To Discover and Preserve: A Peltedverse Collection by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0000000000000
Published: 2023-01-07T10:07:21+00:00

A Fleet scout was larger than a courier, but even so, Cecil had met every member of the Moontide’s sixty-four person crew… which made the arrival of someone he didn’t recognize on sight a novelty. When that stranger was also a beautiful woman, he was disappointed that he couldn’t treat the arrival as a stroke of luck. As it was… he set his data tablet down and rose, indicating the arrangement of chairs and loveseat that took up most of the compartment labeled as the Chief of Medical’s office. “Please. Sit, if you would. Can I offer you anything?”

“No, thank you,” she said. Then paused. “Well… maybe something warm.”

His least favorite kind of social request, one without specific parameters. Cecil ordered a pot of tea and poured for them both before handing the woman a cup. He admired her hands as she accepted it: long fingers, strong… was that a callus at the tip of the one visible around the curve of porcelain?

“Thank you,” she said, smiling up at him, and it was enough to make his breath catch. Ridiculously, because he was homely and she was lovely and it was certainly a meaningless courtesy. “I wasn’t really thirsty, but I thought… it would be rude, not to have something with you. And the tea pot is beautiful.”

Cecil chuckled. “It’s genie-made. I admit I always pick the same pattern though. My name’s Cecil, in case you didn’t know it when you came looking for the C-med of the Moontide. I assume that was how you found me.”

“That’s right. And you won’t be surprised to learn I’m from the Starlightning. Gardenia Segal, comm specialist.”

They’d been underway for a day now, with the Starlightning’s navigational console slaved to the Moontide’s tactical computer. It had struck Cecil, seeing the graphical representation of the two ships on the nav plotting board: like the funeral bier of an ancient warrior, held at their flank, on its final voyage. The courier’s crew had kept to itself… obviously. He would have remembered a slender Asanii woman with white fur and beautiful hands. “I hope you’re finding the accommodations comfortable.”

“I have no complaints,” she said. “I didn’t come about that. It’s just that… I haven’t heard from Crispin. And I’m worried.”

“Crispin?” Cecil asked.

She nodded. “Our D-per.”

Cecil leaned back, staring at her.

“You didn’t know, I’m guessing,” she said.

“Someone must have,” Cecil said. “When everyone came over, they would have been checking the roster to make sure all nineteen of you came over.”

“Twenty,” Gardenia said. “When the captain was alive, we were twenty-one. Without him, we’re twenty. Counting Crispin. So if you think there’s only nineteen of us… he must have removed himself from the list. And that’s the kind of thing that concerns me. I’m worried he’s going to erase himself, and then we’ll have two suicides on our hands.”

“Why… why would he do that?” Cecil said, struggling. D-pers—digital personalities—were so exotic as to rival the least visible of aliens. He’d heard of them, of course, but he’d had

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