Yerusha opened her mouth to say, “And nobody tried to stop you?” But she remembered the place they were talking about and stopped herself.
“A freighter’s engineer took pity on me and then a tanker pilot did the same. They got me as far as Kilimanjaro Station. I was so lost.” He gave a small laugh. “I wasn’t even sure how to take a friendly suggestion, never mind how to follow a regulation. I didn’t even know how to buy something that had a fixed price.” His right had came out his pocket and he jerked his thumb towards the hatch. “Al Shei was apprenticing on the station. She found me trying to argue price with an auto-server.” His smile spread, becoming reminiscent. “She helped me out, gave me etiquette lessons, got me a job, after she convinced me that she didn’t have fangs under her hijab, that is.” Yerusha raised her eyebrows. Schyler mimicked the gesture. “All Muslims have fangs and are crazy terrorists, didn’t you know that? That’s one of the reasons the Liberty colonies have to exist, to keep Us Good Folks safe from Them.”
Yerusha chuckled. “I heard the exact same thing from an African Purist once.”
“I heard it from an Aryan.” His hand delved back into his pocket. “Anyway, when Al Shei offered me watch on board the Pasadena, I didn’t even think about saying no. I never got really good at…large groups. Too many rules, shifting all the time. A crew of sixteen and a place I knew like the back of my hand was just about what I could handle. As long as I’m here, I know who I am, who she is, and…” he paused. “Well, now I know who you are.” Schyler cycled the hatch open and left her sitting there.
Now that there was no one left to see, Yerusha wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees. You may know who I am, Watch, she thought. But I’m not so sure some days.
She had thought he was going to ask about her exile. It would have been natural. After all, he had just offered up his life’s story. Even while he was talking, Yerusha had found herself replaying that whole fractured day in her head.
Maybe he didn’t ask because he was from a Liberty colony. That was something else her freighter-boss had said; “You’re free to do anything you want, except ask another idiot what they’re doing.”
“Just as well,” she whispered to the empty room. “I didn’t want to tell him.”
She most definitely did not want to tell him how Kim and Thatcher had come to the duty station she shared with Holden and told her there was a conspiracy meeting going down with a group that wanted to create trouble for Port Oberon. She did not want to say how she’d heard these two were organizers for the quiet dole but had refused to believe it because they were candidates for the Senior Guard, just like she was. She had seen the fear in Holden’s eyes and had heard the tension in his voice as he all but begged her to stay at her post. She decided to ignore all that. She let Thatcher cover for her, and let Kim take her down to what proved to be an empty cargo hold and explain quietly that there were only so many openings for Senior, and it was position with so many possibilities for someone who knew how to really use it, that it couldn’t go to somebody like Yerusha. Not that this was just about her, of course. Holden had refused several very polite offers for promotion in the ranks of those who ran the dole, and they couldn’t have that either.
There was, of course, no reason for Yerusha to remain in such an uncomfortable position. There was plenty she could do to get out of it. She had a lot of ingenuity, and great prospects. All she had to do was accept a little extra credit on the side, for a few simple tasks.
Yerusha landed a punch on his throat, and ran back to her post. The alarms were blaring. Holden was screaming, and the pressure hatch swung shut. The airlock blew out and they never found the body.
Yerusha tried to tell them at trial. But, the cameras had been damaged in the blow out, and it was Kim and Thatcher’s words against her, and they had back-up alibis and she didn’t. She had deserted her post knowingly. She had failed to report in to her superiors. She had failed to assist in efforts to squash the quiet dole. A Freer had died because of her negligence. This was true. This was fact. Holden was dead when he didn’t have to be and it was her fault. She was phenomenally lucky the judges thought something unproven was going on, or her exile would have been permanent.
No, I don’t want to tell Schyler about all that. Nobody needs to know about that.
Yerusha picked herself up off the treadmill and pulled the towel away from the velcro. She could hear the faint buzz of Javerri’s mystery still playing itself out in the booth. She’d never had much use for interactives, but Javerri seemed to like them a lot. Maybe she could recommend a good one. Maybe it would help fill some of the extra hours.
“Intercom to Pilot!”
Yerusha started. The voice belonged to Phillipe Delasandros, Cheney’s relief.
“Pilot here, Del, what’s going on?”
There was a brief pause. “The proximity alarm, actually.”
It’s too soon. Too soon! Yerusha dropped the towel and bolted for the hatch. “I’m there!”
She barrelled out into the corridor, almost straight through Baldassare Sundar. She took the stairs two at a time and dove through the bridge hatch as soon as it opened wide enough for her body. The alarm filled the bridge with its steady, unmistakable wail.
Delasandros, heavily built and heavily freckled, jumped out of the Station One chair a split second before she threw herself into it.
She threw herself into her chair. “Strap in!” she bellowed to Del, who seem to have frozen in place.
The proximity alarm rang for only two reasons. The first was when the ship was in normal space and getting too close to something that might do it some damage, like another ship. The second was when it was close enough to a gravity well that it had to make the jump back into normal space, and nobody had done any of the manual preparations.
Which nobody had, because this wasn’t supposed to be happening for another four hours.
“Intercom to Pasadena!” She hauled her straps around herself. “Strap down! Strap down! We’re jumping in! I repeat…”
A green light in the corner of the board turned red. In the next second, the general security alarms began shrieking. The accumulators had already come to life. Yerusha’s stomach suddenly tried to crawl up her throat. Outside the window, the silver wall burst and she saw darkness.
Fractured, flawed, twisted, splintered… Yerusha stabbed at the keys and raised the cameras. The view screens flickered into life and displayed a meaningless array of stars against the vacuum. In the distance, on the port screen, burned a red cinder the size of her thumbnail. It was not the sun that belonged to the Vicarage’s system. It wasn’t even close.
All sensation left her hands and they slipped off the boards to dangle uselessly at her sides.
“Intercom to Pilot!” Schyler’s voice barked out of the intercom. “Report!”
“We’re lost.” She couldn’t force her voice above a whisper. “We’re lost.”
Schyler paused for a single heartbeat.
“Intercom to Engine!” he bawled. “Shut down acceleration to minimum! Intercom to Pasadena! All hands prepare for free fall!” She could hear the thud of footfalls and realized Schyler was running as he shouted.
The sharp orders gave Yerusha something to focus on. She automatically checked around her station, looking for loose objects that would need securing. She found none. She hit the catch on her chair, locking it into the grooves in the deck. Del had already secured his station and was turning nervous, over-sized eyes towards her.