by Gwynn White
“Life is rough out here in the Black.”
“I am strong.”
“Not the right kind of strong.”
“I disagree.”
“Of course, you would.” Yeah. She had no idea how to handle this kind of conversation with the woman. “Okay. First, what are you doing when you disappear inside your own mind?”
Dothylian frowned.
“When bad things happen, your face becomes a mask, and it’s like you disappear. Where do you go? What are you doing?”
“I’m…” Dothylian nibbled on her bar and swallowed. “I’m running the Fibonacci Sequence.”
Keva had no idea what that even was, but remembered it had something to do with numbers. “That’s… great. So, while you’re adding numbers, how are you surviving?”
“I do not understand what you mean?”
“I mean,” Keva said, getting frustrated, “while you’re disappearing inside your brain playing with numbers, how are you defending yourself?”
“I do not underst—”
Keva cut her off, slamming her palm against the counter. What had she been thinking? This was going to be a disaster. The woman didn’t even understand something as basic as—
Before she intended to, Keva flew across the room and slapped Dothylian across the face.
Dothylian stumbled back, staring at her in confusion, her protein bar in crumbles across the deck. The mask was in place.
Keva couldn’t allow Dothylian to retreat. She closed the distance, grabbed Dothylian’s hand and twisted it behind her, bringing her close. “What are you doing right now?” Keva growled in Dothylian’s ear.
“I—”
“I can tell you what you’re not doing.” Keva tightened her grip. “Fighting back. Are you adding numbers right now?”
“No,” Dothylian grunted, and shifted her shoulder, dropping herself out of Keva’s grip. She grasped Keva’s wrist and pushed her away.
Nice move and exactly what Keva was looking for. A bit of the frustration drained away. Dothylian wasn’t completely helpless. Good. Keva had forced this woman out of the comforts of her life, and into one much more dangerous. If Dothylian died out here, her life would be on Keva.
And Keva didn’t take on such a burden lightly.
“Dot,” Keva said, her tone light, her expression tight, “out here, there’s a lot more need for action and a lot fewer opportunity to retreat inside your mind. What happens if you’re in a bar and someone grabs you?”
Dothylian took a step back and shook her head.
“What happens if we’re out on a mission and I need backup? Will you be able to assist me, or are you going to be stuck back here running numbers and hiding?”
Dothylian raised her chin. “I do not feel comfortable running into danger. Would you have me kill?” Her face shifted, retreating, then coming back into the moment.
“Maybe. It might come to that.”
“I do not feel I could do such a thing.”
Which wasn’t bad. Many people didn’t think they had it in them to kill and that was understandable. Keva could keep Dothylian on the ship. It might be handy for someone to stay behind and run operational support. Though, ILO could do most of it just as well.
“I am not useless, Kadira—Keva Duste.”
Keva rolled her eyes and went back to the counter. She opened her water bottle and chugged it all down. “I’m not saying you’re useless, Dothylian,” she said, breathing heavy from gulping down the drink. She put the bottle into a storage drawer and took a bite out of her bar. “But you do,” she said around the food in her mouth, “need to understand the world you’re in.”
“It is dangerous. I know that.”
“You’ve read about it.” Keva swallowed and headed toward the door on the other end of the room. “That’s not the same.”
“It is far better than I think you believe I am prepared for.”
Oh. A little fire in the tone of her voice. Excellent. “Did I touch a nerve, Princess?”
“I am not a princess.”
Keva almost laughed at the indignant tone in Dothylian’s voice. “The rules are different out here. People don’t behave ‘correctly’ for the sake of it. They behave because they’re afraid to die.”
“Everyone is afraid to die,” Dothylian said, her tone indignant.
Keva started to relax a little as more spirit rose from the other woman. “You’re right. But you were born on-planet. There, you’ve got air. That’s never in question. Here? Not as much. The regulator could go down. Space junk could hit the hull and breach the skin, creating a tear and sucking our air out into the Black.”
“This ship is not so fragile.”
“No. She’s not. But it is harsh out here, and that kind of stuff does happen from time to time. Remember I told you the water recirculator is down.” Keva opened the door to the bridge and stepped inside. “We get blown off course, or a push station is off the mark, or we hit the next jump wrong, we’re stranded out in the black with only the water in reserve. Do you have any idea how long that will last?”
“I understand what you are telling me, Keva Duste, but I understand hardships as well.”
“Oh, yeah. I know all about those. You had to go to school. You had to marry a man who watched other men fuck you. Yeah. Real hardships.”
“You make light of them.”
“I do.” Keva took her seat behind her control panel and took the blinds off the plasteel windows. “Because you need to. What you don’t understand is people will do whatever is necessary to survive. You experienced a rough day, but you survived. Others out there have done the same thing, and not just once but every freaking day. You said yes, Dothylian. You could have said no.”
“You needed the worm installed.”
“And you think I had no other options? If it was too much for you, all you had to do was say no, but you didn’t. You said ‘yes’ each time. Out here in the Black, that’s called consent.”
Dothylian bristled beside her. “I did what I had to do to assist you.”
“That’s survival, and you don’t get pity for doing the hard things. You get air to breathe. You get water to drink. You get protein bars to eat every damned day for the rest of your cursed life.”
Dothylian narrowed her pale eyes.
Keva raised her eyebrows and gestured with her chin to the view outside her windows. “That’s the life I can offer you, Dothylian. That’s the harsh reality of my world.”
“And you thought to bring me into it?”
And save her life when she’d failed to protect Odelle? “You asked me to get you out of there in exchange for your help,” she muttered. “This is the only life I can offer, and I hoped it would still be better than the one destined for you, for as long as it lasted.”
Dothylian was quiet for a long moment.
Keva let her have time, praying to the Black the woman hadn’t retreated to her numbers and was finally looking at her situation.
“I am strong.”
“I hope so. I noticed it when you installed the worm. There’s fire in you.” Keva didn’t raise her voice. “That’s the reason I brought you, but you need to use it. There's a lot more to life in the Black than you know, and there's nothing easy about any of it.”
Silence filled the bridge again as the stars shot past beside them and grew brighter in front of them. Keva stared at the belly of Allorian, glad to see its protective gray hull stretch out above and in front of her. She enjoyed riding through the jump lanes tucked close to the belly of Hale’s ship.
There was something sleek and powerful to it that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“Odelle,” Keva said, the words barely making out of her mouth, “wouldn’t have survived out here. She was too entrenched in the ways of the Elite. You got lucky, Dot. It looks like your tutor took you out of the Elite world at least enough for you to learn to have a chance at survival out here.”
“And if I don’t?”
A w
eight sat on Keva’s heart as the thought made itself a real possibility in her mind. “Then your death is something I’ll have to carry.”
“And if I do not die?”
“Then, you’ll do whatever you have to.”
“You will not save me.”
“I saved you once.” Keva didn’t look at Dothylian. She didn’t want to see the emotionless mask. “I risked the mission to do it. I won’t do that again.”
Dothylian stepped forward, placing her fingertips on the control console as she raised her face to the stars. “And if I do not accept this new life you offer?”
“I will leave you at Kalamatra.”
“The jump port.”
“The center of the four systems.” Keva shrugged. “I can get you a new identity. You could make a new life there.”
“It is the first place Wilmur will look for me.”
“That is a true and accurate statement.”
“I am safer with you on the move.”
“From Wilmur? Yes.” From everything else? No.
“If I choose this life, what must I do?”
A wave of relief settled over Keva. She relaxed back into her chair. “Follow my lead. Do as I do. Speak as I speak.”
Dothylian glanced at Keva out of the corner of her eyes.
“Swear a little. Use conjunctions. And for the Black’s sake, show some emotion on your damned face.”
Dothylian’s shoulders twitched.
“And…we’ll need to find you some damned shoes.”
“I enjoy being barefoot.”
“Which is fine here, but not out there.”
Dothylian drew herself up and shook her hair back. “Teach me to swear.”
14
Dothylian took to the new language like a rat to trash, but more positively. Keva kicked herself. She needed a better metaphor. Fish to air? Like, gnats to water? It wasn’t getting any better. Within an hour, Dothylian was mimicking Keva’s speech patterns and was devouring everything Keva gave her on the ship’s mechanics and operating system. There was a lot Keva didn’t understand, but so far it had been enough to keep her flying.
“This is unbelievable,” Dothylian said, clasping her hands between her knees, almost a full smile on her face. “What can you tell me about…” She raised a hand to the figurative stars. “That.”
“I’m not going to give you a history lesson.” Keva didn’t mind it too much. She enjoyed the fact that Dothylian had come out of her shell a little and seemed to be enjoying herself. “You can read up on most of it.”
“I don’t understand jump speed.”
Keva was sure a smart kid like her did. “Are you trying to keep me talking?”
Dothylian’s smile was sad. “It reminds me a little of my time with Eddqin.”
“I am sorry about his death.” Keva wasn’t sad. She barely knew the man, but she did see the sadness all over Dothylian’s face, especially now that she allowed her emotions to run over her expression. She’d coach Dothylian when to show sadness and other “weak” emotions later. For now, she was glad Dothylian was breaking free a little.
“I can’t…believe he’s gone.”
Keva cringed inwardly seeing where this conversation was about to go. She could start talking about jump speed instead. “You lost a lot in a day.”
Dothylian raised her chin and frowned. “I did.”
Was she starting to see how maybe life might be better out in the Black? Was that what the quizzical expression on her face meant? Keva was usually capable of reading people. She’d studied them when she’d been in the military. She could tell when people lied, when they told the truth and when they were almost ready to lose everything in exchange for whatever negotiation pinch point they considered worthwhile.
So, according to her training, she would wager Dothylian was starting to see that maybe her life wasn’t as bad as it had been the day before.
“Tell me about him?” Keva didn’t really want to hear about Eddqin. He was dead, and she seriously doubted how hearing about him was going to help her in any way. But she was hoping to hear something that could assist ILO and maybe ARO. He’d been quiet since being aboard the ship, and ILO hadn’t said anything about him. She was monitoring the mind worm and keeping Keva abreast of his latest movements.
“He was a strict teacher,” Dothylian said with a shrug. “He would have loved to be up here. He’d never made it past Set’ar Station.”
Keva was at a loss for what else to ask. If this were an interrogation, she’d know what buttons to push, what to watch for. She’d have a goal in mind, a target of information to aim at.
“You have more difficulty with emotion than I do.” Dothylian furrowed her brows and smiled. “How is that?”
Keva had forgotten that Dothylian had no idea. Ajian knew, but Dothylian didn’t, and the girl deserved to know what she’d gotten into. “I was born into the military.”
Dothylian’s eyebrows rose, and her lips formed an O. “You are starting to make a lot more sense.”
Keva chuckled, though part of her wondered how little she was putting together. A militant’s life was the complete opposite of an Elite’s. The hardships Dothylian faced were like nothing military personnel did. “I was engineered in a lab, hatched from a tube, and raised by the military since before I could talk.”
Dothylian leaned back in her chair, her pale eyes studying Keva. “What was that like?”
Keva shrugged. “I didn’t find anything wrong with it.”
“Then why aren’t you still in the military. Unless you are?”
“Your sentence structure’s getting a lot better.” Keva turned back to the console, her mind lost in times past. Dothylian was naïve, too innocent, but she reminded Keva of her podtwin Yling the way she didn’t hesitate to ask a question. Before she could think better of it, Keva was speaking again.
“I was too different. I failed a test that measured my ability to blindly follow orders. I did something other than what I was ordered to do, and they spaced me.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” Keva said through gritted teeth, “they put me in a space suit, and threw me into the Black like trash.”
“To what end?”
Did she just not get it? “It was a death sentence.”
“But they put you in a suit so you could survive.”
“They put me in a suit so I could watch them leave and so I would die slowly.” Keva kept all the pain and loss bubbling up at the memory clamped down, refusing to let it infect her.
The color drained out of Dothylian’s pale face.
She got it. Finally. “There aren’t too many people wandering aimlessly in the Black. I was lucky and a woman named Evelyn happened by at the right time.”
“I get the feeling luck doesn’t happen often in the Black.”
“No.” She was a smart kid. “It doesn’t.”
“What are we going to do about ARO? Have you thought any more about him?”
Nice subject change and one Keva was grateful for. “I don’t know. I had hoped you could help with that a little. What were you and Eddqin doing?”
“We were attempting to create a sentient AI.”
Keva pursed her lips. “That’s highly illegal.”
Dothylian smirked. “I am aware.”
“And did you succeed?”
“ARO.” Dothylian played with a screw. “We tried many other times, but ARO was our only success.”
“Why is that, do you think?”
“I think part of it was choice, more than anything else. But we never had another subject to compare him to until now.”
An interesting concept. “What do you mean?”
Dothylian looked up at her. “ARO chose to evolve.”
Hmm. Interesting indeed. “Do you think you can make ILO more mobile?”
Dothylian stood up and headed for the door. “That depends on what’s on hand to work with. Where's your engineering bay?”
Keva d
idn’t have any place to take her. “Ship's not that big, and I don’t keep miscellaneous parts and pieces of machinery around. Just look at my water supply. That’s been broken for a while.”
Dothylian stopped and faced Keva. “Look, I’m trying to make myself useful here. I can work on machinery. I know how to design. Eddqin was teaching me to be an engineer. Maybe if you let me look at it, I could fix your recirculator.”
“Which could definitely come in handy presuming you’re willing to get yourself a little dirty now and then.”
Dothylian scowled at her but took the gentle ribbing with good nature.
Engineering could be a helpful thing for the girl to do around the ship and would keep her out of the fight, though she still needed to be able to defend herself in a bar if the need should arise, which it almost undoubtedly would. Keva mentally pulled herself back. No. She didn’t. There were many, many others out there who avoided getting in fights. Keva couldn’t imagine how.
But she was responsible for their lives like she was for Odelle’s. She’d pulled Dothylian out of her life on an Elite planet of comforts and rules. She’d given Dothylian the mission to plant the worm and endanger her life. She’d then, effectively, kidnapped Dothylian and killed the only person in Dothylian’s life who meant anything to her.
Yes. Dothylian was her responsibility.
“Okay. Let’s go talk to Stekil.” Keva moved around Dothylian and led the way down the hall. “ILO, can you inform JIN we’d like to come on board?”
“Of course. I was listening.”
“Next time, you could speak.”
“I’m still getting used to this,” ILO’s voice said, filling the small hall.
Keva stopped. “We all are.” She had nowhere to look. “I want to see you, I would like to rig up some way of interacting with you.”
“I was trying to engineer something similar,” ILO said. “So, I stashed some materials.”
“Where?” The ship wasn’t big, and Keva knew every square inch of it. At least she’d thought she had.
A light flickered overhead. “Follow the lights.”
There were lights hidden at the ceiling, the only thing Keva could see was the light rays themselves shooting along the surface. She’d never paid attention before. The lights worked. That’s what mattered.