Adiron rolls his eyes.
I curl my lip at Zebah. Something tells me that if they leave me alone with her, I’m going to end up breaking her neck. “You’re out of luck. I’m going on station with Mathiras.”
“Oh, well then I have to go,” she purrs, leaning forward. “After all, I do love danger, and this sounds extremely dangerous. Prancing around 3N with a rare pleasure clone? Why not just hold your blaster to your head and save the locals the effort?”
Mathiras’s arms tighten around me and he frowns over at Zebah. “What Helen does is not your concern. You need to be worrying about yourself. Now, do you want to tell us how you ended up with that crew on the grain station? Or do you want to be spaced right now? Because we’ve got an airlock with your name on it if you’re not willing to help us.”
Zebah studies her nails, her expression ever-so-slightly annoyed. “Getting right down to business, I see. Fine then. If you must know, I was meeting an old friend of mine. I had information about the whereabouts of a human slave she was looking for. I sold her the info, we had a few drinks, a few laughs, and then I saw her ship and thought it looked nicer than mine, so I stole it. Turns out she’d stolen it, too, and the bounty hunters in pursuit of her caught up with me and decided to play some mean games.” She taps one nail bed and I can see it’s red and scabbed over. They all are. “And then of course, you asked for information, and they realized I might know a bit more than I should…and so they laid the trap. And here we are today, learning important things about each other as we go.”
“What sort of important things?” Adiron asks, curious.
“Well,” Zebah continues, her sly smile indicating that she’s glad to continue the conversation. “I’m glad you asked. A girl like me deals in tidbits, you know. And so far I’ve learned that you’ve got a qura’aki in your arms and all over you, and Adiron isn’t upset or jealous. That tells me that he’s already got someone, which is surprising. And you’ve got the qura’aki, which makes me think she has something to do with the cloning information you’re seeking. Either you’re cloning her, or looking for where she came from.”
Mathiras is silent.
“More than that, once my captors heard that it was you fishing for information, there was a LOT of excitement.” She wiggles her fingers in the air in Mathiras’s direction. “Did I mention that part? A lot of excitement. And they don’t want you dead or alive. They most certainly want you alive, which means they want to torture some information out of you. So, do you want to let me in on what’s going on so I can help out?”
CHAPTER 50
MATHIRAS
Zebah’s presence is definitely throwing a wrench in the works. Helen doesn’t seem to like her. She seems wary in her presence, which is odd because normally Helen likes everyone. And Zebah’s already figured out some of what’s been going on, which is concerning. Either we bring her in on what’s happening, or we let her go and hope she won’t run her mouth to anyone.
Given that Zebah makes her credits running her mouth? I don’t have high hopes for the latter.
But there’s nothing I can do about it just yet. Right now we’ve got bigger problems, and Zebah doesn’t have to be figured out until we get to Three Nebulas. The bridge is a mess thanks to Adiron, and I’m itching to clean it. I want to talk to Helen and see if she’s all right or if she needs to work through what happened back on the grain station. If she needs a hug. And of course, I have to extract what I need out of Zebah without making it seem like that’s exactly what I’m doing.
I’ve been playing this game for a long time, though. I give Zebah a reassuring smile. “Well, why don’t you think about where you want to go and discuss fuel costs with Adiron and how you’re going to repay us, since I assume your captors robbed you of any credits you had on you. While you two talk that over, I’m going to take Helen and shower.” I press a kiss to Helen’s forehead. “I still smell that station on me.”
“Did you just put your mouth on her?” Zebah asks, slightly horrified.
“I’m supposed to talk about fuel expenses?” Adiron echoes, equally horrified.
“Just keep yourselves occupied.” I point at Adiron’s screen. “No changes to our course, unless you want to have our pursuers up our tails. I’ll be back soon enough.” It’s probably a bad idea to leave Zebah alone with Adi, but I’m more concerned with Helen. She’s been very quiet and I want to make sure she’s all right. A silent Helen is a troubling Helen. If she needs to talk it out or cry, I want to be here for her.