by Laura Lam
Even Cole had done it to Naomi. He’d asked for a glass of water, except it hadn’t been an ask, exactly, and there was no thank you when she clinked the glass against the ceramic coaster. She’d done it without thinking. She’d been conditioned, too.
Her eyes remained dry in the car. In the airport, another automated robot with a female voice checked her in and sent the boarding pass to her phone.
“Have a pleasant flight,” the robot voice intoned.
“Thank you,” she said, and the man behind her in line gave her a strange look.
Another robot scanned the pass before she walked up the temporary stairs to the craft. A robot would fly the plane, though they still had a bored pilot in the cockpit just in case they needed to override the controls. Still another robot would serve her drinks and snacks. She bought a double gin. The robot scanned Naomi’s public health profile, determined the alcohol units and calories were within her allowance, and poured it for her. She scowled at its back as it continued down the aisle.
Valerie waited for her at the airport. Naomi was surprised at that; she’d expected her to simply send a car. She’d offered to send a plane when Naomi phoned to tell her she’d left Cole, but Naomi had demurred at that extravagance. Especially knowing Valerie wouldn’t like what Naomi had to tell her once they were alone.
Valerie nodded at her. No hug. “How are you doing?”
Naomi gave an empty smile. “Fine.”
Valerie snorted.
“No, actually. I’m fine. Whatever we had broke a while ago. I was just the one to rip off the band-aid. And get the hell out of Texas.”
“Like adopted mother, like adopted daughter,” Valerie said with a laugh, taking one of her suitcases for her.
When they reached Valerie’s mansion, Naomi tucked herself on Valerie’s green velvet sofa. This was the sofa she should have bought for her apartment (well, a budget version). The softness enveloped her. She arranged the cushions and pulled the throw blanket around her. Valerie had to work, and so Naomi watched television on the screen that took up nearly the whole wall, and she was seventeen again, back at home the summer before college.
Naomi waited to tell Valerie her news until after dinner.
“I’m not staying,” she said, without preamble.
Valerie paused in slicing the cheesecake she’d bought. She dropped a slice on the plate.
“It’s what spurred me to leave,” Naomi continued. “I was offered a job I couldn’t refuse.”
“Leaving NASA,” Valerie murmured, sticking the spoon in the cheesecake, where it stood at attention like a flag. She passed the plate to Naomi. “Not transferring?”
“I thought about it. I could do good work at the AMES centre. Or go corporate again.”
“You know there’s always a job for you at Hawthorne.”
“Of course, and I’m grateful for that. I am. But I feel like… I need to stand on my own two feet. Somewhere where I’m not under Cole’s shadow. Or yours.”
Valerie speared her slice with a spoon. “What’s the job?”
“Life sciences botany research for the ESA and Lockwood. At the Sutherland Space Centre in Scotland.” Naomi pressed her spoon deeper into the cheesecake.
“You’re taking a job with my main rival?” Valerie asked, her voice flat.
Naomi took the smallest spoonful of cheesecake. Vanilla and the comforting fat of cream cheese. “I know, I’m sorry, but the job was too good—”
Valerie rose, clutching the plate. “No.”
Naomi blinked. “Come again?”
“I said no. You are not working for Lockwood. You are not moving halfway across the world to work in some tiny, backwards spaceport surrounded by sheep.”
“I’ve already accepted the offer.”
“You’ll stay here, at Hawthorne.”
“Valerie,” Naomi said, struggling to keep her voice firm. “I’m not.”
Valerie’s back was straight, her nostrils flaring.
“Valerie, I have to live my life,” Naomi said, standing. “Cole already tried to get me to do things I didn’t want to do with my career. I love you, but I’m not letting you do the same.”
Valerie’s face worked, her hands clenching the marble countertop of the kitchen island.
“I’m sorry,” Naomi said. “But I need to do something on my own.”
“On your own,” Valerie bit out. She put her plate on the counter. “You realise that with one call, one whisper, I could make that job disappear?” Her eyes were dark pools, features shadowed by the light above her.
They stared at each other in an impasse.
Naomi’s mouth was dry. “I do, but I didn’t think you’d do that to me.” The hurt in her voice made her plaintive. The worst part was that she knew she was being ungrateful. Throwing Valerie’s help back in her face. But she couldn’t stay here, fold herself back into Hawthorne, surrounded by people who knew Cole, or at least knew of him. How long before that documentary aired with Mel instead of Naomi?
Valerie leaned back, took another bite of cheesecake for time to compose herself.
“Fine,” she said, as if unconcerned. “Leave. You’ll see. When Lockwood lets you down, when the ESA keeps you strapped to a desk as surely as NASA did, you’ll come back to me.” She narrowed her eyes in satisfaction. “You always come back.”
Naomi took a step forward, but Valerie strode from the room.
The next morning, Valerie was gone on a business trip.
By the time she returned, Naomi was in Scotland. There she remained, until Valerie came calling, and proved her words right.
CHAPTER THIRTY
128 Days After Launch
3 Days to Mars
121 Days to Cavendish
Naomi’s lab was twenty-three steps long and twenty steps across.
She’d paced it exactly one hundred and seven times that day. She was determined to keep moving, to let the rhythm of the steps help her think. To find some way through this.
Valerie would likely be watching her pace, listening to her low mutterings. Waiting for her to come to her senses and be the obedient little girl she’d always been. Almost always been. She’d had her one rebellion, when she went to Scotland.
Earlier that day, Naomi had spent one and a half futile hours trying to open the door. Valerie had changed the code. She wouldn’t be able to lever the doors open with anything, and in any case, Lebedeva had been through the lab and taken out anything that could be used as a weapon. No trowels—Naomi would have to dig up her crops with her bare hands. Lebedeva would take her to the toilet twice a day, and she had a glorious bucket in the corner as a backup. Naomi was instructed to keep up the algae crops, and Lebedeva would come at the end of each day to collect the nutriblocks, leaving aside a portion for Naomi.
Naomi still had her tablet, but she’d been afraid to check it too often. Valerie would know that Naomi was in contact with someone on Earth, and she’d have to assume it was Evan. Hopefully she’d think it was only through the console in the rec room, not on the tablet. More likely, Valerie knew about the tablet but let Naomi keep it so she could monitor their conversations. There were no new messages. Naomi had tapped out a terse update. It wasn’t easy telling him that his mother had destroyed the world and sentenced her own son to die.
Naomi wouldn’t be able to force her way out of the lab—she’d have to use charm. Machines were harder to break than people.
When Lebedeva came to collect the nutriblocks, Naomi stood in the corner as instructed, hands on her head, the purple tubes of the algae pressed against her back.
“I need to see Hart, so she can check on the baby,” Naomi said.
“No, you do not. You just had scan after we jumped. You are up to something,” Lebedeva said.
“I’m under a lot of stress. I want reassurance.”
Lebedeva grunted. “I will mention it to Dr. Black.”
“Thank you. Oksana—” Naomi tried. She hadn’t dared use Lebedeva’s given name before t
his.
“Do not bother, Naomi,” Lebedeva said, packing the nutriblocks in a bag. She’d returned the favour at least. That was something. A little chink in her armour. “You are not changing my mind. I know where I stand.”
“Eight billion people,” Naomi said, switching to Russian. Valerie was undoubtedly listening, but she didn’t speak the language. “They are dying as we speak. How many yesterday? How many tomorrow? How many right now?” She stumbled, a little, and her accent was atrocious.
Lebedeva paused, pinching a nutriblock hard enough to warp the shape. “It does not matter.” She spoke English.
“It does,” Naomi said, stubbornly continuing in Russian. “It has almost certainly spread beyond California now. It will be out of the U.S. by next week. You still have family in Russia. They are at risk.” She didn’t know how to express in Russian that she suspected Valerie hadn’t even dosed Bryony, and the woman had killed the planet for a broken promise of inoculation. “Valerie… she uses people, Oksana. She has done it to me my whole life, and I was too stupid to see it.”
She was pushing hard. A week ago, she wouldn’t have. It was freeing, in a way, to know with such clarity what was important and what was immaterial.
Lebedeva didn’t respond. The grow lights turned her blond hair violet, and her eyelashes cast shadows on her cheeks. The muscles of her jaw clenched.
“Oksana—”
“Nyet.” The word cut, but Lebedeva had switched to Russian. “This is happening, Naomi. It is horrible, terrible. I am not going to pretend it is not. They had their chances to fix things, and they did not. They knew what was at stake, but they still bought plastic, ate beef, took flights. I did, too. If I had been left behind, I would have died with them. But that is not my fate. It does not have to be yours. Think, Naomi. Valerie is making the hard decision, the impossible choice, so we do not have to.”
“I do not believe that,” Naomi said.
“It does not matter what you believe,” Lebedeva said. “This is what is happening.” She tied the neck of the bag of nutriblocks and made for the door.
“If your—” a pause for the word—“conscience wakes up, Oksana, you know where to find me. It is not too late,” Naomi said.
Lebedeva halted for the barest breath, and then she was gone.
Naomi dropped her hands, her palms tingling. She worked feeling back into them, grimacing. She sat at her lab table, poked at her evening meal of four nutriblocks. Finally, she stuffed them in her mouth, forcing the stuff down as quickly as possible, before she went over every inch of her lab again, determined to find something she could use as a weapon when Lebedeva came back the next day. Naomi needed to distract or disable Lebedeva as soon as the door opened.
Naomi’s hand strayed to her stomach. Horribly, this bump was what might save Naomi’s life. Valerie wouldn’t risk harming her granddaughter. She’d want her blood to survive on Cavendish. Though Naomi would put good money on the odds that some of the embryos in cryo were Valerie’s own, frozen when she was younger, perhaps. If growing artificial wombs proved difficult, would Valerie be able to carry a child easily? Or would she make the others carry them instead?
Naomi paced. Twenty-three steps. Twenty. Twenty-three. Twenty. It would be easy to let the grief settle in the crevices of her mind. For Evan. For everyone she knew back on Earth. Her friends, like Lynn, and her family. Her NASA and ESA and Lockwood co-workers. Her Hawthorne colleagues had given everything to Project Atalanta, not realising they were engineering their own destruction.
How long had the Valerie Naomi thought she knew been a lie? The woman who had hugged her in the storage bay had seemed warm, and kind, but in the next breath she’d pulled the plug on five people who would have survived if she hadn’t tampered with the cryo in the first place. The woman who had risked everything to grant Naomi the abortion. If the doctor had sold her out, Valerie would have been ruined. Lost her company, been even more vilified by the media. They would have crucified her. Yet she’d still risked it. Had that been a lie?
Valerie had bandaged her cuts and bruises over the years. She hadn’t pushed her when she couldn’t speak after the fire from the trauma. How could that woman bring about the end of the world?
Naomi needed a weapon that could incapacitate but not cause permanent damage. Lebedeva had taken away the bleach. Come on, come on. There had to be something here. Something simple.
She paused, staring at the crops. The newest tomato plants were flowering nicely, but her eyes snagged on the plants to the left of them. Chillies. She’d harvested and dried plenty of them already, to add spice to their meals. Most were in the kitchen, but—
She forced herself to walk to her desk calmly, as if her heart wasn’t racing. She opened the middle drawer. It was low enough Valerie wouldn’t be able to have a clear view from the comms panel. There was a little container of relatively fresh chillies.
She put them in the back of the dehydrator for the algae when she prepped the next crop. She lay down and waited until the middle of the night, when she was reasonably sure Valerie would be asleep, before she crept back to check the chillies were dry enough. She stayed low, finding a good angle behind the glowing, purple algae tubes. She ground the chillies in a mortar and pestle she’d mostly used for cracking seeds or grinding their precious store of spices so far.
Soon, she had a few tablespoons of chilli powder. She submerged it in some rubbing alcohol usually used for cleaning beakers and algae equipment and stirred it vigorously. She resisted the urge to look furtively over her shoulder at the comms panel. She had no way of knowing if it was on or not. Either Valerie would see and suspect something and send Lebedeva to be her muscle, or she wouldn’t.
She worked slowly, making as little noise as possible. Next, she added a tablespoon of oil—cheap, vegetable stuff used to lubricate certain parts of the nutriblock machine. She put the solution in an opaque container to let it settle, hiding it behind other supplies. She’d still have to figure out how to filter it without anyone noticing and hope she could rig it into one of her aerosols she used for spot-spraying fertilisers. For a relatively easy solution, there were still things that could go wrong.
Naomi stood, coming back into view of the comms and harvesting the last of the algae and leaving it to dry, and prepped the new crop. If Valerie fast-forwarded through the feed of the night, she’d see her about her usual business, even if it was at unusual hours. Naomi had always been an insomniac, doing most of her best studying in the late hours of the night or early hours of the morning. Evan had been, too. They’d pulled plenty of all-nighters in undergrad.
Don’t think about Evan.
Naomi hefted one of the reinforced empty glass vials thoughtfully, squeezing it tight. With enough force, it could hurt, especially with the metal cap at the end. She had over a hundred clubs in the lab that Lebedeva and Valerie couldn’t confiscate. She took a spare one and slid it underneath her mattress, which was close to the door.
Finally, she crawled into bed, lying on her back, bone tired but wide awake. She ran over the options in her mind, running her fingertips over her stomach. A headache pulsed at her temples.
By the time she eventually drifted off into a fitful sleep, she had a plan.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
129 Days After Launch
2 Days to Mars
120 Days to Cavendish
Someone woke her up, grabbing her by the upper arm and hauling her upright.
Naomi blinked at Hixon, bleary from fractured sleep. By the time she remembered the glass vial under her mattress, she’d already been dragged out into the hallway.
“I’m taking you to see Hart,” Hixon said, voice tight. “Lebedeva is bringing her to the lab for your scan.”
So Lebedeva had mentioned it to Valerie, or she had been listening through the comms. Naomi hadn’t had time to slyly filter her pepper solution or enact any of the rest of her plan. What if she didn’t get a chance to complete it? At least this was a chance to speak
to Hart and Hixon. Valerie was keeping her distance.
“This better not be some ill-thought-out ploy,” Hixon said.
“I want to make sure the baby is healthy,” Naomi said. She eased from foot to foot—her ankles were swollen. “Hart is going to be so very happy to see you as her jailer.”
Hixon’s grip tightened. “Watch it, Lovelace.”
Hixon had chosen her side, but she’d be an easier mark than Lebedeva.
“How do you actually see this working out?” Naomi asked, keeping her voice low. “Valerie doesn’t give a single goddamn about anyone who won’t always worship the ground she walks on. Even Cavendish isn’t going to be her perfect vision. Nothing in reality ever matches up to the dream in your head.”
If Naomi had more faith that it could be, would she have crossed the line to support Valerie? Would she be more tempted to let the old way of life disappear to make way for the new? Like Lebedeva and Hixon, standing by, letting it happen.
Hixon’s fingernails were digging into Naomi’s skin.
“You prepared to kiss her ass for the rest of your life, Hixon? Power is going to corrupt her as surely as it did Cochran. It already has.”
“Valerie isn’t anything like that soft-boiled asshole,” Hixon hissed as she marked Naomi to the med bay. “Shut. Up.”
“Ah, yes. She’s always listening,” Naomi said, almost sing-song.
The doors slid open. Hart was by the autodoc, and at the sight of her wife, she stiffened. Lebedeva stood, arms loose, legs hip-width apart, ready for any trouble they might cause. Naomi sensed this was a test. Valerie watching as the rest of her crew conferred. Making sure Hixon and Lebedeva were as loyal as they claimed, or seeing if Hart and Naomi could be convinced to fall back into line.
Hart came forward, helping Naomi into the autodoc. Her hands were gentle. “Are you all right?” she asked.