Chapter 18
Washed up and burned out! Rebel Cayne, pictured here carousing with Chase Cayne…
-Tal Tattler
MarigoldMari tugged down the hat to cover her ears.
Time was a slippery thing. She had measured out her entire life by artificial increments. On a spaceship or a station, there was no morning or sunset. Life happened on a constant cycle, around the clock—that clock being the standardized IU clock.
On the station, nothing real moored the concept of time in place. Mari slept for eight hours and was awake for sixteen. Lighting never changed to mark the progress of the day. Environmental temperatures never changed to mark the transitions of the seasons.
Local time varied, of course, because time was slippery and planets still rotated and made their orbits the same as always. Most habi
