Reyer carefully pulled herself from the bed so she wouldn’t disturb Jane. She grabbed her wrap, went over to the door that led onto the patio, and slid it aside barely enough to allow her to slip outside. The night was so nice, she didn’t bother closing it. She stepped onto the wooden deck and looked up at the sky. The light from the planet-rings was pouring into the garden, casting everything in subdued colors.

She sighed with a slight smile on her face.

A voice nearby said, “Dare I ask how you got Lynx to disobey a direct order from his commanding officer by allowing you out here unescorted?”

Vas was sitting on the deck, leaning against a pillar.

Reyer’s smile broadened. She went over and sat down at the pillar next to his. “You couldn’t sleep either?”

“Answer the question, Miss Reyer.”

“I thought you were trying to decide if you dared to ask it.”

“I think I’m brave enough.”

“Bots are a lot like officers. You can usually work around ridiculous orders if you’re careful not to disobey them.”

“Is that so?”

“Lynx has to protect me, but he felt confident he could do that as long as he was within a certain range of me and I agreed to yell the moment I thought I might need him. So he follows me to the door while obeying my suggestion to make as little noise as possible so that he doesn’t wake Jane. He gets to protect me, and I can give Jane some space to sleep when I can’t.” Reyer held up her hands in a vague “tah-dah” gesture.

“Humph,” Vas grunted.

“Besides, you’re here. Now you can protect me.”

The captain watched her face for a while before turning back to the garden. “When you’re up in space there’s no such thing as insomnia. You go until you crash. You sleep until you can’t. No hours to tell you you’re doing it wrong.”

Reyer nodded. She knew exactly what he was talking about. It was only when you were planetside that all the quiet stress and shadows could come crawling out of the corners of your mind.

“How about you?” he said. “Have you been out here a lot?”

She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Vas tilted his head when he saw the expression on her face. It was reluctant and soft, like a sad child’s.

“Alix?”

“I feel bad for Jane. I know I must be keeping her awake. I thought I was over the worst of it. It had taken a while, but I was working hard on Huegeh, and it was calm and quiet—I was doing so much better. But now? If I can sleep at all, I have nightmares. I must make for a pretty miserable bed-mate.”

Vas’s heart ached. He wanted to pull her over to him and hold her, but he had no idea how she’d react to that. She was still Alix Reyer, no matter how vulnerable she might appear at the moment. He shifted to hide his discomfort and struggled to find something to say—knowing he had zero right to comment on what kind of bed-mate she might be. “So you come out here?”

Reyer looked out over the scene. “I feel better when I can see nature. It’s a bit cliché and over-manicured, but it’s a garden.”

“You prefer something wilder?”

Reyer smiled at him for an answer.

Vas felt a charge of excitement clawing up through his body in a way uncomfortably similar to panic. He’d hoped that his feelings would get easier to deal with over time, but they refused to oblige him. He considered leaving, but his rational mind had to contend with all his other inclinations. The inner battle started and ended with the fact that he really didn’t want to.

They settled into a comfortable silence. Since they’d been forced to spend so much time in each other’s company, the unconscious pressure to talk had waned.

“Vas,” Reyer said.

“Hm?”

“What are we going to do about Jane?”

“I’ve noticed that you and her are on a first name basis. Is this a sisterhood thing?”

“She insisted on it. She says we’re ‘roomies.’ Now stop ignoring the question.”

“You could be more specific.”

“It’s been two days since we received the ping.”

“Why do I get the feeling you not only already have an opinion on this, but probably a battle plan as well?”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“I always have an opinion.”

There was a silent breath of laughter. “Fair enough.” He crossed his legs and leaned forward. “You know what we’d have to do if we tried bringing her any deeper into this thing.”

“I know it wouldn’t be easy or pleasant for her,” Reyer said, “but I also know she doesn’t regret her choice to come with us. She’s already proven she’s serious about studying the xenos.”

“And she’s already done far more than we could have asked for. She’s put up with Ciro. She got us a garden—”

“I know, I know! But this isn’t about what she’s done for us. It’s about what we can do for her. If she wants to study the xenos—”

Vas grunted and leaned back against the pillar again. “At what cost? I’m not comfortable with it. It’d be a fine thank you for everything she’s done, wouldn’t it?”

There was a pause.

“I think we should give her a choice,” Reyer said.

The sliding door made a cracking sound as it slammed open.

“I think you should give her a choice too,” Dr. Jane said. She’d put on a robe over her sleeping clothes, her arms were folded, and she was glaring down at both of them.

Lynx stood behind her, mute.

Alix shook her head, a hand on her brow. Vas groaned.

“You can talk now, Lynx,” he said. “It’s not like you might wake her up or anything.” To Reyer, he added, “If you hadn’t ordered him to be quiet, he might have been able to warn us that she was awake.”

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Lynx said.

Jane dropped down onto the patio and crossed her legs. “Don’t get me wrong; I wasn’t planning on listening in. I’m more than happy to give you two some private time—”

Vas was glad that the light and shadows made it hard for anyone to see his face.

“—but then, lo and behold, I heard my name! It piqued my curiosity.”

“Could you have waited until I had a chance to finish discussing it with him?” Reyer asked.

“I’ll decide that once I know what ‘it’ is,” Jane said.

Reyer looked at the captain. He flicked his hand in a gesture for her to go ahead.

“Two days ago, Ciro found a ping meant for us,” Reyer explained. “The Rising has a human-xeno in custody.”

The second of stunned silence was followed by a rush of questions. “Where? Are they being careful? Do they know how to handle them?”

Alix shushed her friend. After all, there was a glimmer of hope that someone, somewhere, might be getting some sleep. “They should.”

“The Rising’s had some experience dealing with them after all,” Vas said.

“What are we waiting for?” Jane cried. “Oh! I’ll have to figure out how to pack up all the samples—” The doctor shifted in preparation to get to her feet, but Alix put a hand on her knee.

“Jane, calm down for a second. It’s going to be harder than that.”

“I don’t care.”

“At least listen to her, Doctor,” Vas said. “She’s trying to help you.”

Jane looked like she was about to offer him a retort but changed her mind. She turned to Reyer.

Alix said, “The xeno is being held at a Rising Base. Since you’re a Supremacy citizen that professes loyalty, there’s only one way Vas and I can take you to that base. You’d have to be our prisoner.”

“So what? You’ve already kidnapped me. Now you’re shying away from making me your prisoner?”

“For all you talk about it,” Vas said, “I think you know that you’re the most cooperative and privileged kidnap victim in the entire galaxy. You’ve got one bot watching you when you go to the hot springs, and Ciro tells me you use him as a towel rack most of the time.”

“He can hold towels and keep me from running away at the same time!” Jane said.

“I am very good at multitasking,” Lynx said. “And holding towels.”

The humans only glanced at him.

Reyer said, “Jane, if we take you to the base, it wouldn’t be like that—no matter how cooperative you are. We couldn’t let you learn anything about the base or most of the people on it. You’d have to be blindfolded from the moment Vas was ready to enter the coordinates until you were put in a cell. You’d only be allowed to see bare rooms and a few guards.”

“Would you guys be there?”

Vas was surprised by the question. He was aware that Jane liked Reyer—at least, more than anyone else she was forced to be with—and sometimes he wondered why she never tried to avoid Ciro if she was so annoyed by the inevitable spats she had with him, but it had never occurred to him that she might feel an attachment.

“I promised you, didn’t I?” Reyer said.

Jane nodded with one quick jerk of her head. “Then that’s it.” She stood up. “The last of the money should cover what we’ll need to keep everything safe in shipping. Or I can cover it with a few rounds somewhere. Can I borrow Ciro and Lynx tomorrow? I’ll have to pick up some stuff.”

“You’re willing to accept those conditions?” Vas asked. “We can’t go easy on you, Doctor.”

Jane made a short, sharp pffft sound. “My life is pretty much screwed, Captain. It’s not like you can drop me off at my home.” She stood up. “I’m with this until the end.” As the press of her thoughts crowded her mind, she turned away. “I have some work to do. I have to figure out some dimensions and how to work the rigging.” She was already walking away.

“Get some sleep!” Reyer called to her retreating back.

Lynx’s servos hissed as he looked from the doctor to his captain.

“Go,” Vas prompted him. “I’ll stay with Reyer.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“When she wants to go look at the ship, go ahead and take her. You have the code to open it up.” When Vas looked back down, he saw that Reyer was watching him. “It’s not like she was going back to bed.” He put his leg out in front of him. “And I thought Ciro was the only one driven to eighteen-hour days by some obsessive inner demon.”

“How’s that different from a soldier?”

“We wish we could sleep.”

Reyer laughed.

“Alix—” Vas said.

“It’s Reyer, Captain.”

He ignored the pang. “Miss Reyer, what did you promise her?”

Reyer leaned her head back against the post. “She was worried that we wouldn’t keep up our end of the bargain.”

“She thought we’d take away all her work?”

“And possibly kill her.”

Vas grimaced. Reyer, who was circumspectly watching for his reaction, smiled. Yes. He definitely had a thing about honor.

“You promised that you wouldn’t let that happen?” Vas asked.

“Yes.”

The captain nodded before he gazed out at the garden again. A few idle minutes passed.

“Vas, does this count as leaving the planet in a hurry?”

“If Dr. Jane gets her way, it will.”

“Ah, but tomorrow you could go to the hot springs since we’ll be leaving anyway.”

“You heard her. She’ll be keeping Lynx busy, so you’re stuck with me again.”

“Then maybe we should both go.”

“I’m sure most of the men wouldn’t object if you came to join us, but I doubt the management would be pleased.”

“I would only be—”

“No.”

“All right, Captain.” Reyer laughed a little, then swore under her breath. “I thought you said you wouldn’t be inconvenient.”

“I apologized for the inconvenience. I never said I wouldn’t be one.” Vas reached out and put his hand on her arm. “Be comforted by the fact I won’t get to go either. At least we’ll be suffering together.”

Reyer shoved him away. Smiling, she said, “I hope I’m not the kind of person who finds comfort in the suffering of others.”

Vas relaxed again. He was more than willing to sit there until dawn.