Noemi stands alone on the bridge, staring down at the controls that tell her Abel just opened the primary air lock—while he was inside it.
Horror-sick, she switches the main viewer to show her what’s going on. The image on the enormous domed screen changes from the nebula-bright asteroid field above them to the side of the ship itself, dully reflecting the rainbow colors of surrounding space. Noemi spots Abel immediately and zooms in to see him skittering up the side, arms and legs at almost unnatural angles, climbing like a spider or some other inhuman thing. Within moments he’s reached the damaged tip and set to work.
He’s not even wearing an evac suit.
He’ll freeze solid. He’ll die. He knows that, of course.
If Abel has soul enough to have wronged her, he also has enough to value his own existence. And yet he has laid it down.
Noemi goes into action. She doesn’t think she can accomplish much before Abel finishes the repair. Not that it would do either of them any good if she did, since then they’d both die shortly thereafter. Putting on her own evac suit isn’t an option either; that would take more time than Abel has. So how can she save him?
“This is a science vessel,” she mutters to herself, frantically searching the bridge controls. “Science vessels launch research satellites. If they launch research satellites, they have to be able to bring them back in again.”
There! Next to the equipment pod bay is an extendable manipulator capable of grabbing satellites, pods, or maybe even mechs. It’s only about nine meters long, though. Will that be enough to reach Abel?
Noemi sits at the console and holds her hand above its screen. Green beams of light shine upward, illuminating her to the elbow. As the viewscreen shifts to show the manipulator arm extending from the mirrored surface of the Daedalus, she can see Abel again. He’s still working hard, but his movements have become stiff and choppy. The cold is taking its toll.
She reaches forward with her hand; the computer, reading her movement, pushes the extendable manipulator forward, too. Slowly she curls her arm upward, and slightly to the side.
Abel has almost been immobilized. He can’t move his hand to push something in, so he leans forward, using the weight of his shoulder. The red lights around the bridge all simultaneously shift to yellow, and Noemi realizes she’s been holding her breath. But he’s done it. He fixed the breach. He saved her.
Time to return the favor.
By now Noemi’s trembling, but that doesn’t matter. The motion doesn’t disrupt the sensors on her hand, and the manipulator continues reaching for Abel. Gently, she thinks, as if he were a hurt animal she can only approach with the greatest tenderness. She curls her fingers inward, centimeter by centimeter, staring at the viewscreen without even blinking. Abel’s pale shape against the darkness seems to burn an outline into her retinas.
He’s too far gone to take hold of the extendable manipulator, maybe even incapable of noticing it. Noemi imagines that she can capture him in her warm palm as she keeps tightening her fingers, finally taking hold of him. Then she pulls back quickly, deposits him in the equipment pod bay, then sets the air lock to cycle again as she takes off running.
Faster, she tells herself as she dashes down from the bridge along the ever-widening spiral of the corridor. You have to go faster. At this point, it hardly matters when she reaches Abel. Whether she gets to him in two seconds or two years, he’ll be repairable or he won’t. But she runs her hardest anyway.
The pod bay doors slide open as she runs toward them. As she jumps over the low threshold, Noemi sees Abel lying flat on the floor, staring blankly upward. His arms stretch out on either side of his body, unmoving. “Abel?” She kneels by his side. “Can you hear me?”
No response. His skin hasn’t gone pale or turned blue the way a human’s would, but the moisture at the edges of his eyelids has frozen into tiny crystals. When she reaches for him, she feels the electric burn of a force field—but this one is low-grade, something she can push through slowly. With great effort, she manages to shut off the device at his belt; the force field’s heat vanishes. She pulls off Abel’s heavy work gloves, hoping he’ll be able to squeeze her hands, but his fingers remain stiff and still. Noemi puts her hand over his chest, looking for a heartbeat, even though she knows that’s impossible.
She learned so much about destroying mechs, so little about repairing them.
Noemi does what you’re supposed to do for hypothermia victims, what she’s always wished she could’ve done for her parents and her baby brother: She lies down by Abel’s side, pillowing her head on his shoulder, and holds him tightly. That’s how you bring back people who have nearly frozen to death. You warm them with your own body heat. It’s her warmth that will save him, or fail.
Noemi treats him as a person, because she doesn’t know what else to do.
The minutes go on. Tears trickle from her eyes. Abel’s so cold he’s painful to the touch, but she doesn’t let go.
Finally, as despair begins to seize her, his finger twitches.
“Abel?” Noemi sits upright and takes his face between her hands. His stare remains blank, and she wonders whether she just imagined the movement. But then he blinks, and she begins to laugh weakly. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.”
It’s not that simple. More than an hour passes before Abel can even sit upright; some damage has been done. But he remains with her.
“You’re still functional, right?” Noemi tries to push back his blond hair, but it’s still frozen stiff. Instead she strokes his cheek. “If you need fixing, maybe you can talk me through it.”
“Unnecessary.” Abel’s voice sounds hoarse, almost metallic. “I should be able to restore most primary functions shortly.”
“Thank God.”
For the next couple of hours they work together. They test his range of movement. They test his memory. Abel can respond every time, sometimes slowly, but always adequately.
“What did you rename our ship?”
“First the Medusa, then the Odysseus.”
“What’s the square root of”—Noemi fishes for a truly random number—“eight thousand two hundred and eighteen?”
“To the third decimal place, ninety point six five three. I can provide the full number if desired.”
“Three decimal places works,” she says as she rubs his hands between her own, allowing friction to provide heat. Though there’s not that much friction, really: Abel’s hands are surprisingly soft. “What’s the first thing I said to you?”
Abel cocks his head, and finally he looks like himself again. “I remember it perfectly, but you almost certainly don’t. Therefore, reciting the words cannot serve as a viable test.”