Abelardus stopped in front of the thrones, though nobody was sitting at them. He turned toward a side door in a wall under a large monitor where news was playing, an anchor talking about a recent earthquake in Mindar, one of the planet’s southern continents. A bystander in front of a crumbled building was being interviewed, claiming that the earthquakes had become frequent since the Tri-Sun Alliance took control of the planet, and that they might be signs that the gods were angry with the change.
“Please,” Alisa muttered.
Another interviewee posited that the Starseers were behind the earthquakes, that they were trying to take advantage of the change in government to catch people by surprise and drive them from Arkadius so they could claim the rich planet for themselves.
Surprised by the argument, Alisa looked at the squad of warriors. They had lined up to face the door beneath the monitor, their chests thrust out and their robes open again, their staffs held at their sides. Their focus was on the door rather than the monitor.
Alisa had heard various conspiracy theories that involved the Starseers before, but she was amazed that none of them reacted. As she looked around at the other monitors and holodisplays, some muted, but all with the words spoken scrolling along the bottom, she saw other mentions of Starseers. Maybe they had their computers programmed to pick up any news about their people that was being played in the various parts of the system, so they could be alert to trouble that might come their way. If her guess was correct and these feeds were running like this all day, she could see why the men did not react.
The door opened and a gray-haired woman in the ubiquitous black robe walked out, milky white eyes turned toward the ceiling, her bronze face weathered. A pendant dangled on a chain from her throat, the red moon and silver star symbol of the Starseer religion. Like the men, she carried a staff, but hers had glowing blue runes running along the side and gold caps on either end. She used it more like a walking stick than a weapon, which was probably necessary if she could not see out of those white eyes. Most people had blindness corrected with optical implants, but maybe someone who could see into suns with her mind had no need of something as prosaic as working eyeballs.
The Starseers, Yumi’s mother included, dropped to one knee as the woman entered.
“Uh?” Alisa looked at her passengers, wondering if they were supposed to do the same.
Alejandro dropped to one knee. She wasn’t sure if she should use him as a guide. He would go down on a knee to anyone who might help in his quest.
Yumi dropped to one knee, bowing her head. Leonidas folded his arms over his chest and remained standing. Alisa stuck her hands in her pockets and waited to see what happened.
“Rise, Abelardus,” the woman—Lady Naidoo, presumably—said. The runes on her staff flashed.
Any kid with an electronics kit could have made something that could do that trick, but Alisa found it disconcerting, nonetheless. She understood that the Starseers themselves had power, but she hadn’t realized they could make things that had power independent of them. Thinking of Alejandro’s orb, she decided she should have.
“I am Panita Naidoo,” the woman said, not looking at Leonidas or Alisa, but instead addressing Alejandro. “I have been informed as to what you wish, and I must deliberate on it.”
Erick, the bruises on his throat now darkening, scowled and glared over at Leonidas. Apparently, he had wanted more of a dismissal. Perhaps an execution order.
Alejandro opened his mouth, like he might protest or argue his point further, but he closed it and nodded. “Please let me know if I can offer any information to help in your deliberation.”
Information? More like a bribe.
“I already visited the ruins of the Starseer temple on Dustor,” Alejandro went on, “but I found it abandoned. I hope your people there were not disturbed by the war or affected by the bombing.”
Leonidas stirred slightly. With his helmet turned toward the Naidoo woman, Alisa couldn’t see his face. Maybe he just had an itch.
“Your concern for our people is touching,” Naidoo said, a hint of dryness in her voice.
Maybe she could read minds. Not that it would take a mind reader to see through Alejandro’s flattery.
For the first time, Naidoo looked over at Alisa and smiled slightly.
Uh. That was creepy.
Alejandro spread his arms. “I fully admit that my motives are single-minded, Lady Naidoo, but I work toward a greater good.”
“The empire’s greater good, yes, I have no doubt.”
“I thought… It was my understanding that the Starseers, at least some of them, have a vested interest in the empire’s greater good. Though I have also heard that some helped the Alliance win when there was no apparent reason for them to get involved. I must plead ignorance when it comes to Starseer politics.”
“We’re not a fully united people,” Naidoo said, her voice still dry. “Were there not imperial subjects who had different political views? Of course there were, or there never would have been an alliance and a rebellion. It’s not as if those people came from another galaxy.”
“No, my lady. I understand.”
“You will be shown to quarters where you may rest while I deliberate.”
“If it’s at all possible, I would prefer to rest in your library, my lady,” Alejandro said.
“I’m sure you would. I must consider if I will allow that. Outsiders have not been permitted to study our ancient tomes for many decades. And, quite frankly, I do not know why you feel you should be so entitled, especially when you came here with a machine man, an enemy to the Starseers from centuries past.”
Leonidas stood ramrod straight and did not react to the glower that Naidoo sent in his direction. Alisa found it disturbing that she was blind and yet knew exactly where they all were. And what they were.
Naidoo looked toward Yumi, who straightened alertly. Alisa again thought of how she had admitted to badly wanting to develop Starseer talents, to become one of them. She almost looked like a dog hoping for a pat from its master. “Yumi Moon, it is good to meet the daughter of one of our esteemed archivists, but you should not have presumed to come to this private home of ours, and you should not have brought outsiders.”
Yumi’s shoulders sagged, her gaze dropping to the icy floor. “I apologize, Lady Naidoo,” she said, almost a whisper.
“Abelardus, show them to the guest quarters.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Alisa cleared her throat and raised a finger. So far, things were not going well for anyone in her party, but she might never see this Lady Naidoo again, clearly someone who was in charge or at least near the top of the power structure here. She had to speak now.
“Excuse me, uh, Lady Naidoo,” Alisa said, feeling silly referring to someone as a lord or lady. How archaic. Did these people think they were special descendants of the gods because of some gene mutations? “I’m here on a different matter. Which you probably already know about. Along with my opinions on people who call themselves lords and ladies.”
“Captain,” Yumi whispered in a warning.
“Starseers kidnapped my daughter,” Alisa said. “I can make some guesses as to why, but quite frankly, I don’t think there are any acceptable reasons. I’m her mother. She belongs with me. I intend to get her back.”
Yumi put her hand over her face. Apparently, one was not supposed to be blunt with Starseers. Alisa did not see why not. If they truly could read her thoughts, then what was the point of playing word games?
“I know from a reliable witness that a man named Durant was one of the kidnappers,” Alisa continued. “Is there any chance he’s here or that you know him?”
Naidoo merely frowned thoughtfully, but Abelardus shifted his weight. He had looked sharply in her direction when Alisa said the name.
“What is the name of your child?” Naidoo asked, ignoring the additional information and giving no indication whether she was irked with Alisa or not over her lack of reverence.
>
“Jelena Chaikin. Though my husband is gone now, so she’ll be Jelena Marchenko.”
“Chaikin.” Naidoo nodded to herself. “I shall look into it personally while I am considering your friend’s request.”
“He’s my passenger, that’s it,” Alisa said, thinking once again of the way Alejandro had casually mentioned that Alisa knew too much and maybe it would be better if she disappeared.
“I see,” Naidoo murmured, her face turning from Alisa’s to Alejandro’s and back.
Alisa grimaced, wishing she hadn’t brought that up, even in her thoughts. She was not a hundred percent certain that the woman was reading her mind, but if she was, Alisa had given her information that she did not want to share.
“Abelardus, the guest quarters,” Naidoo said.
“Yes, my lady.” Abelardus went down on one knee again before turning toward Alisa and the others. “This way.” He pointed back toward the entrance to the throne room.
Alisa went along quietly, questioning whether to feel pleased with the results thus far or not. Naidoo hadn’t been as openly irked with her as she had been with Alejandro, but she also had not appeared affronted by the idea that her people had been responsible for a kidnapping. She could have been lying about looking into things. She also could have silently commanded Abelardus to take them all to a dungeon or executioner’s room rather than guest quarters.
Chapter 7
There was neither an executioner’s axe nor a dungeon in the suite of rooms that Alisa and her party were left in, only two bedrooms and a common room with sofas, chairs, and tables. The walls, floor, and ceiling were made of ice, the structural theme for the entire temple, it seemed, but at least the furnishings were normal.
After arriving, Alisa had plopped down onto a padded chair so her butt was not in danger of freezing. Neither was the rest of her since she had found a stack of furs and quilts and pulled several over her.
Leonidas paced in front of the door, his combat armor presumably keeping him warm. Yumi had gone into one bedroom and sat cross-legged with her eyes closed, her face pointed toward a corner. Alejandro had closed the door and locked himself in the other bedroom.
“This is better than the dungeon I imagined them throwing us in,” Alisa said, “but I would have preferred to wait on the ship.”
“As would I,” Leonidas said. He paused, touched his temple, then scowled and started pacing again.
“Is someone bothering you? Or are you just feeling vulnerable here?”
“Several people have… I would guess the right term would be that they’ve scanned me. Sometimes in a rough enough manner that I’ve been very aware of it. To say I have a headache is an understatement, but it could be worse, so I shouldn’t complain.”
“I would,” Alisa said. “Either my thoughts aren’t interesting enough for anyone to care about or I’m too obtuse to know when someone is scanning me.”
Leonidas paced and did not respond. It would have been nice if he had told her she wasn’t obtuse. She was beginning to learn that he wasn’t the best person to go fishing for compliments around. Admittedly, in her experience, most men who went out of their way to compliment her were hoping to get her into bed. Leonidas seemed depressingly uninterested in that.
“Are your thoughts interesting?” she asked. “Or are the people scanning you simply being hostile because you’re a cyborg and enjoy wrapping your fingers around Starseer throats?”
“I don’t enjoy that, Marchenko,” he said, giving her an aggrieved look. He had removed his helmet, and it sat on a bookcase by the door, so she could see his expressions more clearly now. “He was on the verge of attacking me and taking the doctor’s artifact.”
“I know. It was a joke. I’m sorry.”
Leonidas went back to pacing. “I doubt my thoughts are interesting to them unless they’re curious about the same thing the Alliance is curious about.”
Alisa sat straighter in the chair, wondering if he might finally reveal why there was a two-hundred-thousand-tindark warrant out for his arrest. “Such as?”
He raised an eyebrow in her direction.
“If you tell me, I’ll give you a massage.”
“What?” He bumped the bookcase with his elbow, and it wobbled impressively, threatening to dump his helmet, along with some of the books.
“You look tense.”
“Everyone here wants me dead.”
“That’s probably why you look tense.”
He snorted.
Alisa grinned. “That was almost a laugh, Leonidas. I saw it in your eyes. I’ll get it out of you someday.”
“Only if your jokes improve.”
“Does that mean you’re not going to take me up on the offer of a massage? You’d be a challenge, but I bet I could manage it.”
“A challenge?” Leonidas squinted at her, maybe suspecting an insult lurking.
“On account of your muscles being so big and hard.” She didn’t mean it as an insult. It was the honest truth. “Who could dig in and find the tense spots with just their fingers? I’d have to use my elbows on you. Maybe some rocks.”
“Elbows and rocks. Where do I sign up?”
“Just let me know when the anticipation is too much to bear, and I’ll be ready. You will have to strip out of your armor for me, though. I’m pretty sure even elbows and rocks couldn’t help you through all that.” She wriggled her eyebrows, wondering if he was the least bit interested in stripping for her.
“Likely so,” he said, not offering any hint that notions of stripping inspired lascivious thoughts within him. “I won’t be removing my armor while in this temple. Even though they are most likely to come at me with mental attacks, if someone hurls me across a room, I’m less likely to be injured this way.”
“I understand,” Alisa said, not showing any sign that she was disappointed that he would not strip down and drape himself across the sofa where she could work on him. She hadn’t truly expected that to happen. Which was for the best, as she kept reminding herself. It was too soon to think about sleeping with other men. Or about massaging them. Still, she truly did want to know the details about that bounty, even more than she wanted an excuse to strip him. “You could tell me why my government wants you, and I could owe you the massage.”
“Owe me?”
“Yes, to be collected at your convenience. So long as I’m not busy flying us through asteroids and trying to avoid being captured by pirates, bounty hunters, mafia brutes, law enforcement, or the military.”
He sighed. “The list of people after us has grown long, hasn’t it?”
“If Alejandro doesn’t do a better job of charming that Lady Naidoo, we might be adding Starseers to it soon.”
His sigh turned into a grimace. “This isn’t how I imagined my retirement going.”
“Did you actually want to retire when the war ended? I assumed your job just went away when there was nobody left to sign the paychecks.”
He stopped pacing, his gaze turning toward a faded blue carpet on the ice. “It did go away. Perhaps Senator Bondarenko would have hired me if I’d been on Perun in the end, but I was busy elsewhere.”
“Such as squatting in an old freighter on Dustor?”
“Among other places.” Leonidas raked his gauntleted fingers through his short, black hair. It was tousled after being smashed under the helmet. “In the last few years, there were times when I thought I couldn’t deal with my duty much longer, with losing comrades and the people I was supposed to be able to protect.” He turned his hands upward in front of his waist and studied them. “But I also didn’t know what else I would do with myself. Retiring from the service to be some bodyguard or overqualified security officer held no appeal.”
Alisa winced, remembering that security officer was almost exactly the job that she had offered him. Still gazing toward his hands, he did not notice.
“And retiring to sit on a beach in the sun while drinking alcoholic beverages, that appealed even less. I’ve been a so
ldier for twenty years. I don’t know how to be anything else. I never finished my engineering degree, and what I learned would be out of date now, anyway. But I had the thought several times in those last few years that there was one thing I could give up the soldiering for.”
“Oh?”
“I was trying to make it happen when I dragged you and your ship out to the T-Belt.” He smiled sadly at her.
Alisa held still, only giving the faintest of nods. Would he finally explain what he had been doing out there? Did it have something to do with that warrant?
“When I was taking part in my last mission,” he said, “the mission that took me to Dustor, I became more certain than ever that I want—”
A knock sounded at the door, and he stopped.
Alisa nearly fell out of the chair. “Don’t answer that,” she said as he turned toward it.
He gave her a confused look. “It could be related to your daughter.”
Alisa slumped back in the chair. He was already opening the door, so there was no time to explain that she’d been curious to know what was motivating him since she met him. Of course she wanted information about Jelena, but she wanted him to finish his story too.
Lady Naidoo and Abelardus stood in the hallway. They looked past Leonidas, as if he were furniture, and toward Alisa.
“I will speak with you,” Naidoo said, “while Abelardus takes Dr. Dominguez to the library.”
“You’re letting him research?” Alisa asked, forcing her mind away from Leonidas and his story to the present.
“He will be monitored as he does so.” Naidoo nodded to Abelardus, who wore a wry lucky-me expression.
The bedroom door opened, and Alejandro stepped out. He had probably been listening with his ear to the door.
“I’m being invited to use the library?” he asked.
“You’re being permitted to use the library,” Abelardus said. “While I babysit.”