I wish he’d kept being an ass. Dislike is so much easier to handle than sympathy. “I can’t,” I find myself gasping, something tight and cold inside me cracking open. “I can’t, Major. I won’t do any of this. I don’t belong here!”
He lifts his eyebrows, the expression taking away some of the grimness about his face. There’s a curious warmth to his features when he lets them relax. This, more than anything, jars me from my haze of grief and denial. Then he speaks, and ruins it.
“Just try to stay on your feet. Do you think you can manage that much, Your Highness?”
Much better. “Don’t patronize me,” I snap.
“Only an idiot would patronize you, Miss LaRoux.” The warmth is gone again, and he stands up in one smooth motion.
He takes a few steps away, scanning the forest around us as though he recognizes something in it. He’s at home here. He can read this place like I read the tiny shifts in a crowd, the back-and-forth of couples and conversation, society executing its slow revolutions around me like the stars in the heavens. Known. Charted. Familiar.
The forest has nothing of this. To me it’s a haze of green and gold and gray, every tree like the next, nothing of sense to be gleaned from them. I’ve been in nature before, but then, all it took was the flick of a switch to change the holographic projector from perfectly sculpted and manicured garden terraces to a sunny, songbird-filled forest. It smelled of airy perfume, and all the trees were hung with flowers. The earth was rich and uniform and never stained my clothes, and the ground was soft enough to sleep on.
When I was little my father used to bring me to that forest for picnics. I’d pretend the forest with its cathedral canopy was my mansion and I was the hostess, serving him invisible cups of tea and sharing the inconsequential secrets of my life. He was always solemn, playing along without hesitation. As the light waned I’d pretend to fall asleep in his lap, because then he’d carry me home in his arms.
But this forest is thick and alien and full of shadows, and the ground has rocks in it, and when I try to use a nearby tree for support, its bark scratches my hands. This can’t be real—this is a nightmare.
And yet the major nods to himself, like he’s read the next step from some instruction manual I can’t see. A surge of jealousy runs through me so violently that my arms quiver where they’re holding me up.
“I don’t know how much battery power the pod has,” he says, “so we’ll use as little as possible. I’ll get you a bed set up in there and we’ll keep the lights off, and tomorrow I’ll figure out if there’s any chance at all we’re sending a signal for rescue ships to read.”
He’s still talking, taking so little notice of me that he might as well be talking to himself. “I think for tonight we’ll concentrate on taking stock, having something to eat, getting some rest. I promise you the pod is only a short distance away. Can you stand?”
I push myself onto my knees. Now that we’ve stopped, my ankles have stiffened, and I’m forced to bite down on my lip to keep from letting out a sob. I’ve sprained an ankle or two on the dance floor while smiling as though everything was fine, but it was never like this. Then, all I had to do was summon a medic and the discomfort melted away.
I swat his hand away when he extends it.
“Of course I can stand.” Pain makes my words come out clipped, angry. His expression locks down tight, and he turns to lead the way back.
He’s true to his word, and in only a few minutes the pod comes into view through the trees. From this direction I can’t see the impact of our crash: the flattened trees and the deep groove in the earth carved by the pod as it rolled and skidded to where it rests. I see only trees, hear only incomprehensible rustling and shuffling. Even the stench of scorched plastene and corroded metal is fading, swallowed by the smell of green and wet and earth.
I drag forth enough energy to look up. Not a single rescue ship in sight—not even a shuttle or a plane from a colony. The sky is empty but for a pale sliver of moon overhead, and a second moon just clearing the trees. Shading my eyes with my hand, I look for the beacon light that should indicate that we’re broadcasting our signal to the rescue ships. There’s only the broad expanse of pitted, twisted metal. So much of the pod is wrecked—how did we survive?
How could anyone else? But I push that thought down, lock it away. This will all be over in a matter of hours—a ship as famous and as respected as the Icarus can’t go down without setting off a thousand alarms all across the galaxy.
The major has continued on into the pod without a word, but he is only a few steps away, and I cannot let myself grieve yet.