Candy Bomb (Starship for Sale Book 4) by M R Forbes

Author:M R Forbes [Forbes, M R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-07-10T14:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 23

“What’s up, kid?” Keep asked as he entered the conference room. I had asked him to come through my newly inserted comm device, but hadn’t told him why I wanted to see him. His eyes drifted from me to the slab, resting on the table just in front of me. He smiled. “Is that what I think it is?”

“It is,” I confirmed. Keep moved to the chair on my right and plopped down in it, reaching for the slab as soon as his butt hit the seat. I quickly pulled it away from it like it was Charlie Brown’s football. “Not so fast.”

“Seriously?” Keep said, eying the device with eager longing. “Come on, Bennie. I thought we were past the games.”

“Not games,” I replied. “Questions. Well, one question, mostly. I’ve been thinking about it since we left sickbay.”

“Why didn’t you ask it then?”

“I wanted to ask you when we were alone.”

He leaned back in his chair, putting his arms behind his head. “Okey dokey. Shoot.”

“Why don’t you know any healing sigils?”

He wrinkled his face. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re a thousand years old. You know about sigiltech. You were there when it was invented, or so you claim. But you need to look in the Grimoire to see if there’s a sigil that’ll help me? You’ve had all this time, why don’t you have more of the sigils memorized?”

Keep reached up and rubbed at his face, hand sliding over a bit of stubble that had come in since we left Earth. I hadn’t seen him make that gesture before. Was it a good sign? “I don’t really want to get into my whole life story. That’ll take a long, long time.”

“We have three days.”

“Three days we should spend on the Grimoire or preparing for our role as space pirates, not listening to me yap about literal ancient history. None of that will help you right now.”

“Then just answer the question without the anecdotes,” I suggested. “Why don’t you have more sigils memorized?”

Keep stared at me. He didn’t want to answer the question. He looked annoyed that I had even asked it. But he also knew I wouldn’t let him peek at the Grimoire plates until he spilled the beans.

“I forgot them,” he said at last.

The response wasn’t what I expected. “What?” I hissed.

“I said I forgot them,” he repeated. “Though I don’t think I ever knew the sigils we’re looking for to help you.”

“Why did you go into the whole thing about your life story? Why didn’t you just say so in the first place?”

“Look kid, it’s a little embarrassing, you know?”

“You’re lying,” I said.

“Nope. Cross my heart.” He used his right index finger to make the gesture. “I used to know maybe seventy percent of the sigils. But I haven’t used most of them in at least eight hundred years. And don’t forget, the entire goal was for all this stuff to be forgotten. By me too.”

“Then why do you still know it at all?” I asked. “And how are you a thousand years old?”

“See, that’s what I was trying to avoid.

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