Doran had never been to the fringe, but he’d heard the settlers there farmed crops by hand. He couldn’t fathom living that way. Then again, he’d never experienced the overcrowded slums of Houston, so he really had no right to judge. These people hadn’t done anything to deserve their fate. They worked as hard as he did, probably harder, because they had to scrape for the basic things he took for granted. He glanced at Solara and wondered if she would be happy on Vega.
The townspeople here seemed content with their simple lives, chatting animatedly as they browsed the vendor tables lining their crudely paved streets. A group of children chased one another in a clumsy game of tag, tripping over their own feet in overly large shoes probably handed down from older siblings. It reminded Doran that he needed to buy clothes to replace the coveralls he’d lost in the fire.
“I’ll meet up with you,” he told the group, and then strode toward a table piled high with secondhand garments.
Just half a fuel chip bought him three pairs of pants, several pullover shirts, a parcel of socks and shorts, and a knapsack to carry it all in. A bargain, he learned, because Spaulding Fuel cost twice as much on this planet than on Obsidian. Despite the sudden increase in his currency’s value, Doran frowned as he walked away. He couldn’t see any reason for the steep markup. Fuel cost more to transport to remote planets, but not that much more.
He found his friends playing carnival games in a field behind the town hall. Kane held a rifle stock in the bend of his shoulder and fired lasers at moving holographic targets in the air. Judging by Cassia’s laughter, he hadn’t landed a shot yet.
“It’s busted or something,” Kane muttered, scrutinizing the rifle’s eyepiece.
“If by ‘it,’ you mean your head,” Cassia said, “then I agree.”
The carny running the booth, a stout man with a barbell piercing in his lower lip and the words BORN TO KILL tattooed across his neck, slapped a palm on the counter and growled, “Ain’t nothing wrong with my equipment. Let the lady try.”
Kane made a show of glancing around the field. “Lady? I don’t see a lady here.”
“You scatweed,” Cassia said, snatching the rifle. She jabbed him in the belly with it, then raised the weapon smoothly toward the targets and fired. In response, a bubble exploded into a twinkling shower of fireworks. “See?” she announced, and shoved the gun back at him. “The only thing that’s busted is your aim.”
“You two are such easy marks,” Solara said, burying her hand in a bag of roasted nuts. “The rifle’s laser isn’t calibrated to match the targets.” She pointed a nut at the carny before tossing it into her mouth. “He’s triggering the hits with a foot pedal. It’s the oldest trick in the book.”
The carny gave her a glare that would melt steel. “Are you accusing me of thievery?”
Solara shrugged. “Everyone knows these games are rigged.”
“Rigged?” asked a new voice from behind.
When Doran spun around, his gaze landed on the hardest-looking woman he’d ever seen—not so much unattractive as lethal. He caught himself drawing back. At six feet tall and about thirty years old, she had a striking face with regal cheekbones and an ice-cold smile that would send any lucid man running for his life in the opposite direction.
“I provide the finest traveling amusements in this system,” the woman said. “Anyone who says otherwise is attacking my livelihood, and that of my employees.” Her upper lip curled, revealing an incisor so sharp that she must have filed it. “Do you know what the punishment is for slander, little girl? I could have your tongue slit for this.”
Solara stepped forward with fire in her gaze, but Doran put her behind him and said, “She didn’t mean anything by it.”
The woman’s frigid blue eyes narrowed to slits. “That girl accused my worker of tampering with the game. Now you’re saying she didn’t mean it?”
“No, she didn’t,” Doran told her.
“Then she disparages reputations for fun? I don’t see how that’s any better.”
“We don’t want any trouble. Let’s just—”
“What you want,” she interrupted, “is irrelevant. You’ve got trouble. All that remains to be seen is how you’ll pay for it.”
Doran was considering whether he should grab Solara’s hand and run when Kane slung the laser rifle casually over one shoulder and sauntered up to the woman.
“You’ll have to forgive my cousin,” he said in a voice that dripped honey. He tapped his forehead and let loose that punch-worthy crooked grin of his. “She’s a bit touched by God, as my mum used to say. Never been the same since the black fever of…” He paused, tipping his head in wonder at the woman.
“What are you staring at?” she asked.
“I’m sorry,” Kane said. “It’s just…there’s a place on Louron, my home world, where the river meets the sea in a shallow bank of pristine white sand. When the sun hits it just right, the water turns the most incredible shade of blue. It’s almost too beautiful to bear.” He reached toward her face, then pulled back. “I never thought I’d see that color again, until a moment ago, when I looked into your eyes.”
While Doran suppressed the urge to vomit, the woman lifted a hand to her heart and blushed—actually blushed—as a soft gasp parted her lips.