Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
“That ship is a death trap. It has almost certainly been destroyed by the station fire department. I’m sorry, but what you had has been lost.”
Her face crumples, though she tries very hard to straighten it out and seem brave.
“What did you want from it?”
“Books.”
They’ll be space mulch by now.
“We may be able to find other copies.”
“I doubt it,” she says. “They were special.”
“I am sorry,” I say. “So much of life is having and then losing special things. But we have to move forward, pet. There is no going back, not to what was, or to who we were.”
She rejects my attempt at comfort with a scowl. “Is that garbled nonsense supposed to mean something?”
She is a salty little thing, with a sharp tongue. I would like to soften that a little, because it is verging on disrespectful. Actually, no. It’s not verging. It’s taking a giant leap directly into a large vat of disrespect.
“It means accept your fate.”
She treats me to a very agitated expression. “No,” she says. “I won’t.”
“I could spank you until you cried.”
“I could stab you.”
Fair. Threats beget threats. Better to show her what is going to come her way if she does not settle. I take a breath and recalibrate. It is ridiculous for one such as I to become embroiled in a power struggle with a simple little human like her.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I tell her. “I won’t allow it. The amount of danger you are in at all times as an unattended human cannot be overstated, and I think you know it. There’s a decent chance that you could have been taken in that net to the kitchen.”
“Yeah,” she scowls. “But that’s illegal.”
“Not in deep space,” I remind her. “Stations are under galactic treaties, but where we are now, no laws apply but the laws of what can be gotten away with and what cannot be gotten away with.”
She pouts, but she stops arguing. She very narrowly avoided ending up being a set of delicacies on the captain’s table, I am sure.
It’s going to be time to move on from this place very soon. The whole interlude with her and the captain and the momentary lapse of my clothing illusion is going to start to sink into the consciousnesses of the crew and we might soon find ourselves on the wrong end of questions that will not be comfortable for me to answer.
“You’re a sweet girl,” I tell her. “You don’t need to be so furious at me.”
“Am I? Sweet? You don’t even know me. I could be any kind of woman. I could be the kind of woman who gets expelled from her colony and set adrift in space on a ship.”
“Is that what happened?”
“No. Of course not. I wanted to go.”
“Did you?”
“I just said I did. Didn’t I?”
She’s defensive. I could probe her mind a little more. Perhaps I should. The first time I tried to feel her, all I got was panic, but she had just been about to drown in an impenetrable spaceship, so I did not get a lot of sense from her.
Now, when I reach into her mind, I find a very different scene. I see a dusty planet with a red hue, fields of failing crops, and a whole host of people surrounding her. Older men with long beards and blue jeans.
“Go to the sun!” They are shouting the instruction at her, as if such a thing would be possible.
I think, at first, that I am understanding the memory incorrectly. But it is playing over in her mind as she attempts to deny the contents of it, and I am able to understand the darker undertones of what is happening.
It is a sacrifice, I believe. They wished to send her to the sun, to burn the shuttle, and her in the process, and to receive rain in return. There are ancient rituals of this nature, going back tens of thousands of years. But I confess, I find them barbaric and senseless in the extreme.
My reaction is stronger than hers. The energy of the memory is a mixture of misery and resignation. I do not sense fear. She was prepared to be sent out into the void of space to pay for the sins of her people. But at the last moment, she chose a different path. I wonder why.
“Pet,” I say as I slide from her mind.
“Why do you suddenly look sorry for me?” She narrows her eyes at me. “You were in my head, weren’t you? You’re some kind of psychic monster. Fuck. Get out of my brain.”
That was a quick conclusion to come to. I wonder if she felt me in there with her. She is a sensitive little thing.
“I’m sorry they did that to you.”
“I’m not. And shut up. I can get rain for them. I just have to try hard.”