The baby reached out one small hand, her fingers stretching toward the artifact. She pulled back instinctively, but Ari made a frustrated sound and reached again, more insistently.
“Should we let her touch it?”
He hesitated. “I don’t?—”
But Ari had already made the decision for them. With a determined lunge that she hadn’t expected, the baby grabbed the edge of the disc, her tiny fingers closing around its rim.
The engravings flared with light, and Emma gasped as the disc began to glow, the shifting patterns suddenly becoming brilliant, pulsing with colors she couldn’t name. The light spread up Ari’s arm, outlining her small form in a nimbus of radiance that made her silver skin shine like starlight.
“What—” he started.
The cockpit filled with sound, a harmonic resonance that seemed to vibrate through her bones, through the ship itself, and through the fabric of space around them. It was beautiful and terrifying, a chord struck on an instrument she couldn’t see.
And then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.
The light faded. The sound died. The disc sat inert in Ari’s small hands, its engravings motionless once more.
Ari looked up at Emma with an expression that seemed almost smug.
“What was that,” she whispered, her heart pounding against her ribs.
He stared at the baby, his face unreadable. “I have no idea. But I think we just confirmed that our little friend is exactly what the Grorn believe she is.”
Ari cooed and waved the disc happily, apparently delighted with her new toy.
“She activated it,” she said numbly. “Just by touching it. What does that mean?”
“It means the Grorn aren’t going to stop looking for her.” His voice was grim, all traces of his usual lightness gone. “It means she’s even more valuable than we thought. And it means...” He trailed off, his eyes meeting hers with an intensity that made her breath catch.
“It means what?”
“It means we need to get to Sherae. Now. Before anyone else figures out what she is.”
He turned back to the console and began entering coordinates, his movements urgent. She clutched Ari closer, her mind reeling with questions she didn’t know how to ask. The baby gurgled contentedly in her arms, still holding the artifact, completely oblivious to the danger she represented.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The soft hum of the life support systems filled the cabin, a steady rhythm that should have lulled Doren to sleep hours ago. Instead, he lay on the converted bed with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, watching the faint play of light from the hyperspace display bleeding through from the cockpit.
He hadn’t meant to be here. He’d had every intention of sleeping in the pilot’s chair. But Emma had reached for him in the dim light, her fingers catching his sleeve as he’d started to turn away, and whispered “stay.”
Now she was pressed against his side, her warmth seeping through the thin fabric of his shirt, her head resting in the hollow of his shoulder. Ari slept quietly in her drawer-bed, her breathing was slow and even, peaceful in a way that seemed almost miraculous given everything they’d been through.
He shifted slightly, trying to find a position that didn’t make him acutely aware of every point where Emma’s body touched his but it was a futile effort. He could feel the curve of her hip against his thigh, the soft press of her breasts against his arm, and the tickleof her hair against his neck. His body responded predictably, and he clenched his jaw, willing himself toward calm.
This is a terrible idea,he thought for what must have been the hundredth time.
He should extricate himself. He should slip out of the bed while she slept and retreat to the pilot’s chair where he belonged. Whatever strange connection had formed between them over the past few days, it didn’t change the fundamental reality of their situation. She was a human female who’d been ripped from her home and thrown into a universe she didn’t understand. He was a smuggler. A treasure hunter. A male who’d learned long ago that attachment was just another word for vulnerability.
He didn’t move.
Emma stirred against him, and he felt her breathing change—the subtle shift from sleep to waking.
“You’re awake,” she murmured.
“So are you.”
“I can’t seem to turn my brain off.” She tilted her head back to look at him, and even in the dim light he could see the shadows under her eyes. “Too much to process, I guess.”
