by T. J. Land
“A very good question.” Antoine pressed some buttons on the nearest console. In the centre of the room, a holographic image of the planet in question appeared. “Here’s what we know. Its structure is similar to that of Europa. Smooth ice covers the entirety of its surface, underneath which lies a liquid ocean. It’s about half the size of Earth. Sparsely cratered, geologically active, extremely thin oxygen atmosphere, maximum surface temperature of minus two hundred and sixty degrees Fahrenheit. On the whole it’s far less welcoming than our new home.”
“That said, given what Rux has told us about his people’s astonishing physical resilience, it’s within the realm of possibility that they’ve managed to survive there for the past two millennia,” said Khurshed.
“So, when do we leave?” said Zachery.
Khurshed had settled into his chair and was staring at his hands. “This is not a decision I will make unilaterally. This isn’t a military vessel. I’m your employer, not your commanding officer. And the fact is that we have one ship. If I took only a handful of volunteers to investigate the signal, whoever was left behind would have to camp out on Yusra for at least three weeks—possibly much longer depending on how much time we spend investigating—without access to the medical pod, any mode of transport besides walking, and the many basic comforts the ship affords us. That is simply too dangerous to countenance. So either all of us go, or none of us. I considered proposing a vote, but I don’t want to engineer a situation in which even one of us is forced to abandon safe harbour unwillingly. If we’re going, we need to all be in agreement. I’m going to give you twenty-four hours to think it over and communicate your decision to me—in private, if you prefer. If any of you are unwilling we won’t go.”
“Antoine’s unwilling, isn’t he?” said Irene.
“He thinks he can persuade me,” said Antoine, snorting derisively.
After that, Antoine dragged Khurshed into his office so they could continue their argument in private. They kept it up for the rest of the day, pausing only once to join the crew for dinner before secluding themselves again. When Khurshed finally staggered into his quarters late that night, he looked dog-tired and barely acknowledged Rick, Thomas, and Zachery perched on his bed engaged in lively conversation.
“This is so cool,” said Rick as Khurshed collapsed beside him, burying his face in the pillow. “All this time, they’ve been up there watching us.”
“Freaks me out,” said Zachery, hogging the blankets as per usual, his hand resting on Thomas’s rear. “That’s like… Tommy, what’s that big word you like?”
“Voyeurism.”
“That’s the one,” said Zachery, giving his left ass cheek a proud squeeze. “But hey, if they’re all as tasty as Rux, I’m down for it.”
“I don’t know,” said Thomas. “I mean…you remember those robots they built, right? Those fuckers were scary. And it wasn’t even a military facility we found them in. What sort of people build shit like that to guard test tubes and empty rooms?”
“Quit being chicken,” said Rick, tickling him.
“No, I’m serious. Maybe this is a risk we shouldn’t take. You know, just because we’ve had a lot of lucky breaks doesn’t mean we’re invulnerable. We start pushing our luck, who knows what’ll happen?”
He hadn’t meant to glance at Rick’s eyepatch but he did, and he knew right away that Rick had noticed.
“Oh, no,” Rick muttered, rolling him over and moving to sit on his chest, the better to glare at him. “Don’t do that. You don’t want to go, fine, whatever. Don’t use me as your excuse.”
“Yeah, grow a pair,” said Zachery. “Why do you get to be the overprotective one, anyway? I’m the guy who blew Rick up. You don’t see me being a bitch about it. Now, in more interesting news… Did I see someone taking a second helping of dessert this evening, Meléndez? Or should I say being given a second helping of dessert by Echo?”
“Oooh,” said Rick. “Now that’s interesting. Because Echo’s usually kind of stingy with dessert.”
Zachery nodded. “The only other person I’ve ever seen him give a second helping to is the captain. I guess our boy here’s found his way into Echo’s creepy little heart.”
“Halberstam, you call him creepy again and I’ll spend the rest of my life treating your dick as though it’s covered in anthrax,” Thomas growled, elbowing him hard in the side.
“Sorry, shrimp. I didn’t mean it. Your thing with Echo— I’ll admit, it’s kind of cute.” Zachery kissed his elbow contritely.
“Say, you know what I noticed at dinner?” Rick interjected. “Zach spent a lot of time staring at Antoine.”
“Holy shit, really?” said Thomas, staring at Zachery. “That is actually a bigger shock than the aliens. Antoine? Damn, you be careful, Zach. Antoine probably likes it preying-mantis style; as soon as you come, he bites off your head.”
“I’m not fucking Antoine, and I’m not going to be fucking Antoine,” Zachery told them both curtly. “I was looking; that’s all.”
“If you don’t all stop talking, I’m going to have you neutered,” growled the captain, who had been trying to sleep.
The three of them exchanged looks before pouncing on him.
“Aww, the captain’s jealous,” Zachery said, dragging Khurshed’s inert body up to lie against his chest.
Thomas took hold of his cock while Rick cupped his balls, adding, “Yeah, he thinks he’s not our favourite anymore.”
“Right, come here,” Khurshed snarled, seizing the nearest of them—Thomas—and kissing him hard.
Of all of them, Khurshed had the most stamina. When Rick and Zachery were lying prone, drained and barely conscious, he was still able to push Thomas onto his back and ride his cock so hard Thomas saw stars.
“Beautiful man,” Khurshed rumbled. He was always sappy when he was tired. His hand found Thomas’s, and he laced their fingers together.
“Love you too,” Thomas said, closing his eyes.
Chapter Three
The next morning Zachery woke up long before the others. He showered, shaved, checked himself over, and made a cup of coffee. Then he went looking for Antoine.
First Officer Prissypants wasn’t in his quarters. He wasn’t showering. He wasn’t eating breakfast in the kitchen. Eventually, Zachery found him outside the ship, sitting in the damp grass watching the sun rise while scribbling in one of his notebooks. He was wearing a white T-shirt and shorts even though it was chilly, and Zachery was struck by the urge to bring him a blanket to cover up those scrawny limbs of his. He was getting used to weird urges where Antoine was concerned.
“Good morning, Mister Halberstam. What can I do for you?” Antoine said when he finally noticed him.
You can sit there forever and let me stare at you was Zachery’s first thought. His second thought was Jesus, I’ve turned into such a pussy.
Antoine made an appreciative noise as Zachery handed him his coffee.
“I want you to tell the others that you’re in favour of going,” said Zachery, sitting down beside him—close, though not as close as he would have liked.
“Oh?”
“See, I know you are in favour of going. You love mysteries and exploring weird places. And I’m one hundred percent certain you don’t give a shit about the risk to yourself. What you’re worried about is the rest of us. You think we might decide to go because Khurshed thinks we should. What I need you to understand is that it’s not like that. We’re not a bunch of lovesick yes-men. And you should know that because if we were like that we wouldn’t be here in the first place. I remember when you and the captain were first interviewing me for this job; you said one of the most important traits you were looking for was initiative and independent thought. That’s why you hired us. So…yeah. Don’t forget that.”
After sipping his coffee, Antoine said, “That’s a nice piece of pure speculation you’ve put together, Zachery. Let’s say you’re right. That still doesn’t change the fact that I’m the ship’s first
officer, and it’s my job to make decisions that I feel best benefit the crew. Frankly, I don’t see what we get out of going to rescue Khurshed’s aliens. Even if they aren’t hostile, what can they do for us?”
“That’s chickenfeed and you know it. You aren’t that cold-blooded. And even if you are, there’s plenty of things they might be able to do for us. They made Rux—you know, the immortal shape-shifting sex god? If they can do that, what can’t they do? Maybe they can build us a better medical pod, one that could fix Rick’s eye. Maybe they can cure Khurshed’s arthritis.”
Antoine looked up at him sharply. “He told you about that?”
“A few weeks ago.” Zachery brushed away a ten-legged bug that had been crawling up his arm. “The captain’s not thinking about what they can do for us; I’ll tell you that. He’s thinking about those four years we spent in space, waiting and waiting for someone to rescue us. He’s thinking about how scared we were. He’ll never be happy living here, knowing that we let the same thing happen to someone else when we could have helped.”
He paused, wondering if he was going too far—not something he worried about when talking to anyone who wasn’t Antoine—and continued, “Look, I know you don’t give a shit about how Khurshed feels. Everyone knows you guys don’t like each other. But I give a shit about how Khurshed feels, and so does everyone else on board.”
“Mmm. Half of you are sleeping with him, so that’s not terribly surprising.”
“My point is that if he’s unhappy, we’re unhappy. Think about that when you’re deciding ‘what best benefits the crew’.”
“Watch your tone, Mister Halberstam,” Antoine snapped.
That voice. That snotty, icy, aristocratic voice tinged with Antoine’s native Parisian accent. Zachery’s breath caught, and his mouth went dry as he thought, Fuck, not again.
Even when he was a teenager, Zachery had never lusted after someone he knew wasn’t into him. He drooled over people who he could imagine might be into him, one day, maybe, if the stars aligned. But if he knew for a cold hard fact that they weren’t and wouldn’t ever be? Poof—there went his erection, vanished in a puff of smoke. For him, part of the fun of having the hots for someone was indulging in fantasies of what might actually happen.
When it came to First Officer Prissypants, Zachery knew that nothing ever would or ever could happen between them. And still his erection persisted.
“Sorry, sir,” he mumbled. ‘Sir’? What the hell, Halberstam? You never even call the captain ‘sir’ unless you’re being sarcastic.
Antoine—goddamn him—was giving him one of those looks, like he could see inside Zachery’s head. “That’s fine. I’ll take your advice on board. Go back to Khurshed. He’ll be needing his morning kiss and handjob.”
“Rick does the kissing,” said Zachery, getting up. “Thomas does the handjobs. Fucking’s pretty much all I’m good for.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
What the hell does that mean? Zachery wondered as he went back inside.
✩✩✩
It was unanimous, much to Rick’s surprise. He’d been sure Antoine would say no. He’d suspected that Yanmei and Mehtab might. But twenty-four hours after the captain’s announcement they were preparing to leave, and Rick had to say goodbye to his vegetables. He felt awful, like he was abandoning a puppy at the roadside. With Zachery’s help, he’d set up an automatic watering system and a lean-to to shield them from the wind. He hoped it would be enough.
Crouching down, he murmured, “See you, little guys. I won’t be long. Hang in there, okay?”
“Quit talking to ’em,” Zachery said. “’S weird. We’re going to eat them.”
Standing up, Rick bit his lip, embarrassed. Despite how excited he’d been yesterday at the thought of meeting more aliens, today he’d been feeling weirdly sad and sentimental. He thought it had something to do with his fuck-up at breakfast. He’d tried to pour himself his morning cup of liquid nutrients, missed, and ended up dribbling it on his shoes—another thing that had been happening a lot since he’d lost the eye. He’d stared at the mess and thought, This is it. This is forever. This is your new life. Then he’d thrown the cup on the floor and stomped on it.
Thankfully, the only person who’d seen him do it had been Echo, who’d helped him clean it up. Which had made Rick feel even worse; he remembered all those times he’d called Echo the c-word. Never again, he told himself. From now on, he was going to be on his best behaviour where Thomas’s new boyfriend was concerned.
“Hey, Zach? Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Do you ever think about…like, the future and stuff? What we’re going to be doing in ten, twenty, thirty years?”
Zachery whistled. “Shit, kid, I don’t even know if we’re going to be alive in ten years. Until we landed on Yusra, I’d have laid even odds on us forming a mass suicide pact just for a change of scenery. And earlier, before I joined the crew, I thought I’d spend my whole life stuck on Mars. It’s really hard to leave when you’ve got a criminal record, even if you’ve got a degree. These days, I’ve given up on thinking about the future. Never does any good as far as I can see.”
He laid one of his big hands on Rick’s bare scalp and gave it a rub. Rick nearly purred.
“What’re you worried about, hmm?” Zachery murmured. “You think something bad’s going to happen?”
“No. I was thinking about my mom. She always used to try to talk to me about the future—you know, when was I going to get serious about school, when was I going to meet a nice girl, all that stuff.”
“You were a baby when the captain hired you, right? Sixteen or some shit?”
“Seventeen, asshole.”
“I always wondered; why’d you leave home so young?”
“Aah, just…just regular boring teenager shit. Things weren’t working out. I always wanted to be a horticulturalist like my dad, but I hated school. Never fit in. And all my brothers—I’ve got three, and a little sister—they did everything right. Scholarships, chess championships, captain of the football team, you name it. All I could ever figure out was how to grow plants. When I met the captain, my girlfriend had broken up with me, and I was looking for any way out. I didn’t tell him how old I was—said I was twenty-two and got one of my cousins to put together a fake ID. Heh. He was pissed when he found out I lied. But by then, we were on our way to Pluto.”
Thinking about his mom always turned him into a crybaby. He tried to blink the wetness away surreptitiously. “Anyway, that’s why I’m thinking about the future. I’m never going to get a degree or cure cancer or do anything to make my mom proud of me. But I still want my life to matter. I want to achieve something.”
The best thing about having Zachery as a boyfriend was that he never sugar-coated fucking anything. After thinking for a moment, he said, “Well, you’re not going to matter to anyone back home, seeing as how we’re never going home. And your mom’s probably written you off for dead by now. So it’s a good thing you’ve got those goody-two-shoes brothers to keep her company. Here’s what I can tell you: there’s only twelve human beings in this galaxy, and you matter like hell to all of us.”
Shit, shit. Don’t cry, you pussy, not in front of Zach.
“Thanks,” Rick said, gruffly. “What about you? You ever think about your mom?”
“My mom’s dead, and she never expected much of me anyway. As for achieving something…I guess I’d like to keep The Prayer running for as long as we need her. I’d like to write some more songs. Somewhere down the line I’d like to marry one of you assholes, or all of you. I always wanted to get married. Other than that, no big ambitions. What about you, Tommy?”
Rick hadn’t noticed Thomas coming to stand behind them and squeaked as he received a cursory ass-pinch.
“I’d settle for tasting a donut one more time before I die,” said Thomas, glaring at the zucchini patch.
“Come on, you guys! We’re ready,” Khali called from t
he ship.
“Off we go,” said Zachery. He picked Rick up in both hands, hoisted him onto his shoulders and trotted back to The Prayer. Glancing back, Rick saw Thomas trailing behind, staring up at the sky with worried eyes.
✩✩✩
They worked out that it would take them one and a half weeks to reach Yusra’s neighbouring planet. They hadn’t agreed on a name for her yet, so in the meantime they were calling her Moxie 2, in honour of the ship’s cat. Two days into their journey Echo was in the kitchen giving Moxie 1 her breakfast while Antoine sat on the table cross-legged and aired his grievances.
“I’m not happy about this, Echo.”
You keep saying that, Echo signed after cleaning his hands and checking on the batch of tarts he had in the oven. Unlike the confectionary items he’d produced for the crew for the majority of the last four years, these were made with real fruit, a species native to Yusra that Echo had privately named the “painapple” because they tasted like pineapples and smelled a bit like paint. In the course of refining the recipe, Echo had learned that he could disguise that fact with a touch of vanilla extract. The smell emerging from the oven now was tantalising enough to soothe his omnipresent grief at being forced to bake with flour substitutes.
“Are you happy about it?”
The captain knows what he’s doing.
Antoine rolled his eyes. “You would say that.”
Echo nodded. He’d never been ashamed of his adulation of their captain. What are you doodling?
Antoine glanced down at his notebook. “I’ve been trying to put together some estimates regarding our remaining food supplies. I’m also making a list of other potential sources of protein once the chewable bars run out. Yusra has few large terrestrial animals, but an abundance of marine life. Most of which might be inedible—that fish Cecelia caught would have poisoned us if we’d swallowed so much as one mouthful. That said, I might be able to develop a way of neutralizing the toxins and…”
We’ve enough supplies to last us the rest of our lives. You know that, Echo interjected. It had been one of the first things they’d checked when they’d been set adrift.
