Adrift (18 page)

She wanted to tell him she was sorry, that she didn’t want to be mean. It was just to get him moving. She wanted to beg him not to be mad at her. He said he couldn’t be, but Kivi knew he was mad now and it was just the two of them. It wasn’t like he could be mad at himself. He hadn’t done anything wrong. It was cold. But if he was angry, he wouldn’t fall asleep. Momma always said that no one could go to bed angry. She and papa argued a lot, so she would know. But she didn’t know what else to say to keep him angry.

“Talk to me.”

Six minutes had passed, but he was still growling. Kivi didn’t understand what he wanted. Was he expecting her to apologize? She wanted to. She just couldn’t yet. He needed to stay awake. Seven more minutes passed in silence. “Dammit Kivi, if you don’t help me stay awake I’m not going to be able to get this thing done!”

He was still growling. But his words didn’t make sense if he was angry. “I’m helping.”

“No, you’re being quiet. That’s not helpful.”

“But you’re angry. If I say sorry, you won’t be angry anymore and it won’t help you stay awake.”

“I’m not angry at you. I don’t want an apology. Just talk.”

It sounded like he was angry. She still felt like she was supposed to apologize. But that wasn’t what he said he wanted, and he wouldn’t lie to her. So Kivi thought as hard as she could for something to talk about.

She’d never been good at the idle conversation stuff. That wasn’t something Tron did either. She’d learned a few things about filling time with talk the day before, when they were waiting. Not idle stuff. Real stuff. Kivi didn’t want to distract him. He had to finish filing down a nail from the toolkit he’d found. He had to complete the connection, but it was a small space. If the nail was too big it wouldn’t stay in place. He was close, so close. But it would take time. But if he said he needed her to fill the time again, she would do that for him.

“What were you going to be? When we got to the colony?”

“What are…? Why?”

“I want to know.”

Tron sighed. That was better than growling. Maybe. “I dunno. Probably the village drunk.”

Kivi blinked in surprise. “The adults let you drink alcohol?”

He chuckled. “God no. They’re not stupid. But I’m eighteen now. They could’ve only told me no so much longer.”

“And that’s what you wanted?”

“Wanted? No. But I figure it’s better than being the colony’s first criminal. Then they’d have to build a jail just for me. At least as a drunk I’d be able to go where I wanted while I made good people wish I didn’t exist.”

She frowned. She hadn’t expected something like that. He couldn’t really think those were his choices. That was stupid. Kivi knew he felt alone all the time, because he’d told her so. He told her that he was pretty sure his parents never wanted him and he was absolutely sure they were embarrassed by him, because they’d told him that. But he couldn’t have thought that would go on forever. Why would he think that everything would always be like it was with his parents?
He’d told her about his friend the mechanic and the way Captain Jay talked to him.

“I think you would’ve been mayor.”

He snorted. “Mayor of the barstool, maybe.”

“I mean it,” Kivi insisted. And she did. “You are so good at thinking fast. Better than anyone. I couldn’t think of stuff to save us half as quick as you did. That’s important. Everyone else would’ve seen that too. I’d want the person in charge of me to be the best one at coming up with fast solutions, and that’s you. Plus you never let me give up, and I really wanted to. You’re good at listening. You would’ve been a really good mayor.”

“Well I guess I’d have one vote.” She knew he was joking. Kivi could tell. But he didn’t sound like he was laughing at her. She wasn’t sure how he sounded. A little bit sad, but not all the way sad. She wished people would just tell her what they were feeling. That would make things easier. She thought about asking Tron what he felt, but he spoke before she could.

“What did you want for your life?”

That wasn’t the same thing she’d asked him. She’d been ready for answering the same question. She wasn’t sure how to answer this. “I was going to take care of plants or animals until my momma and papa picked a husband for me. Probably Asher. Then I’d have babies.”

“You wanted to marry that brat?”

“No. He’s just the one most likely. Momma liked him, and he didn’t hate me so he’d probably agree to it. He’d really like being Heath’s brother.”

He was quiet for a while, and Kivi started to worry he was falling asleep again. His breathing was ragged, though, and his teeth were still clicking together. “You really thought you were going to be stuck marrying some boy who only agreed because he was friends with your brother? That the best you could hope for was not being hated?”

She rubbed her fingers together. She should’ve put the suit’s gloves back on, but she wanted to be able to make fast changes to her design, if Tron ran into trouble. He’d needed that once so far, but now he was almost done and she really should’ve put them back on. Kivi didn’t understand why he sounded so sad. It wasn’t sad. It just was. And now it wasn’t. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he was just tired. “Yes. My papa really wanted me to get married and have babies. Asher was the most likely.”

“That’s what your papa wanted.” He definitely sounded sad. “What did you want?”

That question again. Kivi still didn’t know how to answer it. She’d never considered wanting something different an option. Not really. She’d had fantasies about doing things, like building an engine that could take people to Earth and back so fast that people could visit. Silly things like that. But they weren’t possible, so they were only fantasies, not real wants. They didn’t count. Now he was asking her to sift through those half-thoughts and find one with more weight than the others, something real and possible? It wasn’t something she knew how to do.

Except, there was one daydream. One she thought about almost every day when she was sitting through lessons. Everybody probably thought it. It didn’t really count as something she wanted when everyone thought about it. But it was the best answer Kivi could come up with.

“I wanted to go to one of those schools the teachers were always talking about. The ones on Earth called universities. I wanted to see all the knowledge in the whole universe.”

He chuckled. “You are so weird.”

Before, Kivi would’ve thought he was being mean. She knew better now, though. “What did you want?”

He didn’t answer. Well, he did answer. But it was with a curse, so Kivi didn’t think that was for her. “I dropped the nail.”

Her heart felt like it had flown up into her throat.

“I can’t reach it!”

Kivi didn’t stop to think about what she was doing. She always stopped, always thought, but this was different. She could see Whitman waving frantically as she undid buckle after buckle. She didn’t switch the channel not even when he grabbed her arms to stop her. She needed to hear Tron, hear as he grunted and strained to get the nail back. He let her go after a minute, but it wasn’t what she thought. He was clicking over to the channel with Tron.

“What the hell are you doing? Keep your god damned suit on!”

“Whitman?” Tron wasn’t straining anymore. “Kivi, what’s going on?”

“She’s taking off her suit!” Whitman shouted, making all three mics echo painfully. “Girl’s gone out of her damn mind!”

Tron was going to talk her out of it. Kivi knew he was going to. She had to be done before he could try. “I need to be fast,” she said as she ripped herself free of the lower half of the suit. “I need to fit places. The suit makes me clumsy and big. It’s not crazy.”

Whitman grabbed her again and tried to pull the suit back together. It was already getting hard to breathe. That wasn’t good. She’d thought there was more air in the room than that. The readout on her helmet said that there should be. But she was starting to feel lightheaded already. She was tempted to let Whitman get his way, and lock the suit back together. Once he did, she knew the air would kick back on and she would feel better. But she would still be big and bulky. If she was going to fit wherever Tron had dropped the nail, she couldn’t be those things. It wasn’t about being fast, not really. Kivi knew her speed in zero gravity would be the same with or without the suit.
But she knew that if she waited until she was in the engine room, Tron wouldn’t let her take it off. Like Whitman, only he’d be better at it. So she went faster than Tron could stop her.

“Kivi, stay there! Keep breathing! I can get it!”

She reached up and shut off her radio. She’d have to leave the helmet behind. So long as it was on her head, she was going to feel bad about turning Tron off. Kivi knew she would switch it back on before she was there, and then he would probably convince her to go back. She reached to rip it off.

Whitman’s hand dropped on top of the helmet, pressing it down so hard it hurt her neck. Kivi glared at him. This was all his fault. It was his plan. The engine wasn’t supposed to be turned on and off like he’d been doing. And he was the one who shut the door and locked Tron out there and her in here. And now he was stopping her from fixing it. They were going to die, all three of them, and it would be because she wasn’t strong enough to knock Whitman away.

She took a deep breath, or tried to. Instead, she ended up gasping and coughing. As she recovered, she pointed to the readout on his helmet. She couldn’t see it, of course. It was only visible on the inside. On the outside it was just kind of reflective glass. But she pointed anyway. He would see it. He would understand. If he didn’t let her go, she would suffocate underneath his hand. There just wasn’t enough air left for this battle to go on long, and Kivi was not going to be the one who backed down. Not for this.

His eyes followed her finger and, after a second, she felt his hand drop down to her shoulder. Then she heard the click of the buckles she couldn’t reach as
he snapped them free and the top half of the suit dropped down around her.

Kivi smiled grimly and tugged off her helmet. As she did, he grabbed her arm and turned back to his pack again. She tried to pull free, but he held fast while he dug around. It was only a second before he
found what he was looking for. She thought she recognized it. She hadn’t gotten a good look that first day, when he’d come aboard and wrestled with Tron. But when he dropped it around her face and started tightening the straps, there could be no doubt. This was his breather. Kivi knew that the breather was meant to filter out microbes that could get Whitman sick when he came onto a strange vessel like the Lucy. She also knew that it made sure he didn’t release any different microbes on those strange vessels. Figuring that out from what he said wasn’t hard. But understanding what he meant by putting it on now was. Filtering would make it harder to breathe. She knew how filters worked. Kivi shouldn’t trust him. He wasn’t a good guy. But he wasn’t a bad guy either, and it was his life as much as hers and Tron’s. So she let him secure it.

When Tron had pulled it off, it had looked like it was the size of Whitman’s whole face, but it wasn’t big at all. On the man, it was probably just enough to cover his mouth and nose. It swallowed a lot more of Kivi’s face, but the strange black plastic warmed on contact with her skin, and seemed to mold itself to her. In a few seconds, it was flush with her skin
and fit almost comfortably. He had to pull the strap so small that the other end of it flapped against her neck, but Whitman got it secure around her head.

He grabbed her hand and moved it up to the side of the breather. It was awkward, with his big gloves and her new smaller ones between them, but in a second she felt what he was trying to show her: a button. Kivi pressed it, and a small burst of air hit her face. She sucked it in gratefully, surprised and amazed. She waited for another burst, like in the suit, but that wasn’t how this worked. She could breathe better, but
the air was still a lot thinner than usual. She didn’t know how it worked, and she wanted to ask so bad she could hardly stand it, but Tron was waiting.

Still, Whitman didn’t let her go. He grabbed the jacket he’d worn until they were putting on their suits. He draped it over her shoulders. Kivi put her free arm through the left sleeve and nodded her gratitude.
It was big enough for her to get lost in, hanging down past her knees, but it was thick and warm. It was leather, just like the gloves he’d modified for her, and just like them it had an incredibly thick and soft liner. Finally, he let her go and moved to the door. He tugged it open just enough for her to fit through as Kivi tugged her other arm through the sleeve. There was a small breeze as the air in navigation rushed out into the corridor, but not like the blasts on that first day after the attack. There just wasn’t enough air left anywhere for that.

Once she was sure there was enough room, Kivi kicked out of her boots and drifted up toward the ceiling. She grabbed the doorframe before she could get too far. She dragged herself forward until her knees were up against her chest and her feet were planted against the wall just outside the door. Then she kicked off as hard as she could.

Fast. She had to go fast. The breather wasn’t giving her enough air. Soon she wouldn’t be able to think straight. Worse things would happen after that, parts of her brain dying and then the rest of her body following suit, but not thinking was bad enough. Until the engine was running again, they were all counting on her brain working the way it was supposed to. And the cold wasn’t helping either. Even snuggled up inside Whitman’s jacket, she was freezing to death. If she didn’t move, she was going to end up just like those bodies inside cold storage, just like her brother. It was a race against her own death, with two other lives hanging in the balance. So she had to go fast.