“But you’re not really convincing seven individuals. You’re convincing one community.” I shrug. “There you go. Much more important than learning to bow. Now can we relax for five minutes?”

Shey looks like she wants to prod me more about it, but after a moment she reluctantly nods.

“Thank you for the lesson,” she says. “I do appreciate it.”

“Ask Lyre next time, she’s much more knowledgeable about this stuff.”

“Oh, I think you know more than you think,” she says with a smile. “You have something much better than book smarts. You understand people.”

“Eh, Gaians still seem to hate me.”

“Most Gaians, perhaps,” she says, which draws a grin out of me. I watch her as she walks along the cargo crates, trailing a finger over the tops of the tall metal boxes. She pauses at the last one, eyeing the hole carved in its side by Corvus’s knife, but doesn’t ask. At least someone, likely Lyre, has taken the time to clean up all the scrap metal that was strewn across the floor.

“This must’ve been a big couple weeks for you,” I say. “First Deva, now a smuggler ship, and tomorrow Nibiru. It’s a lot for a sheltered Gaian to handle, huh?”

“It’s all very strange to me,” she confesses. “Certainly overwhelming, but not bad. It’s like something out of a romance novel, really.”

“Huh?” I sit up a little straighter.

“You know. A woman with a crew of smugglers, off on an adventure across the system, all sorts of political intrigue…”

“Sure,” I say, scrutinizing her. “But you didn’t say an adventure novel. You said romance.”

Shey shoots me a coy smile before disappearing around the back of the crates. I can’t help myself; like a marionette dragged by its strings, I follow. On the other side, she rests her back against one of the crates. I lean against the one beside her, close enough that our shoulders brush.

“And would this story of yours feature a very dashing pilot?” I ask.

“You mean a very loudmouthed and occasionally charming pilot who used the heroine as a hostage?”

I wince at the reminder, but lift my shoulders in a shrug.

“Only after your ‘heroine’ left the pilot to die, as I recall.”

Now it’s her turn to look uncomfortable.

“But the pilot didn’t die.”

“And she decided to go along with the heroine’s crazy plan.”

“So in the end I suppose the two are—”

“Even?”

Shey nods. I smile.

“All right, then.” I lean closer to her. “So, tell me more about the ‘romance’ part of the story.”

Shey smiles, but she turns her face away, not meeting my eyes.

“It doesn’t end well, I’m afraid. These things rarely do, especially when the two come from completely different worlds.”