best interests to probe too deeply.”
And Yuan believed him.
ATTACK SHIP
CAPTAIN’S QUARTERS
“You believed him?” Tamara asked. “You swallowed his ludicrous story? You let him get away with this mysterious tripe?”
Sitting on the edge of his double-sized bunk, Yuan nodded unhappily. “I didn’t want to believe him, but I really think he’s telling the truth.”
Tamara Vishinsky stood by the compartment’s closed door. She was in her off duty coveralls, with the front unzipped enough to show considerable cleavage. Ordinarily Yuan would have found this enticing, suggestive. Not now.
Planting her hands on her slim hips, Tamara scorned, “You actually believe that he’s wandering through the Belt looking for bodies of dead mercenaries? It’s a lie, and a pitiful one at that.”
Scratching his head, Yuan shot back, “What else could he be doing out here? Going from one battle site to the other?”
Tamara said, “What else indeed? Why don’t we find that out before we get rid of him? He might know things that would be valuable to us.”
“Us?” Yuan asked. “Us, meaning you and me? Us, meaning the crew of this task force? Or us, meaning you and Humphries?”
She started to answer, caught herself, then replied, “He’s searching for something out here in the Belt. I’d like to know what it is. Wouldn’t you?”
“What in the name of all the dragons in hell could be out here?”
“That’s what I want to find out.”
“My orders are to kill him. Immediately. You know that.”
“But we can interrogate him first.”
Yuan shook his head. “He won’t be easy to pry information out of.”
“Maybe the woman will be easier.”
“No!” Yuan snapped. “It’s bad enough we have to kill her.”
Tamara walked to the bed and sat down beside him, close enough for their shoulders to touch.
“They’re out here in the Belt searching for something,” she whispered in his ear. “It must be something valuable, or else why would they be doing it? It might be something that could make us rich.”
“Buried treasure?” Yuan sneered.
“Information is the basis of wealth,” Tamara purred. “Information that we can sell or trade or use to make us rich.”
Yuan smelled the faint perfume she wore. He knew the places on her body where she daubed her skin with the scent.
“He says he’s searching for bodies,” he muttered, “to give them proper last rites.”
“But what is he
“Do you actually think he’s up to something else?”
“He’s got to be,” she said.
“I… I don’t know.”
“Let me interrogate him. We’re going to eliminate them both anyway. Let’s find out what they’ve been doing, first.”
“I don’t like it,” Yuan said.
“I’ll take care of it. You can question the woman and be as gentle as you like.”
“Let me talk to her first. Maybe I can get what we want out of her.”
Tamara got to her feet and headed for the door. “All right,” she said. “You do that.”
And she left Yuan sitting on his bunk, alone.
“Whatever did you do to Martin Humphries to make him want you dead?” Yuan asked.
He had invited Elverda to his quarters for dinner. And some questioning. She had come hesitantly, wondering how well her heart had been repaired. But aside from a slight breathlessness when she first got out of bed, she felt all right. She thought she’d felt her heart skip a beat or two when she’d first stood up, but she put that down to her imagination.
Elverda looked up from the salad taken from the hydroponic tank that Yuan had built for the crew.
“It might be better if you didn’t know,” she said softly.
Yuan studied the aged sculptress. Her face was seamed with years, her hair white and cut short: poorly, he thought. Yet there was strength in that imperious face, natural dignity in the firm set of her frail shoulders beneath the woven robe she wore.
“Mr. Humphries is a bad enemy,” Yuan said, trying to keep his tone casual. “He has a long reach.”
“And a longer memory,” said Elverda. Then she took a forkful of the salad. “Delicious. I missed fresh vegetables. We had nothing but prepackaged meals and supplement pills aboard
Yuan saw that she was trying to change the subject and decided to go along with her, for the moment.
“What were you doing on your ship?”
She looked at him from across the little table with onyx eyes of endless depths. “Didn’t Dorn tell you?”
“He said you were searching for dead bodies.”
She nodded. “Mercenaries killed in the war and left to drift through space.”
“This… person you call Dorn, his real name is Dorik Harbin.”
“His name once was Dorik Harbin,” Elverda conceded. “But he has changed his life, his entire personality. So he’s changed his name, as well.”
Yuan leaned back in his chair. “Do you expect me to believe that you were searching for bodies? Like a pair of ghouls?”
“That’s what we were doing,” Elverda replied. A small smile bent her thin lips slightly. “Not like ghouls, though. More like priests. Missionaries, perhaps.”
Feeling his brows knit in a frown that he didn’t want to display, Yuan said, “Mr. Humphries’s orders are to execute you both.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Which brings us back to my first question: What did you do to make him so angry with you?”
“He’s not angry. He’s afraid.”
“Of what?”
Elverda seemed to think about that question for a moment. Then she replied, “He’s afraid of himself, I believe.”
Yuan picked up his napkin, started to daub his lips, but instead threw it onto the table in frustration.
“This is getting us nowhere!”
Elverda said nothing.
“I want to know why Humphries is out to get you,” Yuan said, his voice rising. “If you won’t tell me, I’ll have to pry it out of Harbin.”
“Dorn.”
“Don’t play games with me, woman.”
She put down her fork. “Captain Yuan, have you considered the possibility that if you knew why Humphries wants to kill us, then he might want to kill you, too?”
Yuan blinked.
