“Whom can’t I trust?” she asked her aunt.
“All of them. Any of them. Girl, you know that, why do I have to tell you this every time? They took you. They used you. They threw you in the garbage. Watch out next time, all I’m saying. It’s all I ever say.”
“All of them? Why would you assume they’re all corrupt?” Maria asked.
“You don’t live centuries without piling up a whole mess of skeletons in your closet, do you, Maria?” She looked directly at Maria, this dream creature who she felt entirely sure, dream-sure, was her Aunt Lucia, who’d practically raised her, and yet looked nothing like her beloved aunt.
Maria had her skeletons. The skeletons and their clones piled atop one another like cordwood. But this was new, this was an adventure, a fresh start. The Dormire wasn’t a place to drag out skeletons.
“If you kids don’t stop arguing, I’m going to have to turn this ship around,” Aunt Lucia said, and then Hiro, Wolfgang, Paul, Captain Katrina, and Joanna were around her, each standing in what looked like a spotlight, only instead of illuminating them, it cast a shadow on them. Their silhouettes were obvious, from Wolfgang’s tall form to Paul’s slouched diminutive stance. They waited for her in the darkness.
“I wish I understood, Aunt Lucia,” she said.
“You will, girl. I just hope it’s in time. You get those hermit crab cage keys ready. You’re gonna need them,” Aunt Lucia said, and leaned over her rocking chair’s arm to pick up her chain saw. It was small, and looked at home in her hands. She started it up. “Watch your back, Maria.”
At Maria’s feet, a hermit crab dragged its shell across the porch, antennae waving gently.
“Hello, old friend,” she said.
Yadokari
Day 3
July 27, 2493
Maria woke with a start. It was late, she had something she needed to do. She was out of bed and on her feet before she felt grounded enough to remember who she was and what she was doing here. She checked the clock on her dim terminal: five a.m. local ship time. Her head throbbed.
She went to the sink and splashed water on her face. She needed a confidant; she wouldn’t be able to do this alone. She wanted to trust Joanna, but the doctor was in the process of possibly implicating herself in at least one murder. Who could Maria count on?
Whom.
Her tablet pinged softly, indicating a text message. Maybe Joanna was ready to talk about what she’d found. Maybe the captain had thrown Wolfgang in the brig for the murders. Maybe someone else was awake at this ungodly hour.
The message was from Hiro.
YOU AWAKE
She glanced up at the cameras. YES. DID IAN TELL YOU I WAS UP?
WELL YEAH
She groaned. Stalking via AI, not very comforting. ARE YOU STILL DRUNK?
NO IM UP WITH A HUNGOVER. HANGOVER. NOT MUCH BETTER THAN DRUNK. CERTAINLY MORE REGRETFUL THOUGH.
“Criminy, he wants me to get Bebe to make him a hangover cure,” she muttered, and then wrote WHAT DO YOU NEED?
LET’S GO FOR A WALK.
She looked mournfully at her bed. Hungover Hiro was not what she needed now. But he was the only one awake, and besides, everyone else seemed to have their own agendas. And probably were asleep.
Her tablet dinged, indicating he wanted to talk via voice. “Shit baskets, Maria, why are you making me type this early?”
“You contacted me,” she said.
“You always take the moral high ground. Aren’t you Miss Perfect?”
“You’re close to being an asshole again,” she answered, annoyed. “Do you want my company or not? I could happily go back to bed. And stop getting the AI to spy on me.”
“I just asked him if you were awake. And I’m sorry for being a dick. I’m blaming the hangover for as long as I can. I apologize officially. Put it in my record that I did that. I’m a very fine person. Speaking of fine, fine, let’s go on an adventure. Let’s go down the rabbit hole and visit the Cheshire cat. Let’s lean into the wind. Let’s—wait, what are we doing, anyway?”
“You invited me to go for a walk,” Maria reminded him.
“Right! Meet me in the helm.”
Hiro looked rumpled and a little unsteady when Maria got to the helm. The entirety of the universe swung slowly around them, and he looked very much like he didn’t want to watch.
“Incidentally, why me?” she asked as she approached, pulling on a light jacket over her jumpsuit.
“You were the only one I figured wouldn’t make fun of me,” he said. “Or throw me in the brig.”
“Why would I do that? Are you afraid you are the killer and want to only tell me?” She stood just out of reach of him, feeling silly.
“No, it’s nothing to do with that. I want to show you something I found. But it’s ridiculous, and I know they won’t take me seriously. You might.”
“Okay, what is it? And how mad is Wolfgang going to be at us when he finds out we’re doing whatever we’re doing?”
“That’s another reason I’m bringing you along,” he said. “So if we’re caught he can’t accuse me of sabotage or anything.”
“What are we not sabotaging?” Maria asked. “And you know he could accuse us both.”
“I just want to go to the gardens. That’s not against the rules. I need a more private area.” He averted his eyes. “I…found something.”
“Why there?” Maria asked, suddenly more alert and wary.
He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to her. In tiny script he had written no cameras.
Something he wanted to keep from IAN. Fair enough.
“So that’s why you need me. I have maintenance access,” she said, winking at him and pulling out a key card. “You know if I am caught misusing this, Wolfgang will probably throw us both in the brig.”
“I’ll brig him,” Hiro said darkly. “In fact, I should have my own brig. Hiro Sato, Piloting Sheriff of Outer Space. Hiro. Space Sheriff.”
“Come on, space cowboy, I’ll go first so your badge doesn’t get dirty,” Maria said.
Hiro and Maria stood outside a round yellow door at the end of a hallway in an area of the ship he had no memory of ever going, although he had apparently visited it often. One level down from their living area, it had a bit more gravity than they were used to, but nothing they couldn’t handle.
He had blamed his nervousness on a hangover, and she seemed to have bought it.
She held her card in her right hand. “You know the rest of the crew won’t look kindly on us sneaking around?”
He nodded, bouncing a little on his toes.
“IAN will probably tell Wolfgang we were wandering instead of doing our jobs or sleeping,” she added, whispering.
She ran the card, and the door opened with a slick whoosh.
Inside was a huge hydroponic garden that looked to stretch most of the ship’s length. Only the habitation end of the ship had concentric floors; the garden was only the inside of the cylinder of the ship, with the “ceiling” consisting of the other floor on the other side. Straight walls held doors on either end.