The Dark Places (8 page)

I knew what I had to do.

I turned, searching for Matt, and
found him in the distance, watching. I marched with new purpose back across the
meadow. As I approached, my steps slowed a bit when my brain registered his expressionless
face and entirely dark, unreadable eyes.
Not
a good sign
.

“Do we go next to Sanbourne?” I
made my tone casual.

“It is so logged into the
Stardancer
,” he answered.

I nodded and turned away, afraid I
might betray anything else.
He can feel
my thoughts.

“Have you no other questions for
me, Kailiri?”

“You have answered them all.”

He grasped my arm with cruel
strength and forced me around to face him. Green and golden fires smoldered within
his dark pupil. “I would always find you wherever you went. You cannot run from
me,” he snarled between clenched teeth.

I glanced away with startled guilt
and tried wrenching my arm from his grip. “You’re hurting me.” I gasped, for
his fingers cut into my arm with viselike strength.

He immediately released the arm,
but only to draw my body in an embrace that held me imprisoned. “You cannot run
from me,” he repeated with confident intensity. “There exists a bond between us
that would draw me to you, despite any distance you tried putting between us.
The pain from losing you would kill me sooner if I couldn’t find you again.”
His voice dropped low with deep emotion.

I pushed against his chest. It
ripped my heart to do so, for the inexplicable longing for him rebelled against
the course I’d chosen. Matt wouldn’t release me and I glared. “Would you
please
have the kindness to release me?”
I demanded.

“No, Kai, not now. Not until I make
you understand that my heart doesn’t lie in a grave with a dead woman, but that
my love is alive and here within my arms now. I love you. Don’t fight me.”

He
loves me
. Part of me wanted desperately to believe him and part didn’t.
I hate him!

Animosity rose against him for
ensnarling me into an intensity of feelings and the knowledge that he’d
belonged to another—and that he wouldn’t be mine for long. He was dying from an
unnatural alien conjunction at odds now inside him.

“Why did you marry me, Matt?” I
whispered. All my rebellion drained away, and I leaned against him and let pent-up
tears flow.

He held me, staying silent until my
tears stopped.

“Kailiri Lorins, I married you because
I wanted to. You’re a beautiful woman, and I regret we couldn’t spend more time
learning about each other beforehand. I forced this union upon you, true. I’m
sorry, but I don’t have much time left… and I didn’t want to take the chance of
you changing your heart or mind about me. If you’re still uncertain about my
feelings for you, I’ll remarry you upon Sanbourne under my given name. You’ll
have the title of Lady Rakeda and become the second mistress of my
Rakeda
landholdings and property. But as Kailiri Lorins,
you’re the first lady and have no shadow of another to precede you in that
name.” There was exasperation in his voice. “How many other ways do you wish
for me to say and show that I need you?”

I shook my head sadly. Turbulent
emotions continued disrupting my fragile heart. It was best to avoid answering
that question. Moments passed before I gathered my courage and spoke. “You said
that you can feel my thoughts.” A tremor shot through me at my bold curiosity. “Does
the other essence inside you enable you to look into other people’s thoughts?
Or is it only through our imprinting—as you call it?”

“Does it disturb you?” His eyes
narrowed and his jaw line hardened. “That ability doesn’t come from
Timirshil-ka’s life essence. It was always inherent within me. My mother was a
sensitive. I can decode some thoughts from others, but not to the extent that I
can with you through our imprinting, Lady of Pain and Pleasure,” he added in a
low, husky voice.

I swallowed and pulled away.

“My bittersweet love,” he said
softly and drew me back. “Are you certain all your questions have been answered
before we leave Rikin? I’ll answer no more questions about my past when we lift
from here. We’re leaving as soon as we board the ship. So think fast.” A wry
smile touched his lips.

“Matt, how much time will we have
together before the life essence of the… the other leaves you?”

“I don’t know, doll. Not for
certain,” he said with a long sigh. “It could be anytime. This past year, I’ve
been experiencing more intense pain and weakness with each passing day. It
feels like something is tearing and unraveling inside that will extinguish my
life when it finally deteriorates or separates from me.”

“Couldn’t we go to the planet—if
it’s now charted—where… where it all happened and try to contact your
Timirshil-ka to ask for help again?” I stumbled over my words in my anxiety.

“I have lived much longer than I
deserved and I’ve been lucky to find you. I’ve no desire to return to that
place. It’s an unstable, restricted system on an extreme rim sector, far from
any Patrol or trade ship routes. I’m
not
risking your life with those odds. There are no records in the Alliance planet
explorations about any species like the one that I encountered, and there’s
no
certainty that the entity, or one
like it, will be there. The subject is
closed
,
Kai.” Matt gave me one of his shuttered, unreadable gazes and led me silently
to the
Stardancer
.

If
he can pick up my thoughts like he claims, I hope he feels my frustrated worry
and irritation with him and all his infuriating lofty, self-assured final
decisions!

Chapter Eight

After leaving Rikin,
we’d journeyed to Sanbourne, where Matt had conducted more trade. And now ten
standard days later, I sat alone at the console in Matt’s navicon chair,
staring at
Sanbourne’s
fast-receding green-and-white
globe. The
Stardancer’s
powerful engines hummed loud as it raced toward its next flight point. Our upcoming
destination was to have been the Bileth System and a small, obscure planet
named Tivat, famous for tranquilizing herbs. And home of Seth Medlock, Matt’s
jeweler friend who he’d wanted me to go to
if
….

My gaze shot to the silver navilog
comp unit where it lay embedded in a prominent, central position on the control
console. I looked over to the digi-memo screen Matt had inscribed with a
single, brief line containing symbols and numbers.

A frown marred my forehead as my
searching gaze swept over other small keyboards arrayed there to the
one
specific keyboard for flight code
entries that allowed the
Stardancer’s
nav comps access to its preprogrammed coordinate bank. I’d made certain to fix
that keyboard’s layout in my memory. The consequences of hitting the wrong
controls and delivering the ship and ourselves to certain doom continued to haunt
me.

I’d volunteered to enter the flight
code to Tivat for Matt. The task was foolproof after he’d earlier initiated the
system for me and authorized my access. All that remained was for me to consult
the digi-memo screen and
exactly
copy
in the code after the ship reached a designated departure point in normal space,
which he’d preset. Then my task would end when the
Stardancer’s
automatic vortex-leap functions took over.

Nervous apprehension prickled at
me. A wild idea had settled in my head, and I couldn’t dislodge it. One long
curl spiral springing from my temple was unwound and threaded around my
restless fingers.

Matt was resting in our cabin at my
urging. He hadn’t been well upon our expedition on Sanbourne. His attention had
flagged while he’d spoken with some smaller-scale fragrance oil manufacturers,
although he had been able to achieve a favorable price for several thousand
grams of rare, beautiful flower essences that sat carefully sealed and packed
away below in the ship’s cargo bay.

His inconsistent appetite had continued.
And he’d been brusque with me of late. I’d refused his many offers to marry me
under his true name on Sanbourne.
What
made me do that to him?
Punishment?
Or
just a vicious desire not to bear his first wife’s title?

Today was the Tenth Day of the Ninth
Standard Month of the New Empire Alliance Year 0192 A.I.C. I’d been mated to
Matt for twenty-five days—almost a standard month—and I was afraid he wouldn’t
live to be with me another month’s passing. I was distraught where he was
concerned. He seemed to weaken more each day. I didn’t want to seek out his
friend on Tivat alone, without him.

A green light appeared upon the
display panel and pulsed. We’d reached our designated departure point. The ship
awaited new flight plan instructions. I delayed keying in the release code, not
because I didn’t know what to do, but because that
other
idea interfered.

I gnawed my bottom lip and debated
and hesitated some more. I made a decision and pounced on a control button
that, instead, locked the
Stardancer
into flight stasis. I’d made certain to memorize that important button too. The
ship merely coasted without engine power on momentum alone. I now had to keep a
sharp eye out for possible collisions with incoming ships in our present
noncourse mode, since we were still within range of Sanbourne.

I jumped from the chair and rushed
to our sleeping quarters’ door. It parted with a whisper, and my cautious
footsteps were soundless as I stepped in. Matt’s eyes were closed. I stood studying
him as he lay upon the sleep couch. He was paler. No need to touch him to know
his skin was cold. It always felt chilled in the past few days whenever I
touched him. His breathing was deep and irregular, as if he labored to draw
breath. I longed to kneel beside the couch and kiss him, but I didn’t. He would
have awakened, and that was the
last
thing I wanted in this moment. I backed away on silent feet, away from the
sleep couch and out of the cabin. The door slid shut, cutting off the sight of
my sleeping mate.

My anxious gaze stayed upon the
door several seconds before I turned and advanced with grim determination upon
the
Stardancer’s
navilog console.

The ship was voice-activated. Matt
had long since coded her to recognize my vocal intonations, but none of the
simple tasks I’d performed with his approval at the console had ever required
me to use the ship’s voice-recognition function. I kept my voice low—just above
a whisper—and urgent as I spoke. “Navilog computer, can you identify me?”

“Yes. You are Kailiri Lorins,” the
ship’s navilog comp assured me in its quiet, feminine tone.

“You have been coded by Matt Lorins
to receive orders regarding navilog function from me?”

“Confirmed,
Mistress Lorins.”

I nodded to myself. This was the
initial access pattern Matt had programmed for me in case I needed to retrieve
information from the ship’s records. “Navilog computer, do you have any
information or flight course directives concerning a previously uncharted
planet Matt Lorins visited some standard years ago?” I whispered. I had been
frustrated in pinpointing an exact date for the occurrences because Matt
wouldn’t tell me.

“A systems search is running,
Mistress Lorins,” the comp informed me. Then a moment later, it said, “There is
a reference index to an uncharted planet under the code name A’lia.”

My stare probed beyond the
observation window at the black star-studded void beyond. Sanbourne was
somewhere far behind. My eyes prickled, and a hollow sensation settled in my
chest as if someone had curved out my heart.
A’lia
…
I should have thought
of that.
I pulled my dull, distracted thoughts together to ask another
question. “Is it a restricted-access file?”

“Only to persons unauthorized by
Shipmaster Lorins. Please present the proper ident-item in order for this
information to be released.”

My mouth was dry and my brain went
blank.
What ident-item was the comp
demanding?
I watched in frustration as a small transparent square flared to
life on the console’s top, highlighted with soft blue light. Moments fled
before I impulsively tugged off the thick ring Matt had given me before we
landed on Rikin. It fit more snugly on my finger after I’d wound some
plastafiber around it. Just in case the navilog comp might reject it with the
fibers, I swiftly unraveled colorless filaments. Then I held the unfettered ring
up before my eyes and stared hard at it before leaning forward to position it
carefully upon the lighted square.

I pulled the long fiber strands
back and forth and then wound it around a finger while I willed the ship
computer to speed up its functions.

A violet-tinged glow suffused the
ring and the light vanished. “You have been cleared for information release
under code name A’lia, Mistress Lorins.”

I retrieved the ring from the
console top. Restoring my makeshift security wedge would eat up precious
moments. I’d do it later. I stuffed the salvaged threads into a coverall
pocket. My hands trembled as I slipped the ring back on while praying Matt
continued sleeping as soundly and long as he had of late.

“Please stand by on visual terminal
screen for the requested information.”

I swiveled with eagerness to the
indicated terminal and then sat with every muscle tensed while scanning the
long list of numbers and words that made no sense.
If only I was a ship
navigator—would
I understand this then?
My sight blurred with frustrated tears. Matt had
entered the information in either an encrypted script or a language I didn’t
know.
Probably some
language spoken by his people on Drakis
.

“Could you direct the flight course
to this planet from this information feedback and release, navilog computer?”

“Negative, Mistress Lorins. This
can only be done upon Shipmaster Lorins’s voice command and personal code
release.”

I slumped back in the chair,
defeated. A bitter taste curdled my tongue, a lump formed in my throat, and
disappointment knifed through my heart. All there remained for me was to key in
the release that allowed the ship to proceed to the Bileth System.

“Navilog computer, identify me.”

My heart slammed in my chest and I
jumped, badly startled, but didn’t turn. I dared not.

“You are Shipmaster Matt Lorins,” the
ship softly named him.

“What flight course was Mistress
Lorins requesting to be run through and released to your directive function?”

“The code name A’lia flight pattern
files, sir.”

I cringed into the chair and wished
both it and the deck beneath would swallow me.

“You may, upon my voice command,
read that file and release it into your directive functions for course
computation. Your code release is
Fire
Dawn
.”

My face burned and I had difficulty
breathing. I felt no relief at his command to the
Stardancer’s
comp to seek a course and return to the planet where
he’d lost and buried his first wife and prematurely born child.

I swallowed and stared at my
tightly clasped hands on my lap. I could
not
look at Matt. Hot mortification engulfed me at my actions in trying to sneak
around him in that matter. I felt like a port rat—one of the petty pocket
thieves, who inhabited space ports, looting hapless, unwary visitors.

He was silent for so long that I
felt compelled finally to rise and turn around.

Matt’s expression was unreadable.
“I’ve never gone back there until now. What do you expect to find, Kailiri?”

I shook my head and stepped away
from the navicon chair just as the ship said, “Course plotted and locked in
upon coordinates found in the code name A’lia file, Shipmaster Lorins.
Course correction being made for the next vortex leap point.
Acceleration is imminent.”

“Approved, navilog
computer.
Proceed.” Matt held out a hand. “Come, Kai.”

His stern, closed expression
promised no easy forgiveness. I dropped my gaze to the deck and hesitated
before taking tentative steps. Shivering had started in my body.

Matt drew me close and placed a
hand under my chin to lift my eyes to meet his. “Are you certain that this is what
you want, doll?” he asked in low tone. Solitary, icy-green glints filled the
centers in his dark eyes. “If you go along with my original flight program, I
shall be gone, and you’ll be financially independent and free to design your
life and its contents. This other course that you’ve launched the
Stardancer
upon will bring us both much
pain before the end. Nothing shall change, except that the bitter bite of past
memories will consume us and taint our relationship before I die. Is this what
you want? You are actively seeking the dark places now. Beware.”

“No…,” I croaked out a whispered
thread. “Timirshil-ka—or another like it—I seek that for you.”

Matt studied me long seconds before
releasing me and turning away. I trembled in the cold wind of his disapproval.
He strode toward the living area, and I trailed behind him and stood at a
couch’s end while he eased his long limbs down upon the cushions, as if in
pain.

My heart wrenched watching his
careful movements to settle back on the couch. When he didn’t glance at me, I
gathered my courage and approached with tentative steps. I perched on the
cushion next to him, ready to flee if he ordered me away and careful not to
touch him in his present mood.
How far have
I fallen beneath his grace? Can he ever forgive me?

“I’m not sorry that I’ve done this,
Matt. Only for the way I’ve gone about it…. I’ll never regret trying to help
you, my lord.” I gave him his inherited courtesy address for the first time,
hoping to placate him. “I will risk walking through the shadows of the dark
places for you, because I could do nothing else when my heart is this closely
bonded to yours.”

His eyes closed and winced as if in
pain. “Do you speak the truth, Kai? I sense animosity and trepidation in your
soul for those dark places.”

There was nothing I could think of
to deny that. Instead, I dared lean across the brief distance separating us. I
touched my lips to his cool cheek, which had become hollow in the past few
days. He turned, wrapped me in his arms, and returned my kiss with a fierce
intensity that pulled at my emotions. Was I forgiven? My arms clung onto him.
If only this moment could go on forever
.

The
Stardancer
chimed a vortex leap warning before she gradually
accelerated and aimed herself toward Lord Mattin Sian Rakeda’s planet of
darkness.