butt in the bars gave her all the information she needed to find the hapless CV pilot. She found him in a packed, and loud, bar off the main shipping docks.
"I don't know," the pilot told Skyla and gestured in futility. He bent over his half-empty whiskey and shook his head. "One minute I was docked at Itreata. Next thing I know, I'm docked at Etaria! I've got a schedule that's suddenly Rot-chewed and I'm on suspension for mental investigation by the Imperial transport board. My license is revoked until they can get here and ship me home to see what's wrong." His speech slurred from the Mytol she'd slipped into his drink.
Skyla nodded, sipping her own drink before she looked around the crowded bar. "Sounds unusual."
"Yeah," the pilot turned his drug-glassy gaze on her again. His thoughts changed as his eyes stared into hers. "Uh, you got anything happening? I'd like to buy you dinner. Maybe you'd be interested in a show? Later we could. "
She gave him her best look of regret. "My husband is waiting for me. He's trying to negotiate a contract with the Temple and suggested that I meet him. I really can't stay."
The CV pilot nodded. "Even my luck with beautiful women is shot."
Skyla stood and smiled. She'patted him on the shoulder and walked out of the noisy bar toward the shuttle loading bay.
Staffa had been very clever. She shuffled into the milling crowd, waiting her turn to board. Her white swirling gossamer gown shimmered in the light, accenting her blonde hair and her cerulean-blue eyes.
She found a seat and buckled in, leaning back, eyes closed as she concentrated on the pilot's story. With any of the Regan travel documents the Companions possessed, Staffa could have gone anywhere. He might even have bought passage to another world without setting foot on Etaria — but she couldn't leave and take the chance that he might be on the planet below. Warning lights flashed as the shuttle disembarked.
n spite of himself, Staffa kar Therma would leave a trail. It would take no more than two days at the most to learn
if he'd landed at Etarus. After that, she'd make her way to Targa-his ultimate destination if he were to find his son.
She couldn't help but smile as she thought of him. Her imagination filled itself with the line of his haughty jaw, and those keen gray eyes. Indeed, just from his bearingarrogant and commanding-he would be remembered. At the same time, cunning Staffa would be watching his back trail, checking to see who followed in the wake of his plasma. One whiff of her questioning after him and he wouldn't take time to see who it was, but would disappear like atmosphere from an open lock.
Therefore, I must find him in an equally cunning manner. People would remember her in her finery. The clothing she wore would cost most Etarians three years' wages.
As the shuttle rolled to a stop before the main starport terminal outside Etarus, she ducked quickly into the toilet as people shuffled to deshuttle.
Skyla locked the door and turned to her carry bag. She slipped out of the gleaming whites and stared at her battle armor. Grimacing, she stripped it off and folded it into the shoulder pack she carried. Then she pulled a buff-brown standard robe from among her possessions. Around her naked waist she strapped the heavy weapons belt, the fabric weave cool on her smooth skin. She slipped the tan robe over her head and tied the rope tightly under her breasts, creating an empire waist to hide the bulge of the belt. Pulling her braid loose, she bound her wealth of hair in a Riparian mosquito scarf and zipped her pack closed.
A typical Regan tourist, she stepped from the toilet to the tail end of the dwindling crowd.
At liberty in the streets, she immediately located a used clothing store and purchased the grubbiest attire she could find. When she left through the rear, no one would have recognized Skyla Lyma, Wing Commander of the Companions. Instead, she looked like just another of the Etarian lower caste.
Struggling along under the weight of her pack-trading ribald jests with street merchants, and turning down propositions from the pimps and drug dealers-her soul soared, curiously free.
Is there so little overlay from the last thirty-five years? She felt at home here, the rhythm of the street filling her bones.
An earthy truth boiled up with the dust under her feet: Here lay the roots
of humanity. The street hadn't changed. The baseline of human passion and reality surrounded hertruth intermingled with the hawkers and struggling merchants peddling cabbages and wybald and cloth and spices.
"Hey, gorgeous!" A burly man with a thick black mustache matched her pace. "You been turned lately? I'll see your sweet meat filled for a starburst of pleasure!" He winked and blew her a kiss, his mustache curling.
"What?" she chided familiarly. "You think I'd let your rotted cock within a meter of my sweet honey trap? Your maggot dripping mind is the only thing to be turned around here." How easily the old ways fell about her like a protective veil.
He chuckled. "If you come to your Blessed Senses, sweet hot meat, see me. They call me Nyklos."
"I'll see if I can't put your name at the end of the list," she gave him a teasing smile. "Only it's so long I hope I remember. But say, you might know where a dandy Nab wanting to stay low would end up?"
"Might, for a kiss." "Fess, putrid."
"Temple block," he told her and bent to receive his kiss. She pecked him on'the lips, catching garlic and mint on his breath. As she turned to go, she added. "See you around, Nyklos. If I score, there might be a tip in it. "
"Trust you, sweet meat!" And he angled off into a doorway.
The street remained the same, she reflected. Here, she would know the ways of men. Here she would find her way to Staffa.
A soft mist dropped with the evening inversion and settled on Kaspa, wrapping around the buildings, leaving the street lights haloed in the wisps. Thick and damp it covered the sleeping city, filled the low places, and clung to the darkest of alleys.
In an older section of the city, water dripped from the dew glistening roofs and ran down through spouts to puddle among the cobbles. The old brick buildings had survived
the maelstrom of time and war, and here, the passages wound their meandering way between closely packed walls.
In the deeper blackness of a narrow alley, a door slammed followed by the patter of running footsteps.
The door slammed again, punctuated by a curse. "Arta!" a deep voice called, and heavier steps pounded down the narrow way.
No more than a shadow in the foggy dampness, Arta Pera emerged from the alley and onto the sinuous street. Frantically, she ducked to one side, crouching down next to a refuse bin, blending with the night.
Butla Ret but from the narrow opening, glancing back and forth, head cocked for any sound of flight. "Arta? Come back!" he bellowed into the night. "We've got to talk. I have to explain!"
Frantic, he hissed angrily to himself, turned to the right, and raced away into the mist.
As the sound of his mad dash diminished, Arta Fera staggered to her feet and fled in the opposite direction. In a shattered voice, she repeated, "Can't. love. can't. Blessed Gods, what's the matter with me? Can't love. Butla. can't. "
As she disappeared into the night mist, only the sound of choked sobbing echoed behind her.
Chapter 13
Private Kyros shivered, feet starting to cramp in the cold Kaspan night. He moved, shifting slightly in the chilling damp. The dark streets of Kaspa, marvelous though they might be to see, made him nervous. Corporal Xicks might slap him on the back and wink, but Kaspa threatened him with a danger Kyros didn't understand — a danger of people.