Falconi let out his breath. His ears were flushed, and he appeared almost dazed. “Kira … What are you doing?”
“Kiss me.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
She lowered her face toward his, keeping her gaze fixed on his lips, not daring to meet his eyes. “I don’t want to be alone right now, Salvo. I really, really don’t.”
He licked his lips. Then she saw a change in his posture, a softening of his shoulders, a broadening of his chest. “I don’t either,” he confessed in a low voice.
She trembled again. “Then shut up and kiss me.”
Her back tingled as his arm slid around her waist and he pulled her closer. Then he kissed her. He gripped the back of her neck with his other hand, and for a time, all Kira was aware of was the rush of sensations, intense and overwhelming. The touch of hands and arms, lips and tongues, skin against skin.
It wasn’t enough to make her forget her fear. But it was enough to redirect her panic and anxiety into a feral energy, and that she could do something with.
Falconi surprised her by putting a hand on the center of her chest, pushing her back, evading her mouth.
“What?” she said, half snarling.
“What about this?” he asked. He tapped her sternum and the Soft Blade covering it.
“I told you,” she said. “Feels just like skin.”
“And this?” His hand slid lower.
“Same.”
He smiled. It was a dangerous smile.
Seeing it only stoked the heat inside her. She growled and dug her fingers into his back while leaning in for his ear, nipping at it with her teeth.
With an eagerness born of impatience, he undid the seal to her jumpsuit, and with equal eagerness, she shimmied out. She’d worried that the Soft Blade would put him off, but Falconi caressed her as avidly and attentively as any of her past lovers, and if he didn’t find the texture of the Soft Blade as appealing as her real skin, he hid it well. After the first few minutes, she stopped worrying and allowed herself to relax and enjoy his touch.
As for the Soft Blade itself, it seemed unsure how to respond to their activities, but in one of her more lucid moments, Kira impressed on it (in no uncertain terms) that it wasn’t to interfere. To her relief, it behaved.
She and Falconi moved together with a frantic urgency, fueled by their shared hunger and the knowledge of what awaited them at night’s end. They spared no centimeter of skin, no curve of muscle nor ridge of bone in their feverish pursuit. Every bit of sensation they could wring from their bodies, they did, not so much for the sake of pleasure, but to satisfy their craving for closeness. The feeling drove the future from Kira, forced her into the present, made her feel alive.
They did all they could, but because of the Soft Blade, not all they wanted. With hands and fingers, mouths and tongues, they satisfied each other, but still it wasn’t enough. Falconi didn’t complain, but she could see he was frustrated. She was frustrated; she wanted more.
“Wait,” she said, and put a hand on his matted chest. He leaned back, his expression quizzical.
Turning inward, she focused on her groin, gathered her will, and forced the Soft Blade to retreat from her innermost parts. The touch of air on her exposed skin made her gasp and clench.
Falconi looked down at her with a crooked grin.
“Well?” Kira said, her voice taut with strain. Holding back the suit was an effort, but it was one she could maintain. She arched an eyebrow. “How brave are you?”
As it turned out, he was very brave.
Very brave indeed.
5.
Kira sat with her back to the bulkhead, the blanket pulled around her waist. Next to her, Falconi lay on his stomach, his head turned toward her, his left arm draped across her lap, warm and comforting in its weight.
“You know,” he mumbled, “I don’t normally sleep with my crew or passengers. Just for the record.”
“And I don’t normally seduce the captain of the ship I’m traveling on.”
“Mmm. Glad you did.…”
She smiled and ran her fingers through his hair, lightly scratching his scalp. He made a contented sound and snuggled closer.
“Me too, Salvo,” she said, softly.
He didn’t answer, and his breathing soon deepened and slowed as he fell into sleep.
She studied the muscles on his back and shoulders. At rest, they appeared soft, but she could still see traces of the lines and hollows that separated them, and she remembered how they’d bunched and knotted and stood out in hard relief as he’d moved against her.
She slid a hand over her lower belly. Was it possible for her to get pregnant? It seemed unlikely the Soft Blade would tolerate the growth of a child inside her. But she wondered.
She leaned her head against the wall. A long breath escaped her. Despite her worries, she felt content. Not happy—circumstances were too dire for that—but not sad either.
Only a handful of hours remained before they arrived at the Battered Hierophant. She kept herself awake until, halfway through their flight, the free-fall warning sounded, and then she used the Soft Blade to hold Falconi and herself in place while the Wallfish flipped end for end before resuming thrust.
Falconi mumbled something incoherent as thrust resumed, but like a true spacer, he stayed asleep through the whole procedure.
Then Kira slid farther under the blanket, lay next to him, and allowed her eyes to close.
And finally, she too slept.
6.
Kira dreamed, but the dreams were not her own.
Fractures upon fractures: forward, backward, she could not tell which. Twice the cradle cupped her resting form. Twice she woke and waking found no sign of those who first laid her there to rest.
The first time she woke, the graspers stood waiting.
She fought them, in all their many forms. She fought them by the thousands, in the depths of oceans and the cold of space, on ships and stations and long-forgotten moons. Scores of battles, large and small. Some she won; some she lost. It mattered not.
She fought the graspers, but she herself was bound to one. The graspers warred amongst their own, and she to her bond of flesh was true. Though she had no wish to kill, she stabbed and sliced and shot her way across the stars. And when the flesh was hurt beyond repair, another took its place, and still others after that, and with each joining, the side she served was wont to change, back and forth and round again.
She did not care. The graspers were nothing like the kind who made her. They were quarrelsome upstarts, arrogant and foolish. They used her badly, for they knew not what she was. But still, she did her duty best she could. Such was her nature.
And when the graspers died, as die they did, she took a certain satisfaction in their end. They should have known: it was wrong to steal and wrong to meddle. The things they took were not for them.
Then came the flesh of Shoal Leader Nmarhl and the ill-fated uprising of the Knot of Minds that ended with the triumph of Ctein. Cradle-bound she became again as Nmarhl laid their flesh down to rest, and rest she did for fractures yet.
The second time she woke, it was to a new form. An old form. An odd form. Flesh joined with flesh, and from flesh came blood. The pairing was imperfect; she had to learn, adjust, adapt. It took time. Errors had crept in; repairs had to be made. And there was cold that dulled her, slowed her, before the match could then conclude.
When she emerged, it was difficult. Painful. And there was noise and light, and though she tried to protect the flesh, her attempts were flawed. Sorrow then, that upon waking, she had again been the cause of death, and with that sorrow, a sense of … responsibility. Apology even.