“But there’s hundreds of them.”
“All of Mari’s DRDs are occupied with essential tasks, Dr. Grace,” Pilot replied over the comm. “None can be spared at the moment, especially not for the purpose of satisfying your … curiosity.”
“I just want to disassemble one,” Grace insisted. “I’ll put it back together once I’m done with it.”
“I’m sure you have other things with which to occupy your time.”
The thing was, he didn’t. Simon had recovered well over the past few weeks, to the point where he didn’t need babysitting, so Grace had tried filling the time in other ways. He’d gone through every bit of Astrophage data from the derelict leviathan and taken inventory of all the equipment and supplies the Peacekeepers had looted from his old ship and stashed in Mari’s cargo bay. He’d even resorted to tidying up the lab.
There was, quite simply, nothing left for him to do. Nothing to keep his thoughts from turning to the bloom of an exploding fuel tank against the blackness of space, the sickening impact of a hatchet hitting bone, the dark, slick smears of blood all over the gloves of his EVA suit—
“Can I at least examine one?” There was a DRD rolling through the lab that didn’t look particularly busy; Grace approached it. “I won’t even take it apart.”
The DRD emitted an alarmed trill and spun in place. A thin, telescoping barrel popped out of its carapace, the tip glowing a warning red.
Grace yelped and put his hands up. “Okay, so leviathans don’t have weapons, but the DRDs have guns?”
“It’s a plasma welder,” Pilot replied; before Grace could call that out as a blatant lie, she went on: “If you require something productive to do, you may inform Rocky and Simon that we’ll be arriving soon at the commerce planet.”
“Can’t you do that?”
“I can,” Pilot confirmed, with no apparent intention to do so. “Simon and Rocky are in the central chamber.”
Backing slowly away from the DRD, Grace fled the lab.
“Careful.” Rocky’s voice echoed down the corridor as Grace approached the central chamber. “Careful!”
“I’m being careful,” came Simon’s strained reply.
“Need more careful.”
Rocky’s ball was rolling slightly back and forth along the floor next to the table, where Simon sat with his elbows resting on the tabletop. Both elbows: one flesh, one metal.
Over the past few weeks, the stump of Simon’s amputated arm had healed enough to start using the prosthetic Rocky had built—although Rocky could no longer claim sole credit on the project. Just a few days in, Pilot had announced that Mari would donate some of her own parts to the endeavour. The completed arm had the same segmented, bronze finish as Mari’s bulkheads, and the addition of bio-mechanoid material had made it infinitely easier to interface directly with Simon’s nervous system.
The prosthetic fitted neatly over the truncated end of Simon’s left arm, held in place by a harness across his chest and shoulders. Calibrating the thing was a process that required taking it off and putting it back on multiple times a day; whenever Rocky was working on it, Simon tended to go shirtless.
The harness framed his pecs beautifully; they were full and soft and—
Uh oh.
Grace turned his attention firmly to the table, which had food cubes scattered all over its surface. This particular variety was flat and thin, like crackers; more than a few of them were broken, or crushed into crumbs.
Simon reached for one of the unbroken cubes with his prosthetic hand, picking it up delicately between his thumb and forefinger. He laid it on top of a pile by his other hand—he’d managed to stack up at least half a dozen so far.
Then he reached for another one, more confident this time—and the cube cracked under the pressure of his fingers, snapping neatly in half.
“Frell!” Simon snarled, and slammed his prosthetic hand into the tabletop. The stack toppled, and his fury evaporated; he put his face in his hands and gave a weary, self-deprecating groan.
“Again,” Rocky said, mercilessly.
“Hey.” Grace edged through the door. “How’s the arm working out?”
Simon peeked at Grace through his fingers and replied with a muffled, “Fine.”
“You sure?” Grace eyed the devastation on the table. “Seems like the fine motor control could still use some work.”
Simon sighed and sat back. “It’s a lot stronger than my other arm.”
Turning to Rocky, Grace said, “You can’t turn that down?”
“Have already reduced as much as possible,” Rocky replied irritably. “Can’t reduce further without compromising response time. Simon must adjust.”
Grace’s attention drifted to the tall windows of the central chamber. A wide, bright arc had just edged into view—the horizon of a planet, white clouds swirling above oceans and dusty green continents.
He’d woken up from his coma aboard Mari in deep-space transit; depending how you counted it, he hadn’t set foot planetside in either months or multiple years. The commerce planet didn’t look much like Earth, but a pang of nostalgia settled in Grace’s chest anyway.
“Oh,” Simon said, glancing toward the window—not nearly as impressed with the view as Grace had been. “We’re coming into orbit.”
Grace winced. “Yeah, uh … Pilot sent me up here to tell you.”
“Grace not tell,” Rocky pointed out.
Grace carefully did not look at Simon. “Got distracted.”
Simon didn’t remember his last trip in the transport pod all that clearly, but Rocky had lamented Grace’s piloting loudly and often enough that Simon made a point of settling behind the controls as they boarded. Grace seemed content to take the passenger seat.
Rocky was staying behind; apparently, the ball he used to get around on Mari wasn’t suitable for use planetside. He’d rolled anxious circles around the hangar as Grace and Simon got the pod ready—then, as they boarded, jabbed a claw in Simon’s direction and said, “Keep Grace safe.”
Like he needed to ask.
Sitting at Simon’s feet was a shoulder bag full of chakan oil cartridges. Simon had found a whole crate in the cargo bay; the Peacekeepers must have brought it aboard as ammunition for their pulse weapons. Seeing as nobody on Mari actually had any pulse weapons, the cartridges would be much more useful in trade for the supplies they needed.
As the pod eased out of the hangar, Simon kept his hands tight on the controls—resisting the urge to reach down and brush the knife sheath still clipped to his belt.
Having a room of his own was an unexpected luxury he wouldn’t trade for anything, but nights aboard Mari were so quiet. In prison, he’d had to try and sleep while his cellmates cried (or snored) through the night and guards patrolled outside. Before, on Eden Station, he and his brothers had slept in shifts; the station never really went silent.
And now, even on those nights when Simon didn’t have nightmares—and he had nightmares a lot—he found it hard to sleep.
But it turned out Mari sang to herself when she was happy—and, for some reason, having Simon aboard made her happy. Sometimes, on his sleepless nights, he’d wander down to the den and curl up at the base of Pilot’s console. He didn’t really want to talk, and Pilot didn’t make him; she simply carried on as she always did, unbothered by Simon’s presence, content to let him sit and doze as Mari sang.
And Mari had even given up parts of herself, just for the sake of improving Simon’s prosthetic arm. Pilot insisted it was no sacrifice at all—Mari was so big, and Simon so comparatively small, that the loss amounted to a rounding error—but Simon couldn’t remember the last time someone had made even the smallest sacrifice for his sake.
It was possible nobody had, since his mother brought him to Eden Station.
But Mari had to stay in orbit; leviathans weren’t meant to land on planets, and if she tried, she’d likely be crushed under her own immense weight. And Simon didn’t know what would happen to that comforting song in his head if she got too far away.
And as the transport pod descended from orbit, the constant whisper of Mari’s voice grew quieter—but even as he guided the pod into spacedock and touched down, it never fully faded.
Simon pried his hands off the controls and relaxed against the back of the seat.
Grace, however, as already up and moving toward the door; it slid open, and the landing stairs descended.
Simon got a faceful of atmosphere from outside the pod and coughed; it was breathable, but heavy with pollutants. He grabbed the bag at his feet and followed Grace down the stairs, out of the pod; there was a greyish-yellow haze in the air. The spaceport wasn’t much more than a wide paved area, crowded with all kinds of landing craft—some of them huge and imposing, but the majority of them decidedly not.
Grace hadn’t stopped smiling since they landed.
“What’re you grinning at?” Simon couldn’t help but ask.
Grace turned that delighted expression on him. “It’s my first alien planet.”
Simon immediately wished they’d picked somewhere else to stop. As was the case on most commerce planets, the settlement here was built specifically to facilitate trade. The planet itself was a barely-habitable wasteland, and the urban sprawl surrounding the market and spaceport was ramshackle, crowded, and filthy. Nobody was from here. It was a placeless place.
Grace, however, took it all in like it was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen. It would be adorable, if not for the fact that everyone on this planet would see a mark like him coming from metras away.
Simon slung the bag of chakan oil over his shoulder. “Just … let me do all the talking, all right?”
“Ten?” Simon nearly shouted. “Just for the one crate?”
He and Grace had a list of supplies they needed; the first and foremost item was rations for Rocky. The Peacekeepers had maintained a supply of food Rocky could eat while they held him captive, but they’d always made sure only a limited amount was kept aboard Mari—no doubt hoping the threat of scarcity would keep him from rebelling against them.
It hadn’t worked.
Eridians needed food that was protein-rich, but also contained elements like thallium and mercury—heavy metals that were toxic to most other species. It wasn’t the kind of stuff most food suppliers kept on hand; so far, they’d only found one trader who carried anything suitable.
And he was a fucking extortionist.
“Supply shortages,” the trader said, unmoved. Simon didn’t recognise his species; the trader’s face was somewhat sebaceanoid, but his body was huge and rotund, multiple arms emerging from his body like those of an arachnid. “Poor harvests this year.”
“What, everywhere?” Simon asked in disbelief.
“Many farming colonies.” The trader shrugged. “All same problems. Long winters. Delays in planting. Early frosts.”
Poor harvests from one or two colonies at a time was to be expected, but it made no sense for so many different planets to be affected in the same way at once. Simon glanced to the side, where Grace was observing the whole conversation in silence; he had a haunted look.
Ten percent, he’d told Simon. It makes a big difference.
“Short supply, higher price,” the trader concluded. “Basic economics.”
“It’s the same crates you’ve had in your warehouse for cycles,” Simon shot back; it turned out rations full of toxic heavy elements had quite the shelf life. “What does a grain shortage have to do with that?”
The trader shrugged again. “Price is price. Pay or leave.”
Simon’s hands clenched into fists at his sides; he exhaled roughly, ready to turn and walk out, find anywhere else to buy what they needed—but Grace was stepping up to the counter, elbows propped on its surface, leaning forward.
“Listen,” he said, his voice companionable but low—as if he and the trader were in on the same secret. “I’m guessing you don’t move a lot of this stuff.”
The trader visibly considered whether to deny it, but eventually said, “Limited market.”
“Yeah, and meanwhile you have a lot of value tied up in all that inventory,” Grace said sympathetically.
“True,” the trader agreed, nodding amicably. “Very true.”
“Our next stop is almost five months away—half a cycle,” Grace explained. “We don’t have enough food, but we do have all these cartridges we can’t use. And I’m guessing chakan oil sells a lot faster than all those rations.”
The trader gave him a wary look. “You are proposing something?”
“How about a bulk discount?” Grace said. “We’ll take those rations off your hands if you give us a deal on the trade-in value for the cartridges. We get what we need and you get to clear up some shelf space. What do you think?”
The trader contemplated this for a moment. “You take all?”
“All of it,” Grace agreed.
The trader nodded again. “Deal.”
Simon watched in silent astonishment as Grace and the trader hammered out the details of the sale and arranged for the rations to be delivered up to Mari. It all mathed out to roughly six cartridges a crate—just a little more than half of the original asking price.
Deal concluded, Grace strolled cheerfully from the trader’s booth. Simon walked silently at his side for a little while, until Grace caught him staring.
“I had to furnish a Bay Area apartment on a teacher’s salary,” Grace explained, rubbing the back of his neck with a sheepish expression. “Spent a lot of time at the flea markets.” He pulled the printout of their list from the pocket of his cardigan. “Okay, what’s next?”
It was pretty late in the day by the time Grace managed to find a quiet corner and comm up to Mari.
“Success, question?” Rocky asked over the comm.
“Success, statement,” Grace agreed. “We still haven’t found any of those xenonite reagents you put on the list, but those were a long shot anyway. We got everything else.”
“Amaze amaze amaze,” Rocky trilled, echoing Grace’s sense of accomplishment. “Coming back now, question?”
“Pretty soon,” Grace assured him. One of the traders had thrown in a handful of borinium chips as a free-gift-with-purchase thing; apparently, they were a little more fungible than the chakan oil. “I’m gonna take another look around, see if there’s anything else we want to pick up.”
“Come back soon.”
“Will do, buddy. See you when we get back.”
Grace switched off his comm and sidled back out into the market crowd. Simon had been quiet ever since they’d left that first trader’s booth, following along at his side as they knocked items off the shopping list. Despite the silence, he was pretty good company.
As they wove through the crowds, Grace caught a low, rhythmic, bassy sound emanating from a building up ahead—one decorated with neon lights. Apparently some things were universal, and one of those things was places to get drunk.
“Hey.” Grace nudged Simon and flashed one of the borinium chips. “Can I open a bar tab with these?”
“Probably,” Simon replied.
“Great!” Grace offered what he hoped was a friendly smile. “I’ll buy you a drink.”
Simon’s eyes went wide, and he looked conflicted, but all he said was a raspy, “Sure.”
Grace led the way through the establishment’s front doors; the interior of the building was packed, the lights low, and the music a deafening, thumping bassline that rumbled through Grace’s whole body. It reminded him of his college days, although there hadn’t been as many aliens around back then.
The centre of the room was occupied by a circular structure that was probably the main bar. As Grace forged a path toward it, though, a hand closed around his elbow.
“I’ll, uh …” Simon was leaning in close so Grace could hear him, head ducked low; Grace couldn’t see his face. “I’ll be right back.”
“Sure,” Grace replied.
Simon nodded and hurried away through the crowd. Maybe he’d needed the bathroom or something.
Grace, meanwhile, managed to claim a spot at the bar. “Hey,” he said to the bartender. “What’s good here?”
The bartender might’ve passed for human, if it weren’t for the grey skin and white hair. “Nothing,” she replied flatly.
“Okay, what’s cheap and probably won’t kill me?”
The bartender eyed him up. “Sebacean?”
“Human, but close enough.”
The bartender nodded. “I’ll get you some raslak.”
“Raslak” turned out to be a greenish beverage that foamed up like soda when the bartender poured it from a tap behind the bar. It certainly smelled like it had alcohol in it, and tasted not entirely unlike beer. Grace sipped lightly at his glass as he waited for Simon to get back.
“What does it say on your shirt?”
The alien that had sidled up next to Grace at the bar was pretty tall; she stood eye-to-eye with Grace, and he wasn’t exactly short. She was mostly human-shaped, but her skin was a deep midnight blue, and her eyes—big and doe-like, black from edge to edge—were surrounded by thin, luminous orange stripes. Said eyes were currently studying Grace’s t-shirt.
Grace glanced down; the thing about owning so many dumb joke t-shirts was that you kind of stopped paying attention to what was on them when you got dressed in the morning. “It’s a physics joke,” he explained. “See, a ball at the top of a slope has a ton of potential energy, but that gets converted into kinetic energy on the way down—so, at the bottom, all the potential energy is gone.”
“‘I had potential,’” the woman said, grinning as the joke sank in. Upon closer examination, the stripes on her face weren’t stripes at all—they were glowing dots, clustered together almost like freckles.
“I like your spots,” Grace offered—then, sensing this maybe wasn’t the most appropriate thing to say to the fourth or fifth alien species he’d ever met, added, “Sorry, was that weird?”
“Perhaps,” the woman said. “I don’t mind, though. I’m Lianna.”
“Hi. I’m Grace.” Now that he had implicit permission, he propped his elbow on the bar and looked a little closer. “So is the light produced by your own body? Or is each spot its own bacterial colony?”
The woman’s smile widened. “It’s a mutualistic fungus, actually.”
The way the spots were clustered around Lianna’s eyes reminded Grace of some deep-sea fish species he’d studied back in undergrad. “I’m guessing it’s really dark on your planet.”
“There’s a lot of volcanoes,” Lianna confirmed. “Ash in the atmosphere. Not much light gets through.”
Grace glanced around the room; it was pretty dark, but not abysmally so. “Isn’t it kind of bright here, for you?”
Lianna gave him a sly look. The black of her eyes flicked aside, just for a moment, to reveal her real eyes underneath. She had a nictating membrane—exactly the kind of thing a species might evolve on a planet where the air was full of ash, and which would conveniently double as built-in sunglasses.
A delighted laugh burst from Grace’s mouth.
Simon had sealed himself inside one of the lavatory stalls, both arms braced against the door as he struggled to get his racing thoughts under control.
He’d … noticed Grace. He’d been sharing a ship with the man for nearly fifty days; it was hard not to notice him. In that initial period after he’d woken up on Mari, Simon had mostly just been happy he was alive—and pathetically grateful to Grace for rescuing him. Once the mortal terror had faded, though, Simon’s awe had faded with it. And then the details started to filter in.
For one thing, Grace seemed to take up every bit of available space—colonising any room he entered with notes and printouts and equipment and, on the occasions he and Simon ate in the central chamber at the same time, dishes and food wrappers. Simon had once glimpsed the inside of Grace’s quarters; he had more clothes than Simon had ever owned in his life, and most of them were on the floor.
And he talked a lot—to himself, or at whoever happened to be in the room with him. “At” was the operative word; most of the time he just seemed to be thinking aloud, asking questions he didn’t expect to be answered. He would, however, reflexively answer any question put to him in turn—and if he didn’t actually know the answer, he’d go and look it up.
All his life, Simon had been punished for asking questions. And now any question he could think up was answered as easily as breathing—right before Grace went back to mumbling ideas aloud and scribbling notes on the big white board in the lab.
And so, as the days passed, Simon had become uncomfortably aware of one important fact: Dr. Ryland Grace was annoying. Annoying and beautiful, and Simon kind of wanted to kiss him.
Relationships on Eden were brief. Recreational. Mutual stress relief. Anything more than that was strongly discouraged; Father wouldn’t tolerate split loyalties. An Edenite could only be devoted to the cause. And after Filament Station—after he’d been sent to prison—he’d kept himself to himself. Put his back to the wall and done his best to avoid notice.
But he’d watched the way some of the other prisoners traded favours, offering their bodies in exchange for less work, or extra food, or little contraband luxuries—like alcohol. He couldn’t stop watching.
Did they like it? Or was it just a means to an end? Would it feel good, to let someone … have him, like that?
Was that what Grace wanted from him?
Grace was an alien, for all that he looked like a sebacean. Maybe he didn’t expect the same things a sebacean would. Simon’s experience with aliens was limited; the Peacekeepers had kept their sebacean prisoners separate from their captive aliens, determined even in those circumstances to keep the bloodlines pure. It was a belief shared on Eden; Father’s sermons had, occasionally, veered into the dangers of contamination and the heresy of cross-breeding.
Surely that wouldn’t be a concern with Grace—unless Grace could get pregnant. Did he want Simon to get him pregnant? Was that why he kept talking about aliens laying eggs inside him?
Simon let a low whine escape from between his gritted teeth and rested his forehead against the door. There was a faint hum in the back of his head—Mari, sensing his distress and trying to soothe him, distant as she was.
With a steadying breath, Simon pushed away from the door and rolled his shoulders back. He was Simon the Butcher. He’d survived Filament Station, Peacekeeper captivity, and an insane leviathan that had tried to eat him.
He could handle having a drink with a man he liked.
Bracing himself, he opened the door and stepped out of the stall. After a few moments of searching, he spotted Grace by the bar. There was someone sitting next to him—an alien, with dark blue skin. She had Grace’s full attention; he nodded along as she spoke, fascinated by whatever she was saying.
Then Grace said something Simon couldn’t hear, his lips curling into a smile, and the alien threw her head back and laughed, bright and unrestrained. Her hand touched Grace’s arm, her touch lingering. Grace didn’t pull away, or brush it off.
A sick, tight feeling roiled in Simon’s chest. He wanted to rip that alien’s hand off. He wanted to drag Grace away from her. He—
He shoved his way through the crowd to the exit.
“So the females are about ten times bigger than the males,” Grace was explaining, “and when a male finds a female, he latches on and fuses into her body—basically, from there, he’s just a handy pair of gonads.”
“I wish that was how the males on my planet did it.” Lianna giggled and wrapped her lips around the straw of her drink, taking a quick sip. “Would save a lot of trouble.”
“Oh? How does your species mate?”
“I could show you.” Lianna’s hand brushed Grace’s chest, one finger trailing down the front of his shirt. “My accommodations aren’t far from here.”
“… Ah.” Grace cleared his throat, feeling his face heat, and leaned back from the touch. That had taken a turn he wasn’t planning for. “Sorry, I, uh … I can’t. I’m kind of here with somebody.” He scanned the bar; there was still no sign of Simon. “I should go check on him, actually—”
Lianna’s nose wrinkled for half a second, and then she sneezed in his face.
“Whoa!” Grace flinched away. “Gesundheit, or—wait, is that … do you even …” he stumbled over the words; his tongue felt heavy in his mouth, and he couldn’t quite remember what he’d been trying to say.
Grace swiped a hand over his face; his fingers, when he pulled them away and looked, were covered in some kind of fine, glittering dust. He wiped them off on the bar; it was harder than it should’ve been. He couldn’t quite get his extremities to cooperate.
He didn’t feel good.
Lianna sighed and reached for her glass, draining the rest of her drink. “I was hoping I could get you to come along willingly,” she said, flat and annoyed. “The spores impair motor function, and you look kind of heavy.”
Grace fumbled at the comm chip clipped to his cardigan. He needed to talk to Rocky. Or Pilot. Or Simon.
“No, one of that.” Lianna plucked the comm from between his fingers and dropped it into his glass, where it drowned in the last few mouthfuls of raslak.
Grace managed a wordless noise of protest, but Lianna had already grabbed him by the hand, leading him out of the bar.
Simon only made it about a hundred motras from the bar before he started feeling like an idiot.
He had no claim on Grace. All Grace had done was offer to buy him a drink—an offer that probably didn’t mean the same thing to him that it did to Simon. And Simon had reacted like a frelling idiot.
His footsteps slowed. Grace was probably still back at the bar—along with his new friend. And if things were going as well as they’d looked, Simon would only ruin his night by intruding.
He’d just … wait for Grace, back at the transport pod.
Simon shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket and began the long walk back to the spaceport. There was still an uneasy feeling in the back of his head—a feeling that only grew the longer he walked.
It wasn’t his. It was Mari. Mari was upset.
Simon immediately brought his comm to his mouth. “Pilot? Is everything okay?”
“Simon.” It wasn’t Pilot responding, but Rocky. “Where Grace, question?”
“He’s at the bar.” Simon suddenly felt stupid saying it; Rocky had told him to watch over Grace, and Simon had left him behind. “Why?”
“Mari has lost contact with Dr. Grace’s comm,” Pilot explained.
Frell. Simon pivoted on his heel and strode right back the way he’d come. “I’ll find him.”
The bar was much as Simon had left it—he’d only left maybe a quarter of an arn ago. But Grace was gone, and so was the alien he’d been sitting with.
Simon elbowed his way through the crowd until he reached the bar. “Hey,” he said, flagging down the nebari woman behind the bar. “The man who was sitting here. Where is he?”
“He left,” the nebari said with a shrug. “Went off with some woman.”
Something caught the light from the surface of the bar. There were a pair of finger-shaped smears across the edge of the bartop—some kind of dust, glittering in the low light. Carefully, Simon swiped his fingertips through the dust and touched them to the very tip of his tongue. It went numb.
Grace had been drugged.
Simon shouldered his way back outside, frantically scanning the streets around him. Across the way, where the main thoroughfare met a small side street, there was another flash of that glittering dust—a handprint, smeared roughly along the wall.
A few motras down the side street was another trace of dust, and a little more beyond that. Whatever the stuff was, Grace was shedding it as he walked—leaving a trail for Simon to follow.
Lianna’s accommodations turned out to be a small, two-room apartment: a large main room with a little curtained-off alcove, which presumably served as a sleeping area. There was some kind of climate control unit mounted on the wall below the apartment’s single window, which Grace was currently cuffed to.
Across the room, Lianna was talking into her comm. “No, Ryland Grace,” she said. “Ryland … no, I don’t have the serial number. It’s your posting. You look it up.”
Grace’s head was a little clearer than it had been a few minutes ago; the spores had to be wearing off. He managed to wrangle his mouth into saying, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry. Please let me go.”
Lianna sighed and pulled the comm away from her mouth. “Listen, it’s not personal. The Peacekeepers have a bounty out on you—and the little rock thing, and your leviathan.” She turned back to the comm. “Yes, I’m still here.”
“You can’t—” Grace tugged at the cuffs; they rattled loudly against the pipe, but nothing came loose. “Please. My planet’s in danger. My friend’s planet is in danger. We’re trying to save them, but if you turn me in—”
Lianna rolled her eyes and leaned away from the comm again. “It’s really none of my business. You can sort this out with the PKs.” Then, into the comm, she said, “Fine. Fine. I will go and check the posting, but you’re staying on the line with me. Do not put me on hold again.”
Then she crossed the room to where Grace was restrained and crouched in front of him.
“Don’t,” Grace pleaded. “I’ll be good. You don’t have to—”
She sneezed in his face again.
Grace groaned, blinking slowly as the spores’ effects settled over him again. Distantly, he recalled taking a few fungus-based substances in college. This wasn’t nearly as much fun.
“I’ll be right back,” Lianna assured him, and left.
Grace slumped against the wall with a low groan. Different parts of his brain were moving at different speeds. He had the distant, screaming awareness that he should be working on the cuffs, trying to escape, but his body just wanted to be on the floor.
There was a noise from the hallway outside—footsteps, creeping toward the door. Was Lianna back already?
Then, from the other side of the door, came Simon’s voice: “Grace?”
The cuffs clattered against the pipe again as Grace struggled into something resembling a sitting position. “Here,” he croaked, tongue still heavy in his mouth. “I’m … I … help.”
“Hang on,” Simon replied. There were some more noises from the door—scraping and scratching noises from inside the wall, like something was being tampered with. Then the door slid open, and Simon was there.
Grace made an incoherent noise of relief as Simon quickly crossed the room to crouch in front of him.
“You okay?” Simon asked; he reached out to brush Grace’s face, fingers dragging over his cheek. They came back glittering.
“Spores,” Grace managed to stammer out. “I can’t—I feel—”
“I know.” Simon sat back on his heels and turned his attention to Grace’s restraints—trying to figure out how to unlock the cuffs.
More footsteps came down the hallway—brisk and businesslike. Simon heard them too; he jumped to his feet, backing away into the sleeping alcove and hiding behind the curtain.
The door opened again, and Lianna stepped back into the apartment. “All right,” she said. “The PKs are sending a prisoner transport, so we need to get you to the spaceport.” She stopped at Grace’s feet and reached down for him. “Up you get.”
Grace flinched away; immediately, stupidly, his eyes darted to the curtained-off alcove where Simon was hiding.
Lianna followed his gaze, glancing over her shoulder, then turned back to Grace with a suspicious expression. Slowly, she stood and took a step toward the alcove—then another, stalking cautiously across the apartment.
She reached for the curtain; it slid aside before she could touch it, and Simon swung his right hand, clenched into a fist, at her face.
It collided with her jaw; she let out a high cry of pain, hands coming up to shield her face. Grace couldn’t help but cringe at the sight—Simon had just hit a girl.
Lianna staggered back a step or two—then dropped into a crouch, one leg whipping out in a sweeping kick that knocked Simon’s legs out from under him, sending him in a heap to the floor.
Right. Okay. The girl hit back. That was … better. Somehow.
Lianna aimed a second, sharp kick at Simon’s side; he let out a pained grunt as it collided with his ribs and scrambled away across the floor, rolling to his feet. He went low, trying to hook her around the waist with both arms, but she dodged out of the way and used Simon’s momentum to shove him into the wall, face-first. She moved to pin him there, hand at the nape of his neck, but Simon threw his elbow back—the elbow of his left arm. The prosthetic.
It slammed into Lianna’s chest, and even across the room Grace heard bone crack. Lianna let out a wheeze and reeled back, releasing her grip on Simon; he whirled around, the side of his left hand whipping out to chop into her throat.
She clutched at her neck; her eyes were wide, mouth open, but the only sound she made was a quiet, sucking, breathless noise. The shape of her throat, just visible between her fingers, was deformed—concave where it had once been flat.
Simon’s prosthetic had crushed her airway.
Lianna’s legs buckled; she dropped to her hands and knees on the floor, still clawing with one hand at her crushed throat. Her body heaved with every attempted breath, convulsing as she slowly suffocated to death.
Simon hadn’t moved; he stood over her body, fists loose at his sides, face blank and desolate.
Grace rattled the cuffs against the pipe. “Simon!”
Simon flinched and stumbled back from where Lianna was crumpled on the floor, crouching in front of Grace again. His prosthetic hand moved to the pipe he was cuffed to, ripping it free of the wall, and Simon reached out with his other hand to haul Grace to his feet.
Lianna had collapsed to the floor and rolled onto her back, still struggling to breathe. Grace took a stumbling step toward her, but Simon held him firm.
“She’s—” The words were too tangled up in Grace’s head to come out of his mouth properly. “We can’t—”
“Grace.” There was a tremor in Simon’s voice. “We have to go.”
Lianna was barely moving, now—legs twitching occasionally, hands loose where they still held her neck. She stared at Grace with wide eyes, tears smeared down her face.
She looked so scared.
But Simon was dragging him away, toward the door, and Grace caught his last glimpse of Lianna as she finally went limp, eyes glazing over.
The moment the transport pod set down in Mari’s hangar, Simon started moving their purchased supplies into the cargo bay. It was the quickest way he could think of to make himself useful.
It also helped him avoid Grace. He could admit that to himself.
At this point, all he could do was wait for whatever happened next. Rocky had ordered Simon to keep Grace safe, and then Simon had left Grace to be abducted. And then he’d killed someone.
Would he be punished for the abduction, or the murder? Or both? Would they cut his rations? Would they confine him to quarters?
He could at least be sure that Mari wouldn’t let anyone force him off the ship. He could feel her at the back of his mind, murmuring reassurances.
The door to the cargo bay swivelled open, and Simon flinched. Grace stood in the doorway, arms wrapped around himself, but he didn’t look angry. He looked tired; his eyes were red around the edges.
Had he been crying?
“Are you … okay?” Simon asked, hesitantly. An alarming thought occurred: “Is it the spores? Are they still—?”
“No, it’s—I flushed my eyes in the lab.” Grace rubbed one of his eyes with his palm. “Rocky insisted. And the med scanner says the drug is mostly out of my system, anyway.”
“Oh. Uh …” Simon cleared his throat. “Good. That’s good.”
Grace wasn’t leaving. He looked like he was thinking about something, eyes fixed somewhere past Simon’s shoulder.
“My, uh … my memory’s kind of messed up.” Grace gestured to his own temple. “Sometimes I don’t know things until I see or do something that reminds me. Like the—I didn’t remember anything about the flea markets back home until today, and then all of a sudden I could remember everything.” His eyes lost focus. “I … I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen anyone die like that. Not right in front of me.”
He’d hedged around the words, but Simon could hear the certainty in his voice.
Did that alien woman have a family? Friends? Someone who’d find her body and feel like their whole world had ended?
How long would she have lived, if she hadn’t stumbled into Simon’s path?
“Sorry,” Simon said, inadequately.
“You, um …” Grace’s eyes focused again, settling on Simon. “I get the feeling it’s … different, for you.”
Sixty-two lives on Filament Station, and countless others before that. Simon couldn’t even remember all of them—but he couldn’t forget what it looked like when someone’s last breath shuddered out of their lungs, their eyes going dark.
“Yeah,” Simon admitted. It was, perhaps, the biggest understatement of his life.
Grace’s answering laugh had a hysterical edge. “You know, it’s weird—I don’t think I ever knew how easy my life was, until it wasn’t. The country I lived in was kind of falling apart, but there were people in other parts of the world who had it way worse. I didn’t have a job where I had to hurt people—I didn’t even really have to lift anything. Even when the world was ending, all I ever had to do was … sit in a lab. Write reports. Sign stuff.” He sniffled and rubbed his nose with the side of his hand. “And now I’m here. And I don’t—I don’t really know what to do.”
His voice was small, and lost.
“You live.” It was the only guidance Simon could offer. “You do whatever keeps you alive, even if it’s only for the next ten microts.”
Grace nodded, avoiding Simon’s eyes. “I think … I think I might’ve had to make that choice, once. Just once. And I have no idea when, or why, but … I can’t shake the feeling I made the wrong one.”
Simon didn’t know what to say to that. In the silence that stretched between them, Grace sniffed and took a slow breath.
“Anyway,” he said. “Uh … thanks.”
Simon nodded, not sure what he was being thanked for.
Grace turned to leave, but hesitated at the door, shifting on his heel to offer Simon a wan smile. “And, uh … I guess I still owe you a drink.”
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