kicked Miko, too, I’d have bet. I was glad the bastard was dead. “I don’t know. There’s no reason for that.”
“Don’t trust anyone you think would kick a dog,” Miko said.
She still looked as though her thoughts were focused far away, but she knew what she was saying, and it was solid advice.
Chapter 9
I handed Shade the mug, hoping the dark liquid inside was still hot enough—and that he didn’t prefer it with sugar. We didn’t have any, although we did still have a little of Mareeka’s valuable honey.
“Coffee,” I said. “Good stuff. It’ll put hair on your chest.”
His lips curved up in amusement. The surprised smile faded quickly. “You think I don’t know what coffee is?”
“I think you’ve never tasted this coffee. It’s the best in the galaxy.”
He took a sip. “Yeah, it’s good. Thanks.” He drank again.
I smiled. This already seemed easier than earlier. Maybe he’d just needed coffee to brighten him up.
“So, what about the damage?” I asked. “Still thinking the same as before?”
His gaze roamed over the Endeavor, over the holes the Dark Watch had blown in her hull. Shade Ganavan sure did like to stare. At me. At my ship. Maybe it was a Sector 2 thing.
Had his eyes just snagged on the fresh-looking stickers?
He obviously didn’t miss a thing, and they did seem a little too new, with none of the slightly raised numbers battered yet by space travel. I’d meant to beat on them with a chain this morning, but then Shade had shown up too soon.
“I can patch her up for you,” was all he said.
“Still thinking a week?” I asked.
He nodded. “Unless you mind seeing a whole lot of me.”
Actually, I was pretty sure I didn’t.
The heat of a blush spread across my chest and neck. I willed it not to hit my face. “I probably won’t be around much anyway,” I said.
His eyes seemed to sharpen on me. “Why’s that?”
“I need to sell some rare books.” I figured I should just outright ask him what I wanted to know rather than beat around the bush. Or in this case, the Endeavor. “Do you know of anyone who likes the old stuff? You know, bindings and pages and all?”
His face remained fairly expressionless, although there was no way I could call him bland. “Stamped or not stamped?” he asked.
He wanted to know if my books had galactic approval. Tamping down the nervous twist in my belly, I shook my head. “No seal, but they’re not seditious or anything. Just novels.”
“Just novels?” Something wry colored his tone. “What’s more seditious than the imagination, Tess Bailey?”
A chill swept over me. A little from the way he said my name, a little from the fact that I was putting way too much trust in someone I didn’t know, and a little from Shade’s unexpected and almost daring question. He was right. The free mind was both a wonderful and a dangerous thing. My imagination was betraying me right now. The mutinous little beast was envisioning having all sorts of interesting conversations with Shade Ganavan over the course of the week.
I lifted my mug and took a sip. The coffee’s enticing aroma curled around my senses while the idea of getting to know Shade better heated my insides, possibly making me reckless.
My eyes flicked up, meeting his. “Rabble-rousing comes to mind,” I answered.
He cautiously nodded, as if he hadn’t expected me to come right out with something like that. Maybe I shouldn’t have.
“That means agitating something in here.” He tapped his chest over his heart with the hand that wasn’t holding his mug. “Why do you think no one writes novels anymore?” Shade asked.
Was there a hint of regret in his voice? Of nostalgia for a time when people could say what they wanted? Neither of us had been alive then.
The obvious answer was to avoid harassment or possible imprisonment for something the authorities, even erroneously, might consider subversive or inflammatory, and especially anything they might see as dangerous to their hold on power. But Shade already knew all that.
“Because novels stir feelings, wishes, and the heart,” I said. “Not all ideas and thoughts need to be proven, or even can be, and the Overseer is only interested in—no, only allows—what can be measured and quantified and put in a neat little box.”
Shade looked at me hard, and I replayed what I’d just said in my head. It was fact. I hadn’t said anything truly rebellious, nothing that should have earned me such a stern