Page 20 of Skinwalker's Bane
Haydn strode up the length of the Institute, along the railing. He looked like a man on a mission. When he saw Adam, his determined expression faded. He gave Adam a friendly enough nod, yet didn’t speak to Noa immediately.
“You guys look flustered,” Adam observed. “Everyone, not just you two.”
“We are a bit busy,” Noa admitted, in one of her classic understatements.
“I heard,” Adam said.
Noa’s gaze shifted to Haydn. Then she smiled brightly at Adam. “What did you hear?”
“What everyone heard,” Adam said easily. He’d seen the footage on screens everywhere as he walked to the Wall district from the Aventine and realized he had missed all the excitement in the Aventine because he had used the back alley to get to the Wall district. “Is it true, about the shard?”
Noa didn’t say anything. Her lips pressed together and her gaze skittered about, as if she was checking for eavesdroppers.
Haydn sighed and scrubbed at his thick thatch of dark brown hair.
“Okay, then tell me Dhaval Bull was full of it, instead,” Adam said slowly.
Haydn cleared his throat. “Cavers are nearly always full of it.”
Nearly.
The qualification, coming from Hadyn Forney himself, was telling.
“Damn, itistrue.” Adam slid off the rail and got to his feet. “There is a shard, then. Is it really alien-made?”
Haydn grabbed his jacket sleeve and Adam reflected that it was the second time today someone had jerked him around using his jacket.
A pair of warm gray eyes wandered into the back of his thoughts.
Only, Haydn’s expression was grim as he hauled Adam over to the far corner of the long, narrow rectangle of rails that bordered the Institute, away from Noa’s desk and the screens that hid it from public view. In the corner, they could see who was standing nearby and might possibly be watching.
Haydn let go of him. “You need to keep your voice down, when you’re talking about that stuff,” he said, his own voice a growl. “In fact, it’s better not to talk about it at all.”
“Why not?” Adam demanded.
“You think the Cavers are bad, with their conspiracies and delusions? Try a whole ship sipping the same cocktail.”
Adam stared at him. “It’s not you not talking. You’re following orders. The Captain?”
Haydn shook his head. “Enough,” he said sharply. “You have no idea what you’re screwing with, Adam. Leave this alone.”
“Is that an order, boss?” Adam asked softly. “Because I don’t remember politics being part of my service contract.”
Haydn hesitated. “I’m speaking as a director of this institute,” he said softly. “Leave the shard business alone.”
“Letthe news be suppressed?” Adam asked, amazed. “Youhatethat sort of shit, Haydn.”
“You don’t understand,” Noa said softly, from behind them, making Adam jerk and turn to look at her. She had sneaked up on them. “The fact that the shard exists and its potential origins could damage more than just this Institute.”
“How could it damage the Institute at all?” Adam demanded. Then he remembered. “Damn, you two were the first out there…andat the first holing.Youcovered it up!”
Noa and Haydn did the little exchange of glances that all settled couples did when they were reading each other’s minds. Haydn shrugged, as if he was agreeing to not disagree with Noa.
She sighed and looked at Adam. “It wasn’t our choice to cover it up, although after so long, no one will care about that distinction. They’ll just focus on the fact that the External Engineering Institute was complicit in hiding the shard. All the good we’re doing the ship, all the work we’ve done, will be in jeopardy right along with everyone else who comes under fire.”
Adam recalled Devin’s neat assessment of the political ramifications that would come from mishandling Lincoln’s enormous debts. She had made politics suddenly seem sensible and reasonable and even a little bit interesting. She had made it make sense. That gave Adam the information to put together what Noa wasnotsaying.
“You think that the Institute won’t survive if Captain Owens is booted off the chair,” he said.
