Page 16 of Into Orbit
Elswyth handed her a bowl of thinly-sliced white tuber, cooked in oil and flavoured with wisdom leaf and wild spice. ‘If Willow can do some research on human foods, we can program the generator to make something more suitable for you. But this is the closest thing I could think of to what you offered me on Earth.’
Maeve took the bowl and sniffed. ‘That smells … pretty close, actually. And pretty good.’ She flicked me a glance. ‘Are you staying, in case this turns out to be poisonous to humans?’
I bit back a smile. ‘Yes. I’ll stay.’
If the tubers were poisonous to humans, it was slow-acting; I excused myself an hour later as Maeve began to yawn.
I hoped she’d sleep, but I wouldn’t. I had a whole lot of human knowledge to download before we left the Sector and access to their systems became more difficult.
The hangar was quieter at night. Someone had opened the viewing platform and there was a small group of engineers drinking nectar together on the balcony, looking straight out into space. They beckoned to me, but I waved them off with a smile. ‘Not tonight,’ I called, just as I did every time they asked.
I had a small room in the service quarter of the ship; comfortable, but nothing like the Hamadryad’s family room. I rarely slept there, though. I preferred to be in the clinic, with the background noise of the hangar during the day, and the quiet hum of the spore systems at night. It was too quiet in my room, and too far from where I was needed. Though I’d programmed the spore systems to run effectively without my interference and had added several automatic safeguards, I liked to double – sometimes triple – check my work.
The ship’s Second Doctor, Cedar, had left the lab just as I preferred it – spotlessly clean. They’d taken Maeve and Elswyth’s clothing for decontamination and had changed the linen in the lab’s four small sickrooms. On top of all of that, they’d left me a covered bowl of wild rice and night berry stew, knowing I wouldn’t eat otherwise.
I uncovered the meal, then switched on my screen.
‘Will?’
I looked up. ‘Ash? What are you doing here? You don’t finish until …’ My voice trailed off as I caught sight of the time. My food lay untouched next to my elbow, but I’d downloaded several of Earth’s academic journals, along with outlines andtextbooks– whatever they were – from several medical teaching programs. I’d found specialised information pertaining to human females, and had hacked into one country-wide database used by medical practitioners for recording patient data. The database intrigued me most of all, showing a very different way of thinking about healing – a piecemeal, reactive approach, the opposite to Tirian preventative and holistic care – and giving me a sense of common human ailments and their treatments.
‘Why haven’t you eaten?’
Ashton’s gravelly tones rippled down my spines. I picked up a spoonful of rice and shoved it in my mouth, knowing it wasn’t worth the argument, and studied his face out of long habit.
He looked haggard. He’d been furious when he’d realised what Elswyth had done; inconsolable when no one could trace her. He’d been ready to launch a Pod and search for her blind, but the Captain herself had stopped him, reasoning that Elswyth would never abandon her Forest and that she’d be back sooner rather than later. While Elswyth was gone, the Captain and her First Guard had been a team, focused on making sure their wayward Hamadryad returned; the moment she did, Ashton became culpable for her actions, and the Captain would not have held back in her dressing-down.
I swallowed the mouthful of rice. ‘How bad was it?’
He lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. ‘Not as bad as I deserved.Eat, Willow.’
‘Ash,’ I scolded, before taking another mouthful. ‘Elswyth is responsible for her own choices. How could you possibly know she’d do something so reckless?’
He didn’t answer, watching me with an intensity that made my stomach clench.
‘Who is guarding her now?’
His brow darkened. ‘The Captain suggested Adair and Poppy stayed outside her rooms tonight. Togive the Hamadryad space,the Captain said.’
That explained the intensity. Not that Ash wasn’t always intense; this was just … more. He hated Adair – the spoiled son of another ship’s captain – almost as much as he hated being away from Elswyth.
Luckily, I knew how to distract him. I turned my face so my words wouldn’t be recorded by the security feed. ‘Am I turning off the cameras tonight, Ash?’
His lovely eyes flickered gold. Without speaking, he nodded.
A few moments later, I flicked off the cameras in the main lab, as I did whenever I saw a patient. ‘What do you need?’
There was no hesitation in his response. ‘You, Willow. Just you.’
I closed my eyes, willing my hearts to calm down. Ashton wasn’t one for needless chatter; when he spoke, he meant every word. And when he said things likethat, I was helpless.
‘Come here, then,’ I said quietly.
The thud as the tallest, strongest, most beautiful soldier on the ship fell to kneel before me still gave me a thrill, even a hundred – athousand– times later. Ash was second in command only to the Captain, but here, in my lab with me, he was nothing but himself. When we were together, we shut the world out – well, the world apart from the Hamadryad, who was a universe unto herself. Elswyth was always in Ash’s thoughts, as constant as the never-ending black outside the ship.
I didn’t mind. Had it been another Tirian, I might have been jealous, but I felt lucky, instead. Knowing that the male I loved served the green gods’ chosen made it seem as if I were one step removed from the divine.
An image of Maeve’s hair draped over my arm flickered in my mind; I reached out to cup Ashton’s cheek as he coaxed the vines of my jumpsuit to unravel at the crotch, freeing my cock from its restraints.
