by Rob Boffard
“We don’t.” Jack looks pointedly at Brendan and Seema. “Which is why it would have been smarter to stay.”
“That’s kind of what I thought, too.” Malik toes the raised edge of a floor panel. “I know we have to vote on stuff, but if we get blown up, nobody’ll ever know what happened to us. I mean, they’ll probably figure out about the station and everything, but they won’t know about what happened after. With hiding in the hotel and the fire and everything. They’ll just never know.”
“What’s her name?” Brendan says.
Malik looks up. “Huh?”
“Your girlfriend. Or is he a boy?” He sees the expressions on Jack and Seema’s faces, and actually laughs. “Come on, now. You can’t seriously tell me that was difficult to work out.” He turns back to Malik, eyebrows raised expectantly.
After a moment where Malik looks like he wants a black hole to appear and swallow him whole, he says, “Shanti.”
“Shanti.” Brendan says the name as if tasting it. “Lovely. This a girl at school?”
“Yeah.” They can barely hear him. “Grade below me.”
“How long have you been together?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Malik says quickly. “Well, she might be. We kissed once. I don’t know, I just … I don’t want her to not know what happened.”
To Jack’s surprise, Brendan stands, the servos in his arm whirring as he walks over and puts a hand on Malik’s shoulder.
“Everybody’s going to know what happened,” Brendan tells him. “Want to know what I think? We keep saying it’s rotten luck, and from a certain view, yeah, it is. But we made it out of there. I’d say that makes us more lucky than not. I think our luck’s going to hold, and then the cavalry’s gonna get here, and that’ll be that. You’ll be back home with your Shanti before you know it.”
He says the words to Malik, but it’s impossible for Jack to miss who he’s really talking to. Seema is sitting very still, hands folded in her lap, face expressionless.
Brendan grips both Malik’s shoulders. “And do yourself a favour, son. Just ask her. That was the mistake I made with Seema – took a bloody age before I worked up the courage to ask her to marry me. And she has the world’s scariest mother – thought about defecting to the Colonies a couple of times, just so I wouldn’t have to have her at the wedding.”
“Oh, please,” Seema says.
Malik is nodding, a smile sneaking onto his face, despite his exhaustion. Watching him, Jack feels oddly useless. Then again, he’s never been good with kids – something Brendan and Seema obviously don’t have a problem with.
“So that’s who you’ve been filming for?” Brendan says. “This Shanti person?”
Malik shakes his head. “Nah. She’s not really into that too much. It’s all going in my show reel. I need a good one if I want to get into TFA. That’s the Titan Film Academy. It’s the best in all the Frontier systems.”
“Is that right?” Brendan says. Malik nods again, and Jack gets the oddest thought: they’re all talking like their lives are just going to pick up where they left off. The kid’s still putting together his show reel for college. The old woman’s chewing on that bar for her teeth.
Well, why shouldn’t they? After all, there’s no way the Frontier hasn’t noticed the sudden lack of activity from Sigma. They’ll be here soon. It’s only been ten hours. Everyone’s overreacting.
“Keep shooting,” he says to Malik. “We might need it before this is all over.”
The boy’s expression suddenly changes to one of horror. “Please don’t tell my mom and dad about Shanti. Or Corey. Mom would freak if she knew. She thinks I’m too young for—”
“Not a word,” says Brendan, smiling. “On our honour.”
Malik looks relieved. “Corey especially. He sort of does things without thinking. I remember this one time? One of my friends was sick in hospital with grey lung – I don’t know if you know it, but—”
“We know.” Seema’s smile is tight.
“All from Earth here,” Jack gestures to the three of them.
“Right, right. I mean, they can cure it now, so he got better. But, like, when he was coming home from the hospital, a bunch of us wanted to throw this surprise welcome back party at his place. Corey somehow got involved, and he got so excited he ended up telling people at school, so by the time Ajay came home it was like, oh, yeah, thanks, guys.”
“I get it,” Brendan says. “We won’t tell about your girl.”
Malik flashes them a hesitant thumbs up, and jogs up the stairs.
Jack waits a moment, then crosses to the bar. He tries to pull a chair closer with his foot, forgetting for a moment that they’re bolted to the floor, and nearly topples over. Brendan snorts.
“Glad I amuse you,” Jack says, as he sits down.
“Well, someone has to.” Brendan shivers, sending a short brr through his lips. “Poor bloody kid.”
Seema gives him a baleful look. She has her hands between her legs, her jacket collar pulled up. Jack still hasn’t fully forgiven her for voting against him, but it’s hard to muster any enthusiasm for the feeling.
“So, no coffee,” Brendan says. “Let’s go up. It’s freezing down here.”
“Hang on.” Seema leans forward, steepling her fingers, resting her elbows on the table. “We never got to finish talking before. About what’s happening.”
They both give her blank looks.
“About us being the only surviving ship.”
“This again.” Brendan sounds defeated, and he gives Jack a knowing look.
“Don’t do that.” Seema’s voice is very quiet.
“Do what?”
“Treat me like that. Like I’m crazy. You always do.”
“Babe, I’m not saying that.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“Enough.” Jack rubs his face, digging his fingers into the bony ridge above his eyes. “All right?”
“And you.” Seema’s voice is still very low, but there’s no mistaking the wounded look on her face. She leans forward, tapping the table, very gently. As if this was a committee meeting, with minutes and an agenda. “You’re just going to accept what’s happening here. Is that it?”
“I’m not accep—” He realises he’s almost shouting, and has to pull himself back. “What do you want me to do here?”
“I want you to pull your head out your arse. This whole situation stinks, and you just want to sit there and pretend you don’t smell it. Well, not me. I’m getting back to my boy, and if you aren’t going to help me, you can fuck off. Yeah?”
Her husband speaks gently. “We’re not leaving Marcus. You’re his mum, and I’m his dad, and that’s that. But, Seems, I don’t see a conspiracy here. I really don’t, and keeping on at this isn’t helping.”
But there’s something in his eyes. Not disbelief exactly, more like eagerness. It reminds Jack of how Seema looked before, when he used the word miracle.
Seema takes a deep breath. “OK,” she says, giving Brendan a slow nod. “OK. But I still don’t think we’re being told the full story.”
Jack’s stomach growls again. “How do you mean?”
“We’ve spent this whole time reacting. The attack, the fire, everything. We need to take the initiative.”
“Seems …”
“No. Listen. Have either of you actually spoken to the pilot? Or seen her?”
“Yeah,” Jack says. “During the attack, I went to the cockpit. She was there.”
“For what, like five seconds? None of us have seen her since, or been in there. We’ve just trusted that she knows what she’s doing, and that we’ll just follow behind like good little soldiers.”
“What about the votes?” Brendan says. But he sounds less sure, glancing at Jack as if looking for support.
Seema gives him a tired smile. “You really think the pilot cares? She thought we were wrong, she’d just do what she wanted anyway, and none of us could stop her. And I’m tired of th
e middleman shit, with the guide going back and forth. We need to be in that cockpit. We need to know what the pilot knows. Use your brain, babe.”
“I am.” There’s no mistaking the annoyance in Brendan’s voice.
“Your gut then. Or if you can’t do that, then trust mine. Pooka, remember that commission we got offered on Mars?” She glances at Jack. “Business guy in Acedalia wanted a triptych – that’s three pieces of related—”
“I know what a triptych is. What’s your point?”
“It didn’t feel right. I walked into his office, and I just … knew.”
“Cushla, that was different, though,” says Brendan.
“Yeah? How? If I’d taken that job, it’d be months of work down the drain, and we’d have ended up with nothing. Why do you think they shut him down like two months later?”
As Jack looks between them, a memory of Hector surfaces. They’d been on the rooftop of Hec’s place in São Paulo, shirts off, backs sticky with sweat in the late afternoon sun. A bucket of Antarctica Cerveja, the ice long melted. Hec was showing off, demonstrating something they taught him in police training.
Jack had protested that he didn’t need to know it; plenty of criminals hung out at luxury hotels and resort spas, but they weren’t the kind that usually needed to be aggressively disarmed. “Don’t matter,” Hector had told him in that gorgeous accent of his. “You gonna come to São Paulo, you gotta be prepared.”
That was the thing with Hector. Sometimes, he just got an idea into his head that he couldn’t let go of. This was one of them. So he’d insisted on showing Jack how to disarm someone holding a gun: walk slowly towards the attacker, hands raised. Then, when you were close enough, bring your hands inward, like you were going to clap them together. Strike the inside of the wrist, and the back of the hand, moving your head quickly to the side. “It’ll go off, probably,” Hector had said. “But it’ll go flying, too.”
Jack doesn’t really remember the technique. He’d been concentrating on Hec’s body. Afterwards, with the sun still baking down, he’d given it even more of his attention. The memory is so vivid, so bright, that he can almost feel the sun on his back as Hector’s fingernails dug channels in his skin.
He shakes himself off. He might miss Hec, but he doesn’t miss that annoying, irrational, single-minded focus. He doesn’t miss Hec’s obsessions – which you couldn’t even really call obsessions, because they kept changing. Things that had to be done, had to be taken care of, right that instant. It was what made him a good cop.
Seema reminds him a little bit of Hector. And not in a good way. She isn’t acting rationally. She’s momma bear separated from her cub, and she’s lashing out, desperate to remove the threat. He doesn’t need that right now. Hec can’t help them. Seema and Brendan might be the only people on this ship he could conceivably talk to without wanting to pour bleach into his ears, but that’ll change if she doesn’t can her bullshit.
He rises off his chair. “I gotta use the head.”
“The head?” Seema says.
“Yeah. The washroom.” He gives her a very pointed look. “Assuming that’s all right with you?”
She rolls her eyes, but says nothing.
There’s a unisex symbol on the door of the bathroom, which is squeezed under the stairs. It’s such a narrow space that Jack has to turn sideways to make his way in. There’s a toilet, a tiny basin, a miniature bottle of dry foam sanitiser. An opening next to the sink has a little scruff of paper towel protruding from it. There’s no mirror, but the wall above the toilet is covered in yellow warning labels, informing the user that anyone who smokes in the bathroom will be subject to a fine of twenty thousand universal dollars or a prison sentence of five years – or both. Good to know.
The bar is cold, but this little room is absolutely freezing. His breath forms white clouds, and when he unzips himself the feel of the cold air on bare skin nearly makes him gasp.
The sound of his piss hitting the toilet’s plastic surface is dull, muted. In the quiet, he can hear the hull of the ship creaking and groaning, just audible over the hum of the engines.
You’re just going to accept what’s happening here. Is that it?
It’s a miracle.
He looks down, dismayed to find that his free hand has twisted the hem of his shirt into a tight knot. He lets go like it’s burned him, slaps the sink. Again. The cheap metal surface flexes, threatens to dent.
What a useless piece of shit this ship is. Useless, cheap, lowest-common-denominator junk. If they get out of this – no, when, not if – he’s going to have a word with one of the business reporters at the feed. There’s no way a company with standards this low is fully legal. It’s a shady outfit, run by cost-cutting shitheads, and he’ll be very happy to bring it down. Starting with the two idiots in charge of this ship.
And then, he’s going to have a beer. Ice-cold, in a very large glass. For a second, he can actually taste it, feel the froth crisping against his lips.
He looks at the wall with the warning labels, which is just reflective enough to show a distorted version of himself. “Stop it,” he says, his voice no more than a growl.
He takes what must be the quickest piss in his life, zipping up so fast that he nearly catches his dick in the ice-cold metal. The toilet is chemical, the thick pink liquid draining quickly, with hardly a murmur.
When he turns the tap above the basin, there’s a long, agonised metal groan from the ceiling above him, and a distinct lack of water. He frowns, turning the tap as far as it’ll go. A single drop of water sneaks out of the opening, clinging to the edge of the tap. Nothing else.
“Guys?” Jack says.
Chapter 18
Hannah is no stranger to space travel. She’s done short-range hops plenty of times: with her parents, class field trips, even a weekend on Io’s artificial beaches during spring break. She knows that stars don’t appear to move when you do. It doesn’t stop her staring at the white pinpricks outside the Red Panda’s cockpit viewport, sick with worry.
They’ve moved away from the debris field now – there are only a few pieces around them, winking against the black. Hannah had been looking forward to this, hoping that it would calm her nerves. It hasn’t. If anything, the empty blackness outside has made things worse. The Nebula is behind them now, with only a faint wisp visible on one edge of the cockpit glass.
A light year is a distance of around six trillion miles. It’s a meaningless number, utterly incomprehensible. The stars outside the viewport might already be dead – turned into huge supernovae, extinguishing themselves, a fact which nobody would even realise until they’d already been gone for thousands of years. The idea of those stars being gone – of there being nothing but blackness ahead of them – is horrifying.
Against distances like those, they may as well be standing still.
“Few hours,” Volkova says, muttering to herself. “Then we’ll see. Guide, pass the bottle, please.”
“Huh?”
“The bottle. By the aux thruster control there.”
The vodka bottle is two-thirds empty, nestling up against the control panel. Hannah looks at Volkova, taking in her dishevelled hair and bleary eyes. “Is that a good idea?”
“What do you mean? Vodka is always a good idea. Come, give.”
“What if the other ship comes back?”
“If the other ship comes back, we’re all dead. And in my old squadron, I took an oath never to die sober.”
Hannah half laughs. “Right. Your old squadron. They win Victory Stars, too?”
“Exactly. Yes. Now, please.”
She holds her hand out for the bottle. Hannah wavers for a second, and then she puts the bottle to her own lips, tilting her head back to take a slug of booze.
She’s never been a big drinker – beer mostly, with the odd badly mixed cocktail. She’s had vodka once or twice, but it wasn’t nearly as good as this stuff. The first taste is like hot cinnamon, and it’s so good that all she wants to
do is go on drinking. Then she’s hit by an alcohol burn so intense that it makes her cough, spraying droplets of vodka across the control panel.
She expects Volkova to shout at her, but, instead, the pilot laughs. “Good, yes. Now please, for the love of God, give.”
Volkova drinks deep, swallowing the vodka with no more difficulty than if it were a glass of water. Hannah can feel a buzz building behind her eyeballs, and it makes it a little easier for her to deal with the idea that the Colony ship could appear at any second.
Up until now, the thought has been like a splinter on the ball of her thumb, one she can’t dislodge. It’s why she’s hanging out in this cockpit, with its stench of cigarette smoke and sweat. It’s easier to ignore the thoughts here, where Volkova is in charge, and it’s definitely easier to ignore them after a shot of vodka.
Volkova passes the bottle back. Hannah almost says no, then changes her mind. The second hit goes down a lot easier, and tastes just as good. No more, though – this stuff is lethal. She can take almost throwing up in the cockpit once – doing it twice might be a little rude.
“What do you think we’ll find?” she says. “When we get to the gate?”
“Depends. Maybe the defence system is still active, in which case it can protect us. Even if it is destroyed, maybe the gate is still there, and our Colony ship is just shooting anyone who comes through. If that happens, we go far away as possible, wait for someone to send a ship too big to destroy. If not …”
Volkova shrugs, then notices the expression on Hannah’s face. “Sorry. I know it’s a bad situation.”
“It’s OK. I just … I keep thinking about what I was going to do. You know, when I got another job.”
“You don’t want to be a tour guide?”
“Yes. I mean … I did, but it was just a first job. It wasn’t the only thing I wanted to do. I thought I could find another gig when I was out here, if I didn’t like being a guide.”
“Da?” Volkova says, in the tone of someone who isn’t really interested. “Then what?”
“I figured I’d get a job at a museum. You can’t really get one without experience, but I thought, you know, if I came out here first …”
