Faring Soul - Science Fiction Romance by Tracy Cooper-Posey

arms loosened and he ruffled his
hair. The ends shone a dark golden brown in the weak overhead
light. “I’m not going to try and like him,” he warned.
    “I’m not asking you to like him. Just
work with him. And keep in mind that he wasn’t personally on
Egemon. He wasn’t a part of that.”
    “You don’t know that.”
    Catherine stared at him. Now she was
startled. “I do know that. He’s a Staffer, Bedivere. At most, he’s
maybe fifty years old. He couldn’t have been at Egemon. He wasn’t
even born yet.”
    And Bedivere should have figured that
out for himself. That he hadn’t told her that he was arguing purely
from an emotion viewpoint. He wasn’t processing this in any way
that was logical.
    In the nearly one hundred years she had
known him, she couldn’t recall Bedivere disengaging from the
non-emotional reasoning at the base of his personality and reacting
based purely on how he felt.
    She looked up at him as he digested the
fact that Brant looked older than either of them, but was in fact
much younger.
    “Don’t forget—he’s nearing the end of
his life.” She gave him a small smile. “He won’t regenerate. It’s
not part of their religion.”
    Bedivere nodded. “I hadn’t forgotten.”
Then he smiled a little himself. “I think I conveniently ignored
it.” He stepped back and took in a deep breath that lifted his
shoulders and blew it out. “It felt much better to blame Brant for
everything the Staffers have ever done.” His gaze flickered away
from her face. “Especially to you.” Then he straightened up with a
snap. “I was judging unfairly.” He added softly, almost like he was
tasting the fact experimentally, “I am prejudiced.”
    “Of course you are,” Catherine said
quickly. “Everyone is. It’s natural, an outcome of the way the mind
thinks. Most biases are unconscious. It’s what we do with them once
we are aware of them that makes the difference.”
    Bedivere let out another heavy breath,
looking at her directly once more. “It’s not a pleasant feeling,
finding this flaw in myself.” His smile was tentative.
    “No, it’s not. But time’s ticking,
Bedivere. I’ll get the bio pins. You start digging into Fareed
Brant’s life.”
    He nodded. “Shouldn’t take long,” he
said, sounding more normal. “He hasn’t lived long enough to make it
a challenge.”
    Feeling slightly happier, Catherine
hurried through the ship to the medical bay for the bio pins and
supplies she’d need to sample Brant. That fine edge of sarcasm, an
outgrowth of arrogance built upon expertise…that was more like the
Bedivere she knew.

Chapter Six
    A couple of days after Brant picked out
a stateroom from the six empty ones in the crew quarters and
settled in, Catherine took him with her to do her milk run.
    The milk run was a round trip of all
the taverns and cafes and draft houses, feelies, brothels, spas,
tank bars and casinos that operated along the terminal concourse.
Passengers in transit, stevedores and other terminal workers spent
time in at least one of these places and space-faring crew blew
their wages on the distractions and entertainment on offer.
    Catherine couldn’t tap the Federation
job boards or freight auctions in any official capacity, so she
found paying passengers and cargo assignments by word of mouth
instead. There was rarely any need to go dirt-side because everyone
who knew anything about spacing ended up in one of these joints
sooner or later.
    She hit pay-dirt the first stop on the
route. It was a tank bar and when they stepped inside out of the
harsh artificial daylight out on the concourse, the bar was silent
and dark. The tank didn’t have a game going on in it, so no one was
sitting around the wide bar that surrounded the tank. Even the
booths along the three edges of the room were mostly empty.
    The barman looked up when they entered
and his brow lifted. He was standing at the long servery on the
back wall and Catherine drifted over to him.
    The