“So we should keep looking.”
“I’m not suggesting we give up. I want to keep looking too.”
Tess’s jaw tightened. “But you also want to give the information to Baralt.”
“Yes, so we can both keep looking.”
“We don’t need some enormous alien male taking over because he thinks we can’t handle it,” Tess said, scowling.
“Baralt doesn’t think that.”
“You don’t know what he thinks.”
She sighed. “Maybe not, but I know how he’s acted since I met him.”
“He’s Njkall’s friend,” Tess said, as if it proved her point.
“So?”
“Njkall thinks everyone needs protecting.”
She opened her mouth to object, then closed it, unable to dispute Tess’s statement.
“All right,” she conceded. “Sometimes.”
Tess snorted. “You mean all the time.”
She looked down at the three manifests on the table. A year ago she would have understood Tess’s reaction without question. Help had strings. Help meant obligation. Help meant someone else gained a claim over you. But she didn’t believe that anymore. At least, not entirely.
“Giving Baralt information doesn’t mean giving him your choices,” she said quietly, but Tess’s expression didn’t change. “He has contacts we don’t have,” she continued. “He knows ships. He knows Port Eyeja. He probably knows people at Nareth. We could spend weeks trying to find out who this station master is.”
“So we hand it over and wait.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m saying we send him copies and keep looking. We ask if he has any additional information.”
Tess studied her suspiciously. “We?”
“Yes, we. You didn’t think I was planning to give up, did you?”
“I don’t know.” Tess shrugged uncomfortably. “Why do you care?”
The question surprised her. “Because I want to know what happened to you, of course.”
“It didn’t happen to you.”
“No, I wasn’t part of their network,” she said quietly. “But I went through something like it.”
The anger faded slightly from Tess’s face, as Polly picked up one of the blue stones and rolled it between her fingers.
“When I first came here, everyone kept trying to help me. Cera. Yasmin. Njkall. Half the clan, probably. And sometimes I hated it.”
“Because they thought you were helpless.”
“No.” She considered that. “Because I thought accepting helpmeantI was helpless.”
Tess looked away.
“It doesn’t mean that,” she said firmly, wanting the other woman to understand what it had taken her so long to accept.
