Page 85 of Dark Space
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Tessa muttered.
‘Aster is right,’ Vesper said. ‘I did steal the face.’ He studied Aster thoughtfully. ‘You’ve made a few changes.’
Anna blinked. ‘You can do that?’
Vesper broke off his staring contest with Aster to grin down at her. ‘Why, lodestar?’ he said playfully. ‘Do you have some requests?’
She patted his arm. ‘You’re perfect as you are.’ She pulled away from him and went to Tessa, eyeing Aster warily. Tessa’s face broke into a wide smile and she threw her arms around Anna, squeezing tightly.
‘Goodness, Tessa,’ Anna murmured, her eyes shining with tears. ‘I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. And now I can’t even hug you properly. There’s something in the way.’
Tessa snorted, and adjusted Anna’s arms to wrap around her shoulders. ‘No one tells you how bloody inconvenient the belly is,’ she said. ‘Or maybe they do, and no one listens. I can’t wear normal clothes, can’t see my feet half the time, can’t move without bumping into something.’ She winced. ‘And the larvae seems to like sleeping on my bladder, which is astonishingly inconvenient.’
‘Larvae?’ Anna’s eyes darted to Morgan. ‘So …?’
Tessa nodded. ‘It’s his,’ she said grumpily, though the cephalopod all but puffed up with pride. ‘Although Aster is just as responsible.’
Maeve, who had been listening to everything with an increasingly incredulous look on her face, held up her hand. Willow and Ashton stilled immediately, as if she was their commander; the dark-haired Tirian Captain rolled her eyes, though the corners of her lips were tugging up as if she couldn’t quite repress a smile. ‘There’s a lot happening here,’Maeve said, her eyes flicking from Tessa to Anna. ‘I think we should understand what’s going on, shouldn’t we?’ She turned to Morgan. ‘Is there somewhere we can go to talk?’
When someone saysCan we go somewhere to talk, you’d imagine that to mean a comfy couch in a quiet room, possibly accompanied by a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits, and I was certain that was what Maeve had in mind. But it turned out that our audience – the summit guests – had more curiosity than we’d expected, and when we tried to leave to talk, a sizeable number of them came with us. The Nataran Queen took charge, dismissing all but the other Intergalactic Council members, who I gathered were rather less easy to get rid of, but my dream of tea and biscuits were dashed when we were led under armed guard to a room with tiered seats that vaguely resembled an Earth courtroom, complete with alien microphones, screens, and myriad translation devices. Instead of a casual conversation between some humans far from home, we were carefully watched by a half-humanoid, half-octopus queen; a space-elfwith thorns growing along her cheekbones and jaw, and a badge of rank pinned to her shimmering dress; a humanoid being with a two-tufted, prehensile tail; a floating cloud of darkspace with glowing, golden eyes; a bipedal being with claws tipping their fingers and slanted eyes that could only be described asfeline; and a being that looked remarkably like Callan and Alcide did when they were armoured, only without the horns, their scales a riotous shimmer of green and silver.
Our partners came too, of course, so in the end, the room was rather cosy, even if it was only because it felt so full. It was soon apparent that instead of atalk, we humans would be giving some kind of formalreport, presumably to explain to the Council members what the heck we were doing there.
When a cephalopod in a navy-blue uniform offered me a strong-smelling drink that clearly contained some type of alcohol, I took it.
Morgan had shifted back into his humanoid body, but his mother didn’t bother. She occupied a seat at the head of the ringed chairs, her presence quiet and commanding, and every inch the queen. She was beautiful, with sea-blue eyes and strong features, her blonde waves reaching below her waist to where her limbs rested, flickering between sea-green and an anxious burnt orange.
‘Tessa, little starfish,’ she said without preamble, her voice deep and rich like a singer, ‘would you like to begin?’
Tessa was settled next to the Queen, and one of the cephalopod’s limbs curled protectively around the back of Tessa’s chair, offering anyone watching a clear message:Tessa belongs with us now. Morgan and Aster stood behind, shoulder to shoulder, and Cy sat on Tessa’s other side, nervously eyeing the screens around the room, which were clearly recording.
Tessa rubbed her hand over the swell of her stomach. Morgan, Aster, and Cy watched the movement, each with a slightlydifferent expression: Morgan’s was intense and possessive, Aster’s relaxed and indulgent, and Cy’s warm and full of love. She reached back blindly; her hand was taken up by Aster, and Morgan bent to press a kiss to her palm, while Cy linked his fingers through her free hand.
It was the kind of adoration that six months ago would have made my heart hurt. As it was, Alcide took up my hand and ran his thumb over my heartline; Callan hooked his boot between my legs and rested his palm on my knee; and Vesper bent to rub his cheek against my hair, his warmth against my back, a silent purr rumbling through his body.
I bit my lip to hide a smile.
‘I was at Advena,’ Tessa began. ‘A club – a bar – in Australia, the country on Earth that I come from. I hadn’t been out in a while, and Maeve convinced me that it was time to let loose a little.’ She threw Maeve a smile. ‘I was having a drink when a man with glowing golden eyes came over to talk to me.’
Aster’s lips curled up.
Tessa continued her story, flushing when she talked about taking Aster home, about Morgan and Cy bursting into her apartment. She described how incredulous she’d been, and how the three had worked to convince her to go with them – all in a matter of hours. She talked through how she’d refused at first, and sent them away, but in the few short minutes they’d been gone, she’d realised how empty her apartment felt, and howwrongit was to be without them. When Aster came back with a screen Cy had set up so they could keep in contact across galaxies, Tessa had changed her mind and left with him.
Morgan rumbled wordlessly at that.
Tessa described her first few weeks on Morgan’s ship, and how they’d been snared by a Roth scuttler. Her voice caught when she detailed Aster jumping out of the ship and flaring supernova to save them; there was a collective shift as Maeve coughed a laugh.
‘Ash thought that was you,’ she said.
‘You almost blinded Maeve,’ a silver-haired Tirian female said to Aster, her soft voice reproachful.
‘He didn’t have much of a choice,’ Morgan growled.
The Tirian warrior standing behind Maeve with his hair braided back into a topknot growled wordlessly back.
‘Oh, for –stop that,’ Maeve snapped. ‘If I wanted to be in a room full of males comparing dicks then I would have stayed on Earth.’
Tessa smirked, then finished her story quickly, settling back in her chair when she was done.
