that planet—”
“They won’t be letting riffraff like us tag along,” Marit finished for him.
“Exactly. We’ll have money, yes. But I don’t want the money.” He glanced toward Laramie, not bothering to say out loud what he wanted more than anything: a cure for his brother.
“But what’s the alternative?” Marit asked. “We can’t go find this ship without cracking that ancient nav file, and to do that, we need resources. We need money. And the only way we get money is by selling something off this pod.”
“And then what?” Laramie asked. His voice was strained, and Denver realized that the ache in his chest was only partially his own. Laramie was struggling. “We get some cash and read the file, find this ship, and the three of us go sit on an empty planet and twiddle our thumbs for the rest of our lives?”
“Laramie—” Denver took a step toward him, but Laramie backed up, holding both hands up to ward Denver off. The mental block came with it, slamming into place between them, leaving Denver feeling like half a person. “I can’t. I need a minute.”
He turned and walked out, leaving Denver and Marit alone in the cockpit.
Marit rose slowly to her feet. “We’re still several days out from Titan X anyway. We may as well sleep on it.”
“Right. See you in the morning.”
But Laramie’s sudden emotional withdrawal had given Denver a bit of insight. He knew now that most of the apprehension he’d been feeling had been coming from Laramie. Now, all on his own, the only thing he felt was…
Hope.
Sleep on it, Denver thought two hours later as he lay wide-awake in his bunk. Yeah, right.
Laramie had a point. Even if they found the lost ship and found their way to this mythical planet, what then? They had no way of knowing if they’d be able to come back. Just the three of them on an empty planet for the rest of their lives? No, that didn’t exactly sound appealing.
But…
A cure for Laramie.
No matter how many angles he came at it from, he found himself back at the same answer: a cure for his brother trumped everything else. They had to get to Titan X, find a way to crack the nav log, and sell a bit of what they’d found in the pod without attracting attention. Then, they could find the lost Li’Vin ship, see how many people it could hold, find out what kind of colonizing gear it had on board, maybe determine whether or not this had to be a one-way trip—
Denver laughed. No, he couldn’t speak directly into Laramie’s brain, like Laramie could do with him, but his brother still seemed to have easy access to the unfiltered noise in Denver’s head. “You’re not sleeping, either?” Denver asked.
Mental connection or not, he wanted to see his brother’s face while they had this conversation. And more importantly, he wanted to make sure Laramie didn’t shut him down midway through.
He went quietly down the hall to Laramie’s door. It opened for him before he knocked. The lights were dim but illuminated enough for him to see Laramie lying on his bed. Denver sank into the chair next to it.
“I want this planet, Laramie. I say we find a way to make it happen.”
Laramie sat up so he could meet Denver’s gaze. He spoke without opening his mouth.
“Ask me? Forget that! You can’t ask me not to do it!”
Laramie reached out and took Denver’s hand.
“It does, though, whether you want it to or not. Why are you fighting me on it?”
“You mean the chance that we’ll get caught?”
“Me?”
“You are my life.”
“I don’t care! I’ll be stuck there with you, and you’ll be healthy! That’s all I want. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Denver shook his head, feeling like his