Their Fractured Light: A Starbound Novel (13 page)

Instead of snapping, I blink at him, then lean forward so that the anger in my voice will sound like passion. “If they were responsible for the death of someone you loved, would you be satisfied just disappearing?”

He’s silent for a long time, so long I start to wonder if maybe he could tell I was angry after all. Then he lets his breath out audibly and gives an almost imperceptible nod. “All right,” he says softly. “Maybe we can help each other.”

I almost give my own sigh of relief. “Just promise me one thing?”

Gideon lifts an eyebrow, some of that amusement returning to his gaze. “Already with the demands and we’re not even through our second date.”

“Don’t tell the Knave about me.” I indicate his computer screens and their endless data streaming in and out with a flick of my eyes. “Please. I’ve survived this long by keeping to myself, and working with an ally will be hard enough. I just…I’m on your side. So long as it’s just
your
side. Can you do that?”

Both his brows go up this time, and he hesitates. “I won’t tell anyone about you,” he replies eventually.

I can’t help but let my breath out, and it emerges shakier than I’d like. My palms feel hot where they’re pressed against my thighs. A good actress feels some of what she emotes, but I need to get a grip. I shouldn’t care whether he trusts me or not, just whether he gets me where I need to go.

He’s watching me with his usual air of indolent charm, though now I can see the shrewdness behind the lazy grin. For a wild, insane moment I want to blurt out the truth—I want to tell him everything. I choke it down.
Walk carefully, Sofia.

I lift my chin again, this time so I can meet his eyes. “Then I might as well tell you…Sofia. My name’s Sofia.”
Truth.
“God, I can’t remember the last time I gave someone my real name.”
Truth.
“So…no more secrets.”

Lie.

Time is a disease this species has created, and as their captives, time infects us as well. The symptoms are impatience, and boredom, and madness, and despair. And worst of all: understanding. These creatures cannot see into each other as we can, and therefore they know each other only through the words they invent. And words breed untruth.

And the blue-eyed man has been lying to us.

SOFIA.
THE NAME SUITS HER
. It’s graceful, like it might slip away between my fingers, leaving no trace it was ever there.

“No more secrets,” I echo, though I know it can’t be a promise of my own. I can see it right there for an instant—how much more there is in that space between us, how much more we could both say. But right as I can feel myself on the edge of doing something stupid, she sighs, scooting back on the bed so she can lean her head against the wall, breaking the moment. I let it go.

“Do you have anything to eat down here?” she asks, toeing off the shoes I snagged for her, so she can draw her knees in against her chest and close her eyes.

“I don’t think it’s going to suit your palate,” I warn her, pushing to my feet and reaching up into the rafters for the locker where I’m pretty sure I stuffed my snacks.

“Hey,” she replies, opening one eye. “Just because you found me living in a penthouse doesn’t mean I was born there.”

“I have no idea where you were born,” I agree, though the gray marble that is Avon flashes through my mind. “But you asked me not to try and find out.” I find a bunch of energy bars and a couple of cans of stims. Cracking the seal on one, I hand it across to her, then open my own, taking a long swig.

She sips and grimaces, then sips again. “You don’t need to know that, for us to work together.”

“True,” I agree. “I can live with the mystery.”

“You work for the Knave, Gideon.” Her lashes lift properly so she can peer at me. It’s not an apology, but it’s something related to it—an explanation she wants me to understand. “I know all the hearsay can’t be right, but if even a fraction of it is, he’s ruthless, impossible to pin down. He could
be
LaRoux for all anyone actually knows about him. You’re his lackey, at the end of the day. The less you know, the better.”

“Lackey’s a little harsh.” I reach for a joke, but I can hear in my own voice that I don’t quite make it. “I prefer henchman.” She doesn’t smile, and I don’t either. “I’m my own man. You can trust me, I promise you that.”

“I’m trying,” she replies, tired. “You came for me when you didn’t have to. But I
don’t
trust
him
.”

“Who told you not to?” I can’t help myself. When this thing is done, I’m going to track down whoever’s been ruining my rep and devise a punishment to make future generations quail. A punishment that would make Commander Towers view the year of her life she’s spent on the run from me as a walk in the park.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she replies, grimacing as she sips from her can again, then setting it down beside the bed as her willingness to subject herself to it runs out. “But trust me, I
know.
”

Silence settles over us, and though having someone in my den makes my skin feel twitchy, there’s something warmer about having her here, too. I’d be the last to admit it, but after what I’ve seen at LRI Headquarters, I don’t really want to be alone.

“They’re never going to stop looking for us now,” Sofia murmurs. Our narrow escape is on her mind too.

“At least not until LaRoux Industries carries out whatever it’s planning to do with that rift.”

Sofia lifts her head, glancing at me with uncharacteristic hesitation. “Well, if you won’t say it, I will. Everyone’s heard the Avon Broadcast. That’s what Flynn—Flynn Cormac, the guy on that recording—that’s what he was talking about. Creatures that can affect minds.”

It sounds insane. Beyond insane. And if I hadn’t seen what Tarver and Lilac went through, if I hadn’t been tracking the woman who helped LaRoux cover up the Avon conspiracy, I’d politely show this girl the door and get back to my screens. “Yeah,” I say instead, my voice sounding papery and thin even to my own ears. “‘Whispers,’ he called them. He said they were whispers from another universe.”

“Surely there’s some way to just cut our universe off from theirs, so that LaRoux can’t use the whispers.”

I’m quick to shake my head. “They come from hyperspace. If we shut the door on their universe, we’d be left without the ability to jump through their dimension from place to place. There’d be no faster-than-light travel, no hypernet communication between planets.”

Sofia grimaces. “Okay, let’s not do that then. So how
do
you fight something that can get inside your mind, control your thoughts?”

I wish I had an answer, but instead the silence draws in around us again, thick and smothering this time. I don’t
know
how to fight the whispers. It’s why I’m trying to fight LaRoux himself, to drag him into the light. Despite the short time I’ve known her, it’s strange to see Sofia at such a loss. I take a deep breath, and say something out loud I’ve never told anyone but Mae. “We fight him instead. His company.”

Her eyes flick up from the floor again, brows lifted.

I indicate my screens with a jerk of my chin. “There’s nothing we can do against beings that can reach inside your head, but we can stop what they’re being used to do. Whatever it is. Avon’s people managed to stand up to LaRoux, despite these creatures being there. And—” My words come up short, and I almost choke with the effort to halt my momentum. “And I think the
Icarus
survivors encountered them too,” I finish finally. I’m not ready for her to know about my connection with the youngest LaRoux.

Sofia frowns. “How could you know
that
?”

“It’s a long story,” I reply. “But I’ve been looking. For years now, I’ve been digging into LaRoux Industries. I told you I had my own reasons for wanting to take them down.”

Sofia leans back, resting her shoulders against the wall next to the bed. She takes her time responding, and I can feel those gray eyes on me like a tangible weight. “I showed you mine,” she says softly. “You don’t think I should know why you’re in this? Why I should trust you?”

In an instant, my brother’s face is there in front of me. I’m always looking up in my memory; he was older, though these days I’m taller than he was when he died. Freckled, grinning, he’s always laughing in my imagination, though I never remember the jokes. The sort of things brothers laugh about, stupid kid jokes that make no sense to anybody else. Grief wraps around my throat, tightening like a hand, making it hard to swallow. “Because the LaRoux family killed my brother.”

Sofia’s silent for a time, but I can still feel her watching me. “I’m so sorry,” she says finally, and for now, that’s enough.

I cough to clear my throat, straightening in my chair. “Well, we’re safe here for now. No one’s ever found this place and I’ve been here for years. We can regroup, figure out our next move. Wait a few weeks, see if the heat dies down.”

“A few weeks…” Sofia echoes my words, suddenly not looking at me anymore, but rather gazing past me with a troubled look on her face.

“What is it? I know it’s no penthouse, but it’s better than—”

“No, no, this place is fine,” Sofia says dismissively. Now I
know
she’s distracted. “I’m remembering what one of those guys said, back at LRI Headquarters, right before you got there. Something about having a week to fix the rift and make sure it was working right.”

“So…what’s happening in a week that’s so important to LaRoux?”

Sofia’s eyebrows lift. “Seriously? You don’t know?” One side of her mouth lifts, drawing the faintest ghost of a dimple and banishing the lingering remnants of grief. “Do you ever come out of those screens?”

“There are a lot of things happening in a week, Dimples. I probably know about more of them than you do.”

“Maybe. But quality over quantity, my good man. Run a search on ‘
Daedalus
.’”

The name sends a jolt through me. I don’t have to search the phrase—the entire galaxy knows about the
Icarus
’s sister ship. “Oh, holy shit, you’re right. The grand opening of the
Daedalus
museum is happening soon.”

“And the opening-night gala is doubling as a welcome bash for all the planetary envoys visiting for the peace summit.” Her mouth twists in a way completely unrelated to a smile. “To discuss those pesky rebellions.”

The ruling senators for every planet in the galaxy, all in the same room, all with their guards down. “Oh, hell.”

“LaRoux wants power,” Sofia goes on. Her face, when she says that name, goes hard as granite. She may be a consummate actress, but she can’t hide her hatred. “If he could do to the senators what he did to the people on Avon, or the people at LRI Headquarters…”

“He’d control the entire galaxy.” My mouth is dry, a deep chill in my gut making me want to shiver. Hard enough exposing LaRoux and his company without the authorities themselves under mind control. “Would he be able to move something as big as the rift we saw? And hide it from an entire ship full of staff and guests, not to mention the media outlets that’ll be swarming the gala?”

Sofia hesitates, glancing at me, then at my screens, then away. “I have a contact,” she says finally, “within LRI. I only got a little from her—we were going to meet that day at the holosuite. But she told me that the technology LaRoux used to create the rifts is the same technology used in the new hyperspace engines, which makes sense given what you’ve just told me about where the whispers come from. My contact understands the rifts—I think she worked on the project, or at least on the new engines, like the one onboard the
Icarus.
”

“And the one onboard the
Daedalus.
” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where she’s heading, and I’m already itching to get a look at the ship’s blueprints. “There could be a rift there already, hiding in plain sight.”

“And if we don’t get to him first, LaRoux’s going to use it to turn the entire Galactic Council into husks under his command.”

“Oh,
hell
,” I repeat, shutting my eyes.

“In a handbasket,” she agrees.

“Bring her back!” The blue-eyed man is screaming at us through the thin spot on the gray world. “You brought the scientists on Elysium back, again and again. You drove them mad with it. All I ask is one life, one—” His words fail him.

His face is haggard, the dark hair grown lighter with gray and white at temple and nape. His anguish is different from the anguish we have learned from the gray world. This anguish is special, individual, unique. He is teaching us pleasure. They have a word for it, this species.
Revenge
.

“Please,” the blue-eyed man whispers. “If not for me, then for my little girl. She needs her mother.”

We stay silent. Let him know loneliness. Let him understand. Let him be the one to watch, and wait, and learn. His lessons are bitter.

And I will learn pleasure.