Starshine Page 16

  She regarded him with a guarded expression. “We’ll see.” Then she stood, grabbing both their plates and taking them to the sink. “Dinner was very good, thank you.” She glanced over her shoulder. “You can use the shower if you’d like. I’ll clean up.”

  “Thank you. I am feeling a bit ripe at this point.”

  “Just—”

  “I know.” He laughed lightly as he started down the stairs. “Don’t touch anything.”

  She was standing at the data center when he returned. A number of screens floated above the table, bright with graphs and visuals. Actually, he realized, there were no screens, only the data. The table itself must be a conductive medium.

  Her focus on the information displayed, she didn’t notice him. He took advantage of the opportunity and paused at the top of the stairwell to watch her.

  Her right hand reached up and three fingers glided fluidly over one of the graphs. The lines shifted color and position in their wake.

  Now he could see. Starting at her fingertips and running along the inside of her arm, across her shoulder blades and up to the nape of her neck where they disappeared into her hairline, wove a pattern of elaborate, intricate glyphs. They pulsed a vibrant white glow when she touched an image or data point and faded after her fingers lost contact.

  Most people who had extensive glyphs brandished them like a badge of honor, tattooing them in bright glittering colors to declare the extent of their cyberization for all to see. Hers, however, vanished when not in use; until now he had been unaware they existed, and he was a rather observant guy.

  He smiled as he watched her blow up a waveform to dominate the space above the table. The glyphs indicated not only was she absorbing the data into her cybernetics, she was likely manipulating it internally and sending it back to the table. Her movements displayed a seamless connection between her and the information she studied. He suspected he was witnessing her in her natural habitat.

  Best for her not to catch him watching though. He cleared his throat and ascended the last stair. She glanced at him but didn’t clear the displays.

  He joined her but kept a respectful distance by leaning against the nearby worktable. “Thank you for the shower. To say it was needed would be a colossal understatement. I, uh, couldn’t do anything about the clothes. I don’t suppose you have any…?”

  She shook her head, a hint of a twinkle in her eyes. Though in fairness it may have simply been the reflected glow of the graphs. “Sorry, no. Haven’t had any boys sleep over recently.”

  “Now that is a tragedy.”

  Somewhat to his surprise, she laughed. “Perhaps, but everything has a price.”

  He wanted to ask what she meant, but that question lay several steps further away in their precariously thawing relationship. Instead he gestured at the table. “What you got?”

  “Full-spectrum scans of the Metis interior, at least as far as my instruments were able to penetrate before…well it wasn’t as far as I’d like. The nebular dust is maddeningly dense, particularly when you consider how old its supernova is. Nonetheless, I picked up some unusual readings.”

  “How so?”

  She flared her palm and one of the graphs zoomed in. It showed a single line exhibiting multiple, regular peaks. “This is the pulsar beam. Firmly in the gamma spectrum, and with a spin of 419 revolutions per second it’s clearly a millisecond pulsar. So question one, where’s its companion?” She worried at her lower lip. “If the companion’s radius is small enough, its signature might be hidden in all this dust or on the other side of the pulsar, but…anyway, so that’s curious.”

  She nudged the graph off to the top right corner and magnified another graph to the center. It overflowed with data, multiple overlapping waveforms of differing widths and colors.

  Two fingers reached into it and pinched the thickest waveform, a line of deep purple. “So this is the gamma synchrotron radiation. It’s by far the strongest reading.” She flicked it off to one side where it shrank into a small square, then pinched a more diffuse but thick line blue in color. “The pulsar wind, gamma bleeding into x-ray.” It landed above the purple square.

  After their removal a pear-colored line dominated the graph. She spared a quick glance at him; he studied the graph with interest and didn’t acknowledge it. “Ionized particles left over from the supernova. This is the glow we see.” A flick and it minimized below.

  The graph was now virtually bare. She pushed away two thin lines of dark and light orange. “Random infrared and microwave readings from whatever.”

  A single, tiny line of dark crimson remained. Thin and semitransparent, it marked a nearly horizontal path across the graph. She crossed her arms over her chest and rested on her back leg. “Then we have this.”

  He kept his tone scrupulously neutral. “Radio emissions I presume?”

  “Tremendously Low Frequency—TLF—technically, but they don’t even have a proper term for a wavelength this long. This wave is propagating at a frequency of 0.04 Hz. Nothing emits at so low a frequency.”

  A soft breath fell from his lips, and the response with it. “Not 0.04 Hz. 0.0419 Hz.”

  Her eyes shot to him and flared a lustrous argent hue. “What?”

  He focused on the graph, difficult though it was. “Can you expand the period shown?” A glance at the top right corner of the spread. “Say to ten hours?”

  “Okay.” Her stare bore into him as her right hand slid along the graph. The crimson line now undulated in long, smooth waves.

  “Now superimpose the pulsar beam on top of this one.”

  “No fucking way.”

  “If you don’t want to it’s fine, I—”

  “I mean no fucking way.” She yanked the pulsar beam graph out of the corner and dropped it in the center. It wasn’t a surprise to him, and he assumed no longer a surprise to her, when the pulse spikes lined up perfectly on the crests of the crimson line.

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  She still stared at him instead of the graph. “Explain.”

  “Last month we sent in a prototype, state-of-the-art probe for testing. Among a few other things, it returned this congruence. My government would like to determine what it is.”

  “But you’re not a scientist. Why send in a black ops agent?”

  “Well, the thought was the level of precision strongly suggests it’s artificial, and thus it might be hostile….” He sighed. Shit. “I never said I was a black ops agent.”

  She gave him a wicked grin. “Not until now.”

  She had managed to fit in manipulating him in between sophisticated data analysis. Impressive.

  He brought a hand up to run through his hair, still damp from the shower. “Well played. Anyway, given the concern it might be hostile they were reluctant to send civilian researchers. And while I’m not a scientist, I know my way around spectrum analyses and whatnot better than the average black ops agent.”

  Her gaze had finally returned to the graphs, and his returned to her. “Is this what you’re here for?”

  Her voice was soft, almost whimsical. “Maybe.”

  “Look, you don’t have to tell me, but there’s no reason to hide it.”

  She half-smiled. “Not what I meant. The Nebula caught my eye. I knew there would be something to find…I didn’t necessarily know what it would be.”

  Her expression shifted even in profile. “Did you learn what it was? You know, before you tried to shoot me down.”

  “No. I had only been here a few hours when you blew my ship out the sky.”

  “Right.” She rolled her eyes a little. “I’m sorry about that, by the way. In the same circumstances I’d do it again, but I am sorry.”

  He looked at her askance. “Um, thanks?”

  “Certainly.” The graphs abruptly vanished; the cabin darkened in the absence of the holographic images. “I’d like to get an early start in the morning, so good night.”

  “Good night….” He frowned, taken aback by the sudde
n shift in tone and quick exit. In a few brief seconds she had waved the lights dim, descended the stairwell and disappeared.

  Then he was alone and unrestrained on the main deck of her ship.

  He noted the previously identified stations, controls and junction points. While the security on them was doubtless more complex than his restraints had been, he suspected he could hack at least some of them.

  But he didn’t need to, and gained nothing by doing so. The repairs weren’t complete; if he tried to fly away now he’d just get himself and her killed. And given their ‘relationship’—if one wished to call it such—was improving, odds were decent once the repairs were complete she would in fact drop him on an independent world and be on her way.

  So instead of hacking her ship he unfolded the cot from the wall, pulled the privacy screen over, took off his shoes and lay down. The cot wasn’t too bad; he’d slept on far worse.

  He laced his hands behind his head and pondered how she had managed to get him to tell her his name, his profession and his mission, all in less than a day.

  It went against one of the mandates of his job: never reveal anything more than is necessary to finish the mission. On the other hand, he was in a compromised position and reliant on her to get out of it. In such a situation exceptions could be made.

  Even so, he should get on his game. Though….

  As long as he didn’t kill her and she didn’t kill him, this would likely end with him making it back to settled space in one piece. Therefore, other than ensuring she felt enough goodwill toward him to not throw him out the airlock—which seeing as she had gone out of her way to rescue him in the first place, he suspected was a fairly low threshold—he really didn’t need to play her.

  He had been trained to always be looking for an opening, for a weakness he could use to his advantage to cripple the enemy and complete the mission. But she wasn’t an enemy. She wasn’t even a mark.

  So he decided he was marginally comfortable with her knowing a few truths. Which was interesting, seeing as he allowed very few people to know many truths at all about him.

  Special circumstances and all.

  Alex crashed onto her bed, relishing the sensual, almost carnal feel of her head sinking into the silky pillow.

  After several deep, luxurious breaths she glanced up, and promptly scowled. The viewport above the bed often revealed twinkling stars or occasionally a glowing nebula, but at the very least the blurred shimmer of superluminal travel. Tonight it revealed a thick haze of sickly amber dust and little else, serving as a stark reminder she lay stranded on a nasty uncharted planet with a broken ship and a confounding…she didn’t even know what he constituted now.

  Why had she let him see the scans? Worse, why had she explained them to him?

  Because he was putting on a very convincing act of being friendly and nonthreatening? Of course he was convincing. It was his job to convince people he could be trusted until he was ready to kill them or arrest them or dispense whatever justice he fancied upon them.

  Because he was a good cook? While a rather nice surprise, it hardly qualified him for ‘friend’ status.

  Because he was disturbingly good looking, with hair as black as the void between stars which sent her pulse aflutter when it fell across his brow? Because he had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen—the color of the uncut natural sapphires they displayed in geology museums—which sparkled from a thousand facets when he made a teasing remark?

  Yep, that was probably why.

  She groaned and rolled over to bury her face in the pillow. “I’m waxing poetic about a man. Kill me now….”

  In a world of cheap genetic enhancement before and even after birth, handsome men were a dime a dozen. They’d never distracted her or done much of anything in particular for her, at least not from looks alone.

  No way was she going to be led astray by a pair of pretty blue eyes. Especially not when they belonged to a Senecan, and a Senecan black ops agent at that.

  She possessed enough self-awareness to realize her view of the world was slightly jaded and perchance cynical. Nonetheless, objectively she recognized being born on Seneca did not automatically make him an evil monster. Granted, hardly a galaxy-altering revelation. Seneca was an adversary, one toward which she bore deep-seated animosity for her own personal reasons. But most people living there were no different from everyone else, spending their time doing the things most people did and not torturing puppies or sacrificing virgins.

  And even being a black ops agent didn’t automatically make him an evil monster, though it did make him dangerous. Her mother was and her father had been military; Richard, Malcolm and a number of her acquaintances were military—and thus trained killers. She had no right to judge him for engaging in activities those closest to her would do, and had done, if asked by their government.

  The experience of the day seemed to bolster the decision she had made this morning. He appeared to be a smart, rational guy and not a zealot or fanatic or psychopath. As such, he presumably realized getting along and not causing trouble for her would result in him getting out of this situation alive and unharmed, and anything he did to actually help would speed up said resolution.

  Thus, she came to the conclusion that while she definitely couldn’t trust him, she could perhaps ‘trust’ him a little for now.

  She went through the reasoning two more times to make certain it was sound, logical and had nothing whatsoever to do with a pair of pretty blue eyes.

  19

  DEUCALI

  Earth Alliance Colony

  * * *

  Liam entered the pub as unobtrusively as possible. His tall, stocky frame placed a lower limit on his ability to be unobtrusive, but he did try.

  The pub was located many kilometers from the base, in an upper-middle yet not quite upper class neighborhood. He had dressed out of uniform, wearing navy slacks, a crisp white button-down shirt and a navy blazer. Well, perhaps not far out of uniform. But he wore an unadorned navy cap over his distinctive ginger hair so as to avoid being recognized.

  When one was a Regional Commander of the Earth Alliance Armed Forces, one possessed no ‘peers’ in the region—no one it was appropriate to go out with for a couple of beers, or watch the game or barbeque with on the weekend. No one to assemble with to watch the tides of war gather.

  Maybe it was better this way, lest he give something away in a careless laugh or knowing nod at a crucial moment, but a man such as him did not have friends. Subordinates, professional colleagues, rivals and enemies. But not friends.

  If he stopped to give thought to it, there did exist a time when he had had friends…teammates in primary, a few worthy cohorts in university ROTC. But that had been before. Before the war against Seneca, before his mother had returned home in a flag-draped coffin and gutted his father’s spirit. Before he had sworn a vow to his mother’s eternal soul and the God who shepherded it that he would have vengeance.

  As an only child, since his father died in a construction accident seven years earlier he had no family of note either. He’d never married, unwilling to let another person inside his private affairs much less his private emotions. His spouse was the Alliance military, which was all he’d ever required. And it worked out for the best, as it meant the chance of bringing shame to his family had not needed to be a consideration in his decision whether to collude in recent events, and events soon to come.

  He acquired a chair at a high table in the bar area and motioned for a waiter, remembering at the last second not to bark an order for immediate service. He ordered an Earth ale; since he was out of uniform he didn’t need to publicly support the local economy, and Deucali’s meager attempts at hops brewing left a good bit to be desired.

  Deucali wasn’t a particularly scenic world either. Its landscape had been painted in browns and yellows and decorated with dull waters and minimal mountain ranges. Nevertheless, it was rich in natural resources and boasted a calm, temperate climate, one reason it had been
the first world colonized on the Perseus Arm of the galaxy and for a brief time the most distant colony in existence. The Alliance had established a strong presence here and for decades used it as a base from which to expand outward along the southern arc of the Arm.

  After a hundred and ten years a thriving, self-sufficient economy was firmly established, even if much of it continued to be centered around military operations. The patrons of the pub were engineers, defense contractors and civilian managers, yet even they retained a rugged, down-to-earth aura. You wouldn’t find glitzy balls or elaborate sensory circuses on Deucali, and he thanked God on an almost daily basis for their absence.

  The waiter delivered his drink and a bowl of crusted bread, then vanished upon his disinterest in further purchases. The pub was busy bordering on packed, and he assumed the young man had others to service who would be freer with their credits.

  He twisted the cap off the pure-bottled ale and rotated the chair toward the nearest exanet news screen in time to see Prime Minister Brennon walk to the podium.

  Brennon was a sturdy, solidly built man, with a slightly lined face and slightly graying hair that could mean an age anywhere from sixty to a hundred sixty. He held himself as all politicians did, shoulders back and chin a notch high.

  “As you no doubt know by now, yesterday we suffered a great tragedy in the loss of Trade Minister Mangele Santiagar. He was one of our brightest young stars, a dedicated public servant and a personal friend. He volunteered to lead the delegation to the Trade Summit because he believed in the possibility of a peaceful future with the Senecan Federation and the benefits which could result therefrom.”

  The Prime Minister paused to look troubled. In the pub, most of the patrons shifted their attention away from the various sporting events playing out on the other screens; the previously lively room grew subdued. Though situated in nearly the opposite corner of settled space from Seneca, the strong military presence here meant even civilians on Deucali exhibited a strong patriotic streak.