“She found it?”Orion spoke at the same time as Mercer.“It doesn’t exist.”
“See, treasure!”Burn bounced on her toes.
“It’s fake,” Mercer said.“She’s feeding us a line.”
“My sister believes it’s real.She has years and years’ worth of research.One of her last entries mentioned going to meet someone who claimed that an escape pod from theQueen of Starshad landed on their home planet.And that they had proof.”
More talking over each other.I just waited them out.Finally, they quieted down.“You don’t think your sister was, um, stupid enough to meet some stranger, do you?”Orion asked gently.
I wasn’t so sure about that, but I wasn’t going to blame Layla.“I think she took all possible precautions,” I said carefully.“From her records, she met them in a public space, on a public station.”
“This is neither,” Mercer snapped.
“Well aware,” I snapped back.“It took me a while to figure it out.She said she met this person on a forum for speculation about the fate of theQueen of Stars.She was skeptical, but they sent her enough of a teaser that she believed them.They set up a meeting on Causeway, as far as I can tell, but I don’t think she made it there.I think she ended up here, on Kottke.”
It had taken me days and days to come up with this theory.No, it wasn’t just a theory.I had painstakingly pieced together her last few days.
“The person who posted on the forum?I did some digging through the forum and her records.His name is Johnstone Farrow.Some of his postings refer to a hot, dry, desert planet.And,” the piece de resistance, and the reason I knew my sister had decided to meet him, “one of the original crew on theQueen of Starswas named Gaylord Farrow.”
The bridge exploded in chaos as everyone spoke at once.
46
Dax
After Lacy’s briefing,we’d returned to the mess because it had more room.More room to move, more room to think.After several hours of wrangling and more pots of coffee than I wanted to count, we had a plan.Or most of a plan.
Mercer and Orion had argued for more time to refine our strategy.While extra time never hurt, I didn’t think waiting another day would do us much good since we had no idea what we were facing down there.
It wasn’t just that, though.Lacy was already a bag of nerves and another delay when her sister had been missing for weeks just might break her.
I’d ordered everyone to bed with instructions to meet again in the morning.Then I locked the ship down tight and grabbed a few hours of sleep myself.
The next morning, Burn waltzed into the mess right on time.Mercer and Orion trailed after her.Both looked freshly showered and alert.Good.
“This is the mess,” she said, doing a little spin and gesturing around the room.“But you already knew that.Fresh food there, prefab food there.”She pointed in opposite directions.“Coffee there.”She stopped her spin and glared at them.“If you take the last cup, make a new pot.We’re back in civilization now.”She reached for a mug.“Oh, and Lacy makes weak-ass coffee.Beware.”
I choked back a laugh.Lacy’s coffee was the worst.If she were staying on board, we might need to get two pots, because she drank as much coffee as we did, but complained that ours was like tar.
“That’s because motor oil belongs in the engines, Burn, not in a mug,” Lacy snarked as she followed them into the room.She didn’t look nearly as rested as the others.She’d probably been up all night worrying about her sister.
“Here, sit down.”I stood and pulled out the chair next to me.
When she sat, I gave her shoulders a squeeze.The others stared at me, but I ignored them.I knew how freaked out I would be if one of my sisters was missing.We were so close, and still, anything could happen.
With a final squeeze, I stepped away from the table and toward the coffee.Orion had just pulled a mug off the shelf, and I plucked it from his hand.“It’s her favorite,” I said, already reaching past him to fill it two-thirds with coffee.Then I doctored it the way she liked it, with a flavoring she’d bought on Rigel Naught.
“Gotcha,” he said with a wink.
Good thing my hands were full or I would have flipped him off.I grabbed a shelf-stable pastry from the dry goods storage and the last piece of fresh fruit from the chiller.“You need to eat something,” I said, setting breakfast down in front of her.
“I’m not hungry,” she said.
I grabbed my own breakfast, a bready, bacon and cheese–filled heat-and-eat and sat down next to her.“I don’t care.”I pushed the plate toward her while everyone else took a seat around the table.
Despite the stress of the moment, I smiled.My team was on the ship.I’d missed this, eating with them most mornings.
Lacy took a sip of coffee, but didn’t touch the food.
