her instruments 02 - rose point by m c a hogarth Read Free Book Online Page B

Reese said. “I’m not saying I would ignore it if he was trying, I’m saying maybe he thinks he shouldn’t.”
    “Because you might rip his head off?” Kis’eh’t huffed. “Well, yes. All right, I could believe that.” She sighed. “Are you okay? Really, I mean. One of us could...”
    “Come with me?” Reese shook her head. “We’re up in these craggy hills right now and I have no idea how we got here, to be honest. Just stay with the ship. I’ll break Hirianthial free and we’ll get the hell out of here.”
    “We’re all on board with that plan.”
    “Good,” Reese said. “I’ll call in tomorrow, all right?”
    “All right. Goddess keep.”
    “Yeah,” Reese murmured to the telegem after it closed the connection. “I hope she will.” She sighed and looked up at the sky, steeling herself against the sight of it... but at night it wasn’t as intimidating as it was during the day. It looked too much like the view outside the Earthrise’s ports. She’d never had any trouble with the vastness of space. Maybe that was her issue: not agoraphobia, like she thought, but claustrophobia. Planets were too finite for her, maybe... or she’d learned from Mars’s zealously-maintained artificial habitats not to trust them.
    “Now that’s a look I recognize,” Ra’aila said, appearing out of the dark to offer her a bowl. At Reese’s quizzical look, she added, “It’s dinner.”
    “Thanks.” Reese took it, found it warm to her touch which is how she learned that the air was cooler than she was expecting. “What look is that?”
    “Looking out, wanting to go there,” Ra’aila said, nodding. “A very wanderer sort of look. You must have a nomadic heart, captain.”
    “How do you figure that?”
    The Aera smiled. “You run a merchant ship. It’s an itinerant life. Who but a nomad could want it?”
    “I’m not really a nomad by choice,” Reese said, moving the spoon around in the bowl. “It’s more like... it was a way to get away from home. Maybe find one of my own.”
    Ra’aila snorted. “I know that look too.” At Reese’s narrowed-eyed glance, the Aera said, “It’s not home you were getting away from, was it? It was the people, the expectations, the roles you didn’t fit into and didn’t want to fill. What you’re looking for isn’t a home, it’s a chance to find out who you are when you’re not being smothered.” She leaned forward, eyes luminous in the dark. “Let me share with you some hard-won wisdom from a fellow wanderer, Captain. The moment you set down roots again? You end up with the same old problems. Just look at this place. All fine on the voyage here... five years into landing, having fights.” The Aera stood and rolled her shoulders. “Better to stay on the move, I think.”
    “There’s got to be a place worth settling for,” Reese said, startled.
    “There’s never a place worth settling for,” Ra’aila said. “Not unless you’ve got the right people, anyway.” She smiled wryly. “And it’s so easy to fool yourself into thinking you’re with the right people. Particularly if they’re family.” She nodded. “That’s why I left Flait.” Leaning over, she tapped the edge of the bowl. “Don’t just play with it, eat. You might not think you’re hungry, but you are... and morning will come before you know it.”
    Reese stared after the woman after she left. Since the bloody, grueling war that had emancipated Mars—and killed most of its men—the women of Mars had been making use of artificial insemination to continue their families. What had begun as necessity had eventually been enshrined as tradition. Seven generations of Reese’s family had lacked a father, and the women had been content to keep it that way. Better that than to live with the fear of losing a husband, a fear that had never quite evaporated with the blood from the soil.
    But she had never been comfortable with the path that had contented her family; had not wanted to live