Ghost Ship (13 page)

The cool blue gaze brushed Miri’s face, then Val Con’s. She got the impression that Clarence was amused.

“Met your boy, o’ course.” Clarence nodded, cordial as you’d like. “Good to see you again, Pilot.”

“Pilot O’Berin,” Val Con answered, stiff.

There was a pause, getting too long, with the whole family waiting to see how this was going to play. Miri went half a step forward, and stuck her hand out.

“Miri Robertson, half a delm.”

Clarence O’Berin smiled, which did interesting things to his face, and met her hand. His was hard and warm, calloused where a man who handled a gun as a daily exercise would have callouses.

“Missus. It’s pleased I am to meet you.” The lilt hadn’t been so pronounced a heartbeat before. Miri figured she was being charmed, and gave him a grin to show she appreciated his effort.

“Pilot O’Berin,” Val Con said. “Is there a reason why you have come to us?”

“In fact, there is,” Clarence said, letting Miri’s hand go, and turning to face her lifemate. “Thing is, I hadn’t meant to intrude on a family party. I can come back later, if it’s allowed, or meet someone down port.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Like old times.”

“Perhaps that would be—”

“Rude,” Miri interrupted, and looked up at him, widening her eyes innocently. “Be a shame to send the man away when he’s come so far to talk to us—and up bad road, too,” she said, resisting an urge to stamp on his foot. “We got room to put up a friend of Daav’s for the night.”

Val Con’s mouth tightened, but he bowed his head. Taking it, but not liking it.

“As you have noticed,” he said to Clarence, “we are in process here. Please allow Mr. pel’Kana to escort you to a guesting room, and do not hesitate to call upon the House for anything you might find needful.”

It was well said, Miri thought, but it cost him. And unless she was misreading him something bad, there was gonna be some more things said, when they were alone. That was fine; she had a couple points of discussion, herself.

“Let me see you safely into the hands of our butler,” Daav said smoothly, taking his friend’s elbow and turning him toward the door. “We’ll talk, later.”

The door closed behind them, and Miri felt the tension in the room plummet.

She took a breath and grinned up at Val Con, who shook his head, and murmured, for her ears alone, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

THIRTEEN

Jelaza Kazone

Surebleak

“Miri, do you know who Clarence O’Berin is?”

Val Con’s voice was a little sharper than natural curiosity might allow for. Miri finished belting her made-new-for-Surebleak fleece robe around her before she looked over to where he leaned in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Sure I do,” she said, keeping her voice mild. “He’s a friend of Daav’s. Looked real happy to see each other, didn’t they?”

Val Con sighed.

“Clarence O’Berin,” he said, still sharper than was strictly welcome in the bedroom, “is the Juntavas Boss on Liad.”

Well, that explained the degree of his upset, anyhow. Korval had a long history of avoiding that particular galaxy-spanning organization of high and low crime. Until Pat Rin went and married himself a Judge, that was. But still . . .

“No, he ain’t,” she said.

She sat down at the dressing table, and reached up to unpin her braid. In the mirror, she saw Val Con frown. “Man said he was retired—you heard him.”

“Miri—”

“Not only that,” she interrupted. “Natesa vouched for him—damn near threw herself in front of him, didn’t she?” She lifted her chin, meeting his reflected glare. “Speaking of which, you’re developing a bad habit.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Am I, indeed?”

From sharp to hard polite in one sentence. Way to manage it, Robertson.

Well-managed or not, she’d taken her first shot. Now all she had to do was win the battle.

“Yeah, you are,” she said, pulling the braid over her shoulder and beginning to unweave it. “I figure we better fix it now, while it’s still fresh, better’n let it set.”

She took a breath, and rapped out, hard and fast, “Since when do you need to get between me and what might have teeth?”

“I have a certain obligation, I think, to my lifemate and to my heir.”

The ambient temperature was falling fast. She could feel the gnaw of his worry just as vivid as if it was hers. Funny thing being, she
wasn’t
worried about one Clarence O’Berin, retired Juntavas Boss, sleeping under the same roof with all the kinfolk. Stood to reason that a man that dangerous was housebroken.

And there was more than one dangerous person asleep or awake at Jelaza Kazone this evening—including the man presently a little out of temper with her.

Miri summoned a frown of her own.

“Think again,” she told him. “And while you’re thinking, let me rephrase that question—since when do you need to get between me and
any
thing? We’re
partners
—or we were, up until real recent. What changed when we came down to Surebleak, that you gotta cover for us both? If I’m giving you cause for worry,
partner
, sing out. In the meanwhile, I’ll just ask which one of us gave the other one an Yxtrang—and didn’t think there was a problem about that?”

That last one—that was a foul. Necessity’d been, and Val Con had only done what he had to, to move a man out of a life that was killing him, and give him a chance at another one.

Across the room, she felt him shiver. He closed his eyes and didn’t say anything.

Dammit, Robertson, when you gonna learn?

She got up and went over to him, reaching up to stroke the hair off his forehead.

“And
was right
?” she murmured. “You got my back, I got yours—that’s an even proposition and it ain’t changing.”

She laughed softly and leaned against him. After a couple breaths, his arms came ’round her and pulled her in close.

“Might be the only thing that’s
not
changing,” she continued, closing her eyes, and nestling her cheek against his shoulder. “Juntavas is changing; Scouts are; Liad’s got changes coming it ain’t even thought of yet, not to mention Surebleak, which didn’t ask for none of it.”

“Collateral damage,” Val Con murmured.

Miri moved her head. “Innocent bystanders. And us—we already changed—the two of us and both together—and now we gotta change some more.”

“Must we?” he asked, and she felt him put his cheek against her hair.

“I can’t see any way out of it, if we’re gonna do what we said we’d do. Right up front, we’re gonna hafta stop thinking that surviving ’til lunchtime is a long-term plan.”

He laughed, softly. “Until dinner, then?”

“It’s a start,” she said. “Little steps, just at first. ’Til we get used to the idea.”

He didn’t say anything, but she caught the gleam of the Rainbow out of the corner of her thought, like a shadow seen on the edge of the eye, and felt him relax out of his snit.

“So,” she murmured, “Daav’ll talk to Clarence, like he said, and if it’s something we need to hear, we’ll hear it, and if not, not. You might not’ve noticed, but your father isn’t exactly a dummy.”

She felt the laugh shiver through him.

“I had noticed something of the sort,” he murmured.

“So you’re not a dummy, too. Must run in the family. Now, I need you to do something.”

Val Con lifted his head and looked down at her, green eyes glinting amusement.

“And what is that?”

“Kiss me.”

- - - - -

Tag and follow.

Osa pel’Naria, pilot-operative, touched her screen and was very soon in possession of all available facts regarding a vessel long of interest to the Department, lately seen at Gondola.

She leaned to the board, opened an underband, entered a code, and was in contact with the tracking device.

In Jump; destination filed at last port—Ploster.

Well enough; there was assistance on Ploster, should she require it.

Would
she require it—that was the question.

She tapped the screen for more information on the pilot—one Theo Waitley, new-made First Class.

Pilot-operative pel’Naria smiled.

- - - - -

“Remarried?” Clarence laughed deep in his chest and shook his head. “Not me, laddie.” He sipped, giving the wine its due, and Daav did the same. They were in the chamber that had been given to the guest’s use; two old men talking over their wine, catching up on twenty Standards.

“And yourself?” Clarence murmured.

Daav lowered his glass, questing gently. Clarence had been a favorite of Aelliana’s; it seemed . . . unlike her not to come forward to greet him. Yet to his senses, she was absent. Entirely absent.

“In fact, I entered into an arrangement, which supported me for many years,” he said. “From that alliance comes a daughter, newly possessed of a jacket, and with a courier contract in hand.”

“No worries there,” Clarence observed dryly.

Daav laughed.

“Well . . .” The other man shook his head. “I’m thinking you had the right of it, there—and no disrespect to her memory. It does something to you, being your own and only best friend. I’m on the way to deciding that it’s nothing good.”

He sipped his wine, and gave Daav a smile that was not . . . wholly convincing.

“So, tell me about this daughter of yours.”

“She’s had a slower start of it than she might have, had she come to the clan at birth, but it’s my opinion that she’ll be a pilot to behold.” Daav sipped his wine and produced a smile of his own. “That may, of course, merely be the doting father speaking. Val Con gives it as his opinion that she is too timid to be of the Line.”

“Who to know better?” the other man asked, though with an air of not requiring an answer. He gave Daav a glance from blue eyes. “The boy learned his ways from his foster-da. We were cordial, the few times we met to do business, but he had the difference in our stations at the front of his head when we did.” He grinned. “Herself keeps him on mark, does she?”

“I believe she considers it a lifework. She may be correct; even for one as well-credentialed as she.”

“Merc captain is what I read,” Clarence murmured, “brought a brace o’ Yxtrang into service with the Dragon.”

“No, you wrong her. The first Yxtrang may squarely be laid at Val Con’s door.”

“Is that a fact? And the other two—I think it was two more?”

“If you must have it, those were my fault.”

Clarence threw back his head and laughed.

“Between the pair of you, the captain might decide she’d rather the mercs.”

“I live in fear of just such a decision,” Daav told him earnestly. “Though her attachment to one’s regrettable heir seems firm.”

“Got that. Ready to fetch him a smart box on the ear, is how I read it, and he bowed to it.”

“He does,” Daav murmured, “have a good deal of sense. Eventually.”

“Well,” Clarence said comfortably, “they’re young, the two of them.”

They sipped wine in companionable silence, and Daav refreshed the glasses.

“If it can be told, what brings you to us, with only an old pass-code between yourself and harm?”

“Truth told, it was you I’d come for, and I’d’ve sent word, had I any notion the whole clan was to hand.” He looked at Daav earnestly. “It’s not a firm faith, you understand me, in the old codes. More on the order of a wishfulness.”

“I understand,” Daav assured him. “Though I’m scarcely of note anymore, having lived retired for so long.”

Clarence laughed. “Oh, so you did! So you did! And when you gave over rusticating, what must ye do than take on a whole invasion force and win Nev’Lorn Station free?” He shook his head, abruptly sober.

“What I thought you might like to know is that someone’s taken a pet. One of my previous young ’uns come to me with a story—funny story, she had it, and so it was.” He tipped his glass at Daav.

“Happens someone came to the Juntavas, offering contract and good, hard cantra for a hit on
Ride the Luck
.”

He lowered his glass.

Daav sat very still, suddenly feeling the full weight of Aelliana’s attention.

“Happens the prospective client was someone the Juntavas don’t deal with, now that they’re known,” Clarence continued, “so they went away. To the next likely taker.”

“Well.” Daav sipped his wine, buying a moment in case she wanted to speak—but it seemed his lifemate was content to listen.

“Korval does appear to have made an enemy or two,” he said to Clarence. “The Department of the Interior was . . . rather a larger enterprise than even its operatives had guessed.”

The other man nodded.

“This news doesn’t take ye by surprise, necessarily.”

“That they’ve targeted
The Luck
particularly, rather than—or in addition to—Korval entire is . . . interesting. One wonders if we have someone acting off of initiative. But in the end—Korval is hunted, my friend.”

“And has been, this while.” Clarence sighed. “It’s bothered me, that it happened on my port.”

Aelliana moved nearer. “Not your fault,” she said, using Daav’s voice. “Clarence, they eluded everyone.”

“So they did, but—” He shook his head, and repeated it, “But.”

“I wonder,” Daav said, when it seemed clear that neither Aelliana nor their guest was going to speak again, “what your retirement plans are? As I understand it, you gave notice well before Korval was banned from the homeworld, for acts of aggression and piracy.”

“So I did.” Clarence sighed. “My initial plan had been to offer as courier—not, you understand, to the Juntavas; they had what they’d paid me for, and then some, laddie. I was after honest work, if you’ll do me the kindness of not laughing, and found I was too old to be honest.”

He set his glass aside, and glanced wryly to Daav’s face. “Nobody honest wants to hire a courier who barely clocked enough flight time to keep his card, never mind one who’s old enough to be your grandda.

“If you want the unvarnished truth, I was in a fair way to not knowing
what
to do with myself, when your boy did me the favor of blowing a hole in downtown Solcintra, and taking Korval to a better place. I said to myself, ‘Clarence, laddie, there might be opportunity on Surebleak, and those who are so needful of a pilot that they’re willing to squint at the credentials.’ ”