The kind of man she'd been taught to fear.

Her only chance to choose a life for herself.

Hiding behind a tank of molten uranium salts, Iphigenia's chewed fingernails gripped the radiation shielding and her dark eyes watched the man she both craved and feared to talk to.

Inside the dock, the spacejock did maintenance work on his ship. His oval face clashed with his haircut, buzzed on the sides and long enough on top for his brown hair to float like seaweed. Wiry mustache and beard. Cargo pants and multi-pocket vest over a threadbare T-shirt. Not handsome, not at all.

But she didn't care about his looks. The way he would care about hers, if he saw her.

The spacejock was about to round the curve of his hull out of her sight when her fingers lost their grip on the shielding. She shifted her grip to her other hand. Soundlessly. She thought.

Without turning his gaze away from his ship, the spacejock said across the echoing space, "Are you going to show yourself?"