«No trouble.» He put the case into his flight bag and slipped the seal, then pushed the whole bundle under the bed.
«I knew Ross would never think to bring anything like this for you,» she said as she began placing the dishes and cups on a shelf above the sink. «He doesn't even know how to wash up. I can bring some coffee beans over later. We still dry our own. They taste nice. Oh, you'll need a kettle, won't you. Is the electricity on here?»
He reached out and touched her long bare arm. «Leave that. Why don't you show me round the island?»
«Yes,» she stammered. «All right.»
Charmaine's central lagoon was a circle seven hundred metres across, with a broad beach of fine pink sand running the whole way round. Eason counted five tiny islands, each crowned with a clump of trees festooned in vines. The water was clear and warm, and firedrakes glided between the islands and the main jungle.
It was breathtaking, he had to admit, a secret paradise.
«The sand is dead coral,» Althaea said as they walked along the beach. Her sandals dangled from her hand, she'd taken them off to paddle. «There's a grinder machine which turns it to powder. Mother says they used to process a whole batch of dead chunks every year when Father was alive. It took decades for the family to make this beach.»
«It was worth it.»
She gave him a cautious smile. «The lagoon's chock full of lobsters. It fills up through a vent hole, but there's a tidal turbine at the far end to give us all our power. They can't get past it so they just sit in there and breed. I dive to catch them, it's so easy.»
«You must have been very young when your father died.»
«It happened before I was born.» Her lower lip curled anxiously under her teeth. «I'm seventeen.»
«Yes, I'd worked that out. Seventeen and beautiful, you must knock the boys dead when you visit Kariwak.»
Althaea turned scarlet.
«And you've lived here all your life?»
«Yes. Mother says the family used to have a plantation on Earth, somewhere in the Caribbean. We've always grown exotic crops.» She skipped up on an outcrop of smooth yellow coral and gazed out across the lagoon. «I know Charmaine must look terribly ramshackle to you. But I'm going to wake it up. I'm going to have a husband, and ten children, and we'll have teams of pickers in the groves again, and boats will call every day to be loaded with fruit and coffee beans, and we'll have our own fishing smacks, and a new village to house everyone, and big dances under the stars.» She stopped, drastically self-conscious again, hunching up her shoulders. «You must think I'm so stupid talking like that.»
«No, not at all. I wish I had dreams like yours.»
«What do you dream of?»
«I don't know. Somewhere small and quiet I can settle down. Definitely not an asteroid, though.»
«But it could be an island?» She sounded hopeful.
«Yes. Could be.»
Starship fusion drives twinkled brighter than stars in the night sky as Eason walked across the garden to the house. Only one of Tropicana's pair of small moons was visible, a yellow-orange globe low above the treetops and visibly sinking.
He went into the silent house, taking the stairs two at a time. When he reached Tiarella's bedroom door he turned the handle, ready to push until the lock tore out of the frame. It wasn't locked.
Moonlight shone in through the open window, turning the world to a drab monochrome. Tiarella was sitting cross-legged on the double bed, wearing a blue cotton nightshirt. The eccentric pendulum was held out at arm's length. She didn't show the slightest surprise at his presence.
Eason closed the door, aroused by the scene: woman waiting calmly on a bed. «You have something to tell me.»
«Do I?»
«How did you know I was coming? Nobody could know that. It was pure chance I bumped into Althaea back in the harbour.»
«Chance is your word. Destiny is mine. I read it in the cards. Now is the time for a stranger to appear.»
«You expect me to believe that crap?»
«How do you explain it, then?»
He crossed the room in three quick strides, and gripped her arms. The pendulum bounced away noisily as she dropped it.
«That hurts,» she said tightly.
He increased the pressure until she gasped. «How did you know I was coming?» he demanded.
«I read it in the cards,» she hissed back.
Eason studied her eyes, desperate for any sign of artfulness. Finding none. She was telling the truth, or thought she was. Cards! Crazy bitch.
He shoved her down on the bed, and glared down at her, angry at himself for the growing sense of vulnerability, the suspicion he was being manipulated. All this astrology shit was too far outside his experience.
The nightshirt had ridden up her legs. He let his eyes linger on the long provocative expanse of exposed thigh.
«Take it off,» he said softly.
«Fuck off.»
He knelt on the bed beside her, smiling. «You knew exactly what you were doing when you asked me out here, didn't you? Eighteen years is a long time.» He stroked her chin, receiving another glimpse into that steely reserve, but this time there was a spark of guilt corroding the composure. «Yes,» he said. «You knew what you were doing.» His hand slipped down inside the nightshirt to cup her left breast. He enjoyed the fullness he found, the warmth.
«Don't push your luck,» she said. «Remember, the only way off this island is the Orphée , and she's affinity-bonded to me. If you want to clear out ahead of whoever is hunting you, you do what you're told.»
«What makes you think someone's after me?»
«Oh, please. Fresh off a starship, no money, desperate to get out of the city. I believe you're drifting.»
«And you still let me on board.»
«Because you were meant to be. It's your time.»
«I've had enough of this crap. I think I'll go see Althaea. How do tall handsome strangers fit into her horoscope today?» He let go of her and stood up.
«Bastard. Don't you touch my daughter.»
Eason laughed. «Give me a reason.»
He waited until she started to unbutton the nightshirt, then tugged off his jeans and T-shirt.