“You already figured that out,” he said, pushing away from the hatchway and walking inside.
Alisa itched to back up, not wanting to be anywhere close to him, but she stood her ground and glared defiantly at him. “Why were you snooping? What could possibly be in here that has anything to do with you?”
“You didn’t know who your father was,” he said, stopping in front of her. “I assumed the odds were better that your mother did.” He offered that smirk that might be what passed for amusement from him, but it always looked smug and supercilious more than anything else.
“Why do you
care
?”
“I was curious as to your heritage, or more specifically, your daughter’s heritage. At this point, I don’t know if Durant is roaming the system, collecting children with Starseer abilities, or if he only took your daughter. If the latter, then there must be a reason she was singled out.”
“Yeah, her father was dead and her mother was too far away to do a damned thing about it.” Alisa’s voice tightened as she spoke, and the last few words came out squeaky. Damn it, she was on the verge of tears again. She would not show her frustrations—her weaknesses—in front of this man.
“I’m sure he must have had a reason.” Abelardus lifted a hand toward her shoulder.
She lurched away from him, the backs of her knees bumping against the bunk. What was he doing? Trying to comfort her? He was the
last
person she wanted comfort from. It also disturbed her to realize he could thwart the locks on the cabins whenever he wanted.
“A reason?” she demanded. “Such as that he’s a criminal who doesn’t care who he hurts?”
“That’s not the reason I would have come up with, but it could be.” He lowered his hand and smiled. “May I see the book?”
Her first instinct was to refuse, but it would be better if he was looking at the book than trying to touch or comfort
her
. She thrust it toward him.
“Stanislav, huh?” Abelardus asked, perusing the dedication and then flipping through the rest of the pages. “I’ll have to look in our databases to see if anyone interesting comes up.”
“Even if my father had Starseer genes, that doesn’t mean he had any talent, right? Or that he would have had anything to do with your people. Lots of people in the system have those genes, and it doesn’t mean anything. Except, apparently, that you get to live long enough to see all of your crewmates die if your ship is exposed to radiation.” She thought of those poor crazy people that she had seen through Leonidas’s camera.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” he agreed. “It’s an indicator of potential, nothing more. But Durant’s interest—”
“Is surely based on my
husband’s
abilities. Also, I have no way of knowing that this Stanislav was my father. That book could have been given to my mother at any time during her life, maybe even after I was born. She never got married, but she wasn’t a chaste hermit.”
“Hm.” Abelardus looked at the dedication again. “She was apparently exciting and wonderful.” He grinned at her. “And feisty I bet, like her daughter.”
Alisa snatched the book from his hands. “Go away. Aren’t you supposed to be looking for ships? That’s the deal, remember?”
He lifted his hands. “Yes, you’re right. And—” He glanced toward the open hatchway.
Alisa did not see or hear anyone coming, but he lowered his voice.
“Look, I’m sorry. I know I can be cocky, and I don’t bother to hide it. A lot of people are falsely modest, and it’s annoying. Don’t you find it to be so? I know I have a tendency to say whatever comes to mind, but don’t you find that refreshing? I thought—I mean, you’re sort of the same way, so I guess I thought—or I keep hoping—that you’ll understand me. Or at least not hate me. I’m not trying to make your life harder. Or uncomfortable.”
His words seemed honest, and Alisa did not know what to say. She didn’t like him, and she didn’t want to soften her stance toward him or give him any indication that she wanted him around.
“Here.” He offered his hand. “Let’s make a deal. I’ll stay out of your head, as you’ve requested, and your mother’s cabin, and you…”
“Yes?” She narrowed her eyes, not anticipating that he would offer her anything she would find acceptable or appealing.
“Promise not to murder my brother when we find him.” He smiled. “At least until after I’ve spoken to him and had a chance to find out what he’s up to.”
Alisa kept squinting at him, feeling nothing but suspicion. She wasn’t a cold-blooded killer and hadn’t been planning to murder anyone—though maybe she would strangle this Durant a little—and the request seemed to come out of nowhere. They hadn’t been talking about his brother.
But Abelardus stood there with his hand out, his eyes earnest. And the suns knew she would like it if he would stay out of her head…
Hoping she wouldn’t regret it, she shifted the book so she could clasp his hand. He bowed his head and laid his other hand atop hers.
She was trying to decide if this was some Starseer custom or if he was simply being overly dramatic when movement in the corridor drew her eye. Leonidas looked in at them, a sandwich held in his hand. He looked at their clasped hands, blinked, and backed away.
Alisa frowned and pulled her hand away from Abelardus’s, wondering how that had looked from the outside. She hoped Leonidas didn’t think she was in here intentionally having private moments with Abelardus. Not that Leonidas had indicated that he wanted to have private moments with
her.
But she didn’t want anyone misconstruing anything. Especially when Leonidas and Abelardus had so much animosity toward each other.
Abelardus let her go and lifted his head. His face was hard to read.
Alisa grabbed her plate off the mattress. “I need to get some sleep,” she said, taking it and the book with her. “Lock the door when you leave, please. I gather that’s something you can do without trouble.”
She walked out, hoping she might catch Leonidas in the corridor and explain the situation. But he was gone.
Chapter 7
A knock woke Alisa from a confusing jumble of dreams that involved her mother, a mysterious figure who might have been her father, and Leonidas. Thankfully, Abelardus hadn’t been a part of them. The last thing she wanted was for him to appear in her dreams as well as on her ship.
With that thought fresh in her mind, she opened the hatch. Abelardus stood there, in nothing but trousers, his long braids dangling down his bare chest and back.
“What?” she asked casually, though she was fighting not to blush, uncomfortable at knowing he may have been reading her thoughts just then. He had said he wouldn’t do that anymore, but who knew how he interpreted that deal? Maybe he believed it would be enough if he didn’t speak into her mind.
“There’s a ship that will come into range of your sensors soon,” he said. “I don’t think it’ll be an issue for us, but I knew you’d want to be alerted.”
“Yes, thank you. I’ll head to NavCom shortly.” She was in thin pajamas and wanted to change into something more substantial before roaming around the ship. She shut the hatch, hoping Abelardus would not linger. It was too early in the morning to deal with him.
Alisa dressed and slipped out into the corridor, the lights still dimmed for night. She had only slept a few hours.
“What’s new?” she muttered and headed toward NavCom.
A thump came from Leonidas’s cabin as she drew even with it, and she paused. More nightmares for him? She wondered if he would appreciate being woken from them. From Abelardus’s warning, it did not sound like she would need Beck and Leonidas to leap into combat armor to defend the ship, but maybe she should use the possibility as an excuse to rouse him.
Or maybe she should let him get his sleep.
She started past, but another thump came from within. She bit her lip and knocked softly. If he didn’t wake easily, she could leave him be.
But it was only a few seconds before the hatch opened, and a shirtless Leonidas looked out, his hair mussed and his eyes haunted, the shadows deep behind him. She wondered if anything in the waking world disturbed him as much as his dreams did.
“Sorry to bother you,” Alisa said, knowing he wouldn’t want to admit to his nightmares, “but we’re coming up on another ship. It’s probably nothing, but I’d feel safer if you were awake.”
“I’ll come up as soon as I dress,” he said, and closed the hatch.
Alisa trotted into NavCom, relieved when nobody except the stuffed spider dangling from the ceiling awaited her. Maybe Abelardus had gone back to bed or back into his cabin to dress. The men on her ship certainly liked to sleep with their shirts off. Maybe they hoped one of the women would be overwhelmed by their muscular masculinity and jump into bed with them. Well, Abelardus might think that. She doubted Leonidas did. It might even be dangerous for someone to fall asleep next to him. What would happen if he rolled around in his dreams and thunked his bed partner with an elbow, an elbow that could, with his strength, knock a hole in a wall—or a person?
She slid into her seat. Nothing showed up on the cameras yet, but the sensors displayed not one but two ships. Nerves jangled in her stomach, and her first thought was that Abelardus had underestimated the potential trouble that lay ahead. And
ahead
was the right word. Both craft were in the
Nomad
’s path. Not directly, but they would pass to the starboard side, close enough for the other ships to detect.
She tapped the console. Should she change her route to make a circle around them? Or was it too late? Had they already detected her? It wasn’t as if the
Nomad’s
sensors had the greatest range of any ship out there.
Leonidas slipped into NavCom. He bent to study the sensors with her.
“I can’t tell yet if they’re Alliance ships,” Alisa said, “but they’re close enough to each other to be having a heavy make-out session.”
His eyebrows twitched. She expected him to ignore the silly half of the comment, but he asked, “How close would they be if it was a light make-out session?”
“Nose to nose. Right now, they’re sidled up to each other, maybe with an airlock tube attached.”
“They’re not moving,” he observed.
“No, it doesn’t look like it. Maybe it’s a rescue.”
“Or a forced boarding.”
Alisa imagined an Alliance ship taking on prisoners after disabling a nosy craft that had meandered into the quarantined area. She turned toward the controls. “I’m going to give them a wide berth, hope they’re too busy with each other to notice us.”
“A good idea.” Leonidas sat down in the co-pilot’s seat, his head brushing the spider.
As Alisa adjusted their course, a soft beep came from the sensors. A
third
ship had come into range. This one was moving, sailing along in the direction she had been about to head.
“There are a lot of ships out here for a quarantine zone,” she grumbled and pulled her fingers back. The comm flashed, and she groaned. “So much for not being noticed.”
One of the ships from the pairing wanted to talk.
“What do you think?” Alisa looked toward Leonidas. “Should we pretend we’re all sleeping and ignore them or see what they want?”
“Are they transmitting a message?”
“Not yet.”
Alisa checked the sensors again. Since they had flown closer, she could now read a few more details.
“I don’t think those are warships.” She sent out a ping, which the ships should automatically respond to with Alliance IDs—if they were Alliance craft. Nothing came back. “Or Alliance ships.”
“That looks like a salvage tug,” Leonidas said, pointing to the larger one of the pair.
“The empire has some of those in the fleet.” Alisa distinctly remembered the one they had boarded near Perun’s moon.
“I doubt the empire has ships this far out anymore. The other ship looks like a freighter.”
Yes, a larger, newer version of the
Nomad
.
The comm flashed. The salvage tug again.
Alisa answered it. Now she was curious about what those two ships were doing out here.
“This is Captain Marchenko of the—” she started to respond.
She was interrupted.
“This is our find,” a man said. “Back the hells off, or we’ll blow you out of space.”
“Such tough words when addressing a freighter with no weapons,” Alisa said. “Do you chat up Alliance warships with that mouth? Because there’s one flying around not far behind me.”
Leonidas arched his eyebrows.
Alisa muted the comm. “I like to start my morning off by making jerks wet themselves if I can.”
“Just stay out of our weapons’ range, freighter captain, or we’ll—”
She un-muted the comm. “Blow us out of space. I got it. Thanks for the tip.” Alisa closed the channel. She adjusted her course slightly, to make sure the
Nomad
would not pass into the tug’s weapons’ range, but since that third ship lurked at the periphery of her sensor range, she did not veer far.
“Have you ever considered using more tact when addressing ships with far more firepower than yours?” Leonidas asked.
“I thought that
was
tactful. I didn’t insult his mother, his intelligence,
or
mock his penis size.”
“If I’m taking a job here, I’ll expect you to take my advice in security matters.”
“What would that advice be?”
“That we outfit this ship with weapons and find you some combat armor. Perhaps revoke your comm privileges.”
“Maybe we can dress you up in your pretty red armor, put a couple of blazers in your hands, and have you record the automated response message. That might keep people from harassing the
Nomad
, especially if you’re wearing your grumpy expression.” She pointed to his face. “Yes, just like that.”
Abelardus walked up to the hatchway, put his hands on the jamb, and frowned at Leonidas before meeting Alisa’s eyes. “Any trouble?”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Alisa said.
“Or exacerbate,” Leonidas murmured.
“Sh,” she said, smiling at him.
Abelardus’s frown deepened, but all he did was push away from the jamb and disappear back down the corridor.