“Exceptionally well,” James said, picking up the baton right away. “It only took about half an hour of going over the differences with the ship, and then Sora was flying like he’d been born in the pilot’s seat.”
It was subtle, but I caught a faint hint of a smile flutter across Sora’s face, along with a ripple of colour over the scales on his neck. He liked the praise, even if he couldn’t quite believe it was genuine.
“And do you think he’s going to be able to do successful runs to the fringe colonies?”
“Yes, absolutely,” James said. I was hoping for a little more extrapolation from him, but given that I’d had no time to brief him, he was doing reasonably well.
“So the next thing you need to know,” I said to Sora, “is that because we know a few dimari are going to be arriving every month, we have a screening program to find suitable masters for them. We assess what sort of skills the potential master has a usefor, and we do background checks to make sure they’re going to treat the dimari well. James, here, went through the screening process a full six months ago.Six monthsbefore you got here, he had already put up his hand to say he would like a dimari, if a suitable one happened to come along.
“And then you arrived, with your pilot training, and we all said holy heck, this would be a perfect dimari for James to adopt. James has already proven that he’s got the kindness and empathy to treat you with respect, and you had the ideal set of skills to help him with his career. He primarily runs diplomatic missions to fringe colonies – as I’m sure he’s explained to you – and having another reliable pilot to go with him means he can focus on the diplomatic side of the missions without always having to worry about piloting the ship. So what that means is that James very much did choose you, it’s just that he chose you out of the dozen or so dimari who arrived in the past six months, rather than out of the Eumadians’ entire catalogue.”
Sora lifted his head, looking suspiciously at James, then at me. “Baz called me a stray,” he said, scowling at me, his tone dejected.
“No, he didn’t,” James tried to contradict him.
“No, he said that the dimari who come here are all strays,” Sora corrected himself. “So theimplicationwas that I’m one as well.”
I sighed, feeling the muscles in my neck start to tense up. “Perhaps you should tell me exactly what Baz said,” I said to Sora. “And at the same time, remember what I just said about there being evil people in the world. Some people just like to make other people miserable, for the fun of it.” After this conversation was over, I was going to be having averyfrank conversation with Henderson about the behaviour of the other pilots operating from this base.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
KADE
About an hour after Aiden left to rush over to the base, I felt my stomach growl, and I glanced at the clock beside the bed. I was a little startled to realise it was already one o’clock. I’d been so absorbed in my novel that I hadn’t noticed the day slipping by, and it occurred to me that it had been a long time since I’d had the freedom to simply while away a couple of hours however I saw fit. Being injured wasn’t a pleasant experience, but the rare opportunity to relax almost made it worthwhile.
I closed the reading program in my comm and climbed out of bed, stretching carefully. My hip was the worst, but there was a noticeable ache over my ribs, and I cut the stretch off before getting too carried away.
I meandered towards the kitchen, wondering what Jai was up to. I hadn’t seen or heard him since he and my master had arrived home. I found him sitting at the kitchen table, reading an article that included several diagrams of engine parts. I noticed right away that he was blue, not black. Was that because he’dbeen left alone for a while and felt more comfortable as a result? Or was there another reason?
“What are you looking at?” I asked, not sure if he’d respond. There had been plenty of times in the last few days when he’d been quite terse.
“Reading about the latest propulsion systems the Alliance is using,” he said, glancing up with a sheepish smile. “I know I need to read the Alliance military protocols, but this is more interesting.”
I chuckled. “Some of the procedural manuals are rather dry, I agree.” I wandered over to the pantry, doing a cursory inspection of the options for lunch. “I’m going to heat up some soup,” I told him, holding up a can. “Do you want some?”
“Yes, please,” he said, then he jumped up, switching his comm off. “I can do that for you. You were injured.”
I paused, looking him over curiously. “The injuries are not serious. But when did you become so concerned about my health?” It wasn’t an accusation, as such. At least, it wasn’t intended to be. But we hadn’t exactly gotten off to a warm start in our relationship.
I caught a ripple of violet shimmering across Jai’s collarbones; a typical sign of unease in a Vangravian. “I thought I should… that maybe… Perhaps it would be better to…” He took the can out of my hand, but at the same time, his shoulders slumped. “I talked to Zeke and Dax today. And they said some interesting things.”
That got my attention. I stepped back, letting Jai take over the cooking. “Dax tends to be very insightful,” I said, hoping to prod him into continuing.
“Zeke said he’s too intelligent to just be a domestic servant. He said Dax’s trainers thought he was difficult, but they really should have taught him something more interesting.” Jai concentrated on the soup for a moment, adjusting the heat andthen fetching some bread. “Toast?” he offered, popping a couple of slices into the toaster.
“Yes, thank you.”
He worked in silence for a minute or two, and I waited. The fact that he’d offered to help me make lunch was a noticeable shift in his behaviour, and I suspected there was more he wanted to say about it. But perhaps he needed time to find the right words.
“Dax told me…” he began, as the soup began to steam, but then cut himself off. “Well, no, Zeke told me first. He said he didn’t choose Dax. Henderson chose him to help Zeke manage his injuries. But because Zeke didn’t know all that much about the dimari, they had trouble working together to begin with. And then Zeke said…” Jai glanced at me, worry lining his face. “He said that Aiden wasn’t supposed to be your master at first, either.”
I stood very, very still at the roughly spoken words. My understanding of the excursion that morning had been that Zeke was going to help my master assess Jai, to decide whether or not we should tell him the truth about having been found, rather than bought. But from the sounds of it, Zeke had already dropped that bombshell on Jai. And if that was the case, then it was no wonder he was feeling off balance. Perhaps he was latching onto me as the most stable thing in his environment?
But before I could begin to panic, he went on. “Zeke said that you were trained in some special skills, for a particular master, but then that person died before they could buy you. And then Aiden came along and thought you’d be useful for his military operations and bought you instead.”
I was very grateful for the fact that Jai’s attention was on the steaming saucepan. It gave me the time to properly disguise my reaction to his commentary. It was a clever sort of ruse, on Zeke’s part; telling a collection of half-truths, presumablyto assess Jai’s reaction to the idea. I took a mental step back in light of the story. Jai seemed unsettled, certainly, but not overly distraught. “It was a little awkward at first,” I confirmed. “He wasn’t quite what I was expecting in a master. I found it confusing, until he figured out what the problem was and explained what had happened. I was still a bit upset about it,” I admitted. In reality, ‘upset’ was a major understatement. What I’d actually found out was that Aiden hadn’t bought me at all, and then we were told that my original intended master wanted to snatch me away from Aiden and claim me for herself.
Jai nodded. He busied himself pouring the soup into two bowls and spreading butter on the toast. I took one portion to the table, limping only slightly on my sore leg, while Jai brought the other bowl. We sat and ate in silence for a few minutes, though the tension in the air meant we both knew the conversation wasn’t over.
