Page 24 of Alliance
Embarrassment sizzled under my skin. Not until just then, when she’d looked through me as if I were no different from a lamp, did I realize… From Auntie’s point of view, we hadn’t been having a real conversation.
Because I wasn’t real to begin with.
08
[Analysis] Whatever memories Rosy had of space vessels, theMummerdid not fit the mold.
“Didn’t you say it was at dock three, Para?” Safia asked skeptically. She stared at the dock which appeared empty.
“It’s there,” Fásach assured her.
And its presence was enormous. Though Safia snorted and rolled her eyes, I was transfixed. Not by a ship that she couldn’t see, but the lack ofanything.
Dock three was on a commuter tarmac fifty thousand feet above the moon’s surface, its long gangway stretching out into a black sky above a blanket of volcanic plumes and glowing orange lava. While other docks and ships vibrated with data, dock three was limbo. There was nothing—as in the absence ofeverything.
When we reached a ramp that appeared to lead directly into space, Fásach strode up without hesitation. An odd movement against the sky caught my attention ahead of him, and I realized just before the door slid open that theMummerwas invisible.
“Mirrors,” I whispered, wide-eyed. The vessel wasn’t invisible, but covered in an array of small mirrors, deflecting visible light while porous black material beneath them absorbed the rest.
Fásach led Safia, Misila, and me up the ramp, my ears and temples itching from how long the thermophobic hood had compressed against my curls. Up here was far colder than themoon itself, so my ears had gone numb and my skin pebbled. As soon as I was close enough to touch the ship, I pressed my hand to its hull, but still, it was as active as a lump of coal. No echoes, no halos, no outgoing transmissions of any kind. Just a profound and chilling silence.
“Vantaplates,” Fásach told me while he ushered the bewildered children inside. The black hull vibrated beneath my fingertips. “They absorb pretty much everything. TheMummeris more like a black hole than a ship.”
“And the mirrors?” I asked. I pressed my finger to one. Since I produced no oils, the mirror simply fogged without leaving behind a fingerprint.
“My guess? The captain didn’t want our rendezvous on the books. Pretty sure traffic control thinks this dock is empty. Come on, we better hurry.”
The door slid shut behind us with a swift hiss, and my stomach immediately swooped as theMummerleft its berth. Safia and Misila stumbled into the wall from the gentle shift.
We were in a receiving bay of some sort; a plain room with one long bench to the left and a thick airlock blocking us from the rest of the interior.
“That tickles,” Misila giggled, rubbing her stomach as the ship growled with thrust power. She wiggled her fingers at her older sister, threatening to start a tickle fight.
“Stop, Misi,” Safia whispered with exasperation.
“Girls,” Fásach warned. “Sit until the airlock opens.”
“But it makes my plates itchy,” Safia complained.
“The vibrating will be over soon. We have to get out of low orbit and then…”
While they spoke, I stared dumbstruck at the things they couldn’t see. No matter how absent the ship was from the outside, inside it wasvibrant.
The harsh black angles weren't colorful or inviting like Auntie’s home and the dim lighting was murky white rather than amber and summery. But a river of halos were caught in a stunning race along the ceiling, where the current snatched up the data from Fásach and the girls’ holotabs and whisked it away to destination unknown. The information was broken down into such small parts that the river sparkled like iridescent glitter. A vein of diamonds hidden within the coal.
Beautiful rather than overwhelming.
Instinctively, my feet carried me with the flow of the soothing current. I pressed my hand to the airlock, wishing I could see where it went, and something prickled my palm. It wasn’t an organic feeling, but code that whispered against my skin. I stared at where my hand met the ship and sent my parumauxi there. Perhaps they could hear the pattern more clearly than I could by myself…
The airlock beeped, hissed, then unlocked. The massive slab of a door rolled into the wall, and I found myself face-to-face with a tall—
My breath hitched.
Human.
“My, aren’t you a sight?”
[Analysis] He had chiseled cheeks, a straight nose, and firm lips, but the light deep behind his eyes suggested his sight was bionic like mine. His face was bisected along a line that ran from his high cheekbones to his mouth, demarcating a difference in material. His lower face, including his bottom lip, was matte black silicone while the top of his face was a smoky, dusty brown with black brows and a mottled black gradient around his temples. His skin was slightly translucent too, exposing the ghost of his skull beneath with running seams for fine gold wiring that disappeared into thick black hair shaved neatly on the sides.
