Page 12 of How to Steal a Galaxy

“And then later,” I add, “they ground the bodies up and mixed the powder with oil.” I snort without humor. “Expensive paint, that. Mummy brown.”

A little holo displays those words again—History as Art—overtop a series of paintings that used the pigment. A Delacroix melts into a Burne-Jones. They’re taking that motto quite literally.

“At least—” Rian starts.

“Which is better, do you think? Medicinal cannibalism or corpse paint?”

Across the room, voices murmur in appreciation as the bid for Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s canopic shrine and chest climbs higher.

“Or,” I say softly, like it’s an afterthought, “maybe the better question is, which is worse? The constant display of your sacred tomb in a museum, or a bidding war for your dehydrated organs?” I turn to Rian. “You see how this isn’t better, right?” And for the first time tonight, there’s doubt in my voice. Worry.

Rian shakes his head, and relief floods through me at the disgust evident in his features. “When does a person become an object?” he mutters, meeting my eyes with a clear, steady gaze.

“Historically, when someone else assigns a monetary value to them,” I answer.

He nods, jaw tight, and whatever he sees on my face seems to satisfy him. He starts walking, sticking to the perimeter of the room. He doesn’t feel like he can leave me, but he doesn’t want to stay here.

He may be from Rigel-Earth, and his family may make their wealth through luxury food, but at least he knows enough to peel back the gold veneer of this party and see it for what it is. I wonder if this means he’s crossed off Tutankhamun’s crusty liver as a potential item for me to steal, or if my lingering attention sent the alabaster chest to the top of his list.

I watch him, the only art in the room that’s mine to view.

And that’s when I notice him fidgeting with his corsage. A white rose held down with a circular pin . . .

How did I not see it before?

A rose. A circle.

TheRose.The O-ring.

His pin is the exact same size and type of O-ring that I told him about when I was climbing out of a ravine lined with lava, the exact same O-ring that broke on theRose, a ghost ship I discovered with a whole family dead inside.

Is this supposed to be some mockery of that moment? No, Rian wouldn’t do that. Fuck, what’s my evidence for that, though?He didn’t like mummy brown,I think desperately, trying to hold on to the threads tying us together. But he’s wearing that for me; he has to be. And the message is clear: he’s going to find the O-ring in my plan, the flaw that will lead to my demise.That’s what it is,I think, almost relieved. This is taunting me, nothing more, but . . .

He wears it as a badge of honor, just like the Victorians laying out a banquet.

I close my eyes and peel away the emotions I don’t want to show, a different sort of unwrapping, a bitterer consumption.

When he finally looks back at me, I’m certain my face shows nothing. But just in case, I pull him closer to the shrine. “See there?” I say, pointing to the stone relief of a woman, her arms outstretched, her body facing the shrine, her back to us. There’s one on each side of the box, each a different goddess.

“People think the Ancient Egyptians were showy, and maybe they were,” I say. “But the goddesses face the box, not us.” They know what they should look at, what they should not.

“It’s for protection,” Rian says. He nods toward the information scrolling above the display. “The four goddesses are both on the shrine and the chest, each providing a different layer of protection.”

Layers of protection, each more elaborate than the next. It reminds me of bubbles at Yellowstone.

It reminds me of the cougar.

Of the volcano.

I glance at the O-ring on Rian’s rose.

It reminds me that nowhere is safe.

Not even when you’re dead.

6

Right, time to focus. Enough philosophical bullshit. I have a reason to be here. One goal. Well, maybe more than one. But Rian doesn’t know that. And neither does my client.

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