“Not especially, no.” His wry tone amuses me because it contains a thread of self-deprecation, as if he knows he brought this upon himself.

Yeah, well, anyone could tell him, trouble starts with listening to Sirantha Jax.

“So what now?”

Velith gazes up without speaking. I tip my head back and discover that the sky has gained the heavy opacity of impending snow. Just what we need.

“Shelter. Beyond that, I need some time to process events.”

I can understand that, but if ever I’ve been told politely to shut the frag up, it’s right now. So we start walking—far as I can tell, we seem to be making for the mountains. Out here I feel impossibly small and inconsequential because everything else is so huge. From the towering mountains to the wide-open sky, the elements seem actively hostile, like even the wind wants its pound of flesh.

It rushes against us, making progress difficult, until all I can hear is my own breathing and the crunch of our dogged tread on virgin snow. My lashes ice up, making me conscious of the exposed flesh around my eyes. They feel frozen, as if I can’t move them side to side. I don’t notice when it starts to snow, not until it becomes heavier, stinging my skin.

“Where are we going?”

I don’t want to whine, even inside my own head, but I’m so fragging hungry that Velith is starting to look good. Not to mention the fact that I’m cold, exhausted, and my raw forearm throbs in a painful counterrhythm. Most of all, I’m worried about March. The way he looked when I came back…and now I’m gone again.

“Almost there.”

There turns out to be a shallow cave, reached only after fifty meters of slippery, heart-stopping ascent. But, Mary, it feels good to get out of the wind. Crouching, he leads me all the way to the back where the stone slopes to meet the floor. It smells stale and a little funky, as if some animal might occasionally den in here. Not bad enough to drive me back out into the storm, though.

The sky has turned to slate, and the wind howls, white with blowing snow. I let myself slide down and watch him pull out various items. As he does, I realize he packed this stuff when we were evacuating the Folly. And these aren’t Doc’s devices at all.

“Do you really have the Mareq samples?” Suddenly that seems of paramount importance; otherwise, we’ve wasted all this fragging time and accomplished nothing.

“I do actually,” he answers absently, his attention on what he is assembling from a battery, a coil of wires, and four metal plates. “I could tell they were valuable from reading Dr. Solaith’s notes.”

I’m astonished to see a sweet red glow rise from the cube he put together. “A chemical heater?”

“Among other things. Do not touch it, it warms all sides equally.” He tosses me a metal cup. “Fill this with snow, and we can make soup.”

“No paste?” I’m so glad to hear that, I could hug him, but instead I make my way back to the mouth of the cave, pack the mug full, and return to the copper-tinged shadows.

“Cannot abide it. I keep powdered rations in my emergency kit. If there is no water nearby for hydration, then I am in a world of trouble, regardless.”

A world of trouble, that sounds about right.

“So how bad off are we?”

He doesn’t answer for a moment. As I watch him slitting envelopes and tipping the contents into a metal cylinder, it occurs to me that he no longer sends a shock through me. The bounty hunter responsible for my capture, a Slider no less, is now making me dinner. When he seems content, he sets the tube on the heater, then turns his head toward me, his faceted eyes glittering in the ginger glow. I can only see a little through the protective weather gear.

“I have been in worse spots, Sirantha. The storm will work to our advantage, covering our tracks if they should send anyone to double-check our demise. When the foul weather passes, I will beam a distress signal to the Guild. Someone should arrive within a standard day or two, depending on whether there are other operatives on world. Our supplies are adequate to that end.”

“Guild? You’re calling in more bounty hunters?” For a moment, I feel nothing but pure strangling panic.

Velith touches my shoulder. “Relax. You are now deceased. As such, your bounty will be removed from the active rosters. And so far as my colleagues are concerned, you are my apprentice. The pretense will suffice for our purposes.”

“Bounty hunters take apprentices?” That’s a new one on me.

“Athnid encourages it. When a bounty hunter begins to think of retirement, the Guild asks that he find an apt pupil to carry on his art. Other collectives possess much less in the way of tradition, nicety, and honor.”

“Were the Morgut your apprentices?”

“They were meat. Muscle. Hired because I believed I might require assistance with you. I did not anticipate you would surrender to protect your comrades.” His tone sounds odd somehow.

I have to grin. “Don’t believe everything you see on the vids. Most of it is bullshit or Corp propaganda or both. How’s your shoulder?”

“It hurts.”

That has to be an understatement, and I’m suddenly glad I haven’t bitched about my arm or my sore eye. Warm enough now, I push my hood back but can’t restrain a wince when the cool air rushes over my scalp. That’s going to take a lot of getting used to. About a meter away, Velith judges the soup done and pours some into the same mug I filled with snow.

“Careful, it is hot.”

So I just hold it for a while, feeling the heat through the insulated fabric. When I take a sip, I find it bland but not bad, a legume and broth staple that will sustain us well enough. If I believed in Mary, I would send up a prayer right about now, but maybe Adele is doing that for me.

“Thank you. I guess I was pretty lucky to wind up with you.”

“One could not make the same argument in reverse,” he returns wryly, pushing back his hood to eat.

And I almost drop my empty cup. “Vel, what…why…”

He turns guileless green eyes on me. “I thought you would find it comforting to see a familiar face.” Not just any face. Kai’s face. “I found his image in your dossier. On a more mundane note, the generation of such tissue provides greater insulation in inclement weather.”

Does he know what Kai was to me? What kind of reaction is he trying to provoke? I feel my fingers trembling so I clench them together. Kai’s slender, lanky build suits Velith’s natural form better than Doc’s stocky musculature. Probably feels less cramped, too, but that’s like a distant intellectual thought running down a different pipeline. I can’t shut off my visceral response to seeing him again.

Though I know it’s not him, even though I know that, I want to brush his hair back off his forehead. I want to touch the line of his cheek as I have so often. It’s almost more than I can manage not to burst into tears or throw myself into his arms.

Kai, baby…

If he wasn’t gazing at me with Kai’s eyes, his sweet half smile as he sips his soup, I’d be asking about the functioning physiology, how the transformation takes place. I didn’t see it happen beneath his weather gear, but I can’t think of anything but—

Oh Mary, I could have him back.

CHAPTER 51

I back off that thought so fast my head spins.

That’s the insidious whisper of a psychotic break. This isn’t Kai, and I’ll never see him again—cold, hard fact. Velith is a mimic, albeit one I like well enough, but if I accept him as my dead lover, then I’m lost, and I’ll never find my way back.

Reality is March out there grieving. Reality is how he watches me when he doesn’t think I’m paying attention. Reality is the way he always keeps his promises. Reality is…him loving me although he’s seen every scar, every fault, inside and out, magnified a thousand times. Reality is him saying to himself: I want her, no matter what. She’s mine.

I’ve got to get back to him.

“Can you change it up a bit?” My voice sounds hoarse. “Eye color, nose, mouth, something? I can’t look at you like that.”

He looks perplexed. I can interpret his expressions when he’s wearing human skin, no problem. Perhaps in time I’ll learn all the Slider variations. I guess he thought he was giving me a present. Maybe one day I’ll be ready for that, but not now. It’s too soon.

“As you wish.” His eyes darken to hazel and his nose seems to flesh out further. Now he’s nobody I know, and I feel the tension ease out of my shoulders. “Will you tell me about the project, Sirantha?”

Making myself as comfortable as possible on the stone floor, I start from the beginning. He interjects with occasional questions, incisive, intelligent ones, and sometimes I don’t even know the answers. I think he’d work really well with Doc; they possess similar mind-sets.

“And that’s where we are,” I conclude.

A little depressing to realize we’ve made no more progress than that toward realizing Mair’s dream of a rival academy. But it makes me smile to see him tapping his fingertips against the rock wall as he processes the information. I’d be hearing thoughtful clicking right about now if he were wearing his native form.

“Once you remembered what occurred on Matins IV, you should have begun investigating why,” he advises me eventually. “What did Farwan Corporation stand to gain by crashing the Sargasso? They would scarcely have chosen such a course if it had not presented the greatest value.”

Why? It never occurred to me that there must be a reason. To my mind, they’re just bastards, that’s all, but now that Velith’s got me thinking, which I’ve stated isn’t my strong suit, I decide he’s right.

“I don’t know,” I say aloud. “There were delegates, dignitaries, representatives from all Conglomerate worlds heading to Matins IV for a conference. No one ever told me what would be discussed there, at least not that I recall.”

“Then I will find out, as it is highly probable that the purpose of that conference impacts Farwan’s decision to terminate those on board.”

Nodding, I shift my weight onto my hip and thigh, curling sideways against the slant. “I should’ve done that, but I guess I just wanted to start over. Strike back at the Corp by founding a new academy.”

“A worthy goal, but you cannot escape your past, Sirantha, particularly when they engage me to hunt you.” He sounds amused.

“That’s right, rub it in.”

I’m surprised when he slides over and offers me his good shoulder instead of the wall, but even though I know what lurks beneath the skin, I’m too tired to care. In fact, at this point I consider his true nature an advantage because I don’t imagine he has any interest in me.

“You sure this is all right? You’re pretty beat up.”

He doesn’t answer—I guess it ranks as a stupid question. So I put my head down and close my eyes.

The emergency rations ran out yesterday, and we’ve been reduced to drinking melted snow. And san facilities, well, you try pissing outside when it’s snowing. The only thing to do is talk. Velith wants to know all about me. Wish I knew why. But he’s a good listener. I tell him all about Kai and March, more than I should have, probably. Maybe it seems like I’ve said too much, but there isn’t much else to do, and it keeps my mind off the others. Stops me wondering whether they’re all right.