kind of like a cross between a sports bar and a Wild West saloon, spread over three rotating, circular levels. Bodies of all shapes and sizes are packed onto barstools and into booths, heads bowed in quiet conversation. There’s five … things? People? Both? … in the corner, playing strange, beautiful music. They have transparent skin and tentacles instead of arms.
I clench my jaw so it doesn’t drag on the ground.
There are tables on the edge of the room, layered in fluorescent yellow. They’re covered in brightly colored stones—round, square, jagged—laid out in intricate patterns that clearly mean something to the players jostling for position around them. I see a blue-skinned woman with a high-domed head, dressed in a tunic that almost seems to be a continuation of her blue skin—it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. She smiles, then delicately nudges a green rock forward with a long stick, pushing another stone aside. A chorus of shouts goes up from the crowd. Delighted or angry, I can’t tell.
A large bar sits like an island in the middle of a room, wreathed in light pink smoke. A row of screens rotates around it, showing a dozen fast-moving games. I might not recognize the sports they’re playing, but I know that’s what I’m seeing.
“Grab a table, Kal,” Tyler says. “I’ll scope out something to drink.”
I guess I’m not part of the team in Ty’s head when it comes to decision making, which ticks me off me a little. I know I’m a newbie in all this, but I don’t like being treated like baggage, either. So instead of waiting to be led, I head off in a circuit of the room, Kal stalking along behind me.
When I find an empty booth with a good view of the whole bar, I slide in among the empty glasses and look up at the Syldrathi boy.
“Good enough?”
Kal glances around, and apparently happy with my choice, sits on the opposite side without a word. He presses a button on the table, killing the display of tiny 3-D figures playing space sportsball across it. I push myself into the corner, but he stays on the edge, watching the room rotate. The aliens here are all different shapes and colors, wearing everything from grungy mechanics’ jumpsuits to iridescent robes, and every level of formality in between.
I feel like I’m dreaming.
I feel like maybe I’m going insane.
My brain’s not hurting anymore at least, but my aching muscles still remind me of what happened on the Longbow’s bridge. In my head, I can still see the image of myself on the vid screen, throwing Scarlett into the wall without ever touching her. I can still hear the words I spoke with the voice that wasn’t my own. I force myself to look around the bar again. Is there some hint here I can find, something to help me guess why I—or whatever possessed me—insisted we come here?
“He will not be long.” Kal’s voice startles me.
“Huh?”
He nods at Tyler. “Do not worry. He will not be long.”
I hadn’t been worrying about that in particular. If anything, Kal looks more concerned than I do. I realize he’s not watching Tyler anyway—he’s got his eyes on a group of Syldrathi at the bar, all of them dressed in black.
“Friends of yours?” I ask, peering at the group.
“No.”
The word is heavy, and lands between us like a weight.
“… Well, who are they?” I ask.
Kal just ignores me, his eyes never leaving the other Syldrathi. I find myself getting ticked off again. Tired of the way he speaks to me, or doesn’t speak to me at all. He might be six and a half feet of va-voom, but son of a biscuit, he’s infuriating.
“Let me guess,” I say. “I’m beneath their concern?”
“Almost certainly,” he replies, still not looking at me.
“So don’t worry my pretty little head about it, basically?”
“Correct.”
I breathe deep, my temper finally getting the better of me. “Are all Syldrathi as full of themselves as you are?”
He blinks, finally deigns to look in my direction.
“I am not full of myself.”
“If your nose were turned up any higher, it’d be in orbit,” I scoff. “What’s your problem with me? I didn’t ask to be here. I was supposed to wake up on Octavia III with my dad, and instead I’m in hiding on a pirate space station with a messed-up eye and stupid hair and a condescending jackass.”
A slow frown creases his tattooed brow. “What is a jackass?”