And naturally, she could. Such a ready mind.
He said, “I have known all of my named life that I would follow my father’s way. I accepted it. I accept it now.”
“Your enthusiasm is an inspiration, Tagen.”
“Mm.” He set his glass down and stood, pacing over to watch her cook her alien food. He looked down at her, his gaze lingering inexplicably on the curve of her neck where it sloped into her shoulder. After a lengthy contemplation of his past and her gently-curving skin, he said, “I am trying to think if I ever did not wish to be a soldier. I honestly do not know. I knew that I would be. I think perhaps I felt there was little point in wishing otherwise.”
“Is it…like that for everyone on Jota?” Daria asked. “Is everyone just assigned their job?”
“No. As you say, lucky me.” He regarded her closely. “What is it you wished to become when you were young?”
“Well, fortunately, I’ve always wanted to be a neurotic shut-in,” she replied, too brightly, and then shook her head. “I wanted to be a dancer when I was really young. I even took lessons until…I stopped. Later, I wanted to show horses. I wanted it with my whole heart, despite the fact that I’d never even seen a horse up close. I knew the breed I wanted, though. Morgans. Then I found out how much it would cost to buy a foundation stallion, and I gave up. After that, I don’t think I really wanted to be anything. I just went along.”
“Ah. Yes.”
“The difference being, you went along to become a famous intergalactic lawman and rid the universe of evil-doers. I went along and ended up answering phones and filing invoices at Kruegar and Lauder.” She sighed, a dispirited sound. “Then I became a neurotic shut-in.”
“You are a part of…ridding the universe of evil-doers,” he said cautiously.
“Yeah, a small, neurotic part.”
“The sea is filled by single drops.”
She laughed again, encouraging him.
“I will never find E’Var without your help, Daria Cleavon,” he said, and her smile faded. She avoided his eyes but he continued to keep his gaze locked on her, trying to convince her with sincerity she had to feel since she would not look at him. “I know better now how much it has cost you to have me in your home, and still you offer me aid. I am grateful.”
She ducked her head, her cheeks burnished with pink.
Tagen steeled himself and very gingerly touched his hand to her back. He felt her muscles ripple as she first locked up and then relaxed. He opened his palm, gradually resting his hand until he touched her fully.
He could have stood thus for hours. She was not trembling. She was not tight or apprehensive. After a moment or two, she even smiled.
Tagen’s breath eased from him. He patted twice, awkwardly, and then returned to his chair to await his meal. It was a start. A fresh start.
*
Sue-Eye awakened to the sound of screams. She jerked upright, but as fast as she was, she was no equal to Kane, who flipped to his feet like an acrobat and was at the window in an instant. He twitched the curtain aside with one claw, admitting a stripe of daylight that turned his black eyes briefly pure white.
“What is it?” Raven asked sleepily, sitting up as the sheets pooled around her waist. Her hand drifted to her stomach and rubbed.
“Kids,” Sue-Eye said. The pitch of the screams, now that she was awake, was unmistakable. Only teenage girls could shatter glass like that. “Just kids fucking around.”
“They’re not fucking yet,” Kane grunted. He remained at the window, brazenly naked, searching the outsides with an idle curiosity.
Sue-Eye rolled onto her knees and stood up stiffly. She found her top and pulled it on, wincing at the sweaty smell of it. All well and good for Kane to hang out in his skin as the window stopped above his waist, but she wasn’t about to flash her tits to the good people of this pissant little town. She went to join him, shading her eyes against the direct rays of the morning sun.
There were four or five teenies in bikinis out by the pool, shrieking and splashing each other with that blasé hyper-sexuality instinctive to snotty rich girls. They knew they were attracting attention and they knew exactly what kind, but they were untouchable. All around the pool, cabin curtains were pulled and male faces were staring. Like the lifeguard behind the towel-table, all of them kept a discreet distance to do their drooling, which only acted as a kind of encouragement to the teens.
Suddenly, one of the girls noticed them. She looked at Sue-Eye, looked at Kane, smirked at Sue-Eye, and then flipped her top up and shook her tits at them. Her friends exploded into shrieking giggles.
Sue-Eye glanced at Kane. He was watching the swimmers with that same indifference with which he had looked her over the night before. Not a tit man, clearly.
“You like what you see?” Sue-Eye asked him, nodding toward the pool. “Bored little bitches like those, you could probably get one in here just by waving.”
He turned his head and stared at her for while, then glanced back toward the pool. He smiled thinly. “I was looking,” he said evenly, “at the water. There is such a thing as being too eager, ichuta’a.”
The teenie waggled her tongue at him.
Kane gave a ‘Jesus-Christ’ kind of head shake, and let the curtain drop. “Where were they when I was out in the woods?” he muttered, and then focused on Sue-Eye. His eyes dipped down and his lip curled. “Put the rest of your clothes on,” he told her, and shoved her out of his way to go to Raven’s side.
Cheeks burning, Sue-Eye went to fetch her skirt from the floor. She could feel Raven watching her, and she didn’t dare look up for fear her smart mouth would open up and dump one of those kidney-punch-earning cracks out into the world.
“It’s a swimming pool,” she said instead. “Haven’t you ever been swimming?”
“On a ship?” Kane paused long enough to give her an incredulous stare. “Use your fucking brains. Water doesn’t fall out of the sky in space.” He picked up Raven’s shampoo bottle and put it into his pony’s hand. Raven immediately began rubbing lotion into her piercings. “I was wondering why you humans would make something like that with a real river in plain sight,” he continued, watching Raven’s hands.
“It’s just something rich people do to waste money,” Sue-Eye said. “Like vacationing in shit-holes like this and eating bugs.”
Raven snickered.
Kane gave his bitch a glance and then turned all the way around to fix his gaze on Sue-Eye. “How much money do we have left?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. A couple hundred bucks at least.”
“Enough to stay here another night?”
“Sure, if we don’t eat too much.”
Kane nodded, his eyes flicking to Raven. “Good,” he grunted. “I don’t want to travel today.”
Raven paused in the act of working the last drops of lotion free from her bottle and looked up at him. “I can—”
“Don’t argue with me,” he said, not taking his eyes from Sue-Eye. He reached out and she felt a sting as he touched the split in her lip, a leftover from yesterday’s slap. He bared his teeth and turned away, snapping his fingers for her to follow as he went to the table and his waiting pack.
He slid his finger along the seam and the lid raised. He folded his computer out of the way, revealing his gear. Next to the neat rows of vials—the ones he’d squeezed the Pack’s brains into—were a number of bottles of powders and fluids. He picked through them until he came to one about the size and shape of a Chapstick, and brought it out. He ran his eyes over the lettering scored down the side and grunted. “Better than nothing,” he muttered, and turned to face her.