The Skypirate Read online

  He let his eyes start to drift closed, knowing only sleep would rid him of the fuzziness that remained at the edge of his consciousness. But then his gaze, narrowed by the lowering of his eyelids, focused on the shelf over the table.

  His eyes came open. His boots hit the floor a second after the front legs of the chair. He reached up to the shelf and picked up the controller. It was barely as big as his palm, and sat there serenely, the three colored crystals dark, giving no hint of purpose. Had he not known, it would seem no more malevolent than the communicator on his belt.

  It wouldn’t take much, he thought, to find out what the other two crystals meant. He knew how to prod the telerien, that underground network of communication that consisted mainly of gossip layered over a grain of truth, much like the Omegan perlas he’d smuggled on occasion. There were many in that network who felt they owed him, and he knew he could quickly have more knowledge than he wanted about the Coalition’s system of controlling their collared slaves.

  The problem was, any knowledge was more than he wanted. He supposed that was foolish, since there was a good chance he might someday be wearing one of those collars himself, if they didn’t just kill him outright. He would prefer that, he realized as he truly confronted the idea for the first time. He would kill himself before he would let them collar him.

  Assuming, of course, he had the chance. Somehow he couldn’t see Califa submitting meekly to a collaring. Not a woman with her spirit, a spirit they hadn’t been able to totally crush even in a year of enslavement. How had they done it? Had they overwhelmed her with force? Had they captured her by trickery? Had she been betrayed?

  The usual Coalition assumption of guilt by association.

  Her bitter words came back to him through the brandy haze. What had she been? Why had she given up her argument so easily, at the mention of his concern for his crew? Where had she learned, of all things, the Daxelian clamp hold? And why had it been his words about trusting the Coalition that had brought her down, defeated her?

  The image of her, slumped and beaten where once she had defied them all, came to him with a vividness that startled him. He suppressed the urge to simply take this hellatious device and go hand it back to her. Instead, he sat staring at it, reflecting on who was the more evil, the ones who had created it, or the ones who used it.

  “—AND LAUGHED when they did it. Took his land, raped his woman before his eyes until she died, screaming. Larcos was shipped to Boreas, to a crystal-loading gang. That’s where Dax found him. Then there’s Qantar. All three of his children dead, two years after his woman died aboard a passenger shuttle blown up by the Coalition. Dax found him outside the Coalition headquarters on Clarion, getting ready to charge it with only a small thermal gun. He talked him into coming with us, instead.”

  Califa glanced over her shoulder at the man Roxton was referring to, a tall, thin shape that sat in the far shadows of the room, apart from the others who were eating firstmeal. These were but two of many stories she had heard this morning. All grim. All bloody. And all something she would have once shrugged off as the necessities of maintaining system rule. Now she couldn’t shrug off the horror of them.

  Now she couldn’t even shrug off the feeling of freedom it gave her to just be able to ask questions.

  “And Nelcar?” she asked as she shifted her gaze to the younger man seated at the next table. He wore a protective goggle over his empty eye socket, and was animated compared to the grim countenance of Qantar.

  “He wound up in a labor camp on Daxelia.” Roxton shifted his gaze to Califa as he added, “Just outside Ossuary.”

  Califa’s breath caught; the very name still had the power to disturb her. Then the implications of Roxton’s words hit her.

  “Are you saying Dax dared to get that close to Ossuary?”

  Roxton shrugged. “He dares anything he pleases.”

  She stared at the older man for a moment. While her faith in her own judgment of people had been severely shaken in the past year, she knew she hadn’t mistaken this man’s love for the skypirate he flew with.

  “And you let him?” she asked softly.

  Worry flickered in the old man’s eyes, the worry of a father for a much-loved son. He tugged at his beard. “It would take a stronger man than I to stop him,” he said at last. Then he abruptly rose and left, and Califa wondered how many times he had tried to do just that, stop Dax.

  It was odd, Califa thought, her sudden fascination with the history of the people on this ship. She had never spent much time thinking about people before: why they did what they did, why they were the way they were, how they did, or didn’t get along. She had decided long ago she didn’t much care for people in general, and made exceptions only for those who had won her respect in one way or another.

  So why, now, was she so drawn to find out their stories? It was more than just being free to question for the first time in so long; somehow she had developed an urgent need to learn as much as she could about them all.

  One thing she had found early in her unpleasant existence as a slave was that if you kept quiet and listened, you sometimes learned more than if you pushed for answers. So she did just that, picking up a piece of information here—Roxton was from Clarion, as was Nelcar—and a bit more there—Dax, it seemed, had a habit of picking up his crew from all over the far reaches—and wondering if any of it would ever do her any good.

  A burst of laughter that had a ribald tone to it, a tone that reminded her uncomfortably of the prison guards, drew her attention to a conversation in a far corner. Her hearing, always acute, picked up the lowered exchange she obviously wasn’t meant to hear, whether out of suspicion, or consideration for her gender, she wasn’t sure.

  “—after him like a Carelian in heat.”

  “Aren’t they all? Seems every female in the system wants to be able to say they’ve mated with the most celebrated skypirate of them all.”

  “If he’s half as good as they say he is, it’s no wonder.”

  “Wish he’d send some of the overflow our way,” Larcos, the only one of them she’d actually met, complained.

  “Eos,” one of the others hooted, “no female who’s after Dax would look twice at you, Larc.”

  The talk reduced to howls and taunting jests for a moment before Larcos said, “Remember that little Daxelian? The one who worked in that taproom back on Carelia? The one formed like”—he made an expressive gesture with his hands near his chest—“that?”

  “You mean the one telling the whole planet the next morning that Dax was as smooth as old Triotian silkcloth, as big as an Arellian steed, and as hard as crystal?”

  The raucous, bawdy laughter broke out again, and for the second time in as many days, Califa felt herself blushing. She turned away, trying to tune out the men. And trying not to wonder if she had blushed because of the crudity of it, or because they’d been talking about Dax.

  The connection of Dax with the salacious conversation brought back the problem that was uppermost in her mind during her waking hours, and most of her few sleeping ones as well. The controller. She had to get it back.

  If it was true Dax had no idea what power it gave him over her, or how to use it, then she had nothing to fear. But if he was lying . . .

  No. Just as she was sure of Roxton’s love for Dax, she was sure Dax hadn’t been lying. His distaste for the device had been too real, so real it had been almost tangible.

  But if he were to learn, by intent or even by accident, would he use it? He had not looked at her with the sexual assessment of those who had used the controller on her before, yet he had looked. But perhaps he would take no pleasure in using a machine to make a female willing.

  She nearly laughed out loud at herself. Eos, you’ve heard them talking. And you’ve seen him. Do you really think he’d have to force anyone? In any way?

 
Even you?

  The thought appeared out of nowhere, and Califa wished it had stayed there, forever. Along with the traitorous thought that followed it: even with the controller, would it be so horrible, if the man were Dax? Not the soft, bloated officials of the Coalition, not the dregs that came into the prison, but a bold, fit, beautiful man like Dax?

  Rage filled her, and no matter that she tried to tell herself it was at the idea of not holding the controller that was capable of turning her mindless with machine-induced passion, she knew part of her fury was at herself. For the first time in her life, she was letting thoughts of a man cloud her thinking. Even in mating, she had always been in charge, had been the instigator—and later the intimidator. Never had she had—or allowed herself to have—feelings like this. And she couldn’t blame this on the controller.

  Realize this, then, she told herself acidly; why, when by his own crew’s admission he could pick from the beauties of the entire system, would a fit, beautiful man like Dax want a woman who was maimed?

  True, her limp was barely noticeable unless she was tired, but the scar was all too visible—twisted, and ugly down the outside of her left leg. The Brightstar’s surgeon had been killed in that same explosion, leaving only a green medical officer to tend her, and his inexperience marked her from midthigh to knee. When she had been the person of power, it had been easy to assume it went unnoticed; now, it merely lessened her value as a slave.

  A hail of greetings signaled Rina’s arrival. Califa and the girl had spent a great deal of the night past first edging around each other warily, then speaking with formal politeness, and at last, after Rina’s ingenuous declaration that she was very glad to have another female aboard, in tentative conversation. To her surprise, Califa had found herself enjoying talking to the girl; something about the wide-eyed pixie charmed her. Or perhaps she, like Rina, had been too long without the companionship of her own sex.

  Rina had been asleep when Califa, after a restless night peopled with strange thoughts and dreams, had left their quarters. It had been stranger yet to walk down the ship’s companionway, knowing that she was, within the limits set by the controller, in essence free to go where she wished.

  She returned the girl’s wave now, and was once again struck by the resemblance of those green eyes to another vivid pair. And she suddenly had the answer to her earlier question: she was drawn to learn about these people, because each story told her a little more about the man who, whether he admitted it or not, commanded them. The man who, whether he realized it or not, owned her body, mind, and what was left of her soul, as long as he held the controller.

  And she had learned, she thought. She had learned that Dax had gathered them over time, from defeated worlds, from Coalition prisons, from far-flung labor camps, using some standard for selection that none of them quite understood; there seemed to be no consistency of traits among them. Yet it had worked; they functioned as a well-chosen team.

  She had learned they thought him the best pilot in the system. She’d seen for herself he refused to take himself too seriously, had no pretensions of being better than the crew who followed him, and they knew it. He was tough, fair, and generous, they told her; they could ask no more of a leader.

  And they all swore Dax would protect them unto death—and in turn, every last one of them would fly into Hades for him.

  Which, she supposed, told her a great deal about the man himself. The kind of man who could inspire that kind of loyalty was not to be taken lightly—had she ever been fool enough to take a man that looked and moved as he did lightly?

  “—sleep very well, did you?”

  Rina’s words jerked her out of her musing. “What?”

  “I heard you tossing around. I know that cot is not comfortable, but—”

  “It’s fine,” Califa said quickly. She lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you.”

  “Stop that,” the girl said, a little sharply. Califa’s head came up. “I noticed you doing that yesterday, when we first came aboard. Avoiding my eyes, apologizing for no reason, acting like—”

  “—a slave?”

  “Yes,” Rina snapped. “I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t care for it overmuch, myself,” Califa said, smiling in spite of herself, as she hadn’t in a long time.

  No, not so long. She had smiled yesterday, smiled and meant it, for that brief moment on the gangway. At the man who held her life, literally, in his hands.

  “Is it really true that slaves aren’t allowed to speak unless spoken to?”

  “Yes,” Califa answered, stifling another smile.

  She liked this girl, she thought. She was irreverent, headstrong—just as she herself had once been. But Rina had a generosity of spirit that, if she’d ever had it, Califa had smothered long ago. Generosity, she had decided early in life, got you nothing and nowhere but taken advantage of.

  “No wonder Dax keeps threatening me with it. He always says I talk too much. And too fast.”

  Eos, Califa, you can talk at a few knots above light speed.

  The memory spun into her mind before she could stop it, words spoken in teasing affection, probably the last true affection Califa had known.

  And you killed it.

  No, by Hades, it wasn’t my doing. Damn you, Shaylah Graymist, Califa swore silently, quashing that tiny voice of conscience with a ferocity that turned her expression harsh.

  “Are you all right?”

  Rina’s words brought Califa out of her suppressed fury. The girl was staring at her, eyes narrowed in concern. Genuine concern, Califa realized. She’d been right; the girl was far too generous for her own good.

  “I’m fine,” she muttered.

  “You looked very fierce.”

  “I was . . . remembering.”

  Rina lifted a brow as her mouth curved into a wry smile. “That’s what Dax always says, when I catch him looking as if he’d like to blow up an asteroid. That he’s remembering.”

  Califa looked at the girl. “Remembering what?”

  “He never tells anyone. After we make a looting run, or he talks somebody into fighting with him, it’s all right again.”

  The more she knew, the better. That was the reason she pushed Rina for more, Califa told herself. If the girl seemed willing to talk to her, she’d be a fool not to take advantage of it. Information was power, and she had little enough.

  “Does it happen often, these moods?”

  Rina shrugged. “No. Not a full-blown mad, anyway. But that’s better than when he gets . . . I don’t know, sad, I guess. That’s worse,” the girl said, remembered pain darkening her bright eyes, “because it hurts just to look at him.”

  “Is he like that a lot?” Califa asked quickly, this time without even thinking about her quest for information.

  “I don’t know. He tries to hide it. But once I walked into his quarters to get something. I didn’t think he was there, but he was. In the dark, all alone. When he talked, his voice sounded funny, all thick, like he’d been—”

  Rina stopped abruptly, and Califa could almost read her thoughts as they skated across the expressive young face; she’d suddenly realized she was pouring this out to a virtual stranger.

  “Eos, if Dax ever found out I was tattling to you about him, he’d have me on galley patrol for a year!”

  “You mean like you were tattling to me in the cell?”

  The girl brushed those words aside. “That was different. I was just talking big because I was scared.”

  It wasn’t talking big, Califa thought, when the rescuing hero you were bragging about not only appeared, but lived up to his advance notices. Was he also a rescuing hero fighting his own hidden torment? A rescuing hero who sat alone in the dark and . . . cried? Was that what Rina had been about to say? It seemed impossible of the powerful, cool, som
etimes flippant man she’d seen. It seemed impossible of the legend.

  But she only smiled at Rina. “I was scared, too.”

  “I’m babbling because I’m not used to having a female to talk to. You won’t tell him, will you?” Rina begged.

  Did she like this girl because she reminded her of herself, Califa wondered, reminded her of the girl she’d been, more than once letting her mouth get her into trouble? Or was it simply the novelty of, for the first time in so long, hearing that pleading tone of voice directed at her?

  A sudden, raucous sound interrupted her thoughts. She turned to look for the source, and caught a glimpse of Rina’s pained expression. She lifted a quizzical brow at the girl.

  “It’s Hurcon,” Rina explained. “He thinks he can sing. He’s awful, but he does it anyway.”

  That, Califa thought, was an understatement. The multitude of off-key notes would have been bad enough, but the man’s voice was uncompromisingly flat and nasal, and was annoying enough in itself to warrant throttling.

  “Sometimes,” Rina told her, “we try and sing along, to drown him out. But if there aren’t enough of us, he just sings louder.”

  “A frightening thought,” Califa muttered.

  Rina giggled. “Yes. But I think there’s enough of us, today. Just watch Nelcar. He usually breaks first.”

  Smiling in spite of herself, and in spite of her urge to clap her hands over her ears, Califa did as Rina said. Nelcar’s face was twisted into a grimace as Hurcon stomped flat-footed over an old Clarion melody that was supposed to have been sung with a light, airy touch—and usually by a woman, the rather bawdy, masculine twist Hurcon put on the words not withstanding.

  Nelcar lasted only a few more seconds. Then, rather fiercely, he began to sing along. His own voice was much more pleasant, but still too masculine for the piece, at least to Califa’s ear.