Page 29 of Adrift!
“And what exactly is worse than our deaths?” Nehivar asked bitingly.
“Quantum effects don’t follow our mundane rules of distance, intensity, or predictability,” the engineer explained. “While we’re stuck out here, I have no way to verify, but if there are anomalous linkages elsewhere—everywhere…”
Remy let out an incredulous laugh. “So it’s not enough to save the ship. Now we’re saving the universe?”
“Any solace that you’ll be saving yourself too?”
Despite herself, Remy sought Ikaryo’s gaze again. Maybe she was half hoping he’d contradict the buzzkill alien.
Instead, he took her hand.
The captain’s expression was grim, even under the layer of plush fur, and when he spoke, his deep voice carried the weight of command.
“So we’re running out of time, tools, and options. If we release the anomaly, it may hijack us again. If we keep it blocked, it will unravel the ship and maybe—what?—the universe.” He spun on his heavy boot to face Remy and Ikaryo. “You think the resonark reached out to you because you were singing.”
“And kissing,” Felicity piped up.
Remy’s cheeks burned. “I have no idea.”
That one gold eye was implacable. “But you’re willing to test it?”
She lifted her chin. “Singing or kissing?”
The captain’s long whiskers twitched. Was that Kufzasin amusement? “Whatever it takes.”
Beside her, Ikaryo stiffened, prelude to an objection. “Captain—”
Nehivar held up one claw. “I may be captain, but this ship has belonged to the anomaly longer than it’s been ours. According to Evens, the resonark was seeking…something when it hijacked the ship in the past. Suvan, you’ve deciphered its harmonic resonance, so can we find”—he looked at Remy—“its perfect melody somewhere other than here?”
She crossed her arms, striving for nonchalance even as her thumbs dug into her inner biceps hard enough to feel her own hasty heartbeat. “You want me to play musical matchmaker to the energy monster?”
Remy guessed that the single word that snapped through the captain’s datpad from deep in the ship was the same one in everyone’s head, a fundamental knot of frustration: “How?”
Not Felicity, though, who bounced on her toes. “Before we trapped it, it responded to emotion. Which explains why music apparently bridged the capacitorus restraints. It first showed upwhen all the passengers were gathered together in the salon. So what if we bring all those pieces together? I propose a recital.”
The irrepressible cruise director spun toward Remy. “Tomorrow night. Not in waste reclamation, whatever Suvan says, but in the Starlit Salon. How would you feel about getting your first interstellar gig?”
+ + +
Remy felt like she was going to throw up.
Maybe it was just thinking about all the leftover algae sludge she’d helped vacuum out of the atmo-hall vents. The low-tide stink had clung to her as she’d trudged wearily back to her stateroom. After a long, hot shower using all the sensual alien scents in the bathroom and recycling her hopelessly grimed outfit, she felt human again.
But as she wrapped herself in the simplest robe from the fabricator’s offerings, she had to admit she was just scared.
Not scared of dying in another system blowout—well, scared of that too—but mostly about performing.
What if she bombed? Again?
How humbling to realize that all her musical failures on Earth were nothing compared to what would happen if she flopped out here.
What if—?
A chime at her door made her realize she was just standing frozen in the middle of the room, her panic a blockage in her throat as hard and cold as a dead asteroid in the silent void.
Meanwhile her heart pounded like a solo-maddened drummer trying to gravity blast its way out of her ribcage. An excruciating reminder that the only thing she’d once hated more than failing was staying stuck.
Which waswhyshe was out here, after all.
