The woman with the muscles laughed. It was a harsh, braying sound, a mix of humor and hysteria.
Juliyana didn’t look amused, though. She studied me, then swiveled to look at Lyth. “Is this true?”
The woman’s laughter tailed off, and she gave little hiccups and sighs and wiped her eyes.
Lyth didn’t look away from Juliyana. “I have never lied to you,” he said softly. “I’m not lying to you now. You’re dealing with something you’ve never seen before, and it will overwhelm you, if you don’t prepare for it.”
Juliyana’s eyes narrowed as she studied Lyth. He held her gaze, his own unwavering.
“Calpurnia, shut up!” Juliyana snapped.
The woman’s little hiccups and giggles shut off as if a switch had been thrown. She looked from Juliyana to Lyth, then scowled. Her hands came back to her hips.
Dalton stepped forward. “You can’t just shoot them out of the sky, even if you want to. Our son might be on their ship.”
“Or he might be dead,” Juliyana replied. Her tone was gentle. “Especially if these…are they really aliens?”
“They really are,” Dalton said grimly.
“Then Danny is right. They have no need for humans.” She gave Dalton a small smile.
Fiori shook her head. “You don’t know that.”
“You don’t know either, Fiori,” Juliyana told her.
Jai stepped forward. “We quite possibly know more than you about the blue ones. You seem to know more about the ships that went missing. We should pool our data.”
Juliyana considered for a good long heartbeat or two before she nodded, which raised the question in my mind—what if she had said no?
I was suddenly glad we wouldn’t have to learn the answer to that. There were too many unexpectedly angry channels flowing about the room. Clearly, there was information I was missing that would explain the odd conflicting notes I was detecting, including Juliyana hesitating over sharing her information with us.
Jai said something about sitting around the table, and actually going over the data each could supply and suddenly, everyone was moving, most of them over to the table to sit.
I beckoned Lyssa closer. “We’ll need a longer table.”
“Already extending it,” Lyssa murmured back. “I thought food might help…soothe tempers.”
“Only if it has a sedative in it,” I replied grimly. “But perhaps…yes, something to do with our hands. Juliyana’s favorites, Dalton’s favorites and Lyth’s, too, if you know them.” They were the ones most in need of calming. “Has Fiori repeated any meals?”
“Green curry,” Lyssa said instantly.
“Then a cup of your best for her, and some bread to go with it.”
“And you, Danny? Shall I print a steak?”
“I’ll have another brandy,” I replied. Over Lyssa’s shoulder, I saw Juliyana pull the enhanced woman, Calpurnia, aside. Most likely, she was asking the woman to fetch her research and bring it to the table.
They stood very close together, speaking so quietly one would have to push up right beside them to hear it. I watched Calpurnia’s face, for she was not good at hiding her feelings and would give me the most information.
She seemed upset. Juliyana shook her head and spoke again. Reinforcing the order, I suspected. It wasn’t good if a subordinate had to be given an order twice to obey it.
Calpurnia gave in and nodded. Juliyana relaxed—I could see the tension leave her shoulders even from behind. Then Calpurnia said something else and this time, she rested her fingers against Juliyana’s silk covered arm.
It was a light touch. Barely there. Then Calpurnia whirled and moved out of the room with that powerful stride of hers.
I barely saw her go. My heart was zooming as I put together Calpurnia’s intimate touch—that of a lover—and the odd conflicts I’d detected in the room. I whirled to see if Lyth had been watching the pair and seen it.
He stood at the end of the long picnic table, his face expressionless.
He wasn’t surprised.
—25—
The rest of the meeting was tiring beyond belief. We gave over rather more information than Juliyana shared. She provided the tables and charts they had built to track the movements of the mother and son but refused to give names.
Lyth had flicked the old fashioned printouts. “I could have done this for you in half the time it took you. Lyssa could have done it in a tenth of the time. You could have come to us. We would have helped.”
Juliyana shook her head. “Not on this one,” she said shortly and turned back to the screens hanging over the table. “Can I see the footage when they fired upon you again? I want to study the weapon.”
And so the remainder of the meeting went, with Juliyana dodging and weaving, while sucking up as much information as she could. Everyone seemed to fair better with food in their bellies, for some of the animosity of the first few minutes Juliyana had arrived diminished as the meals did. I drank steadily, instead.
I didn’t seem to be able to predict Juliyana’s thoughts or her responses anymore. When had she become a stranger to me? It had been just over a year since I’d last seen her or even spoken to her, but the lapse felt far greater to me than that.
Finally, Jai had sat back and scrubbed at his hair and yawned and said, “We all need to absorb and assess the new information. And then we should pick a most likely location to hang ourselves out to be plucked. I’m starting to think it should be near a planet. Right out in the middle of space here looks suspicious, for humans don’t tend to stop in the middle of nowhere. Let’s sleep on it.”
I was more than glad to get away from everyone, head to my room and think.
Only I’d drunk too much brandy. My thoughts congealed, yet I was too ramped up to relax enough for sleep.
I needed food and I needed distraction. Even watching the view on the street beyond the windows of the diner would do. I went back to the diner
