The Colossus Collection : A Space Opera Adventure (Books 1-7 + Bonus Material)

by Nicole Grotepas

  He put the cassette into the device and then punched a button. Angelo twisted a knob on the front of it. A sound riddled with warbling tones emanated from the speakers. The music was tinny and unfleshed, but she could hear it. A smile crossed her face, as well as Angelo’s.

  “It’s catchy,” Holly said.

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Pretty amazing, Angelo,” Holly said.

  “It’s like being there. Back on Earth.”

  “I think you and I are the only ones in all of the Yol system who care about Earth. Well, and the people at the Earl’s Crown.”

  “We are kindred spirits like that, aren’t we.”

  The music continued in the background. Holly remembered her tea and went back to the armchair to take a sip. Angelo followed her, leaving the music playing. “How did your friend receive his gift? The watch?”

  Holly’s cheeks burned. “This tea is good. Hot,” she said, hoping Angelo blamed the blush on the tea. “Er, I haven’t given it to him yet.”

  “Ah, too bad. A watch like that needs to be in its home.”

  “That’s a strange thing to say, Angelo. What does it mean?”

  “Well, nothing much dear, except that it was made on Earth by a watch-maker of fame. Didn’t I tell you this?” He furrowed his brow at her, his white eyebrows nearly touching.

  “No, you didn’t.” She sipped the tea absently, sitting on the edge of her chair, leaning toward him as though to pull the story from him.

  “I meant to, I believe. Well, when you brought it to me, as I was fixing it, I saw a notation on it, but thought nothing of it. Later, I ran into the symbol again and that was when I discovered that the notation is a mark of a former world-renowned maker. Dead of course, lived on the Earth. But some collectors look for his stuff. They trade for it. Spend billions of novas on it.”

  “Then I need to make sure he gets it back. It had sentimental value. I didn’t know it also had actual real-world value.”

  “Ah, yes, yes. Indeed.” Angelo scratched a puff of white hair above his ear and glanced around uncomfortably.

  They chatted about other things as Holly finished her tea. She’d partially come to Angelo’s to get a gift for Elan and had intended to go to the school to see him afterward. But bumping into Grant, then thinking about Shiro’s watch, well, Holly’s inner world suddenly felt a mess. So, when the tea was gone and the conversation dwindled, she said goodnight to Angelo with an embrace and two besos, and left the warmth of the shop behind, carrying the yellow glow of her second home back out into the cold.

  * * *

  Dusk was settling and the soft gas lamps of the alley were lighting up. Holly lingered at the foot of the stairs of Angelo’s Golden Age. She stared across the alley toward Iain Grant’s shop, indecisive.

  Her original plan was to head to Elan’s. She ought to stick to that.

  She began walking, still unsure of where her feet were carrying her.

  As she neared the art shop, she stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked up at the door. The crowds moved around her, scuttling away through the velvet glow of the lighting, drawing their cloaks and coats tighter around them. The sign creaked in the wind, blowing to and fro where it hung at the foot of the steps near her. She muttered to herself, reading it aloud and smiling. Create Like Your Life Depended On It. Now that she knew him a bit better, it wasn’t such an odd name.

  The joke when she ran into him earlier had been that she was afraid of nothing. That was certainly not true. Not going to Grant’s would stem from fear. And she was, admittedly, a bit afraid to go.

  But there was no reason to be afraid. He was simply a man, whom she respected. Almost a crew-member, but not quite.

  She climbed the stairs and opened the door to his shop. Her heart thundered so loudly in her ears that she almost didn’t hear him greet her from somewhere buried in the aisles of his shop. She still wasn’t sure what showing up was committing to. A relaxed gab session with drinks? That’s what she would bank on. And she pushed the other thoughts away.

  “You made it for a drink after all,” Grant said, striding up to her, rubbing his hands together. She’d been looking at the canvas supplies, curious about how a person made decisions about what they would use as their medium.

  “That or I decided to take up painting,” she said, smiling at him.

  “Not a bad hobby, if you can afford it,” he responded. “It can get expensive really fast.”

  “You’ll have to tell me all about it. How long will this counting task take?”

  They hovered near the entrance as they talked. A voice from the back of the shop called out to Grant.

  “My assistant—who you’ve just heard—hasn’t left yet. So, of course there are easier ways to take inventory. But, as with all things analogue, the people who rent property here love doing it the hard way. I’m one of those people. It’s a philosophy.” He shrugged.

  “You mean, you’re going to manually count each item?”

  He seemed to color slightly. “Something like that.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Hey Scotch, I’m done. And I have to run. The costume ball is starting in an hour. Gotta get dressed. Hello, who’s this?” A girl with short, spiky black hair appeared around the aisle. She was at least a foot shorter than Holly and at least ten years younger. She grinned widely at Holly.

  “Holly Drake,” Holly answered, sticking her hand out for the girl to take.

  “I’ve heard of you,” the girl said, smiling and taking Holly’s hand. Then she pushed it aside and gave Holly a hug and a beso on each cheek. “That’s a proper greeting.”

  “Er, Kaye means that she’s heard of how I’ve worked with you. And sorry, I didn’t make introductions. Holly Drake, my assistant and niece, Kaye Finan. She’s a handful.”

  “Right, work. That’s what I meant, yes, work. Anyway, Scotch, you love having me around. I brighten this shop up and do all the real work,” Kaye said.

  “Which is why you’re leaving on the longest work night of the year.”

  “You do inventory every month because you’re a control freak. I’m not losing my real life for paintbrushes.” Kaye gave him besos. “Thanks for covering for me, Holly.”

  Holly looked at Grant. “Wait, what?”

  “You don’t have to help,” Grant said, suddenly bashful. He ran his hand through his hair. “Keeping me company is all you need to do.”

  Holly couldn’t mask the quizzical look on her face. “How’d you know I would come?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “He knew. He hasn’t stopped talking about it since he came back with the bottle of wine. He never buys me wine when I stay to do inventory with him.”

  “I bought the wine for myself,” Grant said. “I had it before I ran into you, Holly.”

  “That’s true, you did,” Holly admitted.

  “Get along, Kaye,” Grant said, putting his hands on her shoulders and steering her toward the doors. He flicked off the open sign while he was near the front windows that looked out on the street below. Kaye laughed, opened the door, and went out with a last goodbye. Grant locked the door behind her. “I thought she’d never leave.”

  “And you’re worried she’d get you into trouble,” Holly teased. “I notice she calls you ‘Scotch.’”

  “She’s defiant like that,” Grant said. “But, come back here with me. I’ll open the wine and you can start into it.”

  “One bottle hardly seems enough.”

  “Are you planning to get toasted? I thought that was reserved for space flight?” He led her through aisles full of paintbrushes, columns of pencils, and sticks of charcoal. They reached the counter. Holly followed him behind it and through a doorway into the backroom.

  It was more than just a backroom. There was a rug on the floor Holly that wouldn’t have been surprised to see at Angelo’s for sale. A large overstuffed sofa was pressed up against one wall. There were several throw blankets on it with decorative pillows and a lamp bes
ide it atop an end-table. Along the wall there was a long, waist-high bookshelf full of paperbacks and other books.

  “You really do like analogue,” Holly observed.

  “Call me old fashioned,” Grant said. He busied himself at a table that held a tray full of various bottles of spirits. The wine Holly had seen him with earlier was there. Using a corkscrew, he opened it slowly while also watching her study the room.

  Hanging on the walls were paintings of landscapes. Lakes in the mountains. Pastures and fields of grain. A few studies of faces. “Are these yours?”

  She glanced at him and judged from the darkening of his color that they were. “I used to paint. As a boy. And then when I joined the military, it went on hold. When I left, I returned to it. A first love.”

  “I don’t know very much about art. But I like them.”

  There was a desk at the other end of the room with various notebooks stuffed full of paper. Holly strolled past it, her gaze skimming over everything as he poured the wine.

  “Paper?” she asked.

  “Yes, and then I enter the information into a v-screen. Because I have to order supplies via the network. Some things are impossible to skip.”

  Holly strolled around the room, then returned to the bookshelf. Perched on top of it was another contraption Holly had seen before at Angelo’s. “What is this?” she asked. “I’ve seen something like it at Angelo’s.”

  “That’s one of my prized possessions. It’s called a turntable,” Grant said, smiling broadly.

  “Is it from Earth?”

  “It is. That’s an antique.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Angelo got it working. I only have a few pieces of the format that it plays. Records.” He brought her a glass and waited for her to take it. When she did, he held his glass out to touch to hers. “Cheers?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “To new beginnings,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said, taking a sip and watching him over the rim of her glass. “You’re surprising, Grant.”

  He swallowed. “Am I?”

  “You’re really incongruent, at least, that’s what I think based on what I’ve observed.”

  “In what way?”

  She went to the bookcase and looked through it. “Do you read these?”

  “I wouldn’t have them if I didn’t.”

  “Why don’t you read on a v-screen like everyone else?”

  “I like things that I can touch. I’m sensory,” he said, watching her steadily, the awkwardness that he’d displayed in the alley all but gone.

  Holly looked away, back to the books, feeling like the planet had shifted beneath her feet. “I like real things too.”

  “I imagine that’s why you go to Angelo’s?”

  She thought about it. “Angelo’s feels like home, in a way. I’ve been going there for years. I don’t buy stuff very often. Maybe I sort of adopted him when my parents moved off-moon.”

  “Gabe has told me about some of that.”

  “All of it bad, I’m sure,” Holly said. She didn’t recognize any of the titles on his bookcase, except The Art of War. The rest were unfamiliar.

  “Are you going to show me how this works?” She gestured to the record player. “Angelo played music for me from something else old today. Called cassettes.”

  Grant placed his cup of wine down on his desk and moved to stand beside her. She watched his movements, trying to ignore the random thoughts that were fluttering through her mind as he pulled a large black disc from a cardboard sleeve. “This is a record. The music is engraved into the grooves.” He held it so she could see them in the light.

  “That is . . . insane.”

  “I know.” He placed it on the spindle, flicked a switch, and the disc began to spin. “I lower this, and the needle reads and translates the information into sound.” He used a lever to lower a long arm. When the needle touched the disc, it crackled.

  “What was that?”

  “Don’t worry, it was nothing.” The music began. It was louder than what Angelo had played for her off the cassette. But it still wasn’t as loud and perfect as live music. Or the music she could play in her apartment straight out of the aether, her interface simply a panel on the wall.

  The sound was thick and deep. She stood there, listening to it, feeling as though she were hearing something from beyond the seen world. There was something three-dimensional about it. She closed her eyes. The notes yanked on something in her heart. Grant was standing so close to her. He was solid. Heat emanated from him. The music was like him: real. She could almost feel his breath, taste it, and the tones of wine on his tongue. And there was a fragrance being so near him, and something else . . . Something pulling her in.

  Her mind flashed back to when he was standing on the bridge of the tanker as the fighters came after them, talking to his crew, interpreting the situation, and delivering orders. He’d been in such control. Powerful.

  But then, here he was, burying himself in the past, in art, in sounds and comfort.

  “What do you think?” he asked quietly. “Do you like it? The music?”

  “I think I do,” she said, opening her eyes. “What is it you like about it?”

  “It’s real. Not piped out of a wall, which is easy. That information isn’t the same as this. I don’t know, it’s probably just me being ridiculous. Just like I am with all this stuff. But a man has to have something to live for, once his enlistment goes away.”

  “I don’t think it’s ridiculous,” she said. He lifted the needle off the disc and switched off the controls that made it spin.

  “Don’t stop it. Let’s listen to it while we count,” she said.

  He grinned at her. “The other side is better.”

  “There are two sides?”

  To answer, he flipped it over, handling it carefully. He placed the record back on the spindle. Holly watched his hands. They were thick and looked strong. She couldn’t help but wonder how they’d feel to touch. Or how they would feel touching her.

  “You’ll help me count then?”

  “I might. If you ask nice,” she teased. Teasing him. It was all she could do. She could bury her desire for him in it, in the jokes and the jabs.

  11

  Holly woke with a bit of a headache. The late fall sun streamed in around the shades in her condo bedroom.

  She muttered a curse and climbed out of bed. At least the night before, though the alcohol had been swishing around her veins, she’d remembered to set her brewer to make a cup of kasé for her first thing.

  She padded barefoot out of her bedroom into the kitchen, her eyes still clouded with sleep, and poured a cup.

  “Do you happen to have enough for me?” A voice said from her couch.

  Holly cussed and nearly dropped her own mug. “Grant!”

  He chuckled and stood, still in the clothes he’d been wearing the night before.

  She watched him, vague memories of his shop, the wine, and the counting coming back to her. “I didn’t have that much to drink, did I?”

  “If you’re asking and you forgot that you invited me to sleep on your sofa, then maybe, yes.”

  “I didn’t forget,” she lied.

  He smiled. “I’ve seen that expression before. You’ve forgotten everything. I’ll just head out and find a cup on my way back to the shop, which is also where I live, you know,” he paused, furrowing his brow as he looked at her, “on the top floors, did you know that?”

  She self-consciously touched her hair, which was down and likely a mess. That was when she remembered that she was wearing just a shirt and nothing but her britches. Didn’t matter. She wouldn’t suddenly act embarrassed to be seen by Grant. Her cheeks flushed with heat. “Don’t be silly. Of course I have enough for you.”

  He took a few explorative steps toward the kitchen and her. “Nothing happened, you know?”

  “Really, it’s not a big deal. Why would I be bothered if it did?” she scoffed.

/>   “You wouldn’t,” he said, playing into her act. “Would you?”

  “I don’t know, would you?”

  “So you’re not kicking me out?”

  “Not. No, I don’t make it a practice of pushing people out onto the streets in the cold. Especially not when they’ve been so helpful. You came home with me. It was late. I appreciated the escort. Make yourself at home.”

  “Very good to hear. So what’s next for you today?” he asked, stretching and walking into the kitchen. “Oh, and it wasn’t an escort.”

  “Then what was it?” She laughed. She really must have had a lot to drink. She sort of remembered counting inventory with him, lots of laughter, and then possibly walking through the city-streets as snow fell, leaning against him. There were two coats she didn’t recognize draped on the far armchair. When she left home the previous morning, she’d only worn a jacket because the day had been balmy before the storm came in. That meant Grant had let her use one of his winter coats.

  He shrugged, filling a mug that Holly pulled out of a cabinet. “OK, it was an escort. Not that I don’t think you can’t take care of yourself. I know very well that you’re capable, as Meg’s sister, and beyond that, from the stories that circulate among your crew.”

  “I can. Very capable.” She wondered if he knew everything. Had he heard about Graf?

  He drank his kasé without condiments. Holly stood with her back to the countertop, resting against it, as Grant leaned against the opposite counter, facing her, near the sink and the kasé brewer. “I wouldn’t doubt it.”

  “Then why did you escort me?”

  “How does it feel if we call it insurance?”

  “Of what nature? To console yourself or me?”

  “Ex-military. I like to have your back.”

  “Just mine, or—”

  He grinned, then hid it behind his mug. “I wasn’t ready to say goodnight.”