Queen of Candesce

Garth was nearly torn from her grasp by the pounding air. Two people who had refused to untie themselves from the black drapes were simply blown away, disappearing in moments into a distance blurred with barbed wire and mines. Others simply let go of their neighbors for a second and found themselves being drawn slowly, leisurely away as the airfall passed by and calmer air returned.

“Catch the rope! Catch it!” She watched the lines being tossed and frantic lunges to catch them, then one of the men who’d drifted a few yards away shuddered and spun. Dark lines stood in the air behind him for an instant before snapping and becoming thousands of red droplets. She heard machine-gun fire.

“Sacrus! Return fire!” Everybody opened up on the small knot of pipes and the machine-gun nest as it swept down and at them. Tracer rounds framed and dissected a vision of mauve cloud and amber sunlight. Venera blinked and couldn’t see, waved her pistol hesitantly. Then Sacrus lofted up and away and the firing ceased.

“Get ready!”

Ready? Ready for what—the net caught her limp and unresisting, and that probably saved Venera from a broken neck. As thin cords dug into her face and hands she was hauled into speeding air again, faster and faster until all breath was sucked out of her and spots danced in her eyes. Just as the howl and tearing fingers of the hurricane became intolerable it ceased so abruptly that she just lay for a while, staring at nothing. Gradually, she made out voices, sounds of something heavy being shut as the wind sound cut out. Lantern light glowed below a metal ceiling where shadows of people hove to and fro. She rolled over.

Garth Diamandis was sitting up next to her. He probed at the back of his head carefully, then darted his eyes back and forth at the people who surrounded them. “Where are we?”

“Among friends,” she said. “Safe. At least for now.”

Blood slid down the drain, miniature rivers in the greater flow of water. After all that had happened, Venera was surprised to find that none of it was hers. By rights she should have been riddled with holes last night.

The facilities of Fin were primitive, but the water was wonderfully hot. She dallied in the rusted metal cabinet that stood in for a shower, letting the stuff run over and off her in sheets, holding her face under it. Not thinking, though her hands still shook.

A loud banging startled her, and she almost slipped. Venera flung open the sheet-metal door. “What?”

Bryce stood there. His glower turned to distraction as he took in her naked form. In a moment of reflected vision, she saw his gaze lower, pause, drop, pause again. Then he caught himself and met her eyes. “You’re going to use up all the hot water,” he said in a reasonable tone.

She slammed the door, but it was too late; she could practically feel the line drawn down her body by his eyes. “So what if I use it all?” she said gamely. “You’re a man—take yours cold.”

“Not if I don’t have to.” She heard rattling around the side of the enclosure. “There’s a master valve here, but I’m not sure whether it’s for the cold or the hot. I’ll give it a few turns…”

She threw the door open again and stalked past him to grab the rag they’d told her was her towel. Wrapping it around herself as best she could, she did a double take as she saw him watching her again. “Well?” she said. “What are you waiting for?”

“Huh?”

“Get in there.” She crossed her arms and waited. Bryce turned his back to her as he undressed, but she didn’t give him any relief. It was her turn to admire. With a sour glance that held more than a little humor, he stepped into the stall.

Venera leaned over to look at the side of the enclosure; there was the valve he’d mentioned. It was momentarily tempting to give a few turns—she could imagine his shouts quite vividly—but no. She was an adult, after all.

She left the enclosure and stepped gingerly over the grillwork floor. Despite the stares of those billeted in the hallway, she made her way to where Garth Diamandis lay. He was awake, but listless. Still, he half smiled as he saw her.

“Ah, that you should dress so for me,” he murmured.

Venera smoothed the hair back from his brow. “What’s wrong?”

He looked away, lips twisting. Then, “It was her. She betrayed me to them.”

“Your woman? Wife? Mistress?”

A heavy sigh escaped him. “My daughter.”

Venera stepped back, shocked. For a moment she had no idea what to say, because her whole understanding of this man had been changed in one stroke. “Oh, Garth,” she said stupidly. “I’m so sorry.” We daughters will do that, she though, but she didn’t say it.

She held his hand for a minute until he gently disengaged it and turned on his side. “You must be cold,” he said. “Go get some rest.” So, reluctantly, she left him on his cot in the hallway.

She mused about this surprising new Garth as she threaded her way back to her sleeping station. It was hard navigating the place; the nation of Fin was less than thirty feet wide at its broadest point. Since it was literally a fin, an aileron for controlling Spyre’s spin and direction, the place was streamlined and reinforced inside by crisscrossing girders. The citizens of the pocket nation had built floors and chambers all through the vertical wing and grudgingly added several ladder wells. Where Garth lay was not a corridor as such, however—just a more or less labyrinthine route between the rooms that were strung the length of the level. Privacy was to be had only within the sleeping chambers, where the ever-present roar of air just behind the walls drowned all other sounds.

Fin didn’t have the capacity for an extra seventy or so people. Venera had been informed by an impatient Cori

Venera willed herself to sleep, but she was still a mass of nerves from the events of the night. And, she had to admit, there was something else keeping her awake…

A blundering noise jolted her into sitting up. She groped for a nonexistent weapon. Somebody was blocking the light that leaked around the cabinets. “Who—”

“Oh, no! You!” Bryce stood there, his nakedness punctuated by the towel at his waist. His hands were on his hips.

Venera snatched up the blanket. “Don’t tell me they put you in with me.”

“Said there wasn’t any room. Last good place was here.” He crossed his arms. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“You’ve had at least fifteen minutes to sleep. My turn.”

“Your—?” She reached for one of her boots and threw it at him. “Get out! This is my room!” Bryce ducked adroitly and stepped up, grabbing at her wrist. She rabbit-punched him in the stomach; the only effect was that his towel fell off.

He took advantage of her surprise to make a play for the bed. She managed to keep him from taking it, but he did grab the blanket. She pulled it back. She kicked him, and he toppled onto the mattress. He sprawled, laying claim to as much of it as he could, and pushed her to the edge.

“No you don’t! My bed!” She tried to climb over him, aiming to reconquer the corner, but his hand was on her wrist, then her shoulder and her breast, and his other gripped the inside of her thigh. Bryce picked her up that way and would have thrown her off the bed if she hadn’t squirmed her way loose. She landed straddling him and grabbed for the sheets on either side of his shoulders so when he pushed at her she had a good grip.

He was getting hard against her pubic bone and his hands were on her breasts again. Venera mashed her palm against his face and reared back but now his hands were on her hips, and he was pulling her hard against him. They rocked together and she clawed at his chest.