Rayne opened her eyes and gazed at the ceiling, alone in the vast bed. Tarke’s bed would be empty, she knew. Her husband rose at dawn to tend to his empire, and it took up most of his time. Since they had returned five months ago, their routine had gone back to almost exactly the way it had been before her coma. She lived in his apartment now, and he spent a lot more time at the base, leaving only for a few days each month. They dined together every night when he was at the base, and he showed her a little more affection. She wondered if it would ever change. He tolerated her occasional attempts to lure him into compromising situations with good humoured unease, becoming adroit at evading her in ways that were not so hurtful. At times, his reaction gave rise to wonderful hilarity. He still visited her at her workplace, usually once a day, and, now that she knew why, it saddened her.
Rawn had gone home after a week, and the Crystal Ship had taken a hundred seasoned troops to free its kin. It had returned three months later with ninety-four, but the other two hundred and seventy-nine ships had been freed. The potent venom had worked well, and, with Scrysalza’s help, the ships had fought for their freedom alongside the men. The soldiers had split into groups of twenty, and got the procedure down to a fine art. Towards the end, they had been able to free a ship in a matter of hours. Only one crystal ship had died.
Gentle exercise and physiotherapy had long since restored Rayne’s muscle tone, and her health was back to normal. Tarke showed his affection in many little ways, but she would have traded all of his gifts for a night in his arms. Although he often lay beside her until she fell asleep, he was never there when she woke up.
Rayne sat up as an alarm wailed outside, rose and pulled on her standard issue black coverall. Tying back her hair, she strode to the door. People ran past in the corridor, and she sprinted after them. They seemed panicked, making her wonder if the base was under attack. There were no thuds of explosions, however, and no smoke in the corridor, besides which, if the dome had been breached it would have been quite hard to breathe. The people ahead of her raced into the hangar dome, and she followed, finding it crowded.
Rayne elbowed her way through the throng, filled with a nameless dread. Some people recognised her and stepped aside, pulling others from her path. Reaching the front of the crowd, she froze, her gasp choked off as her throat closed.
The Shrike lay on the floor, his back arched and his limbs rigid. Several men clustered around him, others held back the crowd, and a knot of men kicked and punched another prone person a short distance away. Men fought to reach the front of the mob around the second person, who appeared to be in danger of being torn limb from limb, and looked dead. Rayne ran to kneel at her husband’s side, recoiling when one of the wild-eyed men who crouched beside him turned on her, raising a fist. Another man grabbed him and dragged him away, and Rayne gazed down at Tarke, her heart in her mouth.
A commotion started at the back of the throng, which parted to allow four men with a floating stretcher to run through. Rayne touched Tarke’s sleeve, and he jerked away, making her draw back again. Someone gripped her arm and pulled her to her feet, and she turned to meet Vidan’s anguished eyes.
“Don’t, Rayne,” he said. “Don’t touch him.”
“What’s happened to him?”
He glanced at the corpse still being battered to a bloody pulp. “An assassin. I think he’s been poisoned.”
“Oh, god... no,” she started towards Tarke again, but he held her back.
“No. Stay here. The medics will take care of him.”
“How did this happen? Will he be all right? Tell me he’ll be all right, Vidan!”
“I don’t know. The assassin was disguised as a slave; came in on a transport that arrived a little while ago. She begged to be allowed to thank Tarke. He was in the office. He came out, and she... He let her touch him.”
“Oh god,” Rayne raised a hand to her mouth, a sob closing her throat as her tears overflowed.
One of the medics jumped up and turned to Vidan. “He’s stopped breathing. We have to get the mask off!”
Vidan shouted, “Everyone turn away! Cover your eyes! Do it now!”
Every person swung away and covered his or her face. Some clasped their hands and muttered prayers. The men who still kicked the corpse stopped and covered their eyes, and women wept. Two medics turned their backs as Vidan knelt beside Tarke.
“You’ll be mind-wiped,” he said to the two remaining medics, who nodded.
Vidan pulled Tarke’s gloves off and gripped his hands, pressing his fingertips to the controls on the sides of the mask. It unclipped, and he pulled it off, revealing the Shrike’s ashen face. A medic clamped a breather over his mouth and nose, activating it, and Tarke’s chest rose. The other medic cut open Tarke’s shirt and the skin suit under it, sticking electrodes on the Shrike’s chest to stimulate his heart. The first man lowered the floating stretcher, and they lifted Tarke onto it, raised it and set off for the hangar doors at a run. Vidan waited until the stretcher left the hangar before he addressed the crowd again.
“All right, he’s gone.”
The people straightened, and the men who stood over the corpse kicked it again.
Vidan approached them. “That’s enough. She’s dead.”
“She should have been made to die a thousand deaths,” one man said.
Another ex-slave bent and tugged at the slave collar around the woman’s throat, twisting and bending it until it parted. He held it up. “A free woman!”
“What else?” the first man said, glaring at the battered corpse.
A man stepped in front of Rayne, blocking her view. He shook his head. “Don’t look.”
Vidan took her arm and tugged her towards the door. Rayne longed to be with Tarke, but dreaded what she might find in the hospital. Tears chilled her cheeks, and her heart was leaden. People cast her anguished looks, many with wet cheeks. She stared ahead as Vidan led her to the doors, hardly aware of the hands that stroked her arms and touched her back in silent empathy. The sorrow, rage and anguish in the hangar stunned her, making it impossible to think.
The short journey to the hospital passed in a blur. Vidan guided her to the foot of a bed where Tarke lay, hooked up to a multitude of beeping, hissing machines. The breather still covered his mouth and nose, and sensors flashed on his breastbone and brow. Tortured glass panels hid him from prying eyes, and the same two medics bent over him, consulted their instruments and muttered.
She looked at Vidan, unable to shake the sensation of unreality. “What are they doing?”
“They’re trying to identify the poison, and keeping him alive until they can.”
“He’s not going to die, is he? He can’t.”
He shook his head. “Trust me; we’ll do everything we can to ensure he doesn’t. These are two of the best doctors in the quadrant. In the last assassination attempt, they used trimordel. This looks like the same thing.”
“How many assassination attempts have there been?”
“This is the seventh.”
She was aghast. “Who keeps trying to kill him?”
Vidan grimaced. “Slavers, of course. The ones who tried before are dead, like whoever tried this time will be, as soon as we find out who it is. Unfortunately, there’s not much left of the assassin.”
“What happened?”
“He allowed her to touch his glove, as he sometimes does. You’ve seen it. She must have had a poisoned needle concealed in her hand. I saw him jerk his hand away and punch her. She was dead before she hit the floor. He just stood there, looking at his hand... No one moved. Then he collapsed.” Vidan rubbed his eyes. “The men went nuts, dragged her body away and tried to tear it apart.”
One of the medics gave a cry of triumph. “Trimordel!”
The other man picked up an injector from the row on a table and pressed it to the side of Tarke’s neck.
Vidan slumped. “That’s the antidote.”
“So he’s going to be all right?”
“I hope so. We’re well prepared for this sort of thing, after the other attacks. Only once did the assassin try to use a weapon, a glass dagger she concealed... Well, somewhere private. We don’t search the slaves. Usually they arrive naked, and we can’t subject them to any more humiliation. Tarke forbids it. All the other attempts were with poison too, so we keep a supply of all the antidotes to every known poison on hand. The closest he came to dying was a girl who spent several months here. She got a job in the kitchens and poisoned his food. He was alone in his apartment, but he triggered the alarm when he fell ill, and we found the antidote in time.”
“Is it always female assassins?”
Vidan nodded. “So far. This is the first time one has tried to kill him by asking to thank him. Now we’ll never know whether whoever sent her knew he might allow her to touch him using that ruse, or if she came up with the idea on her own.”
“How did the others try?”
“They tried to seduce him. When that didn’t work, they bumped into him in a corridor, or got into a lift with him. Two stuck needles in his back. They all died a split second later, by his hand.”
“So his deadly reactions aren’t just because of what happened to him as a slave,” she said.
“Oh, they are; they’re just put to good use when an assassin tries to kill him. But they all managed to inject the poison, because it only takes a scratch to do it, and he came close to death each time.”
The medics hovered over Tarke, monitored his vital signs, adjusted the instruments and talked in hushed voices.
Vidan sighed and rubbed his brow. “Much as I enjoy the rare privilege of seeing his face, I’m not looking forward to the mind-wipe.”
“How can you be sure none of the people in the hangar saw it, too?”
He shook his head. “They’d never do that. They know better, and none of them would ever put him in danger. You know that. You’ll see, after this attempt, when he’s back on his feet, how paranoid they are. After the last time, fifteen women were injured because they came too close to him.”
“I can imagine. I saw what they did to the assassin’s corpse.”
“Tarke did her a favour. She wouldn’t have had an easy death at their hands; that I can promise you.” He turned away. “I must tell them he’s had the antidote.”
Rayne stood vigil at the end of Tarke’s bed while the medics monitored the beeping machines, hooked up fresh drips and gave him two more injections. One brought her a chair, and she listened to the hiss of the breathing machine and the steady beep of the heart monitor. Vidan returned and waited for a while, then left again.
She had lost track of the hours when one of the medics approached her and said, “You mustn’t wear yourself out. He’ll want you to be well when he wakes up.”
“Is he going to wake up?”
The medic nodded. “Oh yes, he’s going to be fine; nothing for you to worry about.”
She sensed his concern, and shook her head. “Don’t lie to me. You know I’m an empath, Doctor.”
“Of course I’m concerned, but he’ll be fine. Please go and rest now.”
When she shook her head again, he pressed an injector to the side of her neck. Rayne leapt up with a shout of outrage, but the room spun away into darkness as firm hands took hold of her.