HELLO BEAUTIFUL

Ch 18

Duncan cut past the other merc gracefully and sank the basketball in the net. Again. It wasn’t a good idea to play for money, so he didn’t, but he knew that if he did he would be richer than he already was. He played to win.

Bishop always had a full card; there were close to thirty mercs, in addition to themselves, on the ship with them now for a long haul hunt. It annoyed him at one time. At first Duncan had thought it was some sort of status symbol for Bishop to have a full crew of mercs. But as Duncan watched Bishop over the years he began to see small things in the man’s personality make up that let him know the real reason; a reason Duncan wisely kept to himself.

He had known Bishop for over twenty years, and had in fact been just another merc, much like those he played and sweated against right now. Even then, Bishop didn’t like to think of himself as a merc, he had always held himself apart, but was more than willing to use those under him to serve his ends. In another time, the mercs would have been referred to as cannon fodder, and that’s how Bishop continued to see these men.

It was on one of those long haul hunts that Duncan had caught his eye. There would be many times in their strange friendship where one or the other literally had the other to thank just to be able to breathe again. But that first always stood out in Duncan’s mind. Who they hunted wasn’t important. What was important was Bishop’s mistake; he misjudged the target and left himself open to what would have been a lethal blow. It would have been that is, if Duncan hadn’t moved in for a very quick and brutal kill.

The look in Bishop’s eyes as he lay on his back, with his hands braced in an effort to fend off the enraged escaped convict. He was terrified, his eyes wide and everything so plain, so vulnerable, at that moment. Duncan had crouched over the two for what felt like an eternity, before he had pulled the convict’s head back and cut his throat. Bishop had flinched at the spray of blood. Duncan had not, and so he had stayed on at the man’s side for over twenty years.

Duncan had always silently questioned why Bishop had done that. He knew why he stayed; he was a killer. He would be a killer even if he wasn’t a merc, and this profession let him be just that. If not for this he could well be a convict himself, and he never forgot that with the amount of extrajudicial killings under his belt he could well end up that way anyway, if eyes chose to turn his way. Bishop offered him protection. What Duncan offered Bishop was another matter.

He was far more than just an employee, and though the two men had developed a strange friendship over the years, he often wondered if Bishop had ever had a friend. Or even if he would know what to do with one if he had one. Secretly he believed that Bishop kept him close because that one image, of Duncan crouched over him with a knife bathed in blood, had been etched forever into the other man’s brain. Bishop kept him close because he feared him; and Duncan was probably the only man that had not only made him afraid, but knew that he was afraid. That knowledge wasn’t something he wanted to be out there for anyone to see.

At some point, when he realized just why Bishop kept him close, Duncan had started to look into a few things on his own. He had years over which to do it, to observe, and to learn all he could about the other man. Bishop most likely had no idea just how much could be learned in that time, and if he truly knew, he would have at the very least set him up to take the fall for any number of murders he had committed while under Bishop’s employ. It’s even more likely that Bishop would simply have him killed.

Bishop’s fear and his seeming pathological distaste for women were two of the levers that Duncan used against him. With every kill, Duncan enmeshed himself further in Bishop’s web. This was no accident on Duncan’s part. His every brutal kill reminded Bishop what Duncan was, and what he was capable of. The women were another matter. Bishop overlooked women as trivial and brainless, while Duncan saw them as cunning and resourceful when they had to be. If Bishop knew just how much information that he had leaked to those women, whose intuitions could pick up so much, he would never have hired another, no matter how much his own cruelty amused him. Bank accounts and business deals were only the half of it. Sexuality, motivations, all manner of other ‘tells’; it was this that the women shared with Duncan, as they commiserated over dinners and drinks.

He could feel the other man’s eyes on him; he always knew when Bishop watched him. Duncan didn’t cut past the merc this time but checked him brutally, a quick vicious blow that he could easily apologize for later with an offer of drinks. It was good to remind Bishop every once in a while. He crouched over the fallen merc for the space of a heartbeat in memory of that first kill that had brought them together, and could nearly feel Bishop’s heart race in the silence that stretched out in the large bay. Duncan pulled the other man up and smiled at him disarmingly; he patted the other man’s back and knew that he would forget about it before the night was through. Bishop wouldn’t forget so easily.

Duncan grabbed a towel from the low bench as he walked soundlessly across the floor, no easy feat when every footstep, every sound, echoed in the cavernous bay. He tilted his head in place of a question and let the muscles of his chest flex as he dried. Duncan knew instinctively that it wasn’t solely his skill with a blade that kept Bishop’s attention, something even Bishop was not likely aware of. Even if Bishop’s secretaries hadn’t said a word to him, Duncan could have figured that out on his own; a man that hated women that much would find something else attractive, and given Bishop’s vanity, it would be something like himself. It didn’t offend him to be thought of that way, it was just another lever to him.

Bishop watched Duncan for a moment before he answered. “We’ve entered the Trieste system.”
—

Riddick held Theo’s arm to keep him from further exploration of the Moorglade. “It’s getting dark, Theo. We have to go back.” Riddick continued to hold Theo’s arm through the quick flash of annoyance that flashed across the other man’s face; if he let go he believed that Theo would pull away from him and he would be inside the ship before he could stop him. He glanced behind him at Shazza and Jack and his face grew stern. “We come back tomorrow, Theo, when there’s light.” His voice left no room for argument.

Theo glanced back at the beautiful shape of the Moorglade behind him. His heart slammed in his chest just at the thought of her. She was broken, and her delicate sails swung out beside her were bedecked with moss and vines, but she still took his breath away. She rested here against the stones at the edge of the grassland sea and for a moment he saw her, not as she looked now, but as she looked in those ancient texts that had been so much a part of his life. She was an airship, of sorts. He didn’t really understand all of it, but it had something to do with the ‘roads of power’, the ley lines. And she wasn’t just any airship; to look through the texts, airships weren’t really that rare. But this ship, she was special.

The Moorglade was Olias’s ship. Olias; of the House of Olias, the dynasty that ruled Trieste for nearly a millennia, if he had read the texts right. It was strange to be here now on Trieste Nine, and to wish at the same time that he had taken even more time to study the texts; how much more he would understand. All those years that he wasted as a merc, when he could have learned more. Then again, if not for the fact that he was a merc, he would never have crossed paths with Riddick. Who now stood before him, who held his arm as the sun slowly sunk below the horizon. “Tomorrow Riddick.”

It was hard to tear himself away from her, and he realized right then that it was a kind of love that he felt. Riddick spoke again quietly, a murmur as he pulled Theo away from the ship. ‘Tomorrow’. He half feared that it was some sort of odd dream, and that they would come back here the next morning to find her gone, vanished in the morning fog like one of the ghost pirate ships from one of his books.

Theo caught Jack’s arm as she lost her balance across the rocks. He had never touched the girl before, and didn’t even think about it; if he didn’t catch her, she would have fallen. The moment his hand touched her arm though, he thought of Riddick and turned, as if the other man’s eyes alone had twisted his head around on his neck. There was a flicker of violence across Riddick’s features, like a tornado not quite formed that dissipates after the first threat. The two men nodded to each other again, in that quiet way that was to become a habit; a way of acceptance. Theo knew he wouldn’t get killed for having touched Jack but he held onto her arm until they crossed the rocks. He could be forgiven if he grabbed her once, but not again.

“What kind of ship was that, I’ve never seen anything like that before.” Jack could feel Theo’s tension and, given the look the two men had shared, it wasn’t hard to see that she was the source of it. She wanted to put Theo at ease again, but what she really wanted was to find out about that ship. At one time when she thought of ships, it was little star jumpers or cargo transports like the Hunter-Gratzner. Then, after she had looked through a few of Theo’s books, she thought of tall ships. This ship, the Moorglade, wasn’t like anything she had ever seen in any of her experience. It looked a little like one of Theo’s tall ships, but its sails swung out to the sides like the wings of a bird.

Theo thought of how he could answer and all the answers piled up in his head; he could talk all night until the sun came up again and he didn’t think he would be able to explain it. So he went for the simplest explanation he could offer. “She’s an airship, Jack, and she once belonged to a king.” In his head it sounded like ‘once upon a time.’ The tone of reverence wasn’t lost on Jack, and she grinned up at him before he let her go so that she could take her place as they walked along the edge of the forest again.

They fell into the same pattern on their way back to the Odyssey; Riddick in point, with Shazza and Jack in the middle and Theo brought up the rear. In another place, Riddick would have preferred to walk with Shazza, but he couldn’t change who he was, and right now, he took point because that’s how he could best keep them safe. He listened to her every footfall behind him with the same intensity that he watched the terrain ahead. He stood still for the space of a heartbeat, ostensibly to scout ahead but in truth he had caught the faintest hint of her scent on the air, and he had to close his eyes for a moment. He could track her scent anywhere, and the sounds of her footfalls.

He didn’t hear Jack at all, and he found once again that he was deeply impressed. Jack crept a step behind him, and just off to his right. He knew that if he were to reach out, that he could touch her but he didn’t want to let her know that he knew. Instead, he slowed down a little and let her come up beside him. She grinned at him and was about to step back when he touched her elbow and continued forward. Riddick didn’t look over at Jack, but if he had he would have seen her radiant smile at being allowed to stay beside him at the front of the others.

If either of them had looked back they would have seen Shazza smile the rest of the way back to the ship; so similar were they.

Copyright © October 2006 xxxevilgrinxxx