The Lost Era: Well of Souls: Star Trek by Ilsa J. Bick Read Free Book Online

twist, and then a bolt of pain rocket to his knee.
    “ Here now!” the Bilanan said, outraged. Even her facial knobs quivered. “There’s people trying to make an honest living!”
    “Sorry,” said Halak, not really meaning it but just wanting to make the woman be quiet. Digging into a leather pouch he wore around his waist, he tossed the Bilanan a few coins. “That covers it, right?”
    “Don’t you think that makes everything all rosy,” said the woman, snatching up the coins. Reeling in a leather cord that dangled around her neck, she dragged a pouch from some nether region of her caftan, dropped in the coins, closed the purse tight by tugging at the cord with her teeth, and let the pouch fall back into the folds of her garment—and so quickly the money was gone before Halak blinked. “Don’t you go thinking ...”
    Halak didn’t stay to hear the rest. Hobbling away from the woman, he elbowed his way deeper into the crowd, his right ankle complaining with every step.
    Behind, he heard Batra say, “Samir, you’re limping.”
    “It’s nothing.”
    “But don’t you think you ought to take it easy?”
    “No,” said Halak, throwing the word over his shoulder. “I don’t think. And right now I don’t want to know what you think either.”
    Instantly, he was overcome with remorse. He stopped, turned, and looked down at his companion. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I didn’t ask you to come, I didn’t want ...”
    “Well, that’s just too bad,” said Batra, her voice sounding a little watery. “That’s just too damned bad. How dare you treat me that way? Only cowards bully.”
    Halak bit back a reply. She was right, and, not for the first time, he marveled that she was the only woman he knew who could make him feel as if he were about ten years old. It wasn’t that she was very imposing. Anisar Batra was a tiny woman, with a long shock of shimmering raven-black hair that she wore up when she was aboard ship, and almond-shaped eyes the color of chocolate. Normally, those eyes held nothing but love. (Sometimes she got a little annoyed with him, and then they seemed to shoot phaser beams, set to kill. All right, maybe that was when she was a lot annoyed. What she saw in him was anyone’s guess. Halak knew he wasn’t particularly handsome or tall. In fact, he had the compact build of a well-muscled wrestler, something that came in handy when a man had a temper, and Halak had a temper. On the other hand, they’d been lovers for six months, and Halak didn’t intimidate her in the slightest. It was one of the things he loved about her.)
    But he didn’t want to fight with her, and Halak saw that her eyes were liquid with unshed tears of surprise and hurt. But she was good and blistered, too; her copper-colored skin was turning a shade the near side of maroon.
    “I’m sorry,” he said again, chastened. “It’s just that you don’t understand.”
    “Don’t I? Well then,” Batra said, folding her arms over an emerald-green, short-sleeved choli that showed off her trim waist and a sparkling garnet tucked in her navel, “maybe you’ll just explain it to me.”
    “There’s nothing to explain.”
    Batra gave a breathy laugh that wasn’t really a laugh at all. “Oh, no? Let me refresh your memory, Commander. What I recall was that we —emphasis on the we —made plans to take our R and R together ,” she said this very distinctly, as if she were speaking Vulcan to a Klingon tourist who hadn’t the foggiest. “As I recall, we had no intention of setting one toe on Farius Prime, much less traipsing around a dusty bazaar, under a hot sun. We said Lake Cataria. Betazed? That ring a bell?”
    “I’m not stupid, Ani.” Halak scooped a hand through his crop of close-cut black curls and blew out. “I was going to meet you on Betazed sooner or later.”
    Batra arched one black eyebrow, her left. “Emphasis on later, I’m sure. We were supposed to leave together. We were supposed to be having