“Conspiracy theories?”he cut in. “You think I’m making wild speculations?” Dark blue color rose in his cheeks as he flushed.
“No. I don’t know.” Heat, a flash of anger, misdirected for sure, put an edge in her voice. “I am spread too thin, Rasker. I need to…” She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t knowhowto finish it in a way that would appease him. What sheneededto do was fix the water system, and the lights, and run a diagnosticon the bots, and restore force field. And it needed to be done in three days with nonitsand no repair parts, and the growing certainty that none of it would be enough was starting to fray her mind. “I need to go.”
She left the control tower. The elevator took her down, and she walked across the dim, cold square to the hotel, through the empty lobby, down the hallway, and into her living unit.
Luv was in standby mode as she charged at her station, but Bean was awake. He lifted his head off the couch when Holly came through the door, and he tracked her with those steady brown eyes.
Holly sat down beside him and he climbed into her lap, turned in a circle, and settled his weight across her thighs. Holly put her arms around him and held on. Her thoughts pinged between all the incredible events that had shaped her life over the weeks she’d spent there. The good, the bad, the absolutely amazing. She thought about Rasker carrying her through his doorway and how he’d said,only if you want to.
But the last thought that surfaced, the one she had been pushing down for days and made her chest collapse inward like a structure that had finally lost a battle with gravity, was this:I may have to sell this place.
The tears came without warning in a raw, ugly rush that bent her over the dog in her lap. She pressed her face into Bean’s fur and sobbed, and the sound of it filled the small room. Bean held very still beneath her, as he always did when she needed him most.
She cried for a long time. For the station and the people and the future she had been building, piece by piece. For the woman she had been becoming here, braver and freer and more herself than she had been in twelve years, and for the possibility that it wasn’t going to be enough.
When the tears finally slowed, she sat up and wiped her face with the back of her hand. Bean looked up at her, his brown fur wet from her tears, his ears soft and warm.
“I’m sorry,” she told him.
He licked her chin.
Holly sat there with her dog in her lap, the cold pressing in from every side and the clock ticking down to an inspection she couldn’t pass, and she let herself feel the full weight of it. All of it. Without pushing it away or packing it into a quiet pocket of her mind.
Then she took a breath, and another, and another.
Three days.
Forty-One
The inspectors’ ship was the most pristine vessel Holly had ever seen on a landing pad.
It was tear-shaped, silver-white, and so clean it looked like it had been manufactured that morning. No scuff marks, no patched panels, no evidence that it had ever encountered the grime and wear of actual space travel. It sat on pad one like an accusation, gleaming in the unsteady light of the force field that Holly and Sam had spent the past three days holding together with a hardwired bypass that would not survive close examination.
Holly stood on the pad beside Sam and watched the ship’s ramp lower. Her stomach was a fist. She had not slept the night before, and the porridge Luv had forced on her sat in her gut like a stone.
Two figures descended the ramp.
The first was enormous. Eight feet tall, easily, with pinkish-gray skin that had a smooth, rubbery quality. His mouth was tiny, almost vestigial, set in a broad face that showed absolutely nothing. He carried a d-pad the size of Holly’s torso, and his uniform was white, pressed, and immaculate.
The second barely reached Holly’s knee. He was stout, with deep green skin, a thick beard that brushed the front of his white uniform, and enormous blue eyes that moved constantly, taking in everything. He walked with a pronounced limp, one leg shorter than the other, and carried his own d-pad tucked under a muscular arm. Holly didn’t know the name of either of their species. She didn’t ask. The white uniforms and the Way Station Registry insignia on their chests told her everything she needed to know.
Behind them, from the open bay of the ship, a cloud of small bots poured into the air. Dozens of them, each no bigger than Holly’s hand, moved with coordinated precision as they fanned out, scanning every surface of the spaceport. The inspectors looked around before they even glanced at Holly, having already begun their review, starting with this part of the station. Since it lay outside of the dome, jutting up from one of the long sides of it, they apparently felt it efficient to begin right away. Holly waited, and after what felt like hours, but was only about five minutes, the bots concluded their scans and clustered into a tight ball. There, they hovered behind the inspectors like an ominous swarm of bees.
“Ms. Greene-Moone?” The tall inspector spoke in a voice that was surprisingly soft for his size. “I am Inspector Tol’rak. This is Inspector Drell.” He gestured to his diminutive partner, who gave a curt nod. “We are here to conduct an operational review pursuant to a complaint filed under Regulation 4.7(c). We, and our review bots, will require full access to all systems, infrastructure, and facilities for the duration. Any hindrance or attempt to disable our equipment will result in immediate suspension and action from Galactic Enforcement that will result in fines and possible charges.”
These were serious words. “Of course. You’ll receive no obstruction from anyone here,” Holly said, swallowing hard. Hervoice came out steady. She was proud of that. “I’ve prepared all relevant documentation. Repair logs, maintenance records, my own assessments.” She held up her d-pad and flicked the files toward them, sending the data through the system to their nearby d-pads. “This contains everything we have.”
Inspector Tol’rak accepted the data with a nod. Inspector Drell grunted. “We’ll verify against our own data,” Drell said. His voice was gravelly and clipped. “No offense intended.”
“None taken.”
Sam did the same with his own d-pad. “Spaceport systems, power grid diagnostics, and water infrastructure reports. All current.”
Drell scanned Sam’s data. “Thorough,” he said. It was neither a compliment nor a criticism. It was an observation.
They rode the elevator down together, the four of them, and the cluster of bots, in miserable silence. The doors opened and discharged the inspectors into the square, where they moved with the methodical precision of people who had done this hundreds of times and had no interest in conversation, pleasantries, or excuses. Tol’rak walked slowly, his long stride shortened to accommodate the space. Drell moved quickly on his short legs, his limp barely slowing him, and his enormous blue eyes missed nothing. He paused at a junction conduit, tapped a finger on the interface, checked a reading, and made a note. He did not share the note.
All Holly could do was watch.
