The Key (31 page)

“And what did you tell him?”

“That I joined because I wanted to travel to new places, meet people…and kill them.” She smiled at Gaedon.

That got a chuckle out of him. His guards choked a bit. Sara looked at them.

“That’s what the Dusan did. Choked just like that.”

“You are truly a soldier,” Gaedon said, his gaze sobering.

“I am, sir. This…talk we’re going to have, I’m a bit worried. Usually we let the diplomats do the talking. I don’t want to goon things up.”

He smiled. “You seem to be managing.”

It was a no, wrapped in a compliment…but still a no. Sara sighed.

The doors slid open to a busy corridor that was rather…fancy. Again, there was function, but attention had been paid to form as well. The walls were a soft green, the floor a darker green tile of some kind. It felt firm, but had some give to it.

Unlike the
Doolittle
, that had a lot in common with a submarine or a naval ship in the way its doorways were configured—the doorways in this ship were graceful arches. No doors latched back and not a spec of gray anywhere.

Gaedon indicated a left turn, then fell into step beside her.

“I find myself wanting to ask you if we’ve met before, even when I know it is not possible.”

Crap.

“On my planet, that would be a lame pick-up line, but you make it sound like a compliment, sir.” Sara smiled at him, hoping her sudden unease didn’t show. “You are very different from the Dusan.”

Gaedon looked pleased. “The Dusan are a plague. Not much is known of their culture, but in our…contacts with them, they have proved themselves to be both brutal and untrustworthy.”

He stopped in front of a door, turning to look at her.

“When the new leader came to power, Adin Xever—”

Sara jerked, hoping he hadn’t noticed.

“I had some hope of change. He was young and didn’t seem as set in the old ways of his people. Not a lot of information gets out, but what we do know, is not encouraging.”

Since the “old ways” involved lots of guilt-free sex, Sara couldn’t see Adin changing either. Suddenly she felt Gaedon looking at her.

“You have…encountered Adin Xever, have you not?”

Sara nodded reluctantly. She didn’t really want to talk about Adin. “He was the one who approached us, claiming to be Gadi.” Her insides tightened.

“He is dead?”      

“No.”

“A pity.”

“No kidding.”

He touched a panel by the door and it slid open, revealing a room that looked a lot like a living room. The color of the walls was soft and relaxing and there were chairs and a couch.

Gaedon indicated she should enter.

It was a pleasant office. A desk sat off to one side by a view screen and a comfortable looking sitting area was anchored by a couch. There was a small shelf of books. And he had some lovely artwork on the walls. She stopped to admire a couple of pieces, but then noticed something that looked a bit like a piano in the corner.

“What’s this?” It was like finding a friend when she didn’t expect it.

“It is a harmonious.”

He lifted the cover off the keys. The keys were all the same level, longer and gray in color. And the keyboard seemed shorter.

“May I?” Sara looked at him.

“You are a harmonium?”

“I have no idea.” She sat on the bench and tried out one of the keys. It felt stiffer than her keyboard, and it was terribly out of key. “Do you play this?”

“I have not the skill.”

She tried a few more keys. “It’s badly out of tune.”

“You have something like this in your world?”

Sara nodded. “We call it a piano. Our keys are different, not quite so stiff and we have shorter keys between the long ones, so we don’t have to reach so far to hit notes. How long since someone has tuned it? Or played it?”

“A very long time.”

Sara got up and walked around it. The top appeared to be tightly fitted, but it had to open—there it was. A latch. She popped the top up. Gaedon made a small sound of protest.

“I won’t goon this up. No talking required.” She gave him a quick smile, as she pulled a screwdriver out of her pocket. “Never go any where without this.”

She turned her cap bill to the back and peered into the guts of the…harmonious. It wasn’t that different from a piano on the inside. The strings looked like wire. The wood looked worn, but no signs of rot.

She tapped the middle key, then tightened the wire, working it until she got a nice, clear C-tone. Because there were fewer keys, it didn’t take that long to get it back in key enough to try it out.

Gaedon, to his credit, watched her quietly during what had to be a rather painful process. Hawkins probably hadn’t enjoyed it much either.

She lowered the top, stowed the screwdriver.

“See,” she spread her fingers out as wide as they’d go, “I can barely make that chord and I have long fingers. If we don’t end up shooting at each other, you’ll have to come aboard our ship and see my keyboard.”

She smiled at him. He had a kind of…odd look on his face.

“I look forward to it.”

She tried a bit of
Fur Elise
. Gaedon smiled, as if the sound pleased him. Probably because it was lady-like. She stopped, mentally figured out the chords, then slammed into the opener for
Great Balls of Fire.

Gaedon jumped about a foot, maybe more. He made a move, like he wanted to stop her, so Sara did, trying not to grin.

“It is…very old,” he said weakly.

Sara caressed the soft wood. “It’s beautiful. You should keep it in tune. And learn to play it. Pianos liked to be played.”

“You like harmonies.” Something in his voice made her feel edgy.

“Well, we call it music, but yeah. It relaxes me.” She itched to try it again, but made herself turn away. Sara crossed to the view port and looked out. They had to be at the top, or close to the top of the ship.

It was an amazing sight. The Gadi shipped looked huge from this vantage point. The shape reminded her a bit of a sub, with the part she was in sort of like a very large conning tower, only more elegant.

She looked out into space and just for a moment, saw herself, the way she’d been that day she met Evie. From a trailer park to a freaking alien ship.
Dang.

“You are very far away,” Gaedon said, stopping next to her.

“I suppose I was.” She leaned her forehead against whatever it was that was between her and space. It was as cool as glass and almost soothing. For the first time since she’d left, she felt a sharp stab of homesickness, a longing for the familiar, the comfortable, the dull, the non-alien.

“You are sad.”

Sara looked at him, her eyes shuttering by instinct. She shrugged. “Just thinking how far away…home is.”

“Home on your planet?”

Sara nodded. Not that she had one there, but suddenly it was all home, the whole big third rock from the sun, gomers and all.

She straightened her back, clasping her hands behind her back.

He looked a bit wry. “Now you look like a soldier again. For a moment you looked…” He hesitated. “That is perhaps why I didn’t see it right away. Did it take Adin Xever long to notice the resemblance?”

Sara felt her insides twist, but she answered him calmly. “He noticed it right away, but I wasn’t wearing my uniform the first time we met.”

He went to the desk, opened a drawer and removed a folder. He opened this, spreading pictures, drawings actually, across the surface.

Miri.
Whoever had drawn the sketches had been in love with her. It was there in every line of every drawing. There was one with her hands spread across the keys. Her head was tilted and she smiled, but her eyes were shadowed and sad.

“The likeness is quite remarkable, now that I can see past the warrior. There are…slight differences, one would expect that after so much time, but you have her eyes.” He removed her cap again, tossing it aside this time. “And you have her hands.”

His gaze was curious, not avid like Adin’s had been, but that didn’t make Sara feel any better.

“The harmonious belonged to her. When you sat down to play it, that’s when I saw…her.”

As he studied her, she could feel herself…folding in, retreating deep inside. When she looked at the drawings, she didn’t see herself in them. Miri had lived a different life, had different experiences.

Sara felt oddly calm now that it was out there. It had happened. At least that part was behind her.

“And what was Miri to whoever drew these?”

“An alliance was arranged between my people and the Garradians, Miri’s people. But it was more than an arrangement between nations. Their hearts beat for each other.”

No, that wasn’t right. She could feel it. Miri had liked him…but she hadn’t loved him. And there was no alliance.

This was partly why Miri left. She could feel it—it was a sudden leap forward in understanding. He’d…helped her and she felt obligated. But obligation was a burden, a poor fuel for love. Sara looked at her harmonious. She’d used it as a shield, the way Sara sometimes did with her keyboard.

“She returned to her people to prepare for the bonding, but the Dusan attacked her people.”

That wasn’t true either. The city on the island was untouched by war. It was an…abandoned city. And then there was the problem of finding it to attack it. And more than that, she just knew that’s not how it happened.

Sara had that on-the-edge feeling again.

Sara picked up one of the drawings. “I can see he was in love with her, but I just see a whole lot of sad in her eyes—not a woman in love.”

His face tightened.

“The Dusan wanted to stop the alliance. Their leader wanted Miri for himself. She held the key to many wonders.”

“Funny how she doesn’t seem to have ended up with either the Dusan or your guy.” She looked at the drawing again. “How long ago did all this happen?”

“The man who drew these was the father of my father’s father’s father’s father’s father.”

Was that five or six generations? That was a long way back.

“That’s him.” He put another drawing down in the middle of the others. He looked nice enough. A bit like Gaedon.

“I was named after him.”

Great.

“I have no idea if I was named for anyone. Not a lot I do know about my family. My parents died when I was pretty young.”

She’d loved…someone, but he’d…died—or let her down? Yes, he let her down. Broke her heart. Sara felt her pain and…

There was a baby.

It felt as if Sara were circling something important, but she couldn’t deal with it now, not in this place, not right now.

“Only thing I know for sure is that they gave me red hair and a temper.”

“Did Adin Xever believe that?”

“I don’t know. Don’t really care. Can’t control what he thinks or what you think.” She hesitated. “Hard for me to believe she’d…give the key to someone several galaxies away. If I was her and I had two guys wanting my technology instead of me, I’d get rid of it. Make sure neither of them got it. But I have a nasty temper.”

He looked at her, but Sara had the feeling he wasn’t really hearing her.

“It can’t be a coincidence, your coming here with her…face.”

Nope. Not listening. Punk.

“I’ve always considered it
my
face. Had it since I was born. Did I mention I have a temper?”

This was getting very old. She was tired…
damn
tired of people not seeing
her.

“I’m not Miri. If you can’t get past that, maybe I should return to my bird and my wingman. As I did point out, talking isn’t really my thing. And then there’s that temper.”

He sighed. “You know I can’t—this is too important to my people.”

There was a sort of rushing sound in her ears.

“I’d like to return to my ship.” She said each word with emphasis.

“If you’d just sit down—”

“
No
.” She lifted her lids and looked at him. “You said we’re guests. Guests leave when they want to. I want to leave.
Now
.”

Gaedon looked at her, his expression…regretful. Then his gaze shifted to the four guards. He gave a slight nod.

Sara had a feeling it wasn’t an order to take her back down to her ship. And that she’d just stopped being a guest.

She waited, feeling them closing in on her. Just before they grabbed her arms, her elbows jerked back, landing very deep into each man’s solar plexus. When they bent over, clutching that area, she brought both elbows down on the backs of their necks. They dropped like rocks.

Sara dropped with them, snagging each man’s ray gun before they could hit the deck.

Before the other two guards could react, she dropped them, too.

She looked at Gaedon. He looked…alarmed. He should. She almost took him out, too, but—

Sara twirled both weapons, like she as a freaking gunfighter and tossed one, then the other on top of the drawings.

She planted her feet and clasped her hands behind her back.

“I’d like to return to my ship,
sir.
”

She hoped he’d appreciate the fact she hadn’t shot him.

His door suddenly opened. More guards.

Apparently not…

“Crap!” Sara jumped for a ray gun, even got her hand around one and was twisting to fire—

* * * *

The other two recon flights returned safely and on time, but there was still no sign or sound from Sara or her wingman. Fyn stared at the screen, like that could make the right dots appear there.

“Let me go check it out, sir,” Fyn told Halliwell. “I’m familiar with that sector.” He was familiar with the whole galaxy, thanks to the Ojemba.

“You might run into the same problem KILO X-RAY did.”

“If I jump in here,” Fyn pointed to a spot on the HUD, “this planet blocks sensors. I can pop up, see what’s going on and drop back out of sight.”

Halliwell stared at the HUD, frowning. “Is the planet large enough to provide cover for the
Doolittle
?”

Fyn nodded. “The
Doolittle
could jump here—” Fyn pointed to a cluster of planets halfway between the hop point. “I—”

“We,” Carey inserted.

“We go here. That puts you within radio contact. We clear the area, then you can come the rest of the way.”