The Coming Event by E. C. Tubb

Author:E. C. Tubb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 1982-06-03T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Every ship carried ghosts and a slaver more than most; whispers, sighs, cries of pain and grief, the slurry of restless movement. Vibrations caught and transmitted through the structure to fade and die in murmuring susurations. But, in the Moira, the ghosts Dumarest heard were things of silence.

The ship was too quiet. In the engine room Jed Craig tended the humming generators and in the control room watchful mechanisms studied the space through which they drove but here, in the cabin, he heard nothing but the small sounds created by the woman at his side.

She moved as he glanced at her, one hand lifting to touch his arm, her lips smiling as her fingers met his flesh. She was newly awake as he could tell from the altered tempo of her breathing yet remembered a recent passion which, slaked, had left them satiated.

A single point of light illuminated the cabin with a soft, pink glow and he remembered another room, another woman revealed in a similar illumination.

As if reading his mind Ysanne said, "Regrets, Earl?"

"No."

"Memories, then? Of someone you left behind in Zabul?" Her hand moved over his naked torso. "Someone who loved you?"

A question he left unanswered even as he wondered why he found it so hard to remember Althea's face. Copper hair and emerald eyes—familiar coloration, but she had lacked the raw energy which filled Ysanne. The same burning individuality which had made Kalin so precious.

"Earl?"

"Nothing." The past was dead and ghosts should be left in peace. Now, at this moment, only Ysanne was real. The woman and the ship and the dangers they faced.

"I was thinking," she said. "About you and Maynard. I thought you'd relied on luck to avoid getting hurt but now I know better. You planned the whole thing from the very beginning. Watched and waited and moved when the time was right. And, by God, how you moved! I've never seen anyone so fast."

"It's over. Forget it."

"Aren't you curious? About him and me?"

"No."

Her hand tensed on his chest then relaxed. In the light she looked wild, barbaric. An animal yet to be tamed, broken, fitted with a yoke. She had come to him with an unabashed directness and his response had matched her own.

"You're different," she mused. "From the very first moment we met I recognized that. We're two of a kind. What you want you take. What you need you go after. Like me. You can understand how it is; to see something and know you must have it. Must have it. Once, when I was very young, I saw a kalifox. It had fur which changed color in different lights and I wanted it. I wanted it so bad I hunted it for seven weeks. I chased it over the plains and into the hills and up into the snow and never gave it rest. I caught it in the end."

"Did you enjoy the fur?"

"We both enjoyed it." She laughed with a soft amusement. "I didn't kill it, Earl. I fed it and kept it for a pet until winter came and it ran off to mate.

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