The Pleasure Palace. Evangeline Anderson

solid except her hands—they were still warm from Ty’s touch.

      Why wouldn’t he just leave her alone and let her prove she could do the job right on her own without always swooping in to rescue and criticize her? Shaina knew he had trained lots of other Peace Control Officers, so why did he always single her out, as though her training would never be done?

      Well, now at least he had promised to stay out of her life. She wondered how long that promise would last.

      As it turned out, it lasted less than twenty-four hours.

      2

      “Tony, I need to talk to you.” Tyson’s entrance into the busy Peace Control station was, as usual, right on time. He looked over at Shaina’s empty desk as he called to his friend, noting that she had yet to make an appearance, and sighed inwardly. Punctuality was a concept he had never been able to instill in her when she was an officer in training and now he doubted it was a principle she would ever embrace. But even though she was often disorganized and less than punctual there was something about Shaina McCullough, a kind of brilliance, an instinctual intuition that made her a valuable addition to the force. Tyson had no doubt, given the time and opportunity, she would be instrumental in catching the Red-Head Rapist. He just didn’t intend for her to get that opportunity.

      “Tony?” he repeated and his colleague’s head finally surfaced from the latest batch of reports. Tyson knew he had promised to stay out of Shaina’s life, at least directly, but this was different. Shaina was putting herself in danger and he couldn’t just stand by and watch her risk her life the way she had last night.

      “Tyson, hey, what can I do for you?” Tony—short for T’onzxlyslr, his Xaxian name, which no one could pronounce—raked one pale hand through his neatly clipped white-blond hair and blinked his pink eyes nervously. He took a small sip from the recycled cardboard cup in his other hand and spit it back immediately. “Man, this stuff is awful. I mean, even for synthesized beans—really awful. You’d think they could afford better brew for New Brooklyn’s finest.”

      “Dream on.” Tyson sat on the edge of the Xaxian’s desk, casually pushing the reports aside. “Listen, I need to talk to you about Shaina.”

      “Oh, man…” Tony groaned. “How did I know you wanted to talk about her? Look, Ty, she’s an officer now and she has the right to steer her own career. You can’t keep holding her back.”

      “I’m not trying to hold her back. I’m trying to keep her safe. You and I both know that Shaina has a great mind—she makes the most amazing leaps of logic sometimes—but she’s not good at undercover work. She’s too apt to leave her backup behind or lose her weapon, both of which happened last night. Did she tell you?”

      “Not in those words, exactly. She more or less just said the night was a bust.”

      “A bust? It would have been a complete disaster if I hadn’t come along when I did. Look, Tony, this assignment is too dangerous for her. I want you to pull her off it right now.” Tyson rapped the plasti-wood desk he sat on for emphasis.

      The Xaxian took another small sip from his cup and grimaced, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “Tyson, I don’t know if I can do that. The chief himself approved it. It seemed like a good idea at the time, since she’s the only natural redhead in the department and with looks like hers…” He trailed off, perhaps seeing the glint of anger in Tyson’s eyes. “Ty, you can’t protect her forever.” His voice was gentle. “You know, you’ve trained lots of officers. Hell, you even helped train me when I first came on the force, but I’ve never seen you become so overprotective and paranoid about any of your past trainees. I know you’ve got a thing for McCullough but…”

      “We’re not an item, Tony.” Ty cut him off. “It’s just that Shaina’s too valuable to waste on an assignment like this.” Tyson stood up and began pacing back and forth in front of the desk. “You ought to have her behind the scenes, directing your investigation and putting the pieces together—not out in the line of fire. Now, I don’t care what it takes or who approved it, I want you to make some plausible excuse and get her off this case. It’s too damn dangerous.” He was pacing almost angrily. Stopping in front of Tony, he looked the other humanoid right in the eye. Mild pink was no match for blazing amber and the head of Vice dropped his eyes first.

      “Well, I’ll see what I can do, although it may be completely unnecessary anyway.”

      “Completely unnecessary—what are you talking about? I think I just outlined the necessity of getting her off this case very clearly.” Tyson slapped the desk angrily.

      “Yeah, I know, but right now McCullough’s in the Chief’s office volunteering her sweet little…uh, her very fine mind for an extremely dangerous off-planet mission.”

      “What? But she’s not even here.” Tyson pointed to her empty desk as evidence. “She never comes in on time.”

      “Yeah, well, never is a long time. It just so happens she came in early this morning while the Chief was asking for volunteers. She spoke right up. Wait, you can’t just barge in…” But the rest of his words were lost on Tyson, who was already striding angrily toward the solid real-wood door in the middle of the station.

      TO PROTECT AND TO SERVE was written in large, black block letters over the arching doorway. Under the lettering a small digital message was running in a loop: BUSY, DO NOT DISTURB UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES it said in red, spooling holo-type. Tyson paid no attention whatsoever as he grasped the brass knob and pushed his way into the room.

      “Ah, good, another volunteer!” The jovial voice came, not from the Chief, who sat silently at his large glass desk with holo displays showing different parts of the city, but from a small, nattily dressed man in the plush chair across from him.

      Beside the little man, in another plush chair, sat Shaina, looking beautiful in the standard jumpsuit uniform of black pleather. Tyson had one on, himself—hell, every officer in the place did—but he couldn’t help noticing how well his former protégée filled hers out. The pleather clung lovingly to every lush curve of her ripe body and he couldn’t forget that he’d held those luscious breasts in his hands just last night, the creamy mounds and berry-pink nipples straining out of that black lace bra she’d had on…God! He wanted her so much. From the first there had been an undeniable attraction between them and yet Shaina refused to acknowledge it.

      Right now she looked flushed with excitement. Apparently she’d been picked to go on this “dangerous mission,” whatever it was, and just couldn’t wait to throw herself in the path of peril.

      She looked around now to see who the small man was referring to. When she saw Tyson, her face fell. He could almost see her thinking, “oh no,” but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. There was no way she was risking herself on some damn-fool, off-planet mission if he could prevent it.

      “Chief Hamilton,” he began when the Chief, a stocky, balding man whose pleather jumpsuit bulged more than a little in the midsection, interrupted him.

      “Officer Tyson, I’m so glad you’re here. Let me introduce Minister Waynos. Minister Waynos is a direct emissary of the Chancellor and he’s here for a very important reason,” the Chief emphasized, giving him a glare. Tyson reluctantly took the hint and held on to his lip—at least for the present.

      “Yes indeed, my good officer, and I’m so very glad you’ve come to volunteer for the mission.” The little man seemed to assume that Tyson couldn’t possibly be in the office for any other reason. He had a silver-plated goatee and mustache and he was dressed in a triple-breasted dove-gray suit with platinum buttons and mother-of-pearl lapels. He was clearly excited as he jumped out of his chair and began circling Ty, who stood in center of the room. “And I think you’ll do quite well too, just the kind of physical specimen we were hoping for.”

      “What in the name of…” Tyson caught another glare from the Chief, and forced himself to modify his tone. “What does this mission involve, Minister Waynos? In terms of danger and personal risk, I mean,” he