Page 162 of Red Scale Daddy
I take the pressure rig from him and begin checking the seals.
Pally watches my hands. “What are you to her?”
The question comes without warning and lands worse than a punch.
I keep my eyes on the rig. “Annoying.”
“That is obvious.”
“Useful.”
“That is disputed.”
I glance up. “Alive, despite recent attempts.”
His mouth tightens. “Dux.”
There is a father’s warning in the way he says my name, and it would be funny if the situation were not standing on my throat.
“I don’t know what I am to her,” I say. “I know what she is to me.”
He waits.
I pull one strap through a buckle, slower than necessary. “She’s the reason I’m not done.”
Pally’s expression shifts, unreadable at first, then painfully human.
“That is a dangerous thing to put on another person,” he says.
“I know.”
“Does she?”
“Probably. She notices everything inconvenient.”
He nods once, accepting more than approving. “Then do not make yourself another burden she thinks she has to carry.”
“I’m planning on carrying her for a while, actually.”
“She will hate that.”
“Yeah,” I say. “She’ll live.”
Pally looks back at the painted scrap beside the console, then at the route threading through the deadly field ahead. His hands settle over the controls with renewed certainty.
The ship’s engines deepen, rough and uneven, but the whole vessel shifts forward with purpose. Around us, the core bends light into long, impossible curves, and Throgg’s projected path glows on the map like a vein leading into darkness.
Pally does not look at me when he speaks again.
“If you get my daughter killed, I will take you apart slowly enough to make the lesson educational.”
I secure the last strap on the pressure rig and bare my teeth. “Fair.”
“And if you save her, I will still dislike you.”
“Also fair.”
He gives the smallest nod. “Then we understand each other.”
