by Rachel Caine
Finally, he said, “I am . . . glad he will not force you to return.”
Images flickered through my head, our shared memories of our desperate flight from Typhon after we got caught breaking the rules again. I touched his mind softly, opening for full comfort. It never got old that I could feel him brightening because of me.
“Yeah, it’s good to know the Elder has our back no matter what. I mean, it’s not easy for Typhon to change and roll with this new situation.”
“You have been marked as a bad person because of me, Zara.”
I laughed. “Oh, Nadim. Don’t ever say that. I chose everything that happened out here, and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.”
“Truly? Even waking the god-king?”
“Well, maybe not. Hindsight and all that. But we had no idea that would break as bad as it did. Looked like a solid deal going in.” There was no point in talking about shit that couldn’t be changed, anyway. “How are you feeling?”
“Another day, and I’ll be healed and fully rested.”
“What about Typhon?”
“A bit longer, I think. He’s bigger.” That was a simple explanation, but I didn’t dig for more details.
“And Bea?”
“She’s still looking for traces of the god-king’s path.”
I left the docking bay, and Nadim was clearly feeling better because he lit the way like he used to, little pulses of light that haloed my path to Ops. “Thanks, sweetheart.”
“I like when you call me that.”
Lord, he could find my warm, gooey center like nobody else. “I’ll try to do it more.” I sent a pulse of real warmth back to him, and he amplified and aimed it right back. It lifted me up on waves of lazy delight.
As Nadim had said, Bea was working in Ops, so engrossed in her search that she didn’t hear me come in. I came up behind her and yielded to impulse, wrapping my arms around her waist from behind and resting my head on her shoulder. I thought we were close enough that this would be okay. I let her feel the warmth cascading from Nadim through me, and she leaned back against me, flashing a tired smile. Close up, I could see how smooth her skin was, the dark shadows of her lashes fanning over her cheekbones. Her mouth was a soft bow as she teased, “Long day at the office, querida?”
“You could say that.”
“Me too. I have no idea how something like Lifekiller can just vanish. I’m so worried about the harm he might be inflicting that I can’t eat or sleep.” She nudged me back but not so she could break away; instead she spun around and completed the hug. There was nothing I could say to clear her conscience because mine wasn’t exactly clean.
“We’ll solve it. Somehow. Has there ever been a mountain too big for us to climb?”
Bea shook her head, her curls feathering against my cheek. “Not so far, but—”
“Let’s not go there.”
“We can do this,” Nadim said. “Together.”
He was trying to sound bright and hopeful, but there was a wistful edge to his voice. I swapped looks with Bea, who nodded slightly, and we both dropped into the bond, not enough to lose ourselves, but so Nadim could take comfort in us. His immediate happiness flooded me, trickled through Bea and came back bigger. It made me think of an old saying, about how burdens were halved among loved ones, but shared joy was doubled.
“Group hugs are the best.” Bea stepped back, her eyes a bit brighter than usual.
I brushed her hair out of her face to check the healing wound on her temple. “Have you had EMITU look at this today?”
“It’s fine. He’s busy learning the art of origami.”
“Are you serious?”
“Deadly. I’m afraid he won’t have any space left in his database at the rate he’s learning things unrelated to medicine.”
I laughed. “Well, Yusuf is building bots over on Typhon, and he promised to hook us up. Maybe we can put a med module on the new one? Let EMITU pursue his weird dreams?”
She cocked her head, playful and cute as could be. “I’m all for having a backup plan, but are we sure another bot is a good idea?”
I wanted to kiss her, but if I did, we probably wouldn’t get anything else done. Best to save it for later.
“That depends,” I said.
“On what?”
It was hard as hell to hide my grin and deliver this line with a straight face. “Whether you hack this one to make it sassy.”
Bea bit her lip, trying to look remorseful, but she didn’t succeed in the slightest. “I can’t make any promises.”
“EMITU is more fun this way.” Nadim took her side, and I pretended to be hurt. To be honest, I couldn’t argue. I enjoyed the macabre humor when I was getting my wounds treated.
Just then, the comm rang and Suncross appeared on screen. “Zeerakull, it is done. Our brethren have made a contract with the council on Greenheld.”
“Thanks, Suncross. How long will they be patrolling there?”
“Half a cycle. We will destroy the god-king by then or die in glorious infamy!”
“Uh, that is not one of my life goals. Anything else to report?”
“There’s something strange about the asteroid on the far side of the star,” the Bruqvisz said.
“I noticed the readings,” Bea said. “But I was looking for the god-king, not anomalies. I just thought it was an odd makeup of minerals.”
“Do you plan to check it out?” I asked.
Suncross waved his claws around, an excited sign of agreement. “Your Leviathan can get fuel from these stars. Our ship needs other sources and I might have found a ___ deposit.” The translation matrix cut out, so I didn’t know what natural resource he was talking about.
Whatever it was, the mineral was probably valuable as hell. “Okay, be careful. If you need backup, let us know.”
“Keep watch, Zeerakull. Danger abounds.”
FROM THE RECORDS OF THE ELASZI, PURCHASED ON THE SLIVER BY BRUQVISZ HISTORIANS
Sixteen of the whole have experienced death today. Two in border disputes with the Fellkin; one offended an Abyin Dommas to the point that a poison claw was deployed. The whole allows that the Abyin Dommas in question might have had due cause to kill, and does not hold grudges against that.
Twelve others from the whole experienced death from accident or misadventure.
One was murdered on the Sliver in the course of trade by a species barely known to us, a HUMAN of EARTH. The whole remembers this human’s face and will never forget the debt it owes to the Elaszi. The Elaszi remember.
Zara Cole must die. If other humans die with it, this is acceptable. They are not Elaszi.
They will not remember.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lost Hope
NADIM AND TYPHON followed the mech ship at a distance, still close enough that we could soak up energy from the star and provide support if needed. The asteroid field was dense, and I couldn’t see the rock the lizards were aiming for until Bea magnified the image. I skimmed the readings she took earlier, and I saw why Suncross was excited.
This was a serious deposit of ruthenium, which must be what the lizards used for fuel. The lizard ship burned manufactured fuel while Nadim and Typhon could orbit stars to top their energy off. I was starting to understand why Leviathan traveled alone. Even with just Typhon and Nadim, it was complicated to find energy sources that they could both use, since the difference in their ages required variant types of stars, though a few types intersected.
“Want to come, Zeerakull? Mining is one of our specialties. I would like to show you.”
At first, I thought Suncross was messing with me because he didn’t need me to go, but he seemed to be waiting for an answer. I considered for a few seconds. Keeping busy was the best way not to fret about Lifekiller. I wasn’t used to sitting around, not in the Zone, and not in space either. We had to let our allies fuel up, so . . .
“That would be epic,” I said.
Bea sighed from where she sat. “This won’t be dangerous, w
ill it?” She was talking to me, but Suncross got his comment in before I managed to reply.
“Probably not,” said Suncross sadly, then brightened a little. “But could be infestations of metalworms! They are difficult to kill.”
Judging by his expression, he was hoping for worm attacks. These lizards were serious adrenaline junkies. I could relate.
“How are we doing the pickup?” Our ships weren’t made to dock with one another, and the mech ship was slightly too big to fit in our docking bay with our Hopper parked and the unused drones stacked for deployment.
Suncross tapped his claws against a hard surface, the sound creating reverb in our connection. “Gear up. Go outside. Use boost pack to put some distance between you and Nadim and we get you.”
That didn’t sound too much different from what I’d done at the Sliver, except now I’d be moving between ships. So damn cool. “Yeah, well, you’d best not miss.”
“Zeerakull. Do I ever?”
I couldn’t quell a frisson of excitement over the idea of jumping free out into space, but I also sensed Nadim’s anxiety. “Please be careful,” he said.
I touched the wall lightly on the way to the docking bay and got a soft pink flare in response. “I’d say I always am, but that’d be a lie, and we don’t do that. Can I promise to be clever instead?” It seemed like I’d said something like this to him before, and his amusement flowed through me.
“Fine, Zara. I’m here if you need me.”
“You don’t want to go fuel mining with Suncross and me?”
“It’s not necessary. You won’t be so far that I can’t feel you, and you’re not going to a place where I can’t follow.”
That was true. This wasn’t a full planetary mission. I donned my spacewalk gear—skinsuit with extras—and then checked my connections and oxygen intake. The readout inside my helmet looked good to go. When I turned, Bea was standing behind me, wearing a rueful smile.
“You thought I’d let you go without saying good-bye?”
I gestured to the visor and she kissed two fingertips and touched them lightly to the side of my helmet. “For luck?” I asked.
“You don’t need that when you’ve got skills.” When her smile widened into a cocky grin, my heart fluttered.
Flashing her a thumbs-up, I went out and waited for the outer chamber to depressurize, then I opened the final hatch, clambering onto Nadim’s hull. It was different now that he was fully armored, and I guessed he couldn’t feel me, just like he’d lost the ability to feel the starlight on his bare skin. Briefly I imagined a day when the god-king was gone and the Phage were no longer a threat; then maybe Nadim could strip this away and travel as he was meant to. Even our deep bonding would be richer then. I didn’t enjoy seeing him this way, armored for war, with dark patches that marked his hidden guns. One day he might even have scars like Typhon and be weary of fighting.
I can keep that from happening. Typhon is messed up because he lost his true pilot and navigator. Bea and I aren’t going anywhere.
My magnetized boots kept me on the surface, and Nadim stopped to facilitate this pickup, so I moved across his flank with the binary star in the distance, lights shimmering around us, and the barren, rocky beauty of the asteroid belt took my breath away. The universe was so still as it stretched out in all its vastness. Not for the first time, I thought, This is where I’m meant to be. I didn’t know if it was the Leviathan medical tinkering with my genetic composition back in childhood to fix my crushing migraines, or something I was born with, but I’d never felt right down on Earth. I’d fought it with chem and drink and sex and violence, but that had never brought me peace.
This was peace.
I headed toward the edge as the mech ship buzzed close. The lizards would need to circle and go again. I was too slow the first time. I waited for clearance and pushed off, no tether—damn, this is crazy—and hit the button for a boost to launch me even farther from Nadim, then I was free-floating in vacuum. Spinning slowly. My heart pounded, and I could imagine myself drifting, drifting, until my air ran out and my skin turned cold.
How the hell do the Phage swim out here? How does Nadim?
The mech ship maneuvered close enough, and then what amounted to netting swooped out of one side and pulled me in. I felt like a captured fish. Not elegant, but it got the job done.
Soon I was standing in the hold of the Bruqvisz vessel, evaluating the differences. Everything was metal or some composite that looked like resin but probably wasn’t; they favored textures, a wild array of them, and though it seemed like a tough way to design a ship it also felt . . . organic. Natural. Like the lizards, the lines were sharp and aggressive, with a lot of decorative scaling. I checked my helmet readouts, and the skinsuit reported that all was well, the temp was warmer than we kept our ship, and the breathable mix was slightly oxygen rich.
I slipped off the helmet and folded it into the pouch at my belt and took in a deep breath of the warm air.
And had a coughing fit, because the ship smelled. Not filthy, just musky. I’d never thought about how the Bruqvisz smelled before, but in close quarters they had a definite odor. I guessed humans would to them too. Interesting.
Suncross was waiting for me, and he clapped me on the shoulder so heartily that I almost fell over. “Good to have you, Zeerakull. Welcome to our home!”
I felt bad for coughing. “Uh, thanks. Why do you have space netting anyway? What would you use it for, other than this?”
“Good for rescue and salvage,” he said. “Always an opportunity out in deep space for exciting finds.”
Ah, that made sense. We could’ve used it when we were saving Starcurrent and Yusuf. And I guessed if you found something cool in space, it was salvage. Finders keepers.
“Give me the tour, then let’s mine some fuel.”
Suncross gave me that weird open palm sign. “Deal.” His ruff flared up, anticipation or enthusiasm. I grinned and got sharp teeth in response; we had that expression in common. “Will be fun! Perhaps there will be nasty surprises. One hopes.”
“Let’s . . . keep the nasty surprises to a minimum and get the hell after Lifekiller before he does in another planet.”
The ruff sank down. I felt kind of bad about that. “Yes. You’re right. We will attend to business. Come. You will need your helmet soon.” He, I noticed, was already suited up, and as we joined the rest of the crew one deck down—achieved by giant stairs that I had to take one at a time while the Bruqvisz managed in quick leaps—I saw a giant antigrav pallet piled with tools. They had laser drills, hand drills, hammers, and a couple of things that looked way too cumbersome for me. I’d leave those to the lizards, no problem. We all waited while one of the crew stayed up on the flight deck, and the jolt when the ship touched down on the surface of the asteroid was hardly even noticeable. Good work, pilot. I put on my helmet when I saw the others doing it, and Suncross checked everybody individually and pounded fists on their shoulders to indicate approval. When he came to me, I got the same treatment. Ouch. I didn’t let him know it hurt.
Then a ramp lowered, and we walked out onto the surface. Not much in the way of grav once we were beyond the ship’s range, but there was enough magnetic pull from the metal in the asteroid’s core that my boots stayed anchored firmly. Too firmly, in some places, and I had to work to pull them free. Magnetic mud.
“Scans show metal just beneath the surface,” Suncross said in my ear. “Don’t dig too deep. Could destabilize the asteroid’s cohesion.”
Meaning, fracture the whole little ball into pieces, sending us spinning off attached to fragments. Yeah, not great. I said I understood and picked a small handheld laser drill.
Doing something useful felt good, instead of fretting over my own failures. I marked out sections with the laser drill and let the Bruqvisz do the heavy hammer and chisel work; the ruthenium they were mining was related to platinum, elementally speaking, and it didn’t come easy. Chunks came out in strangely angular pieces, as if they�
��d broken along invisible fault lines; it was shiny silver stuff as it emerged from the surface coating of hard black shell, and the bin on the resting pallet filled up slowly. We’d been at it for three hours when Suncross checked the level we’d retrieved and called a stop; I was glad, because the work was tough for reasons I couldn’t really define. I felt weak out here. Small and fragile.
And I itched inside my suit. I couldn’t be allergic to a damn asteroid, could I? I stepped back and ran a scan on my H2. Ruthenium, a lot of it. And . . . I blinked. “Hey, Suncross? I’m reading a metastable element here.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Core of asteroid is metallic hydrogen. Very valuable. Very difficult to get without more time and care. Is underneath a thick coat of our basic fuel metal. If we could reach, would be worth a thousand planets. Very rare. We will mark and come back. Keep secret, Zeerakull, and part of the profit is yours.”
“Absolutely,” I said. I knew something about metallic hydrogen. It was like the way diamonds formed from carbon and intense pressure, only the pressure of a gas giant was required to squeeze hydrogen gas into a legit metal. Scientists back on Earth had made some; it was supposed to be the queen of stable fuels. I hadn’t thought about it, but there could be a lot of great resources out here like this. And if Nadim could locate them . . . we’d be traders with the most valuable cargo in the universe.
My scan blipped as I was about to put it away, and I went chilly inside at the image on my machine. Shit. No. “Suncross. We’ve got Phage.”
All the lizards went still, tilting their helmets up. Searching the skies, which was reasonable. “Vector?” he asked sharply. “What zone?”
“Underneath us,” I said. “They’re inside the shell. They’re eating the metallic hydrogen. Not a ton of them; looks like maybe a few dozen?”