Hard Bargain, page 8
He surprised her by suddenly chuckling.
“Next?” he said with a laugh. “Next is another shell game, only the stakes are much higher this time, if that’s possible. And then we’re going strange places, lady.”
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“I seem to be collecting strays,” Valentinian shook his head in mild disbelief. “Dave, you, and probably Bayjy.”
He and Dave obviously shared an inside joke and a laugh.
“Who’s Bayjy?” Kyriaki asked.
Was there someone else aboard right now? They had only been at this station for barely three days. Was Valentinian expanding his crew?
And why?
“She’s the start of the next adventure, Kyriaki,” Valentinian replied with another shake of his head. “When things get really weird.”
She?
“I see,” Kyriaki said diplomatically.
It had not dawned on her that Valentinian might have found himself a girlfriend. Jealousy suddenly reared up and bit her on the ass, on top of everything else, but Kyriaki managed to not flinch. At least she hoped so.
The gleam in Dave’s eyes said he saw something Valentinian hopefully hadn’t.
But Dave could keep his mouth shut. She already knew that.
11
Valentinian
Valentinian had dug out some of his old clothes and turned them over to the big guy to deliver. His own cabin was enough for now. He could sit on the edge of his bunk and just brood. He didn’t want to go upstairs right now and deal with her.
With Kyriaki.
With her implications, or her presence. He hadn’t really stopped thinking about her for the last however-many-months since she had shown up on his deck and gotten right into his personal space with her knowing smile. Fantasies with that face as he lay down and went to sleep, many nights.
And apparently, from the look in her eyes during parts of her story, she had the same problem. At least she had never learned how to play poker with pros. Couldn’t hide all the things in her eyes when the emotions wanted to dance in the moonlight.
He could pretend he hadn’t seen anything. Safer for everyone, because she still looked like a bounty hunter right now. Come to collect them for the reward, regardless of whatever pretty stories the woman might tell.
And Dave…
After they’d put her in cabin three, just off the passenger lounge, he and the big guy had come back downstairs with everything locked up tight, and he had listened to the rest of the story. Not just the tidbits Dave had told him while they had Kyriaki trapped in the forward airlock, but the whole thing.
The Dominator.
Valentinian still wasn’t sure how he felt.
On the one hand, mad as hell that he had been so badly manipulated by Dave across the whole process.
On the other hand, the Dominator had had nothing to do with him getting kicked out of Gymnasia Dominia, except to note it on a report somewhere, and file it away against future need. And Dave had explained that he needed someone with a sketchy background, paranoid instincts, and the ability to take care of himself in a tight space. One of the good guys. Someone who could fall into a pile of manure and come out smelling like a rose.
Valentinian already considered that to be his super-power, so he couldn’t really argue that last point. With one exception, that had been absolutely the case, and even then, it hadn’t turned out all bad. Just bad enough that he wasn’t a servant of the old Dominator at that very moment when the man needed an escape.
So they were here. And so was she.
He wasn’t sure the galaxy was big enough for all of them. Certainly, Laurentia wasn’t, but he had a plan for that.
For the briefest moment, he considered the possibility of dumping both of them, Dave and Kyriaki, at the next station he hit. Wouldn’t be all that hard. Might even solve some of his problems.
But he also thought about that asshole that had done the same thing to Bayjy and her crewmates. Abandoned his crew. In that guy’s case, greed to collect the whole reward himself, and not have to share it with the others.
Valentinian’s excuse wouldn’t even be that good. Just fear. Never knowing when the next Dominion assassin would show up, and what they would look like. He could run long and hard and escape everything, if he really wanted to. There were all sorts of places he could go, selling the Longshot along the way, stashing the credit, and buying a new identify and a new ship.
Never look back.
Until he remembered just how angry he had been on Bayjy’s behalf.
Illegal behavior and unethical frequently overlapped, but not always. That sort of thing was technically legal, depending on the contracts you had, and most spacer’s contracts were oral, so almost indefensible in most courts.
That didn’t make it right. Wouldn’t ever make it right.
He couldn’t do that to the two people who were counting on him now.
Three. Maybe five.
Back to Bohrne in a week to see what Bayjy had managed to locate, and talk her down from however mad she would be at his sudden departure. Her second abandonment.
Hopefully the Sheriff would take her aside in all the ruckus and have a quiet, happier conversation with the woman. Same with Stephaneria.
Doing the right thing always seemed to get him deeper in trouble, but hopefully, at least this once, it would work out for the better.
Valentinian stripped off his boots and stretched out on his bunk. She wasn’t quite directly above him, but close enough that he could imagine staring at her as she slept, like an angel hovering above him.
Even if she turned out to be the devil in disguise.
12
Dave
Dave sat in the galley upstairs and meditated with a pot of tea resting on an electric warming stone.
The kids were both bunked for now. He didn’t figure that either of them were actually going to sleep for a while, but they were in their private spaces. He could stay up here in case Kyriaki needed something on an unfamiliar ship, and he was out of Valentinian’s hair downstairs.
It had been an interesting conversation, telling Vee the entirety of his last few years. Reliving all the final bits the man would need in order to plan a better escape for everyone.
Dave knew he had spent too much time cooped up inside a bubble of advisors and bodyguards to really plan things quickly on his feet. That was part of the reason Valentinian had been the perfect pick, once Dave had managed to maneuver him into place.
Hopefully, the young man would forgive him, eventually. He had come to like Vee. The Dominion had dealt the kid a bad hand, and he had still managed to work his way through.
Still, Dave could see the man ordering them all off his deck when they got back to Bohrne. High-tailing it for someplace like Lei-Zu where he could get lost in the corporate hustlers and not leave a trail. Show them all his back, for what they had done to him.
Nobody liked to be manipulated or lied to. Of course, there hadn’t been any lies. Vee had specifically asked to be a fool rather than an accomplice, back when he only suspected Dave had been an assassin.
Dave laughed to himself and refilled his tea mug. Not that the truth was much better, but at least it was all on the table for now. Tomorrow, they would set out to knit it all back together into a new form.
It helped that Valentinian reminded him of his son Praetextatus. And Kyriaki and Euphrosyne might have seen eye to eye on many things. And he had had to deal with stubborn, opinionated young adults occasionally in over their heads. The children of any given Dominator could choose to stand for a Tournament of Domination, if they wished, but Dave didn’t see either of his doing so.
Praetextatus had a good career in front of him as an officer in the Caelons, while his daughter had gone into business and banking. Neither still lived in the palace these days, so they wouldn’t have to be evicted. Athanasia could have lived out her days there, had she chosen.
Chasing after him in a Dominion Courier had not been one of the outcomes he had expected or even imagined when he wrote her a letter saying goodbye. But everybody dealt with grief and rage differently. Or betrayal as she probably saw it.
Kyriaki’s door opened and a little light spilled into the corridor from where Dave watched. She emerged a second later and did a double take when she saw him sitting there.
She approached on silent feet, wearing a pair of old socks that one of the girls of Solaria Femina had apparently missed when hurriedly packing, back on Tartarus. Dave’s clothes were a little big on her, like Euphrosyne wearing something she had stolen from her father’s closet when she was fourteen.
Dave smiled at the memory, and at the young woman before him.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, sliding into the other sofa, across the end table in the middle from him.
“Let me get you a cup and we’ll share,” Dave said, rising and stepping into the kitchen to unstrap another of the old tea cups.
He couldn’t see Valentinian having picked these out, so Dave assumed they came with the ship. Fine porcelain in bone-white with exotic decorations done in blue with a spare hand. They always reminded Dave of a jungle, looking at the images the artist had suggested.
He returned to the lounge to see Kyriaki curled up under one of the quilts that had been stored underneath the pad. For a woman in her mid to late twenties, she looked remarkably like a vulnerable teenager right now. Luckily, he had experience with that kind of creature.
Dave handed her the mug and took his spot. He hadn’t been watching anything on the big screen, nor listening to music. Well, the music he was listening to was inside his head, so it probably didn’t count.
She filled the cup and sipped. It was just at the perfect temperature and chewiness for Dave, but he had no idea what she preferred,
“Decaf,” he said. “Wanted to sleep later.”
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” her face paled a little.
“No,” Dave assured her. “Vee spent about an hour listening to the whole story after you went to bed. He’s in his cabin right now, probably about as restless as you are, so I came upstairs for a while, to give him his space.”
“And you really are the Dominator?” she asked. “Were?”
“Was,” Dave agreed. “And I think I was pretty good at it, but I was done. Just done. However, that’s not a job you get to retire from and go live on a beach. Personally, I think they should just have a Tournament of Domination every decade, like clockwork. If the old guy doesn’t want to stand, he doesn’t have to, and new blood can take over.”
“And the Widow?” Kyriaki asked between sips. “What about her?”
“Twenty-five years ago, she was the love of my life, Kyriaki,” Dave told her. “But people change. They grow up and sometimes end up different people. She had all the trappings of power and glory, and let it go to her head in bad ways. I suppose I could have divorced her, which probably would have brought out the vultures to challenge me, but I didn’t want to fight her anymore. And we had some fantastic fights, over the years. She’s smart, stubborn, and opinionated, as you no doubt have learned.”
She grimaced at him, but remained otherwise silent.
“So now we can never go back,” she said flatly. It wasn’t a question, and they both knew it. “How did we get here?”
“Valentinian is good people, Kyriaki,” Dave said simply. “That’s why I chose him to help make my escape. I had originally hoped we’d get to a certain quiet spot, maybe six months from Dominion Prime, and I could just quit as his first mate and disappear myself. Then you came along.”
“And I ruined it for both of you,” she said in an angry voice.
“You also tried to do the right thing, young lady,” he let his voice grow stern, like he had with another vulnerable fledgling woman he knew. “I would have let you take me in, once you let me rescue Vee. He hadn’t asked to be put in that sort of a situation. It was all my fault, everything was my fault, so I was trying to make things right.”
“Can we make it right?” she asked, finally turning her attention to look at him, when she had been staring at a space ten thousand light years distant.
“As far as the Dominion is concerned? No,” Dave said simply. “Athanasia’s the kind who won’t let go, and I suspect that the Mandarins of the Solar Party, and whoever will be the new Dominator, would prefer to keep her out here chasing ghosts, rather than have her underfoot where she might cause enough trouble that somebody has to do something about her.”
“That’s it, then?” her face grew hard. “We turn into pirates and get by outside the law until someone catches up and hangs us from the highest yardarm? That’s what we have to look forward to?”
“No, actually,” Valentinian’s voice suddenly filled the room, causing both of them to start and turn to the kitchen hatch.
Dave had forgotten how quietly Vee could move when he wanted to. Good enough to sneak up on a maudlin, old man tonight, apparently.
Dave grinned at his captain. Vee had apparently walked through some internal fire over the last half hour or so. He looked refreshed in ways that he hadn’t in weeks. Not since they first landed on Tartarus.
Dave hoped it was a good sign.
“So where can we go, Captain?” Kyriaki asked in a hot, angry voice. “How can we escape the angry Widow and maybe be safe enough to live more than a few years, constantly looking back over a shoulder for whoever might be gaining?”
Valentinian surprised Kyriaki, but not Dave, by walking over and settling on the couch next to her. Not close enough to touch, not even the quilt over her legs, but still enough in her space to be talking to her, and not just Dave.
“We used to make our living running cargo,” Valentinian smiled at her. “But that’s too predictable now. Someone will talk and the Widow will eventually discover where to find us, if we make enough friends to have regular runs.”
“And now?” Kyriaki asked.
Dave shared Valentinian’s grin. So that was where his mind had gone.
“Now, we’re getting into the salvage business,” Valentinian said. “That’s one of the reasons we’re not actually going to Meskle.”
“You’re not?” she asked, confused now, which was an improvement over mawkish.
“Nope,” Valentinian’s smile conveyed true warmth, which gave Dave hope as well. “It’ll take them about a week to get to Meskle, and we’re running a circle back to Bohrne. When we get there, if she doesn’t kill me, Bayjy will have a cargo for us to haul, and Stephaneria will have translated that map for us enough that we can start hunting.”
“What map?” Kyriaki’s attention was engaged now, so Dave just sipped his tea and laughed inside.
Kids these days.
“I won a treasure map in a crooked poker game,” Valentinian beamed at the woman.
“Seriously?” she asked, and then turned his way.
Dave grinned and nodded. He was a witness, after all.
“Who does that?” she continued.
Vee laughed out loud, sounding more like the old captain that had been such a smooth tough-guy at Aestrolathia.
“It’s always an adventure out in Wildspace, Kyriaki,” Valentinian smirked.
For a moment, Dave was concerned, as her face got serious. Her line earlier about wiping that smug grin off Vee’s face. Dave wondered if she might kiss it off, one of these days, but they weren’t there. At least not yet. Maybe never.
Kids these days.
“Well, I guess I’ve signed on to help salvage,” Kyriaki said. “Hope the pay’s good.”
“He’ll work you like a dog, Kyriaki,” Dave offered. “But he’s working harder still. Trust me, I speak from experience.”
13
Valentinian
Bohrne station was way down below them, astronomically speaking. Valentinian had specifically brought Longshot Hypothesis out of the overdrive well early. Enough so that they would have to bounce back in at some point, or spend the better part of two weeks riding the engines down to the planet. Not worth the headache.
Because he wanted silent darkness today.
Dave was in his starboard seat, looking professional. Kyriaki was standing behind them, just inside the hatch, watching.
“It’s beautiful out here,” she whispered in a voice probably not meant to be overheard.
Not that there was much space in here. She was almost breathing on his ear as it was.
At least she hadn’t thrown a punch at him in the last week. He still wasn’t about to let the woman have the passcode to the armory, though. She had Dave to protect her, if she needed something. Or him, technically, he supposed.
Shock pistols didn’t do any permanent damage, usually. She might still convince him to experiment. But she had kept her tart tongue to herself, for the most part.
They were all in new territory. How many people got to a place in life where they could never envision being allowed to go home, even if they wanted to?
Valentinian shrugged inside and brought up a system schematic on the main console, setting it to listening. Most of the traffic was one-way transponder. The station broadcasting lane assignments and current vectors of other ships, as you came out of warp and needed to know where to maneuver.
But they were more than two light hours away from the planet, trailing it as it dawdled around the orange-red star in the middle distance.
“Do we trust them?” Dave asked carefully.
“As much as we can anyone,” Valentinian grinned back.
They had all had to mentally move to a new place over the last week. Wanted outlaws, damned near anywhere, except maybe here and places the Widow hadn’t had a chance to raise an alarm yet.
Valentinian scrolled through the traffic. Bohrne wasn’t all that busy a station. Most of the transits were small freighters like Longshot passing through with loads of things, plus the occasional mega-transport hauling cargos the size of his ship, to be broken down in orbit and delivered by smaller vessels to specific locations on the planet below.
