Rory’s captain at the time had wanted to repair the ’ship and fly it back to Epsilon. Rory, though, had prior experience with Midasians and had warned against it. His warnings, Rory knew, would have fallen on deaf ears had Lieutenant Liam Del not supported Rory’s assessment.

  In the end, Rory, Liam, and Airborne Specialist Jinna Pride had been dispatched to search the ’ship prior to any action and had discovered that the Odysseus had been mined with casks that, had they blown, would have infected everyone aboard with Midasian fever, likely leading to a serious outbreak in the Corps, if not the Colonies themselves.

  It had been quite a day, and had ended in Rory, Liam, and Jinna becoming friends—and more than friends, though at the time, Rory hadn’t realized how much more.

  “It was good work, on all your parts,” the colonel said, then added a quiet, “My sorrow for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” Rory said, curbing the swell of confused feelings that always arose around thoughts of Liam, and counted himself lucky when the connecting door opened and a wee woman with white hair leaned out to say, “Oh. Good. You’re all here.”

  Two days after dropping the doctors in Kopernik, Rory knocked on John’s cabin door.

  “Come in!”

  “Eitan said you wanted to see me?” he asked, peeking through the door.

  “I did.” As he spoke, John pushed away from his desk, grabbed a slip of telgram tape, and held it out. “You received a message from Jinna.”

  “Is she well? Is it the baby?” Rory shoved the spanner he’d been holding into his pocket. Taking the tape, he gave John a look. “Don’t tell me you didn’t at least skim the message.”

  “Only the first bit, to make sure she’s safe,” John admitted, leaning back on the desk as Rory read through the necessarily terse missive.

  “She’s still at that hotel on Carroll Square, sharing a room with Mia,” Rory noted. “And she says—” He paused, went back a few words, and read again. “She says she’ll not return to Kit’s Diner at all, but means to open her own tea shop.”

  “Her own place?” John’s brows shot up. “I didn’t know she had such ambitions.”

  “Nor I, but she says after some discussion, she and Gideon mean to become partners, of a sort.”

  “I have trouble seeing Gideon serving tea and cakes,” John observed.

  “Well, it’s not likely he will,” Rory said. “Jinna doesn’t say much, but it’s more that Gideon will be a silent partner to her shop and use his share of the profits for his own business.”

  “And what business would that be?”

  Rory tracked back along the tape and frowned as he read. “She says he’s meaning to become a private facilitator.”

  “I have no idea what that means.”

  “Nor I,” Rory said with a shrug. “But if it works out, Jinna will be her own boss—no more worrying over whether she’ll have a job tomorrow.”

  “No, but it will be another kind of burden,” John observed. “And with a baby on the way—she’ll be needing more than financial stability.” He met Rory’s glance, and for a moment, Rory saw his own doubts reflected in John’s eyes. “I won’t ask if you’ve thought about leaving the Errant,” he said at last. “All I ask is, if you do decide to stay with Jinna, you help us find another mechanic.” He paused. “And a medic,” he added.

  “Well,” Rory said, clearing his throat as he looked toward the port, where the skies were purpling with sunsset, “its early days, yet, isn’t it? No knowing what Jinna will want. Besides, apparently, her own tea shop.”

  “I think she wants you,” John said. “And I know you want her.”

  “But I also want this,” Rory said, turning back to John. “What we’ve built, what we are building? I want that, too.”

  “I know,” John said, idly picking up an old pocket watch from his desk, sliding the chain through his fingers as he added, “but we can’t always have everything we want.”

  As Eitan followed the others into Satsuke’s office, the General slipped around her desk, where she remained standing. As soon as the Errant crew was ranged in front of her, she held a hand out to John, who passed over the cipín Pascal had given him.

  She wasted no time twisting the stick open, and by the time Colonel Tenjin took his place to her right, was engrossed in the message, nothing in her expression indicating what she might be reading.

  Then again, as the commander of Special Operations, Kimo Satsuke would likely have exquisite control.

  No doubt Galileo Kane—Eitan's ex-lover, and a telepath of exceptional ability—would have challenged that control.

  Then again, Leo’s constant delving into other people’s thoughts had led to a mental breakdown, one from which Eitan doubted he would ever recover.

  All of which meant that, as much as Eitan might wish to know what was in the message General Satsuke read—and why that message had led to Conn’s death—he would never attempt a glimpse into the general’s thoughts.

  No matter that, for the first time in his life, such a thing might actually be possible.

  The Errant was aloft and on a heading toward Epsilon when Eitan slipped past the quiet galley, the deserted training room, and into the empty infirmary.

  None of this was unusual, but after over a week of carrying passengers, there was suddenly much more space . . . more quiet . . . more time to wonder what had happened to Conn back in Adia. Why had he turned against the Colonies? And what, in the name of the First Landers, was in the cipín that Rory had found?

  “Treading a flowerless meadow,” he told himself, heading for the cabinet where Rory stowed the suture kits.

  “Which flowerless meadow?” Jagati asked, striding easily into the room.

  Eitan looked over his shoulder. “I thought you were on laundry rota?”

  “The wash is running,” she said with a grimace. “But it looks like I missed a shirt.” She nodded at his shirt, which was speckled with red-brown dots. “What happened?”

  “I may have gotten careless loading up the MBB crawler,” Eitan said, pulling out one of the packs, noting they were down to five, which meant another item to add to the supply list. “Pulled a few stitches.”

  “Ouch,” she sympathized. “Why didn’t you ask Rory to help?”

  “He is communing with his least favorite engine pod,” Eitan said, then added, “and you know John is at the helm, and I thought you were busy.”

  She looked at him, then at his left arm, then she held out her hand.

  Eitan considered the silent offer of assistance. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t stitch himself up—he had, and often in less comfortable circumstances.

  Even as he recalled one of those circumstances, a bead of sweat formed on Jagati’s forehead, and the pain and fever Eitan had experienced in a small hut outside of Domino were echoed in her eyes.

  Then she let out a hiss and, a heartbeat later, the shutters dropped as she fixed her internal shields in place, which reminded Eitan to likewise fix his own.

  In the quiet of the sickbay, the two sensitives eyed each other.

  “This,” he said, dropping the suture pack into Jagati’s waiting hand, “could be a problem.”

  “Ya’ think?” Jagati huffed out a breath. “Maybe it’s just that my shields weren’t strong enough, and . . . the woo is getting wooier.”

  Eitan’s lip twitched at her description. “Neuro-psi scholars throughout Fortune should adopt your terminology,” he decided, then in a practiced move, hauled his shirt up over his head with one hand, dropping it onto the cot as he sat down.

  At her pointed look, he unbuckled the dagger, as well.

  “Dude,” she said, “that’s like, four out of eight stitches. You didn’t notice when it was happening?”

  He looked down at his side and grimaced. “It was the tinned salmon that did it, I think.”

  “Of course.” She grumbled something about vat grown sushi and went to the sink to wash her hands.

  “Still,” Eitan said as she went through the disinfecting routine, “you’re not wrong about the . . . wooieness?” He smiled as she glared over her shoulder. “What I mean is that we seem to be connecting more frequently, and more deeply, than when I first joined the crew.”

  Jagati grunted, snagged the rolling stool from its nook with her foot, and settled next to his bunk before opening the kit. “Weird,” she admitted, tearing open the disinfectant. “Weirder that, before you came aboard, I didn’t even know I was a sensitive. I just thought what I felt—the sensations—were me interpreting what I saw, heard, smelled; you know, the standard five.” She pulled on a pair of gloves and started to clean the reopened wound. “Then you show up, and suddenly I’m not just sensing a random aching knee. It’s like a freaking Fujian opera out there. And, and,” she continued, opening the tube of numbing gel, “now it goes in reverse too, so other people can get whacked by my emotions.” She applied the gel, then glared up at Eitan.

  “So you’re saying it’s my fault?” he asked.

  She unwrapped the forceps and addressed the first broken stitch. “Well, it wasn’t an issue before.”

  “True,” he said, ignoring the tug of the suture she pulled free. “But it’s the same with me, and I have spent time with other sensitives in the past,” he added, as the ghost of Leo whispered between them.

  “Maybe it’s not that weird,” Jagati said, moving to the next broken suture. “Maybe it’s just two people who don’t trust people—”

  “That would be you and I?”

  “Smart guy,” she muttered, dropping the wire onto the tray while Eitan grabbed a gauze pad to pat away the bleeding. “Thanks. Yes, that would be us. We’re both—careful about who we let in, right?”

  “Hmm,” he agreed, watching her hands, steady as ever, as she pulled out the last two sutures.

  “Maybe,” she ventured, dropping the last wire onto the tray, “there’s something about when we do actually trust someone else, and the someone else is also a sensitive, that our shields just don’t—” She paused, inserted a fresh suture, and used the forceps to tie it off. “—shield so much.”

  “Perhaps . . .” he said, then waited for her to insert the next suture. “But I’m not certain that is all.” She held out a hand, and he gave her the gauze. “I think—no, I know,” he said as she patted at the wound, “I’m sensing more from other people as well. Conn wasn’t the first, for me. It isn’t much, nor all the time, but I’m sensing fragments of other people’s thoughts, even without contact. Especially when you are close by.”

  “Like what, I’m some smogging amplifier?”

  “Or I am,” he said. “As you said, you hadn’t any idea you were a sensitive before we met.”

  “Well, hells.” Jagati rocked back on the stool, her eyes narrowed in thought. “I can’t decide if this is really not good, or if we could cause a ton of trouble with it . . . but, you know, good trouble.”

  Eitan wondered about that, as well.

  But he also knew—too well did he know—that good trouble could turn, quick as a viper, into bad.

  Even thinking this, unwanted memories of heat, burning, blood, and screams began to rise.

  But under, or over, those memories, he heard a voice—deep, rough, and unknown to him—and with that voice echoes of anger, pain, and a distinctly childlike fear . . .

  “Whoa!” Jagati’s head jerked, and she dropped the gauze.

  “Forgive me,” he said, looking away.

  “Same,” she said after letting out a measured breath, then taking another and releasing it.

  He waited until another suture was complete before he looked down. “I won’t ask about yours if you don’t ask about mine.”

  Jagati’s head was down, prepping the last suture, but that had her looking up. “Deal,” she said, the familiar gleam back in her eyes. “But if this is going to keep happening . . .”

  “I think,” he said, filling in the silence, “short of drugging ourselves into a stupor, we need to find someone with more experience and ask for help. Or,” he paused, let out a breath, “I could leave. If it becomes too uncomfortable for you.”

  “Don’t be a mammoth turd,” Jagati said, her voice almost a growl. “I worked way too hard to get you on the crew to let you go. And really,” she added, “we are a team. No one of us is more important than the others.”

  “I’m not so certain John would agree with that last,” Eitan said, then paused as Jagati raised the forceps in a poking position over the latest suture.

  “I will do it,” she threatened. Then she let out a loud breath, “Plus, if you stay, think how much fun we could have if we can figure out how to use this, whatever it is. Like, we could make people laugh at the end of Hamlet . . .”

  “That would be a good trick,” Eitan agreed as he privately—very privately—thought that Conn, as he’d been, would have liked Jagati very much.

  Chapter Ten

  Jagati watched Satsuke read the telgram, but nothing in the other woman’s expression hinted at what the skinny note contained. Once she’d finished the missive, the general handed the slip of paper to Tenjin and turned to the waiting Errant crew. “Thank you for your service,” she said, her voice crisp, formal, and about as revealing as a Fujian fog.

  “We weren’t given much choice in the matter,” John pointed out, even as Jagati was opening her mouth to say the same.

  “Except for delivering that wee message,” Rory offered, rocking back on his heels. “We did have a choice there.”

  “Yes,” the general said, glancing at Rory. “Major Ouellet sent word of your agreement.”

  “I hope the Corps means to honor that agreement,” John said.

  “Actually,” the general began.

  Here we go, Jagati thought, turning back to the general. “Don’t tell me. Times are tight. The post-war coffers are thin. The brass is cutting costs on all fronts—”

  “In fact,” Satsuke cut her off with an utterly neutral glance, “I have been authorized to make you a counteroffer.”

  “I hope you’re not planning to bargain,” John began in the mild tone Jagati had learned, long ago, to respect. “Major Ouellet made his offer in good faith, and we honored—”

  “I don’t bargain,” Satsuke again cut in. John’s eyes narrowed, but Tenjin glanced up, and while it wasn’t quite a smile, Jagati caught a crinkle at the edge of his eyes that hinted at amusement.

  “My apologies,” John said.

  “No apologies necessary.” Satsuke met John’s gaze, then looked at the rest of the crew. “The fact is, thanks to recent events in Nike, my team has finally managed to deliver proof of what really happened at Nasa.”

  There was a pause as all four of the Errant’s crew went very still, and while they didn’t look at each other, Jagati figured they were all wondering what Gideon Quinn had discovered in his investigation into the tragedy.

  “It is because of this proof,” Satsuke continued, indicating that whatever Gideon had discovered, she wasn’t telling, “that I have been granted clearance to—not compensate, as there is no compensation for what each of you endured after Nasa—but at least make some reparation by way of restoring the salaries you all lost since that day, as well as clearing your records of any false accusations.” She paused and looked at Eitan. “Your case is a little more complex, as you had been declared KIA.”

  “Wait,” Rory said.

  John turned to Eitan. “You never—”

  “—told anyone you were alive?” Jagati finished, then grimaced, as it appeared that, no matter her feelings about the man, she and John continued to share at least part of a brain.

  “I didn’t feel it necessary,” Eitan told them. “My tour technically ended while I was in Adia,” he explained, “and by the time I escaped and reached the colonies, the war had ended.”

  “Fair enough,” Jagati said, because what else could she say, then looked back to the general. “How—”

  “How complicated is Eitan’s case?” John asked over Jagati’s question.

  She had to work, very hard, not to poke him in the arm.

  “Not as much as it might have been,” the general replied, keeping her attention on Eitan. “Since you waived death benefits to next of kin, it is more a matter of removing your name from the rolls of the lost—though we will leave your tree to grow in the Forest of Memory.”

  “I am pleased you won’t be killing any trees on my account,” Eitan murmured.

  Satsuke didn’t respond but instead picked up a file from her desk, and from that file pulled out a stack of sealed envelopes. “Here are the settlements I arranged,” she said and, starting with John, passed one to each member of the crew.

  Jagati waited as John unsealed his envelope, pulled out a sheet of paper and what looked like a bank note. He focused on the paper, reading it silently, until—

  Whoa!

  Jagati tried to reinforce her shielding, but nothing could stop the sandstorm of John’s emotions.

  Vindication . . . a gaping well of grief . . . the rasping, ever-present shame . . . and so, so much more.

  She steeled herself as the tangled weed of emotions tumbled forth, the whole illuminated by a spinning ball of joyreliefunburdening.

  The whole washed over her, leaving Jagati with the sensation of walking into an amazing smelling kitchen, a thunderstorm, and a forest fire, all at the same time.

  Yet, all John showed on the outside was a single muscle contracting on his jaw.

  She almost reached out to steady him, but . . . not the time, not the place . . .

  And he didn’t look like he needed support, anyway.

  “There you are, you little booger.” Jagati found the bay leaf in the stew, determined not to lose track of it before serving the one edible dish she had learned to make.

  It was too early to take the leaf out, but if she stood it up in the middle, she wouldn’t forget it. She did so, then grinned, as it looked like a tiny shark’s fin.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10