“Who is Madelaine Archer?” Beryl asked.
Diesel closed his eyes and said in a sad tone, “Jack’s first love. They used to be inseparable. But Madelaine abandoned him years ago. He’s never been the same since she left him.”
“But now they’re married or are about to be married?”
Diesel shrugged. “I would not have believed it, but something is going on. That is a certainty.”
Diesel looked up and saw Axel walking toward them, a coffee cup from Bean Me Up in his hand.
His brother stopped in front of them with a carefree smile in place. “Hey, you two. What’s up? You look troubled.”
Diesel turned his phone toward Axel. “Do you know anything about this?”
Axel, who had been about to take a sip of coffee, squinted and read the screen. His eyes abruptly widened and his face turned as pale as ash. He lowered the coffee cup and backed away slowly. “No. I know nothing. Absolutely nothing.” With that, he turned on his heel and raced back the way he’d come.
Beryl watched him go, one eyebrow raised. “Clearly, he knows something, right?”
“Oh, yes. But I’ve seen that rabid, tight-lipped look before. He won’t talk no matter what we do to him. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
Beryl thought Diesel looked stricken over the news of Jack’s nuptials, impending or otherwise. She could understand. If one of her siblings might be involved in a difficult love-life issue, she’d worry, too.
“Let me know if I can do anything to help,” she said.
“I will. Thank you, Beryl. If Jack did marry Madelaine, I hope he won’t end up with a broken heart like last time.”
“I hope that, too.”
Chapter Nineteen
Far ahead, against the black sea of space, a crooked ring of lights rotated slowly around a battered central hub. Sections of the outer halo sat slightly out of alignment, giving the entire station a lopsided appearance, as if some giant had bent it and nobody had ever bothered to straighten it.
“That can’t be safe,” Jack muttered.
Madelaine glanced up from the navigation display.
“That is Crooked Halo Station.”
“The fact that it’s actually crooked isn’t reassuring.”
“Well, it stays in orbit and has for a long time.”
“That is an incredibly low standard.”
“Still, we need fuel. And this is our singular option.”
“When you put it that way, I can’t wait to get there,” Jack said.
For five hours, they’d flown toward the edge of everything known in the galaxy and in the opposite direction of their next delightful encounter with folks who wouldn’t talk to Madelaine because she was a girl. So foolish.
Crooked Halo Station appeared first as a smear of light against the black.
Then the smear sharpened into a battered ring of metal wrapped around the broken spine of an old mining platform. Docking arms jutted out at uneven angles. Rust-colored hull plating gleamed under patchy floodlights. A dozen ships clung to the station like vultures on a carcass.
The whole place rotated slowly, its outer ring flickering with neon signs in languages Jack did not know and one he unfortunately did.
“Live eels,” he read aloud.
Madelaine frowned. “That probably isn’t what it means.”
