Blood Will Tell (6 page)

“Looks like it,” Thorn replied, easing himself down into one of the oversized chairs. Unlike her, he almost fit. Then he turned his hands over, looking down at the newly bloodied palms with mild interest.

Despite herself, Miala let out a sound of shocked dismay. “Your hands!”

“It’s nothing,” he said, closing his fists. “Guess I should have kept the bandages on.”

Miala stared at him for a moment. His face was calm enough, but she could see from the tightness of his jaw that he was probably in considerable pain. Then, a little amazed by her own boldness, she went to him and reached out, forcing one of his hands open with both of hers. His skin felt rough and warm under her cold fingers.

“You’ll be lucky if that doesn’t get infected,” she said. “I’m surprised the mech let you get up at all.”

He kept his fingers outstretched under hers even as the dark eyes crinkled a bit at the corners. Was he laughing at her, at her feeble attempts to play nursemaid?

“Let’s just say that the mech and I had a difference of opinion.”

She recalled suddenly the crash she had heard as Thorn left the med unit. “You didn’t—”

“I’m sure it can be repaired.” Again that swift, dark look from beneath the level black brows. “Are you any good with mechs?”

Miala dropped his hand, wishing she had the courage to tell him to go to hell then and there. “We couldn’t afford any,” she snapped. “But I guess you’d better hope I am, since I doubt I’d be any better at fixing you if that gets infected because I couldn’t get the mech back together.”

“You might surprise yourself.”

And you might get stuffed
, she thought, but said only, “Do you think they’ll come back?”

He looked over at the viewscreens, head cocked slightly. “Probably. But we’ve earned some breathing room. I don’t think they were expecting to meet quite this much resistance. So now they’ll go back and plan and regroup.”

Hopefully we’ll be out of here before they get to that stage
, was Miala’s next thought, but she only nodded. “Then we’d better get some rest—and we’d better do what we can with your hands.”

Thorn seemed to be in agreement, for he stood and left the security station after a final quick glance at the perimeter. She followed him back up to the med unit, where indeed the hapless mech had been knocked into a corner, its head askew and one arm completely broken off.

Miala wondered where she would ever find the time to fix the machine and continue hacking the security on Mast’s vault.
Oh, well, sleep is highly overrated,
I hear
, she thought wryly, moving to the cupboards and pulling out a disinfectant wash and several unopened bandage packs.

“Get back into bed,” she instructed, and to her surprise Thorn did as he was told, climbing under the covers and laying his head back down on the pillow. Perhaps even he had had enough by this point. She couldn’t begin to imagine how painful it must have been for him to continue firing those cannons as the skin on his hands broke and bled.

So it was with more gentleness than she had first intended that she swabbed at his abraded palms, feeling herself tense as the antiseptic surely stung on the open wounds. Of course Thorn made no sound throughout these operations, but she thought he looked a little pale, and once or twice he shut his eyes as if to better cope with the pain.

Finally she was done, Thorn’s hands newly covered in clean bandages. Miala hoped that she’d gotten the wounds clean enough, since she shuddered to think what kind of microbes could have been left behind by the last person to grip the handles of the cannons’ firing mechanisms. Mast’s personal security contingent weren’t generally known for their hygiene. Still, without the assistance of the mech, she was left with only the rough first aid she had learned growing up, tending her father’s occasional cuts and bruises as well as her own. Until her father’s heart attack, neither one of them had ever been ill enough to require the services of the local clinic.

She gathered up the empty packaging and was dropping it into the waste receptacle when Thorn spoke.

“You did well down there.”

She looked over at him, startled. Was that actually a compliment? “Excuse me?”

He looked at her steadily, expressionless as usual. “You do well in a crisis. Better than I had thought.”

Trust Thorn to neatly undercut any words of praise in such a fashion. Miala felt the color flood to her cheeks. “Well, I know I’m just a girl,” she replied, her tone mocking.
Better than he had thought?
Nice to know that his expectations had been so low!

“Precisely,” he said, completely ignoring her jab. “How old are you?”

“Twenty standard,” she said. “As if
that
should make any difference!”

Thorn moved his head on the pillow so he looked directly up at the ceiling and then shut his eyes before replying. “I don’t know many twenty-year-olds who could have handled themselves as well. So don’t argue with me, Miala,” he added.

It was the first time he had ever called her by her given name. There was something oddly intimate about hearing “Miala” on his lips—as if this were the first time he had actually thought of her as a real person with feelings and thoughts of her own and not simply an unwelcome and unnecessary intrusion, or at best a tool to be used and discarded.

“Thank you, Thorn,” she said at last, when she thought she could trust her own voice. She told herself she was just tired and overcome by the aftermath of the adrenaline rush of the battle. The warning sirens had pulled her out of deep sleep, after all—who wouldn’t be shaky after something like that?

“You’re welcome,” he said, and again she could see the little quirk at the corner of his mouth that bespoke a secret amusement.

After an awkward pause, she said quickly, hoping he hadn’t noticed the uncomfortable silence, “Well, I’d better be off to sleep, too. I’ll try to come back and check on you in a few hours.”

“That’s not necessary. I’ll be fine.”

She supposed he probably would be—how long did it take for an infection to develop, anyway? More than just a few hours at least, and she knew she needed to get some sleep or she wouldn’t be of any use to anyone. Without the mech to alert her if Thorn’s condition took a sudden turn for the worse, she knew she didn’t have many options.

“Good night, then,” she replied, and turned and left the chamber.

It seemed as if there were far more stairs going back up to the slave girls’ dormitory than there had been when she had hurried down them only a few hours ago. Miala pulled herself up the long, weary climb step by step, fumbling her way in the darkness. Only when she finally returned to the narrow cot she had claimed as her own and laid her head down on the lumpy pillow did she feel herself begin to tremble with reaction.

It hadn’t been enough to be attacked by unknown enemies. That had been frightening, of course, but she had mentally prepared for it as best she could. Also, somehow, she couldn’t feel as frightened as she knew she should have been, not when she had gone into battle with Eryk Thorn at her side. There was something strangely reassuring having someone next to her who had probably faced down much worse throughout his life. He had lived to fight another day, and so she’d been confident she would survive as well.

No, that wasn’t it. What made Miala shiver now was the sudden wave of emotion that had passed over her when Thorn had spoken kind words to her—when he had said her name and looked at her with a new respect. She didn’t know exactly what that emotion was. All she knew was that when she finally wished him a good night, she’d had to fight a sudden urge to reach out and run her fingers through his wavy dark hair, to gently touch the bandaged hands that lay crossed on his chest.

It was impossible. She didn’t even like Thorn very much. Was she so pathetic, so starved for human contact, that only a few kind words from him were enough to turn her into the sort of girl she had always despised, the ones who trailed after the boys in Aldis Nova, giggling and flirting and trading stolen kisses behind old Nala’s coffee house?

You’re just tired
, she told herself.
It will all be better in the morning.

But when she shut her eyes, all she could see was that tiny smile at the corner of Eryk Thorn’s mouth, and all her traitor mind seemed capable of was wondering what that mouth would feel like pressed against hers.
 

Biology was a crazy thing. She much preferred the cool logic of computers, but logic seemed to have deserted her for the moment.

Sleep was a long time coming.

V

The hospital bed was empty when Miala finally returned to check on Thorn late the next morning. Again she had overslept, although it was difficult to say whether her reluctance to get up that morning could be attributed to the disruptions of the previous night or a natural disinclination to avoid seeing the mercenary after such unwelcome feelings about him had surfaced.

Still, having once steeled herself to face him—after a protracted grooming session in the dressing area of the slave girls’ quarters, when it seemed no matter what she did her hair would not behave itself—she was nonplussed to see that he was gone. The pieces of the broken mech had been gathered up and stacked neatly in a corner, and the bed itself was likewise made up, with the sheets pulled taut over the pillow and the coarse, dark blanket tucked in with military precision.

Well, at least he’s not a slob
, she thought, but still she felt a stab of irritation. Who did he think he was, anyway, getting up and roaming around the compound when he was barely healed? She would have thought he’d sleep until early afternoon after the excitement of the previous night, but once again he’d proven her wrong.

She found him in the security station, of course. He sat in front of the main viewscreen, fast-forwarding through a series of images that looked as if they’d been taken from the cameras that watched the front palace gates.

He looked up as she approached. The bulky bandages were gone. The skin that had been hidden underneath was still mottled and red in patches, but the healing process was obviously further along than she had thought. Somewhere he’d found a loose-fitting shirt and pants in standard-issue Iradian beige to cover himself. In the mundane garments he should have looked less exotic, less alien, but somehow their very ordinariness only served to contrast with the swarthy skin, the unusual cast to his features. Miala found herself wondering where exactly on Gaia his forebears had come from.

She opened her lips to speak and found her mouth oddly dry. She swallowed, then said, “You should be in bed.”

“No time for that.” He turned back to the images that scrolled in front of him.

“What are you doing, anyway?” she asked, moving farther into the room. Somehow it was easier to approach him when he wasn’t looking directly at her.

“Going through the old security logs. I’m trying to see if our friends from last night ever paid Mast a visit while he was still alive.”

“Know thy enemy?” she asked, and was rewarded with a quick approving glance.

“Right. But I’ve gone through eight standard months of these logs, and so far nothing. Doesn’t mean much, of course. People in Mast’s circle can hold grudges for a long time. Could be a crony of Mendel Bronson’s.”

“Who’s that?”

“The boss who thought it would be a good idea to attack Mast as he was dropping prisoners off the Malverdine Cliffs. All that accomplished was killing everyone on both sides. Well, present company excepted.” He leaned forward once more, dark eyes flickering as he scanned the images on the screen.

Typical that Thorn wouldn’t find anything unusual about being the sole survivor of probably the worst crime lord face-off in the last twenty years. She opened her mouth to ask how he had accomplished that particular feat, then decided he probably wouldn’t tell her. Fine. Instead, she forced her gaze away from his profile, which was actually very fine, with the firm chin and long, strong nose, and made herself look at the viewscreen as well.

It was amazing what a collection of scum had come to call on Mast. Most of them seemed to have come to pay him sort of tribute. The great majority of the visitors revealed on the security cameras brought various boxes of loot—hard currency, precious metals, drugs, skeins of moon-moth silk—all of which were handed over to the security guards and secreted away somewhere in the vaults. The display brought home to her just how much treasure they were probably sitting on, as well as her continuing failure to recover it.

“I’m going for some breakfast,” she said at last, when it grew obvious he didn’t care to indulge her in any more conversation. “You want any?”

Still he did not look up. “Sure. And some coffee, if you’ve got it.”

Back to kitchen drudge
, she thought, but, after all, she had offered. They had to eat, and he was showing remarkable signs of improvement. Probably he was relieved that at least now he could be an active member of the team; she couldn’t begin to comprehend how the forced inactivity had probably chafed at him. If the mech were still functioning, she was sure it would have had a few choice words about Thorn getting up so soon, let alone removing the bandages, but in the final analysis it was the mercenary’s body, and he should have the power to decide what he was or wasn’t capable of. He didn’t seem be in a great deal of discomfort—not that that meant anything. Thorn had to be in the sort of pain that would have brought screams from lesser men before he’d allow even a grimace.

Considering the erstwhile crime lord’s bulk, it wasn’t too surprising that Mast had hoarded off-world delicacies the same way he’d hoarded cash and narcotics. In the kitchen’s refrigeration units she’d found rare aged cheeses from Gaia itself, some kind of creamy sweet dessert topped by swirled nuts, and filets of the tenderest herd animals from Archeron, known for its vast grasslands.

None of that seemed appropriate for breakfast, but there was still the bread she had made a few days earlier, as well as the makings of
leth
, a common grain-based hot dish common on Iradia. For protein she added several wedges of creamy cheese to the tray she had set aside to take back to Thorn in the guard chamber. During all these preparations, the coffee brewed away, sending its rich bitter-chocolate aroma into the air. In the process it woke up Miala’s stomach, which strenuously protested the lean rations she’d been feeding herself lately. She ate her own bowl of
leth
standing up as she waited for the coffee to finish brewing. It was enough to keep her going until noontime, and she wanted to get back to work as soon as she took Thorn’s food to him.