I rub my chin, thinking. “And how many years has it been between the establishment of the Sakh governance and the current year?”
“It has been 286 years.”
“Son of a bitch,” Harlow breathes.
I begin to type, sending commands to the computer’s database, requesting different diagnostics on specific systems. “That’s what I suspected. I’ve seen these kinds of processing loops in older systems before. There’s probably corruption in the database somewhere. It can process information fine, but when it’s required to calculate something, it keeps spitting out the same number—286.” I crack my knuckles and then continue typing. “It’ll take some time to determine where the corruption is, but that’s why you’re getting that answer. The computer thinks it’s correct when we know it’s not.”
“But I don’t understand,” Harlow exclaims. “How is it that it picked up English if it’s been crashed here for a thousand years like you said? Or longer?”
“It’s entirely possible that it’s been picking up distant satellite signals. That could explain how it’s got more modern information than it should.”
“Wow. I never thought about the computer being corrupted. It happens on Earth, too, but our technology isn’t even close to what you have here.” She shakes her head, amazed, then pats my arm. “Well, that answers a question that’s been burning in my mind for a while. Thank you, Mardok. Too bad you’re not staying. I could use someone like you to help me get this old girl running and see what we can salvage out of her.”
My pleased grin slowly dies. Helping Harlow fix this old ship—or at least tinkering with her parts—would be a fun project, but I won’t be here for much longer than a day or two. I’ll be lucky if we even finish a single detailed diagnostic. “I’ll do what I can while I’m here,” I say, my tone brusque. I glance back at Farli, and she’s picking up debris with little Rukhar. They’re laughing, and it looks as if she’s making a game of cleaning, comparing her pieces of scrap to his. She’s so beautiful when she smiles, and my heart aches all over again.
She has to come with me.
“You get this slag heap up and running yet?” Trakan calls out from the doorway.
I turn, scowling in his direction. “What are you doing here?”
“Got bored on ship. Bek and Vaza went hunting. Didn’t wanna go with ’em.” He shrugs and heads inside, immediately turning toward one of the broken, loose panels and poking at the wiring. “Thought I’d come help out here. You fix it all up yet?”
I resist the urge to go over and slap his hand away. “This would be a very long-term project, not a short-term one. I’llhelp with what I can, but getting it totally functional isn’t on the table.”
“Mm. So it’s salvage?” There’s a speculative gleam in his eyes. He grins.
I fight back the growl rising in my throat. So that’s his angle. He’s not here to help the tribe as much as he is to help himself. Salvage—especially from a ship as old as this one—would go for a pretty penny on the black market. “It’s not salvage,” I tell him, putting a note of warning in my voice. “The people here are still using it.”
He gives me a sardonic look. “You mean the people dressed in leather skins? The ones carrying around bone spears and eating raw meat? They’re using computers and a spaceship, huh?”
“Those same people,” I tell him, turning back to the computer. I’m not going to dignify his comments by giving him attention. “You’re not removing this ship, and that’s final.”
“Or what? I bet the captain would be real interested in salvage rights in exchange for our assistance.” His expression is innocent.
Harlow looks worried, and anger begins to burn in the pit of my belly. Is he trying to blackmail me into silence, hoping that I’ll back down? I turn away from the computer terminal, face Trakan, and crack my knuckles. Slowly. It’s a reminder to him that I can brawl with the best of them, and I’m not afraid to show him my skills.
Trakan’s slick smile fades a little, and he pushes away from the broken panel, trying to look casual. “Fine. Fine. You want to let these fur-wearers poke their bone tools at a priceless bit of salvage, be that way.” He tilts his head, thinking, and then gestures at one of the distant broken doors that leads to another portion of the ship. “Say, can I rummage through things? Look for credit chits? If this is a shipwreck, I betthere’s some lying around, and the savages don’t have any use for them, do they?”
He’s got a point, and it’ll give him something to focus on that isn’t detrimental to Harlow and her people. “Fine. Whatever. Just leave the electronics and the ship itself alone.”
He gives me a mocking salute and then jogs away, heading deeper into the ship. I can hear him banging about as he crawls over piles of debris.
Harlow watches him go, then turns to me. “So, just so you know, before the earth-shake, those portions of the ship weren’t exactly stable.”
“Good,” I growl. “Maybe he’ll fall through the floor.”
Harlow chuckles.
Harlowand I work on the computer for hours. I take one terminal and she takes another, and we both work independently, occasionally calling questions out to each other. The programs and commands I know don’t match up with what this machine has, so figuring out how to make things work as I want them to is a challenge. I don’t even comprehend how much time is passing until Farli appears at my side with a water-skin. “Drink something. You have been at this all day, Mardok.”
I take the skin and guzzle it, realizing for the first time just how thirsty I am. My stomach’s growling, too. “Didn’t realize it was so late.”
“You have been very focused,” she says, a tease in her smile. “It is good to see you so happy.”
Am I happy? I guess so. The big, old ship is like a puzzle that I want to figure out, and it feels good to have a skill to put to use. When her brothers took me hunting, I was a mess. I thought I was in good shape, but the way the sa-khui effortlessly jogged through the thick snow and ran for hours,leaping over rocks and dashing over the edges of cliffs to chase prey? It told me I wasn’t nearly as fit as these people, and I felt useless. This, I’m better at. “I’m sorry I spent so much time on this and not on you.”
“Silly.” Farli gives a little shake of her head and puts her arm around my waist. “I enjoy just being in your presence. We do not have to stare into each other’s eyes every moment.”
