“Anyway,” she says, “ping me around twenty-two hundred if you’re free. Maybe we can do something fun together.”
After Cat’s gone, I dig out my tablet and run a search on the history of Expendables in colony expeditions. I’d always assumed that they were a standard part of the process, but in fact the technology has only been viable for the past two hundred years or so—and even in that span a lot of missions haven’t made use of them. That seems crazy from a practical standpoint. When you’re a half dozen lights from the nearest resupply, with a tiny pool of adults and a bunch of embryos that are going to take years of growing before they become useful, the ability to make new colonists more or less on demand ought to be compelling.
Turns out there are a lot of objections, though. The religious ones are obvious, even if they don’t quite mesh with me. Apparently there are also some ethical issues with pulling someone off the streets or out of prison and forcing him to die for you over and over and over again. Landing a volunteer changes some of those considerations, obviously, but what are the odds of that happening?
It’s possible I should have done some of this reading before giving Gwen my DNA. I’m not sure it would have dissuaded me—that torture machine was a powerful motivator—but I could at least have asked for a bigger signing bonus.
It’s closing in on noon by the time I finish my reading, and the caf is starting to fill up. My stomach is already empty and rumbling, and watching my fellow colonists loading up their trays is not helping. I blink to my ration card. I’ve got four hundred and fifty kcal left for the day.
Correction. We’ve got four hundred and fifty kcal left for the day. If I’m going to stick to my deal with Eight, he’s got a claim on three hundred of those.
That’s a big if.
What’s the worst that could happen if I went ahead and tanked our ration? It’s not like Eight can go to Command with a complaint.
Of course, it’s not like I can either. If I’d reported this mess two days ago, I probably would have been the one who didn’t get disassembled. At this point, though, I’m confident that if Marshall gets wind of us, we’re both in the slurry.
Also, Eight did say something this morning about murdering me in my sleep. I should probably just stick to the agreement.
That still leaves me with one-fifty to spend, but I can’t imagine choking down another cup of slurry at the moment, so I decide to head back up to my rack and maybe take a nap to save energy.
On the central stairs, I have to edge past a man and a woman in Bio togs who are arguing about something in a loud, hand-flapping kind of way. I’m two steps past them when the man says, “Hey. Barnes?”
I turn, racking my brain for his name. Ryan? Bryan?
“Hey,” I say. “What’s up?”
“Not your shift,” he says. “Where are you going?”
Uh-oh.
“I need to grab something from my rack,” I say. “I’ll be back down in five.”
He scowls. “Make it three. We’ve got a new phage to test on the tomatoes this afternoon. It might be dangerous. They’ll need you to help with the application.”
“Sure,” I say. “I’m on it.”
They go back to arguing. I hesitate, then turn and continue, taking the stairs now two at a time.
After that, the whole nap thing turns out to be a bust. My heart is thudding in my chest by the time I get back to my rack, and it takes the better part of an hour for me to settle down enough to fall asleep. When I finally do, I wind up in the caterpillar dream again, but this time it’s just a regular dream, and instead of talking he grows giant mandibles and feeding legs and starts chasing me through the forest. Pretty soon the forest fades and I’m back in the tunnels, running blindly, stumbling over loose stones while the skittering of a thousand tiny feet gets closer and closer behind.
I wake up to the sound of the door latch turning. It’s Eight, back from his day playing farmer.
“Hey,” I say once I’ve shaken off the nightmare and my heart has settled down into an almost-normal rhythm. “How are the tomatoes?”
He shakes his head. “Honestly? Not great. Most of the vines are dying, and the ones that aren’t are squeezing out tomatoes that look more like overweight red raisins. Martin thinks there’s something in the air—a microorganism, maybe, or some kind of trace gas—that’s interfering with photosynthesis somehow. He doesn’t have any actual candidates, though, so right now it’s all speculation. The only thing we really know is that our tomatoes are sick.” He pulls his shirt off over his head, then uses it to wipe a light sheen of sweat from his forehead. “Truth, though, it took everything I had not to shove the damn things into my mouth anyway.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I get that. Thanks for restraining yourself. If we wind up with another disciplinary ration cut, we’re definitely going to starve to death.”
He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Pretty sure that’s gonna happen anyway, friend-o. I used two-thirds of my ration this morning at breakfast, and I’m so hungry now that I could eat my own arm.” He drops onto the bed. “Scoot over, huh?”
He pulls off his boots, and then lies back with a sigh.
“By the way,” he says. “Have you been hanging around with Cat Chen?”
Uh-oh.
“Yeah,” I say. “Sort of. Why?”
“Not sure. I ran into her on my way back up here, down near the main lock. She told me not to forget to ping her.” He turns his head to look at me. “We’re not screwing around on Nasha, are we? Because if we are, I have to tell you, I think that’s a really, really bad idea.”
“We are not,” I say, and it’s technically true. “Trust me—I’m just as interested in keeping all our pieces attached as you are.”
“Good,” he says. “Glad to hear it. Even putting Nasha aside, Chen seemed a little off, to be honest. She said something about my hand looking great, and she looked really confused when I said I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.”
He glances down at my left hand lying across my belly. I’ve got it wrapped tight, but you can still see the purple bruise peeking out around the base of my thumb.
His wrap is slung across the back of our desk chair.
“Oh,” he says. “Oh, right. That. Sorry.”
017
SORRY.
Once again, thanks for that, asshole.
If you’re not a member of the Natalist Church and you’re not a student of Union history, you’re probably wondering: Why am I so worked up about this? What’s the big deal with multiples? I mean, on the surface, the idea of making a bunch of copies of your Expendable at once seems like a useful concept, doesn’t it? For example, what happens if you’ve got a suicide mission that’s a two-man job? Wouldn’t want to risk an actual person for something like that, would you?