internal chaos.
'We did it!' yelled Craig. 'By God, we did it!' He laughed as he closed the hatches, slipping, saved from falling into space by the line at his waist. Dumarest crossed to it and hauled the man to safety before sealing the hatches. 'Ysanne!'
'I know, Jed.' Her voice was as light as the engineer's. 'A crazy scheme but it worked. That ship won't move in a hurry. Where to now?'
'Anywhere.' Dumarest cracked his suit as the external pressure reached normal. 'Just get moving. We can change course later.'
Change it again and yet again in a random pattern to throw off pursuit. He would decide that later but, for now, the euphoria was enough, and was shared by Ysanne, as he could see when she came to join him in the salon.
'Earl!' She stood close before him. 'By, God-Earl!'
She was like a gambler lost in the intoxication of success, exaggerated by the tensions which had preceded it, now blazing from every atom of her being. This was a feeling he knew and had seen too often-the reward of all who deliberately risked their lives and so played with the highest stake of all.
He felt her nearness, the warm exudations of her body, and felt himself respond to her need. The light caught the heavy braids of her hair, creating a small aura of haze touched with color. The oil which gave it added sheen carried a heavy, pungent scent.
'You bitch! You dirty, lying bitch!'
Maynard had entered the salon and now stood to one side of the door. His face was tense, his eyes rimmed with red, angry, bloodshot. The collar of his tunic was open and Dumarest could see the thick veins pulsing in his neck beneath the mottled skin. He had arisen from a drugged acquiescence to vent a killing rage.
'Don't move!' he said. 'Just don't either of you move!'
The gun he carried was the one Ysanne had used and Dumarest knew the fan would cover the entire area of the salon where they stood. A device used by slavers to control their victims, burning with savage intensity even if it did not kill.
Dumarest said, 'What's the matter? Why the gun?'
'Stay out of this. Move over to one side. Move, damn you!' The jerk of the gun emphasized the command. 'Get away from her!'
'Do it, Earl.' Then, as he obeyed, she said, 'I had to do it, Evan. It was for the best.'
'Your best or mine?' His hand shook with renewed anger. 'Using me. Lying. Promising-and for what? You know who that ship carried? You know what the Cyclan do to those who work against them? We had a fortune in our hand and you threw it away. I ought to burn your eyes out.'
'You wouldn't like me if you did.' Her eyes were direct, her tone loaded with hidden meaning. 'You're upset and you've a right to be annoyed, but if you'll just let me explain. There wasn't time before. Now, if you'd just listen we can straighten all this out.' She stepped toward him, one hand extended. 'Give me the gun and let's forget this nonsense.'
Dumarest watched, admiring her calm, yet aware of the tension Maynard was under. Jealousy compounded with fear, the two creating a suicidal rage. Death would offer him an escape from his problems and, killing her, would insure his possession. Soon now he would act-if she took a few steps closer he would explode or collapse. Kill or cry.
Only then would he have a chance.
As Ysanne moved closer, talking as if to a child, Dumarest studied the man, the gun he held. It was a fan- beam, which meant the energy would be dispersed. The induction button gave no delay but his finger still had to touch it. A tiny movement compared to that he would have to take but if the woman was out of the field of fire it would ease the problem.
He said, 'Drop, girl! Drop!'
'What?' Maynard turned toward him. 'What's that you say?'
Ysanne tried to take advantage of this distraction. Her long legs moved, her hand reaching out for the gun, missing as Maynard jerked it back, lifting his free hand to send it slashing across her face. The blow sent her staggering back, to trip, to fall sprawling on the floor.
'You bastard! You-no, Earl! Earl!'
He had stooped, right knee lifting, hand rising weighted with his knife. Steel flashed as the knife spun across the salon when Maynard fired. One shot which died as metal touched his throat, drove deep into skin and fat and muscle, cutting the great arteries and the flow of blood to the brain.
'Earl!' Ysanne rose, ignoring the blood, the dead man on the floor. 'He shot you!'
The heat had missed his face, his hands, burning instead a narrow swath across his tunic, searing the plastic and revealing the metal mesh buried within the material. This protection had absorbed the energy and saved him from injury.
'No harm,' she said. 'Thank God for that.' Then, looking at the dead man, she added, 'But what do we do now for a captain?'
CHAPTER EIGHT
Every ship carried ghosts and a slaver more than most; whispers, sighs, cries of pain and grief, the slurry of restless movement. Vibrations caught and transmitted through the structure to fade and die in murmuring susurations. But, in the
The ship was too quiet. In the engine room Jed Craig tended the humming generators and in the control room watchful mechanisms studied the space through which they drove but here, in the cabin, he heard nothing but the small sounds created by the woman at his side.
She moved as he glanced at her, one hand lifting to touch his arm, her lips smiling as her fingers met his flesh. She was newly awake as he could tell from the altered tempo of her breathing yet remembered a recent passion which, slaked, had left them satiated.
A single point of light illuminated the cabin with a soft, pink glow and he remembered another room, another woman revealed in a similar illumination.
As if reading his mind Ysanne said, 'Regrets, Earl?'
'No.'
'Memories, then? Of someone you left behind in Zabul?' Her hand moved over his naked torso. 'Someone who loved you?'
A question he left unanswered even as he wondered why he found it so hard to remember Althea's face. Copper hair and emerald eyes-familiar coloration, but she had lacked the raw energy which filled Ysanne. The same burning individuality which had made Kalin so precious.
'Earl?'
'Nothing.' The past was dead and ghosts should be left in peace. Now, at this moment, only Ysanne was real. The woman and the ship and the dangers they faced.
'I was thinking,' she said. 'About you and Maynard. I thought you'd relied on luck to avoid getting hurt but now I know better. You planned the whole thing from the very beginning. Watched and waited and moved when the time was right. And, by God, how you moved! I've never seen anyone so fast.'
'It's over. Forget it.'
'Aren't you curious? About him and me?'
'No.'
Her hand tensed on his chest then relaxed. In the light she looked wild, barbaric. An animal yet to be tamed, broken, fitted with a yoke. She had come to him with an unabashed directness and his response had matched her own.
'You're different,' she mused. 'From the very first moment we met I recognized that. We're two of a kind. What you want you take. What you need you go after. Like me. You can understand how it is; to see something and know you must have it.
