10. Elodie

Normally, I love walking the trade show floor, seeing the beautiful, shiny ships and feeding off the energy of the crowd. I’ve wanted to be a spacer all my life, and the annual trade show in Luxaria is always powerful fuel for my fantasies.

But as I ride the elevator downstairs, my mind is elsewhere. Today, all I can think about is Calder’s lips on my nipples, his hands squeezing my breasts, and his fingers thrusting into my pussy, hard and demanding and perfect.

This time yesterday, I convinced myself Calder wasn’t interested in me. Now, not so much. That kiss back in our pod? It felt real. Last night’s sex dream—that was my name he moaned. Finally this morning, what started with a kiss would have ended with us in bed, sweaty, naked, and sated.

He’s attracted to me; the hard thickness of his cock didn’t lie. And I’m definitely attracted to him.

We’ve been podmates for six months, and he’s never made a move before. Is it because we’re on vacation that things have changed? Will things go back to normal when we return to Harte?

Does it matter? There’s nothing wrong with vacation sex.

But my instincts warn me that’s a bad idea. Now that I’ve had a little taste of him, I’m greedy for so much more. Four days with Calder on Luxaria will not be enough.

When I getto the lobby, Maro and Danica are nowhere to be seen. I check my comm and see a couple of missed messages. They’re both running late.

I should have stayed in my room and kept kissing Calder. And more.

I head in search of breakfast. This hotel has three restaurants and a cafeteria. The cafeteria is the most crowded, but since that’s the only thing that Onel will pay for, I go there to grab a meal before I hit the floor.

I don’t want to run into Foder Throop before I’m armed with caffeine. I look around warily for a distinctive spiky hairdo as I walk in, but thank stars, he’s nowhere to be seen. However, his girlfriend is there. She’s sitting at a table in the corner, poking morosely at a bowl of food.

I have nothing against Sarai. She seems like a perfectly nice person. Apart from her appalling taste in men, of course. But if I sit with her and Throop joins us, I’ll have to eat breakfast with that man, and my stomach is not strong enough.

But then she looks up, and her face brightens when she spots me. She looks so hopeful that I don’t have the heart to ignore her. Sighing internally, I grab a tray of food and head her way. “Do you feel like company?”

“I’d love some, thank you.”

I sit and search for a bland, neutral topic of conversation. “You look a little glum,” I say lightly. “Is the food really that bad?”

“It’s truly terrible,” she responds. “But that’s not why I’m grumpy this morning. I couldn’t sleep last night.”

“I never sleep very well the first night in a new place, either.”

You slept just fine in Calder’s arms, though.

“That’s not it,” she replies.

Ugh.Please don’t discuss having sex with Foder; there’s not a mindwipe strong enough to get rid of that image.

“I’m stressed about work,” she continues. Phew. Dodged a bullet there. “I didn’t want to come, but Foder insisted that it would be good for me to get out of my lab.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

“I’m a biomedical researcher. My specialty is virus engineering.”

I don’t know what that is. “Like healbots and immunebots?”

“Sort of, yes, but organic.” She must get asked why she works with organics a lot because she offers an explanation before I can ask for one. “Organics get around the Crill interdict against artificial implants.”

“Does that matter?” I ask skeptically. I don’t know anything about biomedical research, but I know a bit about the Crill Empire. “Because it isn’t about nanobots. There is no material difference between organic engineered particles and inorganic ones. As far as I know, it’s an entirely arbitrary line. The nanobot interdict is a way to control the population.”

“There are important differences between organics and inorganics,” she corrects. “But I understand what you’re saying.” Her forehead furrows. “My parents grew up on a Crill space station. A virus rampaged through the population, and they died. I can’t make the High Command reverse their prohibition on nanotech; that won’t change in my lifetime. But the citizens of the Crill Empire don’t deserve to die because the authorities refuse to listen to logic. My parents didn’t deserve to die. And so I work with organics.”

I misjudged Sarai. I pegged her as a nice woman who was shy and naive, easily manipulated by someone like Foder Throop. But she’s more than that.

“What’s stressing you out?” I ask with newfound respect.

“I’ve run into a problem with my research,” she says. “The virus I’ve engineered does not play nice with nanoarmor. It sees them as a threat and attacks.” She rubs her temples. “I’ve been trying to evolve them to ignore nanobots, but so far, everything I’ve tried has failed.”

I finish up my breakfast. “I have to go,” I tell Sarai apologetically. “I want to walk the floor and look at the shuttles before it gets too crowded.”

I almost manage to get out of there without running into Foder, but he shows up just as I stand up. “Hello, darling,” he says perfunctorily to Sarai before turning toward me with a malicious smile. “Shouldn’t you be on the floor? There’s a museum exhibit on the third level featuring SpiderRays. Don’t you have a soft spot for those pieces of junk?”

I clench my hands into fists. Tanvi had a SpiderRay; it was the first ship I ever worked on. Throop stole it from me when he murdered her, and now he’s taunting me about it.

Don’t punch him. Don’t punch him. Do not punch the slimeball.

Ignoring Throop completely, I turn to Sarai. “I’ll see you later.”

She looks at me, then at Throop, then back again at me. She’d be an idiot not to sense the obvious tension in the air, but thankfully, she doesn’t probe. “Thank you for having breakfast with me, Elodie. I’ll see you at dinner tonight?”

Ugh, the Onel mixer. Because what I need in my life is more Foder Throop. “I’m looking forward to it,” I say, lying through my teeth. “See you there.”