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“No. We don’t have anything but our feet and I like the cave.”
“I can see why,” I say and I can. Geothermal heat keeps the rooms warm. Curious, I ask, “What about the summer? Does the place stay cool?”
“This is the summer. We’re lucky it’s not raining because we’re close to the freezing time of the year.”
I’m motionless and a little unhappy, being a sunny weather gal. Rising up to look him in the eye, I inform him, “That’s it then. Pack your shit, we’re moving to a tropical planet.”
He laughs. “I agree, but they’re all crowded. I’d be spotted and brought in before you could blink.”
Letting my head rest again on him, I grunt, “Great. Just great. Found a terrific guy but literally can’t take him anywhere.”
“You could take me to bed.”
I laugh and scoot up to kiss his lips. “I could and love having the option.” We both hum when our lips meet. My emotions are so mixed, like my mother’s yarn stash when the cat was done destroying it. Still, when Cinq and I get sexy, everything makes sense.
When we both come up for air, I ask, “This would be a bad time to be caught by another scavenger ship,” I tease him. “But not as bad as it could be.”
Cinq slides his hands up to caress my breasts. “Reach out and see if anyone’s in orbit. Keep it local to avoid attention.”
I smile and reactivate my system’s notifications but there’s nothing. “Huh.”
He sists up, taking me with him. “What’s wrong?”
I try a few more times, like pressing an elevator button when I’m ten minutes late. More nothing happens. “I can’t reactivate my nanos.”
“You deactivated them?”
“More like turned off the constant messages. I don’t need to know my heart rate or blood oxygen every second of the day. Plus, I was getting news reports from Kosta.”
“Origins.”
“Exactly. I like the updates, yeah, but the constant updates were too much. I wanted to be quiet up here with you.” I try a few more times. “Is there a switch I don’t know about or a password, maybe?”
Before he can reply, Quin’s in my head, saying, Jessica, can you hear me?
Yes, I reply. Nilt?
I’m here, he responds. And I can reach Ghar just fine. We, they’ve severed the Kostan’s and Vahdmoshi’s access to Gharian datalinks. It’s to protect the rescued Earthers’ locations.
“What’s going on?” Cinq asks me.
“Sorry. Ghar has cut datalink access to Kosta and Vhad,” I reply. Can the non-Gharians communicate between each other? The instant I ask, my system blinks back online. Well, that was quick. “We’re back online,” I tell Cinq.
Quin says to Nilt and me, I can’t access Ghar and suspect Jessica can’t, either.
I try, and he’s right. Ghar is cut off to me, too. I’m not wild about using anyone but Ghar’s datalinks.
Don’t blame you, Nilt says. I can hit Ghar for information if you want.
By now, Cinq has his datapad out and is furiously tapping. I feel bad because I couldn’t include him. “Sorry. It was a flurry of talking. I didn’t have time to relay anything to you.”
“It’s good. I know how it is.”
I slide over to look at what he’s doing. It’s gibberish to me. “Are you programming something?”
“Trying to,” he mutters. “Connection to the other civilizations is cut, which you know. Looks like personal communications are available, but that’s all. I’m looking at a work around but it’s not there. This has Noni’s fingerprints all over it.”
“Noni?” I ask, hoping he’ll tell me more despite his preoccupation.
