Page 5 of Crave
“Other than somebody shooting a giant-ass hole in the side of your ship,” Kinsley muttered.
“That wasn’t Roxy’s fault,” he reminded her. He took a step forward.
Then halted at a slight but insistent weight anchoring his lower elbow.
He looked down at her hand gripping him. “Is there a problem?”
“You shouldn’t… Just because a rock says it wants something, doesn’t mean you should hop up and do it.”
“But you said it was happy to see us.”
“Just because I say something doesn’t mean you should do it either,” she sputtered. “Maybe it wants us closer because…maybe because it’s going to eat us. Or something. Don’t you people watch horror movies?”
“I don’t know about horror movies. You’ll have to tell me about them.” He put his upper hand on hers. “But I know rocks don’t have mouths.”
“I didn’t think they had feelings either.” She slipped her hand out from under his.
But she stayed at his side.
Together they stepped up to the rock, and together they each put a hand on the rock.
Sil had already touched it a few times, when they’d first brought it aboard and he’d been curious about what they’d found. And after Ollie and Kinsley had said it was communicating with them, he’d been even more curious. But this was the first time, as far as he knew, that Kinsley had been in contact with it.
Maybe her first contact with any alien, really. Because he’d noticed that she avoided the orcs.
Now that he thought about it, he noticed far too much about her.
Before, the stone had felt like most of the space debris theDeepWanderbrought aboard during its mining and salvage work: partly rough, partly worn smooth, mostly cool. Now, with Kinsley beside him…
His fingers tingled, the sensation diffusing higher up his arm. “Do you feel that?”
When he glanced at her in wonder, she was looking at him, but she quickly returned her focus to the rock. “Maybe.”
A shimmer coruscated across the surface under his hand—a hint of light and just the slightest warmth, according to his skin and sensory organs—and the faintest shivering vibration.
Kinsley let out a harsh breath. “What…?”
Another faint haze drifted from the surface, dusting their hands.
As she pulled away with another murmur of dismay, Sil’s recorders pinged. He glanced at the datpad. “Ah. So itisgrowing. Not much, but enough to register.”
“I think itlickedus.” Kinsley stared at her hand, then peered at the rock. “It says it wanted to taste us. It’s using our energy to expand.” She turned that accusing glare on him. “Itoldyou it was going to eat us.”
“Interesting,” he mused. “Scanners aren’t showing any physical effect on us. It’s almost as if the rock is photosynthesizing—or the crystallographical equivalent, I suppose—from our presence.”
She backed away, rubbing her hands down her thighs and muttering. He found himself focusing on the nervous gesture almost as closely as he’d looked at the scanners. With a hard shake, he broke himself from his trance and bent to brush the dust into another vial.
From one knee, he looked up at her. “What were you saying?”
She scowled down at him. “Isaid, I’m not a sun. I didn’t agree to be anybody’s light.” Before he could answer, she winced. “Great. Now it feels bad because I’m yelling. But here’s the thing, rock: you can’t just take someone’s stuff, even if they aren’t using it. That’ll get you in more trouble than it’s worth, whatever it is, believe me.”
Her distress bothered him too. Rising, he took her elbow to steer her away from the rock. “Kinsley, I apologize. I should not have asked you to touch Roxy.”
She wavered a little, as if she weren’t quite sure she wanted her feet going the same direction as his, but she didn’t pull away. “I suppose you didn’t know it would do that.” She glowered over her shoulder. “It could havetoldme it was hungry.” She hesitated. “Not hungry, it says. Lonely.”
He glanced at his datpad. “It does not seem to be taking anything from us now. Maybe because we aren’t touching it anymore.”
She shook her head. “No. It seems to be saying it won’t make that mistake again.” She let out a harsh laugh. “Hard to believe that a rock has more empathy than most of the people I’ve ever met.”
