“Seriously,” Berto says. “You look like you just wet yourself, Mickey. What the hell? Were you tight with this guy?”
That’s kind of a stupid question, considering that there are fewer than two hundred humans on this planet, and we’ve been cooped up with all of them for the past nine years. It says something about how little the three of us have interacted with our fellow colonists that, no, I was not tight with Gabe. In fact, I barely knew him beyond recognizing his face and having a vague sense that he wasn’t one of the bad ones—and neither, obviously, did either of them.
“I know who he was,” I say. “We weren’t really friends. Does it matter, though? We just lost like point-six percent of our population, Berto.”
“Yeah,” Berto says. “I guess that’s true. I wasn’t actually a big fan of old Gabe, to be honest. During transit, he was one of those guys who was constantly busting people’s asses about not putting in enough time in the carousel. You make a point, though. Until we start thawing out embryos, we really can’t afford too many leaks in the bottom of the gene pool.”
“I’m not worried about that,” Nasha says. “I mean, if we need more generic white guys around here, we can always just crank out a few more Mickeys, right?”
They both laugh. I hesitate a bit too long before joining in.
“Seriously, though,” Berto says. “Mickey does have a point.”
I don’t actually remember making any points, but okay.
“Truth,” Nasha says. “Pretty sure Gabe didn’t just wander off.”
“Creepers got him,” Berto says.
Nasha looks up from the last of her yams. “You know that?”
“Not for sure, but what else could it have been? We haven’t seen anything else on this rock yet that’s bigger than an amoeba.”
Nasha shakes her head. “Creepers coming that close to the dome is bad news. Creepers taking down an armed goon is worse. Was he armored up?”
He was—but again, I’m not supposed to know that.
“Dunno,” Berto says. “Probably not, though. No reason to be up until now, right? I mean, this is the first time the creepers have actually killed somebody.”
“They killed me,” I say. “Twice, actually.”
Berto puts one arm around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze. “I know they did, buddy.”
Nasha snickers. I shoot her a glare, but she’s back in her breakfast and doesn’t notice. I expect that kind of shit from Berto. Nasha’s usually better than that.
“Armor or no,” Berto says, “Gabe would have been carrying a heavy-duty burner, right? How do you get yourself killed by a bunch of bugs when you’re armed with something that can flash-fry a buffalo?”
“Burners don’t affect them,” I say.
They both turn to look at me.
“What?” Nasha says.
“Yeah,” Berto says. “What are you talking about, Mickey?”
I open my mouth to answer, then let it fall closed again when I see Berto’s eyes widen. Again, I need to get him into a poker game.
“I feel like I’m missing something,” Nasha says. “Friends don’t keep secrets, Mickey.”
“No,” Berto says. “No, Mickey’s right, actually. He had a burner when he got taken down last night. It didn’t do him any good. I guess I forgot about that.”
I give him my best dead-eye stare. “You forgot?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I forgot.”
“You forgot that you saw your best friend get torn to shreds less than twenty-four hours ago.”
“Well,” Berto says, “I don’t know if I’d say best friend.”
“Torn apart?” Nasha says. “I thought he wound up freezing to death at the bottom of a crevasse.”
I give Berto my best confused-yet-angry look. “What’s this about freezing to death, Berto?”
He shoots a quick, poisonous glare at Nasha, then shakes his head and says, “Not important. The point is, you went down, and there was nothing any of us could do about it.”
“Not true,” Nasha says, and goes back to poking at her breakfast. “I could have.” She looks up at me, gives me a sad half smile. “He wouldn’t let me. You were brave last night, Mickey. You wouldn’t let me risk myself for you. Can’t take that away from you, no matter how dumb you were to fall down that hole in the first place.” Her smile fades then, replaced by a scowl. “Anyway, the actual point here is that, however he managed to do it, Gabe Torricelli got himself killed or kidnapped or eaten this morning, and because of that I now have to pull a double goddamned shift aloft.” She looks over at Berto. “Speaking of which—why are you off duty this morning? You didn’t spend any more time up last night than I did.”
Berto shrugs. “I guess Marshall just likes me more.”
That’s still hanging in the air between us when a chat window pops up in my ocular.
<Command1>:You are required to report to Commander Marshall’s office no later than 10:30. Failure to report will be considered insubordination and will result in a reduced ration allocation. Please acknowledge.
I’ve just bounced back a read receipt when a second window opens next to the first, partially covering Nasha’s face with text.
<Mickey8>:You’re seeing the summons from Command too, right?
<Mickey8>:Yeah, I see it.
<Mickey8>:Ugh. We’re both Mickey8 now, huh?
<Mickey8>:Looks like it.
<Mickey8>:Great. This is gonna be confusing.
<Mickey8>:I’m sure we’ll figure it out.
<Mickey8>:Think the network’s gonna flag the fact that the same handle is pinging from two different locations?
<Mickey8>:Probably not unless somebody goes digging.
<Mickey8>:In which case, we’re screwed anyway.
<Mickey8>:Right.
<Mickey8>:Anyway, I’m guessing this summons is Marshall looking to chew on us for getting killed again, and wasting seventy kilos of colony protein. You mind handling it? I’ve got a serious case of tank funk, and I could really use a nap.
<Mickey8>:Do I have a choice?
<Mickey8>:Zzzzzzz
I blink both windows closed. Berto and Nasha are staring at me.
“Rude,” Nasha says.
“Yeah,” Berto says. “Extremely.” He pushes back from the table, stands, and picks up his tray. “That said, I’ve gotta run. Have a fun time out there, Nasha.”
Nasha picks up a scrap of yam skin with her fork and flings it at his back as he walks away. I have to resist the urge to chase the scrap down and eat it.
“Anyway,” Nasha says when he’s gone, “I’ve got an hour to kill before I have to go up again. Want to finish what we started in the shower?”
It takes me a second or two to put that together with what she said earlier about seeing me in the shower room and realize what she must be talking about, then another two or three to get the image of her with Eight out of my head. I can’t actually be jealous of myself, can I?
Yes, apparently I can.
Doesn’t matter, though. For better or worse, I’ve got somewhere to be.
“Actually,” I say, “I just got a ping from Command. I’ve got to go pay Marshall a visit.”
“Oh,” she says. “Right. Pissed about you flushing another hunk of protein down the toilet, huh?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Probably something like that.”