Price of Ransom Read Online Free PDF Page B

She continued to stare at the ceiling.
    He waited out her silence.
    “Did you know,” she began finally, “that the sta assigned to the ship with Machiko wouldn’t let the Mule into navigation? Of course, they left with Machiko, but I suppose it’s as well. I couldn’t keep the Mule down on the lowest deck just to please their prejudices. And despite Jehane’s”—her voice choked on the name momentarily—“avowed emancipation of the Ridanis, none of them were treated equally. It’s no wonder they all sided with us when it came to mutiny. I was told that Jenny had to stop Rainbow from slugging some guy who had spit on her once. I’m amazed the Hope made it to Arcadia intact in the first place.”
    Because she seemed in the mood to talk, he kept silent.
    “I’ve settled on a command structure,” she continued. “I’m going to leave Jenny as Commander for the military unit, and move Yehoshua to First Officer, but there’s no one on board who has the breadth of experience to be Second. And we’ve got to start intensive training utilizing Bach’s knowledge so we have a complete set of shifts on the bridge and in Engineering, at the least. With the seven convalescents added to the able-bodied, we can just cover it. If we can get them trained.”
    “What are we going to do when we get to Forsaken?”
    “Distribute the Formula.” She frowned and, finally, shifted her head to look at him. “I’m going to invite what’s left of Central’s forces to run with us.”
    “Are you really?” He grinned, quick and delighted with the audacity of it.
    “Short of force, it’s the only way I can figure to get supplied for that long trip given that we’ve got no credit to buy with.”
    “Get in trade for a better future,” he murmured. “I wonder if it will work.”
    She shifted her legs on the bed, crossing her ankles in the opposite direction. “Do you want to go back?” she asked, softly.
    “Lily, my heart,” he said, as slow as it was deliberate. “I don’t care where I go, as long as—” He stopped and thought better of revealing his hopes, and fears, too plainly to her.
    But her gaze, on him, was clear and suddenly acutely comprehensive. And without judgment against everything that she knew he was. “No, I don’t suppose you do.” She looked at him a moment longer before she sighed and turned her head once more to stare up at the ceiling. “I’m not sure I like this job,” she muttered, sounding cross.
    For a moment he was taken aback. Then he understood that she meant, not him, but the job of being captain of the Forlorn Hope .
    She did not seem to need an answer, so he did not give her one. He just lay, enjoying the intimacy of their mutual silence. And in the slow seep of air through the vents, the measured rise and fall of her respiration, and the complex bouquet of her that he took in with each breath, he realized that he was content. It was a feeling he had not known since his childhood, before his mother and her clan had been forced by every good reason—none of which he could blame them for—to exile him to his father’s kin.
    She knew the truth, and she had not rejected him or used it to control him.
    He smiled. He thought of leaning across to kiss her, but there was time enough for that. Patients who needed and benefited by his care awaited him in Medical. Next to him lay a woman who was perfectly happy and perfectly comfortable—and perfectly passionate, at the proper time—when she was with him.
    He could not imagine any greater happiness.

3 Fount of Blood
    T HEY TOOK THEIR TIME , circling in, and broadcast their arrival across a wide band so as not to startle the undoubtedly nervous inhabitants of Forsaken and its twin orbiting Stations.
    “I’ve got a go-ahead from Station Alpha for docking,” said Finch at comm as they entered orbit.
    “Start docking countdown,” replied the captain, expressionless in her chair.
    “Hold on.” This from Yehoshua, on scan. “I thought