Page 6 of Delivered and Devoured
He hasn’t heard me. My boots are quiet on the floor, and my heart is not quiet at all, and I’ve been standing here long enough that the moment has developed its own uncomfortable mass.
Say something. Say his name. Say hello. Say literally anything, Lorri, with your mouth, using words, in the next three —
“Oh,” says a voice from somewhere in the ceiling, in the tone of a person who has been watching and has found this very satisfying indeed. “Marvelous. We have a guest.”
A beat.
“She appears to have arrived at speed, Captain. Shall I note that in the manifest? Under miscellaneous.”
2
Chain of Custody
Jazil
Thepodishummingwrong.
Not loud. Not yet. But the harmonic on the diagnostic strip has gone half a tone flat in the last twenty minutes and I can hear it from across the hold — a bad belt on an engine before the engine knows. The cradle says green, green, green. The cradle is a liar. The cradle has been a liar since Hyross Station, and I’ve been telling Mother as much for six days, and the only person Mother is interested in telling about it is whoever shows up from SNAG in, I check the chrono, elevenminutes.
“HORATIO.”
“Captain.”
“What’s the cradle telling me?”
“The cradle reports nominal containment, Captain.”
“And what are you telling me?”
A pause. The kind HORATIO produces when he’s about to commit to an opinion he can technically be held accountable for. “I am telling you the cradle is a liar, Captain. I have been telling you this for six days. I am gratified to hear you have finally begun listening.”
“Spike anything. I want a baseline before the SNAG agent gets here.”
“Already running. The baseline, I should note, is drifting.”
“How fast?”
“Politely.”
I crack my neck. The hold smells of warm metal and the faint ozone the cradle’s been off-gassing since the relay station, with the sweeter undernote of lubricant I racked through the housing this morning. Temperature’s climbed a couple of degrees while I’ve been working, and I shucked the top half of the overalls about an hour into the diagnostic and never put them back on, which is fine, because nobody’s coming aboard except, I check the chrono again, a SNAG agent in nine minutes, who will be one of Mother’s old contacts, most likely some grizzled retired courier who’s seen worse cargo than this and will not give a damn whether I’m wearing my uniform like a regulation poster boy.
The panel driver goes along the cradle housing one more time. Tighten the secondary clamp. The hum drops a quarter tone. Better. Not solved.
“Captain.”
“What.”
“Your ridges.”
Down my forearms, the iridescence has gone a shade darker, catching the work-light differently than the rest of my skin. They do this when the cargo’s wrong and the body knows it before the mind catches up. I roll the kink out of my shoulder.
“They’re fine.”
“They are informative, Captain. I am simply —”
“HORATIO.”
“Captain.”
