Miral hesitated, caught, she guessed, in the uncertainty of what she knew and was supposed to know. When he smiled, it was almost sheepish. Naomi smiled back and kept walking, pretending that she was one of them. That she belonged. Cyn, beside her, made no comment but watched her from the corners of his eyes.
The mid-shift meal was refried noodles and beer. The newsfeed was set to a system-wide report, and she watched it avidly for the first time, not for what it said, but what it didn’t. Food and water reserves were running out in North America and Asia, with Europe only a few days better. Relief efforts from the southern hemisphere were hampered by a growing need for supplies locally. She didn’t care. It wasn’t Jim. Medina Station had gone dark; the basic carrier signal remained, but all queries were being ignored, and she didn’t care. The Martian minority speaker of parliament back in Londres Nova was calling for the prime minister to return immediately to Mars, and she only cared a little. Every story that wasn’t about a ship blowing up at Tycho Station was a victory. She ate fast, sucking down the sweet, pale noodles and slamming back the beer, as if by hurrying her meal, she could rush the ship, the attack.
Her opportunity.
She and Cyn spent the next half shift going through engineering and the machine shop, making sure everything was locked down. In a ship full of Belters, she had no doubt it all would be, and it was. The ritual of it was reassuring, though. The sense of order and control over a ship’s environment was a synonym for safety. Belters who didn’t triple-check everything had been weeded out of the gene pool fast, and seeing the regularity of the shop gave her an almost atavistic sense of comfort. And also, without being obvious, she checked the location of the flawed toolbox with its misshapen hasp and then carefully didn’t look at it again. She felt obvious, sure that by so clearly cutting the box out of her awareness, she was actually calling Cyn’s attention to it.
The relationship between the dark thoughts and the nearly unbearable swelling of excitement in her heart didn’t occur to her until Cyn’s hand terminal chimed and he called the work to a halt.
“Wrócic′ do tu crash couch, yeah,” he said, touching her shoulder. His hand was gentle but strong. She didn’t pretend ignorance, didn’t try to disguise her anxiety. It would just read as being scared of the battle anyway.
When they got to her quarters, she strapped in and Cyn checked her. Then, to her surprise, he sat by her side for a moment, his mass shifting the balance of the couch. His muscles rippled under the skin with even his smallest movements, but he still managed to seem boyish and shy, like his body was a costume. “Zuchtig tu, sa sa?”
Naomi smiled the way she imagined she would have if she’d meant it. “Of course I’ll be careful,” she said. “Always am.”
“La, not always, you,” Cyn said. He struggled with something. She didn’t know what. “Close quarters, means a lot of maneuvering. Don’t have a couch to catch you, then you get a wall, yeah? Maybe a corner.”
Fear flooded her mouth with the taste of copper. Did he know? Had he guessed? Cyn flexed his hands, not able to meet her gaze.
“En buenas mood, you. Happy, ever since you and Marco. So I’m thinking maybe you think there’s something to be happy for, yeah? Maybe a way out don’t have doors.”
Suicide, she thought. He’s talking about suicide. He thinks I’m going to unstrap in the middle of the battle and let the ship beat me to death. While she hadn’t consciously considered it before, it was the kind of thing the dark thoughts would have brought her. And worse, the thought brought no surprise with it, but only a sense of warmth. Almost of comfort. She wondered whether that had been in her mind, whether the danger inherent in her plan was its drawback or a covert way for the bad thoughts to find their expression. That she wasn’t sure unnerved her.
“I plan to be here when this is over,” she said, biting the words as if to convince herself as much as her guard.
Cyn nodded. The ship’s system sounded the maneuvers warning, but the big man didn’t get off the couch. Not yet. “Esá? Hard for us and you both. We come through, yeah? All of us, and you too.” He was staring at his hands now like something might be written there. “Mi familia,” he said at last. “Remember that. Alles lá son family, y tu bist also.”
“Go strap in, big guy,” Naomi said. “We can finish this after.”
“After,” Cyn said, shot a smile at her, and rose. The second warning came, and Naomi leaned back into the gel, just as if she meant to stay in its cool embrace.