Nielsen and Vishal were drying their hands after finishing the dishes. The first officer walked over—her steps painfully slow in the high-g—and touched Falconi on the shoulder. “I’m going back to Control. I’ll keep an eye on things from there.”
He nodded. “Okay. I’ll relieve you in, say, an hour.”
She patted him and moved on. As she left the galley, she turned and said, “Don’t bet anything too valuable, Kira.”
“He’ll steal the tongue right out of your mouth,” Vishal added, following after.
And then it was just the two of them in the galley.
“Well?” said Kira.
Falconi turned over the third card. Nine.
Kira tried to keep her lips from moving as she did the sums. Keeping track of all the numbers wasn’t easy, and a few times she lost her place and had to start over again.
Thirty-five. That was the best she could come up with. Five sevens. A good sight better than what she’d had before. She started to feel as if there was a chance she might win the hand. Time to take some risks.
“I’m going to raise,” she said.
“Oh?” said Falconi.
“Yeah. How did you manage to buy the Wallfish?” The skin under his eyes tightened. She’d struck another nerve. Good. If she was going to tell him about the nightmares, Kira didn’t want to be the only one sharing secrets. When Falconi still hadn’t responded after a few seconds, she said, “What’s it going to be? Fold, call, or raise?”
Falconi rubbed his chin. The stubble rasped against the pad of his thumb. “Call. What happened to your arm? How did you really lose it? And don’t give me that nonsense you told Sparrow about a nightmare grabbing you. It would take a half-dozen exos to give you any trouble.”
“That’s two questions.”
“It’s a restatement. If you want to say it’s two, just say I … upped the stakes.”
Kira bit back a sarcastic reply. He wasn’t making it easy to open up, that was for sure. “Leave it. Keep going.”
“Last card,” Falconi said, seemingly unperturbed, and flipped it over.
A king. Thirteen.
Her mind raced as she tried different combinations. The next multiple of seven was seven times six, or … forty-two. Eleven plus thirteen plus one plus eight plus nine—that did it! Forty-two!
Satisfied, Kira started to relax. Then she saw it: add in the two and the five, and she had another seven. Forty-nine. Seven times seven. Her lips curled. How appropriate.
“Now there’s a dangerous expression,” said Falconi. Then he laid his cards on the deck. Two threes and a seven. “Pity it won’t do you any good. Five sevens.”
She revealed her own cards. “Seven sevens.”
His gaze darted from card to card as he checked her math. A hard line formed between his eyebrows. “Beginner’s luck.”
“Sure, keep telling yourself that. Pay up.” She crossed her mismatched arms, pleased with herself.
Falconi tapped his fingers against the deck. Then he went still and said, “The scars are from a fire. And I managed to buy the Wallfish because I spent almost a decade saving every bit I could. Got a good deal and…” He shrugged.
His job must have been very well-paying for him to afford a ship. “Those aren’t much in the way of answers,” Kira said.
Falconi swept up their cards and shuffled them back into the deck. “So then play another round. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
“Maybe I will,” said Kira. “Deal.”
He dealt. Three for her, three for him, and four on the table.
She scanned her cards. No sevens, nor anything that added up to seven or a multiple of seven. Then Falconi turned over the first card on the table: the two of spades. That gave her … one seven.
“Why did you keep the scars?” she asked.
He surprised her with his counter: “Why do you care?”
“Is that … your bet?”
“It is.”
Falconi turned over the next card. Kira still had only one seven. She decided to go for another bet. “What exactly did you do before you got the Wallfish?” she asked.
“Calclass="underline" What’s bothering you?”
Neither of them wagered again through the rest of the round. With the last of the communal cards, Kira had three sevens. Not too shabby. However, when Falconi showed his hand, he said, “Four sevens.”
Dammit. Kira paused, checking his math, and then she made a sound of disgust. “Three.”
Falconi leaned back and crossed his arms, expectant.
For a few moments, the only sound was the rumble of the ship and the whirring fans of life support. Kira used the time to marshal her thoughts and then said, “I care because I’m curious. We’re way out past the rim, and yet I don’t really know anything about you.”
“Why does it matter?”
“That’s another question.”
“Mmm.… You know I care for the Wallfish. And my crew.”
“Yes,” said Kira, and she felt an unexpected sense of closeness with him. Falconi was protective of his ship and crew; she’d seen it. And his bonsai also. That didn’t mean he was necessarily a good person, but she couldn’t deny his sense of loyalty to the people and things he considered his own. “As for what’s bothering me, the nightmares.”
“That’s not much of an answer.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Kira and, one-handed, swept up the cards on the floor. “Maybe you can get more out of me if you beat me again.”
“Maybe I will,” said Falconi with a dangerous flash in his eyes.
It was difficult, but Kira managed to shuffle the cards. She plopped them next to her knee, stirred them in a muddled mess, and then dealt by picking up individual cards between thumb and index finger. She felt horribly clumsy throughout the whole process, and it annoyed her nearly enough to use the Soft Blade to facilitate. But she didn’t because, right then, she didn’t want anything to do with the xeno. Not then and not ever.
Since she hadn’t gotten her questions answered the last time, she repeated them. In turn, Falconi asked her: “What about the nightmares is bothering you so much?” And “How did you really lose your arm?”
To Kira’s extreme annoyance, she lost again, one to three. Still, she also felt a measure of relief at no longer having to avoid the truth.
She said, “… I haven’t been drinking enough for this.”
“There’s a bottle of vodka over in the locker,” said Falconi.
“No.” She tilted her head back and rested it against the wall. “It wouldn’t fix anything. Not really.”
“Might make you feel better.”
“I doubt it.” Tears suddenly filled her eyes, and she blinked, hard. “Nothing will.”
“Kira,” said Falconi, his voice unexpectedly gentle. “What is it? What’s really going on?”
She let out a shuddering breath. “The nightmares … they’re my fault.”
“How do you mean?” His eyes never left her.
So Kira told him. She told him the whole sorry tale, starting with the creation of the Carr-Jelly–Soft Blade monstrosity and all that had transpired with it since. It was as if a barrier broke inside her, and a tidal wave of words and feelings came rushing out in a tumult of guilt, sorrow, and regret.
When she stopped, Falconi’s expression was unreadable; she couldn’t tell what he was thinking, only that his gaze had grown hooded and the lines about his mouth deepened. He started to speak, but she preempted him: “The thing is, I don’t think I can fight the nightmares. At least, not the ones like the Soft Blade. When we touched, I could feel it absorbing me. If I’d stayed…” She shook her head. “I can’t beat them. We’re too similar, and there are so many more of them. I’d drown in their flesh. If I met this Carr-Jelly-thing, it would eat me. I know it would. Flesh for the Maw.”