Balance of Terror

Balance of Terror Read Online Free PDF Page A

Book: Balance of Terror Read Online Free PDF
Author: K. S. Augustin
character of indomitable will.”
    He rocked her gently from side to side and she happily swayed to the rhythm he set. This was the first time since almost the moment they’d boarded the Velvet Storm that they’d been so close. They had shared greater intimacy while trapped on a military spaceship, she thought with a snap.
    “Just kiss me, will you?” she demanded softly, tilting her head back.
    “Whatever you say, my darling physicist.”
    His lips were dry and a little chapped, a rough edge of skin catching at Moon’s tender flesh. She didn’t care. He wasn’t a mass of convulsions in her arms, labouring for breath, his muscles taut in tension. He was warm, alive, steady, and she wanted him more than she had wanted anyone in her life.
    “You feel so good,” she told him when they both finally surfaced for air.
    “All thanks to you.” He nuzzled her ear. “Anyone else would have left me on that landing pad to spasm myself to oblivion. But not you. You dragged me here, got me well, negotiated this strange world, all without a word of complaint.” His grip tightened. “You’re one in a billion, Moon Thadin, and I wanted to tell you that I’m more in love with you today than I was yesterday, and more again than the day before, back through time to the very first moment I saw you.”
    Did he know how much she ached to hear those words? She breathed in deeply, as if she could inhale his statements into the very core of her. If he wasn’t yet physically capable of handling the burden of getting them off Marentim, his words were the next best thing.
    “You’re right,” she told him, reaching up to lock her fingers behind his head.
    His eyebrows lifted. “I am? About you being one in a billion?”
    “No,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You were right about the other thing. I played the chip.”
    “And did your mysterious friend tell you where we were to head next?”
    “Mmmmm.” She kissed the edge of his mouth. “Not only do I have a destination, but I am also in receipt of a sizeable chunk of credits. And I have the name of our next contact.”
    She related the contents of Kad’s message and her trip to Marentim National and back.
    Srin’s eyebrows rose. “You are becoming a paranoid character, aren’t you?”
    “If you spent as much time out on the streets of this planet as I have,” she retorted, “you would be too. It’s fang-versus-fang out there.”
    “And, from the sounds of things, you can’t wait to leave?”
    She grimaced. “I think I can understand why Kad chose this place as a hideout for us, but if I never set foot on Marentim again, it’ll be too soon.”
    A sudden thought struck her and she pulled away.
    Srin frowned and held on to a hand that was in danger of slipping from his grasp. “Oh-oh, I know that look. It means that Doctor Moon Thadin has just had a brainwave.”
    “I….” With a small jerk, she freed herself and walked over to the small sofa, her steps hesitant.
    “Kad sent me two kilo-credits,” she finally said, spinning around and perching herself on the hard, rickety armrest.
    “So you said,” Srin answered, his gaze intent on her. There was a puzzled frown creasing his forehead.
    “Two kilo-credits can get us off this planet,” she continued and bit the bottom of her lip. “It doesn’t have to be on Kad’s transport. Anybody would take the money and get us away. We could go someplace, someplace unexpected, where neither the Republic nor Kad Minslok can find us.”
    “You want to run away from your ex-research partner?” Srin’s frown deepened. “But why? I thought our whole plan was to get to him and ask for sanctuary?”
    They stared at each other.
    “There’s something I didn’t tell you,” Moon admitted, after a long pause. “Do you remember the town of Wessness on Slater’s End?”
    Srin shook his head. “Not very well.”
    No, of course he wouldn’t. At the time she made her first call to Kad, Srin was a shivering mess at her feet.
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