Her blue eyes narrowed. “Okay, now I think you’re teasing me. But… A ghost?”
“We know this ship had anomalous power issues. Both Griiek, who I trust, and Suvan, who has crossed lightyears with me, say it’s not a problem with the ship. So it is…something else.” He rumbled under his breath. “Evens sought me out for this position, and when I asked why, he said he was looking for”—Ellix summoned up the Earther male’s phrasing—“someone who ‘won’t be foolishly charmed by my little love boat’.”
“Foolishly charmed,” she grumbled under her breath. “Oh no, not Captain Never-Smiles.”
His whiskers twitched. “He said he wanted an experienced appraisal of the vessel’s suitability as flagship.”
Felicity pursed her lips. “You mentioned your last ship had…issues.”
“Exploded under attack by pirates,” he clarified. “One of the reasons I agreed to this cruise was because a repeat of that situation seemed unlikely.”
“And yet.” She hovered beside him when he popped open an access panel in the bulkhead behind the bar. “So what are we looking for?”
“Signs of a power distortion.”
“What do distortion signs look like?”
He slanted a glance at her. “Catastrophic decompressions. Immolating flames. Creepy black fractals.”
“Uh, if those are my options, I guess I’ll choose the last one.”
He reviewed the room sensors and local logs, finding nothing out of the ordinary.
“What’s this?” She poked a small spike in the energy readings.
“That’s when everyone started screaming.”
She huffed out a breath. “So the monitors could capture us freaking out, but not why we were freaking out? What kinds of energy can we perceive that the sensors would miss?”
“All instruments were upgraded during the ship’s remodel, but this was never intended to be a calibrated scientific expedition, so none of the more exotic energies are tracked.”
“But all of our guests perceived it.” She tapped one fingertip against her lower lip in counterpoint to the ubiquitous datpad thumping against her thigh. He couldn’t decide which one was more distracting and forced his gaze away. “Everyone aboard right now was selected to be compatible across all relevant bioelechemical baselines. So what do we all have in common that has no relevance to ship functions?”
Deliberately focused on the guts of the panel, he didn’t answer her, but she seemed not to require anything from him as she continued to mutter under her breath while scrolling through the passenger manifest. “Some can see into ultraviolet or infrared, but others can’t. Some are sensitive to pheromones, but others wouldn’t notice. Some have acuity into the ultrasonic or infrasonic or maybe only a range of that scale. What would we all be looking for that would let us see the anomaly?”
“A cosmic connection,” Ellix said distractedly. “According to the brochure.”
She grabbed his elbow, jostling him out of his focus. “Could that be it? New relationship energy? Wanting to see and be seen. That heightened sense of possibility. Can we calibrate a sensor to decipher that?”
“You want me to scan for love?” He stared down at her. “Suvan will laugh himself to death if I ask him to calculate the waveform for emotional intimacy.”
“Well, considering Chief Adrakh never comes up from the engine cellar, I’m not entirely convinced he exists. Unlike this anomaly.” She bounced lightly on her toes, the metal taps of her crampons clicking on the deck. “Okay, maybe it’s notexactlythe power of love. But something like that.”
“Lust,” he murmured.
She stilled. “What?”
“That energy you are talking about, but sharpened to a point.”
Her cheeks flushed with a rush of blood. “I suppose that’s one way of… But maybe I’m just wishful thinking.”
He gave her a slow, dangerous blink. “Wishfully thinking about lust?”
“No! I mean, yes, but only in the strictly professional context of helping you pin down this power surge or whatever it is.”
“You want to…pin me down?”
She reared back so far she might’ve tipped over if not for her weighted boots. “No! I mean… I just meant I want to truly be a valued member of your crew. I’m not only some closed-worlder who can’t handle herself when things get tough. I—”
