“Mar.” He tips his head. “I’m not trying to be a jerk. We’re contractors on a fixed-term job and you’re spending a lot of time with a guy who’s technically part of the operation we’re auditing, and if this goes sideways it’s on our record, not his.”
“Well, I mean, you have a fair point there…”
“And personally, you’ve had a rough year. Cole did a number on you and you don’t do things by halves, you never have.”
“I wasn’t in deep with Cole,” I sputter. “We were together, in a casual way. In reality, that relationship wasn’t going anywhere.”
“He dumped you for our cousin and now they’re engaged. That doesn’t bother you?”
“Actually, I’ve kinda forgotten about it,” I answer truthfully.
He looks like he doesn’t believe a word I’m saying.
I turn my back to him again, putting sweetener in my coffee. “Nothing’s going anywhere with Scar and I. There’s nothing to go badly.”
“Uh-huh.”
I take my coffee with me to the table. “We’re colleagues, Andrew.”
“Right.” He drinks his coffee. “I hope that’s true because in five weeks we’re on a transporter disk out of here and this rock’s a story we tell people. Also, you need to know that I think this miner, Scar, has a screw loose.”
I blink. “Why would you say that?”
“I think I saw him in our hallway last night.”
I stop with the coffee halfway to my mouth. “You what?”
“Late. Like, I don’t know, way after midnight. I got up for water and I thought I heard a noise, so I looked out and there was somebody down by the lift bank. Just standing there. In the dark.”
And I laugh at him. I actually laugh. “Andrew. Every third being on this planet is seven feet tall.”
“Not that many of them are standing in our hallway at zero-two-hundred.”
“You were half asleep.” I’m grinning. “You probably saw a Margol tech. Or a cleaning unit. Do you remember that you’ve done this before, on Salo? You woke me up at three in the morning convinced there was a man in the corridor and it was a hazard trolley with a jacket on it.”
“That trolley was extremely man-shaped.” He doesn’t laugh. “Mara, I’m serious. I’m telling you what I saw. The guy isstalkingyou.”
“He’s not stalking me.”
“He’s outside your building in the middle of the night!”
“Mara.”
“We’re going to be late,” I stand up. “We need to get going.”
“Look, I’m going to say the thing, all right?” He sets his cup down. “That family isweird, Mar.”
I roll my eyes. “They’re not weird.”
“They live in a fortress at the end of a dead-end road, in the actual jungle, forty minutes from anything. There are like nine of them and their wives and about a hundred kids all crammed in one building at the edge of the world. Ask yourself why.”
“Andrew, you know that Xylan live like that in compounds. We saw it all over on Chronos.”
“No, they live out there because I learned they were demoted. Did you know that? I asked around. That compound isn’t where the good workers live, it’s where Minecorpputthem. Beingsdon’t get shipped out to the end of the road for nothing, Mara. There’s a reason.”
I cross my arms. “You don’t know the reason.”
“And neither do you.” He spreads his hands. “That’s my whole point. You don’t know anything about these beings except that they gave you a nice dinner. Have you noticed nobody in this colony will actually talk about them? Have you noticed that? I’ve asked half a dozen guys, and they all get weird and change the subject.”
