“You’re all right, lady,” she says. “All the other Guardians are, like, senior citizens.”
“You’re screwing up the seam,” says a short guy with a button nose and a space between his front teeth. He’s Foth, the chief mechanic. When he jerks the welder out of Cendia’s hands and starts re-welding her seam, she rolls her eyes. “There’s only one correct way to weld a reliable seam in tungsten carbide,” he says, lengthening his neck and trying his best to look down his stubby nose at us.
Cendia goes at her seam again, and when Foth steps away to revamp someone else’s work, she whispers, “He’s bossy, but he knows how to weld.”
“Your seam looks fine to me.”
“Yeah, not your usual shabby mess,” says Peero, joining us.
“Shut up, you.” She elbows him. “You’ll make us look bad in front of Holy Mother Rho.”
Peero grins at me. His chin whiskers are dyed in stripes of red, yellow, and blue. “You won’t fire us, will you, Mother? We’re making you bulletproof against Ocú.”
“Sack man,” Cendia explains, even though I already know. “That’s what we call him in our House. He comes at Winter Solstice with a sack over his shoulder to kidnap bad children.”
“Yeah, and he eats ’em.” Peero chomps his teeth and pretends to bite Cendia. She laughs and swats him away. Then she and I set the next panel into place.
Someone comes up behind me and lifts the weight from my hands. “Hysan,” I say, my smile burning through my cheeks.
He’s clipped his blond hair in a new military style and traded in his court suits for the simple gray coveralls he’s most comfortable in. “Your watchdog paid me a compliment this morning,” he says, offering me his arm after he’s helped Cendia in my stead. “He said I aced my pilot’s test.”
“I hope you didn’t cheat,” I say, linking my hand through.
“Me, use trickery?” He fakes a wounded look that makes me laugh out loud. Then he turns and kisses Cendia’s hand and bows elaborately to the other mechanics. “Excellencies.”
Cendia looks up at him adoringly. “Your Psy shield is genius. I can’t wait to study it when we get back.”
Hysan tries not to look too pleased. “Can’t take all the credit, of course. My android helped.”
Looking away from a befuddled Cendia, he pulls me along the corridor and says, “Ignus wants you on the bridge. Your first guest arrived.”
“I’m not sure about this meeting,” I say as we walk to the forward section. “Come with me?”
He bows his head. “I live to serve, my queen.”
I start to laugh again, and Hysan pulls me into a lavatory stall. “What are you doing?” I whisper as he locks the door behind us. The space is so small we’re squeezed together.
“Serving you,” he whispers, pressing me into the wall. “We won’t keep your Psy scholars waiting . . . too long.” When his lips meet mine, thoughts of everything else disappear.
Even with a perfect memory, my fantasies couldn’t recreate the real feeling of kissing Hysan. His mouth is so sure of itself that I let him lead, and when his lips grow more insistent, my every limb starts to go limp.
“And one more thing,” says Hysan, after he’s pulled away. He takes some freeze-dried fruit from his pocket. “You can’t defeat Ochus on an empty stomach.”
While I eat, we walk to the ship’s forward section, and Hysan bends my ear about the skiff he’s been learning to pilot. I love seeing him so animated.
“It handles like an extension of my mind. Whatever I want it to do, it knows. I just wish I’d invented it myself,” he says ruefully, a faint wrinkle forming on his forehead. “I’m building my own when we get home.”
“Home.” I repeat the word, unsure what it means.
“The galaxy is your home now, Rho.” He squeezes my hand. “Every House will welcome your return—Libra first and foremost.”
Even though no place will ever replace Cancer, his optimism is as contagious as Mathias’s doubt. Only optimism does more to lift my spirits.
When Hysan and I enter the chartroom, we find a Piscene woman in a floor-length silver veil gazing up at what looks like an Ephemeris. I almost shriek, until I realize it’s a simple 3-D atlas of our galaxy projected from the ceiling. It reflects only telescope views and physical data, not Psynergy.
The woman turns at our approach and gives a deep bow, dropping to one knee. The veil shrouds her completely, falling in fluid silver folds that outline her willowy form.
“Disciple Psamathe?” I ask, copying her bow. “Thank you for coming.”
She has trouble getting back to her feet, so Hysan assists her. Her voice sounds elderly and weak, as if her lungs have to labor to push the air out. “The chains of fate bind us all.” She extends a palm through a hidden slit in her veil, and we touch. “I’ve long foreseen this meeting—and its outcome.”
Hysan also touches her palm. “A good outcome, I trust.”