Chapter Seventeen
I sent Ren for a soak and a nap. He left the bridge, sensing, no doubt, I was in no mood for a discussion. I sat in my chair and played with the data on the ships flowing into Marker the past few weeks. It kept my mind off Sully's pained expression when I'd stormed out of my cabin.
Our cabin.
We had two days yet to meet-point. I didn't want to think how I felt about Gabriel's bedtime stories. Or more. I had mental duro-hards filled with things I didn't want to think about, and almost all were tagged with Sully's name. Better to busy myself playing with data.
Marker was busy, too. Marker was always busy but ships came and went in the usual illogical patterns of repairs. You can't schedule for when something breaks down or fails.
New ship production was different. That had a definite schedule. But I wasn't looking at outgoing. I was looking at incoming.
I made a grid and stuck my data in. Then integrated the data Drogue had shown us on Chalford's Lucky Seven, on our way up from Moabar. It took some time, but that was okay, because it kept my mind on a narrow track, kept it away from things I didn't want to think about. Finally, it all came out to a nice fit. But only if you knew to look for it.
The Meritorious's databanks were crammed with Imperial data. Not as much on Marker as I'd like, but some. I cross-referenced that with the newsbanks every ship grabbed from the beacons. Months, years of it had been stored in my ship and archived. A captain never knew whom she'd run across on patrol. Never knew what she might need to know about them.
It was standard operating procedure when I'd held command. Kingswell had been more lax. But enough was there. I was sure the Boru Karn held more.
I'd need that. One name, sometimes as a source of funding, sometimes as an advisory- concept group, kept drifting through my data. It was always an offhand mention, an annotation. Crossley Burke. I couldn't place it, but I kept seeing it. I might not even have noticed it except years ago Crossley had been a company that produced virtual vid games, the kinds that every station brat hoarded credits to play in the arcade. They were popular when I was a teenager; they lost the market when holo-hybrid sims came out. I couldn't tie in that Crossley with big money underwriting or with corporate idea farms.
I needed more data. I tapped a note to myself to that effect, tagged it to the file.
Then I went back to Ren's most recent list of incoming. There was a sequence I'd missed earlier. Not surprising. And not just because it was near end of shift for me.
Sometimes those overfilled mental duro-hards make it tough to keep things straight.
The sequence contained division numericals coded to requisitions. Who, besides the receiving division, would need a list of incomings? It might relate to requisitions and authorizations, if these were shipments, and not repair. But it also might be another office in Marker that needed, for some mystical reason of its own, to know who was coming in, and when.
Five of the first eight tandem codes were the same. I dropped them out of the sequence and was entering them into my note-to-myself when I realized I knew them. And knew them well.
God, I was mediumly wretched not to recognize them.
Reports of these incoming were all sent in tandem to the office of Commander Thaddeus Lars Bergren. My beloved older brother.
* * *
"You're off duty. I'll take over."
"Hmm?" A nervous quiver fluttered in my chest as I recognized his voice.
Sully waited on my right, hands clasped behind his back. I'd been preoccupied with the data on my screen and didn't hear him come onto the bridge. Didn't hear him come up to my chair.
His eyes were still shadowed. "I said I'll take over. Ren will relieve me."
"Right." I knew that. I also knew that I always stayed an extra hour or two, shared tea or a meal with him. I didn't mention that now. Neither did he.
I unlatched the harness and swung the armpad back. Then stopped while my hand was still on it. The fact that I was sorting out my feelings about him didn't negate that he needed to know what I'd found in other matters. "I've been reexamining the data Ren pulled. There are a couple of things that need deeper work, but they'll have to wait until we hook up with the Karn."
I pushed out of the chair. "I also found something that doesn't make sense." Or maybe I didn't want it to make sense. "Five of the ships that came in for repairs sent a duplicate notice of their arrival to an office that shouldn't be concerned with such things. Thad's office."
He thought for a moment. "He's in the hierarchy. There could be a number of reasons why a confirmation would be sent there."
"Absolutely. But they're not coded for his division. They're coded for his office. My brother's office. His private trans file."
"You have any idea why?"
"Not in the slightest. But I will find out."
"I know," he said softly. "That why I chose you. You're the best interfering bitch around."
"No, in the universe, Sullivan. Remember that." I headed for the corridor. "The best interfering bitch in the universe."
* * *
Sleep didn't come right away. I stared at Sully's jacket hanging on the wall. I didn't realize until I'd flopped down on the bed that part of my mind wondered if it would still be there. If he'd moved his clothes out, taken another cabin. Gotten out of more than just my mind.
Of course, he may have done just that and forgotten the jacket, left it behind in his haste. I could get up out of bed, rummage through his closet and the drawers. I could collect my data, find my answer.
But the answer I sought wouldn't be found in his closet. I knew that.
So I lay there and stared at his jacket until my eyelids felt too heavy to stay open.
* * *
I woke an hour before I was to start my shift. The spicy, pungent aroma of coffee greeted me. A hot mug was on my bedside table. Other than that, the cabin was empty.
Someone had brought me coffee. I didn't know if it had been Sully or Ren until I picked up the mug. An angel of heart-stars card was propped up behind it.
He should've been off duty a few hours ago. But the coffee was hot. Maybe he'd moved his things to another cabin while I slept.
My hand hovered over the latch to his closet then pulled back. I turned and padded to the shower. Some things I can wait to learn. And some things, I realized, maybe I didn't want to know.
The coffee was still warm when I came out. I gulped it down and in between gulps, pulled on clean clothes.
"Captain's heading for the bridge." I waited, wanting to hear that typical Sully rejoinder, 'Hell's ass. There goes our card game.'
But all I heard was Ren's soft: "Acknowledged."
It wasn't the same.
* * *
Sully accepted my thanks for the coffee with a soft, gentle gaze and a slight shrug. I didn't mention the card.
He didn't bring up our argument. But he and Ren had been playing cards. He only stayed on the bridge long enough to lose another two thousand credits, then left. He was keeping his distance from me. I didn't know if it was because he thought that's what I wanted. Or if it was because that's what he wanted.
I didn't know why he'd left the heart-stars card. Maybe I should've mentioned it. Maybe I should be putting different colors into my rainbow.
Maybe, if I got up the courage, I'd ask Ren.
We were about two shifts from meet-point. I went back to working the data but found nothing new. Ren went over it as well. We played with some theories about the confirmations sent to Thad's office, but Ren didn't have Sully's knowledge of Marker. He did, however, have some knowledge of Sully.
"He's stopped reading you. He's afraid to know what you feel."
I leaned wearily on the armrest. "He should have told me he's a telepath."
"He's been trying to. It's not easy for him."
I knew he'd been showing me things in small ways. I thought of how he'd echoed my thoughts when we were on Moabar; his comment about boot camp, his taunt about sibling rivalry with Thad. His ability to know when I was thinking of that night in Port Chalo.
But there were other times when he'd seemed unaware of what I was thinking at all. Selectivity, Ren had told me in his quarters on Moabar Station.
"Peeking," I said to Ren. "He's been peeking into my thoughts off and on."
"And mine, as long as I've known him. But it's not something I fear as you do."
I'd picked up on the way Ren gave answers before Sully voiced questions. I'd ignored that, or rather didn't want to face what that might mean. It didn't fit easily into one of my databoxes. "I'm not afraid-"
His slight tilt of his head stopped me. Empath. Who could sense emotions but not their reasons.
"Okay. I have fears. But I'm not afraid of him. I don't view him as some sort of soul-stealing demon." Like the painting in Drogue's monastery.
"Then what are your fears, Chasidah?"
"Ignorance. What I don't understand. Mistakes I can make because of that. Like I've already made. Because I can't ask questions, find out what he's thinking, feeling. That's the advantage he has with me, that I don't with him." That's how he knew I was attracted to him, wanted to comfort him after we'd learned Captain Milo had been killed. That's how he knew when I was ready to make love to him the first time. "All I can do is guess. He ought to try it sometime. Feel what it's like to be unsure of why someone's with you."
"He knows that now. He's stopped reading your resonances since the incident with the Morgan Loviti. He's cut himself off from that part of himself, as much as he can. I've told him I don't agree. But he said that's the only way you won't be afraid of him, of what he can do. But it's also teaching him, I think, what uncertainty feels like. It's a lesson he needs to learn." Ren flipped off his straps. "Just don't make it too harsh a lesson for him, Chasidah. Because he learned, long ago, what it feels like to be hurt."
Ren went off duty with a promise to come back before my shift ended.
Then it was just me and my ship and the starfield in front of me. No more bogies. Thank you, Philip. I picked up the usual traffic in the freighter lanes on the scanners, ran the usual systems checks. And I wondered what Thad was doing watching certain incomings at Marker. That was a grunt's job. Not second in command in the shipyards.
I wondered what Thad would say if he knew I was sleeping with a mind-fucker, human variety. Yet another disgrace Chaz has brought to the Bergren name, probably.
Marrying Philip was the only correct decision I'd ever made, according to Thad. Divorcing Philip was proof that I was just like my mother.
She'd divorced my father when I was two. Thad was four. The court split us. Lars got Thad, put him into a crèche on Baris Seven. Amaris got me, put me in a playpen in the corner of her office on Marker.
Amaris was career Fleet, but had always been nontraditional. She would've liked Ren. She definitely would've liked Sully. She wasn't a woman who scared easily.
I hoped Philip and Thad were right. I hoped I was just like my mother.
* * *
Intraship trilled. Ren's voice. "I am heading for the bridge. Can I bring you tea, coffee?"
"You're early. I have two hours to go yet."
"I'm awake. Tired of soaking. And I enjoy doing my meditations on the quiet of the bridge, where I can feel the stars."
"All right, all right. I know when I'm not wanted. Come take watch. And thanks, but no. No tea or coffee. I had dinner an hour ago."
Ren and a mug of tea arrived a few minutes later. I vacated my chair and watched as he settled in it. That was something else that would make Thad's lip curl. A Stolorth raised by Takas in the command sling of an Imperial P40.
Ren set his tea down, angled his head, reading me. "You are more peaceful, happier now, Chasidah."
My rainbows were improving. "I was just thinking about how much you don't remind me of my brother."
"I would imagine I'm very different from Thaddeus."
"Praise the stars for that, Ren." I patted his shoulder, let my hand rest long enough to absorb a much-needed warmth, and left the bridge.
* * *
My cabin was empty, the lights dimmed as I'd left them. The bed was neatly made, quite possibly just as I'd left it. I didn't know if Sully had been in, napped or moved out altogether. I was about to open his closet, find an answer maybe it was time I faced when I noticed the message light flashing on my deskscreen.
I sat and fingered a new angel of heart-stars card propped against it while I read.
Chasidah. Angel. Gabriel has lost his words. They have all fled, shamed to be in his company. He's left now with only a few, simple ones. They are inadequate. They cannot begin to convey all that he feels. But they are all he has.
Chasidah. Angel. Gabriel is sorry. Gabriel is sorry. Gabriel is sorry.
Chasidah. Angel. The grievous wrong isn't as much in the questions Chasidah couldn't ask. But in the only real truth that Gabriel could tell, and did not.
Chasidah. Angel. Gabriel loves you beyond all measure. That is the only real truth.
I stared at the screen, elbows on my desk, my hands cupped over my mouth. My heart hammered, ached.
He was right. He'd never told me he loved me. In the past two weeks he'd told me I was wicked, I was beautiful, I was wild, I was delightful. I was his obsession, his fantasy, his best interfering bitch.
His angel.
He'd caressed me, coddled me and held me. He'd made me warm, hot, crazy, passionate and delirious. He'd made me feel safe, respected, honored.
He made me his lover. He made me his friend.
And he'd tried to tell me, if only I'd been listening, that he was more than an empath. But I didn't want to know.
Just as Philip knew, when he married me, I was career Fleet. He knew I abhorred the crèches. But he'd rejected that, when it became inconvenient. Rejected me, hurt me.
Sully hadn't hurt me. He'd shared his anger and pain and fear with me in a fashion far more intimate than I was used to. Perhaps even inappropriately. But he hadn't hurt me, hadn't stripped my mind, altered it.
He could have. He also possibly could have taken command of the Meritorious away from me before I opened the vidlink to Philip. With a touch. With a thought. I'd heard stories of things like that happening during the war.
But he hadn't. Angry and afraid, he'd waited, trusting that I'd do nothing to hurt him.
I sat and thought about that. I picked up the card again.
A dangerous man, Gabriel Ross Sullivan. An undeniably handsome bastard. But I couldn't imagine life without that wicked, wicked Sully-grin. Risks and all.
* * *
I found him in the small ready-room, sitting in semi-darkness. A mug of tea was in front of him, still full, but no steam rose. No fragrance wafted in the air.
I moved the mug when I sat on the edge of the table. It was cold. So was his hand when he took mine. No warmth, no spirals, not even a flutter danced up my arm. It was as if everything that Gabriel was, was gone.
Except for the dark, haunted look in his eyes. Which was something we had to discuss, something I had to face, before we could go any farther.
"You're a telepath. Like a Ragkiril."
"Yes."
"This is what you didn't want me to know."
He nodded. "I don't want you to be afraid of what I am."
"Then you should've told me, not just gone ripping apart my memories-"
"I lost control. That's never happened to me before." His voice was rough. His shoulders hunched tiredly. "At least, not in a very long time. But I was... reading such anger, such fear in you. I knew there wasn't time for questions. I reacted stupidly. Didn't even realize what I'd done until I was there. I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
"You've apologized. I accept that."
He sat up a little straighter, hopeful. His fingers curled more tightly into mine.
"I also know you could've done more than just view my mental scrapbook. But you didn't. I appreciate your trust in me, that I had a workable plan. Even if it made you angry."
"I didn't like your plan because I found out Guthrie was your husband. That you loved him. I stopped there. I thought then that you wanted to go with him, on the Loviti. I never knew you were divorced until you told me, later." His mouth tightened. "I'm still not sure the divorce was something you wanted."
"I wanted Philip's options less." I offered my other hand, squeezed his fingers reassuringly. No way to send warm tingles now. "Remember Port Chalo?"
A small smile played across his mouth then faded. "I waited for you to come back. I scared you away then, too."
"I scared me away. The transmit waiting for me back on board was the finalization of my divorce. Believe me, I wanted nothing more than to go back to that bar and have you kiss me senseless. But I also didn't want to wake in the morning and find out I'd been just another drunken fling. That you wouldn't even have remembered my name. I couldn't have faced that. Or myself. Or you."
"I wasn't drunk. You should've come back."
I slid to my feet, tugged on his hands. "I'm here, now."
He drew me against him as he stood. "I'd still like to try kissing you senseless."
"My cabin or yours?"
He hesitated. "I hope mine is still yours."
"It is."
He started unbuttoning my shirt in the corridor, tossed his own on the couch as the cabin door closed behind us. I kicked off my boots and climbed into the middle of the bed.
He pulled me down next to him. His arms closed tightly, almost desperately, around my back, over my hair that I'd unbound. I splayed my hand against his spine, my nose nuzzled against in his chest. I could feel his heart pounding.
But nothing more. Just the weight of his arms, the pressure of his mouth against my face as he brushed my cheek, my lips, my chin with gently fervent kisses.
And I felt my own very deep ache.
But nothing more.
He was staying out of my mind, out of my senses. Totally. Because of my fears, and his. Because I'd ordered him to.
A good captain knows when to rescind an order.
I placed my lips almost against his. "Sully. It's okay. Chasidah loves Gabriel, too."
There was a small intake of breath, then a question as he let the breath out again. "You're sure?"
"Yes."
Warmth cascaded, surging. Warmth, cresting into heat. Warmth, cleansing, curing, healing. Melting pain, melting aches. Spreading, flowing, gentling, caressing, lifting, cradling. Needing.
Kneading. Stroking, skin, lips, fingers. Touch.
Clothes. Come. Off.
Heat, skin slicking, soft, hard, wanting, giving, claiming.
Ecstasy.
Warmth. Surrounding. Cradling. Gentling. Holding.
Hands clasping.
Mine. Mine.
Love.