“The madness was unfortunate,” Alejandro said. “Especially since it affected both of them. As I said, delirium can be a side effect of radiation poisoning, but I thought they acted oddly, even given the circumstances.”
It took Alisa a moment to wrench her thoughts away from herself and to focus on what they were talking about. Not her blood, but the blood sample Leonidas had brought back on his armor.
“Emotional traumas, perhaps?” Leonidas said. “I’ve seen men snap in battle and spout nonsense.”
“Seeing everyone on their ship dying around them and knowing they would follow could not have been easy,” Alejandro said, though he did not sound convinced.
“Could the artifacts themselves have held some power beyond the radiation?” Alisa asked. “Like the doctor’s orb?”
“Who would infuse a plaque with Starseer power?” Leonidas asked.
“Well, if it was
Alcyone’s
station, maybe she did it. Or maybe there was something else on the deck in that cabin. You looked like you were stepping over a lot of clutter.”
“Yes. And bodies.” He sighed.
Alisa wondered if he, too, wished they hadn’t heard that distress call and diverted. What good had come of all this? The only thing she could think of was that they had dealt with it out here in the middle of nowhere and that the ship hadn’t floated up to Primus 7 where more people might have been affected by the radiation. Of course, whatever sensors Primus 7 and its ships had might have been able to detect the radiation long before sending people to board. She hoped that no one on the
Nomad
would suffer long-term health effects from this side trip.
“You’ve put the ship back on course toward Leonidas’s coordinates?” Alejandro asked, turning away from the microscope. The way he asked it made it sound like he expected the answer to be yes, and that he would be disappointed if he heard anything else.
“I have,” Alisa said. “But are we sure we want to continue on?”
“Of course. What do you mean?”
Leonidas leaned his hip against the exam table and crossed his arms over his chest, but he did not say anything. He merely watched the conversation.
“You saw the star map,” Alisa said. “Do you think it’s a coincidence that the pilgrim ship came from the exact spot in space that we’re on our way to search?”
“Of course it’s not a coincidence.” Alejandro brushed past her, and she thought he would stalk out of sickbay, but all he did was look up and down the corridor, then pull the hatch shut. “Those damned Starseers know where we’re going, and I’ll bet my left testicle that Abelardus sent word ahead so people could investigate the coordinates before we got there, people with Starseer blood.” He pointed toward his microscope. “It’s not as if this rust bucket is the fastest thing in the galaxy. Many other ships could have reached it by now. That’s why we can’t delay any further.”
“First off,” Alisa said coolly, taking exception to the rust bucket comment, “closing the hatch isn’t going to keep Abelardus from knowing what we’re in here talking about. And second, who in all of the suns’ fiery hells do you think wants one of your testicles?”
Leonidas snorted.
Alejandro glared. “I see you’re going to take this conversation seriously.”
“This is your mission, not mine.
My
mission is being delayed
again
because of you and your orb. You tell me what about that is supposed to make me serious.”
“The dead people we just left in our wake,” Leonidas said grimly.
Alisa flinched, immediately feeling childish. Alejandro rubbed her the wrong way and made her want to lash out. But Leonidas made her feel… she didn’t know what exactly. Ashamed that she wasn’t a better person. She doubted that was his intent, but it still stung. Jonah had never made her feel ashamed.
She turned toward the hatch, blinking at the unexpected emotion that welled within her.
“She’s impossible to deal with,” Alejandro said and stalked back to his microscope.
“No, she’s not.” Leonidas walked over and put a hand on her shoulder, frowning at her, in concern not condemnation. “Thank you for picking me up,” he said. “Not everybody comes back for irradiated cyborgs.”
“Your
suit
was irradiated, not your cyborg parts,” Alejandro muttered, his back to them.
“I’ll thank the three suns for that.” He lowered his hand.
Alisa wished he hadn’t. She felt the urge to lean against him, whether he had shamed her or not. Alejandro turned back toward them, so she leaned her shoulder against the bulkhead instead.
“We will need to be careful approaching the coordinates,” Alejandro said, having apparently decided he could have serious conversations with her after all. “Those contaminated artifacts came from somewhere.”
“It’ll be interesting to discover somewhere in the middle of nowhere,” Alisa said.
Alejandro made a disgusted noise and headed for the hatch. “I’m going to lie down. Let me know if anyone needs medical assistance.”
He opened the hatch and stalked out.
Leonidas smiled faintly at Alisa. “You really do vex him.”
“Good, he vexes the hells out of me. I know he—” Alisa caught herself from saying that Alejandro wouldn’t mind if she were dead. That had come out in a confidential conversation between Leonidas and Alejandro, one she had eavesdropped on. “I know he never forgets that I’m Alliance and that I don’t want what he wants.”
“No,” Leonidas said softly, his eyes growing hooded.
“You do sometimes, I think.”
“I don’t forget it. I suppose I just hope that you’ll come around to my way of thinking someday and realize the Alliance doesn’t care about you any more than the empire did. Now that you’ve been getting in their way, they probably care even less.”
She swallowed, annoyed that there was some truth in his words. “I’m only in their way because you two thugs sucked me into your orbit,” she grumbled.
“Thugs?”
“Thugs.” She reached out and squeezed his biceps. “Surely, it’s not the first time you’ve been classified as such.”
He arched an eyebrow, and she withdrew her hand, regretting the joke. Every now and then, he deigned to banter with her, but it didn’t seem to be his natural reaction. She had probably offended him again.
“Many times,” Leonidas said, “but I was puzzled as to your classification of a scrawny man in a robe as such.”
“I’ve seen his bare shins under that robe. Those leg hairs are definitely thugly.”
He snorted.
She smiled, relieved that she hadn’t offended him. “That almost sounded like a laugh, Leonidas. I’ll get it out of you one day.”
“Perhaps.” He did return the smile, though his smiles were never huge and toothy. They were always a subtle stretching of the lips, and there always seemed to be a sadness in them, one he could never fully shake.
Someone tugged the hatch open further, and Alisa expected Alejandro to walk in, returning for something he had forgotten. But Abelardus stepped in.
He eyed Leonidas. “Such a shame that you made it back on board. I tried to suggest to our captain that she leave you behind, but she was oddly unamenable.”
Leonidas stared back at him, all of the humor gone from his face, the smile only a memory. Alisa rolled her eyes.
Abelardus’s gaze shifted to Alisa. “I saw you were in here and figured you were checking your blood.”
“And that I’d need your help?” she asked, aware of Leonidas looking curiously in her direction.
“I’m curious as to the answer.”
“I’m not.”
He smirked. “Yes, you are.”
“Didn’t we talk about my feelings in regard to you being in my head?”
“My apologies. It’s a bad habit, I know.” Abelardus looked back to Leonidas. “Why don’t you take a walk, mech? You must be tired after your adventures.”
“I’m rarely tired.”
“No? Not even when you sleep so poorly?” Abelardus smirked again.
Alisa wanted to punch him in the mouth. No, she wanted
Leonidas
to punch him in the mouth. That would hurt him a lot more.
“You’re monitoring my sleep?” Leonidas asked. “I didn’t know I was such a fascination for you.”
“Know thy enemy.”
“Why don’t you both go get some rest?” Alisa said. “And leave me alone so I can hunt up some painkillers. For some reason, I’m getting a headache.”
“Well, I doubt it’s from the radiation,” Abelardus said.
“I doubt it is, too,” Leonidas muttered and walked out.
Alisa watched him go. She wouldn’t have minded if he had stayed. She just did not want the two of them sniping at each other. She made a shooing motion, hoping Abelardus would follow. A moment alone sounded quite appealing. Her thoughts were a tangle, and she needed time to consider them. And perhaps time to see if she could figure out how to work Alejandro’s DNA sequencer. She
was
curious, damn it. She didn’t want to be, but she was.
“I helped the Alliance, you know,” Abelardus said, drawing her attention back to him. “My brother didn’t. We argued a lot. He supported the empire and was even working for them in the end. I don’t know if it’s true, but according to him, he tutored the emperor’s older son. Before the kid died. I’m not sure if the younger boy has had any training. I never cared. Honestly, I didn’t care about the Alliance either in the beginning, but I came around to the idea of the empire’s vise grip on the system being lessened.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Alisa asked, wanting to shove him out the hatchway after Leonidas, but making herself pause. This was new information. She didn’t care who he’d fought for, but if his brother was the same Durant that had taken her daughter, wouldn’t it be useful to know more about him? If Durant was an imperial loyalist, what did he have in mind for Jelena?
Abelardus tilted his head. “I thought it might matter to you.”
“I’d like to hear more about Durant.”
His mouth twisted. “I was hoping you’d rather know more about
me
.”
Er, why?
“Not unless you kidnapped my daughter.”
“I wouldn’t do such a thing. Look, I know you think I’m a jerk because I don’t like your cyborg friend, but I find it puzzling that you
call
him a friend. He’s everything the empire stands for. I bet he enjoyed enforcing their laws and squashing dissenters under his big booted feet.”
“I think you’re a jerk because you messed with my mind and convinced me to fly up to that Alliance warship and sacrifice ourselves to them, all to buy time for your people.”
“I thought the mech might be sacrificed, but I doubted they would do anything to you. I have no quarrel with you, Captain.”
“That ship’s commander jabbed me in the throat with a blazer and seemed perfectly happy to sacrifice me.”
Abelardus stared into her eyes, and the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She stepped back, certain he was sifting through her thoughts.
“He was bluffing,” Abelardus said. “The Alliance commander. He wouldn’t have hurt you, but he could tell that the mech had feelings for you—” he sneered, “—and that he would give up rather than see you sacrificed.”
“You weren’t there. You didn’t read his thoughts. You can’t be sure. I’m not even sure.”
“I’m sure.” Abelardus shrugged. “Even if I wasn’t, you should know that Lady Naidoo’s first response to learning that your ship had a beacon on it and that you’d led those warships to us was to want to blow you, your crew, and your ship off our dock. She figured that would take care of the beacon. Those of us with saner minds talked her out of it. Yumi Moon’s mother, for one. And I argued against it too. It’s one thing to protect our turf from invaders but another to kill in cold blood.”
“I don’t know why I should believe you.”
“Because we’re the same.” He surprised her by grinning and thumping her on the arm with his fist. “Go test your blood and find out.”
She grunted. “Why would that matter? I can’t do anything that you can do. Sylvia—my sister-in-law—said lots of people have Starseer genes, but that it’s rare for them to manifest.”
“Lots? Not lots. They’re dominant genes and do get passed on easily enough, but our people were almost annihilated after the Order Wars. Nearly extinct. A few centuries hasn’t made a huge difference, and we don’t generally get along that well with outsiders—I can’t imagine why.” He quirked his eyebrows. “So, we’re not out there breeding with normal humans like glow worms on a rampage.” He touched her arm again. “Check your blood. It’ll be fun.”
“Uh.” Alisa didn’t know what to say. Playful Abelardus was more alarming than asshole Abelardus. “You know what would be fun? If you could get in touch with your brother and ask him if he’s been kidnapping little girls lately. I would appreciate that.”
“Yes, I suppose you would. I sent a message as soon as we left Arkadius, but he didn’t respond. I’ll try again.”
“Good. Thank you.”
“Test your blood,” he repeated, then bowed and walked out, his robe sweeping over the bottom of the hatchway.
“Weirdo,” she muttered.
Alisa pulled the hatch shut and leaned against it. She closed her eyes, relieved to be alone. She had not been lying about that headache, and she could feel sweat breaking out on her forehead. Was that from stress? Radiation? Or were the side effects of Alejandro’s potions starting?
A painkiller and a nap were what she needed.
And yet… she found her eyes opening, her gaze turning toward Alejandro’s tools. She could work a microscope, but she didn’t know how to use the DNA sequencer. Would it be difficult to figure out? Should she try? What would it truly change if she had some gene mutations? Who didn’t?
Her legs felt numb as she walked around the table to the counter. The DNA sequencer sat next to the microscope, the blood sample from the pilgrim ship still in it. She peered at the small display on the compact device. It showed several double helixes that meant absolutely nothing to her—she couldn’t even tell if they were actual images taken from cells or pictorial representations—but the columns of text on the other side of the display were somewhat more illuminating. The familiar ATCG letters were lined up in various combinations on the left, and in most instances, matching combinations lay in the columns to the right. But in several spots, the combinations on the right were highlighted, and letters had been inserted, deleted, or shifted.