Alone out here, p.23
Alone Out Here, page 23
Sergei, meanwhile, sits in silence at meetings with his arms crossed, glaring as Francisco delivers reports of our inspections. He’s stopped sitting with us in the canteen, instead joining a group of Medicine-track kids he knows from Child Psychology. The petition never leaves his hands, although he hasn’t managed to get the numbers high enough for a majority. In fact, after the attack on Eli, several people have asked him to take their names off the list. I often see him coming in and out of the ninth floor.
On the day Irina is released, she and Sergei start sitting together in the canteen, just the two of them, whispered about by most of the other tables. Irina seems fidgety but quiet. She keeps her head down during morning meeting and doesn’t try to talk to Sahir or Jayanti, although I see them sneaking glances at her during our psychology lecture. When I ask Sergei how Irina is doing before the evening’s meeting, he gives me a cold, suspicious look and a vague nonanswer. He’s giving Caro and Francisco the cold shoulder, too, although with Francisco it seems to be a matter of betrayal rather than judgment.
Still, as much as Sergei might loathe the inspections and Caro’s hunt for the door records, he attends every Council meeting at the end of each day. Maybe he doesn’t want us to forget his disapproval.
Unfortunately, there’s no end to the inspections in sight. The rover bay is still untouched, so the food must still be aboard, but we’ve checked not only the cabin floors at this point but the entire Residential Wing, plus the Menagerie and half the Catalog. We haven’t found the boxes of tablets, any sign of the food, or any evidence of who the thief might be.
The only semi-newsworthy event during inspections has been Anis’s refusal, which resolved itself quickly, in the end. Francisco went back to Anis’s cabin the morning after their confrontation, and he brought Pieter and Matteo along. At this point, according to Francisco, Anis rolled his eyes and let them in without a fight. Then he stood in the corner, arms folded, staring mutinously at them until they left. They found nothing.
I didn’t react to the story in front of the Council, but my body suffused with heat. I knew exactly what Anis was thinking, watching them root around in his room: In most countries, this would be illegal, and also you should be embarrassed about your lack of a social conscience.
But we haven’t spoken about it, because I haven’t been to the track since our non-conversation outside his door. During morning meetings I make sure never to look his way. In the canteen, I pass on the other side of the room to avoid the spot where he sits alone. Sometimes, though, seated several tables over, I think I feel him looking toward me. I wonder if he goes to the track at nights, waiting to see if I’ll show. Or maybe he’s so angry about the inspections that he’s finally given up on me. I know I’m the one who’s avoiding him, but the thought still makes something in my chest hurt.
Then, five days into the inspections, Caro shows up for our evening meeting at a run.
“I found something,” she says, taking her seat.
We all sit up straighter. “What is it?” Eli asks.
“I’ve been going through the code for our identity profiles. It turns out that whole system is actually localized.” She taps one finger on the table. “It’s based here, in the bridge, so the pilot and command chain can access the census. If there had been a thousand people aboard, a directory would have been really useful to the pilots.” She pauses. “If I’m right, when the ship’s control panels connect to the census, they create access records in this system. So, somewhere in the bridge, there’s a list of pings describing who’s been where and when.”
For the first time since before the attack, a grin breaks across Eli’s face. “Amazing,” she says as Francisco claps Caro on the back. “How long will it take to find the pings? Maybe I can help—I know some basic TRP.”
Caro’s excitement flags. “The code’s in TRP up here? That isn’t my best language. It could take a while.” She grimaces. “I still can’t be sure these pings are accessible, either. They could be temporary, deleted right away.”
“It’s a lead, though,” Eli says.
I glance at Sergei. A trace of foreboding remains through the rest of the meeting, but he doesn’t say a word. When we finish, he’s the first out of his seat, heading down the hall before the rest of us have even stood up.
I hurry after him, wanting to talk, but by the time I reach the balconies, he’s already across the atrium. I slow, watching the tall glass elevator shaft. Sergei exits the car on the sixth floor, glances around, and disappears into the Residential Wing.
I bite my tongue, torn. I don’t want Pieter to be right about him. I’m even less eager to pry into Sergei’s private life. But I’ve never seen that nervous look on his face before, and his lack of reaction to Caro’s news feels too loaded to ignore. If he is the thief, I’d rather know as soon as possible so that I can start planning damage control right away.
I hurry to the elevator bay, then slip into the sixth-floor hallway. At first it sounds quiet, but about halfway to the end of the wing, I hear muffled voices.
I approach the first door in sight with a name ID on the control panel: Irina Volkova.
I lean close and hear Sergei saying, “This isn’t the same. They could find out. They could know by tomorrow.”
“Sergei, would you trust me for once?”
“That’s what I’m doing. I’m telling you I don’t care, I don’t mind. I can help….”
“And I told you I don’t need your help!” Irina says hotly. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you about the VR room. I thought about it, you know? When it got really bad, I thought about it. But I knew you’d get this idea in your head that I need to be fixed, that you need to be the hero, that you need to save me. I don’t want you to save me, I want you to listen to me.” Her brashness gives way to something more vulnerable. “I want you to care about me the way I actually am. That’s all I wanted from anyone.”
The sound of footsteps pads toward me on the soft mesh of the floor. I sprint away without looking back.
As the evening wears on, as I inspect the cases in the fifth floor of the Catalog, the fragment of conversation replays in my mind over and over. If I’m understanding, then Sergei wasn’t trying to slow the investigation to save himself—he was trying to hide Irina. Unless…what did he mean by saying he’d help? Was he offering to return the food anonymously, to lie for his sister? Or was he offering to help with the launch of the rover?
Maybe he was part of it from the beginning. That was the night he stormed out of our meeting. What if he pretended to calm down for Francisco’s sake, then returned to the ninth floor and planned this with Irina for the same night? He was there when we decided on the passcode for the locks. He could have let his sister out of confinement, then gone to steal the food while she went to the bridge to pay Eli back in person.
It fits, but my thoughts keep returning to Anis and the conflict on his face as he blocked his door. Was that just a matter of principle, then? Was Anis testing me, taking a stand to see what choice I’d make?
I don’t know, but even now, Irina and Sergei could be preparing to try and launch the rover somehow. By ten p.m., I’ve decided this is too much for me to hold alone. Eli needs to know what I overheard.
Pieter is standing guard when I arrive at the bridge. His broad shoulders relax when he sees me. “Leigh. What do you need?” His eyes brighten. “Did you find something?”
“No, I need a word with Eli.”
“Of course, go ahead.” He hastens away from the threshold, allowing me through. The bridge is empty, and as I jog down the stairs, I hear the patter of the shower from the bathroom.
While I wait, I pace from one end of the dashboard to the other. Irina’s insistences, which have been buzzing in me like a hornet all evening, have gone quiet. Now that I’m here, I’m dreading the moment I’ll have to mention Irina’s name to Eli. After all, the last time the two of them clashed, Pieter got a bloody nose and Irina got dragged into the ninth floor kicking and thrashing, and that was when Eli felt like she’d come out on top.
If Sergei really did spring Irina from confinement, and if Irina really is the one who gave Eli an overdose, it’s a repeat offense. She wasted more anesthetic, endangered another life, and all this after she’d supposedly repented the first time. What will Eli want to do? With Francisco and now Caro backing up pretty much everything Eli says, with Pieter and his guards on their side—our side—who could stop her from doing it? I want to believe that Eli would never really hurt anyone. Everything she’s done has been to ensure the whole crew stays alive and healthy.
Except—after she sent Irina to confinement, she said, “You’ll stay there until you’re not a danger to the rest of the ship.” That was her priority then. Not Irina’s safety, but removing the danger to everyone else.
The noise of the shower turns into the sucking sound of the water reclamation system. I move for one of the copilots’ seats, then hesitate. A plastic bin is sitting in the commander’s seat, something glimmering inside.
I turn the chair toward myself and jerk my hand back. Inside the bin are half a dozen foot-long metal pipes, threading exposed at their ends. A scattering of blades are sifted in among the pipes, eight inches long and razor-fine, with blunt cylindrical ends. I recognize them from the Planters, sections of the metal hands that were designed to plow our soil.
I stare at them, motionless, until the bathroom door opens.
“Leigh,” Eli says with surprise that turns at once to alertness. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” I say automatically. “I just wanted to ask…I…What are these?” I point to the bin.
She relaxes. “A new precaution. I was thinking about you four wandering around the Residential Wing, and it doesn’t feel safe. We did an inventory recount, and the thief took a whole case of anesthetic, so they’ve still got eleven doses. If you do find the food, or if you get close enough that they think you’re a threat, they’ll probably do the same thing to you that they did to me.” She approaches the chair. “So I had Matteo collect these.”
“We’re supposed to carry these around during inspections?”
“Yeah. I need you to stay safe.” Eli hefts one of the pipes from the bin. “Also, now that I’ve got some protection, I can watch the bridge by myself so Pieter can join the inspections during the day.” She pauses. “What did you want to ask?”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Looking at Eli with the section of pipe in her hand, I feel a rush of disorientation, and confessing what I overheard is suddenly the last thing I want to do. What did I hear, anyway? The conversation proved nothing. Irina never admitted she’d stolen the food. She only told Sergei to trust her, and that was why I didn’t come to Eli immediately, wasn’t it? Because the whole thing is imprecise, circumstantial.
I should be trying to patch things up between the Council, not widen the rift. I can’t accuse Sergei’s sister without any evidence. If I mention anything, I’ll do it tomorrow, after the Council discusses these weapons.
“I just wanted to see how you’re feeling,” I say.
“Oh.” Her shoulders relax. “Thanks. I’m…yeah, I’m okay. Better now that we have these.” She slides the pipe back into the bin. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. We can finally stop doubling up the guards, and everyone can get more rest. Which reminds me—we should cut down on calorie deficit by sleeping longer nights. I need to talk to Francisco about our hours.”
“Yes. Right. Let’s discuss that tomorrow.” I glance back to the door.
“Are you still doing rounds? Here.” She proffers the bin.
I don’t move. The knives glint up at me like gemstones.
“I don’t really think I need one,” I say.
“If anyone needs one, it’s you. Matteo and Luke and Francisco could fight off most people on this ship. You can’t.”
I still don’t reach out.
Eli lowers the bin. The point of her tongue wets her thin lips. “Leigh, when I passed out the other day, I thought I was going to die. Halfway through falling, I was sort of semiconscious, and I had the actual thought, I’m dying. This is the last thought I’m ever going to have.”
It strikes me again how much older she seems than before her attack. She’s still quiet and serious, but the hints of furtiveness and awkwardness have gone.
“It made me see everything more clearly.” Eli sets the bin back into the pilot’s seat. “When I lived at the complex, I used to think the crew took me seriously, but now I’m realizing I was probably more like this precocious pet teenager to them. To my mom, even. And before that I was the weird kid in the corner at all my schools. Before I got here, no one actually knew or cared who I was, or what I thought, or who I want to be. But you do.”
“Of course I do,” I say, caught off guard. “So do Francisco and Caro and—and Pieter.”
“Right. So you see my point.”
I shake my head, at a loss.
Eli steps so close that I can see each spoke of color in her blue irises, each delicately overlapping thread. “Leigh, I want to keep everyone safe. But apparently that’s not an option, and if we have to choose who to keep safe, then I’m choosing us. You and me, and the people who actually care about…not just us, but everyone on this ship. Those people are my priority now. So—please, okay?” Eli draws a pipe from the bin. “I’m not letting you wind up where I was two days ago. I can’t watch someone bring you in here passed out, or worse, all right?” She holds the pipe toward me, its threads brushing the lapel of my uniform. “My mom was right. We have to save who we can.”
At first I think there’s a ringing in my ears left behind by her words, the realization of what she means. But then Eli’s head twitches toward the sound, too.
In the distance, someone is screaming.
“What—” Eli starts, but I’m already sprinting for the steps, up, then out.
At the door, Pieter is poised as if to run. “Stay here!” I tell him as I fly past, down the hall, back toward the ship’s center.
By the time I reach the balconies, others are leaning over the rails below, craning their necks to see. I run half the circumference of the balconies, but nothing is visible. The scream percolates up from somewhere in the Residential Wing.
I take the stairs three at a time, stepping out on each floor, training my ears the way I did to find Anis in the treatment plant. On the seventh floor, the scream clarifies. The torn-open vowel sound has separated into words that my translator can wrangle: “STOP IT! HELP!”
I hurtle through the hall. Twenty doors down, I jerk to a halt. Sahir stands over Jayanti, whose body is hideously contorted. Sahir is the one screaming, hunched in an arc over Jayanti, hand flung up toward Matteo. Jayanti moves slowly, curling into fetal position.
“What did you do?” I yell, running toward them. “What are you doing?”
“She went for me!” Matteo shouts back.
“Give me that, you—” I grab for the pipe in his hand. He holds it higher, backward, out of my reach, and the movement is so much like a windup for a swing that I instinctively duck out of the way. Then Jayanti’s head lifts, and I choke. A violet stripe mottles the side of her face. One cheek has swollen upward like a tumorous fruit.
I drop beside her. “Jayanti, are you okay?”
No answer. For a moment I think she’s too concussed to speak, but then I see her ears are empty. She must have been asleep. She didn’t even have time to put in her translator before Matteo did this.
“What is wrong with you?” I yell, standing. I feel completely outside my body. I’ve squared up to Matteo and risen to my tiptoes, trying to reach his height, like my anger wants me to become him. I can’t stop my words, can’t shape them; they blast out from me like vented steam. “You think this is what you were supposed to do? Did you even find anything?”
“No, but she could have hidden—”
I whirl away from him, forcing myself back down from my toes to the flats of my feet. I crouch by Jayanti again. “Jayanti. Can you hear me? Can you stand up?”
But her eyes have closed, and when I take her by the shoulder, she doesn’t stir.
The med bay occupies two floors in the Systems Wing, each room a sterilized pod. There are a hundred beds, as if the ship’s architects were planning for an epidemic.
Jayanti is stirring again by the time we get off the elevator. Sahir and I carry her to the nearest room and place her upon a pristine white cot. “Jayanti?” Sahir says gently, brushing her hair back from her face. “Are you all right?”
“Light,” Jayanti slurs, squinting through watering eyes.
I hurry to the door and dim the bulbs until her facial muscles unclench. But when I take a step toward the bed, Sahir turns toward me, his stare so filled with hatred that I stop.
“Get out,” he snarls. “Now.”
I don’t argue. I need to get to the bridge.
I return to the tenth floor to find Matteo, Pieter, and Luke congregated around Eli’s seat at the head of the table. The rumble of discussion cuts off when they see me. Matteo wears a defiant scowl.
“Go, you three,” Eli says.
As the guards make for the door, more footfalls echo down the hall. Seconds later, Sergei rounds the corner, closely followed by Francisco and Caro, who both look shell-shocked.
No sooner are they inside, the door sealed between us and the guards, than Sergei is yelling at Eli. “You gave them weapons?” He storms up to the table where she sits, stone-faced, in front of the pile of pipes and blades. “What the fuck were you thinking? And what are these?” He snatches up one of the blades.
