Dark Matters - Michelle Diener Page 0,70

looked around the room, for some sign she was in the med bay.

“I stationed the drone just beneath her. She didn't fall far.”

He slumped a little more against the bed. “Thank you.”

“There is no need to thank me. I didn't do it for you.”

“I know, but I'm grateful all the same.”

“Noted.” Bane's voice seemed a little warmer when he answered.

“Where is Lucy now?”

“She was here, watching over you for a long time, but I convinced her to get some sleep herself when you moved from unconsciousness to a deep, natural sleep.”

He felt a mix of emotions at that information. He managed to identify one as being disappointment that he couldn't see her right now, to see for himself that she was all right.

“She's up now, though,” Bane said as the silence stretched between them. “She's looking for food in the hold. You know that she is undernourished. I want to blame the Tecran, but she tells me it was her own dislike of the food that kept her from eating enough. They didn't try to starve her.”

“Then they should have tried harder to find her something she liked.” Dray said, and then remembered that Rose McKenzie had had the same problem, even when she'd found the Grih. So maybe he was being unfair.

“I'll go down and help her.” Dray looked down at himself. He was still in his uniform, although his boots had been removed.

He saw them tucked neatly beneath a chair against the wall, and shoved them on. “Which way?”

Bane gave him directions, and Dray took careful note of everything as he moved down the passages.

He was one of only a few Grih who'd been on a Class 5. There were a handful of Grihan Battle Center captains and some of their crew who'd been allowed a glimpse, but he was aware he was in a privileged position and he intended to make the most of it.

“I should be grateful you don't have a handheld on you, or you'd be initiating visual comms.”

Bane's wry tone was hopefully a sign he wasn't too put out.

“Would you mind if I did?”

There was a strange sound, which Dray thought might be an attempt to chuckle. “No. I'd wipe everything I didn't want seen off it before you even finished recording.”

Dray grinned. “So I shouldn't waste my time?”

“It's your time,” Bane told him. “I don't care how you use it.” He paused. “Unless it involves hurting Lucy. Then I care.”

“We're good, then.” Dray took the last flight of stairs down, and approached the huge double doors into the hold.

They were open, and from inside he heard singing. The acoustics of the hold were obviously good, because the sound seemed to swell up as he stepped inside, and he found he couldn't move.

He stood just within the doors and listened to music that caught at his throat and closed it up, so he was made mute.

“What is it?” Bane asked, using just the speaker near the door, as if he, too, didn't want to disturb the singing.

Dray shook his head, unable to articulate his feelings.

He cleared his throat and moved in search of the woman who was creating something every Grih would go on bended knee to hear, as casually as if it were nothing.

She didn't even think she had an audience.

It had disturbed him before that there were rumors about the other three Earth women. That Rose McKenzie wasn't fond of singing for an audience, and preferred not to do it. That the only one who was happy to take on the role of music maker was Imogen Peters, and that all three preferred to sing at home, when they were alone.

It had seemed fantastical, but here was Lucy, doing just that.

“Is there a meaning to her song?” he eventually managed to ask.

“She is singing about things being free.” The thread of humor in Bane's voice was unmistakable. “I think she's making a joke about access to things in this hold. The best things in life are free, apparently, and include flowers and the moon.”

He was drawn by the rich melody, and tried to get his mind to concentrate on what Bane was saying. “A joke? With her song?”

The concept was so foreign, for the first time he got a true sense of her alienness.

She was not Grih, however much she looked it.

She was from a completely different society, which had completely different values and customs. One where they would use a song to make a joke.

“I gather from Rose that you Grih