Adrift, page 21
She shook her head. He was ruining everything. Now Kivi knew she wanted to go to a university. But she knew she was poor because she didn’t have lots of things. And Whitman was making it sound like it wasn’t even something she should want, like there was something wrong with people who went to those places.
“I wanted to go to one,” she whispered. She hadn’t meant to say it. It just sort of slipped out.
Whitman made a face. He started to say something, and got as far as her name before his words were lost amid a coughing fit that made his whole body shake. Kivi was worried that he was going to throw up, so she grabbed one of the bags from the roll she’d used while Tron was sick. But Whitman didn’t cough up his lunch, only blood.
“You’re not supposed to die.” Again, the words were spilling out before Kivi realized she was saying them. This was wrong, all wrong. She didn’t talk. Not like this, not ever. She was always in control over what she said. Words never just came out all on their own. It all started when she was talking to Tron on the mic. She could see that. She’d worked so hard to figure out things to say at first, but by the end she’d gotten used to saying whatever crossed her mind at that moment. Now she didn’t know how to turn it off, and it was awful. She hated feeling like she wasn’t in control, and hated that the others might think she was out of control even more.
Whitman gave her a wry grin. “You just keep saying that, kitten. Maybe god’ll hear and realize he’s being a real dick.”
She pursed her lips in an attempt to hold in all the other things that ran through her mind, but one burst out anyway. “You’re not a bad guy.”
He eyed her for a long time, and Kivi knew she’d messed up. He thought she was smart before. He’d as good as said so. And maybe Whitman’s opinion didn’t matter as much to her as Tron’s did, but he knew about the world outside the Lucy and the vids and the stories, so it did matter some. He could measure her against people who would never set foot on a colony ship, so he would know if she was really smart or just smarter than most other people on the Lucy. And he’d thought so. Until now. Now he was going to think she was just another stupid little girl, who couldn’t even keep herself from saying stupid little girl things.
“It’s not just bad guys who die. You know that.”
Kivi bit her lower lip this time. She would not say that it didn’t count. That all the people in the mess hall were still people, and not dead. Because, if she said it, he would tell her she was wrong and then she would be. Then they would be dead, all of them. The ones in cold storage too. So long as she didn’t say it, though, he couldn’t say she was wrong and none of it was real. They would get to Vah and the doctors would put everything right again.
“The black’s no place to be foolish, Kivi.” His voice was soft and kind, but she knew what his words meant. “Good folks die as easy as bad. Easier. You’re too smart to be that stupid.”
She was going to say no. She was going to tell him that he was wrong and that the good people didn’t die, not unless you let them. She was going to make him ruin everything, just like he ruined universities. Only this was going to be worse. So much worse. Kivi knew this was going to happen, could feel the words bubbling up inside her even before the first ones slipped out.
“They’re not gone!”
“Kivi?” The intercom stopped her before she could say anything else. More importantly, before Whitman could answer back. “Need you up here.”
She didn’t wait. Not for a second. Even before Tron finished the last word, she was hurrying out of the med bay and rushing up the corridor. She could hear Whitman calling for her, but she didn’t wait to hear what he had to say. He was not going to ruin it. They were not going to be dead.
Tron was hovering over his screen when she got to navigation. She felt a surge of relief when she saw him sitting there. She’d missed him, even in the two hours they’d been apart. Kivi had gotten accustomed to his presence, the feel of him just across the room. It was more than just that, though. She hadn’t let herself think about it, but there was a part of her that had been terrified she wouldn’t see him again. Everything always went so wrong. But he was still alive, still ok, and she had made it back to him without anything bad happening to either one of them. This one small part of the universe was still the way it was supposed to be, and she could breathe.
He glanced up as she walked in. It would be hard for anyone not to; the huge boots clanked so loudly it had taken a long time for her to quit wincing with every step. Tron didn’t return the smile she gave him. He just pointed to the screen, his face pale and his lips tight. Kivi peered around him to get a look, and the second she saw what he meant her stomach clenched so tight she was sure she would be sick. The image was grainy and hard to make out, but there was no doubt what it was. The other ship was back.
“But we lost them!” Her fingers flew over the console, tapping out the commands she’d heard Whitman giving Tron weeks ago. The sensors shifted and realigned, and still the ship was there, the exact same bulbous hull floating along at the edges of the Lucy’s vision. “We lost them!”
Tron took her hands up in his, pulling them away from the flat black surface and trapping them. “Maybe,” he said softly. “They might have seen enough of our flight path to figure out our destination. Or they might have just been outside our sensor range. I don’t know. But our friends have found us, Kiv.”
She yanked her hands away and used them to grip her head. This was bad. It was so, so bad. They couldn’t do it again. Tron had almost died. She might not be fast enough this time. And Whitman was too sick to get them through. Tron had learned a lot, but he didn’t know how to hide. Not like that. Everything was so close to being ok again! The base was only a few days away. She’d seen the flight path, she did the math. It wasn’t far. If they’d just been left alone for three more days, everything would have gone back to being fine again. Instead it was all falling apart. They were going to come and get all the things Kivi couldn’t live without.
“Hey!” She blinked. Tron was crouched down so that their faces were only a few inches apart. He didn’t look scared anymore. He looked angry. “I didn’t get you up here so you could use it.”
“They’re coming to get us.” Kivi didn’t understand how he could be so calm. All that they’d done to keep going just a little longer, to get somewhere where it could be ok, it was all going to be for nothing because the bad guys were chasing them again.
“I noticed.”
“We’re going to die!”
He shook her. Not hard. Just a little. But it rattled her, all the way through. Tron was always so gentle when he touched her, like he thought she would break if he wasn’t careful. But this wasn’t gentle. This wasn’t even nice. Kivi blinked at him in surprise.
“You’re not allowed to die,” he growled. “I’m not letting you. Remember? Now pull it together! They’re not just following us around this time, they’re actually moving closer. If we don’t act fast, we’re not going to be able to do anything. I need your help.”
That surprised her even more than the shake. “What do you need me to do?”
Instantly, his anger melted away. Kivi had been afraid he was mad at her, she realized. She hadn’t noticed it, she was so overwhelmed by the fear of the bad people on the other ship. Now that she saw he wasn’t, she felt another wave of relief. A small one. It was enough for her brain to start working again.
He had a plan. Of course he had a plan. That was what Tron did.
“We’re going to push the engine as hard as we can.”
“Whitman said that would tear the ship apart.”
He smiled grimly. “I remember.”
“So you think he was lying?”
“No. I think he was right. I just don’t think we have a choice anymore. If we keep going like we are, these people are going to get us.”
She wanted to argue. Even thinking about the Lucy being pulled apart was almost physically painful. It was where she’d spent the whole of the life she could remember, and it was more home than she could imagine anywhere else ever being. But it was just a place. She could let go of a place, even this one. But her thoughts kept trying to spiral down into the room where they used to eat three times every day. If the ship broke apart, they would all be dead. Her and Tron and Whitman. And the people in the mess hall. Dead for real, floating in the black until they drifted into some planet’s atmosphere and burnt up.
Tron needed her help. She couldn’t slip down into that pit. So long as he needed her, she had to keep going. “Ok.”
He smiled again and let her go, leaning back in his chair. It wasn’t a real smile. Those lit up his face and made his eyes dance. This one looked almost like a grimace. He was as scared as she was, Kivi realized with a start. He was just trying to act brave for her. He still thought he needed to protect her.
Was he wrong? She wanted him to be. Kivi knew she was capable of helping, that she had in fact saved him at least as many times as he’d saved her. But would she have done any of it without him? Every time she’d been particularly brave or clever, it was because he needed her to be. Maybe without him, she would’ve stayed at the bottom of the stairs, where she’d fell that day of the attack, and cried until all the air was gone and she froze to death. She knew she needed him. He was important. So, so important. But she’d never really wondered if he was the only reason she was still breathing.
“I’m pretty sure we can make it to Vah in just under fifteen hours. We have to hold Lucy together that long. At that speed, one of us needs to be here the whole time. If there’s any more debris or anything between here and there, we’ll have minutes to change course and then get back on track. No margin for error. But someone needs to be watching for hull breaches or any engine problems.”
Panic again. “You want me to walk the ship all by myself?”
Tron caught her hands again. He held them tight, just on the edge of being painful. “No,” he said insistently. “We’re both going to wear mics, and I’m going to talk you through this, just like you talked me through hiding. You won’t be alone, Kivi. You’ll never be alone.”
The pressure in her chest eased, but not much. “You can’t promise that.”
“I can promise whatever I want,” he said with a wink.
Kivi didn’t think about what she did next. That was bad. She always thought about everything, but she didn’t think about this. She just leaned forward and pressed her lips against his. Tron’s hands dropped hers, and one of them slid up to her cheek to cup her face. If she had thought about it, she would’ve made it just a quick peck, but his rough hand kept them together longer, far too long to for her to convince herself it was innocent.
Her body reacted instantly. That shocked her, more than anything. His lips were warm and soft and sent a tingle that quickly spread down to her butt and her toes and her fingertips. Without her permission, her body leaned into his and her fingers twitched with the need to bury themselves in his hair. When they broke apart – no, when he broke away, it was definitely Tron who pulled away first – Kivi nearly tumbled forward into his lap. All the strength seemed to have left her legs.
She stared at him as she gasped for the air that had fled the second their lips met. She wanted to turn away, to cover her face, to run from the room and hide away, but she was held fast by her rebellious body. He stared back at her.
Kivi knew what he wanted. She could feel the need pulsing between them, a thread that was growing stronger each second their gazes were locked on each other. It was going to pull them together again, and then neither one of them was going to pull away. She knew this, because she wanted it too. She wanted to pull off his clothing again, to see him naked only for real this time, not just because he was sick. She wanted everything that almost kiss they had in the engine room and the one they’d just shared promised and more. She wanted to feel those strong arms of his hold her close, feel their hearts beat together. She wanted…
She wanted him to hold her and tell her that she didn’t have anything to worry about. That it was all going to be ok again. She wanted to be safe. And maybe Tron would say those things. Maybe she could curl up against his chest, fall asleep in his arms, and it wouldn’t be corpses that filled her dreams. Maybe she would believe him. But it wouldn’t be true.
Everything would change between them. It was already changing. Maybe it was too late to undo that stupid, wonderful thing she’d done. It was her first kiss and the thing she felt now more than anything else was regret. Because if things were different now, if it could never go back to what it was a few minutes ago, it would all be for nothing. Whatever else grew from what just happened, it all started because she wanted Tron to lie to her.
Kivi pressed a hand over her lips, a barrier that neither one of them could get past if her body decided to act on its own again. Then she turned away.
The thread snapped, and she was free. Tron drew in a deep breath, cleared his throat, and turned back to the console. Needing something, anything, to occupy herself instead of thinking about how his lips felt, Kivi went to the corner of the room she liked to sit. For weeks, she’d been working on a new project. She tinkered with it whenever Whitman and Tron were busy reviewing a lesson. It was mostly something to do while she listened, but as with all her projects she had chosen something useful. Now it was doubly useful, as it gave her an excuse to move away from him.
The idea was inspired by the last time they’d been dealing with the mystery ship, so it seemed kind of right that it was going to be used now. Kivi had thought about how she had to carry the helmet with her to talk Tron through his exile, even before they needed to use them, and how bad it would’ve been if she’d gotten knocked off course in her flight across the Lucy and hadn’t been able to call for help. Even with Whitman’s jacket and gloves, she most likely would’ve frozen to death before the men realized she hadn’t made it. They needed a way to communicate that didn’t require punching a code into a box or lugging around an awkwardly large helmet.
It wasn’t actually that difficult. There were seven pressure suits, and since the air was in the suits themselves, while the mics were in the helmets, ripping a few of the mics out was no problem at all. They were tiny, and easily the most advanced machines she’d ever handled. Except maybe the engine. That was hard to say for sure. They were definitely newer technology than the engine. The trick was powering them. Putting it together had required digging through the tool box in the engine room and a couple trips back to her old room. But she’d finally gotten one set up the way she wanted and working properly two days ago. Kivi had refined the process quite a bit since then, with the construction of the second one. She really wanted to make another for Whitman, but there wasn’t time now.
She handed one to Tron – the older one, since he’d played with it some the night she finished it and so it was already stretched to his ear – then hooked on the newer one. The box that contained the power and controlled the channel clipped on to the top of her pants. Tron followed suit. For a second their eyes met again, and Kivi felt her face get hot. Then he cleared his throat and turned back to the console.
“Head to the engine room first. Your fix is amazing, but if this speed boost is going to shake anything loose you’ll need to be there.”
Kivi smiled nervously, even though Tron couldn’t see her. She had never felt like this before. Before, when she didn’t talk, it was because she couldn’t think of anything useful to say. Now she could think of so many things she should say to him, but she couldn’t get a single one of them out of her mouth.
He was right of course. They’d both walked the Lucy looking for more leaks many times. At least once every couple of days. Kivi had listened at more doors than even she could count, straining to catch even a hint of that hiss. So she knew that they were starting off as prepared as they could be. If there was going to be a problem, it was going to be with the engine.
“I’m going to check on Whitman first.” She didn’t need to say that. Tron would know. He was no doubt counting on her doing that and telling the man about their plan. But she needed to say something. Now the silence that had always been so comfortable didn’t feel right. And since she couldn’t tell him any of those things she should be saying, most importantly that she was sorry, Kivi needed something to fill the space.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t look as she left. The way his shoulders were hunched, she knew he was hurting. She paid attention to him now, close attention, and she knew that was the same way he’d hunched down when he first started getting sick and she hadn’t noticed. But he wasn’t sick this time. This time it was her fault. Why, why, why did she kiss him?
The med bay was quiet when she went in. Kivi had been steeling herself, prepared to barrel through whatever it was that Whitman was going to say before Tron’s interruption saved her. When her lack of control had first started wrecking things. But Whitman didn’t say anything. He was laying back on the bed, his eyes closed tight. She walked in as quietly as she could.
He had to be asleep.
She made it all the way to the side of the bed before she could see the slight rise and fall of his chest. He was barely breathing. Kivi chewed her bottom lip, wanting to scream or shake him awake and tell him he wasn’t allowed to die, he just wasn’t! But she didn’t do either of those things. Instead she put her fingers to the side of his neck, the way she learned in her first aide lesson three years ago. Whitman’s pulse was weak and wild. She knew that neither of those things were good, but Kivi didn’t have a clue what to do about either one. She was glad he had one at all, of course, and was sure that it was better than if it was fading away into nothing.
She hurried on to the engine room, trying not to think about the man. Since the last time the strange ship had been around, Kivi had spent a good deal of time in the engine room. Despite Tron’s eagerness, Whitman often got sick of teaching and kicked them out of navigation. He wasn’t like the teachers they were used to, who could talk all day and be happy. Tron used the time to keep studying on his own, and didn’t much care where it was that he did it. So Kivi would lead him down here, where she could do her own kind of learning. While he worked through pages and pages about flying, Kivi had poured herself into the task of learning the Lucy’s engine.
