Page 21 of How to Steal a Galaxy

“Let’s change the subject,” Rian say even more firmly.

“To what?” I ask, my tone bright.

“To anything that doesn’t require a high level of security clearance.”

Fetor chuckles.

“So, you’re announcing tonight that the climate cleaners are going to be released soon,” I say. “I assume they’ll be going out of this super secure office of yours?”

“That’s on a need-to-know basis,” Rian says, cutting Fetor off from telling me everything. Fine. I can work for my information. But also, he just confirmed what I asked, so that was nice of him.

“And here we are. The Skye Martin room,” Fetor announces, sweeping his hand toward the gallery display.

The museum has a portion of an actual portal on display. It’s been deactivated, obviously, and the power core’s been taken out. It’s only a fraction of the ring—with one part in Fetor’s backyard, apparently—but even so, it’s massive.

Fetor starts talking like he’s a professor in a lecture hall, but I can easily block his voice from my mind as I move around the display. When will men realize that just because they speak doesn’t mean anyone’s listening?

Unlike the Mission Control Room, this display is designed to be interactive. I’m allowed to go right up to the portal ring and touch it. My hands trail over the metal edge. Here, the wall of the ring is as tall as my chest and wider than two Rians standing on top of each other. The curve goes all the way up to the ceiling, giving it the illusion of continuing through the plaster.

Fetor pauses in the endless drone of misinformation that I’ve long since tuned out, and I use that opportunity to activate the holo for the room. The lights project a woman in a thick space suit floating out of the ceiling like a ghost, her face obscured by a mirrored visor on her helmet. She’s got a heavy, clunky LifePack on, and she doesn’t have jaxon jets, which is a shame, because someone like Skye Martin deserved jaxon jets. She was just born before they were invented.

“There she is. The woman who invented portals,” Fetor says, pointing to the holo projection.

Skye Martin didn’t invent portal travel. She was born on Centauri-Earth, which means she wouldn’t have even been on a planet other than Earth if portal travel hadn’t already been invented. Portals are the only thing that allow faster-than-light travel.

What Skye Martin did was make it even quicker. She combined solar glass—a rare material that’s only ever been found on a handful of worlds inhabited or not—with portal tech to make portals faster and more reliable. Without her, it would take months or years to go between worlds. Now? Weeks. Days for some paths.

When I look over, I see Rian watching me, as if he thinks I could pick up this piece of a portal and hide it under my tight-fitting sea-silk dress.

“Mr. White, Mr. Fetor?” a voice says from the door.

We all look up to see Phoebe, Rian’s associate in the red number, standing tentatively. She looks a little frazzled. Up and down the steps, wrangling wayward men. Not the best job to have.

“Hello, Phoebe,” I say. She nods at me, but her attention is on Rian and Fetor. “Love your dress.”

She glances at me as if she’d forgotten I was here. “Thanks,” she says, her attention already drifting back to Rian. “It’s an Eva Charming. Sir, we really need to complete the tech check with the addition of—”

“It’s fine; it’s just a tech check,” Fetor says waving her off. “Iinventedthe tech.”

“And it’s still in prototype,” Phoebe says cooly. So, picking up on the way she doesn’t let emotion inflect her voice, this fancy-hover stage thing with a fancier nanobot display isn’t exactly ready for showtime.

“Also, the people operating the stage didn’t invent it and have never worked on something like it before.” Rian sighs. “I’ll go with you and make sure it’s quick.”

“Have fun, bossman,” I tell Rian with a mock two-finger salute.

Rian’s eyes narrow. “Phoebe, did you ensure the security was back on in the Mission Control display?”

“Of course,” she says, all efficiency. Rian pauses, saying something low to her, and her eyes zero in on me, narrowed, suspicious.

That’s that, I guess. Rian’s off to do more boring things, and he’s set his watchdog on me instead.

Fetor turns to me as he heads out. “Lovely meeting you.”

He still can’t remember my name. “I regret every second I’ve spent in your presence, and I want to stomp your face in,” I say genially.

“In those shoes?” Fetor makes a point of staring at my silver heels. “Some people would pay good money for that.”

Well, now he has my attention. “Really?”

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