Read Online Sound by Alexandra Duncan - Free Book Online Page B

black.
    â€œNice.” His eyes flick over my sari and then home in on my breasts. Charming. “Where’re you headed so dressed up?”
    I stiffen. “First officers’ dining room.”
    â€œNo way.” He jostles my shoulder in a far too friendly manner and grins. “Me, too.”
    â€œYou?” For the first time, I notice he’s dressed in his blues as well.
    My face must offer up a clear diagram of my feelings on the subject, because Rubio laughs. “Yes, me. My squadron helped chase off those dakait .” He arches an eyebrow. “What’d you do to get invited?”
    â€œNothing,” I mutter, and stare past him at the dark window. Unless you count bathing a half-feral cat, which would be the most embarrassing reason to be invited to dinner ever. So it can’t be that.
    â€œCome on, memsahib, you can tell me,” he says. “Itmust have been something pretty good to get you invited down there.” He nods to the floor below us, the first officers’ tier at the heart of the ship.
    â€œReally. It was nothing.”
    â€œYou’re on the first response team, right?” His eyes go wide. “Did you rescue one of those Rovers? Did you, like, bring them back from the brink of death or something?”
    I almost laugh, but he looks so earnest. “Hardly.”
    â€œTell me, Guiteau.” He’s reached the point of begging, which would be immensely satisfying if I were really holding a tidbit of information out of his reach.
    But I’m not. And for once, he’s dropped his stupid nickname for me.
    â€œHonestly, I don’t have any clue why they invited me. I got stuck behind some wreckage and was almost last on the scene. All I did was . . . um . . .” I trail off.
    â€œWhat?” He smiles, a flicker of mischief reigniting in his eyes.
    Let one of the dakait get away. Fail at everything I was supposed to do.
    â€œTie up some loose ends,” I finish.
    â€œHmph.” He shoots me an unsatisfied look but doesn’t say anything else.
    The lift drops back into the open air above the middlerecreation level, and the glass brightens again to let in the artificial sunlight streaming down from the rafters. The gardens are eerily empty, though. Usually, someone has a pickup game of cricket going on the pitch, or off-duty couples are lounging on the grass. Everyone must be on extra duty or too shaken up to go out. A slimy finger of guilt creeps back into my stomach. I should be with them, not clean and pressed and going to a dinner.
    The lift slows to a stop with a soft bong .
    â€œThat’s us.” Rubio inspects his hair in the metal doors. “You ready for this, memsahib?”
    I sigh. Rubio can’t fight his true nature forever. Or even for a handful of minutes, apparently. The moment the doors slide open, I speed out of the lift and stalk down the rolling walkway at brisk clip, trying to get away from myself as much as him.
    I arrive at the officers’ quarters first, Rubio jogging up behind me. The doors whisk open on a spacious sitting room, with white synthetic-leather couches and false windows flooded with ultraviolet light perfectly simulating late afternoon on the subcontinent. The ceiling plays an image of a hanging garden, hibiscus swaying gently in the breeze. On the far side of the parlor, an old-fashioned set of hinged doors opens onto the dining room.
    â€œName?”
    I jump. A clerk at an antique wooden desk with claw feet sits immediately inside the door. She stands and rounds the desk, tablet at the ready.
    â€œUm . . .” I’d heard the first officers liked their pomp and ceremony, but this was more than I’d expected. The ship’s security system could do the same job and spare the clerk’s labor for something more useful.
    She smiles and taps her stylus against the screen, waiting.
    â€œScience Specialist Miyole Guiteau?” I cringe. Ugh. It’s not a