Miri rapped sharply on the wall at about the height of her shoulder and was rewarded with a solid metallic thunk. She sighed in equal parts of relief and frustration. The hallway had no hidden compartments, which meant that she would not have to deal with another bushel of amateur telescopes, or dolls, or jewels—but it also meant that there was nothing resembling a vegetable or vitamin anywhere on this tub, and she had, after all, a half-convalescent soldier on her hands.
One of the other hideys had yielded up a solitary platinum necklace, set with twelve matched emeralds. Val Con had handed it to her with a flourish and a smile. "For you—a hand-cut set."
"You keep it," Miri had told him. "Matches your eyes."
He had insisted, though, and now the thing was in her belt pouch, sharing space with a flawed sapphire, a matching ring and necklace, an enameled disk, a harmonica, and a couple of ration sticks. She would have traded the whole bunch for a handful of high-potency supplements.
"Damn it," she muttered, and settled her back against the cool wall, glaring at the pilfered elegance around her. Val Con had had a lot to say—for him, anyway—about the fineness of the yacht, pointing out the up-to-the-second water purification system, the lighted ceilings and side walls, and even the style and power of the coils they had blown to bits in that desperate Jump away from the Yxtrang.
The boarding crew had pretty well cleaned things out in the initial raid. The galley was bare—even the menuboard had been dismantled and removed. It was just plain, dumb luck that the Yxtrang had not been looking for secret compartments, or else she and Val Con would not even have had salmon and pretzels to eat.
What the hell are you doing here, anyway? she asked herself suddenly. Everything had happened so fast. Married. How in the name of anything holy had she wound up married?
"Damn Liaden tricked me," she told the empty hall. She laughed a little. Tricked three ways from yesterday—married and partnered to a Liaden; sister to an eight-foot, bottle-green Clutch-turtle with a name longer than she was; stranded on a coil-blown pleasure yacht around a world her new husband assured her was most likely Interdicted.
"Bored, were you, Robertson? Life not exciting enough with just the Juntavas after you?" She laughed again and shook her head, pushing away from the wall and starting back toward the bridge. Life . . .
The bridge was a racket of radio chatter and computer chimes in the midst of which a slender, dark-haired man sat quietly. Miri froze in the doorway, heart stuttering, eyes sharp on the stillness of him, remembering another time, not so many days before, when he had been that still and a deadly danger to them both.
Quietly she approached the pilot's board, noting with relief that his shoulders carried only the normal tensions of weariness and concentration—nothing of shock or the abnormal effort of attaining freedom.
Nonetheless, standing unheeded beside him and watching the absorption on his face as he extended a long-fingered hand to minutely adjust a dial, she felt dread stir and chill her, and impulsively put her hand on his wrist, interrupting the adjustment.
"Stop!" he snapped, glancing up quickly.
"Still here, huh, boss?" She pulled her hand away. "Time for a break."
"Later." He turned back toward the board and the senseless chatter coming up from the planet surface.
"I said now, spacer!" Her voice carried all the authority of a mercenary sergeant, and she braced herself for retaliation.
His eyes, brilliantly green, flicked to hers, his mouth straight in that look that meant he was going to have his way, come hell or high water—and suddenly he smiled, pushing the hair out of his eyes. "Cha'trez, forgive me. I was lost in the work, and only meant to say that I am attempting—"
"To put yourself in a bad spot," Miri interrupted. "I don't think you been outta that seat for ten hours. You gotta eat, you gotta walk around, you gotta rest—wasn't all that long ago the only things between you and the Last Walk were an autodoc and a scared merc."
There was a long pause during which green eyes measured gray. He was the first to sigh and drop his gaze.
"All right, Miri."
She looked at him suspiciously. "What's that mean?"
"It means that I will take a break now—walk a bit and join you for a meal." He grinned weakly and reached up to brush her cheek with light fingers. "I do tend toward singlemindedness occasionally, despite my family's best efforts." The grin broadened. "I would not have you think that I was brought up as poorly as that."
"Sure," she said uncertainly, sensing a joke of some kind. She pointed at the board. "You still doing the hunt-and-compare bit? 'Cause I can give a listen while you're off-duty."
"It would be of assistance," he said, standing and stretching to his full height. Miri grinned up at him, liking the slim, graceful body and the beardless golden face. She extended a hand to touch his right cheek, and he shifted to drop a kiss on her fingertips. "Soon," he said, and slipped silently away.
Shaking her head at the hammering of her heart, Miri dropped into the pilot's chair and picked up the earphones.
Dinner was prime-grade Milovian salmon, Boolean pretzel-bread, and water, consumed while seated cross-legged on the carpet amid the desolation that probably had been the private quarters of the yacht's owner.
Val Con ate his ration with neat efficiency, as if he were stoking his furnace with protein, Miri thought; as if taste and variety had nothing to do with the act of eating.
She ate more slowly, weary of the taste but forcing herself to finish every bit of the stuff, and finally she looked up to find Val Con watching her closely.
"This whole ship's a loony bin," she groused. "Triple-A prime salmon, telescopes, dolls, jewelry, secret compartments, and a coordinate page filled with Interdicted Worlds. How come?"
"The luxuries are bribes," Val Con said softly. "And the extra compartments are to hide them. Simple."
"Yeah?" She blinked. "Somebody's trading with Quarantined Worlds? But that's—"
"Illegal?" He shrugged. "It's only illegal when someone catches you."
"Hell of an attitude for a Scout."
He laughed. "Did I ever tell you about my grandmother?"
"Don't know when you would've had a chance. What about her?"
He smiled. "She was a smuggler."
"That a fact?" Miri said calmly. "What's the old lady doing now?"
"Forgive me," he murmured. "I should have said my many-times great-grandmother, Cantra yos'Phelium, co-founder of Clan Korval."
She grinned. "Not likely to go around embarrassing all the relatives then, is she?" Then she did a double-take. "Cantra, like the money?"
"Indeed," Val Con said around a sudden yawn. "Exactly Cantra, like the money."
"Better get some sleep, boss," she advised, hoping against all reason that he would forget about the blithering radio and the strings of signals to be overlaid and recorded.
"Not too bad an idea." He yawned again and without ado stretched out, putting his head on her lap.
"What the hell's wrong with you?"
"I'm tired, Miri."
She glared down at his shuttered face. "And you gotta put your head right there?"
One green eye opened. "Shall I put it on the floor?"
"Should you—I'll tell you what's wrong with you. You're spoiled."
The eye closed. "Undoubtedly."
"Rich kid from the good part of town; never had no trouble; never had to rough it; always a soft place to put your head . . ."
"Inarguably. Absolutely. Cantras and coaches. Satins and silks. Malchek and feeldophin."
She eyed him warily, noting without meaning to the long dark lashes and the firm, sweet mouth. "What's malchek and feeldophin?"
Both eyes opened wide, staring upside down into hers. "I don't know, Miri. But I'm certain they must be something."
"Think I'd learn." She sighed heavily and moved a hand to brush the hair away from his eyes. "I ain't good at sleeping sitting up, though."
"Ah. A compelling reason for me to put my head on the floor, I agree." He did so and opened his arms. "Come to bed, Miri."
Laughing, she stretched out beside him and put her head on his shoulder.