“Please,” I mutter at the same time.
“Right,” Voller says. “Blame it all on the men. Like there aren’t a hundred real fur coats on this temperature-controlled boat, never mind the fact synthetics are even warmer than—”
“Um, Andrew Davies?” Nysus says. “That’s the name on the official documents. Someone leaked verified cargo and passenger manifests to the Forum a few years after the accident.”
Kane’s sharp intake of breath is audible even over the intercom. “Wait, he’s… Davies was on here?” Kane asks.
“Who’s that?” I ask. The name rings a distant bell, but not enough for me to pin it down. Sometimes my Ferris Outpost education trips me up.
“He’s that… whatever comes after billionaire, yeah?” Voller asks. “Old guy. Made all his money a long time ago off code that connected prosthetic limbs to a chip in the brain or something like that.”
Now doctors could just print a new limb from the patient’s DNA—nerves, tissue, and all—and attach the thing. But back in the day, when Davies was apparently a big deal, people were still dealing with mechanical replacements—a direct connection to the brain would have been a huge deal.
“But then he spent most of his fortune investing in mag-lev technology,” Kane says, his words coming rapidly in excitement. “He’s the reason we have the highways and the high-speed trains in the United States, not to mention the cars. He’s like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford in one.”
And evidently something of a personal hero to Kane.
Kane pauses. “So Davies died on theAurora?”
“It’s unclear, but according to the Forum, that’s what everyone assumes,” Nysus says. “He was listed on the manifest, his luggage and the car made it on board, and no one ever heard from him again. But his wife—the third Mrs. Davies—insisted that he canceled at the last minute for some emergency business meeting in the Philippines. She claimed he’d been kidnapped by a rival or some group trying to extort money. She fought against having him declared dead for years after theAuroradisappeared and spent thousands on private investigators to find him. On Earth, that is.”
Voller snorts. “Let me guess, chica wanted the cha-ching to keep cha-chinging.”
“Is it possible for you to be more offensive?” Lourdes asks.
“Probably,” Voller says thoughtfully, after a moment. “But I’d have to put real effort into it.”
“Please don’t,” Lourdes says, disgusted.
“Enough,” I say, intervening before Voller feels the need to prove himself.
“Rumor has it that the last Mrs. Davies wouldn’t stand to get much unless their marriage made it more than ten years,” Nysus admits.
“Which is probably exactly when she gave up her ‘fight’ to find him, right?” Voller asks.
“Voller,” I say with a sigh.
But Nysus remains silent, which is confirmation of Voller’s guess in and of itself.
“Told you,” Voller mutters. But he navigates the rest of the way in silence, until I feel the familiar thud/pull of LINA’s landing gear attaching us to the deck.
“It’s not as secure without clamps,” Voller says. “But the magnets should hold us long enough.”
Another inheritance from Mr. Davies and his love of mag-lev? Possibly. The magnetized landing gear was meant to be a backup option, in case of docking clamp or grav-gen failure on a hauler. Redundancies everywhere. A necessity in space.
“Closing the cargo bay door,” Nysus announces. The occasion is marked only by a slight shudder beneath my feet, and the increase of dread in my gut. Rationally, it’s the safer move, especially with two of us moving around the ship, untethered. At least this way, we’re held within the confines of the ship.
Held.Trapped.
I watch the monitor for a moment, the cargo bay detritus swirling around us. It’s an odd feeling to know that every person who last touched those items has been dead for twenty years but is probably still here somewhere. At Ferris Outpost, it felt more immediate. Like if I could find the right sequence of actions, I’d be able to rewind time those few hours or days and bring everyone back to life again. This feels more like ancient ruins, abandoned and then rediscovered centuries later. And yet, still somehow ominous and threatening.
“All right,” I say. “We’ve got work to do.”
“TL, I know you’ve got a hang-up about those faucets, but I’d skip them,” Nysus says. “Forum says several high-end hotels bought a load of them about the same time as theAurorawas being built. It might not be enough for our claim.”
And likely not worth enough, I mentally add. The faucets are intrinsically valuable but what would really bump up the price—and solidify our claim—is something that’s exclusive to theAurora.
“Who cares?” Voller asks in the corridor, yanking up his suit as he heads toward me. “We’re going to have the black box, that’ll be more than enough to prove we were here.”
