Chaos Space - Marianne de Pierres [56]
Yes.
I am coming.
This time Mira ran. Women should never move quickly or with visible purpose. . . Yet at this moment, she wished that her robes were less cumbersome and her body more accustomed to action. Though her muscles were firm from youth they did not respond now when she demanded more from them. Did the baby hamper her as well?
Hamper. She must not think so. Otherwise how could she care for it? How could she care for it, anyway?
Rast was still seated in Autonomy, murmuring. Catchut was there as well; standing beside her, watching over her.
The mercenary’s eyes flickered open. ‘Don’t let them on board,’ said Rast aloud. ‘Don’t let those OLOSS fuckers in.’
It was more than belligerence. She was hiding something, Mira thought, the way her fingers gripped the armrest.
‘Why?’
‘You’ve arrived here squealing trouble. They will want to be sure you are who you say.’
‘Then why should I deny them? My plight is genuine.’
Rast grunted and slapped the armrest. ‘You are so damn naive. Now don’t let them on.’ She ground the last words out.
Mira stiffened at her intimidating tone. She took a side step towards the safety of Primo—an instinctive reaction. ‘I have no wish to antagonise them.’
‘I would be more concerned, Baronessa, about antagonising me,’ said Rast softly.
And there it was: the open threat, and the switch to hardened mercenary. Gone was the humour, the amused admiration and the begrudging gratitude.
‘What are you hiding from them?’
‘What you don’t know can’t be tortured out of you,’ Rast replied matter-of-factly.
Catchut laughed at that.
Mira frowned, glancing between them. ‘You brought something on board, onto Insignia at Intel. I saw a satchel. What was it?’
Rast stood slowly, loosening her muscles in a way that made Mira’s throat go dry. ‘What makes you think that, clever Baronessa?’
‘It explains your behaviour.’ And the conversation I heard. ‘It also explains .. .’ She had a flash of intuition. A day for it—as if her mind had only just begun to work again after the events on Araldis. ‘It explains why Stationmaster Landhurst was so eager to stop us and more importantly’—she gambled on the last bit—‘why Captain Dren and the other warships backed us.’
Rast slipped her hands into her pocket. Did she have a weapon in there? She always carried a weapon. ‘Like I said: clever little Baronessa.’
Mira swallowed to ease her dry throat but she did not retreat. She had learned with Rast that you did not show weakness. ‘Do not patronise me, mercenary. I think the scale of favours between us is currently balanced. Even you should respect that, if indeed you believe your own propaganda.’
Catchut’s sharp intake of breath sent a pang of fear shooting through her chest. Don’t weaken. Don’t. . .
But Rast surprised her again by giving a belly laugh. She withdrew her hand from her pocket and rubbed her chin.
Mira felt a flutter of relief but she did not relax her guard. What had Rast brought onto Insignia? She moistened her lips. ‘What would happen if they were to search Insignia?’
‘Have you ever been in prison, Baronessa?’
‘Prison is not simply walls or containment fields,’ Mira replied.
‘Yes. But when it is you understand what freedom means.’
‘Then why do you risk yours?’
‘You of all people should understand that. Didn’t you run from your Principe because he wanted to steal your Inbred talent?’
‘Innate,’ corrected Mira automatically. ‘How did you know that?’
‘I’ve been working around injustices all my life,’ Rast replied. ‘I don’t like dictators.’
Mira saw something then, behind the callousness and the bravado that Rast wore closer than her own skin—a tiny, tiny glimpse of the real woman. She tried to vanquish the flicker of perception. Rast was governed by no set of rules that Mira understood. Yet the flicker persisted, an illumination, a hope. ‘What have you brought aboard Insignia?’ she breathed.
Rast’s gaze did not waver for an instant. ‘Cryoprotectants.