Practicality, even in death.
I lifted his stiffening arms and set them back, passed the water and the soap over every part of him that I had never touched in life. I noticed his hands, which looked older than the rest of him. I noticed a scar on his arm. It was paler than the rest of his skin. He could’ve had it fixed, wiped it away. But maybe he’d liked the reminder. I had never thought to ask him about it.
At the end of it his face was bare and pale, even his lips. His hair lay wiped back, close to his skull, as if he’d just got out of the shower. He never combed it like that. Thin blue veins made marble art on his lids. I saw the individual eyelashes as they lay against his skin. Long and dark, each of them perfectly settled.
When people died, they became murderers of the living.
Mercurio kept looking my way, maybe to see if I would break.
But it was a stranger’s face. And I was nowhere there, in that grim duty, in that weak ritual of apology. I was standing outside of myself. We were both strangers here, where we weren’t meant to be, looking at each other with our eyes shut.
* * *
XLII.
They trotted in and out of my quarters. Maybe I was Kris’s nearest surviving relative to them. Aki was a squeezed sponge of tears. It wasn’t but three hours since he’d died. I sat in quarters in my stubborn armor while she sat across from me, on Kris’s bunk, crying.
“Don’t sit there,” I said, when I noticed.
“What?” She wiped at her eyes, stared at me as if I’d spoken another language.
“I said don’t sit there.”
“Jos.” She came over to me and settled close. “Let me— let me help you with this.” She reached for the armor clasps. Some of Kris’s blood was still on it, where I’d wiped my hands.
“I’m fine.” I moved away.
She wanted to be held. She wanted to hold me. But I couldn’t tolerate her crying. I sent her to Nathan or Cleary or Iratxe, who were all in the mess drinking themselves into consolation like soldiers were supposed to do. I felt nothing at the hurt and hatred in her eyes. My fault. And if it wasn’t my fault, then it was my fault that I couldn’t connect long enough to mourn him properly.
In the quiet, on my bunk with his empty one across from me, I thought how he would never tell Corporal Dorr or the captain about my talking to that symp.
I lay in my armor. The same damn thing had happened after the last mission… the mission before this one. Kris had to work at the clasps for a good ten minutes, though most of that time was spent laughing at me. He said it suited me and maybe I ought to start a new fashion. Battle gear chic. He said if I grew a few more centimeters I could even model it on the TrendSend. Trying to be funny.
Now I raked at the clasps but they were jammed shut. My fingers pinched, the nails cracked. The small pain brought tears. It was okay to cry over this.
It felt soldered to my skin, right through my uniform.
The hatch opened. I hadn’t bothered locking it after Aki left. I couldn’t seem to get off the bunk and walk the two strides it took to do that. Evan came in. I sat up. He shut the hatch behind him and came to me and began working on the clasps. I didn’t have the volition to dodge him now. He said not a word of how sorry he was about Kris. Maybe because he couldn’t really feel sorry. He hadn’t known Kris. Kris had given him a pack of cigrets once. That was nothing to cry over.
He moved my arms so he could slip off the chest armor. The webbing came off perforce. Underneath was damp, wrinkled uniform. My second skin. The air swept against the sweat, chilling me. I looked into his face, where he crouched in front of me. The person who I’d thought dead, now alive. We were the only ones. Maybe somewhere someone else was alive, but we were the only ones here. He remembered the shift when Falcone had boarded us. I saw him remembering it, as if he were watching a vid in my eyes. It played between us.
He started to undo my dirty uniform, and I let him.
My hands were made of stones, numb and hard by my sides. I sat in a dark sea. I was sinking straight to the bottom and the water stood between touch and feeling.
He pulled the T-shirt over my head and felt lightly along my shoulders and down my arms, caresses meant to comfort.
If I remembered anything at all, it drowned in the thought of death.
Before Niko, before pirates, I had followed Evan around the decks. Evan liked to hold toys above my head. Or steal my desserts. Or wrestle me into a complete tousle and let me pull his hair. Or he took me on station with his brother Shane and paid for games in the cybetoriums. He lifted me upside down and tickled me senseless.
Niko was working with pirates. And Kris was dead.
Evan didn’t tousle me. He pulled off my boots and set them carefully aside. He sat beside me and held me against his chest, like he’d done in Falcone’s ship. He rested his cheek against my hair and I listened to his heartbeat. It was alive.
On this ship, we were alive.
* * *
XLIII.
I awoke surrounded by a body.
I struggled and sat up. Evan lay wedged against the webbing on the wall, rumpled in his badgeless uniform. He blinked blearily from my movement. My cheek still felt the fabric of his shirt. My back felt the warmth of his hand. I was naked from the waist up.
I worked my way furiously out of the coiled blanket and stood barefoot on the cold deckplates, off balance. I sat on the empty bunk. Perfectly made up, just the way Kris had left it before the mission.
“Jos,” Evan said, levering up to his elbow.
I shook my head.
“What?” His lip curled in vague irritation. He rubbed his eye, then the side of his hair. “Nothin’ happened. So you needed not to be alone for once. What’s wrong with bein’ with someone for no other reason but just bein’ there?”
I looked for my shirt, reached to the floor to get it.
“Jos.”
“No, Kris.”
I hadn’t said that. Except his silence said a different thing.
I held the shirt, sinking back on the bunk. I bunched it in my hands.
“Jos.”
“Just go, Evan.”
“If I say no?”
I stared at him. “What d’you want? You’re on this ship! You got what you want!”
“They trained you good too.”
I pelted the shirt at him. “Get out!”
He batted it away. “Or what?”
My throat closed on any words. My mind spun in a funnel of black. Something painful stabbed at my ears. It was me. My own deep breaths. The room was so small it cast the sound back to me in a torrent.
Evan came over and tried to hold me. I struggled away and got to my feet, dragging up my shirt from the floor. My fingers and feet were going numb.
“I’m fine. I’m fine. He’s dead, that’s all. It’s my fault.”
“How’s it your fault?”
“Corporal Dorr said it’s my fault and it is.” Because I’m a symp. And I ran off when I should’ve stayed with my teammate.
Evan’s worry reverberated around me. I wiped furiously at my eyes. I looked for my kit to take to the shower. It was my shift again and I had to shower.
“Jos.”
“I think you should go now. I have to… I have to clean out his locker.”
“You don’t have to do that now.”
“I have to do it!”
He slid up and grabbed me by the shoulders, so hard it shocked me. He shook me just as hard.
His voice cracked. “I don’t wanna be alone on this ship, Jos. So you’ll damn well hold together.”
Did he still think I’d been taken by strits? Did it matter anymore?
He turned me briskly toward the hatch. “Shower and dress. Then come back.”
It was a slow thing. My body was out of sync from the rest of the ship. Under the cycle of water I let it all fill my head like the steam from the shower. Lies had attached to my skin like bot-knitters on broken bone, but instead of mending they tore apart.
What was sure? What had been sure since my homeship had died? Absolutely nothing. Where was my place? Not on Aaian-na. In that Niko had been right. Not on Aaian-na when my past was still in space.
I couldn’t take the word of a symp. If Niko was really screwing with me, I wanted to know it face-to-face. And then I’d go to Azarcon and spill the whole damn thing.
I must have stood there for five cycles, burning in the steam. Just burning it all.
* * *
XLIV.
I chased Evan out of quarters, told his jet escort to keep him away. I was confined under the captain’s orders. I shouldn’t be allowed visitors.
I slept for twenty-four hours. The blankets smelled like Evan’s cigrets, so halfway through I kicked them off the bunk and dragged over Kris’s. My dreams burned.
Sometime during my sleep the ship docked. I awoke to silence from the drives and darkness in the quarters. Neither of them insulated me against an immediate memory. I was alone. A voice murmured from the walls through the god-comm. It said we were at Chaos Station.
I got dressed and went to the head. Everyone gave me cautious looks, but nobody said a thing. Corporal Dorr met me outside in the corridor.
“Cap wants to talk to you,” he said calmly. No trace of the anger that had fueled his punches. He walked me to the captain’s office and inside. And stood beside me, just behind my peripheral vision.
That scared me more than meeting the captain alone.
Azarcon looked into my face for a long moment. I didn’t know how I looked. But I stared back.
“In your report you said you ran off because you thought you saw a symp. Why was a symp such a compelling reason to break orders?”
Brain functioned down habitual tracks. Even though my body felt like curling up and never opening again.
“Sir, I saw the enemy and I didn’t think, I just went after him.”
“Without a word to your team.”
“Sir, I admit it was a fatal lapse.”
Understatement.
“Are you sure you didn’t go after that symp for any personal reasons?” Azarcon sat so still I didn’t even see him breathe. That restrained anger was far worse than anything I’d ever felt from Ash-dan.
I sweated and I knew it showed.
“Private Musey, I asked you a question.”
“Sir, pirates destroyed my homeship.” My voice broke. My hands shook at my sides. No reason for that. This was old news. “Pirates and symps—strits—working together to transport orphans. Strits with illegal guns and condoning Slavepoint. I want them, sir. I just want them all dead.”
I wanted the truth. If Niko betrayed me, then this man would know it. I would tell him. I made that decision. My eyes filled. I had no control and Azarcon’s gaze was a drill, digging me out.
Then Dorr surprised me. “Sir, Private Musey made a fatal error out of vengeance. I don’t believe he meant to put Private Rilke in danger.” He paused. “Besides, I think Rilke’s death is enough punishment, sir.”
Tears snaked out and I couldn’t stop them. But I kept my face still.
Azarcon watched me cry. His eyes were black stones.
“I don’t like errors, Corporal Dorr.”
“Yes, sir,” Dorr said.
Azarcon sat back, one hand on the arm of his chair. “Formal charges won’t be lodged, otherwise you’d find yourself facing prison. But the incident will be on your record, Private Musey. I strongly suggest you get your shit together when you’re on duty. I don’t care if Falcone himself walks on your ass. You don’t hie off like a lone gunman and leave your team unaware. Am I clear, Private Musey?”
“Yessir.”
“You’re a privileged individual, Private. Corporal Dorr here has spoken on your behalf. Sergeant Hartman has spoken on your behalf. They all just have a high opinion of you. They understand that maybe you’ve had it a bit harder than most. I might even sympathize, but it won’t stop me from tossing your ass out the airlock. You’re allowed this kind of thing only once. The next time it happens you’re off my ship. I won’t bother to charge you. Do you understand me?”
“Yessir.”
“Corporal Dorr, he’s under your supervision. Do with him what you will.”
Dorr said, “Yes, Captain.”
“Dismissed.”
We saluted and left. I shook. I couldn’t make it to the lev without stopping.
I had no chances. And only more attention on my actions.
Dorr lit a cigret and waited. “What’s with you and Falcone?”
The lev took its own damn time. I stared at the doors.
“He killed my ship.”
“No he didn’t.”
I looked at the corporal. His eyes were flat and tired, but everything about him made your nerves taut. You could never drop your guard.
“He didn’t kill your ship, Musey. Macedon is your ship now. You wearin’ her tat. Don’t you know what that means? Mukudori is dead and gone. Get that straight and we won’t have problems.”
I had no words. His eyes didn’t let me go. I didn’t know why he spoke up for me. He didn’t act like he had a soul otherwise.
“So Falcone fucked with you,” he continued. “Big deal. He fucked with a lot of people. He even fucked with the captain.”
“What?”
He said, “Falcone and Cap got a past. Admiral Ashrafi was huntin’ Falcone when he found Cap way back when. If it goes further than us I’ll kill you dead. Got it?”
I didn’t say anything. He knew I wouldn’t talk.
Dorr said, “Falcone was a Hub captain like a million years ago. He went too far with some strits out by Ghenseti—”
“I know all that.”
“Shut up and listen. I ain’t gonna say it twice. Falcone was court-martialed but escaped, thanks to his brass ties in the Hub. Admiral Ashrafi’s had it in for Falcone even before Cap. ’Cause Birdman made the pirates into a fuckin’ franchise with all he knows ’bout Hub ships an’ shit. And he came out here terrorizin’ colonies and ships and one day attacked the Meridia mines. Cap was twelve. Falcone took him.”
I stared at Dorr. Nathan wasn’t the one I should’ve been grilling.
“Like I said.” He smiled grimly. “Say anything an’ I’ll know who to shoot. Cap don’t broadcast it, not even the Send knows. Ashrafi rescued Cap when Cap was eighteen or somethin’, but he never told nobody from where, and Ashrafi’s crew was a top bunch. They take secrets to their graves. So y’see, the fact Falcone killed your little ship ain’t all that grand in the grand scheme of things. It ain’t like you got dibs on the bloke.”
The lev finally grated to a stop. The doors opened and Dorr stepped in. I followed him, numb. He leaned against the wall and smoked, watching me.
I said, “How do you know this?”
He smiled. “That’s a bedside story for another time. Meanwhile, get your head in perspective about this damn pirate.”
I wondered if anything bothered him, if he was ever scared. a
“It won’t happen again,” I said. “I mean—about Kris.”
“Damn right. Your ass is mine.”
I looked at him. He wasn’t smiling.
“But later,” he said. “First we pay tribute to a damn good jet. Cap has his rituals. We got ours.”
* * *
XLV.
I told Dorr I wanted to change clothes, so he left me alone with a time to meet. It wasn’t something I could get out of, I saw it in his eyes. I owed him, anyway. I was going to owe him for the rest of my life.
After going to quarters and the head, I detoured to the wardroom. Now that we were docked, nobody cared to hang around here. I dived a quick message to my contact—Niko in league with pirates? I quoted the symp I’d killed. It was dangerous if it were true and they now realized I knew.
But it couldn’t be true.
I took my gun to the airlock, tucked under my shirt. They were waiting for me there, a guard of mourners, in the way soldiers mourned. Stoic if not drunk. Hartman, Madi
son, Nathan and his copilot Hamrlik, Iratxe, Cleary—
Evan was there.
“Sir.” I looked at Dorr.
“Oh, give him a break,” the corporal said. “He wanted to come and he won’t run off, he knows we’ll shoot him.”
He was showered and dressed. Amazing how well he’d adapted to his new life. But I guessed adaptation was part of what they taught him. Or part of what we were.
He tried to catch my gaze but I ignored it.
Dorr said, “C’mon, I need a drink.” He led the way.
Nathan came up to my left, glanced briefly at Evan, then tousled my hair lightly.
I dodged my head. “Can we go to the Halcyon?”
She’d have seen Macedon come in, and she’d wait.
It was well into station blueshift when we got to the bar. Other crew were already there but we took our own tables by the wall and gathered around. Drinks flowed in. Pretty soon we were making as much noise as the music coming from the walls. The heavy bass punctuated every sip. I watched and didn’t drink. Beside me Evan gulped like the beer was water.
Kris hadn’t been the only one. Dorr loudly joked about any number of other jets; they were no longer here to defend themselves but I knew it was his way of remembering them under a good star. I stared across the bar, watching the smoked-glass entrance. Civilians scattered in and out under tricky lighting, blue and purple and dynamic shadows. The decorative strips of chrome running along the black walls reflected the noisy colors of gyrating bodies on the dance floor. Smoke hung from the ceiling in a perpetual cloud. My eyes burned.
Hartman asked Evan to dance, having to shout. Madi and Dorr whistled, and earned solid punches on their arms from the sarge.
Evan went. I didn’t think he knew how to say no. Starvation chic, the Shiva captain had called the look of her wasted protégé. It made people want to coddle you and fondle you. Evan had told me with a damaged grin.
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