Chapter 5

Preed cussed aloud when the tracker went haywire again. He had been trying to fix it for the past couple of months, and whenever he seemed to get it just to the edge of working satisfactory, some new circuit would short out. He got up from off the floor to stare at the fuzzy, conical display. Where there was supposed to be planet systems, nebulas, and galaxies, he only saw bright, green lines jumping and swivelling around. He tossed the processor onto Gune's workstation and headed out of the confining room. He glanced around sharply when he heard a mechanical door slide open. Seeing what walked through made him forget the problems with the tracker and cuss anew.

When Akima glanced his way meaningfully, Preed did his best to stay silent and out of the way. Instead, he sat down on one of the steps leading down from Gune's workroom and scrutinized the three humans as they walked around. The blind girl's face had a strange expression on it, like she knew he was there, but didn't want to bother confronting him. She allowed herself to be guided around the room, pausing occasionally to feel something. He was disgusted with the way she moved around, confident, and with a cool demeanour. Preed was even more disgusted however when he realized that his mind found her attractive, for a human.

She was tall, almost a half a head taller than Akima. She would most definitely be the same height as him. Her chocolate hair was fairly short at the back, but angled down so that her forelocks reached her chin. Her skin was dark, but nothing about her suggested that she was of African descent. She wore a dark crimson shirt that had open shoulders, with straps leading down her arm to where they reached her sleeves just above her elbows. Her tight, black jeans had a flare near the bottoms, and her boots were covered in silver buckles and zippers. She wore many silver rings on her fingers, and there were a few silver chains around her neck, most of them short. One ear had five silver earrings; one near the top of her ear was joined with a silver chain to another at the bottom. The other ear had only two, a silver cast on the outside, and a hoop on the inside. Preed felt his eyes being drawn to her full breasts, and told himself to look away from such a pathetic human. But the more he told himself, the more his fingers ached to touch them, to feel how soft human skin is.

He was broken out of his reverie by someone clambering up the stairs. Gune was animatedly jabbering on to him to come down and meet Kenji. Preed hurriedly motioned for Gune to stay silent, but she had already noticed.

"Preed, is it?" she asked in a voice just as hard and cold as the silver jewellery she wore. Blind though she was, it was uncanny how she could follow his every move down the stairs.

When Preed had reached the bottom, he noticed that her hand was stuck out, waiting to be grasped in a handshake. Her dead eyes were pointed right at him, and he wondered if she really was blind. Not wanting to have the others see him as a coward, he seized her hand, and had every intention of showing her that he wasn't the scum she thought he was. He didn't expect her to drag him forward, and almost flinched when she raised her other arm towards his head. Akima stepped forward, and was ready to subdue her should she decide to attack him. The boy, whom Preed already knew as Lanzer, merely stood back with his hand in his pocket, a smug look on his hardened face. Preed heard a metallic clank as he felt something grasp the side of his head. Her fingers danced across the metal plate until they fell away.

"The other side blown off…" She smirked knowingly. "Must have been quite the gun fight." Her hand tightened around his. "Kenji."

He replied by squeezing his hand even tighter. "Preed," he added simply, not quite sure what to do.

"So I've heard. I hope the bruise on your chin isn't too painful. Not many humans like to wake up with an Akrenian close by, you know, slave trading."

"Is this supposed to be a truce?" Preed asked, once again in his mocking voice. She wasn't quite like other humans he decided. She could almost pass as Akrenian, he thought indulgently.

"Only until you decide to trade me away as a slave, or otherwise," she added, sliding her eyes downwards slightly before snapping them abruptly up again, as if she really could see.