Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora) (11 page)

“I did what I could for you,
yet you assume the worst of me.”

“Rainer, I don’t believe
that you, or any other contractor, has ever done a good deed without getting
something in return. You wanted Faya to breech her contract. What better way to
prove to Simon that he’d hired the wrong
woman
for the job. You’re petty
and pathetic.” She didn’t believe those words entirely, but she couldn’t
trust anyone after the nightmare of these past months. She wanted to trust
Rainer, and that was reason to push him as far away as possible. She would
never be caught with her guard down again.

“Such a mighty little
darling you’ve become. Not at all like the bloody, weeping mess I used to find
curled up on the floor of the Sovereign’s guest quarters. What was it Faya used
to rub into those shallow little cuts? Chlorate?”

Sara stiffened. She wouldn’t let
him into her head with memories of torture. “Bet you wouldn’t have thought
of that. Guess she was the better choice.”

“The stims helped, didn’t
they? That’s why you offered yourself to me all those times, out of
gratitude.” He leaned closer until she could feel his breath on her ear,
his whole body pressed against hers. “But, whatever made you think I’d
want to touch you? Let’s face it, you weren’t exactly at your best.”

If she could have turned around,
she would have spit in Rainer’s face. Her stomach churned with the memories of
her obsession with him. It had nothing to do with him; it was all about
relieving her misery, if only for a short while. She was right not to trust
him.

“Don’t flatter yourself,
Rainer. I was so desperate for the comfort of a warm body even a fragger
would’ve done.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Piss off.”

The overhead light blinked on.

“Contractor Varden, do you
need any help?”

Rainer pulled Sara out and flung
her into the awaiting guards.

“No, I think our ambasadora
is willing to go quietly. You still have a little dignity left, don’t you,
Sara?”

“Have a seat, Ambasadora
Mendoza.” Simon’s back was to her as the guards pulled her into his office.
He watched a large viewer that covered almost half of the dark green wall. It
showed a man and a woman sitting in the waiting area just outside. That’s why
they brought Sara in through the back, so she wouldn’t be seen.

She slid into a metal-framed blue
chair. The dimly lit office unnerved her. Maybe he just didn’t want her to see
his many shelved trinkets. He branded her a thief, after all. That was the
reason he kept her alive, to catch another thief, a fragger who had stolen
Simon’s most prized possession, his longevity. He also probably hoped to flush
out Chen in the process.

During those first few weeks of
the hallucinogens and Faya’s cuts, Sara believed Chen would come back. Now she
knew better. She was on her own.

“Do you see the man and
woman waiting out there?” Simon stepped aside to offer her a better view
of the airscreen. “Their names are David Anlow and Solimar Robbins,
respectively.
He
would have been your pilot.
She
, a fellow
passenger, perhaps even a friend.”

“And that means what to
me?” Anger welled in her.

“It means they are no longer
unknown to you. You’ve seen their faces. You know their names.” Finally he
looked at her. “When they die because of your actions, you’ll remember
them.”

“Why would knowing their
names make me care if you hurt them, Simon? A lot of people knew my name when
Faya was hurting me.” She glared at Rainer. To her surprise he looked
away.

“I wouldn’t just hurt them.
I would kill them.” The blunt statement was more for clarity than
dramatics.

If he had wanted them dead, he
would have ordered it done, especially after they witnessed her escape
attempt. She wanted to call his bluff. “I don’t care, Simon.”

“You should at least care
about Navigational Leader Anlow.” He walked closer and leaned in
discreetly.

She avoided looking into Simon’s
eerie grey eyes, but couldn’t avoid his scent. It was woody like Rainer’s, but
with a hint of spice. Though not unpleasant, it made her want to gag because
the scent was specific to him…and she hated him, more than anyone she’d ever
known, except maybe Faya. She should have taken the time to snap his neck on
the magno.

He whispered to her then.
“He’s the fragger operative.”

“Then why not have Rainer
just cut the information out of him?” she asked.

“Because fraggers have an
exceptionally high tolerance to pain. It’s all that dosing and training, you
see, mixed with some absurd code of loyalty. We’re finding that our
modification sessions with many of their operatives produce no useful
information. But one thing fraggers can’t ignore is their biology. They are
still ruled by their physical desires. It’s interesting to see what even the
most disciplined will do if the attraction is great enough.”

Sara didn’t miss Simon’s glance
in Rainer’s direction. Rainer stared at the viewer.

“This society’s need to
preserve its genes has been its greatest weakness. You might say it’s like a
curse
.
Not so different from my infected cell sweepers.” He stood straight again,
but Sara didn’t miss the worried shadow that crossed his eyes.

“I think it’s time you
understood what it’s like to have your future threatened.”

“What more could you
possibly do to me?”

“I had hoped it wouldn’t
come to this, but your antics on the magnoramp today show me your disobedience
is inevitable, so I’m taking
your
immortality by hijacking your
lineage.”

“How? Would you really stoop
to raping me?” An iciness crept down her spine.

“Don’t be crass. While you
were still unconscious from the grafting, I had the doctor implant dormant
irradicae cells on your ovaries.”

The revelation was a cender blast
to her psyche. Irradicae had been used to fight the most virulent diseases back
on the worldships. It was used on citizens today only in extreme circumstances
and after they had conceived at least one child because the supercharge to
one’s immune system had many side effects, the most devastating of which was
sterility.

The scent of spiced wood drifted
on Simon’s breath. “You lift my curse, ambasadora, I lift yours.”

Sara’s cheeks felt cold as the
blood drained from her face. Anxiety flooded her system. Then near panic. Then….

No hallucinations. Not now.

She kept the semblance of calm,
not even blinking as she jammed her thumbnail under the seat’s metal lip. The
sudden rise in respiration and her accelerated heartbeat provided quite a show
as her bio-lights pulsed and twinkled.

She pushed her thumbnail against
the metal edge until it started to pull away from the skin. The sharp pain
stayed with her.

On the viewer Solimar Robbins
paced and rubbed her mocha-colored arms as though she were cold. Sara would
gladly exchange places with her. David, the fragger in hiding, said something
to Solimar that prompted her to sit once again, then he put an arm around her
as if to ward off her chill, or her fear.

The endearment, the protective
gesture made Sara’s throat dry and her eyes threaten to well up. In a society
where affection was openly shared, she had no one. For months, all she wanted
was the caring touch of another person, a reassurance that she hadn’t been
forgotten. She ventured a glance at Rainer’s unreadable visage. Maybe if she
had looked like Solimar Robbins, or like Dahlia, he would have protected her,
consoled her.

She sat up straighter and lifted
her head a little higher. The hardened experiences of her modification made it
quite clear that the only person who could save Sara Mendoza was Sara Mendoza.
She
was
truly alone. And, she needed to take back some control.

“You were right,” she
said with a calm she didn’t feel. “Charming
him
definitely won’t be
unpleasant. Nice body, thick hair, great profile.” She received the
surprised look from Rainer that she had hoped for.

“Glad to see you’ve changed
your mind,” Simon said. “Isn’t that a good thing, Contractor
Varden?”

Rainer took a moment before
answering. “Just so she doesn’t get too distracted from her task.”

What a terrible task it was. Sara
contemplated David Anlow’s image on the viewer. Could she manipulate someone,
kill someone, to save her lineage? If he were guilty, yes. And if he were
innocent? She feared it might still be the same answer. If David were a
fragger, he was just as bad as Simon in her eyes.

“How far is it, Navigational
Leader Anlow?” Sara couldn’t take the lonely whir of the roadway transport
any longer.

“That’s a long title. Let’s
stick to David.” His pleasant demeanor helped her to relax, but made her
job here more difficult. “The
Bard
‘s berth is only a kilometer out.
We should be there soon.”

Given an opening, David prattled
on conversationally, as though he didn’t get to talk much, but Sara barely
listened. She followed the lead of Solimar Robbins, who sat in silence and
stared out of the rain-streaked window.

Shiraz Dock’s nightscape slid by.
A fog rolling in from Carrey Bay muted the signature glow of Shiraz’s myriad
blue and green lights. The nightly water show would be in full swing by now,
but they’d not get a glimpse of the synth spiders weaving their webs of
colorful light with long mechanical arms in time to the music they generated.
As a child she had spent many evenings entranced by the floating musical
artists. Maybe she’d hear some of the spiders’ music once they made it to the
berth.

Sara shifted uncomfortably, crossing
and uncrossing her legs too many times as she willed the transport to move
faster. Solimar kept an arm curled around David’s, but the lines on her face
said he was of little comfort right now. Being taken into Embassy care had
shaken her.

Things like this don’t happen
to Socialites,
she had complained tearfully to Rainer and the other
contractors upon release.

Sara thought her a tad
melodramatic, but then Solimar hadn’t spent a month under Faya’s modification
at Palomin so had no idea what true discomfort was.

“You hate space travel,
huh?” David asked.

“Excuse me?” Sara
couldn’t tell if David were being serious or trying to feel her out. His cheery
Armadan tone surprised her. She’d not met many Armadans during her childhood.
They were as foreign to her as contractors had been, probably why Chen’s
promise of rogue adventure pulled her into his criminal world.

Life with Chen seemed so long
ago, another lifetime, when Sara was still Sara, not Ambasadora Mendoza.

“I mean, there had to be
some reason you shoved those contractors down the magno, then took off
running.”

David’s implication startled
Sara, about as much as Solimar’s eager attention to hear the response. Was the
archivist recording this interaction? Sara would have to get used to having a
snoop around.

“By the way.” He cocked
his head to look down at the skirt hem covering her feet. “Did you get
your shoes back okay?”

Sara wiggled her toes in the
black pumps. “Yes. Thanks for picking them up for me.”

“No problem. I had to do
something while waiting to be detained by Embassy officials,” David said.

Solimar nudged him in the ribs
with her elbow, but kept her wide-eyed focus on Sara.

The transport stopped. Solimar
waited for David to help her out. When he turned back to do the same for Sara,
she touched his hand long enough to be polite, but pushed out of the transport
all on her own.

Before her rested the sexiest
craft she’d ever seen. The silvery ship reminded her of a woman lying on her
side, all pregnant curves, dips and mounds of opalescent metal. Purples, greens,
and blues shimmered from the hull in the berthing lights of Shiraz Dock. The
sheen of her new home certainly fit the ideal of a pleasure cruiser, even one
acting as its own kind of prison.

“Good night, David.”
Solimar leaned up to kiss his cheek and whisper, “Thanks for coddling me
today.”

“My pleasure.”

“Forgive me,
ambasadora.” She took Sara’s hands in her own. The gesture of friendship,
though expected in polite society, still softened Sara’s mood a bit. “It’s
just been…an unusual day.”

“I understand, and please
call me Sara.”

Solimar smiled, then headed for
the
Bard
’s covered gangway.

“I don’t make a very good
first impression, do I?” Sara watched the archivist disappear under the
soft chartreuse light of the gangway. “Not like the
Bard
.”

“You were just nervous about
the flight. Who could blame you?”

Sara found a real smile creeping
onto her face for the first time since that night at Palomin when Chen had given
her the ill-fated black cuff. She wondered who was charming who. Surely David
realized something was off about her behavior, yet he didn’t push the issue.
Was he being polite or biding his time?

“She’s a pretty shell, isn’t
she? The
Bard
, I mean.”

Sara’s smile evaporated.
Pretty
shells,
that’s all they wanted.

“I promise to be more
considerate of the other passengers,” she said.

“Don’t bother. Some of them
aren’t too considerate themselves.”

He offered his elbow. With the
tips of her fingers lightly on his oversized bicep, she allowed him to lead her
into the glow of the gangway.

“I doubt you’ll even see the
others much, except at dinner. They’re independent scientists, so they stick to
their labs or their suites and do what they want. Not a very social group while
on the ship.”

David stopped at the entryway.
“Unless there’s something astir, then apparently they’re more than happy
to make an appearance.”