Page 37 of Elanie & the Empath
“You know, like lost time or glitches? Waking up in strange places? Hearing voices?”
My wide eyes betrayed my guilt.
“Elanie?” he said, a brow slowly rising.
“What?” I snapped, defensive, childlike. But I didn’t want to tell him that I’d been hearing voices. I didn’t want to tell him that if I hadn’t stolen this escape pod, I’d probably be in a LunaCorp holding cell right about now. I didn’t want any of this to be happening. I just wanted to go home. I wanted to be in my bed with a fully functioning CPU and nothing exciting happening to me at all ever again.
“Elanie.” His tone was softer this time. “If there’s something going on, you can tell me. I know I’m not your doctor anymore, but the more we know about what’s happening to you, the more we’ll be able to prepare.”
“A voice,” I admitted, pushing the word out past every instinct warning me to keep my mouth shut. “I heard a voice. Someone calling my name, telling me to join them.”
He turned away, and I waited for it. For his anger and distrust. For that soft way he looked at me to harden when he demanded to know why I hadn’t told anyone this information. This very important information that might have kept us from our fates as deep-space ice statues.
But all he said was “Fascinating.” He didn’t sound mad. And when he faced me, he didn’t look mad either. Only riveted, his eyes sharp and calculating. He started pacing, only a few steps at a time in the small circle of the pod. “Do you remember anything else?”
“There was a word,” I said. “A name, maybe.”
He stopped, turned toward me, and placed his hands on his hips. “Let me guess.Golgunda?”
My breath caught. He knew. Maybe I wasn’t alone. Maybe I wasn’t going insane. “Did you hear it too?”
“No, but Darius did. The bionic who tried to walk off the ship the other day. Do you know what it means? Because he didn’t.”
I shook my head, then I maximized the nav display again. “Do you think that’s what that dwarf planet is called?” I asked, pointing at our destination.
Scratching his head, he shrugged. “It’s an unnamed rock, so I guess we can call it whatever we want. How do you think Golgunda is this time of year?” He peered down at his button-down shirt and lightweight pants, then at my pajamas. “Hopefully warm?”
“It’s a very small planet in the outer rim. It’s probably a chunk of ice.” I squinted at him, at his upturned lips, the crinkled corners of his eyes. “Dr. Semson, are you okay? We’re heading toward certain death, and you seem almost giddy.” Maybe the repeated jumps—along with my choking attempt—had deprived his brain of too much oxygen and the effects were starting to hit.
His smile grew, his eye contact unwavering when he said, “I like it better when you call me Sem.”
And just as a shiver raced down my spine, a resoundingbingfilled the pod.
In preparation for landing, the onboard AI suggested in a soothing tone,please ensure all trays are in their upright and locked positions and your harness is securely fastened. Thank you, and we hope you’ll choose LunaCorp for all your future traveling needs.
“It might get bumpy again.” He tilted his head shyly toward the jump seat. “Do you mind?”
Holding Sem tightly in my lap, I breathed in the herbal scent of his hair and the salty tang of something else—sweat maybe, vital and alive and essential—and I realized that for the first time since I’d been commissioned, the first time in my living memory, I had absolutely no idea what would happen next.
14.SEM
A frozen windhowled into the pod when I slid the door open. Outside, the cold, empty abyss of jagged rocks and windswept snow we’d landed in stared back at me. Holding my breath, I shot Elanie an anxious look.
She blinked at me. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you breathing?”
After pointing a finger out the door, I wrapped my hands around my throat and mimed suffocating, lolling my tongue out the side of my mouth. Hoping she’d getcan you please tell me if my lungs will burst into flames?from the gesture.
“Oh.” She sniffed the air, her nostrils flaring. “It’s terraformed. Breathable.”
“Thank the Saints,” I wheezed. “This pod doesn’t have a single oxygen converter.”
I poked my head out, then ducked back inside, my teeth already chattering. Rubbing warmth back into my arms, I frowned at Elanie’s thin pajamas, her bare feet. “The voice couldn’t have at least compelled you to dress warmly before making you commit high space crimes?” I asked, but it was rhetorical. “And why in the worlds is this rock terraformed?Who takes the time to make a dwarf planet barely on the map habitable?”
She reached for her harness, but her hands shook, metal clanging against metal as she tried to release the buckles.
I sank to my knees, taking her hands in mine. “Let me.”
“How are you so calm?” she asked while I slipped the straps of the harness over her shoulders. “My systems are all red-lining.”
