Rara Avis Read online

  “It’s a fear you live with, have lived with for a long time.”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “And you say it has nothing to do with your wife’s death.”

  “Yes.”

  “But she knew about your fear.”

  This startled him. For a moment a flood of images was hurled at me with such intensity that I gasped out loud, the sound causing his mental wall to come back into place. But not before I had seen some things very clearly.

  “All right, so she knew.” His voice was strained. “But it didn’t involve her. She wasn’t part of it.”

  “If she hadn’t known, would she still be alive today?”

  “Yes. No. Damn it, how can I answer that? Are you saying she was killed because of something I’d done? More likely, I’d be the victim, not her. No, if you want Vandora’s killer, find some wife, or some husband, she was cuckolding, not me. I never cared who she slept with. The police know that.”

  I’d seen that in the reports. “Jealous spouses usually don’t dismember a body. A laser-pistol is quicker and quieter and just as effective.”

  “Then why are you asking—?”

  “I didn’t say you’re not a suspect, Lord Kieran. I just don’t think you killed her because of her sexual meanderings.”

  “But you do think I killed her?” He looked pained as he said the words. For some reason other than the obvious one it was very important to him what I thought.

  “She knew something that you don’t want known,” I said, avoiding a direct answer to his question. “Something that has created a fear in you. And something that her father knew, too. Shall I have Sergeant Corson have him summoned here?”

  “No!”

  “Then—”

  “Then, damn it, you’re just going to have to believe that it had nothing to do with her death! You’re a psychic, can’t you tell that I’m telling the truth? Go ahead, ask me, point blank, about Vandora. Ask me if I loved her and I’ll tell you I didn’t. Ask me if I miss her and I’ll tell you I don’t. Ask me if I’m glad she’s dead and I’ll say, yes, by the gods, I am! But I didn’t kill her and that is the gods’ honest truth!”

  I probed. It was, or else Master Roggman was a better attorney than I gave him credit for.

  After he left I sat on the edge of the bed with its lace coverlet and satin pillows and tried to make some sense of the one unguarded glimpse I’d had into Kieran’s mind. Some things had been very clear and expected.

  Nelsam Mar. Vandora. And a background that looked rough, like a mining office on Sinderia. But there was also something else I didn’t understand. Nelsam again, wearing a uniform I’d never seen. Around him were other people, all human, all unfamiliar. They weren’t miners. I don’t know how I knew that, I just did. But I didn’t know who they were.

  I touched the first outfit Kieran had placed on the bed. A tunic and loose fitting pants in a golden hue. Nothing. Not even worth putting on. The second, a similar combination but in red. That tingled a bit more so I slipped it on and once again became Vandora.

  A ‘droid servant brings me hot tea and a spice cakes every afternoon when I’m here and I like the feeling of being waited on. I could get it myself. A long time ago, I used to cook for Daddy, but now I don’t have to do anything. Anything but what I want.

  Especially now.

  When I first told Kieran he laughed. Not laugh, funny, but laugh, cold, the way Kieran can when he thinks I’m being stupid. Don’t laugh at me Kieran, or I’ll tell everyone and then you won’t laugh anymore. I’ll tell, unless you let me be part of it. I want some, too. I want to feel like that, to know what it feels like. I won’t be afraid like you.

  Daddy’s not afraid. I watched once, he let me watch and he likes it, you know. Not like you, Kieran. Daddy said you won’t do it anymore and that’s why you agreed to marry me. A promise to Daddy.

  I don’t care. I like being rich. I like all my lovers, especially Pansie. And now Syl.

  I feel her warm against me as we sip tea and nibble on the spice cakes. I’m glad I’m rich and could hire her. She’s real, not like Pansie but like me. Full human and she got a lot of money when she was working at Taythis. But I said you’d pay her more, Kieran.

  And you did because if you didn’t, I’d tell about Daddy and you and what I’ve seen.

  I think, when you let me join, I’ll take Syl with me. She’s young, it’ll be good for her.

  Come here, Syl, touch me now. Look how white your fingers are against my red blouse.

  Vandora hadn’t been frightened when she’d worn the red outfit. Self-indulgent, hedonistic, passionate, maybe. But not frightened.

  That left only the embroidered caftan, a material laced heavily with beadwork and sequins but nothing else. Suddenly, I was sick of Vandora. And like Kieran, glad that she was dead. What ever had possessed a man like him to take her as his wife in the first place? He could’ve had any number of women, probably still did. What did he need with Vandora Mar?

  But it wasn’t Vandora. I’d forgotten she’d said that. It was Nelsam. A promise to Nelsam. Because of something he wouldn’t do. So instead he had married Nelsam’s daughter, assuring her status and wealth faster than her father could provide for her.

  So why kill her? Types like Vandora were born to be bought off. He had more than enough money. Buy her a chateau in Taythis, furnish it with enough human and ‘droid lovers to keep her occupied for centuries, and forget about her. That would be more in Kieran’s style. And would’ve definitely been to Vandora’s liking.

  And then someone had come into her bedroom and cut off her fingers. Her sense of touch.

  Her breast. That someone liked to touch.

  Her leg. To keep her from walking, from strutting as she did about a room? Then her neck. To silence her forever.

  Why?

  With a frustrated groan I threw myself back against her bed. I was tired, damn, how I was tired! I’d put in two weeks work in Chi’annir and before that spent almost a month on the Derhin case on Mano-3. P.I.’s rarely worked three in a row; there was only so much the body could take. I only came to Primus because B.J. had asked.

  And now I was drawing a blank.

  Oh, I definitely had more to go on. B.J.’s reports had covered Pansie, the ‘droid lover, but not Syl from Taythis. That was a good lead. Perhaps a former client or employer resented Vandora’s monopolizing their prize lady’s time. No doubt I could also come up with other names, other lovers, other stories. But I had a feeling that wasn’t where the answer lay and further searching would only serve to make me more frustrated. I liked to be touched, too, though my tastes, unlike Vandi’s, ran definitely towards the male sex. I thought of B.J. and how we’d been lovers until his amorous nature had set him to drifting again. Besides, he’d realized I was looking for something more permanent, and knew he couldn’t offer it. Not that I’d really expected him to. Not to a psychic, anyway. Cops weren’t the only ones who feared us. Perhaps B.J. would’ve liked Vandora.

  No, scratch that thought. B.J. had more class than that. I tried to will my sleepy brain back into a working mode, away from my own problems, my own fears.

  I’d always been so good at losing myself in a case, immersing myself in that “other person”, focusing on their problems instead of my own. Yet this time, Vandora’s problems only seemed to highlight my own estrangement. With a groan of frustration I forced my body back into action, stretching my arms overhead in response. My hands slid under the satin pillows and touched a piece of fabric.

  I screamed.

  Not loud. What I found frightened me but I was still a professional and managed to control some of the intensity that shot through me like a laser-bolt. But enough that I was now wide awake and my heart was pounding. Gingerly, I pulled the mini-dress from under the pillows. A short, black silk tunic with a gathered waist and low-cut bodice. Shoulder straps tied at the neck. One strap was still knotted, the other ripped where the dress had been forced from her body. It bore no other
visible signs of damage. But psychically, psychically it screamed louder than I ever could have.

  I didn’t even have to slip it on.

  I held it against me, aware for a moment of the sweet scent of Vandora’s perfume before losing myself in its memory, woven now forever into the fine threads of its fabric.

  “You can’t tell me no. I won’t take no for an answer. Not now. No longer. Do you understand me?”

  “Vandi…”

  “Don’t ‘Vandi’ me! I’m not a little girl. I’m a woman. You know that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “So?”

  “The answer is still no, my darling.”

  “But why? I want to!”

  He came up behind me and slid his arms around my waist. “Haven’t I gotten you everything else you’ve wanted? Haven’t I, my Princess?” His lips found my neck and he kissed me lightly, his hands coming up to cover my breasts, knowing, as he always did, just how I liked to be touched. “Why don’t you go put on your black robe and we can talk about this later, hmmm?”

  “Don’t you like this dress?”

  “Of course. It’s beautiful. Like you.”

  “And I want to be beautiful for you, forever. And I want us to have beautiful things. That’s why you have to let me go through the Channel.”

  “No.” His voice was suddenly sharp. “There are things you do not understand. Things you should not see.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled me down next to him. “Besides, you will always be beautiful to me,” he said, softer now. “We have more than enough. And we will always be together. I made sure of that. Through your marriage. Through Kieran.”

  “But why does everything have to always involve him!” I cried. “Why is it his home, his name! Don’t you understand that I want some of that, too? I want the power—”

  “No. Kieran is right. We have to close the Channel for good now. It’s served its purpose, brought us here, made us wealthy men. We—”

  “We, we, we! I’m sick of your talk about we! You don’t owe Kieran anything anymore, don’t you see that? The mines are starting to do really good and you don’t need his money any more. We can leave him.”

  “He’s my captain, Princess. It’s something you can’t understand. You’re from this time. He and I go back a long, long way.” And he laughed at the private joke he and Kieran always made.

  I pouted. “You have to.”

  “Anything else, my love, but—”

  “No. You have to let me go through. You can’t let Kieran destroy the Channel.”

  He sighed. “Now, Vandi…”

  “No!” I wrenched from him and stood up. “You listen, now! And listen good. Everything you know about the Channel, I know. And unless you take me through, I’m telling the Conclave. Do you remember what they labeled you—a ‘dangerous psychopath’. They’ll destroy you, Elam Kessel Nor. If the Conclave doesn’t kill you for all the murders you committed five hundred years ago, they’ll kill you for what you’re doing now: using this Channel to steal things from the past. It’ll solve a lot of old police cases, my dearest father!”

  He paled visibly. “No, Vandora, you wouldn’t!”

  “Wouldn’t I? And why not? Aren’t I your daughter, bred especially for you in the Naldian colonies? That’s illegal, too. See, I know all this! And I have it all down on file.” He stood slowly, his eyes hard on mine. “You bitch.”

  “You made me that way,” I taunted, running one hand up his broad chest.

  He slapped me hard. I fell back, my face throbbing. No! He wasn’t supposed to hurt me! Only in play, only in play would I let him hurt me and even then it didn’t really hurt. I could feel blood trickling down the side of my mouth.

  Oh, gods! What if there was a scar!

  “I’ll tell! You can’t stop me! And if you try, then Syl will tell. I told her all about it, who you really are, what you’ve done! She wants to go too and she will! You’ll take us both through the Channel or, or….”

  “Or what, Vandora? No one is going to believe you. They’ll say you made it up.”

  I laughed at him and it hurt my face. “Will they? Then what will they say when they see the tapes I made of the datafiles from the Sorca? You talk too much when you’re high, Nelsam. I found them and copied them and I’ll send them to the Conclave unless you take Syl and I—”

  Nelsam reached down and grabbed my wrists, dragging me to my feet. I tried to twist in his grasp but couldn’t, so I kicked at him with my high-heeled boots.

  He swore out in pain then threw me back on the bed and grabbed my ankle.

  “I should break your pretty leg for that, my dear,” he growled.

  I kicked at him again, but he was quicker than I was and suddenly I felt a searing pain as he twisted my knee backwards. I screamed.

  “Go ahead and scream, Vandi. Kieran can’t hear it, not that he’d care. And the servants won’t dare interrupt us. We always play rough and they’re used to it.”

  “No! Let me go!”

  “I want those files. Where are they?”

  “No!”

  From the pocket of his jumpsuit he withdrew a long, sharp dagger. “Where are they?”

  “No, please, please. Just take me through the Channel. You don’t even have to take Syl. Just me. Please, Daddy.”

  “Where?” He ripped down one side of my dress and lay the cold metal against my breast. “Where, or I’ll start cutting.”

  “I, I don’t have them.”

  “Liar!” He slapped me again. The room began to spin.

  “I don’t!” I sobbed.

  “Take off the dress.”

  “What?”

  “Take it off!” He was breathing heavily.

  My leg throbbed. “I can’t,” I whined.

  “You can, Vandora. You can do anything I tell you to. You always have.” Slowly, painfully, I slid the black dress down my body…

  —

  I came back to myself, abruptly. I was standing in the middle of Vandora’s bedroom. The black dress had slipped through my fingers and fallen to the floor.

  I was shaking.

  Elam Kessel Nor. I knew the name, but knew it only from legend and history. A brilliant but cruel man, Elam Kessel Nor served as the First Officer on the Sorca; in its time, the deadliest pirate ship in inhabited space, under the command of Captain Kieran Risardas. The original Kieran Risardas. That had been when the System was young and technology had gotten ahead of humanity. Risardas and Kessel Nor had the power and the skill to use that technology to try to claim the quadrant as their own. They’d been ruthless barbarians, murderers, pirates. The Sorca and her sister ship, the Rei, had brought the young colonies to its knees. The Conclave was still in its infancy and could offer no protection. But then somehow, Risardas had simply disappeared. Rumors said he was killed by one of his own men. But his body was never found.

  Because he was still alive.

  It sounded absurd, but he and Elam Kessel Nor, now Nelsam Mar, had found a way to travel through time. Not jumpspace, like the FTL ships did. That was in small segments. But large blocks of real time with the help of something they both called the Channel, something that had granted them life, and Vandora, death.

  I had B.J.’s answer for him, as unbelievable as it was. And Lord Kieran was right. He hadn’t killed Vandora. Hundreds of others, yes. But not Vandora. I wondered if he knew who did.

  I went back to the study, where the outline of Vandora’s body seemed to watch me from the floor. I looked over her collection of viddisk again, the most logical place for her to hide the datafiles. She’d told Nelsam she didn’t have them, but she was lying. I knew that. But she also had stubbornly refused to think of where she had put them. I tried to think like Vandora had.

  The disks revealed nothing. I pulled the vid cabinet away from the wall and felt behind it. Nothing. Same for the inside of the speakers. I pulled the cushions off the couch. I searched the study thoroughly for at least a half an hour. And found nothing.

&
nbsp; I ransacked her vanity, her closets, her bathroom. I looked in every nook and cranny until I was sure there were only two possibilities: either she’d finally told Nelsam where the file was, or else Kieran had removed it before the police had arrived.

  I had to face him again, but not here.

  I returned to the sitting room and found Kieran seated behind the large antique desk (the Channel was evidently capable of some pretty heavy-duty transporting), sipping a dark liquor out of a fluted crystal glass. He glanced nervously up at me as I entered. I turned away, nodded to B.J. who was perusing through an gilt-edged album on the sofa table but looked up when I’d entered.

  “Jynx?”

  “I’d like to speak with you for a moment, Sergeant. And will you bring my briefcase?”

  He did, and came out into the hall.

  ‘Leave the door open,’ I told him telepathically, ‘and keep an eye on Risardas.’

  B.J. winced. He hated when I did that. But he complied.

  “Well?” His voice was hushed.

  “He’s not your murderer. Her father is.”

  “Her fath—!”

  “Sssh!”

  “Then why…?” And he glanced back at the dark-haired man behind the desk who was staring at some nonexistent point on the far wall.

  “Because I need him to lead me to some evidence that will tie this whole thing up for you nice and neat.”

  I stepped away from the door and opened my briefcase, pulling out the small pistol I was licensed to carry as part of my job. B.J.’s eyes widened.

  “You’re kidding! You need that with him? Ol’ facts-and-figures Risardas?”

  I checked the power pack and flicked off the safety. “Some people don’t like to discuss their past,” was all I said.

  I slipped the pistol into my pocket and shut the sitting room doors behind me. Lord Kieran took his gaze from the wall. The fear coming from him now was so thick I could’ve cut it and sold it as mattresses. I said nothing, but stepped towards the sofa that B.J. had recently vacated and leaned against the arm. He put his empty glass down on the desktop. “Have you been successful?”