Chapter 3
If only she could ditch this place immediately. But she didn’t have her own spaceship. Not to mention, she hadn’t exactly aced her time on Earth where she knew all the rules even if she didn’t always obey them. Plus, she had to admit, she was kinda intrigued by Sil’s semi-secretive scheme.
So she perched on a too-tall orc stool that Sil pulled up for her while he asked questions and she tried to translate the rock’s responses. It was bizarre. Via the universal translator that he’d cobbled together for her, she technically understood what he was saying, but it might as well have been another language because it was mostly math. And not even the AP math where she’d noped out in shame after one semester, but, like, NASA-level math, yikes.
“I know the coordinates where we retrieved the rock, and I’m trying to figure out where else it’s been,” he explained to her. “Based on its expansion rate, I think there’s more—potentially much more—of this discarded material.”
Since the vial of dust didn’t seem very impressive besides some sparkly glitter, she wrinkled her nose. “Why do you want more?”
“Because it includes some rare and precious molecules, including several isotopes not previously known,” he said. “Exactly the sort of thing that brings in good credit at the Luster. If we can find its origins and everything it left behind…”
Kinsley swayed, gripping the stool underneath her. “Oh. That made it sad.” She’d been trying to not look at the rock, preferring to just sit and impassively relay the impressions like she was listening to a particularly weird podcast. “It’s saying…” She closed her eyes, reluctant to give voice to the feelings seeping through her mind, as if saying it aloud would make it any weirder. “It was left behind somehow. Or maybe lost? It stayed in the cold and dark, barely aware, shrinking from the cold. Until you found it.”
She opened her eyes wide, scowling away the prickle. She wasnotgoing to cry at the abandonment issues of a pet rock. “It seems to like the idea of sharing what it left behind, if you want it—and can find it. It wants to help you.”
Damn, that sounded pathetic, even from a rock. She wanted to tell it to have some shred of personal dignity, but…it was a rock.
Slipping off the stool, she edged up beside Sil, peering down at his various screens. “Do you have a map of where you found it? It doesn’t remember and wants to see.”
He pulled up a star chart. “I don’t know how we can show this to a being that doesn’t have eyes.” Then he clacked his tusks with what sounded like excitement. “Let’s try this.”
He fiddled with the datpad, and from another machine a spray of light lifted. The amorphous glow coalesced into little shimmering points of light: a 3D holographic map of space. Sil adjusted the machine so that the glow moved to encompass the rock.
“Since it can emit and apparently absorb various sorts of electromagnetic and apparently acoustic radiation, it should be able to understand this,” he said nerdily.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then a twinkle of light burst across the surface of the rock. The lights expanded in concentric rings until the glow encircled the two of them with the rock at the center.
From within the much bigger map, Sil turned a slow circle. The glinting points of light turned his pearly eyes into a pastel rainbow. “Oh, that was so long ago and so far away,” he murmured. “Poor Roxy, so alone.”
The compassion in his tone didn’t need any translation. And even though she understood it technically, his gentleness was even more confusing than algebraic geometry—and more alien than a sentient rock. And somehow, such sympathy hurt more than slicing open her brain and installing the translator technology.
She looked away from him but couldn’t stop herself from adding, “The rock—Roxy—says it’s happy it is here now.”
Sil did something with the datpad, muttering to himself. “If we compensate for speed of light and stellar drift from what Roxy recalls… Ah. I think this should do it.” As the map spun and then came to a stop with a blinking light centered between them, he looked across at her, and this time the lights glinted with triumph in his eyes. “Here. I think it’s saying it came from here.”
The glow from the rock went disco-ball wild.
“It says yes,” she told him. “In case you couldn’t tell.”
“If you say it’s yes, it is yes.”
For all her determination to keep her emotions out of this mess, she found herself gazing at him again. Had anyone ever taken her at her word, at face value?
He was a fool, the absolute worst sort of mark—one she couldn’t even feel good about hustling since hebelievedher before she’d even had a chance to lie to him.
“If you find this fortune, you should keep it instead of sharing it,” she said, watching him closely. “Well, keep half of it, anyway. That seems fair since you are doing all this work, figuring it all out. And since your brother doesn’t even share the apex position with you, his twin.”
He recoiled, actually jerked back. “No. That’s not right. I haven’t always been able to pull my weight on theDeepWander—I’m too weak compared to the others. But after we were out of the egg, Mag always made sure I got my portion of resources. This is just my chance to show them I can do my share.”
He put all four hands over the upper quadrant of his torso, where the other orcs carried the glyph scar of their standing on the ship. She’d noticed Sil’s nicely squared chest was bare (wait, when exactly had she started noticing his bare chest was actually quite nice?) although she’d never quite understood what that meant.
“Roxy was adrift a long time,” he continued. “But those coordinates are deep in the Forbidden Zone of Heartless Villainy.”
Kinsley pursed her lips. “You are kidding me.”
“Technically, the Transgalactic Security Forces mapped it as the Zarnox Zone, but it translates as the Forbidden Zone of Heartless Villainy.”
“Maybe I’ll find a new ship there after your brother kicks me out.”
