Chapter 5

Chapter 5

D aedalus had to admit the meowl had done a surprisingly good job in getting rid of all the moths. He hadn’t seen a single one in the living quarters all day, and he’d spent half of that time making sure Primula’s guest cabin was immaculate.

He’d heard banging and yowling in the ventilation ducts for most of last night, but the meowl was now sprawled across one of the sofas in the galley, taking up far more space than such a small creature should be capable of doing. Also probably a cat thing, he decided.

Daedalus definitely owed Talon a favour for this. Two, if he managed to get into Primula’s good graces. She was due in the docking bay any moment now, and he’d never been so nervous in his life.

“Please don’t let anything go wrong. Please don’t let anything go wrong,” he begged the universe under his breath as he paced the galley, unable to relax or even sit down. Surely there was something he’d forgotten, even though he’d checked all the cargo holds twice. Maybe he had time for one final check…

His comm unit beeped.

“Yes?” Daedalus asked, suddenly breathless.

“Permission to come aboard with cargo delivery,” said an unfamiliar male voice. It belonged to one of the Colony’s many labourers, a workforce who got rostered anywhere they were needed.

“Sure. I’ll meet you at the airlock,” Daedalus replied, hurrying down to open the hatch.

A dozen labourers waited outside, each wheeling a covered tank.

“Where do you want these, sir?” the first guy asked.

“Two per bay, one on each side,” said an airy female voice that sent a riot of butterflies into flight in Daedalus’s belly. Primula Naucrates stepped into view. “Follow me.” She swanned onto the ship.

The guy glanced at Daedalus, as if to confirm he was supposed to take orders from a woman. The man had to be a complete idiot.

“You heard the lady. She’s in charge. I’m just the pilot,” Daedalus said. The pilot she hadn’t even looked at, his traitorous mind whispered.

It wasn’t like that was new. She’d never looked at him before, so why would she start now?

Daedalus shook his head. He shouldn’t be worrying about what Primula thought, or what she was looking at. He should be helping to secure the cargo.

When he reached the first bay, he was glad he’d gone to check. The labourers had loaded the tanks into the rails he’d placed there, but they’d failed to secure the brackets. Daedalus got to work.

In the sixth bay, he’d just finished fastening the first bracket, when the tank lid came flying over the side of the tank, hitting him on the head so hard he saw stars. He rose to his feet, none too steadily, swearing a blue streak.

Only to come face to face with a stricken Primula, backing away with eyes wide as moons.

“Sorry, so sorry!” she squeaked, looking anywhere but at him.

Daedalus gripped the edge of the tank while the world whirled around him. “It’s…all right,” he gritted out. It bloody hurt, but so did being clawed by a meowl, and she surely hadn’t dropped the lid on him on purpose. His vision swam…no, there was something actually swimming in the tank. Hundreds of somethings. His mouth watered. “Those fish look seriously well fed.” He could already imagine how they’d taste, the texture of that succulent flesh…

“They had to be. Tilapia tend to go off their food during gravity fluctuations, so I needed them to be as healthy as possible before take off, just in case. Once we’re on Delta, I’m hoping they’ll start eating normally again, but this has never been done before. All I have to go on are old records from Earth, and the fish that returned to Earth from orbit were always euthanised for autopsy soon after they landed. There’s only limited behavioural data…” Her cheeks reddened and she ducked her head. “I shouldn’t talk so much about fish. We need to fasten the lid back on for take off.”

He'd happily listen to her talk about fish all day and all night, plus whack him with the lid as many times as she wanted, but Daedalus suspected if he tried to tell her that, it would come out wrong. Or just plain sleazy. Safer to keep his mouth shut. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll finish securing all the brackets while you take care of the lids. As soon as you’re ready, we can take off for Delta.”

And then he could let the autopilot handle things while he had his head scanned in the medbay. Because if the blow to the head wasn’t making him woozy, then it had to be Primula’s presence, and he needed his head straight for this trip.

Nothing could go wrong. For Primula, he’d make sure everything was perfect.

Now the moths were gone, he commanded the ship to remove the maze in the ventilation system. Of course, that would also make it easier for him to move unseen from his cabin to the cargo hold, to snack on a few of her succulent fish.

But not enough for her to notice any were missing. After all, she had so many…surely she wouldn’t notice one or two less.

Or so he hoped.