“Oh, relax,” Nasha says. “I’m not about to turn you two pervs in to Command.”
“We’re not pervs,” I say. “It was an accident.”
“I told her what happened,” Eight says. “She’s just screwing with you. Seriously, though—what happened with Chen? Did she try to kill you?”
“Chen?” Nasha says. “Cat Chen, from Security?”
“Yeah,” I say. “You said yesterday that you were gonna gut her like a fish, remember?”
“Only if she touched you. Did she touch you, Mickey?”
“No,” I say. “I mean, yeah, sort of, but she’s not interested in that, I don’t think—especially not now. She seemed pretty put off by the whole multiple thing.”
“Not surprised,” Nasha says. “Security types all have rods up their asses.”
“Back up,” Eight says. “She knows?”
“Yeah,” I say. “She knows. The whole miraculously healing and unhealing hand tipped her off. Also, you apparently told her you’d been in the Agriculture Section today, while I told her today was an off-shift.”
“Huh,” Eight says. “That’s not good. How’d you leave it?”
I sigh. “Honestly, I have no idea. She didn’t say she was turning us in, so I guess that’s good. She didn’t exactly say she wasn’t either, though, so I guess that’s not so great.”
“Did you think about gutting her?” Nasha asks. “Leave her outside the main lock, say a creeper got her? Problem solved, right?”
Eight snickers. “If anybody was getting gutted tonight, it wasn’t gonna be Chen.”
“Truth,” I say. “Not sure what you’re giggling about, though. If I go down the corpse hole, you’re going with me, remember?”
“Nobody’s going down the corpse hole,” Nasha says. “Chen won’t turn you in.”
“Really?” I say. “Why not?”
I mean, I don’t think so either, but I’m assuming Nasha’s reasons for thinking that are very different from mine.
“Because,” she says, “she doesn’t want to deal with the blowback.”
“Blowback?” Eight says.
“Me,” Nasha says. “I’m the blowback.”
She makes a good point, actually. I wouldn’t cross her.
Of course, I wouldn’t cross Cat either. Security goons are spooky.
“Look,” Nasha says, “everything’s gonna be fine. You two just need to lie low until one or the other of you gets offed doing some dumbass suicidal thing. Then we can register whichever one of you is still alive as Mickey9, and everybody lives happily ever after.”
“Well,” Eight says. “Almost everybody.”
“Right,” Nasha says. “Almost.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “It’s only been a couple of days since Eight came out of the tank, and we’ve already got two other people who know about us. At this rate, the entire colony will be in on this in a couple of weeks. I’m not sure I can die that fast.”
Nasha laughs. “You know what, Mickey? You think too much. Take off those clothes and get in here. You need to shift some blood away from your brain for a while.”
I stare at her. “Come on, Seven,” Eight says. “We’re already perverts, right? And blowback or not, I’m not too confident that we’re not both going down the corpse hole soon enough. Might as well have some fun while we’re here.”
* * *
THE NEXT TWO hours are weird. I don’t think I want to talk about them.
Just to be clear, though: I regret nothing.
* * *
THE THREE OF us are just settling into that soft, calm after-place, with me hanging off one side of the bed, Eight on the other, and Nasha pressed in between us, when someone knocks on the door. Nasha had been saying something to Eight about how much fun we were going to have until one of us got recycled, but she cuts off midsentence with a hiss of indrawn breath.
The knock comes again.
“Should I answer?” I whisper. “I could try to get rid of them.”
Eight reaches across Nasha to slap the side of my head. “Shut up,” he hisses. “That’s probably Berto. If we’re quiet, he’ll go away.”
“Mickey? Are you in there?”
Oh shit. That’s not Berto.
Nasha shifts around until her mouth is next to my ear.
“You did set the security lock, right?”
The latch disengages with a quiet snick, and a crack of light appears around the door.
“No,” I whisper. “I did not.”
“Mickey?”
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
The door swings open.
“Hey,” Eight says. “Chen, right? Good to see you.”
Cat stares at us, her mouth working silently.
“Cat?” I say. “Close the door. We can talk about this.”
She shakes her head.
“Cat?”
I sit up and reach out to her. She takes a half step back. “What are you doing, Mickey?”
“What does it look like?” Nasha says. “Get in or get out, Chen. Either way, close the door.”
Cat turns on her heel and bolts, leaving the door standing open behind her.
“You probably want to close that,” Nasha says.
I climb out of bed and swing the door shut. This time, I remember to set the privacy lock.
“This is bad,” I say, and slump down into the desk chair.
“She already knew about us,” Eight says. “You said that, right? So, nothing’s changed.”
That almost makes sense. So why is my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest?
“It’s fine,” Nasha says. “Come back to bed, Mickey.”
I take a deep breath, hold it, and then let it out again. Maybe they’re right?
They’re not right. I know they’re not.
Nothing to do about it now, though. I pull back the sheet, and climb back into bed. Nasha twists around to kiss me.
“Relax, Mickey. Let’s get some sleep.”
* * *
I WAKE IN the darkness to the snick of the privacy lock being overridden. After that comes a rush of light, and then a deep male voice saying, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I squint into the glare coming in from the corridor. Two Security goons have wedged themselves into my room. They’re both carrying burners.
“Holy shit,” the smaller one says. “What the hell is wrong with you people?”
The other shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. Get up, all three of you, and for shit’s sake put some clothes on. You’ve all got a date with the cycler.”
019
I’M LOSING IT.
The fact that I’m losing it makes me feel even worse than the actual losing it does.
Nasha has every right to be freaking out right now. She’s never been marched off to her own execution before. I’ve got no excuse, though. This is practically routine for me. I once had three executions in two weeks.
* * *
A COLONY SHIP doesn’t just land when it reaches its destination. Most of what gets us from one star to another is built strictly for space. It’s too bulky and too fragile to survive entering an atmosphere or exposing itself to a gravitational field. A colony comes down from orbit in bits and pieces.