Why?
Because I’ve loved you since then.
Jenks knew a thing or two about time. It was hard to be a tunneler and not pick up some of the basics. Time was a malleable thing, not the measured click that clocks would have you believe. Whenever the ship punched, Ohan had to be sure they came back out in the right time, as if it were all mapped out backwards and forwards and side-to-side, an infinite number of stories that had already been written. Time could crawl, it could fly, it could amble. Time was a slippery thing. It couldn’t be defined.
And yet, somehow, he knew with absolute certainty that this was the longest ten minutes of his life.
Lovey’s core was dark. The yellow light that had warmed his skin so many times had been snuffed out a short while before, right as he flipped the final switch. Kizzy sat beside him, her eyes fixed on her scrib’s clock, silently mouthing the seconds, holding his hand tightly. He could feel her heartbeat, fluttering like a bird’s wing against the thud of his own.
The rest of the crew stood behind him—all except Ohan, who had not left his bed since the punch. Sissix, Ashby, Rosemary, and Dr. Chef all stood in a silent vigil near the doorway, wordless and tense. Corbin was there, too, hanging back at the edge of the hallway. Jenks felt he should be grateful, but there was something uncomfortable about having all of them there in the place that had always belonged to him and Lovey. He felt naked. Flayed. He didn’t know if it would be better or worse to do this alone. He didn’t know anything, nothing beyond the countdown on Kizzy’s scrib, and the one phrase that kept pulsing through his mind: Lovey, wake up. Lovey, wake up. Lovey, wake up.
“Twenty seconds,” Kizzy said. She gave his hand a fast squeeze and met his eyes. There was something fierce there, as if she were trying to protect him just by looking. He reached out to the main control panel, to the three switches that he had only touched twice before—once three standards back when he had installed Lovey, then again nine minutes and twenty eight seconds ago. He took the first switch in his fingers. The mantra continued: Lovey, wake up. Lovey, wake up. Lovey, wake up.
“Fifteen seconds.”
Fifty percent chance. Better odds than playing flash, and he always won at flash.
“Ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven…”
Maybe the odds were better than that. Of course they were. They had to be. They had to be.
Wake up.
The hard clack of the switches echoed through the room. At first, nothing. That was okay. That was to be expected. He walked toward the core. The rest of the crew melted away, shadows in the corridor. There was nothing but him and the pale glow growing within the core, like a planetside sunrise stretching through fog. The glow spread, blooming brightly, stretching out beyond the curved boundaries of the core. He could feel the faint edges of its warmth on his skin, inviting, familiar. There was a clicking near the ceiling as Lovey’s cameras twitched themselves into new alignments. She was waking up.
He knew that sound. He knew that glow. A tiny smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Lovey?”
There was a pause. Out of the corners of his eyes, he could see the camera lenses shift toward him. She spoke.
“Hello. My name is Lovelace. It’s nice to meet you.”
Day 158, GC Standard 307
STAYING, LEAVING
Ashby sat at his desk, staring out the window, trying to get it into his head that it wasn’t his fault. He’d thought the words over and over, but they refused to stick. What did stick were all the things he could’ve done instead. He could’ve asked more questions. He could’ve called one of the carriers the minute that Toremi ship showed up. He could’ve turned down the job.
Quiet footsteps came down the hallway. There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” he said.
Rosemary entered. Her eyes were still shadowed, and rimmed with red. “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, her voice tired.
He sat up. “Jenks?”
She shook her head. “They’re still trying.”
“Dammit.” Ashby sighed. After the reset, Jenks had jumped in the nearest escape pod. Sissix and Kizzy were chasing him down in the shuttle, trying to bring him home. They’d been gone a long time. He tried not to speculate on what that meant. “What’s up, then?” he said.
“I just got off a sib call.” She looked down at the notes on her scrib. “One of the representatives on that committee you mentioned. Tasa Lema Nimar, she’s the rep from Sohep Frie.”
Ashby raised his eyebrows. “You talked to her?”
“No, just her clerk.”
“Why didn’t you transfer it here?”
“It came in through the control room.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t know how to transfer sib calls manually.”
Ashby shut his eyes and nodded. An hour ago, he’d come up from the AI core, decided to write to Pei about it, and got halfway through asking Lovey how close they were to the nearest comm relay. So many little things he’d taken for granted. “What did they want?”
“They want you on Hagarem in a tenday.”
“For questions?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it mandatory?”
“No.”
He stood and walked to the window. “You sent in our report, right?”
“Yes, they got it.”
Ashby stroked his beard. He needed to shave. He needed to sleep. He’d tried that a little while before. It hadn’t worked out. “I don’t see what else I could tell them.” He looked around his office. A light panel was out. The air filter clicked oddly. “We need to be resting in dock for a while, not hopping to Parliament space.”
“We can dock at Hagarem.”
“There’s too much to do. I need to be here, with my ship.”
“Your ship will be fine without you for a day or so. The worst of it’s patched up already, and it’s not like you’re the one who’ll be fixing circuits.”
“You think I should go.”
“Why shouldn’t you?”
“What would it accomplish? I can’t tell them anything that isn’t in our report. I didn’t see anything. I didn’t do anything. How many GC ships are in pieces out there right now? How many people are dead? What the hell am I supposed to say about that? And if they want some victim to parade around, well, that’s not me, either.” He exhaled, shaking his head. “I’m just a spacer, I’m not Parliament material.”
“Stars, Ashby, that’s such Exodan bullshit.”
He turned toward her, slowly, stunned. “Excuse me?”
Rosemary swallowed, but pressed on. “I’m sorry, but I don’t care what you are to them. You’re my captain. You’re our captain. Someone needs to speak for us. What, we’re supposed to patch up and carry on like nothing happened? Lovey’s dead, Ashby, and it’s pure luck that the rest of us aren’t. You said it yourself, we shouldn’t have been there. So I don’t care if what you say is of use to them or not, but I need to know you said something.” She brushed her fingertips across her eyes, irritably flicking away tears. “To hell with Parliament, and their treaties, and their ambi, and all of it. The rest of us matter, too.” She took a quick breath, trying to brace herself. “I’m sorry, I’m just so angry.”
He nodded. “It’s all right.”
“I’m so fucking angry,” she said, placing her face in her hand.
“I know. You’ve every reason to be.” He watched her, for a moment. He thought again of all the things he could’ve done. He thought of what he could do now. He walked to her. “Hey.” He craned his head down, trying to catch her gaze. She looked up, eyes puffy and exhausted. “You’re going to sleep,” he said. “Right now. For as long as you can. When you’re up, and fed, come see me. I’ll need your help.”