“Penny for your thoughts.”
“Huh?”
“They say that, this side of the Line. Penny for your thoughts. What are you thinking?”
“About the Downers. About getting into things you don’t understand. About fools that go wandering in warehouses. Why haven’t they hauled me back to the ship?”
Saby lifted a bare and shapely shoulder. Pretty. A distraction to clear thinking. You could get to looking in her eyes and missing the thoughts entirely.
Saby didn’t answer his question. Never had. They’d sat in the room for most of three days, shopped via the vid system, used the Aldebaran’s restaurant, the Aldebaran’s gym, the Aldebaran’s hair salon, swum in the pool, baked in the sauna… had no personal conversation, just a Race you to the other side, and a, What’s your favorite color? kind of dealing with each other, shallow, safe. Saby liked green, loved to dance, preferred coffee to tea, liked the skintight craze and bought him some for evening as well as day. Saby could take an hour in the bath and run a chain of figures in her head instantly. Those things he’d learned about Saby. But talk about the ship, Christian, the captain, even Tink,—no. Dead cutoff.
“What could I have seen in that warehouse?”
“I don’t know. What were you looking for?”
“You could be a lawyer. Was it something 1 could have seen or just a chance to get at my mother’s son?”
“That’s then. Now’s now. “ She sipped her whiskey. “They’ve a marvelous dessert. Orange creme cake.”
He wasn’t even tempted. “You,” he said. “No thanks.”
“Board-call’s tomorrow. Are you going to go?”
“Have I got a choice?”
“Oh, you could raise a fuss right now. Yell for the cops, all sorts of things.”
“I could end up stuck here. Legaled to death. I’d as soon be dead.”
“So you’ll go back without a fuss?”
“Sure. “ His turn to shrug. They’d been through it before. He didn’t know why she’d started down this track. “No passport. No choice. “ He dreamed of answering that board-call, showing up and having Corinthian hand him to the cops, claim they never knew him. He didn’t understand Saby. They’d spent a lot of money. Saby had spent it… on her account, Saby said. Or he’d spent Christian’s cash.
But he could get to that customs gate only to discover it was his account she was accessing and the ship wasn’t paying. In that case, he had that station-debt, and he had to pay it, if the ship wouldn’t. No passport, no ID, no ship willing to pay for him. That was the scenario he’d slowly put together—Saby swearing to customs that he’d lied to her, they were his charges, not hers, with a whole ship to back her story and damn him to a spacer’s hell.
“You’re worried about something,” Saby said.
“I can’t imagine why.”
“I don’t know what. Whether you can trust me? Is that it?”
“It’s an obvious question.”
“You’re a nice guy. You are. I told the captain that.”
“Thanks. Did you tell him not to knock me into walls? I’d appreciate that.”
“I really like you,” Saby said.
His heart went thump. Brain cut out of the loop. Why? was the last logical thought.
“You want to dance?” Saby asked, and reached out her hand on the tabletop. “Come on. Slow-dancing. Nothing fancy.”
He really didn’t want to. A, he didn’t want to make a fool of himself. B, he didn’t know where the conversation had taken the turn it did or why Saby suddenly got personal. He’d a drink to finish, but the mouth wasn’t working and the brain was on shut-down. He tossed off the rest of the drink to calm his stomach, hooked fingers with Saby—let Saby tug him to his feet and walk him out into the dreadful tilting visions of the walls and the reflections on the floor. The alcohol hit, and he was right in front of the big viewport, where the stars were moving and small and far, behind the silhouetted dancers. They were potentially in people’s way, but others managed not to bump them, and Saby turned him toward her, holding both his hands—kept one, drew one behind her waist, at the curve of a—he wasn’t dead—satin-clad hip.