Excerpt from To Love & Honor – Handfasting Book 5

 

The morning the group from the reception was to tour the Silver Samurai, Tom invited himself to breakfast again. It didn’t surprise Lucinda. Yesterday she had overheard him arguing with his supervisor in the warehouse about sending a crew to repair the downed power pole she and Mira had found. Tom wanted to send a crew, but the supervisor didn’t want to waste the manpower. She was sure Tom really wanted an excuse to check out the area for smuggler activity.

Agra was just finishing off her morning breakfast of nuts, breadfruit, chopped vegetables and meat and she chirped a messy welcome when Lucinda opened the door.  Lucinda was dressed like a diplomat’s daughter this morning since she was acting in Juliette’s place with the tour group. Instead of casual clothes, she wore a soft blue, cowl-neck blouse of Dragonest silk and a darker blue vest and trousers with grey half boots. Agra had donned one of her jeweled collars. Lucinda’s uniform was folded and hung in a bag behind the pantry door along with Agra’s uniform collar. She planned to put it in her locker at work and change there until after the tour.

“Good morning,” Tom said. “Wow, you look good. Going somewhere special?”

She gave him a scorching glance. “Oh, and I look bad if I don’t make a special effort?”

“No, that isn’t what I meant. I just—you’re all dressed up today,” he said. “Can I have a shovel to dig myself out with?”

Lucinda took a filled plate from the Robo-chef and set it down in front of Tom with a cup of steaming Cafka.

“I don’t want to take yours,” he protested.

“You aren’t. I’ve finished,” she informed him. “Somehow, I just knew you’d be coming by this morning to try to get information about the downed power pole from me—Whoops!” she caught Agra, still dribbling breadfruit juice, as she tried to leap onto Tom’s shoulder.

“Let me wipe your muzzle before you get Tom as messy as you are,” she said, wiping down the Dactyl’s face and front paws.

“But in answer to your question, I dressed especially nice because the home greeting committee is taking a tour of the Silver Samurai today and I’m representing Mom and Juliette,” she told him. “I’ll change for work afterward.”

He frowned. “Isn’t that Delgado’s ship?”

“Yes, it is, and there is a group of us going. I don’t want to hear any smart remarks about it.”

He held up his hands in surrender. “Don’t shoot. I was just wondering if I could tag along,” he said, with his best winning smile.

“If you don’t do anything to embarrass me you can come, but I doubt if we will be shown what you’re looking for,” she warned him.

“What am I looking for?” he asked blandly.

Lucinda snorted. “Evidence of smuggling? Listen, I don’t mind if you’re discreet about poking around. This is an honor for Juliette to be included on this committee and I don’t want to mess it up for her by causing a ruckus if you get caught with your nose somewhere they don’t want it.”

“I’ll be good,” he promised, scraping his plate into the recycler and putting it into the dishwasher. “What time does the tour leave?”

“You’ve got an hour. We’re meeting at the Spaceport. I won’t wait for you so be there on time.”

Agra hummed happily when he dropped a kiss on Lucinda’s mouth before dashing out the door.

“Don’t bet on it,” Lucinda told her. “We’re just useful to him, that’s all it is.”

Lucinda put her uniform in her work locker when she arrived at the Spaceport offices. She didn’t recognize the two PRS night-shift officers on duty. Knowing they would be curious why she was there so early so she stopped to pass the time of day with them.

They were nattering about the latest gossip when she heard Sesuna’s shrill voice and Priestess Ispone Klam’y’s deeper one getting louder as she protested to the duty officer.

“Sorry, got to take care of this. I’ll catch you guys later.”

She turned and went quickly to the arch separating the Patrol offices from PRS. This time it wasn’t Twilya on duty, but a tall-dark-haired woman in the black and red Patrol Uniform who was holding a plastia sheet and stabbing it with a finger for emphasis.

Lucinda leaned against the arch with her arms crossed, watching the show. Sesuna looked up and saw her and immediately ran over to her.

“Shogun O’Teague can you help us? That woman won’t let mother have her medicine. She says it’s contr—Contra—”

“Contra-banned?” Lucinda asked.

The girl nodded vigorously, dragging Lucinda over to the desk.”

“Tell her!” she said. “It’s for the baby!”

Ignoring the Officer glaring at her, Lucinda turned to the Priestess. “My Lady, is there something I can help you with?” Lucinda asked. She was shocked to see that Priestess Klam’y’s soft grey skin had acquired a shinny greenish cast, and her black eyes were red rimmed.

“This is Patrol business. It doesn’t matter what this woman says young lady,” the woman, whose name tag read ‘Abdul’,  snapped, pointing at Lucinda. “This item isn’t allowed. It’s on the restricted list, and I’m confiscating it.”

Still ignoring her, Lucinda put a supporting hand under the Priestess’s elbow. “Sesuna, get your mother a chair so she can sit down,” she ordered. Easing Ispone into the chair the girl brought, she knelt in front of her holding her hands. “My lady, in your condition you must take better care of yourself. Will you let me help you?”

Ispone Klam’y nodded. “Thank you,” she whispered, leaning back and closing her eyes.

Lucinda stood up and held out her hand for the vial the Patrol officer had seized. Reluctantly, the woman showed her the label. “They’ve given it a different name, but the chemical compounds are the same as these,” she said, showing Lucinda the plastia.

Lucinda, frowned at her. “That is quite true, however, a combination of these are proscribedin diluted form for some pregnant Trellyan women. That bottle has a physician’s symbol. Did you check with her doctor?”

The officer gave her a look of pure dislike. “I don’t need to; it’s on the list! Who are you anyway? What business is this of yours?”

“I am Lady Lucinda O’Teague, daughter of Lady Katherine of Veiled Isle, Clan O’Teague. I am a friend of Priestess Klam’y and her daughter. I strongly suggest you get a healer out here to tend to Lady Ispone as soon as possible. She isn’t well.”

Still scowling, the Patrol Officer put in a call to the Spaceport Healer, a brisk, bright-eyed little man who arrived several minutes later with six student healers trailing him.

“Oh, my. Yes indeed,” he exclaimed, taking in Ispone’s situation after a brief examination. “You should not have traveled off world in your condition. You there!” he pointed at two of his students, “Help me get her onto a Medi-lift.” Spying the bottle still clutched in the Patrol Officer’s hand, he snatched it away from her. “Is this hers?”

“Yes,” Lucinda replied.

“Hey!” Abdul said, “Give that back!”

The doctor ignored her, stuffing it into one of his commodious pockets, and turned to give instructions to his students about not jostling the patient.

Before they took her to the infirmary, Ispone caught at Lucinda’s hand. “The child, I don’t want Sesuna to see if—”

“Why don’t I keep her with me today? We’re going to tour one of the Free Trade ships.”

“Thank you,” Ispone whispered.

“What possessed you to come off planet without your physician?” The doctor demanded as they left.

Lucinda put a hand on Sesuna’s shoulder. “They’ll take good care of her,” she promised.

“Yes, Shogun,” the girl sereptiously wiped her eyes. Pretending not to see, Lucinda handed her a box of tissues.

“I’m reporting this,” the Patrol Officer announced. “That woman tried to smuggle in illegal drugs! I’m reporting you too! I don’t care who your mother is!”

Sesuna whirled around, fists clenched, a snarl on her mouth. “My mother isn’t—” she began furiously.

Lucinda checked her. She pulled out her badge and thrust it at the officer. “Here,” she said brightly, “I wouldn’t want you to not have all the information for your report.”

“This say’s you’re a cop!” Abdul exclaimed. “Do you realize you are aiding and abetting a smuggler? Your superiors aren’t going to like this!”

“Aren’t going to like her promoting interplanetary relations by showing compassion to a woman who is ill?” inquired Odette entering the room, followed by half a dozen other clansmen and another woman in the Patrol’s black and red uniform.

“Officer Abdul, may I speak to you privately in my office?” inquired the older woman. After a glance at her, the Officer turned on her heel and left.

“I’m Nova Cicereli,” she said. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“You might explain to Officer Abdul the difference between smuggling contraband and carrying drugs proscribed for you by your doctor,” Lucinda said dryly.

She turned to Odette, “Hope you don’t mind, but we’ve got an extra on the tour. This is Lady Sesuna Klam’y, daughter of Fire Priestess Ispone.”

“How do you do, Lady Sesuna?” Odette smiled a welcome to her.

“Very well, thank you,” Sesuna replied politely.

“We’ve got another addition as well,” Odette whispered to Lucinda. “Your boyfriend asked me if he could join the tour and I said yes. I think he’s jealous of Delgado.”

Lucinda felt her face heating up when she met Tom’s eyes. He had apparently gone home and changed his clothes. He was good at blending, she thought. Today, he looked like any other young aristocrat. She had the urge to deny the relationship but realized blaming Tom’s jealousy of Delgado would cause less comment if he got caught snooping and kept her mouth shut.

“Who are you?” Sesuna demanded suspiciously of Tom when he sat beside them on the robo-tram taking the group out to the Silver Samurai.

“I’m Tom Draycott,” he told her. “I’m a friend of Lucinda’s too. How did you meet her?”

“I stopped her playing chicken with the cargo-bots,” Lucinda said. “I warn you,” she added, “If you get caught snooping, you had better be willing for the Duc to say you asked me to get you on this tour.”

Agra, of course, fluttered over to Tom and purred a welcome in his ear. Lucinda gave her pet a disgusted glance, and muttered, “cream pot love,” under her breath. Sesuna giggled.

Delgado hadn’t been especially pleased when Odette had converted his tête-à-tête with Lucinda into a group tour, but he met them at the door to the shuttle, every inch the gracious host.

Silver Samurai’s shuttle wasn’t really outfitted for to carry fifteen people; like most of the Free Trade shuttles used to land on a planet, it was designed for carrying goods and cargo, not passengers. To save room, Delgado was doing his own piloting.

The tour was interesting, Lucinda admitted to herself. The only other Free-Trade ship she had been aboard had been Captain Heidelberg’s ship the Dancing Gryphon, on the trip to Vensoog from Fenris. The Silver Samurai was smaller and more compact.

“We were lucky,” Delgado boasted. “We weren’t large enough to carry military troops, so we were able to continue our trade route without being confiscated by the navy.”

“Where did your route take you?” Odette asked innocently.

Delgado shoot a playful finger at her. “Now, pretty lady that would be telling trade secrets! If I told you, it might get to some of our competitors, and they might jump our Trade line.”

“Is it really that competitive?” Lucinda asked. “I thought the Patrol prevented trade wars.”

He shrugged. “Oh, they try, but some Free Trade routes take a ship outside Confederation Territory.”

“The Karamine sector, for instance?” Lucinda innocently suggested, watching his face.

She caught a flash of anger before he smiled blandly at her question. “No, not before the war and certainly not while it was taking place; Karamines are much too aggressive for a single ship to attempt to land on one of their worlds.”

“This is our control room; as you can see, it isn’t large,” he said, as the tour group each poked a head into the small pilot area.

“Now here is where the off-duty crew spends most of the time,” he gestured down the hall and they entered what was obviously one of the largest common areas of the ship; a combination recreation and eating area.

Just then, a crewman approached the group. “Excuse me, Captain but the doctor would like to see you in the infirmary. Jacobsen sprained his foot again on the exercise machine.”

He frowned a little, “Of course, please excuse me ladies and gentlemen. Officer Tenako will continue the tour. The engine room next Tenako, then join me back in the lounge.”

Tenako, a short, rotund man with laugh lines around his eyes stepped forward. “This way please. I’m afraid we will need to enter the engine room a few at a time; like our control center it is stripped to bare necessities.”

When she stopped in the doorway of a small square room, Lucinda saw Tom slip away. Dammit! She thought. She was even more exasperated to see Sesuna following him.

The engine room was round, lined with various control panels and screens. A large quartz lattice made its way from floor to ceiling. This was the actual engine, powered by Azorite crystals. To Lucinda’s untutored eye, the crystals looked oversized for the ship. Just now it was dim, because a tech with a fat mane of glossy red hair tied back, had a panel partway open working on it.

“As you can see, we are only running on minimal power, Tenako explained. “Engines occasionally need cleaning and fine tuning because the crystals will get dirty. Will Thayer, our chief engineer says an engine is only as good as it’s Maintence.”

“How’s it going Will?” Tenako asked.

The thin, blond man who had been entering information on a data cube, looked up and smiled. “We’ll be ready by the time the Captain orders lift off. Lorian is almost finished with the cleaning.”

Lucinda was almost the last one out. She had never been in a ship’s engine room before; It had been off limits to passengers on the Dancing Gryphon.

Thayer caught her eye as she thanked the crew for their time. He followed her into the corridor. “Miss? Excuse me Miss, could I speak to you a moment?”

She stopped and looked at him. “Well I can’t lag too far behind the tour, but I have a minute, while everyone is using the sanitary facilities. How can I help you, Engineer Thayer?”

“Are you—is it possible you are from Fenris?” he asked.

Her eyebrows rose. “Yes, I was in a placement center on Fenris before I was adopted by Lord Zack and Lady Katherine.”

“Was your mother Darla Lister? Because if it was, I think I might be your father.”

Lucinda stiffened. In fact, she had been one of Grouter’s ‘designer’ children, and had no idea who if any, her biological ancestors might be.

“As far as I know,” she said icily, “I am no relation to that coldhearted bitch. If I were you, I wouldn’t claim too close an acquaintance with her; she was a thief and a murderer.”

“She was brave and beautiful!” he said. “I loved her! I was almost sure she was carrying a child when she left me. I—”

“If Darla Lister had gotten herself with child,” Lucinda said brutally, “she would have rid herself of it at the first opportunity.”

“I knew it!” Lorian Thayer had appeared in the doorway, her entire body quivering with anger.

“I deal with you later!” she told her husband. She turned on Lucinda. “You’re the daughter of that bitch Lister, are you? Well she didn’t get my husband, and I won’t have any whelp of hers hanging around—You get me?”

Lucinda looked her up and down. “Certainly, I understood you. Half the quadrant must have heard that screech. As I just told your husband—Lady Katherine and Lord Zack are my parents. I don’t need or want any interlopers. You might be surprised to learn that—”

What else she was about to say was lost as Lorian Thayer with a snarl of rage leaped at her, fingers turning into claws. Lucinda half-stepped to the side, grabbed one of Thayer’s wrists, and using the woman’s own momentum, tossed her over her hip. She let go at the height of the toss, and Thayer flew several feet down the narrow hallway before she landed on her back and slid into a wall.

Lucinda jumped when Tom clapped.

“Wow! Can you teach me to do that?” Sesuna asked, excitedly. Lucinda noticed the girl was wearing Tom’s jacket and seemed to have something wiggly tucked into her shirt. ‘I just hope nobody but me spots it, ‘she thought grimly, as Tom and Sesuna followed her back to the shuttle bay for the trip back to the port. Behind them, she could hear Thayer fussing at his wife and calling for a medic.

When Tom had taken advantage of the engine room tour to slip away, he headed for the locked cargo bay. It was too good a chance to miss getting inside it to check for smuggled goods.

He was bent over, using his code cracker on the door, when Sesuna whispered, “What are you doing?”

He jumped. “What the Void are you doing here? Did anyone see you?”

She shrugged. “I followed you. Nobody saw us. Why are you breaking in there?”

He scowled at her. “I’m an investigator. I want to take a few vids of their cargo bay.”

He got the door open, and after checking the interior, he yanked Sesuna in with him. “Don’t touch anything,” he ordered, taking out a small vid-cam and snapping vids.

Sesuna was a little bored. She had thought this would be exciting, but all he had done was take vid scenes. Suddenly, she felt a trickle of hunger, cold and pain at the edge of her psyche. Curious to know where it was coming from, she looked around. There, over against the back wall were a series of animal cages. All but one of the animals were in stasis. When she got closer, she discovered it was a Trellyan Fire Indri. The stasis cube lay in a broken mess below the cage. It was obvious it had been broken while loading the cargo. The Indri was exhausted, dehydrated, and close to dying. She was also starting to whelp.

“Oh, you poor darling!” Sesuna whispered. “Let me get you out of there.” She bent and undid the clasp holding the cage closed. Shifting her hands under her, she was struck by how cold the little body was. “Stupid Traders!” she said. “Don’t they know you need to be extra warm during delivery?” Hastily, unbuttoning her blouse, she stuffed the Indri into her shirt and re-buttoned it. The blouse was a little too big for her; it had belonged to her older sister who had been taken in a Jack raid just as the war ended. Sesuna wore it to remind her of Eloyoni.

“You have to be very quiet,” she told the Indri softly, rubbing her back. The little creature made a helpless burrowing movement, shivering against her.

“I told you not to touch anything!” Tom had come up behind her.

“I wasn’t going to!” Sesuna snapped. “This is a Trellyan Indri. It’s forbidden to sell it off-world. Besides, another few hours and she would have died. They haven’t fed her or given her water, and she’s cold and about to whelp!”

“Oh, Hell,” he said, pulling off his jacket. “Here put this on and keep it wrapped around you. If anyone asks, you’re cold, and I gave you my jacket.”

He opened the door cautiously and looked out. “It’s still empty. C’mon, we need to get back to the others.”

They arrived back at the group, just in time to see Lucinda throw Lorian Thayer across the room.

“What is going on here?” Delgado demanded, stepping out of his office.

“Sorry,” Lucinda told him. “I think your engine tech needs a checkup. She jumped me, I dodged, and she ended up a casualty.”

“Why would she jump you?” he asked, frowning.

“She accused Lady Lucinda of being someone named Lister’s daughter,” Odette had joined the conversation.

“See here Talon,” Lucinda told him. “I don’t have a clue who my biological parents were, and I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned, Lady Katherine and Lord Zack are myparents. Darla Lister made herself a nasty byword when Lewiston sent her to invade my home. Lister went after my sister Juliette, and Mom killed her. So as far as being related to her—No Thanks!”

“My apologies,” Delgado told Odette. “I am very sorry your tour ended on such a bad note. How can I make it up to you?”

Odette slipped her arm through his, “Lets talk about that,” she purred, giving Lucinda a wink over her shoulder.

“You hang around when we get back,” Lucinda told Tom grimly, when they were once more seated in the shuttle. Agra fluttered over to Sesuna and sniffed the front of Tom’s jacket. She crooned softly in comfort and extended a wing over Sesuna’s chest.

As soon as she could reasonably get rid of Odette and her crew, Lucinda hauled both Tom and Sesuna into the employee lounge, which fortunately was empty,

She glanced at the girl’s worried face and decided to start with her.

“Alright, what did you steal?” she asked, eyeing the front of Sesuna’s blouse which was moving. Slowly the girl un did a couple of buttons and lifted out a small animal. It was about half again as big as Agra, four legged, with a smushed in face, and a pink button nose. It was covered in soft purple fuzz, with a feathery plume of a tail. It was obviously still cold, because it shivered When Sesuna uncovered it.

“It’s a Fire Indri,” the girl said. “I couldn’t leave her there! She hungry and cold and about to whelp. They were killing her!”

“Fire Indri’s are also illegal to export for sale off Trellya,” Tom interjected.

Lucinda sighed, “Of course you couldn’t leave her there,” she told Sesuna. There had been a few times lately when she had really wished Katherine were here to advise her, but her mother was eight hours away on Veiled Isle. Well Lucinda would just have to muddle along on her own. She pulled out her com and contacted Glass Manor.

When Mira answered, Lucinda asked to be put through to the animal husbandry chief.

“Karen,” she told her, I’ve got a pregnant Fire Indri from Trellya here who is about to whelp. She’s hungry, cold, and I would guess dehydrated. Can you help?”

 

NOTE FROM GAIL: As everyone can see the Fire Indri used in this excerpt is really a type of bat. However, by the time the artist gets through with it, it will look quite different. Most of the critters in the Handfasting universe have an earth animal as a base.