“Thank you!” She kissed him. “I only got the one remote when I bought the place. It’s nice to have a spare. Do you have to have the original object to create something?”
“Not necessarily,” he said. “We have program codes for items we use all the time: clothing, medicines, and ship parts. If we don’t have a code, then we need the object or a good image with a 3-D view. That’s how we replicated Earth-style clothing. We use this unit for small objects.”
He patted the sliding door on the large replicator. “Despite our shields, an energy pulse fried the components of this one. This is what we would have used to repair the ship.”
“That’s a replicator? It’s as big as my woodshed! It looks like a decontamination chamber or something!”
“It has to be large to fabricate big items. Besides making the parts we need, Mysk’s designers and engineers will try to repair this unit.”
“How is it we’re able to help you at all? The scooter, this replicator, the ship are more technologically advanced than anything we have on Earth. It would be like a person who lived three thousand years ago trying to manufacture and program a smart phone.”
Pockets of advanced ingenuity did exist, like Mysk and his people. “Someone from three thousand years ago would have the same intelligence as present-day humans. What he or she would lack would be a body of knowledge to build upon. There is a natural evolution to advancement. Certain systems have to come first. It would be like trying to invent the automobile before the wheel,” he explained.
Having met humans and Kevanne, in particular, their intelligence had impressed him, and he’d been a Terranophile for a long time, admiring the genetic diversity that had evolved without much scientific tinkering. Recently, they had started to engage in genetic manipulation, and if he could, he would have warned them to proceed with caution. There was a lesson in one of their old legends about letting the genie out of the bottle. Once you let him out, you couldn’t put him back in.
Next, he led her to the bridge. Wide windows spanned a semicircle over the control panels, allowing a view to the outside. There were eight crew stations, including the captain’s position, navigator, and engineering.
“It’s much bigger than I would have expected,” Kevanne said.
“For safety, redundancies are built into the system. The computer flies the ship, but the captain can override the program. Every function can be performed manually or by computer—and from the bridge or from engineering. This vessel has sleeping berths for thirty but carries only six of us, so, as it happens, all of us can convene on the bridge, which makes it convenient.”
She strode to a screen projecting vid of the woods.
“Live feed from a surveillance drone.” His sweeping arm encompassed the wide viewing windows. “We can see in front of us but not behind. Hence, the drone keeps an eye on things.”
“Won’t your friends mind me being on the ship?”
“Probably,” he admitted. “But you’re worth it.” As a member of the High Council, he’d guarded the consortium’s secrets. As a member of the opposition, he’d kept secrets from the consortium. His whole life had been consumed by secret-keeping. When would it end? He hated he couldn’t be more open with his mate. His loyalties were torn in three directions: his mate, the castaways, and the other ’Topian refugees. Responsibilities couldn’t be ignored, but she made him wish he was a different man in a different time. He might not be able to share everything with her, but he could give her a tour of the ship.
He hugged her, his heart aching from the weight of his dilemma. As he folded her into his arms, he caught a flash on the monitor, then another, before the drone flew off in a different direction. He stiffened.
“What’s wrong?” Kevanne asked.
“Two members of the team have returned. You’re going to get to meet more of my friends,” he said.
Chapter Eighteen
The way Cam went rigid when he spotted his “friends” on the monitor and hustled her off the ship signaled loud and clear she wasn’t supposed to be on the Castaway.
They were exiting the craft as the two men approached. Although Cam had described his fellow travelers, she’d still expected them to resemble him. Not even close.
One man could have been a wrestler on steroids with two huge feathered scepters strapped to his back. Then he flexed, and she realized they were wings. His features were nothing short of beautiful—he had the face of an angel—but instead of a halo, he wore a ball cap and an angry scowl.
And he was accompanied by Lucifer. If the other ’Topian had been human, he might have passed for a Caucasian with a first-degree sunburn—if not for the devilish horns protruding from his skull. She snorted a nervous laugh into her palm. An encounter with this pair would send church attendance skyrocketing.
“These are my friends. Wingman and Inferno,” Cam introduced her.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” she said politely and extended her hand to Inferno first—since his expression appeared the most welcoming.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you face-to-face. Chameleon has spoken of you.” His hand felt warm as if he had a fever, but she assumed that was normal for a man named Inferno.
From Wingman’s forbidding scowl, she half expected a snub, but he gave her a twisted smile. “Nice to meet you,” he offered in a gruff voice.
His gaze hardened again when it shifted to Cam.
“I thought you had a meeting with Mysk,” Cam said.
“Wingman and I didn’t go. Didn’t think they needed all of us. But then Tigre pinged us to find you. There have been new developments, and he wants us all to meet,” Inferno said.
“Good news? Bad news?”
“He didn’t say. Just that we should all meet at the ship as soon as possible.” Inferno glanced at Kevanne.
She could take the hint. They wanted her to leave. She didn’t like the daggers Wingman kept shooting at him, and Inferno looked uncomfortable. They obviously had some issues to work out, and her presence seemed to add fuel to the fire. Cam shouldn’t have given her a tour. “I’d better get back to the house,” she said.
Cam pressed his lips together as if to disagree, but then he nodded. “I’ll run you home.”
“You need to come back,” Wingman said. “So we can talk.”
“About the new developments, got it,” Cam replied. He placed his hand on the small of her back. “Let’s go.”
The growing tension reminded her too much of living with Dayton, tip toeing on eggshells as he stewed. She preferred open disagreements. No guessing games. No bad surprises.
However, she had no desire to jump into the middle of someone else’s battle. Yes, she’d been on the spacecraft, and that hadn’t set well with Wingman, but Cam had invited her, and their issues predated her. If they were having a pissing match, it wasn’t her fault, she reassured herself as the old habit of accepting blame reared its ugly head. Not my fault.
She and Cam strode toward the scooter.
“In light of her visit, I’m going to recommend to Tigre that Psy erase...” Wingman called after them.
Cam nudged her. “Go to the scooter. I’ll join you in a minute.”