She hunched her shoulders, not looking up at him. “Your brother basically said I have no choice. He doesn’t trust me anymore. None of you do.”
“Maybe because you lied to us from the start,” he said, keeping his voice as soft as the slymusk glow. “If you opened up to us—”
That made her look at him. And the snap in her smoky blue eyes was sharper than any laser scalpel. “The way your brother and Amma were so honest about the orcs’ financial situation when you filled outyourIDA profile?”
“They were honest…at the time. We truly thought Roxy would be our fortune.”
After a moment, she averted her gaze again. “Yeah. I know all about that one last big score.”
His antennae quivered with the urge to ask her more. But he had no doubt she’d evade his questions at best—or lie at worst.
And she really had no reason to depend on the orcs or trust him particularly. The whole point of the Intergalactic Dating Agency was to give beings the chance to get to know each other before making any long-term promises. It wasn’t either of their faults that she was going to be leaving soon and the orcs would be facing the Luster auction without the fortune they’d hoped to flaunt.
No, it wasn’t their fault, but thiswastheir last chance.
The main ore processing bay had been damaged badly when the pirates attacked, attempting to collect Dorn and the rock, so Roxy had been moved back to the secondary bay with additional security. Sil provided biometrics from all four limbs plus voice plus breath plus an ichor sample. He winced as the large-bore needle punched through his dermis.
Eyes wide, Kinsley backed away. “No way,” she stammered. “That needle is way too big. I’m not giving up my blood and guts.”
“The needle has to be big to get through orc skin,” he pointed out. “But you don’t have to do anything since you’re with me.”
“That’s a change,” she muttered under her breath as the portal acknowledged his legitimacy and the doorway opened.
The rock had been set to one side on a pedestal, and Sil had aligned several scanners and receivers around it to capture its emanations.
“It just doesn’t look like much,” Kinsley said in a diffident voice.
“I’ve heard the same my whole life.” He went to check the readouts. “It’s been quiet during the resting periods ever since Adeline told Ollie to tell it that he needs his sleep.” He sidelonged a glance at her. “Guess you really can’t blame Roxy for your restlessness tonight.”
He turned away to program a contrasignal to dampen the energy field around the stone. “This should keep the discussion quiet enough to not bother the hatchling.” He pulled a datpad toward him, queuing up a series of images to show her. “This is the rock when we brought it aboard. This is Roxy now.”
After glancing at him, then the rock, then back at the picture images, she tilted her head. “It’s bigger. How does a rock get bigger?”
“Many types of crystals form and grow and differentiate based on many factors, including…” As her eyes glazed over, he hurried on, “But I’ve never seen anything like this. And I’m hoping you can ask Roxy to explain it to me.” He pulled a sample container to him and held it up to the light. “Although the rock is growing, it has also been spalling—flaking off this residue.” The powder in the vial shimmered in the light, brighter than the slymusk’s trail. “Is Roxy’s growth and spalling natural? Or does this indicate a problem for it? Or for us.”
She took the vial from him, tilting it back and forth so the powder flowed, glimmering. “It’s pretty. But I like anything that sparkles.”
He tilted his head. “Anything?”
With a huffed breath that didn’t seem to translate, she handed the vial back to him. “The rock doesn’t really talk,” she informed him. “It’s more like impressions and…feelings. So I’m not sure how nerdy you can be.”
“Nerdy?”
“Scientific and stuff.”
“Ah. Then let’s start by asking it if it is happy. When it first spoke out, and you and Ollie heard, it said it was cold and lonely. And later it asked for some water. Is it properly hydrated and warmed now? What else does it need?”
She raked one hand over her head, making the red loops of her hair dance. Since she’d arrived on theDeepWander, he’d noticed that the straight smoothness of her hair had changed to these springing coils, and the brilliant red was giving way to shadowy roots at her scalp. He wondered what other artifice she’d used to adjust her appearance. He’d already assessed how she chose Earther clothing—currently a form-fitted coordination of brightly patterned tunic and trousers—to emphasize the parts of her that were least orc-like: the softness of her breasts in front, the swell of her buttocks in back, so different from the thick, hard skin of his brethren. The universe was truly a diverse and wonderful place.
“Asking a rock if it’s happy,” she muttered in a dire tone quite at odds with his appreciation for the universe’s diverse wonders. “What the hell?”
“You said it communicates through feeling. Is it so hard to feel happiness?”
Her gaze snapped to him again, but instead of looking sharp as a scalpel, her expression froze on the broken edge of a shattered crystal. Before he could apologize for whatever had caused her such pain, she spun around to face Roxy.
She stared at it hard, then squinted, then closed her eyes. Finally, she sighed. “It seems to be fine? At the moment? I don’t know. I guess it’s ‘happy’ to ‘see’ us.” She kept making a little gesture with hooked fingers which he didn’t understand. Before he could ask, she stiffened. “It wants us to…to touch it?”
Sil contemplated the rock. “None of the sonic, radiographic, or chemical analyses Dorn ran as part of his initial assay indicated anything that might be hazardous for orcs or Earthers. And nobody’s died from it since.”
