Page 34 of Collision!
He went to the public cooler and grabbed a bottle of soda pop.The dark amber hue reminded him of Mariah’s eyes, and the bubbly sweetness was all her.
He took a long draught before turning to Evens.“You know the synthequer won’t make you forget what you did.”
Evens cocked an eyebrow.“Will no one give me even the slightest benefit of the doubt?Or at least concede that this is the adventure of a love-time?”
Suvan drank again while his translator glitched on the imaginary word play.He wished Mariah were here to provide a nuanced Earther scoff.
The bubbles in the soda pop burped out of him in answer: “No.”
But then in fairness, he had to add, “To the first question.As for the second…” He realized he was looking at his employer the same way he’d glowered at the resonark.“Why did you lie about them winning these precious tickets?”
“There was no lie,” Evens objected.“Just…not the totality of truth.”
When Suvan started to turn away again, the Earther sputtered.“Would you have believed in an elemental manifestation of love if you hadn’t seen it?Would you have come aboard?”
“I still don’t believe it,” Suvan countered, but he found himself refusing to glance at the sensor on the bar.
Had the readings flickered at his rejection?
“And I am not a part of the Cosmic Connections Cruise,” he continued stubbornly.
Evens raised both eyebrows.“Aren’t you?”Without waiting for an answer, he gave the empty bottle a resentful spin.“I wanted to give the resonark a fighting chance to show what it could do, so I chose profiles with preexisting compatibility and thought if the tour went a little beyond three sunsets…”
The bottle rotated longer than seemed predictable by physics, the hollow sound of it eerie.
Finally, Evens slapped his hand on the bar, bringing the spin to a halt.“I had no idea it would hijack us, or that we’d be hunted by marauders in the Zarnax Zone.I merely wanted…”
Suvan waited, half his attention on the resonark.
He’d listened to this Earther and Felicity, Ikaryo and his Remy, talk circles around the anomaly.Every conflicting datapoint and wishful avowal added to the tangle of confusion.And so far, all that speculation had been mostly pointless and thoroughly maddening.
The loveffervescence.That was what Mariah had called it.Love and bubbles, as if that was enough for her.
And what if it was?
He swallowed the last mouthful of soda pop, savoring the sweetness.
Perhaps sensing Suvan’s evaporating patience, Evens said, “I launched the Big Sky Intergalactic Dating Agency ten years ago because I wanted to find love for myself.Discovering the resonark trapped in this ship… I wanted to see where it would take me, but I was afraid to come alone.”
The confession seemed torn from him, and he gripped the edge of the bar like he might fall without it.
Suvan suspected Mariah would’ve reached out to touch those blanched knuckles, to offer some solace and understanding.
But she wasn’t here.“You say you wanted to find love, but you lied, locked yourself in an empty cabin, and now sulk here alone.”Suvan gathered all the empties in one hand and took them to the recycler.“Sorry, boss.But I’m not sure any ship will get you where you want to go.”
Not waiting around to see if he was fired, Suvan sauntered out of the salon, pausing in the doorway long enough to glance back.“Good night.”
And if Mariahhadbeen there to ask, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to say which he was talking to: the glum Earther or the mysterious anomaly sparkling above.
Chapter 11
It wasn’t a dream this time.It was more.
Mariah felt the distance all around her, empty as the end of an echo, vast to the point of infinite.
But not impossible to cross.If she just…
She was reaching when the ping from her datpad woke her, and her hand fell to the device.
