Lourdes flinches and turns her attention to the communication boards in front of her. Her hands shake as she runs through a comms system test, even though we’re not connected to anything out here. At this point, we can send a message and hope it has enough strength to reach the commweb, just as theAurora’s distress signal reached us. But that’s about it. And if it did work, all that would result in is Verux Dispatch telling us to return to known space and wait for further instruction. Which… I’m not going to do.
That being said, there is comfort in routine and I’m not one to deny anyone that. She’s right to be terrified. That’s the normal reaction. Whatever normal means out here.
“Lourdes,” I say, and wait for her to look over at me.
Eventually she does, her fingers locked around the scroll at her neck, her eyes shiny with unshed tears.
“It’s part of the Law of Finding,” I say. “You have to bring a documented artifact back and make a public claim.” But I’m not taking any chances.Oneartifact might be ignored. It might even “disappear,” depending on how determined the remains of CitiFutura, now owned by Verux, is to hide whatever happened here and their potential culpability.
“But the people…” she begins.
“We’re not going to disturb them or their things,” I say.
“TL, no one else is going to be that particular,” Voller protests, spinning around in his chair.
I glare at him.
“All due respect,” he amends quickly—and less than sincerely. “But this is our one shot. We should be grabbing everything we can get our hands on, no matter who it belongs to. It’s all ours technically anyway. That’s what everyone else would do.”
Unfortunately, he’s right. We’ll make the claim but other ships—salvagers, scrappers, traders, just plain old mercenaries—will, as soon as they hear of our find, get out here and take what they can to sell it. Back to the families of the victims or just to interested parties wanting to own a piece of history. A Law of Finding claim is only as good as your protection of it, and since Verux will have to first send out a team to verify our claim, that leaves plenty of time for other interested parties to go nosing around.
“We’re not everyone else,” I say.
His face flushes with anger. But then he clamps his mouth shut, seemingly with effort, and turns his attention back to piloting.
“It’ll be quick,” I promise Lourdes. “I just need to grab a few things—one of those faucets maybe—to prove we were here and what we found. Not dangerous at all.”
Kane, who’s reached the bridge just in time for that last bit, shakes his head, jaw tight.
I ignore him. “And think of it this way. The families of those people on theAurora?” I gesture toward the image of the ship on our monitors. “They’ve been waiting for answers about their loved ones for twenty years. We’ll be helping with that. Helping them find peace.”
Lourdes takes a deep breath. “Right. Okay.” She straightens her shoulders.
What I don’t say is that while the families might want answers, in my experience, they probably won’t want the kind of answers that we’ll have.
“You have no idea what you’re walking into,” Kane says, arms folded across his chest, watching as I struggle into my enviro suit outside the airlock. The biohazard plastic bags I nabbed out of the bench that serves as our “med bay” lay in a slippery pile at my feet. Anything I take out will have to be quarantined. Just to be safe.
“I know that if it was environmental failure, I’m protected by the suit,” I say. “If it was a hull breach, same thing. And if it’s some kind of virus or plague…” The thought makes my palms sweaty and the ringing in my ear louder. “The filters on my—”
“That’s not what I mean,” Kane says, and his gaze is too serious. I have to look away, focusing on flexing my fingers to situate my gloves.
“The conditions over there won’t be good,” he continues. “Decomp would have stopped when the environmentals went down, but it won’t be pretty. Not based on what we’ve seen so far.” His voice is calm, practical even, but warm with concern. For me.
I work to ignore it.
“You don’t have to do this,” he says, edging closer. “No one would expect you to, after everything you’ve been through.”
As a minor, my name was never released to the public, but Kane,as the primary medic on board, has access to relevant details. Details that couldn’t possibly be more relevant than in this moment.
But the point is, no one else knows what to expect from me, because no one knows what happened, no one knows that I was once Child #1. The sole Ferris Outpost survivor.
Sometimes I wonder if that, too, is part of why I continue to feel that pull toward Kane. He knows too much and somehow doesn’t blame me when he should.
I take a step back, despite the small but clamoring part of me arguing for the opposite. “If you’re going to help me, help,” I say to Kane. “If not, then get out. Wait it out in your quarters.”
He rocks back, stunned. “Claire, Iamtrying to help.”
“No. You’re trying to talk me out of it.” I tug the cap up from inside the collar of my suit and tuck my hair inside.
