“How absolutely amazing! Do you think we’ll get to see some snow?”
I think on it. I’ve never actually seen snow, and surely Rain hasn’t, either.
“You know what—I hope so. What do you think it feels like?”
“I’ve read that it can be lots of different textures. Sometimes light and fluffy, other times heavy and super wet. But always the most pristine shade of white.” She’s talking faster now. “Oh! And! Did you know it’s made up of all these tiny flakes, and I read each one of them is completely unique? No two flakes are alike. What must that look like?”
Her enthusiasm is infectious. I try to imagine it. “I once read a story about catching them on your tongue. How amazing would it be if it was snowing when we get there, like actually falling from the sky, and we could give that a try?”
She sighs. “A real-life run-in with snow. How divine.”
Our eyes meet, and we both giggle at the sacrilege.
“You know what I mean,” she adds, then sighs again before meeting my eyes. “You know, in some ways, we’ve got the same problem,” she says. “We’ve both been brought up with strict views on who and what we are. Our place in the world. I’d never questioned it before—it’s just the way things are. But these few days have made me realize that things don’t have to be that way.”
“You’d turn your back on the Sisterhood?” From everything I learned about the high priestess’s role, just the idea is unthinkable. Her eternal lives awaiting the Dying Sun is the spiritual center of the Sisterhood.
“No. I believe as high priestess, I have an important role to play and a chance to do good in the world. But I hope that doesn’t mean I have to have a closed mind and live my life how others believe I should. I hope I can find a way to balance what they want me to be with who I’m discovering I really am.”
“That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?” I don’t even try to keep the wistfulness out of my tone.
“Very nice.” She smiles. “Though Merrick doesn’t see it that way. He’s finding this very hard. I’m really not supposed to have a mind of my own. It makes his job far more difficult.”
I glance across to where Merrick is seated, long legs stretched out, a brooding expression on his face. He’s developing an impressive black eye, and his nose is completely swollen. “Maybe you should lay off a little. Just until he can see out of both eyes again.”
“Right?” She makes a face, scrunching up her nose. “To be fair, I don’t think it’s all my fault. I suspect Merrick is going through a crisis of faith.”
“Aren’t we all?” I add.
“Of course. It happens to most everyone at some point. His father died recently—he never talked about his family, but I think they were close—and it’s hit him hard. Made him confront his mortality and question his role in life, even before we ended up on the Caelestis.”
Her words have me looking at Merrick again, maybe even seeing him in a different light. “It’s funny, isn’t it? We see people and we make judgments and believe we know who they really are, but mostly, we’re wrong. We can never truly understand what someone else is going through. I mean, it’s hard enough working out what I’m going through, never mind anyone else.”
Rain smiles. “Remember that when you think of Beckett. She’s had a hard life. She seems tough, but it’s a mask she wears to hide the pain.”
“Tough” seems like an understatement, but she’s not wrong. And after everything Beckett said earlier, it’s not hard to understand why she is the way she is. Who wouldn’t be hard after everything she’s gone through?
But thinking on that is chasing away the high of my earlier actions, so instead, I change the subject. “What do you think snow tastes like?”
“Sugar,” Rain breathes out, and we both sigh this time. “If it’s snowing when we get to Glacea, promise me we’ll catch some snowflakes on our tongues.”
“You got it,” I say with a grin, and this has officially become my favorite day ever.
So of course it’s at that moment that Ian claps his hands. “I hate to bring more bad news, but I really think we’ve got another problem. And this one we can’t outrun.”
Chapter 38
Kali
“I’ve been thinking,” Ian starts.
“Well, that’s terrifying,” Gage comments in an acerbic voice.
Ian just flips him off in a non-heated way and continues, “The bad guys—and right now, I consider that pretty much everyone who’s not on this ship—keep finding us. And while I’m willing to believe it happened once out of shit luck, twice feels like we should be paying better attention.
“What we need to figure out is—how? How the fuck are the bastards chasing us?” He looks around at each of us in turn, his gaze pausing just a little longer on mine, and I give him my most innocent smile. Which is easy because I really have no idea.
“What’s your theory?” Merrick asks, though it comes out sounding a little funny, considering his lower lip is still swollen from Ian’s fist.
“While I’m willing to believe the first ship picked up our trajectory from Askkandia and tracked us that way, with the second, we were way too far off-planet for that to have worked. So, I’m thinking that maybe we’ve got a bug.”
“What sort of bug are you talking about?” Rain asks, looking totally disgusted.
At least until I lean over and whisper, “Electronic. So they can trace us—and maybe listen to us.”
“That sounds even worse than I’d imagined,” she whispers back, her eyes wide.
“Why don’t we ask our resident technical expert. Gage? Are bugs a possibility? Could someone have bugged the Starlight while she was docked on the Caelestis?” Ian asks.
Gage frowns while he thinks about it. “It’s not impossible, but it is unlikely. I doubt it ever occurred to anyone that the Starlight was going anywhere, so why bother with a bug? Fuck, from what I understand, they’d been trying to get her to function for years and gotten nowhere.”
“Yeah, but say she was bugged,” Ian continues. “You used bug finders on the Caelestis for your Corporation work in the docking bay, right? Could you rig one for us to use here?”
Gage looks thoughtful for a moment, then nods. “Yeah, okay. I think I can do that.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Ian looks at him like he can’t believe Gage is still just sitting there.
Gage mumbles something uncomplimentary, but he’s already up and shuffling out of the room. Seconds later, Max gets up and follows him.
I think about sticking around to see what else Ian has to say, but at that moment my stomach rumbles. I figure there isn’t anything I can do to help right now anyway, so I head to the galley to find something to eat instead. Maybe I can get a head start on cooking us all up some dinner.
There’s still a bit of the fresh food left, and I help myself to a piece of bread and some sort of fishgalen paste from the refrigeration cabinet, along with a glass of water from the purifier. After my first few days on board the Starlight, I’ll never take the chance to drink water for granted again.