Page 39 of Tempting Cargo

“Later. That’s Paiata’s thing, not mine—too political. Short story is the hypocritical bastards decided they wanted galaxy goods after all, so a few Orithian families are allowed ships, and this is one of them.” She looked around with affection. “You should have heard Shohari when we first met her. So posh. All ‘it would please me greatly if you would be so gracious as to acceptthe appointment,’ and ‘the quality of these noodles makes me somewhat perturbed.’”

The conversation with Shohari yesterday flashed to the front of my brain.

My family are difficult.

I supposed they would be. It only made me want to help her more.

With the toaster apart again, I showed Muzati what I’d done and why I thought it was the heating panel. “Except I’m not sure what this board is or what it does.”

“Oh, the nanotube circuit? It connects everything on this section. Except it doesn’t have any self healing components—because Orith—and I’ve resoldered everything at least twice. And I don’t know what the skyk these are.” She pointed to a section similar to a printed circuit board.

“Ah, but I do. This kind of thing is still common on New Earth ’cause they’re way cheaper than the nanotech ones, but they blow regularly.”

Between us, we got the pancake heater going again. Muzati told her comm to find a new graphene panel for when the inevitable happened, and we set it back in place on the gleaming metal side.

I barged her shoulder with mine. “You were calling my culture primitive?”

She knelt down to stow some spare parts in a locker and jerked her head at the pancake heater. “Yeah, it takes one to know one.” Laughing, she looked up at me, merriment dancing in her eyes. “You’re all right, Garrison. Wish you were sticking around.”

So did I.

“What are you doing down there?”

Our heads whipped round to a furious Shohari.

Muzati smirked at her from the floor. “I’m not giving him tongue, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“It wasn’t.” Her voice was cold, but there was something in her face—longing, or jealousy?

“The flatcake heater broke. Again,” Muzati said. “Did you know, Garrison knows Orithian-style tech better than I do? Notactuallybetter than I do because I’ve been doing it for years and he’s been doing it for a few hours, but the bits I still get confused about, he understands. Because he’s a bit primitive, you know?” She flashed the captain a scintillating smile, the bright mess hall lights catching her teeth. “But he was useful to have around. I’m going to head back to engineering.”

I watched the emotions unfold on Shohari’s face as her engineer talked, then turned to Muzati with a grateful smile. “Thanks for the chat, Muzi.”

“Any time.” She grabbed me round the shoulders, squeezed, shot the captain a pointed glare, and darted off.

Shohari looked ready to burst. I expected her to storm off—it was written in the tension in her muscles, the way her legs were primed to move, her body angled towards the door.

Yesterday had taken me by surprise, and I wouldn’t let that happen again.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Cargo should not be left unattended in the galley

Shohari

WATCHING MUZATI runningout of the galley reminded me of Garrison in the training room this morning. Wearing my shorts.

When Comnica had alerted me to the stepmill usage, I knew I shouldn’t watch, not for long, but I’d taken my fill of the view before I closed the security screen. His broad back, sheened with sweat. The muscles in his legs as he ran—barefoot, like us.

Seeing him with Muzati shouldn’t have triggered as much jealousy as it did, but the easy way they laughed and talked made my chest ache. I wanted that easy, relaxed companionship with him.

Maybe changecouldstart with a mug of chrya. Maybe I should be brave.

“I’m making drinks, human. Would you care for one?” I was gruffer than I wanted to be, but at least I’d said it.

He quickly smoothed over a flash of surprise. “Yes please, Captain.”

“Shohari.”