Loralynn Kennakris 3: Asylum (47 page)

Kris vividly remembered the little red icon. “I thought you were the bad guys.”

“Well, from
Ilya’s
perspective, we were.”

“Yeah . . .” Then, to cover her embarrassment, Kris asked, “What about the data dump?”

Huron’s well-shaped lips spread in that one-sided smile. “Five-by-five. G2 is still going over it. Wish you’d been there when we put it on the tight-beam. You never saw so many public orgasms in your life.” Then his face fell suddenly. “That was before we ran into that other—”

“Huron?”

He glanced up. “Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Huron slapped his palm on his knee as he hunted for a different subject. “Well . . .”

“What else happened?” Kris prompted.

“There’s a report,” Huron said, his voice denoting his happiness to be off such tender ground. “It was pretty simple. Cake walk all around, really. The Grand Senate’s gonna take a while to sort out the repercussions—they’re not used to so much good news all at once. Looks like we’re going to get that treaty, but I’m sure they’ll still find some way to screw this up, so we’re not unemployed yet—” Abruptly, he stopped, looked down at his fingernails. “Look, do you really want to talk about this?”

Kris shook her head, sensing his lingering edginess. What was bothering him? The silence was a strain on Huron’s features. Kris didn’t think he was going to speak, but he did.

“I saw Heydrich’s body in there.” He paused, trying to fit his voice around the spiky subject. “Did anything . . . happen? Unusual, I mean?”

“Do you mean: was I tortured?” So much flint in so few words. “Yes. Don’t ask about it.”

He paused for moment, sizing up Kris’s aspect. Discretion certainly appeared to be the better part of valor. “Then I won’t.”

Silence now, not looking at each other, just conversing with their private ghosts and feeling the space between them. It went on for a while. Minutes. Kris spoke first.

“Rafe?”

“Yes?”

“Did you get the rest of my message?”

“Yes.” Huron continued to look away. That slight buried unease she’d been sensing had come to the surface. “I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“What did you want to say?”

“I wanted to give you an invitation.”

Not what she’d been primed to hear. “A what?”

“An invitation.” Huron’s smile danced uncertainly on the corners of his lips. “There’s this place, you see. This place I know. A meadow, not very large, above a few miles of lilacs that grow all down this little valley. It’s beautiful. Have you ever seen lilacs?”

“Pictures.”

“Not the same.” He was smiling fully now. “You’ve got to see them in the spring, when they bloom. It’s incredible—masses of white and purple as far as you can see. The fragrance is amazing.” She watched him, but his gaze was elsewhere now. “Of course, if you go there in the fall, the lilacs aren’t out, but you can watch the leaves turn. Colors like you’ve never seen. It’s like an ocean, Kris. They turn red and orange and yellow-gold and all sorts of colors. In the summer, you can sometimes see the auroras late at night. I used to think that was the best of all, but they’re pretty rare. I’d lie on my back all night, trying not to sleep, hoping . . . And in the winter, it snows. Not much. They don’t allow really bad blizzards, of course.” He shook his head. “It has to be seen, Kris. And you can see it all from this meadow. That is . . .” He looked up.

Why’s he got all that water standing in his eyes
?

“I’d like to take you there, Kri—Loralynn. That’s the invitation.”

She worked some moisture back into her suddenly dry mouth. “Where exactly is this place?”

“Michigan. On Earth. Where I grew up.”

“Oh.” Feelings, tentative and vulnerable, were beginning to melt all around her heart. “Earth’s an awful long way from here.”

“Yeah. But they’ve offered you your choice of duty—anything, anywhere.”

“Huh?” The words were an unexpected—almost unwelcome—jolt. For all Kris knew, she might have still been technically under quarters arrest. No one had said anything, and there’d been no signs of it, but— “But what about what . . . happened?”

“I’m pleased to say that wiser counsels prevailed. Quillan has a great deal of explaining to do, and right now, the smart money is not on him being able to pull that off.”

“Oh.” She was tempted to ask to what extent he’d been involved. But this didn’t seem like the time.

“So where do you think you wanna go?”

“I—um . . . I’m not sure.” There weren’t a ton a exciting options for a fighter pilot in peacetime. With the Bannermans out of the picture and Cathcar destroyed, anti-slaving patrols had been scaled back. That left maybe— “Maybe Survey?”

He nodded, almost as if he’d been expecting that answer. Which he might’ve been. “There’s a lot of career advantages to Survey, and with the treaty being signed, most everything else will be training—or desk work. It’d mean a posting to Lunar 1.”

“Are you opting for Lunar 1?”

“They didn’t give me a lot of choice, but yes. G-Staff billet. Treaty compliance.”

“So you’ll be there.”

“Yep . . . and, I thought, if that was your preference and—things worked out, we might . . .”

“Might what?” she prodded.

The words came in a rush. “Consider going on as a team. That is, if you say yes.”

She shifted closer to him and put her hands on the slope of his shoulders by his neck. “That’s a nice offer, but . . . I was thinkin’ you were gonna ask me something else.”

Her tone, her look, the warm pressure of her hands, left no doubt what that
something
was. The uncertainty smoothed out of his features to be replaced by another look, not solemn, but deeply earnest and not to be trifled with. “I would have, but—considering everything that’s happened—I felt it’s not my place to bring that up just yet. I don’t want to cause unnecessary complications.”

“I understand. And thanks. But . . .” The hand on the back of his neck pulled him closer. “Look, Rafe”—bending her neck so their foreheads touched, her voice the barest whisper—“I know this may not work. I
know
it could be a big fuckin’ mistake. But I just
died
. It focuses the mind, y’know?”

He made a soft sound as if he’d been holding his breath. She felt a tear slip through her closed eyelids and eased the pressure of the hand holding them together.

“So if that’s what you think—that this is gonna be too complicated—walk out that door now and we’ll go back to where we were—no harm, I promise. Or kiss me.”

He kissed her.

A minute later he felt her lips curve into a smile against his own. “See? Wasn’t that easy?”

Opening his eyes, he smiled to match hers. “Am I allowed to point out that
technically
you haven’t answered my question yet?”

“No, you’re not.” She twined her arms tighter around his neck and kissed the warm lips again. “In a minute? ‘Kay?”

“Just
a
minute?.”

“Dunno. Try again.” They did. “Well, guess what?”

He gathered her in, holding her by the armsful. “What?”

“Gonna take more than a minute.” Her fingers attacked his buttons.

“Loralynn—”

“Very good!” Buttons defeated, his zippers yielded under her assault.

“—you
are
aware we’re in a hospital and the doors here do not lock?”

The assault did not pause. “So what? You care about the three-grade rule or something?”

“No, actually. Check your pillow.”

She did, her fingers momentarily halting in their incursion. “Huh?”

“The other one.”

“Oh.” A lieutenant’s twin gold bars were pinned there. “When did that happen?”

“Late last week.”

Her eyes came back to his; her hand, having claimed its objective, achieved its liberation. “So what’s the problem?”

“No problem.” He shifted forward, giving her more room to work.

“Okay, then. I’m certified totally operational. Totally.” She breathed the syllables softly in his ear.

Hospital attire has this one virtue: it’s easy to remove. Even with one hand.

A sweep of her unengaged arm sent pillows tumbling. Maneuvering him onto the bed, her palms inexorably pressed him back against the mattress. Smiling as his hands coasted up her flanks to seize the high ground after a brief reconnaissance—thumb and trigger finger engaging each coral-tinted peak, which rose to the occasion—he looked up into her eyes, at the luminous emotions simmering there.

“I suppose they were right about one thing.”

“Whazzat?”—the index finger of one hand coasting over the old break in the bridge of his nose while her other hand, by a smooth flank movement, retook the salient it had briefly relinquished and stroked slowly.

“You
are
crazy.”

“I know.” Sighing, she leaned into his grip and shuffled up along his recumbent torso until her knees were well above and outside his shoulders. “Don’cha love it?”

“Yes,” he murmured as she poised there for a trio of seconds, her breath catching high in her throat before she began to lower her hips those few crucial inches; and again in that brief interval while speech was still possible: “Yes, I do.”

Some minutes later, amidst the soft and rhythmic cries that at times broke out rather less softly and were often punctuated by sweetly uttered gasps or a delighted whimper escaping through clenched teeth—sounds that would occasionally overflow the room and waft faintly to the bend in the corridor where Rachel stood watch with a medical periodical, making her smile—he had his answer.

And it was:
Yes
.

# # #

Please enjoy this free excerpt from
Absalom’s Hundred: the Death of Nestor Mankho
, the new
Loralynn Kennakris
adventure, coming soon to Amazon Kindle!

Cap’n Absalom
—

Erupted from a ghosty nothingness upon that land there beneath the frost and tore hisself a dwelling (
tore violently—as one would say raped
) as though that land—on which he forced his strange creeping brood—were his own bitch. (
His own bitch he wouldn’a share
.) And that land—forever called
Absalom’s Hundred
thereafter—turned on him—for that he had raped her—and took his wits and ears and eyes and teeth (
but most of all his teeth
) and sent him drooling and witless back to that ghosty nothingness 

—what consumed him
. . .

As related by persons unknown,
on Rimmon, Outworlds Border Zone

Crystal City, Outer N-Ring;
Gamma Hydras, Hydra Border Zone

Commander Trin Wesselby, Director, Pleiades Sector Intelligence Group, lay back against the mattress of a bed in a third-rate hostelry, located in the inaptly named Crystal City, and sighed. Nick Taliaferro, the retired Chief Inspector of the Nedaeman Bureau of Public Safety, lying next to her, emitted a self-satisfied chuckle. The tiny room, which existed for a single purpose and rented by the half-hour (with an hour minimum), was short on furniture, space, and everything else. The bed and a small lavatory niche took up most of it, and the appurtenances provided by the management were limited to three towels, one of which could be rigged across the niche’s entrance by guests with a yen for privacy. The floor would do as a place to put your clothes—if you wanted something more, you had no business being there.

Price was not the principal draw of such an accommodation. Convenience was a prime factor, but more importantly, privacy was guaranteed. Only untraceable forms of payment were accepted, and anonymous entry and exit were provided; you could even get a full digital history of where else you’d been and what you’d been doing, if you needed an alibi. That, of course, cost extra—a lot extra.

Such extreme measures were a trifle ridiculous. Why Crystal City existed and what went on there were well known. In the first effusions following the late war, when there was much talk of a ‘peace dividend’ and new opportunities were appearing in abundance, a group of speculators bought a sizeable rock on the outskirts of the system in which Outbound Station resided, and there built a fantastical edifice which was to offer supplies, lodging, and entertainment to the streams of traffic they thought would soon begin to transit the junction. In addition, it would serve as a domicile for those who did the offering. A great orbital exchange was to be built, to facilitate the transshipment of cargo, with financial services, escrow agents and insurers close to hand. Business of all kinds would be encouraged to establish satellite offices there to profit from this new and expanding hub of commerce.

The speculators went bankrupt, of course, with the initial phase of their planned development about a third complete. Sold at auction, it garnered twelve percent of the initial outlay, which many considered generous, and fell into the hands of those rather more seedy (but eminently realistic) enterprises that congregate near military outstations. The Colonial Expeditionary Forces, seeing the evident benefits of having some creature comforts so close at hand (New Madras, then the next closest installation, was three days away, and the Pleiades, on the other side of Merope, two days farther still), suppressed the more flagrant iniquities, but otherwise left the proprietors alone.

That made it a convenient place for Trin and Nick to arrange a rendezvous, both physically and tactically. For some months, Trin had been resident here at Outbound Station, instead of her more usual post at Pleiades Sector HQ back in Nemeton, on the League Homeworld of Nedaema. Partly, this was to provide direct support to Third Fleet, which was currently stationed at Outbound, but it was also because she and Nick were pursuing an altogether more obscure and private agenda, one which only a tiny handful of close personal acquaintances knew anything about. Her immediate superior, Admiral Joss PrenTalien, commander in chief of Pleiades Sector, was one of these, as was the Chief of Naval Operations, Fleet Admiral Westover, both of whom strongly endorsed her reticence. Lieutenant Commander Rafe Huron (a close personal friend) and Sergeant Major Fred Yu of the 101st Special Operations Brigade (the Strike Rangers), and leader of Covert Action Team 5 (CAT 5, the CEF’s premier SPEC-Ops unit), completed the roster of those who were ‘in the know’.

What they knew—and the reason for the extreme secrecy (most especially from any official organs, including the Admiralty itself)—was that almost a year and a half ago, Trin and Nick had found strong evidence of a Halith mole operating far up in the League’s government. The key to uncovering this person was Nestor Mankho, a terrorist warlord who almost certainly knew the mole’s identity. This had led to an attempt by CAT 5 to apprehend him at his base on the remote planet of Rephidim, shortly before the war started. The attempt failed, and Trin and Nick, who was no longer encumbered by holding an official position, had continued the pursuit in a highly clandestine and entirely unofficial manner—hence these irregular meetings.

Accordingly, for the past year or more, Nick and Trin had been allowing the more fertile imaginations among their acquaintances to wrap themselves around the idea that they were carrying on a clandestine affaire. Given Trin’s reputation for being cold, prim, and mercilessly efficient, this notion was interesting enough to attract attention, implausible enough to be believed, and distracting enough to be useful.

Nick’s chuckle was occasioned by reading the pages of hardcopy crammed with tiny precise writing that Trin had given him shortly after they locked themselves in, and Trin’s sigh was her response to how he intended to make use of the information she had supplied.

“Nick, aren’t you getting a little old for this kind of stunt?”

That information was an appreciation of the state of affairs on Cathcar, a major settlement in the nearby Praesepe Cluster where slavers came to refit and resupply, indulge in some recreation, and ply their trade. Mankho had taken refuge there after the raid on Rephidim, and their lack of progress in finding even a hint of a trail after he’d arrived on Cathcar had vexed Trin deeply. That is, until she uncovered indications that their failure was due to the simplest of reasons: Mankho, it now appeared, had never left. Why Mankho had chosen, or been compelled, to remain on Cathcar was obscure, and this obscurity Nick proposed to investigate. Personally.

He smiled and refolded the tissue-thin pages. “Sure you just aren’t jealous you can’t come along? Maybe a little bit?”

“Maybe not at all,” Trin snorted. “We don’t all have a foolish youth we long to revisit.”

He handed the hardcopy back to her. “Yeah. Damn shame, that. Who’s this Robin Volt?”

“Something of an enigma—”

“—wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in a mystery?”

“Let’s not get carried away here, Nick.”

“If you insist.”

“I do.” Trin drew in a soft breath. “She appeared a few years ago as the newest player in Cathcar’s upper echelon. RUMINT—and I’m not even sure I should call it that—says that she was once the property of a ‘slaver captain’ named Riker.”

“A captain’s bitch?” He made no attempt to hide the incredulity in his voice.

“That is the vernacular for it, yes. But we suspect
Riker
actually refers to Absalom Riker—”

“The big crime boss on Rimmon?”

Trin allowed the interruption. “Yes. As far as personal history, beyond that rumor, I got no hits at all.”

Nick grunted. A contemplative grunt.

“So we know almost nothing reliable about her, other than that she’s quite ambitious, seems to have an unusually high degree of charisma, and a gift for myth-making.”

“No surprise there.” Nick sat up. “I think I’ll call on a fella I know—we worked some cases with him years back. Hell of a nice guy.”

“May I ask? Or is this an entirely private connection?”

“Not at all. It’s Antoine Rathor, Mariwen Rathor’s brother. He’s the lead analyst in OTI.”

“Oh.” Trin was aware that Mariwen had an older brother, but not that he worked in the Terran Office of TransStellar Issues. “Then you’ll be shipping out directly.”

“I reckon so. Fred Yu asked me to do him a favor if I chanced to be out that way soon—this is a good time to oblige him.”

Trin sat up as well and reached for her shoes. “Take care of yourself, Nick.”

“Gotta. Can’t stick anyone else with that job.”

I wouldn’t say that
. And she didn’t.