“About the report.”
I am not thinking about the report. I have not thought about the report since the top appeared. I type the wordcontainment,and the word has three syllables and every syllable sounds like a different part of her body, and I am going to need professional help.
She reaches for the water pouch at the far end of the table. The stretch pulls the top tight and exposes a strip of skin at her hip and the bruise is visible, pink going darker, and I look at the bruise and think about pressing my mouth to it and tracing it with my tongue and replacing every inch of hurt with something that would make her grip the edge of the table and arch her back and say my —
I stand up.
She looks at me. Startled.
“Refill,” I say. Taking my mug to the prep unit. Turning my back. Breathing. Three feet of distance. Not enough. Not nearly.
The prep unit hums. I stare at it. My ridges are so dark I can feel the heat of them from the inside, the warmth flooding through the raised tissue, and if I sit back down, she will see them and she will ask and I cannot lie about what she is looking at.
“Captain.” HORATIO. So quiet only I can hear it, routed to the prep speaker. “Your biosignature is significantly elevated. Your ridge coloration is — Captain, the color is remarkable. I have never recorded that shade. I am updating your file.”
“Do not update my file.”
“File updated, Captain. I will also note that you have been staring at the prep unit for thirty seconds, and the tea has been ready for twenty of them.”
“HORATIO.”
“Deep breaths, Captain. The therapeutic kind.”
The breath does not help because the breath is full of her — tea and skin and warm-sweet and a new note underneath that my hindbrain reads asinterestedand my forebrain reads asyou cannot act on this, she is trapped in a sealed ship with you and you will NOT —
I sit back down. Ridges mostly under control. Mostly.
She is watching me with the patient, bright attention of a female who notices everything and says nothing until she’s ready. She doesn’t know what she’s looking at. She knows something is happening.
“So,” she says. Casual. Not casual at all. “Twenty-two hours.”
“Twenty-two hours.”
“In a sealed ship.”
“In a sealed ship.”
“With a deceased mutant predator and your AI updating your medical file without consent and —” Her mouth twitches. “What exactly are we supposed to do for twenty-two hours?”
I should not answer this the way I want to answer it. The way I want to answer it involves the table, the wall, the corridor, the bunk, and approximately none of our remaining clothes.
“I’ll think of something.”
She goes red. Not pink. Red. The flush starts at her cheeks and travels down her neck and disappears below the edge of the top, and she does not look away. My ridges flood dark. Both arms. The warmth spreading under the gauze, visible, impossible to hide. Her eyes drop to my forearms and widen, and come back to my face.
Neither of us mentions it.
“Are you always like this?” she says. Her voice is steady. Her cheeks are not.
“Like what?”
“Like —” She waves a hand between us. The hand is not steady either. “This.”
“For you?” I say. Low. Holding her gaze. “Special occasion.”
Her mouth opens. Closes. The flush deepens. She presses her lips together and looks at the ceiling, and I watch her try to compose herself and fail. And it is the best thing I have ever seen.
“You’re —” she stops. “You are very —”
