Defy the Worlds (Defy the Stars #2)(63)

“You needed a while to understand me, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I did.” Noemi’s pretty sure this isn’t the same kind of thing at all, but they can talk about it some other time.

It hits her all over again: I get to talk to Abel. He’s here. The one person in the galaxy who’s ever completely seen me, known me—he’s here. What does that mean for her, for them?

She doesn’t know. Can’t know, not with all of this going on. Noemi is certain only that she’s happier to see Abel than she’s ever been to see anybody—and that their chances of getting through this have more than doubled, now that they’re together.

“We should return to the bridge,” Abel says. “Otherwise Fouda will suspect me of deserting Remedy, and Riko and the others will begin to worry.”

“And we have to get those relay codes.” She doesn’t really understand how the codes work—how Remedy itself works—but if that’s what Ephraim told Abel, she’s going with it. “Genesis doesn’t have much time.”

“Your fear for your world goes far beyond concern for your own survival,” Abel says as they begin walking along the glass-strewn corridor, taking what must be an indirect way back to the bridge. “You’ve always been selfless. My programming ranks it as one of the highest virtues—and my consciousness agrees.”

Does he balance those two? Interesting. They’ll have to talk about that sometime. “Saving my own planet hardly counts as selfless. I mean, that’s my home. That’s almost everyone I’ve ever known.”

“I’ve lived among humans for more than five months now, working as a Vagabond. This has given me far more insight into human beings than I had before. While what you say is logical, I have found that, when conditions become difficult, most people are quick to save themselves without thinking of others. You supersede that selfishness.”

Noemi shakes her head. She’s hardly the best person she knows. She’s one of the most mixed up, one of the angriest. “I don’t think I’m anything special.”

“I disagree.” His eyes meet hers with warmth that reminds her—suddenly, vividly—of their one kiss.

Flustered, she says, “Protecting Genesis is what I’ve trained for my whole life.”

Abel seems to consider his words carefully before replying. “I’ve come to believe that even humans have a Directive One. A call they’ll always answer, or a goal they can never stop trying to achieve. Something that will always override everything else. Mine is my need to protect Burton Mansfield. Yours is your loyalty to Genesis. Whether it’s a matter of virtue, as I believe, or training, as you believe—it makes no difference. You remain constant.”

“You defeated your Directive One to save my life. You didn’t even flinch.”

He says only, “Maybe I’m programming a new Directive One for myself.”

She flushes again, but it doesn’t fluster her so much this time. It feels… nice. Noemi hugs him tightly, and for a little while, it doesn’t matter that they’re on a hidden planet, in a crashed spaceship turned upside down. The terrible crises that they have to resolve both on the Osiris and back on Genesis haven’t gone away, but in this moment, at least, everything is exactly as it should be.



“Where the hell have you been?” Captain Fouda demands of Abel. His smile reminds Noemi of the versions of sharks native to Genesis. He leans back in the captain’s chair, which he’s gone to the trouble of setting up on the new floor. “A mech can’t work any faster than that?”

“Noemi!” Riko emerges from a side room off the bridge. She looks strained—red-eyed and pale—but no wonder, and at least her smile is genuine. “Where were you guys? I’m glad you’re okay.”

“That makes two of us,” Noemi says, though there’s a limit to how safe she can feel with Gillian Shearer’s poison ampule still embedded in her arm.

When Riko hugs her, she returns the embrace. It feels like too warm a welcome; Noemi’s never made peace with the radical wing of Remedy, and the events of the past couple of days haven’t encouraged her to improve her opinion. But when Noemi and Abel first met Riko she showed them compassion—and Harriet and Zayan, too. That’s worth at least one hug.

Riko’s happiness seems to have drained Fouda’s to oblivion. He sits upright. “Wait. I know you. You’re the one who threatened to breach the hull and kill us all!”

“You were threatening to kill me first.” Noemi folds her arms across her chest. “I’m not going to apologize for defending myself. That’s the only reason I’m still alive.”

Angry as Fouda is, he seems to recognize she has a point. “Why were you helping those parasites? They tried to hide an entire world from humanity!”

She could answer that she’d made the only allies she could, that justice is best served by sharing this world rather than punishing its would-be thieves, or several other things. With Captain Fouda, though, the best defense seems to be a good offense. “You didn’t bother reporting this to the rest of the galaxy either. Were you going to claim Haven for yourselves? If so, you’re no better than the passengers.”

Sure enough, Fouda flushes. “We only wanted to establish ourselves here first, to make it hard for Earth to conceal it again.”