‘I can’t imagine how they ever thought killing him would get your mother to cooperate,’ I murmur. ‘If I were her, I’d want to retaliate.’
‘I think she does,’ he agrees. ‘Mars For All says Mars should be open to more people. They think corporations and countriesshould have to sponsor more people who can’t self-fund. And they want forgiveness for any hitchers who make it here. But it turns out one of the people responsible for the blast was a hitcher who’d been deported from Mars. It came out in the hearings.’ He draws in a slow, shuddering breath, and steadies himself. ‘The irony is, until then, I’d actually been wondering if they had a point, the Mars For All crew. If maybe we should look for ways to broaden the criteria for getting a seat on a ship. That maybe there was talent we were missing. Ways that everyday people help create the culture of a place – I mean, I’ve met executives. Then Mars For All showed me what kind of people they really are. Who they speak for. I hope we hunt down every last one of them and send them home.’
The air goes out of my lungs as a cocktail of sympathy and despair swirls inside me, and I close my eyes.
Those people who don’t deserve to be here, the ones who didn’t earn or pay for a place, the hitchers who should all be deported? I’m one of them. And clearly all hitchers are the same to him.
People like me killed his father, who he loved. And I want to say,Do you think there’s a reason they were so desperate?Or maybe,Are you going to punish the ones who were never violent, just because a few were?He’s never going to help me, once he figures out who I am. He watched his father die just months ago.
I try to steady myself. I have to say something, to break the tension singing in the air after his last words. ‘Your mom must be looking forward to having you here,’ I try. ‘To being together after everything.’
Hunter’s quiet for a long moment, and I wish I could see his face. Eventually he speaks. ‘You know how I said they don’t know I made it to Pax?’ He lets out a slow breath. ‘They also don’t know I made it to Orbital. They don’t know I’m here at all. I bribed my way onto a freighter.’
I bang my head on the roof of the tube when I try to do a double take. ‘Wait, they think you’re onEarth? She didn’t notice that you’d gone silent forfour months? What about your sister?’
‘We don’t talk,’ he replies, in what’s trying so hard to be a neutral tone, but comes out grim. ‘Lucky, really. She’d have told my mother immediately, and getting yelled at with transmissions on a twenty-minute time delay, both ways, would have been an ordeal.’
‘Still, Hunter, you can’t seriously—’
‘Oh, I hear how it sounds,’ he agrees. ‘But this was my only option. I’ve spent the last few years quietly running my father’s arms of the business – they didn’t interest him. I was going to use all that work to prove to my mother that I deserve a place in the Graves family business. But I pissed off a lot of people, forcing my way onto those boards, into those meetings. So the minute Dad was gone, his executive officers shoved me aside and erased the fact that I’d ever been there.’
‘So showing up unannounced is about, what, taking some of that power back?’
‘Being a Graves is about legacy. We’ve changed the world for the better, and I’m going to be a part of all the changes to come. But now everything I did to show I’m ready to step up is gone.What’s left is to force a confrontation with my mother. To talk her through everything I’ve been doing andmakeher see what I’m capable of. To convince her to let me in. My sister’s been at her side all this time, setting herself up as the only rightful heir. I have to roll the dice, if I want what’s mine.’
Marguerite Graves.I’ve heard her name. I’ve seen her quotes in the news, if not her picture. She’s always seemed like she’d punch you in the face, then charge you for her time.
I wonder if she looks like her brother.
I need to change the subject from the Graves legacy before I ask him whose world, exactly, they’ve changed for the better. The one thing I can’t do is argue with him outright.
‘Soooo,’ I say slowly, squinching one eye open, as if I can see his face while I take this risk. ‘You lied your way up here, huh. Makes you a kind of hitcher, doesn’t it?’
Hunter laughs abruptly, a surprised sound, and his hand finds my ankle to give it a squeeze. ‘Damn, you make a good point. I swear, as soon as I can find someone in authority, I’ll hand myself in. So what’s your story? You said before that you were here alone. Are your family coming later?’
I should have seen that question coming. But I’m still caught up in the tangle of his father’s death, and Hunter’s ambitions, and the fact that his mother is as terrible as mine – and he surprises me into answering with the truth.
‘I don’t have any family. I lost my dad too, actually.’ My fingers are still gripping the grate, holding it in place where I took the screws out, and my whole hand’s starting to clench and ache.
Now it’s Hunter’s turn. ‘Oh, shit, Cleo, I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have let me go on about—’
‘Don’t be,’ I mutter. ‘It was years ago. There were a lot of medical bills left behind afterwards. We lost everything, and we still owed money. And after that … well, maybe you’ll get it. Your mother doesn’t sound like a treat, if you don’t mind me saying so. No contact for five years is a lot.’
‘That’s fair. I’m guessing yours isn’t up for Mom of the Year either?’
‘She’d probably pawn the trophy.’ I snort. ‘Mine lumped me with all the medical debt, since I was a minor. She figured they’d cancel it, instead of going after a teenager. Which was incorrect, by the way. And then she split. I haven’t seen her since. I heard she went to Georgia, but who knows.’
Hunter’s voice is incredulous. ‘I’m sorry,what?’
‘Which bit are you having trouble believing? That they’d chase me for the debt before I hit eighteen, that my mother split, or that she went to Georgia? They really cleaned it up after the whole thing with the reactor. I heard it’s pretty safe these days.’
‘Uh, take your pick, I guess,’ he manages.
‘Look, not to sound …’Like I think you’re a sheltered rich boy.‘That’s how life goes, where I come from,’ I say quietly. ‘Nobody I grew up with would be surprised by that story. It taught me a lot about not relying on other people. I figured the debt collectors wouldn’t track me off-world, so I got my apprenticeship—’
‘Engineering, right,’ he agrees, probably wondering how I afforded any of the education I’d need for that, if I grew upsomewhere that taught me the kinds of lessons I’ve learned. Which is a fair question, because I couldn’t afford it.
‘Yeah, engineering. And I came here. Only to find myself hiding out in a ventilation shaft with my new friend Hunter Graves, missing the good old days of debt collectors threatening to smash in my knees. What a weird day.’
