“If that’s the case, I don’t think he was a willing lab rat,” Fiona said. “One time when I checked on him in the lab, he was glaring at those syringes like he wanted to destroy them.”
Odd then, that he’d just walked away from them.
“Maybe the Sky Mother sent him to us,” Jax said in a low voice.
My immediate denial died on my tongue. Jax was the spiritual one of the two of us, although he’d never tried to convert me or anything. I still usually naysaid him right away. This time, I couldn’t. Therehadbeen a lot of inexplicable things about Big Guy. Still, I had trouble believing the Sky Mother was anything other than a big fat sun.
“Sent him for what?” I asked.
Jaxon looked at me, a challenge in his coffee-dark eyes. He rarely pressed these points, but I could tell he wanted to now. “Maybe to keep the Black Widow from crushing us into nothing.”
There was no denying that something strange had happened in Sector 14. Going into the Widow, I’d fully expected to become less than dust. And yet here we all were—alive. I was more likely to look for a scientific explanation, though. Something involving physics, not religion.
“The Sky Mother is all-powerful,” Shiori said from just behind Miko in the shadows of the ship. Stepping forward, she emerged into the sunlight next to the others, turning her sightless eyes toward its warmth.
Miko stopped her grandmother when Shiori got too close to the edge, the blunt end of her severed hand crossing the older woman’s middle as she cautioned her to be careful.
Shiori clearly wanted off the ship, if only for a few minutes, so Jaxon jumped down and then lifted her to the platform. We almost never put down the stairs. Waiting for them to fold and unfold never seemed worth it.
As soon as she was steady, Jax let go of her, and Shiori lifted her face to the sun. She breathed deeply through her small, somewhat flat nose. The white hair that had escaped the bun at her nape fluttered on a breeze I’d hardly noticed before, reminding me of the images I’d seen of the tattered flags of the old nations as they’d been ripped down and the galaxy burned into one.
Shiori spoke again, her soft, musical accent lending an almost prophetess quality to her words. “The Sky Mother balances everything. From the center of the galaxy, She sends out Her rays of light.”
Yeah. That’s because it’s a freaking star, and they’re bright.
And ifSheandHer Powersreally balanced anything, they would have kicked my father off his throne a long time ago—maybe before he’d murdered millions in the night.
“I’m off, then,” I said, slicing through a conversation I wasn’t entirely comfortable with. Besides, there were more pressing matters than debating theology—like finding someone to repair theEndeavor. And I loved both Jax and Shiori too much to try to rattle their faith with my own bitterness and doubt.
“Watch your back out there, partner,” Jax said with a single, solemn nod.
My heart clenched a little in my chest. Jax didn’t use that name for me much anymore. Partner. That was what we’d been back in the mines, when there’d been a different type of overseer with a whip at our backs.
I nodded to him, but as I walked toward the elevator tube, hiking the strap of my bag up over my shoulder, I couldn’t help remembering that first day on Hourglass Mile, when rough hands had thrown me at Jax. He’d been a man already, thirty years old and no mistaking it. I’d been nineteen and scared to death.
They’d brought us in on the same day, Jax half insane with grief and me still stunned that I’d been caught, neither of us having any idea that the warden’s bright idea was to pair male and female inmates off together for daily work in the mines. The warden had figured the fraternization would help keep the peace, which it did, I supposed. Once pairs were formed, that was it. No changes were made unless someone’s sentence was up or someone died. Some people, like Fiona, ended up with a lover. Other women got an abuser. And some, like me, found a friend for life.
Lady Luck had been with me that day, too. Maybe she wasn’t such a fickle bitch.
Chapter 5
Two people on the avenueat the bottom of the Squirrel Tree both directed me to the same place: Ganavan’s Products and Parts. It wasn’t too far—still in the docking district and within easy walking distance—so I figured it was a good place to start.
I found the shop at the base of a towering, warehouse-type structure. It was recessed into the ground a few feet, requiring me to take a short flight of stairs down to access it from street level. A bell tinkled over the door when I swung it open, surprising me with the light, merry chiming. I couldn’t help appreciating the quaint touch in the otherwise industrial setting of the city’s sprawling, somewhat dingy docks.
Inside, the shop was bigger than I’d expected and crowded with metallic shelving packed with morestuffthan any space rat could ever possibly want. It was almost overwhelming—and half of it was covered in dust. Motes twirled in the air, floating in the sunbeams streaming in through the high-up windows that let in most of the shop’s light.
I didn’t see anyone behind the register to query about repairs, so I walked the aisles, looking for anything that might be of use. I picked up forty rounds of LW-9 bullets in a sleek metal case for our Grayhawk handguns, but I didn’t really need things like the rest of this—gadgets and doodads and crap. I needed reinforced metal panels and someone who could weld them onto my ship.
I scanned the shelves for fuses and wiring, too, but didn’t see anything. TheEndeavor’s electrical components weren’t in great shape, even with Big Guy’s brief help, and my console was currently dead. I’d have to see, but I hoped Jaxon would end up being enough of an electrician to fix it. When it came to a ship’s central power grid, I had some skills myself.
“Can I help you?” a man asked.
I turned and watched the speaker walk toward me from what looked like a back office, his steps silent and almost prowling. Despite his height and imposing physique, I might not have heard him coming if he hadn’t made his presence known.
Was this Ganavan? He was tall, with at least a few inches on me. He was wide, too, but mainly in the shoulders. His body looked healthy and trim. Like me, I thought his origins could probably be traced back to pre-exodus Caucasian. Unlike me, he had a healthy tan.
The fact that he was tall, dark, and hot didn’t stop my usual default mode from kicking in—to assess any stranger I met and determine how I would try to bring that person down in a fight.
