Chapter 177

The meat was cooked and we ate heartily. They told me about the patterns they watched in the speckled blackness. Evan knew it better than anyone and his mind guided mine. I watched with fascination as the night sky unfurled before me.

Eventually, we ended up on our backs. My men set up their sleeping pallets so our heads were all together in a circle. I watched as they pointed out all the interesting things they knew about the glittering blackness.

The way the stars looked and the way they moved in the sky was predictable to my men. They told me all about it. Evan had spent hours learning the sky.

“I wonder,” he said, “where my breeder came from, the slave many generations back?” he whispered.

We all wondered and none of us knew. I wondered what had happened to her.

“Why do you think she tasted things?” he asked. “What was the purpose of my gift where she was from?”

Evan’s mind was full of questions. He couldn’t imagine a world where they were all