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.“I’m looking for my… for someone.That’s why I stowed away.I followed somebody aboard who might know where this person is.”The dolphin bobbed his head at her.“Truly? By coincidence, I am looking, too.For someone.But that is another story.An adventure of its own, I can say, with drama and twists, and like yours, not yet finished.” He stood before her, hydraulics humming softly.“And you are alone here? What of the remainder of your family? You are young, and they would be missing you, would they not? I’m sorry, but you see how my need to satisfy my curiosity requires my asking.”Zenn did see.It was perfectly understandable.“But I am rude to impose my questions without offering hospitality,” he said.“Please, accompany me to my own cabin and we will discuss the mystery of your situation further.” He gestured to the door, but Zenn hesitated.The dolphin’s fixed smile and inexpressive eyes made it impossible to read him.“There is no need for anxious concern.” He raised both mech-hands in the air.“I am eminently worthy of trust, I assure you.It is a large and spacious cabin where we will be most comfortable as we speak.And we have established your own options at the moment are limited.What is there to lose? Nothing at all.This way.”Without waiting for her to answer, he strode out of the room, mech-legs hissing and clicking, his tail flukes held aloft behind him as he walked.He was absolutely right, of course.There really were no other choices for Zenn to consider.Suddenly, she felt the full weight of where she was, the hopeless task she’d set herself.And then, despite everything she’d been telling herself since leaving Mars, she desperately, and irrationally, longed for the reassurance of Liam Tucker’s self-centered, annoying, towner-boy presence.OK, a little less annoying since he’d tried to come to her rescue back on Mars.So, where was he now? Had he found a place to hide? Or had he, like her, been confronted by a steward’s demand to see the boarding pass he didn’t have? If nothing else, Liam was a solid connection to home, to safety, to all she was leaving behind.She could try to find him.But where would she even begin to look? Besides, she couldn’t risk being distracted from her primary aim: find a place she wouldn’t be noticed.Then locate her father.Focus, Zenn.Focus.Realizing she still clutched Jules Vancouver’s gambling discs in her hands, she stuffed them into her jumpsuit pockets and hurried to follow the dolphin out into the passageway.FIVEZenn wasn’t sure what she had expected a starship passenger cabin to look like, but the dolphin’s accommodations still left her looking about in wonder.Unlike the shabby corridors open to the general public, this large suite of rooms was well maintained and sumptuous.The walls were ornamented with richly embroidered tapestries and antique oil-on-canvas paintings of rural landscapes and portraits of people dressed in old-fashioned clothing.In the central room stood furniture with plush cushions.On a long table by the wall was a ceramic bowl filled with apples, bananas, kipfruit and what looked like an assortment of dried fish morsels wrapped in clear plastic.One wall held a large viewscreen that currently displayed a changing display of the ship’s various passenger decks, recreation venues, retail shops and other areas.Off to one side of the main room were three doorways leading to what Zenn assumed were the bath and sleeping quarters.“As you can see, a plentitude of space,” Jules Vancouver said, gesturing at the room.Zenn just stood, looking around herself.She felt herself beginning to relax.Was this Jules someone she could trust? She was beginning to think he was.“Please, you must unburden yourself.Sit, do.” He watched her as she slipped off her backpack, set it down on one chair and sank into the cushions of another.“So, Zora Bodine,” he said, pouring them both glasses of an orangish-pink liquid from a cut-glass decanter on the central table [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]