Chapter 11 - Leaving Bathory
Tara looked around the cabin. Taura's treatment had taken a long time, and involved a lot of scary needles, but she at least looked better for it. Less strung out, and she no longer felt quite so feverish. And they'd eaten, actual hot food that tasted of something - and though she knew that Quinn would be questioning them again tomorrow, and probably the next day - she put that gloomy thought aside - for now everything was peaceful again, and they were safe. Though not if Quinn had to hand them over to the authorities on Bathory - but Taura and Kimura had said she'd work her way out of that. They seemed to think Quinn could do most anything. Worry about it tomorrow, Tara.
She turned back to Taura, "So basically, we're stuck here for the next twelve hours?"
"Confined to quarters," said Taura, not sounding too sorry about it.
"We should really get some more sleep," said Tara tentatively.
Taura nodded. "We'll crash soon, once all the adrenaline wears off."
"Um, maybe we should try and do some meditating and stuff, meanwhile," said Tara, "I am your spirit guide after all."
"We could do that," said Taura.
"Or we could make out," said Tara.
"That would be good," said Taura, ducking her head.
Tara took Taura's hand, and met the sudden glow in her eyes without jumping. She continued her look all the way down to Taura's toes, and then up again. She could see a blush starting Taura's face, and feel an answering blush on her own. "But we do it properly," she said, her voice getting hoarse. "You know, fifty-fifty stuff."
"Yes," said Taura, her voice nearly a growl.
Tara stepped over to her and put her hands on Taura's arms. Her heart was beating crazily. But there was a basic problem here. Even if Taura bent as far as she could there wasn't going to be any lip contact.
"You could sit in my lap," said Taura hopefully.
"How tall are you kneeling down?"
Taura promptly fell to her knees. "This tall."
Tara grinned and stepped forward. "Hey, short stuff," she said, although Taura still topped her by several inches. She laid her hands on Taura's huge muscular shoulders, and rubbed them gently, feeling the slopes and curves beneath her fingers. Taura had gone very still, her face slightly downturned to look into Tara's eyes. This close she seemed both more and less human. Intelligent, and yet Other. Werewolf, Bear man, Centaur, thought Tara. She moved her hands to Taura's face, stroked her fingers over her brow, her cheeks, her jaw, ran a finger tip along Taura's long, long lips. Taura's mouth opened, and Tara leaned up to kiss her, gently at first, and careful of her sore nose, then more insistently, tongue meeting tongue. Taura's great canines pressed against the outside of her mouth, sharp and adamant. As their mouths melded, the pressure grew more insistent. When she pulled back Taura's expression was withdrawn again.
"It doesn't work right, does it?"
Tara didn't pretend not to understand. "your fangs do get in the way a little," she said, "but we can find a way round that." She ran her hands down the sides of Taura's neck, trailed them over her collar bone, and down to Taura's breasts. She could hear Taura's breathing quicken, feel her rise towards her hands.
"I want to take your shirt off."
"Okay."
Heat was rising from Taura in waves. Tara fumbled at the fastenings, her eagerness making her clumsy. Everything was on such a massive scale - a wonderful flesh and blood bounty of femaleness.
She eased the shirt off Taura's shoulders, and slid it down her arms. "You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," she breathed.
"Too big," said Taura, her head turned slightly away, her jaw clenched.
"Hey," Tara touched her gently. "Bullshit. You're just right." She let her hands stray across Taura's skin.
"Too tall," said Taura, her eyes closed.
"Tall is good," said Tara. She let her lips follow her hands, and then moved up again to kiss Taura's throat.
"Monster," breathed Taura, her breasts heavy in Tara's hands, her fangs pressed against Tara's neck.
"Lover, said Tara, "if you want to be."
"Yes-s," said Taura, "please."
Quinn looked at the doctor's report in her hand. It didn't actually have the words 'Death Sentence' written across the front in black, but it might just as well have. Taura's metabolism had cranked up to dizzy levels, and everything down to her individual blood vessels was wearing thin and breaking down. All of which, the doctor's report suggested in careful medical terminology, was no more than he had expected to happen and had been telling them would happen for the last few months. All the king's horses and all the king's men are not going to put Sergeant Taura together again.
She clicked the little data disk into her console, dialled a code and pressed 'send'. Miles would get it in the morning, Beta time. Meanwhile, Doctor Depalma would have the job of telling Taura. But later, she thought, no point waking her up just to give her bad news. Assuming that she was sleeping, that is. Because if two people had ever looked like they needed to get a room, it was Taura and her mystery friend. Or maybe they were reciting mystic verses and chanting 'Om', and she was just being shallow.
She swore, and pulled the data disk out of her console, pushing it into her top pocket. What was happening to Taura was inevitable, yes, once she'd declined a drink at the last change saloon offered to her by the Clinic on Beta. But maybe, she thought, it had come a little sooner than it might have done if Taura hadn't been on the run from her friends, out alone in a big bad world she'd never really experienced at first hand before, and where she'd been exploited, tricked, stunned, kidnapped, shot full of drugs, blown up, and perpetually under stress.
We've screwed up. And Tara Maclay, whoever she is, is the only person who's helped Taura ever since she left. I need to think about that. I need to think about a lot of things. But first things first. She had an interview with the Bathorian Head of Security to deal with next. And I have no idea what to say to get us out of this mess. None at all.
Tara lay on her back in the cabin, waiting for Taura to come back from her visit to the doctor. A large glowing globe the size of a beachball was floating above her chest. If she lay back, and closed her eyes, and felt outwards up and beyond the confines of the ship, she could feel the strange flickering forces that she knew was wild magic, buzzing and crackling out in the vacuum, much stronger than she had ever felt them on earth. They'd been tapping at the door of her consciousness all along, ever since she'd summoned them when she first awoke - but after that she'd been busy being chased and shot at, or being with Taura, who tended to blot out all Tara's thoughts of anything else whenever she was in the room.
Tara moved her eyes from side to side, and globe bobbed obediently from side to side in a perfectly synchronised mirror movement. A satisfied smile curved her mouth. Now that was a globe that would have impressed even Willow.
The door of the cabin shushed open, and then shut, and she heard footsteps. She closed her eyes, and the globe faded, then disappeared. She opened her eyes again, to find Taura staring down at her, shoulders hunched.
"Honey?"
Taura tossed a little data disk on the bed, and sat down, wrapping her arms around herself. "Looks like we might not get to Margulis station in time, after all."
"Oh, sweetheart," said Tara, helplessly, and she pulled Taura down onto the bed beside her.
Taura traced an idle little figure of eight pattern on Tara's hip with the tip of one claw. Tara gave a little shiver, and sat up. Taura stayed laying on her side, her hair fanned out in a dark cloud against the pillows, her skin tawny gold against the white sheets.
"You're so beautiful, said Tara, wonderingly. "How can anybody not see it?"
Taura's eyes flickered shyly back to Tara. "You think I'm beautiful?" Really?"
Tara nodded. "Really." She traced a gentle hand over Taura's face. The bruises from yesterday had darkened and spread, despite the doctor's treatment, and her nose was still swollen. But her beauty was breathtaking, once you managed to see past the parts that made up the whole, and see Taura entire, for what she was.
Taura looked away again. "It's a stupid thing to be worrying about, when I'm going to be dead soon anyway. It won't matter what I look like then, right?" She frowned, "I sort of expected the little things to stop being important, once I knew it was all coming to an end. But I'm just not very philosophically-minded, or something. I still want my hair to be clean, and my socks not to go into holes - and for you to like the way I look, and to want to sleep with me, and to not make a single dumb werewolf joke while we do it."
Tara stroked her hair, "You've been hanging out with wrong people." But Taura was still not looking at her, and her muscles were tense. Distraction, that was the thing. She leant down, and took hold of Taura's very large left foot, and looked at the wickedly curved claws on the points of her toes. "These are ones that don't retract, yes? So you must be pretty hard on socks."
"Tell me about it," said Taura morosely. "I mainly just don't bother." She flexed the foot demonstratively, and the claws splayed out in a wicked five point radius, making Tara jump. "Good for climbing trees. Not that I've ever climbed a tree. Though I did see one once. A little one, on Barrayar."
Tara shifted the foot carefully in her hand, and tried the point of a claw. It was sharp, very sharp. "Cool." She rubbed the foot for a moment. "Are you ticklish?" She bent down and very delicately licked the instep. Taura's leg jerked in her hand. "Oh ho," Tara said wickedly, "you are ticklish - on your feet anyway. I think we should find out where else." She bent again, and placed a kiss on Taura's ankle, then her calf, her shin, her knee. Before she could get any further, Taura had slipped down the bed to meet her, her whole body arched hungrily upwards and her legs wide open and her pussy was pressed against Tara's belly, hot and wet.
"Hey, I was planning to drive you crazy slowly," said Tara, teasing, beginning to move, "You know, build up the anticipation, make you wait a bit ..."
"I can't wait," said Taura, moving with her, taking her hand and pushing it between them. "I can't wait for anything anymore."
Quinn sat at her console, waiting for a stroke of inspiration. None so far. She looked across the room to where Taura and her blonde friend were sitting, carefully out of shot. She'd been right about what they'd been up to all night; they couldn't stop touching each other, even with Sergeant Kimura and a trooper standing silent guard over them.
She smiled encouragingly their way, "Okay, remember, this little chat is just to sound them out. No one's going to give any concessions this time round. I just want you to listen very carefully to what the Colonel has to say, and then tell me if you think you know any more about what happened than he does, or if he's got anything wrong." She tilted her head a little to one side, and laced her fingers in front of her. She hoped it made her look earnestly concerned. She flicked a switch, and Colonel Igor Roskovensky, Head of Bathorian Internal Security appeared at the other end of the Comm. She smiled. "Good morning, and how can I help you, Colonel?"
"Very easily, Admiral," he said. "You will pass over to our custody the individuals known as Sergeant Taura and Tara Maclay, both of whom we know are on your vessel. To help you make your decision, I point that you are blockaded, both by our ships and by our planetary defence network. If you do not comply with our request, we will blow out the engine of your ship, and wait to see how long it takes for your life support systems to fail."
Quinn winced. "That would be... most unpleasant. And probably illegal. We're not at war with you, Colonel."
The Colonel shook his head. "In Bathorian local space military law applies. As you know."
"But I still can't see on what grounds you could possibly justify such a draconian action, sir. After all, my sergeant has done you a favour. You could have had a ship of unregistered buccaneers in your local space, buying materials suitable for assassinations and sabotage, patently with the connivance of a number of your spaceport officials, since they could not have got there otherwise - and have known nothing whatsoever about it." She paused, "Until the bombs started going off ..." Give them a conspiracy theory to worry about, that would distract them.
The Colonel shook his head. "There is no terrorist movement here on Bathory, nor any large scale criminality."
"Not that you know about," said Quinn smoothly.
Colonel Roskovensky was unmoved, "We have no evidence to suppose that those materials were being anything but moved through our space to elsewhere. That is what our prisoners have told us was happening, and I see no reason to doubt it, since they were also admitting to murder, rape, kidnap and a whole host of other disgusting crimes at the time." Colonel Roskovensky wrinkled his nose, as though he smelled something bad.
"Well, I'm sure the best place for them is your prison. But I do wonder if all the Bathorians involved in this affair are in prison likewise." Quinn shook her head. "I am most reluctant to pass over my crew member, who is in need of constant medical care, or my passenger.."
Taura gave Tara's hand a little squeeze. She hadn't been completely sure that Admiral Quinn wouldn't give up Tara, even now.
".. to a system where I cannot be sure either of their care or their safety. It would be all too easy for them to disappear."
"Not that easy in Sergeant Taura's case," said the Colonel, drily. "I've seen the surveillance footage." He leaned back in his chair. "You know, I can understand why you're reluctant to surrender a member of your crew. It's even commendable in its way, although I assure you that we could fully meet her medical requirements, and that we would not be seeking to lock her away if her actions were innocent. But I do wonder why you will not send back the other young woman, since so far as I know you had never met her before yesterday afternoon. Would you like to explain that to me?"
Quinn nodded, "Certainly. Miss Maclay saved my sergeant's life. We regard her as a friend."
The Colonel smiled. "Commendable again. You're a quixotic crew it seems, Admiral Quinn." His expression hardened, "But still, if those two women are not on a shuttle down to the surface within the next hour then I will blow a hole in your ship. The Bathorian military is not quixotic at all."
Quinn made a gesture of protest, "Colonel Roskovensky... "
"One hour," said the Colonel, and he flicked his comm off.
Quinn leaned back in her chair, letting out a long breath. "Well, that went well ..."
Taura was looking at her hands. "I'll give myself up, sir. I don't want to endanger the ship. Or any of you."
"Nor do I, sergeant, believe me. But I still hope we can find a way to keep you away from a Bathory jail. They're famously hard to get out of." Quinn looked at Tara. "How about you, Miss Maclay? Got any special reason why you're really, really reluctant to land on Bathory?"
"Oh, I go wherever Taura goes," said Tara, a little absently. "That's given." She had a puzzled frown on her face.
Quinn's smile was a little wry, "A given is it? Seems it's not only the Dendarii who are quixotic." She rubbed her forehead, "Well, don't worry. We'll think of something - and I suppose I could always send you down there and see what cunning plan Miles came up with to get you out. It's always entertaining seeing him at work."
"No!" said Taura. "No Miles."
"That name - that Colonel's name." Tara was holding her head in her hands now, barely hearing them. "I've heard it before, on the Pelete. Or at least I think I have. Roscowinski? It's Polish, isn't it?
Quinn shrugged. "Everybody on Bathory has Polish names, or 90 of them do anyway. And of the 90, probably half of them start 'Rosco'. They got settled by a very small ship. Which explains a lot of the jokes about Bathorians. And the Colonel is called Rosko-vensky, not -winski." She paused, "Wait, you heard a Bathorian name on the Pelete?"
Tara nodded, "Yes, the men who brought Taura in were talking about him, said Taura was a free gift from Roscowinski. It was almost the first thing I heard anyone say in this world. And when you said, Roskovensky..." She turned to Taura, "I assumed Roscowinski was your smuggler guy."
"He was called Sanford," said Taura, puzzled.
"Oh was he?" said Quinn, leaning back in her chair, a smile starting on her face, "Oh was he?"
The Comm flicked back on. Colonel Roscowinski was sitting in his chair, a cup of coffee beside him. He smiled, "Made up your mind, Admiral?"
I have a question for you," said Quinn, "if you'll bear with me."
The Colonel looked at his watch, "You have 30 minutes left, so certainly."
"The smuggler, Sanford - you haven't found him yet, have you?"
The Colonel frowned. "No, but it's really only a matter of time. There were a great many flights out of Bathory in the twenty four hours before the Pelete exploded, but we're tracking all of them."
Quinn tilted her head. "What if he never left Bathory?"
The Colonel looked up at her sharply. "If your people know something..."
"What if he is actually a Bathorian citizen, who took on a false identity to move those arms to your local space, and then, when he couldn't transport them any further by commercial route, hired the Pelete to take them on to the next point in their journey? What if you really do have a traitor?"
The Colonel sighed. "I have already told you that there is no anti-government movement here on Bathory. You are simply wasting my time, Admiral Quinn."
"And I said 'not that you know about', " added Quinn, "Yes, I remember. But Tara just discovered something, which we all knew, but she didn't, about Bathorian names. I'll give you a name, Colonel, in exchange for your word that you won't fire on us until you've found out if it turns out to be as valuable as I think it will - and if it does, you give me what I want. Safe passage out of your local space for my crew and my passengers."