I combed it. I stared at myself in the tiny mirror of my bathroom and watched a stranger with my eyes look back. I looked down at the dress and lost what little courage I had to wear it in public. I looked like a woman. It was too much change. I reached for the fasteners. I’d wear something else, something that hid a bit more.

“You take that off and you’ll regret it,” Jasyn said from the doorway.

I turned around slowly. She looked me up and down and nodded approvingly. Blue, purple, lavender and pale pink fluttered around her bare legs. She wore shoes that were little more than jeweled straps. The necklace floated around her neck. Her hair was twisted up in an elegant looking knot.

She handed me my boots and watched as I pulled them on. I still wanted to take off the dress, wear something different. Her eyes told me that I shouldn’t even think about it. I straightened up and she nodded again.

I followed her out of the cabin. Clark waited for us. He wore a loose yellow shirt and tight blue pants. They looked very good on him.

He shook his head. “You win, Jasyn.”

“Win what?” I asked.

Clark smiled. “You look very nice, Dace. Jasyn told me and I didn’t believe her. That’s all.”

A personal transport waited for us, a tiny little flitter with a clear bubble top. We climbed in. I clutched my skirt, not trusting it to stay where it belonged. Jasyn moved with her usual grace, as if she wore elegant dresses all the time. Clark took the single seat in the front and punched in our destination. The bubble closed and we took off.

“Relax, Dace,” Jasyn said. “You act as if you’ve never been out to a restaurant before.”

“I’ve never been to one that required dresses like this. The last time I was this dressed up was when we went to visit the collector with the Eggstone. That night was a disaster.”

“To put it mildly.”

“Are you going to tell me the story?” Clark asked.

Jasyn told him before I could say no. She skipped over most of the beginning where her brother Jerimon and I had run away from the Patrol, the Targon Syndicate although we didn’t know it at the time, and the Sessimoniss. She made it sound like fun.

I stared out the window, trying to shut out Jasyn’s voice. I didn’t want to remember the Sessimoniss and the Eggstone. I didn’t want to remember telling Tayvis to go away. The flitter banked to the left, tipping so I could look down. The ocean below glowed with streamers of pale green and blue, sparkling purple blooming across them. The city lights twinkled over the water, adding another layer of lights.

“Look at it,” I said, interrupting Jasyn.

They looked out, watching until the craft leveled out again. Clark watched me, an amused expression on his face.

“I’m acting like a frontier girl out for the first time, aren’t I?” I said.

“I think it’s nice to see someone who isn’t so jaded,” he said.

“There it is.” Jasyn pointed forward, past Clark’s head. “It looks just like the picture.”

The restaurant was located at the top of a tall building that jutted out over the multicolored glowing ocean. The flitter landed on a pad tucked discreetly to one side behind a screen of plants, blooming white vines, in deep planters. The bubble clicked open. Jasyn climbed out, making it look easy. Clark was just as graceful. I did my best to copy them. I didn’t trip and fall on my face.

We were met on the other side of the vines by a woman in a tall black dress. She wore a tiny com button on her collar. She greeted us and escorted us into the restaurant. We got a table near the window that looked down mostly over the city. It was a fairyland of lights.

“The ocean view was more expensive,” Jasyn whispered as the lady glided away.

“This is just fine,” I said, looking out at the lights.

The menu hovered over the table. I hadn’t heard of any of the dishes. I let Clark and Jasyn order.

They enjoyed themselves. Jasyn told another story, this one involving a night at the bar on Nevira where she had worked for a while before Jerimon tangled her up with me and the Sessimoniss. I listened and smiled when appropriate. I was too nervous to relax. It was all too different.

Clark told us stories about his adventures as a pilot over dessert.

“You’ve been quiet, Dace,” Clark said when they cleared away our dishes. “Your turn to tell us a story.”

I racked my brain for something to tell that wasn’t depressing or ugly, and came up empty. “We should probably get back to the ship.”

“Let’s go dancing,” Jasyn suggested.

I tried to protest and was overridden.

Clark took one arm, Jasyn took the other, and, for the first time in my life, I went dancing.

The nightclub was loud, bright in flashes, and very dark in between. It was located on another rooftop not far from the restaurant. The music vibrated the floor. Jasyn led us to a table jammed up against the far wall. I sat down, back to the wall, and warily watched people dancing.

Clark disappeared for a long minute and came back carrying three glasses. He set them on the table and took the chair next to me.

“Relax and enjoy it,” he shouted into my ear. He had to talk loud or I wouldn’t have been able to hear him. “You look like you expect an attack.”

Jasyn found someone to dance with, and then someone else, and then another. She swirled gracefully, laughing and enjoying herself. Clark sat next to me, watching her. The music paused, the quiet was full of talk. The lights blinked and a new band began to play, softer music, more suited to the late night magic of the ocean lights reflected in wide windows.