But he didn’t. For whatever reason, Phox stayed. The more I thought about it, trying to piece together a reason why, the more uncomfortable the idea of talking to him again became.
As if that weren’t awkward enough, his room was across the hall from mine. I thought he might at least ask to be relocated to another part of the ship. I would have, except that leaving sort of felt like surrendering. I did not surrender. Instead, I waited until I was sure he was already gone to venture out of my room every morning so I didn’t run the risk of bumping into him any more than necessary. After two weeks, though, it was getting really old to feel like I had to walk around on eggshells all the time.
Sitting in the plush common lounge area, I watched the Renegade Run circuit updates massive display screen hovering soundlessly in the far corner. Between races, they seemed to seldom show anything more than clips from the past races and snippets of interviews with the participants. It sort of reminded me of a sports news network. I’d never spent much time watching sports news on Earth, though. They didn’t air much about my particular sport, anyway.
Front and center on the screen, Sienne responded frostily to a few interview questions about her sub-par performance in the last race. I had to give her some credit—she took the criticism well. I only saw her eye twitch a few times as the interviewer cracked passive-aggressive jokes about how I had run faster on foot than she had in a high-end runner craft. Ouch. When the video feed zoomed in, I caught a brief glimpse of crackling wrath in her expression as she replied, going on about the inadequacies of their ship, blah blah blah.
Just the sight of her made my heart twist and my hands ball into clammy, shaking fists. I was going to face her again. And in this race, she’d have it in for me even worse than last time. Now it was personal. That interaction, her words of warning, replayed in my mind over and over. I still had that piece of Archilex hidden in my room, even if I didn’t know why she’d given it to me.
Staring listlessly at the projected, three-dimensional feed that floated in midair above a circular black glass table in the middle of the two L-shaped sofas, I tore my mind free of thoughts about Sienne, Archilex, and the enormous, galactic-size mess I’d gotten myself into. I puffed a heavy sigh and stood, retreating to my room and pressing the panel by the door to shut it. Rout’s personal vessel reminded me of a high-end space yacht with multiple decks, fancy furnishings, and small living quarters. Not that mine weren’t nice. I was just glad to have an actual bed now and no threat of the purple knock-out gas.
Behind the bed, a rectangular window gave me a view out at the maw of space. An endless blackness speckled with stars, smeared with the cloudy colors of the galaxy, and the not-so-distant planets. The windows were all adequately tinted, of course, so I could look out without my eyeballs melting out of their sockets. But the light from those suns still hit you with a force you could feel right down to your cells. A wild, uncontrollable, unfathomable power that was as monstrous as it was beautiful.
I sank down on my bed, staring out the window as our ship cruised away from the jump-gate port and back into the open sea of stars. Rout had insisted on making a quick stop to acquire some of the gear we were going to need for the next race. Namely, a new runner craft.
As much as I wanted to be a part of that purchase, Rout had insisted that we stay onboard the Nautilus. Going out in public was still a little dangerous for me, even if I was a legal citizen now. I was infamous, which could be a problem if someone who’d betted against me recognized my face in a crowd. Phox probably was, too, but being an Unciathris made him a little more daunting as a potential murder victim. God help anyone who tried to jump him in a dark alley.
Still, as soon as Rout had left to go on his runner craft shopping spree, I couldn’t resist the urge to see the port for myself. Just watching the enormous cargo dock around our ship—bigger than anything I’d ever dreamed of—pushed the limits of my tiny human mind. I had to see it up close. So I pulled on a long, hooded coat and snuck out to walk the alien market tiers right outside the cargo dock to take it all in. A few minutes, maybe an hour, wouldn’t hurt, right?
The chaos of the place had swallowed me immediately, soaking down into my soul and bringing a wide grin to my lips as I made my way into the throngs of crowds filling a tangled network of streets that spanned in every direction—including upward. Catwalks and floating vessels hung overhead, snaking past the gnarled shapes of tall metal buildings where alien beings of every shape and variety hocked junk and exotic wares from shabby little stalls. For a few minutes, all I could do was stand in awe and drink it all in: the smells of spicy, bizarre foods, the hum of engines, the roar of the crowds, and the distant, thundering music of more alien commercials playing on the sky-screens.
I got jostled in the crowds, giggled at by a flock of green-skinned women draped in brightly colored scarves that hid
