Thorne’s executive was typical of his taste. Flawless, immaculate and wrapped up in the latest Jovian fashions, all black-grown silk and hints of diamond. Her desk plate labelled her as Lucinda Grey. For a long moment, she simply held Shan’s gaze, her artificially blue eyes glittering in the pale glow of her light-screen.
“Do you have an appointment with Director Thorne?”
Shan didn’t. She wasn’t exactly sure how she was standing in the noisy outer office of the director of Uranian operations. She should’ve been aboard the Theseus. Had been aboard…running through the final system checks before they scooped their next helium-3 and hydrogen deuteride payload from the turbulent atmosphere of Uranus.
She could still feel the press of the cramped compartment that stank of metal and hot humans. Their bosun, Callie Thiago had been on a mission to pump Dareh Andersen for gossip about the woman who’d practically scarred him with her teeth the week before. She did love her downtime gossip.
“Perhaps you’re in the wrong office?”
Lucinda’s tone scraped Shan’s nerves with excruciating politeness and total derision. It broke into her memory. Shan focused on the woman, hiding her dislike. She’d withered men with lesser looks. As if anyone could mistake Lord Tomas Thorne’s office. It sat at the top of the operations tower that dominated Miranda’s rugged landscape. Shielded glass swept around it in a great curve, the lights and habitation structures far below it his to survey.
Shan loosely linked her fingers behind her back and straightened her shoulders, aware that the rest of the staff followed her every movement. “Please tell Lord Tomas that Engineer Shankara Rayner is here to see him.”
The seated woman blinked, all calm authority evaporating as her eyes widened and something like panic shot across her face. Her gaze darted around the wide curve of the suddenly silent outer office. She pushed herself to her feet. “Engineer Rayner?”
Thorne had offered Shan a deal five years before. A deal from which she had run. A deal that had eaten at her thoughts ever since. He had obviously left her name with his executive. Shan flicked a glance at the rest of the staff, seeing more than one blanched face, some of them already half standing. And he’d left her name with everyone else too.
Shan focused on the woman in front of her. “Engineer aboard the CMC Theseus, five Terran years service.” She held out her left hand, palm up, the ident-chip a raised bump under her middle finger. “You can scan my credentials.”
“That will be unnecessary, Engineer Rayner.” She pressed her lips together and her hand shook as she keyed instructions into the light-screen wrapped around her metal desk. “Director Thorne is expecting you.”
“Of course he is.”
Her nerves formed a sudden fist in her stomach. Why wasn’t she on the Theseus?