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Popping out on a level tunnel, she turned right, hitting a small corridor with a keypad lock. The system remained offline to the main ship, running off its own battery power for the door. Jimmying it open in an emergency would trip an alarm that would alert her immediately. She did not bother hiding the code. She figured he could sort it out if he really wanted.
Punching it into the keypad, the door slid open. Peering inside they were met with complete darkness, other than the illumination that came from behind them. She touched the wall and a ring of light went around the room at the ceiling. It brought into focus a table in the center that had a rounded glass top in the form of a half sphere. A slim counter ran around the circumference in a slick black, cool to the touch. Beneath it, the housing came directly down to the floor from the globe wrapped in black metal.
Kira shut the door behind him.
Figuring if he didn’t recognize the item he could look it up she didn’t explain. She knew it was an old star projector, one of Astromech’s creations from when the company was still booming. Charting in an old-fashioned manner by projecting out systems and planning leaps, it had been critical to that function once upon a time. Then when it served its use, it became a novelty for projecting constellations one could walk through, mainly used to educate children.
Beside it a thick pad with a blanket laid out on the floor, with a few pillows. “Even Watson can’t reach me here,” she told Quinn. She wanted him to know this was special to her, and special for her to bring him there.
Quinn examined the device in the center of the room before visually scanning the rest of it. She knew he was possibly checking her words. He would find no cameras, no sensors, no connected intercom system. A small communicator rested on the ledge of the star projector, but that was it.
“So, just a little private viewing room?” He sounded distracted, the way he did when she brought lunch and his hands were busy, but he didn’t stop at that. “I can see why you’d like having a private place to get away.” That sounded more human, more feeling, as if he wanted to clarify that he really got that. “If I had a place like this, I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
Kira settled down on the thick pad, grabbing the blanket, patting a spot a little way from her. She made sure plenty of room existed between them and she listened to him before leaning back and tapping something on the pedestal bottom next to her. A hatch released sliding backwards allowing it to be programmed from below a simple input system with a visible keyboard and search query function.
“It’s a little more than that,” she said with a smile. “It used to be one of the astronomy rooms where the crew plotted where they would go next.”
The invitation triggered a slight frown from Quinn, but he joined her on the floor. He leaned against a pillow, folding his legs up to his knees and wrapping his arms around them as she turned the device on and the room exploded into brilliant light. At waist level, there were stars. The device displayed beautiful reflections of the constellations and planets, which could be manipulated to almost anywhere in space.
If one were laying down, it felt as if they were looking up to them and stargazing.
“Oh.” Quinn murmured softly as he took it all in, silent as his gaze traveled over it all.
Blue flashed in his eyes and he snapped them closed. He placed a hand against his temple, his lips moving, but the sound inaudible. When he dropped his hand, he returned to watching the stars. The electronic blue that his eyes usually had, unless it flashed a brighter shade, was gone. Just normal, pale sea-glass blue took it all in now.
His tells were not so absolute that she found it easy to gain any kind of true understanding of what went on inside his mind, but in that moment she could see just how wrong she’d been about him.
He craved human experiences and kindness, though he’d never say it out loud.
She relaxed and leaned back fully at first, but now she came up slightly onto her elbows. Watching the sky, she whispered, trying not to ruin the moment that had been created between them. “I like to watch recreations of the comets sometimes. The ones that mining processes have destroyed.”
“That sounds interesting,” Quinn said, keeping the same gentleness as she had when she spoke as he continued to stare up at the starry projection.
Twisting, she’d run through the screen until she found a favorite. It lasted over half an hour, in which the sky became full of projections of falling rock that fell into fire and ketone bursts.
Coming back down, she left a serene silence as she settled into a large pillow that held her up at just an angle to be comfortable. There were a few other blankets around them. The temperature dropped, making it just a little cooler in the room. If she was sharing, she was going to show him what it was like to sit with a blanket and just stargaze.
Then it hit her and she asked, “Do you need music? I can put some on the console.”
The sudden question made him blink in surprise. “I was... playing music on my neural net during dinner. I just turned it off... I’m fine.” The way he said it made his surprise at this revelation more than apparent. “But, yeah, maybe something in the background.”
Flipping through the selections, she settled on classical music, not too far off from what he listened to, but this music only used acoustic instruments as opposed to his electric ones.. “If you need vocals and lyrics, I can switch it again.”
He shook his head. The song went from one to another, the second featuring only on a single classical guitar. Halfway through the piece she heard him snoring. Smiling to herself, she listened to both before draping a blanket over Quinn and allowing him to sleep without someone staring, leaving the door open.
Heading back to her own quarters, she wasn’t sure about the invitation- if it was okay for her to stay or not, so she collected a few items to head back to the Eikos.
You took him there?
She almost jumped out of her skin at the interruption. She’d cut off communications during dinner and never turned them back on. Watson was patient, but apparently not that patient. She let out a snort after her heart calmed a little. “I did.”
Why?
She shrugged her shoulders out of habit before remembering he couldn’t see it. “I dunno.”
Kira wondered if Watson had a lot on his mind, the question faded, because she certainly did.
QUINN
