‘Hey, Eli,’ said Marco, looking up at him.
Eli ruffled Marco’s hair affectionately, a gesture that the boy wouldn’t tolerate from anybody else, then he leant in close to Lina and whispered in her ear, ‘Did you. . .’
‘Tell him?’ she asked equally quietly. ‘Yeah, I did.’
‘Oh good–’ said Eli, but he was hushed by a chorus of cat-calls and jeers as a severely crumpled Nik Sudowski entered from the stairwell, trying ineffectually to wave the crowd into silence.
Some wag, probably Si Davis, yelled, ‘You crap the bed or something, Nik?’
Sudowski shook his head tiredly and pushed his way towards the back of the crowd, where Lina supposed he hoped to fade from the collective mind as soon as possible.
Halman cleared his throat, a noise as loud as a gunshot, making her jump, and puffed his chest out. ‘RIGHT!’ he bellowed, and silence fell immediately.
Here were all of the inhabitants of Macao Station, barring a couple of the sec-team who had stayed behind at the prison and, of course, the prisoners themselves — over a hundred disparate frontiers-people, around a dozen children among them. Many of them were lifelong associates, and all of them were members of the station’s extended family. Although they practically filled the grey and shadowy space of the plaza, the most open public area available on Macao, they looked a desperately small and tenuous pocket of life, a fragile bubble of humanity crammed into one little corner of this hurtling tin-can which spun mechanically on the isolated boundary of known space. And now we are one less, a little voice in Lina’s mind reminded her darkly. That voice, so often a nagging, negative little voice, sometimes sounded like Jaydenne. But now it sounded like Sal Newman. Lina wished she’d taken painkillers before coming out.
Halman looked around the assembled group, wearing his serious-business-face, catching the eye of each in turn. ‘Thanks for coming,’ he said, then paused, unsure of how to really begin. ‘Let’s not fuck arou–,’ he stumbled over the obscenity, before righting himself. ‘Let’s not beat around the bush here,’ he corrected himself. ‘We’ve had a few problems over the last couple of days. Most of you have probably heard what’s going on already, but I just wanted to make sure that you’ve got the right of it.’ He looked out at the earnest, enquiring faces that stared back at him. Lina felt for him a little — she knew he hated public speaking. He glanced to Amy Stone, who looked tiny next to him. She nodded seriously, and he seemed to rally again. ‘I’d like everyone to be equipped with the truth rather than second-hand gossip from The Miner’s.’
‘Hey!’ objected Gregor, raising a hand in protest. Lina turned to see him. He was standing at the back with an unlit cigar clenched in his teeth, the typically swarthy deep-space roughneck.
Halman grunted a brief laugh, but Lina thought it sounded purely dutiful. ‘No offence, Gregor,’ he said, raising his own hand in return. And then, more serious again, and to everyone: ‘There was an accident in the belt last night, on Eli’s shift. I’m sure everyone has already heard, but here’s how it actually happened: Sal’s mining ship, K6-8, having passed a thorough pre-flight, bumped a rock, which pierced the hull and caused an explosive decompression.’ He scanned the rapt faces before him. Silence reigned. ‘She was killed instantly.’
Lina remembered that cry for help, that small frightened voice saying, simply Eli! and then the scream, and she knew that it hadn’t been instant, not really. Quick, perhaps, but not instant. Sal had had long enough to be afraid, even to feel pain — to die in fear and pain. She felt her lip begin to tremble and bit down on it, hard. She had already cried in front of her boy once today and she was determined not to make it twice.
‘There is nothing I can say that will have any bearing on the depth of the loss that we feel, as a family, as crewmates and as friends of hers. We do not know how the safety systems of Sal Newman’s Kay came to fail, and all Kays are now grounded until the ground-crew, myself, and Nik’s people are satisfied that they are safe.’
‘Then how come,’ somebody asked from near the back, ‘they were flying again last night?’
There was a rumble of noise at this, a general hubbub of questions and contradictions. Halman held up one hand until it died away.
‘Ilse Reno’s shift took their Kays out last night to clear the wreckage from the crash, and to try and find out anything they could about what happened.’
‘That’s right,’ said Ilse loudly. She was leaning against one rust-stained wall, her arms folded across her small chest. She looked around defiantly, her hard face up-tilted, her brows drawn together. Her eye-implant glowed cherry-red in the shadows. ‘And if any of you has issue with that, be aware that my guys insisted, as did I. This is Sal Newman we’re talking about here! Any of you shitheads think we should have just left her remains drifting in the belt?’ She waited, inviting response, her chin jutting defiantly. Despite her generally fearsome appearance, she was beautiful in that moment, thought Lina — proud and fierce. Unsurprisingly, nobody answered her. ‘I thought not,’ she said, relaxing back.
Halman took a deep breath. ‘Thank you, Ilse,’ he said neutrally. ‘Yes, well, as of now all Kays are grounded until further notice.’ Halman nodded at Eli, who had his hand up. ‘Yes?’
Eli’s face was more creased than usual. He looked like a sheet that needed shaking out. ‘How, then, are we going to keep the station spinning, with no mineral income?’ he asked. ‘I thought we’d be stepping it up, if anything, because of. . . well. . .’ he trailed off, shaking his head.
‘Because they’ve lost the fucking shuttle!’ someone shouted from the crowd. Lina glanced back over her shoulder, but couldn’t tell who it was. Marco looked round nervously, too.
‘Yeah, and we have to pay for it, right?’ piped up the angry-sounding Jayce, one of Ella Kown’s sec-team.
‘As for the shuttle. . .’ shouted Halman, overriding the noise. ‘As for the shuttle, we simply don’t know where it’s got to. We still hope to receive it any day now, but we have to prepare for the possibility that we may not.’ These words, from the station controller himself, fell like bombs among the assembled listeners, but bombs that spread shockwaves of stunned silence. Everybody had known that this might be the case — most people had suggested as much, at least in private — but to hear it said aloud, and by Halman, somehow made it real. ‘We have to prepare for the possibility that the next shuttle we receive will be a year from now, rather than a day or two. Personally, I still think it’ll turn up, but honestly that’s just a gut feeling. Supplies are going to be rationed, except for what we can grow here in the aeroponics lab. That means we’ll have to–’
‘Develop a fondness for salad!’ Si Davis interjected, somewhat inappropriately, Lina thought.
‘–we’ll have to collect all company-issued food supplies you have, centralise those supplies, inventorise everything, and ration it back out accordingly.’ There was an uproar of noise at this, part resigned groan and part open refusal, but Halman persisted. ‘Listen, if this seems a little Big Brother, I’m sorry, but we really have no choice. If the shuttle doesn’t come, we’re gonna starve if we don’t pool resources and share. And by the way, this is not a suggestion, it’s an order from my office. And it’s one that the sec-team will enforce if necessary.’
Lina felt Marco’s small frame tense against her. His cool, trembling hand found hers and held onto it tightly. She could feel the fear coming through his skin in icy waves. ‘It’s okay,’ she whispered into his ear. Eli glanced at Lina. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him look the least bit scared before, but that was how he looked now. Just a bit, but it was there. She didn’t like it at all. Eli swallowed heavily and looked back to Halman.