“You’re not sympathetic to him, are you?” Dash asked, surprised.
McCall considered that for a moment. “I’m not unsympathetic. Mostly though, I’ve been trying to understand him so I can figure out where he might have gone. Like I said, my ship could be sold for ten years’ worth of a law enforcer’s salary, but it’s not worth so much that one could live in the lap of luxury on a tropical beach on Indra for the rest of one’s life. He would have to be relatively frugal, assuming he’s not sure what his prospects will be once he’s living off the grid and needs to avoid populated places with imperial spy boxes floating through the streets.”
Dash nodded, sensing from her thoughts that she’d already settled on a couple of likely spots and was simply explaining things to him so he would be in the loop.
“The border worlds are most likely,” McCall went on, “but that still leaves a lot of options. His Cyborg Corps record is locked up in files that even I can’t access, so I don’t know where all he visited during his enlistment—people have a tendency to go back to places they’re familiar with and remember fondly. I do know he doesn’t have any living family, so there’s nothing for him back on Perun—his home world. I’m guessing—and I fully admit this is a hunch—that he would want to find a place where he could fit in and call home. It’s possible for someone to go off to live alone in some remote wilderness, men especially being more suited for that, but he doesn’t fit the psych profile of a loner type, despite his anger issues. When he was on my ship, he stayed near the prisoners most of the time. To guard them, yes, but he also talked to one of them, however gruffly and grumpily, one who’d been in the fleet. It’s possible he missed the life he had there, the sense of belonging that soldiers often get after time spent on deployments together.”
“When exactly did you see him doing all this?” Dash asked. He didn’t doubt her, but he was fairly certain she’d hidden in her cabin most of the time he and Axton had been on her ship.
“I grabbed the camera footage from the cell so I could look up the prisoners. I also looked up you and Axton to make sure I hadn’t let impostors pretending to be law enforcers onto my ship.”
“So, you think he misses his fleet days?”
“He may. My understanding of the situation—I have a cyborg contact who added a few details—is that he was forcibly removed from the fleet. He did not leave voluntarily. So I’ve been thinking that he might want to settle down in one of the three cyborg colonies out there.”
Dash blinked. He’d never heard of such things.
“They’re off the grid in every sense of the term,” McCall explained. “Most people haven’t heard of them. One is in a jungle and two are up in the mountains, all well outside of populated areas. They have few amenities, but they’re private places where retired or medically discharged cyborgs can be among others who’ve undergone the same surgeries and military experiences, people who understand.”
“I didn’t think many cyborgs lived to retirement age.”
“Not many do. The empire uses them hard.” McCall dug out the netdisc she’d been using, produced a holodisplay, and set it on the console. “Here are the moons and the planet that house these colonies. This one happens to have a shipyard in the capital city about two hundred miles away. There’s a man who works the nightshift who buys ships without titles, then sets a team of androids to taking them apart, so he can sell the parts.”
McCall grimaced, and Dash could tell she was imagining her own ship being torn apart and sold off for parts. Given how new and well cared for it was, that would have been a tragedy even if she had no emotional connection to it.
“As I said, the cyborg colony angle is a hunch,” McCall said slowly, looking intently at… his nose. He wondered if she would ever grow to enjoy eye contact with him. Or maybe it was just that she was about to ask him to divert from their Alliance-base course, and she was nervous. “But would you be willing to fly to Selva Moon to check? On the chance he’s taking my ship there to have it sold for parts…” She swallowed, her distress obvious, even to a non-telepath.
He reached over and patted her hand. “Of course. We’ll go check out the moon.”
He pointed at her holodisplay, and a tiny icon enlarged, showing a sphere that was surprisingly lush green and blue for a moon that far out from any of the suns. He couldn’t remember if it had been terraformed or had geothermal heat sources. Outer Trason, the planet the moon orbited, had been significantly modified to support human and animal life. It had a large population that was friendly to the Alliance, but he didn’t think the same was true of the moon.
“This is the place with the colony in the jungle?” Dash asked.
“Yes.”
Dash imagined trying to tramp through a jungle to assault a compound of cyborgs and couldn’t help but wince in anticipation of pain. Much pain.
“Any idea how many cyborgs are in the colony?” he asked.
“There’s little on the sys-net about these places—it’s only because I’ve gone looking for missing cyborgs before that I’ve done the research and am aware of them. The Cyborg Corps, however, is a relatively small and elite unit, and since they’re sent on the most dangerous of assignments, a lot of the soldiers don’t survive their enlistment. Further, their life expectancies, due to all the tinkering, are shorter than average for humans, so there can’t be that many in these colonies.”
“So dozens instead of hundreds?”
“Likely.”
Dash scraped his fingers through his hair. He hadn’t been able to best Axton in a fight. Axton alone. If Axton now had dozens of cyborg allies who were as strong and fast as he was…
“You said you’ll divert?” McCall was watching his face, something she rarely did. But this mattered to her. A lot.
Dash blew out a slow breath. “Yes, but before I change course, let me ask this question. Would it make sense to take these non-combatants—” he pointed a thumb in the direction of the snoring man and the cabins, “—to the Alliance base first, then try to recruit some fighters with suicidal tendencies and go visit this colony with reinforcements?”
“Even if I thought Alliance fighters had a reason to help me, which I don’t, I’m worried my ship will be in pieces if we don’t arrive there right on his heels. We’re already a few days behind.” She grimaced, her expression bleak.
“I’d give them a reason to help,” Dash said earnestly.
His words did not alleviate her bleakness. If anything, she grew more distressed, and she started calculating ways to get out to the moon on her own and how long it would take.
“But if you think we can handle those cyborgs, I will take us straight there.” Dash leaned forward in his seat, fingers tapping at the controls. He didn’t know when it had started to matter so much to him that he not do anything to distress her, but it did.
“At least the climate in the jungle will be warmer than on Frost Moon 3.” McCall smiled, though she still looked strung out with worry.
“Will we be less likely to be eaten by ferocious predators?”
“Probably not.”
“What about ferocious cyborgs?”
“I haven’t heard of any of them being cannibalistic.”
“Well, that’s comforting. They’ll just smash us against the trees like Arkadian monkeys throwing coconuts.”
“I was thinking we could opt for doing something clever to defeat them rather than pitting our weaknesses against their strengths.”
“Oh?” Dash arched his eyebrows. “Do you have that cleverness planned yet?”
He glanced back, realizing someone was watching them from the shadows of the corridor in the back. His senses told him it was Walters. The young man stepped into one of the cabins as soon as he spotted Dash looking in his direction.
Had Walters heard about the course change? Would he rush to tell Rose? Well, Dash hadn’t intended to hide it from her. They all would have noticed sooner or later anyway.
“Let’s see if Axton is there
first,” McCall said. “If my ship is there. Will you head to the capital first? I want to visit that shipyard and the port authorities to see if anyone has seen the Surfer. If Axton has already sold it, there wouldn’t be a reason to deal with him again.”
“That’s the best news you’ve given me.”
“I’d have to come up with a fortune to buy it back from some unscrupulous black-market dealer.”
“That news is slightly less good.”
“If it’s there and he’s there… we’ll figure out something.”
“You will. I’m positive of it. I’m just the pilot.”
She rested her hand on his arm. “Thank you, Dash.”
He also wasn’t sure when her voluntary touches had come to mean so much to him, but they had too. Perhaps because they were so rare. Perhaps because she was.
Now that they were on their way to Selva Moon, there was little for McCall to do. Which was good, she supposed, because she was tired. She didn’t know when she’d last slept except that it had been on an icy tundra with her arms inside her parka and her hands tucked into her armpits. It felt good to be warm again. She noticed someone had set the ship’s cabin temperature ten degrees higher than standard and that nobody was complaining. It also felt wonderful to be full. In the morning, she would look for real food, or something close to it, but the peanut butter and Tammy Jammy bars had sated her for now.
She smiled at the back of Dash’s head. She had plopped down into a passenger seat in the first row behind him, pulled her legs up, leaned against the wall, and was contemplating closing her eyes.
After Dash finished setting the ship on its new course, he went to the lav. When he came back, he sat in the seat next to hers.
“Still awake?” he asked quietly, his face in shadow. It was dimmer back here than up by the lights and indicators of the navigation panel.
“Yes.” Wondering if he had some new concern, McCall pulled away from the wall and leaned closer to him.
“I’ve been thinking about things.”
She glanced at the empty pilot’s seat. “It’s only been fifteen minutes since we talked.”
“Are you denying that a man can have deep and meaningful thoughts in fifteen minutes?”
“I suppose not. You do have that special mind.”
He grunted. “Hardly that.”
She tilted her head. “Why do you do that? Downplay your abilities?”
“Because they’re weak by Starseer standards, and I had people letting me know that constantly for the first twenty years of my life.” He spread his hand. “All right, technically it was from age eight to twenty. Starseer skills don’t manifest at birth.”
“Without your telepathy and your ability to manipulate minds, we wouldn’t have gotten out of that prison.”
“You’re the one who overloaded the grid.”
McCall shook her head. “We only got up to the control room because we were able to attack the guards, something the rest of the prisoners couldn’t do, thanks to that doctor’s ministrations. You were integral.”
“Mm.” The noise sounded dismissive rather than speculative.
“And you’re able to get me. That’s definitely an ability. Maybe even a gift.”
He snorted softly and looked away.
She hoped she hadn’t made him uncomfortable. Praise often made her uncomfortable or was something she was quick to brush away, for some reason always struggling to believe it was truly deserved. Maybe he was the same way.
“No,” he said slowly, “I’m not uncomfortable. I’m just… I don’t know.” He gazed down at the tacky blue-and-gray-square carpet that ran under the passenger seats. “I know my skills are useful at times. I don’t mean to say they aren’t. It’s just that I’ve spent my life lamenting what I lack. I guess it’s never occurred to me to appreciate what I have.”
“You should get over that.”
He laughed. “All right, Dr. Therapist. I’ll work on it.”
“Good.”
He gazed at her, his gentle smile just visible in the night lighting. “McCall?”
She remembered that he’d been thinking about things, whatever that meant. “Yes?”
“If I were to cut ties to the Alliance, would you have room for a pilot on your ship? Once we get it back?”
“I… I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
She was surprised he would suggest it. He’d made it clear how much the Alliance and fighting against bullies meant to him. And the empire was the biggest bully in the system.
“You’re not asking. I’m volunteering.”
“Dash…”
“If you say no, it’ll crush my soul,” he informed her. “And my ego. After all, you’ve made room for a stray dog and an android you helped make stray. I have at least as many skills as Junkyard.”
“But not as many as Scipio?”
“Probably not. Androids are handy. But I could take up less space than he does. I don’t have a ceramic egg collection. Or a lot of hats and suits. What you see is what you get.” He waved down his form. “You could store me in a closet.”
“Dash…” She had to fight not to laugh. This was serious, not anything to laugh about. But it was hard not to smirk, maybe because her body was happy it had thawed out and her belly was delighted to be jammed full of food that agreed with it.
“I don’t want you to give up your passion, what matters most to you right now,” she said. “But you would be welcome on my ship. And I’d give you more than a closet. There’s a foldout sofa in my art studio.”
“Ah, extreme luxury.” He grinned but sobered quickly. “As to what matters most to me, that’s what I’ve been thinking about. You see, I’ve become fond of this skip-tracer lady, and I don’t think she’s willing to give up her life to go into hiding with the Alliance, especially if it turns out her life—or livelihood—was never in danger, because a strange cyborg never sent a report.” He waved toward the comm panel. “Whereas I am rather flexible right now, being unemployed and on the run from the law. It wouldn’t have to be a permanent arrangement, mind you. I get that you’re a private person and don’t necessarily want people around all the time. It could just be a trial. I could take a leave from the Alliance, and we could see if we liked sharing the same space. And how we work together on more mundane things than breaking out of prison and battling robot predators. Like you finding delinquents and thugs and me beating them into submission and dragging them off to prison. Admittedly, that might be harder now that the law considers me a delinquent and thug.”
His expression seemed sad and wistful. Like he knew what he was proposing couldn’t work.
McCall closed her eyes, remembering her thought that she would like to collect him for her ship, and she wondered if he’d seen that in her mind. It had been a fanciful musing. She hadn’t truly believed he would want to join her. A trial, he’d said. That seemed a rational approach to living with someone. She approved. If he couldn’t be a bounty hunter any longer, he could find something else to do.
But wouldn’t he always wonder what the Alliance was doing? If they got serious and started attacking imperial targets, wouldn’t he want to volunteer his piloting services to help? Didn’t he want to fight to change the system for the better? Would inviting him to share her small life on her ship be a disservice to him?
“May I touch your face?” Dash asked quietly.
“Yes,” she said, pleased he had asked, that he somehow understood that she didn’t like surprises, that she liked time to prepare herself for even simple things.
He brushed her cheek with his fingers, then traced her jaw. It wasn’t… unpleasant. A little tingle even teased her nerves.
She remembered from the distant and dismal relationships she’d had in her youth that this kind of thing usually led to kissing, something she’d never been fond of. Would it be different with him? His gift—whether he thought of it that way or not, she would—let him understand her better than anyone outside of her own family. Maybe
even better than they had. Maybe she would enjoy kissing him, though that seemed to be asking a lot. Talk of sanitation and diseases aside, she’d mostly found kissing sloppy and gross, and having tongues in her mouth about as appealing as eating tripe.
Dash snorted and lowered his hand. A surge of dismay filled her, and she lamented that her thoughts had made him pull back.
“Come here,” he murmured, pushing up the arm rest between them and lifting his arm.
Though she feared she would disappoint him, she leaned against him, glad that their moment together wouldn’t end yet. He brought his hand to her head, threaded his fingers through her hair, and kneaded her scalp. Now that felt nice. Even if it made her feel self-conscious that her quick wash-up earlier hadn’t involved time in the sanibox or shampooing her hair. But she wasn’t self-conscious enough to pull away. Any minute now, she would start thumping her leg on the ground like Junkyard when she scratched him on the side of his neck.
Dash puffed out a laugh. “Your mind is an interesting place.”
She was skeptical that was a compliment, but she mumbled a, “Yeah,” in agreement.
“I like it.” He kissed her on the temple and kept rubbing her scalp.
She looked toward his face and into his eyes and thought she read sincerity there. It made her want to do something that would please him, that would let him know she appreciated his—him.
“I’m going to kiss you,” she said.
He’d warned her, so it seemed fair to warn him.
“Go right ahead.” His eyes crinkled with humor. “I’ll keep my tongue to myself. Though I assure you it’s not gross or sloppy. It’s delightful.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.”
“At the least, it’s better than tripe.”
“That could be possible.”
They weren’t that far apart, a few inches, but it seemed to take a long time to lean in closer, to press her lips to his. But not because she didn’t want to, she realized, appreciating that he was smiling, that he seemed happy to let her take the lead. She couldn’t remember anyone else who ever had. But in the past, her partners had always been more interested in sex than she had. She had been willing to go along, because that was what couples did, but she’d always preferred the other things people did together in relationships, such as going for walks in the woods or reading books and sharing snippets with each other.
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