Teq came to a halt beside him. “Hasn’t said a word, eh?”
“Not yet, but it seems to me…” Trailing off, Sil grunted under his breath. “Oh. You are teasing.”
“Somewhat. And only because I’m so anxious about your brother’s surprise that my antennae retracted into my skull.” Teq lifted his lip around one tusk to show he was joking again.
Somewhat.
“He announced the Luster? And the wife-mates?” Sil half-closed his eyes. Instead of the common all-black orc eyes, evolved to concentrate the meager light of their homeworld’s caverns, his were a moonstone gray. “How’d it go?”
“I think the crew is more nervous about the females than challenging for a place in the Luster.” Teq tried to hold back the tone of disbelief—and disapproval. “Did you know about this before? What made Amma think of buying otherworld females?”
“We didn’tbuythem.” Sil gave him a chiding look. “The IDA takes only willing brides and thoroughly vetted mate matches.”
“Not so very thorough if they accepted this crew,” Teq muttered. “Have you seen our galactic credit line?”
“There’s more to life and love than credit, Teq.”
Love? They hadn’t been talking aboutthatat all.
“The Earther women know our situation,” Sil continued. “They have their own reasons for coming, but together we will find our place in the Luster and the universe.” He returned his attention to the fortune they’d hauled aboard. “Now if I could just figure out this rock.”
Sil had all the inspiration and initiative to have become a crystal carver. But the orcs didn’t have artists anymore. And the crew wouldn’t have their ship anymore either if they didn’tfigure outsome credits for their account.
But Teq knew he wasn’t going to convince anyone this was a bad idea, not with the lure of wife-mates and a place in the Luster. He’d just have to keep his feelings to himself.
And if that meant crushing his feelings along with the ore… Life and the universe would be better that way.
Chapter 2
This was a terrible mistake.
Gathered with the other Big Sky would-be brides in the common room of the Intergalactic Dating Agency transport to watch their approach to the alien ship, Adeline Barlow wondered if it was too late to turn around.
How far away was Earth? On their journey, they’d sat through so many classes and she was sure she’d heard that figure, but she’d never been good with numbers. They’d been learning so much—galactic finance, interstellar law, cosmic theology. It was worse than all of high school and college finals smashed into one space cruise. And there was a reason she’d dropped out of Vassar after one overwhelmed semester.
“Mom? Mom. How much longer? Are we almost there?”
Well, there were two reasons she’d dropped out. Three, if she counted her ex.
She put her hand on Ollie’s head to stop him from bouncing into the other women. He’d know exactly how far away Earth was, but then she’d get a mini lecture on the mechanics of space travel, Einstein’s theory of relativity, and probably alien biology just for fun.
Alien biology for fun.
Oh, why had she thought that?
Biology for fun on Earth had been her first terrible mistake.
“Mom?”
With effort, she buried her worries. Ollie wasn’t a mistake; he’d been her silver lining when all the fool’s gold was stripped away. She smiled at him. “Soon, owlet. Be patient.”
Pushing his glasses higher on his stubby little nose, he snorted. “My patience is spaghettified.”
She ruffled his fine brown hair, trying to remember her cosmology—not to be confused with cosmetology, like astronomy versus astrology, as she’d been told by a certainveryimpatient seven-year-old. “Spaghettification is when gravitational forces, like a black hole, unspool material, even molecules, into a spiraling string of atoms.” She frowned thoughtfully, tapping one fingertip on her chin even though that light pressure sent a warning ping through her tensed jaw. “And I think there are meatballs involved? Maybe garlic bread?”
“Mah-aaaahm…”
“Aaaaahhhh,” she echoed. “Oh no, are you being spaghettified right now? I better pull you back together!” She hugged him close to her side.