"Scrambler," I say between bites. "Had one on the pod so Shaalyn couldn't find us, but when it dumped us out, meant you couldn't find us, either." Kef me, these noodles taste good. I slurp down my entire bowl in record time, barely chewing.
Alice eats slower, but I'm happy to see she does eat. "Jade's okay? And Helen? And what about Ruth?"
"No sign of Ruth," Zoey says, cupping her hands around a mug of night tea. She shakes her head. "No sign of Straik, either, though we haven't exactly been phoning up Homeworld to ask if the favorite son of the sa'Rin clan showed up asking about illegal slaves. Lord va'Rin hasn't heard from him, either." She lifts her chin, nodding. "That's one reason why Mathiras went with the Star when va'Rin confiscated it."
I glance over at Alice, who looks worried. She pokes at her noodles absently, her appetite gone.
"I'm sure she's fine," I say boldly. "Straik's a keffing ass, but he treats his clones well and they're loyal to him. I can't imagine he'd space a human just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"You don't know how annoying Ruth can get," Alice mutters. She nudges her food toward me. "So why did Helen go with Mathiras?" she asks Zoey. "Are they in love?"
Zoey snorts and takes a sip of her tea. "One of them is. Helen follows him around like a puppy. Poor Mathiras is determined to be noble and ignore it all, though. Says she's too young and inexperienced for him, but he's very protective of her. Do you know, when we picked them up and she found out that Jade was pregnant, Helen complained very loudly to everyone that Mathiras hadn't impregnated her? I can't believe he's resisting a qura'aki that's determined to fuck him, but Mathiras is weird like that."
I just laugh. I know from some of his relationships in the past that Mathiras is definitely into females, but he also has some keffed up sense of nobility. If Helen is like Salvotor, though, he's probably wise to push her away. I glance over at the idiot, who's got his bowl to his face and is licking it clean.
Zoey looks over at him too, and then sighs. "You know we have extra, right, buddy? You can have more."
His face lights up. "I can?"
"Yup. But first you have to go and do me a favor." She leans over the table. "Go and tell the guy on the bridge—Sentorr, he's the stiff-looking one with the immaculate hair—that he's got a magnificent cock. Then you can come back and I'll give you seconds."
Salvotor jumps to his feet, thinks for a moment, and then races away.
I shake my head. "You love torturing your mate."
Zoey waves a hand in the air. "He loves it." A smile curves her lips. "He gets all tight when we have extra people on board the ship because of fuel costs and adjustments to the flight paths. It's a good distraction for him. Instead of thinking about fuel all day, he's going to be thinking about how to punish me." Her smile grows wider.
And there goes my appetite. I push the last of the noodles away, trying not to think about my sister and her mate playing punishment games in bed. I glance over at Alice, and she has a funny look on her face.
"Jade's pregnant?" she asks.
85
ALICE
Jade is pregnant. I'm pregnant. Both of us from aliens that aren't supposed to be able to get us pregnant. This can't be coincidence. I look over at Kaspar, at his dirty, tired, beautiful face. His worry for me is evident, his hand going to my thigh as if he wants to reassure me. And even though I try not to think about those early days when we were first woken up, I think about how careful our captors were with plas-film…
And a sick feeling churns in my stomach, the noodles I just ate threatening to come up again. "You think they messed with us while we were in the pods?"
"It's possible," Kaspar says, and his hand tightens on my thigh. "I'm sorry. I know it's not a good answer."
In a way, I'm relieved to hear that. He's not sugar-coating the truth. It makes it a little easier to deal with, hearing it stated bluntly. "It's almost like they were dicks or something," I joke. I put my hand over his and squeeze it back. "It's all right."
"We'll do a full medical work-up in our med-bay if it'll make you feel better," Zoey says. "Actually it might be a good idea for all of you, since you might have stuff in your system from the planet. I really want to know how you managed to find another carinoux, though. They're rare."
"We found a whole planet of them," Kaspar says. "And that's not all. We found Crulden the Ruiner. Lord hs'Serr's got a gladiator school down on a forest moon and he's picked up a pretty famous one. His hands have all kinds of dirt on them."