Page 26 of Claim
Dorn stared back from the other side.“What?If you were going to airlock me, you would’ve done it already.”
“I’m not executing you.I’ll be leaving you and the other thieves at Luster Station.I asked your assay team if they wanted to speak to you one last time.They’ve declined.”
Despite the hostile spread of his carapace, Dorn’s antennae shivered.“What will happen to me there?”
Mag tried out one of those inscrutable Earth shrugs.At least it released some of the tension from his shoulders.“Whatever you can make happen.Isn’t that why you made a deal with thePratorim?To make your own way without us?”
Dorn snarled.“Was I supposed to believe you would finally lead us out of the dust?”
“My crusher pulled one stone from space, and my brother sang its dust into dreams come true.So yes, I wanted all of us to share this new chance.”
“With a talking rock and alien brides?”The acid in Dorn’s sneer might’ve melted lesser fortifications, but orcs knew their metal and stone.
And still, the derision seared Mag’s temper.“You betrayed us.”
“Only because you failed us.”
That accusation too might’ve stung if the scar over that fear hadn’t already been thicker than the prison bars.
“Brother?It’s time.”
Sil’s summons roused Mag from his reverie, and he cut the projection of his fanciful new façade.“Ready.”
He joined the crew in the main room.They’d been assigned lesser quarters, and the space was tight—and yet still he felt how they rattled around.TheDeepWanderwas home; why were they even here?
Because he’d been afraid that it wasn’t enough, that they’d just wander the dusty backways of the galaxies, trying to suck up enough rock to stay alive.And so he’d bet his life to make their lives better.
Unspeaking, he looked over them.Luxurious fabrics swathed them, with heavy metallic accents making a backdrop for the unique sung stones.They stood with their carapaces slightly flared, a sign of their unease, but it did make them look more impressive, and the pigments decorating their hides glinted across a swath of wavelengths on the electromagnetic spectrum.Beside the orcs, the Earther women stood, maybe not as tall but equally resolute and beautiful.
“How strong and splendid you are,” he said, pitching his voice to carry.“You were that before we set these new boots upon Luster Station.But now the rest of the universe will see the Omega Reclamation Crew in its glory.”He gave his cloak an experimental swirl.“We know what we are here to do.Let us revel.”
They did not cheer riotously as they were wont to do in the gather-hall after Amma’s yezo, but he felt their fierce determination shiver through his antennae and surge through his bones.
That invisible wave carried him out of their quarters, the rest closing ranks and falling into line behind him.
Unlike earlier, the corridors of the station were busy now, filling with beings merging toward the revel hall.It wasn’t unlike theDeepWander, or so he told himself.Except here he was not the largest being.Nor one with the most limbs, nor any other distinguishing feature.The universe came in so many sizes and shapes and colors, and he longed only to find a fit for his crew.
He glanced at Adeline behind him to one side and Kinsley on the other.The Earther woman walked with their life-mates, one who had broken from the egg with him and the other who’d hatched right beside them.Sil and Teq returned his look steadily, antennae cocking toward him then away.They subtly flared their carapaces, gaining a little more room in the hallway.
“Why is everyone looking at us?”Kinsley murmured.“I mean, comparatively speaking, we just aren’t that interesting.”
“We’re closed worlders,” Adeline replied.“Likely none of them have ever seen anyone from Earth.Quite a showing for theDeepWander, I think.”She lifted one eyebrow at Mag, and he wondered if June could have artificially created such expressive tufts of keratin for his orcs.
“As unique as my brother’s songs made stone,” he agreed.“In stepping out beyond your world, you made yourselves extraordinary.”
Against his better judgment, he glanced farther back along the wedge of his crew.June had taken a position in the widest part of the fan, nearly lost among the bigger bodies.She’d be safer back there, sheltered from all the curious, judging, avaricious eyes.Resolutely, he faced forward, right where he was supposed to be.
Luster Station might be renowned as much for its anarchy as for its auction, but even its chaos had its own sort of rough rules.And so every Luster began with a revel.
During their initial discussions about seeking a permanent berth at the station, before they’d even contacted the IDA, Teq had suggested skipping the revel and attending only the auction, but Sil had countered that it was during such unguarded moments that connections were made—the sort of connections that led to contracts.At the time, Mag had been inclined to side with Teq to avoid the bother—and expense—but now he understood.
Again, he glanced back down the line.June might be overshadowed by the orcs around her but he didn’t need to see her to remember the feel of her beneath him, her fingers playing over his antennae, his name a sigh in her mouth.Yes, connections mattered.
Most of the remote waystations theDeepWandervisited for offloading ore and resupplying were utilitarian at best, their primitive pleasures limited to whatever indulgences might best withstand the rigors of distance and darkness.
Luster Station was not that.
All the salvagers and scavengers in the surrounding galaxies knew the story of how “the Dastard” had won an ancient, derelict generation ship of unknown origin—and no surviving inhabitants; no corpses either, for that matter—in a high-stakes game of Pin the Fang on the Void-Viper.The losers had been none too happy, and in the aftermath, therewerecorpses.But the Dastard held his new possession and styled himself vreign of the Luster.
