“You okay?” Leo says, just to me, as voices fill the room. Everyone’s here now, it sounds like, even Natalin and Haven.
“I’m fine,” I say, rising to my feet. I force a smile. “Thanks for... for everything.”
We’re close now, in near darkness. It might be my imagination, but the way he looks at me—it feels like there’s something more behind his eyes. He looks like he might kiss me, like he’d kiss me in a heartbeat if he knew for sure I wanted him to. Has he always looked at me like this? Was I blind before, onlywaking up to the fact that a close friend could have feelings when Heath explicitly took that leap?
Or am I only seeing what I want to see?
Whatever he feels, he doesn’t act on it, and neither do I. “We should probably go meet the others,” he says.
There’s no hiding the fact that Leo and I were alone together when we join the group in the main lab area. Aside from a brief flicker of—something—across Heath’s face, no one bats an eye. Is he jealous? Hurt? Both, maybe. It’s old news that Leo and I are close friends, but perhaps that reality is something Heath didn’t fully consider before now.
Haven and Natalin sit on the lab’s countertop, legs dangling over the edge. Zesi and Heath sit across from them on the opposite ledge. I look from face to face, landing at last on Leo’s: we are the definition of exhausted. Frayed. Threadbare, barely holding it together. Natalin looks like she doesn’t even have it in her to be angry at me right now, which worries me more than it should.
“I know we’re all tired,” I say, breaking the silence. “I know we all wish we could pull answers out of the sky, and rewind time, and just... not have to do this.”
Everyone stares at their hands, or the floor, aside from Leo and Heath. They watch me.
I take a deep breath, try to get this over with so we can go back to our labs and our buzz screens and, if we’re lucky, our beds. “I’m sending Heath toNautilusimmediately to retrieve a fresh water filter.” Natalin looks up as I go over the basics of theplan, exactly like I did with Heath.
This time, Heath doesn’t push back. Crash or not, I have a feeling he’s wanted to fly again ever since he last sat in a cockpit.
“Won’t Shapiro wonder why we’re suddenly reaching out toNautilus—let alone sending a bee over—when we’ve just assured him we’re holding up fine?” Leo asks.
“Shapiro might not be around to notice it,” I say, averting my eyes from everyone, Natalin especially. “We’re experiencing... a bit of a connectivity issue.”
“With our system? Or Nashville’s?” Haven asks. “Would we even be able to get in touch withNautilusbefore heading their way? Seems like we should make sure they even have what we need before flying all the way out there, right?”
“We can try, for sure,” I say. “We should absolutely try that first.”
“And if you can’t get in touch, but go anyway, and get there only to find they don’t have enough supplies to share—what’s the plan then?” Natalin looks the furthest thing from convinced by this idea. “What if you burn through all your power before you get there and can’t recharge?”
“As long as they have a spare water filter, we can stretch our supplies here—isn’t that what you said, Linds? And you’re pretty sure they’ll have at least that, right?” Heath asks. Haven and Natalin exchange a glance, clearly in response to his use of my nickname.
“It’s notideal,” Natalin says, “but at this point, what is? It’s a good start, I’ll say that much. Back to the bee’s power,though—you’ve never flown that long of a distance before, have you?”
“It’s not like Radix—or Earth, for that matter—is any closer,” I say, suddenly defensive over Heath’s flying skills. “This is our best shot, Nat.”
“I haven’t flown thatfar, but I have flown for that long of a time,” Heath says, not missing a beat. “Jaqí trained me on power re-gen and how to spark it mid-flight—there’s a way to do it so you actuallybuildpower the longer you fly, rather than losing it. I’m pretty confident I can get toNautilusjust fine.”
If you can dock without crashing, my mind automatically fills in, and I immediately feel guilty for thinking it.
Still, it’s the truth. If he crashes on entry, he could cause real damage toNautilus—it’s smaller than our station, for one, so he could tear up more than just a bee wing. If he tears up a bee wing, he’d have to convince them to let him take one of their crafts in order to return home; they might have only one, and who knows if it’s up to the trip?
I look up, find all eyes on me. “There’s a lot that could go wrong,” I say, averting my attention away from Heath so he doesn’t feel the full weight of this statement, how his crash history inspired it. “But as risky as it is, I believe we can pull it off.”
A minute drags out, slow and silent; I wait for someone to challenge me, but no one does. If anything, I feel like everyone is finally on board—even Natalin. I suppose she’s figured out her parting words to me,start with water, significantly influenced this idea.
“I’m going with him,” Zesi announces.
“Wait, what?” I say. “That wasn’t part of the plan. We need you here—”
“You need someone on the bee who can navigate while keeping a careful eye on satellite positioning,” he replies. “You need someone who can try to radio withNautiluswhile Heath keeps the craft flying smoothly.”
He’s right, and we all know it. Zesi’s role on the station is important, but this mission is crucial if we want to extend our food supply. Leo and Haven have passable training in Control, thanks to their long day scanning for asteroids. And if we’re able to get in touch with Shapiro again, it’ll be my responsibility to fill him in on the truth, not Zesi’s.
It’s not easy to send Heath and Zesi out into the wild unknown, especially knowing all that could go wrong—they feel too integral to our survival. At the same time, though, it’s probably best that we come up with a way to survive without our most crucial members. Our six may be five tomorrow.
Our six may bezerotomorrow.
