With nothing else to do, I read through the story a few more times, feeling proud when it comes easily. I can’t wait to tell Rose about my progress. The Frathik mechanic whose tabletI borrowed eventually comes over to retrieve it. Reluctantly, I hand it over to him.
“You liked the story I picked?” he asks when I thank him for the loan, four eyes on me and four on Lyro’s ship. I guess he must’ve chosen this book to remind me of everything his people have lost. Everything that Lyro represents.
“It was a good one. I learned a lot.”
He pauses, and I can tell there’s something on his mind. At my prompting, he asks, “Is the Irran really your mate? That’s what everyone is saying.”
I nod, my chest tight as I crumple the empty wrapper in my hand. I’m not sure what being his mate means at this point. We’re stuck together, I guess, just like Ada and I were stuck together after our mom died. We’d always sharethat. It wasn’t a bad thing or good thing. It was just a thing.
“Will you leave with him when he goes away?” The creases in his face deepen.
“Not until after the Hatching,” I assure him. “That’s the most important thing. I want to read that story to the babies,” I add, nodding toward the tablet he’s holding. “It was that good.”
His face smooths and splits into a smile. “Goddess keep you in her sight,” he says. He leaves me with a lump in my throat. He really thought I’d bail on them.
On some level, being Lyro’s mate is a betrayal of all these people I’ve come to care about. Ada is out there somewhere thinking the Frathiks are all terrible like the ones who abducted us, just like Lyro thinks they’re all soldiers. But I know them better. I know their struggles and their heartache. I won’t abandon them when they need me the most.
Lyro exits his ship at five hours on the dot. He looks tired, his face drawn and smudged, his slept-in clothes even more wrinkled.
“How did it go?” I ask, rising from my little spot and stretching out my stiff muscles. “How’s your ship?”
He shrugs. “More wrong than right.”
Good. I can’t say that out loud, but the best-case scenario for me is that his ship takes as long to fix as my eggs take to hatch. I’ll still be sad to leave my babies behind, but I can at least get them to the finish line. It’s best for my future relationship with Lyro if we don’t have to fight about when to leave.
“Hungry?” I ask him.
He snorts. “Not for Frathik rations, no. I just want to sleep.”
I’m tired, too, both mentally and physically, so we are thankfully on the same page. On the way back to our room, we pass the communal cleansing unit. It’s unoccupied, so I pause in the passageway. “You mind stopping in here to clean up?”
“Good idea. You stink of Frathik. I don’t want to smell it all night.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re not exactly squeaky clean yourself. We can share so it’ll be faster.”
Lyro’s eyes slip down my body for the briefest second, and I bite back a smile as I push open the door. I wonder if I should tell him that it’s a sonic unit, so we don’t have to undress, or if I should let him strip down before I break the news.
Inside, the cleansing unit’s casing is a pale icy blue, and the ceiling glows. The overhead lighting makes Lyro’s hood cast a harsh shadow over his face. He turns his back to me and starts to take off his cloak. Even though I wouldn’t mind seeing the rest of him, his tiny nod toward my privacy makes me feel merciful.
“Leave it on. The unit will do our clothes at the same time. Just make sure nothing is touching the walls.”
He grunts in understanding, moving to stand closer to the center of the unit, and I start the cleansing cycle. It roars to life, the white noise rising and lowering in pitch as the unit runs through different frequencies of sound.
I can’t feel it removing the dirt and oils from my body, but it vibrates all the little hairs on my skin, which feels like Elvis is running all over me. I can’t help giggling at the creepy-crawly sensation. Lyro just stares at me impassively.
“Doesn’t it tickle you?”
He frowns. “I don’t know this word.”
“It’s like when—”
He cuts me off by holding up his hand. “I don’t care. If we don’t have a word for it, it’s not important.”
Okay then.
The cleansing unit cycles off, and I keep my mouth shut as we head back to the room. There, I find a wonderful surprise that makes me forget all about how impossible it is to be around Lyro.
True to his word, Harl set up Elvis’s tank in one corner of the room, along with a grow lamp. I kneel down to peek inside and see Elvis standing on the blossom-shaped feeder, his long legs braced against the petals while he dips his face into the center of the fake flower, abdomen pulsing as he sucks it down. It’s just as brilliant as Harl promised to see him sipping away at the solution.
