Chapter 4

Kate sits alone in the bar, in one of the darker corners, one hand curled round a smeary cup of some godawful liquor, the other cradling her head. It doesn’t hurt; just feels way heavy. She thinks about unpinning the thick red braid that she’s got coiled round her head, but she’d only have to do it up again later. It probably wasn’t very professional, scooting off to the nearest bar when they docked, but she’d had to get out. He’d called her Mal. She’d had to get out.

She thinks back to the medi-bay and shuts her eyes. No matter what Sallie had done, Hoban Washburne just wouldn’t let go of that gorram dinosaur toy. The T-Rex. Lucky it wasn’t the triceratops; its horns and spiky bits would have cut into his hand like, well, like a Reaver. She shudders and takes a swig of the foul spirits, spiced with nutmeg or something equally revolting.

There’s a party over in one corner of the bar. Or something very like a party. There’s a preppy-looking guy standing up, soused out of his mind, trying to get a young girl’s attention, but she’s listening to something one of the other men has said. An older man. A handsome man he is, kinda, but with a few rough edges. A beautiful woman, who’s wearing the most beautiful dress Kate’s ever seen, keeps making sarcastic-type faces, but her eyes keep sliding to the handsome man when he ain’t looking. Kate smiles in spite of herself.

She wonders what’s happening back on board the Kestrel. She hopes the crew don’t see her as some kind of moonbrain, walking out like that. She’d bolted from the medi-lab, grabbed her brother’s coat – her coat – and just escaped. Tom, at least, will understand; he’s had to escape a few things in his time. Maybe they’ll all just think it’s because of Stuart and Kerry dying. Tell the truth, she isn’t quite sure what it is, anyway.

Sallie’s a damn good doctor, Kate thinks, taking another mouthful of the terrible hooch, then rubbing her hand over her eyes. After he’d spoken her name, that Hoban Washburne, he’d gone into some kinda se