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The merchant offered her a job, assuming they returned in one piece, and his eyes repeatedly moved to Caligher as if he was aware of his late-night crimes.
Everything happened in a rush and then they boarded her ship—back into her bubble.
Caligher was eager to show her everything.
Toward the back, the featureless life-support room had been transformed into an indoor garden. False sunlight, trees. In the engine room, Caligher’s cable gore had been studiously cleaned up and packed into the walls. The kitchen was redecorated and stocked with enough liquor and food to hold them over until the apocalypse.
The most noteworthy changes were waiting in the cockpit. Where there used to be four chairs—one dominant pilot’s seat and three support-role seats—now there were only two. Two consoles. Two joysticks. Caligher and Lucca could fly in tandem.
He took her along the metal catwalk around the cockpit and passed his hand through the air. It took her a few seconds to notice the distortion.
“What is it?” she asked, touching it herself. Oh, that wasstrange. It felt wobbly, like breaking the surface tension of water, but lighter.
He explained that it was another layer of protection. Should the inner and outer hulls crack, they wouldn’t immediately lose oxygen or pressure. They’d installed the same kind of membrane that protected Morwong’s garage.
She stared at it for a minute solid. Something in her chest cracked. She suddenly broke into tears.
He must have realized how exhausting it was to always wonder, always worry, that any unfortunate incident could kill her. She hadn’t slept right in so long.
They were quiet as they steered the Selkie out into the void, but it was a comfortable silence. Emotional, sort of raw. She imagined they were both relieved to be leaving the complex, even if they knew they were flying into danger.
CHAPTER18
LUCCA
Squinting at the screen, Lucca watched her cameras. Caligher roosted on top of the ship like a mother hen, basking in the waning sunlight, and she couldn’t sayhowhe was holding on.
Bringing up the obvious dangers of his thrill-seeking behavior seemed to make him double down. If he fell off the ship, with the rate they were traveling, she wasn’t sure how she would fish him out of space.
Once he let himself back in, he smelled faintly like burnt starlight. His body was coated in a thin sheen of glittering cosmic runoff that added to his arcane appearance.
He dumped a heavy load of squirming, silver,meatythings on the floor.
“The hell are those?” she cried, inching back. They looked like grey leeches… and were the size of full-grown seals.
“Whales,” he said nonchalantly. Her mouth opened to say, those weren’t whales. “They’ve been living in your jets for some time, drinking the byproduct of your fuel.”
She pulled at her hair, watching them wriggle, having the unfortunate thought that these things could move rather fast if motivated. Their razor-sharp mouths were easily large enough to fit around her shoulders. “I thought you werekiddingabout that.”
A grin split across his face. “They’ve been multiplying. If we run out of food, we’ve got a replenishing supply.” He gave one a satisfiedthwapwith his tail and it wriggled much faster.
“Always thinking ahead, Caligher.”
He chuckled, looking pleased as ever. “Space is bountiful! We have everything we need out here.”
“Indeed.” Her wide eyes tracked him as he scooped them under his arms.
He lugged them into the kitchen and flayed them open with the enormous, pulsating black stinger that shucked from his tail. It didn’t escape her attention that this was likely the same stinger he’d used to cut up that Ternetzi man.
“That seems kind of cruel,” she said with a shudder.
He split one open from end to end, showing her its squick-inducing innards. “It’s got no brain. It doesn’t know.” Caligher took his time preparing them as she sat at the table, watching numbly.
He soaked them in oils and packed them into the ice chests to absorb flavor. Then he made for the cockpit, covered in guts and glitter, getting that strange substance everywhere. It left trails of sandy carnage on the floor and rails.
“Caligher,” she said in a testy, bordering on scolding tone right as he tried to sink into his comfortable chair. She didn’t want slime trails everywhere on her ship.
His eyes followed the path of hers over the mess. He then surveyed his own body for a long second. His eyes cut to hers, filled with a dangerously playful gleam.
