“What do you think?” said Aaron, breaking the silence that had inadvertently fallen between them.
“The design for the cryotank is crude. I don’t think we can thaw her with any of the equipment here.”
“We’ve got to take her with us, then, and find someone who can.”
Isaac frowned. Something about that idea made his stomach turn.
“We’ve already gone further here than we ever should have,” he said. “Besides, for all we know, she’s already dead.”
“Dead? What are you talking about, man? If there’s even a chance that she’s alive, we should do all we can to save her.”
He’s right, Isaac thought to himself. Still, something held him back: a sense of foreboding that screamed at him to go back to the Medea and forget that they’d ever come to this place.
“Someone else will come eventually. If she’s still alive, she’s frozen in stasis, so it won’t matter how long it takes for someone else to find her.”
“And what if those people are slavers?” Aaron asked. “You really want to take that chance—to have that on your conscience?”
“No,” Isaac admitted.
“Then let’s bring her out. There’s a freight airlock not too far from here—it won’t be difficult to load her up with the rest of the cargo.”
“Do we have the space, though? Our hold is still full from Nova Minitak.”
“If we don’t, we’ll just dump enough to make room. It won’t be much, and saving this girl is a lot more important than our next trade anyway. Besides, we’ve built up enough credit in this sector that the loss shouldn’t be a problem.”
Isaac nodded slowly and took a deep breath. “Right. I’ll get a maglift from the maintenance room, then.”
“No need—she’s already loaded up on one. All we’ve got to do is take her out.”
Right again, he thought, checking the underside of the cryotank. They really did want someone to take her. It was as if the girl was the last hope of a long-forgotten people, a precious artifact lost across space and time. How long had she lain here, waiting to be brought back to the realm of the living? He traced the intricate henna patterns with his eyes and wondered why she’d had them done. Perhaps someday he’d be able to ask her.
This is the final excerpt for Brothers in Exile (Sons of the Starfarers: Book I). It’s also the last weekend in which it will be available for $.99. To pick up a copy, visit the links in the sidebar.
I hope you’ve enjoyed these excerpts–posting them has been something of an experiment for me. Now that they’re complete, I’ll get back to blogging like I normally do.
As always, thanks for reading!
Excerpt 1
Excerpt 2
Excerpt 3
Excerpt 4
Excerpt 5
Excerpt 6
Excerpt 7
Excerpt 8
Excerpt 9
Excerpt 10
