by Joe Vasicek
“Whoa, whoa,” said Isaac, raising his hands. “I don’t know what to tell you. I just—”
She spoke to him again, practically shouting. Though the words were strange to him, their meaning was clear.
How?
“We—we visited your station and found you frozen in cryo. Everyone else was dead. Because there was no one else, we decided to …”
It was clear that his explanation wasn’t going to work. The more he tried to tell her, the more frantic she seemed to become. The only way was to show her.
Isaac took a deep breath and cleared the screen to bring up the recording from his EVA suit when he and Aaron had boarded Alnilam Station. The video was dark, and the sound of his heavy breathing filled the mike.
“That’s me,” he said, pointing. “I mean, I am.”
“You are?”
“Yes, I am.”
She craned her neck to get a better look at the video feed, then scooted around the semi-circular seat until she was sitting right next to him. All at once, Isaac was very conscious of her nakedness. Blood rushed to his cheeks and sweat began to form on the back of his neck again, but he took a deep breath and forced his eyes not to wander.
Reva gasped loudly, making him jump. Her eyes were fixed on the screen—apparently, she’d seen something that she recognized. On the video, Isaac walked down the main rimside corridor, passing broken equipment and burned-out lights. A couple of them still flickered, but the helmet flashlight provided the only constant illumination.
She isn’t ready to see this, Isaac realized with dismay. It was too late to stop now, though. Reva quivered with apprehension, giving him the urge to reach out and put a hand on her shoulder. He hesitated, not sure whether it was appropriate to touch her.
“Here,” he said, skipping forward a bit. The next part was graphic, and he didn’t want her to see the bodies. In fact, he didn’t want her to see any of this at all anymore, but if he jumped to the part where they discovered her in the cryotank, hopefully that would be enough.
“No!” she shouted, hitting him on the arm. It was clear that she wanted to see the whole thing. Reluctantly, he stopped skipping and returned the video to play.
Now he was climbing up a set of stairs, his breathing much heavier. His brother was just ahead of him, in another EVA suit. Isaac turned down the sound so that the heavy breathing was barely audible. On the video, he and Aaron spoke, but the words were soft enough that he could ignore them.
I was such an ass to him back then, Isaac thought, remembering those words with no small degree of guilt. Now, Aaron was gone, and all their old arguments seemed so petty and juvenile.
He tapped the screen and switched to the feed on Aaron’s suit, since he’d found the cryotank. Reva’s whole body went stiff, and her quivering got even worse. She watched transfixed as Aaron walked down the corridor, past the doors that were no doubt all too familiar to her. He followed the blue arrows along the ceiling until they ended at an open door. Suddenly, she froze like a statue.
I never should have shown her this video, Isaac thought, his heart pounding. I never should have—
She let out an ear-piercing wail, sending shivers down Isaac’s spine. On the screen, Aaron stepped into the side room and found an old, dried corpse draped over Reva’s cryotank. He’d forgotten about that—had it been somebody she’d known? Apparently so, because she buried her head on the table and pounded it with her fist. Her wails turned to sobs, her henna-tattooed shoulders shaking with each one.
Isaac didn’t know what to do. He considered saying something, but since she couldn’t understand him, there was nothing much he could tell her. Instead, he stopped the video and sat by awkwardly as she wept.
Why did I think it was a good idea to show her that? Stars, I’m an idiot.
Tentatively, he reached out a hand and laid it softly on her back. She responded by leaning over and sobbing on his shoulder. He tensed a little as she clung to him, but when it became clear that all she needed was someone to cry on, he relaxed and tried to console her.
“I’m sorry,” he said aloud, patting her. “You probably weren’t ready for me to show you that. I just—I thought it might help somehow. I don’t know what you’re going through right now, but it must be pretty hard.”
The words spilled out of him completely unbidden, like a flare exploding from the surface of a star. Even if he’d wanted to hold back, he doubted that he could. In a strange way, it was as if he was talking to himself through talking to her.
“It’s because of me that you’re so far from home right now. I was the one who took you out of that station—well, me and my brother. But don’t worry. I won’t just leave you to fend for yourself. I’ll help you find your place in the universe as best as I can.”
Tears welled up in his eyes, tears he didn’t know he’d been holding back. After failing so many others, helping Reva was the least he could do to redeem himself.
Entering the Rift
Reva stared at the underside of the bunk above her and thought about nothing at all. Thinking was painful, and she didn’t do it any more than she had to.
It had been like that ever since Isaac had showed her the images of her home a couple of dayshifts ago. The sight of her sister-in-law’s corpse stretched out over the cryotank still haunted her. Far from giving her closure, the images of death and decay only reinforced the fact that she was alone now—alone and lost, with one terrible question assailing her more than any other:
What do I have left to live for?
A clang sounded through the bulkheads, followed by a shudder that reverberated through the entire ship. She perked up a bit, not because she wondered what was happening, but because it was something to do.
The shuddering stopped, and another clang sounded just below her. This was followed by a soft thud in the back of the cabin, near the escape pods and airlock. It sounded like a ship docking—or perhaps they were the ship, and the thing they were docking with was a station.
Isaac came in from the cockpit a few moments later. He walked over to one of the wall compartments and opened it, taking out one of his body covering—or ‘clothes,’ as these people apparently called them. He tossed it on Reva’s bunk, next to her feet.
“Here,” he said, gesturing for her to put it on.
Reva sat up and rubbed her eyes. She took one glance at the clothes and shook her head.
He frowned. “What is it?”
“No want,” she said, shaking her head again. She picked up the clothes and tossed them back to him.
He sighed and unfolded them, holding them out to her as if to help her put them on. When she folded her arms and glared at him, he pointed to the airlock.
“You need.”
He wants me to go out onto the station with him, she realized. He wants me to go, but he knows that I’ll attract too much attention if I’m not wearing clothes, so he wants me to wear them in order to blend in.
She didn’t like it, but she had to admit it was probably necessary if she was to go out among these people. Of course, she could just stay back on the Medea, but that would just give her more time to herself—more time to let her thoughts fester. At the very least, seeing the station would give her something to do.
With a long, heavy sigh she took the clothes and began to put them on. It was difficult. There were at least four holes in the thing, with such a tangle of fabric that she could hardly tell what was supposed to go where. Gently, Isaac guided her arms and legs through the proper holes. With that done, he walked behind her and pulled the clothes up over her shoulders. The zipper in the front gave her a bit of trouble, so he helped her with that as well.
They felt uncomfortably clingy against her skin. In most places the clothing was fairly loose, though they were a little tight on her chest and hips. She pulled the zipper down to loosen it up a bit, but Isaac stopped her. Instead, he fastened the clamps that kept the whole thing in place.
She glared at him, but he either chose to ignor
e her or failed to notice. After fitting a belt around his waist, he gave her one as well. It had several pockets on it, much like her father’s utility belt, so at least it was useful for something. She reluctantly put it on, fitting it loosely enough that it hung from her hips.
After looking her over, Isaac nodded and smiled. “Good,” he told her. “Very good.”
“Not good,” she muttered. “Very bad. No want.”
He smiled and answered her, speaking too fast for her to understand him. It sounded like he was trying to reassure her, perhaps that she only had to wear them while they were on the station. Either way, the clothes were coming off the instant she got back to the ship. She wouldn’t tolerate them a second longer than she had to.
Isaac strapped some sort of computer to his wrist and led her over to the airlock. After toggling the wrist computer, he palmed the door open and stepped through. Reva followed without a word.
* * * * *
The Bethel main orbital in the Shiloh system was unusual in that it was connected to its planet by a space elevator—a massive piece of infrastructure that must have taken at least a generation to construct. The planet itself was shrouded with thick cloud cover, making it impossible to see the surface, but here and there a few mountains peeked over the top like islands in a sea of white and gray. According to the Imperial Catalog, the surface was rich in arsenic-based life, though most of it consisted of single-celled organisms. A handful of abandoned research stations dotted the map, built in a time when relations with the Coreward Stars had been more amicable.
For all the size and majesty of the Bethel space elevator, though, the settlement itself was surprisingly small. The colonists who built it must have expected a large influx of immigrants, only to have those hopes dashed by the opening of competing trade routes. Now, the elevator was crumbling, the station’s hull marred by hundreds of micro-meteorite impacts. Rides to the surface were often delayed for days at a time due to unscheduled maintenance.
At least, that was what Isaac had read. As he stepped out of the docking node onto the rimside corridor, the place seemed decent, if a little overcrowded. The floor tiles were yellow with age and the wallscreens were visibly faded, but that wasn’t unusual for an Outworld port. The air was a little stale, but it seemed to be free of mold and dust—tell-tale signs that a station was in serious trouble.
“Stay with me,” he told Reva, slipping his arm into hers. Foot traffic in the corridor was relatively light, but hundreds of refugees sat huddled along the walls on either side, crowding the relatively wide walkways. Isaac had to step over a mother and child on the way to one of the stairwells leading up to the market section. Even on the stairs, people packed together in the narrow space.
These people are from Colkhia, Isaac realized. They’re trying to get passage out of system. No wonder the air was stale.
There was no point in spreading the news about the Flotilla’s defeat, then. It would only attract attention. If they were to make it safely to the far side of the rift, they needed to keep a low profile. With the Imperials and their agents no doubt crawling everywhere, there was no telling who might be looking for them.
The station’s bots were already refueling the Medea. From his Resistance connections, Isaac had access to an account that would resupply his ship without having to conduct any trades. But there were other things they needed—things that they couldn’t get without coming on board.
“Stay with me,” he told Reva as they left the stairwell and entered a massive bazaar. Stalls full of trade goods and commodities filled the narrow corridors, with shops set against the bulkheads. The place was a maze, with people everywhere and barely enough room to walk. The scent of fresh meat wafted in through the ventilators, while the walls rang with the sound of merchants shouting out the prices of their wares. Reva’s eyes widened in response to all the sights and sounds, but she managed to stay close even in the crowd.
At length, he found what he was looking for: a shop that sold clothes. It was in a side corridor with barely enough room for two people to step past each other, but the selection was wide and the quality seemed fairly decent. Isaac walked over to the women’s section and picked up a black smart-skirt.
“You want?” he asked, holding it out to Reva.
She stiffened a little and shook her head, but when he put it down and picked up another, she soon caught on to what he was doing. Reluctantly, she started combing through the clothes, looking for some that would suit her.
“Can I help you?” asked the merchant, a fat middle-aged woman with long brown hair and a cybernetic eye implant. Her smile was shrewd, but she seemed friendly enough.
“Yes,” said Isaac. “I’m looking for some clothes for my, ah, my friend here. Can you suggest anything?”
“Of course, dearie. Just leave her to me.”
“Well, she doesn’t actually speak the language.”
The merchant gave him a puzzled look. “Are you saying you don’t have an autotranslator? Because that’s no problem; I’ve got one right here.”
“No, that won’t help,” he said, swallowing a little. “Her language isn’t in any of the databases. Trust me, I’ve looked.”
“Not in any of the databases? Where did you pick her up, son? Never mind,” she said quickly, smiling and putting a hand on his arm. “Forgive me. I’m sure you don’t want any questions like that from someone like me.”
That’s right, Isaac thought. The fewer questions asked, the better.
“In any case, I’ll do my best to help her out. Oh, it looks like she’s found something!”
At the end of the table next to a stall full of robotics, Reva held up a dark gray sweater dress. Then, to Isaac’s horror, she unclasped the jumpsuit she was wearing and began to take it off. He hurried over to stop her, but it was already too late. The jumpsuit fell to her ankles, leaving her stark naked.
“Whoops!” said the merchant. “Why don’t we take you to a dressing room, honey?” She put her hands on Reva’s tattooed shoulders and led her quickly to the back of the stall, where a curtain hung from wide brass rings in front of a tiny alcove.
“Sorry about that,” said Isaac, his cheeks burning with embarrassment. “It’s just, ah … Yeah, let’s take her to the dressing room.”
Everyone from the other stalls was staring at them now, some of them quite uncomfortably. Isaac glared at them, though, and they soon turned away. A couple of women shook their heads, but once Reva was safely in the dressing room, traffic moved on and things more or less returned to normal.
“That’s some strange girl you got there, son,” the merchant said, her arms folded across her ample chest. “I’ve seen a lot of things, but I’ve never seen tattoos like that before.”
“Just pick out some stuff for her to try.”
He sighed heavily and ran his fingers through his hair. That girl was going to give him a lot of trouble if he wasn’t careful. He wanted to help her, but not at the expense of his mission. If that jump beacon fell into the wrong hands—
“Isaac? Isaac Deltana?”
Isaac turned and frowned. A young man in a synthleather vest walked past the stalls toward him. He was tall and blond, with a grin that looked strangely familiar.
“Yeah, that’s me. Who are you?”
“It’s me, Leo! Don’t you remember?”
Isaac’s eyes widened as recognition dawned on him. Leo was an old starfaring friend from the Oriana Cluster. He was one of the first friends that Isaac and Aaron had made after leaving their family for the stars. Those had been tough times for both of them, and Leo had done a lot to help them adjust to their new lives. The last time they’d seen him was at Nova Minitak, just before leaving for the station where they found Reva.
“Now I do,” said Isaac, giving his friend a warm hug. “It’s good to see you.”
“You, as well.”
“What are you doing in this place?”
“Oh, not much,” said Leo, his characteristic grin as wide as Isaac
had ever seen it. “Just coming back to see a girl here. Would you believe me if I told you I was thinking about settling down?”
“No,” Isaac laughed. “But hey, that’s great. Congratulations.”
“I haven’t made my decision yet,” Leo said with a wink. “Where’s Aaron?”
Isaac’s heart sank, and his face fell. Leo must have noticed, because his expression became serious almost immediately.
“It’s—it’s a long story,” Isaac said, “but I don’t think I’m going to see him again?”
“Does it have to do with the war against the Imperials?”
He nodded.
“That’s tough,” said Leo. “I’ve been running some supply convoys for the Resistance. Thought about signing up to join the fight, but this girl of mine talked me out of it. I assume Aaron signed up for a combat role?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s too bad, really too bad. I know it must be hard on you.”
Isaac bit his lip and swallowed, his emotions rising suddenly. “Yeah. It is.”
Leo put a hand on his shoulder, consoling him. The moment passed, and Isaac managed to get through without losing it. There would be a time and place to work through his emotions, but this wasn’t it.
“Are you with the Resistance, too?” Leo asked.
“Er, yeah.”
“Running convoys, then?”
“That’s right,” Isaac lied, cringing as he said it. Leo was a good friend, and he hated lying to him. But his mission had to remain a secret, especially in a place like this where there was no telling who might be listening.
“It’s a pretty nice gig, isn’t it? I’ve heard of guys coming from as far away as the North Third Quadrant just to join up with us—big names, like Joe Shinihana and Nikolai Nova. News of the war has been spreading though the Outworlds like a gamma ray burst.”