The Skypirate Part 19

Califa straightened, meeting Roxton's gaze levelly. "I would still never be again."

"Had your eyes opened, have you?"

"As have all of you. It was just harder to see from the inside."

Roxton looked startled. "Well, now," he said, stroking the beard this time, "I hadn't thought of it that way. But I suppose that could be true."

Califa felt a small spurt of hope at his words. If Roxton could see that, could Dax? Later, when the shock of all she'd told him ebbed, could he see that she was, in her own way, a victim of the Coalition as well? Because if he could believe that, he might be able to one day believe that she had truly changed, that she The opening of the door cut off her thoughts. Rina came in, barely sparing a glance for either of them.

Califa guessed from the slump of the girl's shoulders that Dax was maintaining his ominous silence.

Rina's distress was clear on her young face. Califa's heart ached for the girl; she wished she could try to comfort her, but she was far too uncertain of her welcome. Roxton seemed willing to at least consider her side; Rina, on the other hand, was full of young, volatile emotions that ran hot easily, and were slow to cool.

"He's still not talking?" Roxton asked the girl gently.

"No." Rina's voice quavered as she sat down on her bunk. "He just sits there, staring out the viewport. He won't talk, he won't eat, he doesn't even sleep."

Califa thought of Roxton's story. "Is he drinking?"

Rina glanced at her, as if considering whether to answer her. Finally her concern over Dax won out.

"No."

"That's something, I suppose," Roxton said.

Rina slammed a small fist down on her bunk. "It's nothing!" she exclaimed, fighting tears. "I even told him I was going to take the fighter out this afternoon, to be sure it was fixed."

"Blast it, Rina," Roxton exclaimed, "you know he would never let you fly that"

"I know. That's what I mean," the girl interrupted. "He never even blinked. He should have been furious."

Roxton closed his mouth on whatever the rest of his sentence would have been. His grim expression told Califa just how serious the situation was. Yet still there was a softness in his eyes when he looked at Rina.

"He knows I would never let you do such a thing. Besides, he can never be truly angry with you, little one."

Roxton's wry words came back to her.I've never managed to make him angry, however. He merely laughs at me.

She looked from Rina to Roxton. Perhaps there was something she could do. Something she seemed to be very, very good at.

"If neither one of you can make him angry," she said grimly, "I'll wager I can."

Chapter 13.

Califa spared a brief moment, as she stood in the pa.s.sageway, to wonder at the irony of the fact that Dax's doorand everyone else's on theEvening Star, for that matterhad no lock, while a Coalition captain's quarters required a voice and retinal scan to get in. That as much as anything, she thought, underscored the differences between the world she'd left behind and the one she found herself in now.

The skypirates were far more open and trusting than the Coalition had ever been. Somehow Dax had managed to instill the Triotian respect for privacy in this varied crew.

And outside of Rina and Roxton, who were practically family to him, no one had dared violate it.

Until now.

She took in a deep breath. She wasn't quite sure why she was doing this. Wasn't sure why she should care if he stayed barricaded in brooding silence indefinitely; at least if he wasn't speaking, he wouldn't be ordering her returned to Coalition custody. Or her execution. If she did this, she could easily wind up infuriating him to the point of making a decision she personally would long regretif she survived.

But she couldn't help feeling she had to. He obviously still intended to tell no one of his origins. Only she knew the truth of why he was in such torment, so it followed that only she could induce him to talk.

And she told herself that the memory of a kiss, and the fact that he had thought of her even in near delirium, had nothing to do with it at all. Before she could change her mind, she took that last step forward. The door opened with a quiet whoosh. As she stepped inside it closed behind her with the same soft sound. The clutter of the room contrasted distinctly with the neatness she'd noticed before. An untouched meal sat on the table, boots were haphazardly thrown on the floor, and a trunk sat open against the wall, contents tossed in a jumble.

He was on his bunk, propped up by a thick cushion at his back, one knee raised. He was, as Rina said, staring out the viewport into the endless darkness. A flicker of irritation crossed his beard-stubbled face as the door opened, but he didn't look in that direction.

His eyes closed for a moment, and she heard a short, compressed breath escape him. Then his lashes lifted and he resumed staring literally into s.p.a.ce.

Califa was grateful he hadn't looked up. It gave her a chance to catch her breath, and deal with the two things that had hit her with the impact of a disrupter.First, he had discarded his shirt along with his boots, leaving an expanse of sleek, golden chest and flat, ridged belly bare to her view. And second, in his hands was the knife from his boot.

He was toying with it, holding it at both ends with his palms, the pommel of the handle resting against his right palm, the deadly sharp point against his left.

Califa steadied herself. "Planning on slitting your throat?" she inquired pleasantly.

He jerked convulsively at the sound of her voice, his head snapping around to stare at her in shock; obviously, she was the last person he'd expected to find standing there. In nearly the same instant he swore, low and harsh, as he yanked his left hand away from the knife. Blood pooled up on his palm where his sudden movement had sent the blade digging in.

He stared at the blood for a moment, then curled his hand into a fist. He refused to look at her again, closing his eyes once more as blood welled up through his fingers.

Nelcar had left a can of healer's spray on the table. Califa picked it up, and the clean cloth that sat on the tray of uneaten food. She knew if he thought about it he would resist her; she didn't plan on giving him that much time.

She quickly crossed the distance between them, sat on the edge of the bunk, grabbed his hand, and pressed the cloth against his palm before he had a chance to jerk it away.

"It will take you forever to bleed to death this way," she said in conversational tones. "If you're going to do it, do it right. Go for the throat."

He swore again, and tried to pull his hand away. Quickly she grasped his little finger and bent it back.

"Hold still," she ordered.

He seemed startled at her strengthand her commanding tonebut tried again to pull away. She bent his finger back further, until he winced.

"I said hold still."

His right hand curled around the grip of his knife. She saw the motion when he lifted it, saw the flex of taut muscles in his bare arm, knew the power there. He could kill her with a flick of his wrist. Her pulse sped up, but she schooled her voice to an amused calm.

"Changed your mind about killing the messenger?"

For an instant he was motionless, knife readied. Then, slowly, he lowered it. He sank back against the cushion, letting out a long, weary breath. He closed his eyes again.

"Just get out," he muttered.

"In a minute."

Eos, Califa thought as she checked the bleeding beneath the cloth she'd pressed to the wound, Roxton had been right. She'd seen that the moment Dax had looked at her. She, too, had seen eyes less tortured on a corpse. He looked like a man utterly drained of all will and drive and life force.

He let her clean the cut, and apply the combination disinfectant and cell renewal formula. She glanced at him as she worked; the only sign of his shoulder injury was a slight reddening of golden skin, and the mark on his temple was now only a red line beneath the neuskin graft Nelcar had done. She tried not to let her eyes stray anymore. It was a difficult task; his muscled chest was a tempting view. So was the flat expanse of his abdomen, bisected by the trail of dark, soft hair that arrowed downward. Triotians, she thought, were too d.a.m.ned beautiful for anyone's equilibrium. And somehow this one, this unusual dark-haired one, was even more tempting to her than Wolfs golden beauty had been.

When she finished he repeated his earlier words, still not looking at her.

"Now just get out."

She shrugged, as if it meant little to her. "You want to wallow in it a while longer? Fine. I understand."

His eyes snapped open. "In Hades you do."

"That'swhy I do," she corrected, forcing herself to meet his eyes. "I've been in Hades, Dax. For the last year."

He let out a short, angry breath. "And you think because of that you understand? You understand nothing of this."

He was talking. He was angry, but he was talking. It was what she'd hoped for, Califa told herself. She chose her words with care.

"Perhaps not, exactly. But I know how it feels to have your world stolen from you. To lose all who were once your friends and companions. To be hunted, like a wild creature, solely because of who you are. Or because of what they've made you become."

He muttered something under his breath, something she couldn't hear. But he didn't order her to get out again. She steeled herself, thinking this spilling of guts an agony beyond any she'd ever experienced. But she was driven by the need to ease his pain. She had learned the hard way about the relief of sharing the load with someone; by the time she had finally realized it, she had no one there to share with.

"And I know how it feels to be helpless, to be able to do nothing, when everything within you is screaming out to fight, to do something, anything. And you can't."

"But I could have!"

It burst from him as if from a disrupter, a sudden blast of words that had become explosive under too much pressure for too long. And instantly his expression went rigid, and he turned his face away from her.

"You could have...what?"

He remained silent, staring anew out the viewport.

"Dax"

"Get out."

"It's going to tear you apart if you don't"

"Get out," he repeated, his hand once more clenching around the handle of his blade.

"Well, that would solve your problems, wouldn't it?" she said, eyeing the knife with a disdain that wasn't entirely feigned. "You wouldn't have to talk to me, or decide whether to turn me in to the Coalition, or execute me. You could just say you lost your temper. What's one slave more or less?"

His eyes flicked to her then. "d.a.m.n you to Hades," he ground out. But his fingers relaxed around the knife's grip.

"I told you, I'm already there." And I didn't think it could get any worse, she thought. But it had, the moment she'd laid eyes on this man. She made herself ask again. "You could have what, Dax?"

Again he looked away, stubbornly silent.

"You have to talk to somebody," she insisted. "And since I'm the only one who knows you're Triotian"

"I'm not."

That stopped her for a moment. "What?"

He turned his head. Califa met his gaze with an effort; it was hard to look at those eyes and remember how blazingly alive they had once been.

"I gave up my right to be called Triotian long ago."

She frowned. "You mean when you became a skypirate? I know Triotian laws about theft and piracy are strict"

He grimaced. "They're more than strict. Only murder and rape are considered worse. It simply isn't tolerated. But those laws haven't had to be enforced for decades. There was no need. There hasn't been a murder, or a rape, and only minor property disputes, settled by the council."

"And the council deals with...piracy as well?"

"They've never had to. No real Triotian would ever stoop to such activity, even if the penalty wasn't banishment."

"Banishment?"

"Forever. The worst possible punishment for a Triotian, beyond even death."

What must it feel like, Califa wondered, to belong to a world so beloved by its people that exile was indeed a fate worse than death? Was that how Dax felt? He'd become a skypirate when he'd thought there was nothing else left for him. And now he was faced with the possibility that he'd been wrong, but living with the fact that what he'd become would be an abomination to the world he'd thought dead.

"We're truly in the same straits, aren't we?" she whispered. "Our worlds still exist, but we can no longer be a part of them because of what we are now."

He stared at her. "Maybe you do understand."

"How did you wind up where Roxton found you?"

He didn't question her knowledge. He only laughed, a harsh, tortured sound that sent a chill down her spine. "Simple. I ran away."

Califa blinked. "Ran away? From what?"

He lifted his knife, and it took all of Califa's nerve not to draw back. He ran a thumb over the blade.

Califa held her breath, the room so quiet she could hear the sound of his thumb sc.r.a.ping over the razor edge.

"From my father," he said at last. "We had an argument. A fight, really. The last in a long line of fights."

"About?" Califa prompted when he stopped; she said it gently, she didn't want him to close up on her again.

"He is...was an artist."

Califa noted the change in wording, and wondered if he knew his father was dead, or had just a.s.sumed the worst. And if he wasn't sure...She knew it must have occurred to him that his family could be among the few survivors. Perhaps that thought was what was tormenting him so now.

"An artist?" she prompted.

"A sculptor. As was my mother. And my sister. All somewhat celebrated on Trios. But he was an unbending authoritarian, as well. He expected me to follow in the family tradition, no excuses."