“It’s dark. The gate to the landing field is locked, and you’ll never get past the guard.” Shig indicated the dome overhead, Capella’s light having vanished from the sky. “And Talina’s out there. She’s had dealings with gotcha vine before. She’ll have him loaded up first thing in the morning. He’ll be in the hospital and under Raya’s care by midday.”

Kalico rubbed her brow. It figured that Dek had finally gotten himself into a mess. One of her worst nightmares was that she’d be the one who would have to tell Miko how his cousin died, that she hadn’t been able to keep the prick alive.

Prick?

Well, that was the question, wasn’t it?

Images flickered through her memory. Dark forest. Fear and thirst. Dek Taglioni handing her an energy bar when she was on her last legs. His infectious smile, the dimple in his chin. How his green-ringed yellow eyes—genetically designed for effect—twinkled when he shared a joke with her.

“That’s a tortured expression,” Shig noted.

“Trying to figure out what to do with Dek. Wondering who he is. What he is.”

“I heard that you didn’t think much of him back in Solar System.” Shig fingered the stem of his wineglass. “Dek doesn’t think much of who he was, either.”

She took another small sip of whiskey to keep her tongue fresh. “Shig, do leopards change their spots? Do the evil ever truly become good? Can a onetime monster become a saint? He stays with you when he’s in town. What do you think?”

“Dek is a man in search of himself. What he endured in Ashanti should have broken him. Instead, he held on, grasping onto something he never knew he had.”

Shig lifted his wine to his lips, but Kalico wasn’t sure he actually drank any.

“And now?”

“Supervisor, he is no longer the man he was back in Solar System. Nor is he the man who scrubbed toilets and worked hydroponics aboard Ashanti. As to why he is risking his life out in the bush? I think it is to prove something to himself . . . and perhaps partially as an act of the penance he insists he doesn’t believe in.”

“I don’t know what to do with him.”

Shig dryly added, “In more ways than one, I think.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He is your only social equal on the planet. You enjoy his company. You share a common origin and can speak honestly about a way of life that only a select few can aspire to. But each time you find yourself drawn to him, the reminder of who he was back in Transluna rises to haunt that most-analytical-and-cautious brain of yours. That same world that you share, the one that brings you commonality, haunts you both.”

“You think I have a crush on him?”