Nova by Margaret Fortune Read Free Book Online Page A

did you find me?” apparently translating to “Make yourself at home” in his head.
    “Well,” he says, “Wednesday I came by the bay on Seven, just like I promised, only I couldn’t find you anywhere. I figured I probably just missed you, so I hung around awhile, but you never came back, and then I had to go home. Yesterday was pretty much the same, only instead of waiting I went looking for you in the hub. So then today it occurs to me that maybe they reassigned you to a different bay, only you couldn’t tell me because I never gave you my link number. Deficient of me, right?”
    I nod uncertainly.
    “So I asked one of the officers, and they sent me here. And what do you know? Here you are!”
    I blink a couple times, my sluggish brain having to go over his words a couple times before actually latching on to what he said: He thought they reassigned me. So it never occurred to him that I might have misled him on purpose. Well, why would it? He still thinks I’m his friend Lia. I’m tempted to tell him the truth, if only to get him to leave me alone. Of course, knowing Michael he would probably just laugh it off as one of my wild stories.
    Lia’s
stories. One of
Lia’s
wild stories.
    “Are you sat?” Michael suddenly puts in. “You don’t look so good.”
    Am I satisfactory? My throat is burning with thirst, my mouth feels like cotton, and my bladder is ready to burst. I haven’t eaten in almost two days. Plus, I’m a dud. So no, I’m not sat.
    Not that I can say any of that to Michael.
    “I’m sat. I’m just really tired,” I finally answer, hoping he’ll take the hint and leave.
    My stomach picks that moment to let out an angry growl, and Michael laughs. “A little hungry too, it sounds like. Come on, get up! I came to invite you to eat with us.”
    I don’t intend to, but somehow I’m standing up, grabbing my toiletry kit, and—at Michael’s wrinkle-nosed request—heading for the shower units. I remember to stop at the laundry station on my way over, emerging from the showers in the first clean clothes I’ve worn in days. Luckily, the lines are short this time of day.
    I half-expect Michael to be gone by the time I return—there is something surreal about his presence, about having a friend who is not actually my friend—but he’s still here, sprawled over my cot and playing some sort of hologame on his chit. When he sees me approaching, he ends the game with a twitch of his index finger, tapping his chit to turn off the projector. The hologram disappears as if sucked back into his palm. “Ready?” he asks as I stuff my things beneath the cot.
    No.
    “Yes,” I answer anyway, and follow him out.
    We grab the lift up to Five, then take the path between Green and Blue Quadrants. Neither of us says much, not until we reach the end of the path and Michael asks, “Have you ridden the SlipStreams yet?”
    I shake my head, not really sure what he’s talking about but fairly certain the answer is no.
    “Well, they’re great. You’ll love them.” He frowns. “You don’t still get motion sick, do you?”
    Before I can ask what he means, the doors out of the hub slide open, ushering us into a crowded train station. I find myself on a wide platform situated between two sets of empty tracks disappearing into tunnels at the other end of the room. Some benches take up the middle of the platform, but few people bother to sit, instead standing in small groups chatting. The wait must not be particularly long.
    As if validating my hypothesis, a low rushing sound penetrates my consciousness. I glance to the tracks on the right, listening as the sound draws closer. With a flash of silver, the SlipStream pulls in, long, sleek, and slender. The doors open and passengers begin to emerge. My eyes are drawn to a set of arrows on the wall above the tracks, one pointing toward the rings and the other toward the hub. As I watch, the arrow pointing toward the hub goes out and the ring-ward arrow lights. I