Free The Dark Beyond the Stars : A Novel by Frank M. Robinson

about your pastis not the same as you remembering it, Sparrow. You should look for your past in your present. Your memories may be gone but you haven’t changed.”
    As quickly as it had vanished, the empty smile reappeared. I had misjudged her. But then, it hadn’t been the first time I had misjudged somebody, and it wouldn’t be the last. K2shoved away from Huldah and settled in the crook of my arm, helping himself to the bits of food that still clung to my tray. Pipit floated over to the food dispenser to get another one and as she passed Thrush, he stroked her leg possessively. She brushed his hand away without visible resentment, but when she returned she made a point of sitting next to Crow. Thrush now stared at Crow and Pipit in much the same way he had stared at me on board the Lander.
    The last person to enter the compartment was Abel, brusque and officious; he ignored the sudden silence and went directly to Pipit for his tray. He glared at Noah, which surprised me since they had been friendly in sick bay, then anchored himself in a corner.
    “Keep right on talking—nobody has to be quiet on my account.”
    But everybody watched what they said after that and even Thrush guarded his tongue. Once again I had misjudged someone. Banquo may have been the Captain’s man but he wasn’t nearly as close to the Captain as Abel. The more serious implication was that the Captain had informers among the crew and Abel was one of them.For what reason? I wondered. I felt uneasy, suspecting that I had become a player in a game whose rules I didn’t know and whose penalties might be more serious than I could imagine.
    I shivered and went back to feedingK2 and myself. A moment later the glow tubes flickered red and the crew members finished their breakfast and drifted out the hatch to start their shift. Ophelia touched my arm just before she left and said, “You’ve been assigned to Snipe for indoctrination. Check in with Tybalt when you’re through.”
    K2twisted in my arms, trying to find the best position for a nap. I glanced at the young woman named Snipe. “Where’s the nursery?”
    She wiped her hands on her waistcloth and said, as if I should have known, “Where you were—sick bay.” She heldK2 by one arm; I took the other and we pushed out of the compartment.
    “Who’s his father?” I asked.
    “For now?You.”I looked surprised and she sniffed, “It’sship’s custom, you took an interest. Anybody can take an interest—sometimesit’s women who never had a chance to be birth mothers but when men do it, they become fathers, at least for a while. I think everybody should take an interest in one of the children, don’t you?”
    I didn’t think I was all that involved withK2 , though I was sure that of the three-year-olds on board he was probably the smartest and the strongest and the best looking. Then the whole subject struck me as maudlin and I refused to think about it any more.
    What I did think about was Noah, who hadn’t said a word during the meal but had roosted quietly by himself, watching all of us while we ate. And I thought about those who had remained silent while the rest of us talked, and realized there wasn’t one crew aboard the Astron, there were two—though what the differences between them were, I wasn’t sure.
    But mostly I wondered why all of them had spent so much time studying me. And why nobody had mentioned the crewman who had died that sleep period.
    “I expect I’ll have to show you everything,” Snipe said, “right from the very beginning.”
    We were standing at one end of the darkened hangar deck where they kept the Landers and Rovers and where they docked the huge Inbetween Station, the planetary orbiter they used when they couldn’t bring the Astron in too close. The rest of the bay was empty. A gigantic shadow screen covered the glassteel docking doors that formed the immense overhead, hiding the view of Outside.
    “Pipit already showed me the ship,” I said,