"Let's calm down," said Concepcion. "These walls aren't soundproof. We're all adults here."
"He isn't," said Toron, gesturing to Victor.
Concepcion ignored him. "Toron is proposing a legitimate concern, Victor. There are a lot of unanswered questions here. We have a responsibility to protect our people."
"Maybe so," said Father. "But I agree with Vico. We can't sit back and wait to see what happens. If it were us out there, and the Italians out here, we'd want them with us, supporting us. I say we push on. The Italians might need us in a critical moment."
"Each of the Italians' ships is faster and better equipped than ours," said Toron. "And there are four of them. If we made any contribution to a fight it would be minimal and a day and a half late. Do we really want to risk losing everything for that?"
"We're better defended than they are," said Victor. "That accounts for something. Their ships are fast, yes, but we have better armor. That might prove critical."
"Again," said Toron, "you're basing these assumptions on human technology. Who's to say this scout ship, or whatever it is, doesn't have a weapon that can't penetrate any armor."
"Where was this violent imagination of yours when I wanted to warn everyone?" said Victor. "You were perfectly content to deflect any suggestion that this thing was dangerous before. Now you seemed convinced it's programmed to kill."
"I am urging caution," said Toron, "just as I did before. And I don't need to explain myself to you."
"That's enough," said Concepcion. "We get nowhere by arguing. The fact is, if this thing can move at fifty times our speed, we're already in the fight, if there is one. The ship could easily overtake us if it wanted to, even if we turned now and ran. Yes, it's possible that it doesn't know we're here, but I find that unlikely. We'd be wise to assume that it can do anything we can and more." She turned to Father. "Segundo, you said that some of the PKs are ready to be installed."
"We've fixed three of the four," said Father. "The last one needs parts we don't have and can't jury-rig. We intended to reinstall the three as soon as we reached the Italians. We obviously can't do a spacewalk now at our current speed."
Concepcion looked at Victor. "And the generator?"
"I need a day at the most," said Victor.
Concepcion nodded. "What we do about this scout ship is a decision for the Council. I will call a meeting immediately. Segundo, you are excused to conduct whatever repairs you need to. I will see to it that your views are expressed to the Council. Toron will present what he's found, and I will make my recommendation, which is that we decelerate and install the repaired PKs now. Then we punch it and get to the Italians as quickly as possible. We are wise to be cautious, but I suggest we prepare for the worst and hope for the best."
Toron didn't argue; Father nodded in agreement; and Concepcion excused them all. Victor and Father made their way down the corridor, heading back to their respective repairs. "Toron isn't your enemy, Vico," said Father. "I know he can seem callous, but he really does love Alejandra. He would do anything for her or this family. But if he has to choose between the two, he will always choose the family, which is the right choice."
"Then why did you agree with me back there?"
"Because if it were you with the Italians, I wouldn't hesitate to go get you. I'd go in with no PKs and no generator if I had to, even if that meant endangering everyone aboard. That's not rational. It's reckless and irresponsible. But that's what I would do."
"Then I'm glad you're my father and not Toron."
"Toron isn't a coward, Vico. His suggestion to stop here and wait may seem like cowardice, but it isn't. I've known Toron a long time. He isn't motivated by self-preservation. He cares about Edimar and Lola, his wife, and Concepcion and your mother and me and everyone aboard. Even you."
"I think he'd rather see me tossed from the ship."
"My point is, he loves Alejandra as much as I love you, son. If Toron could change places with her, he would do so in an instant. His willingness to hand her over to fate to protect the rest of us shows, to me at least, a greater courage than I possess. It's the smarter choice. The Italians aren't defenseless. They can hold their own. Keeping our distance and being safe is the rational thing to do. It's because of people like Toron that this family is still alive, Vico. Were I running things, we all would have died a long time ago." He smiled and put a hand on Victor's shoulder. "I fear I've made you too much like me, rash and bullheaded. Never for your own sake, but for those you love. That's a good trait to have. But one day you may run this family, Vico, and if that happens, you'll need to have some of Toron in you, too."
Victor wanted to tell him then. All he had to do was open his mouth and say, "I'm leaving Father. I don't know how. I don't know when. But I will never lead this family because I can't stay. I can't take a wife here. I can't raise children here. Not when everything I see around me reminds me of Janda."
But Victor said nothing. How could he? The family needed Victor now more than ever? How could he even think of leaving? It was selfish. It was abandonment. Yet what could he do? Try as he might to seal off that part of his brain where memories of Janda were stored, he couldn't. She was forever tied to this ship, and no event, not the starship, not the corporate attack, nothing could ever change that. Father left before Victor found the courage to say anything, and Victor removed his greaves and flew back to the engine room. He found Mono there, replacing a few of the burned-out circuits. "We've got a day to get this thing online, Mono."
"Good luck," said Mono. "It's a piece of junk. It should have seen a scrapyard four hundred years ago."
"They didn't have space flight four hundred years ago. Besides, we don't have a choice."
He told Mono about the scout ship. He knew he probably shouldn't, but the Council would find out soon enough, and then everyone on the ship would know. At first, Victor was worried that the news would frighten Mono. But to his surprise it had the opposite effect, with Mono all the more determined to get the generator up and running.
They worked long into sleep-shift. When they finished, nearly twelve hours later, they were both exhausted and filthy. "Flip the switch, Mono."
Victor got the fire extinguisher ready, just in case, while Mono went over to the switch box and turned on the power. They had tried to reboot the generator several times over the past few days, but every attempt had failed: knocking sounds, burning components, an array of sparks. On several occasions they had cut the power as quickly as they had turned it on. Now, however, the generator slowly came to life. The readout screen flickered on. The motor whirred and grew stronger. The turbines spun and gained speed. No knocking. No sparks. No screeching of metal.
Ten seconds passed. Then fifteen. The roar of the turbines grew louder. Victor watched the numbers on the readout screen, his heart racing. The turbines were at 60 percent. Then 70. Then 85. The turbines were screaming now, the sound rattling the entire engine room. Then 95 percent. Victor looked at Mono and saw that the boy was laughing. Victor couldn't hear the laughter over the roar of the generator, but the sight of it--along with the sudden release of all of Victor's pent-up anxiety--set Victor to laughing, too. Laughs so big and long that tears came out of his eyes.
*
Victor stood in the airlock in his pressure suit, waiting for the ship to stop. Father was beside him, along with ten miners, all of them facing the massive bay doors. The three repaired PKs floated among them, with the miners holding them in place with bracing cables. Victor could hear the retros firing outside, slowing the ship. After a moment, the rockets stopped, and then Concepcion's voice sounded in Victor's helmet. "Full stop, gentlemen. Let's make this repair quick, if we can."
The Council had agreed to Concepcion's recommendation: El Cavador would come to a complete stop, Victor and Father would install the repaired PKs, and the ship would accelerate to the Italians, still a day away. It hadn't been an easy decision. Mother had told Victor after the fact that quite a heated discussion had preceded
the vote, with many people siding with Toron and urging extreme caution, preferring to stop immediately and observe the scout ship among the Italians from a safe distance. The final vote to continue on as soon as repairs were made had passed by the slimmest of majorities.
Victor punched a command into the keypad on the airlock wall. There was a brief warning siren followed by a computer voice telling them the wide cargo doors were about to open. The computer voice counted down from ten, then the doors unlocked and slid away. All of the air inside the airlock was sucked out into space, and the star-filled blackness of the Kuiper Belt stretched out before them.
Victor's HUD in his helmet immediately got to work. The temperature outside was negative three hundred and seventy degrees Fahrenheit, prompting the heating mechanism on his suit to compensate. Other windows of data told him oxygen levels, heart rate, suit humidity, and the vitals of everyone else in the group. A note from Mother also popped up: CHILI WAITING WHEN YOU GET BACK. BE SAFE. KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR FATHER. LOVE, PATITA.
Father led the group outside, moving slowly in their boot magnets as they stepped beyond the airlock and out onto the hull. The miners pulled the weightless PKs along like floats at a parade. Once everyone was outside and clear, Father led them to a spot where one of the PKs had been sliced away. Victor had made new network and power sockets to replace those that had been cut, and he spliced in the new socket while the miners applied the new mounting plates. Victor then drilled in new holes for the bolts and stepped clear. Father and the miners moved the PK into position, and Victor bolted it in and plugged in the new socket. When done, Victor blinked out the necessary commands to reboot the laser and restore it to the collision-avoidance system.
Two hours later, after they had finished installing the last of the three lasers without any problems, Father asked them all to gather in a circle. Victor had known this moment was coming, but he hadn't been looking forward to it. Gabi, Marco's wife, had asked Father to release Marco's ashes, as was the custom, and Father had agreed.
Victor and the ten miners silently formed a circle around Father, their boot magnets clinging to the hull, their hands folded reverently in front of them. Father pulled a canister from his hip pouch and spoke into his helmet comm. "We're ready," he said.
There was a moment's pause, then Concepcion's voice answered on the line, "We're here, Segundo. Gabi and Lizbet and the girls and I. We're all here on the line."
Victor pictured Marco's family gathered around one of the terminals at the helm. The crew would be giving the family space, standing off to the side, silent, with heads bowed.
Father crossed himself, placed a hand on the canister lid, and said, "Vaya a Dios, nuestro hermano, y al cielo mas alla de este." Go to God, our brother, and to the heaven beyond this one. Father unscrewed the cap and gently shook the canister upward. The ashes left the canister in a clouded clump and moved away from the ship without dispersing. The men in the circle slowly dropped to one knee, crossed themselves, and repeated the words. "Vaya a Dios, nuestro hermano, y al cielo mas alla de este." The men then held their position in silence while the family on the bridge bid their farewells.
"Vaya a Dios, Papito," said eleven-year-old Daniella.
"Vaya a Dios, Papa," said sixteen-year-old Chencha.
Their voices cracked and trembled with emotion, and Victor couldn't bear it. He blinked out a command and muted the audio in his helmet. He didn't want to hear Gabi say good-bye to her husband, or hear four-year-old Alexandria bid farewell to a father she would not likely remember a year from now. Marco deserved to raise his daughters. And Gabi, widowed and broken, deserved to grow old with such a man. Now, however, none of that would happen. Thanks to Lem Jukes all of it was lost.
Victor watched the ashes drift away, surprised that so great a man could be diminished to so little.
*
Victor and Father fixed the radio that evening in the workshop, though they had to dismantle a few holodisplays to get the parts they needed. When they were certain it was fixed, they took it directly to Concepcion's quarters, which she shared with three other widows on the ship. Concepcion had insisted that they wake her the moment it was ready, and the three of them took the radio into one of the more spacious storage rooms and sealed the hatch.
"Have you checked all the frequencies?" asked Concepcion.
"Only two," said Father. "Just enough to know it's working."
Concepcion took her handheld and called Selmo to the room. When he arrived, still drowsy from sleep, he began working with the radio. The four of them sat in silence while Selmo checked every frequency, searching for chatter. Once, they caught a few faint clicks and snippets of speech, but it was so fragmented and the moments of sound so brief and so sparse that they couldn't make out anything.
"The Italians?" asked Concepcion.
"Maybe," said Selmo. "Hard to say. I thought we'd get a better transmission as close as we are. If I had to guess, I'd say this was probably just rubbish from somewhere far away."
"So the Italians are silent?" asked Concepcion.
"Seems odd that we wouldn't hear something," said Victor. "They have four transmitters. They should be talking to each other. We're still a distance away, but not too far that we shouldn't pick up something." He turned to Concepcion. "How long ago did the scout ship arrive at their position?"
"Eighteen hours ago," she said.
"And no one has left their position since?" asked Father.
"Not according to the Eye," said Concepcion.
"Maybe this scout ship is causing interference," said Victor.
"Maybe," said Concepcion.
"Or maybe they're not transmitting because they can't transmit," said Selmo.
They were all silent a moment. Victor had been thinking the same thing. They all had. Either something had happened to all four of the Italians' transmitters or something had happened to the Italians.
"How long until we reach their position?" Concepcion asked.
"Twelve hours," said Selmo.
Concepcion considered this.
"There's still time to turn and run," said Father. "I'm not advocating it. I'm just saying that if we start decelerating now, we could stop and change course if you wanted to."
"We're not stopping," said Concepcion. "We're all going to bed and getting some sleep. Especially you and Victor. You haven't slept in two days. Selmo, get whoever is working the helm tonight on this radio, checking frequencies. They are not to transmit, only listen. Wake me if anything changes."
*
Alejandra was floating in the corridor in a white gown. The material was thin but not so thin that Victor could see through it. Her hair was down, floating out beside her in zero gravity. He thought it odd to see her dressed this way. Janda didn't own any gowns--certainly not ones so white and pristine and that fit her so well, as if made only for her. The Janda he knew wore jumpsuits and sweaters, all frayed and worn, having been handed down by other girls before her. Never something so new or unblemished or womanly.
Nor did she ever have her hair down, not out in the corridor at least, not where everyone could see it. Once, Victor had seen it down when he had gone to her family's quarters and found the door ajar. Janda's mother was inside the room braiding Janda's hair. It had surprised Victor to see how long and full it was. He had left immediately before anyone had noticed him, feeling awkward, as if he had witnessed something no boy should ever see.
Yet now, seeing her here, he had no such feelings. This was how her hair and dress should be, how he was meant to see her.
Janda smiled to him, and Victor felt such instant relief. He had worried that the scout ship had done something to her, harmed her somehow, yet here she was. He had so many questions. What was the scout ship? Had she made any friends among the Italians? Had she spotted any potential suitors whom she might one day consider taking as a husband? It lifted his heart to consider that last question without feeling a pang of guilt or loss. It meant he was moving on, that Janda was still t
he friend he had always taken her to be and not someone he had fallen in love with. It meant they could see one another and not be clouded with awkwardness and shame.
She beckoned him to follow her, then turned her body and pushed off with her bare feet. They moved through the ship. The halls were empty. Neither of them spoke. They didn't need to. Not yet. They were with each other, and for now that was enough. She looked back and smiled often, seeing him there behind her, still following her.
The airlock was open. The bay doors were open. They went through both of them. There were stars everywhere, silent and small. They faced one another. A star behind Janda moved, sliding across the sky to her, as if attracted to her, as if it were hers and she were calling it home. It reached her and disappeared, winking out. Then other stars came, slowly at first and then all at once, sweeping to her. Janda seemed not to notice. Her eyes were on Victor, her smile still strong.
His hands were in her hair. Her hand was around his waist, drawing him. Her lips were warm.
A hand shook Victor awake. He was in his hammock. Father looked down at him. "The scout ship has gone."
Victor was out of his hammock instantly. He and Father went directly to the helm. Toron was moving his stylus through the holospace above the table, drawing a line across the system chart. "It left ten hours ago," Toron was saying. "We didn't know it because the Eye is only giving us muddy data now."
"Why?" asked Concepcion.
Toron shrugged. "We may be hitting some dust. I don't know. It's not clean data around the site, that's all we know. As for the pod, it's now heading in this direction, away from us, which is good."
"Pod?" Victor asked.
"That's what Edimar and I are calling the scout ship now," said Toron. "It's not shaped like anything we've seen before. It's very smooth, very aerodynamic."
"Any word from the Italians?" asked Father.
"Still nothing," said Selmo. "Radio is silent."
There were a lot of reasons why the data from the Eye might be "muddy" or unclear--any obstruction in space, however small, could throw off the data. But all of the reasons that Victor could think of, all of the reasons that Toron no doubt had already considered, seemed unlikely save one. There wasn't dust between El Cavador and the Italians' position. There was dust at the Italians' position. Where there had been four solid ships, there was now something else, something harder for the Eye to interpret. Smaller, more random pieces that didn't coincide with any ship design within the Eye's database. Moving dust, spinning scraps, unrecognizable clumps of steel. Victor refused to believe it. It was too dark a possibility. The Italians were fine. Janda was fine. El Cavador was a piece of junk. Why should they put any faith in the Eye? It was just another part on a ship of broken parts and barely-held-together machines. Muddy data meant nothing.