She should have ignored it. She was a mechanic, not security. But curiosity was her real addiction, stronger than any stim-coffee. She palmed the lock.
“What are they?”
So Kilews had done what she always did. She patched, jury-rigged, and prayed. She replaced the seal with a triple layer of thermal tape and whispered a plea to the Machine God her mother had taught her about. The drive rumbled to life, a surly, grudging sound. kilews
Inside, stacked to the ceiling, were the cages. Small, elegant things of silver wire. And in each cage, a bird. Not mechanical. Not native to any world in the sector. They were the size of her fist, with feathers that shifted through colors she had no name for—deep violet to bleeding crimson to a gold that hurt to look at. Their eyes were black, deep as the space between stars, and each one was perfectly, utterly still. Except for the tapping. She should have ignored it