Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(26)

I’d never flown on a plane, let alone a shuttle. For a small craft, this thing had a lot of thrust. We rocketed up, and a final boost pushed us, shuddering, past the atmosphere, and the revelation hit me hard, watching that shifting sky. The universe opened up like a darkly blooming flower to reveal a black sea full of Leviathan.

My breath caught.

Even at this distance, they still looked big, so they must be enormous up close. I’d seen the holo at orientation, of course, but nothing could do justice to the silvery, flickering sheen of them, contrasted against surrounding darkness. Their hulls gleamed with a sort of incandescent starlight, and I thought of the silver moonfish I’d once seen in an aquarium. I wondered how their skin felt to touch. Awe crept over me when I processed the fact that I was looking at a living creature with such magnificent lines. The nearest Leviathan was broadest across the center, with graceful curves from head to tail. The tail stretched out into a tapered point, and solar sails stretched out like fans, iridescent as butterfly wings.

Holy shit. I’ll be living inside someone.

That was a bizarre thought, kind of reminiscent of Jonah and the whale. That wilderness Bible camp had made sure I knew lots of pointless stories. I leaned forward, straining my harness for a better glimpse. The shuttle nosed close, and the creature . . . opened.

Staring into the maw of our new reality, the other girl had a panic attack. Her big brown eyes went wide, her breath starting to shorten and grow harsh. I’d seen it before on the streets. Sometimes, if people had asthma, we had to find a med bot and get them on a breather. But she didn’t seem asthmatic. Just scared to death.

“You’re Beatriz, right?” I’d met her during training week, but we hadn’t spent much time together. She didn’t answer. The shuttle lurched to a stop, and a strange, syrupy gravity drew us back down into our chairs. Chao-Xing ignored Beatriz’s distress. She was entirely occupied with her personal H2. Reading her own coverage, I guessed.

“Hey!” I said sharply, leaning forward. “Ms. Zhang. Give her a hand or something.”

“Excuse me?” she said without looking up.

“You. Isn’t she kind of your responsibility?”

“Not anymore. We’ve docked.”

“Chao-Xing,” Marko said, in a patient, resigned tone, like he’d developed it over a thousand uses. “Come on. Give her a relaxer. She needs it.”

The woman looked irritated as hell, but she dug around in a bag by her seat, broke open a medkit, and snapped a vial under Beatriz’s nose. The girl’s breathing evened out, and her eyelids fluttered, like she might pass out. “There,” Chao-Xing said. “Happy?”

“Delighted,” Marko said in a voice that was anything but. Wow. These two . . . didn’t really get along.

I didn’t wait for an invitation and unfastened my straps. Once Beatriz calmed a bit, Marko disengaged the doors, and we stepped out into what seemed like a kind of docking bay. But the floor felt strange and spongy beneath my feet. I bounced a little. The ship carried a faint smell that the others didn’t seem to notice, but it swirled around me like a smoky, caramelized sweetness. I drew it in deeply as I spun in a circle, trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was inside a living creature. Though I didn’t like anyone bossing me around, I waited for Marko, because he had the scoop on what our next move should be.

“I’ll give them the tour,” he said to Chao-Xing.

It didn’t seem like she intended to even leave the shuttle. “Make it quick. We’re expected soon.”

Marko stepped out with a smile that wasn’t directed at either of us. “Nadim, these are your new partners, Beatriz Teixeira and Zara Cole.”

I was trying to figure out how to greet a ship when I heard a sweet, low voice, somehow both in my head and outside of it, vocalized in subharmonics that vibrated pleasantly down my spine. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

The classes had spelled out that the Leviathan would communicate with us directly by voice, but this felt like the ship was talking to me—and only to me. The sincerity rolled over me so hard, it made the top of my head tingle. For a few seconds, I stood speechless, and I felt squirmy, for no logical reason. I got my breathing under control and shifted, feeling the give beneath my feet.

“Uh . . . hi,” I mumbled. My cheeks felt hot. No. I did not blush. I hadn’t blushed since I was eight.

Beatriz let out a squeak and grabbed my arm; Nadim’s greeting hadn’t made her feel any better, clearly. Marko led us through the docking bay and deeper into the Leviathan. Into Nadim, I corrected mentally. It always used to piss me off when people dismissed me, so I couldn’t deny this ship’s personhood, which sounded weird even in my head. We passed a kind of membrane that drifted over my skin—not unpleasant, just strange—but Beatriz was shivering by the time we stepped into a corridor that might have been a nerve pathway. The walls this deep shone an ivory pink, and on instinct, I reached out, then remembered how much I hated people touching me without permission.

“Go ahead,” Nadim said. “It’s all right.”

That startled me, but I put my hand on the wall. Carefully.

Marko smiled. “Warmer than you expected?”

Definitely. Warm and silky too. “It doesn’t hurt when I touch him?” I asked.

Nadim answered, not Marko. “It feels nice.”