Kodiak sniffs his food and leans back in his chair, tilting it on two legs like he’s a kid killing time in detention. “That sounds like a serious problem,” he says.
“Yes,” I say, watching him for clues to just how big a problem he thinks it is. I examine Kodiak’s posture and attitude, even as I know the unconscious parts of me are processing increased pupil size and erect hairs. What can I surmise from all that? Only this: he is unimpressed by his new companion.
I’m tempted to inform him that I was top of my class at the academy, that I come from the birthing apparatus known as the Cusk family, which is the centerpiece of theFédération economy and much of the Dimokratía one, that if he’d read a single news source in the last few months he’d know everything from my star sign to my shoe size. But I also know that bragging only proves insecurity, and I won’t give him that satisfaction.
Who cares if he’s unimpressed with me? He’ll become impressed in time. They always do.
“Look,” he says with that husky voice, “it seemed important to meet you, but we don’t need to do this ever again. I had no say in who your Fédération capitalist cabal let pay his way onto this ship. I assumed that it would be some coddled Cusk princelet, and I was right. Making this a joint mission at all is a mistake. I have a long list of ship maintenance to accomplish, and all I need is in theAurora. I will not disturb you in your work, and I insist that you do not disturb me in mine. If you have an emergency, OS will help you. If and only if OS is unable to help you, I’ve instructed it to patch you into my quarters.”
I bite back the words that come first.Quite a speech. Did you write it ahead of time?The canned quality makes me think he’s not as sure about this plan as he’s letting on.
“This wasn’t supposed to be a joint mission,” I say, keeping my voice steady.
“Clearly Fédération didn’t have the resources to do this on its own, so your corporate family had to approach Dimokratía as well. You’d have known that if you didn’tknock your head and forget about it. That’s not my fault.”
Tipping his head back, Kodiak holds his dinner pouch to his mouth and squeezes the contents into his throat. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. He closes his eyes, savoring the taste, then rubs the back of his neck and stands. “Thank you for the food,” he says.
I stand, eyes narrowing. “Why come at all? Was this some sort of spying mission?”
He shrugs.
“Kodiak Celius,” I say, “if the Titan camp is viable but my sister is dead, we’ll be living there together for years. Tell me you’re not heading back to your quarters for good. That’s ridiculous.”
His eyebrow raises. “Minerva Cusk is your sister?”
I nod.
“I hope she’s alive,” he says. “She is greatly admired by us, and does us honor as an adversary.”
“She’s sort of always been a worthy adversary for me, too,” I say, chuckling.
He cocks his head.
“Sibling rivalry stuff,” I say. I would never tell this brute, but the truth is that Minerva is both my greatest rival and the most important love in my life. There are dozens of Cusk children, raised by surrogates and nannies from my mother’s extracted eggs mixed with designer DNA from the greatest men in history. Only Minerva and I are children ofAlexander the Great. Out of all my family, Minerva is the only one I loved. The only one who loved me. But I keep my expression wry and invulnerable. “So do you, what, have a pinup of her on your wall?”
Kodiak rolls right by that one. “Your presence here is a distraction to everything I’ve spent my life training for. My priorities do not involve chitchat dates with an enemy of the state who couldn’t even make it through a launch without knocking himself out.”
Kodiak leaves, the fabric of his suit zip-zapping between his thighs. Reeling, I leave my unfinished dinner and track him through the few rooms of my ship as he walks away. He glances over his shoulder and sees me there, but says nothing, continuing forward without saying a word.
“The OS’s voice,” he calls over his shoulder. “Change it back.”
I punch the orange door as soon as it’s shut.
A couple words in particular won’t quit my mind:Princelet. Dates.The contempt in Kodiak’s voice when he said each one. In Fédération, we pride ourselves on having moved far beyond the prejudices of the past. I nearly got a skinprint between my pecs sayingLabels are the Root of Violence. But it’s like the Dimokratíans are still living in the twenty-first century. Backward, bigoted, homophobic, transphobic. Idiots.
“OS,” I say, clubbing the heels of my hands at my tearyeyes. “Can you make your Devon Mujaba voice even sexier? Is that a setting?”
“No,” OS says. “Sexiness in a voice is too individualized an experience for the listener. I can’t control it globally.”
“How about making it quieter and higher and growlier and so that everything sounds like a question? Like this?”
“Let me see. Here are some effects I can achieve that are similar?” OS says, demonstrating, the words getting so high-pitched they almost squeak off at the end. It’s not sexy, but it definitely is annoying.
“That’ll do,” I say, smiling as I imagine Kodiak requesting data points and having them reported back by a shallow kittenish vocal-fry pop star.
“What can you tell me about the preparation Dimokratía spacefarers might receive?” I ask OS.
“The training?” OS responds. “The Dimokratía space program continues to select its spacefarers by testing the millions of children in its orphanages and determining which have the best combination of attributes? By which they mean resilience, constitution, strength, and reasoning power? Those selected are conditioned from an early age to maximize their fitness to space travel? Emotional needs are ‘vyezhat,’ or ‘driven out,’ whenever possible?”
