The lights had cycled toward night, dim and blue, and the Lyra was quiet. Alek cocked his head, surprised how quickly he'd become used to the whirrs and chirps of the ship.
With everyone else asleep, he was supposed to be on the bridge. Instead, he stood in the cargo bay staring at the crates as he replayed the events of their sojourn on the Leviathan on a mental loop. Something in the fractured images niggled at the base of his brain. It was like watching old vids corrupted with age, with little tics in the movement. But he couldn't pinpoint what was causing the glitch.
A moth fluttered in his gut as he ran his fingers lightly over the top of the crate, hardly daring to touch it. The metal was cold, but then the cargo bay was an icebox. Three lights blinked in sequence on the grey surface, extra bright in the darkness of the hold. He heard a thud and spun his head to look over his shoulder. Nothing. No one else haunted the large space. Probably no one else on the ship was even awake. Then a flicker caught the corner of his eye. He squinted at the window into the common room, but there was no one there.
"Seriously, getting scared by bogeymen," he said, turning back to the boxes. Their lights dimmed momentarily, as if there was a dip in the power.
"You're an adult. Don't let your imagination run away with you." He took a deep breath and leaned over the status panel. Then jumped back as a form flew towards him from the other side of the crate. With a soft thump, Grim landed on top of the box and chirruped at him. "Bleeding Hades, cat." He stepped back to the package, scritching the cat's chin before running a hand along his arched back. "Don't go sneaking up on people like that. You're liable to get yourself shot." The cat merely pressed his head into Alek's hand and purred.
Scooping up the cat, he loped towards the stairs leading to the bridge. He spared a last glance at their cargo, wondering what his minders expected him to do. But when he arrived at the stairs, he decided not to go up. Instead, his head tipped to the side as he looked down the corridor that led to the engine. He hadn't been that way since the converter joint blew. After glancing over his shoulder, he headed down the hall past the engine room. The green light from the algal tanks soon enveloped him, causing him to shiver despite the heat they radiated.
He ran the fingertips of his free hand over the warm tanks and continued towards the repaired generator. Tink had insisted the converter be replaced with the same model as the old one, so it seemed almost the same. A ting sounded behind him. This time he didn't let himself get spooked and took another step closer.
"What are you doing down here?"
Alek stopped, a point of ice blooming between his shoulder blades at Severn's voice. Slowly, he turned around. "I could ask the same of you."
"I followed a shadowy figure down a corridor to our fuel source. You were here first." Severn grabbed a pipe overhead and did a lazy pull-up, all while continuing to stare at him. "Shouldn't you be on the bridge?" he asked.
Alek frowned as Severn lowered himself down — the computer tech had muscles. "Shouldn't you be asleep?"
"Couldn't sleep."
"So, you thought you'd come to the engine to exercise?" Alek kept his voice dripping with disdain.
"Need to do something to keep occupied." Severn reached the bottom of another pull-up. "Otherwise, my mind makes up all sorts of shit."
Alek frowned at Severn. But the man was right: he should be on the bridge. They were nearing the asteroid field they'd travelled through on their way to the wreck. The captain hoped to find somewhere there to hide the ship.
"Well, I just came down to keep Grim from getting into something he shouldn't." The cat purred double-time against his chest. "Catch you later."
Alek shrugged past Severn, his heart brightening as the smug smile slipped from the man's face. Then his heart fell again. Severn wasn't the one who'd been sent aboard the Lyra with a mission. He was, and he wasn't sure he believed in that mission anymore. "But what I believe doesn't matter," he whispered to himself as he jogged up the stairs to the upper level, releasing Grim at the top.