Supergiant (Gigaparsec Book 2) Read Free Page B

door. “Get
some rest, and we’ll run some tests tomorrow.”
    Dazed, Roz let Ivy lead her away. I
can’t die yet. We’re all going to be famous.
    ****
    Roz dreamed of her father lowering her into the jammed
combine by her ankles. She could feel the blood rushing to her brain and see
her pigtails dangling. She saw herself as a child grabbing a thick vine that
had wedged itself in the gears. She tugged until her adult common sense told
her to stop, trying to change the outcome of her biggest mistake. Freezing the
scene, she analyzed the scenario in the confined space. If it hadn’t been for her
pigtail getting caught, she might have pulled back in time. That was why she
had always worn her hair short since. She had no desire to relive the pain as
the rotating bar cracked her skull and broke her right arm.
    The nightmare transitioned to her
dangling upside down in The Inner Eye’s quantum capacitor tubes, hair
standing on end. She held a power coupler in one hand, debating whether she
should plug it in and restore the prototype star drive. She experienced a surge
of panic when she realized Ivy hadn’t trimmed her hair in five weeks.
    How could she stay safe with long
hair?

Chapter 2 – Bedridden
     
    Roz spent her first day off sunbathing in her one-piece
swimsuit on a chair in the desert biozone, listening to a novel on her wrist
computer. Though the ship’s biozones were less than 200 meters across, they
provided luxurious recreational space for the crew. “I swear you have more
freckles on your shoulders today.”
    Ivy basked on a blanket beside her.
The sun made her golden ringlets lighter as it made her skin darker. “Yeah.
Some of us have to work to get a skin tone like yours. What are you going to do
for fun on Prairie?”
    “I saw a brochure with velocipedes—those
three wheelers with huge front tires.”
    “This is your only vacation in
months and your first visit to a new world. Why would you pick tricycles?”
    Roz blinked. Was Ivy implying she
didn’t have imagination? The insult stung. “You have a better idea?”
    Ivy shrugged. “I hear wind wagons
are a wild ride. That sounds more your speed.”
    The vehicles were based on an Earth
legend about covered wagons that crossed the vast open prairie using sails. Now
Ivy painted her as adventurous and fast. “It does sound fun. Will you be
joining me?”
    “I might break a nail, which would
endanger my new cover,” Ivy said. “I’m going to be Kesh’s secretary when we’re
in port, a dumb blonde who files her nails a lot. You’d be surprised how much
people reveal in waiting rooms or while they’re hitting on you.”
    “Is your cover identity going to be
sleeping with the boss?” Roz asked with a snort.
    The gay Saurian accountant was
posing as his dead brother, the previous captain and pilot of the ship. Aside
from a fondness for skirting the law, the two couldn’t have been less alike.
Despite his scales, Kesh behaved like one of the girls at a spa. They had
buried him up to his frilled, brown neck between them in the hot, relaxing sand.
His head resembled a stuffed wall mounting of a young dragon. To shield his beady,
black eyes from the sun, they had covered his face with a straw hat from Eden.
    “No, but I can talk up Kesh’s virility
and Max’s reputation for violence.”
    Reuben, unnoticed at the edges of the
biozone until now, protested, “Max is trying to escape that image.”
    Ivy, who had her bra undone in
order to tan without lines, resnapped in a hurry.
    In coveralls and boots, Reuben
could have passed for an ardent twenty-year-old Human with wooly, black hair
and a broad nose. The abundant hair on the back on his hands didn’t bother Roz;
however, his slotted Goat pupils gave her the willies. “He doesn’t want more
people pressuring him into wet work.”
    “ More people pressuring him?”
asked Roz. “How often does that happen in a normal day?”
    “I’m sworn to secrecy on most of
this, but boss left the Trout