CHAPTER 12
As the hub devolves into many
voices talking at once, Vel takes a seat near me, where
I’ve collapsed. “Is it always like this?”
I think about that.
“Pretty much. Except sometimes there’s shooting and things blow
up.”
“Give it time,” Dina
mutters.
“Let’s have the worst
news first,” I suggest a little louder. “Maybe the bad news won’t
seem so bad.”
March motions for all
of us to shut up. “I’ve looked at the routes, and we have two
choices. We can go back to New Terra—” Jael immediately protests,
and March tries to continue over the noise. “Or we can make for an
emergency station two weeks out. If we can’t jump, there’s just
nowhere else in this sector.”
“What’s so bad about
the emergency station?” I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering
that.
I stopped at a few in
my Corp days. They’re a little grim, true, with their bare-bones
floor plans, and they offer only basic amenities, but I don’t
remember them as terrible places. We should be able to drop Surge
and Koratati off there. They’ll be able to work for their keep
until another ride comes by.
It might be a while
since most ships jump at the nearest beacon, six hours out of New
Terra, but the kid needs to be old enough to don protective
headgear anyway. Looks like she’ll spend her first few turns on an
emergency station. That’s not the end of the world.
“According to reports
I pulled, Emry Station is full of Farwan loyalists. They don’t care
what the Corp did; they just want to preserve the status
quo.”
I raise both brows.
“You mean they don’t accept that it’s over? There’s no Corp
left. Doesn’t that technically make them
rebels?”
“Whatever you call
them, they won’t receive us politely. They’re demanding the
Conglomerate acknowledge them as an autonomous outpost, or they’ll
refuse to aid distressed ships in this sector.”
That could be
catastrophic. In time this area will turn into a graveyard, ghost
ships floating, full of people who died from someone else’s
inaction. Add that to the already astronomical risk of being hit by
raiders, well—we can’t let them get away with that.
This will put us off
schedule, but we don’t have a choice. In reflex, I curl my right
hand into a fist, and the left tries to follow suit, but instead
pain shoots all the way to my elbow. For a moment I see stars, and
I’m nowhere near the sensor screen.
“I’m not going back
to New Terra,” Jael says flatly. “I’ll kill you all before I let
you turn this ship around.”
Before March can
respond to that, Vel glides to within a few meters of the man
issuing such wild threats and examines him with a detached air.
“You would try,” he concludes. His ever-so-average appearance lends
him menace that borders on spooky.
If I were Jael, I’d
step back. See, this young merc is just too pretty to be as
dangerous as he thinks he is. You don’t keep a face like that if
you spend your life fighting. He’d have a broken nose or something
by now if he actually mixed it up. Instead I find it curious that
he reacts so strongly to the possibility of going back. What’s he
running from? And is it going to hunt us down?
March poses that very
question aloud as I frame it mentally. It’s almost like he’s Psi or
something. Oh, right.
Jael doesn’t want to
answer. It would be my luck to discover Pretty Boy was my mother’s
business partner, now running from the Syndicate. Possibly her
former lover as well, as I doubt she’s kept herself to an
immaculate widowhood.
Mary. I’ll never see
my dad again. Ridiculous it should hit me so hard, right now. Maybe
it’s because of the baby. Once upon a time, before they took me on
a ship, I used to be his little girl. He had high hopes for me.
Sometimes I wonder what I’d have been like if I hadn’t discovered
joy and freedom up here.
As much mind as she
pays us, we might not even be here as far as Koratati is concerned.
Her whole world rests in the crook of her arm. When she starts
feeding the kid, I have to look away, and I intercept a meaningful
exchange between Jael and Surge. It’s almost like a lightning-fast
argument, conducted silently, a glance, a couple of head shakes,
and then:
“He’s Bred,” Surge
explains, apparently against Jael’s wishes. “If he stays dirtside,
he’ll be subject to discrimination, according to the new
laws.”
“It’s almost like
they’re trying to force a caste system,” Dina says
thoughtfully.
Vel nods his
agreement. “In a backward manner, it makes sense. While they are
trying to engender a wider alliance with other races, hence the
diplomatic missions, they also want to cement human privilege on
the homeworld.”
The tone of the new
immigration and citizenship laws is downright xenophobic. Page
seven, last paragraph restricts nonhumans from holding office and
owning land. “It’s going to be ugly for a while. We’re better off
up here.”
“Not with a baby
aboard,” March says. “We can’t plod along forever in straight
space, and we can’t jump with her unprotected. I won’t take the
risk.”
I study Jael. No
wonder he’s so pretty, and no wonder he doesn’t want to go back.
Normals hate his kind. Bred humans tend to be faster, smarter,
healthier, and generally superior to their counterparts. With the
reforms kicking in, it’ll be worse.
“Our best bet is to
head for the emergency station,” I say. “And hope we can talk some
sense into those idiots. Maybe they don’t realize how isolated they
are.”
They’re Farwan
loyalists, not a military group. At best, they’ll be former
corporate wage slaves and disgruntled technicians. We should be
able to cow them.
“It’s settled then.
We haul onward.” March reaches for me and tows me toward the
quarters I picked out earlier.
I don’t protest
because I could use a break. Aching from head to toe, I follow him
into the room he apparently intends to share with me. When the door
shuts behind us, he draws me into his arms.
“I’m worried about
you,” he whispers.
Ordinarily I’d
discount that as pointless, but I haven’t felt right for a while.
Most likely I should’ve had a checkup before we left, but I
intended to have Doc check me out when we hit Lachion . . . I
should’ve known things never turn out the way we plan.
Wrapping my arms
about his waist, I lean into him and close my eyes. “There’s
something wrong,” I admit, low.
I haven’t wanted to
admit it, but I’m not healing like I should. I’m tired all the
time, and sleep doesn’t seem to help. I’m no good at being sick,
but I think I might be.
So gentle it makes my
heart constrict, he presses me close for a moment, and then he
steps back to look at my hand where Kora squeezed it. “I think she
snapped your fingers.”
“Me, too.” I wasn’t
kidding when I said I couldn’t move them. Pain shimmers through my
fingertips in odd, erratic pulses when he turns my hand to examine
it. Then his fingers trace over the dark bruise forming on my
cheekbone. That, too, feels swollen, damage out of proportion to
the blow.
“You look breakable.”
His gaze lingers as if seeing me for the first time. “And that
scares the shit out of me.”
“Hey,” I murmur.
“Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
He doesn’t argue with
me, but in his face I see pure, unadulterated fear. That’s why
March separated me from the others. He didn’t want them to see it.
Nobody else pays attention to me like he does, so the others
probably won’t notice that I’m ill.
Wouldn’t you know it?
I even go out different than the other jumpers. I’ve spent my life
courting death in various ways, living for the thrill, the rush,
the risk. I jack in, knowing it might steal my mind away, knowing
March may not be able to save me this time, and I keep doing
it.
Grimspace beckons; I
can’t resist the call.
I don’t even want to.
I don’t smoke, rarely drink, and I gave up chem years ago.
This is my vice.
Even now, I’m faintly
irritated that I can’t just jump, take us where I want to go. Fuck
straight space travel. But it’s more than that. It’s an itch under
my skin, and I can’t scratch it, no matter what I do. The longing
won’t go away until the colors come roaring through me, and my mind
blossoms to ten times its size. At this point, I must admit it
might be killing me, albeit differently than most jumpers go
out.
Question is, what am
I going to do about it?
