Click pulled her closer to him while he chuckled. “Do you want to hear a story? To take your mind off of things?”
“I suppose so.”
“When I was a baby,” Click began, “the village shaman took an interest in me because I was born with a cowl.”
“A what?”
“A veil of mucus, over my face.”
“Oh.” Gabriella resisted the urge to wince at the horrible image such a description brought with it.
“Do you have any guesses what the shaman said it meant?”
“No.”
“He said I was cursed. That I was doomed to wander the earth for my entire life, seeking a happiness that I would never find in any one place.”
“That’s horrible.”
“I agree. When I grew up, my mother passed the prediction on to me, and I believed it. I really thought I would never be happy, that I would always be forced to wander. I left my home, my family behind because I thought I would be unhappy if I stayed with them.”
“Not because you wanted to?”
Click smiled. “Perhaps it was a bit of both, because truth be told I wasn’t happy there. So, I wandered a long time, and it was true. I’ve ventured to England. To Spain. I spent several months in China and a few memorable weeks in Japan. I have been to a lot of different places, but everywhere I went, I was always very unhappy.”
“You’re happy now.”
“Am I? How can you tell?”
“You’re always smiling.”
“So I am.” The native man gave a sharp laugh. “So I am.”
“I thought the shaman said you couldn’t be happy?” Gabriella asked. This story was confusing her.
“He said I wouldn’t be happy in one place,” Click reminded her.
Gabriella understood. “The Widow. You’re happy here because the ship moves around.”
Click smiled wider.
“I don’t want to seem ungrateful, really,” Gabriella said. “But what does this have to do with anything?”
“Don’t you wonder what a man is doing aboard an all female ship?” Click asked.
Gabriella blushed and dropped her head.
“Come on now, be honest,” Click said. “I’m sure my presence has crossed your mind more than once.”
“Yes, I admit I have wondered.”
“The captain didn’t make joining this crew easy.” He lost a bit of his shining smile.
Gabriella found that hard to believe. “She seems to...umm...like you well enough.”
“It’s true though. She was dead set on an all female crew. No men allowed, please.”
“How did you join the crew then?”
Click’s smile returned. “I refused to leave. From the moment I saw her, I knew I would find my peace with her.”
Gabriella got the impression they weren’t talking about the Widow any more.
“I suppose what I am saying,” Click said, “is that happiness is where you find it. Sometimes you have to take it to make it your own.” He stood and flexed his back. He looked like a panther lazily stretching in the early morning hour, muscles taut and toned. Gabriella shuddered at the handsome sight.
“You love her, don’t you?” she asked.
Click lifted his hands as if in surrender, but didn’t answer. He stepped back to the door and leaned against it, waiting patiently for his captain’s next order.
Gabriella swore that if Atom Loquacious lived through this then she was going to have him for herself. She smiled a Clickish smile as she made her plans.
* * * *
“So this is what Ruby was after?” Dot asked.
Rose nodded. “I think so. It makes sense in a twisted kind of way.”
The three women stood around the bed, staring at the sleeping form of Atom. After all that time they spent believing they would leave the island empty handed, their prize had been with them all along.
“What would the madam of a bordello want with him?” Dot asked.
“I’m not thinking of her,” Rose said. “I’m thinking of her cliental.”
“Ah,” Dot said. “Of course. Anyone of them would pay a fortune to take advantage of this poor young thing. We aren’t going to give her the opportunity. Are we, Captain?”
Rose shook her head. She was too angry to talk about this right now.
“He is absolutely magnificent,” Jayne said. She added, just under her breath, “Just like the masters said he would be.”
Rose eyed the tinker with worry. “Jayne? Are you okay?”
Jayne snapped out of her memory and nodded. “I’m fine. Just fine.”
“Are you sure?” Rose asked.
Jayne closed her eyes. She drew a few deep breaths before she said, “Yes, sir.”
Rose was just going to have to trust her. With everything. “Once again. I’m going to ask you both to keep this between us. It’s up to him who knows what happened here. So keep your mouths shut. Understood?”
“Aye-aye, Captain!” the women answered.
At the sound of their shout, Atom’s eyelids flickered for a moment before he opened his eyes wide. His strange copper eyes darted around the room in surprise.
“Welcome back to the land of the living, Mr. Loquacious,” Rose said.
Atom looked at her, then at Jayne, then at Dot.
“Would you look at those eyes,” Dot whispered.
“Atom Loquacious,” Rose said, “This is Dorothy Johnson. She’s our resident doctor.”
“Oh, now,” Dot said, oddly shy in front of the young man. “I’m a nurse by training. I worked with my husband for so long...well, one picks up things, don’t they?”
“What happened?” he asked in a hoarse voice.
“You stepped in front of a stingray spear,” Rose said. She tossed a handkerchief full of the spearheads onto the bed beside of him. “It took us almost an hour to extract those from your shoulder.”
He pulled the cloth open and cringed at the serrated stingers within. He ran his mechanical hand across his bandaged shoulder.
“You shouldn’t even be alive,” Dot said.
Jayne snorted. Rose gave her a look that silenced the tinker.
“Then I owe you my life,” Atom said to Dot.
Jayne opened her mouth, most likely to protest. Rose’s was quicker.
“No, Atom,” she said. “I owe you my life. That was quite brave of you.”
Atom grinned before he dipped his head in obvious embarrassment.
“It was also stupid,” she added.
He opened and closed his mouth several times in succession as if unsure how to address the backhanded compliment.
“But brave nonetheless,” Rose finished.
Atom settled on a smile. “It was my honor. Really.”
“Just don’t do it again,” Rose said. “I can’t have people thinking that it’s deadly to travel with me. Can I?”
With care, Atom tried to sit upright. Dot rushed forward and helped him lean against the headboard. “Doctor, I cannot thank you enough—”
“Hey!” Jayne shouted.
“Dot, Jayne,” Rose said. “Will you please wait outside?”
“He just—” Jayne tried to say.
“Come on,” Dot said over Jayne. She gathered the young girl by the shoulders and escorted her to the door. “She needs a moment alone with him. You can tell me all about what happened out there.”
“Jayne?” Atom asked.
The tinker turned back with a hateful look.
“Thank you too.” He motioned to his wound before he added, “I know you had a hand in this.”
Jayne seemed ready to deliver another speech. Before she could, Dot pushed her through the door. The room fell quiet. Rose stood with her back to her desk, staring at the stranger on her bed.
Atom’s gaze darted around the room, looking everywhere but her.
“I’m sorry to be such an inconvenience,” he said. “I really had hoped this would be—”
“Who are you?” Rose asked.
Atom stopped. He looked down at his mechanical hand, flexing it over and over while he considered the question. A light creak filled the air with every curl of the metal fingers.
Rose sighed. This was going to be more difficult than she would have liked. She pulled her chair across the room to the side of the bed, where she sat and propped her feet beside of him. She eyed Atom before she asked again, “Who are you?”
“All I know is that I’m Atom Loquacious,” he answered. He still wouldn’t meet her gaze.
Rose leaned in closer to him. “Then let’s try a different question, shall we?”
Atom continued to look at his hand.
Flex, creak.
Flex, creak.
Flex, creak.
“What are you, Atom Loquacious?” Rose asked.
The creaking stopped. The silence that followed seemed as accusatory as Rose’s tone.
Atom turned up to her with a pain-filled expression. “I don’t know. All I know is that I am Atom Loquacious.”
Rose hated to do this, hated to make him dig so deep when it obviously caused him distress.
Damn it! She needed to know what the hell was going on with her ship! She pressed on. “You aren’t Doctor Loquacious’s real son, are you?”
Atom shook his head. “I never said I was.”
“You said he was your father.”
“Yes, because he...” Atom paused, looking away before he finished with, “He made me.”
That was the answer Rose had been looking for. “I see.”
Atom hung his head, as if in shame.
“How long were you with the doctor?” Rose asked. “Before he left you, I mean.”
“Ten years.”
“When did he leave?”
“He abandoned me five years ago.”
“So you’ve been on that island for fifteen years?”
Atom nodded. “I really am lucky that you came along.”
“Maybe,” Rose said. She sucked a quick breath through her teeth before she added, “Maybe not.”
Atom didn’t seem to hear her last remark. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
“For all the trouble I must have caused. For deceiving you.”
“You just said yourself that you never lied. You never said you were his real son. We just assumed—”
“Yes, but I didn’t clarify,” he said over her. “That’s as good as a lie.”
“Didn’t your father ever teach you that it’s human nature to lie?”
Atom narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t you understand? I’m not...” His words faded, as if he couldn’t bring himself to say them.
“Don’t fool yourself,” Rose said. “You’re more human than most men I know.”
Atom dipped his head again.
Smiling, Rose placed her hand on Atom’s. “See, you’re embarrassed. What could be more human than that?”
“I was made,” he said, pulling his hand away. “Not born. I have no father, no mother.”
Rose lowered her feet to lean forward. Propping her elbows on her knees, she pressed her fingers together and leveled them at Atom while she spoke. “You were put together by a man—”
“Which makes me a construct,” Atom interrupted her.
Rose just barreled on with her words. “A man who cared enough about your safety to conceal you in the deepest, darkest jungle he could find so no one else could get their hands on you. Sounds like a father to me.”
“You don’t think he abandoned me?”
“No. I think he was hiding you.”
“Hiding me,” Atom echoed.
“Yes.”
“From who? Who would want me?”
Rose couldn’t help her laughter. She knew at least one girl who wanted the young man. Still, that wasn’t what she, or he, was talking about. “Some really bad people, Atom. You’ve been on that island your whole life. You have no idea how cruel some people can be.”
“Why me?”
“Because of that maybe?” Rose pointed to his mechanical hand.
Atom looked down at the hand in question and flexed it again. The loud creak echoed through the small chamber.
“Jayne should be back with some fluid for you later,” Rose said. “To replace what you lost.”
Atom eyed the dark stains that streaked his fleshy fingers. “I’m sorry about your sheets. I don’t suppose this will ever come out.”
“Don’t worry. It won’t be the first time we’ve had oil in the bed.” The shocked expression that came over his face made Rose laugh again. “You really are quite sheltered.”
Atom looked away, as if embarrassed again.
“Listen,” Rose said. “I’m going to leave you in Jayne’s capable hands for your repairs.”
“I’m sure she knows what to do,” Atom said.
“There are a few things you need to know about her first. Did your father ever tell you about the Mechanics?”
“No.”
“They are a nasty group. A bunch of crackpot zealots who swear fealty to all things mechanical. No offense meant.”
“None taken.”
“They believe that technology is the only road to salvation for the souls of mankind. They preach the way of the clockwork and the might of the engineers to smite the Luddites of the world.”
“Is Jayne one of these Mechanics?”
“She used to be. Her parents sold her to the group when she was just a baby. That’s how they recruit members. She has no idea who her real family is.”
“How horrible.”
“Indeed. A few years ago she came to me, looking for a place to hide.”
“On the run from them?”
“Yes. I’m afraid she failed to meet their requirements to become a priestess.”
“I don’t see how. She’s very clever. She’s such a bright girl.”
Rose smiled at the kindness. Atom was a true gentleman. No wonder Gabriella was falling so hard. “True, but Jayne has a wild streak for unusual inventions. It gets her into a lot of trouble.
Even with me. The Mechanic’s penalty for such behavior was death.”
“So she sought shelter aboard your vessel.”
“Yes.”
“Which you gave her despite the obvious consequences.”
Rose cocked her head at him. What was he driving at?
“That was very...humane of you,” Atom said with a smile.
“This is serious,” she said, despite her own smile. “The Mechanics beat the beliefs of their laws into their members. Jayne swears that she is through with them, and I trust her, but I’m going to have to ask the same of you. Will you trust her?”
“Yes,” Atom said without hesitation.
“Excellent,” Rose said. She stood. “Now if you’ll excuse me I have to—”
“What does she think of me?” Atom asked in a low voice.
“Who?” Rose asked as if she had no idea.
Atom hung his head even lower, waiting for an answer.
Rose sat on the bed and leaned in close to him. “She doesn’t know.”
Atom turned toward her, his strange eyes imploring her for the truth.
“She doesn’t know,” Rose repeated. “Dot and Jayne will keep it quiet for as long as you wish. It’s your business, Atom, not ours. I suggest being honest with her. I know I would appreciate the truth.”