In the Company of Others (52 page)

“I'm not interested in Gail Smith's conscience or her health,” Malley said bluntly. “Only Aaron's. And she must see how he's reacting to her. It's worse every day. She must know any—fantasy—is going to hurt him. How impossible . . . they can't . . . damn it, Aisha, you know what I'm trying to say.”

“Ah,” another of the wise, soft sounds. Aisha leaned her cheek on his knee and didn't look at him as she spoke. Her fingers found the palm of his hand, then intertwined themselves with his. “That no matter how much they want
this
, there's no having it? Perhaps. There is more to love—”

Malley traced one of the intricate braids along Aisha's scalp with a finger, staring out at the candles on her dresser. Another of her surprises for him—unregulated combustion wasn't permitted on Thromberg. “Tell that to Aaron,” the stationer said heavily. “It's cut at him for years: the way he is, the things he can't do—but at least he didn't have strong feelings for anyone else to complicate it. And he's proud, Aisha. Proud to the point of blind and stupid. He's my best friend, but I've seen it. If this goes wrong—he can't run and hide on his ship anymore. She's left him without an escape route for the first time in his life. It will break him.”

“All I can tell you is to try trusting Gail. If she cares about your friend, she won't let things go that far,” Aisha looked up at Malley, dark eyes intent. “She knows the risks—she'll be careful.”

“Careful?” Malley considered the idea, then shook his head. “That'll be the day. Your Gail likes the edge, in case you hadn't noticed. Ask Grant sometime about her concept of ‘acceptable risk' and what that's cost already.” He suddenly saw it all—
too clearly.
“If she's using Aaron's feelings to control him . . . well, that's a dangerous game. He'd better find out before something happens he's going to regret all his life—”
Or before a certain neck does get broken
, Malley added to himself. “But no matter how unhappy it makes Aaron, I hope that's all it is for her—a game.”

“Why?”

“Because if Gail Smith cares for Aaron, the way you think, it's not a game anymore. And she's more than likely to throw caution out the 'lock and Aaron's life with it.”
Not if he had any say in it
, Malley promised himself grimly, drawing his fingers from Aisha's.
Not if he had any say at all.

“Either way,” Aisha responded in a low voice, “you make it sound as though your friend must lose.”

“Warned you I didn't want to talk about him,” Malley said, making his tone almost flippant. “Depressing, isn't it? Never you mind, Aisha, m'love. Let me get a few beers under Mr. Lovesick's belt and I'll set him straight about women's wiles.” He captured the hand she'd left on his knee, bringing it up to his lips.

“Really?” he asked. “And should I set Gail straight about the wiles of stationers?” Her generous mouth curved up.

His almost smile faded. “If you want to warn her I'm watching—that's fine.”

“Oh, is that what you call hovering behind her, looking like the grim reaper? You have half the scientists and most of the techs looking over their shoulders now. Maybe you should ease off, Malley,” Aisha suggested. “See how things go in the next day. There's going to be too much happening when we arrive anyway.”

“Which means we shouldn't waste any more time,” Malley put the goggles back on and lay down. “Can we get on with the session, please?” he gritted between his teeth.

“With you tense as a piece of steel?” Before Malley could think of anything to say, he felt the mattress shift as she joined him on it. “Roll over,” she ordered.

He thought of objecting, but turned on his side instead. She tucked him into the curve of her body, one arm over his chest, one leg over his. “Now,” a soft whisper in his ear, “see if you can calm yourself, Malley. Take a moment and think about being very calm, very rested. The day, the place, even your friend—you need to let it go.”

Malley let out the breath he'd held, at the same time letting himself relax into her familiar warmth. When Aisha had offered to help him with his phobia, he hadn't expected that help to be so—personal. She'd said it was this, or being strapped down. He vastly preferred the option of her silk-covered limbs, even though until tonight there'd been no hint she might welcome a closer entanglement.

“Mmmph.” He wasn't sure if that was approval a few breaths later, or Aisha getting comfortable. He was—

The headset activated as if cued to his physical state. If he hadn't known this was virtual and not real, Malley would have sworn he was now standing in a corridor similar to those he'd known all his life.

“Take your time. There's nothing gained by rushing.” Aisha's voice now sounded as though she was right behind him. He still felt her, comforting and real, despite the illusion presented by the goggles.

There were doors along the corridor. Malley knew how the device worked—his eye movements were tracked by the goggles, bringing closer whichever door he focused on, opening that door if he blinked. Closing his eyes brought him back to the safety of the corridor. Knowing wasn't the same as believing. The flow was dreamlike, incredibly real and vivid, with the exception that he was in control at all times.

Malley ignored the first few doors. He “looked” down the hall and chose one farther along, watching it rush toward him.

An air lock. He shuddered once, feeling Aisha's arm tighten immediately to remind him he wasn't really alone, that this was a waking dream.

Every door would become an air lock. He was used to that now. He'd made it through fifteen, in six nights. One the first night. The hardest night.

Malley made himself concentrate. There were words he was to say to himself, techniques Aisha was teaching him to help control the response of his heart and nerves. When he was ready, he'd go through this air lock and experience what was on the other side, whether the dark of space or planet night.

It didn't get easier. He knew that by now.

It got done.

“IT'S done, Dr. Smith.”

Gail started, so thoroughly captivated by the image on the screen she'd missed hearing Grant's approach.

“Thank you.” She knew he referred to the robotic probes she'd ordered launched, some into orbit to survey the planet below them, more to drop into the atmosphere and relay information back to the
Seeker
's environmental experts in the science sphere, and two—

Two had coordinates to follow: one based on the
'Mate
's shuttle log, and the other on the records of Susan Witts. Those were on the same landmass, although separated by thousands of kilometers. Gail wanted to see both, before committing to a location for her trials.

No one, least of all her, expected any of the probes to return with signs of the Quill. It wasn't going to be that easy.

Pardell's World
, Gail named it to herself, eyes never leaving the planet showing its daylight side on the huge column. Clouds made of water droplets, atmosphere a deep blue by virtue of the right blend of gases in its mix, liquid water restless with the tides from two small moons, with more locked into polar caps. The land masses, with their telltale splotches of green, were too regular and in the wrong place, as if this was a child's first rendering of Earth, but the whole was familiar enough to be a beacon to those evolved on that other world, a siren's call to sailors in a black, empty sea.

As deadly
, Gail thought coldly. She preferred her worlds teeming with civilization, with proof of their welcome in bright lights and buildings, even if those were domes floating in Europa's frozen ocean. This place was a lie. A trap.

An opportunity.
“I want to be ready to drop at one hour's notice, Commander, Captain,” Gail ordered, tearing her gaze away. “Make sure your people are ready. I'll wait for no one.”

Gail prepared for what could be the most significant moment of her scientific career by tidying her room. She did it on occasion—such as packing up to move quarters. This time, she wasn't quite sure why she was shoveling paper into piles and surprising herself with clothes she'd forgotten she'd brought with her this trip.

Standing from her crouch, Gail pushed back a sweat-soaked lock of hair and put her hands on her hips. “Enough already,” she told the room, and pulled out some data records to read on her bed. After only a few minutes, the numbers swam in front of her eyes. She rubbed her neck, trying to focus.

“Fine,” Gail grumbled and tossed the pages into the freshly cleared section of floor, throwing herself back on her pillows. “So you've got the jitters.” She stared at the bag-hung ceiling. “It's not helping.”
A suggestion her body was ignoring.

Gail didn't need to analyze herself. The combination of gut-wrenching excitement and mouth-drying anxiety was natural. There was no need to listen to any of the other false alarms from her body, including the ones to either run to the kitchen or the washroom. They'd all pass, once she had the comm signal that the probes had uploaded their findings and it was time to prepare to drop.

Today, she was going to find out if she was right—or wrong.

Today
, a voice inside her head said maliciously,
you get to find out the price of being wrong—you get to know who Grant has picked for the first trial run of the suit.
He'd reserved the right to chose from his unit—they'd all volunteered, of course. Gail hadn't the slightest intention of interfering, beyond being the one to give her first guinea pig his or her briefing.

She might have argued it was her place to go, but knew better—as did Grant. They both knew better. Later, after the trials proved the suits, after she was sure. . . .

Then, maybe Aaron Pardell could go down.

There was another issue altogether.
Gail knew Temujin and most of the others—including Aaron, himself—thought the 'sider should go down in the first trial, not one of the FDs. Why bother testing a suit when they had a chance to test a living, breathing genetic match?

The exercise, Gail had reminded them all, was to find a way to put anyone on a Quill-infested world and retrieve a sample organism, not to see if Aaron Pardell could claim his birthright.

She could still see the betrayed look on his face after she'd said it, the hazel of his eyes closer to green in the briefing room fighting.

Worse, Gail knew why she'd disagreed. Cloak it in babble about controllable experiments and scientific reproducibility, but she'd refused to risk him.
She couldn't
, whispered a voice inside her head, the one that had nothing to do with rational thought and everything to do with how her body melted each time his look consumed her.

Aaron claimed she didn't trust him.

She could appreciate the irony, hardly able to stand up in a meeting of all interested parties, Reinsez included, and announce that Aaron Pardell, 'sider and probable part-Quill, was the only person on the
Seeker
she did trust, without reservation, without hesitation.

A knock. Gail didn't move, but peered suspiciously at the door.
No one knocked on her door.
That was why she had a comm panel in her room and two FDs, today Loran and a newer face, Neil Johnson, outside. She put her arm back over her eyes and tried to rest.

Another knock, this time louder.
Either her guards had abandoned their post, or it was Grant.

On opening the door, Gail discovered both surmises were incorrect.

Aaron Pardell stood there, Loran and Johnson to either side, carefully distant and looking a little out of their depth. “I have to talk to you, 'the sider insisted, his face pale and set. Then he looked past her and paused, red spots appearing on both cheeks. “Is there somewhere else we could go?”

Gail pushed her hand through her hair, using the movement to cover her own surprise. “You can come with me back to the lab—we can talk on the way,” she suggested. “Wait here.”

He—and the guards—looked relieved.

Gail took her time, gathering what she wanted to have with her while they monitored the trial, hesitating before sticking a boost needle in her pocket in case things dragged late into ship's night. When she was ready, she went to the mirror and studied her reflection.

“Oh, great.” Her cheeks were every bit as flushed as Aaron's had been.
At this rate
, Gail told herself,
they might as well waltz around wearing signs: look at us—we're fools.
She was losing any ability to push thoughts of him away, no matter how much she understood the danger.

The danger.
The part of her still able to be analytical cruelly suspected it only added spice to a powerful attraction. The emotional charge, however it was conveyed into Aaron's body from someone else, grew with the intensity of the emotion. They'd proved that with Petra's experiment, when the focused emotional load of her meditation had given Aaron convulsions.

With each look, each word—what was between them could rapidly grow beyond the bounds of sense or safety.

Thinking about running your fingers through his thick, dark hair?
she asked her image.
Be ready to hear his scream—and your own.

Ready to die?
Gail stared into her own eyes, heart pounding, abruptly afraid to know the answer.

“This is far enough. Holding,” Gail warned Aaron as she twisted her hand on the bar to pause the walkway, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu. Midway, as before. Safe from eavesdroppers. Only the man with her had changed. She studied him when she thought he wasn't looking. The 'sider looked healthier—the diet on the
Seeker
agreed with him. He still chose to wear the clothes she'd brought from the
Merry Mate II
. They were clean, if well-patched. The faded blue suited him—not that Gail thought Aaron paid attention to appearances. He just wanted to be himself.