When she got there she found that she had missed the worst of the rush, and she didn’t have long to stand in line. She chatted idly to Si Davis as she waited, exchanging small talk, deliberately skirting the big issues. Si was as rude and ebullient as ever, and he fell into a general and obscenity-littered rant about The Company — a favourite subject of his. Lina let him run, smiling and nodding at sympathetic intervals, until he reached the front of the queue.
Amy Stone, sitting behind one of the grimy canteen tables with a datasheet in front of her, smiled a thin, efficient little smile that was virtually devoid of actual warmth, and said, ‘Good morning, Simon.’
‘Hey, er, Amy,’ replied Si in his usual, inappropriately booming voice. ‘What’s for brekkie?’ Lina knew as well as he did what was for breakfast, having waited while a small stream of hungry prospectors all received identical rations from the glum-looking Jayce, who stood behind Amy’s left shoulder.
‘Bread, de-hy eggs, coffee, powdered milk,’ recited Amy robotically.
‘Mmm!’ enthused Si falsely, rubbing his stomach. ‘Thanks, Farsight!’
Amy stared at him levelly. It was a stare that Lina thought could probably have wilted a flower, and indeed it had this effect on Si, whose grin faltered and then slid clean off his face. ‘My name is Amy,’ she said. ‘Not Farsight. And we’re all in this together, Simon.’
‘Er, sure. . .’ he answered, trying to avoid her eye. Lina suppressed the urge to giggle. Amy was pure battleaxe, but Lina rather liked that about her. She took no prisoners.
‘Jayce,’ Amy said over her shoulder, and Jayce stepped forwards, looking apologetic, holding Si’s meagre breakfast rations in a single shrink-wrapped bundle. Si took the parcel without further comment then squeezed past Lina and out of the canteen, looking somewhat crestfallen.
Lina received her own parcel and took it back to her quarters, finding Marco in exactly the posture and position she had left him. She busied herself reconstituting eggs and toasting bread (burning bread, in the case of the first slice) then called Marco through to the table. Surprisingly, he heard her and came happily enough, presumably propelled by his stomach despite the unexciting promise of the new rationing regime. He seemed to be in fair spirits as he ate, wolfing his own food and then finishing Lina’s, which she pretended not to want so that he wouldn’t feel bad about it. She wondered how long the station’s supplies were going to last, dished out in these conservative increments. Presumably someone had calculated that they would be okay until the next shuttle. Her mind kept trying to ask her what if that one didn’t come, but she drowned out thought with small talk.
As soon as Marco had put his fork down and wiped his chin with his sleeve — a gesture that, as a mother, Lina found it hard to approve of — there was a knock on the door.
‘I’ll get it,’ Lina said, already rising.
She opened the door, half expecting bad news of some sort, and was thus pleasantly surprised to find a grinning Eli standing there, hands deep in the pockets of his traditional flight suit.
‘Hey,’ he said simply, walking past her with the unquestioning confidence of a long-time friend. Lina shut the door and followed him back inside.
‘Eli!’ cried Marco with undisguised pleasure. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Oh, you know,’ said Eli, twisting one of the dining chairs around and sitting on it backwards, elbows resting on the backrest. ‘Functioning as normal, pretty much, despite the company’s attempts to inflict malnutrition on me. And you guys?’
‘Oh, you know, bearing up,’ answered Lina for the both of them. Eli shot her a look, which although brief, said it all. They were all bearing up because they had to. Death in the family, missing shuttle, emergency rations. . . What could they do but just carry on?
‘Is the game still on?’ Marco asked, missing the significance of the moment, or else choosing to ignore it. He looked innocently up into Eli’s weathered face.
‘Er, no, champ, it’s cancelled actually,’ answered Eli apologetically.
Lina glanced back at the window behind her, where asteroids drifted like ghost ships. There, she thought. That’s where all the trouble has come from. That damn belt. First you kill Sal, then you take our shuttle — I don’t know how I know that, but I do — and now you’ve taken my son’s football game away. I hate you. And we’re going to leave you before you hurt us any more.
‘Ohhh. . .’ groaned Marco, childish disappointment creasing his face. A few years ago that expression would have been the prelude to tears, but now he simply sighed and shook his head, suppressing his disappointment.
‘I thought maybe you and I could go down into Bay Seven and have a kick-around, just the two of us, instead.’
Lina’s heart bloomed with warmth at that — Eli was, as she had said herself, one of the good guys.
‘Yeah!’ exclaimed Marco, coming alive again instantly. But his expression became suspicious quickly. ‘Is that allowed, though? Nobody’s supposed to go in there, I thought. Only specially authorised games, right?’
‘Well that’s right, buddy,’ agreed Eli, helping himself to the coffee that Lina had left on the table — cold, now, as well as disgusting — and draining it in one gulp. ‘But we have special authorisation, you and I.’ He puffed his chest out importantly. ‘I have friends,’ he said grandly, ‘in high places.’
‘Cool! Nice one, Eli! Can we go now?’ Marco was already up out of his seat.
Eli arched an eyebrow at Lina, who felt herself beaming back at him. ‘Sure, go on,’ she said. ‘You kids have fun.’
‘Thanks, Mum!’
‘Yeah, thanks, Mum!’ Eli imitated. ‘Got your ball handy, Marco?’
Marco dashed out of the room to get it.
Eli turned to Lina, his battered face concerned. ‘So how you really doing?’ he asked, sotto voce.
Lina looked into his soft grey eyes and saw her own worries mirrored there. ‘As I said — bearing up. Scared, sad. . . You know. . . the air, it’s. . . I. . . I want to take Marco to Platini,’ she stammered, unaware that she had intended to tell him this, and suddenly feeling an inexplicable pang of guilt, as if she was admitting some secret and perverse desire. Part of her wanted to scream, The tooth! I saw Sal’s tooth bounce off the screen of my ship! I saw her fucking tooth, Eli, and that was it for me, that was the end of the line! I simply cannot take it any more! She felt tears welling in her eyes and squeezed them shut until she knew it was safe to open them again.
Eli was nodding slowly, staring back at her, and she felt that she was seeing through a mask, seeing the real man behind the laughter lines. He was becoming an old man — even he was not invulnerable. This thought strengthened her resolve. Time had moved on, but it was still not too late for her to make a change. She hoped.
‘I think you should,’ Eli said, and Lina felt a genuine gratitude swell inside her.
Just then, Marco’s football flew into the room, rebounding off one of the wall-cupboards, making Lina jump. It was followed by Marco himself, who stopped it deftly with one foot. His face was grinning beneath his mass of golden curls, and he looked like any kid without a care in the world.
‘Come on then!’ Marco yelled, apparently surprised to see Eli still sitting at the table.
‘Right!’ Eli exclaimed, leaping up with a lightness that Lina knew was at least partly artificial. ‘Later, Lina.’ He cuffed her on the arm, kicked his chair back in, and went to the door.
Marco ran around the table and gave her a brief hug. ‘See you, Mum,’ he said.