Eternity Row Read Online Free PDF

hand. “I will show you what to do.”
    I didn’t want that. Reever and I had spent too many years at odds with each other already. Sparring together would only create a whole new set of problems. “Xonea plans to make everyone undergo this training. Like the pilot program. You had no problem with me learning how not to crash a launch.”
    He stopped in front of the computer archives section, where he was currently working on updating the ship’s linguistic database. “I was scheduled to report for duty five minutes ago.”
    “So you’re late. Let them give you a tardy slip.”
    “I have much to think about, Waenara . May we discuss this later?”
    I’d lived with him long enough to know the polite formality was a smoke screen. I’d loved him long enough for it to hurt when he shut me out like this. “Duncan-”
    He rested a finger against my lips. “I am not angry with you, nor do I think of you as my property. I am only concerned with Xonea’s intentions.”
    That thawed the rest of my internal frost layer. “He only wants what’s best.”
    “As do I.” He kissed me, the way he would Marel, on the forehead. “Until tonight, wife.”
    As I watched him go, I heard someone else moving away from me in the opposite direction. I turned my head in time to see someone in a resident’s green tunic disappear into the unoccupied gyrlift.
    I confronted Qonja Torin in his quarters a few minutes later. Having to wait for another gyrlift hadn’t improved my mood.
    The resident, on the other hand, acted very surprised to see me. “Healer Cherijo.” He stepped aside and indicated I should enter.
    I did, and waited for the door panel to close before I attacked. “Why are you following me?”
    He went over to the food prep unit. “Would you care for tea? I have programmed some Terran blends.”
    “I’d like an answer. Now.”
    “Of course. Just a moment.” Qonja prepped a single server, then came over to sit in front of me. Very natural, as if he stalked people every day. “I am interested in crew behavior.”
    Ice chips wouldn’t have melted in his mouth. “But you’re not following them around.”
    “You are a prepossessing subject.” He took a data pad from the table between us. “I have been observing and recording your interactions for some time. It is most engrossing.”
    I wondered how engrossing he’d find having a server dumped over his head. “Really.”
    “Your parenting methods, for example.” He switched the pad to “display,” and turned it to show me. Jorenian pictographs crowded the small screen. “Your approach is quite unique.”
    “You’re documenting all this?” I swiped the pad and checked the file. He had pages of notes. “Why?”
    “As I have said”-he spread his hands out-“I find you absolutely riveting.”
    Either he was joking, which wasn’t funny, or he was serious, which was worse. I pressed a key, erased the entire pad, then tossed it back to him. “Don’t ever do this again.”
    “I mean no harm to you, ClanCousin.”
    I went to the door panel. “You’re here to study medicine, resident, not me. Is that clear?”
    “As you wish.” He came after me. “May I make one request?”
    “No.” Out I went.
    As Marel was still in school, I opted to change out of my sweat-stained tunic before I talked to the other problem child on the ship.
    I found Dhreen in central launch bay, working beneath one of the shuttles. Kneeling by his feet was Ilona Red Faun, the Navajo girl who had once been my clone-brother’s lover.
    “Is he making you hand him the tools?”
    Beautiful dark eyes that had been adoringly fixed on Dhreen’s oversized feet flashed toward me, and filled with feminine suspicion.
    “No, patcher. I offered to help.”
    We weren’t friends, Ilona and I-more like uneasy allies. After Jericho had nearly beaten her to death for betraying his underground to the League, I’d saved her life and hid her from my clone-brother. She and Dhreen had subsequently