Page 110 of Throwing Fire

She accepts a Biosteel vest from me after pulling on a simple black uni and wraps her forearms with genSkin and monofilament. When she sees me struggling, she helps me with my armor and weapons. My broken knuckle is sunken this morning; the back of my hand solid purple and so swollen I can’t make a fist. I strap both katanas to my right hip, so I’m not tempted to use my injured hand for a draw, and buckle on a thigh sheath for the kukri I’d usually wear in my right boot.

Kez closes the equipment bags and leaves them for Gig, who is taking the spare gear and the Infinity back to Nock. The Infinity’s the best ship I’ve ever had – probably the best ship I ever will have – but she’s hardly inconspicuous. We’re in stealth mode today.

Stealth mode is a challenge, I discover, with a broken knuckle, a tired kitten, and an irritable rat-man. As soon as I let my arm hangnaturally at my side, my hand starts throbbing. A distraction. Kez follows me as we head out of the guest room, but she falls behind even on the short trip to Acker’s suite. She’s clearly dragging herself around; keeping in extra eye on her all day will be another distraction. I hear Acker growling at an underling before we even enter his suite, which tells me all I need to know about his mood. Another fucking distraction.

“Kitten, can you do me a favor?”

“Sure,” she says without any of her usual enthusiasm.

“Can you go back to the gear and find something I can use as a sling?”

She brushes her fingers down my forearm. “Is it really bothering you?”

“Enough.”

She nods and heads back the way we came, leaving me to confront Acker on my own.

The chastened underling brushes past me as I enter the suite. Acker’s standing at the foot of Tee’s medibed, his head down, hands balled into fists.

“Yell at me. Get it out and we can get on with what we need to do,” I say to him.

“I’m not angry at you,” he snaps.

“I’m not angry at you, either. You think that’ll stop me from ventin’ on your ass if you get in my way?”

Acker shakes his head and after a moment, he chuckles. “No.”

“You ready to move?” I ask. He doesn’t look ready. He’s wearing a pair of soft, baggy pants rather than his usual genSkin. No string of teeth. No boots. No weapons. “Extraction team should be here in fifteen.”

Acker nods. “I’ll be ready.”

“How’s Tee this morning?”

She looks asleep, but she’s looked asleep the whole time we’ve been here.

“Better. She spoke to me for a while.”

“Good,” I say.

Acker shakes his head. “I told her about Grace. She cried. My Queen cried. Over the woman I would have let come between us?—”

I reach out and grasp Acker’s furry shoulder. “Tee’s got a good heart.”

“How can I be worthy of a place in it?”

“That’s somethin’ only Tee can decide. I used to wonder about that shit with Kez. Then I realized I might never understand what she sees in me. All that matters is that she does. You have any reason to suspect Grace before last night?”

“No.” He pauses and lets his head hang. “Maybe. She disappeared for a day not long ago, after we’d had an argument. She wouldn’t tell me where she’d gone. I thought she’d gone to see her family. I hadn’t forbidden it. I hoped she might go back to them. That would have solved a great many problems. But she refused. She said she hated them; she’d found her true home with us in the Deeps. Now I wonder. I don’t know.”

Time will tell whether she was the only leak. “Don’t suppose you had her followed?”

Acker shakes his head. “I should have.”

Spilt milk. “She bein’ followed now?”

Grace is just dumb – or naive, whatever you want to call it – to head back to source.

Acker lifts his head and gives me a hard look. “Followed where?”