“That’s the risk we’re taking. You’re here to figure out what we need.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” she says.
“Not,” I continue, “as a scientist. As a diver, an adventurer, and a human being who wants this stuff out of our lives.”
“If that Dignity Vessel is on a base somewhere,” she says, “then we could take out hundreds of innocent lives.”
“It’s not on a base,” I say.
She pauses, pieces of cornbread dripping from one hand into the other. She looks like a little girl, making a mess because she doesn’t know how to properly eat that particular food.
“It’s not?” she asks. “How are they working on it, then?”
“I’m not sure they are yet,” I say. “All I know is that they’ve set up a guard.”
“That’s it?”
I shrug. I’ve sent Mikk and part of the team to check it out from a distance. They were on that mission while I came to Naha to see Squishy.
“I’ll know when we get back,” I say.
I told Mikk not to get too close. If he got caught, he could say he was traveling nearby and had no idea there was something important in that part of space. He was going to treat it as if he were taking a bunch of people on a tourist dive (not that my team would ever be tourists) and let the Empire think he was just a bit ignorant.
I hope it worked.
“See why I’m not too worried about blowing up the ship?” I ask. “It’s in the middle of nowhere.”
“I’d have to test—”
“No,” I say. “You can read about Dignity Vessels. I gave you the numbers for the component parts. You know what the ship is made of. We destroy it, and most likely, we’ll destroy the stealth tech.”
“Most likely,” she says, and takes a bite of cornbread.
I am simply repeating her argument back to her, but now she doesn’t sound convinced.
“You were worried,” she says, “that we’d create an even larger stealth tech field, even with the ship gone. Aren’t you still worried about that?”
Of course I am. I’d be foolish not to worry about it. “Of course I’m still worried about it, Squishy,” I say.
“If I do a bottle experiment, I might figure out—”
“No,” I say. “First of all, you could die. Second, you could open a rift near Longbow. And third, if we do create something nasty, we’ll start rumors and warn people away from that part of space.”
“If we survive,” she says.
I nod. “If we survive.”
THIRTY-TWO
I am relieved to see Longbow. I am even more relieved to find that Mikk and the team have returned from their mission to the Dignity Vessel intact. Their little ruse worked.
We meet in a small restaurant that I have rented for the evening. The proprietor has set out a full meal for us—meats, cheeses, breads, fruits and vegetables grown in one of Longbow’s hydroponic gardens—and he has left us alone. That too is by my request. He’ll return in two hours, serve desserts, and then usher us outside.
I don’t mind. It’s the privacy I’m after, not the food.
The team is already waiting for me. They’re milling around the long table in the middle of the restaurant. Everything here is done to look authentically Old Earth—wooden tables, wooden floors, wooden walls, big thick wooden signs, and a wooden bar off to one side.
None of the wood is real, of course, and I have no way to judge if any restaurant on Old Earth ever looked like this. But it has always felt authentic to me.
The food sits in the center of the long table on thick white plates. The same spread appears on both sides of the table, so things don’t have to be passed very far.
Most everyone already holds a plate, loaded with a different variety of snacks. Full glasses of various liquids sit near different spots on the table where people have already staked their claim.
There are only two spots left, one at the head of the table and the other to the right of the head.
Apparently Squishy and I have assigned seating. I glance at Mikk. He smiles at me. He’s done this. He has really stepped into a leadership role since Karl died, and I appreciate it.
Mikk sets his glass to the left of the head of the table. Then he puts his plate down. Everyone else comes to the table as well.
Odette takes the foot. Her presence surprises me. She was so angry after we dropped my father and Riya Trekov off the Business that I thought she wouldn’t work with me again.
As we all thread to the table, there’s only one person I don’t recognize. She’s too thin. Her hair is so short I can’t tell its color.
It’s not until she stops beside me that I realize who I’m looking at.
Turtle.
“Turtle,” I say, and hug her. She feels brittle. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
She hugs me briefly, then steps back. She looks to my side, her gaze finding Squishy.
“I contacted her,” Squishy says. “Just before we left Vallevu.”
“I couldn’t believe I heard from you.” Turtle tentatively touches Squishy’s arm. “Thanks for letting me know about Karl.”
Squishy moves away ever so delicately.
“You told her in a communication?” I ask. I can’t believe the insensitivity of that. Karl and Turtle were friends. I figure that such news is always better told in person.
“I told her to meet us here and to find some of your divers,” Squishy says to me. “They’d let her know what happened.”
Turtle gives Squishy another longing look, and then steps back. “I’m so sorry about Karl,” Turtle says to me. “It sounds awful.”
I remember the feel of him in my suited arms. How I could close my arms around him and gently tug him backwards, getting no resistance at all. How, in that moment, I knew that the Karl was gone, even though his body remained.
“It’s probably worse because Karl would be alive if it weren’t for her dad,” Mikk says. “If Boss hadn’t stopped me, I would have killed the bastard. Hell, I’m still not sure we shouldn’t.”
I give Mikk a sideways look—a silent “not now.”
He shrugs.
Turtle stays close to my side. She’s still peering at Squishy.
“You look different,” Turtle says to Squishy.
“Boss says I’m nicer now,” Squishy says. Then she smiles. “I’ll work on fixing that.”
Mikk smiles, but no one else does. Instead, we go to the table. I sit at the head, as I’m expected to do.
I look around the table. No one is missing. Roderick sits between Bria and Jennifer. Hurst looks tiny next to Davida and Tamaz. Turtle actually looks like she belongs.
Only Squishy seems out of place.
There is also one empty chair, and I’m not sure if that’s accidental or by design. The chair is even kicked out a little and turned at an angle, just like Karl would have done if he were actually sitting there.
My heart twists. To cover that sudden surge of emotion, I wave at Odette, who, at the other side of the table, seems impossibly far away. She actually smiles at me, and waves back.
I make the introductions. I tell my most recent team that Turtle and Squishy dived the Dignity Vessel with me, and they’re familiar with it. I also tell them that Squishy won’t be diving it this time.
“She’s our medic,” I say. “She’s also in charge of destroying the damn thing.”
“How can she destroy it if she doesn’t dive?” Mikk asks.
I glance at Squishy. I don’t know how much of her past she wants me to tell them.
She tilts her chair slightly. “I’m former military,” she says. “I worked in the stealth tech program. Boss thinks I can blow the ship up.”