“We should take this inside,” she said. “Before someone sees us standing here gawking at each other.”
“Agreed.” Jeb hadn’t relaxed his defensive posture, but he stepped aside to allow Mattie past him towards the habitat entrance. “Both of you. Now.”
The interior of the dwelling was warm and close, filled with scents that made Rhyx’s enhanced senses tingle: growing things, recycled air, the distinctive metallic-organic smell of cyborg technology, and underneath it all, the mingled scents of the mated pair who lived here.
It reminded him of the cavern, in a way. A pocket of life carved out of an inhospitable world.
Jeb crossed to a storage unit against one wall and pulled out a bundle of fabric. Without ceremony, he tossed it at Rhyx.
“Put those on.”
Rhyx caught the items reflexively—pants and a shirt, both made of sturdy material in muted colors. He examined them with interest. The clothing Alina had attempted to give him before had been too small, designed for human proportions. These were larger, clearly made for a body closer to his own size.
“They’re from my emergency supplies,” Jeb said, reading his confusion. “Rangers keep extra gear for rescue situations. They should fit well enough.”
The pants were simple to figure out—Rhyx had observed Alina dressing often enough to understand the basic concept. The shirt was more challenging, with its multiple openings and fasteners, but he managed it with only minimal assistance from Alina, who seemed oddly flustered by the process of helping him into clothing when she’d been so eager to help him out of it.
When he was dressed, Mattie circled him slowly, her head tilted to one side.
“From a distance,” she said, “with that golden skin and the size… you could pass for a cyborg. One of the heavy-duty combat models, maybe.”
“A ranger,” Jeb agreed reluctantly. “The scales would give him away up close, but in a helmet and environmental suit? No one would look twice.”
“This is good?” Rhyx asked.
“It’s useful.” Alina had removed her breathing mask now that they were inside, and her face was easier to read without the barrier. She looked thoughtful, the expression she wore when her quick mind was working through a problem. “If we need to move you around, having a plausible cover story helps.”
“She’s right.” Mattie had settled into one of the chairs around the central table, her earlier fear seemingly forgotten. “The research stations don’t pay much attention to ranger patrols. Too common to be interesting.”
Rhyx filed this information away. He did not fully understand all the social structures Alina had tried to explain to him—the corporations and governments and factions that competed for control of this dead world—but he understood the concept of camouflage. Of hiding in plain sight.
“Sit,” Jeb said. It wasn’t quite an invitation and wasn’t quite an order. “We need to talk about what happens next.”
Rhyx lowered himself into one of the chairs, which creaked alarmingly under his weight but held. Alina took the seat beside him, close enough that her shoulder brushed his arm. The contact settled something restless in his chest.
“You said before that you were attacked,” Alina said, addressing Mattie. “That’s what drove you underground where you found the cave.”
“That’s right.” Mattie’s expression darkened. “About a year ago. I’d been working this claim for maybe two years, just starting to turn a profit on the mineral deposits. Then out of nowhere, we’ve got armed men showing up, demanding we abandon the site.”
“Armed men from where?” Alina asked.
“They weren’t wearing insignia,” Jeb said. “But their equipment was military-grade. Better than anything the local security forces carry.”
“GenCon,” Mattie said flatly. “We couldn’t prove it, but we’re sure.”
Rhyx felt Alina tense beside him. He’d heard her speak that name before—GenCon—always with a particular combination of fear and disgust. The entity that hunted for secrets. The threat she was trying to protect him from.
“What were they looking for?” Alina asked.
“That’s the thing—we never figured it out.” Mattie spread her hands in a gesture of frustration. “Our claim doesn’t have anything special. Decent iron deposits, some rare earth elements, but nothing worth that kind of firepower. We thought maybe they wanted the location for something else, some kind of base or?—”
“Or they were looking for what I found,” Alina said quietly. “The biochemical signatures. The anomalies. If they’d detected the same readings I did…”
“They would have been searching the entire region,” Jeb finished. “And our claim sits right on the edge of it.”
Silence fell over the table. Rhyx watched the others process this information, seeing the same conclusion form on each of their faces.
“They’ve been hunting for me,” he said. “For years. Before I even woke.”
