Avalon

“What if she refuses?”

Jeth thought about it a long time, playing out all the possible scenarios. The only thing he knew for certain was that if he couldn’t get a copy of the Aether Project, then he had no leverage against Hammer to ensure he got what he wanted most of all—Avalon. And he couldn’t let his ship get turned into scrap metal. He just couldn’t. That left him with only one alternative. An awful one, but still a means to an end.

“If I don’t get the answers I want tomorrow, then I’ll have to call Renford instead. He’s—” Jeth paused. “Did you hear that?”

Milton frowned. “Hear what?”

Jeth walked to the door and peered outside. At first he thought he’d imagined the sound, but then he saw something small and yellow scurrying down the corridor. He turned around again. “Stupid cat.”

“Don’t let Lizzie hear you calling it that,” Milton said. “But are you sure Renford is the solution? If Cora is an ITA test subject, you’ll just be handing her back over to them.”

Jeth swallowed. Please let them be telling the truth, he thought, the words like a prayer. He definitely didn’t want to hand them over to the ITA. Then he realized he might not have to. If Sierra and Vince failed to show him the data cell, he could throw them in the brig, and then fly out of the Belgrave directly to the nearest planet or spaceport. Surely they had to be something within Avalon’s direct flight range. Once there, he could unload the three of them and then call Renford.

Jeth considered running this alternative past Milton, but he held back at the glossy look in his uncle’s eyes. He sighed. “All I know is, if Cora is valuable, then she’s better off with the ITA than with Hammer.”

“That’s like saying a mouse is better off with the trap than the cat.”

“I know,” Jeth whispered, struggling to hold back his temper. He didn’t like those options either. The universe was a terrible, fucked-up place, but he didn’t make it that way. He just had to live with it. “But I don’t have to make that decision yet. I’m prepared to give Sierra and Vince the benefit of the doubt.”

“Yes, me too,” Milton said, although the listlessness in his voice suggested he hadn’t much hope of it.

Jeth’s hands curled into fists at his sides. He wished there were someone else in the universe he could call for help. But there wasn’t. Alone, completely alone.

Milton covered his mouth as he started to yawn. He reached over to the video unit and ejected the data crystal. Then he picked up the bottle of whiskey, a tremor in his hands. “I’m turning in. But I want to be there when you question them about Cora.”

“All right,” Jeth said, realizing Milton was far more intoxicated than he seemed. He wondered how much of this conversation his uncle would remember in the morning.

Milton walked past him then paused in the doorway. “For what it’s worth,” he said, not turning around, “I’m sorry for all the mistakes I made after your parents died. I never meant for you and your sister to end up like this.”

Jeth didn’t say anything. He’d heard this speech before, and while he believed Milton, the apology didn’t hold enough weight to matter.

But then Milton surprised him. He looked over his shoulder, and with tears in his eyes, said, “I hope you know I love you, Jeth. You and Lizzie both. You can always come to me with anything. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Just like there was nothing I wouldn’t have done for your mother.”

Jeth swallowed. “We love you, too.” The words were automatic, spoken without any consideration of whether he meant them or not. Only, deep down, he knew he did. Milton wasn’t perfect, but he was family. Jeth might not hold with a lot of what his parents stood for, but he did that one—nothing mattered more than family.

Milton walked out of the sick bay and down the hall to his cabin. There was a faint click as his uncle locked himself in.

Not long afterward, Jeth slipped out of his cabin and headed down the stairs to the nearest shuttle. He knew it was a long shot, but he had to find the Aether Project. He wanted answers. He didn’t want to wait and confront Sierra about it. He’d rather have proof now that she’d told him the truth. Everything depended on it.

He spent hours searching. He started in the Donerail’s cargo bay and worked his way up, through the galley and common area and finally to the passenger deck. He searched every room, rummaging in drawers and scanning the walls and crevices for hidden compartments.

In the end he found nothing. Jeth tried to tell himself this was only because Lizzie had been right. The thing was too small to find on a ship so large. And except for possibly hiding the truth about Cora, Sierra and Vince had given him no reason not to trust them. Just the opposite. They’d helped him from the start. He drew some small comfort from this truth.

And yet, as he walked up the stairs from the shuttle to his cabin, he dreaded the morning.

Chapter 19

JETH WOKE THE NEXT DAY, UNCERTAIN IF HE’D ACTUALLY slept at all. Terrible images of corpses stuck in walls and of a little girl with too-black eyes and a killer scream had plagued his mind all night.

Even though it was early, Lizzie and Flynn were already up, running a final diagnostic on the nav system, both of them anxious to be on the way. Celeste, Vince, Milton, and Sierra were still in their cabins, but Shady and Cora were in the common room. Shady was lying on a sofa, watching one of his favorite shows on a handheld video screen with a pair of earbuds in.