“But you told them I didn’t…” He ducked his head. “Ah. This is a moment of witty banter. So interesting to encounter it outside of a text book.”
“Outside of a…” She lifted one eyebrow. “Oh, so you study witty banter now?”
“Since Teq has proved that the i’lva isn’t just a legend or wishful thinking from our lost homeworld, I became curious about Earther courtship and bonding rituals.”
She snorted out a laugh. “I don’t remember reading anything about witty banter in the IDA handbook.”
“I’ve been doing extra credit studies,” he hedged.
Intrigued, she angled toward him. “Oh, do tell. Are there worksheets or quizzes?”
“No. I wanted something from the source, raw and uncut, so I’m reading contemporary literature of Earth.”
The orcs had thicker hides than humans so she’d had more trouble learning their micro expressions. But from the way he ducked and mumbled, she knew she had to keep pressing. “What sort of literature? Book about what?”
“Stories of emotion and connection, especially love.” He glanced away. “Romance novels.”
“Oh. Romances.” She settled back. “I thought you were going to say porn. Or worse, poetry.”
“Not porn,” he said in earnest. “That was covered fairly extensively in the IDA handbook. And translators, despite being allegedly universal, sometimes struggle with poetry. Romance novels have it all. Pornandpoetry.” He trailed off. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Just wondering which of the Earth gals will benefit from your nerdy nature. Not Adeline, obviously. She and Teq are locked in. June might be a good match for you. I don’t know how much she’s into contemporary Earth literature, but I suspect she’s a romantic at heart.”
She’d meant to be needling, just a little, since he had made her an accessory to at least a few more orc crimes, probably. But for some reason the joking seemed to ricochet off his blue-bronze hide, piercing her. “Or maybe—”
But he had all four hands up as if warding her off. “I would never seek to claim one of you. It is not my right, not until I earn my glyph.”
How horrible a person was she that the envious knot inside her eased at his protest. Was she so heartless that she wanted other people to be unhappy too?
“Why does that mark matter so much to orcs?”
Sil was fiddling with the controls, but she suspected that was as much to give all his hands something to do as actually fly the ship since the shuttle beeped once in an aggrieved tone and he finally sat back with a grunt.
“The glyph is the proof of our rank among the crew.” He touched the empty spot on his chest. “It means they know who you are. Andyouknow who you are.”
She pursed her lips to one side. “But crusher is just Teq’s job, not his whole identity. And even your brother, he might be apex now, but I know the fear is that he could lose it. Meanwhile, the mark is burned into you.” She shuddered. “What happens to him then?”
Sil’s antennae flattened. “The mark would be erased, of course. Whether my brother would survive the loss…” He thrummed a low, disturbing note. “That is partly why I need to find the rock’s remnants, to make a treasure we can trade at the Luster. Not just for my own sake, but his. For all of us.”
Not that she wanted him to fly off into the void with her, but… “Why do you even want to be part of that? Why do you want to be stuck in one job, one place, when you have the whole universe around you? Why stay with people who don’t believe in you?”
He stared out at the starscape ahead of them. “Not everyone can just run away and start again like you did. This is where I want to be.”
It was not his intention, she knew, but the words struck her like a bowling ball to the chest. She might have escaped Earth’s orbit, but she hadn’t left behind her troubles. And here she was once again fleeing the scene of her own mistakes, hoping that some miraculous next score would fix all her problems.
“There was a time, when there were more orcs, back on our homeworld, when hatchlings would have a chance to try all the different roles, to see what moved them. Now there aren’t enough of us, and we take whatever we can get from what’s needed most.” He looked at her. “I wasn’t convinced about this idea Mag and Amma had to date aliens to prove that this ship is a real, lasting home, forever. But seeing Teq with Adeline, finding out that the i’lva isn’t just a myth—that hope will keep us going in a way that even fuel and credits can’t.”
She gave him a flat look. “So why go after the fortune if love is all you need?”
“Sadly, theDeepWanderdoes not run on love.”
“And this mission is going to make the difference? Or were you lying about that too?”
All four of his shoulders hunched. “Not lying, no.”
She perked up. “I sense evasion,” she challenged in a lilting voice. “Are you lying to me about not lying to me?”
“I’m not,” he protested. “I admit, I wasn’t sure at first. I wondered if Roxy’s spalling was a reproductive strategy, which would of course mean we couldn’t sell it at the Luster. But the dust is inert, not procreative. According to the initial mass spectrometry findings from Dorn and what I’ve confirmed, some of the isotopes are valuable enough in raw form. But I also believe there are fragments that could be…something else.”
