Chapter Seventeen

D ante was gone. Ter was gone. The place where Bekdi's ship had been standing was empty, and Regi stood at the hatch and watched a small group of hovers speed across the hardpacked dirt between the spaceships. At his side, Vk shifted. It was a nervous gesture he had seen a dozen times before.

Once, they had been trapped behind a deck breach on station after a workers' riot. They had spent three days watching each other's backs and waiting for the Coalition to send additional troops in to secure the area. Part of him hated that she saw Kowri as a threat, and part of him was beyond grateful he had someone he trusted at his back.

His Coalition communicator chimed and Captain Cota's voice interrupted his thoughts. "We have Kowri incoming."

Vk snorted. Perhaps if it'd been the two of them, she would've said something disrespectful about the captain's grasp of the obvious.

"Acknowledged," Regi said. "Are we still tracking the fleeing ship?"

"Fleeing implies a legal culpability which has not been established," said Captain Cota in full diplomatic mode, but Regi didn't want to be diplomatic. He wanted to chase Bekdi down and pull his intestines out through his nostrils. For the first time, he appreciated Ter's creative use of language.

"Do we still have a location on the ship that left the planet?"

The captain took a long time to answer, either because he was asking one of Ter's subordinates for information or because he intended his silence to express his displeasure at Regi's tone. None of them had any illusions about the Coalition communication being private, but Regi did not have the emotional energy required to control his anger.

"We are still tracking the most likely energy signal," the captain said, which appeared to translate as "maybe." The lives of Regi's crew rested on a "maybe." He thumbed his communicator off before growling low in his chest. Once again, Vk shifted her weight, but this time moved closer to the hatch so she could watch the approaching Kowri.

"Do you know them?" she asked.

Regi didn't answer, and Vk accepted that silence. Neither Dante nor Ter would have. They both would have demanded information. They would have challenged Regi and engaged in illogical profanity with explicit references to physically impossible acts. But Vk waited in silence.

His di-father was in front, and Rel stopped his hover so close to the ship he could lean the machine against their hull. Rel then turned his back to Regi and observed the shipyard. Not a single Kowri waited at the edges of the yard seeking to catch sight of an outsider. No Kowri-polished ship exteriors. No Gavd followers found excuses to ride their pebafri past the shipyard. This part of the town appeared abandoned. No doubt many Kowri knew what had happened and feared Regi's temper. Either that or they expected outsiders to be so illogical as to trigger a lethal response and they hoped to avoid getting damaged in the crossfire.

Pertin and Minait reached the ship at the same time and Pertin held both his own and his wife's hover handles while Minait climbed off.

Regi had a distant sort of floating feeling like he sometimes got right after a firefight when his brain couldn't quite process. But he forced his limbs into movement, walking down the ramp to meet his mother near the bottom. "Were you able to contact Bekdi?"

Regi forced himself to breathe. In and out. In and out. His nose ached from the force he was exerting to control his breathing.

Minait grimaced. "He insists he has acted in accordance with temple mandates."

Anger crawled through Regi's soul.

"The temple granted him custody," she said.

"And you hid this?" Regi demanded. "Hiding a temple discussion from those exalteds most affected by it is not honorable, Mother."

She stood taller. "I hid nothing."

"Nor did you seek to warn me that Bekdi sought custody of my crewmember," Regi snarled.

"I had been called to attend a birth. I was not available to be informed or to inform others."

A cold shiver went down Regi's spine. "Are you suggesting that the gods have arranged to leave Ter and Dante at Bekdi's mercy?"

"I do not see the hand of the gods at all," Minait said. "I see only the hand of an astute politician who realized that my absence would make his task easier. Do not blame the gods when the small-mindedness of a Kowri is explanation enough. Bekdi acted when I was not available to ease your path in the temple."

Regi was surprised at how much he wanted to believe that. He desperately wanted to think that his mother would side with him, but his desire made it difficult for him to believe that his hope was anything more than wishful thinking. Regi moved to more practical issues. "How do we reunite with Ter and Dante?"

"I do not know that we can challenge Bedki's custody of the outsider," Minait said.

"Perhaps Bekdi has a right to the custody of Ter," Regi said. "That is a matter we can debate at another time, but he does not have a right to take Dante from this world. Dante must be returned."

Minait pinched her lips in displeasure. "Bekdi would not have removed your huuman; he understands the law. Therefore, if your huuman is with him, then he chose to go."

Regi wanted to scream that Dante would not have been so foolish, but Dante might have accompanied Ter to save him from the consequences of his own abhorrent vocabulary. This was a man who had followed Regi into a radiation-flooded section of engineering. His self-preservation skills were lacking, and his people had a unique word for self-murder, so that could be a species trait.

Regi feared that Dante would put himself in danger to protect Ter. "This is an issue we can discuss when we reach Bekdi. I need assistance in getting to his ship before he is too far away for us to reliably track."

"The temple always knows where the ships are," Pertin said in an almost amused voice, as though Regi was a foolish child who had forgotten the technology wielded by the Empire.

Rel huffed. "I believe our son is saying that he no longer trusts the temple to be fair or honest in the sharing of information."

"I can't say I have ever trusted the temple to be fair," Regi answered.

Rel curled his lip. "A strange reaction from one who once insisted he would serve on the Gavd ships."

"After Gavd followers attempted to assassinate me, I stopped putting blind faith in the gods."

Rel opened his mouth, but Minait interrupted him by taking a step forward. "You have always been ready to dismiss the gods when they did not give you the answer you wanted."

"Apparently I am more like my mother than I understood," Regi said in a cold tone.

His mother's nose grayed in distress, and guilt washed through Regi. If she had turned on the gods, it was because of her love for him, or at least her love for the idea of having a child even if she believed that hypothetical child would be more tractable.

"Stop. Both of you," Pertin snapped. "I am unsurprised that both of you honor goddesses known for spilling blood. Right now, we must find a solution. Minait, you know that no solution is possible if we cannot speak with Bekdi. At the very least, he has been high-handed in his handling of this situation. And Regi, you continue to blame us for circumstances I do not even understand. We have done nothing blameworthy, so stop instigating conflict with your mother." He frowned at both of them. "I swear," Pertin murmured, "I have worked with burled, knotted wood that is less difficult than you two."

Regi's nose tickled with shame. "My regrets," he offered.

Pertin gave a pleased nod, and Minait ducked her head.

"We can speak to the captain of our previous ship," Minait said. "He is most interested in the idea of outsiders; he may be willing to help us reach Bekdi and your two crewmembers." She turned her head, and Regi was struck again with the signs of age he could map in every gray hair and loose jowl.

"That would be reasonable. Would it not?" Pertin asked Rel.

Rel wrinkled his nose. "Given that you are the only one acquainted with ‘reasonable' and its definition, I defer to your judgment in the matter." His mouth quirked into a smile, and he touched Pertin on the shoulder. "But if we are to do such a reasonable thing, let us do it quickly before anyone unreasonable can think to make other arrangements."

"I am blessed with two intelligent husbands," Minait said. "Come, let us discuss this with the captain."

"Agreed," said Regi. He turned to Vk. "Report to the captain and let him know that you will be in charge of security until such time as I can return with Ter." And Dante , he silently added. The captain would insist that Regi had no authority over the huuman, but Regi would not abandon him.

Vk's nose drew up like a loosened hose. "No."

Her answer shocked him into spinning around. "Excuse me?"

"No," she repeated. "I will go with you."

"That is a prodigiously foolish idea," Minait said.

Vk tensed and then squared her shoulders in aggravation. "Perhaps it is, but under Coalition regulations, I have a right to disobey my superior officer. While that will lead to a disciplinary hearing once we reach a Coalition dock, it occurs to me that we are a long way from Coalition space. Regi has no means to force me to abandon him," Vk said.

Regi stared at her in horror. "My order is legal. The tribunal would uphold it, meaning you are endangering your career."

"It is my career to endanger, and I will be going with you to find Dante and Ter."

Regi was still staring at her in shocked silence when Vk lumbered past him on the ramp. "Which of the ships is the one we will be boarding?" she asked Minait.

Unfortunately, Vk knew her rights. If she believed an order was against the letter or the spirit of Coalition law, she could disobey him and wait for a tribunal to declare which of them lacked judgment. Technically, he couldn't stop her from coming, but he also did not want to facilitate her court-martial.

"You can do nothing to help," he said. "You should report to the captain."

"If the Kowri officer on their ship is fascinated with outsiders, the presence of an outsider is likely to incite curiosity and cooperation," she said. "And we cannot delay until Bekdi has managed to remove both Ter and Dante from the area. So we will not delay to argue."

One of his parents must have gestured toward the Kowri ships squatting in a wide circle around them because Vk moved with confidence to the right.

"Delays assist our enemies," Rel said before he got on his hover and followed her.

Minait hurried after him, leaving Regi with his reasonable parent, and even Pertin appeared unconcerned with Vk's treason. Regi had lost the fight, but that would only make him more aggressive when he got his claws into Bekdi. Hopefully Dante could keep Ter quiet long enough for them to stage this rescue or Regi would forgo metaphorical claws in favor of physical ones.

As much as the universe and all the gods were conspiring to annoy him, he was willing to embrace his di-male side and share his excess of aggression with the next sapient creature to vex him.