Relic of Sorrows: Fallen Empire, Book 4

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Guess that would depend on if you were wearing one of those robes and hurling people around the room with your mind.”

  “Right, I doubt I would do that.” She forced a smile, but this conversation had given her new matters to worry about.

  Would other people’s perceptions of her change if they knew? Would Leonidas’s? He hated Starseers, and given the way Abelardus treated him, and the way the people in the temple had treated him, how could he not? Further, one had been responsible for unleashing those bears on the research station, thus killing the one man he’d hoped would help him. If he found out about her blood, would he think less of her? And what about Jelena? Since he had agreed to work on the freighter, once Alisa found her, he was sure to notice Jelena floating dishes around the mess hall with her mind.

  She had imagined the two of them meeting before, even told Leonidas that Jelena would probably like him because she adored the cartoon character Andromeda Android, but she hadn’t considered his loathing for Starseers. And what did Jelena think of cyborgs? Was Durant even now indoctrinating her to think like a Starseer? To share their prejudices?

  “You don’t look so good, Captain,” Beck said, pushing a sandwich on a plate toward her. “Probably that radiation. Why don’t you get some rest?”

  “I believe I will.” She picked up the plate. “Thank you.”

  “We’ll find your girl, Captain. Don’t you worry.”

  She had started toward the crew cabins, but she paused to look back at him. “I… Did I tell you about that?” She couldn’t remember now who she had shared the details of her mission with, but she thought she had been keeping it private from most people.

  He shrugged. “Things get around. I just wanted to let you know that I’m your man if you need help. And kids love me.”

  “Because of your boyish personality?”

  “Nah, because I can make yummy sweets.”

  “On the grill?”

  “Sure. Just need to get some fresh ingredients, and I can do amazing things. Maple-cinnamon bacon on a stick. Grilled peaches with a sweet bourbon glaze. Give me a pot, and I can even melt chocolate and grill up some bananas for dipping.”

  “Chocolate?” Alisa was suddenly disappointed that all she had to take back to her cabin was a sandwich. “It won’t just be kids that love you, Beck. Hells, I might even marry you for some bananas dipped in chocolate.”

  He saluted her with his knife.

  Alisa grinned, turned toward the corridor, and almost crashed into a muscular chest. Her plate did bump into it, and her sandwich teetered, threatening to pitch to the deck. Leonidas caught it before it slid off and stepped back. He raised a single eyebrow. Alisa hoped he hadn’t heard the part where Beck had threatened to serve him undercooked meat. She also hoped he wasn’t angry that she had inadvertently heard some of his conversation with Alejandro.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t looking.”

  “My fault,” he said, stepping aside. He did not appear to be angry. “I wasn’t ready for sleep,” he offered.

  “I wasn’t, either. I was afraid I’d have bad dreams after everything.”

  “Yes.” His eyes grew sad as he gazed down at her, and she wondered if he regretted that bit of manipulation he had plied on her. Or did he even realize he had done it? Men could be oblivious at times. Even Jonah, who’d had a poet’s soul, hadn’t always been cognizant of his social blunders.

  Something in his expression tugged at her heart, though, and she almost asked him if he wanted to join her in her cabin to watch a vid. What did he enjoy for entertainment? War stories? That seemed too gruesome for bedtime relaxing. Maybe they could find something light and comedic.

  “You want a sandwich, mech?” Beck asked. “Or to taste the chutney I’m working on? You and your enhanced tongue?”

  “An enhanced tongue?” Mica asked, coming into the mess hall from the opposite side. She must have been working late in engineering. Alisa hoped there weren’t any problems brewing down there. “Sounds like a handy thing to have.” Though her visage remained as dour as it had been earlier, she did manage a bit of a leer in Alisa’s direction.

  Alisa blushed, waved goodnight to them all, and headed toward the cabins. She regretted not asking Leonidas to come with her, but felt shy with so many witnesses. Besides, her earlier thoughts still percolated in her mind, her concern that Leonidas would find it distasteful when he found out about Jelena’s talents.

  She headed toward her cabin, but paused before going in, her gaze drawn to the next one up the corridor and on the opposite side. The hatch lay in shadows, the night-dimmed lighting even dimmer at the end of the corridor. Her mother’s cabin. It had been locked when Alisa had recovered the Nomad from the junk cave, and she had left it that way. Besides, the junkyard owner had probably removed and sold all of her personal belongings. He’d left items such as the stuffed spider hanging in NavCom, but nothing of value remained.

  Still, for the first time since retrieving the Nomad, Alisa found herself curious about the contents. More specifically, for the first time in more than twenty years, she found herself curious about her father. Would there be anything left in there that might identify him? Her mother had always implied that she’d barely known his name and that she hadn’t kept in touch over the years. Was that the truth? Or had there been a reason she hadn’t told her only daughter more details? Alisa had never found the circumstances of her birth that mysterious as a girl, but Abelardus’s words returned to her mind, the way he had pointed out that accidental pregnancies weren’t that common and that her mother might have tampered with her implant to make it happen. Had she? And if so, why? Wanting a child was understandable, but wanting some random stranger on a space station to be the father? That did seem odd.

  Alisa grasped the latch, even though she knew it wouldn’t open and she would have to press her hand to the palm reader on the computer override. But the latch turned. She stopped and stared at it, shocked. The hatch was unlocked? Why?

  She remembered checking that hatch when she first took over Nomad, before Mica had gotten it repaired enough to lift off from the junk cave. It had definitely been locked then. She was the only one programmed into the computer system to be able to override the locks on the passenger and crew cabins. And she knew she hadn’t opened it.

  She finished turning the latch and pushed inward. It was dark inside, and the cabin smelled dusty and disused. As it should. She walked inside, and the integrated lights flickered a few times before coming on. The cabin, the captain’s cabin, was a little larger than hers, but there was still only one room, and it only took her a couple of steps to stand in the middle. She set her plate down on the bed and looked around slowly, trying to detect if someone had been in there recently.

  The floor was bare—her mother had stripped out the orange carpet that had been in there during Alisa’s youth—and the fur rugs that had replaced it had been taken. Items of value, apparently. A fold-down desk identical to Alisa’s was tucked into the wall, making the space seem large. A couple of blankets lay on the mattress, and a pillow slumped at one end. A few tattered and yellowed books hunkered on shelves built into the wall, a glass protector in place to keep them from flying out during a rough landing—or an attack. Alisa remembered that a jewelry box and some keepsakes had also been on those shelves in her youth. They were gone now.

  Though she did not expect to find a diary or anything that helpful, she walked over and lifted the glass protector. It did not fit well, and dust had made its way inside. Alisa froze, staring at it. The dust on the shelves had been disturbed. Recently. It looked like someone had reached in and patted around with their fingers.

  “What the—?” she muttered, looking toward the corridor and then toward the old books.

  She pulled them out and flipped through them. A bookmark fell out, but nothing more interesting. No notes to old lovers. Alisa lowered the glass and opened the rusted metal doors of a built-in armoire. Several dusty garments hung inside, i
ncluding a baggy blue sweater with a large slouchy neckline. Unanticipated emotion thickened Alisa’s throat as she looked at it, remembering how often her mother had worn it, the way she’d often said, “We’re a long ways from anywhere, so we can’t waste energy on heat. Go put on a sweater if you’re cold.”

  She touched the sleeve, running her hand down it, blinking away tears and an intense sense of loneliness that came over her. Her ship was full of people, but they were people she’d only known a short time. She missed her family, missed having people that she shared history and memories with, that she loved. Jonah, Jelena, Mom. Everyone. She regretted that her mother had barely gotten to know her granddaughter before the accident had taken her life.

  Her chin dropped to her chest. Even with tears blurring her vision, she spotted dust on the bottom of the armoire, dust that had been disturbed. Alisa pushed aside her feelings, using the new mystery to avoid dealing with the disappointment that her life had become.

  Had Leonidas searched this cabin, and perhaps all of them, when he had first come aboard the Nomad, intending to fix it up and claim it for his own mission?

  She crouched to look more closely. As with the shelves, the disturbed dust was recent. There hadn’t been time for it to fill back in. It looked like someone had been in here within the last few days, not a month or two earlier.

  Mica could have figured out a way to override the locks if she’d been determined, but why would she care about Alisa’s mother’s cabin? Leonidas could have forced his way into a locked hatch, but that would have left a broken mechanism behind. And again, why would he have snooped? No, there was only one person who came to mind, one person who hadn’t been on the ship for long but who was oddly interested in Alisa, at least in her blood.

  Had Abelardus used his mental powers to unlock the hatch? She could imagine him being able to do it. She was not sure why he would want to, but she could come up with a couple of guesses. Maybe he wanted to find out more about her—and her mother—to give the information to his brother. Would Durant find it useful to know Jelena’s lineage for the training or whatever he had in mind for her? Or maybe Abelardus was simply curious for his own reasons. Because he liked feisty women.

  Alisa shuddered inside, not wanting any of the Starseer’s interest turned her way. Even if she had liked him, she wouldn’t have found it flattering that his interest had only started up after he’d learned she had the right kind of genes.

  “Genes that came from where?” she murmured, remembering her original reason for coming in here.

  She resumed her search, patting down the pockets of the garments in the armoire. She found an old ticket stub to a gypsy show and a few hairpins, but nothing more substantial. The vault set into the wall behind the desk had been found, forced open, and—judging by the dust—cleaned out long ago. Alisa was on the verge of leaving when her gaze fell across the mattress again. The sheets were still on it, tucked around the corners, so she doubted anyone had disturbed it. She knelt and lifted it, peering into the shadows. Dust tickled her nose, and she sneezed. Another book lay near the head of the bed, and she tugged it out.

  It had a yellow hardback cover with the title, Planets and Moons, embossed on the front in elegant script. Alisa recognized the book, remembering her mother reading it numerous times. It was supposed to be a modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet. Alisa had never read it, preferring adventures to romances, happy endings to tragedies.

  She flipped it open to the title page and spotted a dedication. To my exciting and wonderful Oksana. I wish our planets and moons could have aligned. Stanislav.

  “I didn’t think to look under the bed,” Abelardus said from the hatchway.

  Alisa whirled, almost dropping the book. Abelardus leaned casually against the jamb, watching her. How long had he been there?

  “You were here,” she said, surprised he was openly admitting it. Didn’t he know that you weren’t supposed to confess to spying and eavesdropping on people?

  “You already figured that out,” he said, pushing away from the hatchway and walking inside.

  Alisa itched to back up, not wanting to be anywhere close to him, but she stood her ground and glared defiantly at him. “Why were you snooping? What could possibly be in here that has anything to do with you?”

  “You didn’t know who your father was,” he said, stopping in front of her. “I assumed the odds were better that your mother did.” He offered that smirk that might be what passed for amusement from him, but it always looked smug and supercilious more than anything else.

  “Why do you care?”

  “I was curious as to your heritage, or more specifically, your daughter’s heritage. At this point, I don’t know if Durant is roaming the system, collecting children with Starseer abilities, or if he only took your daughter. If the latter, then there must be a reason she was singled out.”

  “Yeah, her father was dead and her mother was too far away to do a damned thing about it.” Alisa’s voice tightened as she spoke, and the last few words came out squeaky. Damn it, she was on the verge of tears again. She would not show her frustrations—her weaknesses—in front of this man.

  “I’m sure he must have had a reason.” Abelardus lifted a hand toward her shoulder.

  She lurched away from him, the backs of her knees bumping against the bunk. What was he doing? Trying to comfort her? He was the last person she wanted comfort from. It also disturbed her to realize he could thwart the locks on the cabins whenever he wanted.

  “A reason?” she demanded. “Such as that he’s a criminal who doesn’t care who he hurts?”

  “That’s not the reason I would have come up with, but it could be.” He lowered his hand and smiled. “May I see the book?”

  Her first instinct was to refuse, but it would be better if he was looking at the book than trying to touch or comfort her. She thrust it toward him.

  “Stanislav, huh?” Abelardus asked, perusing the dedication and then flipping through the rest of the pages. “I’ll have to look in our databases to see if anyone interesting comes up.”

  “Even if my father had Starseer genes, that doesn’t mean he had any talent, right? Or that he would have had anything to do with your people. Lots of people in the system have those genes, and it doesn’t mean anything. Except, apparently, that you get to live long enough to see all of your crewmates die if your ship is exposed to radiation.” She thought of those poor crazy people that she had seen through Leonidas’s camera.

  “It doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” he agreed. “It’s an indicator of potential, nothing more. But Durant’s interest—”

  “Is surely based on my husband’s abilities. Also, I have no way of knowing that this Stanislav was my father. That book could have been given to my mother at any time during her life, maybe even after I was born. She never got married, but she wasn’t a chaste hermit.”

  “Hm.” Abelardus looked at the dedication again. “She was apparently exciting and wonderful.” He grinned at her. “And feisty I bet, like her daughter.”

  Alisa snatched the book from his hands. “Go away. Aren’t you supposed to be looking for ships? That’s the deal, remember?”

  He lifted his hands. “Yes, you’re right. And—” He glanced toward the open hatchway.

  Alisa did not see or hear anyone coming, but he lowered his voice.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I know I can be cocky, and I don’t bother to hide it. A lot of people are falsely modest, and it’s annoying. Don’t you find it to be so? I know I have a tendency to say whatever comes to mind, but don’t you find that refreshing? I thought—I mean, you’re sort of the same way, so I guess I thought—or I keep hoping—that you’ll understand me. Or at least not hate me. I’m not trying to make your life harder. Or uncomfortable.”

  His words seemed honest, and Alisa did not know what to say. She didn’t like him, and she didn’t want to soften her stance toward him or give him any indication that she wanted him around.

  “Here.�
�� He offered his hand. “Let’s make a deal. I’ll stay out of your head, as you’ve requested, and your mother’s cabin, and you…”

  “Yes?” She narrowed her eyes, not anticipating that he would offer her anything she would find acceptable or appealing.

  “Promise not to murder my brother when we find him.” He smiled. “At least until after I’ve spoken to him and had a chance to find out what he’s up to.”

  Alisa kept squinting at him, feeling nothing but suspicion. She wasn’t a cold-blooded killer and hadn’t been planning to murder anyone—though maybe she would strangle this Durant a little—and the request seemed to come out of nowhere. They hadn’t been talking about his brother.

  But Abelardus stood there with his hand out, his eyes earnest. And the suns knew she would like it if he would stay out of her head…

  Hoping she wouldn’t regret it, she shifted the book so she could clasp his hand. He bowed his head and laid his other hand atop hers.

  She was trying to decide if this was some Starseer custom or if he was simply being overly dramatic when movement in the corridor drew her eye. Leonidas looked in at them, a sandwich held in his hand. He looked at their clasped hands, blinked, and backed away.

  Alisa frowned and pulled her hand away from Abelardus’s, wondering how that had looked from the outside. She hoped Leonidas didn’t think she was in here intentionally having private moments with Abelardus. Not that Leonidas had indicated that he wanted to have private moments with her. But she didn’t want anyone misconstruing anything. Especially when Leonidas and Abelardus had so much animosity toward each other.

  Abelardus let her go and lifted his head. His face was hard to read.

  Alisa grabbed her plate off the mattress. “I need to get some sleep,” she said, taking it and the book with her. “Lock the door when you leave, please. I gather that’s something you can do without trouble.”

  She walked out, hoping she might catch Leonidas in the corridor and explain the situation. But he was gone.