Whispers in the Dawn (14 page)

“I’m hoping we can get to Eyani before he leaves. He can shield us for short periods of time so we can get onto a spaceship undetected.”

“Is it foolproof?”

“Nothing ever is,” he muttered, seizing her upper arm. “We’ve got to keep going.”

Weary and hungry, her breathing laboured, Odessa started to run again.

“Have you worn one of these black helmets?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The nightmare of being forced to put one on returned. Would he demand she wear one? She couldn’t. Not again.

A month earlier, aboard the
Drifter
, Roland had coaxed and wheedled. “Come on, Des. It won’t hurt you. All it’s meant to do is protect your head, in case you get really rocking with the movie you see in there.”

“I don’t like wearing hats or anything,” she had explained, staring at the helmet Harley had retrieved from the corridor. “I’m scared of them.” She couldn’t explain the fear to herself, let alone to anyone else. Perhaps the negativity associated with the colour black bothered her.

“Don’t be a sissy. It’s just a helmet,” Roland had persisted, planting it in her hands. “Would you like me to put it on for you?”

“This isn’t one of your jokes, is it?” She imagined mud from inside the helmet splattering down her face as she set it on her head.

His eyebrows notched up in an imitation of guileless innocence. “Why would I do that?”

“Oh, only because you’ve done it a time or two already.” Playing jokes on her had become his specialty. She didn’t know whether he confounded her to teach her about outer space, or because he had a mean streak he hadn’t shown before they’d left Earth.

“No worries, Des. This is the real McCoy. Put the thing on and you’ll see a movie. You won’t get hurt. I promise.”

She convinced herself that jokes weren’t usually meant to inflict harm. Reluctantly, she set the helmet on her head and waited. “Nothing’s happening.”

“I told you,” Roland said confidently. “Now give me that pretty chin of yours so I can buckle you in for your ride.”

Odessa didn’t care for the closed-in feeling, but she allowed him to pull the strap taut against her chin. “Aren’t you going to watch a movie too?”

“You’re all the movie I need,” he said, pressing a little button on the helmet’s outside.

She lost herself in a plethora of sounds and visual images. When the helmet came off, she couldn’t have said how much time had elapsed, or what exactly she had experienced. She felt indolent and lethargic, not her usual wide-eyed and alert self. When she’d questioned Roland, all he had said was that he gathered she had enjoyed herself. The next time he had tried to coax her into the helmet, she had flatly refused. If she couldn’t remember the experience, why bother? The memory rattled her composure.

They stopped running. A slight pressure on her arm roused her from the past. The station was so bleak and uncompromising. “Thought I’d lost you there,” Harley said, pointing at a taller alien who was wearing an onyx helmet. “Like that?”

She shook her head, hoping he wouldn’t be able to see she was lying. “I won’t wear one.”

“Each of us will have to. That’s the only way we’re going to get out of here.”

“What does it do?”

“If it’s not turned on, nothing but conceal our identities. The helmet makes it hard to tell who is who from the front and the back.”

Out of curiosity, Odessa asked, “What happens if it’s turned on?”

“You become part of a virtual reality scene, something you’ve imagined or physically seen at one point. It’s like a movie playing, but the screen is your mind and the movie is based on your imagination and memories.”

She sucked in a breath. “Anything I can imagine?” She remembered the scenes of great beauty and greater destruction from her dream as she’d slept in the Ashtari’s quarters. Or had that been a dream? What if it had been reality? She shivered.

“Anything at all. It’s becoming quite an addiction with everyone, young and old. Do you see that man wearing the helmet?” Harley asked, canting his head towards a solitary man rambling around the corridor.

“Yes.”

“Do you see how his eyes are glazed over?”

“Yes.”

“He’s in the virtual reality he’s created for himself. Perhaps he finds his life difficult or incomprehensible. The helmet dulls the mind with the same effect as if he was using a mind-altering drug.”

“Where do they come from?”

“A company called Virtual-ity is putting them out. I believe Pardua is a share owner in that venture, but then he has his hand in almost everything.”

“Including drugs,” Odessa murmured softly. “How much do they cost?” She guessed not much. The helmet was only a piece of plastic with some padding inside.

“On Romaydia, they cost about two months’ salary.”

Startled, she glanced at Harley. Those ugly pieces of headwear were extremely expensive. “I see.” They stood in the shadow of a structural metal girder. The glacial expression was once again in place on his face, but was softened, she thought.

“I want to kiss you,” he said, his voice comforting and endearingly masculine. “I want to kiss you and love you until the dawn breaks over the mountains.” His eyes devoured her, making her skin tingle with awareness.

“There are no mountains here,” she murmured.

“No, not here, but on Earth there are.”

“Especially where I come from.” Homesickness overcame her, making her long to see the snow-capped Cascade Mountains. She couldn’t help herself—she embraced him, wrapping her arms around his neck and drawing him close against her chest. “Kiss me now. Please.”

Odessa fell into the depths of his eyes, pools of liquid brown. Saw the enforced isolation, the world-weariness in the tight set of his lips. What had happened to make him such a hard man? Why did she feel so drawn to him?

She wanted to run away, but her feet wouldn’t obey her commands to lift them so much as half an inch from the floor. Her thoughts roiled in a tumultuous circle. This man had been ready to turn her in to the Murrach. Now here she was, tilting her head, inching her hungry mouth closer to his sexy lips.

He gave a slow smile, lowering his head to hers. She tilted her head up to taste him. Her vivid dream of making love to him came back to titillate her. The kiss was all she had imagined it would be. Hot and spicy and sweet.

He parted her lips and stroked against her willing tongue. She moaned as he brought his arms around her waist and backed her up against the wall of the public corridor, pressing the length of his hard body to hers. His rod hardened against her thigh, and delight coursed through her. Their clothes were in the way, she decided, losing all her inhibitions. She wanted him more than she could ever have imagined wanting a man. Could she beg him to make love to her without losing her sanity in the process? Would she be able to bear having his body deep within hers?

Odessa found herself reacting the same way she had in her dream. She kissed the man she knew only as the right-hand of the Lord who ruled this forlorn station, far from the safety of Earth. She smoothed the short, silky hairs on the nape of his neck.

Now was the time to act. She touched his face and stroked his jaw. He drew back slightly before he realised what she wanted. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down as she kept trailing her fingers down to his shoulder.

"No," he whispered. Then he clamped the back of his hand to her nape, drew her closer and deepened the kiss, which felt as though it lasted through eternity. His raw heat forced her to throw her arms around him to feel his strength. She trembled with need. She felt his hardening cock through her pants and thrilled that she was as aroused as he was. Yet her rational mind kept telling her it was the wrong time for sex with Harley.

Wary of her need and his apparent arousal, she broke the kiss. Her sigh shattered the expectant silence. Dark passion lit his eyes. Then, once again, his expression shut down as if he hadn’t wanted her to see his vulnerability.

“We have to get out of here,” he muttered hoarsely. “Time is not a luxury right now.”

Before she could reply, they were once more on the run. The darkened corridor made her feel confined. Her breathing hitched in her throat with dread. “Will Eyani help us?” she asked, her hair bouncing back and forth along the base of her neck.

“Negotiation is everything to him. If I have something he deems valuable, he’ll negotiate for it. That’s the only way to deal with the Ashtaris.”

“That’s strange. He didn’t negotiate for anything with me.”

“That’s unusual.”

“What do you have that’s valuable?”

He laughed, a tight, pinched sound. “The Ashtaris are notorious lovers of jewels of all sizes. I have a sapphire the colour of your eyes, and an uncut diamond he might covet.”

Light in the corridors became dimmer. Odessa’s stomach rumbled and she felt faint from lack of food.

To her embarrassment, Harley heard. “We’ll get something to eat when we’re safely aboard the Ashtari ship.”

“Won’t the Murrach search for you there?”

Harley didn’t pause. “He’s not searching only for me, Odessa. He’s searching for both of us. He’s got a problem with Roland Baylon he needs to rectify.”

“I can’t imagine what that could be.”

“He stole millions of dollars in drugs from Pardua.”

“Millions of dollars? How could he do that? The ship wasn’t all that big in terms of cargo space.”

“Gr’iis is very costly and very easy to transport. A fraction of an ounce costs hundreds of Earth dollars.”

“How can people afford it?” Odessa had heard that people with a drug problem killed for drugs and the money to buy them with.

“That’s why there’s so much crime. Everyone wants a share of the Gr’iis, but the drug disables the people who use it so they are unable and unwilling to work. That leads to more crime.”

“Disables them how?”

“Gr’iis slows down the body’s reactions to stimuli. For example, if you threw a baseball at me and I was a user, I would see the ball coming at me almost as if I lived in another dimension. By the time the baseball arrived at my position, it would be too late for me to raise my arms to catch it. Thus it would sail by without me catching it.”

She couldn’t imagine that happening. “That is very slow.”

“What problem does Pardua have with you?” a voice asked from behind Harley. The air turned chilly and uncomfortable.

She shivered. Harley felt the sudden cold too, and whirled around just as a voice said, “I might be able to answer that for you.”

Odessa gave a little cry and would have remained at Harley’s side, but he shoved her behind him to shield her. Ralph, another of Pardua’s lieutenants, stood six feet away, much too close for comfort. Did he have reinforcements coming soon?

“What were you going to say, Ralph?” Harley prompted, praying for time and an idea. The corridor was empty and the possibility of taking on a man who weighed roughly the same as he did held no appeal. They were too evenly matched for Harley to take him down easily and quickly. Ralph would need a hard knock to place him out of action.

“The Murrach found out who you really are and who exactly you work for. It’s a shame, really. He did enjoy your companionship and your subservience to the cause.”

“The cause?” Odessa whispered, peering around Harley’s shoulder.

“Why don’t you tell her what the cause involves, Ralph?” Time was running short. Pardua’s minions would arrive shortly.

“The little lady needs a history lesson? Be happy to oblige,” Ralph said, giving a mock bow. “Lord Pardua is the greatest man this galaxy has ever been privileged to behold. He will be the ruler of the known galaxy in a matter of years, laying low all the known governments, including yours,” he said, with a blatant wink at Odessa.

“Well? Come on,” Harley goaded. “Tell her how he’s going about doing it.” He figured if he feinted to the left as if he was going to run, Ralph would lunge in the opposite direction. If Harley could lure him that way, he had a better chance of pulling the big man down.

“Easy. Lord Pardua is a master salesman. He sells a chemical compound that goes into food as an additive to enhance flavour. What few people realise is that it is a mind-altering drug. With use and over time, Gr’iis becomes addictive, and the body can’t live without it. So each mealtime becomes so necessary that soon, everyone is hooked on Gr’iis. And the beauty of it is, they don’t even know it. All they know is they want more and more.”

“How long has this been going on?” Odessa asked in horrified astonishment.

“Much longer than you’d think,” Ralph replied. “It takes time to reach vast amounts of people.”

Harley attacked. He lowered his head quickly, closed the short distance, and rammed his head into Ralph’s stomach.

Odessa cried out. Ralph buckled. Harley grabbed him by his hair and smashed his head into the wall. The sound reverberated along the metal wall. Ralph grunted, scrambled to turn around and seize Harley, but Harley once again cracked his head into the wall. Then he hit him again, as the man stirred. Odessa clamped her hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

Harley hit him hard and Ralph went down, crumpling on the station floor.

“Let’s get out of here,” Harley choked out, grabbing her hand and dragging her along.

“Is he dead?” Odessa asked, throwing a glance over her shoulder.

“No, but he’ll wish he was when he wakes up with a whopper of a headache.”

“What stops Pardua from finding us again if he did once?”

“Nothing,” Harley replied, trying to catch his breath. He was physically fit, but Ralph hadn’t been easy to knock out. “But now he’ll seek us with a vengeance. Ralph is his son, and he doesn’t like seeing his family hurt.”

“Oh.” Then softly, she added, “There is no getting away from the intrigue and double-dealing on this station, is there?”

Sympathising with her, Harley said nothing.

“We might die soon,” she said, so softly that her voice was barely audible. Then, louder, she choked out, “I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t.”

Harley could understand—her feet were probably sore from running in four-inch heels that were meant more as devices of seduction, not for running around in comfort.