Slave Empire - The Crystal Ship (29 page)

“
And yours.”

“
Vidan!” The Shrike leant threateningly towards the plump man,
who did not seem intimidated in the least. “I can still have your
lips glued together, you know.”

Vidan sat back
with a snort, eyeing his employer. “Well, it’s -”

“
Enough.” Tarke held up a gloved hand, and the Atlantean fell
silent, radiating worry and frustration.

Rayne studied
him, sensing that his worry was for Tarke, and his frustration
warred with his love for his boss. He struggled to keep silent, and
she was sure he had a lot to say about the situation. Curious, she
asked, “Do you think I should?”

“
Of course!” he spluttered. “You’ll never get a better offer,
or a better -”

“
Vidan,” Tarke interrupted again, silencing him.

The Atlantean
radiated indignation and amazement, coupled with honest concern. He
told the truth, she sensed, and he was convinced that she should
accept Tarke’s offer. In fact, he wanted to urge her to, and that
was what Tarke kept preventing him from doing. As usual, she sensed
nothing from the masked man who faced her.

“
So I have to agree to this before you tell me anything?” she
asked.

Tarke shook
his head. “No. You have to make the declaration, which will then be
made public. Only when the marriage is official will you be
entitled to know anything more about me.”

She sighed.
“You’re being really paranoid.”

“
I know. I have to be, unfortunately. The information I’ll
give you is the sort men die for. Many have done so already.
There’s an Atlantean reward out for my identity, which currently
stands at...?” He glanced at Vidan.

“
Fifteen million, five hundred and forty-five thousand
regals.”

“
Then there’s a reward offered by certain Drayconar factions
that don’t particularly like me because I steal their slaves, which
is...?”

“
Three million stones,” Vidan provided.

“
That’s for my corpse, isn’t it?”

“
Dead or alive, but preferably dead.”

“
Right. Then there’s the slaver Konian, who’s on my current
hit list. He’s offering...?”

“
One and a half million regals, for your skin. Or
head.”

Tarke nodded.
“Who else?”

“
The Drakanon Federation, the Majerix Corporation, the Endless
Life Cult, the -”

“
I get the picture,” Rayne said.

“
But what’s the total?” Tarke asked Vidan. “How much am I
worth, dead? If you chopped me up and took a piece to all my
enemies, what would they fetch?”

Vidan
pondered. “I haven’t totalled it recently...”

“
Approximately.”

“
About thirty-five million.”

Tarke turned
to her. “Enough to buy a small, but habitable planet. So you see, I
have to be careful. Right now, my people wouldn’t protect you
unless I ordered them to, and then not with much enthusiasm. You’re
an outsider. Your name is linked to Atlan, and you’ve never been a
slave. As my wife, you’ll be as untouchable as me. They’ll die in
their thousands to protect you.”

She shivered,
longing for a strong drink.

“
Do you need more time?” he asked.

“
Why are you doing this?”

Vidan opened
his mouth, but Tarke held up a hand. “I’ve already told you. You
deserve a life, and I can give you one, while Atlan can’t. I’m not
guaranteeing you happiness. You’ll have to make the most of it. But
you’ll have a purpose, things to do. And my people won’t treat you
like an outcast.”

“
What do you want from me?”

“
Only your loyalty.”

“
That doesn’t seem like much,” she said.

“
If you fall into the wrong hands, you’ll find out just how
much it is. To betray me will bring about the fall of my empire.
Millions of people will suffer, hundreds of thousands will die,
even more will become slaves again. I hope that never happens. Or,
you could choose to work for me, and never know my secrets. Except
maybe on my deathbed, in about five hundred years’
time.”

“
Does Vidan know your secrets?”

“
Some of them. He would die before he revealed them,
though.”

The plump man
nodded. Rayne looked down at her twisting hands, uncertain, yet at
the same time determined. This was what she wanted. She had dreamt
about it for years, and, daunting as it was, she still wanted it.
He was the most notorious outlaw in the galaxy, and leader of the
third largest empire. She longed to plumb his many mysteries, and
more.

She looked up.
“Could I have a drink?”

Vidan jumped
up and went to a dispenser. “What sort?”

“
Something strong.”

“
Something mild,” Tarke countered.

Vidan returned
with three drinks and sat down again. She sipped the cool beverage,
and Tarke sat back, apparently relaxed. Vidan had obeyed him, she
found. In the short silence that followed, she wondered why she had
not answered Tarke on Arraman Three.

She put down
her glass. “I could have given you my answer when you first asked.
I didn’t need to think about it. I just couldn’t believe it then,
but I do now. I accept your offer.”

Vidan beamed
at her, then the Shrike. Although he was delighted and triumphant,
she sensed smugness from him too, as if he also felt responsible
for the whole arrangement. Tarke jerked his head at the Atlantean.
“Go and get the decree and the vidcam.”

Vidan jumped
up and hurried out. Tarke sipped his drink, his head turned in her
direction, as if he studied her. He was as heavily shielded as
ever, and not an iota of emotion leaked from him. In a way, she
liked his inscrutability, yet she also found it unnerving. She
wondered if she should thank him. A part of her wanted to, but
perhaps this was not the right time.

Vidan returned
with a vidcam and a sheet of metallic substance, which he put on
the table in front of them. He set the vidcam in position and
switched it on. “Okay, off you go.”

Tarke handed
the metallic sheet to her, and she studied the bold, flowing alien
writing on it. At the bottom were two black,
three-centimetre-square patches next to some long words.

“
What’s this?” she enquired.

“
A marriage decree,” Tarke said.

“
In what language?”

“
Antian. It just says that you agree to be my wife and I agree
to be your husband, each of us of our own free wills and in our
right minds. Press your right thumb to the sensor, and it will
record your DNA signature.”

“
That’s it? Then it’s official?”

He nodded. “An
announcement will be made, and that’s that.”

“
I never dreamt I’d marry a man whose face I had never
seen.”

“
Arranged marriages are often the best.”

“
Why, because there are no bloody stupid romantic ideas
involved in them?”

“
Exactly.”

She perused
the decree again. “And how do we get a divorce, if we want to?”

“
No divorce. That word doesn’t exist in my
language.”

“
It does in mine.”

“
You haven’t even put your DNA on this, and already you’re
talking about a divorce?”

She smiled.
“I’m human.”

“
So it seems.”

Rayne placed
the decree on the table and pressed her thumb to the black square
he indicated. She pushed it across the table to him, almost pleased
by his slight hesitation. He stripped off his right glove and
pressed his thumb to the other square, then handed the document to
Vidan. The Atlantean beamed and stepped towards Tarke, as if he
intended to shake his hand, then seemed to change his mind and
veered away, surprising her by leaning down to kiss her cheek
instead.

“
Congratulations, both of you. Shall I declare a
holiday?”

Tarke waved a
hand. “Do what you want. I’m sure everyone will enjoy one.”

Vidan radiated
intense joy and satisfaction as he left, collecting the vidcam on
his way.

The Shrike
pulled on his glove, rose and headed for the door in Vidan’s wake,
saying over his shoulder, “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be back
later.”

Rayne jumped
up and reached the door ahead of him, blocking his way. “Oh no you
don’t. You promised.”

Tarke’s sigh
hissed through the mask, and he returned to his chair with an air
of resignation, sinking onto it. She sat opposite, her heart
thudding with excitement at the prospect of finally putting a face
to the gentle, caring man she had come to know. Dozens of
possibilities flitted through her mind as he pulled off his gloves
with slow deliberation, as if he steeled himself for the coming
ordeal of revealing his face.

Rayne noticed,
out of the corner of her eye, the tiny light next to the door turn
red, indicating that it was locked. Doubtless his mental command
had also deactivated all the sensors in the room. She held her
breath as he put the gloves down and lifted his hands to the sides
of the mask, pressing his index fingers to two unobtrusive studs
with a double click. He pulled the mask off and dropped it on the
table, then took off the skullcap that covered his hair.

Rayne let out
her breath in a sigh. Short black hair topped lean, chiselled
features whose symmetry and perfection defied natural laws. His
narrow, high-bridged nose was straight and finely sculpted above a
well-shaped mouth. Fine, level brows pulled together in a slight
frown above eyes that blazed like blue fire, brilliant in frames of
thick black lashes. They dominated his face, their slight slant
giving him an oriental look that their colour belied. He looked
away, presenting a perfect profile, and rubbed the pink marks on
his high cheekbones where the mask had pressed against his pale
skin. A wry smile tugged at his mouth as he ran a hand through his
hair in a gesture of embarrassment. His eyes’ luminous quality was
the only alien feature he possessed, and they seemed to glow in the
light.

He shot her a
shy glance. “Surprised?”

She nodded,
not knowing what to say.

“
There’s more.” He tugged at the part of the hood that still
covered his throat and pulled it off, revealing the oily blue-black
gleam of a slave collar.

Rayne stared
at it, aghast. “You were a slave?”

“
For most of my life.”

“
And that’s your secret?”

He nodded. “If
my enemies ever found out, they wouldn’t rest until they’d killed
me. At the moment they respect and fear me, but they’d never
tolerate an ex-slave as a rival, no matter how powerful I am. I
rely on the fact that they’re all rivals, so none of them will help
another against me. But if they knew this, they’d band together to
defeat me.”

“
But surely, even if they all banded together, they’d be no
match for your empire?”

“
No, but they could make my life even more difficult than it
already is. You see, at the moment they do business with me, and
that enables me to save a lot of slaves. If they knew I’m an
ex-slave, they’d also know I’m rescuing them. They would try to
stop me by whatever means they could.”

Her eyes were
drawn back to the band of flexible metal that circled his throat
like a gleaming black snake. “Why do you still wear the
collar?”

“
I have no choice. Any attempt to remove it or cut it will
trigger its self-destruct mechanism. A Xiltran slave collar, once
fitted, can never be taken off, but it can be
deactivated.”

“
How did you get free?”

He frowned at
his drink. “My last owner was an old lady who had the good sense to
die and leave me her fortune. I bought a ship, and the rest is
history.”

“
When did you start wearing the mask?”

“
The old woman made me wear one. I was her bodyguard, amongst
other things, and she knew slavers would steal me, or try to, if
they saw me. When I got free, I continued to wear one, for the same
reason. I was a valuable slave, and the collar makes me fair
game.”

Tarke glanced
at her, then at the mask, plainly uncomfortable without it. Not
only a disguise, she guessed, but a defence against people’s
stares. Few would be able to resist staring at him, just as she
could not tear her eyes from his face now. Women would stare with
lust while men would do so with envy. He looked younger than she
had imagined, his skin unmarred by the passage of time.

He said, “I’ve
considered changing my face many times, but if I did, I wouldn’t be
me. It wouldn’t feel right. The mask does the job, and I’m used to
it now.”

Who would want
to tamper with perfection, she wondered. Who would dare to sully
such a fine work of nature’s art? The genetic lottery occasionally
produced an exceptional specimen, and he was that winning
combination. How would a surgeon ruin him, except with scars? Eye
colour could not be changed, and the clean lines of his face were
so fundamental that to change them would require nothing less than
butchery. Handsome did not begin to describe him. He was, without
doubt, the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

“
When did you become a slave?”

“
When I was fourteen.” He put down his glass and picked up the
hood and skullcap, pulled it over his hair and fastened it around
his throat, then gathered up the mask and gloves. “I don’t like
talking about my past. I’ve kept my promise, and I hope it’s made
you happy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have business to attend
to.”