Page 58 of Collision!
“Temporarily.”Why did he feel the need to reassure her?“I told the captain I’ll be functional tomorrow, and I would not lie to him either.”
Lub made a grumbling sound.
“Yes, that is a nice bone,” Mariah said.“No, I don’t want it, thank you.It’s all yours.”
More grumbling.
Her socks shuffled on the deck.“Shall I read off the engine diagnostics for you?”
Suvan almost pulled off the eye coverings to look at her.“Lub doesn’t care about diagnostics unless they reveal a larf infestation.”
“I was asking you.”
She wanted to read to him in bed?“I have the datpads set to report aloud regularly or in the event of any unexpected change.”
“Oh.”She paused.“That makes sense.”
He’d all but implied she should leave.
But he hadn’t said it.
“You could…” He cast around.“Lub wouldn’t eat earlier with all the disturbance.Since you seem to be acquainted, if you could make sure the dispenser is topped off.It’s on that wall over there.”He waved in the general vicinity.
Listening to her and Lub as they stepped away felt…odd.Not left behind, but peaceful.To know that the goblhob was cared for.Because she had offered to help.
He’d taken some of the analgesics Fahrol had suggested, and the aches in his shoulder, head, and eyes were negligible.
Or maybe he was floating, just a bit, as if the gravity had failed slightly, although no alarm validated this concern.Which left him thinking about the dream.
He’d been wearing a sweater, all his quill-scales poking through, and it had come apart, stitch by stitch, until he was naked.And the string had made mathematical symbols but in a language he didn’t know.Except somehow he’d understood—which upon waking had given him the idea for adding the feelings button trigger to the resonark monitor.
But all that could be explained by subconscious astrophysical workings, not nocturnal mysticism.
What couldn’t be explained was dreaming of being naked with Mariah.
“Lub is eating now,” she reported.“Um, those were simulated larf guts, right?”
“Yes.Actual larfs can regenerate from segments, making them a poor choice for supper.”
“Good to know.”
As he tried to think of other interesting larf facts, she asked, “How are you feeling?”
Since he’d been trying to think of interesting larf facts, he admitted, “I feel strange.Ever since…” He reached up to touch his head.
Concern hitched in her voice.“Maybe we should have Doctor Fahrol meet us in the med bay—”
“Not that kind of strange.”He searched for words, as if he were following that dream string backward.“It’s you.”
He would never have said that, he knew, except his brain was still jumbled from the concussion and he couldn’t see her reaction and…
And the ship was racing toward the null cloud where all the mysteries of their journey would be revealed.There would be no more working together, no other late nights of questions, no chance for him to ask her again.
“Why did I dream of you?”
She was so silent, he thought she’d gone.
He reached out his hand.“Mariah?”
