I shrug and say nothing.
Hurt flashes through Lament’s eyes. I see him wilt, visibly, but unlike normal, he doesn’t quickly cover his feelings with a cool exoskeleton. Doesn’t rush to rebuild his walls. He just… stays kind of downtrodden, working his lip between his teeth, unsure where to set his eyes.
“Well.” He clears his throat. Glances around the group. Tugs at his sleeve, notices the undone button at his wrist, clasps his hands behind his back. “You’ll just have to take my word for it. Moon Dancer is fixable. On her way to flying, actually. Or, I mean, I think she is.”
Avi sits into her hip. “Youthink?”
“We can let Toph do an assessment.” Lament clears his throat again. Scratches his neck. Andhell, I’m going to have to strangle him for this, because I thought leaving him hanging would make me feel better, but now I just feel like I’ve kicked a one-legged puppy. “Toph can…,” Lament tries. “I mean, we’ll let him make the final call—”
“She’ll fly,” I assert, with an internal sigh. “No assessment from Toph necessary. I’ve seen Moon Dancer. The progress Lament has made is impressive. He’s just waiting on a tool. A compounder, I think it’s called?”
“To mold the zurillium.” Toph gives an appreciative nod. “But what about the interior systems? Propulsion tank—?”
“Fixed,” Lament says.
“Pressurant forces?”
“Fixed.”
“Lines, power packs, regulators, thrusters?”
“Some were undamaged, but those that needed work have been repaired. They’re all ready to go.”
Toph grins. “Youhavebeen busy.”
No one looks skeptical anymore. The Sixers are all exchanging eager looks, murmuring things likeCan you believe it?andOf course Lament did. Lament glances at me, his expression a mix of hope and relief and lingering uncertainty, but just because I defended him doesn’t mean I want Lament’s feelings right now. I can’t afford their burden, not when my own chest is still too tight and my eyes are dry rocks and everything feels laced with meaning. I look away.
“Once the compounder arrives,” Lament says, turning reluctantly back to the group, “it’s just a matter of re-forming the body and getting Moon Dancer in the air. I’ll work as fast as I can…”
“And we’ll help,” Vera says.
“You’ll need as many hands as possible,” the first Youvu Hum agrees.
“If we want this thing finished before the eruption,” adds the other. “You and Toph can show us what to do.”
Lament looks touched, and a little shy for being touched. He smiles. “Thanks, everyone.”
“Group hug?!” Avi squeals.
Lament’s smile dies a sudden death. “I amnot—
“Bring yer chippers in!” Caspen hollers, and everyone springs forward, wrapping Lament up in the center, jumping and hooting as he tries to break free. He meets my gaze through the space between Toph’s and Jester’s arms, giving meplease save meeyes.
The moment is light. I want to be able to take part in it, to laugh in good humor at the distress on Lament’s face, for things to be okay between us. But they’re not, and I can’t, so I don’t.
23
With the addition ofeighteen extra hands, progress on Moon Dancer goes fromone thing at a timetoeverything all at once. Besides Toph and Lament, no one has any idea what they’re doing, but as it turns out, you can repair a spacecraft body without much technical skill. Just a lot of patience and time and manpower. There are ways to do this faster—the Legion has an entire department dedicated to ship maintenance—but since the Legion doesn’t know about Moon Dancer, we do what we can with what we have.
I like working on Moon Dancer. A lot, actually. It’s all of it: the way the task fills my hands and empties my mind, the clink of tools around the workshop, the camaraderie of doing it together. Toph takes the lead, assigning our duties based on his estimation of our ability, and over the course of the next two weeks we start to make real progress. Daytime remains dedicated to Legion missions (surveillance runs, investigations into illegal spaceflights, and one rather awkward seizure of hallucinogens, which—after we intercept the runner and confiscate the cargo—turns out to be a vat of cherry pudding), but at night, we take shifts in the workshop. Jester installs a monitor on the wall and sets it to NewsNet so we can listen tothe latest airings while we sand down broken screws and re-form sheets of zurillium. He turns up the volume whenever the topic moves to Venthros.
Which it often does these days. Despite the train wreck that was our post-Venthros debrief, Sergeant Forst does in fact bring our concerns about the voroxide to her higher-ups, and they send another fleet (the Ninth—lots of biohazard and chemical weapons specialties on that team) to investigate. The Ninth takes samples of the gas around Mount Kilmon and confirms its murderous nature, which is at once gratifying and frustrating. We’ve learned so much, yet solved nothing.
There’s a lot of speculation in the news about why Mount Kilmon has suddenly become so deadly. An independent geology report concludes that the voroxide may have always existed inside Venthros’s crust, and years of eruptions finally created a deep enough fissure to set it free. The Ninth does a full analysis, but after several trials, they’re unable to conceive of a neutralizer that can work against the gas.
Apparently, Ran Doc Min has a monopoly on that front.
He’s featured in the news almost daily now. It seems like NewsNet is just a rotating carousel of Doc Min, the Determinists, and Mount Kilmon’s upcoming eruption, which is due to take place in a mere five weeks. The Legion finally—and after much interagency debate—puts out a public appeal to the Determinist leader, asking him to share his neutralizer so that we can test it for safety and help distribute it more widely, but the man continues to ignore us. His message to the public remains the same:Pledge yourself to me, and I’ll deliver you salvation myself.
