Survivors - Jean Lorrah [71]
Poet joined her with Rikan for a time, then Barb … and Yar realized that once she knew her way around she was no longer to be left alone with the old man. Dammit-Dare knew she had to try to escape, and while Rikan was certainly hale and hearty for his age, with her skills she could overpower him easily. What her captor could not know was that until Dare’s people began to protect him it had never crossed her mind to attack the aging warlord … although she now realized she had thus missed her best chance to get away.
She must not miss another … even if it did mean attacking Rikan. Her Security training included methods to render someone unconscious without causing serious harm.
Unlike standard uniform, Yar’s dress uniform included pockets in the trousers, covered by the long-skirted jacket-a place to carry a comb or a credit chit on a formal occasion. She knew better than to try to palm anything while Poet was around, but neither Barb nor Rikan noticed when she slipped a small but heavy stone sculpture first into her hand, then into her pocket. Its weight was reassuring: there were no sharp edges to do serious damage, but with scientific positioning of the blow it would make a very effective cosh.
If she was to get out of the castle, though, she had to wait until she was alone with one person.
Just before noon Rikan and Barb turned her over to Dare. He took her to the room where they had first met last night. The table stood as it had then, bare and polished. Now, though, Yar took note of the cupboards lining the walls, and two shiny surfaces that could be viewscreens, although such technology seemed out of place in the ancient castle.
“This is our strategy room,” Dare said. “I wish I could trust you enough to show you everything, Tasha-but how can I?”
“You wish you could trust me?” she asked sarcastically.
“Look at you!” he replied, a burst of anger escaping for a moment before he controlled it to quiet bitterness. “Security Chief on a Galaxy-class starship, at your age. I’m surprised you’re not a lieutenant commander.”
“I don’t have the minimum time in rank yet,” she replied automatically, eliciting from him a snort of acid laughter.
“So you are a success,” he said. “I always knew you would be.”
“You encouraged me,” she recalled.
“Oh, yes, I did encourage you, didn’t I? Look where it got me: when the crunch came, you chose your career over me.”
“Dare!” she gasped.
“You can stop being indignant,” he said. “At least you’re consistent-I can trust that, can’t I? Tasha Yar will always do what’s best for her career. Even betray someone she purports to love.”
She turned away. “You still think I betrayed you.”
“And you still think I won’t shoot or stab you in the back,” he replied. “If I betrayed everything I believed in, how can you trust me”- he came up behind her and put his hands about her throat-“not to simply snap your neck?”
She knew half a dozen ways to break his hold, but she used none of them, her ingrained defenses overpowered by the memory of what his touch used to mean to her, the scent of him in her nostrils as he leaned forward over her shoulder to watch her expression.
“I believe you know I told the truth and nothing more on the witness stand,” she replied calmly.
The hands dropped, and he walked away from her. “Unfortunately, I do believe that,” he said. “The more fool I.”
“It’s the truth,” she said, turning to see that he now stood more than two meters from her, his back to her in his turn.
It was her chance to escape … but too obviously so. He’d have her before she reached the door.
Instead she moved closer, willing him to remain turned away from her as she took the stone sculpture from her pocket, closed it within her hand so that the blunt surface was exposed, saying, “I loved you, but I had a higher duty, one that you yourself taught me. Not to my own