Chapter 7
She knew it was another dream.
While she’d never quite mastered lucid dreaming, keeping a dream journal had at least given her that awareness, if not control.
So when a stark, inhuman face turned toward her out of the darkness, reaching toward her with one thorny hand, she smiled and extended her own.
“Suvan.”
“Love.”
But as their fingers made contact, he…unraveled. First the tips of his spines spiraling away into shadowlight, the radiance burning through him though his pale gaze never wavered. Her whole body contracted with denial even as she grasped for him, her heart aching, yearning to follow…
“Mariah?”
Just a dream.
She opened her eyes to the stark, inhuman face above her in the darkness…
The déjà vu made her voice quiver. “Suvan.”
“Were you dreaming?”
Was she still?
With a groan—even she could only stomach so much mystical mystery—she wedged an elbow under her and pushed upright. “Where…”
“You fell asleep at the fabricator.”
“I did?” She blinked around her. She was tucked into a small bed, a thick plush blanket snugged around her. “Oh no. I didn’t finish.”
“It was enough.” Suvan settled back in an easy crouch. “After a few adjustments, I sent the ghostform to print, although it will take some time to make a mask sized for a ship. Griiek and Ikaryo are supervising.”
“What about the ship that was chasing us?”
“We’re currently free rotating in dark mode with the rest of the asteroid debris. They’ve been scanning, but they won’t see us until we’re ready.” His teeth flashed in the dim illumination of the module’s machinery. “And then they will flee your monstrous yarn bomb.”
She scrubbed a hand down her face. “It’s not a real bomb though, sadly.”
“Ms. McCoy was with Ikaryo. I asked her to explain the nuance. She said it is art and sometimes activism and also silliness. Is that correct?”
“A way to use up some of my stash too.”
“We were able to glean scrap from the mining tailings before we powered down. Nothing sufficiently explosive for long-range weaponry. Fear and a few fireworks are all we have.”
“I’m sorry I passed out on you.” She gave him a rueful smile. “So much for being a help or at least company.”
He rolled one spiny shoulder. “You were quiet company.”
How had she fallen asleep so hard? Had he carried her here?
To his bed?
She started to scoot out from under the blanket, but paused at a grumbling from beneath her feet. “What was that?”
A solitary gleaming yellow eyeball popped above the blanket. No, not an eyeball; it was Lub’s lure. The goblhob nudged free of the covers and trundled up next to her knees.
It had lurked nearby the whole time she’d been working out her design, and she’d decided it was one part universe’s ugliest dog, one part dentally challenged great white shark, and one part leather ottoman, liberally sprinkled with catitude.
And the delicately bobbing lure light between its devil horns was… wrong.
Lub stared at her, bulbous orange eyes unblinking.
“Thank you for keeping me warm,” she murmured. She slanted a glance at Suvan. “Um, do goblhobs like petting or treats or positive crew reviews or…?”
“They are known to be aloof and territorial. But when you were almost falling off the stool, Lub brought you its own blankie.”
She only choked a little at that. So it hadn’t been Suvan who’d noticed her fading. Of course, he had other concerns, like the engines keeping them all alive in the depths of dangerous space.
That shrinking feeling? Oh, that was just the colder air creeping under the blanket where Lub had been.
She smoothed her hands over her braids. “I didn’t realize I was so exhausted.”
“This cruise has been too much for all of us.”
She half-smiled at him as she stretched the stiffness out of her neck, appreciating the offered justification. “And yet you are still on your feet.”
“Szauralithyn sleep less than Earthers. Maybe that’s why we don’t dream as much.”
Her dream…
“Love.”
Had it been his voice to say the word?
Not that it mattered. It was only a dream.
“I need coffee,” she muttered, pushing aside the blanket. Then she paused to finger the nap. “This is nice. I wonder if it could be spun.”
“It’s a larf pelt,” Suvan said. When she instinctively recoiled, he added, “Fake fur. Because larfs aren’t really that big. And Lub eats any larfs it finds.”
A ping from one of the consoles interrupted, and he abruptly disappeared.
If not for Lub’s lure and the ambient illumination of the machinery, she would’ve been left in the dark of Suvan’s bedroom.
But there was enough light that she couldn’t help but glance around curiously as she swung her feet to the deck.
The narrow bed was wedged against the bulkhead with a small stand by the single pillow holding what she assumed was his personal datpad. An inactive wall-mounted screen was a square of darker black.
The screen could be tuned to a view of anything, of course, but if there was color or comfort anywhere else in the vicinity, her eyes could not perceive it.
Why did this place send an odd jolt of recognition through her?
Maybe it wasn’t his bedroom. Maybe he lounged here to secretly read sci fi romance novels when he was supposed to be working. But somehow—she remembered him saying that he didn’t sleep much—she knew this was what he’d chosen for his space. Not merely austere but devoid.
She hadn’t actually seen this lonely little corner before, not even in a dream. And it might’ve served as a humorous opposite of her own apartment bedroom with all her friends’ art, bright and shining as if a hundred resonarks had puked rainbows across every surface.
And yet…she recognized this place, this feeling.
It was why she’d been thrilled to receive the ticket to the Cosmic Connections Cruise.
Finally averting her gaze for privacy, she pushed to her feet. Lub reclaimed its blankie with proprietary glee, using its fangs, stubby horns, and all four clawed feet to make an untidy nest.
Nuzzling down, the goblhob’s orange eyes gleamed at her by the light of its bobbing lure.
“I’m glad you keep him warm,” she whispered.
With a grunt, it closed its eyes, and the lure blinked out.
She was dismissed. When she turned away from the lonely little bedroom, she heard Suvan deep in some engineering conversation with the captain and pilot, so she retrieved her yarn tote and crept out, managing not to stub her toes.
She needed coffee, but also a chance to think.
After dropping her tote in her cabin, she wandered onward to the salon, trying to tease apart the tangles of her thoughts. She was late for breakfast, and only a few passengers were still lingering over their mugs, but in the doorway, she paused to stare up at the resonark.
Shadowlight. That was what Suvan had called the energy. She liked the word.
Not as good as loveffervescence, but still.
Was it strange how they’d now accepted the presence of the anomaly that had hijacked them? But they’d all felt the harmonic resonance as the resonark responded to their shared emotion during the recital.
The IDA brochure hyped love above all, but there was so much more to the quest for connection. Curiosity. Hope. Wonder. A song that was a signal into the silence. A survival instinct stitching one heart to another across the void.
Not so strange after all.
With a sigh, she went to the bar where Remy was standing in Ikaryo’s place.
Mariah smiled at her. “Good morning. When did you get hired?”
Remy leaned an elbow on the shiny bar. “It all started when I didn’t burn my golden ticket to the first Cosmic Connections Cruise…”
There’d been a time, Mariah reflected, when Remy might’ve said that with more than a hint of bitterness. But now her green eyes went a little misty and unfocused. “Sounds like the start of a song,” she murmured.
“I hope you’ll play it for us sometime,” Mariah said.
It had been such an amazing, unlikely coincidence to find out one of her favorite musicians was on the same cruise.
When Remy had lost her stage name back on Earth, she’d lost her love for singing too—only to find it against out in space with Ikaryo’s resonating implants. That had to be more than random chance.
She glanced again at the resonark, then looked back when Remy said, “Tea?”
“Still got coffee?”
“Sort of.” The redhead filled a mug halfway with gently steaming black sludge that she diluted with hot water. “Chef is trying to synthesize beans. Don’t tell him what you really think.”
“As long as it’s caffeinated.” Mariah took a sip. And choked. “Oh. That’s a kick.”
Remy chuckled. “Ikaryo said you were up all night inventing a disguise for our cruiser. He’s overseeing the fabrication, which is why I’m covering here.”
Tentatively, Mariah drank again. “I wasn’t sure if the captain was going to tell everyone what’s happening.”
“You know I was always a solo act, but…I’m coming to appreciate the power of a chorus.” Remy glanced toward the viewport. “The only way to find out where the resonark was going is going together.”
Mariah followed her gaze. What had been a featureless obsidian void for days now showed the rather alarming proximity of dark gray and ice-rimed boulders: the debris field that was hiding them until her blueprint was complete.
The coffee sludge roiled in her stomach. She should’ve asked Suvan to show her what had been sent to the fabricator. What if she’d done something ridiculous? Something that would damage the ship?
No, he would never let that happen.
The coffee still churned but she asked Remy to top off her mug with water and took it toward the corner booth.
Mr. Evens was sitting there, alone again, slumped low enough that she’d almost missed him. She hesitated, not wanting to intrude, but he glanced up and she felt compelled to pause.
“Morning,” she said. “Is everything…” She didn’t bother continuing because really.
“Everything is,” he confirmed with a sigh. He gestured across from him. “Please, sit. If you are daring or caring enough to converse with a pariah.”
“Have you considered apologizing for tricking us all onto a haunted spaceship?”
He winced. “Does everyone know?”
Since his mournful tone sounded sorrier about being caught than genuinely remorseful, she shrugged without much sympathy. “It is a small boat, and there hasn’t been a lot to do. When we haven’t been panicking.”
He gave her a droll look. “You don’t seem panicked.”
“Maybe you just can’t see my heart pounding.”
“That’s the alleged coffee.” Then his expression turned a little sly. “Or perhaps the chief engineer.”
She’d never been good at hiding her feelings, and she knew she twitched at Evens’ smirk. “Has the vote come back yet?”
That erased his grin. “Not yet. If Nehivar turns the ship around…”
Considering their vessel was currently imitating a dead rock, maybe the captain would be right to do so, regardless of the vote. In the aftermath of the recital, when feelings had been high, they’d all wanted to find out where the resonark would take them.
But were they pretending there wouldn’t be risks? It was one thing to fool their pursuer, but not themselves.
She studied Evens like she would a particularly daunting sampler. She was good enough to follow most of the complicated stitches, but…
Not every sweater was worth it.
“According to the gossip, you chose us all for this cruise,” she reminded him. “You have all our profiles with personalities, goals, advanced behavioral biometrics, everything that can be plugged into a database. And you aren’t sure of the votes?”
With a pained purse of his lips, he blew out a breath. “It seems there are variables beyond even my control.”
He didn’t look at the resonark, so she assumed he meant she and the other IDA hopefuls were the pesky knots in his sock.
Pulling her mug closer, she swung her stockinged feet out of the booth. “Maybe it’s time you stopped pulling our strings and let the pattern unfold on its own.”
Despite the daytime lighting, his eyes were shadowed. “None of you would be here without me.”
Was that a threat or a tacit apology?
She didn’t ask. And maybe she didn’t want to know.
Because in a universe of infinite possibilities, he probably wasn’t wrong.