Leo catches my eye. Clearly, he gets my hesitation even before I spell it out. “It’s not just a matter of supplies,” he says. “I think what Lindley is concerned about, rightly, is supplieswith strings attached.” He glances at me, and I give a small nod in thanks.
Leo gets it, always. He’s well acquainted with my flashes of intuition, with how nine times out of ten they’re spot on. I only hope this isn’t the one time I’m wrong.
“Sergeant Vonn and Lindley’s mom didn’t get along,” he goes on—understatement of the galaxy. How many times did we stay up until three-morning, just the two of us, Leo listening patiently as I spilled over with worry for my mother? Vonn and my mother were fundamentally different in every way imaginable—he, with his condescension and his insults that sliced like knives—she, with her wisdom and unwaveringcommitment to treating humans like humans.
“That’s putting it rather mildly,” I say. “The only thing worse than Vonn attacking us? Accepting his help and finding ourselves indebted to him.” I take a deep breath, taste the words on my tongue before letting them out. “We’re up here on our own—Vonn will need a replacement team sooner or later. How long do you think it’ll be before they decide to ship us out to Radix in the name of ‘what’s best for everyone’?” I sharpen my tone so the words cut through any lingering notions of invincibility the others might have. “You know the board will side with Vonn if it comes down to it—they always do.”
How many times have we heardwhat’s best for everyoneto justify what they do? Only then, we were the everyone benefitting at others’ expense.The board thinks they own the entire universe, my mother always said.They think they can grind people into dust and suffer no consequences.For a long time, I thought she was speaking metaphorically, but then I overheard her one night, talking about how an entire shift of exca workers had died under the sergeant’s command. No virus responsible, only Vonn—not enough water, not enough sleep, nothing butdo more and do it yesterday.
No one says anything for a good long minute. The fire dances in place. Zesi pours more coffee from the French press.
“Do I need to remind you?” I say finally. “Vonn tried to poach my mother’s crew when he got in a bind, and she only barely won that fight—do I need to spell out how much worse it would be forus?”
“It isn’t like Shapiro said we were going to go, like,workfor him, though.” Natalin bites at her fingernail, something she does only when she’s the perfect combination of irritated and anxious. “He didn’t even say Vonn would come anywhere close to the station. Just his delivery people, right?”
“That’s true, but—”
“But what, Lindley? You really think his delivery people are going to drop supplies off and then, like, take us all hostage to become drudges out at the exca site?”
My cheeks burn. “Not immediately,” I say. “But, yes, I think it’s a slippery slope. Accepting his help sets a bad precedent for the future.”
“Refusing his help means we might neverseeour future,” she shoots back.
“Look, I’m not disagreeing with you.” I straighten in my chair, try to keep my voice from rising. “I agree with you, in fact. Hence the problem.”
“I am not going to stand by and watch the station starve just because you’re too prideful, and too afraid, to accept their supplies. That’s alot of lifeon my hands, Lindley. A lot ofdeath.”
“Our hands,” I say. “Not just yours.”
“Yourhands.” Her eyes are steely blue-gray, never too tired to fight for what she feels is right. We have that in common. “I’ll go on record if it comes to it, tell the entire station whose decision it was to deny us access to food.”
“We can make it work if we ration properly, right? If everyone could just get over themselves and eat what they need, notonly what they like—”
“We have to live in reality, Lindley. We can’t put our hope in what wouldideallywork—”
“You’re expecting the worst out of our people,” I say.
“And you’re proving me right.” She glares at me, eyes fierce through narrowed slits.
“Wow, Nat, nothing like your bleak outlook on reality to make us feel better,” Haven says.
Natalin sets her jaw. “It’s hardnotto have a bleak outlook with a reality like this.”
“Rather than dwelling on how terribly this could all turn out,” I say, doing everything I can to keep calm, “I think it would be most useful—for now—to focus on a plan B. You’re absolutely certain we don’t have enough food to last us?”
“To last us howlong? Not indefinitely, that’s for sure,” she says. “Probably not longer than late next week—maybea day or two after that. Depending on how many more, um, die. Assuming Mila wasn’t a fluke.”
My head pounds with the other crisis I’ve tucked away, the one I’ve thoroughly attempted to compartmentalize so it doesn’t tear my mind in two. Even if we manage to keep everyone from starving, who’s to say the mutation won’t take us out anyway?
I close my eyes. Take a breath.
“We have to think long-term, Nat,” Heath cuts in. “I agree with you that we need supplies, for sure. I think it’s dangerous to completely write off what Lindley’s saying, though. Can wecome up with a third option? Maybe we can get supplies fromNautilusinstead of Radix?”
“That’s not a bad idea at all,” I say.Nautilusis tiny compared to our station—fifteen people, total—but since they’re so far out of the way, their shipments are infrequent and comparable to ours in size.
“What if we’re carriers?” Haven says. “For the virus, I mean. Everyone onNautiluscame from Earth, right? Could we spread the virus, even though we’re immune to it?”
“We don’t even know if weareimmune to it now,” Zesi says. “Who knows what we might pass to them.”
