He was saved. Literally. In memory.
“Anyone else?” Conrad asked anxiously, turning to survey the room. But all the other boys were shaking their heads, hiding their hands. No sir, not me.
“Sure?” he pressed, an edge of humor finally creeping into his voice. But there were no takers, and Conrad had begun to feel distinctly light on his feet. He turned toward the navigation room. The bridge, he supposed they should call it. “Hey Bascal, how low is this gravity going to get?”
“Zero!” Bascal called back, sounding annoyed. “Enjoy it while it lasts!”
Oh. Right. As they drew away from the sila’a, as its laser brightness faded and dimmed, there was nothing to push them, no source of acceleration. Conrad had known this, and yet somehow he’d been visualizing them all walking around in here for two months. Not drifting, not floating. Because it was a log cabin, he supposed. Because it had such a definite floor and ceiling, and belonged on the ground.
In that moment, it dawned on him that he really did have an impulse problem. He had a brain but wasn’t using it, and as a result everything—even the obvious things—kept coming to him as nasty surprises. Hell, they didn’t have any facilities in here for zero gravity. How were they going to sleep? To store things? To use the toilet? Now there was an unpleasant thought! And what had all these other kids been thinking? Disbelieving in the entire scheme, never thinking it would really happen? That, or relying on Bascal to work it all out. Or rather, Bascal and his team, meaning basically just Conrad, since Bascal didn’t care and nobody else seemed to worry much how anything worked. Except Peter, whom they’d left behind on the planette.
“Oh boy,” he said to Xmary. “This is going to be a hell of a trip.”
The illusion of gravity dropped away over the next several minutes while Conrad pointed and gestured and spoke urgently, throwing together impromptu work details to clean up the things that had already fallen and broken, and to lash everything else down, and to come up with covers and hoods for the bathroom fixtures before things could get any worse in there. By the time they were twenty minutes into the flight, gravity was down to a tenth of a gee, and they were all dancing giddily on air.
It didn’t surprise Conrad when people ignored him. What did surprise him was the ease and complicity with which most of them listened and, albeit in offhand and slipshod ways, obeyed. Was this because he was friends with Bascal? (Was he still friends with Bascal, and did he even want to be?) Or was it simply because there were obvious things that needed doing, and he was the only one pointing them out?
The fax proved willing to provide first-aid supplies— crafted from the atoms that had been Raoul Sanchez—so the nosebleeds were soon plugged and coagulated, the sprains iced, the bruises warmed and moistened. Tape bandages were wrapped around questionable limbs and joints, while skin sealants were applied to the many cuts and abrasions the boys had suffered. Anti-inflammatory medications were passed around liberally; the insults of heavy gee had spared no one.
Even Xmary had her share of ouches. Conrad found himself dabbing her middle back with sealant foam while she held the back of her shirt up over one shoulder with a bruisy-looking arm.
“Ow,” she said.
“Sorry. I’m almost done.”
“Does it look bad?”
“It looks painful,” Conrad admitted. The wound was a flap of skin the size of his pinkie nail, not especially bloody for some reason, but partly separated from the flesh beneath. He smoothed it back in place with the sealant, then blew on it to hasten its drying, all the while acutely conscious of the smoothness of her skin. “What did you do?”
“Fell,” she said. “The edge of the mattress caught me.”
“A mattress did this? Gods.”
“Yeah.” She lowered her shirt.
“What the fucky hell?” said Ho Ng’s voice. Conrad turned, and saw Ho there glowering in the doorway.
“What?” he asked, mostly innocently.
Ho stepped forward. “Who said you could touch the princess?”
“What princess?”
“He’s sealing a cut,” Xmary snapped, standing up and straightening her clothing. This effort proved both difficult and elaborate; what little “gravity” they had left was gently pulling things to the floor, but any movement would kick it all up again. She bounced several times on her toes before settling to the floor again, and Conrad couldn’t help but notice the loose jiggle of her small breasts, and wonder what they looked like under there. She gestured around her with an arm—another elaborate effort. “Use your eyes, Ho. We’ve got casualties.”
“I’ll use my eyes,” he said, staring her up and down with creepy lust, humorless and undisguised.
She glided toward him like a ballerina, and managed to stop gracefully, right in his face. “Watch yourself.”
If it was a staring contest, she won it right away; Ho turned his glare on Conrad. “Don’t touch her again.”
“Or what?” he couldn’t help asking. Shooting his mouth off again, yes, heedless of consequence. How many losing battles had he fought for the sake of these verbal jabs? Not that Ho could punch him or kick him or grapple him, not in the immediate presence of two Palace Guards. If rumors were any guide, the things could not only move fast enough to generate whipcracks and sonic booms, but could sense the intention of violence before the fact, could read it in the brain and the nerves and the tensing of muscles. Tazzing a punch was one thing, but how would they respond to an impending act of genuine malice?
Conrad was tired of Ho. If he could fight, it might be better to just get it over with, and give this fucker something to think about next time. On the other hand, he was under no illusion that he could win the fight, or that standing up for himself would magically end the threats and humiliations. It’d make them worse, probably.
Damn it, he’d waited long enough for his fear to kick in. Real fear. It was balanced by anger, what with Peter abandoned to the elements and Raoul stuffed in a fax machine and used for buffer mass. And balanced also by lust and pride; in front of Xmary, who was probably the only girl for ten AU in every direction, he had no interest in looking timid.
“Or what?” he repeated, but his voice broke, betraying his fright. The room had gone silent, except for the gentle whirring of the Palace Guard as it turned its head to regard them.
Bascal appeared behind Ho, tapping him on the shoulder. “Boys,” he said. “Or rather, men! What’s this posturing all about?”
“He touched your woman,” Ho said, stepping aside without turning, his eyes still locked on Conrad.
Bascal took another step into the room. “Is this true?” The question was directed at Xmary, not Conrad.
“He was sealing a cut,” Xmary said. “We have a lot of injuries back here.”
“No doubt,” Bascal agreed, nodding vaguely. His eyes settled on Conrad. “Thank you for helping. In the future, though, try to check with me first. Or Ho. All right?”
“Um, sure,” Conrad said, keeping his tone neutral, though his cheeks grew hot. There was his answer: the pecking order had been rearranged. Conrad was no longer the prince’s confidant, Ho Ng was. The idea would be funny if it weren’t so sickening. “No concern.”
Bascal surveyed the room, taking note of the bandages and bloodstains. “Rough ride,” he said.