The events in other places – things that would have been shattering on any other day – seemed footnotes to the grand thesis of destruction playing out on Earth. Yes, there had been an attempted coup on Tycho Station, but the Earth was dying. Yes, an OPA cell had taken control of the ports on Ganymede, but the Earth was dying. Yes, a battle was going on between Martian escort ships and an unknown force near the Hungaria asteroids, but Earth was dying. The sense that something vast had descended on all humanity was inescapable.
Outside, in the common room, elated voices rose with each new report, cheering with delight. In her assigned quarters, she watched with a growing numbness. And beneath it, something else. After half a shift, she turned the screen off. Her own face reflected in the emptiness that followed looked like another stunned reporter searching for words and failing. She pulled herself out of her crash couch and walked out to the common room. It was so much like the Roci’s galley that her brain kept trying to recognize it, failing, and trying again. An utterly unfamiliar space would have been easier than this architectural uncanny valley.
“Hoy, Knuckles,” Cyn said, rising from among the crowd. “A que gehst, yeah?”
She made an automatic Belter’s shrug, but Cyn didn’t sit back down. Not the question of a friend wondering where she was going, but of a guard demanding information of a prisoner. She arranged her expression more carefully.
“This was why, wasn’t it? This was why he wanted me?”
“Marco son Marco,” Cyn said, and his voice was weirdly gentle. “He thought we should get you, so did, yeah? Why does why matter? Still the safest place to be in the system right here.”
Naomi took a long breath and blew it out.
“Lot to take in,” she said. “Big.”
“Is that,” Cyn said. Naomi looked at her hands, her fingers laced together. Act like one of them, she thought. What would she do if she were one of them again? The answer came too naturally. As if she was one of them. As if she always had been.
“Ship’s got an inventory,” she said. “I can do the checks. Be useful.”
“I’ll join,” he said, falling into step with her.
She knew where to go, how the lift would take her, where the machine shop was. In the years she’d been on the Roci, she hadn’t been aware that she was also internalizing the design logic of the Martian Navy, but she had been. When they reached the shop, she knew where the diagnostic arrays would be stored even though she’d never set foot in the place before.
Cyn hesitated before he opened the cabinets, but only a little. Checking inventory, testing batteries and relays and storage bubbles, was something everyone did in their spare time if they grew up in the Belt. It was as natural as drinking water, and when she picked up an array, he did too. The door to the cargo bay was sealed, but it cycled open for Cyn.
The bay was well-stocked. Magnetic pallets locked to the decks and walls in neat rows. She wondered idly where it had all come from, and what promises had been given in exchange. She went to the nearest, plugged the array into the pallet, and popped it open. The crates unfolded. Batteries. She took the first, snapped it into the array. The indicator went green, and she snapped the battery back out, replaced it, and took the next one.
“All going to be good,” Cyn said. “Military grade, this.”
“Well thank God militaries never get shit wrong.” The indicator went green. She swapped the battery in her hand for the next one. Cyn went to the next crate over, popped it, and started doing as she was doing.
She recognized it as a kindness. He hadn’t come down to be her friend, but her jailer. He could as easily have put her back in her cabin and locked the door to keep her there, but he hadn’t. He could have stood guard over her while she worked through the batteries, but he didn’t. He pretended that they were together on the task, equals. Even if it meant missing beer and Armageddon with his friends. Against her will, Naomi felt a spark of gratitude for that.
“Big day,” she said.
“A long time coming,” Cyn said.
“Long time,” she agreed automatically.
“Got to be weird seeing him again.”
She pulled another battery, checked it, put it back, grabbed the next one. Cyn cleared his throat.
“Mé falta,” he said. “Shouldn’t have said it.”
“No, it’s fine,” Naomi said. “Yes, it’s weird seeing him again. Did a lot to get away from him last time. Didn’t see ever coming back.”
“Bad times.”
“Those or these?”
Cyn coughed out a laugh and looked over at her, a question in his eyes. “These? Esá the promised land. Belt standing up. You know how it was before. You remember running thin because we couldn’t get enough oxygen. Breaking bones because the meds got taxed too much.”