Earthrise (Her Instruments Book 1) (31 page)

They filed into the ship; Bryer closed the lock and they all dispersed to their stations. Reese eyed the corridors as she headed to the bridge, hunting for any signs the ship had been mishandled, but it presented an innocuous facade from its clean deck plating to the Harat-Shariin freshness of its air. Satisfied, Reese joined the Harat-Shar and Kis’eh’t.

“New sensors,” Sascha said. “Very nice. And a better power plant! We might get an extra kick out of those.”

“I wanted a little extra to run amenities in-flight,” Reese said. “If we’re going to be in transit for a few weeks I don’t want us to notice.”

“And it’s nice and warm, too!” Irine said.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Reese said. “I had them overhaul the air handlers.” Irine’s whine was so piteous, Reese patted her on the shoulder. “I’ll give you a few hours after we get underway.”

“Way too kind,” Sascha said. “I think she’s happy to be leaving.”

“I’m happy to be making money,” Reese corrected. “Get us off the ground, fuzzy.”

“Aye, Captain!”

“The environmentals are nice,” Kis’eh’t said, feathered ears perking. “You must have made quite a bit.”

“Hopefully for not too much effort,” Reese said as the engines began to hum. As it rose through the deck the sound massaged her heels, and a tension she hadn’t even noticed released between her shoulder-blades, down her spine and into her hips. Wherever home was, it wasn’t on Harat-Sharii... or Mars. Or maybe any planet. This little bubble of air and sanity, controlled by her: this was where she belonged. It even had enough people on it to keep her from feeling too lonely.

Irine’s soft, continuous patter with ground control faded into the background as Sascha lifted the
Earthrise
into the blue and then the black. As the stars steadied through the tiny windows, Reese smiled.

“Where to, boss?”

“Sector Tau, and the solar system around Demini Star.”

“Sector Middle-of-Nowhere, on our way. ETA, three weeks, about.”

Reese fuzzled the top of his head and strolled into the lift, hands in her vest pockets. She felt like whistling. Maybe she’d try learning during their downtime. Her state of cheer remained until she stepped into her quarters and realized there was a bit of business she’d been putting off. Usually she didn’t take the time to use the computer locator to find someone—hitting the all-call and just asking was faster—but in this case she consulted the diagram and hit the mess hall pattern on the intercom.

“Hirianthial, can I see you in my quarters, please?”

“On my way.”

Without a “lady,” even. Reese eyed the intercom grate uncomfortably, then shook her head and shuffled through files until she found the one she wanted. She was ready with it when the Eldritch appeared at her door, wearing a mildly curious look.

“I promised you a contract,” Reese said. “If you wanted one.”

He stepped inside; she noticed for the first time that he had to duck his head to do so. Bryer did too, but the Phoenix was almost seven feet tall and crowned with a crest of spiky metallic feathers. Having someone humanoid doing it unsettled her more.

If she sat at the desk her back would be to him. Reese lit on the bed instead and slid her data tablet onto the stool. She watched him, struggling with her feelings all the while. She did want him to stay... but she had no idea how to treat him. He was a nuisance... he also did
something
to the crew. They were all more content since they’d found him. She’d wondered if this was some solidarity forged by their adventure re-capturing him, but it seemed to include him. She thought. Maybe she was imagining things.

As he perched on the stool and read the contract, Reese suppressed the urge to touch him, just to see what would happen. His doublet had roses on it this time: cardinal red with white vines on a saltwater-blue field. Where did he find such finery?

Hirianthial let the tablet sag. “I could sign this.”

“But?” Reese asked warily.

“But when I take on work in my professional capacity, I must re-swear my ethical oath to my new employer, who must find it acceptable.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Reese said.

He closed his eyes and shook his head, just enough to make the hair framing it sway. “You must read it and its alternatives first, Captain.”

“Then let me read them,” Reese said, holding out her hand. To her surprise he handed the tablet to her directly after tapping an address on it for her: a page of the Alliance’s most common medical oaths and their implications. It was laid out so simply she checked the u-bank source descriptor: “For potential employers,” in the category of medical information. Figured.

She read and grew more and more dismayed, but did her best to hide it. Once she finished the entire page, she set the tablet down. “You hold to the Kelienne Oath.”

“While I am engaged as a doctor, that is correct,” Hirianthial replied.

“Which is the most extremely non-violent oath on the list,” Reese said.

“It is quite controversial,” the Eldritch said, and if his expressions and mannerisms before had been subtle, now they were impossible to read at all.

“If I understand this correctly,” Reese continued, “Not only can you not kill, you can’t allow anyone to die.”

“You have understood the Oath, lady.”

“Isn’t that unrealistic?” Reese said. “Patients die. You’ve said so yourself.”

“They do. Kelienne doctors are tasked to prevent death at any cost, but they fail. Death is a practiced opponent.”

Reese squinted at him. “So you have to give aid to your enemies.”

“Yes.”

“And if the choice is between, say, Sascha and a slaver?”

“The most grievously wounded gets the first attention,” Hirianthial said.

Reese shook her head. “I don’t like that at all. You have some dangerous people on your tail, or you did anyway. If you swear this, you can’t protect yourself from them.”

“It is the oath I swore,” Hirianthial replied.

She looked at him. He was breathing, but she had to watch the patterned brocade near the crease of his arm to see the rise and fall of his chest. His stillness wasn’t merely patient, it was attentive, somehow. Did he care about the outcome of this? Was it her imagination, or did talking about it bother him?

“You said at the beginning that if you took work in your professional capacity, you’d have to swear this oath,” Reese said. “What if I offered you a contract as a general crewman? Would you have to swear then?”

“I need only renew my oath—and hold to it—if I am practicing,” Hirianthial said.

“A technicality,” Reese said, looking at the oaths. “I bet one no one thought of, because no one in the Alliance lives as long as Eldritch do.”

His brows lifted.

Reese sighed and scrubbed the back of her neck. “Can you do something else? Pilot? Navigation? Mechanics?”

“I have not turned my hand to those endeavors, I’m afraid.”

Her roving eyes snagged on his outfit. “Trade much?”

He paused. How she noticed it when he wasn’t moving, she had no idea—a rasp of breath, maybe. A slight pursing of his lips. “I have some understanding of business.”

“And a lot of understanding of luxury items, I bet,” Reese said. “If I signed you on as supercargo and Sascha broke his other leg, would you fix it?”

“Of course,” the Eldritch said.

“All right then,” Reese said, blanking out the job description on her contract and filling it with new boilerplate. “That’s what we’ll do. Understand there are no officers on this ship, so don’t be getting ideas... we’re all equals except me. I’m more equal than everyone else.”

A flicker of a smile then. “Understood, Captain.”

“Good,” Reese said and handed him the tablet, holding onto its edge with as little of her fingertips as she could. “Here’s the new contract.” As the tablet slid from her grasp and he began to read, she said, “Isn’t it a little extreme? Tending to your enemies... that doesn’t sound good for self-preservation.”

“It wasn’t intended to preserve me,” he said.

That casual moment, as nearly unguarded as she’d caught him ever, revealed a depth of disregard for himself that made her stomach clench and her mouth go dry. Did he really hate himself so much? And if he did go in for self-destruction, would he pull the rest of them down with them?

Hirianthial signed the contract and handed her back the tablet. Now his face was gentle and his demeanor courtly, his smile genuinely grateful. Taking the tablet, Reese wondered whether to be concerned or really, really worried.

A few days into their journey, the twins surprised Hirianthial by appearing at his door and then standing in it, the very picture of Harat-Shariin remorse. Irine twisted her tail in her hands; Sascha’s shoulders slumped and he stood unnaturally straight, without a carefree tilt of the hip or spine.

“
Alet-sen
?” Hirianthial said.

They blinked owlishly into the dark almost in unison, and the flame off Hirianthial’s candle reflected into their lambent eyes.

“Can we come in?” Sascha asked.

“Of course,” he said.

They advanced just far enough to allow the door to close behind them and no further, and while Hirianthial was glad of the distance, the fact that they observed it was worrisome.

“Do you always sit in the dark?” Irine asked, her voice timid.

“Only when I’m meditating,” he said.

“Oh, we’re bothering you!” she said and began to back away.

“It’s no trouble,” Hirianthial said. “I would not have let you in otherwise. I would not have heard you.”

“Oh.” They grew silent, restive. Finally, Sascha said, “We’ve come to apologize.”

Hirianthial canted his head. “For what?”

“For the way Mamer treated you at home,” Irine said. “Sascha explained it to me and then I called home to find out what she was thinking, saying such things. And acting as if you were a slave instead of a guest.”

“Your laws aren’t always clear on such things,” Hirianthial said. “Perhaps she had cause.”

“Oh, no! No I don’t think so,” Irine said.

“She put you in charge of one of our most annoying mothers,” Sascha said. “Not even a mother yet, as we would call her, but still a concubine. Sort of. The language doesn’t work well for this.”

“An annoying concubine,” Irine said, taking up the thread. “Everyone knew she was a hypochondriac, and no one wanted her to get pregnant and everyone was relieved that she didn’t manage it, but... “

“I admit I do not understand,” Hirianthial said. “Gentletwins, your mother hired me to take care of your... her co-wife. While under my care, sorrow befell her. Her behavior was understandable.”

“No it wasn’t,” Sascha said. “She tried to make you feel guilty for something you didn’t have any control over. Something that everyone was secretly glad happened anyway.”

“She agreed with the Captain that the situation was unfortunate and there was nothing that could have been done,” Hirianthial said cautiously. “I am not sure what there is to forgive.”

“The way she treated you!” Irine exclaimed.

Hirianthial wasn’t sure whether to be suspicious or perplexed: their gray distress was too intense for something that would have been business to anyone in the medical profession. “She did not treat me badly. The woman I cared for miscarried, which she did not blame me for.”

“The thing with the operation,” Irine said.

“Was merely a request for another service she judged I would be able to provide,” Hirianthial said. “She needed something done. There was someone adjacent she could ask to perform it. She did as one would expect.”

They didn’t do anything as obvious as look at one another, but his explanations weren’t enough to send them away. After waiting for them to explain, Hirianthial finally said, “What truly is the matter?”

“You were distressed,” Sascha said.

“Few people would fail to be distressed by such a sad affair,” Hirianthial said, feeling his way carefully around the hole in his heart.

This time they did look at one another. “We don’t know why it upset you so much,” Sascha said. “But we know it did. You don’t have to tell us why, but at least let us make amends.”

He looked at their faces, first one, then the other. “It would soothe your hearts.”

Irine nodded vigorously.

“It was an... unsettling thing,” Hirianthial said, and pitying their unhappy silence said, “Children are so rare for Eldritch. The thought of destroying someone’s ability to have them is distasteful.”

A rush of golden understanding then, and a deeper blue sympathy. “I don’t like the idea much myself,” Sascha said.

“I’m planning on having lots of babies!” Irine said.

Hirianthial laughed. “That would be apology enough.”

“No, no, we want to do something for you now,” Irine said. “But not, I think, what other Harat-Shar would do as apology. You wouldn’t like that.”

“Probably not,” Hirianthial said, still smiling.

“What would you like?” Sascha asked.

“I don’t know,” Hirianthial said, and knew by their instant green grumpiness that the answer didn’t suffice. “But whatever it is, you should make it yourself.”