Not Fade Away: Interstellar Rescue Series Book 4 Read online

  Del waited for the crazy person to come to him. In time, the figure was within reach. He moved to grab the man—and found himself flat on his back in his bunk, a shiv at his throat.

  He saw Shef uncoil and stilled him with a strangled word: “Wait!”

  The figure above him grinned whitely in the dark. “A wise move, my friend. I mean no harm.” The man withdrew the threatening blade from Del’s neck and sat on the bunk where he could see both Shef and Del.

  “What the fuck?” Del sat up and rubbed at the tiny nick in his skin. Even close up he wasn’t sure he recognized the man. “Who the hell are you?”

  “And where did you get that?” Shef pointed at the shiv, with an expression of envy that bordered on lust.

  “I am Kwai Tone Ze, First Apprentice of Dhar-Bey, of the aquacultural colony on Bix. I’m here to help.”

  Great. A fucking fisherman. And an apprentice of whatthehell? “Not sure fishing is gonna be needed here in the desert, Kwai.”

  He laughed, a deep, full-bodied sound that encouraged Del to join in. “No, but I would give much for a taste of baked souroujai right now.”

  Shef groaned in the next bunk. “God, me, too! Whatever it is.”

  Del cut him off with an impatient gesture. “Not the point, fisherman. What are you doing slinking along the bunks in the middle of the night—looking to get killed?”

  “I have no fear of that,” Kwai answered with a shrug. The shiv glinted in his hand, and the fisherman was no small man. He was close to two meters tall, well built, and apparently trained in how to use that shiv, either formally or on the streets. “I go from person to person with this.” He held up a small jar wrapped in a rag.

  Del could detect the faint, minty smell of herbs coming from the jar. “What is it?”

  “A healing salve. It’s very good for cuts and bruises.” He nodded in Del’s direction. “Your hands, for example. You should heal those scrapes before we start work with the shovels and picks.”

  Contraband was strictly controlled. The slaves had access to nothing from the outside. How could this man have conjured a magical healing salve out of thin air? Clearly Kwai was selling bullshit; the only question was what was in it for him.

  Del snorted. “You’ve made medicine from what—dirt and fairy dust?”

  Kwai turned away Del’s disdain with a smile. “Plants, mostly. I find them growing next to the fences in the compounds. Sometimes I find certain clays or soft rocks that I can grind into powder. Then I mix everything with urine to make the paste.”

  “With what?” Del and Shef both sat up at the same time.

  “You gotta be shittin’ me,” Shef said.

  Kwai shrugged. “It has the right acidity to break down the fibers in the herbs.”

  “I’ll just suffer along with my aches and pains, thank you very much,” Shef said, shaking his head. “You’re not putting that stuff on me.”

  Del’s anger boiled over. “What the hell are you trying to pull, fisherman? Grass and piss are supposed to miraculously heal me? You call yourself an ‘apprentice.’ What is that, some kind of cult thing? You figure you’ll set up your own cozy little Church of Kwai among the Resistants and have it made, huh?”

  “I cannot force you to try the salve,” Kwai said with infinite calm, “but, yes, it will heal your hands. It is no miracle, simply a result of applied botany. The Dhar-Bey movement is based on spiritual belief, but it is not a religion. It proclaims no new gods. I am an apprentice in the sense that I studied the philosophy of Dhar-Bey from its founder, Parindra Somo. Since I was Taken, I have learned the Mistress is dead. Her Apprentices now carry on the movement. I have no political ambition, here in this camp or elsewhere. But I do have a spiritual responsibility to carry on the Mistress’s teachings.”

  “Which are?”

  Kwai shook his head and smiled. “That is for another time. We need sleep. Will you try the salve or not?”

  Trust was a fragile thing in a slave camp. It was difficult to build, hard to maintain, easy to destroy, even when you shared a common enemy and worked toward a common goal. Del and Shef had fallen in with each other from the start because with Shef what you saw was what you got. He was straightforward and uncomplicated.

  Kwai was another kind of man altogether, Del could tell. His open expression concealed hidden depths—of thought, of intelligence, of emotion. What Del couldn’t know was whether it also concealed ambitions and desires that might lead to betrayal.

  Still, Del’s hands ached, and tomorrow’s work would be brutal. “Okay, fisherman.” He held out his palms to Kwai. “Let’s see what this miracle cure of yours can do.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “My hands hurt like a sombitch. Gimme some of that stuff and we’ll see what kinda miracle worker you are.”

  Del Laurence held out his hands in front of him, the roughened palms up, and demanded attention. Charlie hurried over to his wheelchair from her spot on the couch to take a look.

  Happy woofed with concern and looked up at her. He circled out of her way as she came closer, but Charlie felt him at her back, offering support.

  “Del?” Charlie knelt in front of him and spoke quietly. Del’s eyes were open and his hands were moving, but he wasn’t present in this moment. He didn’t see her.

  “Go on and give me the stuff. Tomorrow we’ll be digging, and I’ll need these hands. If it’s as good as you say, maybe I’ll try it on this mulaak leg of mine.” She was aware of his leg injury, of course, but . . . She looked more closely at his hands and saw the evidence of years of hard labor. They looked more like the hands of a farmer—she’d seen plenty of those—than a cop. And what the hell was . . . moo-lock?

  The one thing that was clear was that he still wasn’t present with her. “Del, it’s me, Charlie.” She dared to touch his hands, holding both of them in hers to give him an anchor in the real world. “Is there something I can get for you?”

  “I told you, you thick-headed fisherman! Whaddaya want, a gold-plated invitation?” He was agitated now, nearly shouting, though his eyes still held no focus. Whoever he was yelling at was not in the room. “Can’t you see? My hands are all torn up from moving those goddamned rocks all day. Does that stuff you have work or doesn’t it?”

  Beside her Happy whined and danced in place, anxious to intervene. Charlie shushed him and he sat, his paw on her thigh. “Stay here a minute with him, Hap. I have an idea.” She had some lotion in her bag. She got up to get it. Maybe if she used it on the old man’s hands—

  “That’s more like it! Maybe you got something there, fisherman.”

  Charlie turned to see Happy licking Del’s outstretched hands—and the old man with a smile on his face, looking considerably calmer. She laughed, relieved. As usual, her partner had the quickest solution.

  “Okay, Hap, just keep doing what you’re doing. Crisis averted.” She detoured into the kitchen for a warm cloth to wipe the dog slobber from Del’s hands. She still thought the lotion would help. Del’s hands were in bad shape, the skin dry and rough, the joints bent and swollen.

  By the time she got back to Del and Happy, her client was fully present and talking to the dog. “You are a friendly fella, aren’t ya?” He looked up at Charlie. “What did you say his name was?”

  “Happy.”

  “Huh. Suits him.” Del’s sharp gaze turned on her. “And you are?”

  “Charlie. I’m your home health therapist.” She showed him the cloth. “Need some help getting those dog cooties off your hands? Happy can be a little enthusiastic.”

  Del watched her with narrowed eyes while she wiped his hands and poured out a little of the lotion. “I don’t need a . . . whatever you said.”

  “I’m just going to put a little of this on your hands, Del. They look kinda dry.” Charlie started in gently, aware his hands could be sensitive. “Well, you are in a wheelchair, and you’re on medication. A lot of people in that situation need a home health therapist.”

  “My son takes care of
me just fine.”

  Charlie looked up at him. There was no real anger in his voice, and his expression was tentative, as if he was seeking to reassure himself.

  “Of course he does. And he’ll be here with you all the time. I’ll only be here a few hours every day, just so we can make sure you’re healthy.”

  “You’ll bring the dog?”

  Charlie smiled. “Of course.” The dog in question, knowing he was being discussed, looked up from his position at Del’s feet and wagged his tail.

  Del was silent for a long moment, and Charlie looked up again from his hands to his weathered face. He had been handsome once, she realized, like his son. Dark and rugged, tall and strong, like the hero of an action movie. Both of them. Only now the father was a mere shadow of what he’d once been.

  “Maybe it’s good you’re here,” the shadow said. “Most days I don’t remember who I am. Or how I got here.” He waved at the wheelchair with the hand she’d just released from her massage. “I think I’m still in the labor camp, and I know that’s not right, I know I escaped the Grays years ago. I just . . . get so confused.”

  Labor camp? The Graze? Charlie didn’t remember anything in the history she’d read on Del Laurence that could be interpreted as imprisonment of that kind. But the paranoid delusions of dementia were almost always based on something real in the patient’s life. Maybe he just meant the nursing home he’d been in before. Thinking of it as a prison might have been extreme, but it wasn’t uncommon among dementia patients.

  “That’s understandable, Del,” she said, hoping to soothe him. "It was a long time ago.”

  Del shook his head, hard. “Not so long ago. I worked for Rescue. High up. Chief of Field Ops. That much I remember.”

  At their feet, Happy whined. Del’s mercurial emotions were on the rise again. It was possible Del had worked with a search-and-rescue branch of the RCMPs, though his history said nothing about it. In fact, his history was starting to look pretty sketchy.

  In any case, it wasn’t worth pursuing now if it was going to upset him. “Okay. You can tell me about that some other time. Hungry?”

  Distracted from the source of his confusion, he relaxed. “Yeah, I could eat. How about a big psoros steak? And a beer.”

  Charlie’s eyebrows shot upward. “Um . . . let’s see what’s in the fridge, okay?” She kept calm as she retreated into the kitchen, but her mind was racing. Maybe she was in over her head with Del. She’d seen Lewy Body hallucinations before, but this was something different. True paranoid schizophrenia perhaps? He seemed to be working from a whole alternate construct of reality, with terms that approached another language. She wasn’t equipped to deal with that.

  Still, he seemed manageable with the techniques she had learned. He and Happy were getting along well. And she needed the money—desperately. She’d lost several clients in the last few months due to natural attrition, and the state of the economy meant new ones hadn’t come along. In fact, Del was currently her only client. She couldn’t afford to give up on him.

  She started pulling lunchmeat out of the refrigerator. “Well, no Zorros, Del, I’m sorry to say. You’ll have to settle for a ham sandwich.”

  “Yeah, I figured you’d say that,” Del said with a resigned air. “Rafe says they don’t have psoros on this planet.”

  Rafe caught the last of what the Old Man was saying as he came in off the porch. Perai! Of course, he known the old codger couldn’t keep his mouth shut—about otherworldly creatures or any other damn thing. But, well, shalsitt! Charlie gave him a little wave from the kitchen. Seems she had ignored what Del had said.

  Just to make sure, he focused on the more mundane part of Del’s speech. “No beer ’til dinner, Del.”

  When he joined her, she whispered, “You let him have beer?”

  “No. But if I tell him no he goes nova.”

  She tilted her head at him for a second, as if she had a question, then switched gears. “I’m fixing lunch. You want some?”

  Yes, he was starving! “No, thanks. I’ll get something later.” It was weird, having someone—a woman—waiting on him. Doing things for him. Even his mother—but he didn’t want to think about his mother, long dead on some Gray farm planet. He’d been on his own a long time.

  “Suit yourself. It’s time for Del’s meds, according to this.” She indicated the schedule he’d posted on the fridge. “Shall I do it so we can get in the groove right away?”

  In the groove? “Uh, yeah, I guess.” He came closer to show her what to do with the bottles lined up at the back of the counter. “Two of the green tabs, one of the yellow, one of the white. All are fast-melts—under the tongue.”

  She looked surprised. “Really? Never seen that formulation. That’s great. Swallowing capsules can be a problem sometimes.” She took the meds from him and read the bottles, then shook out the tabs and studied them. “Amazing. Where do you get this stuff? The bottle just has a—is it a phone number?—for a ‘Phong’s Pharmacy.’ Doesn’t say where.”

  Yeah, and it wouldn’t. The “phone number” was a locator code for a business comp on Terrene.

  “Toronto. Chinatown. It’s a compounding pharmacy. They make up the stuff on the spot.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, some of my clients use one in Asheville. We could have the script transferred if you need to.”

  “No. Phong will mail it.”

  “Internationally? I doubt it.”

  “I’ve cleared it with Customs.” He had no idea where the word came from. Maybe he had paid attention to some of his briefing.

  She shrugged. “Well . . . good. You can keep up with that end, I guess.”

  “Yeah.” Did she believe him? He couldn’t read her. He stood awkwardly in the kitchen, trying to stay out of the way while she put things on a tray for Del. He didn’t dare leave her to her thoughts about what Del had said. But how to approach it? Damn it, he was no fucking diplomat.

  Just before she picked the tray up to take it out to him, Rafe put a hand on her forearm. “I, uh, I heard what Del said as I was coming in—about the things—whatever he calls ’em?” He wouldn’t reinforce the alien word in her mind; he hoped she’d forget it.

  “Yeah, what was that all about?”

  That bright, curious look she got on her face did something to him. The way she held her head slightly to one side, causing her hair to fall over one shoulder. That long, silky hair.

  Shalssit! Focus, asshole. “Don’t pay any attention to him. He gets like that. God knows where he gets half the stuff he says.”

  Her brows came together. “That’s what worries me, Rafe. The usual dementia patient doesn’t just make stuff up. Their delusions are based somewhere in their memories or experience. If he’s truly inventing creatures we’ve never seen before and making up names in his own languages for them, he might have been misdiagnosed.”

  Crap—now he’d opened up a leaky photon tube. Rafe fought to keep his voice level, his demeanor calm. He had to manage this before things got out of hand. Rayna had apparently gone out of her way to find the smartest—and sexiest—nurse on the fucking planet.

  Rafe gave her his most disarming grin. “Or it could be all those crazy science fiction shows he used to watch on television. He’d still be watching every space adventure and mad scientist flick he could get his eyes on if I’d let him. I put a stop to it. Gives him ideas.”

  Her mouth opened to reply, then closed, and a blush crept up her neck to her cheeks. Her gaze met his for a moment longer than was strictly appropriate—the blue of her planet’s seas, roiled now with an emotion he didn’t quite understand. Maybe he should try smiling more often.

  “Um, okay, yes, maybe,” she said at last. She picked up the tray and took it out to the little round table between the kitchen and the open living room that served as their dining room. She set Del up there with his food and gave him his meds. Del took them from her without complaint and started in on the sandwich. At his side, the dog sat waiting for anything that mi
ght accidentally fall to the floor.

  Rafe’s anxiety dissolved. This was good, better than he could have hoped, and well worth dodging a few questions now and again. The Old Man was calm. Content. Rafe might even get used to the dog—eventually.

  If he could just stop thinking of Charlie that way, things would be perfect.

  He sighed and turned back to the kitchen to make himself some food. But what he found on the counter was not entirely recognizable, even if it had come out of his own refrigerator. The advance team had done the provisioning, and beyond cooking up some eggs this morning he hadn’t examined what was to be had.

  “Need help?” Charlie smiled at him, as if she saw his confusion.

  She was standing too close, putting his body at war with his pride. “I, uh, I don’t spend much time in a kitchen.” He could only hope what was generally true of men in his rough-and-tumble universe was also true of men on Earth. Though he suspected most of them could probably accomplish lunch.

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Um, okay. Why don’t you keep your dad company while I make you a sandwich? Mind if I join you?”

  “What? Oh, sure, help yourself.” It hadn’t occurred to him that she might be hungry. Though her dog was certainly making it clear he was eager for a taste of the Old Man’s lunch.

  Charlie noticed, too. “Happy! Quit begging. Lie down.”

  The dog huffed and lay down. He put his head on his paws and pretended to take no more interest in the human proceedings.

  Rafe smiled. “You spoiled his fun.”

  “He’d eat constantly if I let him.”

  “You seem . . . attached.” The relationship was a mystery. He’d seen people who were fond of their pet cats (or ships, or home planets), but he’d never understood it. It seemed like a waste of emotional energy to him, and he had none to spare.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without him.” Her voice had dropped; he had to lean in to hear her. “He’s a rescue dog—got him from the pound down in Masey—but I always say he’s the one that rescued me.” She lifted her chin and smiled. “And you see how he is with people like your dad. They all love him, and he loves them back. He makes my work so much easier.”