Page 32 of Reaper Said Mine

Orkan lowers his head. "And if she requests another interview?"

I look through the armor-glass toward the market ring, though I cannot see her from here. Somewhere in my station, the girl from Horus IV is walking through the machinery of my ambitions and asking questions sharp enough to make diplomats bleed politely.

"Keep denying her," I say. "For now."

Vakka’s grin returns. "That will irritate her."

"Good."

Skahar mutters from near the door, "Famous last words."

I watch the Combine movement lines crawl across the star map and feel the old hunger for revenge stir beneath the heavier weight of command. My enemies are moving. My allies are imaginary. My guests are vipers with credentials. And now a human reporter with green eyes and a childhood full of fire is wandering through my station, collecting truths no one invited her to find.

"Let us see," I say quietly, "what she does with irritation."

CHAPTER 5

URSA

By my fourth morning on Guyver Station, the market ring no longer looks like a threat assessment dressed in bad lighting.

It looks like a neighborhood.

The distinction unsettles me more than the weapons ever did. The concourse curves ahead in a long sweep of welded decks, hanging shop signs, balcony stalls, patched pressure doors, and hand-painted directional markings that only sometimes agree with the station map. Warm light spills from food kiosks and repair bays, turning the scuffed metal floor bronze where thousands of boots, claws, and mag-soles have worn paths through old grime. Children chase one another between cargo sleds while vendors shout prices over the grind of lifts and the hiss of steam from cooking vents.

The air is warmer here than in the diplomatic levels, full of spiced oil, machine lubricant, wet metal, unfiltered bodies, roasted fungus, citrus peel, and the sharp clean sting of disinfectant drifting from a med-kiosk at the corner. My boots stick slightly where someone spilled something sugary near a tea cart, and the cup in my hand burns pleasantly through the thin protective sleeve. The drink inside tastes like bitter herbs, salt, and a dare, but the vendor swore it would keep me awake for twelve hours without making me see dead relatives, which is more than I can say for newsroom caf.

A Reaper security officer falls into step beside me as I pass the fountain made from the old engine casing.

"You are in the wrong corridor again," he says.

I glance up. It is the same black-skinned officer who handled my arrival, the one with the crooked regrown spur along his cheek. I learned yesterday that his name is Vesk, though he did not offer it. A sanitation worker shouted it while telling him to stop blocking access to a drain.

"I am in a permitted civilian commercial corridor," I say.

"This is Market Spur Four. Press lodging is on Spur Two."

"I know where my lodging is."

"Then why are you not there?"

"Because I am working."

He looks around the concourse as if the word working has personally insulted him. "You call loitering near breakfast stalls work?"

"I call speaking with residents work."

"You have been speaking with everyone."

"That is often how journalism functions."

His mouth twitches, though he quickly buries the expression beneath official disapproval. "You asked a coolant technician yesterday whether Lord Gnash has improved waste heat recapture efficiency."

"He had."

"You asked a nursery instructor about school enrollment."

"She answered."