Hearts and Swords: Four Original Stories of Celta Read online

  Kelse put his hand on the young man’s shoulder and squeezed. “What you can’t do is think negatively.”

  Captain is right. Come ON, FamMan, Peaches said.

  And Chloe was there, putting her arm around Randolph. She flicked her fingers at the bag and it rose on an anti-grav spell. “You’ll eat, then sleep. Then we’ll live, right, Kelse?”

  “Right,” Kelse said, trying not to look at the memory button and the figures that blurred and blackened, then winked out.

  Fern sank to the middle of the carpet in front of the comm console, breathing deeply and letting her tumultuous emotions calm, then sift away from her. There was something deep in her mind that fear and hurt had prevented her from recalling. Now was the time to find it.

  Ten

  Nuada’s Sword had only one functioning lab station.

  But they had another that had a glitch. Some flaw that no one now understood or could fix. It was nanotech and should have been able to mend itself, but it hadn’t. If only some other entity . . . A wisp of a memory beckoned, and she followed. Spiraled in on words she’d heard . . . “Most are but this one is male . . .”

  Such an odd sentence.

  Then she recalled the day she’d toured Nuada’s Sword. She’d hated everything except the great Greensward, and the first Captain, Anthony Whitecloud, had understood that. He’d taken time from his own duties to show her a tiny grotto in the Greensward. He’d pressed her hand. “I’ll be fine, Fern.” He looked around him, waved a hand. “I have a wonderful place.”

  “I’m sorry Sylvia couldn’t have seen this,” Fern said. His wife had died the year before, right after they’d decided to become Colonists, defending her home.

  “I am, too. But she’d be glad that I was going. That I’d be the first Captain. My son will be in stasis sleep like you, but I have the Ship.”

  “What?”

  “The Ship, Nuada’s Sword, for company.”

  She stared at him. “The Ship!”

  “He’s a nanotech Ship and has the capacity for intelligence.”

  “He? Aren’t ships usually considered female?”

  “Most are, but this one is male. Deciding that proves intelligence. Is that right, Ship?” Whitecloud winked at Fern.

  “Yes, Captain Whitecloud.” A hollow voice, which sounded like a multitude of voices, said from nearby.

  Whitecloud chuckled. “There’s a speaker installed by the bench. Ship, this is Fern Bountry.”

  “Greetings, Fern Bountry. My data says that you are assisting Chung with the planetary lab.”

  “Yes,” she replied cautiously.

  “And your husband is a warrior of renown.”

  Fern glanced at the Captain. He wiggled his brows.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Kelse Bountry is on board now, making suggestions for My defense at dock. This is well done.”

  She blinked at that. “Thank you.”

  “You will be in berths twenty and twenty-one in the cryonics bay.”

  She shivered. “That’s right.”

  “We will have a good trip,” the Captain said. “Like I said, I have the Ship.”

  Time faded back from the beauty of hope to the scariness of now.

  Fern couldn’t risk the only good laboratory station. But if she could activate the other . . . if she could activate the Ship to instruct the planetary lab on how to repair itself . . .

  She knew now what had been bothering her. The Ship should have been intelligent. Instead it seemed as if it had slept, too. “Ship?” she asked.

  No response.

  She marched to Kelse’s command computer. Two hours later, Fern found out what had happened. The Ship’s autonomy function had been turned off when the first Captain had died. Which was a hideous shame because it could have warned more loudly of problems, warned in voice instead of other ways that had been overlooked.

  In fact, now that she studied the records, the speed had begun to deteriorate after the Ship’s Autonomous Intelligence Module had been closed down. Terrible.

  It made sense to awaken Nuada’s Sword. Surely in the Ship itself, they would have an ally.

  “Display the manual and step-by-step instructions for reinitiating the Autonomous Intelligence Module,” Fern ordered.

  And it was all there, and there was an auxiliary switch . . . in the Captain’s Quarters.

  It was a long and irritating process that had her swearing and pacing and swearing and banging her fist against the wall as she fumbled through the codes and manually opened panels and slide doors and flicked tiny nubbin switches. Had her sweaty.

  Finally she’d done all she could and closed everything up and lay on her back under Kelse’s desk.

  There was a new hum around her. Kelse wouldn’t like it.

  “Who is in the Captain’s Quarters?” came the multitude of voices that deepened into one malelike tone.

  “Fern Bountry and Kelse Bountry. I suggest you scan all your systems reports.”

  “We have been unconscious for two hundred and ten years!”

  Fern didn’t doubt the Ship lived now. “I know how you feel.”

  “We are proceeding slowly.”

  “We have problems. Furthermore, we are trying to determine whether the sixth planet of the star system of the white sun is acceptable for habitation.”

  “We did not make landfall on the original planet.”

  “No.”

  “You are right, We must check all Our systems and understand what has transpired.”

  Clearing her throat, Fern said, “I would like you to also check out planetary laboratory station two, and whether you can repair it or instruct it how to repair itself.”

  “Our stores are not acceptable. I will begin—”

  “Wait! The morale of the crew is low. We—you—must proceed carefully. I order that you divert only the most minor amounts of energy possible to any systems.”

  “If We divert more energy, We can repair and recondition systems faster.”

  “Not if the crew stops you again. Not if I’m forced to turn the AIM off again.”

  “You wouldn’t do that!” it whispered, and Fern thought she almost heard fear.

  “I may have to. Umm, consider this a secret between you and me. Unless there’s an emergency.”

  A low buzz, then, “Very well, Fern. You turned Me back on. I will trust you.”

  “Good,” she muttered as the doors opened for Kelse. “Because I am trusting you.”

  Something was different about the ship . . . and about the crew. Kelse couldn’t put his finger on it except that there seemed to be an additional, nearly subsonic hum. A hum that increased his vitality.

  And for the first time in a week and a half, there was no broadcast by Dirk Lascom and the Ship for Ourselves party. He did note a gathering of some of the public members and another sort of buzz—anger—from them. They’d requested privacy, so he couldn’t turn on vid or audio monitoring of their room, only watch little icons move. He thought about spies and whether he’d be able to squelch the conspiracy before it turned into a real widespread mutiny.

  Chloe knocked on the door, then entered and glanced around the room. “Where’s Fern?”

  Kelse gestured to a tapestry and the portal behind it. “In the Greensward.” As usual. He’d anticipated that she would gravitate there, but not having her close . . . ruffled his aura.

  “Ah,” Chloe said and actually slipped her handheld into her pants pocket. She clenched her hands together. “I wanted to thank you for being . . . lenient with Randolph.”

  “I can’t afford to be hard on him. We need him. But other than that, I like . . . his FamCat.”

  Chloe frowned. “Peaches.”

  “That’s right. And anyone with a brain, such as Dirk Lascom, would keep Randolph in the dark about violence. I think you did a good job on his morals.”

  “He doesn’t want to think his friends would do such things,” she said sadly.

  “He hasn’t lear
ned of betrayal,” Kelse said. His shoulders shifted; he didn’t want to recall that lesson of his childhood.

  “No,” Chloe said, shrugging. “They lie to him and he believes.” Her voice sank. “I worry for him, now that he is with us.”

  “He has a friend in one of the security guards. I’ve told the man to protect Randolph.”

  “Thank you.” She inhaled deeply. “You really think we can get out of this mess?”

  “You’re the one with hunches. What do you think?” he shot back.

  She looked startled, then answered immediately, running with her Flair, “I think I woke you just in time.”

  “There it is, then.”

  She searched his face, but another thing he couldn’t afford to do was show any of the hideous doubts that gnawed on his gut and made his heart beat quickly. To no one. Especially Fern.

  His love believed in him and what he could do. He didn’t want to tell her he secretly thought they’d all die.

  It was late, and Kelse was asleep. He wasn’t holding her and tears coated Fern’s throat, threatened to overflow her eyes and dampen the bed she shared with him—apart.

  She’d been aware that Kelse had slipped from bed last night and had stopped pretending to be asleep after he’d left. He hadn’t been gone long, and when he’d returned, she knew he’d been working out again. She didn’t know what demons drove him because he wouldn’t say, even when she asked.

  Did she look that frightened to him? Did he feel her fear?

  Thinking back—a month or two hundred and fifty years, and she shuddered at that—he’d especially opened up when he’d heard of the colonization project. So enthusiastic, full of hope. Until then, she hadn’t realized he’d lived without hope, had considered he was fighting a rearguard action to survive, and have his friends, his people with psi, survive.

  He’d been the one to believe in the colonization idea first. She had been more cautious. Could that be ripping at him? Of course.

  This was not what they had planned. They’d boarded Nuada’s Sword hand in hand, walked with their friends in triumph to the cryonics lab. That had been daunting, but cryonics had already proven itself if done well and expensively. There, in a small cubicle dressing room, she and Kelse had undressed each other and shared a last wonderful kiss.

  She had been the one to be processed first, because she was the most fearful. She’d wanted Kelse’s hand on her arm as she fell asleep. And when she was barely conscious and the tube had slid shut and the fog of the chemicals had begun to fill it, she still had the last sight of Kelse’s gray eyes, his loving gaze fixed on her face.

  Now she was Awake again, and not because the Ship had made a jubilant landfall and they were all at their new home. No, they were lost in the blackness of space, stars of many hues whirling by.

  Whatever toughness she’d had in the psi underground—which she’d understood—was eroding away here. She’d have to find it and grab it and pull it back inside her.

  Kelse had changed. He’d been strong when she’d first met him, a leader in the underground psi community, striving to stay alive. But he had never been so closed down, so uncommunicative, as he was today.

  Now it was time for her to sneak out, and act.

  She moved through the back ways of the Ship to the space where the planetary laboratories were. The storage area was large and dark and empty. She summoned a spell-light.

  The lab itself was about the size of a small house and loaded with instruments. There was room inside for two people to stand. Fern and the Ship talked through the problems, then she worked both inside and out for several hours. Finally she hooked it up to the Ship for additional corrections. “When can I launch it for the white star?”

  “I’ll give it coordinates. For the best trajectory and course, I anticipate the launch to be best done at six bells.”

  “Six A.M.?”

  “That would be the time you’re familiar with.” Ship sounded irritated. Probably because it couldn’t launch the lab itself.

  Fern sighed. “You’ll move the lab to the landing bay, then wake me twenty minutes before I should launch it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, Ship.”

  “Thank you, Fern,” it whispered in its multivoice.

  When she returned, Kelse reached for her and said, “Where have you been?” He nuzzled her, and she wanted nothing more than to be with him. “You smell slightly . . . metallic.”

  “Come with me,” she said instead, and rose again and took his hand. “I have a place in the Greensward I want to show you.”

  “Oh?” His voice was light but held an undertone of arousal. He left his shirt, but slipped on his pants.

  They went to the access passage and down to the Greensward. It was night there, too, most of the enormous mirrors hidden, just enough to simulate Earth starlight. Dim starlight now by all her new standards. She’d worked on the grotto today, clearing out the hanging streamers of green that had hidden it and trimming the circle of grass. She’d cleaned up the bench and verified the speaker worked.

  But the pathway was still rough, and she hoped she could find the grotto, hoped it was as beautiful as it seemed.

  Hoped Kelse would like it, too. He didn’t spend much time in the Greensward.

  “Spell-light,” she murmured, and a fuzzy yellow globe coalesced and lit their way.

  “Yes.” His hand was strong on hers, his feet certain on the trail. He was awake, and once again she sensed a tangible bond between them.

  Was it only in the night when they were more vulnerable that they could feel such a connection? She wanted it always.

  Then his fingers dropped from hers and his arm came around her waist as the path led up the artificial hillside that was close to one of the Ship’s walls. They wound along the trail and then, before them, was the arch of the entrance, covered so heavily in vines that it appeared natural.

  With waves of her free hand, Fern lit tinier spell-lights, more like busy fireflies. The area wasn’t large, only about four meters by four, and circular.

  Kelse bent under the branches, eyed the bench, and drew her away from it. “Beautiful. Beautiful place for my beautiful woman.”

  His words vibrated through her. The bond between them pulsed with yearning.

  Eleven

  She turned to him and put her hands on his shoulders, felt his tensile strength. The contours of his body were so familiar to her hands. She could see only a gleam in his eyes, not the color or the shape, but knew his gaze was fixed on her. She lifted her hand and brushed a thumb over his lips and he went still, waiting. Her body knew this kind of waiting. Her breath came faster, her thigh muscles loosened. Then, through that pulsing golden bond between them, she realized that their hearts beat in the same rhythm. Miraculous.

  His hands came up to cradle hers. He took one and kissed the palm, his tongue tickling the hollow of her hand and sending fire to her sex.

  “Kelse.” There was so much she wanted to say, and she could find only the form of his name on her lips. “Kelse.” Then, “Love.”

  “Yes,” he said huskily, “Love.”

  His fingers touched her shoulders, trailed over her collarbone to her throat and the opening of her shirt. He slipped his thumb down the front tab, and her clothing parted noiselessly. Just his feather touch along her skin had her moaning. Her shirt fell to the grass and its slight disturbance sent the fragrance of newly cut greenery into the air.

  Kelse’s chest rumbled with satisfaction. Slowly she traced the length of his torso with her fingernails, was rewarded with a low groan. He’d always liked that, and pleasuring him pleased her.

  He cupped her breasts, finding her nipples with his thumbs, stroked, and she arched. Her lower body pressed against his and dampened as she felt the length and thickness of his sex. She couldn’t keep her eyes open, her need was so great.

  So she let herself go, let him hold her. Let him lower her to the grass and strip her of her pants.

  His f
ingers went to the seat of her desire, parted, played, thrust until she was moaning and twisting. Vaguely, she remembered that she’d wanted to give him the gift of loving seduction, but it was he . . . he . . . Kelse, caring for her.

  Yet, she needed the touch of him against her hands, needed her own hands filled with him. She reached and she found him, hot and hard and thick, and the remembrance of passion past and the anticipation of pleasure, always new, always consuming, had her panting. Stroking him, placing him against her and then just inside her, and enjoying each tiny slide of him into her.

  Her hands went to his shoulders; her fingers pressed against hard muscle. Hers. Her Kelse. No other, ever.

  The golden bond between them pulsed red desire.

  Then he was all the way in her and they breathed together, unsteady. Hanging on the edge of ecstasy.

  He withdrew slowly and she felt cold. He penetrated again and she was full and fulfilled.

  They snapped and let the wild out to rule. She yelled and dug her fingers into his shoulders, rocked her hips, needing more, more, more! He pounded into her and she lived in a firestorm of sensation, all nerves plucked, all the tunes of the universe smashing together in glorious sound.

  That was her scream and his moaning release.

  She swore the universe revolved around them. They were the center of it, of everything. Their love was all encompassing and would survive forever.

  He kissed her mouth, then he kissed her wet cheeks, and he held her close and twined his legs in hers and they soared into the velvet darkness of sleep.

  Morning came too soon, with the speaker near them chirping an annoying six times, pausing and doing it again. In a multitude of various bird notes. Fern woke groggily and realized it was time to launch the planetary lab. She scrambled into her clothes. She didn’t want to leave Kelse.

  Especially not sleeping so vulnerably in the grotto.

  She moved her fingers in a pattern to raise a spellshield. It wasn’t nearly as strong as Kelse’s, but it would alert him if disturbed. “Can you watch him?” she whispered. She blinked as a shine of light hit her eyes.

  “I have a working camera,” Ship said in satisfaction. “Repaired by me last night.” Fern only hoped that Ship was uninterested in human mating habits.