And Tim? As a robot, he might have been able to efficiently process Dr. Walker’s data, but she knew that his return to human form had significantly slowed his processing capacity. She just hoped Lt. Dish wasn’t scrambling what circuits he had left.
That thought put some heat into her cheeks and she turned from them to study the screen. She had no right to be upset by anything Tim did or thought or felt. They were friends. Or at least, she hoped they were still friends. Right now, it felt like they were polite strangers.
Every morning, after another night of tossing and turning with dreams where Tim played a prominent role, she’d have to spend time to get her expression and her feelings back into rigorous control. She liked to think that she’d seen some signs that Tim wanted to close that gap, to be friends again, but it seemed like something—or someone—always interrupted them when they might have been able to talk.
She wanted to lean against something and close her eyes. Instead, she stiffened her spine and stared at the last frozen image on the screen.
“Are we quite sure the Skaridrex are the good aliens?” The Vorthari were quite beautiful. It had been easy to be with Dr. Walker as he was trying to save them. Until it all went wrong and the Vorthari tried to kill him and his illegal, first contact friend.
Everyone wanted to be annoyed with Dr. Walker for that first contact, but everyone who could be mad at him hadn’t a leg to stand on. Some had also made illegal or inadvertent first contact. Some had made inevitable first contact.
A bunch of them had fallen in love.
But none of those romances had threatened the survival of an entire planet. Was that a fair assessment? Probably not. Dr. Walker had uncovered an entire planet at risk. The question was, had he somehow given the Vorthari information to help them break free from their underground existence?
Even he didn’t seem to know.
“There are, or there were,” Veirn said, “nanites present. When we are there, I should be able to connect with them and collect better data. Assuming they weren’t damaged in the process.”
“I wish we could access it now,” Riina said. “I feel like we’re flying into the unknown.”
“Most flying,” Tim said, “is into the unknown. Even when we knew, we didn’t know enough. So still unknown.”
Somehow their gazes met and held. It was the first time since his transition.
“At least,” Tim qualified, “that has been my experience.”
Her lips quirked up at the edges. “It has become my experience since…” She didn’t finish the sentence. Everyone here knew she’d been wakened from a long sleep to a new, puzzling, and sometimes dangerous reality.
What surprised her now was that this moment, with Tim’s gaze holding hers, felt more dangerous than anything she’d done since waking.
7
“Veirn,” Captain Kellen said, “could you inform the crew that we’ll be exiting star drive for the final time and should make orbit in two ship’s increments. Convert those time stamps for the Earth crew, please.”
Of course, the only Earth crew was Lt. Dish. Did Veirn need to convert for Tim or Trac? No, he decided. They could do their own conversions. But Lt. Dish—his thoughts did a weird kind of splutter that had only begun since she came on board.
“Roger that, Captain,” Veirn said.
Kellen accepted the Earth acknowledgment without reaction. He was getting used to it, though he didn’t understand how it had managed to filter into every AI he’d encountered since he woke. And it wasn’t as if it was the only strangeness he’d had to deal with in this unexpected future.
Only Riina Katala knew that this transit had taken longer than it should have, despite the use of the star drive, because he’d also been tasked with making strategic stops to get updated survey information on the regions between Central Command and Arroxan Prime.
During their long sleep, some of their outposts had experienced minimal to catastrophic damage. None of it was a surprise, but it had left gaps in their knowledge base. This had been a good opportunity to fill some of those gaps. They’d initiated scans and dropped drones that could connect to the nearest working outpost to monitor the various systems.
None of the other passengers had appeared to notice their jump/pause transit, or if they had, they hadn’t commented on it in his hearing. He’d enjoyed the feeling of actually transiting systems, rather than just passing through them in the quickest possible time.
He had chosen to become a ship’s captain for a reason, that reason being that he liked exploring space. The short missions he’d been sent on since he woke had not nearly satisfied that desire.
There was a sound and a screen appeared on his console. Lt. Dish stood outside the bridge hatch, requesting permission to enter.
He ignored the sudden splutter of his thoughts and opened the hatch for her.
The Garradians had always had varying degrees of physical attractiveness, but it had never been a priority in creating couples. Competence was much more highly prized in his culture.
Perhaps, he thought, as he turned to watch Lt. Dish walk onto the bridge, they’d missed out on something.
Her uniform wasn’t excessively tight, but it did fit her admirably shaped form. Everything about her was neat, contained, crisp and yet—there was a quality about her that was very far from crisp. She moved briskly and stopped to salute him, then lowered her arm and gave him a rueful look that almost stopped his heart.
