All six men scowled at him, but since they couldn’t think of a retort to that, they decided to ignore the bastard.
* * * *
“Oh my god! Reuel! This is it! I think this is really it!” Chloe exclaimed, bouncing up and down in her excitement.
She discovered when she turned to look at him that he seemed to be singularly unenthusiastic. In point of fact, his expression was down right sardonic. “You said the same thing the last three times,” he retorted.
Chloe gaped at him and then frowned. “Ok, so I was wrong a couple of times. I really do think this is it, though.”
“I hope so,” Reuel drawled. “We are getting low on supplies. We will not be able to spend six months out here searching without having to plan another raid.”
Irritation flickered through Chloe. “We’ve only checked out a handful of star systems. We can’t be getting low on supplies, yet.”
“We are not … yet. But we have checkedadozenstar systems, Chloe and, even jumping, we do not have time to check them all. We will notlivelong enough to check them all!”
Chloe frowned. “Just how are the supplies holding up?”
Reuel shrugged. “We have only been looking for a couple of weeks. We have plenty to hold us a while, but we will need several months in supplies after we reach the planet. That is my main concern. Hopefully, we will be able to begin to supplement food stores right away, but we cannot count on that. I did not lay in so much because I expected to be in space so long but rather to begin the settlement.”
She studied him in dismay. She hadn’t thought about that. Then again, that was why Reuel was running the show—because he thought of everything. “I really do think this is it,” she said a little doubtfully.
Nodding, Reuel got up decisively. “We will leave the Salvager here and take my craft to check out the system. It is faster and we might as well leave the Salvager where it will be conveniently located for another jump … if necessary.”
Depression settled over Chloe in spite of all she could do as she headed to the bay with Reuel. It wasn’t enough that she felt her inadequacy in everything else she tried to do? She couldn’t even find a damned planet!
She managed to throw off much of her depression once she’d settled in the co-pilot’s seat and Reuel had glanced at her. She was actually starting to be really good at it, she thought, pretending she wasn’t completely miserable.
She didn’t know what she was going to do when Reuel finally let the guys out of the brig, though. She was pretty sure the only reason she’d managed to get a grip on her wayward emotions at all was because she hadn’t had to meet up with any of them. She’d been trying really hard to brace herself for that eventuality, but she couldn’t convince herself that she was going to handle it well at all.
She wassureshe wasn’t going to be able to handle it when they finally did get out and Reuel put them on someone else’s dance card. It made her feel like crying every time she thought about it—which was most of the time and the reason she had to work so hard to keep everybody from knowing how miserable she was.
“Fasten your safety harness,” Reuel said.
“Oh! Forgot!” Chloe grabbed the harness, glad for something to distract her.
Reuel glanced at her several times, but thankfully forbore comment. “Ready?”
She finally managed to untangle the harness and fasten it. “Yep!”
She discovered she actually wasn’t. When Reuel’s ship shot from the hanger, the G’s the damned thing pulled plastered her against her seat so tightly she could hardly breathe for several minutes. She’d begun to see dancing spots when the pull finally decreased. “Boy this thing sure can go!” she said shakily, focusing on her fingers and trying to pry them loose from the armrests.
Reuel grunted. “It seemed like a good idea to make sure it could outrun most other crafts.”
“I see your point. I doubt there are many that can move nearly as fast.”
“There are some advantages to being a cyborg,” he said dryly.
“A lot actually,” Chloe retorted. “I’ve never felt so inadequate in my life! I didn’t even know how many things I was bad at until I got around you guys!”
“You are best at teaching men who were born machines to understand the half of themselves that is human,” Reuel said gently. “You have all of their very best qualities.”
“Now you’re going to make me cry!”
“Please do not!” Reuel said, chuckling. “I find it … disturbs me a very great deal.”
Chloe smiled at him with an effort. “Still, it’s nice to think there’s something I’m good at. But I actually think all of you have the best qualities. It isn’t that we don’t aspire for greatness or that we don’t have lofty ideals. It’s just that we can never seem to … achieve that sort of graciousness for ourselves. I think that’s why they’re afraid of you. They made you what they wanted to be and they know they can never be as great as their creations.”
“You are a true and loyal friend to those fortunate enough to earn your … trust.”
