Faring Soul - Science Fiction Romance (5 page)

“Profiles are not the same as fresh
DNA,” Vavay said. “Profiles don’t speak to gene expression.
Profiles don’t generate children. Only the living human host does
that and now she’s gone.”

“Again,” Nephele added. She hesitated.
“I was wondering why she was back in Federation space.”

“For rejuvenation, clearly.”

“She bought an updated Itinerary while
she was on Harrivalé.”

Vavay frowned again. “That doesn’t mean
anything. You need the Itinerary to travel anywhere, including the
Fringes.”

True. Nephele pointed at the screen.
“She was travelling with a navigator. He was judged to be in his
forties in appearance and probably older than that with even the
rudimentary male extension therapies available in the Fringes.”

“He’s here to regenerate.” The corners
of Vavay’s expressive mouth lifted. “If we can find out who he is,
we can find his mule farm.”

“I’ve already sent word to the school
on Harrivalé to look into it. Discreetly, of course.”

“Tell them to retrieve the navigator’s
DNA. Shed cells will be enough to identify him from our
records.”

Vavay crossed her arms and gripped her
elbows, controlling her excitement. “To have a descendant of Glave
himself at our disposal….” Her tone was distant and filled with
longing.

“Caution,” Nephele countered. “This has
been the College’s ambition for many centuries. Each time we have
come close to achieving it, she has slipped away from us. She has
no morals—not of any sort that you or I would understand. She is
not in the least bit spiritual despite Glave being her ancestor.
There is evidence that suggests she has been alive since at least
the eighth millennium. All that experience…”

Vavay smiled. It was an angelic
expression that sent a ripple of unease through Nephele. She had
seen that serene expression before.

“You and I,” Vavay said softly, “have
been alive long enough to know that being alive for a very long
time eventually cancels out the very benefits of long life. After
so long, she will be casual about her security, complacent about
the future and careless. You have used that factor to your
advantage before. Many times.”

Nephele nodded. This was true.

“We must strategize,” Vavay said,
sitting in the big chair next to the fireplace and arranging the
hem of her robe around her ankles. “Nothing must be left to chance.
Catherine Shahrazad must return to her appointed place in Cadfael
College, where she rightly belongs.”

Darwin, Sykora III. Federation Core. FY
10.069

“Because Catherine doesn’t share your
enthusiasm,” Bedivere told Lilita as the three of them walked down
the loading ramp onto the landing bay floor.

“The whole city is going to celebrate
the colonial flight,” Lilita argued. “I mean, how long is it since
the last gates were opened? Ninety years or something.” She rolled
her eyes. “Ancient history.” Then she smiled to take the insult out
of it. Lilita had a pretty smile that lit up her dark eyes and made
the most of her clear, fresh complexion. She used it often. She had
been on the ship for only a few months, but she had become an
essential part of on-board routines, including the main meal, the
only meal Catherine insisted everyone eat together. She was happy,
simple company.

“It’s been seventy-nine years since the
Caruthers gate was opened,” Catherine said. “This isn’t the first
time a new set of gates and a new planet have been opened up. It
won’t be the last.”

“But it’s
my
first!”

Bedivere smiled, his laugh lines
drawing together and the clear brown twinkling. “Such a baby,” he
told Lilita.

Lilita wrinkled her nose. “I’m
seventy-five, thank you.”

“Exactly.”

“Where’s this new hire?” Catherine
complained, looking around the bay. It was a generic landing bay,
no better or worse than the hundreds she had seen. She had to
consciously recall where they were, for there was nothing to
distinguish it. Darwin. They were on Darwin. “She’s late,”
Catherine added and looked at Bedivere. “What’s the time?”

“Sixteen hundred and fifteen, ship
time. Twenty-seven twenty-one, local time.”

“It’s creepy the way you just know
that,” Lilita said.

“It’s just the sync link,” Catherine
pointed out. “He can talk to the ship faster than I can.”

Lilita shifted on her feet. “The launch
is at twenty-eight hundred.”

Catherine sighed. “If you want to go,
go. I’ve seen way too many colonial launches.”

Lilita looked at Bedivere. He held up
his hand. “No, but thank you. I want to be part of the
interview.”

“You’re missing out!” Lilita called
over her shoulder as she headed for the bay doors.

“I know exactly what I’m missing!”
Catherine called back.

Lilita waved as she slipped between the
massive doors. Bedivere had used the ship’s link with the landing
bay to nudge one of the doors open by a meter, in anticipation of
the coming interview.

A man stepped through and looked
around, spotted the pair of them at the bottom of the landing ramp
and headed in their direction. His clothing was anonymous, made of
some indestructible fabric that spacers favored, in a neutral
color. If he stood in a room of spacers and ship jockeys, he
wouldn’t stand out—except for his hair, which hung well past his
shoulders.

“Hello.…” Bedivere murmured.

“I thought you said it was a woman,”
Catherine muttered back.

“I do know the difference.”

Catherine smothered her laugh.

As the man got closer, she noticed his
eyes. Pale, almost colorless light brown. He had a direct gaze,
looking at her without flinching or skittering away as strangers
tended to do. He came right up to the pair of them and stopped so
that he was completing a neat triangle. He stood between them,
rather than directly in front of either of them. He wasn’t as tall
as he had first seemed. He was only a little higher than Catherine.
Bedivere was a good twenty centimeters taller.

The man looked at Catherine. “You were
expecting Dana Morrow. I’m here to tell you she won’t make her
appointment.”

“Friends, are you?” Bedivere said.

“I saw her get arrested, not long ago.”
The man’s gaze moved between the two of them, but he was assessing
them, not avoiding their gaze. The directness was…odd. “They were
Federation troops,” he added. “Not the local gendarme.”

“
Federation?”
Catherine pressed
her lips together and glanced at Bedivere. “I thought she told you
she didn’t have any outstanding warrants?” In fact, Bedivere had
done the search himself. His search skills were vast and until now,
infallible.

Bedivere shook his head, just a little.
There was a pucker between his brows. “She didn’t have any,” he
said flatly. He looked at the stranger. “You came to tell us
because you think we’ll reward you for the warning?”

The man gave a small smile. “You don’t
have any outstanding warrants yourself. At least, none associated
with this ship. So a warning would be wasted on you, wouldn’t
it?”

“You’ve done your homework,” Catherine
said. “How did you know Dana was due here?”

“I’m not Federation, if that is what
you’re thinking.”

“As the Federation isn’t interested in
us,” Bedivere pointed out, “your status as Federation or not is
immaterial.”

The man nodded. “I overheard her, last
night. She was attempting to impress the man she met at the Albion
Tavern, in the commercial district on this side of the
station.”

Catherine glanced at Bedivere, who
nodded slightly. The tavern did exist.

The man in front of them grimaced. “She
said she had scored a job on a privateer and was heading off-world.
She spun the man all the romantic nonsense spacers like to drop on
the ball-bound—making sure all debts are paid when you lift off,
how you have to grab time by the horns, how lonely it can be in
space.” His eyes didn’t quite roll.

“Indiscreet,” Bedivere observed.

“And inaccurate. The jobs wasn’t hers
yet.” Catherine sighed. “So why are you here telling us all
this?”

“You know we can verify what you’ve
said very easily,” Bedivere added.

“There were thirty witnesses in the
tavern. At least one of them would have been sober enough to
remember the way she was draping herself over the man.
He
wasn’t Federation either. I checked.”

“And you’re here…?” Catherine
prompted.

The man looked at them, a direct, short
gaze each. “You’ve lost your employee. I’m here to offer my
services instead.”

Bedivere laughed. It was a rich sound,
filled with genuine amusement. “Friend, the reason we were
recruiting a woman is because this job requires a woman’s specific
skill set.”

“Security?” he asked. “Muscle?”

Catherine kept her expression steady
and neutral.

The man shook his head, as if they had
said he was wrong and he was disputing it. “It’s a job that needs
combat skills,” he said, “or you wouldn’t be looking for a woman.
But I have unique qualifications that may interest you.”

Bedivere crossed his arms. “Go on.”

The man looked around and over his
shoulder. “Bays have ears,” he pointed out. “There’s a spacers’
lounge area across the way. Perhaps—”

“Here or nowhere,” Catherine said.

He glanced up at the top of the open
ramp.

“No, not inside either. Not until we
know a lot more about you,” Bedivere said quietly.

“Like why Dana Morrow was arrested,
which conveniently let you show up and ask for her job instead,”
Catherine added.

“Her arrest was purely coincidental,”
the man said. “Or perhaps I could call it fortunate timing for it
gives me this opportunity, one that is a rare combination of facts.
You don’t have warrants against you, either of you, but that
doesn’t mean you don’t want to draw their attention.”

“Name a private craft that
does
like bumping hips with the Feds.” Bedivere sounded amused
again.

The man stood straighter and pulled his
hair back over his shoulder and out of the way. “My name is Fareed
Brant. That is my real name. If you care to run a search on the
fedcore you’ll find me listed as a brother of the Staff of
Ammon.”

Catherine couldn’t remember the last
time she had been so surprised. “You’re a Staffer?” She just barely
held the incredibility out of her voice. He looked nothing like a
typical Staffer. Staffers were religious lunatics. They wore dirty
tunics and sandals and tended to be unwashed and unpleasant.

“Absent without leave,” Bedivere
murmured.

Brant shot him a sharp glance.

Bedivere tapped his temple.
“Synchronized link with the ship databases,” he explained, “which
gives me access to the fedcore.”

“You’re a runaway?” Catherine asked
Brant.

He smiled. “I prefer to describe it as
a difference of philosophical opinions.”

“Ammonites volunteer,” she pointed out.
“You didn’t question the differences before you were inducted?”

“Oh, I still believe in the sanctity of
the human race,” he said placidly. “It’s the
application
of
the primary rule that I didn’t agree with.”

“You were a member of their enforcement
brigades?” Bedivere asked.

“I did
not
volunteer for that
assignment,” Brant said, glancing at Catherine.

She shifted uncomfortably and looked at
Bedivere.

Bedivere pointed toward the door.
“Brant, there’s a bench by the door. Please park yourself for a few
minutes and let the captain and I discuss this.”

Brant considered him. “Very well,” he
said easily and headed back toward the doors. The open door swung
slowly shut as he drew closer and he turned to look at Bedivere.
“I’m a hostage?” he asked, lifting his voice. He didn’t sound
worried.

“Until we process a formal recruitment
and security, yes,” Catherine told him.

“Then you should probably know the real
reason I sought you out.”

“Yes?”

“Catherine Shahrazad,” he intoned, “and
your navigator called Bedivere no-last-name.”

Catherine drew in a breath, deep and
slow, calming herself, as Brant turned and headed for the tightly
shut doors and the bench beside them.

Bedivere stepped around Catherine so he
was facing her, his back to Brant. Because of Bedivere’s size,
Catherine could no longer see the ex-Staffer. “If we speak
quietly,” Bedivere said, “we should be fine. He can’t see either of
our mouths.”

“Lip reading?”

“If he’s a Fed spy, he’ll have all
sorts of unexpected skills. Like having combat training.”

“You think he’s Fed?” she asked
curiously.

“I don’t know. But I don’t want to let
him out of my control, not until we
do
know.”

“You really think a Staffer would be
working for them?”

“
Ex-
Staffer, which is why he’s
hitting us up for a job. No one will employ him if they know what
he really is, so legitimate jobs are all out of his reach.”
Bedivere pushed his hand through the hair on the back of his head,
radiating unease. “It’s the perfect cover for a Fed spy.”

Catherine shook her head. “Aren’t we
being just a bit paranoid? We went off the grid straight after
Harrivalé. In nearly a full standard year no one has paid us the
slightest bit of notice.”

“Except he knows who we are,” Bedivere
pointed out.

“If he was a spy, he wouldn’t have told
us he knew.” Catherine tilted her head and looked at him.
“
Think
, Bedivere. He has put all his cards on the table.
Knowing he’s Ammonite makes him just as vulnerable as him knowing
who we are makes us vulnerable. We’re equal.”

Bedivere stared at the ground. “That’s
why he told us.”

“And because it’s the only way to
explain the combat training.”