by Laura Lam
Naomi dragged her fingernails across her scalp and the short bristle of her hair. Evan would always feel guilt that he was never truly at risk.
In Valerie’s mind, she would have thought giving him immunity was a sick sort of kindness. Letting Evan survive, so that if she came back for the children, she could gather up her son and welcome him into the fold of her new world. Ever the hero. Would Valerie even have considered the trauma he’d have had to endure?
Evan Kan: I’m still being detained by the authorities, or what’s left of them, but they agreed to let me send these messages. They’ll be reading what we write, but we don’t have anything to hide.
He was alive. He was safe. Imprisoned, sure, but safe. She laughed softly, despite everything. She closed her eyes, imagining the way his eyes narrowed, crinkling at the corners when he concentrated. How many looks had she stolen at him as they studied in undergrad, hoping he wouldn’t catch her?
He’d run his fingertips along her scars that last night. His skin was so smooth, but she remembered discovering the tiny scar in the corner of his left eyebrow that she could feel more than see. She’d asked him about it, after, tangled in the bedsheets. He’d bashed his head on a counter when he was young. She remembered the feel of the square of his jaw beneath her fingers. There were so many miles between them, but she desperately wanted to be held, to fall asleep next to him, breath in his scent, forget all of what had happened to them the last five months, at least for a moment.
The morning she’d left for quarantine, she’d woken up to the bed alone, only the spicy scent of his shampoo and the gentle bruise of a love bite on her shoulder to remember him by. And, though she didn’t know it then, a little more.
She sent her response, not knowing how long it’d take for whoever was monitoring their communications to let it through.
Naomi Lovelace: I’m glad you’re all right. That we both are, considering. We’re coming back. Decided not to jump through. I know you’re feeling survivor’s guilt, but remember: this is not your fault. It’s not mine. We couldn’t have known what she planned. It’s Valerie’s sin, and Valerie’s alone. See you soon, but not soon enough.
She turned the tablet off and fell back on to the bed.
Four months back to Earth.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
131 Days After Launch
0 Days to Mars
122 Days to Cavendish
130 Days to Earth
They flew directly past the warp ring. Hixon gave it a reluctant wave as they passed.
Unsurprisingly, none of the crew wanted to deal with their former captain.
Lebedeva had stocked up the rec room with enough food and water to last a couple of days. Gave Valerie the bucket she’d made Naomi use as a crude chamber pot.
Two days after they changed direction, the day they were supposed to stretch and condense space-time again, Naomi decided she should visit Valerie.
Lebedeva came with her. She’d been keeping an eye on Valerie more than the others.
“How has it been, seeing her?” Naomi asked as they walked slower than they needed to down the ring corridor.
“You mean since she tried to have you kill me?” Lebedeva shrugged. “It has been satisfying to see her powerless. I have not throttled her, if that is what you are asking. I might have imagined doing so. No promises.”
“Fair,” Naomi said.
Naomi’s stomach fluttered with nerves as they approached the door. They’d kept watch on Valerie through the comms panel, spying on her the way she’d spied on them. She spent some time hitting the walls, at first, then did a lot of pacing. For the last few hours, it’d been a lot of sitting and staring at nothing. She was eating her food, drinking her water. No hunger strike. Conserving her strength.
Lebedeva had put her engineering skills to work creating a small handheld stunner that she held at the ready. Little more than a glorified cattle prod, really. Naomi fervently hoped they wouldn’t have to use it. Naomi held a water allotment and some toiletries, so Valerie could brush her teeth and give herself a sponge bath after they’d left. In Naomi’s pocket was a wrapped bundle of nutriblocks.
“What about you?” Lebedeva asked. “You could have asked Hart or Hixon to do this with me. No one would blame you for evading her.”
“Avoiding,” Naomi corrected, absently. She squared her shoulders. She didn’t need the others to protect her. She’d locked Valerie up—Naomi should face her prisoner. Still, she hesitated, staring at the seam of the white and silver doors. In that room, they’d all eaten their evening meals when they’d tired of the canteen, or on special occasions like the Fourth of July. They’d been surrounded by echoes of Earth or visions of Cavendish. They had laughed, teased. Been a crew.
The last time they’d gathered behind those doors, Valerie had told them what she’d truly done. Tried to make them see that her course was the correct action to take. She’d failed, but if Naomi knew anything, it was that Valerie would still be at her mind games.
She pressed the button, letting the doors whoosh open.
Valerie’s head rose. She had her hair over her face, and some stuck to the sweat of her forehead. The eyes were the same—bright and dark and furious. The muscles of her jaw jumped beneath her skin.
Lebedeva pointed her makeshift weapon at Valerie. “Don’t think about it. Get in the chair,” Lebedeva instructed.
Valerie did so, deliberately slowly, the restraints curling from the malleable material to trap her hands and feet.
Naomi set down the basin of water, toiletries, and nutriblocks, then backed away.
Valerie’s eyes raked over Naomi’s face, lingering on the healing scratches on her cheek. Naomi hadn’t expected to see some broken, battered woman, but she’d still hoped for something—a whisper of regret, acknowledgement of her sins.
“I can take it from here, Lebedeva, thank you,” Naomi said.
Lebedeva gave an incline of her head, passed her the weapon. “I will stay outside if you need me.”
When the door swung shut, Naomi faced Valerie. She thought the fear would still be there. Anger. Betrayal. Instead she was left numb. A headache bloomed at her temples and her eyes blurred with exhaustion.
Valerie’s hair was greasy, her pale skin dry and flaky. She was no longer the polished CEO of Hawthorne.
“Have we jumped?” Valerie asked. She wouldn’t have been able to feel it.
“No.”
“So we’re going back.”
Naomi saw no need to respond.
Valerie rolled her neck. “I’m right about Earth. It’ll be people fighting over scraps. Still trying to keep the bones for themselves. You should have gone to Cavendish. You’ll see.”
“Perhaps,” Naomi said, easily enough. “We decided to see if we can help make things better.”
Valerie gave an incredulous grunt.
“You used to think more of humanity,” Naomi mused. “My mom always said Hawthorne was created to help make life easier for people.” Automated robot labour to free up leisure time. To help pave the way for governments to roll out a universal basic income. Not that the governments cooperated, but it did morph into the birth bonus, which was not what her mother had in mind. Naomi sat, resting her back against the door. “After she was gone, I believed you when you said you were carrying on that vision. You promised we’d do great things together. But I was just one more person to fall for your lies.”
“I was carrying it on,” Valerie said. “Cavendish would have been all Catherine wanted. A place with a gentler pace, shared resources, her creations helping to build a new, better society.”
“She wouldn’t have agreed with the cost of it.” Naomi clenched her teeth together. “God, if she could see you now.”
Valerie’s bravado flickered, her expression something Naomi couldn’t read.
Naomi pounced on it. “You never explained why my mother didn’t name you my legal guardian. Why she’d rather send me thousands of miles away instead of letting m
e grow up under your roof. I don’t buy that she didn’t update her will.”
Valerie pulled at her arms, testing the restraints. Naomi’s grip tightened on Lebedeva’s weapon. “Valerie,” she said. “Tell me.”
Valerie’s mask went back in place. “I expect because she was planning on moving back to Scotland, so those relatives would have been closer if anything happened.”
“What?” Valerie’s words loosened a few fragments of memories. Catherine mentioning the village where Naomi’s father had grown up. Far in the Highlands, not far from Sutherland, really. They’d been planning to visit that Christmas, but Naomi found the body in the garden three months beforehand. Now, years too late, as an adult rather than a child, it gave her pause. Naomi knew depressive episodes could come on like a flick of a switch, but if Catherine Lovelace was going to end her life, why was she planning a trip?
Naomi had buried that image of her mother’s sprawled body as much as possible, along with the months surrounding it. Her hair and clothes had been wet with morning dew. Her neck bent at that horrible, unnatural angle. Naomi had been young, but she’d still heard the whispers about the cocktail of drugs in her mother’s system. Enough to kill her even if she hadn’t fallen.
Naomi and Valerie had only ever had that one, blazing fight, just before Naomi moved to Scotland. She had thought Valerie was overreacting when she was so furious at Naomi’s plan. How she hadn’t understood that Naomi needed to remake herself somewhere where the reach of both Valerie and Cole was weaker.
Naomi had left Valerie, just like Catherine had threatened to do. Unintentionally poked hard at a tender spot.
“My mother’s fall wasn’t an accident,” Naomi said slowly, the weapon forgotten at her side.
Valerie’s bravado fell. She was stripped bare, guilt that she’d never shown even while she risked the fate of Earth rising to the surface. Valerie’s head tilted forward.
“God,” Naomi whispered. “Did you start the fire, too?”
She should have known by now—Valerie would do anything to get what she wanted. Catherine and Valerie had made Hawthorne from nothing.
Valerie gave a sharp shake of her head. “That was a wildfire. If that’d never happened, we’d all be on a different path.”
“But my mother didn’t fall,” Naomi repeated.
“She wanted to break up the company,” Valerie said, almost pleading with Naomi to understand. “Hawthorne wasn’t doing well—all risk, no growth. I couldn’t afford to start over. And she’d be taking you with her.”
Naomi stopped breathing.
“Evan hated me by that point, but you? You hung on to me, clung like glue. If I gave you a problem, you trotted off to solve it. Came back so proud when you’d cracked it. You loved me. At that point in my life, you were the only one who did.”
Naomi’s breath hitched as it restarted. Her vision wobbled. She took a step back, then another, until she was pressed against the wall of the rec room.
“When you left for Scotland, I thought I’d lost you. Catherine’s promise kept years later. Then you came back. It was us against the world again. But I overestimated you. You don’t have what it takes for truly radical change.”
“That’s one way to describe it,” Naomi said. Even after everything, the sting of disappointing Valerie bit deep. She edged closer to the door. “I’m not a toy soldier to wind up and march in whatever direction you choose. I never was. Destroying what’s in your way doesn’t leave you anything.” She gestured at the constraints. “You’ll never get what you want.”
Valerie let her hair fall over her face, the fight leaving the line of her shoulders. “It was a critical error. Pushing too far. If I had simply given you the cure, we would be on our way to Cavendish now, wouldn’t we?”
“We might,” Naomi admitted. “You still lost any chance of keeping me by your side as soon as you released the virus.” Naomi strode forward, bent down to Valerie’s eye level. Pressed the weapon underneath Valerie’s chin, forcing it up so she couldn’t look away. “You killed my mother. My ex-husband. You tried to kill everyone I’ve ever known. You may have inoculated your own son but you still left him there.”
Valerie hesitated. “Is Evan…?”
Naomi laughed, the sound harsh. Her finger was still on the trigger, but she hadn’t pressed it. She wanted to give Valerie a blast of electricity, let it ripple through her nervous system like lightning. “Now you ask? Did you think he’d skip along merrily to your version of Cavendish after you let him watch the world die?”
Valerie raised her head, shaking her curls back, unable to meet Naomi’s eyes. “I have nothing left. I’ve made all my plays.” She lapsed into silence.
When she spoke again, her voice was hesitant. “I don’t want to live my life behind bars. I don’t deserve it, but I’d like to ask one last thing of you.” She swallowed, the whites of her eyes showing as she leaned closer to the weapon against her skin, glancing at the hull as if she could see through it. “Leave me out there.”
Naomi stayed crouched in front of the woman she’d loved, worshipped, been so damn desperate to please.
She was tempted. Naomi allowed herself to imagine Valerie wrapped in the same black rubber sheeting as Cole after she’d killed him. Pressing the button. There, then gone. An eternity out in the cold.
Valerie saw Naomi waver. “Please.”
“You’re afraid to face what you did,” Naomi said. She pulled the weapon from Valerie’s skin. The tip had made a small indent against her neck. “You’d have to live with them cursing your name. Easier, isn’t it, to blink out now?”
Naomi stood, her knees protesting, and went to the door.
“Why take the easy option?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
177 Days After Launch
84 Days to Earth
Over the next few weeks, the Atalanta’s reduced crew had settled into some semblance of order. The four of them did the work of five people, with the added bonus of looking after a prisoner. Naomi had officially bowed out of that duty after her last conversation with Valerie. No one pushed her on it.
Naomi’s belly filled out her coveralls. Twenty-seven weeks along. The baby was big enough its lungs breathed amniotic fluid. She felt it kicking, the inside of her stomach tender.
On the forty-sixth day since they bypassed the warp ring, Naomi’s swollen ankles puffed up so much it was painful to walk. There was a ringing in her ears, a dappling of her vision. She’d tried to get out of her bed and fallen right back down. She felt a dampness and brushed between her legs with shaking fingers. Blood. Hardly any, but still red.
She called for Hart on the comms, who came and helped her limp to the med bay.
Naomi tried to quiet her panic, but she couldn’t. This all pointed to worryingly serious symptoms. Hart had gone silent, with a tightness around her eyes that was never a good sign.
Hart led her to the autodoc and instructed Naomi to remove her coveralls. Blood stained Naomi’s underwear and the skin of her ankles was distended and tight with water. “Bleeding. Oedema,” Hart said, clearly alarmed but trying not to show it. She brought up Naomi’s last scans, including her urine samples. All had been normal.
“The spotting might not be anything to worry about,” Hart soothed as she passed Naomi a cup. Naomi didn’t know whether or not to believe her. Embarrassingly, the doctor had to help steady Naomi so she could give the sample. Hart took a small vial of Naomi’s blood, still outwardly infuriatingly calm. Naomi looked away from the needle, pushing away memories of IV lines.
While they scanned, Hart barraged Naomi with questions about symptoms.
“Headaches?”
Naomi nodded. She’d had them constantly the last few weeks, but migraines had followed her even before pregnancy, usually triggered by stress. There’d been no shortage of that.
“Nausea?”
“No more than usual. No vomiting.”
“Any abdominal pain or tenderness? Or anywhere else?”
“My right shoulder hurts,” she said. “But Lebedeva did knock it. Might have sprained it.”
Hart pressed Naomi’s shoulder, and Naomi grimaced.
“Fatigue?”
“Yeah, but I’m sleeping badly, pregnant, and overworked.”
“Stop with the qualifiers. Any visual disturbances?”
“Bit of wobbling, like a migraine aura.”
A line appeared between Hart’s eyebrows. She took Naomi’s blood pressure—high. The samples finished scanning, and Hart studied them.
“Well, fuck.” Her calm façade had cracked.
Naomi’s heart rate ratcheted up. “What?”
“There’s protein in your urine. Your blood pressure’s high. Your body is breaking down red blood cells, elevating your liver enzymes, and your platelets are low, so your blood’s going to have trouble clotting. You have HELLP syndrome, a variation of pre-eclampsia.” She hissed a breath through her teeth. “This is something the literature warned could be a side effect of pregnancy in space, but gravity should have mitigated a lot of the issues. I have been screening for it specially, but you haven’t shown symptoms before this. HELLP rarely develops before twenty-four weeks’ pregnancy, but the odds are better after thirty.”
Naomi was smack dab in the middle. Guilt bled into the fear. In her years of training and in trying to break into a field that wanted to keep her out, it had become second nature to push aside minor discomforts. Don’t show any weakness that meant they’d send a man up to orbit instead. And nothing had seemed worrying until this morning. She should have documented every niggle.
“What do we do?” Naomi asked. She’d heard of pre-eclampsia before, but not HELLP.
Hart grimaced. “I’ll watch you closely for expectant management, but there’s a high chance we’re going to have to deliver your baby sooner rather than later. If we delay and you worsen, the baby can be in distress and you’re at a high risk for seizures, strokes, or organ failure.”