LC01 Sweet Starfire Read online

  “I can see there is more to the game than I had realized,” she conceded graciously as Severance scooped up the last of her chips. “You play it very well, Severance. I’m afraid I made the winning quite easy for you.”

  “Like taking nectar from a Saint,” he agreed, laconically returning the cubes into their container. “That’s enough for now.” He picked up a bottle of ale and poured yet another measure into his mug.

  Dubiously Cidra watched the process. “Yes,” she said. “Enough for now. If you will excuse me, I think I will read for a while.”

  “Suit yourself.” Severance picked up his mug and went forward to drape himself in the pilot’s seat. He dimmed the cabin lights and leaned back, mug in hand, to stare out into the endless night that surrounded the ship. Fred clung to his shoulder perch, continuing to doze. Cidra had the feeling that the little rockrug had spent many hours in this way. The runs to Renaissance, QED, and Lovelady were long, and the supply of ale on board was extensive.

  Quietly Cidra prepared for bed and climbed up into her bunk with a book in hand. With the aid of the small fluoroquartz reading chip she had brought, she bent her attention to an analysis of a chapter of Argent’s The Role of Ritual. The familiar passages were still an intellectual challenge to the most expert philosophers of Clementia. Deliberately Cidra lost herself in the deceptively simple writing.

  A while later when she finally grew tired and put away her reading, she saw that Severance was still sitting in the command seat, mug in hand, stargazing.

  The next three ship days passed in similar fashion as they settled into a routine that, while not always meeting Cidra’s approval, was reasonably bearable.

  She worked on Severance’s computer for a good portion of each arbitrarily designated day-night cycle. Cidra also set aside a certain amount of time to devote to her Moonlight and Mirrors exercise. It was impossible to find sufficient room to develop the full patterns, but she did enough to satisfy herself that she was keeping her body in shape.

  Severance’s own physical routine consisted of a harsh workout on a compact exercise machine he’d had installed in the bulkhead wall near the cargo bay. It seemed to Cidra that the sweat he worked up during the hour he spent on the machine was excessive. After the workouts she was vividly aware of the rivulets of moisture that trickled down through the hair on his bare chest. His sleek shoulders gleamed wetly, and she could not seem to take her gaze away from the strong contours of his back and the flat, hard planes of his stomach. The scent of his perspiring body would be strong in her nostrils before he stepped into the lav.

  After the second such workout in a one-day cycle, Cidra tentatively mentioned the scientific fact that there was a point of diminishing returns in exercise. One session a day on the sophisticated machine should be quite sufficient. Severance responded with a short, blunt splash of temper that left Cidra determined to keep her mouth shut on the subject of exercise. He continued to work out two or three times a day.

  After the evening meal Cidra indulged Severance with a couple of games of Free Market. He still won every time, but her stacks of sardite chips disappeared more slowly with each new game. She was getting better, Cidra thought, and was surprised to find satisfaction in that knowledge. When the games were finished, she climbed into her bunk to read, leaving Severance to his lonely vigil in the pilot’s seat. She was usually asleep before he finally dropped into his own bunk.

  On the morning of the fourth day in space, Severance revealed an interest in something other than exercise and his embryonic business programs. Cidra had spent two hours experimenting with management theory designs, using the computer to do long-range projections and then carefully varying certain factors such as fuel cost and employee problems. Severance had been intently peering over her shoulder as usual most of the morning but was now gone. She hadn’t noticed when he’d vanished. After running the fourth viable change in the design Cidra decided she needed a break.

  She turned in her seat to find Severance sitting at the command console, a diazite globe in front of him.

  “What have you got there?” Rising and stretching, Cidra wandered over to look down into the clear ball between his hands. There was a complex little panel built into the base of the globe. She recognized the object just as Severance answered her.

  “A light-painting globe.” He did something to the panel, and instantly the inside of the diazite ball began to shimmer.

  Cidra leaned closer in pleasurable anticipation. There were many fine light-painters in Clementia. “Let’s see what you’ve got stored.”

  “Not much,” Severance said coolly. “I rarely record my work. I’m not that good a painter. It’s just something I do to pass the time on board.”

  “What are you going to work on now?”

  “I don’t know yet. Just thought I’d take a break from watching you run variables.” He hunched over the globe as he began to work the controls on the panel. A band of black light appeared inside the diazite, narrowing and changing color as Severance manipulated the controls.

  Cidra watched in fascination as the black band became a thin, gray-brown sliver of light. The sliver crinkled into a jagged shape that reminded her of mountains seen from a distance. With a patience that astounded Cidra, Severance called up a new band of color, this one faintly orange, and slowly worked it into the landscape.

  “Did anyone ever tell you it’s hard to work with someone looking over your shoulder?” Severance asked mildly.

  “You’ve been looking over my shoulder for four days.” But he had succeeded in making her feel awkward, as well as annoyed. Cidra went back to the computer. It irritated her whenever Severance provoked a retort or an act of rudeness from her. She should be above that sort of behavior.

  During the next few hours she sneaked side glances at the strange landscape forming inside the light-painting globe. She had seen master light-painters at work. The best were usually Harmonics, and the results of their creations were commonplace in Clementia. But the modern schools of light-painting tended to be abstract swirls of color and light blended with infinite care. Most professional light-painters avoided creating exact duplications of scenes from real life. They concentrated instead on prompting an intellectual or emotional response from the viewer with complex, intriguing patterns. The degree of excellence achieved was usually measured by the variety of responses elicited.

  But the landscape forming inside Severance’s globe was definitely representational. There was nothing abstract about it, Cidra thought as the painting drew more and more of her attention. In fact, it was almost too real.

  Inside the globe a brutal landscape of a barren world was emerging. An appallingly desolate expanse of red-orange terrain swept toward distant gray mountains. It was clear that the mountains offered no hope of relief from the barren plains, no promise of vegetation or water, only more endless desolation. The land looked as if it suffered from far too much heat, yet there was a strangely chilled feeling to the scene. Harsh, dry, endless, the landscape provoked no pleasure. Yet Cidra found it harder and harder to look away from it.

  “Is it a QED scene?” she asked quietly after a long time. Severance didn’t look up. “Yeah.”

  “It looks different in your painting than it does in the holotapes I’ve seen,” she ventured, trying to understand herself why that should be so. On the surface Severance’s painting looked to be a highly accurate representation of a landscape. But she had seen plenty of shots of QED’s empty lands and unforested mountains. None of them had made her uneasy the way this light-painting did.

  “This is the way it looks to me.”

  Cidra slipped out of her chair and edged closer. `Have you spent a lot of time there?”

  “No more than I can help.” Severance straightened, staring down into his creation. He studied it for a moment, and his hand moved briefly on the control panel. The globe shimmered and emptied.

  “You didn’t save it!” Involuntarily Cidra reached out to catch his fingers,
but the damage was done. The painting had disappeared but not into the memory bank of the light-painting globe. It could never be recalled now. She felt his scarred hand under her palm and hastily withdrew her own hand.

  “I told you, I don’t save much of my work. It’s just a hobby” Severance shut down the globe and stood up to replace the painting machine in a storage bin.

  “It’s more than a hobby. You have real talent, Severance. I’ve never seen anything quite like that.”

  He braced himself with one hand against the bin he had just closed and eyed her steadily. “You like art?”

  “Well, doesn’t everyone?”

  He nodded thoughtfully, appearing to come to a decision. “I’ll show you some real art.” He paced back to his bunk and went down on one knee to reach into the storage bin underneath.

  Cidra watched with interest as he withdrew the metal container she had spotted her first evening on board. A part of her sensed that she was about to see something very personal, something very important to Severance. In spite of her earlier curiosity about the contents of the box, she was suddenly a little uncertain. She moved a hand instinctively, on the verge of telling Severance that she didn’t need to see what was in the container. But it was too late. He had already opened it.

  Cidra went toward him slowly, half afraid. Then she caught a glimpse and relaxed with a pleased smile, feeling her mood lighten instantly. Not an uncommon occurrence for viewers of the sort of objects housed in the box. The small carvings often had that effect.

  “Laughing Gods! They’re wonderful, aren’t they? Don’t tell me you collect them, Teague Severance. Not after all those disdainful comments you made about leftover Ghost junk.” She grinned at him and reached down to pick up one of the exquisitely carved stones.

  The object was about the size of her hand and seemed to smile up at her as it lay in her palm, inviting her to smile back. The strangely compelling expression etched into the stone was eons old. No one had yet succeeded in dating the Laughing Gods with any real accuracy. The stone from which they were made was as old as Lovelady and Renaissance. For that matter, no one knew if the creatures were even supposed to represent Ghost gods. Some theories held that the carving might represent individual Ghosts themselves. If that was the case, they had been a very beautiful people, even though they appeared intriguingly alien to human eyes.

  Cidra turned the carving over in her hand, admiring the wide, slanting eyes, the vaguely feline profile with its delicate but obviously sensitive nose, lips, and ears. It was difficult to tell what the body was like, because in all the carvings she had seen the Gods wore intricately designed clothing that seemed to float around a slender frame.

  It was the smile that bridged the gap between human and alien. The lingering, utterly charming, endearing smile gleamed in the eyes and shaped the full-lipped mouths. There was a subtle, warm laughter in that expression, and on some gut level humans knew that any species that had laughed like that had to be a species with whom communication would have been possible. If the Ghosts had survived and if these carvings were, indeed, representative of them, there could have been contact and perhaps understanding.

  “So you don’t consider all Ghost finds as garbage, hmm, Severance?” Cidra laughed, handing back the carving she held. “When did you start this collection?”

  His expression was unreadable as he stayed on one knee beside the container. “I didn’t start it. My brother did. I hung on to it after he died. Once in a while, when I find a good addition, I pick it up.”

  “I see.” She sensed that she had trespassed again, but this time she didn’t feel embarrassed or guilty. Severance had more or less invited the conversation. Cidra also sensed a new ambivalence in him, as if a part of him wanted to go on talking about his brother, but another, more dominant, part forbade such openness. She was trying to pick her way through the uncertain situation, wondering if she should ask about his brother, when Severance closed the container without any warning. Cidra blurted out her question.

  “When did your brother die?”

  “Two years ago.”

  Intuition made Cidra ask, “On QED?”

  Severance shot her a hard look as he rose to his feet. “How did you know?”

  She bit her lip. “Something about the light-painting led you to mention the Laughing Gods. Opening the container made you mention your brother.”

  “Is that a fact? Real Harmonic intuition at work, I imagine.” Cidra flushed, but her eyes were steady. “I’m sorry, Severance.”

  “Don’t be. Did your brilliant Harmonic intuition tell you anything else? Like how my brother died?”

  “No, of course not. Please, Severance. I meant no rudeness.” She bowed her head very formally. “I’m sorry for your distress. I won’t mention the subject again.”

  “Forget it. My temper is on a short leash these days.”

  Cidra blinked. “I’ve noticed. Perhaps you would like another game of Free Market after dinner?”

  “Sweet harmony. Always trying to soothe the savage Wolf, aren’t you? What I would like after dinner is another large bottle of Rose.”

  He fit action to words. When Cidra attempted to interest him in a game later that evening, Severance brusquely declined.

  “I can’t seem to work up any enthusiasm for winning another pile of worthless sardite from you tonight.” He uncapped the fresh bottle of Renaissance Rose ale and headed for his familiar evening post in the dim cockpit of the cabin. “Go to bed, Cidra.”

  She started to say it was too early, but one look at the hard set of his shoulders warned her to keep quiet. She did as she was told, aware that for some reason Fred wasn’t assuming his usual position on Severance’s shoulder. The rockrug followed her into the lav, fussed around her feet while she changed into her sleeping gown, and then undulated pitifully until she picked him up and carried him into the upper bunk.

  “What’s the matter?” she whispered. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of him tonight? He’s just a little tense.”

  Fred did not appear wildly reassured. He flowed down to Cidra’s feet and went to sleep. Cidra closed her eyes and used several rounds of meditation exercises to put herself to sleep. She was as aware of Severance’s tension as Fred, and she didn’t feel particularly reassured by her own words, either.

  She didn’t know what woke her a long time later. Nothing had changed in the quiet cabin. The rockrug was still warm and motionless on her ankle, the lights were still dimmed in the cabin, and when she drowsily opened her eyes, she could see Severance’s figure still sprawled in his seat. There was a third bottle of the potent ale open beside him. As she watched she realized that he was no longer bothering with the formality of a mug. He was drinking straight from the container. She frowned across the cabin at the ship’s clock. Half the sleeping period had passed, and Severance hadn’t yet gone to bed.

  Cidra experienced a wave of compassion. She knew she should ignore it. She should bury herself in the bedding, go back to sleep, and forget about Teague Severance sitting in the shadows with his ale. But memories of the way he had looked this afternoon when he’d mentioned his brother filled her mind. The images wouldn’t let her take the sensible approach.

  Cidra slipped out of the bunk, leaving Fred behind. Severance had been increasingly tense for the past four days. She didn’t want to think about what his mood would be like by the time they reached Renaissance. He needed less ale and more rest. Perhaps he needed to talk.

  Barefoot, she went forward. She didn’t think he had been aware of her approach. He hadn’t moved. But as she came to within a pace of the seat in which he reclined, his graveled voice stopped her.

  “Get back into bed, Cidra.”

  She hesitated. She had never heard quite that tone from him. It was laced with ale and warning. Firmly she took another step closer. “It’s time you, too, were in bed, Severance.”

  “I’m the one who makes the decisions on board, remember?”

  “Severance, please.
For your own good. Go to bed.”

  “For your own good get back into your bunk. I’ve had a lot to drink, Cidra. And my mood isn’t real sweet.”

  “It’s your brother, isn’t it?” she asked gently, putting a hand on his shoulder. Severance’s muscles were knotted with tension. “You’re sitting here thinking about him. Perhaps it would help to talk.”

  His hand moved, capturing her wrist before Cidra realized what he was doing. When he lifted his head, there was a fierce hunger in Severance’s eyes, a hunger that was clearly visible in the shadows, a look made even more intense by the darkness. Cidra reacted to it physically, a small tremor passing through her. For a moment both of them were completely still. Cidra couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to. Her wrist was chained beneath Severance’s marked hand.

  “Your intuition doesn’t seem to be working very well tonight, little Saint.” His voice was a husky rasp along Cidra’s nerves. “You should have stayed in your bunk.”

  “Should I?” Her mind-body connection was no longer functioning properly. Cidra knew with absolute certainty that Severance was right. But her brain seemed to be filled with a jumbled collection of thoughts and emotions, reminding her of the inside of a light-painting globe.

  Severance’s eyes never left her face. Then, abruptly, his fingers released her wrist. “One last chance. Go on, Cidra. Go back to your bunk.”

  He had released her, but she didn’t feel as if she’d been set free. Cidra desperately tried to sort out the conflicting emotions leaping to life within her. There was an element that wanted to offer comfort to this man. Another part of her sought to understand him through the physical act of touching him, something that made no sense at all to her. And there was still another aspect with which to contend: a confusing flare of warmth in the pit of her stomach that seemed to be spreading into her veins.

  She didn’t move. “Severance?”

  His scarred hand closed once more around her wrist, but somehow the strong grip was more gentle this time. “You had your chance, my sweet, false Harmonic. Come here and let me see how much Wolf blood there is in you. Wondering about it has been driving me slowly out of my mind.”