Grayson Sontang in Space - Chapter 4 - Part 1

Chapter 4 Part 1

When Grayson reached for the rest of the books on the shelf to throw all at once, Hendon wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back away from the potential missiles. "You're going to have to explain that one, preferably without throwing anything else," he said in his best calm-the-hysterical-woman voice.

"Don't you get it?" she yelled, struggling in his grip. "There's no decision to make! We're out of options. We deploy the net and then we live or die."

"Okay," he said calmly. "We're in space. That's the nature of the territory."

"Not for me. There's always supposed to be options." She paused in her struggles to try to catch her breath. "That's how I succeed. I always pick the best option."

"Then pick between doing nothing and deploying the net."

"You fucking idiot," she screamed, trying to stomp on his instep and twist out of his grip at the same time. Except she was barefoot and he had spacer boots on, not to mention his extensive training in physically detaining humans and Xenos. Grayson howled in frustration and suddenly found herself on her back on the bed, with Hendon sitting on her thighs and pinning her wrists beside her shoulders. Her hair was fanned across her face and she glared up at him through a veil of black strands.

"Here's an option for you," he said more harshly, leaning over her, obviously running out of patience. "Either you calm down and start talking, or I call Bogart to come and sedate you."

"Get off me, you fucking asshole," she screamed, writhing in a vain effort to push him off.

"Hal, open comm to Officer Bogart. Hank, I need sedation for female subject, approximately," he paused, "Fifty-five kilos."

"Fifty," she spat, and that grin spread across his face.

"Acknowledged," Bogart answered. "On my way."

Grayson glowered at him. "Wipe that grin off your face," she threatened.

"Or what?" When she didn't answer, he grinned even wider. "So why don't you start by telling me about this son you say is down in the hold."

"Let go of me," she said as calmly as she could while breathing hard.

"Not till it's all out there so you have nothing more to go nova about."

She scoffed. "Then I hope you've emptied your bladder recently."

"I can hold it as long as you can," he challenged with another grin. When she closed her eyes and groaned in irritation, he became thoughtful. "Okay, so if one of those kids is yours, we'd be looking for a boy that was fostered or adopted. Hal, male passengers under, say, twelve years of age. Parentage..."

"Stop it," she snapped. "Hal, ignore that request."

He leaned closer. "If Hal won't answer me, I can query Confed. You know I'm not going to let this go."

There was a long pause, then, "I was grounded off a freighter," she answered softly, so he had to remain close to hear her. "Broke my arm." Her voice faded softer and softer. He leaned closer. "I was healing, waiting for another hitch..." She lunged up, trying to smash her head into his, but he'd predicted the move and sat back, laughing at her.

"So clever," he chided. "Now the real story."

She seemed to visibly sag. "Please let go of me."

He studied her as Bogart entered the room with an infuse syringe. Bogart took in the scene and coughed to try to hide his snicker. Hendon sat further back and released one of her wrists to take the syringe from Bogart. "She actually prefers it from the back..." Bogart started, but when Hendon shot him a look, he raised his hands and backed out of the room. "Holler if you need any help," he called as the portal closed.

Hendon released her other hand and glanced quickly at the syringe before putting it into his shirt pocket, then he watched her closely as she rubbed her wrists. "Now, let's start over from the beginning," he suggested, resting his hands on his thighs and his weight on her legs. "A son?" he prompted as she brushed the hair from her face.

She turned her head to the side, away from his intense scrutiny. "I was telling you the truth."

"Look at me and tell me the truth, then."

She sighed and met his gaze. "I was working a freighter. A crate fell. My arm was broken. All three bones. I was dumped off on Sirius. I healed up. I was waiting for another hitch. I had an affair. End of story."

He pulled the syringe from his pocket and studied it, watching her face beyond the device. "Now fill in the blanks."

"I don't know what you mean," she said, but her eyes were on the syringe. She loved alcohol, but hated drugs, and he seemed to have guessed that.

"A crate fell. How?" When she didn't answer right away, he shrugged. "I've got lots of time. We won't deploy the net until Het and Sip are satisfied with the installation."

She sighed. "It was my hold, my responsibility. I was checking it before jump. A stack of crates wasn't secured. Then the pilot made a last minute course adjustment."

Hendon put the syringe back in his pocket. "That doesn't sound like you."

"It wasn't," she snapped with a touch of bitterness. He only cocked an eyebrow. "After the jump, they pulled the crate off me and splinted my arm. I went back and looked. The buckling on the strapping had been laser cut. The report said it was a bad weld."

He nodded sagely. "So two culprits. Someone with a pen laser to damage the buckle. And someone to file a careless, or flat-out false, report."

"So then I was dumped on Sirius to have the bones set."

"Back up," he commanded.

"What?"

"It had to be at least five days from jump point to planetfall. Probably more." Grayson frowned. "Come on," he prodded. "You wouldn't let something like that slide."

"It's not relevant."

He smiled slyly. "Satisfy my curiosity."

She scowled. "Despite rumors to the contrary, I am choosy about who I let close to my privates." She gave a twist to her hips just to remind him how close he was. "Some men don't take rejection well."

He frowned. "To the point of endangering your life?"

"Let's just leave it that when saying no doesn't suffice, I tended to follow up with more physical - and public - expressions of my displeasure. It turns out that humiliation is an even stronger motivator than rejection."

"So," he concluded. "Revenge against the cutter and the liar?" She shrugged. "And did they survive?"

"Do you really think I would tell you if they didn't? Admit to murder?"

"I don't see you committing murder," he said thoughtfully. "More like those options you were talking about, picking an appropriate, untraceable consequence fitting the crime."

She smiled - finally - and shrugged. "I'm not sure I like the fact that you get me."

He smiled in return. "Leaving that lay, for the moment... So, you were on Sirius. Healing."

"And had an affair."

"Uh, uh. Back up. So. On Sirius. I wasn't born there, but I've spent more than enough time there to know that Siriuns do not mix with off-world spacers. Even for casual sex. You weren't hanging around healing in spacer town."

"Okay, I got bored. Sitting around waiting for bones to knit is not my style."

He squinted at her, then shook his head. "I don't see it."

"Don't see what?" she demanded. "And get off me!"

"Not till I understand. I figure you'd either have to pass as Siriun Sector native, or present yourself as someone of consequence from some other sector." He scanned her torso. "Most of the occupied planets in Siriun Sector are higher than one grav. Nothing personal, but you're too puny to pass for a native from a one plus planet."

"You have a peculiar notion of native," she remarked. "Sip and Het might want to talk to you about that some time."

"Oh, we've talked. Regardless, you may have changed your face, your breasts, your ass, who knows? But bone structure, muscle mass, that's a whole other thing. So that means you passed as someone not native, but still desirable to a Siriun. So, let's say we rule out your current facial features, skin, eye, and hair color. You know, the easy stuff to change."

"I have a ship to fly, Hendon," she protested.

"Oh, I must be getting close, because you were all too willing to abdicate that responsibility not two minutes ago. Where were we? Ah, yes. So, you led someone of some importance - else why would this child be on this ship in this predicament - to believe that an assignation with you would be to their benefit, somehow. Then you not only got pregnant, but carried the child to term, and then gave up said child? To what? To the father? To adoption? And yet you care about this child enough to be tormented by a life and death decision, not for yourself, but for the child?"

"You do not want to follow this road to where it leads, Hendon. Drop it and let my fly my ship."

He grinned malevolently. "I'm too much like you, Sontang. I can't let it go till I've sucked the marrow dry. See, there's too much at play here, too much that I don't understand, and until I understand, I can't risk the lives at stake. So give it all to me. Who is the child and who is the father? And while you're at it, why?"

Grayson flew up, reaching for his head, knowing even as she did that she had no hope of twisting him off her or even inflicting more than a bruise from her confined position. And he just kept grinning as he snapped his hands around her wrists and forced her back down on the bed. He leaned over so close to her, his face was only inches away. She strove not to turn her head away. "If I have to sedate you, someone else will be flying your ship. Think about that," he suggested.

"I won't tell you who," she hissed.

"Then tell me why and how," he bargained.

"How? You want to know how babies are made?"

He laughed an actual, natural laugh and she found herself relaxing ever so slightly. There was a human inside there somewhere, not just a robotic, manipulative law officer. He pushed away slightly, and loosened his hold on her wrists. She sighed. "If I tell you why and how, will you get off me?"

He pondered. "Yes," he finally agreed, and she knew it was because he was sure he could figure out the who.

She took a deep breath. "I was running out of money. Trade was bad. Ships weren't hiring."

"You didn't... You weren't..."

"No, I was not tricking," she snapped, her eyes shooting fire, but he just grinned and she realized he'd been baiting her for a change. She scowled at him. "I decided to take the money I had left and set up a con. Siriuns have a certain fascination with Denebs. God knows why. But I could pass, so I did." A brief puzzled frown flashed across his face as he tried to reconcile her current features with those of a Deneb. The settled worlds hadn't become the great melting pots that people had expected, as the human race flowed out into the galaxy. Rather, races, cultures and nationalities trended toward planets that felt home-like to each particular group, then in-breeding of sorts within the small populations of settlers tended to make the individuals look even more like each other. Add to that natural factors like diet, gravity, solar conditions, etc. and adaptations selected for even more commonality.

Grayson didn't notice Hendon's puzzlement. She was remembering. "I crashed a huge Deneb Embassy party, looking for a Siriun mark. And not for what you're thinking. I was looking for quick money, not a nine-month blackmail scheme."

"Go on," he nodded with encouragement.

She wriggled in discomfort, but he didn't take a hint from it, so she continued, hoping if she gave him way too much elaboration he would finally get tired of this game. "I got... distracted. I was chatting up men - and a few women - who looked like they had heavy wallets. One fellow took particular interest in me. I'd already ruled him out. He was..." she paused, choosing her words carefully. "Accompanied by others who seemed to be looking out for his welfare. Perhaps because he was imbibing over much of the Denebian whiskey. Anyway, he kept showing up, interrupting, stepping on my game. When I'd chosen my mark, I knew I had to get rid of this other guy before he ruined everything. I figured the easiest way was to give him what he wanted. I mean, he was married, his wife was right there at the party. I figured a quick suck or fuck and he'd be on his way and I could get back to work. It was after him when I swore off married men, by the way." She glanced at Hendon, but he showed no sign of losing interest.

"I'd already scoped out a nice quiet room in the back of the embassy, with a different purpose in mind, but I figured it would do for a quickie. I told him I'd wait there for ten minutes and if he could shed his wife and friends, to come meet me. So he shows up, even more drunk than I'd realized, and I'm wondering if he's even going to be able to get it up. Then he launches into this sob story about an arranged marriage and how he can't have kids, you know, trying to explain why he's picking up strange Deneb women. I'm thinking to myself that he's just drunk enough maybe I can 'help' him pass out and leave him convinced he had the best sex of his life if he could just remember it. But then he begs me to blow him, so I figure what the hell. I manage to kneel despite the ridiculous Denebian formal gown that I 'borrowed' for the event. I pull him out of his pants and he's hard as a steel rod."

Grayson peeked up at Hendon, hoping he'd ask for less detail, decide he wasn't really all that interested in what she'd done on Sirius years ago. No such luck. He was watching her intently, trying to judge her veracity, no doubt. "So I start to blow him, figuring I can get him shooting his rocks off in no time and send him on his way. Don't get me wrong, he was a young, good-looking guy, and well-endowed, if you know what I mean. If I hadn't had business to attend to... Anyway, then he decides he wants to do me. Wants to find out if Denebian women are really as wild as they say when they're fucked. Obviously, he'd led a pretty sheltered life. I wanted to school him, tell him a woman is as wild as a man makes her feel. You know, put it back in his lap, so maybe he'd start fucking his wife better and then he wouldn't need to go looking for wild women elsewhere."

She glanced at Hendon. "Back to the story," he drawled.

"Oh. Yeah," she conceded. "So he does me, I put on the act he's expecting, and then he goes his merry way with a big grin plastered on his face. I tidy up the room, then head back out to the party and my mark. Except one of the guy's buddies now seems to be watching me the whole time. I mean, I figure there's no way the guy's going to be up for seconds, but I'm giving him a wide berth, anyway, just in case. But this buddy, who was glued to him before, keeps showing up in the same room I'm in. I get paranoid, ditch my game and head for the hotel where most of the out-of-town Denebs were staying. Fucking room cost a small fortune, but it was the easiest way to mingle with the party-goers and slip into the party unnoticed. Anyway, I had the gown to return to its rightful owner."

The 'borrowed' gown," Hendon commented.

"Yeah, borrowed. She could only wear one at a time, after all." Grayson glared at him, defying him to argue the point. He simply made an impatient gesture for her to get back to the story. "So bright and early the next morning, I slip out of the hotel and I'm headed back to spacer town trying to think up a new scheme to get some money and some big Siriun dude grabs my arm and says either I come with him or he'll turn me over to the cops for impersonating a Deneb. I start to argue with him because I know damn well even the Siriuns don't give a fuck about impersonating Denebs, so then he says the guy from last night wants to see me about something. He sneers just like you, by the way."

"Thank you," Hendon replied. "Does this story have an end?"

"You're the one sitting on top of me demanding to hear it," she pointed out. He cocked his head. She sighed. "So partly out of curiosity and partly because he has hold of the arm that had been broken, I went along and we ended up in another hotel room. The guy is there waiting and the dude holding me pushes me forward and says something to the effect of 'turns out she's a spacer' except he didn't say it that nicely. And he sneered," she added.

"Do tell."

"But the other guy, he doesn't seem to care. He just kind of looks me up and down and says 'I want to spend more time with you.' So I say ''thanks and all but I'm a working girl and I need to hire out on the next freighter that will take me.' And he says 'hang around for a month and I'll guarantee you a place on a Siriun freighter. You can stay with them or move on from there.'"

"You don't need to give me the entire dialogue," Hendon finally said in exasperation.

"Sure?" she asked.

"Sure."

"So I stayed. I got pregnant because what he didn't tell me was that HE couldn't have children because his WIFE couldn't bear children. I was going to have an abortion, but he was desperate for an... For a son and offered me a bunch of money to carry the baby to term and let them claim it was his wife's. Enough money to buy my own ship. A junker, maybe, but no more freighters. So there you have it. I was a well-paid surrogate. Now get the hell off me."

"You're done throwing things?"

She shrugged. "I was almost out of stuff anyway."

"Back to the bridge? We need you. No one else knows this ship the way you do."

Grayson sighed. "I don't have a choice, do I?"

"No."

"So you'll get off me?" He cautiously lifted his leg and pulled away from her. She rolled, rubbing her back where she'd been laying on one of the books she'd thrown. He bent over to pick a book up from a puddle of coffee on the floor and in a flash, she had her back to the portal, arms crossed, trying to look threatening, which was hard even for her to do when she was more than a head shorter than him. She could actually see him trying to hide a smile.

She scowled. "Your turn for some truth. Why haven't you told anybody what you saw in the engine room?" she demanded.

"What did I see?" he asked patiently. When she only tried to look darker and more dangerous, he answered his own question. "I saw an empty cargo hold. Not against any law I know of."

"You can't blackmail me. It's been tried."

He put his hands on his hips. "Lady, you have nothing I want. I don't need you to fly this ship. Het and Sip are perfectly capable of overriding your computer, Evans is a skilled pilot. The ship is already mine, to all intents and purposes. The only think I'm interested in is doing things the easiest, most efficient way so we can get these people home and everybody can go back to their lives. Including you, though I'd thank you to stay out of my sector in the future. Save your antics for the Feds."

Grayson hesitated. "I have nothing you want?"

He gave her that wolfish grin. "Let's save that particular discussion for a later date when our situation isn't quite so critical." She was left again to wonder if he was bluffing or not.

---

Grayson was sitting in her command console, biting what was left of her fingernails. Evans had fired up the hydrogen engines again for yet another three hour burn. Het and Sip had approved the installation and the deployment mechanism of the net, and were back down in the holds with Bogart; readying the human cargo for what might be a bumpy ride as the net went into play. Hendon was sitting with his back to the wall, hardly a comfortable position, but he seemed to have learned his lesson after being thrown into that same wall during the last bumpy ride. He did have a cup of Hal's coffee in his hand, though. Grayson smiled to herself. The man was finally showing a weakness, even if it was just an addiction to Earth coffee.

"Your command, Grayson," he said, and she cocked an eyebrow at the use of her first name, but didn't turn toward him. Her eyes were glued to the screen showing a camera shot of the top, fore of the ship. "Will we be able to see it, Hal?" she asked.

"Material is highly reflective and will pick up star shine. I can enhance depth of field, if you wish."

"Let's do without for now." She took a deep breath. "Deploy, Hal."

"It was a long moment before their eyes adjusted sufficiently to see the faint sparkle of what looked like a fine thread slowly reeling out behind them, though of course, it appeared to be in front of them, given they were looking at the fore of the ship and at the main screen in the front of the room. Grayson tapped a couple of buttons to get a sim of the same event on one of her command monitors. It took almost half an hour to reach the near end of the entire net, and, as it was traveling at the same speed as the ship, it floated looped and coiled behind them like a tangled, silvery thread. Grayson was trying not to hold her breath. It looked for all the world like it would end up in a thousand knots. Impossibly slowly, what looked like a single thread began to untwist into many threads at the point where it extruded from the nose of the ship. Equally slowly the entire length began to straighten, like a fishing line caught in the gentlest of currents.

When it became evident that, at least until it began to unfurl, it wasn't going to effect the smooth ride of the ship, Hendon ordered more coffee and brought some to Grayson, leaning over her shoulder to watch the simulation on her monitor. The sim was showing more detail then the camera could reveal of the fine gossamer as it was beginning to unfurl. "It's like a spider web," Grayson said softly, more to herself than the men in the room. "So delicate and yet so strong."

"A what?" Hendon asked.

"Spider. Eight-legged Earth atrocity."

"I'm reading hydrogen," Evans said.

Grayson scowled at the back of his head. "Of course you are. It's all around us."

"No, I mean moving into the fuel cells. Barely measurable, but still."

"Already?" Hendon asked.

Evans nodded enthusiastically. "We did it!"

"Don't count your eggs until they're unfurled," Grayson muttered, but she was staring at the main screen. The men exchanged puzzled frowns, but left it at that.

It took another hour for the net to fully unfurl. When Hal opened the iris to release the unwanted hydrogen compounds, there was a brief tugging sensation, but then the ship quickly settled back into its usual thrust versus grav pattern, wearying but tolerable. From Hal's camera they could see the entire net as a mirror-like reflection of the stars in front of them, as well as see the brighter stars behind it, shining through the microscopic mesh. Hendon asked Hal to display the image on the screens in the cargo hold. Then he asked the computer to cook Grayson a steak. She was still staring at the main monitor, like she was waiting for something to go wrong.

"You did it," he told her. She shook her head but didn't respond. "Sometimes things don't go wrong," he pointed out.

"Tell me that when we're off-loading at Sirius." She glanced at him. "You should take a rest break. Go on. Use my bed again, since you've filled up all the gee chairs. Just don't clean anything." He gave her that grin again, and she knew he was going down there to pick up all the books she'd thrown. She swore under her breath, but she was too tired to fight him about it. Piloting a ship, as well as waging a mental - and physical - war with a Fed was just more than a body should have to deal with. As soon as he was out of the room, she reclined her chair and 'rested her eyes' for the rest of the engine burn. Evans glanced at her, then typed a command to Hal to keep her steak warm until later.

---

Ten days later, they were coasting toward the destination wormhole. They were still going too fast for Grayson's tastes, but she had not been to the El Rehla system before and white giant suns were about her least favorite. She had opted to conserve what was left of their collected hydrogen for in-system maneuvering. Evans had backed her up when she told Hendon her plan. Besides, it had gotten them to the wormhole a little earlier than original projections.

The next tricky part was reeling in the net. Grayson had Hal turn the exhaust burners to each side of the net back on to be available for use and they'd put together a contingency plan for if the net either didn't reel in, or the normal safeguards didn't cut it loose and blast it away from the ship. That was the biggest concern, because if it wasn't safely dispensed with, it would follow them through the wormhole and then, potentially, drape itself over the ship as they began to decelerate into the El Rehla system. In theory, any remaining hydrogen held in the net would self destruct with only minor encouragement, like a certain zeppelin back on Earth ages ago. Grayson just wasn't very fond of statements that began with 'in theory.'

She had contributed some of the meat in her freezer hold to the passengers' food stores - at double the cost - and she hadn't heard much in the way of complaints, though the Confeds might have been shielding her from the worst of that. Still, she was plotting various rapid approaches to the system and Prime planet in particular to save as much time as possible. She had found a small time trader only a few systems away, willing to divert from his route to meet her at El Rehla with the parts she needed, for a very handsome fee courtesy of the Siriuns. She'd gone over installation protocols with Sip and Het. She'd also laid in orders for the supplies they would need.

Their injured passenger was another matter. Grayson was insisting he be dropped at El Rehla for medical attention. Bogart and the pediatrician felt they'd accomplished sufficient repairs for him to make it to Sirius. The passenger himself, now awake, was also insisting on going home for treatment. Had it been anyone but Goldstone, Grayson probably would not have cared. Unfortunately, she knew if she put up too much of a stink, it would only raise suspicions and there were enough of those going around as it was.

Hendon had totally dropped his inquiry into which child might be her son, so she assumed that he had figured it out. What that meant for her, she had no idea and he wasn't handing out any clues. In fact, he seemed to be avoiding her most of the time, spending more time down with the cargo. Perhaps he had deduced her half-formed scheme to seduce him into a more pliable antagonist. On the other hand, if he was avoiding her, maybe it's because he was worried she just might succeed. And they were still a long way from home, after all. He did appear back on the bridge when it came time to test the retrieval mechanism for the net. Het and Sip showed up, too. There wasn't really anything they could do if the mechanism failed. The only vacuum suit Grayson had on board was one her size and there was no way either of the native Siriuns could fit in it. Plus they had opted to keep the net deployed as long as possible. As they neared the short jump to El Rehla, there was more loose hydrogen to be had, and more was always better. But it didn't really leave any time to try to fix a malfunction.

Grayson took one last look at the camera shot of the huge net. It was now distinctly reflecting El Rehla and the not too distant Hadir brightly, along with the rest of the beautiful, lush star field. In space, one seldom had the time or inclination to admire the pale colorings of stars and nebula against the intense blackness, but there was something about the fact that the scene was being reflected upon fabric which was part of her beautiful Breathless Dragon that made it special. She was dearly hoping that the retraction worked, because she wanted very much to see it again some time, especially when there was not a life or death matter weighing on her mind.

"Okay, Hal, reel it in." The process was slow, as the net was both twisted into a tight thread and drawn inside to coil against the upper, outer shell of the craft. Grayson smiled to herself as she watched Het and Sip staring at the screen and rumbling softly in their native language. She knew they were eager to go up into the crawl space and insure the net had survived and would be available for use again. Their sparkly toy was working beautifully. In fact, there was only one small glitch at the end, where the iris had possibly malfunctioned slightly when Hal had closed it, but Het seemed sure it was easily fixable and wanted to try even before the jump. Grayson nixed that. There were too many sensitive electronics in the crawl space that could be damaged if anything went wrong on the jump. She'd even had Evans on supralight with the Feds several times over checking on the status of the wormhole and the space on either side. They were coming in at one and a half AU/D above the rating for the jump and that was justification enough for some nerves on the bridge. It wasn't an often-used jump, because they'd been thrown so far out of the main ship routes, but it had been used in the last week, and since Grayson worked the fringe so much, seldom used jumps were second nature to her. Het and Sip went back to the holds to help with the passengers and Hendon settled in on the bridge as they neared the wormhole. When they passed the point at which they could have veered off, Grayson started holding her breath.

They were still moving ass backwards, ready to begin deceleration immediately when they broke free of the jump. Hal had a sim up on the screen looking down on their approach to the jump. Grayson was mostly studying her monitors though, checking on various ship systems.

"Mass detection," Hal announced, but even before he finished the words, Grayson had looked up at the screen just in time to see a simulation of a ship, about their size, zoom by and disappear in the wormhole.

"What the fuck, Hal?" she screamed.

"Please rephrase question," the computer replied.

"What was that?"

"Energy aura and emmissions suggest small transport or trader ship."

"No beacon? No visible ID? Can you show me a still?"

"No cameras were operating at sufficient frames per second to capture discernable shape." He flashed a still in the corner of the screen that only showed a blur of faint light obscuring stars behind it.

"Someone trying to blow up this wormhole," Hendon asked.

Grayson shook her head. "He's long gone out the other side. I don't know anything that could blow fast enough at that speed to take out a wormhole, especially a short one like this. Most of the explosion would have been on one side or the other. Evans?"

He was staring at the screen, too. "Uh, yeah," he agreed, obviously distracted.

"Someone aiming for us, then?" Hendon asked.

Grayson snorted. "The odds of hitting another ship, traveling at speed, in the middle of space? You'd have to match trajectory, speed. Damn near impossible. That thing was going, what, forty, fifty AU/D?"

"At least," Evans said. "It would have needed, maybe, sixty-three AU/D with its conversion engines pointed eighty-seven degrees starboard to have a hope of escaping El Rehla. And one hell of a fast burn on those engines even at that."

Grayson glanced at him. He'd apparently been doing some calculations, in case they hadn't been able to get down to speed for the wormhole. Her admiration for him grew yet again.

"Thirty seconds to jump," Hal said in his ship-wide voice. Grayson clutched her chair arms. She couldn't help it. Even though there was no physical sensation associated with jumping, there was one hell of a mental one, at least for her. The idea of being someplace, in physical form, yet where no dimension existed, was almost as hard to swallow as the fact that the wormhole actually spat you out the other side because you were so unpalatable to it.

"As soon as we're through, Hal, I want to know where that ship went." They entered the wormhole and the simulation blinked to blackness.

"Understood," the computer replied, and just that fast they were through. Grayson started breathing again. El Rehla was a small but very bright sun in the center of the screen, even from this far out.

"Commence hydrogen burn, twenty gees for one hour, ten gees for the next hour," Grayson commanded. "Any sign of our company?"

"Mass detection out of range. Nearest beacons are emanating from the outer asteroid belt, indications are mining ships and robots. I am detecting probable hydrogen exhaust two degrees starboard. I can project a possible trail with further readings."

"Stay on it, Hal. I want to know if he's going for escape velocity or an elliptic orbit."

"There may be insufficient readings to determine projections."

"Do your best."

"I'm on supralight with ground control. They are aware of our situation and have approved our fast track to orbit," Evans told her.

"Thank you. I'm beginning to suspect a Confed pilot gets far more cooperation than a mere trader," she said wryly.

"You, ma'am, are no mere trader," he replied with a smile.

Grayson smiled back, beginning to relax for the first time since picking up her strange cargo. Even though they were many parsecs, and jumps, from Sirius, it was beginning to feel like the last leg of an Odyssean adventure. "Okay, Hal, let me see system data, orbit protocols, all that good stuff." She sat back and began to study her monitors.

"How about something to eat instead?" Hendon asked. Grayson jumped. She had forgotten he was still on the bridge. In fact, had actually been enjoying the past days when he seemed bent on avoiding her. "I'll cook. Be in the mess in thirty minutes." He turned and left.

Grayson watched him go. She hated to admit it, but his cooking was definitely better than the combined efforts of Hal and the kitchen bot. She would never tell Hal that. Or Hendon. But the thought of a properly cooked steak was making her mouth water. When she looked back toward her monitors, Evans was grinning at her. "Go," he said. "I'll review the information and save you some reading. You've done everything you can before our arrival, so take some downtime now. You'll have plenty to do when we get planetside."

She took a last glance at the system they were racing into and shrugged. "Okay, I guess." Then she threw a scowl at Evans when his grin widened, before trying to appear reluctant as she left the bridge. She headed for her quarters. If she had thirty minutes, she was going to shower and change into a wrap-around sarong. She told herself firmly that she had no ego invested in the battle of wills between her and Hendon, but it didn't hurt to keep doors of opportunity open and if she could bend the lawman to her will - just a little bit - it sure couldn't hurt.

When she entered the mess a little later, Hendon and the food had not appeared yet. Grayson looked around. It wasn't a room she spent a lot of time in, or any, if you wanted to get technical. There was a small monitor, so she asked Hal to put up a view of the system they were headed into. There was a counter that contained things like condiments, creamers, utensils and napkins. She didn't want to know how old some of the foodstuffs were. They might have been there since she originally took possession of the shell some years ago. But then, it wasn't like they were real food. She was examining a packet of something that was supposed to be a butter-like substitute when Hendon entered with two plates of food.

He had, it seemed, finally allowed himself to take advantage of her food stores, which admittedly were only slightly better than the emergency food stores the passengers came aboard with, but it constituted a degree of concession on his part that she hadn't expected. From somewhere, he also produced a bottle of wine. Grayson figured he must have finagled it off a passenger, since she didn't carry any, to the best of her knowledge, and doubted it was considered an emergency food supply from the yacht. She watched in amazement as he went to the cabinet and easily found two wine glasses. She definitely needed to do an inventory of what she had aboard.

"Sit," he commanded, when she was still standing, watching him with a puzzled frown. Then he added, "Please." She sat.

"What are we celebrating?" she asked as he filled the wine glasses.

"You got your wish," he explained.

"Great!" she exclaimed, lifting her glass in toast. "What wish?"

"The Siriun Monarchy is sending a transport to meet us at Wazn."

"Wazn? Why the hell would we go there?"

"Because that is where the transport is meeting us?"

"But it's all asteroids and shit that it stole from another star."

"Exactly. Heavy metals, precious gems, rare earth elements. Lots of mining, lots of traffic, lots of security. Lots of what we need to blend in, move our passengers and be on our way."

"Why on Earth would we want to hang around in that system waiting for a transport to show up? We could be at Sirius in the time that would take." She paused, her brow furrowed. "Wait. What do you mean 'our passengers' and 'our way?'"

"Eat your steak before it gets cold."

"Hendon, answer me."

"The transport is en route and will be there about the same time as us. It was dispatched the day after the wormhole accident."

"That was no accident. And why didn't you tell me this if you knew it that long ago?"

"You needed to concentrate on our problem at hand. Your steak is getting cold."

"Fuck my steak. Why are we going in-system here if we're just going as far as Wazn?"

"Evans tells me it's still two jumps, maybe four, five, six days. That would be cutting it too close without additional supplies and hydrogen."

She had to concede that point. It was closer to Sirius, but certainly not on a straight line and she wasn't familiar enough with the jump points in the immediate area of space to hazard a guess at the timeline. She took a bite of the meat, closing her eyes as she savored the juices running over her tongue. When she opened her eyes again, Hendon was watching her closely, sipping his wine. She chewed slowly then swallowed and cut another bite of the steak, raising it slowly to her lips, inserting it gently, precisely on her tongue, slowly closing her mouth around the succulent morsel. She swore his pupils dilated. Who knew he was one of those who got off on food fetishes? She swallowed and tucked the fork between her lips, sucking it clean. Now she was sure he was struggling to keep his eyes glued to hers.

She lifted the glass of wine and swirled it, then raised it slowly, breathing deep of the aroma, letting her eyes drop to follow the pattern of the wine as it clung and draped along the inside of the glass. Then she ever so slowly brought the edge of the glass to her lips and tilted, sucking the rich red liquid into her mouth, savoring it before swallowing. When she raised her eyes again, she was sure his respiration rate had increased. She held his gaze as she set the wine glass down and picked up knife and fork to cut another bite. Then she suddenly had one of those palm-of-the-hand-smacking-forehead moments. She stared at him.

"You said 'our' passengers. Be on 'our' way. What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

It was definitely a mood breaker. He suddenly became intensely interested in his own steak. "Most of the passengers," he said without elaboration.

"No, no, no! Whatever you're alluding to, no!" She hefted her wine, thought about throwing it at him, then decided it was too good to waste. She took a big drink. He sighed and opened his mouth to explain, but she threw up her hand, palm toward him, and snapped. "I don't want to hear it, whatever it is." He shrugged and turned back to his food. After a moment, she did, also, and they ate in silence. She drained her wine, and as he poured her more, she swore, "God, damn you, Hendon!"

"Ready to listen?" he asked.

She picked up her steak knife, even though she'd finished with her meat, and tested the edge, then threw it back down in disgust. "Hal, have the steak knives sharpened." Then she glared at Hendon. The computer didn't respond, apparently too perplexed by the command to figure out how to ask for clarification.

Hendon put his napkin on his plate and pushed back from the table, ever on the defensive. "The yacht," he said.

"Small transport ship designed to carry passengers in relative luxury," she defined when he paused overlong.

"It was headed out of sector," he continued.

"Why? Siriuns hate the rest of us poor slobs." She eyed him with all the disdain she could muster, given he was from the sector, if not the prime planet.

"The rebellion..."

"Civil war," she offered in correction.

"Fine. The civil war. Threats have been made against the monarchy."

"Imagine that. Guy proclaims himself emperor and sovereign people get upset. Excuse me, allegedly sovereign."

Hendon sighed. "He's a figurehead king, he'd be a figurehead emperor. Do you want to hear about our issue, or Sirius'?"

"Fine," she said, mocking his previous tone.

"The yacht was taking the prince and others to a safe refuge until things settle down."

"Still don't get it. Why can't this transport that's meeting us take them instead."

"Camouflage," he replied.

"Excuse me? Isn't that for deserts and jungles and stuff?"

"It's for appearances. The rebels will believe that the entire group is returning on the transport. The Prince will be safe with us on a non-descript trader."

"Non-descript! I'll non-descript your ass. Wait. You're setting that transport and those people up to be massacred."

"Not exactly. More like bait."

"Oh, yeah. No way they'll figure that out."

"Either the rebels will show and walk into a trap, or they won't and the transport will arrive safely."

"Or they'll kamikaze it."

"What?" Hendon asked.

"Suicide attack, die smashing their ship into the transport."

"You said that was impossible."

"Nearly impossible. For someone like me, walk in the park," she said with a wave. "Well, if it was a really small park. You know, like a parking orbit around Sirius Prime. Just saying that's what I would do, if I was a rebel. Okay, not personally. I'd find some fool stupid enough to die for an inane cause."

He looked thoughtful. "Why not drone or computer driven?"

"Can't control a drone with supralight because of the time warping. Can't control it with lightspeed transmissions because of the lag, unless you were right next to it, which sort of defeats the purpose. You'd need to make superfast corrections, because you'd have to assume your target is going to take evasive action."

"Then a computer like Hal."

"I'd never risk Hal's life," she said loudly for the computer's benefit. "Computers, even with advanced AI, still aren't good at making decisions. You can program solutions to contingencies into them until your fingers bleed, and they can feed you endless contingencies. Maybe you hit on the one you actually need. Maybe you don't. But think about it. You're a rebel. You send an empty ship careening toward a planet. Whether it hits its target or not, people on that planet are going to know you've put them at risk. The rain of ship parts falling on their heads will be all the evidence they need. Even ones who might have been sympathetic before are going to be real pissed at you. On the other hand, you find someone fanatical enough to die trying to end the monarchy, that's inspirational. Recruiting material. At least off world."

He seemed to shake himself. "I'll pass your concerns on to the admirals. In the meantime, as I said, back to our issue."

Grayson scowled. She'd been trying to keep him off of 'our issue.' "Your issue," she said.

"And yours. I'm afraid your term of service has been extended. Your ship is needed to deliver the prince to safety."

"You want me to haul that brat around even longer!" she exclaimed.

"Grayson, I know that 'brat' is your son." She glowered at him but offered no denial. What good would it do? "Come on," he said. "It doesn't take someone of my brilliance to put it together. The princess goes into seclusion for the duration of her 'allegedly' difficult pregnancy. It's announced she won't be able to have any more children. There have been rumors floating around for years that the kid is illegitimate."

"Not my fault if your king screws up trying to con his people the same way he screws up proclaiming himself emperor. I kept my end of the bargain."

"And you were well paid."

She glanced at him. "I said I was, didn't I?"

"You did. What was the exchange rate, by the way?"

"What?"

"Between the value of the jewels you stole and what you fenced them for?"

She stared at him. "I'm sure I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Grayson Sontang doesn't, maybe. But the mystery thief that got away with some of the royal jewels and was never caught? One of the all-time great unsolved cases in the sector. We all learn about it at the academy. Even back then, it perplexed me why the monarchy put so little effort, relatively speaking, into finding the thief. You know, they never even demanded that the government put their people on it. Just tried to solve the case with their own royal police. Then, when I was working freighters, undercover, I heard rumors."

"About who did it?"

"No, actually. Even among the spacers, and you know how they love a good rumor. They seemed as mystified as the monarchy. But it wasn't for lack of talk about it. It seems the rumor was that the king, he'd been coronated by then, of course, had offered a huge reward. For the body of the culprit."

"The body?"

"Wanted: Dead, not alive. Surely you heard those rumors?"

She shook her head. "I limped home in a junker. Fixed it up so I could start trading."

"And fixed up a new identity at the same time?"

"So you say. I am Grayson Sontang. I had ambition. I've always had ambition. I didn't want that name associated with working freighters."

He simply gave that grin that she'd grown to hate. She was well trained in martial arts, capable even of deadly force. So why did this man always make her want to give him a girlish slap. She made a fist just to keep her hand from taking action on its own. "So you think you can blackmail me with these suppositions of yours?"

He shrugged. "What do I care? I work for the government, not the monarchy, and, as I said, they never approached the government about solving the mystery."

"And you're not interested in 'huge' rewards?"

"Not to produce dead bodies. I have a thing about justice, due process, all that good stuff."

"Then why the Sherlock Holmes routine?"

"Testing a theory. About your tells. In case we ever play poker again." She gave him a puzzled frown. "I know I'm right. You know I'm right. Yet your face gives nothing away. And I suspect that fist you made is for some entirely different reason." He grinned again.

Grayson pointed to her face. "I'm Asian. That means I'm inscrutable."

"I assume by 'Asian' you are referring to a racial type concomitant with those features you are currently sporting, which you wouldn't have been sporting to pass as a Deneb, and which your son certainly doesn't sport, and so probably weren't the features you were born with. As far as being inscrutable, you are most certainly scrutable when playing poker, just not in any useful way."

"Then what the hell are we talking about?" she said in exasperation.

"There's poker. And then, there's... Poker."

"Huh?"

"Let me rephrase. There's poker, and there is real life."

"Oh, that clears everything up," she exclaimed sarcastically.

"In poker, you hide good hands and bluffs behind exaggerated, flamboyant and multitudinous responses."

"Thank you."

"In real life, you hide things that matter to you behind over-reactions or inscrutability. I am beginning to suspect that the more they matter to you, the more inscrutable you become. The racing bots mattered to you in that they were part of your ship, so you yell profanities and make a dramatic if foolish leap over the railing to the bottom level. But about your son, and about your persona, you became inscrutable."

"If I remember correctly, I was throwing books about my son's life being in danger."

Not when others were around. And, after you came face to face with him, you weren't drinking when others were around. Only when you were alone."

"I think it's past my bedtime," she said, glancing at her wrist where a watch might have been but wasn't.

He reached out and took hold of that wrist. "You're being inscrutable now, and it's because I'm asking you to take responsibility for your son's safety. So why not just admit that it matters to you and be agreeable?"

"Because he's my son." She tried to shake him loose but he tightened his grip. She sighed. "I vowed to stay away from him. Never even went back to that sector, let alone Sirius."

"It's not your fault he's here."

"But now he's here, I want to teach him to fly, I want to teach him how to properly bypass door controls and take over bots. I want to teach him how to fight, and how to play poker and how to outsmart Feds. When I was a spacer, I couldn't give him anything. Now I can give him worlds," she said gesturing at the starscape on the monitor. "How am I supposed to let him go?"

He sat back. "Thank you for that honesty."

"You're welcome. Got an answer?"

He shook his head ruefully. "No."

"Then thank you for your honesty." She started to rise.

"One more thing," he said.

Continued in Chapter 4 - Part 2...

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