Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Dathan watched shock skitter over Eos’ beautiful features.
She pulled back. “No!”
He shrugged, surprised at the disappointment that trickled through him. “Figured.”
She stiffened. “It’s a treasure that belongs to everyone.
It was once one of the most visited pieces of art on Earth.
We don’t know who the woman was, but da Vinci’s masterpiece inspired something in Terrans.
It deserves to be seen by everyone in the galaxy.
Not just one treasure hunter who’ll sell it to the highest bidder. ”
“Nice speech.” He envied her the passion and belief in her voice. “I thought you wanted to find Star’s End. Sounded like it was important.”
She closed her eyes. “I do.” A quiet whisper.
“Well, I want something valuable in return. I’ll be giving up going after the timepiece I wanted, and we’ll be taking a big risk, expending lots of e-creds and resources.”
Her golden eyes opened, pinned him. “What if I let you take one of the other pieces? And as many non-Louvre artifacts as you can find? If we find Star’s End, it’ll be packed with Terran history—”
“Nope.” The Mona Lisa fragment was the one artifact his father had stayed sober for. He’d tried for years to track it down until he’d become a laughingstock among treasure hunters.
Dathan wanted that fragment.
“Last chance, Doc.”
The struggle was written on her face. “I just don’t think I can hand it over…”
He shrugged again. “Well, I have things to do.” He strode out. Counting the seconds.
One. Two. Three.
She fell into step beside him. “I don’t know if I can do this. The law says the Mona Lisa belongs to the Institute. I’m already bending so many rules by working with treasure hunters. I follow the rules. I like rules.”
He shot her a glance. “Rules are there to be bent or broken. And no one likes rules, that’s just wrong.”
She sighed. “Why am I not surprised?”
In the living area, Niklas was focused on one screen, Zayn leaning over his shoulder.
Niklas glanced their way. “You okay, Eos?”
“I’m fine. It was nothing.”
“Hey, Dath, I got a hit on our friend Darc and the timepiece.” Zayn gestured to the screen.
“The treasure hunter who injured you?” Eos said.
Dathan scowled. “The one and only.”
“She’s lined up a sale,” Zayn said. “To Vand Braxx.”
Dathan let out a string of curses he’d learned from the bouncers on Canon IV.
Eos dropped onto a leather sofa. “The black market dealer?”
Dathan shoved a hand through his hair. Didn’t even wince when it tugged on his scalp. “The bastard will either lock the timepiece away in his vault or sell it to someone worse.” Not that it got much worse than Vand.
Eos chewed her bottom lip. “Either way, it’ll disappear into a private collection and no one will see it again.
The Institute has thousands of charges up against him for illegal dealing, but they never stick.
There’s so much we could learn about Earth if we could just study all the artifacts. ” She shot Dathan a dark look.
There was anger in her gold eyes, but he saw something else too.
She was caving. He watched her gnaw on her lips some more.
“Okay.” She stood. “I’ll do it.”
Niklas spun. “Do what?”
Dathan clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Dr. Rai is going to give us the Mona Lisa fragment after we help her find Star’s End.”
Niklas frowned. “Eos, you sure you want to do this?”
She nodded. “Yes. Dathan’s promised to help find Star’s End and the artifact.”
Dathan liked the flush riding her high cheekbones. “I don’t remember promising anything.”
Her chin lifted. “Deal’s a deal, Phoenix.”
He stalked closer, saw her fight not to take a step backward. For some reason, putting the lovely archeologist on edge was fun.
Leaning down, he brushed his lips against her ear. He kept his voice whisper quiet. “I promise. And fair warning, I promise to find out exactly what makes you tick, Dr. Rai, while I’m at it.”
A hand slapped against his chest. She pushed him back a few inches. “That’s not going to happen.” She kept her voice low. “The only things I want from you are Star’s End and the Mona Lisa.” She pulled away. “Now let’s get to work.”
“Okay.” He grabbed her hand and towed her out of the room. His brothers followed.
She hurried to keep up with him. “Where are we going?”
They headed up some stairs. “Mission Control.”
At a landing, Eos watched Dathan press a finger against a DNA lock on a heavy titanium-reinforced door. There was a discreet beep and a faint flicker of light on the door. A quantum energy field disengaging. Serious security.
He waved her in. “Welcome to Mission Control.”
Where the warehouse downstairs was a jumbled mess, this place was ruthlessly organized.
Artifacts from cultures all over the galaxy lined the shelves—labeled and tagged better than in the Institute Archives.
A bank of screens—larger than downstairs—lined one wall, and a huge holo-table dominated the center of the room.
They used holo-tables at the Institute for displaying data either like a normal screen or in three dimensions, but none this big.
Dathan strode to the table. “Nik, call up the hunt-planning checklist. We’ll see what we have in stock.”
With a nod, Niklas touched the holo-table and it flickered to life, displaying images and documents.
She stared at the focused look on Dathan’s face. Nothing like the irreverent man she’d met downstairs.
“Doc?” He pushed a chair out.
She sat, and he wheeled her closer to the table.
“Time for you to tell us where we’re headed.”
Her gut tightened and she pressed her index finger hard against her leg. She wasn’t used to trusting anyone, especially not with her life’s work.
Dathan pressed his hands to the table and leaned forward. “We need to plan and work out what supplies we need. That’s the only way to make this hunt a success.”
She watched Niklas running through the checklist. “Do you plan every hunt like this?”
“Every one.”
And here she’d imagined him dashing to abandoned temples and plundering everything he could find.
Niklas paused. “We’ll need a few things, but we can get it all on Souk.” He tapped the screen. “Now we need the destination.”
Dathan’s gaze bored into Eos. “Your call, Doc. In or out?”
She drew in a slow breath. “In.”
“Switching to voice commands,” Niklas said.
Dathan groaned. “Do you have to?”
“It’ll be easier for Eos.”
“I see we have a visitor.” The feminine voice echoed through the room. “Isn’t someone going to introduce me?”
Eos looked around with a frown, and saw Dathan roll his eyes.
Niklas straightened. “Eos, I’d like you to meet, BEll. BEll, this is Dr. Eos Rai.”
“Ooh, some class for a change,” BEll said. “Lovely to have a doctor on this hunk of space rock.”
Niklas frowned. “I’m a doctor.”
“You don’t count.”
Eos leaned forward, not certain where to look. She settled on the holo-table. “You’re sentient?”
“Yep. And smarter than these three put together. Lucky, because I keep them out of trouble.”
Dathan leaned against a table. “Pity you weren’t less chatty.”
“Aww, you’ll hurt my feelings.”
“You don’t have feelings.”
Eos crossed her legs, her gaze zeroing in on Dathan. “You have a sentient computer. I thought they were only theory.”
He held up his hands. “Ta-da. One experimental sentient computer who can think for herself, talks too damn much, and butts in where she isn’t wanted most of the time. A BE II, or BEll for short.”
“BE—” Eos’ eyes widened and she shot to her feet “She’s a Biocomputerized Entity.”
“A Biocomputerized Entity Mach II,” BEll added.
A computer with integrated biological components. As far as Eos had heard, all attempts at creating biocomps had failed. “How the hell did you end up with a working biocomp?”
Dathan scratched the back of his neck. “It’s probably something you don’t want to know.”
“Dathan stole me.”
“BEll—” A warning tone.
“Sorry.” The computer’s tone was the opposite of chastised. “He won me in a game of Crossfire.”
A card game. Eos scrubbed a hand over her face. “Okay, don’t tell me any more.” She held up her hand, finger raised. “I have the info here.”
Dathan reached for her hand and ran the pad of his thumb over her finger. She swore the air around them heated.
“You have an integrated chip,” he said.
“I didn’t want to keep it on something that could be stolen.” She pulled her hand away. “BEll?”
“Press your finger to the screen, Dr. Rai,” BEll said.
Eos touched the cool screen and cleared her throat. “Can you please display file 11B-03?”
“Coming right up.” The holo-table flashed as the star maps displayed.
The men leaned over the table. Zayn tapped a point on the map. “I bet you a million e-creds it’s in this area.”
“You’re on.” Dathan leaned a hip against the table. “Nothing in that system but space rock and solar flares.” His gaze zeroed in on Eos. His eyes were once again mountain-lake blue. His gaze traced down her hair before flicking back to her face. “BEll, extrapolate the maps.”
“A please wouldn’t go astray,” the computer responded.
Dathan sighed. “Please.”
The projectors on the roof flared to life and a three-dimensional image of the stars filled the space above the table.
“Amazing,” Eos breathed. It looked like a sprinkle of diamonds hanging in the air. When she turned her head, she saw Dathan watching her. He was staring at her lips.
She looked away and gestured to a small system on the map. “Zoom in on this area.”
The image changed, showing a lot of empty space and one small star system. Dual suns with three planets, each with abundant moons.
“It’s here.” Eos pointed to a small moon circling a ringed planet. “On the second moon of the second planet. The mining company labeled the system Amori. The planet is Amoris and the moon, Beta7.”
A heavy, pressing silence. Eos forced herself not to fidget.
“That’s outside the known galaxy,” Niklas said slowly.
“Uncharted fucking space,” Dathan bit out.