“There were not many human colonies?” Reuel demanded.
She looked at him. “There weren’t any.”
“This I cannot believe!” the woman who’d spoken before said, anger and disbelief edging her voice.
Chloe glared at her. “Well, there wasn’t! We’d started into a jump and the computer system malfunctioned. We had to abort but we’d already folded space. Welookedfor help to make repairs. There was only one habitable planet in the star system and we went there, looking for help. Pops said it looked like he’d always imagined the Garden of Eden from ancient mythology would look. He said one day we’d go back and settle there.”
Of course he hadn’t meant it and she thought she’d realized that at the time. That was probably why she’d forgotten it. He was a rambling man. It wasn’t that the salvage operation was his life. That was just a means to an end, a way to make a living doing what he really wanted to do—wander.
She had thought it was the most beautiful place she’d ever seen, though, and she’d desperately wanted to stay—at the time—until her father had pointed out all the things it didn’t have—like civilization. It was like a paradise, but it was raw, untouched.
Then again, it was a planet just waiting to be molded.
“Do you think that you could find this place again?”
Chloe frowned. “I don’t know. It’s been years since I was there and, like I said, I was a kid. I didn’t have anything to do with the navigation. Pops let me stay on the bridge with him most of the time, but … well, I was scared shitless when we went into the jump and the computer malfunctioned. I don’t know how much I can recall besides that. I can try.”
He studied her for a long moment. “You are willing to try?”
She chuckled wryly. “I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean to try. It’s not like it’s really healthy for me to hang around here, you know! Maybe things are a little less hazardous for me than for you, but I’m not too keen on spending years of my life in prison. I did hold up the ranger station to get Damon out and I sort of accidentally shot a couple of them. I don’t think the fact that it was an accident would weigh with a judge a lot, though.”
Reuel smiled, a satisfied smile that seemed to convey that he’d expected her help all along. “We will try a process of elimination to start. We have access to data on all explorations that have been recorded and all worlds that have been colonized.”
Chloe frowned. “Well, it’s definitely beyond the outer rim, because we’d already passed that when we tried the jump.”
“Then we will try to jog your memory of names of places that you might recall in that general area.” He paused. “Next question—how much do you have in the way of supplies—specifically food?”
Chloe shrugged. “We usually lay in eight months when we dock and we last docked to sell salvage and load supplies three months ago.”
Reuel frowned. “I was afraid of that. We will need to secure more. We have mayhap a month aboard my craft, but not for so many.” He shrugged. “We had too close an acquaintance with starvation on Xeno-12 for far too long. We are very mindful of our stomachs these days.”
Chloe felt another stab of pity, but she looked away. It was bad enough that Jared had seen it. Reuel wasn’t likely to take it any better and he was more unnerving than Jared had become. “I can certainly see your point. I guess the first thing to do then would be to decide what port would be best to take on supplies.” She paused. “There is a little problem. I had to bribe the little worm that came with the port authority and he cleaned me out of credits. We’ll have to sell the salvage to get up money to buy supplies.”
“Or turn pirate,” Reuel said coolly.
Chloe gaped at him but managed a weak smile, hoping he’d meant it as a joke. She didn’t especially want to launch a criminal career. “Or that.” She glanced around the room at the cyborgs. “The ship’s old and not very comfortable, but make yourselves at home and help yourselves to the supplies.”
Reuel nodded in appreciation and turned to the soldiers. “Supplies are limited, so they will be rationed carefully until we can take on more. There are six onboard besides the captain with prior claims of space, so keep that in mind. Michael, Troy, Brian, and Kevin—you have mess duties for today so find the galley and get something started to feed everyone. Pansy, you and Stephen will assign bunks. The rest of you can help with cleaning and rounding up bedding and so forth.”
He turned and surveyed the men with Chloe. “Devin is a medic. I suggest you report to him at your earliest convenience to have your locators extracted. You may want to wait until after mess this evening,” he added dryly. “You will not feel like getting out of bed for a while afterwards. It is not pleasant.”
Uneasiness slithered through Chloe. “It’s that bad? Is the extraction … dangerous?”
She discovered all of the cyborgs had turned to look at her.
“Leaving them is more dangerous,” Reuel responded.
She frowned at him. “To the ones that already had them removed. I get that, but what about my guys? I mean, I don’t really like the idea of this medic cutting them if he isn’t really good at it. And we don’t have much in the way of a med-bay on the ship.”
Reuel looked surprised and amused. “Cyborgs do not die easily—as the company has learned. We have an adequate med-bay aboard my ship for the procedure.”
Chloe wasn’t reassured worth a damn. “My god! I hadn’t thought about themdying! I was thinking about the pain. It’s that bad? ”
“It would be dangerous for you. For us … it is not pleasant.”
Chloe wasn’t certain where everyone had disappeared to, but they’d dropped most of their escort by the time they reached the bridge. Even Kane and Jared had deserted her, leaving her in Reuel’s hands.
She discovered that, despite the sheer mass of the man, and the fact that he tended to use the same oddly stilted speech patterns of all the cyborgs, she had a hard time remembering that he was, in fact, a cyborg himself. He seemed … different than all the others. His bearing and mannerisms were very soldier-like and yet he didn’t seem to have any difficulty conversing. It occurred to her after a while that what made him seem different was that heinitiatedthe conversation as often as not, when the others rarely did unless it was to discuss something specifically related to their duties. Even Damon, who’d been programmed more as a social droid than the others, hadn’t been prone to converse. He just flirted.
