V. Skirting the Edge
Kat came through the door first.
Looking up from the book she'd retreated into, Jack gave Kat a tentative smile. But the pet barely even glanced at her, fleeing instead into Riddick's bedroom when Imam got to his feet. Jack tried to follow the pet, but the bedroom door slammed in her face.
She stared at her feet a moment, then turned around to find Riddick standing inches away. Trying to slip sideways was useless; he seized her by the upper arms and held her roughly against her struggles. Imam came up behind Riddick, reaching out to pull him away. Riddick shot a look at him. Whatever was in his eyes was enough to make the old priest back off.
"Let... me... go!" Jack snarled, thrashing in his grip.
"Listen!" he growled back, and shook her. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah, I'll bet you're sorry. You're sorry you came back for me! You're sorry you ever even saw me!"
Riddick dropped his head and cursed. "How can I make it right?"
She gaped at him. "Make it right?" She tried to get a knee up, but Riddick was too quick and turned aside, though he didn't loosen his grip. "You can't make anything right! You can't make it so they didn't die, can you?" Jack stopped struggling, but now she was crying. "I'm sorry I ever met you, Riddick, and you can't make that right, either."
"Tell me what to do, then."
Jack spit in his face.
He let go of her, straightened up, and wiped the spittle from his cheek. Then he folded his arms across his broad chest and glared. Behind him, Jack could see Imam stiffen.
"I'd tell you to go fuck yourself, Riddick, but I'm sure you'll take care of that with your little pet." The bruise on Jack's mouth throbbed, telling her she was skirting the edge again. "Tell you what. Why don't you go back to that eclipse planet and kill off every last one of those things? Rid the galaxy of them. I know you're not used to doing good deeds--but hey, it'd be a hell of a way to get your own planet."
Riddick didn't answer that. Instead, he pushed past her and slipped into the bedroom.
Jack let her eyes find Imam's. His expression was grim.
"If he does what you ask, and if he lives," he murmured, "will you then forgive him?"
The pet was in bed, feigning sleep, when Riddick slipped into the room. He ignored her. How can I make it right? he sneered at himself. Fuck you very much, Carolyn Fry. Go enjoy your own redemption. Leave me the hell out of it.
He almost tore the closet door off its hinges when he opened it. Tossing the clothing and hangers to the floor, he ripped out the thin back wall of the closet. Three crates filled the long-hidden space inside. He checked the contents. One held an assortment of finely crafted, sheathed daggers; the other two, a collection of firearms: handguns, shotguns, even laser rifles. Several hundred rounds of ammunition waited inside a small metal case, along with two dozen loaded shotgun casings. No color-coded shells for me, Billy.
The three crates weren't enough--not by far. He knew where he could acquire the rest of what he'd need, though. No excess planet-hopping necessary. Imam might be good enough to help him carry all of this. He resealed the lids. Especially if he didn't know what all of this was. His nice, new--Okay, gently used--ship would have more than enough cargo room.
He'd named the ship the Nightfall. Jack would get a kick out of that.
Another restless night.
Kat rose quietly, slipped on her dress, and glanced at Riddick. What was that joke about young children? They looked so harmless while sleeping. He did, too. Peaceful, as if he'd never known violence.
Even the most illiterate slave had heard Richard B. Riddick's name. Even after her twenty-two years of cryosleep, he was as notorious as ever. But his face was at rest now, showing no trace of his infamy.
Kat crept out of the room.
On any other planet, the sun wouldn't even think about getting up yet. It was early in what passed for morning here, but the small living unit was dark, as usual. Riddick kept it dim for his own comfort, and no one else dared complain. Certainly not Jack or Imam, and not Kat, whose night vision was at least as good as her owner's. Hers was natural, though. Well, as natural as genetic engineering can be.
She slipped into the larger front room, where Jack and the holy man slept. Holy man, she snarled mentally. He's no better than Riddick--worse, even. At least I knew what Riddick was.
Kat stood in silence in the middle of the room. She glanced at the unguarded front door, but her collar tightened warningly. Two silhouettes lay sleeping on opposite sides of the room. The larger lay in peace, the smaller slept fitfully. Does a black heart make for an easy night?
The collar relaxed. She let thoughts of killing the old priest fill her mind. Still the collar remained quiescent.
Kat's nostrils flared. Her claws, itching in anticipation, slipped from their fingertip sheaths.
Behind her, Jack turned over in her sleep. Kat glanced at her, then back at Imam. She found herself close enough to bend over him, close enough to feel his stale, old man breath on her face.
A whimper came from across the room.
Reluctantly, Kat straightened and padded over to the girl, who was kicking fitfully. She sighed, knelt down, and ran her hand over Jack's stubbled head. The girl shot up, gasping and shivering.
Jack stared at Kat with eyes as big as moons. "I... I..." she mumbled, looking around in alarm. "I gotta get outta here!"
She got to her feet, hanging onto the wall for support. Weak-legged and shivering, her arms wrapped about her shoulders, the girl stumbled across the floor. She hit the door, and her hands fumbled around in the dark for the handle.
And then she was gone.
Well. Kat stood up, bemused. That was interesting. She looked back at the still form of Imam. Two faint glints looked calmly back at her. How long had the priest been awake?
The wind blew in steadily from the east, carrying warm air from the daylit half of Janus. Dust from plains burned raw by an unseen sun floated past; occasional beer cans skudded over the bare ground; old newspapers and filmy bits of dried fungi slunk about like abandoned children.
Jack was just another lost scrap carried along by the wind. A cubbyhole, that was what she wanted. A basement or an abandoned building to squat in for the rest of the evening; maybe longer, if she couldn't beg passage off this world.
A cardboard box, even.
But she'd crept into what had turned out to be a nice neighborhood. As nice a neighborhood as she'd seen in this grubby excuse for a city, anyway--but that wasn't saying much. All the houses looked exactly alike, as if they'd come straight off some giant assembly line: they'd all been built from prefab parts prepared light years and generations away on Earth. She wondered if they all held prefab families, too.
The wind shifted.
Careening in from the southwest, it tumbled and rolled down the middle of the lane, stopping only to whisper its dirty secrets into dusty corners. It winged up to perch on canted rooftops. Old bits of birdsong dangled like so many Mardi Gras beads.
Jack hugged herself against the chill and wished she'd never shaved her head. Leaning against the shingled side of an old garage, she let herself slide down till she was seated on the cold earth. Her feet shifted small dust-devils of dead spores. She sneezed.
Listening with half an ear to the chirping echoes carried on the breeze, Jack studied her hands. They were thick with calluses, but underneath the sweat and grime and chewed-off nails, they were still delicate. She imagined that just one of Riddick's hands would engulf both her own, and then she wondered if those giant hands would be warm or cold.
She sneezed again, then wiped her eyes.
"Come on, Jack," she told herself. "Time to find the spaceport."