examined the tangled cords leading to different human machines. Bob turned on Gailen with narrowed eyes. “All right. You tell your warriors. They hear that alarm, they need to move. We have a light system that shows where a person falls overboard.”
“Xemil will explain the system to the patrol.”
“And we’ll see if it does any good.” The man grimaced, but his soul brightened. Like Starr, his feelings were not well reflected by his face. He leaned into the small room. “The cable from your city comes up here. The control room for the rig is just above. This is all company property, but I just got a notification that we’re supposed to let you do anything you want. Somebody has a high opinion of you.”
“Cool.” Starr set her box on the floor and opened it. It seemed to be a collection of tools plus a smaller box.
“Dinner’s in a half hour.” Bob frowned. “But I guess that doesn’t matter to you, does it?”
“Nope.”
He harrumphed.
“Bob.” She looked up at him coldly. “I didn’t want to say it where I thought I could be overheard, but one of the men at the safety briefing resembled a crew member from the ship that abandoned me.”
“All those men came in on the supply ship. If they’d stopped to pick up your crew, someone would have said something.”
She returned his gaze unflinchingly.
His lips pinched. “Which one?”
“The one in the orange jumpsuit.”
“Very funny. Hair color? Ethnicity? Build?”
“Brown hair, white male, medium build.”
“You just described most of my crew.” He blew air out from between his lips. “We haven’t issued ID badges on this rig, but with the influx of new service staff to prepare for the grand opening, maybe it’s time.”
He left with Xemil.
Isag stationed himself outside the door to guard the narrow hall.
Star sat cross-legged on the floor and dug her fingers into the plastic covering the smaller box. It would not yield to her short nails.
Gailen knelt and offered his dagger. “You should have told me. I would have confronted that male.”
“I barely interacted with the boat crew. I didn’t expect to need to pick them out of a lineup. But if they’ve snuck onto the supply ship, they have a lot more friends than I’d like.” She took Gailen’s dagger and unsealed the plastic. “I’d recognize the captain for sure.”
And if they found the captain, Gailen would be happy to interrogate him. Very happy.
He flexed his hands uselessly.
Starr handed back the dagger and took out a shiny cell phone. “You can sit if you want. This might take a while.”
He wandered around the small room and then did as she said and sat. She plugged one of her small tools into the cell phone and then opened a panel and plugged it in. Lights flashed, and white text scrolled across her screen. She studied it with total focus.
The platform creaked and groaned. Mechanical noises growled and air fanned across his skin. Starr went almost invisible, her soul so coated in the film that she hid from him.
It felt cold. Like he’d been forgotten.
After a long time, she unplugged the device and traced the tangles of wires from the floor to the panel and out again, around the room. She strained to trace them up to the ceiling.
He stood. “What do you seek?”
“Something that doesn’t belong.”
“Which is?”
“I’ll know it when I see it.”
He felt so useless. “Can I know?”
“No.” She studied the ceiling. “Ryerson was right. I didn’t tell anyone in the company I was coming, and yet someone intercepted me. Only three people knew my itinerary: Mel at the mer-human foundation, Dannika, the head matchmaker of MerMatch, and Elyssa. We’re certain communication between me, Mel, and Dannika is secure.”
“But not to Atlantis?”
“Exactly. That’s why I traced the cable up from the submersible. It’s hard to imagine a listening device planted down there, but I wanted to be thorough.”
He remembered her hooking onto the cable. He’d misinterpreted her touch for concern.
“Which means that the interception point is somewhere between this room…” She looked around one last time and then packed up her tools. “And the satellite.”
He followed her out the door and down the hall. Her eyes remained fixed on the wires along the ceiling. Isag stepped in behind them.
“I was under the impression that I would be on the hunt for a bug.” She shone her cell phone light up at the ceiling walking with measured paces. “That’s why we were careful to control the methods of contact. This line was supposed to