Ari cleared his throat. “As I have previously mentioned, it is a Xalanthe—”
Orin cut him off with a rude sound pushed between full lips. “She.”
Ari opened his mouth to reply, mistaking a brief pause for the conclusion of the pilot’s statements.
“Ship’s a she. And she’s a pretty little thing, deserves a name. If you don’t have one for her yet, I can think of something fancy to call her. Something with a bit of glitter to it. Little lady like this one deserves to shine.”
His eyes in turn glittered at Ari, sparkling with amusement and apparent satisfaction upon viewing the small science vessel.
Without looking away, he spat into one rough palm before holding it out to Aristotle as if to shake.
“You’ve got yourself a deal, Red.”
Ari recoiled from the offered hand, curling his own into protective fists at the notion of sealing a verbal contract with an exchange of bodily fluids.
“That is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen.”
Orin’s throaty laughter rang out against the polished metal panels of the ship exterior, echoing across the shipyard.
“Is it now? Well, stick with me, sugar; I could really expand your horizons.”
Chapter Two
The ship’s tour was short by necessity. The interior was built for efficiency, every space dedicated to a specific purpose.
Bay doors and the loading ramp led into the circular central room, dominated by the small galley with its modest multipurpose table and bench seating bolted to the floor off to the side. Storage chests lined the opposite wall.
On one side of the central room, a coded doorway led into the cockpit, pilot and copilot’s seats arm’s length apart with enough room surrounding each for a grown man to stand comfortably.
Ari eyed Orin surreptitiously, amending that to a grown man of average height and build, such as himself. Alright, so admittedly his build was definitely on the slender side of average, but he felt confident in his unremarkable height.
There was nothing about Mr. Stone’s build that was unremarkable.
Ari tore his gaze away from Orin’s broad hands as they caressed the controls on the deactivated dash, clearing his throat to continue the tour back through the galley and into the rear corridor.
The corridor was wider than one might have expected for a modest-sized vessel, but it was necessary for Ari to transport his storage crates of samples to and from the laboratory. The width was also sufficient for two men to stand shoulder to shoulder across. Ari mentally traced the sweeping lines of Orin’s shoulders. It was also apparently just wide enough for one Mr. Stone and one Dr. Aristotle Campbell to stand with Mr. Stone’s shoulders across and Aristotle’s back flat against the wall.
Ari swallowed convulsively at the thought of Orin having him flat against the wall.
On one side of the corridor was Ari’s room, a standard ship’s bunk with en suite head complete with a sonic shower he could barely squeeze himself into.
On the other side was his brother’s room. Theo had claimed the larger captain’s quarters as both his bunk and workspace. Half again as large as Ari’s room, his shelves of books and cluttered desk had dominated the space.
Prior to his disappearance, Theo’s bed had practically become part of his desk, a Theo-shaped blank space the only concession to sleep amidst teetering piles of books and parchment.
In preparation for his search, Ari had cleared all but the bookshelves, carefully packing Theo’s work into the storage crates now tucked beneath the floor panels of both their rooms.
Theo’s en suite was also twice the size of Ari’s, his sonic large enough for Ari to stand in without hitting the walls until he extended his arms past the elbow. He hoped Mr. Stone would be able to fit.
He also hoped he’d be able to stop picturing how Mr. Stone might fit into a shower stall. Stealing a glance at the pilot as he pushed thick waves of brown hair back off his face with a roguish grin, Ari knew it to be a false hope.
At the end of the corridor, another coded doorway led to the laboratory, a clean workspace of floor to ceiling storage panels and long workbench cluttered with equipment and samples.
All experiments had ceased upon Theo’s disappearance, and in his haste, Ari had even mixed samples and destroyed months of work while searching for clues.
He cringed at the disorganization of the lab, but Mr. Stone simply looked it over with an impressed nod before heading back into the cockpit.
The pilot seemed entranced by the state-of-the-art flight controls, carefully pulling panels away here and there to study the inner workings.
Ari called attention to himself by snapping a roll of simulated parchment open across the dash.
Orin followed Ari’s movements as he unfurled the collection of star maps. His gaze flicked up to Ari’s face as he held out another roll of parchment. One broad thumb rubbed across the sharp edge of his jaw as Orin regarded the papers without making a move to accept them.
“What’s all that?”
Ari shook the papers insistently, pushing them further into the pilot’s space until large fingers wrapped around the roll.
“This is the ship’s charter. Navigation is not my forte, so I will need you to check it over and make sure my calculations are sound. The remainder are charts I have fabricated in case we encounter Enforcers along the way, intended to indicate we have fallen off course rather than intentionally jumping the Verge. I attempted to procure emergency licensing, but I was denied. I can delay no longer, hence my need for your services.”
Orin’s eyebrows climbed as he studied the charter.
“Looks like more than a little jump across. Looks like you wanna go pretty far past the Verge. Ain’t exactly easy to get through that big old force field, honey. Won’t be an issue for me, but we’re gonna have to come up with a plan to get you through the barrier. Everything about you screams Core, from the top of your combed-down hair to the tips of your shiny little shoes. Enforcers would never mistake you for a Verge rat like me. You look like you’ve never been out of the interior ring in your life.”
Orin straightened up, turning to Ari with a serious expression, somehow all the more handsome for the shift in mood.
“Gonna have to fabricate more than a couple of maps for this. Besides, there’s not much point to using maps if we’re heading into the uncharted space of the deep dark. Gonna have to rely on my calculations to find our way out of there. You sure you wanna go through with all this? I gotta say, the deep dark just ain’t a place for someone like you, professor. Seems to me you could barely handle our civilized life here in the colonies.”
Ari crossed his arms over his chest, chin jutting defiantly. “An astounding assertion, having barely made my acquaintance. Just who do you suppose is ‘someone like me,’ Mr. Stone?”
Orin’s eyes twinkled, mouth kicking up at one corner just enough to reveal a flash of dimple.
Ari was in no way charmed by it.
Orin took measured steps in a slow circle around Ari, heavy boots clunking against the metal floor in the restricted space of the cockpit.
“Someone like you is someone who grew up with a full belly and a solid roof. Nah, more than that. Bet you had servants, didn’t you, sweetheart?”
Ari shrugged one shoulder, skin prickling as Orin circled behind him, sharply aware of his gaze tracing every line of his body. “We had a modest household staff when I was a child. My brother and I take bachelor’s lodgings while planetside now, with only a housekeeper in our employ. All quite standard for our homeworld, I assure you.”