The door behind him clicked open and someone walked in, their steps swift and light over the floor. Another click signified it shutting again, and was followed by a faint buzz which the deepening shadows helped his brain translate into windows darkening to opaque. Now the only illumination came from the desk lamp. A snap of fingers from behind him caused the head to turn towards him automatically, flooding his eyes with a stark whiteness. He heard the faint whine of lenses as his mechanical right eye tried to compensate, but failed to completely manage it.
Steps again, now moving around behind the light. He squinted, but couldn’t make anything out other than a vague shape. ‘Is this strictly necessary?’ he asked, trying not to sound too plaintive.
‘That depends,’ a voice replied, seemingly from out of the light. ‘It’s not every day a ghost turns up on my doorstep.’ The voice had changed, of course, but he knew it at once.
‘Maiha,’ he said, relief warring with irritation in his tone. ‘I know you didn’t exactly expect to see me, but—’
‘
Shut up
.’
Drift shut up. When handcuffed to a chair with a light shining in your face so you couldn’t see what the other person was doing, compliance was usually a good idea.
‘Gabriel Drake was killed by FAS forces in the Ngwena System,’ the voice of Maiha Takahara continued, a little less harshly but still with an audible edge to it. ‘Everyone knows that. It was well publicised. Yet the man sitting in the chair in front of me looks remarkably like how I think Gabriel Drake would look, if you took away an eye and added a dozen or so years and a fucking stupid haircut.’
Drift winced; he’d forgotten Maiha Takahara’s irrational hatred of people who dyed their hair. Back in his privateer days he’d worn his short, tidy and in his natural black, unlike the violet lengths which straggled down either side of his face now. Besides which, his roots were probably
awful
.
‘So either the FAS are a bunch of incompetent, lying assholes,’ Maiha’s voice said, almost conversationally, ‘or I’ve got a fairly determined and well-informed plant in front of me, pretending to be a dead man who thinks he knew me.’
‘Of those two options, which do you really think is most likely?’ Drift asked earnestly. ‘C’mon Maiha, the FAS were hopeless at dealing with privateers like us; all they could do for years was posture and bullshit. If we hadn’t had it so easy Kelsier wouldn’t have kept his job for half as long. They got their act together in the end, of course, or I bet you’d still be flying around in the
Dead Man’s Hand
terrifying merchants.’
‘Let’s say I believe you’re who you say you are,’
Maiha said after a second. ‘How did you find me?’
‘I promised a favour to Alex Cruz, after calling in the one he owed me from when I saved all your backsides over Tantalus,’ Drift replied promptly. For all he knew Maiha could have contacted her old captain for verification right before this conversation, so it would pay to be truthful.
There was a pause, then an amused snort. ‘Oh Gabriel,’ Maiha Takahara said, her voice no longer containing any hint of hostility, ‘you can’t even try to make this any fun, can you?’
‘
Fun?
’ Drift tried not to grit his teeth. ‘Your goons handcuffed me to a damn chair! How is that fun?’
‘Looks fun from where I’m standing,’ Maiha said.
She clicked her fingers again and the desk lamp returned to its original orientation, casting a subdued light more evenly over the office and bringing her properly into view for the first time.
Alexander Cruz had tried to turn himself into the very image of a professional businessman, but his former first mate had clearly not had the same priorities. Her sleeveless jacket and her trousers were the same navy blue as the guards who’d arrested Drift and his colleagues, but red and golden dragons snaked all over them, matching the inked beasts which crawled up her bare arms to disappear under the short sleeves of her shiny black collared shirt. Her hair was shaved on one side and swept over into a fall of vivid red, with three metal studs set in a line along the length of her skull on the bare side. More metal glinted in her nose, her lips, her ears, at the corners of her eyes and even in the sides of her neck.
‘And you had the cheek to talk about
my
hairstyle!’
Drift said, startled. This was a far cry from the deceptively demure-looking young woman off New Shinjuku whom he’d known over a decade ago. That person was still there in the lines of her face, though; older though she might be, Maiha Takahara’s beauty had matured rather than altered or disappeared. ‘People change,’ Maiha shrugged, ‘some more literally than others. I hadn’t expected you to get a whole new eye, though.’
‘I . . . for crying out loud, why do people always think this is a fashion statement?’ Drift protested. ‘I
lost
it.’
‘Careless,’ Maiha tutted. She made her way around the desk and leaned down in front of him. ‘This doesn’t suit you, by the way.’ She reached out and untied the scarf around his neck, then pulled it away.
Drift winced slightly, the soft rasp of the fabric enough to make the bruises left by Apirana’s fingers flare up, and Maiha whistled in surprise. ‘Well now, someone’s been a bit rough with you, haven’t they?’ She started refastening the scarf around her own neck, apparently absent-mindedly.
‘Maiha,’ Drift said, struggling to keep his voice level, ‘could you uncuff me, please?’
‘Why?’ Maiha asked. She sat down on the edge of her desk, shrugged out of her sleeveless uniform jacket and threw it casually onto the back of her office chair, which Drift couldn’t help but notice was rather better-padded than the one he was restricted to. ‘Were you planning on going somewhere? I thought you told Hawkins you wanted to make a social call on me.’
‘Well, yes,’ Drift agreed, ‘but—’
‘You hardly need your hands free to talk,’ Maiha pointed out, playing with the end of the scarf. ‘Of course, Hawkins also said that you’d asked to see Nana . . . and that you asked that before you asked to see me. So maybe you only wanted to see me in case I could get you in to see Nana before next week?’
She looked up at him. ‘Is that it?’
‘I’d certainly be grateful if you could organise anything like that,’ Drift admitted. There was no point lying in this situation. ‘I do need to see Nana as soon as possible, because some associates of mine need some information I think she can provide. Once that’s out of the way, though . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Believe it or not, I actually would be interested in having a catch-up with you.’
‘I don’t believe you, as it happens,’ Maiha said firmly. ‘I mean, let’s be honest, you and I were never exactly
close
, were we? We exchanged more bodily fluids than pleasantries.’
‘Well, we didn’t have much of a chance,’ Drift pointed out. ‘You’d have been in trouble if Cruz ever found out what we were doing, so we couldn’t exactly be friendly where everyone could see. And when anyone couldn’t see, well,’ he shrugged, ‘we had better things to be doing.’
‘True.’ Maiha gave a throaty chuckle. ‘Remember the time we did it in his cabin?’
Drift laughed despite himself. ‘I nearly wet myself trying not to laugh in front of him when he asked if I remembered you. Egotistic little bastard had no idea what was going on, did he?’
‘Not a clue,’ Maiha agreed. ‘I thought he’d rumbled us that time in the engine room when we were berthed on Amina IV, when I came out and walked right into him. But he believed me when I said I was sweating so hard because I’d been . . . hell, I can’t remember what I said, I made up some sort of mechanical jargon and hoped. He never knew what half the parts of a ship were anyway, let alone which ones were big or heavy.’
‘That was not, I have to say, one of your better choices of venue,’ Drift informed her dryly. ‘Too much cold metal.’
‘You don’t like cold metal?’ Maiha said in mockastonishment. ‘That’s a shame, given where you’re sitting now.’ She rose to her feet again and shrugged her shoulders, and her shirt slipped down her arms to the floor.
What the hell? When did she undo that?
Then Drift’s brain caught up with his eyes, which were focusing on the dragon tattoos winding down Maiha’s ribs and across her belly, and the glint of metal in her naval and through each nipple.
Oh.
Maiha’s body had altered in other ways besides the addition of piercings and ink, but her belly’s softening had brought with it a heavier swell in her breasts and a pleasing curve to her behind which had been absent from the stick-limbed, athletic frame of her youth.
‘Captain Takahara,’ he said, determined not to be struck dumb by what really shouldn’t have been that unexpected a turn of events, given their history, ‘are you trying to seduce me?’
‘
Trying?
’ Maiha snorted with laughter, then reached down and grabbed his crotch. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Gabriel; your cock’s the only part of you which has never lied . . . and yes, I seem to have its attention.’
She straightened up again and placed her thumbs in the waistband of her trousers, then started to draw them downwards. The desk lamp behind her cast deep shadows beneath her hip bones as they surfaced.
Drift found his throat dry.
‘I’ll get you in to see Nana,’ Maiha said, almost absently, ‘because I
did
always like you, but you have to tell me what you’re going to ask her first.’
‘Deal,’ Drift said instantly, trying and failing to tear his gaze from the fabric descending over her smooth curves. Her thumbs slid past a thin line of black cloth on either side of her body, leaving them in place as her trousers continued their path downwards.
Underwear?! Goddamnit, she never
used
to wear underwear . . .
‘But you won’t get to see her for an hour or so anyway, no matter what I do, so you’ve got a bit of time to kill,’ Maiha continued. The delicate black scrap of her underwear remained anchored between her legs, which now came into sight as she bent over in front of him, hair falling to cover her face and affording him a view of her back for the first time: more dragons, running red and gold across the faint bumps of her spine. She straightened again, kicking her trousers away: he dimly noticed that she was barefoot, but couldn’t have said at what point she’d removed her shoes, or even be certain that she’d been wearing any in the first place. His concentration was not what it sometimes was.
‘So,’ Maiha said, straddling his legs and sitting down, warm on his thighs but out of his reach, ‘what do you want to do?’
Drift managed to work some moisture into his mouth. ‘Is this some sort of . . . test?’
‘Test?’ Maiha sniggered, the motion causing interesting movements in her chest. ‘Hell no. This is me being horny and you still being pretty, even with a few lines on your face and that metal eye. I’m just having fun seeing how long it takes before you’re incapable of forming words.’
‘Let me out of these,’ Drift challenged her, rattling his restraints and forcing himself to look her in the eyes. ‘I reckon I can still make you forget how to speak.’
‘Promises, promises,’ Maiha laughed. ‘But I’m not a foolish young girl anymore, Mr Drake. I know better than to uncuff the most notorious pirate in the galaxy. No, you’ll have to do without your hands this time around.’ She quirked an eyebrow. ‘Maybe after you’ve got your answer from Nana we can see how you do on a fair footing.’
‘Fine, then,’ Drift managed. ‘But there’s one thing.’
‘Mmm?’ Maiha picked up the end of the scarf which was still around her neck and drew it slowly across his face.
‘My crew,’ Drift said as firmly as he could. ‘You’ve got two of them locked up, I imagine. Now you’re satisfied I’m not an imposter I’d like you to let them out, please.’
Maiha’s eyes took on the sort of intensity Drift had always imagined was only possessed by industrial welding lasers in orbital shipyards. ‘
Excuse
me?’ Drift raised his eyebrows in response. ‘Did I stutter?’
‘You’ve got a naked woman sitting on your lap—’
‘Actually, you’re not
technically
naked ye—’
‘—and you’re thinking about your
crew
?’ Maiha frowned. ‘The only crew you used to care about were the ones you were planning on sleeping with, and even then “care” is a strong term for it. I’m starting to wonder if you might not be an imposter after all.
Unless you’ve decided you prefer men these days.’
Her eyes widened suddenly. ‘Is that it, you’ve taken up with the beefcake I saw out there? I like the big guy’s tattoos, actually; he’s Maori, right? And the other one’s
very
pretty.’
Her tone was jokingly severe, but Drift could tell it was a double bluff of sorts; she was genuinely offended that he’d been able to turn his thoughts to his crew with her on his lap. In truth, he was somewhat astonished himself.
‘Mai,’ he said carefully, ‘this is just business before pleasure, that’s all.’
‘You
have
changed.’
‘Yeah, I grew some loyalty and a conscience.’ He frowned. ‘Hang on a second. You think Micah’s
pretty
?’
‘Is that his name?’ Maiha asked casually. ‘Ooh,
yes
.
I have to wonder what I’m doing here with you actually, I imagine he might be more welcoming . . .’ Drift gritted his teeth and tried to persuade himself that he was doing the right thing. Certain parts of him remained unconvinced. ‘Mai, they’re both members of my crew, and I owe them.’
And I
really
need to keep on their good sides.
‘You and I can have as much fun as you want, or . . .’ He gritted his teeth. ‘Or you can go and find Micah, if that’s what appeals to you. But it wouldn’t be right for me to leave them locked up.’
Maiha’s face had taken on an odd expression, and one that Drift was unfamiliar with. She studied him for a few seconds, then pursed her lips. ‘Stars above, you’re actually serious, aren’t you?’
He nodded.
She sighed. ‘Fine.’ Her eyes rolled upwards for a second, as though trying to perform complicated mathematics in her head, then she focused on him again. ‘It’s done.’
Drift frowned. ‘Just like that?’
‘Skull chip,’ Maiha grinned at him, tapping one of her cranial studs. ‘This pretty little head of mine is full of surprises. It’s not like I can do anything really complex, but flashing up an “all clear” alert on a containment cell, locking or unlocking doors, sounding or silencing alarms . . .’