“Wait,” I say, putting up a hand. “The Cygnians were in the Akeela System? For diplomatic relations? Since when?”
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?” I ask.
Crux looks at me hard. A little bit too hard. “Serpint,” he says. “We come from them.”
I hear the words. I see his mouth moving. But what he just said makes no sense at all. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” He takes a deep breath. “I mean we come from them, Serpint. When they used to make their soulmates, fated mates, whatever, we were how they made them. Didn’t you ever wonder why we have the biology we do? How did you get here?” he asks. “Your mother slept with an Akeelian male, she got pregnant with you, a boy. So you are now an Akeelian as well. But did you ever ask yourself what happens to the girls?”
I start to feel sick.
“They take the girls, Serpint. Back to Cygnia and use those genetics in their engineering program. That’s how you make a glowing girl. That’s how you make a man with two dicks.”
“How come I didn’t know this?”
He shrugs. “No one outside Cygnia and Akeela knows. And we left when you were young. I just figured you knew. Someone told you.”
“Who would tell me? Jimmy?” I laugh.
“ALCOR at least.”
I wait for ALCOR’s input. Crux and I both know he’s listening. But the silence after we invoke his name says far more than words ever could.
“Look,” Crux says. “There’s a lot of shit happening right now that we need to talk about. But not today, Serpint. Not now.” He claps me on the shoulder and says, “We’ll talk tomorrow. OK? Just go back to that princess and dance with her. Take her back to your quarters and just… enjoy her. Ya know? If she’s your one, then just enjoy her.”
“Why?” I ask, getting the feeling he’s talking about something else. “I mean…”
“Don’t overthink it, Serpint.” And then Crux smiles. “And thank you. I don’t think I thanked you.”
“For what?” I say.
“Bringing Corla to me.” He holds his breath and lets it out in a long rush. “I never thought I’d see her again.”
I nod, trying to picture him with this woman. Back when they were kids. “You should wake her up,” I say.
But he shakes his head. “I can’t. We’re star crossed.”
I shoot yet another confused look and he claps me on the shoulder again. Laughing. “Tomorrow, Serpint. Go dance with Lyra. Before Jimmy gets any ideas about shooting her up with a plasmid to rearrange her DNA so she’s bonded to him instead.”
I look over at Jimmy and Lyra and find them still dancing. Smiling and having a good time. And when I look back at Crux he’s already walking off. I yell, “Hey! Wait! Is that a real thing?”
Because the thought of someone fucking up the genetic bond we have… that just scares the shit out of me. “And we need to talk about Booty!”
“Tomorrow,” he calls back, already disappearing through a door that leads up to his private quarters. I guess he’s out. Or maybe he’s just going back up to Corla’s cryopod to look at her forbidden body.
So close, yet still so far away.
But he didn’t say it wasn’t possible, which means it is.
I start heading over to Jimmy and Lyra, intent on breaking that little friend affair up real fast, when I glance over and see Lyra’s stupid bot showing off a weapon to Beauty, Valor and Luck’s bot.
“For sun’s sake,” I mutter, heading over there first. Irritated that I have to babysit a nanny bot. I don’t even understand why he’s even here. If Crux thinks this low-level 700 Series can replace Ceres—well, I just laugh.
“Excuse me,” I say, interrupting the little bot party. “Can you give us a minute, Beauty?”
“Sure, Serpint,” she purrs in her over-seductive voice. I have never seen the draw of a sexy bot or cyborg the way Jimmy, Valor, and Luck always did. If you’re gonna have a bot as part of your team they should be manly. Not feminine. Ships should be feminine. Bots, not so much. I like them tough. Like Ceres was.
Once Beauty floats away I turn to the 700 Series and say, “Bot, put that stupid little laser gun away. It’s the most ridiculous weapon I’ve ever seen.”
And it is too. Looks like a fucking toy I played with back when I was a baby.
He chirps at me, squeaking and whistling all kinds of things that make no sense to me. “I don’t understand you.” I say. “And I don’t care what you’re saying. If you belong to Lyra, and Lyra belongs to me, then you belong to me and I can boss you around. So put the toy gun away and act your age.”
He tilts his body just a little. And if he were humanoid, and had a head, I’d say he was cocking his head at me. Like, Oh, really?