Beside him, Iris was sobbing from laughter, and he pressed his forehead against Yan’s hand. “How … how long was Litmus dead for before … before …” Iris couldn’t finish his question for his mirth.
“A week.” Yan forced the words through his own laughter. “We kept him in the freezer. Right next to the ice cream.” He collapsed onto his knees, his forehead effortlessly finding the spot between Iris’s neck and shoulder.
After another few moments of bellowing laughter, Iris snaked his arms around Yan’s shoulders and pulled him closer. “When I was twelve, some kids found a dead mountain bear,” Iris began softly, when he could speak without breaking into a chuckle. His right temple rested against Yan’s head. It was the closest he’d been to a person in a decade, so close that he could smell Yan’s sweat mixed with fresh soil, and greenery, and stale tobacco. He must have smelled like that. How odd, to think of these things when both their lives could be cut short this instant. Iris closed his eyes. “It was the summer—”
Yan snorted into Iris’s shoulder.
“Ah, I see the engineer has figured out where this is going.” Iris smiled and continued. “Well, we picked a day when we didn’t have cleaning chores or studies. It must have been an auspicious day. Anyway, we went into the woods, and Eron—it was always Eron—he kept poking the thing with a stick.”
Yan had begun to tremble with silent laughter.
“And I kept telling him not to because the thing wassobloated. I came closer to take his stick away and that’s when”—Iris shook his head to keep himself from laughing—“it just blew up. The entire thing, just a giant, dead, awful bear explosion.”
Yan pulled back—Iris could see the engineer’s face was stained with tears—and threw his head back and laughed so hard he was audibly gasping for air.
“There were five of us, just covered, and I meancovered, in this bear’s insides. It took me hours to get my robes clean, and the smell didn’t go away for another week. Everyone just kept asking about it. Oh, it was such an awful thing,” Iris managed to finish before he buried his face in his hands, howling with laughter.
When Yan got to catch his breath, he wiped the tears from his dirty face and gave Iris a reassuring grin.
“I think it’s pretty inappropriate that I too reminisce of such things given the gravity of our situation, engineer Yan,” Iris said softly, still smiling. He held Yan’s gaze. The engineer’s eyes weren’t a solid colour. Swimming in the sea of black were flecks of honey, nearly golden in the dim light, and for an unknown reason, that mere fact was suddenly the most important thing.
Yan gave Iris’s shoulder a squeeze. “Maybe we’re both fucked then.”
“In just the same way.”
It was deceptively alluring to laugh about the most inappropriate things with Yan. With a sudden panic, Iris came to the realisation that it had been many months, if not years, since he had laughed this way with anyone other than VIFAI. It was also only the second time he had ever told that story. The first had been to Bacai, when she would not stop pestering him about why he was washing his robes with such urgency.
Iris didn’t know when or how, but Yan’s hand had moved from his shoulder to the base of his neck. Now, it comfortably rested there, with Yan’s thumb brushing faintly against Iris’s jaw.
Huh,VIFAI said.Well, isn’t this a peculiar turn of events.
“I think there are much more pressing matters at hand,” Iris told Yan softly and immediately regretted every word because amidst the growing danger, the death, he was beginningto feel this was something worth risking his life for. This very moment, that silenced every neurosis and numbed every wound, was worth savouring at any cost it carried.
With a polite smile, Yan pulled his hand away. “Of course.” He gave his head a strong shake and got to his feet. “You’re absolutely right, Vessel. Now, while you were giving me a tour of your memory lane, I had a thought. Whatever is behind those doors is probably very important, otherwise Eli wouldn’t be dead. By my previous observations, it’s one of the brains of the ship. That means that destroying it won’t solve our entire problem, but it could buy us some time. You don’t know this, being a monk and all, but every signal has a range. If the brain is jamming the airlocks, shutting it down will clear an area around the jamming signal.” He sniffled again, and Iris saw a wall of tears shimmering over Yan’s eyes, still contained. “The last time I looked at our map, I saw there’s an emergency airlock two decks up from here. It’s close enough that if we can kill this brain, we might have enough time to radio back to Station and call for an evac before whoever is responsible for this finds another way to jam the signal. After that, who knows? Maybe Station will even make it in time.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Iris agreed and took an anguished step back. For now, if he could just be of service, it would have to be enough. With a deep bow, he reached into one of the pockets of his robes and produced a slightly bruised apple. He handed it to Yan, a ghost of a smile playing along his lips. “I’ll let the others know.”
Jesi lay on her back, chewing the apple that had been intended for Yan. “Whoever it is, they won’t just let us walk in. I can force the door open, I think, if nothing kills me first.” She hadthrown herself into the problem with abandon, much to the admiration of her supervisor, and was actually making some headway. “Vessel’s pulsar blade should be able to cut into the fuse box, so I can work, but when the vines come, and they will, someone will have to protect me. I’ll be busy.” There was no more fear left in the girl. The last of it had bled from her small body in a final fit of tears, and now she was all cold determination.
“We can distract it,” Yan said. “I’m sure we can short-circuit something and start a fire.”
“Something tells me it would be able to multitask,” Ishtan grumbled. “Is there another way in? Air vents?”
Ishtan was on to something. Down the corridor, a thin outline of an air vent behind the vines beckoned to Iris. He walked along the wall, grabbed hold of a vine running along the ceiling, cursed internally at the shooting pain in his left shoulder, and pulled himself close. With a single pull, the air vent cover popped open, and Iris shoved his head through the opening. No vines. In fact, there was nothing organic at all inside the vent.
“It’s all clear here,” Iris called to the three watching him intently. “It’s the same as the stairwells. There must be something about this surface that makes vegetation hard to grow.” With a small wince, he hopped back down to the floor. A day at most. He only had to last another day. “I believe the vents are a good option, Ishtan.”
“Then we split up,” Yan said softly after Iris landed safely. He motioned for Jesi and Ishtan to gather close. Iris watched from afar, reading Yan’s lips easily even in the dim light. “Jesi and Iris will go together to override the fuse box. Ishtan and I will take to the vents. Sorry, old man, you’re gonna have to exert yourself.”
Ishtan slapped Yan’s shoulder loudly. “I’ll have you know I was quite a mountaineer in my day.”
“What?” Jesi teased, barely containing herself, all pretenses of secrecy forgotten. “On the glaciers of First Earth?”
Ishtan tried to play it serious but he was grinning behind his beard. “Have some respect. Back in my day, a respectable professor from a respectable university had at least that.”
“And now you have a murder ship,” Yan said, patting Ishtan on the back. “We’re diversifying. We’re moving up in the world.”
Iris listened to the jovial banter from afar. He would have joined, but he was neither a funny nor a very wise monk. Most things he’d say would be misconstrued and spoil the mood, and he truly wished for this mood to persist, even if for another few minutes. They all needed it.
