"How do you know?"
"Because I lay there on the floor playing dead, watching them loot the place, and that's all they bloody well took."
"We heard that they systematically ran through the place executing everyone they found alive," Sean said.
Yana shook her head. "There was no need of that. I think they did make sure of a few of the crew, but the station commander and supply officer just happened, by pure coincidence mind you, to be visiting another ship that day. My ship. It had just transferred supplies, and I was bringing fresh recruits over to familiarize them with a Class One station and demonstrate some of the equipment. I-um- I was just showing them how the snorkel worked."
"The what?" Scan asked, leaning forward.
Her voice had been clear and matter-of-fact so far, but suddenly she was having trouble forcing it above a whisper. Her throat began to spasm and she started coughing again. Scan held out the bottle of Clodagh's medicine, and she took a good swig before she continued.
"The snorkel. It's for short repair jobs in airless sections of the ship, so that you don't have to suit up. There's an exchange unit in it that returns oxygen for CO2, breath for breath, without the need to carry heavy tanks or wear a full space suit that might be too bulky to do some of the inside repairs in tighter places. Also, you can send snorkeled personnel into certain areas of the ship without having to flood the whole area with O2. New invention. They discovered the exchange material on Bremer."
She stopped and watched him. She had lit the lamp earlier, and now its glow and that of the moons and stars through the window illuminated the room. The planes of his face were shadowed, and his eyes held hers, silently pulling more out of her. The tension was broken when the cat jumped up onto her knees and settled down, purring, as if knowing she needed reassurance that she was here, on firm ground, with living people and in no immediate danger, instead of back there.
He nodded slowly, an almost imperceptible movement.
"I stepped back into an air lock with the mask in place and let the inner door close. The students were looking through the view plate and watching me on the screens on either side of the door, as I explained the mask to them.
"I saw the vapor pouring in through the ventilation duct before any of them did, but I couldn't speak to them because of the snorkel. I signaled them to stand back and hit the O2 button for the lock, waited a beat, and hit the exit panel for the door. But then I realized the vapor was pouring in behind me, too. 1 heard an explosion-felt it really-and the door jammed half-open between us. The recruits were coughing and crowding the outer door."
She stopped for a moment and took a swig of cough syrup, seeing the faces in front of her. "An eighteen-year-old girl blocked my way back into the hold. She was trying to get through to the outside, I guess, and was coughing so hard she couldn't straighten up. People were vomiting, crying. The girl's nametag said Samuel-son and she had almost white hair, cut into a crew cut. You know, trying to look the part of a company cadet. Her scalp was bright red through her hair, and her eyes were bulging. I exhaled into the mask, tore it off, and tried to wrestle it over her face, but she fought me. I-uh-had to knock her down to get past her, into the room. I put the mask back on and breathed into it but the O2 that came back wasn't pure. I must have let some of the gas leak in while I was trying to rebreathe her. The yellow vapor was still swirling, and through it I saw the viewscreens. Masked figures were running around, carrying weapons and containers, grabbing all the new supplies. My first thought was that they were station crew investigating the gas in the ventilation system. But that didn't jibe with the weapons and the way they were ignoring the people dying under their feet. I tried buddy-breathing with the nearest cadet who still had some life in him, and he seemed to realize what I was trying to do, but when he breathed into the mask, it fouled it, and he died too. They all died. Every damned one of them died and I just lay there, playing dead, on the floor breathing through the contaminated mask, exhaling the gas and CO2, sucking in poisoned oxygen while the terrorists ran through the station. The alarms were blaring and the station computer calling for help, but the last thing I saw was the masked face of one of the terrorists through the viewport leading to the main corridor.
She looked surprised to see us lying in there. I had my face against the floor so the mask wouldn't show, and I was wedged among the cadets' bodies. I did-not-cover myself with glory."
She didn't realize until he pulled a rag out of his pocket and wiped her face that she had been weeping. She took the rag from him and scrubbed at her face vigorously, not wanting undeserved sympathy.
He withdrew gently, asking, "How did you get out?"
"The station computer alerted the ship's computer, and they sent medical teams and oxygen. It can't have taken very long, any of it, but I was unconscious by then. I woke up at Andromeda Station, unable to move. I was on an automatic respirator. Four or five of us survived, I understand, but we weren't allowed to meet. Once we were well enough to talk, we were questioned for weeks about how we managed to survive the others. At first I think they thought I was in league with the terrorists. But then some of the administrators on Bremer got scared and turned over the terrorists. We were exonerated, they were executed…" She shrugged, at a loss for any more to say. "Some song, huh?"
This time he rose from the bed and put his arms around her. She tried not to cry, not to play for sympathy. She had no need of it. But she developed a very sudden and crucial need for being held against Sean Shongili-since he had volunteered.
"I-urn, I can't tell you anything specific about the kids from Petaybee," she said into his shoulder.
He hugged her more tightly and she relaxed into him, closing her eyes, relieved to have talked about it. Relieved that so far he hadn't told her what she should have done instead of what she had done to save the kids who were in her charge.
He surprised her then by saying, "Get dressed."
"What?"
"You're not tired, are you?"
"I wouldn't want to try to go to sleep now, no," she said, wiping her face with the heels of her hands so she could look him in the eye.
"I want to take you somewhere."
"Where?"
"A place we use for cleansing. Come on."
She pulled on her quilted pants and parka, her mittens, hat, and muffler, and stuck the cough medicine back in her pocket.
"Let's take this, too," Scan said, sticking the recorder into his own pocket.
"You don't still think I could sing…"
"We'll see what you think," he said, prodding her toward the door with a hand that lingered between the bottom of her cap and her folded-down hood, at the base of her hairline. A rush of longing for him made her feel weak-kneed and ashamed at the same time, as if she were exploiting the tragedy to hold his attention.
She sat with him in the cab of his snocle, the motor obscenely loud in the silent village. In a moment they were through it, past Bunny's sleeping dogs and Clodagh's house, past the company station and out onto the snowy plain.
The machine slid over the snow and parted drifts, spraying white glitter in its wake, the engine's hum the only sound, as if they were riding the wind. After a few moments Sean leaned forward and pointed up, and she looked above her to see a long weaving band of rainbow-striped feathers undulating across the sky like the warbonnet of an old-time cinematic warrior.
They watched and rode in silence. A big cat sprang away from them; then the lights of their snocle snared a wolf and they had to tack around him to keep from injuring him. They didn't really need the lights, it seemed to Yana. The snow reflected back the light from the moons and stars and the aurora, casting deep shadows against which prominent objects were etched in a sharp relief. For the first time, she saw that the settlement was within sight of hills and mountains, off to the east and southeast. They passed between the first pair of hills and cut behind them, following a winding pass that didn't assail the mountains directly, but nudged gently into them. Within this shelter was more of the vegetation she had seen along the river, tall conifers and a great deal of brush.