Page 37 of Collision!
She’d always discounted the myth of the sweater curse.According to the sweater curse, gifting a complex piece to a lover would bring about the relationship’s demise.Which seemed so…heartbreaking.
Of course infatuation might lead to hasty, poorly fit patterning and construction.And the lag time between a starry-eyed first stitch and the sleep-deprived, night-before-an-arbitrary-milestone final bind-off sometimes allowed for the painful recognition of mismatches in aspiration, application, and accomplishment.
But it wasn’t acurse.
The tangling strands of lumi-lace pulsed with light and shadow.If there was such a thing as black magic, this might be it.
Annoyed by her own frayed doom-knitting, she shoved everything to the side of the couch with a dramatic F bomb.But no one was around to appreciate or soothe her angst.If Lub were here, she’d probably get pit bull/anglerfish cuddles—slightly unnerving but still sweet.
Somewhere under the jumbled mess, her datpad pinged.So she had to dig through everything, making a worse snarl, to find the device.A recorded message from Captain Ellix Nehivar waited.
“Attention all souls on the Love Boat I…”
Mariah smiled, imagining Felicity sitting next to the captain as he dictated, reminding him they’d all chosen to be his crew now.
But the rest of the message sobered her.The captain explained how they would feint at their pursuers with her fabricated disguise and then make their escape to continue along the resonark’s enduring trajectory to the null cloud.
“Chief Engineer SuvanAdrakh is upgrading our engines to max power.Some amenities may be limited during the transition.”There was a pause in the message, and Mariah found herself holding her breath for whatever he was about to say.“Following the resonark’s path wasn’t in the IDA itinerary I was given, but holding my old course was taking me in circles.I am…” His pause this time sounded almost shy.“I am happy to be on this voyage with you all.”
Mariah looked at lumi-lace she’d tossed aside in frustration.Out of contact with her body and movement, the yarn had gone completely dark.
With a sigh, she picked up the tangled mess.The knots and dangling loops shimmered as she straightened the disarray, winding the ball back into shape.
The familiar motions should’ve been calming, but her brain kept spinning long after the yarn was contained again.
She wanted the resonark to be what Evens swore it was: a manifestation of an elemental connecting force.But if it wasn’t…
Did that really change anything?
Just as the captain had given them the chance—and the duty—to vote for their voyage, with every moment they needed to decide anew: to turn back, to continue, to choose to seek love without proof or even a promise that anyone awaited that contact.
She picked up her needles and cast on.
Chapter 12
Most of the crew and several passengers who had been recruited to help with the final manufacturing and installation of the Juraszczyk ghostform were already in the supply bay when Suvan arrived.
His pulse thudded hard when they all looked at him.
It was bad enough when the captain and some of the others had invaded the engine module during the anomaly containment.But to be exposed in the bright lumes of the bay was nearly intolerable.
And Mariah was not there.
His morning message to her had been insufficient.He hadn’t found the words he needed, and then the fabricator had thrown an error code at the end of the curing cycle, right when Lub stress-vomited the flux spanner that’d been missing for days…
He still should’ve said good morning.
Squinting, he started his final walk-around.
No one would guess the mask Mariah had sketched was inspired by a goblhob.Lub’s lure was now a grappling hook of the sort raider ships wielded against their prey, and all those menacing underbite fangs were an array of oversized cannons.Once the ghostform was locked in and the interference field engaged, the illusion would be woven through precise reflectors to spectrally scramble the backscatter and thermal returns of any hostile scrutiny.
Cloaked in Mariah’s design, the Love Boat I no longer looked like a cruise ship; it looked like trouble, too perilous to pursue.
That—with some luck and expedient acceleration—would give them the opportunity to run away.
As he finished his review, the captain stepped up beside him.“Everything looking good, Chief?”Nehivar lowered his voice.“Are you sure you’re up for a spacewalk?”
“Ready.”Once again, he knew his response was too curt, missing the words he needed to say to the Kufzasin who’d been his captain for so many lightyears before this cruise.
