Page 56 of Star Prince

She glared at him. “This isyourfault. The crattin’ thing’s become attached. I told you this would happen.”

“That’s what pets are supposed to do. Become attached.” He gentled his tone as he added, “People too.”

Fire flashed in her eyes. “Attachment means dependence.” She spat the last word as if it were a filthy epithet. “Dependence is dangerous.”

She apparently remembered she was holding the animal. Shoving it at Gann she growled, “Get rid of it. I’ve got a preflight checklist to run,” then stormed back to the cockpit.

Gann shook his head at the kettacat. “She sure can be endearing at times, can’t she?” Apparently in agreement, the little creature darted up the ramp after her.

Lara waiteduntil after they had launched and were established in the space lanes before she turned in her chair to glower first at the kettacat, eating from a bowl on the floor, and then Gann. “You never listen to what I say.”

“I listen, Lara. But perhaps what I hear is the essence, the feelings behind your words.”

She made a sound of disgust. “Here we go. YouVashand your thinky-feely, listen-to-your-senses crap.” The kettacat jumped onto her lap. She sighed. “Now you’ve gotten its hopes up. It’ll think it’s found a home.”

“Hope. Another concept that you find dangerous. Like dependence?”

Her jaw tightened. “Gann,” she said past clenched teeth. “This discussion is not covered—”

“In your contract,” he finished for her. “Yes, I know. Regardless, I’d like to continue—off the official record.”

He stepped closer until he stood directly before her. “I suppose that if you expect the worst from others, then no one can disappoint you. Insulate yourself from disappointment and you don’t get hurt. Right, Lara? Is that your credo?”

She made a strangled sound in her throat, then she brought her fists to her eyes. His heartbeat quickened; blood rushed through his veins. He sensed he was close to breaking through the mighty wall she had erected and he did not want to back down until he did. “I am curious,” he persisted. “Are your expectations of others as low? Or do you simply have none at all?”

With that, she slammed her fists onto her thighs. “Gann, you are apain in the ass!”

Her directness delighted him. But the torment inher eyes emptied him of that amusement quicker than mog-melon wine from an upended uncorked flask.

“Lara,” he said quietly, surprised. “Your hands are shaking.”

She made a choking noise. “What’s your game,Vash?Do you want to know more about me? Is that what this is all about?”

“Yes.” He placed his hands over her cold, bloodless fists, warming them. “You knock me off-balance continually. I like returning the favor.” His fingers fanned out over her fists. “That, and I know you’re not what you appear to be.”

Whatever she was trying to say to him appeared to be a struggle. Finally, she mumbled, “You’re not always what you appear to be, either.”

He smiled ruefully. “No, Lara. I’m not.”

She stared at their linked hands. On her face curiosity battled with constraint. Then, abruptly, she yanked her fingers out from under his. “I grew up on Barésh, a wretched, filthy slag heap of a place. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it.”

Gann searched his knowledge of the frontier. “It’s an asteroid in the frontier.”

“A dwarf planet, technically. But an ugly rock all the same.”

“The Baréshti mines are located there,” he said as some details returned to him.

“Aye. There’s two classes of folks who live there. Working class Baréshtis—trill rats—who labor in the mines. Back-breaking work. Then you got the upper-class elites, aristo cogs, who own the mines, living high and mighty and sheltered in their compounds. I don’t know what they do for fun, or even if they know how, but after hours, trill rats fill the bars and fight clubs. No one’s got much money, but they’ll gladly spend it betting on street bajha, buying ale to drink and hallucivapes to smoke.”

“Hallucivapes?”

“Aye. They’re vapes laced with sweef. Powdered swank. Swank’s a chemical cocktail that’ll melt your brain if you drink too much of it. A lotdodrink too much of it. If all that doesn’t kill you, working in the mines will. Eventually.” She rolled her eyes. “Everyone wants to escape, but no one can afford to leave. It’s why Barésh has more virtual reality arcades than any other world I’ve seen. The arcades are packed, day and night. Some want the real thing—near-death experiences and the like.” Hermouth twisted bitterly. “Nothing like a little self-inflicted or dished-out pain to remind you that you’re not already dead, ya know?”

Then her eyes hardened. “My father lost a leg in a mining accident. My mother took his place because the mine-boss cogs wouldn’t let him back into the caves and we had to eat. A few years later, she was killed. A gas explosion, we were told. But you never really know…”

For a heartbeat Lara’s voice lost its hard edge, then her tone iced over again. “My father said he’d find me a cabin position on an intersystem cargo freighter. The salary I’d send back home would make up for the loss of my mother’s. I was delirious with excitement, knowing I was going to escape off world. A Baréshti’s dream come true.”

She pushed herself to her feet and walked to the sweeping forward viewscreen. “As a lass, I’d always dreamed of flying, and he knew it. We Baréshtis worshipped the starpilots like gods. Any off-worlder was a god, I suppose, to us—we, who could never leave. But we understood that without money or influence to get me into flight school I’d have to start at the bottom and work my way up. I started at the bottom, all right. Aye. On a bed beneath a filthy swindler’s sweaty body.”

---