He frowns. “Why would there be sharks in the water?”
We travel deeper. I try to focus on the layout of the ship, the sleek black-and-gray halls, the endless series of doors. Some are shaped like hexagons, some like rectangles, others, circles. There seems to be a pattern to their order, but what it means—if it means anything—I can’t guess.
After what feels like an endless series of turns, we reach an unmarkeddoor at the end of an unmarked corridor. Morton glances at me, then angles his body to block my view as he punches a key code into the electronic panel. The door releases a sound like air brakes (menacing air brakes) and splits snaggletooth down the middle. The professor (still unclear if he’s actually a professor) makes ayou firstmotion, and I step into a room that’s not quite big enough to qualify as a lounge but still far too large for just two people. There’s a smattering of tufted chairs, a full bar, and those little table lamps that are meant to provide—I believe the technical term is—mood lighting.
It is… not what I was expecting.
“Keller,” says a voice, “you made it.”
I turn to see my mother standing off to the side, wearing the same smile she wore back on Skyhub: a little earnest, a little hopeful. There might be genuine affection there, too, if I cared to look closely. Which I do not.
My palms are going clammy, my pulse kicking up. I can hear Lament sayingI worry you’re doing this for her, but I snap the lid closed on those thoughts. I need to stay focused. To keep my head on straight. As long as I concentrate on the mission and not on my own feelings, everything will be fine.
“Did you have any trouble mapping our coordinates?” Nina asks as she moves to greet us. “I know coming all the way out here to the Vacant Sector can be tricky.”
“No,” I say, and despite being tempted to leave it at a one-word answer, I add, “no trouble.”
“Mr. Hartman,” Morton tells Nina, “insists on keeping a gun on his person until Ran arrives. I have tried to confiscate the firearm, but he remains adamant.”
“Oh, that’s not a problem.” Nina is still smiling, her posture loose and natural, like she’s unaware of the tension. “Keller won’t cause any trouble. Now, if you could tell Ran we’re ready, that would be wonderful.”
Morton looks like he’s just been asked to strip naked and dance. “My duty was to deliver Mr. Hartman to you. I am not your errand boy.”
“Of course not, Trey, that was never my implication.” Nina’s voice isgentle. How is she always so gentle? “I only want a few minutes alone with my son. It’s been so long. You understand that, don’t you?”
Morton stands down almost instantly. He nods, going soft at her words, like he does indeed understand. It makes me feel strangely defensive.Icertainly don’t understand.
“Very well,” Morton agrees. “I will let Ran know.”
“This may take a few minutes,” Nina tells me as the professor exits, motioning us toward a cluster of very shiny, very upright chairs. “Ran had a breakthrough with FPS last night. Something involving instantaneous data entry. It’s been hard to pull him away from the work.”
“I thought you said he’d be here,” I say, addingjusta touch of petulance to my tone.
“He is,” she’s quick to assure me. “The simulation’s processing computers are located on board. At the center of this very floor, in fact.”
Which confirms the spot on Jester’s heat map that looked like it might be double armored, indicating contents Doc Min wants kept secured.
We sit. The chair’s sea-green fabric squeaks under my thighs. A bot (an MN-99, which looks harmless but can be reconfigured for battle if needed) appears with a serving tray balanced on each of its three hands. They rotate around its body like moons around a planet.
“Tea?” Nina asks. “Water? Coffee?”
My brain feels weird. Like there’s a crack in the middle and I can’t quite get the two halves to align. I’m on The Parallax. I’m on The Parallax fishing for intel and my mother is here and she’s offering me refreshments. “Um, coffee is fine.”
Nina plucks the appropriate tray from the bot’s metal hands and sets two cups onto the low table between us. “Let me guess,” she says, pouring the liquid in a practiced motion. “Cream and sugar?”
“Yes,” I reply warily, then can’t stop myself from blurting, “did the simulation tell you that?”
Nina’s smile softens. “It’s how I take mine.”
Which is like a knee to the stomach. For a moment, I can’t speak, so Ijust sit there while Nina adds exactly the right amount of cream and sugar to my mug. She stirs the coffee with a little spoon and slides it across the table.
I try to pick it up, but my hands are shaking too badly.
“So,” I say, trying to force my brain away from the strangeness of this moment and back to the mission.The simulation. Ask about the simulation.“Instantaneous data entry?”
“I don’t pretend to understand it,” Nina says, stirring cream into her own coffee. “The inner workings of FPS are mostly beyond me. The algorithms Doc Min uses to run the simulation are the first of their kind.”
“But,” I press, “working here on The Parallax, you must understandsomethings. It seems…” I pause, decide where I want to nudge this conversation next. “It seems unbelievable that one man could harvest enough data to predict future events for a single planet, let alone the entire galaxy. How does Doc Min even go about accessing that kind of information?”
