Spirit Walk_ Old Wounds (Book 1) - Christie Golden [70]
“You were amazing tonight!” Stephanie said. “You were on fire, Libby. Fantastic.”
She helped the other woman out of her long blue gown.
“Thanks, Steph,” Libby said. “I feel absolutely wrung out.”
“You give everything to your performance,” Stephanie said. “Don’t you save anything for yourself?”
“Not usually,” Libby admitted. She stepped into the sonic shower and let it remove all traces of dirt and sweat. She emerged a few moments later clean, but not really revived. She was a water baby and preferred showers and baths, where one actually got wet.
Libby slipped into the fresh, more casual outfit Stephanie held up for her and began to reapply her makeup.
“What’s the schedule tonight?” Libby asked.
“Party afterwards at the director’s place,” Stephanie said, brushing Libby’s long, curly hair.
“Who’s attending?” Libby tried to keep her voice casual, but she always worried that she would give herself away.
“Let me see….” Stephanie paused in her brushing and quickly examined a padd. “Not a lot of military brass at this one.”
Inwardly, Libby frowned. She needed every social engagement to forward her investigation, but she couldn’t risk asking too many people to attend such small gatherings.
“Admiral Montgomery—he sent the two dozen white roses, hard to get here—Admiral Jorgensen, and Captains Skhaa and Nunez.”
Libby perked up at the mention of the middle two names. These were two on her “list.”
“Well, that’s not too big a crowd to work, even as tired as I am,” she told Stephanie.
As she finished applying her cosmetics and permitted Stephanie to play with her thick, wild locks and give them some semblance of order, Libby’s mind worked furiously. She was doing her utmost to remember names and dates and data. If she could determine where Jorgensen and Shkaa were on particular dates, she could exonerate them or else confirm her suspicion that they were somehow involved.
But she had to ask herself now as she had every day for the last several days—involved in what?
Sekaya was surprised at how devastated she was when Chakotay gave her the news. They had all been expecting this, even if they didn’t want to say so, but his quiet words made her eyes fill with tears.
“Those poor people,” she said softly, a shaky hand covering her mouth. He rose and went to her, folding his strong arms around her. She closed her eyes and nestled into him. She had missed him so.
“This seems to have really upset you,” he said, pulling away from her slightly and looking into her eyes. “Sekky, I know we’ve got a lot on our plate right now, but you’ve got to tell me what happened on Dorvan V.”
“I will,” she promised him. An image of Blue Water Boy rose in her memory and she almost started crying again. “But that’s history, and Loran II’s colonists are suffering now. I need to talk to them.”
“They’re all in the cargo bay,” he said. “Astall is with them. They’re expecting you.” He kissed the top of her head. “Go to them. I hope you have some comfort to give them.”
“I do too,” Sekaya said.
She had imagined that by this time in their journey, she would be seeing Fortier and the other colonists finally in the place that they had called home, wandering the hills and fields, gathering in the small town they had built themselves. Instead, they were in the impersonal cargo bay of a starship, clustered together as if huddling against a raging storm outside.
Fortier was kneeling and talking to an older woman when Sekaya entered. Sekaya could tell the woman had been crying, but had now wiped her face and was nodding at something Fortier said. At the sound of the door opening, Fortier glanced up. His dark gaze locked with Sekaya’s, and she saw by his reddened eyes that he, too, had shed tears for the fallen. He’d lost a brother, after all. His show of love and compassion moved her.
She strode quickly to him and they embraced. Sekaya wasn’t sure how this bond had formed. She barely knew Marius Fortier,