Free Guardians of Paradise by Jaine Fenn Page A

Thanks.’ Jarek had been uncomfortable at the thought of having his haven invaded, but so far he was finding his guests surprisingly easy to get on with. Perhaps he’d been alone for too long; maybe the time had come to risk relationships that went beyond commerce or sex. He watched Taro tuck his long braid behind his ear, then bend down to get Jarek a mug. And talking of sex . . . whatever else, having the boy around gave him something interesting to look at - even if the little sod was a little too aware of how pretty he was.
     
    Taro managed to stay quiet while they finished their drinks, but as soon as Jarek pushed his mug away he asked, ‘Can we wake Nual up now?’
     
    ‘I’ll make sure she’s all right, but I wasn’t going to wake her yet.’
     
    ‘Why not?’
     
    ‘Because I’ll only have to put her out again in a couple of hours. I’m afraid we’re going to make another transit as soon as the transit-kernel has . . . recharged.’ Jarek hoped Taro wouldn’t pick up on his hesitation. ‘I don’t know if the ship that shifted into the Khathryn system was Sidhe, but I’ve got a list of suspicious ships, and that one was on it. I’d like to put a few more transits between us and them.’
     
    ‘What about the time we spent in shiftspace? It felt like we were in there for hours.’
     
    ‘As far as anyone has been able to tell, no time passes in realspace during a transit. From the point of view of someone outside shiftspace, it’s instantaneous. Possibly no time passes in the shift, our brains just try and make some to keep us sane.’
     
    ‘That’s pretty gappy.’ Taro put his head on one side. ‘Any chance of something stronger to deal with the smoky shit this time?’
     
    ‘The first transit is usually the worst, but I’ll see what I can find.’
     
    Taro insisted on accompanying Jarek to the hold. Nual was stable, all life-signs normal.
     
    Back in the rec-room Taro said, ‘Can I ask you something? About Nual.’
     
    ‘Sure,’ said Jarek carefully.
     
    ‘How’d you find her?’ Taro added more uncertainly, ‘I could ask her but she don’t like talking about the past.’
     
    ‘Yes, I’ve noticed.’ Jarek should have seen that question coming. He gestured for Taro to sit again and tried to order his thoughts. ‘So, what do you know?’
     
    ‘You met seven years ago, and she trusts you. That’s about it.’
     
    ‘Well, we met by accident. I was taking a rarely used transit-path, trying to make up lost time after an incident with some unreasonable customs officials. When the Judas Kiss came out of transit, I realised I wasn’t at a registered beacon. I was deep in interstellar space, nowhere near any known paths or inhabited systems. But there was a ship there. I didn’t spot it at first because it had no running-lights and it wasn’t transponding. I tried pinging it, but got no answer. I went in closer. It looked like a huge bronze egg. I wondered if it could be an alien artefact - that would be a real find - but the design looked human; when I got up close I could see it had normal-looking airlocks and standard sensor apparatus. It reminded me of the old colony-ships, early Protectorate stuff, but they’re all long gone, except for the ones that got stripped down and incorporated into hub stations. The ship was dead in space, though I couldn’t see any damage.’ Jarek laughed at himself. ‘I started thinking of claiming salvage rights, but first I needed to check there was no one alive on board.
     
    ‘It turned out there was, sort of. It was a Sidhe ship, and there must have been hundreds of them on board, maybe thousands of people including their mutes. Only . . . something had happened. They’d gone mad, turned on each other. It must have happened a few days before I got there because by the time I arrived most of them were already dead and the rest - well, they just ignored me. A lot of them had mutilated themselves. Or each other . . .’
     
    Jarek