Phelan looked around. The room is smaller than the Khan's suite, to be sure, yet doesn't feel cramped.The foyer, with a mirrored closet to the left and hatchway into a lavatory to the right, opened onto a small living room. A drafting table took up the far left corner, and surrounding it, Phelan saw pens, pencils, brushes, paints, and other artist's tools. Paintings hung on each wall, and though they used different colors and were of vastly different subjects, Phelan noted elements of style that bound them all together.
Ranna passed through a hatchway in the living room's right wall and disappeared into what Phelan assumed was her bedchamber. He crossed to the far wall and stared closely at a landscape in tones of purple and red. The use of blurred lines gave the impression that the subject of the painting was a hellishly hot place. Above the highest mountains, the cold blackness of space and the brilliant, diamondlike stars looked like a sanctuary, but somehow Phelan read a reluctance to leave the world for the boundless void between the stars.
She called to him from the doorway. "Do you like it?"
"I'm not sure that I'm supposed to like it. It reminds me of the first time I shipped out from Arc-Royal with the Hounds and realized what it meant to be leaving the world where I was born. I was only five at the time. I felt enthusiastic because it was a great adventure, but I also didn't want to leave my grandparents and cousins behind." Phelan turned to face her. "I wanted to go, but I also dreaded it, quiaff?"
Ranna nodded. "Aff, I think I have some understanding. That is a landscape from the world where I grew up. I felt great sadness in leaving. But you mentioned cousins ..."
Phelan smiled sheepishly. "Well, that's what I called them. They weren't first cousins, of course, because I didn't have any—I mean, that was years before we found out about Chris. They were just the folks I grew up with on ArcRoyal."
She smiled as what he was saying finally seemed to dawn on her. "Ah, your sibko. I can understand why you were reluctant to leave them. Fortunately for me, my sibko has traveled with me, or I with it, as it were."
The Kell Hound looked over at Ranna and shook his head. "Somehow I wouldn't have figured you for an artist." Ranna started to object, but he held up his hand to forestall her complaint. "What I mean is that the atmosphere around here seems more suited to military than to artistic pursuits. Of course, you're different than the others—I can't imagine Evantha or Vlad painting or writing poetry, if you see my point."
The thought brought a smile to Raima's face. "Aff, maybe I get your meaning, but I am not sure. You have to understand that I grew up with them, so I am blind in that area. It is hard to be sure how I could be different."
Easy, Phelan.
A devilish gleam lit her azure eyes. "Oh, I do not think that is true, Phelan Patrick Kell. Perhaps I look beyond your bondcord because you seem different from the other bondsmen."
Phelan raised an eyebrow. "If I may be so bold ... how, why?"
She leaned easily against the hatch's edge. "The Khan's interest in you first opened the door, I believe. At first I resented being assigned to nursemaid you, but now I do not find the duty so odious ..."
"There is a God ..."
"That is one of the things I like about you, Phelan. You have a wit and express it easily. You don't seem to be plotting your escape, but I know you are smart and dangerous enough to have that idea somewhere in your head." She saluted him with a nod. "Most of all, your sense of independence seems to set you apart from the others. You are so much a Mech Warrior that the bondcord will forever chafe your spirit."
He half-closed his eyes, considering her words. She's right. I would love to escape this tin whale, or at least get a message out. Have I given myself away, or is she just very good at sizing up the opposition?
He forced himself to smile easily. "I thank you for your insight."
"And I thank you for yours as well." She returned his smile. "I have to ask you about something you said before. You knew your grandparents, quiaff?"
"Sure. Grandpa Kell's still alive. He's slowed down a bit at age eighty-seven, but he still manages his holding. Grandpa Ward died in the war before I was born, but Grandma Ward is alive and lives on Arc-Royal."
Ranna's eyes narrowed. "Eighty-seven years old? You have to be joking."
Phelan shook his head. "Nope. He'll be eighty-eight this October."
"Amazing." Something squeaked in the room behind her.
Half-turning, Ranna held out her hand and made little cooing sounds. "Nothing to be afraid of, Jehu." A dark creature scuttled its way onto her arm and perched on her shoulder.
Phelan blinked twice and pointed at it with his left hand. "What in hell is that?"
Before Ranna could answer, the creature leaped from her shoulder and spread its bat-like wings. Long tail whipping through the air to steady it in flight, the furry animal flew straight at Phelan. It swooped low, then arced up and landed on his forearm, wrapping its prehensile tail around his wrist. It flapped its wings twice to steady itself as Phelan got used to its weight, then it loosened its tail-grip and walked up to his shoulder.
Its face, hind parts, and tail made it look like a small primate, but the wings marked it as a creature apart from monkeys and apes. It chattered melodically on his shoulder and gently wrapped its tail around Phelan's neck like an old friend draping his arm over the mercenary's shoulders. Red and white stripes of fur on its face made it look comically fierce.
Ranna stared at him. "That is incredible. Jehu never takes to strangers. What did you do?"
Phelan shrugged gently so as not to disturb Jehu. "I don't know. I don't even know what Jehu is, so I can't imagine what I did to inspire his trust."
"Her," Ranna corrected him. "Jehu is a surat. They are native to one of the world's beyond the Periphery. They are intelligent and highly domestic, which puts them two steps above most of the lifeforms in the Periphery."
"Hey, be careful. You pulled meout of the Periphery."
Ranna bowed her white-maned head. "Present company excepted, of course. After all, Jehu likes you, which means your lifeform is clearly superior." She looked at the surat. "Jehu, go to bed. Eat later."
Jehu unfurled her wings and hugged Phelan's head, an experience he found much like being smothered with a musky sweater, then leaped into the air. Ranna turned sideways and slipped out of the doorway as Jehu swept her right wing up and banked through the opening. Ranna smiled at the creature, then guided Phelan out into the corridor. "Keeping Jehu is my one luxury."
Reaching the turbolift, Phelan punched the button on the wall. "Yeah, pets are special."
"Do you have one, quiaff?"
The mercenary shook his head. "Had. He was a dog named Grinner. A mongrel with even some wolf blood in the mix. Called him Grinner 'cause he always had his mouth open in a leer that could turn into a bark or growl or a big, wet slurp with his tongue." Phelan smiled, but sadness crept into his eyes.
Ranna followed him into the lift, then laid a hand on his forearm. "What happened to him?"
"He died." Phelan swallowed, trying to choke back the lump in his throat. "We were on station in the Free Worlds League, very close to the border with the Capellan Confederation. Chancellor Romano Liao had sent a Maskirovka assassin to kill Dan Allard—he was a Major at the time—and his family. Dan is Romano's brother-in-law, and that witch decided to kill his whole family to get at Justin Allard, Dan's brother and husband of her sister Candace. The assassin got the wrong house, and assumed I was one of Dan's kids.