Sweet Starfire

use that card to access it.”
    “But, Severance, I don’t need any credit. I have plenty of my own, remember? What is this all about? I don’t understand. If this is some gesture of warped responsibility on your part, you can just forget it. I don’t want your share of the stake!”
    “Cidra, try not to get hysterical on me over a little thing like this. I am not exactly giving you the entire contents of my credit account.”
    “Then what are you giving me?”
    “Access to it. I’m going to be stuck on board Severance Pay for the next several weeks. On board, communications are limited. You know that. I don’t have the facilities to do research or make investments from the deck of a mail ship. On the other hand, you’re going to be running around Clementia with access to the best information sources on three planets. I don’t want my two hundred and fifty thousand sitting still in a credit account. I want it working.”
    “You want me to invest it for you?”
    “Something short-term and highly profitable,” he said bluntly. “You’re the one with all the education. Do something useful with it and with my stake. Take good care of it, Cidra. Lose my capital for me and I’ll—”
    “I know,” she said. “You’ll take it out of my hide.” She was gazing up at him with a palpable glow as she clutched the credit slip tightly in her palm. “I’ll take care of your stake for you, Severance. I swear it.”
    He smiled crookedly. “I know you will. I trust you.”
    Not with his heart and not yet with his future, but he trusted her with his credit. It was a hopeful sign, and Cidra clung to it. She dropped the credit slip carefully into the concealed pocket of her robe. It was a bond between herself and Severance, one that would surely draw him back for no other reason than to find out what she had done with his capital. Any kind of dust at all from a Wolf like Severance was a small miracle.
    “You will be very careful, Severance?”
    “I’ll be careful.” He touched the tip of her ear. “You’ll go straight home to Clementia and stay out of second-class taverns and dives?”
    “I promise.”
    “Cidra—” He broke off as if uncertain about what to say next.
    Cidra touched his hand. “It’s all right, Severance. I understand. It has to be mis way. This is the only way you can be sure of yourself and of me.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him lightly. Then she stepped back. “I’ll be waiting for you.” She turned and was gone.
    Severance felt his gut twist as she walked into the crowd of departing passengers. Her slender, green-robed figure was lost amid the hulking uniforms and standard-issue Renaissance jungle garb. For an instant he almost gave into the sense of panic that was clawing at his insides. She was out of reach already. The panel doors of the boarding gate were sealing shut, cutting her off from him, perhaps forever.
    He had been a fool. He should have taken his chances, should have risked the odds and kept her with him. He’d taken so many risks in his life; why hadn’t he been able to take this one?
    But he had no right to try to make up her mind for her. She needed time and the peace of Clementia. Only then could she be sure of what she was doing.
    Severance reached into a small pouch on his utility belt and let bis fingers close around the fireberyl comb. The feel of it seemed to soothe the gnawing uncertainty that he knew was going to be a close companion during the long weeks ahead.

Chapter Twenty

    QED looked different on this trip, Severance realized as he oversaw the unloading of the mail. The endless vistas of orange and red dust were as barren and forbidding as ever, but the sight of them no longer made his stomach tighten or caused his mind to beat at him in angry frustration.
    Revenge was exactly what he had always suspected it would be: calming and satisfying. It hadn’t taken away the old pain or allowed him to forget his own sense of responsibility for what had happened to Jeude, but it had quieted him inside. The pain and the feeling of being partially responsible were things he had already learned to live with during the past two years. Time diluted the self-recriminations and would continue to do so. But exacting a measure of justice had eased him inside in a way that time would never have succeeded in doing. Racer’s death had paid not only for the threats to Cidra but also for Jeude’s death, and it had balanced some internal scale.
    QED was never