Angelmass

CHAPTER 5

"That's good wine," Chandris said, watching closely as Toomes picked up the oddly shaped bottle—a caraffa, he'd called it—and poured a little more into her glass. His hand, she saw, wasn't shaking yet; but it did take him just a shade too long to get the bottle lined up properly on her glass.

A bit more encouragement on her part, and it would soon be safe to let him take her back to his stateroom. "Very sweet and mild," she continued, sipping at her glass. "You really ought to try some."

He smiled lopsidedly at her. "It may be a little out of fashion, my dear," he said, "but in my humble opinion Guliyo wines are strictly for young ladies like yourself. This—" he raised his glass—"is the proper drink for a proper man."

"Oh, I didn't mean to suggest it wasn't," Chandris said, smiling back. "I certainly didn't mean," she added in a lower, more sultry voice, "that you were somehow less than a real man. I know better than that."

He grinned, his old hunter's smile combined with a sort of smug satisfaction as he reached across the table to lay his hand on top of hers. Chandris let him stroke it, continuing to smile on the outside even as she fought back a sudden nervous shudder on the inside. If Toomes ever suspected she'd been scoring him for a fool the whole time, or that his entire sexual performance with her these past two weeks had consisted of pawing her clothes off and then falling into a reek-induced stupor...

Stop it, she ordered herself harshly. Of course he didn't know—how could he? Besides, he'd hardly have continued throwing money away on her this whole time if he had any memories that contradicted the coy but admiring hints she always dropped the next morning about his supposed performance. Nerves—that was all it was. Nerves, and maybe the fact that she'd never done anything like this before. Quick zippers had always been her score: a few hours with the track, maybe a day or two at the most, then a fast chop and hop. Scoring the same track for two weeks straight had been a lot harder than she'd ever imagined it would be.

But it was almost over. Just one more night to endure, and tomorrow the Xirrus would reach Seraph.

She'd ride a shuttle down with Toomes, give him one final kiss good-bye, and that would be the end of it. Chop and hop.

With her free hand she picked up her wine glass; and as she lifted it her gaze drifted across the dining room behind Toomes—

She froze. Four tables over, that man was being seated.

The sip of wine went down the wrong way, and for a minute her body shook as she fought to clear her lungs without a loud coughing fit. "Chandris?" Toomes frowned, tightening his grip on her hand.

"You all right?"

She nodded, still coughing silently, furious at herself for doing something so stupid. Between spasms she threw another quick glance at the other table, wondering if he was watching.

He was. As he had been, off and on, for the past week.

He'd come aboard at Lorelei, and as far as she'd been able to tell had kept pretty much to himself.

Nothing much to look at; a couple of centimeters taller than her, if that much, with dark hair and eyes. He was a few years older, too, probably somewhere in his early twenties. And if it hadn't been for one small problem she would probably have joined with everyone else in not giving him a second thought.

The problem being that, like her, he didn't belong here.

He wasn't nearly as good at faking it as she was, either. She'd seen him make lots of mistakes, mistakes she'd learned to avoid her first day in this part of the ship. Little things, most of them, but stuff that any really upper-class person would know without having to think about them.

She'd taken to watching him. And found that he, in turn, seemed to be watching her.

Ship's security, she'd thought at first, looking for a passenger named Chandris Lalasha who hadn't gotten off at Lorelei like she was supposed to. It had seemed the most likely explanation, particularly since she couldn't find any way to check up on her attempts to erase that identity from the Xirrus's computer. As a result, she'd wound up wasting several hours of precious late-night study time in Toomes's room setting up contingency hiding and escape plans.

But the days had gone by, and the mystery man had continued to keep his distance. In fact...

Deliberately, she looked at him. For an instant their eyes met, before he wrenched his gaze back to the menu and pretended mightily that he hadn't been looking at her at all.

Chandris looked back at Toomes, a hard knot settling into her stomach. He was probably just new to the upper class, that was all. New to the upper class, interested in her, and too bashful to breathe straight. That was probably it. Really it was.

But the knot refused to go away.

Abruptly, she drained her wine and stood up. "Can we go now?" she asked Toomes.

A flicker of surprise, then the hunter's smile was back. "Sure," he said, polishing off his own drink and getting to his feet. Maybe he was reeked enough, maybe not; but at the moment Chandris didn't care. She just wanted out of here. And if it meant having to endure more than just Toomes's pawing hands for once, she could handle it.

Taking his arm, forcing an unconcerned smile onto her face, she led him out of the room.

Keeping his head bent over the menu as if he was looking at it, Kosta watched surreptitiously as the woman and her escort left the dining room. Damn it all, he cursed himself silently. Talk about looking guilty. Why don't you just stand up, announce that you're a Pax spy, and be done with it?

He took a deep breath. Relax, he ordered himself. Just relax. He had no proof, after all, that she was even remotely connected with Empyreal security. She hadn't approached him, or sent anyone else to approach him, and with the voyage ending tomorrow morning she was rapidly running out of time to do either. No; whatever her reasons for watching him, they were probably something totally innocuous. Maybe he reminded her of someone she knew. Or maybe his table manners were even worse than he thought.

He took another deep breath and forced himself to focus on the menu, wishing yet again that he hadn't insisted on going upper-class in the first place. The theory had seemed solid enough at the time: since most scientists and students would probably be riding in cheaper sections of the ship, the passengers up here would be less likely to recognize that he wasn't part of the Empyreal scientific community.

Or so the logic had gone. It had never occurred to him that the upper class would be so homogeneous in dress, behavior, and style that he would never really feel like he fit in.

He ran his eye down the menu's price list, an unpleasant warmth rising to his cheeks. Yes, it had been logical... but down deep, he couldn't help but wonder it had really been quite that neat and tidy.

If perhaps the real reason he'd wanted to go upper-class had been a private desire to poke a figurative finger in Telthorst's annoying preoccupation with the Pax's money.

It was a worrying—hell, a downright scary—thought. Because he was in enemy territory now, with his survival balanced on his ability to keep his mind completely and unemotionally on his mission.

Indulging in childish displays of pique or sport, even mild ones, could land him in an Empyreal jail cell. Or worse.

The waiter—a human waiter here, not simply an intercom plate—appeared at his side. Hoping desperately that he would pronounce everything right this time, he began to order.