“How’s it going?”
He looked over at her. “Well, I’m a little nervous about the plating we put down by the drive at that depot back on Stoddard. Lot of folks are seeing flaking with that batch under radiation bombardment. Figure when we hit Medina, I should hop outside and take a peek. Hate to have that turn into baklava on us when we were counting on it.”
“That would suck,” Bobbie agreed.
“Lace plating’s great when it’s great,” Amos said, turning back to his screen.
“How’s the rest of it?” Bobbie asked.
Amos shrugged, flicked through the feed. “Is what it is, I figure.”
The silence settled between them. Bobbie scratched her neck, the soft sound of nails against skin louder than anything else in the room. She didn’t know how to ask if he was going to be okay with Holden and Naomi leaving him behind.
“Are you going to be okay with Holden and Naomi leaving?”
“Yup,” Amos said. “Why? You worried about it?”
“A little,” Bobbie said, surprised to discover that it was true. “I mean, I know you saw it coming before Holden did. I think all of us did. But you’ve shipped with them for a lot of years.”
“Yeah, but my favorite thing about Holden was knowing he’d take a bullet for any one of the crew. Pretty sure you actually have taken a few for us, so that ain’t changing,” Amos said, then paused for a moment. “You might should check in with Peaches, though.”
“You think?”
“Yup,” Amos said. And that was that. Bobbie pulled herself back out.
Clarissa was in the medical bay, strapped into one of the autodocs. Tubes ran from the gently purring machinery into the port on the woman’s side, blood flowing out of the thin body and then being pumped back in. Her skin was the color of a wax candle and stretched tight against her cheekbones. She still smiled and raised a hand in greeting when Bobbie floated in. As a technician, Clarissa Mao had always been one of the best Bobbie had worked with. She had the sense that the thin woman’s drive came out of a kind of anger and desperation. Working to keep some greater darkness at bay. It was an impulse Bobbie understood.
“Rough patch?” Bobbie asked, nodding toward the blood-filled tubes.
“Not a great one,” Clarissa said. “I’ll be back on my feet tomorrow, though. Promise.”
“No rush,” Bobbie said. “We’re doing fine.”
“I know. It’s just …”
Bobbie cracked her knuckles. The autodoc chimed to itself and took another long draw of Clarissa’s blood.
“You wanted something?” she said, looking into Bobbie’s eyes. “It’s okay. You can say it.”
“I’m not your captain yet,” Bobbie said. “But I’m going to be.” It was the first time she’d said the words out loud. They felt good enough that she said them again. “I’m going to be. And that’s going to put me in a position where I’m responsible for you. For your well-being.”
She hadn’t thought about her team in years. Her old team. Hillman. Gourab. Travis. Sa’id. Her last command before this. For a moment, they were in the room, invisible and voiceless, but as present as Clarissa. Bobbie swallowed and bit back a smile. This was it. This was what she’d been trying to find her way back to all these years. This was why it mattered that she do it right this time.
“And if I’m responsible for your well-being,” she said, “we need to talk.”
“All right.”
“This thing with your old implants. That’s going to get worse instead of better,” Bobbie said.
“I know,” Clarissa said. “I’d take the implants out if it wouldn’t kill me faster.” She smiled, inviting Bobbie to smile with her. Making the truth into something like a joke.
“When we get to Medina, I’m going to hire on fresh crew,” Bobbie said. “Not co-owners in the ship the way we are. Just paid hands. Part of that is Holden and Naomi leaving.”
“But you can also hire someone for my place,” Clarissa said. Tears welled up, sheeting across her eyes as she nodded. The autodoc chimed again, pushing her purified blood back down into her.
“If you want to stay on Medina, you can,” Bobbie said. “If you want to stay with the ship, you’re welcome here.”
On the float, Clarissa’s tears didn’t fall. Surface tension held them to her until she shook her head, and then they’d form a dozen scattered balls of saline that in time would get sucked into the recycler and leave the air smelling a little more of sorrow and the sea.
“I …” Clarissa began, then shook her head and shrugged helplessly. “I thought I’d be the first one to leave.”
She sobbed once, and Bobbie pushed over to her. Took her hand. Clarissa’s fingers were thin, but her grip was stronger than Bobbie expected. They stayed there together until Clarissa’s breath grew less ragged. Clarissa brought her other hand over and rested it on Bobbie’s arm. There was some color in her cheeks again, but Bobbie didn’t know if it was the flush of emotion or the medical systems doing their job. Maybe both.
“I understand,” Bobbie said. “It’s hard losing someone.”
“Yeah,” Clarissa said. “And … I don’t know. Something about it seems less dignified when it’s Holden. You know what I mean? Of all the people to get choked up over.”
“No,” Bobbie said. “You don’t need to make light of it.”
Clarissa opened her mouth, closed it again. Nodded. “I’ll miss him, is all.”
“I know. I will too. And … look, if you don’t want to talk about it now, I can just check your file for your medical plan and end-of-life choices. Whatever you and Holden worked out, I’m going to honor it.”
Clarissa’s pale, thin brows knotted. “Holden? I didn’t work out anything with Holden.”
Bobbie felt a little tug of surprise. “No?”
“We don’t talk about things like that,” Clarissa said. “I talked to Amos. He knows I want to stay here. With him. If things ever get too bad, he promised he’d … make it easier for me. When the time comes.”
“Okay,” Bobbie said. “That’s good to know.” And important, she thought to herself, to fully document so that if it happens in someone else’s jurisdiction no one gets arrested for murder. How the hell could Holden not have done that? “You’re sure Holden never talked about this with you?”
Clarissa shook her head. The autodoc finished its run. The tubes detached from the port in Clarissa’s skin and slid back into the body of the ship like overly polite snakes.
“Okay, then,” Bobbie said. “I know now. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of. And Amos too.”
“Thank you. And I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
“I’ve been a little self-pitying about Naomi and Holden,” Clarissa said. “I didn’t mean to make it anyone else’s problem. I’ll get back to duty.”
“Everyone gets to mourn how they need to,” Bobbie said. “And then everyone needs to get their asses back to work.”
“Yes, sir,” Clarissa said with a sharp if ironic salute. “I’m glad we had this talk.”
“I am too,” Bobbie said as she pulled herself to the door. And I’m amazed that Holden never did. For the first time, Bobbie had the sense that there were some ways—not all, but some—in which she was going to be a much better captain than he’d been.
Chapter Ten: Drummer
Okay,” Drummer said, it felt like for the thousandth time, “but are these things naturally occurring or not?”
Cameron Tur, the union’s science advisor, was an impressively tall, gangly man with an Adam’s apple the size of a thumb and faded tattoos on each of his knuckles. He’d come into the service when Tjon was president of the union, and kept the job through Walker and Sanjrani. As old as he was and as much as he’d seen, she had expected him to have an air of condescension, but he’d only ever come across as a little ill at ease. His chuckle now was apologetic.
“That’s a good question, semantically speaking,” he said. “The difference between something made by nature and something made by beings that evolved up within nature, sa sa?”