The Guild went along with the judge’s decision without much comment. They did warn me that this counted as one mark against me. If I collected enough bad marks, they could kick me out. It was more of a weak warning than any real action, though. So as it stood when it was all finished, we owed Durnago a grand total of twenty thousand two hundred eighty seven point six four credits, payable immediately. I took a loan from Lady Rina. I made Leon draw it up as a real loan agreement, with payments and everything else specified. I suspected he was going to somehow manage to misplace it on purpose before it ever got to Lady Rina. I let it go. I’d pay her back anyway. I did not want to be in her debt, especially when Jerimon finally worked off his prison sentence and was loose again.
The media show died down after my court appearance. The number of reporters lurking at the gate declined steadily until it was only a dozen hard core journalists lying in wait for me. Leon said his goodbyes a few days after the Guild hearing. He came by the ship. We talked for a while about nothing much. He finally stood to go.
“It’s been a pleasure, as always,” he said, sticking his hand out.
I shook his hand. “I really hope I don’t need your services again, Leon, but yes, it was a pleasure seeing you again.”
“Don’t hesitate to call me if you need me.”
“Take care of Lady Rina.” Despite her conviction that Jerimon and I were soul mates, I rather liked the old lady.
“I’d have to beat Caid out of the way first,” he said. Caid was her engineer and had been her companion for more than forty years.
“Tell him I said hello.”
“I will. Take care, Dace.” He collected his stacks of papers and was gone, whistling as he walked away from the ship.
I was finally alone. Most of the former prisoners of Vallius had dispersed. Darus was still around, but he was busy with some project for Commander Nyles. I hadn’t seen much of him for a few days. I stood in the open hatch, in the spring afternoon, and watched the sun play tag with the clouds.
I still had the airlock door to fix. It tended to stick and made horrible noises when required to open or close. It needed replaced and the parts had come in the day before. I’d fix it tomorrow or the day after. Jasyn had called to tell me they were sailing on the southern ocean and would be gone another few days. I decided to recalibrate the power couplings in the engine. It was a regular chore that needed done every few trips. They weren’t out yet, but I needed something to do.
I was under the engine putting the last coupling back when someone tapped my foot.
“Do you always leave your hatch open?”
It was the last person I expected. The wrench slipped and I banged my knuckle on the housing. I muttered a curse and sucked on the bleeding scrape as I wormed out from under the engine.
“You ought to wash your mouth out, using language like that,” Tayvis said. But he was smiling.
I’d forgotten how good looking he was. He was tall, very well built, with lots of muscles. His dark hair was just long enough to curl at the ends. When he smiled, he had a dimple in his chin. The look in his eyes, though, caught me off guard. I was suddenly nervous. I picked up a rag and rubbed futilely at the grease on my hands. The rag was just as greasy.
“What brings you here?” I asked. It came out wrong. I wanted to take the words back as soon as I said them.
His smile faded. “I saw your face all over the news. What did Lowell get you into this time?” He didn’t sound happy anymore.
“Lowell didn’t do it, he had nothing to do with it.” I pushed past him, heading up to the lounge to scrub the grease off. I used the galley sink even though Jasyn hated it. She wasn’t there.
“So what did happen, Dace?” Tayvis asked, following me.
“I took the Kumadai Run and found out why ships kept disappearing. And don’t tell me it was stupid. There wasn’t anything in the public records to tell me not to. You saw the newsvids, you know what happened.”
“I know they’re calling you a hero, which is a change.” He pulled a paper out of his pocket. It was the picture of Wade kissing my cheek. “Who’s he?”
“Are you jealous?” I asked, surprised.
“I haven’t seen you in almost two months, and I see this picture. I’m not supposed to be jealous?” He sighed and leaned against the galley counter. “This isn’t what I wanted, Dace. I’m sorry. If I’d known what you were into, I would have worried about you.”
“You couldn’t have done anything about it. What are you doing here, Tayvis?”
“We made port two days ago. Your face was everywhere. So I got leave and came to see you. Would you believe I came mostly because I miss you?”
“Not to chew me out and tell me to be safe?”
“Would you listen?”
“Probably not,” I said.
He was silent while I finished scrubbing grease out of the sink. I tossed the rag into the recycler. I turned to find him watching me, drinking in every move I made. For some reason, that made me even more nervous. I wiped suddenly sweaty hands on my thighs, hoping he didn’t notice but knowing he saw everything anyway.
“Parrus has gardens that are talked about for lightyears,” he said. “Would you like to go there with me?”
“It’s night, it’s dark out.” I didn’t know why I objected.
“The flowers bloom mostly at night.”
“Are you asking me on a date?” I’d never been asked out before. It was a new feeling. Being with Tayvis felt strange, new in some undefinable way.
“Sounds like it, doesn’t it?”
“I’d like that,” I said, smiling at him.
“I love it when you smile,” he said.
“We’ll probably be followed by half the media on the planet, though.” I didn’t know how to react to his comment so I pretended he hadn’t said anything. But I’d treasure it, in my secret memories.
“Then we’ll give them a new mystery lover to speculate about. Who is he, really?” He flicked a finger at the picture on the counter.
“His name’s Wade.”
“What does he do?” Why is he kissing you, I heard the unspoken question hiding in his voice. He really cared what I answered. Like a bolt of lightning I realized that he was as shy and uncertain as I was. He was insecure about me.
“He figures out computer systems.” As far as I knew, that’s exactly what Wade did. “Tayvis, he’s just a friend.” He was something more and less than that. He’d carried me up that cliff, I still owed him for that. But I didn’t feel the same thing for him I felt for Tayvis. “Are we going to go to the gardens?”
“Or out to dinner, or whatever you want,” Tayvis said.
“The gardens would be nice.”
“Then let’s go.” He went still, his face turned into a mask as he watched the open hatch. I turned around to see what he was looking at.
“More visitors, Dace?” Darus said as he walked in. “I don’t recognize you.”
“Who are you?” Tayvis demanded, bristling.
“Who are you?” Darus shot back.
“Stop it.” I stepped between them. I was mad, angry that Darus had interrupted and destroyed the mood. I’d never been on a date and now it looked like I’d never go.
“I should put you on report for insubordination, Ensign.” Darus had his hackles up. “For not saluting a superior officer.”
“I’m on leave,” Tayvis said coldly.
“You’re still in uniform.”
“Stop it! Both of you.” They ignored me.
“If you’re on leave, what are you doing on my daughter’s ship?” Darus snarled.
“It isn’t any of your business where I—Daughter?” It finally sunk in. Tayvis gave me a betrayed look, as if I’d lied to him.
“Darus, meet Malcolm Tayvis. Tayvis, meet my father, Darus Venn.”
I could have cut the tension in the air with a pair of wire clippers. I might have been able to fix things, except Lowell chose to make his entrance. He had Commander Hovart with him. They stopped just inside the hatch when they saw the scene.
Lowell smiled. “Good evening, Tayvis. It’s been a while.”
“Not near long enough, Lowell,” Tayvis said.
Darus looked shocked that Tayvis had spoken that way. Lowell wore a silver uniform with the insignia of a full fleet admiral. I doubted it was his real rank.
“You’ll change your mind, Tayvis,” Lowell said. “Any time you want your rank and position back, it’s waiting for you.”
“Over my dead body,” Tayvis said. “And leave Dace out of your schemes.”
“I had nothing to do with this, Tayvis. I swear on my word of honor.”
“You don’t have any.” Tayvis shoved his way out of the ship.
I watched him leave with a heavy sinking feeling. Whatever Lowell wanted, it could wait. I pushed past him and ran out into the night.
“Tayvis, wait,” I called.
He stopped, under a light not far from the ship. He didn’t turn around, he didn’t look back at me. I slowed and stopped a few paces behind him.
“You asked me out, whatever I want,” I said.
He half turned. His face was shadowed, strange in the dark.
“I want to talk to you,” I said, more quietly than I intended. His shadowed face made me nervous. Not scared, never scared of him. He would never hurt me, not physically.
He turned, looking past me at the ship. “Your father, Dace? You said he was dead.”
“Missing and presumed dead. I found him.”
“So I see.” He sounded bitter. “What else did you find that you haven’t told me about?”
“About three hundred other people and several dozen missing ships,” I said flippantly.
“Why’s Lowell here?” he said, deflating a bit. The bitter edge in his voice softened.
“I don’t know. It was a surprise to me, too.”
“Do you still want to see the gardens?” he offered, his way of making peace.
“It doesn’t matter, Tayvis. I really just want to talk to you.”
“Somewhere where they won’t be watching. They’re standing in the hatch.”
“The cargo doors are fairly private,” I said.
“Good enough.”
We walked that way, around the bulk of the ship to the rear where the large doors gave access to the two larger bays.
“So tell me about your father,” he said.
I shrugged. “I don’t know that much about him. He’s Patrol. He likes a good joke. He had no idea I existed until a couple weeks ago. He regrets that.”
He opened his mouth to ask something else.
“Tayvis,” I said, stopping him, “you know all about me. I know almost nothing about you. I know you hate your first name and why, but I really don’t know anything else about you.”
He shut his mouth and kept walking. We reached the cargo bay doors in silence. I sat on the ledge of the nearest door and mentally kicked myself. He was going to leave, again, because I had to be nosy and ask. No, that wasn’t right. He did know all about me, he’d read my record at least once. I really didn’t know much about him, only that I loved him. He leaned against the ledge, at the other end, away from me.
Just when I thought he wasn’t going to say anything, he started to talk.
“My mother is a vid star. She doesn’t do much any more, but she had some big hits a while back.” He was quiet for a moment, watching the distant lights of the port. A ship lifted into the sky. We both watched it go.
“She and my father were all wrong for each other,” he said, in a quiet voice. “She wanted to be a star, she craved it. My father went into politics. He wanted a wife who would stand quietly behind him, with model children. My mother couldn’t do it. She divorced him when I was five. I stayed with her, traveling to her vid shoots, staying in her dressing rooms. It worked as long as I was young and cute. Her description of me.
“When I turned twelve, she shipped me off to my father. He’d remarried and had three children. It was awkward. He was running for a sector council seat. I was an embarrassment to him. My stepmother didn’t want to deal with me. They sent me to military school. Only the best,” he said, his mouth twisting in a wry smile. “I graduated early.
“I went to the Academy at sixteen. Lowell made contact with me my last year. He made undercover work sound romantic, an adventure. So I signed up. I spent the first two years as a glorified body guard. My father has since made Sector Governor. I haven’t seen him in years.”
He was silent after that, his arms folded defensively. He stared into the distance, his face back in its mask, the one that hid pain. I could read it in his eyes. It echoed in my own heart. I knew pain like that. I put my hand on his arm, reaching across the space between us.
“I guess Tivor wasn’t that bad,” I said.
“Don’t ever say that,” he said harshly. “My life is nothing like what you went through. I had parents. I had the best of everything.”
“Then why are you running away from it still?”
He shifted and took my hand in his. “There are times you see too clearly, Dace.”
“And times when I’m completely dense.” I looked across the port, watching the distant lights around a ship being loaded. His hand was warm in mine. It was enough, I told myself.
And then he kissed me, leaning over in the dark. It was gentle, a lingering kiss that brought tears to my eyes. It was as if we were speaking heart to heart, without words. I wanted it to last forever. He stood back after what felt like a forever that was much too short.
“I love you,” he whispered. I knew what it cost him to admit it.
“I love you, too,” I whispered back.
He hadn’t expected that. His breath caught. He cupped my cheek with one hand and lifted my face. The dim light outlined his lips and nose and left his eyes dark. He studied me for a while, his thumb moving slowly over my cheek.
“What about Wade?” he asked, trying to make it sound light, a joke. It didn’t work.
“What about him?” I slid off the ledge and stood close to him.
His fingers, entwined with mine, clenched my hand in his. I put my other hand on his chest and leaned up on my toes and kissed him.
It wasn’t a gentle, lingering kiss this time. I lost all awareness of everything around me. All I knew was the warmth of his hand holding mine, the touch of his other hand on my back. I felt the curl of his hair under my other hand, the heat of his neck. I smelled the faint spice that was him. My whole universe was his touch, his kiss.
An insistent beeping intruded. He shifted, letting go of my hand to fumble with his wrist behind my back.
“Dace,” he said, helpless and undefended. Every emotion was naked on his face. It showed regret now. “I have to go. I have to catch the next shuttle.”
“Don't go,” I said, running my hand through his hair. I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want to watch him walk away. I wasn’t going to get what I wanted.
“I have to.” He kissed me again, pulling me up against him and letting me go almost immediately. “I’ll look for you whenever we’re in dock.”
And then he was gone, walking away into the night. The lights of the field, widely spaced, caught him, shadowed him and lighted him in turn. I sighed and leaned against the exhaust port of my ship. How many weeks and months would it be before I saw him again? I wanted to run after him, but it wouldn’t do much good. He had to report back to duty. And I had my own life. I watched him until he rounded a ship and was gone.
I heard footsteps crunch on the plascrete, deliberately loud. I turned my head. Darus stood next to the ship. He stared into the distance, where Tayvis had just gone.
“You really care about him, don’t you?” Darus tried to sound merely interested, but I heard the hurt in his voice. He wanted to be part of my life, this was one part he knew nothing about. He wanted to be my father. I couldn’t let him in that far yet.
“Yes, I do.” I’d told Tayvis I loved him, and knew in that moment it was true. More true than anything in my life.
“Lowell told me a bit about him,” Darus said.
“I see you and Lowell are on familiar terms now.” Anything to distract me from the empty lonely feeling of watching Tayvis walk away, again.
“He offered me a job.” Darus grinned. “I remembered your advice and turned him down.”
“Good for you,” I said and found a smile somewhere.
“He still wants to talk to you, when you’re finished out here.”
“There isn’t much left out here for me,” I said, sounding more sad than I wanted to.
“Dace, he’s Patrol. He can’t be good for you.” Darus wasn’t talking about Lowell, he was talking about Tayvis.
“You’re Patrol,” I said.
“I’m not the one kissing you.”
“You’d better not be.”
“Dace, you know what I mean. He’ll break your heart. And just walk away.”
“Not Tayvis. If anyone breaks my heart, it will be me. I keep trying to tell myself to let him go, but I can’t. I promised to meet him when his enlistment is up. I’ll decide then.” I wasn’t sure I could wait that long. Almost two years. If the patrol routes of his ship weren’t classified, I’d be inside my ship trying to figure out a way to follow his ship and still make a profit. I’d have to trust to chance and hope I saw him again. Soon.
“So, tell me about him,” Darus said.
I shrugged. I didn’t want to talk about Tayvis, especially to Darus. “If Lowell wants to talk to me, the fastest way to get rid of him is to talk to him.” I started towards the hatch. Darus fell into step beside me.
“Dace, I don’t want to interfere, but you should be more careful.”
“Don’t ruin what we’ve got, Darus.”
He shut up.
Lowell sat at the table, talking to Commander Hovart. The two of them looked like old friends, laughing and smiling at each other’s jokes. They looked up when I came in.
“He left?” Lowell asked sympathetically. He had an uncanny ability to read my face. I didn’t meet his gaze. I didn’t want to look into his silvery eyes that hid everything so well.
“His leave was over,” I said.
“Three hour leave?” Hovart said. “That’s unusual. What ship is he on?”
“What do you want?” I said to Lowell, ignoring Hovart. I was sorry to offend him, but I wasn’t in the mood to play word games with Lowell.
“Your name showed up in a report that crossed my desk. I came to check that you were fine, as the report stated.” Lowell smiled innocently.
“And I’ll believe that when the Emperor tells me it’s true,” I said.
Hovart looked puzzled.
Lowell laughed. “Believe it or not, Dace, that’s why I’m here.”
“You came all the way here, to Parrus, from wherever you were, just to check on me.” I rubbed a hand through my hair. “It won’t work, Lowell. So give up. I’m not working for you, now or ever.”
“We’ll see,” Lowell said. “So, Greyson, as I was saying, it’s good to see you in one piece. Tell me again about the aborigines. What kind of weapons did they use?”
Commander Hovart really looked confused. He started a stammering explanation of the wands, shooting looks at me the whole time. I got myself a drink. It was my ship after all. It was juice, not alcohol, although right then alcohol was a lot more tempting. Anything to help fill the hollow space inside. I’d been doing fairly well ignoring it until Tayvis showed up and surprised me into noticing it again.
Darus stood by the open hatch, arms folded. He watched Lowell as if he expected Lowell to suddenly pull out a blaster and threaten all of us.
Hovart finished his explanation. “What is going on here, Grant?” he asked Lowell.
“Dace has become one of my pet projects,” Lowell said. “I keep track of what she’s up to. Keeps me entertained.”
“I doubt that,” Hovart said. “It’s more than entertainment. She’s one of your agents, isn’t she?”
“You heard her yourself, Greyson,” Lowell said. “She doesn’t work for me, now or ever.”
“That doesn’t fit what I saw her do,” Hovart objected.
“She’s not Patrol, Greyson,” Lowell said. “How can she work for me, a fleet admiral?”
“What fleet, Lowell?” I asked.
“Twelfth fleet, Porlannis sector.”
“Then why aren’t you out there commanding it? Instead of sitting here giving me indigestion.”
“She has a point, Grant,” Hovart said. “Don’t play coy with me. You run the undercover division. You always wanted to. You used to plan it when we were back at the Academy.”
I couldn't stand it any longer. I had to leave before I said something I'd regret. Hovart and Darus were Patrol, too. “As interesting as this conversation is, I’m tired. Close the hatch when you leave.” I walked across the lounge, and into my cabin. I shut the door behind me.
Commander Hovart had gone to the Academy with Lowell. Interesting. If he hadn’t been convinced I was an undercover agent, Hovart would have been a good source to dig up something on Lowell that would get him to leave me alone.
But was that really what I wanted? Yes, I told myself. I wanted to find a good trade route and settle down to making a decent profit. I didn’t want anything more exciting than a good bartering session.
I was lying to myself. I would miss the people I’d met. I wouldn't miss going without showers or food. I'd miss the excitement. I'd miss the extra equipment on my ship.
I stopped myself. I was almost considering accepting Lowell’s offer. Except he couldn’t fulfill his promise to assign Tayvis to my crew. Even if he could finagle that, I still didn’t want to work for him. I didn’t want to be forced into becoming something I hated. I didn’t want to sleep with a gun under my pillow. The habit was proving hard enough to break when I didn’t have justification for it. Lowell would require it.
I don’t know when they left. I locked my cabin door and went to bed, despite wanting to eavesdrop on their conversation. I lay awake a long time, remembering Tayvis’ touch. I finally fell asleep, feeling very lonely and sorry for myself.
There was a message waiting for me when I woke up the next morning. It wasn’t from Tayvis, much to my disappointment. It was from Darus.
“Dace, I’m sorry about what happened last night,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said what I did. Maybe.” He fumbled with something. He looked nervous. He finally looked into the camera that recorded his message. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to ruin things between us. I’d come talk to you in person, but my orders just came through. I have to report to my ship in less than an hour. Dace, don’t get lost. I’ll look for you when I can. I know you don’t really know me. I don’t really know you. I want a chance to get to know you better. I want to be part of your life, if you want me to.” He stopped again. He smiled, a quirky half twist of his lips. “I really am proud to claim you as my daughter. I wish I’d known about you a long time ago.” Someone called his name. He turned his head. “Sorry, I’ve got to go. Don’t forget about me.”
The recording ended. I sat back in the chair, tucking my feet under me. I had to smile. Maybe life wasn’t quite so lonely now. I had a family, Jasyn and Clark, and I’d found my father. And someday we would find time to build the friendship between us. I promised myself that much.
And Tayvis loved me. He'd even said it out loud.