Wreck of the Nebula Dream (6 page)

Surprised at himself, Nick wheeled reflexively.
How did I fail to notice I wasn’t alone?
Inattention could get a man killed in his line of work. Lucky for him, attack and assassination were not too probable on this luxury liner.

Despite her alluring voice, his anonymous companion proved to be elderly, her pale white skin translucent. Huge blue eyes glowed in the semidarkness, like a Terran feline’s would. Dressed completely in black, she wore layer upon layer of elegant, expensive black lace to the floor, subtly patterned with tiny diamonds and other gemstones he didn’t recognize. Her left hand was curled tightly around a massive carved ebony walking stick inlaid with silver runes. At its top was an enameled knob, some kind of picture painted in delicate tones on ivory. Her hand obscured the details of the artwork. She was seated on a bench, a shawl lying carelessly draped beside her.

And she was unmistakably a native of the planet Mellure.

Realizing he was staring rudely, Nick belatedly saluted her.

“Very proper, indeed,” she said, with only a simple nod, as befitted her far superior rank in the galactic order of things. “You’ve been to my home world?”

“No, my lady, I was raised from the age of nine at the Star Guard Orphanage, which is visited from time to time by Mellurean consultants.” Nick hesitated. Entranced though he was with the observatory, he didn’t wish to intrude on her. It was folly to intrude on a Mellurean. “I’ll leave you to your contemplations, madame. Unless you’d like me to stand guard while you’re here? Ensure your privacy?”

“Outstandingly proper,” she complimented him again, her voice warmer. “No, stay and enjoy the scene with me.” Patting the empty area of the bench beside her, she moved the shawl aside. It fell to the deck in a shimmering cascade of ebony silk. “You may sit, if you would like.”

Nick walked to her but declined the invitation to sit. Picking up the shawl, he carefully set it on the bench. Standing with his head thrown back, staring up at the astounding array of stars, he chuckled. “Either this ship is wildly off course, or else you’ve been influencing the AI ganglion in charge of this chamber.”

“And why would you make such an accusation?” She tilted her head with the coyness of a woman two-thirds her age and gave him a half smile.

“Because that star is Mellure,” he said, pointing at the brightest light pulsing directly above them, “and her attendant twelve planets. And as they are firmly located in Sector Seven, while we’re cruising through Sector Sixteen, this is not a possibility.”

She laughed outright now, her amusement rich and genuine. “I doubt anyone else would have caught the change. I am Lady Damais Niklaeson.” She introduced herself as if it were a reward for his cleverness. “Yes, I’ve tweaked the stellar display of which SMT is so proud.”

“Captain Nicholas Jameson, Sectors Special Forces, at your service,” he said. “Since there’s nothing to actually see in hyperspace, I don’t think anyone could be much offended by your superior choice of stars and planets for their faux observatory.” Being careful not to exert too much force, Nick took the slender, warm hand she extended to him and shook it. She seemed fragile, not well. Something in the lines of her face hinted at pain held at bay with great deliberation and effort. “Mellure is certainly a beautiful star. Its lavender flares are so rare, indeed, unequalled in the galaxy, as far as I know.”

But when he would have released her hand promptly, as etiquette demanded, her fingers curled around his and she stared up at him. “Nicholas, you say? And I am of the House of Niklaeson.”

“An odd coincidence,” he agreed with a smile.

“Perhaps.” Now she did relinquish his hand, without further comment on their names. “I have a feeling most of the passengers on board this great, racing vessel could care less about the stars we pass on our journey. The AI tells me SMT is already talking of converting this space for the next run, either to expand the casino, or cabins. Something revenue-producing, at any rate. Pity.” She stared wistfully at the representation of her home sun, blazing fiercely above them, as if she could bask in its warmth. Nick saw her shiver slightly, but nevertheless, the elderly woman refused the shawl when he would have draped it over her thin shoulders against the drafts.

“I don’t think SMT quite knows what to do with this ship,” Nick said. He told a fascinated Lady Damais about the half-finished gym on the Fourth Level, and the advertised, but missing, amenities on Level Five. “A bit rushed at completion, I guess. They must have prioritized some things and hoped to satisfy the majority of their passengers.”

“Neither of us is exactly their target demographic, I’m sure.” Damais agreed with his underlying assumption. “Nor are they my choice of companions, either. I venture to assume you feel the same?”

The face of Mara Lyrae flashed through his mind briefly.
She’d be on my short list, my very short list, if I was choosing companions.
Then Nick shook his head ruefully, recognizing the improbability of any further encounters with the elusive Ms. Lyrae. “I’m more used to traveling on a military ship, among my own kind.”

“And I with my own people, when I have to travel at all.”

There was companionable silence for a few minutes.
What could have brought a high-born, elderly Mellurean to this far Sector, alone?
Nick sneaked a sideways look at her, not wishing to seem disrespectful by speaking. Minds of her caliber weren’t often permitted by their people to venture off Mellure unprotected, no matter how high their rank, or how great their age.
 

“And so, what brings you to this time and place?” Damais was quizzing him, fixing her bright blue eyes on his face and tilting her head to the side, coy again.

He knew she could easily read his mind, his deepest thoughts and misgivings, going right past any mental barrier he might attempt, but to do so would be an incredible breach of interstellar etiquette on her part. Mellureans had strict, well-publicized standards of conduct, enforced by treaties.

“I only ask,” she said, “because you remind me of my son, who was also in your Special Forces, in this same Sector.”

“Based on Glideon?” Nick was doubly astounded
. If there’d been a Mellurean operating out of my own headquarters, I’d have known about it
.

“Many, many years ago, yes.” Damais smiled. “I am much older than you gallantly assume. My son was here in the earliest days of the conflict for Sector Seventeen. He was lost on a mission behind the enemy lines.” She glared at him, one hand raised, forestalling any expression of sympathy. “There was a reason for his choosing to go there. My son foresaw he would die, but the cause was worth it, to him.”

“And to you?” Nick asked softly.

There was another moment of silence. Shaking her head, Damais raised her eyes to the glorious stars projected above. “No. I understood his reasons, let me leave it there.”

“Did he accomplish his mission?” Adrenaline pushed through his veins, asking this high-born Mellurean such personal questions, but Nick couldn’t stop himself tonight.
Too much vodka.

“As a matter of fact, he did.” Damais’s voice was low, her face set in serene lines. “I have no other children and my son died childless. The House of Niklaeson ends with me. An ancient, famed line, and we flicker out.”

Licking his dry lips, Nick searched for some words of comfort. “Madame –”

Turning her head, she stared into his eyes, one hand raised a second time to silence him. “No sympathy is required, although I appreciate the thoughts you’re holding.” A slight smile curved the thin lips. “I crave your pardon for reading them. My son died content, having accomplished the purpose for which he fought. I can’t dishonor his sacrifice or his memory by wishing otherwise.” Damais leaned in to study Nick’s face. “I don’t sense the same content in you. Not leaving Sector Sixteen with a calm soul, are you?”

Nick shook his head, now not quite meeting her gaze. He had a flashback to the last minutes of his team’s final mission, waiting for the damn evac ship, praying to the Lords of Space for extraction before the enemy arrived, before his men died, until only he was left, gravely wounded, and working clumsily over the sergeant, trying with his limited knowledge to staunch mortal wounds. Then Nick had been left alone with only the fucking information, the data they’d come to steal. But it wasn’t worth the lives of ten good men, no matter what the psych techs said, trying to convince him he’d made the right choices, done the correct things on their mission behind the enemy lines. Ten men died, he survived, although Nick felt at the core of his being he should have died with his team, or else saved them.
Ten lives wasted, and for what?

“For data, a bunch of scientific formulas to maybe give us a clue how to defeat the enemy,” Nick’s throat was raw, acid-scarred, as he forced the words out, “if the secrets get added to enough other bits and pieces of information more good men and women will exchange their lives for.”

Hearing himself speak out loud, Nick was appalled.
When did I start telling all this to her? Must be more drunk than I realized.
His cheeks were damp, as if tears had been leaking unnoticed from his burning eyes. Embarrassed, dumbfounded at this unprecedented loss of self-discipline and control, he pulled away from Damais’s gentle hold, to stare into her face.

She let him go, but then reached in an oddly maternal gesture to smooth the silent tears from his cheeks. The droplets dried under her fingers as if they’d never been shed.

“I’m sorry, I –” Nick stammered. He stared at the deck, then at Damais, trying to fathom what had happened, what had set him to talking of these subjects.
Damn, the last thing I remember is some comment of hers about leaving the cursed Sector. And then I went off on this riff about the disastrous last mission?
 

“Perhaps now you won’t have nightmares any longer,” was all Damais said, gazing up at the faux stars for a moment. Bending forward, she picked up her cane again with a stiff, painful stretch, folding her hands neatly around the ivory knob. “Good night, Captain.”

I know when I’ve been dismissed
. He stood up and bowed slightly, then walked away down the long, narrow deck of the observatory. Preparing to descend the stairs at the far end, he took a shaky breath and glanced at the slight, dignified figure of the elderly Mellurean. She remained seated, eyes fixed on the vista she had created.
How long was I babbling to her about the mission?
He waited in vain for the immediate stab of pain any thought of his lost team or the botched assignment inevitably brought. The poisonous residue of his team’s last mission had resisted the best efforts of the psych techs to neutralize, yielding instead to a few minutes of individualized concentration from the Mellurean Mind.

Eyes glowing faintly in the dim light, Damais was gazing at him down the length of the observatory deck. She nodded again without smiling.

“I’ll guard the entry, my lady, until you’re ready to leave,” he said.

She laughed – a silvery, sweet sound. Impossibly intoxicating, even when a man knew full well it came from lips wrinkled by more than two centuries of living. “None can bother me here, Captain. None can even enter this place unless I will it. You’re the only person I wished to converse with, and now –”

“Now you’d like to be alone. I get it, madame. Let me bid you good evening, then.” He made her a half bow, oddly pleased with himself that even drunk, he could pull that off without falling down.

She raised one hand casually and let it fall into her lap, as if carried there by the weight of the great gemmed ring she wore, its varied purple and opalescent stones symbolic of the Mellurean sun and planets.

Nick paused, one hand on the door latch.
Damn it, I have to say it, whether she wants to hear it or not.
“Thank you.”

 
“For?”

“Granting me the Peace of Mellure.”

“You are quite like my son.” Closing her eyes, Damais leaned back. “He would have understood your emotions, your experiences. Hearing them was a gift to me, the opening of a window into a world I couldn’t enter, but where he lived. My son shielded parts of his life from me. I don’t think any other person could have shown me this as you did. So, a gift for a gift. Peace for peace. Perhaps my journey to this forsaken Sector served its purpose after all, even if not as I’d intended, or hoped. Those who tried to dissuade me were wrong. Good night, Captain Jameson.”

Realizing he was now totally dismissed and to stay would be truly an unforgivable faux pas, Nick left the observatory and marched through the noisy, crowded casino as if he were in a trance. He walked right past the cabin attendant, Helene, of whom he had been thinking superficially earlier, not noticing her, or anything or anyone else as he sought out his cabin on Level Three. He slept a night without nightmares or any dreams at all for the first time in months.

CHAPTER THREE

Lingering over his synthetic coffee, Nick was staring at the remains of a hearty breakfast the next morning and pondering what to do with his third day on the
Dream
, how to fill the hours. He’d already been to the Fourth Level and used the gym. This morning, neither attendant had been in evidence.
Laid off already? Not likely, not in the middle of a hyperspace run. Maybe reassigned to some other duty.

Nick had foregone the dubious pleasure of a swim on the Fifth Level, even though he was quite sure he’d have had the beach and pool to himself as well, it being far too early for the ‘Lites to be awake, much less at the “beach.”
What I was craving was an anti-grav workout, not swimming.