“Oh, goodness,” Merlin said. “Well, it’s when a person has attractions to people who are on the other binary end of the… ummm…”
“They’re messing with you, Merlin,” Ari said, unable to keep the truth back, or maybe she didn’t like watching him wriggle like a trout on the line. Merlin felt fairly sure he had just outed himself to everyone on the ship, something he had never done in all the cycles.
And it felt strangely, shockingly, fine.
“Gwen,” Ari continued. “I want you in the cockpit with Jordan, ready to talk to the associates.”
Merlin yelped, wanting to keep Gwen and Jordan apart at all costs. “I can stay in the cockpit and talk to Mercer. I’m well versed in villains.” He thought about Morgana, his own personal, evil shadow.
“They’ll be nicer to a queen than a fictional magician,” Ari said. Before Merlin had the chance to bridle at the description, she’d moved on. “Besides, I already know what everyone is doing. Val and Lam, you’ll work Error’s airlock.”
Ari’s leadership was emerging, as simply and powerfully as Excalibur being drawn from a sheath. Merlin watched delightedly as she proved that she could ace her training. Ari wasn’t relying solely on impulse. She wasn’t attempting to do it all on her own. She was planning, orchestrating—bringing people together to accomplish more than they could by themselves. It was a large part of what made an Arthur great. The first King Arthur’s round table was the greatest legend he’d left behind, and all because he’d brought knights together like this. It had seemed improbable at first. A smile crept onto Merlin’s face as he remembered the piping, runty boy who’d become the first Arthur.
Ari was curvier, and her voice actually a bit lower, but she had the same bright look on her face as she turned to Merlin. “You and I have the best job of all.”
“We do?” Merlin asked.
“We’re sealing the doors,” Ari said, a hand clamped on his shoulder.
Merlin’s stomach tightened into a complex system of knots as Ari dug through a closet. Soon Merlin was wearing a spacesuit that made him feel like a walking marshmallow.
A metallic catastrophe came from the engine room. Everyone jumped and winced as a wave passed through the walls, shuddering the ship to a stop. Merlin tipped over, his suit padding his fall.
“Should we be on this ship if it’s so easy to break?” Jordan called from the cockpit.
Within seconds, the radio went live—just as Ari had predicted.
“What’s your situation?” asked a blank voice.
“What’s our situation?” Gwen hissed.
Kay yelled from the engine room, “Trydecker. Kaplow.”
“Our trydecker valve is broken,” Gweneviere said in a voice that suggested the person on the other end should be reasonable. Merlin was impressed. “We’re going to need…”
“Twenty minutes!” Kay yelled.
“Twenty minutes, at least,” Gwen relayed.
“You have ten,” the blank voice said.
“Ten minutes!” Gwen yelled throughout the ship, and Merlin felt how desperately small that number was. How many times had he lost ten years to a useless Arthur? Ten decades to a long sleep? Ten minutes was nothing…
“Ha!” Kay said. “I knew those Mercer bastards would cut the number.”
“How much time do you actually need?” Val asked.
“Fifteen,” Kay mumbled. “I didn’t know they’d cut it that much.”
“Let’s go,” Ari said, waddling with Merlin to the double set of doors that led into space.
“Have you ever spacewalked before?” Lam asked Merlin.
“Yes and no,” Merlin said. “I self-propelled to the moon once.”
“This is a dangerous walk for a beginner.” Or anyone, Merlin read in the creases that appeared on Lam’s usually smooth forehead. “Take it slow. You and Ari are tied together, and your helmet coms are on if you need to talk.”
“You’re also going to be tethered to Error,” Ari said. “I’ll hook us up.”
Merlin nodded, but his plan to train her was becoming less delightful with each moment. They moved through the first set of doors, which Lam and Val sealed behind them. Merlin mimicked Ari, taking hold of a bar as the second set of doors opened.
Space greeted him, endless and cold, the blackest of blacks.
I want to go home, Merlin thought. But he didn’t know where home was. He meant the crystal cave, but that was just a way station on his endless journey. He seemed to understand space in a way that terrified him. Here was endlessness in its purest form.
At least Ari didn’t seem to be worrying herself into oblivion. She sealed a metallic clip to the side of the ship, hooking a cable to Merlin’s suit and one to her own. She pointed to the short tether that held them together.
Merlin picked a cable that would lead them to the first of the six ships. It wasn’t thick enough to walk across. Ari let herself out. In her white suit, she was like a falling star. She caught the cable and started to move, hand over hand. Merlin thought, very seriously for a second, about canceling this whole cycle. Even if it was his last chance. But then Ari looked back at him with her eyes wide, thrilled. She was having fun.
Merlin let go.
His organs lurched as he propelled himself out, missing the cable. His fingers sifted through space. For a second Merlin thought he was lost—that he would be floating, forever. Unable to die. Waiting out his time in a suit that kept him perfectly alone. Panic closed in on him.
“Merlin,” Ari said, her voice crackling through his helmet. That voice brought him back from the brink of nothing. Ari tugged him, one hand on the cable and the other on the tether between them. She was his lifeline out here, in more ways than one. Ari’s laugh was sharp and bright. “I bet none of your Arthurs have done this.”
“This is… unique,” he said, pulling himself after her.
They reached the doors of the first Mercer ship, and Ari gave Merlin a can of something to spray. It released a puffy sealant that covered the edges of the door. Merlin watched it grow with a wondrous satisfaction. Magic was his personal cup of tea, but technology wasn’t too shabby, either. They slid along the rest of the cables with growing ease, writing their defiance in puffy white goop. In his desperation to end the cycle, and his worry over turning Ari into Arthur, Merlin had forgotten how good it felt to strike a blow—any blow—against oppression.
They started along the final cable back to Error, and Merlin felt the first trickle of confidence he’d had in ages. Then one ship twisted, pulling taut against the cord that connected them to Error.
It would snap any moment, setting Ari and Merlin adrift.
He hummed a deep note, breaking the wire tied to the Mercer ship. Ari’s surprise sent her teetering backward, and Merlin grabbed her hand in a firm grip. Arthur 42 would not die—not today. Not tomorrow. Not while Merlin was here to protect her.
“Thanks,” Ari breathed.
“What is magic for?” Merlin asked.
When they made it back to the ship, Lam and Val hauled them in and sealed the doors behind them. Merlin ripped off his helmet, gulping Error’s blessed oxygen.
“Nine minutes, people!” Kay said, emerging from the engine room with grease smears all through his gray hair, arms lofted high.
“We’re cleared to continue,” Gweneviere said over the radio.
Error coughed her way back to life, but she flew smoothly enough. Merlin joined the rest of the crew at the window. The Mercer ships were no longer a sign of their impending doom. “It worked,” Merlin said, shock lifting the edges of his voice.
“I thought you knew it was going to work the whole time,” Ari said. “Aren’t you my wise and all-knowing mentor?”
“I used to be.” Now Merlin was walking without a tether, toward an unknown future. And it felt brilliant.