Page 37 of Mongrels United
The day just didn’t feel right. Kailash in the kitchen, her on the stool, was wrong.
Nash Hyson, a man in deep pain, and one of the few people on the ship who was as determined as her to hunt down the source of the Bellish…that was another jarring note. It went against her understanding of the world.
She tried to pay attention to Kailash as he made breakfast and told her about the former Dreamhawks coach, now long retired, who had contacted him on the Forum with a couple of casual suggestions about strategies the Grey Team could use. “They’re brilliant ideas,” Kailash enthused. “They fit right in with the way we’re playing, using stuff Quiver and Crave did—he even recognized what we were doing, where we got it from. We’re going to try them out when we train today, and if they work, we’ll use them in tonight’s game.”
“Who are you playing tonight?” Grady asked politely.
“Dreamhawks.” Kailash smiled grimly, nodding at her expression. “Yeah, if we win tonight… Wow, if we win tonight, that will be…” He shook his head, at a loss for words. Then he brightened even more. “Can you come to the game?”
Grady sighed. “I would if I could,” she admitted. “But there’s something happening that I have to deal with…”
Kailash nodded. “No problems,” he said cheerfully. He wasn’t upset and that made it worse.
“No, really, Kai…this is, this thing I’m dealing with…it’s serious.”
“Of course it is. You’re Chief of Staff to the captain of the ship.” He waved her protest away.
“This is on another level altogether, Kai,” Grady said. “All the problems I’ve ever dealt with, even those that kept me on the Bridge all hours of the day and night…they’re all in the top zone. This thing…it’s in the heavy zone.”
Kailash’s expression sobered. All amusement and lightness fled from his eyes. “Okay,” he said softly.
Then he reached over the counter and pressed the tip of a finger to the skin between her brows. She could feel the furrow through the pressure of his finger and smoothed out her brow.
“You’re Grady Read,” Kailash told her. “You’ll figure it out.”
She really wished she had the same faith he did. She made herself smile at him, but no words would come. Nothing. “Thank you,” she said instead.
It was enough. Kailash settled on the stool next to hers and wolfed down his breakfast, while she nibbled at toast. Then they headed for their rooms to prepare for their day.
While on the train to the Aventine, Grady logged into the Bridge communications net and sent an armored, bio-sealed message to Nash, asking him to come to the Bridge as soon as possible this morning. She would sit him down with the Civil Guard’s social psychologist to sift through everything Nash could remember about his father, Nason’s habits, friends, and life in general, to generate paths of investigation. The sooner they figured out where Nason Wheelock had acquired the Bellish, the better.
Glennis had left her reminders of appointments, vital tasks for the day, and her weekly meeting with Siran for a review of the state; which was his grand way of referring to a status update on all the open topics the Bridge was dealing with at the moment.
Grady wished briefly that she could shove all those open issues aside and deal with this one critical problem, but problems on the Bridge were all crucial—or they had the potential to be—and had to be nipped in the bud. She was paid to juggle priorities and make sure everything was dealt with.
It wasn’t until she reached the Bridge that the message came through to her that her father was in the Esquiline hospice and that she should come at once.
* * * * *
Rising voices in the corridor outside her father’s room drew Grady’s attention to something other than watching her father’s still form on the bed, while her thoughts circled bleakly.
She grew aware of the hard chair beneath her and that her knees were numb. How long had she been sitting here?
The voices continued to rise. One of them was a woman, the other a man’s deep bass.
Nash Hyson. She knew it was him, even though this was the last place she would expect him to be.
Stiffly, Grady rose to her feet. It took several steps for her legs to feel normal once more, but by the time she reached the door, she was walking properly. She let the door slide aside and stepped out into the corridor.
Nash looked up from the intense conversation he was having with the medical assistant, who’d actually barred his path to the door and stood with her hands on her hips, still in his way.
Something related to relief painted itself on Nash’s face. “There she is,” he told the assistant.
“It’s alright, um, Maryan,” Grady told the assistant, recalling her name at the last second. “Let him through. I’ll talk to him.”
Maryan dropped her arms to her sides. “If you’re certain….”
Grady nodded.
