Hiding Place by Adam-Troy Castro

Author:Adam-Troy Castro
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: mystery, SS, AI, SF, noir
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

I found the Porrinyards in the guest quarters the Negev had allocated for us. It was a VIP suite and still as snug as a marsupial’s pouch, dominated by a bed that was big enough for two only if those two were so attuned to each others’ nocturnal movements that they were able to avoid beating the crap out of one another as they slept. Many ardent civilian couples, traveling aboard ships of this class, suffered through a few days of tormented attempts at shared domestic arrangements but then elected to sleep in shifts or beg for separate rooms.

Our own private transport, still docked in the Negev’s hangar, featured shared quarters modified to fit all three of us in comfort, and would have been much more congenial for us than the one-size-fits-all design of a vessel designed for adult human beings who, by and large, rarely slept together in groups larger than two. But some things, like refusing the hospitality of a vessel where you’ve been summoned to give your expert opinion, just aren’t done—and besides, it had never been necessary, not with the special Porrinyard breed of grace extending to their uncanny unobtrusiveness while asleep. Even tucked between them, in beds small enough to call this one expansive, I never knew they were on either side of me unless they wanted me to.

When I found them they were lying nude above the covers, Oscin’s larger form curled to mimic Skye’s. His bare rear end may have protruded over the edge of the mattress to such an extent that only the supported parts of his body kept him from falling out of bed, and she may have allowed only a couple of millimeters of clearance between the tip of her button nose and the wall on her side, but they had left room for me: a virtual outline, defined by the negative space between his body and hers. I didn’t have to listen to know that they were breathing in unison; I’d ended many of the nights I woke from traumatic nightmares finding comfort in the shared refrain of their breath, sounding in perfect unison on opposite sides of me.

They were, together, the best person I’d ever met. They’d saved my life twice within three days of our first meeting, and many uncounted times since then. They’d saved my sanity just as often, and given me more than I’ve ever thought I could have, not least among those many gifts a reason to look forward to waking up in the morning. Their willingness—hell, that wasn’t even the right word—eagerness, to not only tolerate the baggage I’d brought into our relationship but claim it as part of their own, to become for the rest of their lives someone who would remember what it had been like to be Andrea Cort, struck me as breathtaking—more than I’d ever asked for and certainly more than I’d ever deserved.

There was no doubt about it: With them, I’d finally become a lucky woman.

But it was also true that I’d only known them as the shared creature they’d become.

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