Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
Rasker moved through the water the way birds moved through air: completely at home, with control, grace and raw, effortless strength.
He had stripped down to shorts he had apparently been wearing beneath his pants, and the single word that came and stayed in Holly’s mind at watching him flow with the water was: beautiful.
He had never looked more alien to her, either.
His skin had deepened to a richer blue in the water, the kind of color she had only ever seen at the very bottom of a clear sea.
His gills showed plainly at the sides of his neck, and when he lifted his hands to adjust course, she could see webbing that must fold down between his fingers in dry air.
He propelled himself the length of one pool in a long, smooth glide, then curved upward and crested the divide into the next with pure ease.
His face, when she caught a glimpse of it, was unguarded. Blissful.
She set the bucket down and watched him as he moved from pool to pool, and she stood on the walkway above, wondering if she had intruded on something private, even though she was the one who had brought him here.
Then he surfaced near the edge of the nearest pool and found her with his gaze.
He was not embarrassed. Neither, somehow, was she.
He swam to the edge directly below her and lifted his face to look at her.
Up close, with the water beading on his skin, gills still working, and his eyes gleaming with what looked like an extra clear protective layer, he looked more aquatic than she had ever seen him.
Like the person she’d picked up in the hotel was a very convincing translation, but this was the original text.
“You’ve got to come in here,” he said.
“I’m not really a swimmer.”
“You were right about this water. It’s perfect.” He laid his hand flat on the surface, watching it. “Come on, Holly. Your skin will love it.”
She could see every line and color change in the stone below the surface, and this was a little too deep for her liking. “I haven’t swum since I was small,” she said.
“Then it’s been too long.”
“Oh, fine.” She told herself she was doing it because she was sweaty and hot, and needed a rinse off anyway.
She told herself that she needed to establish his trust, to keep the ease between them, because she was gathering information.
But the real reason? She wanted to feel just a sliver of whatever he was feeling swimming through these pools.
She pulled off her boots and set them aside, stripped off her pullover and climbed down to the pool’s edge in her shorts and tank top. The stone was warm under her feet.
The water was warm, but it had been a long time, and the feeling of being enclosed in it startled her. She clutched the rock edge and made a small, involuntary sound.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Yes.” A lie. “Fine.”
It was not fine. Every instinct told her the floor was gone and she was going to sink to the bottom. In her experience, a loss of gravity wasn’t a good thing.
Then his arm came around her waist, and the instincts quieted.
“Relax,” he said, behind her ear. “I won’t let you drown. I promise.”
She released the side.
He was different in the water, where he moved with a casual authority that he didn’t think about.
She felt him shift his weight, felt the water reorganize around them both, and then they were moving.
She did not have to do anything. She did not have to kick or reach or tilt her head.
He carried them through the pool as if her weight was just a part of him, and the water moved around her the way he had described it: slow and close and silken.
It sprayed on her face and she tasted salt and stone.
She extended her arms and the water moved over them.
His hands were around her waist, holding her securely against his chest. The light under the surface refracted in shifting patterns on the stone walls.
She could see her own hands out ahead of her and it felt for a brief and amazing moment like she was flying.
Time did strange things for a while, pausing while she let the mineral-rich water slide over her skin along with the powerful angles of the man she’d put her complete trust in.
He wouldn’t let her go. She knew this in her bones.
Eventually, he brought them back to the same edge she’d entered the water at in a long, easy arc. She reached for the rim and held it as she treaded water there, up to her neck. She turned to look at him, and he was watching her with an unreadable expression.
“Thank you,” he said, “for letting me show you.”
“I’m glad I did,” she said, her heart still racing. Skin still singing. “I almost didn’t get in.”
He cocked his head. “I never doubted you, Holly.”
They were very close. The water lapped quietly around them. She could feel the warmth radiating from him and the pool at the same time, and found it pleasantly dizzying.
She held his gaze. “If Rest ’N Recharge takes this place,” she said, “these pools are gone.”
He stilled beside her. “Gone,” he repeated.
“Well, they’d be here, but without power in the station, they’d freeze.”
He looked at the pools. The expression on his face was the same one she had seen when he was gazing at the water, the unguarded one, except that it had gone pained at its edges.
“These pools are a wonder,” he said. “They should be preserved.”
She turned to look at him directly. She had held the question in for the entire morning, all through the drive and the conversation and the plumbing and now this, and she was tired of holding it.
“Rasker. Were you in the garden? A few days ago.”
The silence lasted two seconds. She counted them.
Concern crossed his face, sharp and genuine and fast, like he was working something out. “No,” he said. “I was not. I heard Alyce muttering to Sam about some garden vandalism. What happened?”
She knew it then. She had been watching his face since he opened his door this morning, looking for something that would give him away, and there was nothing. Just as she expected.
She told him. The methodical destruction, the rows of plants dug up one after another, what had been lost and what Mish and Alyce had managed to save.
His expression darkened as she spoke.
“Has anyone been in contact with you,” he said slowly, when she finished, “from the other firm that wants to buy, Complete Respite?”
Holly shook her head. “Mr. Binn said they tried to buy it when Charles was still alive, and again after, but they haven’t reached out personally, like your clients. They own thousands of outposts. I doubt they care much about this one.”
“They care.” He said it carefully, like he was choosing to be honest rather than calculated. “They care very much. I’m not sure you realize how strategic this location is. How much both major way station operators want access to this moon.”
“I know about the Saga-1 space station that’s being built,” she said. “But…” she trailed off. “What exactly are you trying to say, Rasker?”
“Things happen sometimes, when a buyer is impatient and the legal route is moving too slowly. Small disruptions. Small discouragements. The idea is to make the current owner believe the property is more trouble than it’s worth, or to turn the people who rely on the location against one another.
” He swept a wet lock of hair off her cheek.
“I’m telling you, this may escalate. As time passes, there will be more pressure put on you to sell. ”
“You’re telling me someone from Complete Respite may be here already?” That thought had not occurred to her. “Without my knowing, and is responsible for the damage?”
“I’m telling you it’s possible. I’m telling you to be vigilant.” He looked at her steadily. “And I’m telling you that I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Mish and Alyce are worried that you’re the one getting impatient.”
“And what do you think?” he asked.
“I think they’re wrong.” She swallowed. “And I think I like you.”
He leaned in and kissed her. It was soft and unhurried, like he had decided to kiss her and was going to do it right.
She felt the shock of it move through her in a slow wave, and she kissed him back.
For a few long moments, the whole complicated situation, the outpost, the sabotage, all of it went very quiet.
Then they both drew back.
He looked at her. She looked at him. Neither of them said anything.
He shifted in the water, placed his hands on her waist, and lifted her to the pool’s edge in one easy motion. She sat there, feet dangling, water streaming off her, and held his gaze. “I need to get back.”
“Of course.” He hid his reluctance to leave well and moved to the edge, but she held out a hand.
“You can stay, Rasker. Keep swimming,” she told him. “I know you want to, and I need a little time. To think.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded and stood up, retrieving her pullover. “I’m sure.”
He dove and she watched him go, a dark shape moving through the lit water below her. The thought was deflating, even as she knew the kiss had to end.
Holly pulled on her boots and picked up the tool bucket. If her movements were a little slow, oh well. It had been an eternity since she’d been kissed like that. So sue her if she was doing things in a bit of a haze.
When he surfaced, at the far end of a pool, she called over to him. “Want me to come back later and pick you up?”
“No need,” he called back. “I’ll walk.”
She nodded once and turned toward the walkway.
The zig ride back to the base of the control tower, where the zigs were stored in a storage room on ground level, was very quieter. Obviously, since there was no one in the zig to talk to except herself, and she would have nothing coherent to say to anyone even if she wasn’t alone.
Holly’s chest was too full, packed with a mix of giddiness and nerves and unsettled worries in roughly equal proportions.
It was not her favorite combination. She had also, she realized, completely confirmed—to herself, at least—that Rasker hadn’t touched the garden.
Her gut generally didn’t steer her wrong, but she didn’t look forward to telling Alyce and Mish that it was someone else who’d damaged the garden.
She needed to return the tools to Sam, but she parked the zig and sat in it for a moment without getting out.
Unless it wasn’t Cody sleeping out there in the woods. How hard would it be to sneak out of a ship that had landed for a power cell recharge, and hide out? Not that hard. They could have a stowaway.
Complete Respite. She hadn’t heard a word from them. No transmissions, no formal correspondence, no follow-up to their original offer. She had taken that as a good sign, or at least a neutral one.
But what if they weren’t just being polite? What if they had a darker plan to get her to sell?
The oven. The garden. Two things, both targeted, both aimed at the parts of Moone’s Landing that people needed to survive and stay. Nothing dramatic or catastrophic. This damage could be attributed to bad luck or deterioration, if you didn’t look too closely.
She got out of the zig.
She had no idea who from Complete Respite would do this—if it even was them. She had no face to put to it, no name, no ship docked at the bay with a corporate emblem. But that wasn’t reassuring. It just meant she hadn’t been looking for the right things.
She lifted the bucket and went inside.
Rasker was right about one thing: she’d need to be vigilant. Because the next thing that went wrong could be more serious than some garden crops or an oven. It could be someone’s life.