Stone in the Sky Read Online Free Page B

kind can.”
    Not every species benefitted from nanites. They only regulated the gases of most species so that complicated masks or suits were not required on some stations, ships, and certain planets. Of course, it all depended on your physiology. Many aliens had nanites and still had to wear masks. Nanites were still useful for language if not breathing for those species.
    Tournour knew that I didn’t like to think of things being left behind and forgotten.
    â€œEventually someone will go down there to get them, alive or dead,” Tournour said softly. “It’s just not a priority. I don’t want to make a request to the Imperium because it would put us on their radar.”
    The rules of rescue meant that a ship that could assist in an SOS could salvage any and all parts and ware from the wreck in exchange for safely returning the survivors, if any, over to the closest habitable planet or space station to be questioned, treated, and then sent on their way.
    â€œSeems like a hard lot,” I said. It was bad enough having been abandoned on the Yertina Feray as the only Human these past three years, but to be the only being on an entire planet. That could break even the strongest soul.
    â€œThey’ll be found soon,” Tournour said. “No one will leave scrap anywhere for long. It’s too valuable. Every time a ship comes to dock at the Yertina Feray they are asked if they have the capability to retrieve and rescue the crashed ship.”
    The music changed again. A Nurlok lullaby. Some Nurloks at a corner table began to sing along, and I could not help but feel soothed.
    I lifted my wrist and shook the gold bracelet with the charm of Earth that I had taken off of Els’s dead body a year ago. Tournour put his hand on it and played with the charm as I kept talking about my hate for Brother Blue. He cocked his head, and it made me think he loved the sound of my voice as much as I loved his.
    I looked at his dark eyes, no whites in them. Sometimes looking into his alien eyes made me long for Reza’s Human eyes—deep and brown. They were eyes that I could understand. Eyes that I missed.
    But I could not deny that these alien eyes of Tournour’s filled me in a way that was uncharted. Feeling guilty, I let go of his hand.
    â€œI wish I could cut this hate from you. I can’t understand why you hang on to it,” he said, thinking that my sudden shift in mood was because of Brother Blue, as it was so often. I didn’t correct him. I didn’t want to tell him how much I missed Reza sometimes. It felt like a betrayal.
    â€œDon’t Loors hate?”
    â€œYes,” he said. “But it doesn’t consume us the way it does you Humans.”
    We were so very different. It was when he couldn’t understand me that I remembered he wasn’t Human after all. He was alien.
    â€œCaleb and Reza, if they are alive, are now long awake.”
    â€œI’m sorry that we don’t know what happened to them,” Tournour said. “Communication is not simple with the Imperium in control.”
    That was true, but it was also true that Tournour was the one who made sure that the communications array was in disrepair and not upgraded quickly enough. He liked to keep the station quiet. That was one of the ways that he kept the citizens of the Yertina Feray safe. If no one could hear you, it’s almost as though you don’t exist. Ever since the Imperium had put Tournour in charge of the Yertina Feray, he kept us as quiet as possible. It was not unlikely for aliens who docked here to comment on how surprised they were that the station was still in operation.
    â€œYou did what was the best option at the moment,” Tournour continued. “Instead of everyone being dead, you all lived. Isn’t that good enough?”
    â€œNo,” I said. “Never.”
    I almost hated myself for sending Reza and Caleb both to the Outer Rim. I traded in