In the vastness of space,
the two ships came together as smoothly as ballet dancers from
Fra’is—not that
Kar had ever seen any of those. Only the wealthiest members of the
Lodge could
afford such entertainment. He glanced at the navigation station on his
right
and wondered if Jay had ever seen a ballet before leaving that world
and his
last name behind. Jay was humming a fast tune under his breath, his
gaze
darting over the navigation controls that flashed in front of him.
“Ever gone to see a ballet,
Jay?”
Jay raised his head a fraction,
enough that
Kar knew he had heard him, but the humming continued. Two seconds
later, a loud
clank announced they had made contact with the Cisseis.
“Magnetic locks engaged,” the
computer
said.
Its voice was female today, and
there was a
singing quality to it that disconcerted Kar. He sighed and threw a
tired look
at Jay. “You messed with the synchro program again?”
Jay’s clear blue eyes turned to
look at him
as he leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms above him. “Sounded
too
much like my posture instructor. Never could stand the bastard.”
Snorting, Kar rose from the
captain’s chair
and strode out of the cockpit, Jay on his heels. “And the voice before
that
sounded like your aunt—”
“Third cousin.”
“Aunt, cousin, the fucking
president of the
Lodge, I don’t care. Just leave the damn synchro alone.”
Jay’s heels thumped behind him,
and Kar
glanced back. Fingers bent against his forehead, Jay was saluting him
as neatly
as any Guardian Kar had ever seen. His smirk, however, spoiled the
effect.
“Aye, Captain.”
With a shake of his head, Kar
started
forward again, ignoring his navigator’s antics. Will was waiting in
front of
the living quarters, a bemused expression on his face. That was all Kar
needed
now, more lip from his crew. He walked faster and passed Will with a
glance
that dared him to say a word. Will didn’t seem to mind and fell into
step with
them, hands in his pockets and his long strides easily matching Kar’s
rapid
pace until they were side by side.
“I’m not saluting you,” Will
said. “Just so
we’re clear.”
Kar raised his eyes to the
ceiling, then
frowned as he spotted a trail of rust on a pipe and made a mental note
to check
it later. One more thing to check. He loved his ship, but the damn
thing sure
didn’t seem to love him back. “No one asked you to salute.”
“So it’s just Jay then?” Will’s
drawling
voice sounded caught between amusement and curiosity.
“Nobody asked Jay to salute
either.” Kar
massaged his temples, two firm fingers on each side. There were days
when he
thought he’d have been better off slaving over a patch of dirt on his
home
planet. Then again, fourteen years spent without stars under
Carelleion’s two
suns and three moons had been quite enough. “Will you two open the
nexus doors
or do I have to do everything on this ship?”
“Well, it is your
ship,” Jay said
with a devious grin, but he went to the first door’s manual controls
just the
same.
They had arrived in the cargo
bay, and Kar
stopped in front of a metal door. Jay’s careful navigation had aligned
the
Danaus and the Cisseis so that the magnetic strips on each ship’s nexus
interlocked. All they needed now was to open two doors on this side and
for the
crew of the Cisseis to do the same thing on their side, and the trade
could
begin.
Feet planted solidly on the
metal floor of
his ship and his arms crossed over his chest, Kar took a deep breath.
They had
good merchandise to trade, and the Cisseis usually gave fair prices.
Everything
would go just fine.
He inclined his head when Will
and Jay looked
at him. Jay’s fingers flew over a line of manual switches, deactivating
the
doors’ secure locks. When the alarm beeped once, Will grabbed the wheel
in the
center of the door and turned it. His face reddened at the effort, and
the
horizontal scar on his cheek seemed even paler in contrast.
The pressurized door opened
inward with a
whisper of rushing air. Will adjusted the fingerless gloves on his
hands and
entered the nexus to open the second door. When he came out to stand by
Jay’s
side, the nexus had become an open corridor between the two ships,
twenty-five
yards long and wide enough for two men to walk abreast. Kar could
already see
the captain of the Cisseis, Dav Lyenne, striding toward him with a
brilliant
smile plastered on his face. Wide pants in a violent shade of green
were tucked
into his boots. They clashed horribly with a bright red shirt.
“Karmykel!” Lyenne emerged from
the nexus
and stopped, striking an ostentatious pose, arms raised so that the
triangles
of fabric attached to his sleeves framed him like wings. “It has been
too long,
my friend.”
Kar forced a tight smile onto
his lips and
held out his hand to Lyenne. Friend was not a word he would have used
to
describe the other captain, but he wasn’t about to say as much before
they
started trading. The way Kar saw it, they did business together, and
things
stopped there. He had trouble trusting people who smiled too freely, or
who
flaunted clothes they could only have acquired on one of the Prime
Planets.
Black pants and a simple black shirt had always served him right. On
that, his
crew followed his lead, though as he glanced at them, he wondered, as
he so
often did, how Jay could bear to wear pants so snug. They looked even
tighter,
he was chagrined to notice, when Will’s hand was stuck in the back
pocket.
Couldn’t they behave?
He forced his eyes back to
Lyenne and gave
his hand a firm shake. “Too long, indeed. I heard you don’t follow
local trade
routes regularly anymore.”
Lyenne puffed up his chest.
“You’ve heard
right, at that. I’m moving up in the universe.” His arms rose again, as
though
the extra fabric on his sleeves somehow signified anything other than
his
foolishness. “But I’ll always trade with old friends. What do you have
for me?”
Kar led him to the first stack
of cargo
boxes and undid the clasps on one of them before flicking the lid open.
Lyenne
stepped closer to examine the saffra powder. Some traders vaunted the
quality
of their goods until they were blue in the face; Kar preferred to let
his
merchandise speak for itself.
While Lyenne rubbed a pinch of
spices
between his thumb and forefinger, Kar looked back at his crew and
couldn’t help
rolling his eyes at them. Will had pushed Jay back against the wall and
was
leaning into his neck, murmuring words Kar couldn’t hear but that made
Jay’s
lips curl into a lazy smile. Kar cleared his throat loudly, and the two
men
threw guilty glances at him as they straightened. At least, Kar wanted
to
believe they felt guilty. He had no desire to repeat that painful
conversation
about business, personal matters, and the many ways the two should not
mix on
his ship.
“I trust that you have the
paperwork for
this,” Lyenne said, oblivious to the byplay behind him.
“I always have paperwork.”
Even as far away from the Prime
Planets as
they were, no trader worth his ship would be caught without the
credentials for
anything he wanted to sell. It didn’t matter so much that the paperwork
was
authentic as long as the forgery looked good enough. Planets in the
outer
systems weren’t too inquisitive as far as paperwork went, but they
still
insisted on the proper credentials to accompany any goods traded to
them.
Guardians looked at those credentials a lot more closely when they
boarded a
trade ship for inspection, but Kar tried his best to avoid systems
where he knew
the Lodge kept a Guardians outpost.
Lyenne nodded absently.
“Anything else?”
Kar frowned as he gestured
Lyenne to the
second, larger stack of boxes. It was unwise to show too much interest
in a
potential trade, of course, but Lyenne wasn’t very good at hiding his
thoughts.
The fact that he wasn’t raving about the quality of the saffra—and it
was of a
damn good quality, Kar was no fool to trade for junk—didn’t bode well.
“Raw moonsilk from—”
Lyenne let out a dramatic sigh.
“Moonsilk? Raw
moonsilk? No one trades for that anymore. You don’t keep up with
fashion, do
you?” He looked Kar up and down, his nose wrinkling in distaste. “It’s
all
about colors, my friend. The brighter, the better. Now if you had
chromore to
trade with that moonsilk, I’d take the whole lot from your hands.” He
shook his
head and clucked his tongue. “It pains me to leave you with
non-tradeable
goods, really.”
Kar clenched his teeth. He had
traded high
for that moonsilk not two weeks earlier. Part of him wanted to call
Lyenne on
the lie, but he couldn’t afford to offend him, not when the Danaus was
on her
last box of food. How long until his crew tired of it and quit? Unlike
Kar,
neither of them was used to going hungry. His gaze drifted behind
Lyenne, and
he crossed his arms again. Jay and Will were back at it.
Will’s fingers were tracing the
tattooed
lines that encircled Jay’s throat like a necklace. Any second now, it’d
be his
lips on Jay’s skin instead of his fingers, and another one of these
purplish
bruises would bloom. Kar hated those bruises—and he hated that he could
never
stop staring at them. A muscle ticked in his jaw. If these two didn’t
cut it
out, he’d trade them instead of the moonsilk. Hell, he’d even
pay Lyenne
to take them off his ship.
“I know this is not what you
wanted to
hear,” Lyenne said, misinterpreting his growing annoyance and drawing
Kar’s
attention back to him. “But as I said, if you had chromore…”
Again, he was smiling too
widely. Kar’s
patience was running thin. “I don’t have chromore, nor do I know where
to find
it.”
At that, Lyenne beamed. “What a
coincidence! I just happen to know where you can…acquire some. I’d go
myself,
but these days I try to keep a low profile, if you know what I mean…”
Kar had a pretty good idea what
Lyenne
meant. He knew where one could steal this chromore but didn’t want to
dirty his
hands by doing the stealing himself. As a rule, Kar didn’t like to
steal. Even
this far from the Prime Planets, Guardians patrolled all mining
operations that
belonged to the Lodge.
“I don’t have the weaponry or
the engine
speed to take on Guardians.”
“Ah, but who’s talking about
them?” Lyenne
gestured dismissively. “They have some sort of festival on the main
planet
right now, and the entire moon will be deserted for five more days. The
refining factory will just be waiting for you.”
Kar had been called many things
since
embarking on a ship as a wide-eyed kid close to twenty years earlier,
but no
one had ever called him stupid who hadn’t lived to regret it. It was
extraordinarily convenient that Lyenne happened to know where to find
chromore
and would impart this knowledge to Kar at the precise moment when the
mineral
lay unguarded. Kar wondered if Lyenne had suggested this business
opportunity
to others already—or if Kar was the first who had looked desperate
enough to
accept.
“Four large boxes of food for
the saffra,”
he said, easily sliding in the strong tones of trading. “And twenty
thousand
credits for the moonsilk and the chromore when I come back.”
He had expected Lyenne to
protest the price
of the saffra and was surprised when he thrust a hand at him. “Done.
But for
that price, I want at least fifty boxes of chromore.”
They shook on it.
“Will.”
Too busy mouthing Jay’s neck,
Will didn’t
hear Kar calling for him or didn’t care to reply. This was getting
tiresome.
“Will! Get your ass over here
and carry the
saffra over to the Cisseis now,
or ask Captain Lyenne if he’s got room on his ship for you.”
Will raised his head and turned
an amused
look to Kar, his lips set in a smile just shy of derisive. With a mock
salute,
he went to grab the lift. Jay joined him and helped him pull the first
box onto
the flat bed of the lift. Lyenne chuckled and clapped Kar on the back.
“Quite a crew you’ve got there,
my friend.
I bet there isn’t a dull moment on your ship.”
Kar glared at him, but Lyenne,
his eyebrow
suddenly rising in surprise, didn’t notice. His eyes were on Jay. He
licked his
lips before saying in a very low voice, “It’s funny, I could have sworn
those
tattoos looked like—”
“The Lodge,” Kar cut in
abruptly. “But
don’t go mentioning that to him. Touchy subject.”
Lyenne’s chuckle this time was
weak, as
though he were not sure whether Kar was joking or not. “I’ll send the
food
over. And the coordinates.”
At that, he took regal steps
back to his
ship, waving his hand over his shoulder. Teeth clenched, Kar stomped
over to
the stack of saffra and pulled a box from Jay’s hands. He gave him a
harsh look
and tried to ignore the red mark on his neck, which was half on the
tattoo,
half off. Damn them.
“Cockpit. Now. The Cisseis is
going to
transmit coordinates.”
Jay shrugged. “The computer’ll
catch that.”
“Go to the cockpit, Jake.
Or find
another job.”
Jay’s full lips tightened into
a thin line.
His eyes darkened, no longer a summer sky, now a rising storm. He
considered
Kar for a few seconds, his back straightening slowly until he stood
ramrod
straight. “I never went to see the ballet, Captain. Would you like to
know
why?”
Suddenly, his words were crisp,
each
syllable detached and smooth. Behind him, Will shook his head and
smiled, but
he continued working. Kar said nothing.
“All things that are worth
having are worth
having on your own terms,” Jay said in the same tone. “I didn’t go to
see the
ballet. The ballet came to me.”
Despite being a couple of
inches shorter
than Kar, he managed to stare him down before he turned on his heel and
walked
away. Somehow, in his simple pants and sleeveless shirt, he managed to
look
more stately than Lyenne in his flamboyant attire.
“Posture instructor, no shit,”
Kar
muttered, and helped Will stack up the saffra.
Will raised a questioning
eyebrow at him.
“What was that ballet stuff about, then?”
Kar shrugged. “How would I
know? You’re the
one who fucks him.”
Will’s baritone laugh filled
the entire
cargo bay, echoing back to them. “You shouldn’t have called him Jake.”
Hoisting the last box on top of
the others,
Kar groaned. “I know.”
“He’s going to be a pain for
days.”
“I know.”
Will started guiding the lift
down toward
the nexus, but he looked back at Kar, dark eyes gleaming mischievously.
“I
guess I’ll have to put him in a better mood.”
Kar watched him go and shook
his head.
Sometimes, he really wanted to fire the two of them and fly solo.
Surely no
amount of loneliness could be worth the daily torture these two
inflicted on
him without even knowing it.
... continued in Moonlust
