|
|
Dedication
For those real life humans who have amusia, the inability to comprehend musical sounds. We dedicate this book to you in the hope of creating better understanding and someday, finding a real life cure.
The birth was normal. There were no complications. The beautiful woman who lay on the hard bed, panting and exhausted, would hardly be recognized by her adoring public. Her crystal blue eyes were closed. Her usually radiant face was pale. The mass of night black hair was hidden under a scarf. She didn't look at all like the wealthiest and most powerful woman on Joppa. But her healers and her nurse, who'd been with her since she was a child, knew her.
The birth had been kept a secret because they were all afraid that something might be wrong. Instead of the usual publicity, she was sequestered in a single room in her estate. There were no press and no strangers.
Almei Oridin, better known as The Chanteuse, was berating herself, as she had for the last year, while she waited to give birth and hid her pregnancy. Her whole life had been one of preparation and careful planning. One night in a stranger's arms had led to a year of misery. In 2000 civilized years on this world, the madness had only come to a handful of children. Most of them were born of a union between a Joppan and an off- worlder.
"Well?" she demanded when she couldn't stand the silence any longer. "Have you tested her yet?"
"It is nearly finished, saddah," the healer addressed her with a note of respect. "The child is healthy and appears normal."
"Thank the Prophets for that," Almei said gratefully.
"She'll be fine," her nurse, Nola, assured her, soothing her mistress' brow with a cool cloth. "She's strong! She cried at the beginning, but look at her now. All wide eyes and wonder. She'll be a strong woman, like her mother!"
"I've prayed every day that it would be so, Nola," Almei told her. "You know I have."
"I know," Nola quieted her. "And the Prophets have answered your prayers!"
"The test is complete," the healer proclaimed.
The others present, except for Nola and her charge, gathered around the results.
"Well?" Almei questioned imperatively.
The faces on the healers were enough to tell their own story. One by one, they looked at her. The healer shook his head. "I'm sorry, saddah. The child is deaf."
"No! It can't be true! I've prayed! She can't be deaf!"
"We're sorry, saddah. Would that we could make it different for you." He looked at the baby, cradled in his arms. "And for her."
"Then do it," Almei shouted at them. A sob caught in her throat. "Do it quickly and don't let me see her again!"
The healer who held the baby began to walk towards the room where the death sentence would be carried out. The poison would be quick and painless. Almei's daughter had begun to whimper softly as though she knew what was to come.
Nola had been silent since the final pronouncement. She was staring at the baby. "Wait!"
Almei looked at her nurse with crystal eyes that were wet with tears. "Why, Nola? You know it must be done! Without being able to hear the song, she would go mad."
Nola glanced at her mistress. "I would like to do it. I would like to take her life the old way. She's too brave for this."
The baby stopped whimpering, as though she understood what was passing between the adults in the room. The healers all looked at Nola, prepared to argue the case against the old, brutish way of taking a deaf child's life. Poison was impersonal but strangulation was cruel. They all began to speak at once but Almei silenced them with an icy stare.
"Nola's right," she said, in her own world of hellish madness. She looked at the nurse. "Do what must be done."
"Wait, saddah," one of the healers stopped her. "This is barbaric! A deaf child hasn't been strangled on this world for a generation."
Almei glared at the woman. "Leave us. Nola will deal with the child."
The healers might have argued again if they had not valued their own positions with The Chanteuse. The child would have to be killed to prevent her from going mad within a few months of birth. Who were they to argue with how it was done? They glanced at each other, then silently left the room.
Nola took the baby from the last healer to leave. She cradled the child carefully in her arms then looked at her mother. "You must name her."
"I can't."
"She must have a name or she can't be with the Prophets -- you know that, Almei."
"I know." Almei wept. "But I can't name her, Nola. Please, name her for me."
Nola smiled into the baby's face. Almei's crystal blue eyes smiled back at her. "I will name her Fara, for the wind that blows down from the mountains."
"In the name of the Prophets, Nola," Almei shrieked, "be done with it!"
Nola took the baby's tiny throat in her hand and began to squeeze, never looking away from her eyes. The child didn't appear to be afraid, only curious. Then she shut her eyes and took her final breath.
"It's done," Nola pronounced. "I will take care of her body."
Almei's quiet weeping filled the room.
"You know, she looks familiar," Kel said to his friend as they sipped their rum at a dirty table in Talith, the largest city on Farga. The bar they sat in was filled to capacity as it was every night. "I feel like I've seen her before."
"I like the one at the Black Lace better," Ober told him, barely glancing up at the woman behind the bar. "She's rounder and softer looking."
Kel laughed. "That's all you care about, Ober! Round and soft!"
"And not too big," Ober disagreed with a sip of rum. "I don't want her to smother me."
Kel studied the woman behind the bar with hard eyes. There was something familiar about her. He tried to look at her more closely but about that time, a miner came in and demanded free food. The woman told him no, then tossed him across the bar when he tried to threaten her.
That was one basic difference between free traders and the people who worked the bars, Kel decided. A trader couldn't afford to alienate a customer. You sold whatever you could and kept your customers happy. In the process, you kept yourself alive to sell another day. You didn't strong-arm customers across a counter top. You never knew when they might gang up on you.
Something like that was about to happen to the woman behind the bar, he observed. The man she'd just pushed out of the way was coming back, with his friends. They were a large group of dirty, angry miners who wanted food. There was nothing worse in this place.
"Let's get out of here," Ober said, seeing the same thing happening. "I don't want to be in another fight this week."
"But we cleaned up on med supplies, didn't we?" Kel asked, more interested in what the woman was going to do than selling supplies. The thought made a hole in his brain. To survive here, you always had to be interested in selling anything to anyone. You couldn't look the other way or miss an opportunity. It could mean starvation in a dark alley. Or some death that made that one look easy.
Ober leaned forward. "We don't have any med supplies left. What're we going to sell them if there's a fight now?"
Kel thought quickly, his black eyes calculating. "Any Ezone left?"
Ober nodded slowly. "Sure. We got a big haul last time."
"They've got blades." Kel nodded towards the group approaching the bar. "There's bound to be pain to be relieved."
Ober sipped his rum and laughed. "You beat the devil, Kel. You really do."
"And make us a nice profit --" his friend encouraged, not taking his eyes from the approaching fight.
"And make us a nice profit," Ober agreed. "Just don't make us dead, huh?"
"Not me," Kel promised. "Look, it's six to one and they've got blades."
"My money's on them," Ober concluded with a tip of his mug in their direction. "I've seen her here cleaning before, don't you remember? She used to be scrawnier, I think. Or maybe cleaner."
"Look at her, though, Ober."
"Don't start, Kel," his friend, and partner, requested, looking at him instead. "I know that tone."
"What?"
"You aren't watching a fight to make a profit. You're watching the girl because you're interested in her. There's a big difference!"
Kel laughed. "One's no good without the other. Besides, I'm not interested in her the way you're implying. I'm interested in her because she reminds me of someone."
"Right," Ober agreed mockingly. "And I'm a wealthy miner! You were just with that woman in Free Port last week. Don't be so greedy! Save some for me!"
Kel glanced at him then shook his head. "I would, but you're too particular! She has to be round and she has to be soft and she can't be too big!" he quoted his friend. "I take them as I find them."
Ober smiled. "So, I have standards! You admit you're interested in the girl?"
"No, not the way you think." Kel frowned at him then looked back at the group who'd reached the woman at the bar. They stood along the front of the bar and played with their blades, hitting the flat edges on their palms. He couldn't see their faces but he was sure they were trying to intimidate her into giving them food before actually attacking. Otherwise, they would've been over the bar already.
The angry miners called to her. "We want real food. That last was swill. We want food fit for men!"
The woman behind the bar glanced at them individually. "When the men get here, there'll be food for them!"
The first man, the one she'd thrown across the bar, growled, and stopped playing with his blade. "We could kill you and eat your scrawny carcass!"
"You could try," she replied confidently.
Kel had to admire her causal courage, even though it was foolhardy. There were too many of them and they had weapons. She might be able to take one or two, but six was impossible. The miners were tough and mean on Farga. And when they were hungry, it could be a lethal combination. The last big food fight killed twenty men and a host of chirns, the paid women that the miners favored.
"They're gonna kill her," Ober insisted.
"She might make it," Kel observed. "You said yourself that she's been here a while."
"I'll take that bet," a man said who was sitting at a table behind them.
"Me, too," another woman added. "They're gonna string her out and gut her!"
Credits weren't welcome on Farga, only hard coin. The miners worked with minerals and they respected nothing less. Coins were exchanged between the tables. Ober counted the bets and the money.
"You're gonna be out some coin here, my friend," the second miner told Kel with a toothless grin.
"I don't think so," Kel replied tensely.
"You're a fool," the man at the next table laughed as the first man jumped over the bar. The miner punched the woman hard in the face. She went down like a log.
"Are you sure, Kel?" Ober whispered. "We could just get out of here now."
"Shut up, Ober," Kel answered quickly, his hands locked on the table. "My coin stays."
The miner at the bar leaned over to look at the woman on the floor and the other miners tried to see, too. There was a popping sound from behind the bar and the first miner flew up and across the room. He smacked into the wall and didn't get up again.
"Personal ejection device," Kel and Ober said at the same time. They had sold the devices last year for just such an occasion. Of course, it had one small flaw. It could only be used once and five other angry miners were crawling over the bar towards her at that point.
"Won't help," Ober judged. "She's dead."
The five miners were skirmishing with the woman behind the bar. She sprayed two of them with rum, then tossed a flame at them. They staggered back, on fire, falling to the floor or running out of the bar. She hit a third miner hard in the side of the head with a full bottle of rum. The cylinder collapsed but it also dented his head and he fell down.
"Two to go," Kel said, avidly watching the fight.
"She'll never make it," Ober declared.
"Double the coin!" the man behind them yelled.
"Done!' Kel agreed.
"Kel! What's wrong with you?" Ober demanded. "This woman isn't going to win."
"She's done all right so far," he answered, though he was wondering why he was so interested. It was just a fight and she was just another woman in a bar. He'd seen thousands of both during his five years on Farga. And he wasn't going to get off of the stinking pit until he had enough money to set himself up. Betting on strangers in fights wasn't his style.
The woman, clearly exhausted, stomped down hard on the next man's foot and smashed a mug into his face. The man didn't move. He brought the blade up and plunged it down. The woman jumped up on the bar and kicked him hard in the face. She was wearing heavy miner's boots. This time, he felt it. The second miner grabbed at her foot before it could make contact with the bar again. He pushed her backwards from the top.
Kel was on his feet.
"Where are you going?" Ober demanded, grabbing his friend's arm. "You can't help her!"
"I can't just let them kill her," Kel told him.
"If you help, you forfeit," the men at the next table said clearly.
"Pay him the coin, Ober," Kel said quickly. "Meet me back at the hotel."
"Kel!" Ober shouted, but it was no use. His partner was in the thick of the fray.
"Pay up," the two miners at the next table said, advancing on Ober.
"Gladly, friends. Could I interest you in a pair of boots that are guaranteed to stay dry and warm, even in the mineral pools?"
Kel glanced around himself. There was only one thing to do. He picked the biggest miner he could find and punched him as hard as he could. He moved in close to the other fight and dared the miner to come after him. When the miner swung at him, Kel moved. The miner hit one of the two men attacking the bartender.
"Hey!"
"Why you-"
Kel jumped aside and attacked another man, pushing him into the miner who was slowly beating the pulp out of the bartender. The woman sagged when he dropped her to get at the man who had pushed him. Another fight erupted to the left. The woman got to her feet, surprising Kel who thought she was probably near the end of her consciousness. She picked up a large food tray and splattered it all over the miner who had been about to turn away from her.
"Sweet!" Kel yelled at her. "I was trying to divert him!"
"Stay out of this!" she warned. "I get paid to handle things like this. You'll just get hurt!"
"I'll get hurt?" he demanded, ducking away from a hard punch by an enraged miner. "He was beating the life out of you!"
"I can take care of myself," she answered, looking at him with her one good eye. The other had been closed by the damaging blows to her face.
The entire bar had become one big brawl. Kel saw Ober sneaking out of the back door and smiled. Ober knew when to cut his losses. A miner dealt Kel a ringing blow to the side of the head and he hit back. The miner picked him up and would've smashed him against the bar but the bartender kicked the miner in the stomach. He dropped Kel on the floor.
"Thanks," Kel said, trying to smile at her even though his head was still ringing with that last blow.
"Get out of here while you're still alive," she advised coldly.
"Watch out!" Kel warned her as a miner clipped her neatly on the side of the head with a bottle of rum.
She spun around. Her head looked as though it might fly off her shoulders but she stayed on her feet. The miner grabbed her from behind and locked his big, dirty arm around her throat. The bartender's eyes bulged. She pulled at the arm that was strangling her but it didn't budge.
Kel jumped and kicked the man in the face. He had to do it twice before the miner took notice of him.
"I'll kill you!" the miner roared, forgetting the bartender. He dropped the woman and advanced on Kel.
Kel saw her slide to the floor and wondered if she were still alive. He couldn't see her face but there wasn't time to consider the matter. If he couldn't make it past this Harg, they might both be dead. He snatched the only bottle of rum he saw and hit the miner between the eyes with it as hard as he could. It didn't slow him. The container burst open, showering him with rum.
Kel had a flame that he snapped open to light. Unfortunately, it was old and wouldn't light. The miner bellowed and threw himself at Kel as soon as he realized his dilemma. He was only double Kel's size and strength.
"Light, light, light," Kel encouraged the flame that was guaranteed to light, even in the mineral pools of the underground mines. "Light, you blasted --"
The flame lit and Kel tossed it on the miner. He didn't stay around long enough to see what happened next. The flames went up from the miner's body while he screamed his rage and pain.
That was the problem with not allowing normal weapons on a world, Kel decided, scooping up the bartender and making a run for the door. People had to invent their own.
But there was one last hurdle before he could get out the door. The first miner, the one who'd demanded food, was up and moving again. He was greasy and dirty and mad as hell. "I want that chirn!" he screamed at Kel over the noise of the fight.
Kel put the woman down quickly against the wall. He glanced around for a weapon of some kind but nothing was available. The man was three times his size. There was no way he could fight him, muscle for muscle. The miner advanced on him and Kel backed down.
"Look, I've got some really good stuff," he tried to impress the miner. "Blue tobacco from Hodge's. I've got some sweet sap from Gray's World, good for the joints, and some erythym from the pleasure planet, guaranteed to keep you hard for 12 cycles -- more, if you like."
The miner yelled his anger. He raised his hands and made a double fist that he was bringing down on Kel's head like a sledgehammer. Then he stopped and dropped his arms. He had a look of surprise on his filthy face. He collapsed forward, almost catching Kel beneath him.
Behind him, the bartender stood, still holding the blade in her two hands. She swayed on her feet as she looked at Kel. "Get out of here."
"Not without you," Kel answered quickly.
"This is my place. I'm not going anywhere."
The bar collapsed under the combined weight of several miners. A woman with a makeshift sword began to swing it wildly.
"Come with me," Kel persuaded. "Come back later when this is over."
"Who are you?" she demanded. "What do you care?" She put her hand to her side and brought it back up. It was covered in blood.
"I think a blade got you," he yelled over the increasing fury of the fight. "I've got some med supplies back at the hotel."
She eyed him critically. "A coin for every time I've heard that and I wouldn't be on this filthy planet."
A chair flew against the wall near Kel's head. "Come on," he coaxed. "Or are you afraid you can't handle me?"
"What?"
He shrugged and ducked so that a bottle of rum missed him. "Afraid. You know. Scared."
"Scared? Of you?" Her sneer was not complimentary. "I'm not afraid of you," she denied, moving aside as a man flew into the wall near her.
"I don't get it," he continued quickly. "How could you be afraid of me when you weren't afraid of six miners?"
"I'm not afraid of you!"
"Then let's go!" he recommended as a piece of flaming debris shot across the room at them.
He shoved her in front of him as he ran for the door. They cleared the building as an explosion rocked the place. "Mineral oil bomb," he considered out loud. He'd sold the kits for them a few cycles back, after the personal ejection devices had slowed down in sales.
They landed on the hard, wet ground. Nothing was moving or coming out of the bar behind them. Flames shot through the roof and out of what was left of the door. By morning, it would be a pile of rubble that would be sifted through for whatever was left that was usable. By nightfall, there would be another crude bar shelter to take its place. That was the way things went on Farga.
Kel realized that he was lying on top of the bartender. He lifted himself up and off of her, ready to find something amusing to say that would make her come with him. He didn't know why he found her so intriguing. It was enough for him that he did.
The fight had finally taken its toll on her. She didn't move when he got up. Blood was seeping down her leg from the wound in her side. Quickly, he lifted her inert form and slung her across his shoulders. He looked out into the constant orange half light that passed for eternity on Farga then walked slowly back to his hotel.
***
"Tell me again why you brought her back with you?" Ober asked as Kel laid the woman down on the crude bed that passed for somewhere to sleep in their hotel. It was roughly made of rope and sheeting that was strung to the walls.
The mining world of Farga was dirty and crude. It was the repository of great mineral wealth and the last stop for many men's dreams. Those who worked the mines lived to find the next big strike that would make them wealthy and famous. The others waited for that moment to pounce on their prey and strip them clean. It wasn't an easy or safe way to live.
"She needed help," Kel replied, looking at her.
The miners who called Farga home knew their lives would be shortened by their exposure to the raw elements. Most didn't last at all and headed for home, if they had one. Sick and exhausted, broken in spirit and mind, they left as others came. There were fortunes to be made here.
Traders from all over the system stopped here regularly to try and sell the miners goods and services. They never ventured near the mines. They were too dangerous and too filthy. Instead, commerce was done in the bars and hotels that littered the planet. Most of these establishments had been there for generations. They offered barely edible meals for outrageous prices and Fargan rum, the strongest drink in the system, for whatever they could get. The more the miner's drank, the more they gambled and ate and spent their money on chirns. They didn't mind their stinking, detestable lives so much when they were drunk. The bars tried to keep them happy.
It took a certain kind of person to work the trader circuit around Farga and another kind to work the bars and hotels. Kel Radley and his friend, Ober Gale were the former kind of person. They were observing the latter.
She still hadn't regained consciousness. She was covered in mine dust and blood. Her hair, the color of the black mine dust, was cut short, shaping her head with small curls. The rest of her face was a mess. Her lean, muscular body was limp and dirty. It was impossible to tell her age. She was the size of an adult but that didn't always mean anything.
"What are you going to do with her?" Ober wondered. "You aren't...not now!"
Kel didn't have to hear the rest of that statement. "No! I'm not desperate, Ober! And I'm not kidding. She reminds me of someone."
Ober continued to look at him with disbelief written clearly on his squat face.
"She could've died back there." Kel continued. Ober wasn't impressed with his original argument. He went to find something to wash her face.
"And?" Ober waited impatiently. "People die here every cycle. They wouldn't all fit in this room."
Kel searched around the room. There was another bed for Ober and a small table made of useless rock that had been mined from the mineral pools. Their packs of supplies and products for sale made up the rest of the cramped space. The walls were made of thinly cut inorganic material and spliced together with resin that had hardened at the top and bottom of the space.
"She's different," Kel added, coming back with a med pack. "She's...interesting."
Ober sank down on his bed. "I knew it! Kel, she's half dead and filthy! At least Lillie's girls are clean!"
"I don't pay!" Kel reminded his friend. "Besides, it's more than that. I can't explain it right now. I just have a feeling about her. I know it doesn't make sense. You'll just have to trust me."
He popped open a medicated cloth that was damp and cool. The package claimed that it prevented infection. Slowly, carefully, he cleaned her face, examining the cuts and bruises that covered her cheeks and chin. He noticed that she was wearing a small earring in one ear. Worthless scrap metal, his keen eye told him. Otherwise, she probably would've been relieved of it years ago. It was an interesting design, though. Like her. He was sure he had seen it before, too. But he couldn't place it.
Ober joined his friend, staring down at the unconscious woman on the bed. "She does look familiar." He snorted. "She also looks dead!"
"She's strong. She's gotta be tough to have survived here at all. You saw the way she took out those miners."
"So," Ober began to speculate. "You're going to wait here in Talith until she gets better. Then what? Tell her she looks familiar and leave? Is that the plan? Because I thought we were taking stuff over to Free Port tomorrow. Wasn't that the plan yesterday?"
"Ober, you plan too much," Kel said. He disposed of the medicated cloth then looked at her hands and arms for any markings that might be familiar. No tatoos to show ownership. Nothing on or about her that would suggest who she was or where she was from.
Groaning, he sat down stiffly on the floor beside the bed to nurse his own wounds. The woman on the bed didn't move but she was still breathing. He opened another med pack with his teeth and cleaned the cuts and bruises on his face and hands.
"Plan too much?" Ober was outraged. "Plan too much? Like we'd ever have enough credits to finance our own shop without my planning? Like you wouldn't have paid every cent to those miners tonight without my planning?"
"What did you do?" Kel asked. He smiled and lay back on the hard floor. His body was one massive ache. He wished he'd had a little more rum before the fight. Maybe he could've passed out, too.
"I sold them what they needed and ended up with more coin than we had to start with! That took planning, my friend. I could've just tripped along after some woman but instead I kept my head and made us some coin!"
"You're the best, Ober," Kel told him with a yawn. "How about the ezone?"
"I could've sold all we had but I only had a few packs with me. We need to stock up, though. The rainy season is coming and you know how irritated everyone becomes."
"I know, I know," Kel agreed. "The miners stand around all day in pools of mineral water. Who can blame them if they hate the wet weather?"
"Not me," Ober replied with a smile. "Besides, I think this new drying solution is going to be a big seller! If it works, maybe the miners won't be so nasty!"
Ober glanced at his friend. Kel was already asleep on the floor with his hands behind his head. His face was bruising, too, but the woman had taken the brunt of the fight. He got up and went to look at the earring that had captured Kel's eye.
It was made of some cheap metal that was already old enough to begin corroding. He considered that it must mean something to the woman for her to leave it in her ear. But if it didn't come out soon, it was going to get infected. On Farga, that meant losing some body part. The place was a massive pit of infection. It was too damp, too hot, and too dirty.
Like Kel, he speculated that the girl had been there for some time. She knew how to take care of herself. Yet she left that earring in place. He looked at it again, carefully. He didn't want her lashing out at him. It was an interesting design. It looked familiar to him, too, but like Kel, he couldn't place it.
He looked at the woman's hands. You could tell so much about a woman by her hands. They were shaped nicely, with very long, slender fingers and delicate wrists. The calluses and scars showed her to be a drudge but the shape of her hands proclaimed her an artist. One of her fingernails was gone. A white scar showed that it wouldn't grow back. He shuddered to think how that had happened.
Ober looked at her palms that Kel had haphazardly cleaned with the cloth. He had a passion for reading the lines in a person's palm. It was how he made all of his decisions. He'd decided to be Kel's partner because of the lines and the strength in his hands. An old woman had shown him the secrets of reading palms when he was a child and he'd never forgotten them.
The grooves in the bartender's palms were startling. They were clearly etched in black dust so there was no mistaking them. Ober didn't know where this woman had come from but he could see where she was going. There was great pain and sadness in her lines, and something more. Madness and fear. And prophecy! She was strong and courageous, but her life was overshadowed by prophecy.
Prophecy of what, Ober couldn't be sure. But one thing he did know. It was best to stay away from such beings. They were expensive and had the added problem of sometimes taking lives in their glorious quest. Ober meant to see himself as a wealthy, fat, living merchant someday. Not a dead hero. He had come from a family of wealthy, fat merchants who died in their beds with their children fighting over their personal possessions. He couldn't see any reason to alter his heritage.
He looked at the woman's face again and tried to imagine where he had seen her. He was sure he recalled her from the bar earlier in the long cycle, before they had gone to Free Port and come back again. But it was something more that was intriguing. Unlike his partner who had a penchant for romantic notions, Ober refused to be drawn into the intrigue. The best thing they could do would be to leave her there to her fate. She was only another dirty bartender, probably a chirn on the side. Doubtless, she would die a dirty bartender. Such was the way of the universe.
He lay down in his uncomfortable bed to sleep, but the lines of prophecy in the bartender's hand haunted him.
Kel woke abruptly the next morning. The bartender was sitting astride him. So not to be confused with any other intent, she was holding a blade to his throat.
"Who are you?" she demanded angrily. "Why am I here? What did you do to me?"
"I'm Kel Radley," he answered quickly, the blade pricking his skin. "You're here because I didn't want to leave you in the street to die. Although right now that doesn't seem like such a bad idea." The blade slid deeper, drawing a faint trickle of blood. "And all I did to you is clean you up a little so you wouldn't get infected."
Her gaze narrowed and he realized what it was about her that was so familiar. "Your eyes!" he said enthusiastically. "Well, er, your eye anyway."
"What about them?" she questioned, still unsure of what was happening. No one on Farga just picked somebody up because he was afraid she was going to die. This man wanted something.
"That's why you look so familiar! It's your eyes!"
"They aren't for sale," she growled at him. "You've got two of your own that look good." Her hand didn't waver on the blade at his throat.
"Thanks," he said with a smile, hoping that would bring about some softening in her manner. Usually women liked him. Even dirty, mean women. This one still stared at him as though he had just killed her sister. Or caught him in her bed with her sister. The look was the same, in his experience. The result tended to be similar as well.
"Look, can we discuss this -- without you cutting my throat?" he asked, putting his hand on the blade.
She didn't change her position. "I should slit you open!"
"But not right now," Ober said from behind her, holding a small energy weapon in her back.
She still didn't move or shift the blade away from Kel's throat. "Those are illegal here," she told him. "How'd you get it on the planet?"
"It's a kit, actually. Like the mineral oil bomb. It isn't anything until you put it together," he explained calmly. "It only fires one shot. It might not kill you but it would put a hole in you that would take a long time to heal and would probably get infected. Get up!"
She dropped the blade and stood up slowly, facing Ober. Kel got up and joined his partner. He opened a med pack to clean the blood from his throat.
"What do you want to do with her now?" Ober asked.
Kel grinned. "The same thing I wanted to do with her last night. Only more."
Ober groaned, but his hand was steady on the weapon. "We have to talk about her, Kel. We just need to leave her here and walk away before it's too late. There's more going on here than you realize. I looked at her palms!"
"Ober," his partner complained. "That stuff is superstitious garbage! You can't tell anything by the lines in a person's hand!"
"Then why has our partnership worked out so well?" Ober demanded. "I looked at the lines in your hands. I knew what you'd be like! I knew we'd be successful!"
"If we're so successful, why are we still here?" Kel asked him, not taking his eyes off the girl. "And what about races that don't have lines in their hands? How would you know anything about them?"
They'd had the argument before, but Ober was determined to make kel understand that this girl was trouble. "You wouldn't. But this girl has lines, Kel -- and they aren't good."
They both stopped arguing and stared at the girl in question. Kel picked up the blade from the floor and Ober held the energy weapon steadily on her.
The bartender stared at them. She didn't back down. "What are you two talking about?" she shouted. "Kill me if you can, but let's get on with it."
"No one wants to kill anyone here," Kel assured her, trying to diffuse the situation. He had no intention of walking away. It was already too late as far as he was concerned. He had risked his life to understand why this woman was so intriguing. Now that he understood, his mind was rapidly shaping a plan to capitalize on it. He looked at the gleam in her crystal blue eye and shook his head. "Okay, we don't want to kill you. In fact we have a business proposition for you."
"We do?" Ober queried in surprise.
"We do," Kel assured him.
"I'm not interested in going into business with the two of you," she snarled. "Just let me go and we'll call it a draw."
"I certainly don't want to do business with you," Ober told her bluntly. "In fact, I -- "
"Not now, Ober." Kel pulled him back. He noticed that she was holding her hand to her side. Blood was seeping out on her clothes again. "You're hurt. You need help."
"Not any help you can give," she protested from between clenched teeth.
"I don't see anyone else volunteering," Kel reminded her. "You need us. We need you."
"We do?" Ober stared at his partner. "What for? Kel, this isn't another scheme, is it? Because we --"
"Never mind," Kel said, pushing Ober's hand with the energy weapon away from the woman. "We won't hurt you." He dropped the blade on one of the beds. "See? I'd be easy for you to take out. I'm half the size of any of those miners last night and I don't have a weapon."
"Let me go," she said, putting a hand to her side. "I don't want to go into business with anyone. Leave me alone!" She took a step towards him.
Ober lifted the weapon again when she moved. "Kel!"
The woman had lost a lot of blood during the night cycle. She was finding it increasingly difficult just to hold herself upright. She took another step towards the door and then she collapsed, her knees giving out from under her. Kel caught her as she fell to the floor.
"Get two of those new kits for closing wounds and some ezone," he instructed Ober.
"Those things cost money!" Ober protested. "Who's going to pay for them? This chirn has no coin! Have you lost your mind? All this just hassle because she reminds you of someone? She'll rip your head off and sell it for rum!"
"All this hassle to make more money than you ever dreamed of making," Kel told him quietly as he put the woman back on the bed.
Ober carefully considered Kel's words. "I don't think that's possible," he finally replied. "In fact, I'm sure of it. There isn't any more money than I've dreamed of making!"
"Get me the kits, Ober," Kel demanded. "This is for real!"
Ober looked at him but Kel was serious. While his partner tended to be a dreamer and a romantic at times, he did have a good sense of worth. They'd done a few crazy things that Kel had advocated...and they'd made money on them. He scrambled for the kits and the ezone. He'd have to worry about the lines in the girl's hands later.
Kel used the woman's blade to deftly cut away her clothes. Underneath the filthy material, she was just as dark and hard as her arms and legs were on the outside. He didn't stop to think about the life she'd led to get that way. He knew too well to bother to imagine.
"Not a bit of soft on this one," Ober observed, bringing Kel the medical kits.
"Maybe not," Kel answered, moving the clothes away from the ragged wound on her side. "But there's something to be said for muscle, Ober, my friend. She's as strong as a miner. She could've crushed my ribs with her legs. "
"And she's just as mean as a miner," Ober added. "I hope you know what you're doing."
Kel took a deep breath. "I hope so, too."
She moved when his hand touched the gaping wound at her side. Immediately realizing that she was being pressed down on the bed, she began to fight. "What are you doing?" she asked, coming back around. "Let me go!"
She started to move as Kel was opening the wound-closing kit. The kit was a big seller on Farga where there were no organized groups of healers. There were no healing services here at all. The miners had to rely on doing everything for themselves. That's what made the place a paradise for traders.
"Don't move," he told her as he began to seal the wound with the NU-SKIN IN A TUBE.
She tried to kick him and Kel glared at her. "Ober," he requested, "Shoot her if she moves again."
"Gladly," Ober allowed, picking up the energy weapon again. He glared at the woman, glad that Kel had finally come to his senses.
"I don't want your help," she responded flatly. "I'll do what I have to do without you!"
The last word was garbled because Kel had opened a container of ezone and poured it down her throat. She spit some of it out, but she got enough that she quickly lost consciousness again.
Ezone took care of the pain by taking the patient out of the picture. Another great seller on Farga. Anything that involved do-it-yourself medical supplies or makeshift weapons was always popular and made plenty of coin. Kel and Ober always stocked up on both.
"Wish I could get her into some water to make sure how she looks," Kel said thoughtfully as he finished closing the wound in her side with Nu-Skin.
"Water?" Ober hooted. "Now you're talking some serious coin! There's only one hotel on the whole planet where you can take a bath! What exactly are you thinking about doing with this woman, Kel?"
"I told you, she could be worth a fortune."
"To who? I can't think of anyone! Even the slavers wouldn't pay more than ten coins for her. She's scrawny and dark and messed up. Look at her! Her breasts aren't even -- "
"Never mind about her breasts," Kel told him, pulling the dark, filthy material back over her. It barely met where he'd cut it. "I'm not talking about selling her to anyone. I heard a story years ago. I know you've heard it, too. Of course, I'm not sure it's true, but --"
"What could be true?" Ober asked, beginning to get tired of trying to figure out what Kel was raving about. "I say we go on to Free Port and leave her here. She'll heal now. You can always look her up later and --"
"Almei Oridin."
Ober stared at his friend. "The Almei Oridin?"
Kel nodded. "The Chanteuse. Even though Joppa has produced thousands of singers, only one is regaled as The Chanteuse. She was famous before either one of us were born. And as of last year, she's the head of the Joppan council. She's rich beyond our wildest dreams of wealth. She's powerful --"
"I agree. Everyone knows all of that." Ober shook his head. "I don't get it."
"It was her eyes," Kel explained quietly, gesturing to the girl. "She has the same crystal blue eyes as The Chanteuse. I just didn't realize until this morning. You must have seen her at some time?"
"I've heard her music, of course," Ober relented in confusion. "Everyone has. I've probably seen her but I --"
"This woman looks like her."
Maybe he was getting old. Maybe Fargan rum was beginning to rot his brain as it eventually did all the miners who lived there. But Ober just didn't get it. "Okay. The bartender looks like Almei Oridin. What about it?"
"You haven't ever heard the story?"
"What story?"
Kel sat on the edge of the bed. "We'll have to check on the dates. She might be too young."
He frowned in concentration while Ober paced the floor.
"Kel!"
"Sorry." Kel looked up at him, shaking himself out of his thoughts. "I never told you this -- but my mother was an ambassador."
"An ambassador?" Ober was impressed. "Do I want to hear the story of how you came to be on Farga hawking med kits and boots?"
Kel shrugged. "That's the only interesting part of it, Ober. But when I was just a kid, we went to Joppa. She was stationed there for a while. It's a weird place but it's the last place we were together."
"They say the trees sing," Ober said with a sigh.
"They do, in a way," Kel explained briefly. "The musical sound from the wood the Joppans export is nothing compared to the sounds of their Last Forest. It's like nothing you've ever heard. Like chimes and instruments that don't exist. Once you've heard it, you never forget it. It's influenced the people of Joppa. That's why they're all singers and dancers and musicians. Being there is like living in a fairy tale."
"Are you sure you just don't remember it that way?" Ober asked wisely.
"Maybe. But the music was real."
"I had a statue once that was carved from Joppan wood. It hummed. It was very pleasant. But I had to trade it for food on a long voyage across the system." He shrugged. "I ran out of credits."
"Anyway," Kel continued with a glance at the sleeping woman on his bed. "I met The Chanteuse. Meeting her, hearing her sing in person, was like going to the Last Forest, something you never forget. She was so beautiful, almost ethereal. She had this black silky cloud of hair and these crystal blue eyes. I was in love with her image for years. I read everything I could about her and about Joppa."
"Probably only one of billions of people from Joppa who look that way."
"Actually, that's not true. It's a rare look, even for Joppa. I've never seen eyes like hers again," Kel told him plainly. "Until I looked up tonight and saw this woman across the bar."
Ober's single brown brow knitted together across his beetle shaped eyes. "And this will make us credits? How? We reminisce about your childhood and someone pays us to be quiet?"
Kel made a face at him. "I guess you don't know the story. The Chanteuse had a daughter. It happened a while after my mother and I went back home. I was already living in the orphanage --my mother had died. They say Almei had a daughter who was as beautiful as The Chanteuse herself. The press said she died at birth. But I heard a rumor, years later, that the baby didn't die. That a nurse escaped with the girl and took her away from Joppa. There was a story of a huge reward that was offered for the girl's return. For a while people flocked there for it."
Ober smirked. "I never went in for that kind of stuff. Who knows if it's real or not?"
"This woman looks like The Chanteuse," Kel persisted.
"How can you tell?"
"Okay," he admitted. "She has the eyes of The Chanteuse."
"You mean one eye?"
"The other one will heal," Kel answered sharply. "When I first looked up last night before the fight, it was like looking back all those years into the eyes of The Chanteuse."
"Could you hear her singing again, too?" Ober asked skeptically. He shook his head. "Look, Kel, I understand it was part of your childhood before your life went down the shaft, but seriously, I don't recall seeing a reward posted on the lines about finding The Chanteuse's daughter. Spending coin on it would be like throwing it away."
Kel studied the sleeping woman. "The Chanteuse has always claimed that her daughter was dead. But where there's a rumor, there's usually some doubt. How could there not be a reward? You know she must want the girl back."
"Are you saying you think this chirn is the daughter of the most famous singer in the entire system?" Ober asked in disbelief.
No," Kel answered patiently. Ober was a genius at being a trader but his imagination was limited. "All we have to do is make her think this woman is her daughter -- and we collect."
Ober began to pace the floor again. "So that's your plan? You scam The Chanteuse, who also happens to be the head of the Joppan government? Make her think we have her daughter to bring back safe and sound after all these long cycles and she pays us a fortune?"
Kel nodded slowly. "That's it, Ober."
"That's crazy!"
Kel's smile was crooked. "I know."
Ober thought it over, glanced at the woman on the bed, then laughed. "But no crazier than that scheme you thought of last cycle! Getting Big Al to give us the franchise on selling mineral oil off-world! It was brilliant!"
"And we made more coin than we make in a long cycle selling boots and med supplies."
"We'd have to do some research. That will take time and credits. We'd have to leave Farga since there's no place to do research here."
"It would take some snooping around," Kel agreed. "If we find out the story isn't real, we've lost some on an investment -- but it's happened before. Remember those cell kits that were supposed to regenerate hands and feet?"
Ober groaned. "We lost the best part of the long cycle."
"But we cleaned up on those air boots last year. We always taking chances. Sometimes we've taken big chances and won...this could be the last time we have to do it. Everyone knows the Joppan people are rich. Especially The Chanteuse. What would you pay to have a woman you thought was your daughter brought home to you?"
"The Chanteuse has never had any other children, has she?" Ober considered thoughtfully staring at the woman on the bed. "How do we get her to go along with it?"
"Leave her to me," Kel said quietly. "I think can get her to see things our way."
"She'll have to be cleaned up and dressed more like she's the daughter of a Joppan singer."
"We can make that investment when we get a better look at her," Kel said.
"And she has to quit trying to kill either one of us," Ober stipulated. "Getting her to back off won't be so easy."
"She's not stupid," Kel told him. "She'll want to get off-world. Everyone here wants to get off-world."
Ober nodded. "All right. I'll get us transport. What was the name of that station we stayed at last cycle that was so cheap and clean?"
"Vixen," Kel said, with a snap of his fingers. "That's perfect! We'd have access to everything we need! It's not too far from here either."
"And the woman were soft and round," Ober said with a dreamy smile.
"And there were plenty of them," Kel added.
Ober laughed. "Not for you, my friend. I assume there's only one way you're going to bring this woman around to go with us. You're going to have your hands full with that."
"If she won't come with us just to escape this place, she'll come for the coin."
"Yeah, especially when you tell her the story of your childhood memory of Joppa."
Kel sighed. "Not that the other way's a problem. A few kisses and a kind word or two and she'll do anything for me. She probably can't ever remember anyone being nice to her."
Ober shrugged. "I leave the seduction to you, my friend. Just don't let her seduce you with those blue eyes and your childhood fantasies about The Chanteuse."
The woman on the bed groaned and Kel went to sit by her. Ober took up his coin belt and crept out of the room.
She had only been unconscious once before in her life that she could recall. It wasn't a pleasant experience then and it wasn't pleasant now. Especially since she knew it was caused by that vile tasting stuff he had poured down her throat. Her head hurt and her side ached. Her stomach felt queasy. It had been almost three days since she'd eaten. Even for her, that was a stretch.
She opened her good eye and saw his face. She groaned and turned her head. This was like being on Farga in the first place: a nightmare. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't wake up. Why didn't he go away and leave her alone?
"I have something for you to drink," he said in a deep, pleasant voice.
"I won't drink that awful stuff again," she told him. "If you try to pour it down my throat again --"
"I know," he suggested. "You'll kill me."
"Or worse," she agreed readily, looking at him again.
"Look," he said to her, holding up the bottle as he took off the seal. "It's not rum but it'll quench your thirst." He took a sip of it then held it out to her again.
She took it from him and tasted it. Her mouth was dry and bitter with blood. The drink was sweet and had a fruity taste to it. She'd had a piece of candy once that was like it. A long time ago, she considered. A very long time ago. Or it was just a dream. She couldn't ever be sure about her memories of the past. They weren't real to her anymore.
"It's good," she said when she drank some. She snatched the bottle from his hand. "What is it?"
"They call it Orange Rime. It comes from Telco," he told her.
"Telco?" She tasted the name as she tasted the drink again.
"It's a planet on the other side of the system. The people there all live in pretty pink houses and have anything they want."
"And this is what they drink?"
"This and other things." He shrugged.
"You've been there?" she asked, eyeing him warily.
"Once or twice. There's not much money there for a free trader. They have everything. Needier worlds are better."
"Like Farga?" she wondered.
"Like Farga," he agreed. "How do you feel?"
She took another swig of the drink. "Like someone tried to crush my skull and jammed a blade in my side."
He smiled slowly. She was well-spoken for a Fargan bartender. That was something in their favor. "Not surprising, since that's exactly what happened to you. I think the NU- SKIN might have done the trick on your side, but you'll have to be careful for a few days."
She narrowed her eyes. "Are you a healer?"
"No. If I were, I'd be on some other world, healing rich people! I sure wouldn't be here selling boots and medical supplies to miners who would just as soon kill you as look at you."
She sat up slowly. "Why did you save my life?"
He studied her face thoughtfully, hoping there was something of The Chanteuse's ethereal beauty behind all that dust and those bruises. "Because I have a business proposition for you. I can take you away from all of this."
"Take me away?" She laughed. "And where would we go? Do you have your own chirn outpost? Or do they need slave bartenders on Telco?"
Kel flicked his black eyes over her. "You aren't...bountiful enough to be a chirn at any chirn outpost. And they don't have slaves on Telco. Besides, I said a business proposition."
She stared at him. "What makes you think I want to go, even if I believe you?" she asked curiously.
"No one wants to be here! They're only here because there's nowhere else for them to be or they're desperate for coin. Which is it for you?"
She looked down at the bottle in her hands. "What would I get out of it?"
"Enough credits to make sure you never had to work anywhere again," he answered quickly. "But you didn't answer my question."
"What do I have to do?" she replied, still without answering. She had no intention of giving this man any power over her. Knowledge was power. The less anyone knew about you, the more powerful you were and it would keep you safe. Her mother had taught her that before she died.
Kel sat back, studying her. She was smarter than he'd given her credit for being. Craftier, too. He'd wager she'd been alone most of her life. Despite what Ober thought, it might be easier to enlist her in the scheme than to seduce her. Although it would be a great pleasure for him to do both. "Do what Ober and I tell you. Not ask too many questions. Leave this hell-hole."
"With you?"
Kel smiled, almost seeing the gears in her head working. "You couldn't do this alone...do you have a name?"
"I do," she admitted.
He gazed at her. "And it is?"
"You can call me Ten."
"Ten?"
That's what the owner of the bar called me. He said I was the tenth person he hired to run the bar. The other nine were dead."
"What did people call you before that?"
"Whatever I wanted them to call me," she replied smugly. "I've had many different names."
She could see the frustration on his face. She knew she'd done the right thing. This man wanted power over her. She had refused to help him gain that power. She could almost feel him reaching out, trying to take hold of her. He wanted her to make money for him, like everyone else. She might work for him but he would never own her.
"Okay, Ten," Kel said calmly, though he wanted to shake her. "My name is Kel Radley. Ober is my partner. He's gone to get us tickets off of Farga. We're going to go and stay at a free colony on a station not far from here called Vixen. Have you ever heard of it?"
"No."
"Were you born here, Ten?" he asked pleasantly.
"No."
"Where were you born?" he tried again.
"On another world."
Kel got up and paced the room. "We're going to have to trust each other a little if we're going to work together. I've told you my name, my real name. You could tell me yours."
"I could," she agreed but she didn't add anything else.
He smiled at her. "I can see why the miners wanted to kill you now. I thought it was for the food."
She smiled back at him, as much as her torn lip would allow. "No one kills for the food on Farga."
Her smile was like a slow thaw. Her voice was light and musical. The two combined to enhance the immediate attraction he'd felt towards her at the bar. Ober had been right, although it was only his first impression. He might want to kill her, Kel admitted to himself, but he wanted her whole again first. He allowed his own smile to widen and noticed her immediate discomfort. He wanted her whole and functional.
She wondered at the smile on his face. Why didn't he get angry and hit her? She was used to pain. She could handle punishment. She didn't know what to think about his wanting to help her, except that she understood him doing something for profit. It was his kindness that unnerved her and set her on guard. His hands were gentle when he touched her. His black eyes were soft with caring. How had he managed to survive on Farga? She wondered. Then she recalled. To get information, one had to infiltrate or give information in return. She preferred to wait for the infiltration. Kel Radley was bound to give himself away.
Ober returned, glancing carefully into the room and frowning. There was no sign of seduction and no hint of capitulation on the woman's face. Must he do everything himself?
"I brought some clothes back with me," he told her, not looking at Kel. Women liked clothes. At least the soft round women did. He put his package down hesitantly, like an offering, on the bed beside her.
"Could you get us off-world?" Kel wondered, his face not mirroring the frustration he felt. Ober had been gone for a while. The woman should have had a legitimate name by now and be only too happy to do whatever he asked of her. He was losing his touch.
"Yeah, but they cost us plenty. I got us on an old freighter. It won't be comfortable but the junk will get us there."
Kel glared at him. "Ober, just admit you got the tickets cheap! You booked us on an old freighter because it was cheap! You're always pocketing the money you say you spent on stuff and thinking I don't know what's going on!"
"If I didn't," Ober replied sternly, "there wouldn't be enough to get off Farga much less stay on Vixen for a while and make this chirn look like a princess!"
"Who are you calling a chirn?" Ten demanded, jumping up, forgetting her wounds until they stabbed at her. She sat back down. "I've never done that!"
"Never?" They both asked at once.
"My mother --" She stopped and bit her lip.
"You had a mother?" Ober asked.
Kel sat down beside her. "Your mother?" he encouraged her.
She glanced at the two of them. She knew their kind. They were out for what they could get, just like everyone else. She knew she was seriously injured. She was lucky she wasn't dead. She'd allowed herself to make a mistake last night at the bar. She should have died for it but chance had given her another opportunity.
"I'm gonna change clothes," she told them finally. She snatched up the package of clothes Ober had brought for her and held her devastated garments together with her free hand. She limped to the far corner of the room and stripped off, greedily pulling on her new clothes. She couldn't recall when she'd last had a change of clothes. Bartending was dangerous but it didn't pay enough to do more than eat and have a place to stay. Without some profession, she would've been in the street.
"I can't believe you haven't done something with her! Why isn't she crawling all over you for more!" Ober assailed Kel in a low voice.
"It's not that simple," Kel tried to explain.
"When did it get complex?"
"She's tough," Kel said, a note of respect in his voice.
"Tough?" Ober wondered.
"She wouldn't even tell me her real name."
"What did she tell you?" Ober queried.
"She told me that her name was Ten."
Ober waited for more but when it wasn't forthcoming, he blinked. "That's it?"
Kel glanced across the room at her, then back at his friend. "You think I've lost it."
"I think you've lost it," Ober agreed.
"She's going to work with us anyway," Kel told him sourly. "And I haven't lost it."
"She might work with us but it will cost us. If you hadn't lost it, it would be free."
"I could seduce her," Kel assured him.
Ober stared at him. "We both know you want to, so what's stopping you?"
"Respect."
"Respect?" Ober demanded. "For a dark chirn with no breasts and a face that looks like it was in a grinder?"
"I'm not a chirn," she retorted from the corner. "And you might as well speak up, I can hear you anyway."
Ober and Kel exchanged looks then sat down beside each other on one of the beds. Ten sat on the other, dressed in clean clothes. She was still holding her side. The only thing Ober could get at a reasonable price were overlarge miner's clothes, but they were dry and whole. They hung on her gaunt, hard frame. Her black hair was spiked up on her head and the bruising on her face made her look anything but what Kel was thinking.
"All right," Ober accepted the circumstances. He wasn't happy about them, especially after seeing the lines in her palm, but he knew Kel was too fired up about the idea to back down. "So we're going to be partners."
"Three-way split," she agreed.
"In your dreams! We foot the bills and set everything up. You get twenty percent."
"You do whatever it is without me and see how far you get," she advised him.
"You can't even conceive of what we're talking about doing so you stay here on this hole and rot!"
"I deserve a fair share!"
"You deserve to be in the street -- dead!"
"Ober!" Kel called him down. "Ten! Let's think about this."
"What's to think about?" Ober demanded. "She's an unreasonable chirn!"
Ten gritted her teeth. "If he calls me a chirn again --"
"What? You'll bleed on me?"
Ten growled at him, showing her even white teeth.
"Will you both sit down and shut up?" Kel yelled at them. "Let's work this out." He turned to Ten. "You don't know anything about what we're doing or how we're doing it. We have the coin and connections. Thirty per cent is a fair share."
"Thirty?" Ober moaned.
"And seventy percent will work for us," Kel assured his friend. "This is a big stake. There's plenty for everyone."
Ober shoved his short arms across his stout body. "All right. Fine. Let her rob us blind."
Kel looked at Ten. "Will that work for you?"
Considering Ober's words, she nodded. She'd only argued for the sake of it. If she hadn't argued, they might have thought something was wrong with her. Just getting off of Farga would have been worth it to her. She'd die before she let that big dumb one know! She'd heard him bragging that he could seduce her. She'd have to be dead or unconscious or he'd be dead or unconscious!
"Thirty per cent is fair," she agreed while Ober sniffed and looked away.
Kel grinned, a flash of white teeth against dusky skin. His black eyes gleamed. "Then we're ready to go."
Ten knew she was going to get whatever she could from them. She didn't plan on following through with their plan. She had one of her own. If they would take her off Farga, she would take it from there. This was an opportunity not to be missed.
Ober looked at her and he knew what she was thinking. It was exactly what he'd be thinking, if he were in her place. Get off the planet, get a few credits and take off! Kel was dreaming if he thought she was any different. If one of them didn't get close to her, the plan would never work. He didn't think of himself as a lover but thinking about The Chanteuse's generosity could lead him to passionate enough throes for this one!
Kel picked up his packs and helped Ober with his. He could feel her looking at him, sizing him up. He'd been attractive to women since he was a child. He'd always managed to make good use of it. This situation with Ten was awkward because she was injured and not entirely appreciative of his attributes. It wouldn't take long on Vixen before she'd start feeling that attraction. He smiled at her across the room. She didn't look away. The magic was already happening between them!
Vixen 4 was part of the older VXN series of comfort stations that had been built close to a hundred years ago and scattered throughout the systems. They were equipped to accommodate large numbers of people in times of natural disaster or war. They were also created to give a resting place for travelers and a stopping off place for merchants and traders.
The stations were older and slower, but well maintained. They weren't heavily used because of the newer comfort stations that had been built in recent years. They were off the beaten path for many tourists but guidebooks mentioned them as a great way to stay in a decent place and save credits. VXN stations were only a fraction of the cost of the newer DSN network but provided a fairly decent array of goods and services.
The freighter Ober had booked had broken down only a short while out of dock from Farga. The three waited while the crew tried to repair the problem but when repairs weren't possible, they waited even longer while another freighter was sent for them. In all, a three-day journey became a week. Tempers on the groaning, fractious vessel had been short.
In the tiny cubicle Ober had procured for them, Kel watched while Ober went out of his way to be charming and entertaining with Ten. They were playing games, whiling away the hours beating each other at cards and dice. They were acting as though they'd known each other for years. Kel sat in a corner and counted his supplies.
"What's going on?" Kel demanded once when Ten had gone to relieve herself in the crowded disposal.
"What are you talking about?" Ober wondered, picking up his dice.
"You and Ten! I could leave so the two of you could get more cozy!"
"You could," Ober agreed. "One of us has to enthrall the girl. If not, the plan won't work. She's playing us, Kel! She'll be gone as soon as we reach Vixen if one of us doesn't seduce her!"
"It's not gonna be you!" Kel determined.
"Then it better be you!"
But when Ten returned and Kel tried to engage her in conversation, she was colder than ice. She asked Ober if he wanted to walk to the viewing platform for a look outside. Ober accepted readily with a shrug and a parting, helpless look at Kel. Ten turned her back on him and walked out with Ober.
Kel was astonished. He and Ober had been partners for five years. No female of any species had ever preferred his friend over him. Ober was a good man, but he just didn't measure up in the charm and seduction department. Kel had lost track of how many women he'd left behind on various worlds. Ober was still keeping track on one of his four-fingered hands!
It didn't make sense, but if that was the way the wind was blowing, he wouldn't stand in their way. After all, he was there for the reward. When they convinced The Chanteuse that Ten was her long-lost daughter, that reward coin was all that would be left for any of them. Ten would be set up for the rest of her life. Ober and Kel would be setting up their own shop. That was the goal from the beginning of their partnership. It would be the goal when they left Ten on Joppa.
When the two came back from their stroll, they were laughing and talking about some incident in the corridor. Kel pretended to be asleep. He didn't care if Ober seduced Ten or not. If his partner thought it was good for the scheme, that was good for him, too. He tried to convince himself that he didn't care if he was the one who got close to her. But his mental pep-talk didn't work.
By the time they got to Vixen 4, he wanted to strangle both Ober and Ten. He had watched them play too many games with each other, and seen them whispering and laughing until he wanted to scream. If they had done anything more than that, he hadn't seen them. They couldn't have done much in the close cubicle, especially since he made sure he was always with them. But there were dark places along the main corridors that were made for lovers. He tried to be with them all of the time, but they had been out alone several times, and long enough for a tryst.
Ten's real face was starting to show itself. The bruises were starting to fade. Her left eye was partially open. But there was still no water supply, beyond basic drinking usage, on the freighter, so he withheld his final judgment of her looks until he could see her cleaned-up. He knew her beauty wouldn't be as incomparable as The Chanteuse's, but he'd take a pretty face. With those eyes, he knew he could make this scheme work. She was quick picking things up from Ober and she spoke as though she had some education. With a little push, she could be the daughter of The Chanteuse. If he didn't kill Ten or Ober or both before they could get to Joppa!
They were in luck with their quarters on the station. Ober secured a large common room with three sleeping rooms connected to it. It was off-season for the station. The place was virtually empty. Nothing could have suited them better. This way, there weren't any tourists gawking at them, hoping they were resident aliens. No parties or religious gatherings. They could do what they'd come to do and go on to Joppa to collect their reward. The stations were well known for not asking too many questions about the people who stayed there.
Ober and Ten led the way into the suite of rooms. Ober put in the pass and the door opened.
"Sweet!" he exclaimed, giving Ten the other pass.
"Wow!" she echoed his sentiments, stepping into the common room as though it were going to fade if she walked too hard or fast. She looked around herself in awe. She had no idea that people really lived this way.
She could recall some of her childhood before her mother died. At least she thought she could recall some of it. With each passing cycle, it seemed less and less likely. No one else she knew had recollections of childhood, so she usually didn't tell people anything about her memories.
She thought she remembered living in a nice, clean little house where pink flowers grew outside the windows. The rooms were full of wonderful pictures to look at and she had delicious food to eat. For long cycles, she'd tried to convince herself that these memories were just dreams and that the reality was Farga. It was easier that way. But the memories of her mother and the life they'd had together haunted her. They ached inside of her like the blade wound, except they never went away.
Ober and Kel watched her walk through the room, touching chairs and tables with a loving hand. She looked at the plain print on the wall as though it were a masterpiece. She lay on the floor and rolled across the soft sponge-like covering.
"This is your sleeping room," Ober said in a gruff voice. For all of his talk of a hard heart and only living for profit, he was touched by Ten's childlike appreciation of the modest living quarters.
"My own?" she asked quietly.
"Yes," Ober replied. "Kel and I will each have our own -- over there."
"Of course," she answered, walking into the room before him. She felt foolish, being impressed by the room and the furnishings she saw there. Ober and Kel acted as though this place was nothing. She was going to have to learn to do the same. Admitting she found pleasure in the beautiful surroundings was a weakness. She was going to have to be careful.
The light came on as she walked into the sleeping room. It was simple. Just a sturdy bed for sleeping and a chest for storing clothes and personal objects. There were some dried star-flowers on the table next to the bed. But once she had seen it, it was the bed that dominated Ten's vision.
It was suspended from the floor, not tied to a wall or hung from the ceiling. The inviting surface laid out flat and clean. She settled on it carefully, trying not to look fascinated or overwhelmed by it. The cover on it was shiny blue. The bed didn't move under her weight. The cushion just sank in a little as she sat down.
"Ahhh," she said before she could stop herself.
Ober turned to her. "Not bad for the price."
"Not bad, " she repeated, getting up before she fell back and rolled on the bed. She wanted to luxuriate in its wonderful softness and never get up again. She had never felt anything like it. She smoothed her hand over the blue cover. Whatever amount of coin it had taken Ober and Kel to buy such a wonderful room, it was worth it.
Kel watched her and wondered about her life. She'd said she wasn't born on Farga, yet she acted as though she hadn't ever known anything else but the harsh mining planet. Of course, without knowing her real name, there was now way to check her heritage. They might never know where she really came from or who her parents had been. It was possible that she didn't know her real name -- or that she had never been given one. Selling children into servitude wasn't unheard of, especially if the parents had debts. No one knew that better than he.
"There's the -- uh -- necessary room," Ober finally finished, flustered. He berated himself for allowing this woman to get to him. The sooner they sold her off for the reward, the better. He had wanted to get close to her, to seduce her, but it seemed that he was infected by her. The week on the freighter had been a strange one for him. He had never enjoyed being with a woman so much. Usually, he obtained his satisfaction with a clean chirn, and then he forgot her. But he liked being with Ten. He liked her laugh and her quick wit. He liked her voice and the way she cheated at dice and cards and any other game they played. He even let her cheat and win just to see the smile on her face.
"Thanks, Ober," she said, glancing uneasily at Kel.
"I'm going to get cleaned up and do some shopping," Ober told her shortly. "Why don't you do the same and we'll meet in the common room."
Ten glanced into the small room that held a shower and a disposal unit. "All right," she replied quickly, looking longingly at the soft bed. "I'll meet you there."
Ober walked out with Kel but Kel looked back around the corner of the entryway. Ten was sprawled out on the bed with a look of pure ecstasy on her face.
"It doesn't take Ober long to clean up," Kel told her. He laughed when she jumped up, looking guilty. "You might want to try the bed out later."
"Not with you," she retorted sharply. She felt vulnerable here in a way she hadn't while they were on Farga. This wasn't like anything she'd ever experienced. She didn't know how to act or what to say. She was comfortable with Ober, but Kel made her nervous. She didn't like the way he looked at her. She could feel him watching her. It made her heart pound in her chest.
Kel's black eyes didn't leave her face. "Wait until you're asked."
"I'd sooner --"
"Yeah." He waved his hand at her. "I know all about it."
"It might help your cause if you didn't irritate her so much," Ober said when Kel came out of the sleeping room.
"But it wouldn't be as much fun," Kel answered honestly.
"Listen, Kel --"
"You're infatuated with her, aren't you?" Kel demanded, turning to his partner. "I knew this was going to happen!"
Ober looked at his large feet. "Kel, I --"
"Ober, I know you! All a female has to do is look at you and you're her willing slave! I knew I should've broken that up on the freighter."
"I won't let it mess me up," Ober promised. "I know my limitations."
Kel shook his head then he smiled. "And she's not even soft or round."
"It's something worse," his friend explained. "She's interesting."
"Does that mean you haven't...done anything?" Kel desperately wanted to know.
Ober didn't reply.
"Well?"
"We haven't," Ober admitted hesitantly. "We talked and played games but that was all. Not even a kiss."
Kel felt as though the weight of an entire miner had been lifted from his chest. The nightmare week on the freighter was gone like a Fargan rain shower. Not even a kiss.
"I can't seduce her," Ober said quietly. "I feel something for her and it wouldn't seem right."
"Ober, you have no scruples when it comes to profit," Kel reminded him.
"I know," Ober replied. "That's why I can't go through with it. You're just going to have to irritate her less."
"Or more," Kel said with a smile. "That's the problem. She's attracted to me but she doesn't want to admit it."
"Kel --"
"But I've seduced tougher women than her. I'll have her eating out of my hand before we go to Joppa. She'll be crying her heart out when I leave her there."
"Kel!" Ober's imperative finally got his friend's attention. Ten stood in the doorway. Her thin face was taut with rage.
"You couldn't seduce a drunken miner into a pool of mineral oil!" she yelled at him.
"Now, Ten," Ober intervened, moving to stand beside her. "Kel didn't mean that the way it sounded."
But Ten was staring at Kel, advancing on him until they were face to face. "And there aren't enough credits in the system to pay me to be with you! So, if that's what you're thinking --"
Kel grinned at her. "I never pay!"
Ober sighed while the two stood glaring at each other. "I think we should remember why we're all here. We're here to make a large amount of coin. No one has to do anything with anyone. In fact, maybe it would be better if none of us did anything with anyone. At least not any one of us...we could do things with someone else." He mumbled the last sentence, and trailed off.
Ten glanced at him. "It might help if I knew how we're supposed to be making all that coin you promised!"
"It's too soon to tell you," Kel said practically.
"I think we should tell her the plan," Ober replied realistically.
Kel looked at Ober. "I think we don't have a plan yet."
"Then I think I'm on the next transport out of here," she told them both.
"Okay," Kel backed down. "Whatever you want to do."
"Just so we understand each other," Ten continued, not satisfied yet. She didn't want to hear them talking about her again like she was a mindless commodity. "I won't be seduced, cajoled or gotten around. Be square with me and I'll be square with you. You can trust me as much as I can trust you."
Kel and Ober exchanged glances. Kel sat down on a chair and Ober leaned against a wall.
"So?" she demanded. "What's it going to be?"
"It would be better for you not to know yet," Kel added.
"Then I'm leaving," she answered quickly. "You got me off Farga. I can take it from here."
"Ten!" Ober said with a demanding look at his partner. "We'll tell you."
They all sat down together in the common area. Ten tried not to look at Kel. She focused on Ober. At least she felt like he'd be straight with her. She liked him. Kel, on the other hand, was just so much sludge that needed to be taken out! He thought he was so sweet with his black eyes and his broad shoulders and good looks! Ober might only be half his size but she'd take him over Kel any time. Maybe she'd even take Ober into her big bed just to spite Kel.
"Kel had this idea when he first saw you at the bar," Ober began to explain.
"It's your eyes," Kel said half-heartedly. He would've preferred not to raise any of their hopes until her face was cleaner and clearer.
"My eyes?" she asked, recalling that he'd said something about her eyes before when they'd still been on Farga. "What about my eyes?"
"They're rare, very rare," Kel admitted looking into those eyes despite himself. He could barely make out the left one but it was getting better every day. The crystal blue was stunning.
"I told you before, you can't sell them," she announced. "I know about stuff like that! I'm not selling them no matter how rare they are or how much I could get for them!"
"That's not it," Kel told her bluntly. "If I'd wanted to sell your eyes, I would've cut them out and sold them already!"
"What!?"
"Kel!" Ober tried to constrain him.
"It's the truth," Kel went on mercilessly. "I've known organ traders. They don't buy you clothes and take you to a nice place to stay. They slice and peel and send you on your way."
Despite herself, Ten had to admit that what he said was true. While she was unconscious, he could've harvested any organ in her body. She'd heard the organ traders talking in the bar. She knew what they did and how they did it. "Okay," she relented. "What about my eyes?"
"I'm sure there are other people in the system with the same eyes, but there's one famous person in particular," Ober told her. "The Chanteuse, Almei Oridin, from Joppa."
Ten considered his words but they didn't make any sense. "So?"
"So, The Chanteuse lost her only child, a girl, a long time ago. The press said she died at birth -- but there were rumors that she was taken off-world by her nurse."
"Kidnapped?" Ten wondered.
"Not exactly kidnapped," Kel answered. "I don't recall all the details. Some people really believe the child died."
She looked at both men. "I don't get it."
"Kel thinks a grateful woman, who is also the head of the Joppan council and the most famous singer in the system, will be happy to pay a huge reward to get her daughter back," Ober tried to suggest.
"Me? Are you saying I'm The Chanteuse's daughter who disappeared?"
"No, not really; at least i don't think do," Kel said. "But we want to create the illusion that you could be the daughter who's been missing. We have some research to do, but you probably look enough like her that we can pass you off as the girl."
"Probably?"
Kel shrugged. "The Chanteuse is a beautiful woman."
Ober shook his head, hearing another argument coming.
"And I'm not?"
"She's ethereally beautiful," Kel persisted.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ten demanded hotly.
"You're supposed to be her daughter anyway," Ober interrupted them. "You wouldn't have to look exactly like her -- just enough to convince The Chanteuse."
Ten turned to him. "And you'd take the reward and go?"
"That's right," Kel said softly. "Sweet, huh?"
"What am I supposed to get?"
"You can be The Chanteuse's daughter. She's rich. People would worship you like they do her," he answered.
"I don't want to live on Joppa and be someone's daughter," she complained. "I want my share of the reward."
Kel glared at her. "Then I wish I could trade places with you! I'd love to be her daughter!"
"I know a man who could make you her daughter!" she replied loudly.
"I'm sure we could arrange that you would get your thirty percent of the reward," Ober promised, trying to calm the situation. "And then we could go our separate ways."
Ten sniffed and ran her hand through her hair. "You don't think she'd be following me around and things like that, do you?"
"I think you could vanish as easy as anyone else," Kel answered patiently. "If that's what you want."
"That's what I want," she reiterated.
"But -- you don't know until you see where she lives. Joppa is wealthy, but off- worlders can't live there. They can go there and study music or whatever but not to live permanently. Joppans don't live off-world either and they usually only mate with their own kind."
Ten shivered. "It sounds restricting."
Ober shook his head. "Joppans can't live off-world. It's something about the music from their singing trees. They're born with some special part in their brain or something. The music reacts with it. If they go off-world for too long, they get sick and die. I talked to a merchant once who was from Joppa. He had reached his limit after a few months. They have to go back."
"It sounds like a weird place," Ten said, not happy about the strange world she was supposed to pretend to be part of. "How would you explain how I lived for so long without the music?"
Ober and Ten both looked at Kel.
"I lived on Joppa for awhile with my mother," he explained, trying to work out the answers. "She was a diplomat. There's this group of people there who tend the trees in the Last Forest. They're called the Holy Ones. They live in the forest and refuse to live like the other Joppans. I was thinking we could say the nurse kidnapped you and took you to the Holy Ones. Ober and I were traveling through the Last Forest and saw you there and realized who you were."
"Even though the people of their own world didn't recognize me?" she debated.
'The Holy Ones keep to themselves. Some haven't been seen in ten long cycles or more. We'll say that this nurse became a Holy One. She took you with her and you're just making your debut into society!"
Ober considered the plan. "It could work."
"A lot depends on the age the baby would be now and what she looks like when we clean her up," Kel half agreed.
"Would you mind not discussing me like I'm not here?" she asked. "I am the most important part of this plan."
"Or we could drug you and pretend we found you in a state of Holy Ecstasy in the forest," Kel threatened. "We leave you there to live out your life as a Holy One and we take the reward anyway."
"You dirty, bloated, rum sucking --"
"We wouldn't do that," Ober assured her valiantly.
"How can I know that?" she asked.
Kel laughed. "Because like stealing your eyes, we could've done it already! We'll make more coin with you being alive and alert."
Ten glared at him. If she had the chance to leave Kel someplace drugged and helpless, she wouldn't hesitate! "It sounds crazy."
"It might be," Kel admitted. "But crazy enough to work."
"We need all the details," Ober suggested. "I'm going to clean up, like I said before. If the two of you can keep from killing each other without me, maybe we can get started."
Ten looked away. Kel shrugged and turned his back on her.
"Fine," Ober replied. "If you want to go shopping with me for some new clothes, Ten, then you need to shower, too. You looked fine on Farga but Vixen is a whole other world."
Kel and Ten were alone in the common room together. Ten stood up to go to her room while Kel glanced through some travel discs.
"What was her name?" Ten asked him slowly, looking back at him.
"Who?" he wondered, glancing up.
"The real daughter. The Chanteuse's real daughter."
"Fara," Kel answered, not looking up at her. "I read her death notice. The word is actually the name of a warm wind that blows down from the mountains."
"What?"
He glanced up at her. The crystal blue was glittering in her good eye. "Fara. Why?"
Ten muttered an answer to his question then ran into her room. She looked at herself in the mirror and touched her scarred, bruised face. She stared closely at the frozen blue of her eyes. "Fara," she said to the face in the mirror. She turned on the shower then stood looking at the water pulsing down the sides of the cubicle. Her mind whirled with possibilities and then stopped short.
She didn't know anything about Joppa. She'd heard the name occasionally from conversations around the bar. She didn't know their customs or their words. She certainly didn't know anything about their music. Singing trees, Kel had called them. She had never even seen a plain tree, much less one that sang! How could she pretend to be the daughter of a woman who was the head of this world? How could she possibly fool her into believing that she was her daughter and had lived on Joppa for her whole life without knowing The Chanteuse was her mother?
Carefully, Ten took off her clothes and folded them neatly on the table near the bed. The NU-SKIN had worked on her injury. It was nicely healed and only occasionally pained her. The other bruises were healing, too. It was stupid and reckless of her to get into that fight. She could've avoided it but she'd been in a dark, foul mood that night. In some ways, she wished that Kel had left her to die on the street after the brawl. She was what she was: a poor, illiterate woman, with no hope for the future and memories that made her unable to forget that there was another life besides the dirty Fargan mining camps.
If they could make some coin from this scam, maybe it wouldn't always be so, she considered, stepping into the warm, pulsing water. Maybe if this place could exist and a place like Joppa, where everyone sang and the warm wind had a name, maybe she could find a place like the one where she grew up. Maybe she would have the coins to buy that place and not ever have to think about Farga again. Or if she did, she would think about it the way she thought about her life with her mother; never quite sure if it really happened.
As a child, she'd been brought to Farga to work. When her mother died, she left debts behind. Ten was sold to the debtors, one of which owned some bars and hotels on Farga. She worked in kitchens and took food to the mines for a while. She'd cleaned hotel rooms and slept in the street. She'd stolen and fought to survive, finally learning to tend bar and keep down the rabble. It meant food in her stomach and a place to spend the night. That was more than a lot of people had in that dismal place.
It had been that long since she'd had a bath or shower with real water. Water was a costly luxury on Farga. The miners cleaned themselves, when they did, with rum or wallowed in the mineral pools. Ten had done what she could at first. She could recall being clean when they'd brought her there from that other place. She didn't recall the name of that place or many of the details before then.
After a while, she didn't care anymore. The black dust was everywhere, in everything. It had a greasy quality to it that made it adhere to hair, skin and lungs. She fit in with everything else by being dusty. She couldn't have kept clean. Her clothes were imbedded with it. She could feel it in her throat and rubbed it out of her eyes.
She scrubbed the perfumed soap against herself in the shower until her skin was pink and it began to be raw where she rubbed it. She lavished it in her hair and watched as the black dust went down the unit to be recycled with the other fluids onboard the station. When she finally felt clean, she walked out of the shower and dried off in the warm air that blew out from the wall. She looked in the mirror again and hardly recognized herself.
Without the black dust, her skin took on a pearlescent glow. She was not dark skinned like Kel but not as white as Ober, either. She was a warm, ivory hue that she didn't realize lay under the layers of dust. Her hair was wet but it gleamed and began to curl in the warm air. She had always thought it was the color of the dust -- but clean, it had a life and color of its own. There was a faint blue to the black.
Her nose was small but slightly misshapen from too many beatings. Her cheeks were strong and had never been crushed by a blow. Her chin, that had been cited for many of those beatings as being impertinent, was still held high. She slipped her clothes back on, hating to put them over her. Even though she'd only worn them a short time on Farga, they still contained black dust.
Be careful, she reminded herself. Listen and watch. Don't give yourself away and you might never have to wear clothes that are full of black dust again. She thought about The Chanteuse, wondering what the woman looked like and what it was like for her not to know what happened to her daughter. Joppa sounded like as strange a place as Farga, just that they had coin and refinement. Would The Chanteuse believe that she was her long, lost daughter?
Maybe Kel was right, much as she hated to admit it. Being the daughter of a wealthy woman might be fine. She could go where she wanted to go, do what she wanted to do. No one would ever tell her what to do again. She would never have to work at a filthy job or eat hard crusts for dinner. It would be a life of luxury and ease. No one beating on her all the time. Maybe she could have a place of her own there. She could go out and hear those singing trees. People would bow down to her and get her rum for a change!
"Are you ready?" Ober asked from the common room.
Ten pulled at her clothes and pushed at her hair. She walked timidly around the corner of the doorway and looked at them.
Ober punched Kel, who was looking through one of his packs for an access card to the system wide data base. Kel looked up and stopped rummaging. His black eyes left no part of her body untouched. His assessment was so thorough that Ten began to fidget, but she endured it because she understood what he was looking for in her.
"What do you think?" Ober asked, a wide smile shaping his own mouth.
Kel, who knew he was supposed to be assessing her for her likeness to The Chanteuse, had forgotten after the first glance at her clean face. The clothes were too big but they emphasized the delicate lines of her face. Her lips were perfectly shaped, not too wide or too narrow. The crystal blue of her eyes mesmerized him. He felt a lump in his throat and an uncomfortable tightness in a much lower region of his body.
This was the woman who was going to help them get set up for life, Kel reminded himself and that lower region sharply. Most of his relationships with women consisted of a night or two together and saying goodbye. He wasn't sure if he could offer more. Not that Ten would expect it but he didn't want to alienate her either. He needed her to be on their side. He agreed with Ober that one of them needed to be close to her. He just wasn't sure if he could be close to her without getting too close.
"Sweet," he finally acknowledged, seeing relief in her eyes for one brief instant. "She'll do."