Page 22 of Adrift!
Glancing between them all, Remy hastened to follow Ikaryo to the bar as the other three settled on the couches nearby.
“That’s the ship’s owner?” she whispered.
“And the proprietor of the Big Sky Intergalactic Dating Agency.” Ikaryo watched the trio as his hands were busy with bottles. “Perhaps also insane. A love quark?” He redirected his gaze to her, the ice-gray half-moons twisting. “Your misgivings about the IDA were apparently reasonable after all.”
Evens had called her a “control variable” on a love boat test cruise. Meaning that after all the research jargon he’d spouted, the love lab villain had pre-decided she had zero chance of a Big Sky match?
Not really a surprise. She’d already acknowledged she shouldn’t have been aboard when she wasn’t seeking a date or a mate like the others.
So why did hearing it sting like the slash of a breaking guitar string?
Looking up at Ikaryo, she sucked in the corner of her lip. “Maybe.”
She grabbed one of the three drinks to carry over. Not that he needed the assistance, but she wanted to eavesdrop. And he must’ve felt the same because he lingered just beyond the sectional, a loose clench to his empty augmented fist a giveaway of his misgivings.
Was he doubting the IDA’s mission?
Or did he just not believe in love?
“I am sorry to have startled you,” Evens was saying, although to Remy’s practiced ear, his tone was perfunctory. “I needed to be close but I didn’t want to influence the data. And, Chief, may I say, your work has been especially impressive with such quantum trickiness. Even if the ship is currently dead in space.”
There was a single rude noise from the creature projected above Felicity’s datpad, then the device went dark.
“You need to explain,” the captain said, no burred growl in his voice, just a flat order. “Now.”
“Ten long years,” Evens mused. “That’s how long I’ve been chasing this dream. I’ve honed the profiles, optimized the algorithms, inquired in every discipline from psychology to biology to mathematics, and now physics. But too often, the connections I imagined didn’t coalesce, and the matches that happened were random—unpredictable and inexplicable. True chaos.”
He looked at them with incredulous eyes, as if inviting them to be equally dismayed. “How can I promise connection amid chaos? I’ve watched my Big Sky hopefuls struggle with pirates and black holes, killer mercenaries and missing treasures—and with each other and themselves. In the brochures, I teased and offered and exalted—but I could never guarantee. I never found the perfect, ineffable distillation of love.” He tossed back his drink and slammed the empty glass down on the side table with a decisive ring. “Until now.”
Remy hissed at Ikaryo. “Did you put something in the drink this time?”
With a grimace, he nudged her to silence.
“When we were writing this cruise brochure, you told me the ship was haunted,” Felicity said. “But you made it seem as if that was just a silly story.”
“Silly doesn’t mean untrue.” Evens slumped back on the sofa. “I have scouts around the galaxies who bring me new tech and old tales. One of them noted a larf-balled ship in a cold orbit yard with an interesting history—the ship sometimes mutinied on its own and flew off, as if…seeking—and an even more fascinating energy signature.”
Seemingly regretting his dramatic glass slamming, he clasped his empty hands in front of him, fingers tight. “Did you know,” he continued, “that emotions leave signs everywhere? Expressions of happiness and sorrow can crease our skin. Our heart rate, our neural pathways, even the microbiome in our gutchange based on our feelings. Experiences both terrifying and joyful can influence our very DNA.”
He opened his hands, flaring his fingers outward. “But even beyond that… Pheromone emissions, the biophotons produced by our cells, the electromagnetic emissions of our bodies influencing the ions around us—it all leaves a mark on the universe. An infinitesimal mark, perhaps, but discoverable. By deconstructing the markers of arousal, affection, attunement, adoration, all the hundreds of emotions that we fuse”—his hands squeezed together again—“into our conceptual theory of love, I discovered love has its own signature…”
With one more expansive gesture encompassing them all, he finished triumphantly, “And it is here on this ship!”
Remy struggled with the hectic explanation, the words fading away like a fever dream almost as quickly as he blurted them out. The obsession was glaringly obvious, but as he’d said, that didn’t make it untrue.
The captain’s claws bit into the cushions, like he might be thinking of sinking them into the other man’s throat. “And you chose this ship for our unsuspecting passengers and my crew?”
“It was only supposed to be a three-sunset tour, and according to its history, the anomaly might manifest but not overwhelm the controls on such a timeline.”
“That’s so wrong,” Remy said, though she knew she wasn’t part of the conversation. “You should never have taken that risk on our behalf.”
“Butyouchose the risk.” Though Evens might be an Earther, a strange light in his eyes gave her pause. “Didn’t your heart beat a little faster when you signed your IDA contract? Didn’t you imagine impossibilities? Well, here you are.”
The questions echoed more than the nearly empty salon could account for.
“Here we are lost in an empty, anarchic sector with insufficient power and no chocolate.” Nehivar shook out his paws. “So where was the anomaly taking us? What is it seeking?”
“That’s what we are going to find out.” Evens beamed at them all, as if they were suddenly on board with his madness. “But first we must let it out of that cage you made. Then we can finally claim what the Big Sky Intergalactic Dating Agency has been promising all this time.”