He woke up screaming again, sure that the knife was buried in his own chest. Certain that the criminal who’d murdered his parents years ago had come for him, too.
You’re safe,Karr told himself as he touched the old wound on his chest, his heartbeat steady beneath his fingertips. It still ached on occasion,mostly when he slept wrong. He sighed and sank deeper into his pillow, the ceiling of his bunk drawing his attention.
A smattering of charcoal sketches was plastered there.
Some were landscapes, sprawling metropoles and broad sweeping plains with herds of alien creatures dotting the horizon. Others were closer work, portraits from those he’d met in all his travels. He loved the angles of their faces, the way that everyone across the galaxy was uniquely original to him, but commonplace, perhaps, to the ones on their own planets. There were action drawings, old acquaintances leaping Growlers from jumps on distant planets. Sketches of sunsets that looked eerily similar to sunrises, or the cool glow of a waning moon.
One aspect of his drawings was always the same, a recurring presence.
He drew everything in blue.
Blue as deep as the sea.
Karr had always loved the sea, the calming scramble of waves as they lapped upon the shore and tumbled backwards, exhausted, to perform the dance all over again. He craved the smell of salt water, the feeling of warm sand beneath his bare feet.
His heartbeat calmed, slowing in time with his breaths as he stared at the smattering of sketches. A sea of cool, calm. Karr relaxed deeper into his mattress, then shivered and reached for the blanket.
Something rough scraped his fingertips.
“Open viewport,” Karr murmured, a yawn muffling the words. The small rectangular window by his bedside slid open, revealing the star-pocked sky and Dohrsar beyond, its rings glowing as if made of multi-faceted fire.
In the dim light, Karr recognized the black rock from Cade tangled up beside him in the sheets. He must have fallen asleep holding it last night, waiting for it to do something special. Anything to convince him why Cade was so certain of its ability to save them.
But if a man like Friedrich Geisinger was behind the job… hell, Karr supposed a person could make anything happen, if they had enough riches to support their cause.
With another yawn, he swung himself out of bed and went barefoot out the door of his cabin.
Karr could navigate theStarfallwith his eyes closed. Many times, as a boy, he and Cade had raced through the corridors. A challenge, on weeks-long journeys, to keep themselves from going stir-crazy. And where Cade was always taller than Karr, with longer strides, Karr was small enough to fit into the hard-to-spot places.
The shortcuts.
TheStarfallwas shaped like a diamond, sharp around the edges, and comprised of the typical sectors on interstellar starships.
A left turn led him past a few open cabins where the crews’ snores rumbled like sleeping dragons. He tiptoed past the sick bay, where Karr himself had puked up an entire bottle’s worth of whiskey only a few nights ago.
At the end of the hall, he took the freight elevator up, tapping his toe to the music.
A few more paces, a twist down the next empty hall, and he found himself standing at the captain’s quarters, the black rock clutched in his hand.
It was more revolving door to Karr thando not disturb unless you want to be incineratedas it was to the rest of the crew… But when Karr lifted his hand to knock, muffled voices made him pause.
He knew he shouldn’t listen in. But how many times had that stopped him before?
Instead of knocking, he looked to the com beside Cade’s door.
It was a simple trick to reverse the audio, something he’d learned ages ago from the old mech that Cade ended up firing for screwing around on the job.
Karr popped open the com box, glancing over his shoulder to make sure he was still alone. Not even their obnoxious sweeper droid in sight. Karr made quick work of swapping the wires, then slipped the face of the box back in place. A simple override code, a long press of the com button, and…
A voice came through the static.
“This conversation is over.”
Karr smiled.Bullseye.That was Cade’s voice, commanding and clipped as always.
A short bark of a laugh sounded back.
Rohtt,Karr realized, the new Crossman who seemed to stare straightthroughevery face he’d ever looked at. He hadn’t been on the crew long, just enough time to scrape the surface of acquaintance, but Karr didn’t like him.
