His eyes seemed to sharpen on me. “Why’s that?”
“I need to sell some rare books.” I figured I should just outright ask him what I wanted to know rather than beat around the bush. Or in this case, the Endeavor. “Do you know of anyone who likes the old stuff? You know, bindings and pages and all?”
His face remained fairly expressionless, although there was no way I could call him bland. “Stamped or not stamped?” he asked.
He wanted to know if my books had galactic approval. Tamping down the nervous twist in my belly, I shook my head. “No seal, but they’re not seditious or anything. Just novels.”
“Just novels?” Something wry colored his tone. “What’s more seditious than the imagination, Tess Bailey?”
A chill swept over me. A little from the way he said my name, a little from the fact that I was putting way too much trust in someone I didn’t know, and a little from Shade’s unexpected and almost daring question. He was right. The free mind was both a wonderful and a dangerous thing. My imagination was betraying me right now. The mutinous little beast was envisioning having all sorts of interesting conversations with Shade Ganavan over the course of the week.
I lifted my mug and took a sip. The coffee’s enticing aroma curled around my senses while the idea of getting to know Shade better heated my insides, possibly making me reckless.
My eyes flicked up, meeting his. “Rabble-rousing comes to mind,” I answered.
He cautiously nodded, as if he hadn’t expected me to come right out with something like that. Maybe I shouldn’t have.
“That means agitating something in here.” He tapped his chest over his heart with the hand that wasn’t holding his mug. “Why do you think no one writes novels anymore?” Shade asked.
Was there a hint of regret in his voice? Of nostalgia for a time when people could say what they wanted? Neither of us had been alive then.
The obvious answer was to avoid harassment or possible imprisonment for something the authorities, even erroneously, might consider subversive or inflammatory, and especially anything they might see as dangerous to their hold on power. But Shade already knew all that.
“Because novels stir feelings, wishes, and the heart,” I said. “Not all ideas and thoughts need to be proven, or even can be, and the Overseer is only interested in—no, only allows—what can be measured and quantified and put in a neat little box.”
Shade looked at me hard, and I replayed what I’d just said in my head. It was fact. I hadn’t said anything truly rebellious, nothing that should have earned me such a stern look.
“Do you talk to just anyone like this?” he asked.
“I don’t talk to anyone.”
His brow creased, and I wished I could take that back. Being a total recluse probably wasn’t an attractive quality to a man who lived and worked in the swarming docks. And despite the situation, and Jax’s completely rational cautioning, I wanted Shade to like me. It had been so long since I’d been kissed.
I swept my bangs behind my ear, adding, “Except for my crew. I talk to them.”
Shade moved away from me, taking another sip of coffee. “Do you think science is incompatible with creativity?” he asked.
I relaxed a bit with more distance between us—and because he’d chosen to continue the conversation, despite its slightly dangerous undertone.
I shook my head. “Some new discoveries are accidents, but most come from a person’s vision, from having enough inspiration to imagine the next step.”
And yet the Overseer constantly tried to stomp the imagination out of life. He wanted everything to be clinical, uniform, as boring as the brown clothes he always wore. For such a competent, smart, and horrible man, it was surprising he didn’t see that there couldn’t be hypotheses and experiments without imaginative thought.
Shade looked pensive.
“What do you think?” I asked.
He didn’t answer right away. Then, “I think life would be damn dull without good books in it, and there’s a great little place in Windrow that might want what you’ve got.”
My heartbeat took off with a sudden burst of speed, and my smile couldn’t help but go along for the ride. “Windrow?” I asked.
“The bookstore is about twenty blocks south of the docks—on the corner of Baxton and Lorn. A woman named Susan owns and runs the place. It’s called Flipping Pages and has quotes by Vivica Vot all over the front. You can’t miss it.”
“I love Vot.” Vivica Vot was a poet and philosopher who’d taken a spot on board Exodus 2, the second mass transport to definitively leave Earth to explore the galaxy and look for safe places for humanity to plant new roots. Her poems were full of the fear, hope, and wonder that accompanied the first irreversible leaps toward new horizons.
Shade nodded. “Who doesn’t like Vot.”
It wasn’t really a question and didn’t invite further discussion. That was too bad. I loved talking books.
I mentally filed away the name and address of the bookstore. “Thanks. That’s a really big help.”
Shade rubbed the back of his neck again. He took another sip. “How come you’re the captain?” he asked.
I bristled a little at the question. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He shrugged. “Just asking how it all came about.”
Most of the truth was off-limits. I chose my words carefully. “When we first got together, I was the only one who knew how to fly.” It was an honest answer. Innocuous, I thought.
“And the one who knows how to steer the ship ends up steering everything else?”
I thought about it. Fiona was really only interested in her plants and the possible damage they could do to some—and their potential benefits to others. Miko and Shiori just wanted to survive one more day until the inevitable end. And Jax… Jax didn’t care who was in charge as long as it was someone with a conscience who listened to what other people had to say—which was what he’d been fighting for his entire life.
“I think we steer together,” I told Shade. The crew only listened to me because they chose to, and that was how it should be. When I gave an order, they obeyed, but that was because loyalty and trust had been earned, not imposed in any way. If one day I asked them to do something they didn’t want to do, they wouldn’t. And I would respect that choice.
Shade didn’t say anything.
I finished my coffee. “Well, I’m going to let you get to work while I go see about those books.”
He glanced toward his bag, a smallish brown thing he’d brought up along with his heavy equipment. He went over to it and rummaged around. When he came back, he flopped a hat down on my head.
“You’re so pale,” he said, adjusting the brim to shield my face. “You’re already getting sunburned.”
My whole chest clenched tight, as though two big fists had grabbed on to my heart and squeezed out an oh! and a my!
“Thanks,” I said a little hoarsely, resisting the urge to fiddle with the hat myself. It was good having something to shade my eyes. And hiding my face from possibly prying eyes was never a bad thing. My heart still raced.
He held out a small box to me. “And take one of these today, and one in three months.”
I took the sealed box from him and read the label. “Liquid vitamin D?” I asked.
Shade sniffed, his hands falling to his hips again. He looked off into the distance. “You’ve finally got some sunlight. Might as well stick some calcium to your bones.”
“That’s…” Incredibly nice. I didn’t think he wanted to hear that, though. He was scowling. “Thanks,” I said again, pressure growing beneath my ribs.
“How many are you?” He looked at me again. “The whole crew?”
“Five,” I answered. No one but Jax had come to the door, so Shade hadn’t seen any of the others yet.
Shade nodded. “There’s enough for everyone.”
He’d thought of the others? That was even better. “Wow. Okay. Great. I’ll pay you back for this.”
He shook his head.
“I insist.”