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“No problem.” Kaia tilted her head back against his chest. Threxin felt compelled to both stare and look away as Orion Halen stroked her curls flat along her scalp in soothing motions, even though they kept bouncing right back up as soon as his palm had passed over, refusing to conform. That must be very annoying.
Not as annoying as the hair clump in Alina Argoud’s eyes.
Threxin focused on the plan. Tetha clearly had an idea of what the compound required. This was promising. Once it was done and tested on less important subjects, if Alina could see reason, she would be the first to take it. Perhaps he should tell her…
No. It would be best to wait until success was in firmer grasp.
And if the vaccine failed? Shoq, how he wished he could just stop caring and take her like the animal he’d thought her kind was when he first took hisColossal. Who really cared if she was mad at him?
Threxin forced the image from his mind, wiping the fresh exorin that pooled through the seam of his lips as he exited the lab.
The count of humans from the common deck being treated up on the command deck was precisely seventy-five. In addition to that, twenty had eventually been transferred from the medbay to assigned cabins on the command deck.
Threxin had allocated extra medicinal and nutrigel rations for the ill, digging dangerously close to the end of their coffers. But the supply delivery timeline and logistics were being finalized, and that would replenish their stocks.
Threxin had originally planned not to contact Alina until he could meet each of her demands—after all, what was the point of chiming her before he had anything to show for it save for some relocated commoners? But she worked daily at precisely the dock the shipment was set to arrive in. Logically, not using a valuable resource for the sake of a grand gesture made no sense.
That night, Threxin stood in the middle of his overly large living quarters, evaluating his planned approach several times too many. Finally he activated his comms adhesive and opened a link to Alina Argoud.
CHAPTER 42
ALINA
When her comms bracelet vibrated in her hand, Alina jolted awake. For a moment, she groggily wondered which of her friends would chime her at 2300, but of course it was him. It couldonlybe him.
It had been days since Threxin had provided medical attention to some of the people from the CRD, and Alina was beginning to think he’d never contact her. She was even beginning to doubt he had done it for her at all. What if Orion Halen had been the one to twist Threxin’s arm into helping treat those people? What if that’s where it stopped, and Uploads and proper food was still off the table?
She opened the connection with her Neurosync.
Threxin,she subvocalized, knowing his own comms device would translate the signal into audio on his end, considering he had no implant. It was so weird, using that part of her mind again. She’d done it the week before to chime Threxin, but she’d been so angry and distraught, the reality that she was actually using her NS again hadn’t really hit her back then. It did hit her now. The communication achieved with an NS was entirely effortless compared to the work of vocalization.
“Yes.” Chills puckered her skin when she heard his voice. It had only been a week, but it felt like forever since she heard his guttural timbre. Her NS transmitted his voice straight to her frontal cortex and she could just about cry. Alina hadn’t felt anyone that close in her mind in over a month, and only now did she realize how isolated she had been.
She’d grown up subcomming everyone and anyone on the ship. There were times when she wouldn’t talk for days except when attending the singing lessons her parents had signed her up for to get some time to themselves. There’d be no need, with the NS providing an entirely more intuitive and intimate form of communication.
And now it was back, and the sudden proximity of his low, guttural voice made her body react with a flush of heat.
Alina clamped her teeth over her bottom lip, refusing to cry in his presence… He may not have an NS to sense her emotions, but her distress would come through in her subvocalization.
“Can we talk?”she asked.
He took a beat, and she held her breath.
Yes.
I mean in person. I… I’d like to see you.
Be in your cabin.
“I am,”she blurted out loud.
There was a hesitant pause, no doubt some confusion about the change in vocal quality.
Remain in your cabin.
Okay then. Alina rolled her eyes, biting back a smile as the connection was severed even as tears came unbidden.
Alina jumped off the bed and tried to fix herself in the mirror, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. She smoothed her hair quickly, then dabbed some peach cream color on her cheeks, nose, and lips. She inspected her fingers, wishing she’d painted them, but at least they were clean and not chipped with old polish anymore.
