Grimspace (10 page)

As usual, we're in the middle of an argument.

However, I am just an observer in this particular squabble, sitting in the hub with my ankle propped on my knee. Dina beetles her brows, and she's up in March's face, doing everything but shaking a fist. I don't think she'd bother, though. If she intended to hit him, she wouldn't give warning; she'd let her knuckles do the talking. In the time we've traveled together, I've learned some respect for the woman.

“I'm telling you, we need to take the ship down,” Dina says heatedly. “If you four launch in the pod, then I'm fragged if they track us down before you get back. And what if I need to do some work outside the ship? You going to leave me up here doing the walk without backup? Plus, I can't shut down certain systems while in synchronous orbit. They'll find it easier to locate us.”

“She has a point.” Everyone glances at Doc, who shrugs. “I understand you're worried about the ship being damaged on the planet, but if something happens up here, we're no better off, and we'll have lost Dina.”

“And nobody wants that.” I don't mean to sound quite so acerbic, but Dina just grins. To her, that probably felt like an endearment, and I can't help grinning back.

Dina backs off, now that she has popular support. “Take us down then. Find a landing spot, ideally a clearing with some cover.”

“Anything else, your majesty?” March sketches a bow that would do credit to someone meeting real royalty.

“Frag you,” she returns without heat. “My family was deposed fifteen years ago.”

My brows arch as March returns to the cockpit, but Dina's already turning away to get back to work on the phase drive. That leaves me glancing at Doc for clarification, and he shakes his head before heading to medical. Finally, I turn to Loras, who sighs.

“I believe Dina comes from the Imperial family on Tarnus, or rather, what used to be the Imperial family. There was a populist movement on her world, perhaps twenty turns ago, and—”

“It ended in a bloody coup?” I guess.

Not that I don't want to hear the two-hour lecture that Loras would have volunteered on Tarnian history, but well, I don't know shit about the universe, and I don't
want
to know. The only thing I'm good at is grimspace, and it'll eventually kill me.

“That is an oversimplification,” Loras observes with a sliver of disapproval, “but essentially correct. I believe Dina had been exiled in disfavor for…consorting with her handmaidens and taking an unseemly interest in alien technology, so she was not in the capital at the time.”

I can't resist the urge to tease him. “Consorting, huh?”

“Trust you to fixate on the prurient and miss the trauma she survived.”

“Trauma?” Even as I repeat the word, I know I've been a moron.

“She's the only survivor from the royal family, and they only permitted her off planet for two reasons: her predilection for her own sex and her promise she will never return.”

“Her promise?” That doesn't seem like much of a warranty, even relying on some antiquated code of honor, not that I think Dina would abide by such a thing. I'm parroting shit like I'm brainless, but I guess I just never imagined there was anything more to her than met the eye.

“If she sets foot on the surface of Tarnus, the chip in her head will discharge,” he tells me dispassionately. “Any attempt to remove it will also result in detonation. They made sure she will keep her word.”

And though I've heard some horrific things in my day, I can't help but shudder. Instinctively I know that the implant contains some ritualistic element, probably designed to shame her. I can't quite reconcile this with the tough ship's mechanic, but I know he's telling me the truth, or…most of it.

“What aren't you saying?”

Loras shakes his head with a faint half smile. “There's a lesson in that, Jax. Nobody here is what he or she seems.”

Before I can ask, the ship bucks, and March's voice sounds over the comm: “Everyone strap in, it's going to get a little rough.”

For once I do exactly what he says without finding him to argue about it. A few minutes later I'm glad I did because the ship's shaking, and I can feel us wallowing back and forth as we enter the atmosphere. Loras murmurs that we're hitting thermal pockets, and I can't tell from his expression how bad that is. March is probably struggling to keep the nose up, increase drag, trying not to liquefy our hull.

“He doesn't use autopilot much, does he?”

Loras glances up from the console and seems to decide it's time he strapped in as well. “I don't know,” he answers. “We haven't flown with him any more than you have.”

“Right.”

I feel like a shit for forgetting the poor bastard who died on Perlas Station. Before we can say anything more, we pitch sharply, and only the harness keeps me from being flung against the far wall. As it is, I'm going to have an impressive web of bruises all over my throat and shoulders. I feel my stomach surge into my throat because this reminds me of—

No. Oh no.
This is like dream therapy, all over again.

My fault…why did they think it might be my fault?
I got us to Matins IV, didn't I? I didn't hurt Kai. I wouldn't have.
But what…?
I can't remember; there's a red haze around everything. It hurts, and I feel like—

We hit hard, and I feel the ship careening. Screaming metal, something tears loose. When there's a hangar or a port, you can expect a certain amount of help—a computer beaming ideal trajectory, cooperative deployment of thrusters. Here, it's just March and his best judgment. I'm holding a scream inside my head, and my throat seems swollen shut. I see nothing but the dark, spreading across my field of vision like a plague.

 

She's screaming. I hear screaming. I'm pinned. Both
my arms feel like they've been torn off, but I can hear her screaming. I have to help her, Mary give me strength, help me move this. Hurts. I'll crawl. No. No. Too late
—
I can smell the
—

 

There's no burning meat, Jax. You're safe. Everyone's
all right.

This is the first time I've heard him when we weren't jacked in. But suddenly my head's full of him, and I don't know where I am. But I can feel my arms, and I'm whole, just like he's promising. I become aware of someone crying—rough wracking sobs.

Oh Mary, it's me.

It's going to be a while before I can speak, and I don't even want to think of opening my eyes because the crew is probably watching me with the horrified fascination usually reserved for the interstellar freak show. But I sense the negative even before I process his response.
They're checking out the
Folly.
We took some damage coming in.

Considering my meltdown, that seems like quite the understatement. Now I can feel his hands on my back, stroking, soothing. Guess he was right; I'm nowhere near stable and probably a liability to the mission. Shit, I can't even handle a rough landing.

You're one of the strongest people I've ever met.
That shocks me out of my self-pity. I wonder why he's saying that, and as if I'd asked the question, he goes on:
I could hear you screaming all the way up in the cockpit. And the second I touched you…Jax, I saw it all.

Shit. I did that? Gave him the charnel house from Matins IV to bear along with everything else? Mother Mary, is there no limit to the pain I'll inflict?

He gives me a little shake, and I open my eyes. We're still in the hub, but he's got me on his lap by the console. There's nobody else around right now, as he said. I'm starting to realize that March's word is gold. He might be a lot of things, but the man doesn't lie as far as I can tell.

“Was I screaming?”

I don't remember. My throat isn't sore, although the rest of me is.

“No,” Doc says from the doorway. “At least not so the rest of us could hear.” I register March's surprise, but Saul continues, regarding us with an inscrutable expression. “He came from the cockpit at a dead run, yanked you up out of your seat. What happened, Jax?”

“Psychotic break.” I feel like I'm signing away my personal liberty by admitting as much, like maybe the Corp had a point in keeping me confined.

But Doc just nods, looking thoughtful. “Let's get you to medical.”

It's only then I realize that I'm still sitting on March's lap, and his arms fall away from me with the slow, swimming reluctance of a mudsider learning to move in zero G. And I say quietly in the confines of my own head:
Thank you.
Not expecting to be heard. To my surprise, as I fold to my feet to follow Saul, I receive a very soft response that maybe I am not meant to hear.

I will always come for you, Jax.

Ten minutes pass in silence.

Doc's bedside manner is a little disturbing, but then he's a geneticist more than an actual physician. I need to remember that. Finally, he concludes his battery of tests and regards me with an expression I can only describe as bemused.

“You have some unusual activity in the temporal lobe, both within the amygdala and the auditory cortex. We could work to neutralize those abnormal patterns, but I don't know whether that would be treating the problem or the symptom.”

“Pretty sure it'd be the symptom. I have some…bad memories.”

“Yes, I expect you would,” he returns mildly. To my surprise he doesn't display the same kind of morbid curiosity as the Unit Psych. “Seems a hard landing acts as a trigger. Do you know of any other events that might set off a similar reaction?”

I shake my head. “Thought I was anesthetized to it, after they made me revisit it so often on Perlas.”

“They did
what
?”

Frowning, I explain what my confinement was like, and by the time I'm finished, well, I don't think I've ever seen Doc look so outraged. He asks me a series of questions regarding the frequency and timing of my treatments. “Barbarians,” he mutters. “Wish I'd known this earlier. It explains a few things.”

“Like what?”

He pauses. “I can't be sure without further testing, and I'm not certain I want to subject you to it, but…Jax, I think they may have used subliminal suggestion in your dream therapy to guarantee your eventual breakdown.”

“In case the Psychs and solitary weren't enough?” The bitterness in my own voice surprises me, and what's more astounding, I don't doubt it's possible. But there's a more pressing question on my mind now.

Doc regards me solemnly. “I think it's critical we figure out what happened on Matins IV. They think you know something—and perhaps you do.”

“Why didn't they just kill me?” It's the first time I've asked that aloud.

“I don't know, my dear. But I suspect it's vital we discover that as well.”

“So you don't think I'm crazy…or dangerous?”

“No more than anyone else,” he answers kindly, “under the right circumstances.”

I don't know why, but that placates my fear better than anything else he could have said. Humans are capable of horrific acts, but the aftermath of Matins IV left me feeling like I deserve a special spot among monsters. And I don't even know why. Examined intellectually, the feeling doesn't make sense. I
know
we made the jump; we arrived intact and something…happened as Kai tried to put us down on planet. I just can't remember what. But how could that be my fault?

My gaze wanders around the sterile medical exam room, white and gleaming synth. Saul's instruments align with mathematical precision, revealing a great deal about his character. I hop down from the table and decline his offer of a sedative.

“No thanks. It won't accomplish anything if I sack out in quarters. Once I start
asking
to forget, well…” I smile wryly. “I might as well have stayed on Perlas.”

“I can't imagine you ever take the easy road,” he observes, putting away the scanner he used to check my amygdala, whatever that is. “That's what March can't resist, you know. That grit.”

“He acts like he can hardly stand me—”

“There are reasons.” Before I can frame the question, Doc shakes his head. “Oh no, I've said too much already. Get out of my med bay, you're fine.”

“No, I'm not. But I think maybe…I will be.”

Saul gives me a knowing half smile as I turn down the hall, heading back to the hub. I can hear Dina swearing from somewhere else within the ship, and Loras seems to be analyzing a status report at the comm terminal. Well, things can't be too bad if we've got systems online, right? He ignores me, a fact I find comforting. It'd be so much worse if he behaved solicitously.

I still feel somewhat shaken, but I've got a little distance from it. Time to compartmentalize, push it back and pretend the woman who broke down belongs to someone else, another Jax. So I square my shoulders and go in search of March.

When I find him, he's in the cockpit, but what bothers me is…he's doing nothing. Just slumped in the pilot's chair, gazing at a panel whose numbers mean nothing to me. A cold chill crawls down my spine as I realize I've never seen that look in his eyes: a veritable wasteland, bleak and grim. In anyone else I'd call the expression despair, but I can't reconcile that to what I know of him.

“What's wrong?”

I'd intended to demand to know our plan of action, status of repairs, how long we might be grounded, and when we're heading out to meet the natives. But his eyes knock all that right off my agenda. Now I just need to know why he looks like this.

“Better question is what's right? It'd take less time to answer.” He manages a shadow of his usual saturnine smile, but I'm not buying it.

“Seriously, don't bullshit me.”

Sighing, he sits forward in the pilot chair, tapping a figure on the display panel with an index finger. “That's population. Something bad happened here, Jax. There's nothing left alive above five kilos.”

For a minute I can't even process that. The amphibians we came to visit beneath Corp radar, the genetics we intended to tap…gone? Figuring out what happened, that will be work for anthropologists down the line.

“How is that even possible?” I can't begin to guess.

March shakes his head. “I don't fragging know. The Mareq were tribal, barely even aware that there were other settlements within reasonable walking distance: different traditions, different dialects. Don't know how a plague could spread, given they had almost no contact with each other. And they were a peaceful race, as far as our records indicate.”

“You think someone did this on purpose.” It's not a question, and I know damn well that's what put this look in his eyes.

“Nothing else makes sense,” he says, too quietly.

I think about that for a moment, and I'm surprised to see my hand hovering a few millimeters from his shoulder. Is that what I want? To comfort March? Perhaps I give myself too much credit, believing I might have the power.

It's been over a standard month since I touched anyone else of my own volition. The last time, I was with Kai, preparing for our jump to Matins IV. Hovering there, my fingers look thin and spidery, blue veins too prominent across the back, a map of bad choices. Maybe those arteries writhe with some poison that contaminates everything I touch. So I drop my hand, and for once he doesn't notice, still staring at the panel.

There's something I have to ask, and a few months back, the question would never have occurred to me. But now I'm born again in speculation and paranoia. My skin crawls with it, and my mind fosters suspicion like a beloved child.

“Did Zelaco have access to Mair's research?”

March's head jerks up. “Possibly.”

“Let's assume he did,” I say, carefully neutral. “Would it be within his character to provide some intelligence to the Corp for the right price?”

He sucks in a slow breath, both hands fisting on his knees. “Absolutely. He wouldn't have revealed our base of operations; he wouldn't have risked them striking at Lachion while he was on planet. But if he calculated our risk of failure greater than our chance at success, he certainly would've padded his take by selling you to the Gunnars and added another slice by offering what he knew of our agenda to the Corp.”

I feel numb.

“So we're looking at ten dead worlds, potentially. If you can't cull the competition, destroy their resources. March, what if they took samples? What if they know about Doc's cross-germination idea?”

“Doubt Zelaco knew the science of it. Doc's been very tight with that.” But he doesn't sound hopeful.

In fact, he looks almost totally defeated, and I realize he's paying me a compliment, letting me see him like this. Maybe it's quid pro quo. He's seen me at my worst, so he can offer it back. Whatever the reason, I won't snipe at him, not now.

“Are we still going to look around on planet?”

“Might as well,” he answers. “Dina's going to be a couple of days getting us flightworthy. We took some hull damage coming in, and the phase drive—”

“Broke down conveniently,” I finish. “Zelaco, or more to the point, someone he hired had access to the
Folly
while we were en route to the compound?” When he nods, I add, “At this point, I think we can assume there are gray men headed for our location.”

March offers a tight smile. “There's a bright spot, at least.”

“Or it's possible we're sharing a paranoid delusion.”

“Occam's razor,” he murmurs, shaking his head.

“Huh?”

“Just someone who lived a long time ago and died in obscurity. We need to move unless we want to become anecdotal footnotes ourselves.”

Reality as I know it is no more because I'm in complete agreement with March.