“You could have a heart attack,” Fisher said.
“Amongst other things,” Pendt agreed. “But I still think it’s our best shot.”
“The timing is going to be really specific,” Ned said. “We’ll have to have the Harland’s arrival down to the minute.”
“I can factor it into my math,” Pendt told him.
“I thought this was something you just knew,” Fisher said.
“It is,” Pendt said. “But I want to be sure. And also, I want to leave directions for you two. If it were me watching, I’d feel better if I understood the whole process. Would you rather not?”
“No,” Ned said. “I want to know every step.”
“Me too,” Fisher said.
“It’s a best-case scenario plan,” Pendt said. “If Dr. Morunt tells Arkady I’m revivable, I don’t have a contingency.”
“We trust you,” Ned said before Fisher could say anything to further complicate the matter. “We’ll have to trust her as well.”
Pendt began to calculate the number of calories she expected to spend to get enough æther through her system to change the lock. The amount was staggering. It made her stomach queasy thinking about having to ingest so much, even though much of it would be intravenous. She separated the number into before and after, the calories she would need to prepare and the calories she would require to pull herself back. She tinkered with the formula for the embalming fluid until she found something a scanner would think was for the dead but would actually help the living. It was barely enough to sustain her, but it would let her hold on for long enough.
She read the numbers back to the boys. They didn’t really understand them, so she rephrased them as actual food types to give them something to picture. Ned put his hand on his stomach in sympathy. Eating was fun, but this was going to suck.
Fisher took her hands in his when she was done and squeezed them, as though to reassure himself that she was real, and she was here. She leaned forward to press her forehead against his. She could hear all the things he wanted to say, and she appreciated him so much for not saying them. She wanted to be free of the Harland forever, and that was going to take an incredible risk. She loved Fisher—she knew it now—and she loved him in part because he trusted her enough to let her do this.
Ned gave them space, even though he too was clearly on edge about the whole thing. He checked his communications. The only person who could send him anything right now was Dulcie. There was a notification from her.
“Operations says the Harland is due in four days,” Ned reported, looking up from his datapad. “Is that enough time?”
“It’ll have to be,” Pendt said. “I’ll make a schedule.”
“All right then,” Ned said. “What do you want for dinner?”
26.
PENDT STARTED TO REGRET her decision on the third solid day of eating. She had to be careful about it: too much and she’d vomit, too little and her body would turn it into regular waste. She could feel every calorie in and out, measured every effort she took against the efforts she was going to make with the energy she had when the Harland arrived, and she hated it. It was, she realized, the life she was destined for if this didn’t work. If the Hegemony got her, she doubted they’d be as nice about it as Fisher and Ned were.
The Harland drifted ever closer on the charts. Pendt had begun exploration of the gene-lock, carefully exploring it without triggering anything that might shut it down. She was paranoid enough to assume the Stavengers had left traps around it, but no matter which angle she took, she couldn’t see any.
“It was the last thing they did,” Ned reminded her. “They couldn’t exactly come out here and check it. They just made it work.”
It was a valid point.
Still, she was very careful as she circled closer and closer to the centre of the gene-lock’s pattern. She knew what Ned’s chromosome looked like, of course. She carried a copy of it inside her. It was a matter of picking the lock far enough to find the chromosome, and then changing the specific tumbler without disturbing anything else.
“Does it help to picture it like that?” Fisher said. “It just confuses me.”
“Yes,” Pendt said. “It’s how I think about the Net and Well, so it makes sense to me to think of it like this. I know the pattern and I know the key. Usually I just turn it, but the principle is the same. It helps me reason out how I’m going to do it.”
The airlocks would take two hours to cycle after the Harland docked. Pendt was sure that would be enough time, and Dulcie said they could always manufacture a stall if they had to, without raising too much suspicion. The foreman was the only other person on board who knew what they were trying, and while she wasn’t exactly thrilled about it, she wouldn’t stop them either. Dr. Morunt was under unofficial house arrest in his quarters and would not be permitted out until it was time for him to meet with his sister. Pendt did not believe he would betray them any further, but Fisher pointed out that if they used the other Morunt as leverage, he could become unpredictable. Fisher needed to control as much of this as he could, Pendt knew, and so she stopped arguing.
The Harland came in exactly on schedule, so Pendt was already sitting in the repair bay with Ned when it docked. Fisher had to be in operations to make everything look normal, which she knew was driving him up the wall. He’d come down as soon as he could.
“Airlock cycle starting now,” said Dulcie over their private communications. “Good luck.”
“Pendt?” That was Fisher. “Are you still there?”
“I’m just about to start,” she told him, “but I knew you’d want to talk first.”
“Just . . . be careful, okay?” he said. “And, Ned, do whatever you can.”
“I will,” Pendt said. “Charge Arkady twice the normal docking fee for me.”
“I love you too,” Fisher said, and the channel clicked off.
“Well?” said Ned. Pendt held her hands up to the plate behind which was the gene-lock that ruled their lives. “Dying’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I don’t recommend it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Pendt said. She started to reach for the familiar pattern, so close to her heart. “See you on the other side.”
She stretched.
She twisted.
She found her way through.
It was as simple as she thought. X marks the spot.
But it was hard. So hard to actually do.
She hadn’t eaten enough.
There wasn’t enough food in the whole galaxy.
A body couldn’t hold it.
A soul could.
Isn’t that what she had learned?
That there was something about human life that changed the rules?
Something that made people choose to do the right thing when it was hard.
The hard thing when it hurt.
The hurtful thing because they liked the pain.
Messy and complicated.
Full of life.
Full of love.
Full of something, at last, for once in her whole life.
She found the thread she needed.
And pulled.
* * *
• • •
Captain Arkady Harland walked off her ship like she had conquered Brannick Station. The boy who was left here couldn’t cause her any trouble, even with her idiot niece trying to pull his strings. He was alone, and she was powerful. Everything in the universe turned towards her right now. It was her time.
Beside her, Lodia was almost as determined. If she’d ever felt anything for the girl she bore, space had driven it out of her. It had been years since Arkady had been bothered by flashes of maternal instinct. She felt none when Tanith’s baby was born with no connection to the æther and she’d ordered it spaced. Lodia had borne children more recently than he
r sister, but she was still a Harland. She knew how to act.
The Brannick boy stood alone, waiting for them. He looked almost bored. Whatever Pendt had conned him into doing, he clearly had no idea what he was getting involved with. Probably she didn’t either. Arkady had spent a lot of time keeping her in the dark.
“Captain Arkady, welcome back,” Fisher Brannick said. “We weren’t expecting you for some time, of course, but we’re always happy to see familiar ships in port.”
It was a canned greeting, stale as recycled air.
“We received your supplementary message,” he continued. “I’m afraid your request to take your niece back with you cannot be fulfilled.”
Arkady grinned. No idea at all.
“I have a document here signed and witnessed by the Stavenger Hegemony,” she said, brandishing her datapad in his face. “It annuls the ridiculous marriage between our two families and returns custody of Pendt to me. So much the better, I’m sure you’ll agree. She clearly cannot be trusted to make her own decisions.”
A muscle in the boy’s cheek twitched. The fool had come to like Pendt Harland.
“It doesn’t matter what documents you have,” Fisher said. “Your niece is dead. We think she panicked when she heard your ship had docked, and she tried to connect to the æther and overextended herself. She’s on a slab in medical right now, if you want to see her.”
“Dead?” said Lodia. “But she— We need her to— She can’t—”
“Take us to your medical facility immediately,” Arkady ordered. “Lodia, remain here and make sure the other exchange does not take place until I return. Fetch Dr. Morunt. I want her with me.”
Pendt’s mother nodded and went back to the ship.
* * *
• • •
Arkady was furious by the time they arrived in medical. It made Fisher feel a bit better. At least she was distracted and not coming up with ways to humiliate him. She hadn’t asked how the station was still operating, but maybe his Dr. Morunt hadn’t given up all their secrets after all. The Harland’s Dr. Morunt was quiet. She had to know that if Pendt was dead, Arkady was unlikely to let her go. It was so much trust to place in a woman he didn’t know, but Pendt seemed sure of her.
“This way, please.” Fisher ushered them into the bay where Pendt had been laid out. Dulcie was with her, monitoring the feeds and changing the “embalming” fluid as necessary. Ned was somewhere close by, Fisher was sure. “Here she is.”
“What are you doing to her?” Dr. Morunt asked.
“She was married to the Brannick,” Fisher said. “Our people expect a public funeral. This is how we prepare her for it.”
“Check,” Arkady gritted out.
Dr. Morunt stepped forward and put her hands on Pendt’s chest. She was so, so still. Fisher could barely look at her. The IV dripped, and he hoped, but it was still very hard to watch.
Morunt pulled back from the body.
“She’s dead, Captain,” Morunt confirmed. “The embalming process has already started to work.”
She looked right at Fisher when she said it and blinked very slowly. Arkady was too incensed to notice. Fisher knew it wasn’t a power play on the doctor’s part. It was a choice to be better. He wished he could give her the world, and was even more grateful to her, because she had to know he couldn’t.
“Take us back to the Harland,” Arkady snapped at Fisher. She grabbed the doctor by the arm, squeezing hard. “I’ll tell your brother the deal is off.”
Sylvie Morunt didn’t say another word, all the way back to the docking bay. It was the longest wait of Fisher’s life, watching them cycle through the airlock. He went back to operations and walked them through their departure like it was a normal one. He didn’t ask where they were going. He didn’t think Arkady knew.
The moment the Harland’s engines flared to life, pushing it away from the station at speeds too fast for it to return anytime soon, Fisher was off like a shot. He was out of his chair and running for the lift. No one got in his way. The trip back to medical took just as long as everything else seemed to take on this day of extended eternities, but finally he was there.
Pendt still lay on the medical cot, but Dulcie had switched her IV for something more healthy than the fluid they’d used to fool Arkady. Ned was hovering beside her, holding her hand as the drip of nutrients restored their hope to her blood. He looked up when Fisher came in.
“Gone?” he asked.
“Gone,” Fisher said.
Ned put his head on Pendt’s chest and breathed deeply, like he was trying to put the world back in order.
“We’ve almost done it,” Ned said. “Now it’s up to her.”
“It’s always been up to her,” Fisher said, and it was true.
This girl who came to him from the middle of space and learned how to love for his sake. She was the most wonderful person he had ever met. He needed her. He needed her to wake up. Fisher stepped up to the side of the cot opposite his brother and took Pendt’s shoulder. Her hand was full of needles, and he didn’t want to disturb any of them.
“Pendt, my amazing girl, they’re gone. They’re gone for good,” he said. “It’s safe now, and I need you to wake up. Please. Please wake up.”
It was hard.
It was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
The job was finished.
She had been successful.
The lock was changed.
The boys were safe.
The station was safe.
She could rest.
NO.
NO.
NO.
She couldn’t rest yet.
She had more things to do.
Pendt Brannick, who had been a Harland and had learned which parts of that she wanted to carry, began to pull herself out of the abyss.
* * *
• • •
“Wake up, Pendt,” Fisher said. “We have a station to run.”
Green eyes opened.
27.
THE DAY NED BRANNICK left the station of his birth the second time was unremarkable. He was dead, after all, and very few people had known about his return. The most complicated part was finding a new group of rebels that would take him in, but his supposition had been correct: As a dead man who had escaped from one of the Hegemony’s most mysterious prisons, he was quite useful to the cause. His new captain made him no promises about when or if an attempt would be made to rescue the surviving crew of the Cleland, but Ned didn’t expect one. This time, he had a better idea of what he was getting into.
Only Pendt had come down to see him off. Fisher was up in operations, where he was needed to work the Well.
“Try to send us the occasional message this time,” Pendt said, throwing her arms around his neck.
“Can two dead people write to each other?” Ned asked, grinning. It was his favourite joke.
“They’d better,” Pendt said. “Or your brother will kill us both again.”
Ned had no last name now. He hadn’t picked one yet. He didn’t need one for the register on this ship, and Brannick was too obvious. Pendt Harland was no more, either. Pendt Brannick had taken her place.
“Maybe you can come and visit,” Ned said. “Separately, of course.”
Brannick Station was slightly more secure now, with two inhabitants able to control the gene-lock. Pendt and Fisher would never be able to leave the station together, but neither would they both be trapped here forever.
“We might,” Pendt said. She had other plans, but she didn’t doubt their paths would cross again someday.
Ned picked up his few belongings and his new weapons chest and walked up the ramp to the airlock. The captain had not come out to meet him, but a crew member stood waiting for him.
“Goodbye, Ned,” Pendt said. It was a simple farewell for anyone
who was watching. The previous night, when the brothers had spoken, was much more emotional.
“Goodbye, Pendt,” he said.
She waited until the airlock was finished cycling, and then she took the lift up to operations, where Fisher was beginning to coordinate the departure. She watched him work, so happy for him that she thought she might burst.
“Calculations are cleared, Fisher,” said one of the techs. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Fisher smiled and turned the key. The lock recognized him, and the Well flared to life. The rebel ship streaked towards its destination, leaving rainbows of light in its wake. As the ship disappeared, Fisher breathed out.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that,” he said. Pendt crossed the floor and took his hand.
“I’m sure the people who live here will be glad to hear it,” Pendt said.
The operations staff laughed. Pendt squeezed his fingers and pulled him towards the office so they could speak in private.
“I can’t believe Ned is gone again,” Fisher said once the door closed. Pendt began to make them tea. “I mean, of course I can. It’s just, I was used to him being alive and here, and now he’s gone. I have so many questions for him about the station. Things I didn’t even know to ask before you changed everything.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Pendt said. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll make a new system and iron out the bugs as we find them.”
“Dulcie will kill us if we mess with the schedule again,” Fisher said.
“I think I’ve worked it all out,” Pendt said, a bit defensively. “And anyway, she told me she likes the changes, now that people are starting to settle into them.”
She brought the tea over. Fisher took both cups out of her hands and set them on the side table so he could pull her into his lap. She didn’t resist.
“I miss him too,” she said, resting her head against his shoulder. “And I worry about him, even though he’s only just left. And in a way, that makes me happy. I had five brothers, and not a single one of them cared about me. Now I have one, and he’s perfect.”
Aetherbound Page 18