Shades of Dark (9 page)

But this gate…I watched signal strength and purity spike, flatten, and spike again. Shit. I retracted vanes and scanner dishes, aware of the low beeping sound from Sully’s station as communications went offline. I didn’t like this at all. It gave me sweaty palms, but I couldn’t afford to take my fingers off the console to wipe them down my pants leg.

And Sully…no, I didn’t need to think about Sully now. We hadn’t had a chance to talk about anything personal since he’d left the cabin an hour and a half ago to find Gregor. When he returned, he seemed to have shed his hurt feelings, but all we had time for was a crash course in slippery jumpgates. Crash course. God, why did I choose that word? One thing I did not need right now was a systems crash.

And one thing I did not have was an old entry record for the
Karn
for this gate. Sully had used a few of the older gates before, but never this one.

“Two minutes to hard edge.”

“Thanks, Verno.” The
Karn
was performing flawlessly, adjusting inertia and mass as it leeched on to the energies of the neverwhen. Then a little shimmy, something slightly out of phase. Shit!

Chaz?

Sully’s familiar warmth filled me.

I’ve got her,
I sent back.
It’s just not going to be pretty.

You’re the best, angel-mine. I’m here if you need me.

Think you can stabilize a gate in under ninety seconds?
I tried to send a wisecracking smile along with my words but I was too busy to concentrate on that. Then, among the spikes and valleys of the signal, I thought I saw something I could use. Something the
Karn
could use.

And people said there was no value in pub-crawling with the old-timers.

Ships didn’t always have the sophisticated systems they do now. Starfaring was vastly more risky in the decades before I was born. “There’s always one part of a gate signal that screams the loudest,” I remembered a silver-haired freighter pilot telling us, her pilot’s braid longer than mine was now. Her name was Kimber An, and she was something of a legend around the pubs on Marker 3, for both her stories and her drinking skills. “Don’t matter it’s whipping around like a polecat’s ass end. Grab it. It’ll pull you through.”

The
Karn
wanted a nice consistent signal. I keyed in some quick reconfigurations, taking that choice away from her. And locked her onto the strongest one.

We lurched through the gate. That’s probably the kindest way of putting it. Shuddering, shimmying, ship’s stats inching uncomfortably toward the red zone, we skittered through. No alarms wailed, though. Nothing sheared, broke, or hissed out coolant. It was not the most elegant of gate entries, but we made it.

One saving grace: the gate’s inconsistent signal wash would eradicate any ion trail we left behind. If the Farosians were looking for us, they’d not know where we went.

Then five minutes later: “Communications temporarily offline,” Sully announced.

“How temporarily?” Marsh asked. He’d been through older gates before.

“I’ll have to wait until gate-exit to collect my Baris Cup winnings,” Sully replied.

Or to have any idea of what Tage and Burke were doing. There’d be no updates from Philip or Drogue, no clue as to what Thad may have told Tage.

“Optimist,” Marsh shot back, grinning.

There was that. For the next shipday, the crew would have no idea that the man they were traveling with and had sworn allegiance to was a human
Kyi-Ragkiril
. It bought Sully a little more time, but in truth only delayed the inevitable.

Sully stopped by my chair on his way off the bridge, brushing the top of my head with a kiss. He’d shut off our mental link when I’d been concentrating on getting us through the gate and hadn’t reinstated it, so I could only read his thoughts as I would any other person’s. He was no longer upset by my rush to judgment earlier, but there was still an element of hurt. His mental silence told me that much.

He was also worried about how and when Thad’s revelations would be released. I didn’t need a mental link with him to know that. And it was something I knew I’d have to force him to face before we left jumpspace. Even if it meant angering him again.

But I had work to do. This was my duty shift, and the slippery space around me didn’t make it an easy one. The
Karn
wasn’t used to such inconsistent conditions. Sometimes being too high-tech could come back and bite you in the ass.

I voiced my concerns about her performance with older gates after Sully left the bridge.

“Used ’em two, three times in the past couple of years,” Marsh said. “We never liked using the smugglers’ routes unless we had no choice. But like Sully said, we’re not going to get a second chance at this information if they get to this guy before we do.”

That was our stated reason for the change in plans: a threat against Del, our informant. The meeting had been moved up. Which was partly true. Only Sully was the one doing the moving.

At two hours in, I logged off for a break. Verno, who logged off shortly after Sully left, came back on. Leaving the
Karn
in Marsh’s and Verno’s capable hands, I headed for the corridor seeking not Sully but Ren.

No one knew Sully better than Ren did. Sully had at one time been Ren’s tutor. Lately I’d begun to wonder if the student wasn’t wiser than the teacher.

Ship’s locator system showed Sully logged into the gym and Ren in the galley. He’d been slowly rebuilding his friendship with Dorsie. It had almost collapsed due to his part in the deception Sully had pulled months ago. If Ren and Dorsie were playing cards or just chatting, I’d get a cup of tea and go back to my cabin and try him again on my next break.

I found Ren in the storeroom off the galley’s main room, talking to Dorsie. Their voices were light, amiable. I almost turned around and left, but Dorsie saw me and waved me in.

“We just finished up inventory,” she said. “Can I get you something, Captain?”

She sashayed past Ren. Dorsie was a short, plump, dark-haired woman with sparkling eyes, an infectious laugh, and a perpetual mischievous swing to her hips. There was a strong resemblance to her nephew, Marsh, in the tilt of her eyes and the wideness of her mouth, but her skin tone was lighter than Marsh’s nut brown. And Marsh with his crooked nose and scarred left eyebrow could at times look foreboding. Dorsie was just pretty.

Not that Ren could actually see that. He read a person’s rainbows: thermal energy fields all sentients emitted. I imagined Dorsie’s rainbows danced. I know Ren liked her a lot.

“Just taking a break. I thought if Ren wasn’t busy, I’d borrow his copy of the Eternity Six concert. But I can pester him for it later.”

A light warmth trickled through me, ending with a question mark. The tall, elegant Stolorth leaning against the storage cage hadn’t moved, nor had his slightly bemused expression changed. His six-fingered hands were clasped before him. But his question and concern drifted over me like mist carried on a summer breeze.

“Now is an excellent time,” he said. “I fear Dorsie was about to have me start peeling vegetables.”

“You do want
srorfralak
pie, don’t you?” Dorsie planted her hands on her hips, but she was grinning.

“When you bake it, it is a true nectar of the gods,” Ren replied.

“Damned straight it is.”

“I can get the music later—”

“The vegetables are still soaking,” Dorsie said, jerking her chin toward the main galley. “Won’t be ready for peeling for another half hour yet.”

Ren pushed away from the storage cage then stopped in front of Dorsie and executed a flowing bow. “Then I shall return to do your bidding shortly.”

“Just don’t run off and play cards with that scoundrel Sully,” she warned in mock sternness.

Ren arched one eyebrow. “My dear friend Dorsie, you know that when it comes to gambling or
srorfralak
pie, your pie wins every time.”

“Twenty to one?” Dorsie quipped. “Off with you. Be back in a half hour. If the pie’s not right, then Verno can blame you, not me.”

Dorsie’s pies were nothing less than perfect. Although the Takan vegetable delicacy wasn’t my favorite, both Verno and Ren were enraptured by it.

“My quarters?” Ren asked when we were in the corridor and out of Dorsie’s hearing. He knew very well I didn’t want his copy of the concert. I had my own.

“Please.”

We took the narrow ladderway up one deck in silence.

“You heard that Thad has probably told Tage everything?” I asked when Ren’s cabin door closed behind me.

With a sigh, Ren nodded, then sank down on the arm of his sofa. “I fear there are some very unpleasant times ahead for Sully.”

“Has he discussed with you what he plans to do?”

“Chasidah, these are things—”

“That I should be asking him?” God, how many times had Ren and I gone back and forth, only to end up at this same point? “I try, Ren. And he is opening up to me a lot more. But there are still things he holds back. Things he won’t discuss. I can feel this tension, this fear in him. Then I can’t get through. But you’re like him. He doesn’t have to explain to you what it means to be a
Ragkiril
. What it means to be feared or scorned. He feels he has to with me. I know that’s a big part of the problem.”

Ren’s silver-eyed gaze studied me for a long moment. “I’ll try to get him to talk to you,” he said finally.

That would be a start. “Thank you. I mean that.”

I turned for the door to the corridor then stopped and glanced back at Ren. “Can you at least tell me if there’s anything I should be worried about?”

“I hope not, Chasidah,” he said, his voice carrying echoes of a twilight storm. Distant thunder fading but yet a slight chill to the wind. “I hope not.”

I didn’t have much time to ponder Ren’s remark. Our slippery space was making the
Karn
very annoyed. Marsh and Verno needed me back on the bridge. Autoguidance, seeking fixes that weren’t there, kept sending us off course. It had been a long time since I’d had to hand-fly a ship in jumpspace, but that’s what I ended up doing. And doing it solo. Normally two pilots would take shifts. But our other pilot was facedown and snoring. If I ended up spending an entire shipday in this seat, I’d be of little help when we reached Narfial. But if I didn’t, we might not reach Narfial at all.

Sully sat at navigation, frowning, running data from other similar transits through the computer, trying to give me whatever edge he could. He kept a light—very light—mental touch with me. It was reassuring without being distracting, and it kept my thoughts my own. Because they did on occasion wander back to Ren’s
I hope not.

I would never view Sully as impulsive. For all his flamboyant reputation, he rarely took action without planning, without knowing his escape routes if things went wrong. I considered that one of his strengths. But he could be careless of his own safety, push himself too hard, justifying the end as worth the means. I saw that when we were trapped in the shuttle bay on Marker and he revealed his
Ragkiril
side to Berri Solaria and Zabur Lazlo. His diversion kept me and Philip alive. It could have just as easily gotten Sully killed.

Sometimes Gabriel—the
Kyi-Ragkiril
—forgot that Gabriel Ross Sullivan was also human.

“Try this.”

Sully’s voice drew my attention off my console screen and made me glance at navigation. He pointed to my console so I split the screen and watched his latest snippet of data scroll across. It took a moment for me to see what he’d created. A bit of code that just might trick autoguidance into thinking the abnormal was the norm.

It could also veer us dangerously deeper into slippery space.

“I need a fail-safe, on both ends.” I highlighted the areas of the program I wanted him to work on and sent it back to him.

“Slave driver,” he murmured sufficiently loudly to garner a short bark of laughter from Marsh.

“Don’t encourage him,” I told Marsh and he grinned. But the smile didn’t reach his eyes. Even though Aubry could spell him, he wasn’t any happier with our current location than I was.

Bootsteps sounded in the corridor behind the bridge. I felt Ren before I saw him. Ren’s mental presence always held an element of water. Most times it was like a light mist, like the spray of water off a stream cascading down a rocky hillside. Now, however, the stream was more forceful, the mist colder. Sully must have felt it too, because he turned just after I did.

“Coming to join the party?” Sully asked. His tone was light, but because I knew him or maybe because of the link we shared, I could sense a tension. Its source could be anything on a growing list, including the fact that the usually placid Ren was somewhat disconcerted. If I could feel that cold mist, so could Sully—perhaps more so. I hoped Ren’s renewed relationship with Dorsie hadn’t hit a bump.

“Finished with galley duties?” I asked him.

The cold mist abated, warming. So what troubled him wasn’t Dorsie.

“Pie’s baking. It’s the best one yet, Dorsie said.” Ren nodded to Verno, who’d angled around. There was no need to define what kind of pie for Verno. “I can hold a station if someone needs a break.”

Ren usually worked communications, which was fully integrated with a voice-prompt interface that also allowed him to monitor basic functions at nav and helm.

“Autoguidance is misbehaving,” Sully told him. “Chaz and I are stuck here until we can patch in a fix.”

“Aubry’s due on in half an hour.” Marsh looked at Sully. “But I can stay longer, if you need help. Damned bad time for Gregor to turn up sick,” he added.

Sully shook a finger at Marsh. “Now you know why I’m always harping at my crew to keep their immunizations current. You never know what’s been crawling around Dock Five or Ferrin’s.”

That launched a dialogue of horror stories that I tuned out while I kept the
Karn
on course and worked on bits of the guidance override program Sully sent over to me. Forty minutes or so later, I felt we had something feasible. Something that would at least permit me to get out of this chair for a while. The
Karn
might wander off course, but alarms would start screaming. And she wouldn’t, thanks to Sully’s magic, be permitted to wander too far.