_-* Tasks Remaining: 336 *-_
First thing I notice is that he’s showered. Well, we can’t actually shower on the ship. But he’s used some precious water to slick his hair back. It looks handsome, sure, but it’s the fact that he tried that makes him even more handsome. I almost comment, but resist the urge just in time.
He sighs and cracks his knuckles as he comes in, like he’s girding himself for some ordeal. As before, he keeps his eyes on the window, avoiding me as much as he can. It’s as if we’re still communicating over patched audio.
I meant to be severe with him. But instead I’m soft and puddly. I’ve never been soft and puddly, not in my whole life. Minerva will laugh when she finds out about this. “I’m glad you’re here,” I say.
He grunts in response. He actuallygrunts. Who does that?
“OS, call up the starmap, with our ship and mission control at either end of the visualization axis,” he says.
The space between us becomes a projection of our rotating ship, surrounded by stars. Kodiak expertly navigates the model, making rapid calculations through the brain-op’d calculator floating on the side. A glowing blue sphere appears around our ship. It looks like magic, and like magic it makes me feel safe. Illogically safe.
Kodiak nods, massaging his neck. “With the sun between us and Earth, there’s no way for a signal to break through. Too much radio noise from the nuclear activity.”
“Until three minutes from now,” OS says.
Kodiak cocks his head, does more mental calculations. The numbers sparkle up through the visualization, rising like bubbles in champagne.
“Is something wrong?” I ask him.
His voice drops to a whisper, not that there’s any hope of hiding anything we say from OS. “There’s so much chaos in the sun’s radio noise. I don’t know of any computer system powerful enough to predict the formation of sunspots and flares. It would be like forecasting the weather on an April morning three years from now.”
“Forgive me, Spacefarer Celius,” OS cuts in, “but it is well known that the Cusk Corporation came to its industrial dominance through software development. You might not be aware of all that I’m capable of.”
Um. Is our operating system gettingdefensive?
I lay a restraining hand on Kodiak’s shoulder, then snatch it away when he redirects his glower to me. “We’ll have our answer soon enough,” I say, “once the next three—make that two—minutes go by.”
“Yes,” Kodiak says. “But whose mission control will we be talking to?”
“It’ll be the Cusk Corporation’s, so it’s multinational!We’re thousands of kilometers from Earth. Let’s not keep buying into our countries’ cold war bullshit.”
“Maybe it’s convenient for you to disregard atrocities, since it’s your side that committed them. Fédération’s war crimes in the former Philippines are not ‘cold war bullshit.’”
I could list ten war crimes that Dimokratía’s committed for every one of Fédération’s, but I hold back. “If we start relitigating centuries of history out here, we’ll never finish. But wearegoing to find a way to talk to Earth. Our survival depends on it.”
Kodiak nods, arms crossed over the mass of his chest. “I’m not disagreeing.”
“Twenty-seven seconds until connection reestablished,” OS says.
Kodiak looks up sharply, the fluorescent lights spinning prisms across his tan eyes. “What did you say, OS?”
“Twenty-seven seconds until connection reestablished.”
Kodiak’s shoulders cord, and the hollow at the base of his neck flushes red beneath its dusting of hair. “That’s preposterous. You can’t know that.”
“Hey, let it go,” I say. Last thing I need is open conflict between Kodiak and the ship itself.
I move so I can look into his eyes.Talk in private?
He shrugs, brows knitting. The message is clear.There is no “private.”
“Connection established,” OS announces.
My skin pricks. “Hello?”
I watch numbers tick over on the window’s overlay as we wait for mission control’s response. “This is Cusk mission control. Spacefarers Cusk and Celius?” comes a crackling voice a long while later. “We hope you are all right.” Because of the lag time between us and Earth, the voice continues before we can answer. “We are downloading all the technical data on your voyage so far as we speak. In the meantime, is there anything urgent you need to tell us?”
