“I’ve still got three hours on shift,” she says. “Amundsen said I could make sure you were okay, but I’ve got to get back now.”
“Oh,” I say. “Do they need me?”
Cat gives me a half smile. “After what just happened? No. Not now, and probably not anytime soon. Security isn’t too keen on people who faint under fire.”
Ouch.
“I didn’t faint,” I say. “I glitched. I was picking something up…”
She raises one eyebrow. “Picking something up?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I was…”
It suddenly occurs to me that I might not want to tell Cat what I was seeing when I went down out there. I don’t want her to think I’m breaking down.
I don’t want to think about what it means if I’m not breaking down.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Something weird happened, for sure, but I definitely didn’t just faint.”
Cat looks uncomfortable now. “It’s okay, Mickey. You wouldn’t be the first person to panic under fire.”
“Is that what you think happened?”
She looks away. “Doesn’t matter what I think, does it? I’ll see you later, Mickey.”
* * *
AFTER I LEAVE Cat, I stop by the caf for another shot of cycler paste, then head back up to my rack. What else can I do? When I get there, I find Eight sitting up in bed, our tablet propped on his knees.
“Hey,” he says. “You’re back early.”
I drop into our chair and start unlacing my boots. “Got attacked again. Almost died again. Wound up in Medical this time. They said I should go home and tell you to start doing your share of this bullshit from now on.”
Eight sets the tablet aside, stretches, and gets to his feet. “Uh-huh. Well, since you’re back, I’m gonna go get myself something to eat. How much of our ration did you leave me?”
“Not sure,” I say. “Maybe nine hundred kcal?”
“Great,” he says. “I’m taking it all.”
I start to protest, but he’s already on his way out the door.
“Don’t even,” he says without looking back. “I just came out of the tank.”
“Hey,” I say to his retreating back. “Put the wrap back on your wrist, huh?”
He pulls up his sleeve to show me. It’s there, but it’s not even on straight. I open my mouth to say something, but he cuts me off with an eye roll.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “If anyone asks, I’ll tell them I’m a quick healer.”
When he’s gone, I crawl into bed and pick up the tablet. He’d been reading about Asher’s World. I spend five seconds wondering at the fact that he’s perseverating over the exact same stuff that I am before I remember that the surprising thing would be if he weren’t, considering that he’s basically me, to within a rounding error.
Well, me minus the past six weeks or so, anyway. For some reason, that seems to have made an increasingly big difference.
I’ve been giving this some thought, and here’s the thing about the Asher’s World expedition: Their situation wasn’t actually all that different from ours. Their target planet was too hot to support life. This one isn’t quite too cold, but it’s close. A better reading on the O2 levels in the atmosphere might have clued the mission planners back on Midgard in to the fact that the biosphere on Niflheim is barely hanging on, but I guess at seven-plus lights distance you get what you get.
I can’t help wondering what we’d have done if this place had been just a little bit worse—a few degrees colder, a bit less oxygen, something really toxic in the atmosphere, maybe? We brought terraforming gear, but that’s an insanely slow process. I’ve read about dozens of colonies that faced similar predicaments. Some tried to regroup, refuel, and reach for another target. Some tried to hunker down in orbit, drop their terraformers, and make it work.
Some, like the folks from Asher’s World, just gave up and called it a day.
Of the ones that kept trying, I could count on one hand the number that actually succeeded. Seeding a colony is hard on a hospitable planet. On an inhospitable one, it’s damn near impossible.
And what about one like Niflheim? Time will tell, I guess.
I’m pondering that question, and thinking about what it’ll mean for me if things go south here, when my ocular pings.
<RedHawk>:Hey Mick. I heard you had a rough day today. I’m off shift at 16:00. Want to meet for dinner? My treat.
The answer is, Hell, yes, but that’s competing in my head with, How the shit can you afford to spring for dinner? and before I can sort that out and formulate an answer, another message pops up.
<Mickey8>:Absolutely. See you then, pal.
Oh hell no. I open up a private window.
<Mickey8>:No you don’t, Eight. This one’s mine.
<Mickey8>:Tank funk, Seven. I need real food. There’s still three hundred kcal on our card for the day. You can have it back.
<Mickey8>:Look, friend. I’ve almost died twice in the past twenty-four hours, and you were napping both times. If you want to push this, we can meet back at the cycler in twenty and go for real this time.
<Mickey8>:Wow. That escalated quickly.
<Mickey8>:No joke, Eight. If you’re not back here by 15:45, it’s go time.
<Mickey8>:…
<Mickey8>:So?
<Mickey8>:Fine. Fine. Have your fancy dinner, you big baby. Man, I cannot wait until you get eaten.
014
“GO NUTS,” BERTO says. “Anything you want, buddy.”
My eyes drift to the rabbit.
“Within reason,” he adds. “I’m not made of kcal, you know.”
I glance around the caf. We’re on the early side for dinner, so it’s not too crowded yet. There’s a bunch of Security types at one table near the door, though. One of them meets my eyes. He says something to his friends, and the table bursts out laughing.
Great. Now I’m the Expendable who’s afraid to die. I’m pretty sure that’s as low as you can sink in terms of social standing around here.
“Hey,” Berto says. “You still with me?”
I turn back to the service counter. “Give me a limit,” I say. “I could literally eat everything they have back there.”
Berto looks down at the counter and scratches the back of his head. “Tell you what. Keep it under a thousand kcal, okay?”
I stare up at him. “A thousand? Seriously?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I meant what I said before, buddy. You’re my best friend. I shouldn’t have lied to you. I guess this is my way of apologizing.”
He’s still lying to me, but at this moment I don’t remotely care. I order potatoes, fried crickets, and a tiny bowl of chopped lettuce and tomatoes. That only comes to seven hundred kcal, so I top it off with a mug of paste. Waste not, want not, right? As my tray slides out of the dispenser, I see that Berto’s ordering as well.
He gets the rabbit.
“Berto?” I say. “What the hell, friend?”
He grins. “You didn’t think I was starving myself for you, did you? Come on, Mickey. I feel bad, but not that bad. This isn’t me flagellating myself. It’s more of a share-the-wealth kind of thing.”
Our total is twenty-four hundred kcal. Berto shows his ocular to the scanner. It flashes green.
“Seriously,” I say. “What. The. Hell.”
Berto’s grin widens. “You remember when I took you out in the flitter?”
Oh God, do I remember.