Page 57 of Alien Burn

Sereya answered that the medic had finished and she was returning. Nothing untrue. Nothing offered that Roemary could take apart.

Then she put the comm away and walked back through the gallery, slowly enough to keep the sound of his laugh for herself a little longer.

9

DHOMHES

The order holding his father's inspection unit arrived before Dhomhes reached the transport.

He read the attachment standing beneath the shelter of the landing entrance, with Sereya's touch still warm on his arm.

A mandatory audit at Refinery Complex Three. All requested survey equipment to remain available until its completion.

Authorization: the Protector's office.

His father answered the call from the operations floor. No, he had ordered no audit. His office would check the reference and preserve the records.

“I'll be there for dinner,” Dhomhes said.

“Your mother has already told the kitchen.”

For once he was grateful to be expected somewhere.

“I won't be late.”

“You usually are.”

Dhomhes sent the search commander notice of the disputed order and boarded the transport.

Yesterday's mapping crew had also been diverted to Complex Three. He put the two orders side by side. Different routes through the administration. The same convenient destination.

Below the platform, two people remained missing while offices invented work for the people who might find them.

He had been asking who wanted Fiviel and Graecey left there.

What if that wasn't the whole question?

The search would bring people onto the ground beneath the platform. People with imaging equipment. People instructed to look closely and record what they found.

Dhomhes opened his notes from the Stonebroke.

Olmed's sample. The buyer who had paid too much. He added a question to the search file: was someone trying to conceal something in the terrain?

For now he had the false seismic claim and the disputed equipment order. His father would have the record check ready at dinner.

He closed the display.

His sleeve brushed his forearm, and he remembered Sereya telling him the touch was deliberate.

She had been nervous. He had seen it in the way she prepared to speak about home, the care she took with the small boundary she offered him.

He had wanted to know more. That had not changed.

But he liked knowing that she preferred tea warm, that she could tease him without warning, that she had sent a message because she wanted to talk again. None of those things had been in the notice that crossed his desk. He hoped there would be considerably more.

He looked out as the transport carried him toward the dark side.

He would have to find a place with a clear view of the stars.