23. Claimed #4
"Xor Xax. Previous classification: Hostile. Updated classification: Family." The orb glows. "I'm not being sentimental. I'm being accurate."
"Sure, Sprout."
"The reclassification is based on twelve data points, including but not limited to: he stayed, he fought, he chose, he let you shoot over his shoulder, he drank your tea, he sat in the chair, and he waited outside Morrison's door for twenty-five minutes while purring.
" A pause. "And he makes you laugh. That one is weighted heavily in the algorithm. "
Her hand finds mine. Laces our fingers together. The calluses at her fingertips fitting between my knuckles the way they have fitted every time and will fit every time after.
"Welcome to the family, lovey," she says. To me. Eyes closed. The pet name that I once catalogued as a power move and have since reclassified as the most important word in any language.
"Logging," Sprout says. "For posterity."
The orb dims. The berth is quiet. Her heartbeat in my chest. Mine in hers. The permanent, biological, unbreakable evidence that two people who met by accident chose each other on purpose.
I hold her. She sleeps. The purr fills the room.
The fairy lights blink on the Petal's console, visible through the berth window. Gerald the ceramic figurine perched on the throttle. The tea stain on the co-pilot's armrest. The ship that is home.
Home.
The comm panel chimes.
Soft — screened, apologetic. Sprout brightens a single degree. "Incoming from Morrison. Flagged: not urgent, not nothing. Her words. She is aware of the hour and says, and I quote, 'tell them to un-bond long enough to read a file.'"
Flossie surfaces from half-sleep with her hand still over my sternum. "Play it."
Morrison's voice, dry as station air: "Florence.
Your allied services contract went active this afternoon, which means SNAG Recovery Services is now on the register, which means intake requests started arriving at my office, because you do not have one yet.
Take Unit 7. And take this one first." A pause.
The sound of actual paper — Morrison prints the ones that matter.
"A woman came to my intake desk tonight.
No appointment. Paid the consult fee in hard scrip and would not give a name.
Said she would give it to 'the courier with the Xarthian.
' Asked for you by description, Florence, and your registration was hours old. "
"Her husband is Xarthian. Registered bonded pair, eleven years. He vanished the better part of a year ago — no foul play indicated, case closed everywhere that closes cases. The doctors say she is dying and cannot say of what." A beat. "You'll know of what."
Silence in the berth. Flossie's hand leaves my chest and finds the mark at her throat — the new one, the permanent one. Her heartbeat is in my sternum. Mine is in hers. Eleven years bonded, and then most of a year of silence where a heartbeat used to live.
"The notebook entry," she says. Awake now. Fully. "The bonded pair. You said we'd find him."
"I said we would."
"There is more," Sprout says. Quieter. The orb has stopped glowing warm and started glowing careful.
"I pulled the public records while Morrison was talking.
The disappearance was reviewed and closed by three separate agencies — station security, the shipping registry, a sector welfare office.
Three agencies. Three jurisdictions." A pause I recognise, because I have made rooms go silent the same way.
"All three closure reports use identical language. Word for word."
The operative sits up inside the man. Bonded Xarthians do not leave.
The biology does not permit the leaving — I have known it in the literature for thirty years and in my body since her.
Which means he did not leave. He was taken.
And whoever took him knew how to make three separate agencies stop looking in the same sentence.
"Morrison." Flossie's voice is level. Morrison-level. "Did she say anything else?"
A pause on the recording — long enough that I understand Morrison debated deleting this part. "She said: 'He is not the only one.'" The paper sound again. Folding. "First light, Florence. Come get the file."
The message ends.
Flossie reaches over me for the notebook — within arm's reach even now, especially now — and opens it to the page with the shaky handwriting, and beneath the entry she writes, round and quick: SNAG case 001. Then one more line, and her hand is steady when she writes it: found people find people.
"Sprout. Log it."
"Logged. First case: recovering a lost heartbeat." The orb glows amber, and underneath the warmth there is something with edges. "Engines warm at first light."
Her head settles back onto my chest. Her pulse in my sternum — steady, certain, home. Neither of us pretends we are going back to sleep.
Somewhere in the Reach, a heartbeat has gone missing, and someone with a long reach and identical sentences made sure nobody heard it stop. Someone who has done this more than once.
They were not counting on the two of us.
We are going to find it.