Adrift (19 page)

The last time she’d been weightless, Kivi had moved with a mind for her surroundings. She’d gone quickly, but never let herself be out of control. She didn’t bother with that precaution this time. The engine directly across from the
navigation room, and Tron had gone before her to open the way. So she didn’t let herself worry about how far doors were open or anything like that. She just shot forward, pushing herself to greater speed every time a wall or door came within reach of her hands. The result was something less than ideal; she managed to twist herself so that her head was pointing back the way she’d come and her legs were in front of her, but at an angle that made it hard to see much of anything. She wanted to kick her feet, catch a bit of wall, and straighten herself out, but Kivi was afraid that doing so would cost her some of the break-neck speed she’d built up. So she kept her legs stiff and toes pointed.

She was so cold. But she wouldn’t let herself think about that. Every time her mind tried to turn back to the fact that her fingers and toes were already loosing feeling, she turned it to Tron. It was something Kivi had never managed before, forcing her thoughts in a certain direction. She’d always just followed wherever they led her. She didn’t even believe there was any other way to do it, when everyone else told her she had to think of something else. The whole idea had seemed crazy and impossible. But Kivi learned the skill fast, pulling up the memory of him gasping as he fought to put on his suit in time, or of the things he’d said to her over the last twenty-nine hours. Or of how sad he’d sounded when she said that thing about Asher.

Her foot banged against a door that wasn’t open all the way. Pain exploded upward through her leg, and she was spinning. Kivi wanted to scream out the pain and fear and frustration that were twisting through her. But she couldn’t scream. Couldn’t. That was a terrible, awful waste of air. So she fought to swallow it, and it burned her throat like acid. She was spinning and spinning and spinning. Kivi couldn’t see where she was going. That was bad. Bad, bad. But it was worse than that. Because all the spinning was making her sick. She was going to be sick. She wondered what would happen if she vomited inside the breather. She was going to find out soon.

And then she wasn’t moving anymore. The stop was so abrupt
that one of her gloves flew right off her hand. She couldn’t scream. Couldn’t. But she couldn’t help the gasp or the kick. Something was wrapped around her right leg, the one that wasn’t hurt. She couldn’t be stuck. Kivi needed to get to Tron, and if she was stuck she wouldn’t be able to help him. She wouldn’t be able to help anyone. And they would all die and it would be her fault, because she was the one who got stuck.

Kivi began to move down, but she hadn’t pushed herself. It was the thing around her leg. It was the
hand
around her leg, she realized with a start. Tron’s hand. She was there, and Tron was pulling her down out of the air and turning her right-side-up. She laughed, but only once. Laughing was a waste, just like screaming was a waste.

She wanted to hug him. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and feel him squeeze her until it felt like all the life was going to spill out of her.
She could see his face, his green eyes, and she knew he wanted to hug her too. She didn’t need a list, not with him. They couldn’t hug, of course. Not now. There was a suit in the way. Besides, there wasn’t time. Not a minute. Because she wasn’t going to throw up anymore, but she was still so cold.

Tron’s lips moved. Kivi thought he was trying to talk to her, then she realized it must be Whitman. But it didn’t look like he was yelling. He looked sad, as sad as he sounded when she talked about Asher. She wanted to ask him what was wrong, so that he would explain it. He would, she knew. Most people would tell her it was personal or lie, but Tron told so much. Maybe everything. But there wasn’t any way for her to ask, not without him taking off his helmet, and she wasn’t going to let him do that. There was only the one breather. And they didn’t have time for that either.

The nail. She needed the nail. Breathing was hard, and she was so cold. This was stupid, watching him like it was the thing that was going to save them. She had to focus. And Kivi knew how to do that now. So she mouthed a single word. “Where?”

Tron pointed up. Kivi followed his hand, and almost immediately saw what she was looking for. She also saw why it was such a problem. It had wedged itself into a
corner between the air vent and the wall. It was a tiny space, and even if he didn’t have the gloves on Tron would never have been able to get it. Kivi would have to be so careful, even with her small hands. They were shaking so bad, and if she bumped it wrong it would float up into the vents and be gone forever. There wasn’t time to make another, there hadn’t been time when she’d left navigation. It would be their only hope floating away if she messed up.

She pushed herself off of the chest of Tron’s suit. He let her go, and she was up by the vent in a second. She reached out for the nail twice, jerking her hand back in panic just before she touched it
, terrified she was going to bump it loose with her numb fingers. She pulled her hand back through the sleeve and then tucked it inside the jacket, under her other arm. Her armpit was warm, or warmer, but her fingers were like icicles and she gasped as she felt the difference in temperature. She floated there for a moment, waiting for the feeling to come back into her fingertips. It was painful.

They couldn’t wait any longer. The numbness in her other hand was spreading, and she couldn’t even feel the pain in her foot now. And the breather… There was no waiting. Kivi pulled her hand out, slid it through the sleeve, then reached out and wrapped her aching fingers around the head of the nail.
Then she turned and pushed off the corner as hard as she could.

Kivi flew toward the engine so fast that she was sure she was going to break her arm. She caught herself on the opening where the panel had been and, with hardly a glance at the construction inside, shoved her hand in and slid the pin into place.

Tron’s arms slid around her and pulled her back from the engine. She twisted until she could see him and gave him the biggest smile she’d ever smiled. Kivi watched as he screamed into his mic, and she knew exactly what he was saying.

“Now! Do it now!”

A second later, the lights clicked back on. Air blasted down on them from the vent, making Kivi’s hair flutter and fly against the skin of her face. She reached up and ripped the breather off, dropping it without a thought as she sucked in the most amazing air.

She must have passed out. Kivi didn’t remember passing out, she didn’t even remember closing her eyes, but she knew she had. Tron wasn’t wearing his suit anymore
. He was hovering over her with a look that could only be panic. Kivi laughed and threw her arms around his neck. Tron didn’t lose a second in pulling her tight against his chest. “You stupid girl,” he muttered into her hair. “You stupid, stupid girl. Don’t ever do that again.”

“Not stupid,” she said with another laugh. “We’re alive, so it wasn’t stupid!”

“Oh no,” Tron replied. He pulled away and cupped her face in his hands. “It was colossally stupid. You almost died Kivi. You’re still so cold… I almost lost you.”

That sadness again. Kivi felt bad. She was the reason he was so sad. She smiled at him and pulled him back into another hug. “I knew you wouldn’t let me die. And I couldn’t let you die. So it all worked out.”

He kissed the top of her head. It was just like her papa used to do, when he was kissing her goodnight, but it wasn’t like that at all. Because even though it was the same gesture, this was Tron and everything was different with him. She knew if she tilted her head up, he would kiss her for real, like in the vids. She wasn’t sure how she knew that. It wasn’t like all the other things she knew, where there were facts and past experiences for her to draw on. But she knew it all the same.

“What’s going on?” The words crackled through the intercom, shattering the moment before it got the chance to truly start.
“Is she ok?”

Tron released her slowly.
“She’s ok. Are our friends still around?”

“No sight of ‘
em. You two planning on making your way back up here any time soon, so I can see this mircale with my own two eyes, or do you need some alone time?”

A blush rose in Tron’s cheeks, and he shifted away from her. “I’m taking her to Med Bay first,” he said with a tone that Kivi understood meant he didn’t intend to argue about it. “We won’t be long.”

Not Long

Whitman tucked away the last of the mess he’d made of his pack. It was important not to mess it up. In the black, what a man carried with him was the difference between coming back alive and ending up a floater. If he’d ever questioned that maxim, he had plenty of proof of it now. He’d never doubt it again, and he’d damn sure add a few things to the collection, first chance he got.

Well, he would, if he actually got another chance. Whitman was starting to wonder how likely that was. He’d put up a good show, and was pretty sure the kids – no, don’t think of them like kids – were still buying it. But Ruben knew he was sick as
shit. He’d spent nearly the whole time they were dark hacking and battling the wickedest headache of his life. The air, lack of it rather, had really pissed off that bug he’d been hosting. It might’ve been manageable before, but he didn’t think it was going to be anymore. Even now, when there was plenty of atmo for all three of them to breathe like crazy, the pain behind his eyes pulsed. It had dug its evil little claws into his brain, and it didn’t intend to let go.

As if thinking about it summoned it up, another round of hacking coughs shook Whitman’s whole body.
They went on for a long while, each one driving that nail of pain deeper in his skull. He did everything he could to get a hold of his own lungs, but they weren’t listening to him. When the coughs finally eased, and he pulled his hand away from his mouth, it was flecked with blood. Not the first time. He was just glad it was somewhere easier to clean than the inside of his helmet.

“You alright?”

Whitman jumped and spun around, kicking himself for not noticing the sound of the others approaching. It wasn’t like they were exactly ninjas. The two had on clodders, and Kivi’s had to be at least three sizes too big. Or, she had on one boot. The other foot was encased in one hell of a make-shift splint. He could barely see leg beneath all that bandaging. He flashed his biggest grin, genuinely pleased to see her limping around.

“
You two kept us breathing and we’re flying free. I’ve never been better.”

Kivi gave him a look. She never had that much expression in her face. Exc
ept when she was screaming and calling him a bad guy. Most of the time she just looked kind of bored. Or maybe lost in thought. Something. But she still managed to give some very sharp looks. Clearly she knew something. Whitman went over the last day and a half in his mind, trying to figure out how much she could’ve seen.

“So why are we here?” Tron asked. “Because, if it’s not pressing, I could really use a nap.”

Damn right he could use a nap. They all could. If Whitman looked half as worn around the edges as Kivi did, it was amazing that they weren’t both accusing him of having one foot in the grave.

M
aybe he did. He was feeling it. God damn but he was feeling it. He’d always been pretty aware of his body; long as he could remember he could tell when he was getting sick and had a pretty good idea how bad it was going to be. It wasn’t a special skill or magic power or anything. Weren’t nothing that’d earn him a scrap of anything. Far as he was concerned, anyone could do it if they just paid attention to themselves a bit more and the drama around them a bit less. Bodies gave clues all the time, he was just good at noticing them. What he was feeling now, nothing good was going to come of it. He was already coughing up blood, and he was pretty damn sure the worst hadn’t come just yet. This bug, whatever it was, it was holding back something big to hit him with. Whitman wasn’t sure he had it in him to weather something big.

Ruben had worked too hard for too long to end up just another body in that room. And to get taken down by some sneaky little bacteria? How did a man fight back against that? He didn’t. It wasn’t right. Fair was a concept Whitman stopped believing in a long time ago, but it just wasn’t right. He’d done what he could to be an ok man. If he had to die, and he sure as shit didn’t want to do that, but if he had to it should be like a man. Fighting, running, shooting. Blowing up or taking a bullet in a proper firefight. Not that he’d had too many of those. Not since he’d gotten out.

He was terrified. Every second he let himself think about the blood coming up out of his lungs, he wanted to run through the Lucy screaming. Maybe hurl himself out the airlock. Whitman didn’t want to die gasping – the last day had shaken lose any doubts about that – but just about anything was better than dying from the inside out. Anything to keep himself out of that room. Every time he let his eyes close for more than a second, he saw himself laying on top of one of those piles, the stench of his rotting corpse mingling with a hundred others. He’d bloat and rot and no one would remember him. Maybe Jemma for a while, when the money dried up. Sophie Anne would be sad for a while. But the longer they went without hearing how he ended, the less they’d think of him. He’d just be one small part of that mass of rotten meat, a part that no one really missed.

So yeah. He needed a nap. But he sure as hell didn’t want one. Keeping his mind out of that screaming nightmare required vigilance and distraction. That meant staying awake until he was too tired to dream. He might be getting close, but he wasn’t there yet.

Besides, there actually was something to do.

“We got to get out of this debris
. You want to learn to fly this heap or not?”

Whitman wasn’t sure when he’d decided he was going to teach Tron after all. Maybe it was guilt over locking the guy out of
navigation. It was the right decision. He’d kept the doors open too long already, waiting. He’d done what he could to increase the guy’s chances on the outside, and Tron had made it through, so it was the right call. But that didn’t mean Whitman didn’t know what a shitty move it was. As bad as Big Benny and the gun. Or maybe it was just hearing how the kid dealt with the lockout and what he’d done to save them all. Probably, it was just because of that awareness of how sick he was and the gnawing fear of where it might be leading. Whatever it was, Whitman had changed his mind.

He wouldn’t teach them both. Oh, he could offer. And they could think about it. If they said Kivi was going to learn too, he’d even make a show at getting her up to speed. But teaching her was time wasted, and he thought they knew it as well as he did. Whitman had seen what she’d done on that panel, and he knew what it meant. He’d heard of geniuses before, even thought he’d met one or two over the years, but he was staring it in the face now. He was absolutely certain she’d learn everything she needed to know by listening in, all on her own, without him giving her a single bit of instruction. He’d never be sure how good at it she was that way, of course, but Whitman was pretty confident she’d turn out to be better at
whatever she put that mind of hers to than Tron. Maybe even better than him. So no, he wasn’t going to play teacher to Kivi. She could take care of herself.

The two exchanged a look. Whitman might’ve thought it was Tron asking for permission, back when he first let them in. He sti
ll thought there was an element of that to it, but he knew it was more than that now. He’d muted his mic and listened in to some of their conversations. Not all of them. Whenever they started getting into things that sounded like deep dark secrets, he’d flick off onto another station for a while. Listening at all, especially without their knowing, put him solidly in the asshole category and he knew it. But he needed to know what kind of trouble might be waiting for him from them, if they survived. He also wanted to make sure the guy was breathing. Whitman wanted to do everything he could to keep Tron alive, and if he couldn’t he wanted to know the exact second he became a murderer. So he knew full well that the two had done some quality bonding. It was no mystery why Tron was into her. Kivi was the only girl left in his whole universe. Besides, even if you discounted the creepers who would be into the little kid look, she was plenty special enough to win a heart or two.

All of that was in that look they shared. Asking permission, sure, but not permission to say yes. Tron was going to say yes, and they all knew it. He’d fought to get the instruction, and Whitman knew he was still desperate for self-reliance. Couldn’t blame the boy for that either. No, this look was more like he was asking her how alone she was going to feel, if he stopped paying attention to her. They’d been through a hell of a lot, those two. If Whitman was afraid of the horrors waiting beh
ind his eyelids, he didn’t even want to try imagining what was waiting for either of them to have a few moments of uninterrupted thought. Would be worse than hell, that. And Whitman couldn’t fault either one of them for worrying about getting lost in that.

Kivi nodded. Just a bit. Fraction of an inch, really. Whitman saw it, even though he was pretty sure he wasn’t meant to. Tron arrived at his side a minute later. He heard the girl settling in to the spot she’d occupied during most of the previous lessons, in the far right corner.

“We’re all exhausted,” Tron muttered lowly. “How long do you think this is going to take?”

Whitman eyed the boy and was surprised by what he saw. It wasn’t a threat or recrimination. It looked to be an honest assessment followed by an equally honest question. It wasn’t what he’d expected. Anger, hatred, a deep need for vengeance, those he was prepared for. Instead it was an open acceptance of whatever his verdict might be. It threw him off.

How long? How long would it be until the nightmares were gone? But there was more to these new lessons than just that. Ruben needed to get Tron ready to fly this clunker, and he needed to do it fast. Before the disease growing inside him gathered up enough strength for the big wave of bad he knew was coming. “Won’t be long now.”