Desire Disguised (3 page)

“What’s happening?”

“Chief Zashi, I was just going to get a dna-print for our records and she…she reacted.” The medtech made a whirling gesture with her hand. “Jumped up and grabbed the young man and yelled at me.”

Ben turned to ask Citizen Belasco her side of things and found she was inching along the wall to the door where he stood. She held his gaze, and he lost his breath at the desperation he saw in her wide hazel eyes.

“Just let us go. We haven’t done anything wrong.”

“You aren’t prisoners. We just want to input your data so we can keep track—”

“No! We’re fine. I just need to get us to the nearest terminal.” She tilted against the wall, and he could see her legs shaking through the loose pajama trousers one of the medtechs must have provided to replace her ruined flight clothing. Her brother, Mat, was also wearing thin sleeping garments, entirely unsuitable for travel anywhere except in the halls of the clinic.

“Impossible. You aren’t well enough to travel.”

“And there isn’t a ship out in days,” the medtech piped up, and both Caraline and Ben stopped staring at each other long enough to glance at her, and then their eyes locked again. She had figured out he was the only real obstacle in the room.

“I want to leave. We need to go now.”

Ben shook his head and motioned for the medtech to leave the room. She sniffed and rushed out, probably irritated because she’d been stopped from completing a task on her list. Ben could appreciate the feeling of frustration. Caraline watched as the other woman closed the door, and she whistled out a soft breath before tightening her shoulders again. Still fighting.

“If we aren’t under arrest you have to let us pass.”

“Technically, the docs can keep you here for thirty hours.”
And I can think of something in the meantime to keep you around even longer.

Caraline’s chin jerked up. As she opened her mouth to speak, her brother let out a small sigh and slid to the floor. Ben ignored the training that demanded he keep a non-threatening distance between himself and an anxious person, and reached for the boy. He gathered him up in his arms, amazed at how thin and light he felt. Caraline pulled at him and stumbled along as he lifted the boy to a bed and laid him down. She was thin too, her narrow hands pushing at him as she peered at her brother with concern apparent on her strained face. Something about this tickled his intuition. She was far too determined to flee despite her clear sense of responsibility for Mat, who obviously needed rest and food. As she did. What was she so frightened of?

Taking in some deep breaths, she smoothed Mat’s hair and turned to stare at him. All the defiance she’d shown a moment before seemed to have leached away, leaving a frightened and vulnerable young woman behind.

“Please. We have to go.”

“You need to rest and recover.”

She shook her head and closed her eyes for a second. “What about Soren?”

“I haven’t received an update on his condition yet.” Ben tried to piece together as much as he could about her with very little information. Since the ship had tagged into the jump ring unauthorized, there was no flight plan for it, and the incompetent crew at this end of the ring hadn’t bothered to collect a data scan on the ship until it was out of range. So, other than the scant material he’d gathered from the lone datpad, he had no idea where they’d come from or intended to go. The personal device was suspiciously uninformative. Only the basics were there like name, age, and homeworld. No messages, no feeds, no images, or media of any sort. It all stunk of aliases. Her determination not to be physically scanned indicated she wanted their actual identities kept out of the official loop, which raised all sorts of interesting possibilities.

“Let’s start with something easy. I’m Bendix Zashi, Chief of Safety Services here.”

She swallowed and flattened her hands protectively against Mat’s bed. The boy watched quietly from behind her and offered up no commentary. Ben waited a moment for her to return the courtesy and introduce herself, but she remained silent.

“I know you’re Caraline Belasco, and your brother is Mat. You and your travel companion, Soren, were on a ship that did an illegal hitch to make it through a jump ring undetected. If I were the suspicious sort, I’d guess you were up to no good.” Ben tried to smile, but his muscles didn’t work right. Everything in his body felt too tight to project any sort of relaxed mood at her which was what the tense situation needed. He had the feeling she’d have bolted for the door already if her brother hadn’t collapsed. He spared a glance at the boy and found he followed the conversation with bright eyes.

The older Belasco shifted her feet, and he didn’t know if it was because she was unsteady or thinking again of escape.

“Our pilot did that. We can’t be arrested for what he did with his ship.”

Ben tried not to react to her quick legal wrangling. It smelled of someone who’d spent a lot of time wandering in the grey areas of society. “Well, your pilot’s dead, and your friend is in poor shape, so I’m going to need to talk with either you or Mat about it.” Despite his wish to relax the mood between them, that sounded threatening. Caraline must have thought so too, because she glanced again at the door and reached behind her to grab her brother’s thin arm.

“You leave Mat alone.”

“I’m not going to harm your brother. Or you.”

A skeptical scowl twisted her lips. They were still pretty even when tight with repressed emotion. Ben winced when his subconscious added that bit of commentary, and Caraline reacted to his expression.

“Pardon me if I don’t believe that.”

Ben desperately needed to restart this encounter. Time to make some concessions and get her to relax before she collapsed. Mat had watched this terse exchange with an attentive air but was still curiously quiet. Ben didn’t have much experience with boys, but he thought they would normally be more talkative and willing to add an opinion here and there. This one was as self-contained as a wise old philosopher.

“You’re here for thirty hours at least. Probably more. So, rather than push things until you fall on the floor, just tell me where your intended destination was so I can inform whoever is waiting for you that you’ve been delayed. No more details than that.”

“There’s no one waiting for us. We can’t be printed and registered,” Caraline whispered and glanced around the room as if she thought she was being monitored.

“Why not?”

“Because we’re in danger.”

“From what?”

“People who want to kill us.” Her shoulders slumped, and her head ducked down.

Ben took a quick moment to take that in. This was either the elaborate set up for a sympathy play by a skilled grifter, the sad delusions of someone with a mental imbalance, or the last effort at maintaining anonymity from someone in genuine fear. She might be irrational and not in peril from any actual threat, but Ben could certainly sense her desperation. He hadn’t missed the way she’d bitterly accepted she needed to tell him something. The young woman swayed on her feet.

“Let’s come back to that later. How about I promise not to send any information about the crash out on a datadrop for the next thirty hours, and you agree to stay still and let the med people do what they need to do to get you and your brother better.”

“How do I know you’ll keep your word?”

“Because I’m trusting
you
not to inform my superiors I’m not following proper procedures.”

A gust of breath that was almost a laugh left her in a huff. She narrowed her eyes and gave him a considering look. He was impressed she was this formidable after everything she’d been through. “You’d get in trouble for doing this?”

“I would.”

“What would they do? Make you sit in the corner for an hour? Take away your stunner for a day?” Caraline swung out her hand and pointed at his waist.

Ben glanced at his belt. He’d forgotten he even wore it. “I doubt it. They’d reprimand me.”

“Oh. Harsh.” She breathed in deeply and gripped the edge of the bed as her eyelids fluttered. Her brother reached out to pat her back.

“Come on, Sis, it’s thirty hours. We can’t go anywhere if we get out of here. We don’t even have shoes.”

Ben wanted to shake the boy’s hand for his complicity. But before he could press his point, Caraline’s knees gave out, and she sank into an awkward crouch. Ben lifted her thin, shivering body and carried her over to the room’s other bed. She was a ghastly shade of white, and as he laid her down, he checked the monitor that sprang to life as soon as her body hit the padding. As her vitals began to scroll, he was reassured that everything seemed to be within normal parameters. Normal parameters for someone who’d survived a re-entry crash and was dehydrated. He had to remind himself to remove his hands from her, and when he did, her eyes met his for a moment. She looked at him as a cornered animal would, all immobilized fear and keeping still, hoping not to be noticed. What had happened to make her this afraid?

“Cara?” Mat spoke up again and struggled to see her.

“She’s all right—”

“I’ll be fine, Mat, don’t worry about me.”

“So, do we have a deal?” He knew he was pressing her at a vulnerable moment, but he had a feeling if he waited to settle this point until she was recovered, she would have already disappeared. Entirely unbidden, he realized he liked her nickname very much.
Cara
.

“Thirty hours.” Cara blinked up at him and folded her arms across her chest. Those borrowed garments were so thin, he could practically see her…Ben reached under the bed and removed a blanket to spread over her.

“Agreed. But we talk about what’s going on. At my convenience.”

Holding his gaze a moment longer, she nodded her head once and then glanced over at her brother. Ben wanted to pat her arm or touch her shoulder, smooth her tangled hair back from her cheek, but instead, he retrieved another blanket and arranged it over Mat who gazed up at him with wide eyes. Now, he’d have to come up some sort of logical explanation for keeping the med crew from taking a standard DNA sample from these castaways.

“You’re off the record for now. I’ll send in someone to check on you and bring you a meal. Then I’ll be back for some answers.”

* * * *

“Who is that guy?”

“Bendix Zashi. The head of safety services for wherever we are. Notice he didn’t tell us that little piece of information?”

“I guess he’ll want to trade for it.” Mat put on a galaxy-weary air, but Cara could sense the curiosity underlying her brother’s tone.

“Probably. Mat, how are you feeling?”

“Sore but happy I’m not dead.”

Cara smiled at him, pleased yet again her brother was such a practical and level-headed type now that they weren’t in mortal peril. He smiled back.

“I’m really hungry. Do you think he’s going to feed us sooner rather than later?”

“He might want to trade rations for our secrets.” Cara wanted to joke, but she had a feeling it might be close to the truth. The security chief, despite his beautiful eyes, worried her. Her stomach tensed whenever he looked at her, and she didn’t think it was caused by lingering effects of the crash. He made her nerves misfire. She needed to stay alert and uncommunicative just as she had for the last twelve years.

Yet again, she thought of Soren, their last surviving protector. He might not be a survivor much longer, which meant she would be the last barrier between the evil people aiming to destroy them and her young brother lying helpless on a bed in some clinic on an unknown world. Damn Falk for showing off and tagging that cruiser. He’d had no idea where it was headed; just that it was jumping at an opportune moment to get them away from official scrutiny at the very populated Station Seven. If he’d just waited and used their faux identity—

Her angry musings were interrupted by the sound of the door opening. She immediately tensed and sat up on the bed, not able to relax even when she saw it was merely a servebot rolling in under a heavily loaded food tray. It was probably equipped with remote monitoring devices. Mat slid off the bed and rummaged amongst the covered plates.

“Cara! There’s tomatoes and curried tempeh. Bok Choi. And cookies!” He looked over at her with such excitement and hope in his gaze she wanted to weep. Her baby brother, nearly killed today, and now thrilled by the appearance of a cookie. She motioned for him to collect his serving and eat. Very politely he handed her another container, and she opened it to find more of the same. It looked delicious, and her disobedient stomach growled approval. No matter what waited for them, they needed nourishment.

“How do you think Soren is?” Mat asked around a bite of tomato, and she shrugged. Cara was suspicious of the servebot, of the medtechs, and most of all suspicious of the commanding man who had bargained with her. Any of them could be listening or watching right now.

The door opened again, and a new woman stuck her head in and smiled at both Cara and Mat. She was young and fit-looking with thick dark hair Cara immediately envied. “Do you like your food? If you want something else just tell me or the bot.”

She shuffled a few centimeters into the room, and Cara tensed, looking for a hand held scanner. “I’m Penni Dismit. I work here, in medical. Chief Zashi asked me to check on you and tell you how you’re doing.”

Penni was now inside the room, and she shut the door slowly behind her, all while watching them, probably wondering if Cara was going to lose her temper again. Rather than leap up and yell, Cara kept eating, trying to ingest as much nutrition as possible and encouraging Mat to do the same.

“Physically, you’re both in good shape. Some wear and tear from stress and the compression foam, but nothing a few days of rest won’t set right. You’re both undernourished and dehydrated.” Penni smiled at both of them, perhaps cheered by the speed at which they were eating.

Cara wasn’t surprised to hear of the end result of their poor diet; they’d been on the move constantly for the last few months, and balanced, regular meals weren’t part of evasion tactics. Soren had been spooked away from their last temporary home before they’d even unpacked their bundles. Cara couldn’t even remember the last time she’d cooked a meal.