DarkShip Thieves (25 page)

I couldn't go and celebrate anything, while I knew there was a very good chance I might never see Kit again. I excused myself and explained I'd be working a double shift, then went and signed up for it. It would mean leaving the building late at night, but I figured if no one had killed me yet—something I was sure I owed to the prestige of the Denovos and to whatever terror Kath seemed to strike in the minds of her colleagues. The terror was true, I'd seen it. And I figured that it was the only thing standing between me and a quick death.

When I left the compound, late at night, exhausted, for a moment it was as though I were back on the day of my arrival with Kit. Particularly because I was using his flyer.

The compound wasn't empty. Or at least the garage wasn't, as several people had worked double shifts. We were trudging into the garage, where the light was burning at half-power, when I heard a sound.

I can't tell you what made me pick the sound over the scraping of feet, the opening of flyer doors, the slamming of other doors, the woosh of warming engines, but I did. It was the slip-slide of a burner safety being pulled off.

Because in mind I was back to my arrival here with Kit, I dropped to the floor, before even thinking. And as if it were a bad recreation of that day, a burner ray flew over me, burning a hole into the pilot door, exactly where it had been before.

I couldn't think. At least not clearly. But I could move. Before I could stop, I had leapt in the direction the sound and the ray had come from, and I landed on Joseph Klaavil.

Not being rational or under my own control, I was wild, insane, a state I normally only reached at the end of a furious fight.

Each of my actions registered only as I completed it, and I became aware I'd done it. I'd torn the burner from Klaavil's hands and thrown it, not caring that with the safety off it might fire when it hit. And I'd hit him hard in the place that Kit said I liked hitting men—and then both knees before he could fall.

And because I wasn't rational, I found myself standing over a man curled in a fetal position, while I rained punches on him with my bare hands and screamed an incoherent babble about his being a murderer, about his having tried to kill Kit, about my killing him, killing him now.

I stopped to catch my breath, my face covered in tears, my breath coming in ragged sobs. Through the sobs, I heard voices from the crowd that had assembled to watch this.

"She attacked him for no reason," one said, clearly having missed the first shot.

"She's going to kill him."

"Cursed Earthworm, protecting that murderer, Christopher Klaavil."

And I realized, with a sudden shock that I was doing exactly what I'd told Kit I wouldn't do. I'd promised him not to get in trouble. I'd promised him not to kill anyone, and not to make him pay blood geld.

All of me, all my impulses, all my thoughts, wanted to kill, to destroy, to maim. But I couldn't. Not and have yet another debt accrued to Kit. Kit who had put up with all of this, Kit who didn't want this creature killed. Kit who had best come back and soon. Kit who was a Cat and therefore couldn't challenge a normal person to a duel.

I stepped back. My voice shook, but I yelled as loudly as I could, "Joseph Klaavil, I'm challenging you to a duel because you have several times and without cause tried to kill me and Cat Christopher Klaavil."

He sat up at my words. His lips moved. His "I accept" was spoken in a low voice, but it echoed an reverberated through the garage. The crowd cheered, and I was fairly sure it was for him.

And I . . . I was in more trouble than I knew how to deal with. I climbed into the flyer and closed the belt around me.

I'd best go see Doctor Bartolomeu. This asking for aid thing was odd and I'd never done it before in my life. It wasn't fear for myself that forced me to it, it was fear of injuring Kit further.

"What have you been doing to yourself?" Doc Bartolomeu asked, as he opened his door. He had much the look of someone continuing an interrupted conversation and acted as though I should have my response ready.

I don't remember what I mumbled, at the door. He took me in and sat me in one of the tall, padded chairs, and put a cup of hot chocolate in my hands, and somehow—I still wasn't discounting the idea that he was some form of supernatural being—I found myself telling him what had been going on in my mind. I would never tell it to anyone else, but it just came pouring out of me. Of course, he didn't play fair, and perhaps he had put something in my hot chocolate. He was a doctor after all.

At the end of long and often contradictory outpourings, I found myself staring at him, while he stared back at me, frowning slightly, not as if he were mad at me, but as though trying to solve a problem. "So you came to me over the duel?" he asked.

"I . . . well . . ." I'd thought I had. "The duel made me realize I should come to you. Kit told me to come to you if there was something I didn't want to discuss with his father, and today of all days . . ."

"Would be a very bad day to discuss duels with Jean Denovo?" He nodded. "Probably, though you realize that there are only about two hundred ELFed families—or at least ELFed for energy collection—and therefore everyone knows everyone else. He will hear of your duel challenge."

I thought he would be quite likely to throw me out, then. Father would have, had I got myself in that sort of position. They'd put up with me so long . . . "And of course, once I'm out of Denovo protection," I said. "I will be . . . Everyone can call me a spy or challenge me to duels."

He gave me a very curious look, his dark eyes sparkling under bushy eyebrows. "Eh. Don't jump to conclusions." He paused and looked at his fireplace, which was burning brightly, though it didn't seem to make the room really warm. And I supposed it wasn't a true fireplace—not log burning—because where would Eden find that many logs? If cows were expensive, wouldn't logs be also? "You didn't come to see me because you thought Jean would cast you out, did you?"

I shook my head a little, then shrugged. "I hadn't even thought of that," I confessed. "I haven't been sleeping really well. I worry about where Kit might be . . . what . . . how he'll survive this mess. No. I was worried because I wanted to make sure that Kit wasn't going to pay for . . . that he wasn't going to go further in debt because I kill Joseph Klaavil. And then, you know . . . Kit has kept the man alive all this time, heaven knows why. He could have killed him and paid blood geld, but he keeps saying that Joseph is his parents' only remaining child, and he clearly means that he shouldn't be killed. And now I've challenged him to a duel." I put my face in my hands and moaned as I realized the complete mess I'd made of things. Why did I keep getting myself in these situations that spun out of control?

I thought I heard a chuckle, but he might have been clearing his throat. A hand rested, gently on my head. It should have been creepy, but it wasn't. It should have felt sexual, but it didn't. More a touch of encouragement or benediction.

"Thena," he said. "Listen to me. Not all duels lead to death. You can pick the form of the duel and restrict it to first down. I understand what you mean about Christopher wanting the creature kept alive, though I can't say I understand it. What I can't quite make out is why you think that they would make Kit pay blood geld. Surely you understand that if a death occurs in a fair duel there is no blood geld due?"

I groaned again, deep in my throat, and I looked up at him, above my fingers. "That is the problem," I said. "Fair duel."

"Uh?" His bushy eyebrows climbed his wrinkled forehead. "I don't understand. Are you
planning
to cheat?"

I removed my hands completely. "No. It's one of those things . . . like, like the mind talk. When I'm pushed, or scared, or angry, I go . . . faster than normal humans. I don't know how else to explain it."

"Hysterical speed?" He asked. "It happens, like hysterical strength, you know, and it doesn't mean you're that much faster than normal, just that your senses give you the impression that other people have slowed down."

"No. Not that. I can
almost
match Kit. Not quite, but close enough. Sometimes, you know, I almost catch him . . . though he usually ends up catching my ankle and I usually end up with my ass on the floor, but . . ."

The doctor grinned as though all of this made a lot of sense, and said, under his breath, "If I were a hundred again . . ." Then cleared his throat. "Uh . . . Are you sure it's not your perception? Or that Christopher isn't pulling punches?"

I told him about trying to garrotte Kit, about our fights in the Cathouse, when we'd first met, and then about our training fights. I expected him to be horrified, but he looked hugely amused, an almost maniac grin pasted on his face. "I see," he said, at last. "Yes, if it's that obvious, you could end up having to pay blood geld. It would be assumed you had been elfed to an unfair advantage over him." He collected my cup, refilled it and came back, this time with a deep, rounded glass of something amber, for himself. "Well . . . You are going to have to meet him, you know? Now that you've challenged him, you simply have to. And if you don't fight to the death, but only to first down, you have . . . Well . . . They might still accuse you of assault, though everyone knows he's been pursuing Christopher and trying to kill him, so you'd think . . ." He looked at me. "No, that won't do, will it?" He sipped his drink. "They'll find a way to blame it on you, and, by extension on Christopher."

"They said I attacked him," I said, sullenly. "Out of the blue. I'm sleep deprived, but I don't think I am that sleep deprived. I would remember."

"Likely." The doctor sipped again, then brought the drink down, sparkling like a golden jewel between his gnarled hands. The reddish flames or pseudo flames brought out deep tones in the amber liquid. He sighed. "The problem with all this is Christopher's . . . ancestry. He told you?"

I blinked up at him. "That his biological father killed his mother, then himself? Yeah, he told me," I allowed derision into my voice. "I know Edenites like to think that Earthers are barbarians, but even we aren't stupid enough to think genetic predisposition is destiny."

He stayed quiet a long time, and pressed his lips together in a way that made me wonder if he was offended at me for saying that about Eden. But I'd be damned if I was going to apologize. Edenites had made Kit's life a living hell all over a stupid thing that he could not have helped.

At length Doc Bartolomeu said, "Ah." He sighed hugely, as if he'd been keeping from breathing the whole time he was silent, and had now to set the balance. "Is that what he told you?"

"He . . ." I took a deep breath. "Are you implying he lied?" I had been in Kit's mind. I had the feel of him, if not all the details, and I was sure, if I was sure of anything, that Kit was not casually untruthful.

"Oh, he's not lying. His biological Father—for a given value of father—did kill his mother—for a given value of mother—and then himself. But that's not the worst—or the least of the rumors that people spread about Christopher. And none of it is as bad as the reality."

I have no excuse, except that I hadn't slept in almost a week, or not more than an hour or so a night. I found I'd got up and set the cup on the chair—of all places—somehow managing not to spill any of the rich liquid within.

I stood beside the chair, my hand on the arm, swaying slightly, because I was that tired. "I thank you," I said, politely, in my best patrician manner. "I thank you for the hot chocolate, I know it's expensive, and I want to thank you for the explanation you meant to give me, I know you mean well, but I truly don't think you can help me, and I don't see what can be served by my sitting here and listening to . . . calumnies."

He didn't move. For a moment, he just looked at me, his face as close to blank as he could get it, but then the wrinkles rearranged into an ironical smile, and the dark eyes sparkled. "Indeed," he said. "If I were standing would you be trying to kick me in the testicles."

I clenched my hands together, tightly, till the nails bit into the palm. I bit my lip but I couldn't bite it hard enough to keep the words in, "You are old," I said, carefully. "I don't fight with elderly people."

"Oh, honey, don't let that disturb you," he said, and cackled, a short, immensely amused cackle. "I will probably outlive you by a hundred years." But then his face went grave and he wrinkled his eyebrow and looked attentively up at my face. "Or perhaps not. You do look an awful lot like my old friend. Though if they managed that . . ." He lapsed into silence.

He was old. He was wandering in his mind. I would not throw a fit because an elderly man was confused. But I was also not in the mood to sit here and listen to him tell me that Kit was . . . what? Something terrible, he'd implied. "I'll be going to the Denovo compound," I said. "I'm sure I'll figure out a way . . . I'll just have a non killing duel with—"

"Sit down!"

No one spoke to me like that. No one. I started towards the door.

Behind me I heard an annoyed huff, like the not-quite sneeze a cat does when tempted beyond endurance out of the depths of its dignity. I ignored it. He was old. I was not going to fight with him. I was not.

I reached for the door knob. And he was there. Somehow, he was there, in front of the door. "You put something in the hot chocolate!" I said, because that was the only way he could have got there before me. "Only Kit—"

"I put milk, chocolate and a touch of cinnamon in your hot chocolate," he said, grinning. "When you leave I'd like to give you sleeping tablets to take, because you're running on nerves and spit. But I don't give patients anything without their consent. Not unless they're total idiots, and you don't strike me as such."

"Please, let me out," I said, as dignifiedly as I could. So I was so tired, he'd got to the door ahead of me. But that only meant nothing could be gained by continuing this conversation with him.

He cleared his throat and tried to look dignified, which somehow only made him look like an impish gnome. "Patrician Athena Hera Sinistra, would you do me the great honor of returning to your seat, removing the cup of hot chocolate from it, sitting down, and letting me speak to you? I will attempt not to offend your sensibilities—though I can't promise I won't since I'm not sure I fully understand your upbringing." He lowered his eyes, and I was sure it was just to prevent me from seeing the amusement in them, though I had to admit he was trying. "Some of what I have to tell you—and I do believe I have to, since Christopher balked it and you have been dragged into the midst of this unholy mess—will probably shock you and offend you. However, I beg you to believe that I don't mean any form of disparagement to Christopher, whom I consider as an adopted son of sorts. He is, in many ways, admirable, even if he tends to go weak-kneed around women."