The Star Prince (8 page)

Because the tedium of your life is chipping away at your sanity, that's why.

Stiffly, he clasped his hands behind his back. It was blasted obvious that he needed this mission. This adventure. He hoped it was good.

"Gann!" A woman's accented singsong voice mercifully dragged his thoughts outward.

Clutching three frosty bottles in her hands, Jas breezed into the room. Immediately her presence lifted his spirits; her energy and zest for life were contagious. She stretched up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek in the overt display of affection characteristic of Earth dwellers, as her exotic black hair, common on her homeworld if nowhere else, swung over her shoulders.

He pressed one hand to her back and returned the kiss, on her cheek, Earth-style. Then she stepped back to gaze at him. Smooth and elegant in her simple white gown, she looked every inch Rom's queen, though he knew she still flew as an active starpilot in Sienna's space wing. "I bet you could use a beer," she said.

He grimaced. "I could use ten."

"Yeah, I know the feeling." Delight shone in her eyes. The bottles were passed around and conversation filled the cozy room. "Like old times," Jas said after a bit, grinning up at him before exchanging a deeply affectionate glance with Rom.

When the couple's eyes met, their smiles slowly faded.

Rom set his bottle on a nearby table. "It's time I explained why I summoned you here."

Gann dipped his head. "I await your orders."

As custom dictated, the men waited until Jas sat before they, too, settled onto the carpet, arranging plump cushions for comfort. Gann leaned against his pillow and crossed one long, boot-clad leg over the other.

"Few know the frontier better than you," Rom began. Gann's muscles thrummed as they did during a rousing game of Bajha, the sword game played to hone instinct and the senses and fought in the dark. He'd looked forward to a possible extended stay planetside, but running a personal mission for Rom, particularly in the remote and unpredictable frontier, sounded far more intriguing. "Out with it, B'kah. What particularly corrupt and misguided soul would you like me to apprehend? Or is it a cache of stolen personal objects that requires my expert interception?" Grinning eagerly, he tipped his bottle for a swig.

Jas sighed. "Our niece ran away. We're sending you after her."

Gann almost choked on his swallow of beer. Jas's intense expression indicated she was not joking, and the expectancy bolstering him drained away. Valiantly he attempted to keep his disappointment from his voice. "I'm to fetch a runaway princess?"

"Yes. Tee'ah Dar, Joren and Di's daughter. Joren thought— prayed— she was here." She pressed her lips together. "If only she had come here… "

"Jas," Rom said gently, taking her fingers in his.

Her voice was fervent and low. "God, she must have been so unhappy. I wish she'd told me. I might have been able to help her, to intercede with her parents, to offer alternatives to… this." She sighed. "I met Tee'ah right before the war, seven years ago, when Rom and I were living in the Dar palace. Unlike us, Joren and Di maintain the old traditions. They raised Tee'ah in seclusion." She squeezed her husband's hand. "Rom and I are working to change the customs that have outgrown their usefulness, like the ones keeping women like Tee'ah so isolated."

"But all this must be done slowly," Rom said. "Or we'll aggravate the mistrust and resentment that is not so well hidden by some members of the Great Council."

Jas continued. "I kept in touch with Tee'ah, but only occasionally— via viewscreen, never in person. I gave her advice and encouragement, solicited or not, just as I do with my daughter Ilana. But there's a huge cultural difference between a royal Vash female confined to a palace and a career-minded young woman living in California, and I failed to account for that. I filled her head with ideas… with possibilities. Now she's headed into danger she's little prepared for. I can't help feeling responsible."

Gann set his empty bottle on the floor. With a silent sigh, he resigned himself to the nursemaid duty it seemed he was acquiring. What the B'kah asked of him, the B'kah received. Such was his duty, and honor allowed him no alternative. Moreover, he didn't like the idea of an innocent Vash princess in the clutches of disreputable frontier primitives any more than her family did. "I only glimpsed her briefly— seven years ago. What does she look like now?"

Jas handed him a holo-image. The princess, a grown woman, gazed innocently back at him, her posture erect, her long red-gold hair woven ornately in the traditional way atop her head.

Cradling the picture in his palms, he admitted, "Frankly I cannot fathom her, or any Vash princess, for that matter, running away, much less going to the frontier. You're certain she went there voluntarily?"

"Quite." His skepticism had brought a smile to Rom's lips. "She stole a starspeeder, threatened a lieutenant at gunpoint, and launched in the middle of a Tjhu'nami."

Gann whistled, taking a second glance at the holo-image.

Jas said, "Joren's men found her starspeeder on Donavan's Blunder… with a cloaker already on board. The cloaker said she'd traded her speeder for another and had already left the planet. Who knows if he was telling the truth? Security saw no sign of her, other than the ship."

"Any communication from her?" Gann asked.

Rom took the holo-image he handed back. "Yesterday her parents received a short message via a multiple-channel encrypted relay. This was in addition to the note she left them before she departed. In both, she said she was safe, that she'd gone voluntarily, and that they mustn't worry. They assume the message was genuine, but they can't, of course, authenticate the note or tell where it originated… or when it was sent. Dar intelligence is working on it." Rom pressed his fingertips together and leaned forward. "There's something else. Ian's in the frontier, too. But he's undercover. I've tried, but I can't reach him. My messages to him… bounce."

Gann stared. "Ian's undercover?" This plot was becoming more incredible and more convoluted with each passing minute.

"Not that Ian would know Tee'ah if he saw her," Jas put in, evidently missing Gann's reaction to her husband's statement. "Because of custom, she stayed behind at the palace when the rest of the family traveled here for the wedding. I think she saw holo-images of the ceremony, but Ian's appearance has changed considerably in seven years. So has hers. I doubt they'd recognize each other."

Gann cleared his throat. "I believe I'm missing something here. Why is Ian undercover?"

"Because I don't want the Great Council to know he's there," Rom explained.

"I see," Gann said, although he didn't.

Rom's sharp glance demanded his discretion. "I'm in somewhat of a quandary regarding the frontier. All I can tell you, so as not to place Ian in danger, is that I require his frontiersman's perspective to guide me in future decisions on the matter." Rom appeared to choose his next words with care. "Our realm is growing, changing. We're settling new worlds farther and farther from the heart of our kingdom. Ian will be the first ruler with direct family ties to both the frontier and the Great Council. People on both sides will look to him for leadership. Yet there are still those who don't see the wisdom of Ian's someday taking the throne. I… want to give him the chance to prove them wrong."

Rom fell silent before he smiled tiredly and added, "But you must find our wayward princess." Gann assured him, "I'll have her home before her bed grows cold. Hunk of bread." "Hunk of bread?" Jas appeared baffled. "It's one of your Earth-dweller expressions, is it not? Used to describe the ease of a particular task?" Her lips quirked. "You mean piece of cake." "Yes, yes, that's the one. A princess in the frontier will stand out like an iceberg in the desert. I'll have her back to the palace in no time. Piece of cake."

Jas and Rom walked with him to where the screen separated the sitting area from the larger chamber. Embracing his friends in turn, he bade them farewell. Then he swept his travel cloak around himself and strode from the room.

Chapter Six

"I know she overslept, Quin. But seeing that she got us off Blunder and onto Grüma— and we lived through it, I'd say she earned her time in the bunk. But Randall's already gone, and I want to follow him. The only way we're going to do that is if she's rested."

Sprawled on her stomach, Tee'ah woke to voices in the corridor outside her quarters. The bedsheets were twisted around her bare thighs, pinning her legs in place, and her head hurt too much to move, so she lay there, listening.

The Sun Devil was on Grüma now, and the thrusters were shut down. It was quiet except for the whispery hum of the air recyclers and the men's voices.

"A round-trip to Baresh is no quick jaunt." Recognizing Quin's voice, she winced into her pillow.

"Tee can fly, I'll give her that. But taking a new pilot deep into new territory when we hardly know her… ? I don't know, Captain. I don't like it. And her drinking— "

"Oh, she won't be drinking; I guarantee that," she heard Ian reply before he lowered his voice. She lifted her head, straining to hear. "I'm not about to let her go anywhere unsupervised. I'll watch her myself, if I have to."

Heavens. They thought she was wild and reckless and not to be trusted. What a difference from how she'd been viewed by others— and herself— for most of her life.

"With Randall a day ahead of us, I don't see that we have a choice. Tee! Are you alive in there?"

With that came a horrible knocking on her door. She moaned and rolled onto her back, untangling her legs from the sheets. She didn't have to pretend to be a shiftless pilot. She felt like one from her throbbing head to her sore feet.

"Tee! You're on duty. Rise and shine."

"I'm trying." Her first attempt at speech came out as a raspy croak Clearing her dry throat, she tried again. "One moment." She hunted for clothes in the mess she'd left upon finding her bed and collapsing into it. Cleaning droids at the palace scoured her chamber daily, while handmaidens returned everything she used to its proper place, leaving her room faultlessly clean. A neat chamber had never been a reflection of her own preferences, but of those who looked after her. At that, she smiled. It seemed untidiness was rather liberating— and it was a far safer vice than Mandarian whiskey.

She left her brother's shirt hanging loose over her trousers and limped to the door. Ian stood in the entry, a mug held in each hand. Steam rising from the exotic cups brought with it a tantalizing nutty smell. One mug was painted with Earth runes: SHOOT FOR THE STARS— RED ROCKET ALE. The other sported a montage of clothed black-and-white rodents with big around ears and the letters: DISNEY WORLD— CHICAGO.

"Good morning," her employer said pleasantly, looking her over as if searching for signs of the continued hangover she hoped to hide. Why did people drink if this was the consequence? "Sleep well?"

"Quite well. Thank you." Awkwardly she attempted to tidy her uneven, spiky hair, then gave up and dropped her hands.

His expression was one of gentle amusement as he offered her the rodent mug. "Coffee. Try it. It beats tock hands down."

She moved aside to allow him into her cramped quarters. He wore an outer garment cut in a foreign style and constructed of black leather. It was un-snapped to his waist, revealing a plain white, close-fitting shirt that drew her attention to his firm, athletic build.

"I apologize for oversleeping," she said. "I usually never do. Of course there are quite a few things I've done lately that I don't do, like stumbling out of bars drunk." He looked a bit skeptical, and she couldn't blame him. She had told him she drank all the time… and guzzled all that whiskey. "I shall set two alarm chimes from now on."

"Quin can be your backup, I suppose."

She laughed. "That's all the incentive I need to wake on time."

After a moment Ian's grin faded. "All right, pilot. We have to talk"

Her pulse sped up. "I figured that. Please, have a seat… if you can find one."

The silver fastenings on his hip-length outer garment glinted as he contemplated the snarled sheets and blanket spilling onto the floor, the boot she'd left sitting on the bedside table, and the soiled socks draped over the bunk's metal footboard. After a moment, stymied, he offered her the mug of coffee again.

She accepted it with a quiet thanks, then clutching the delicious-smelling hot beverage in her hands, unable to come up with anything else to say, she simply stared in fascination as he moved aside her other boot and sat on the edge of the bunk. He wasn't overly tall, yet he seemed to fill the room with his presence. There was something about him, something she couldn't define but that nonetheless attracted her. Charisma, self-assurance. But as she'd discovered since coming aboard the Sun Devil, his confidence with his crew stopped blessedly short of arrogance. She was all too used to that particular trait in the royal men she'd met at court.

"All right, Tee, let's talk. About that little incident on Blunder— what can you tell me about that?"

The ache behind her eyes began to throb. "With Dar security?"

"Yes." He observed her as he sipped his coffee.

She fought the mighty urge to fidget under his scrutiny. "What would you like to know?"

Something flickered in his eyes, but she couldn't tell whether it was annoyance or amusement. "Did you steal that starspeeder?"

"I borrowed it."

"Ah."

"Long-term," she qualified.

"I see."

Maybe he did, but she had the feeling he wouldn't stop asking questions until she had satisfied his curiosity. She didn't dare tell the truth. On the other hand, she was a horrible liar, and she wouldn't feel comfortable wholly deceiving the man who'd helped her escape her father's guards. She'd best come up with a version of the truth, a background that paralleled her own.

"I worked as a pilot on Mistraal, the Dar home-world." It felt strange, mentioning that fact so casually, as if the Dars were merely employers, not flesh and blood. "I wanted to fly, but my family wanted me to marry. Had I agreed, I'm sure I would have lost the last of what little freedom I had. The speeder was my only way off planet." She willed him to understand the hopelessness that drove her to such a desperate measure.