Price of Ransom (25 page)

He smiled, stopping directly in front of her. “They haven’t found him yet, have they?” he asked.

“No.”

“I hope we do. Hawk always treated a person for themselves, not what they looked like. Vanov deserved what he got.”

“I’m not so sure,” Lily murmured, “but I’m hardly in a position to argue, since it was my life he saved.”

“I wonder if the je’jiri have kinnas,” he mused.

He had not moved any farther away from her. His presence, so close, was if anything worse than the sight of him seated on the bed. Perhaps he could read her as easily as Kyosti could. He bent, slowly, nearer, and kissed her. Long enough, lingering enough, invitation enough—she sighed and leaned into him. Her hands crept up to touch his back.

And jerked away again. “Pinto,” she snapped, “would you
leave
?”

He laughed, understanding her perfectly. “
You
have to let me out.”

“Wait a minute. How did you get
in
?”

“Bach let me in.”

“
Bach
!” She keyed in the code automatically and the door slid open. “
Bach
let you in”—He passed through the doorway and walked on to the far door. “Pinto! You can’t go out in the halls half-naked like that!”

He paused at the far door as it slipped aside to reveal gold deck corridor. “Why not?” He grinned. “It’s nothing that most of the women on this ship haven’t already seen.” The outer door sighed shut behind this provocative remark before Lily could reply, but she could not help but chuckle a little as she turned back to face the bed. It looked long and empty and lonely.

The com chimed. “Captain.” Trey’s voice. “Off-ship communication.”

“Put it through.” Lily felt abruptly tired again. “This is Ransome.”

“Seria here. We’ve got the lead. The ferry left four days ago for Zeya Depot.”

“Thank you, Jenny. Come back aboard.” She keyed the bridge. “Trey. Set a course for Zeya Depot. We’ll leave as soon as all crew are back on board and the resupply is finished. Check with min Belsonn for that schedule.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Wake me up in six hours. Ransome out.” She sat down on the bed. And felt it again, that worst of emotions: hope. Maybe on Zeya Depot … “Maybe you should sleep,” she muttered, and went to wash up.

Z
EYA DEPOT’S COORDINATOR WAS
adamant. “No doubt whatsoever. A rogue je’jiri male. There was some trouble. A fight. A man thought he was trying to pick up on his woman friend, putting a hand on her, or something. The testimony is still being sorted out. In any case, the rogue was arrested—had to be restrained.” The coordinator paused, sharing a look of distaste with her assistant. “Next thing I knew the Concord representative showed up and took him off my hands.”

“Under what authority?” Deucalion asked.

The coordinator skipped her attention across Lily and centered it on Deucalion. “You’re with the bureau. You know how it is. Once they decide to cite ‘security reasons,’ you’re free to get records if you have time to wade through the bureaucracy. I did find out that it was an order standing from Rehabilitation, if that helps. In fairness to min Giorgas—our rep—I don’t think he knew anymore than he told me, but the identifiers came back flagged as ‘violent offender,’ so he took him into custody and sent him off on a secure yacht.”

“Sent him where?” Lily asked.

“Concord,” said the coordinator and Deucalion at the same time. After a brief pause, Deucalion went on. “Rehabilitation is based at Concord. It’s the only place they would send him.”

“I don’t suppose you could enlighten me.” The coordinator looked from Lily to Deucalion. “I interviewed the rogue briefly, because of the incident, and while I thought him disturbed I didn’t feel he was dangerous. I studied xeno in college,” she added, as if this were explanation enough, “although I never went on to get an advanced degree.”

Deucalion shrugged, glancing at Lily as if to say that it was her choice what to divulge. And because the coordinator had been both efficient and helpful, Lily felt she deserved something.

“He’s a half-breed.”

“Ah,” replied the coordinator, trying not to look gratified. “That explains it. That must be an interesting story, Captain, how you got a half-breed on as a member of your crew.”

Lily could not help but smile at the careful politeness with which the coordinator framed her curiosity. “It is. But unfortunately, if they’re three and an half days ahead of us, I don’t have time to relate it to you now.”

“Ah, well.” The coordinator rose, undaunted by this evasion, and offered both Lily and Deucalion her hand to shake. “I had to try. Best luck to you.”

“How long will it take us to get to Concord?” Lily asked Deucalion as they returned to the ship. Her usual escort—Jenny, Rainbow, and two je’jiri—followed them.

“We’ll lose time to a yacht. Especially since you still don’t have a full-shifted bridge complement. On a straight route we can get there in about three weeks. Let’s see. If they left three and one half days ago, we can expect to get in a little under a week after they do. And once we get there we’ll have the charges against you to deal with. Concord’s system is such that even with my presence it could take weeks to find out where they’ve put him. And
then
we still have to get permission to see him.”

“I’m glad you’re so optimistic.”

“Realistic. Bureaucracy is one thing that never changes. Not to mention the final hearing on the disposition of the
Forlorn Hope
itself. I can’t predict what kind of ruling will be handed down, given its history.”

“Deucalion.” The history of the
Forlorn Hope
made her think, not of her own hope to keep the ship for herself and her crew, but of the fate of the
Hope
’s original crew. “What if Intelligence incarcerates me? I have to be there, in person, when we find Hawk.”

Deucalion considered. “You have to face those charges, Lily.”

“Charges that essentially boil down to fraternizing with a couple of saboteurs, who I didn’t know were saboteurs at the time. I didn’t realize that was a crime. And if it is, it makes you a criminal as well. More so, since you knew.”

“Let me rephrase,” he replied coolly. “If you intend to stay in League space you have no choice but to face the charges. I assure you, we assume innocence here, not guilt.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“When you’re sarcastic you sound like Adam. In any case, where would you go? Back to the Reft?”

Back to the Reft. An unlikely prospect, she thought, given the circumstances under which they had left. And that was supposing any of them even wanted to return. “We could turn privateer,” she said, thoughtful. “Like La Belle. The Pale isn’t under League jurisdiction. Or anywhere else outside that.”

He looked shocked. “You’d
like
to be a privateer?”

“Not particularly. But if I’m given no choice—” She let the sentence hang, letting her silence speak.

“Lily.” He looked as if he was about to stop right there in the middle of the corridor. Jenny, reading his body language, even faltered in her step. Then, glancing around at the foot traffic through which they made no appreciable ripple, he decided against drawing any more attention to themselves than the two je’jiri already brought them. His stride broke, but he picked it up quickly. “All right.” He frowned. “You have no idea how it galls me to bend regulations in this way—”

Lily grinned. “Oh, I think I can guess.”

“Now you sound like Adam again. But in this case I will.
Only
if you promise that once we have taken the first steps to resolve the problem of Hawk, you will voluntarily present yourself to Intelligence for a hearing.”

“If Hawk is at Concord, how am I to manage to find him without revealing my presence there and as such being arrested?”

“You’re the captain. You ought to be used to delegating by now.”

She puffed out her cheeks and then released the breath stored through her closed lips. “I think it was easier when I was the leader of a small strike force. None of this waiting around on the bridge. It’s much more wearing.”

“Oh, yes.” Deucalion cast her a grateful look. “Thank you for reminding me. We also need to bring this matter of the Reft and its civil war to the attention of the council. They’ll have to decide what kind of embassy to send.”

Lily could not help but smile, thinking of Alexander Jehane’s reaction to the arrival of a League embassy of any sort. “Whatever kind they send,” she said, “I’m sure they’ll find the experience interesting.” Thinking of Jehane made her think of Lia. Was she even alive? Glancing at Jenny, she wondered if the mercenary’s thoughts had made the same leap as her own, but she could read nothing but trained alertness on Jenny’s face as the woman kept an eye out for the possible, if unlikely, reappearance of Korrigan Windsor and his boys. “Very well,” Lily finished. “I accept. Let me see Hawk first, and then I’ll appear for a hearing.”

“Trust me,” said Deucalion. “I don’t know what experience you’ve had—clearly not a good one—but League justice is fair, and as impartial as any human justice can be. You won’t be betrayed.”

“I hope not,” muttered Lily, but she said it too softly for Deucalion to hear.

Concord was not so much a large station as a number of large stations sewn together in complementary orbits. Yehoshua stared in awe at what was to him the most marvelous feat of engineering he had ever seen. He could not imagine how any human ingenuity could have woven such a complex web of interlinked stations and dry docks and arrays and more stations—all in a bewildering variety of sizes and shapes—and at the same time made it so utterly beautiful against the stark background of space and distant sun. And yet, he considered, it was always a mistake to underestimate human ingenuity.

“Gregori,” he said for the fourth time. “Not only are you not supposed to be on this shuttle, but you absolutely will not be allowed off of it once we arrive.”

“Look!” Gregori pointed away from the rather crude representation of Concord’s pattern that he was attempting to model on his com-screen to a disk suspended off to one side of the vast network of human life. “Is that a planet?”

“I don’t know,” Yehoshua replied, feeling surly and trying to conceal it. “It must be. Gregori, will you promise me that you won’t try to sneak off this shuttle the same way you tried to sneak on?”

“Sure,” replied Gregori cheerfully.

Yehoshua thought over the entire statement. “Will you promise me that you won’t leave the shuttle at all once we reach Concord?”

Now Gregori hesitated. He made the kind of face that only a very clever child thwarted of his utmost ambition can make. He shrugged his shoulders and pounded his toes into the back of the seat in front of him.

“Cut that out,” snapped the occupant of the seat.

Yehoshua sighed. “Gregori.”

“I promise.” Gregori subsided sulkily into the comforts of his three-dimensional modeling of Concord’s intricate maze, pausing only once to dart a glance of searing disgust at Yehoshua. Yehoshua sighed again.

“We have you clear,
Hope One
.” The voice of Concord traffic control pierced the small cabin’s hush easily. “You’ll find a berth available at Amity five plus seven. Use the eleven forty nexus for approach.”

“Great,” muttered Pinto. “That makes perfect sense to me.”

“Received and accepted,” Deucalion said into the com. He leaned over to bring up a display on Pinto’s console. Concord appeared, diagramed in colors and patterns for flight approach. “Here. The flight paths work as—”

“I see,” said Pinto, taking in the angles and lines quickly. “That’s very efficient.” He sounded surprised.

“It has to be,” said Deucalion. “Do you know how much traffic moves in and out of here, as a daily average?”

“No. Let me see. There’s the opening, and then you go round through—oh—and this grid intersects there and—that’s very good.”

“I’ll tell you some other time,” Deucalion murmured, returning his attention to com. “
Forlorn Hope
, this is
Hope One
. We will berth in thirty-five Standard minutes.”

“Acknowledged. We have no further on-board relays for you, except that Gregori is to promise
not
to leave the shuttle until you return to the ship.”

“Gregori?” Deucalion turned in his seat. “How did Gregori get on board?”

“You don’t want to know,” said Yehoshua.

Deucalion turned back to the console. “You can be
sure
that Gregori will not leave the shuttle.
Hope One
, out.” He unstrapped himself from the seat and used the handholds on the other seats to get back to Yehoshua’s row. “Now see here, young man,” he began sternly. Gregori regarded him with astonishment. “You may think stowing away is a fun game, but I assure you that it is nothing of the kind. We are on a very delicate mission here and your presence makes it far more difficult for us to succeed. Were you to get lost on Concord—which I assure you that you would—we can just as well forget finding Hawk at all. So you will not leave this shuttle until we return to the
Forlorn Hope
. Do you understand?”

Gregori’s astonishment had turned by degrees into chagrin. “Yes,” he replied in a very small voice. He hung his head. His chin trembled.

“Good,” said Deucalion without the least sign of remorse for upsetting the boy. He returned to the com-chair next to Pinto.

Yehoshua followed him forward. “Don’t you think you were a little harsh on him?”

“No. Sometimes scaring a child that age is the only way to make them understand consequences before those same consequences overwhelm them and everyone else.”

“I wasn’t aware that you had so much experience with child rearing,” Yehoshua replied, unable to keep an edge of sarcasm from his voice.

“I don’t. But my brother and I unwittingly contributed to several near-disasters by just that kind of behavior. Almost got our mother killed, once. We were only nine years old. I have never seen my father as furious as he was on that day. And with good reason.”

Yehoshua could find no reply for this explanation, so he returned to his seat. When they berthed at Concord, Gregori turned to him and said, in a low voice, “I’m sorry. I never thought that it might mean we couldn’t get min Hawk back.”