Prophecy

'Endrix says I need a ship, and only one of yours will be good enough.'

He walked over to lean on the back of the chair beside her. 'You want a ship? You expect me to just hand over a multi-million regal ship to you?' He laughed and shook his head. 'You amaze me. Why don't the Atlanteans give you one? It's their necks you're supposed to save, not mine.'

'If Atlan falls -'

'I know that. I told you, remember? Why must I give you a ship?'

'Endrix says only one of your ships will be good enough to do whatever it is I have to do when the time comes. He didn't go into the details. And you don't have to give it to me, a loan will do.'

He chuckled. 'A loan. This Endrix seems to think he knows everything.'

'He also said you're not what you appear to be, and if you told me the truth it would surprise me.'

'Did he? Yes, I suppose it would.'

'But you're not going to tell me the truth, are you?'

He stepped around the chair and sat in it, appearing friendlier and more relaxed. 'No. But I might loan you a ship.'

Her heart leapt. 'On what conditions?'

'Conditions?' He paused, and she wished she knew what he was thinking, or at least could sense his emotions, but his guard was up. He shook his head. 'Only one. That you stay the hell off my bases and away from me. When you're finished with the ship, it will return to me.'

Rayne stared at him, shocked. 'Why?'

'I don't have to explain myself to you. It shouldn't be a problem, since you find my company so abhorrent.'

'I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry. It's just that what you did was so terrible, so shocking, killing that slaver in cold blood like that, setting a trap for him. Using me as bait. Now that I'm over the shock of it, I don't dislike your company. In fact, I'd like to get to know you better.'

'Would you?' he murmured. 'A dangerous ambition. Few people know me well, and they're utterly loyal. They would die before revealing anything about me to my enemies. You, on the other hand, are an unknown quantity, and might still be working for the Atlanteans. You have no proof that anything you've told me is true. I only have your word for it.'

He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to protest. 'Granted, you're right about the Crystal Ship, so you've been to Elliadaren. But that doesn't prove anything else, does it?'

'No.' She lifted her chin. 'But I would never betray someone who helped me. You can trust me. Read my mind if you don't believe me, I won't try to stop you.'

'I never delve that deep into the thoughts of others. It lays bare far too much that's private. Which shows how little you know about the subject.'

'But I can sense when…' She frowned, confused. Usually she could sense when someone was lying, but she had failed with him.

'If you know when someone's lying, you're an empath, and that's really dangerous.'

'Why?'

'Why?' He snorted. 'How many people do you know who would like to be caught lying?'

'The people I know don't lie.'

'Of course, the Atlanteans. Damn, but they're a stuck-up, self-righteous lot. Never did like them.' He rose and came around the table to loom over her. 'Let's get this over with, shall we? I'll take you to the hangar, where you can meet your ship.'

'I haven't agreed to your condition,' she pointed out as she stood up to face him.

He shrugged. 'It doesn't matter. You won't find me next time.'

'What if I need your help?'

The Shrike turned and went to the door, where he waited for her to join him before leading her down the corridor. He set a brisk pace, which made it difficult to talk, so she followed him in silence. To her surprise, he took her back to her apartment and pointed at a black one-piece suit draped over the back of a chair.

'Put that on. And to answer your previous question, why the hell should I help you any more than I already have?'

She glanced at the clothes. 'Why must I wear that?'

'Because, in case you haven't noticed, my people think you're a slaver, come to do business with me. They don't like rival slavers, which is why I had to have you guarded. My rivals visit me rarely, and when they do, they don't wander about the station, not even in my company. It makes my people angry. So put on the suit.'

The Shrike stepped back, and the door shut in her face. She picked up the suit with its hawk-like emblem and went into the bedroom to change. He was becoming more and more confusing, this strange man, and she could not figure him out at all. When she had been afraid, he had been gentle and kind, but firm and mysterious too. Now he was harsher, brisk, suspicious, and downright rude.

When she had changed, she found Tarke waiting outside, and followed him back down the corridor that led to the hangars. The guards were absent, so apparently he had dismissed them outside her apartment. They marched through the room with the glass-walled office and into the next hangar, where she had seen the black ship before. It was still there, or perhaps it had returned, and she gazed up at it with a thrill of awe.

'This one?'

He nodded. 'Its name is Shadowen. It's the same ship you travelled in to Octovar One.'

'I thought it was your special ship?'

'It was, but I've built a new one, slightly better, but basically this one's twin. I even cloned the bio-crystalline brain. They're almost identical. Shadowen is twenty years old, which is not young by a ship's standards. It was due for an overhaul and a refit, which it's had now, since the new one's been in service. I had planned to use them both, but I don't really need two.'

Rayne gazed at the ship. 'She's beautiful.'

'I wouldn't call Shadowen a 'she', if I was you. It's a moot point, but the brain prefers a masculine title. I'm assuming your guide had one of my companion ships in mind when he told you to ask me for a ship, since they're my best, far superior to anything Atlan has. They're faster, and able to withstand more stress than a bigger ship, like a battle cruiser. But it has a good deal of firepower and an excellent Net link, which is a ship's most important asset.

'As long as it's linked to the Net, this ship can hold its own in battle with a cruiser the size of Vengeance. Not only does it have a number of fore and aft energy weapons, it also has one-way stress screens, which the Atlanteans don't. Their ships have to lower their screens for an instant to fire their weapons, this one doesn't.'

He headed for an almost invisible door in the sleek hull. 'By the way, if you try to hand this ship over to the Atlanteans, it will return to me, and you won't be received so cordially if you come here again.'

'I wouldn't.'

He stopped beside the door. 'But they might try to take it. They'd love to get their hands on one of my ships and study it. Shadowen won't allow that either.'

Rayne nodded. 'If necessary, I'll stay away from Atlan.'

'Where else would you go?'

'I don't know. I want to visit Endrix's world. He said I could, but if the Atlanteans try to take the ship, I'll have to find somewhere else to wait for the Envoy to appear.'

Tarke faced her in silence for several seconds, as if trying to decide what to make of her, then turned to the ship. The door opened with a hiss, and two steps floated out to hang suspended on antigravity fields. He walked up them, vanishing within. Rayne followed him into a dim bridge, where tiny crystals glowed and a soft background hum sent faint vibrations under her feet.

'Hello, Tarke.' A bland, sexless voice, which she assumed was the ship, spoke out of the gloom.

'Shadowen, this is Rayne,' the Shrike said. 'I'm loaning you to her for a while. She has a mission. When she's completed it, you'll return to me.'

A pregnant silence fell, and she could have sworn she sensed the ship's confusion and dismay, but that was impossible, since it was a machine. It said, 'Very well.'

'You'll have to be linked to her biorhythms for the duration.'

'I understand.'