To Trade the Stars (14 page)

“You could say that,” I told him, also shouting. If ever there was an environment for mind-speech, this hall full of bedlam was it, but we both knew better than to fall into a habit of communing silently in public. There was an understandable alarm aroused by knowing a telepath was nearby—one of the few transcending species' and cultural barriers—an alarm that could provoke a violent reaction from those who couldn't, or wouldn't, understand the limitations of this particular “gift.” Another reason the Clan preferred to remain anonymous. “Is the Fox going to be repaired?”

He nodded. “They'll get on it tonight, but it's going to take a couple of days.”

“And how many credits?” I asked, studying his face. When Morgan wore that carefully sincere expression, he'd been devious lately.

“The mechs have a scrap engine to rip up for parts—that's a savings. Part of the delay, of course, but it turned out for the best because I can . . .”

The latest shrieking dive of a Skenkran into the crowd made it impossible to hear him.
You can what?
I sent, mouthing the words and daring him with a look to argue anyone watching could tell the difference.

We haven't enough credits to cover used parts, let alone new,
Morgan sent, saying it aloud at the same time—the feel of the sending remarkably sanguine considering its content.
But credits aren't an issue,
he explained, likely sensing my confusion.
The Kimmcle use a barter system—Rees found a way to let me work off the debt.

Doing what?
He was keeping something back. I didn't need my other sense—I could see it in his eyes.

The noise level diminished so I could hear Morgan's answer. It didn't mean I liked it any better.

“Security. They have a series of meetings here over the next two days and want a bit of extra protection for the delegates.”

“And that's worth the price of repairing a translight engine?” Used parts or not, this didn't make sense. I studied his too-controlled face. “Protection from what?”

Morgan's smile was angelic—on the surface. Something darker lay underneath. “That's the beauty of it. Probably from nothing. The Kimmcle are panicked by a rumor that a competing mining operation has smuggled in a telepath to spy on their meetings. You and I both know how unlikely that is—”

“Unlikely isn't the same as impossible,” I countered without thinking, then stopped to stare at him. “They asked you? Why?”

His shrug was a little too offhand. “I've a reputation. Rees knew it.”

“As a lucky pilot,” I disagreed. “Not as a telepath.” Suddenly the crowd around us seemed threatening. I controlled the urge to ‘port. “How many of these Kimmcle know you are more than lucky?”

“Rees and I go a long way,” my Human said almost too smoothly. “She knew we needed the favor—and that the Miners' Association was willing to pay. My contact with them is Giles Hawthorn, the newly elected Association Head. He's the only one who'll know why I'm there. Trust me, Sira. It will be two days of standing around, looking attentive and suitably grim. Boring but profitable.”

I sensed energy pouring into the M'hir, maintaining a barrier deep within Morgan's mind. It could have been an unconscious secrecy. On one level, my Human believed I kept my distance from his private thoughts—he should, given how often his practical jokes took me by surprise. On another, the Human instinctively guarded parts of his mind and memory. This was as it should be. We were Joined and partners, not blended into a single being.

I was also aware that his Human ideas of our relationship, both as lifemates and crewmates, sometimes differed from mine in ways I couldn't predict—or understand, for that matter. Nothing about our pairing was uncomplicated.

Everything about it was worthwhile. I smiled at Morgan, trusting him with his secrets, and said cheerfully: “Then tonight is ours, Husband.”

He captured my right hand and brought it to his lips. “While I'm in complete agreement, Wife, we really must think about Huido.” I must have looked—and felt—shocked, because Morgan gave me that low laugh guaranteed to provoke delicious shivers down both sides of my spine. “Believe me, I'd let him stew in his own pot—but now that we know about Acranam? Neither of us likes that coincidence. And you know as well as I do that Inspector Wallace isn't about to sit back and let the Enforcers take over any case he has his hooks into. Huido may need our help.”

“Huido,” I echoed wanly. “You want to send him a com signal?” Such a civilized technology—and one we could possibly even afford, thanks to Rees' help.

Morgan shook his head and held my hand in both of his. As another Skenkran targeted the crowd with the requisite assault on everyone's hearing, I felt:
Not a message
—
you. You said Plexis is within your range. I want you to go and help Huido while I wait for the
Fox.

I'd already made the choice to trust him. He'd known. So I did the only thing I could do.

Nodding, I tugged free a lock of hair. It immediately slid down my arm to wrap itself around our clasped hands. Morgan's eyes turned that impossible blue. With the merest hint of the desire pounding in my blood, I sent:
I'll go. But not tonight.

“Hom—Huido?” Ruti looked from one statue-still Carasian to the other. “We were going to consult on tonight's special?”

The mammoth lower right claw of the being to her left rose slowly.

The mammoth lower right claw of the being to her right rose just as slowly.

Both stopped at precisely the same height.

“This is a ridiculous way to run a restaurant,” the young Clanswoman said with disgust.

“I told you it wouldn't be easy.” Ansel shook his head. He stooped to add a spoon to the collection of utensils in his apron, its shining metal easy to spot amid the pieces of broken wood. Being from a planet overgrown with trees, Ruti wasn't impressed by wooden furniture, intact or otherwise. She was impressed by the thoroughness with which Huido and his visitor had turned the special dining area of the
Claws & Jaws
into scrap.

“Well, something has to be done, and it's not up to me. I can make all the decisions I want, but you know as well as I do the staff isn't going to listen to me. They barely let me cook as it is.”

As Ansel sighed agreement, Ruti put her hands on her hips and surveyed the nearer of the two Carasians. There had to be a way to tell them apart.

They might have been in stasis. Every eyestalk was rigid and erect—and focused on the other. Monstrous bookends, Ruti told herself. Before she lost her nerve, she walked up to the nearest of the two aliens, and stretched out her arm until her fingers brushed the cold hardness of his shoulder.

When he didn't react, she felt bold enough to repeat the process with the second, Ansel watching with a puzzled expression. “That one's bigger,” she announced, stepping back from both and pointing.

“Finally—someone with decent manners in this place!” The Carasian so indicated heaved upward, rattling like a entire cupboardful of pots that had come loose and fallen to the floor, his claws snapping in the air. At the same instant, the other compressed himself into an approximation of a lump—eyes peeking from behind the pulsing halves of his head carapace and clawtips tactfully tucked under his body—before saying in an almost falsetto voice: “Hello, Uncle Huido.”

“Well, don't just cower, Small One,” Huido rumbled. “Tell me which misbegotten spawn of the family you are—then catch me up on the gossip. How's old Noiko doing?” A cymbal sound. “Ansel, what are you waiting for? A new day? Hurry and get some of the best for my nephew here. Ruti?” Three eyestalks peered over the edge of his lower head carapace. “I had no idea you were so versed in Carasian etiquette. Thank you for your assistance. My little relation here and I might have had to stare at each other for another week—no hardship for him, of course—” This delivered with a laugh that seemed forced.

“My pleasure, Hom Huido,” Ruti said, not bothering to make any sense of it beyond being glad the stalemate had ended smoothly. “Do you think you might have some time—later—to discuss tonight's menu? I was thinking perhaps the Denebian lamb?”

“Oh, I like lamb,” said Huido's nephew, emerging from his crouch with movements so excruciatingly cautious they sounded like a chain being pulled through a massive eyelet, one rusty link at a time.

 

“Jake was right, Lara,” Ruti whispered. She threw herself backward on her bed, hugging the tiny doll to her chest. “He was right!” Her new friend had been an immense help to her already; even so, she'd been astonished to find he'd known how to free the giant aliens from their irrational standoff. Yet Hom Huido was in the kitchen now, berating those who'd tried to keep her, Ruti di Bowart, from her rightful place as Master Chef.

“Because of my friend.” Ruti lifted the doll in both hands, staring into its gleaming brown eyes. They didn't move. Lara wasn't a spooky high-tech toy, but a treasured heirloom who'd been passed at fostering time from mother to child through four generations of Clan, a companion who'd listened to innumerable private dreams and stories, keeping them safe forever.

The doll was no bigger than the palm of Ruti's hand, easily slipped into a pocket or hidden in a sleeve. A little shabby, perhaps. A new dress and ribbons had been due, but Ruti's mother hadn't had much time to prepare for her fostering. Neither of them had, since one hadn't seemed possible—first because Acranam's Clan hid their children from the Council, then because the Council ignored them.

Ruti controlled the burning rage that surged up each time she thought of that day, when First Chosen Wys di Caraat had burst into their kitchen and dared stab her gnarled old finger at her, had dared insist she be one of the seven to be dispersed by Acranam immediately. Not to be fostered, not to be the honored guest of a worthy House—her mother had told Ruti how it used to be—but to be smuggled away on alien scows, dumped at a distance and told to remain hidden as long as their bonds lasted. Sacrificed for the greater glory of Acranam.

Ruti hugged Lara hard, closing her own eyes to better feel the tenuous binding between herself and her mother, Quel di Bowart, the power from both constantly and desperately feeding their only connection. More than love—other than love—it was a drive for survival that used up almost all the energy Ruti had to spare. She found herself constantly tired, constantly hungry . . .

And constantly angry.

At least, thanks to her friend, Jake Caruthers, she had this place. If he hadn't found her, shown her the way to Huido's, kept her safe from the patrols scouring Plexis for Clan? Ruti shuddered. Jake had hinted what happened to young females in the hands of unscrupulous Humans. She'd believed it, after they'd walked through that sublevel.

Ruti opened her eyes and glanced at the wall chrono. She should have time for one call before she was needed in the kitchen. Maybe Jake could meet her after tonight's shift. She had so much to tell him.

 

“I don't care how you keep him occupied, just keep him away from my apartment, Ansel. Is that clear?”

As the Human nodded vigorously, Huido gave a heavy sigh, echoes rattling from the nearby stove. “It's the price of success, old friend. Scavengers sneak close, full of plots and schemes to take advantage—waiting only for the opportunity to lunge at your
arux
and rip it open.” Then dip in your pool to celebrate, he shuddered to himself. “I'd hoped,” with a melancholy click of claw to claw, “being so far from home, that those at home would forget about me.”

Ansel unwisely offered advice. “If this nephew, Tayno Boormataa'kk, is such a danger, Hom Huido, why not send him away?”

The Carasian surged up, claws snapping so close to Ansel's face the resulting breeze lifted the few hairs left on the smaller being's head. “And refuse this glorious honor! Humans.” This with complete disgust.

“Carasians,” Ansel muttered to himself as he turned, running a finger along his nose as if checking to make sure it remained intact.

Huido pretended not to hear. The old Human was more confidant than servant; the Carasian could, if he made the effort, twist his brain around to appreciate Ansel's reaction as well-intentioned and protective. An instinct admirably suited to family groups and herd behavior, if not to a species where males competed from maturity till death for a chance to breed, with only a few judged worthy.

Though cheating was definitely encouraged and cuckolding a refined art.

His “nephew”—an otherwise meaningless word Carasians had found helped avoid tedious explanations of why their species didn't bother specifying biological relatedness, only home surf—was presently occupied taste-testing various brews. But for how long? Huido decided to change the locks on his apartment at the first opportunity.

Which should come once Ruti arrived to take over. Where was she? His eyes searched the kitchen. No sign of her. The prawlies in the big stewpot took advantage of his momentary distraction to leap out, yipping with pain as their ventral paddles contacted the hot stove surface. Huido whirled and tried to grab them, but they danced about, continuing to yip and almost impossible to catch. Finally he resorted to batting them away with his upper handling claw, cooks to either side ducking as half-roasted, yipping prawlies shot past their heads.

“Where's Ruti?” Huido roared.

“I'm here, Hom Huido.” Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glittered, signs of excitement and pleasure, he judged, not a reaction to his temper. She might not have even witnessed it, given she hadn't been in the kitchen a second ago. Fortunately for her supposed Clan desire for secrecy, the rest of the staff had been avoiding flying fish and hadn't noticed their new Master Chef wink into existence. In fact, several were still engaged in hunting prawlies who'd wriggled underneath various cupboards, retrieving indignant culinary delights now covered in dust.