But no one hurried to release cables. Vanes diminished to single lines of light, but only after a while did two, and two wink off.
Katin and the Mouse lingered longest.
“Captain?” Katin asked after a few minutes. “I was just wondering. Did the patrol say anything special when you reported Dan’s … accident?”
It was nearly a minute before Lorq said: “I didn’t report it.”
“Oh,” Katin said. “I didn’t really ‘think you had.”
The Mouse started to say “But” three times, and didn’t.
“Prince has access to all official records coming through the Draco patrol. At least I assume he has; I’ve got a computer scanning all those that come through the Pleiades. His is certainly programmed to trace down thoroughly anything that comes in vaguely connected with me. If he traced down Dan, he’d find a nova. I don’t want him to find it that way. I’d just as soon he didn’t know Dan was dead. As far as I know, the only people who do know are on this ship. I like it that way.”
“Captain!”
“What, Mouse?”
“There’s something coming.”
“A supply ship for the station?” Katin asked.
“It’s in too far. They’re sniffing along after our faery dust.”
Lorq was silent while the strange ship moved across the co-ordinate matrix. “Cut loose and go into the commons. I’ll join you.”
“But, Captain-“ The Mouse got it out.
“It’s a seven-vaned cargo ship like this one, only its identification says Draco.”
“What’s it doing here?”
“Into the commons I said.”
Katin read the name of the ship as its identification beam translated at the bottom of the grid: “The Black Cockatoo? Come on, Mouse. Captain says cut loose.”
They unplugged, and joined the others at the pool’s edge.
At the head of the winding steps, the door rolled up. Lorq stepped out on the shadowed stair.
The Mouse watched Von Ray come down and thought: Captain’s tired.
Katin watched Von Ray and Von Ray’s reflection on the mirrored mosaic and thought: he moves tired, but it’s the tiredness of an athlete before his second wind.
When Lorq was halfway down, the light-fantasia in the gilt frame on the far wall cleared.
They started. The Mouse actually gasped.
“So,” Ruby said. “Nearly a tie. Or is that fair? You are still ahead. We don’t know where you intend to find the prize. This race goes by starts and stops.” Her blue gaze washed the crew, lingered on the Mouse, returned to Lorq. “Till last night at Taafite, I’d never felt such pain. Perhaps I’ve lived a sheltered life. But whatever the rules are, handsome Captain,” (contempt resonated now) “we too have been bred to play.”
“Ruby, I want to talk to you … Lorq’s voice faltered. “And Prince. In person.”
“I’m not sure if Prince wants to talk to you. The time between your leaving us at the edge of Gold and our finally struggling to a medico is not one of my—our pleasantest memories.”
“Tell Prince I’m shuttling over to The Black Cockatoo. I’m tired of this horror tale, Ruby. There are things you want to know from me. There are things I want to say to you.”
Her hand moved nervously to the hair falling on her shoulder. Her dark cloak closed in a high collar. After a moment she said, “Very well.” Then she was gone.
Lorq looked down at his crew. “You heard. Back on your vanes. Tyy, I’ve watched the way you swing on your strings. You’ve obviously had more experience flying than anyone else here. Take the captain’s sockets. And if anything odd happens—anything, whether I’m back or not, take the Roc out of here, fast.”
The Mouse and Katin looked at each other, then at Tyy.
Lorq crossed the carpet, mounted the ramp. Hallway over the white arc, he stopped and gazed at his reflection. Then he spat.
He disappeared before ripples touched the bank.
Exchanging puzzled looks, they broke from the pool.
Outer Colonies (Black Cockatoo transit), 3172
On his couch, Katin plugged in and switched on his sensory input outside the ship to find the others were all there already.
He watched The Black Cockatoo drift closer to receive the shuffle.
“Mouse?”
“Yeah, Katin.”
“I’m worried.”
“About Captain?”
“About us.”
The Black Cockatoo, beating vanes on the darkness, turned slowly beside them to match orbits.
“We were drifting, Mouse, you and I, the twins, Tyy and Sebastian, good people all of us—but aimless. Then an obsessed man snatches us up and carries us out here to the edge of everything. And we arrive to find his obsession has imposed order on our aimlessness; or perhaps a more meaningful chaos. What worries me is that I’m so thankful to him. I should be rebelling, trying to assert my own order. But I’m not. I want him to win his infernal race. I want him to win, and until he wins or loses, I can’t seriously want anything else for myself.”
The Black Cockatoo received the shuttle boat like a cannon shot in reverse. Without the necessity of maintaining matched orbits, she drifted a ways from them. Katin watched her dark rotations.
“Good morning.”
“Good evening.”
“By Greenwich time it’s morning, Ruby.”
“And I do you the politeness of greeting you by Ark time. Come this way.” She held back her robe to let him pass into the black corridor.
“Ruby?”
“Yes?” Her voice was just behind his left shoulder.
“I’ve always wondered something, each time I’ve seen you. You’ve shown me so many hints of the magnificent person you are. But it gleams from under the shadow Prince throws. Years ago, when we talked at that party on the Seine, it struck me what a challenging person you would be to love.”
“Paris is worlds and worlds away, Lorq.”
“Prince controls you. It’s petty of me, but that’s what I can least forgive him. You’ve never shown your own will before him. Except at Taafite, that once beneath the exhausted sun on the other world. You thought Prince was dead. I know you remember it. I’ve thought of little else since. You kissed me. But he screamed, and you ran to him. Ruby, he’s trying to destroy the Pleiades Federation. That’s all the worlds that circle three hundred suns, and how many billions of people. They’re my worlds. I can’t let them die.”
“You would topple the column of Draco and send the Serpent crawling off through the dust to save them? You would pull the economic support out from under Earth and let the fragments fall into the night? You would bowl the worlds to Draco into epochs of chaos, civil strife, and deprivation? The worlds of Draco are Prince’s worlds. Are you really presumptuous enough to think he loves his less than you love yours?”
“What do you love, Ruby?”
“You are not the only one with secrets, Lorq. Prince and I have ours. When you came up out of the burning rocks, yes, I thought Prince was dead. There was a hollow tooth in my jaw filled with strychnine. I wanted to give you a victory kiss. I would have, if Prince had not screamed.”
“Prince loves Draco?” He whirled, caught her upper arms, dragged her against him.
Her breath surged against his chest. With eyes opened their faces struck. He mashed her thin mouth with his full one till her lips drew back, and his tongue ground teeth.
Her fingers grappled his rough hair. She made ugly sounds. The moment his grip relaxed, she was away, eyes wide; then her lids veiled the blue light till fury widened them again.
“Well?” He was breathing hard.
She drew her cloak around her. “When a weapon fails me once”—her voice was hoarse as the Mouse’s—“I throw it away. Otherwise, handsome pirate, you …”