Aberration by Cathy McCrumb

Author:Cathy McCrumb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Christian, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9798886050219
Publisher: Enclave Publishing
Published: 2022-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

25

PERSONAL RECORD: DESIGNATION ZETA4542910-9545E

CTS THALASSA

478.2.5.06

Nate sprawled in the chair, only a meter away, and his chest rose and fell evenly. Zhen slept, curled on her side in the bed next to mine, while Williams read. I closed my eyes and imagined that it was five ten-days ago, and an Elder had not said Nate had interfered with the records. That Ross’s virus was not active. That Recorders were not endangered by behemoth insects. That I faced neither the Halls nor returning to Pallas Station.

Yet while I imagined, the datapad pulled at me, and my concern that the Elder would return chiseled at the comfort I found in the presence of my friends.

“You need to work your magic, don’t you?” Williams asked.

“My magic?”

“Blocking those implants. I know you: you won’t let Max’s son suffer as you did.” Her head tilted. “But you haven’t started yet.”

“If the Elder returned—”

“Of course.” She slapped a palm on her forehead. “You need a cover, in case anyone shows up. Well, I’ll set the door to chime before it opens, and you can borrow my book and swap the datapads if it does. I’ll study instead of reading, which I suppose I ought to do anyway.” Color came to her cheeks as she pulled her violet datapad from a deep pocket and clutched it over her heart. “Just . . . please don’t tell anyone.”

“Do not tell . . . ” Concern edged out my fear of the Elder’s return. “Williams, if you are reading banned material, utilizing your datapad will serve neither of us.”

If her face had been pink before, it neared scarlet then. “Not that! It’s historical.”

“There is nothing wrong with history—”

“It is a love story,” she whispered in a rush. She glanced at Nate and Zhen, but still they slept. “It is not banned or even rated orange—only somewhere between green and blue, so it shouldn’t make you uncomfortable. It’s . . . I couldn’t bear people knowing.”

I waited.

“I can dream.” The faintest of smiles touched her lips, but it fell away. “I am forty-one, you know. I have quite a few years before I finish paying back my gifting, and that’s assuming we make it out of here and Ross’s bioweapon doesn’t end my chance. When I finally get to choose my name, to be my own person, it will be too late. I’ll be older, and starting with nearly nothing. What future I have will be small, though that hope of freedom beckons. The one man I—” She stopped to adjust the datapad’s screen, then extended it. “Here. I started it over.”

I accepted the datapad wordlessly.

Williams fingered the hem of her mint-green scrubs. “It’s a second-chance story, where she refuses him years ago, but her sea captain returns and courts someone else at first, because he’s angry she refused him, though he says it’s because he finds her ‘much changed.’ But in the end, he realizes that she is still the woman he loves.”

The inconsistency in the sea captain’s behavior bothered

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