Alien - Alien: Into Charybdis E-Book

Alex White

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Alien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 588

Beschreibung

The critically acclaimed author of Alien: The Cold Forge takes readers to a rogue colony where terror lurks in the tunnels of an abandoned Weyland-Yutani complex. "Shy" Hunt and the tech team from McAllen Integrations thought it was an easy job—set up environmental systems for the brand new Hasanova Data Solutions colony, built on the abandoned ruins of a complex known as "Charybdis.: There are just two problems: the colony belongs to the Iranian state, so diplomacy is strained at best, and the complex is located above a series of hidden caves. Charybdis has a darker history than any could imagine, and its depths harbor deadly secrets. Until their ship can be refueled, the McAllen team is trapped there. The deeper they dig, the more Shy is convinced there's no one they can believe. When a bizarre ship lands on a nearby island, one of the workers is attacked by a taloned creature, and trust evaporates between the Iranians and Americans. The McAllen integrations crew are imprisoned, accused as spies, but manage to send out a distress signal... to the Colonial Marines.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

The Complete Alien™ Library from Titan Books

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Part I: First In, First Out

1 Startup

2 Birds Of Paradise

3 Plans

4 Touch Down

5 Diplomacy

6 Negotiations

7 As Above, So Below

8 Red Carpet

9 Castle Of Night

10 Departures

11 Distress Call

Part II: Soldier On

12 Black Drop

13 Rescue

14 Emergence

15 Cover

16 Connection

17 Doors and Locks

18 Failure Mode

19 Righteous Fury

Part III: Revenant

20 Exfiltration

21 Alarm Clock

22 Descent

23 Eye of the Storm

24 Insurrection

25 Bear Witness

26 Havoc

27 Flight

28 Vows

Part IV: Remains

29 A Gift For An Angel

30 Saved

31 Ossuary

32 Hell’s Heart

33 Vault of Heaven

34 A Bell Rings

35 Renaissance

Part V: Epilogue

Deliverance

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also Available from Titan Books

THE COMPLETE ALIEN™ LIBRARY FROM TITAN BOOKS

THE OFFICIAL MOVIE NOVELIZATIONS by Alan Dean Foster:

ALIEN

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ALIEN: COVENANT

ALIEN: COVENANT ORIGINS

ALIEN: RESURRECTIONBY A.C. CRISPIN

ALIEN: OUT OF THE SHADOWSBY TIM LEBBON

ALIEN: SEA OF SORROWSBY JAMES A. MOORE

ALIEN: RIVER OF PAINBY CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN

ALIEN: THE COLD FORGEBY ALEX WHITE

ALIEN: ISOLATIONBY KEITH R.A. DECANDIDO

ALIEN: PROTOTYPEBY TIM WAGGONER

ALIEN: INTO CHARYBDISBY ALEX WHITE

ALIEN 3BY WILLIAM GIBSON AND PAT CADIGAN

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PREDATOR™: INCURSION

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THE MAKING OF ALIENBY J.W. RINZLER

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JONESY: NINE LIVES ON THE NOSTROMOBY RORY LUCEY

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For peace

PART I

FIRST IN, FIRST OUT

EIGHT MONTHS AGO:

TOP SECRET//AMEREYES//SPECIAL ACCESS REQUIRED –

CANNERY GRIM

TRANSCRIPT STE 1215.131.51.660-1AA

2183.12.02 23:01:04

(TSAE//SAR-CG)

HOPE:

Hasanova is back on the table.

CITTADINO:

Not gonna happen. The AG said no. What’s changed?

HOPE:

Freelance contractors just filed for State Department travel clearance, eight months from now.

[TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: 15s SILENCE]

HOPE:

Are you still there?

CITTADINO:

Keep me updated.

1

STARTUP

“Good morning. I’m Marcus. What’s your name?”

Cheyenne Hunt creaks open her eyes and looks at the figure looming over her—hair perfectly coiffed, skin pristine but for a few blemishes. His smile, however, only extends to one half of his face. The right eye droops along with the corner of his mouth, the results of a catastrophic neural net failure.

Her memories finally thaw, and she recognizes the synthetic. He must’ve experienced another reset while she was under.

“Same as last time,” she croaks, fatigue suffusing her bones. “I’m Cheyenne. You’re supposed to call me Shy.”

He smiles and offers a hand. “You don’t seem shy. Allow me to assist.”

“Said that last time too, bud.” Shy wraps weak fingers around his forearm and he helps her out of the cryopod. Every muscle in her body seems to yawn, and if someone gave her a warm blanket, she might pass back out.

Yellow, floral-print curtains surround her on either side, held in place by collapsible privacy screens. Her vision clears and she recognizes the embroidered roses and hand-carved wooden frames from the antique mall in San Antonio. Scents of lavender and honeysuckle stain the air.

There are eight cryogenic hibernation chambers in the bay, laid out with the heads toward the center, like a star anise seed pod. Shy has always hated this style of cooler—waking up in her skivvies beside her colleagues could be unpleasant. During their last week on Earth, Shy and Mary decided to remedy the situation with some help from the install techs. It wasn’t easy to anchor the cheap screens to the deck of a starship, and it didn’t add a ton of privacy, but it helped.

“Look at this.” Jerry Fowler’s voice comes from the other side of the divider. He sounds rough; his body is on the young side of seventy years old. Given the many stints he’s spent in cryo, Shy thinks he must be over a hundred. “Dang, what’s with the herbal diffusers? Marcus, did you turn those on?”

“Language, Jerry.” Mary Fowler’s voice comes from another pod, cutting Marcus off before he can respond.

“I just said dang,” Jerry mutters. There’s a rustling, as if he’s trying to extricate himself.

“Let Marcus help you up, honey,” Mary says. “You don’t want to fall like last time.”

“Duty calls,” the synthetic says to Shy, dropping a cloth robe at the foot of her pod. A moment later she hears him two units away. “Good morning. I’m Marcus.”

“So I’ve heard,” Jerry says. “As always, I’m Jerry. You going to pry me out of this sardine can?”

“It would be my pleasure.”

Shy pulls on the robe Marcus left for her. Noah Brewer—the data links guy—will be up soon. The last time Shy came out of cryo, Noah couldn’t stop staring at her breasts. He’d never been great about hiding his leering, and took the lack of a bra as license to gawk. When Shy brought the problem to Jerry, he’d assured her Noah was harmless.

When she brought it to Mary, the older woman helped her install the dividers. Shy wanted utility. Mary wanted the Yellow Rose of Texas.

Shy wishes they’d just fire the guy, but apparently that’s too much to ask.

“Fuck me…” Noah groans from the nearest pod on the other side.

Not if you were the last man alive.

“Language,” Jerry says.

“Who else is up?” Noah asks. After some rustling, he pokes his head around the corner of Shy’s privacy screen.

“Me,” she says, arming herself with a smile so thin it could cut him. “Just me… and this comfortable robe.”

He blinks slowly and scratches his head, coming into full view, wearing boxers and nothing else. Noah strikes her as inordinately proud of his wiry, pale body as he places his hands on his hips and cracks his back with a hip thrust in her direction. Shy is pale, but Noah is practically translucent.

“You got some coffee for me?” Shy asks.

“That’s what synthetics are for.”

“Then you’re between her and the exit, son.” The baritone is Arthur Atwater’s voice. Their statuesque crewmate strides over as if to show the younger fellow how underwear is supposed to be worn, and it’s Shy’s turn to control her gaze. She prays she does a better job at it.

“Y’all know there’s food getting cold, right?” Arthur wraps his arm around Noah’s neck like they just rolled off the football field. “Why are you wasting time in here?”

“Yes,” Marcus says from behind Mary’s divider. “I’ve prepared breakfast per Mother’s instructions. I’m sorry I can’t show you over, myself, but I’m otherwise occupied. I’m Marcus.”

“And I’m Arthur,” the big man says, then he grins and heads for the exit. When the bay door slides open, the faint scent of bacon tickles Shy’s nose.

“Well, I’d love to stand around jackjawing,” she says to Noah, “but breakfast calls.”

“Wait for me,” Noah says.

Shy doesn’t.

She makes her way through the bright halls of the USCSS Gardenia, a light commercial towing vessel that’s at least sixty years old. It shows its age in dings and scuffs along the support struts, ratty upholstery, and busted intercoms. It’s not a huge ship, but there’s a decent walk to the galley. By the time Shy arrives, Arthur already has a heaping plate of bacon, eggs, and a pair of pork chops.

“You going to put on some more clothes, champ?” Shy asks.

His grin is incorrigible. “Taking this back to my room. I like to start my day with—”

“Arthur o’clock. You’ve mentioned it.”

“Which means coffee, showering, shaving… and some quality time with this here protein.” He regards his meal like a beloved child. “Want to shoot a message home, too, and let them know I got here okay.”

“Remember what Mary says: ‘Family always eats together.’” Shy parrots the phrase in a singsong voice.

“Then I guess I better get the fuck out of here before she can haul her ass across the ship.”

“That’s right,” she says. “Get all of the bad language out of your system before we land. We don’t swear in front of the fucking customers.”

“Yeah, we never do that shit,” he replies, and they share a fist bump in the spirit of minor rebellion. Then he departs, just as Noah comes rushing past to pick up a couple of biscuits, jam, and coffee. He’s headed for the door when Shy stops him short.

“Mary said she wants us to eat together. Remember?”

“Fuck that,” he says with a snort. Noah hates the way Mary prays before every meal, as well. Shy would never admit that she agrees, and before she can respond, he’s gone with his food.

The scent of old cigarette smoke caramel-coats the galley, triggering a familiar anxiety in her. Her hand itches to hold a lighter after a stint in cryo. Searching the galley cabinets, she finds her carton of Balaji Imperials and tears into it. The familiar rectangular box comes sliding out into her hand, and Shy instantly feels better.

How anyone quit smoking in space, she’d never know.

Joanna Hardy, their itinerant mechanical support tech, shambles into the room, blinking hard. Her orange flattop pokes out at odd angles, and there’s an angry welt on the freckled skin just above her eyebrow. She must’ve forgotten to take out her piercings before going into hibernation.

“Pass me one of them bastards when you’re done,” she growls. “I just puked.” Shy lights two sticks and passes her one. She takes a deep puff, and warm smoke roils into her lungs, and the knot in her stomach unwinds.

“Sick after cryo again?”

“Yeah, Marcus was trying to tell me there was something wrong with my cooter.”

“Cryostatic vasovagal syncope syndrome,” the synthetic corrects her, breezing into the room. “Humans sometimes experience sharp drops in blood pressure when stretching or urinating after hibernation.”

“So it’s not a vag thing?” Joanna stares at him with half-lidded eyes.

“Jesus Christ.” Shy chokes out a puffy cloud.

Marcus shakes his head.

“So how come you can remember shit like that,” Joanna asks, pointing with her cigarette, “but not my name?”

“I remember your name,” Marcus says. “It’s Joanna. You told me that only five minutes ago.”

“Yet we’ve been on the same ship for two years.” Joanna shakes her head, blowing out hard. “I don’t know why I bother. We have this conversation every time.”

“Be nice.” Shy pulls Marcus in for a hug. “He’s harmless, and he can’t help it.”

“All right, but when I come into your room and find him all fucked up and eating your face, I’m just going to shut the door and head for the lifeboat.” Joanna tries to smooth her hair into place, but the springy buzzcut pops up the second her fingers are gone.

“Okay, folks, we’re fully awake!” Mary announces, entering alongside Jerry and wearing her silk nightie and a housecoat. “So y’all need to control your heathen mouths!” The Fowlers are mismatched, yet somehow perfect for each other. Jerry stands about a foot taller than Shy, while Mary is a foot shorter. Jerry has a ruddy, leathery complexion with a veinous nose like a cartoon drunk, whereas Mary’s skin is snowy, wrinkled, and delicate. Jerry is so bald his head shines. Mary has a white perm that looks like cottage cheese.

The Gardenia was Shy’s first job after college, but she’s pretty sure most starship captains and flight officers aren’t married, nor are they quite so old.

“Listen, ladies,” Jerry says, tugging his robe closed, squishing the tuft of curly white hair on his chest. “We’re on the ground in two weeks, so I’m going to be crystal clear: our customers don’t want to hear your foul language, they don’t want to see your gross eyebrow ring, Jo, and you’re not going to be able to smoke, Shy. Not off the ship, you understand.”

“‘Jo?’” Joanna repeats.

“It’s something I’m trying out,” Jerry says. “Makes you sound cool, like Shy.”

“There are doilies on this ship, Jer,” Joanna replies, flicking ash into the tray. “Nothing on it can be cool.”

“I like the doilies,” Mary says, heading for the serving line and fetching some bacon and eggs. “Y’all need to eat this pork before we land, too.”

“Oh, yeah?” Shy already knows what’s coming.

“You know they don’t let you have pork down there.” Mary slings food onto plates with practiced hospitality, pushing them into Shy’s and Joanna’s hands. “It’s a Muslim colony.”

“We’ve discussed this, hon,” Jerry says. “It’s not a Muslim colony any more than this is a ‘Christian’ ship.”

“I guess…” Mary begins, mild vinegar mixing into her sweet voice, “I just hate that we have to drum up business in such hard-to-reach—”

Stopping her, Jerry gives her his big Texas smile and throws an arm around his wife.

“It’s good money, and they’re friendly people. That’s a great day at the office, is all I’m saying.”

With a toss, Mary’s serving spoon clatters onto the plate of scrambled eggs. She turns and stares down her husband, and Shy realizes they’ve had this conversation before. Maybe it never got resolved.

“I’m sorry, y’all.” Mary chuckles, clearly forcing it with unblinking eye contact to Jerry. “It might just be the Cryoprep in my belly, but I think I’d like a hot shower. I might like to be somewhere I can finish my sentences.”

She departs, short-striding from the galley.

“That’s the problem with a southern girl,” Jerry says, hands falling to his hips. “They say one thing, but you know you’re in trouble.”

Joanna lowers her coffee cup, barely restraining laughter. “I’m sorry, Jerry, I missed what she said over the way her eyes were screaming fuck you.”

Shy elbows him, ever the peacemaker. “Besides, every woman on this boat is a southern girl.”

“Aw, don’t call her a boat.”

“Then don’t go maligning our charms.”

The remaining trio take their food and scoot into a booth. Marcus begins working on the buffet to keep the serving trays fresh. Joanna leans over the table and grabs the salt before shaking out a disturbing amount onto her ham.

“You’re not getting laid tonight, Jerry.”

“Joanna—” A bit of coffee dribbles from Shy’s mouth as she tries to stifle her snort.

“No, she’s right,” Jerry says. “This Hasanova job doesn’t sit well with the missus, and it’s straining the old marriage.”

“I was joking, Jer,” Joanna says. “You don’t need to tell me about your sex life.” She cuts her salted ham and uses it as a shovel for her grits. “I don’t know what Mary’s problem is. They’re just Iranians, dude.”

“They’re really nice over email,” Shy adds. “I’ve talked with Mr. Hosseini a couple of times.”

“I know. I know…” Jerry takes a fork and cuts into his biscuits and gravy. “It’s just, she… well, the work is great, and I’m excited to be doing it, and the money is good…”

“But it sucked having to sign a travel waiver with the State Department,” Joanna finishes. “Hey, look. I get it. Our countries might not get along so great, but cash is cash. I didn’t take a job in the Outer Rim so I could be safe.”

“Please don’t listen to Joanna,” Shy pleads, biting into the first glorious forkful of hash-brown casserole. Marcus must have studied up on southern cooking while they were under. “I’m all about the safety, but for what it’s worth, I think the whole thing is overblown. They’re just people.”

“Well, that’s what I said,” Jerry replies, “but you know the wifey. She can’t help seeing this as, well, enemy territory. She’s all worried about getting kidnapped or something.”

“Her dearly departed first husband bankrolled the ship, boss,” Joanna says with a wink. “I’d kidnap her myself if it got me y’all’s fortune.”

“Stop, Joanna.” Shy kicks her under the table. “This is just a job, like any other.”

“Not so.” Jerry laughs, and when he does he shakes all over. “It’s way better than most contracts. It’s just lights, cameras, and HVAC—that’s it.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what jumped up Mary’s butt, but the gig pays good,” Joanna says, rubbing her fingers together. “When do we land?”

“Two weeks, six hours, and forty-two minutes,” Marcus says, pulling up a chair and sitting down at the end of the booth. “We should land at approximately pointer null.”

“Ah, pointer null,” Joanna says. “My favorite time of day.”

“Don’t tease him,” Shy says, and she means it. Ever since she joined up with McAllen Integrations, Marcus has made her feel at home.

“That’s right,” Jerry says. “Our synthetic is family.”

“Thank you,” Marcus replies with his lopsided smile. “I prefer the term artificial person, myself.”

“They all say that,” Joanna replies, shoveling the last of her food into her mouth, and scooting out of the booth. “You need to get that thing repaired, Jerry. Gives me the willies.”

“I assure you, it’s not—” Marcus begins.

“As a being of pure logic, Marcus,” Joanna cuts him off, “you can appreciate that Jerry is breaking ICC regs just by having you on board.”

“Yes.” Marcus’s politeness breaks Shy’s heart. “I have informed him that I am two years, one month, and fifteen days out of inspection, and inappropriate to be on the Gardenia.”

“Yeah,” Joanna says, talking over the synthetic as if he isn’t there. “We should be way more worried about our ‘artificial person’ than the Arabs.” She dumps her plate onto the counter for Marcus to clean later.

“They’re not Arabs, Joanna,” Jerry says. “They speak Farsi. Do not mess that up when we get there.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she replies. “After all, who’s going to fuck with the air conditioning repair crew?”

“Thank you for your assessment, Joanna,” Jerry says, making it clear that he’d like to change the subject.

“Okay, okay,” she says, again trying to smooth her flattop back into place. “See you at seven bells.” With that, she heads for the door.

“I want those VAVs indexed!” Jerry calls after her. “Get Arthur on the load balancing, too!”

“In that case, let’s go, Marcus,” she calls from down the corridor. “You’ve got some heavy boxes to lift.” The synthetic follows after her with a quick-footed step.

Jerry busies himself poking through his plate for all the best remaining morsels, and Shy figures he’s trying to process all the different ways his morning has gone wrong. No one else appears for breakfast, and that doesn’t help his mood.

“So why haven’t we gotten Marcus checked out?” Shy asks. “I mean, he tends us during hibernation.”

“Don’t let it worry you,” he says. “Mother manages the cryo pods. You’re perfectly safe.”

“That’s not what worries me. He seems… sad.”

There’s pain in Jerry’s smile.

“It’s not in this year’s budget, Shy,” he says, then he stands to leave. “See you at muster.”

2

BIRDS OF PARADISE

“Charybdis” is a bottomless hole surrounded by a small, rocky island. Brackish water stretches in all directions, as far as the eye can see. The sky above is perpetually cloudy and grim.

Though the hole’s exact provenance is unknown, the Weyland Corp scientists who first explored the planet identified Charybdis as a stable lava tube. Water washes over the edges of the atoll and into the starship-sized aperture, plummeting through four hundred meters of roaring pipes and thrumming industrial gear, before disappearing into the swirling maelstrom below.

From his vantage point far below the edge of the tube, Kamran Afghanzadeh squints upward, feeling a familiar awe. Glittering droplets encrust his safety glasses like crystals, and he pulls them off to get a better look at the marvel of human engineering that surrounds him. Turbines and heat exchangers guzzle limitless liters, blasting them out in a rainforest mist.

When sunlight manages to break through the perpetual cloud cover, rainbows dance in all directions.

Inspired by the poetry of Hafez, their bosses at the Hasanova Colony Corporation have ordered all staff to call this facility Tagh-e-Behesht, “The Vault of Heaven,” but everyone here knows better. It’s a thirsty hole sucking up everything that falls into it.

It’s the Maw.

Kamran backs away from the safety rail and under the protection of the rock. This pathway, casually known as the Spiral, is a laser-cut ramp rifled into the sides of Charybdis. The top forty-four stories of the Maw contain glass-windowed data storehouses, each airlocked and climate-controlled.

Below the storehouses, though, the Spiral is unfinished, open to the elements. The company put up barricades, but they only come up to his thighs, and he easily could tumble over them. A thrill ripples through him every time Kamran steps to the edge to look out.

“Salam, Kamran!” Reza Hosseini shouts, waving at him from further ahead. “Come on, and try not to hit your head.” The ceiling of the carved path is at least three times Kamran’s height, but he’s no stranger to the joke. When he first arrived Kamran bonked his head on the man’s office doorway every day for a week, and Reza coined the nickname “Tall Kamran.”

He jogs down into the mist, puddles on the pathway splashing and scattering reflections of the caged work lights hanging overhead. Luminescent safety lining on Kamran’s rain gear casts the rock around him in a sickly green—annoying, yet a necessity when one might be swept into the navel of the world. The slick path is only a twenty-degree grade, but it seems to slope away forever. He thanks God for the nanocleat soles of his Reeboks.

“You didn’t have to come with me to check the pilings, you know,” Reza says as Kamran catches up. “I told you I’d do it myself.”

Kamran smiles at his mentor. “You gave me design leadership of Halo B, boss. That’s standards and QC, too.”

“Nevertheless, I offered,” Reza says. He’s handsome, classically so when he worries, like a black-and-white-film star of old. “You’re never going to be a decent branch manager if you don’t delegate.”

“And I’m never going to be decent at all if I sign my name to an inspection report I didn’t conduct personally,” Kamran replies, getting a little annoyed. He knows his old boss is only trying to help, but the constant handholding is driving him crazy. He’s been the project manager of Halo B for over a month, and Reza keeps doing things for him. “I know it’s only a little thing, but I’d be signing my name to a lie.”

Reza regards him for a brief moment, and Kamran fears he may have given offense. Instead, his mentor softens and nods.

“That’s what I like about you.”

He pats Kamran on the shoulder and continues the trek.

“I haven’t been down here in over a year.” Kamran glances back up the Spiral toward the data storehouses, the Solutions spire, and the colony proper. “I have to admit, I’m intimidated. Haroun said he was coming to look, too.”

“That’ll be the day. It’s out of his chair, so it’s out of range.”

“No respect for my new boss?”

“That useless ass needs to earn it.” Reza leans in close enough that Kamran can smell his sweet, sea-spray deodorant. “He pushes too hard and doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“I bet his wife says the same thing.” Kamran cuffs his friend on the shoulder. They laugh, and it feels good.

Haroun, the VP of Operations, has had Kamran working eighty-hour weeks for two months straight. He’s belligerent and disgusting, and it’s clear he doesn’t appreciate Reza’s pick for Safety Design branch manager. But those worries are muted by the majesty of their surroundings, the thunder of water and the gentle kiss of rainbows every time he looks up. It’s nice to take this excursion out to his project—the anchor infrastructure for Halo Unit B—to check the pilings for the anchors. They’ll provide moorings for some of the largest fans ever manufactured—another superlative for Charybdis.

Unit B is a partner to Halo A, the venting system already installed in the upper levels at carefully calibrated angles. There’s a dense hydrogen sulfide buildup down around the raging maelstrom, where the constant flow of water traps some of the gas and drags it into the planet. Should the air inside the Maw dip below a breathable concentration, Halo A will kick on automatically, blasting atmosphere from the surface down through the Maw, simultaneously displacing toxins into the sky.

While Halo A is critical to their ability to operate inside the Maw, Halo B is more of a precaution. The data storehouses won’t be built this far down for a long time.

Reza continues with the sure pace of a construction veteran. That’s something Kamran admires about his former boss—he’s at home behind a desk or digging a trench. Beneath Reza’s transparent rain gear, his jeans are faded, Hasanova-branded polo showing blotches from where it’s been aggressively washed a thousand times, and the seams of his steel-toe sneakers are frayed. Like Kamran, he wears a bright yellow construction helmet. He’s a magnetic fixture of so many projects.

Kamran wonders if he’ll ever be the equal of his mentor.

They stay close to the safety rail, and details emerge from the mist. They’re only a quarter of the way into the unfinished part of the Spiral, and already Kamran spots the unrelenting churn below. It might as well be a black hole. They’ve flushed sensor after sensor down there, and the devices always lose signal.

“I… also had to cancel the exploratory project,” Reza says.

“What? Why? I’ve already hired a geologist!”

“There’s nothing to be done about it, dadash,” Reza responds. “It was decided at the top, and it’s out of my hands.”

“We don’t want to know where the water goes?” Kamran gestures to the vortex and wrinkles his nose. “The company has a substantial capital investment built on top of this shaft, and—”

“—and there’s not enough money to spare for a study they consider entirely optional,” Reza says. “The United Americas just embargoed us. Hasanova stock took a hit.” Reza watches Kamran’s reaction and adds, “Don’t look so shocked. You knew this would happen when our country joined the Independent Core System Colonies.”

“Yes, but I didn’t think it would be so quickly!”

“This place has been classified as a threat.”

“It’s a data center.”

“Sponsored by Iran,” Reza counters. “That means the Americans hate it. Think, Kamran, if you can get enough oxygen to your brain up there.”

“I’m the Safety Design branch manager,” Kamran persists. “If we don’t know where the water goes—”

“As was I, before you, I’ll add.” Reza holds up a hand to cut him off. “No significant seismic events have been recorded here in fifty years. Before us, the Weyland Corp claimants didn’t find anything. The UPP didn’t have problems when they took over and put in the hydro plants. Why should we care where the water goes?”

“You’re not worried this will one day close up and flood?” Kamran glances nervously down into the volcanic tube. As he does, Reza shakes his head.

“The surrounding islands are covered in geysers,” he says. “There are at least five hundred known black smokers. Personally, I favor the ‘reverse artesian well’ theory.”

“You always have,” Kamran replies, “but I think we need proof.”

“We did the models,” Reza insists. “I know you wanted those answers, but Unit B is more important.”

Kamran starts to reply but thinks better of it. He checks his watch.

“We should’ve brought a Polaris,” he says. “We’re not going to be back in time for my team’s standup.”

“You can miss a day.”

This deep, the rock has gone from slick gray to jet black, a reaction to the extremophilic bacteria living inside the water. Little natural light makes it down this far, so the HCC compensates with hundreds of floodlights lining the spiral path. The shape of the Maw grows bumpier at this level; tumescent lumps of dark igneous rock protrude from the walls, ranging from the size of a human head to that of a mining hauler.

“There’s the gate.” Reza points down the slope, where the curve of water takes the path out of sight. A few more steps brings a flashing safety cordon into view, the lowest point in the Spiral thus far, and Kamran sighs with relief. He isn’t looking forward to the return climb.

“I’m going to have to borrow one of your team’s bikes to get back,” Kamran says. “No way am I walking that uphill.”

“I offered to inspect the pilings for you, but you declined,” Reza says. “Relax, you can take the end of shift bus back.”

“That’s not for five hours, my friend.”

Reza shrugs. “Work on that SiteSys camera you love so much, then.”

“They installed it?”

“They have done everything you asked.”

“What was with that tone?”

“Honestly, Kamran, insist on coming, and then you whine about walking. It’s not impressing me right now.”

Kamran grimaces.

“Sorry, boss.”

They reach the work crews at the bottom of the shaft, who are busy cutting the Spiral deeper into the tube. Four people work the stations of a rover-sized laser lathe while the others run power cables and conduit for the temporary sections.

Kamran follows in Reza’s wake as he checks in with everyone he encounters, helps haul supplies, and joins in the tangle of activities. He’s easy with the workers, far more familiar than a bookworm like Kamran. Reza inspires him with the ability to remember an ailing child, a sister’s wedding, a cousin’s pregnancy, and a dozen other trivial details. That’s what makes him a leader.

“What brings you two down here?” Fatemeh, the shift leader asks. She’s covered in grime, and she folds her leather-gloved hands under her arms.

“Kamran needs to check the pilings,” Reza replies. “Make sure our department installed everything right.”

“It’s just a formality,” Kamran adds. “Takes thirty minutes.”

“That’s not on the schedule, Reza,” Fatemeh says. “We can’t shut down the lathes right now or we’ll crack the floor.”

“‘Not on the schedule?’” It’s hard for Kamran to hide his annoyance, but he tries.

Reza pulls a hand over his silver-stubbled face. “I—I’m sorry. I really didn’t think you’d actually come today.”

“Look.” Fatemeh halts Kamran before he can reply. “Lunch is in an hour, and we shut down the lathes for that. Just wait, and you can check the pilings then.”

* * *

The crew takes lunch on a clockwork schedule, cramming into a small antechamber that limits the noise of the Maelstrom. Battered lunchboxes come out, and Reza pulls Kamran aside.

“I’m sorry I didn’t put your inspection on the schedule,” he says. “Do you want help?”

“No, I’ve got it. Won’t take long.” Kamran runs his fingers through his curls before reseating his construction helmet.

“Shout if you run into trouble down there.”

“Sure. Fine.”

Pulling his hood up to keep the water off his neck, he trudges out of the staging alcove and into the drilled-out cave. The rock has been laser cut and cleaned, leaving exposed red iron deposits along flat surfaces. One hundred and forty-four pilings jut from the wall, twelve to a side, threaded heads glinting silver against red. Those will hold a titanium plate responsible for twenty tons of fan.

Unclipping his laser compass from his tool belt, he stamps it onto the wall. After a moment of scanning the bolt heads, it spits out the results—one degree off from the angles in Kamran’s blueprints.

“Oh, no…”

If that’s truly the case, the blast fan mountings won’t sit flush with the rock face and, over time, Halo B might be tugged into the Maelstrom—potentially clogging the chasm and threatening the colony’s entire infrastructure.

“They’re making me bald,” Kamran whispers, backing away from the wall. “Reza!” When there’s no response, he heads back to the lunch alcove. Along the way, Kamran catches a fart-whiff of sulfur, as is common at this level, and restrains a curse.

Of course, he muses. His day is ruined. His month is ruined. And now the planet’s asshole is farting into my face.

“Reza,” Kamran says, short on breath when he arrives. Six other men stand or sit around the room. “They’re wrong.”

The room goes quiet.

“What?”

“The pilings. They’re at the wrong angle.”

That prompts a chorus from the six others who are present. Kamran throws up his arms.

“Listen!” he calls over them. “Listen! I just measured it, okay?”

“Maybe your tool got water in it,” one offers.

“Maybe the gravitational field of your giant head messed up the calibration,” another says, and everyone laughs. Kamran has never seen a mutiny quite like this. In the past, his word was Reza’s word. Now it’s Haroun’s power behind him, and that carries less authority.

“Come on, now, that’s not—”

“It took two weeks to drive those pilings,” Bijan says, plopping his fork into the khoreshteh gheimeh. “But if your drawings were wrong, we can just drive them again somewhere close by. There’s more than one place to hang a picture.”

“No, you can’t, because that’ll weaken the overall rock face, and we have to recalibrate the angles. Those blast fan moorings are aimed at specific parts of the Maw.”

“Vault of Heaven,” Fatemeh the shift leader says with a laugh, and the rest of the crew follows suit. “And for what it’s worth, I’m the one that mounted the driver, so I’m the one that double-checked your team’s blueprints.”

“Kamran—” Reza tries to calm him, but he’s not about to shrug it off.

“Fatemeh khanoom…” A thousand biting insults fill Kamran’s mind, all in his father’s voice, and he stifles them. He’s not like that. “After lunch we’ll have to conduct a pulse time-domain survey, before any work can continue.”

The collective exasperation hisses through the small space as surely as the waterfall outside.

“I authorized the work orders,” Reza says, his tone steady. “We can check them when I get into the ops center tomorrow. Finishing out the shift won’t—”

“I don’t answer to you, though,” Kamran says. He refuses to be charmed out of his anger. “What message shall I convey to Haroun about this?” Reza looks long into his eyes, as though searching, then gives a contrite smile.

“Okay, okay. You can tell him that you came down here and did a pulse time-domain survey to make sure everything was right. This is a misunderstanding. Now sit down with us. Bijan said you could have some of his khoresht, right?”

Kamran relents, and Bijan reluctantly hands him some of the khoreshteh gheimeh. Kamran spends the rest of lunch ashamed of his outburst. After they pack away their refuse, he issues the work lockout and sends the crew home for the day, exchanging them for several of his on-call personnel.

His teammates are annoyed at having to venture so far down, but the issues with the pilings demand a serious response. It’s going to be a long afternoon.

***

Kamran and his second in command, a fellow from Tabriz named Babãk, set up the pulse lens further up the path. Because of the Spiral, it’s easy to mount the tripod diametrically opposite the pilings, allowing for the best magnification. The rest of his crew set about the arduous task of spraying the wall beside the bolt heads with a thick coat of damper. With the nanoscale absorption, Kamran figures those pilings will ring like bells to his scanners.

“We’re blacked out over here,” Reza’s voice comes through Kamran’s earpiece, magnified by his construction helmet. “Here’s hoping it’s all just a misunderstanding.”

“Okay, good.” He might be embarrassed, but he’s still angry. Reza just has to deal with that, because Kamran knows he’s right. “Arming the PL scanner in ten seconds. Comms off. I don’t want any EM noise.” He pulls out his radio and twists the volume to off. Babãk follows suit.

“Okay, firing,” Kamran says, pressing a button on his remote.

The little screen on his portable terminal begins to fill with points of light as the PTD scanner paints the far wall through the waterfall. Kamran zeroes in on the pilings and tensions down the tripod.

“Well?” fat Babãk asks.

“We wait thirty minutes, and hope that I’m the one who needs to apologize for wasting everyone’s time.”

Spirits damp as his trouser legs, Kamran thrusts his hands into his pockets and walks to the safety railing to watch the Maelstrom. There’s something hypnotic about its whitewater vortex, and he’s put in mind of Nietzsche’s cliché about staring into the abyss. The tumult seems worse today, and the mist stinks like boiled eggs. Babãk joins him and, together, they share a bag of pistachios while they wait for the scan to finish.

There’s a digital honk from below, and one of the floodlights halfway to the Halo B anchor point goes red. So far away and a few stories down, it’s hard to make out the details through all of the rain.

“The HS sensors!” Babãk drops his pistachios, which tumble into the rapids. Each floodlight contains a canary sensor, and they’re accustomed to catching occasional false warnings up in the ops center. If they responded to every single alarm, they’d never get anything done. No one even checks the alarm console log anymore—it has thousands of brief entries a week.

“It’s fine,” Kamran says, chuckling at his subordinate’s nerves. Babãk probably hasn’t been down this far before. “Notice how bad the smell is today? We don’t need to worry until—”

A huge bubble spurts up through the Maelstrom, exploding like a pimple and spraying gouts of water up from its depths. A spiral of crimson light winds up the shaft of the Maw as every canary sensor lets loose with an apocalyptic screech.

“Shit! Kamran!”

“I see it!” The smell of hydrogen sulfide hits him like a hot poker up his nostrils. Tears blot out his vision, and he staggers, breath coming in short gasps before he can hold it.

High above, Halo A blares an alarm and high-output capacitors dump charges into mighty engines. Fans thunder, and a light breeze tickles Kamran’s neck as the waterfall shuts off. All waves that had been washing inside the Maw instead will be blasted out into the surrounding lake. Loudspeakers burst forth with a warning.

“Attention: Toxic Environment Detected, Halo A ignition response. All personnel return to colony structures and shelter in place. Repeat…”

“We have to get higher!” Babãk gasps. “Grab your oxygen tank!” He stumbles for the Polaris.

The treaded bike can seat two, and convey them to the safety of the data storehouses. Babãk gets to the bike and rummages through the saddle compartment, grabbing an oxygen tank and hurling another to Kamran. The bird’s nest of plastic tubing and mask come undone mid-flight, and with blurry vision, Kamran can’t figure out which part of it he’s supposed to catch. The cylinder strikes him in the cheek before clattering to the ground and rolling under the roadway safety barrier.

“No!”

Kamran dives for his lifeline—the tangle of plastic tubing unfurling from the bottle. He snatches the assembly by the mask and tugs the tank back up from oblivion, clutching it to his chest and fumbling for the knob. Sweet, cool air flows into his lungs, and he mashes the nozzles to his face. It’s not airtight, however—the nose cup is designed to add oxygen, not filter it.

Must call Reza.

Kamran switches on his comm and coughs out a few sputtering hails. No answer. The people down there would be dazed, unable to see, perhaps too poisoned to think. They might not have switched on their radios. Kamran tries to remember the safety briefing he took two years ago—high concentration, five minutes to live.

Sting the eyes.

Hurt the brain.

Dizziness pushes its fingers into his skull.

Floodlights near the surface begin turning from red, to yellow, to blue as Halo A does its job sucking away the gas. The line becomes a fuzzier orange below the Maw, where they stand. The hydrogen sulfide concentration is no longer enough to burn his lungs, but it’ll still be a lethal dose if he doesn’t get out of there.

Canned oxygen awakens the parts of his mind that know how to survive. He pulls himself up on the guard rail, clutching the mask and trying to ignore his searing lungs. He has a brief vision of coughing up chunks of bloody tissue in the infirmary, and tamps it down. He can’t think about dying, or it’ll come to pass.

A few more gasps at the O2 tank and his mind clears further. Reza and the others might still be alive, and there are Polarises near them. Kamran has an oxygen tank and a decent enough lung capacity. It’s downhill. If he were to go to them, he could squint through the pain…

“Kamran!” Babãk has already spun the Polaris to face up the ramp.

“Go!” Kamran says, gesturing to his oxygen tank. “Get help! I’ll be fine!” He doesn’t wait for the other man to respond. Babãk didn’t volunteer, and it might be suicide, anyway. Better to go alone.

Screwing his eyes shut, Kamran jogs down the path into deepening red light. He runs his fingers along the cut stone wall to guide himself. When he arrives, he’ll have to force himself to open them again, and fight through the agony to search for Reza. This might cost him his sight, but he would gladly trade that for a friend’s life.

He slits his eyes open and spots the flashing safety cordon.

“Reza!” he cries, fetid air pouring in around his mask.

Halo A has reached deafening speeds above, drowning out his voice, yet providing no assistance.

“Reza!” He begs his eyelids to stay open, and it’s like staring into the sun. A man emerges from the work site with another person, Mitra perhaps, slung over his shoulder in a firefighter’s carry. The figure staggers toward a nearby Polaris and shoves her limp body across the carriage.

It’s Reza, and he’s attempting his rescue without even an oxygen bottle. Kamran calls to him—if he’ll wait, Kamran can drive while he holds onto Mitra’s body.

Reza swings his leg over the Polaris and revs it.

His head lolls, and he slumps forward, unconscious.

The Polaris, Reza, and Mitra go zipping toward the edge.

“No!”

The bike strikes the cement safety barricade, catapulting its passengers over the handlebars into the abyss. The cruelest part is that there is no extra air to scream.

“Attention. Halo A at maximum capacity. All personnel return to colony structures and shelter in place.”

Kamran staggers to the edge and clutches the guard rail, searching for his friend, praying that Reza got caught on a rock. Through tears of grief and agony, he sees nothing but jagged lumps of sooty stone around the mouth of the Maelstrom. Reza’s rain gear safety lining would’ve shone bright yellow even to Kamran’s half-blinded eyes. He’s dead, gone forever, never to be recovered.

Kamran looks up. The blue line of safety fizzles out three quarters of the way to him—they can’t vent the heavy gasses this far down. They could’ve, if Halo B was online, and Kamran curses. He turns to run, but just the sight of the ramp ahead makes him want to lie down and die.

Your parents didn’t drag you across the Hindu Kush to fall here.

He searches out the abandoned Polaris now wedged in between two of the heavy pylons. It’s deep in the gas, but so is he, so he might as well go for it. Holding his breath, he shuts his eyes and charges forward, hoping he can make it to the bike. It’s also a run directly toward the Maelstrom, and he meters every step as best he can.

He tangles into the handlebars, catching one straight in the kidney. The bike is still idling from Reza’s intended escape. Guilt grips Kamran as he mounts it and flips it into reverse. His head swims, and the oxygen isn’t enough, so he backs into the stone wall. It knocks the daylights out of him, but he shakes the hit off. He has to climb out of here.

Twisting the handlebars, Kamran takes off up the ramp, wobbling like a child learning to ride. His legs are gelatin. His mind feels mushy. He can’t crash—if he does, he dies. He won’t have enough energy to recover a second time.

Red becomes orange, becomes yellow as he ascends. Simple shapes begin to take on discernible features. Within a couple of minutes, he’s outside the hatch to Data Storehouse Forty-Four.

In a cruel twist, his body refuses to dismount the bike. He slumps off the saddle and falls onto his back, gasping for dear life.

I almost made it.

Strong hands seize him about the shoulders, fingers digging into his muscles as they haul him inside. When it becomes apparent that he won’t be allowed to die today, every second of his suppressed pain overtakes him. Voices ask him what happened, but all he can do is weep for his friends.

3

PLANS

Shy sits at her bridge workstation, lit by the green light of her monitor, trying to smooth the tension headache from her brow. Blueprint after blueprint flickers past.

In order to commission a colony, someone has to hook up all the lights, sensors, cameras, HVAC, and locks to a central server. It’s an arduous process, from the individual light bulb all the way up to the central chilling plants for each complex. Someone has to connect each device, translate its data into a language the central ops server speaks, and create the external control schema to run them. Hasanova Data Solutions has over a hundred thousand edge devices, using four hundred different manufacturer comm protocols. Many of them are already hooked up. It’s like trying to untangle a ball of yarn.

Shy is a front-end developer, which means she makes the interfaces.

“Y’all really like that word,” she mutters, tapping her lip. “‘Hasanova.’ HASS—a-nova. Sounds like Casanova. Ah. There it is again.” This customer wants their logo on every screen, and Shy’s getting tired of looking at it.

The corridors of the Gardenia are quiet, running lights dimmed for a sleep cycle. Shy often takes the night watch on the planetary approach slowdown. It’s a good time to pore over her notes and ensure there aren’t any gaps. Though Noah is insufferable, they have it down to a science: he plans the connection and writes the acceptance criteria, she designs the UIs, then together they wire everything up onsite as quickly as possible.

Opening the latest set of acceptance criteria, she finds the interface drawings already completed.

“What the hell?”

She leans in close to regard the name on the diagram. “N. Brewer.” Flipping to the next screen, there he is again, and again. He’s already come in behind her and done her job—poorly.

“Oh, come on.” His work is functional, but it’s brute force, more engineering than art, and it’ll be a menace to the inhabitants. His arrogance is going to cost her—she’ll have to spend forever redoing these.

Shy goes to take the file out of storage for modification, and gets an error. The fuck? The design has already been approved for production and committed to the commissioning repository. Jerry’s name hovers in the info box as the approving authority.

“Marcus?” Shy calls into the darkness. The nice thing about a starship at night is that she could practically shout for him, and she wouldn’t wake the others in their soundproof bunks. As it is, his approach is so silent she almost leaps out of her skin.

“Yes?”

“Why are my drawings already done? Have these been compiled?”

“I believe so,” Marcus replies. “Noah submitted a drawing package shortly before going under.”

“That’s not his job. How did it happen?”

“Let me pull up the records.” The synthetic might as well be the galaxy’s most expensive stenographer, given how Jerry uses him. Marcus sits down at another workstation, his fingers like a drum solo on the mechanical keys. “Ah. Here we are. Meeting from August fourteenth of this year. Jerry approved the drawings, on the condition that Noah got your approval.”

“I didn’t give it!” Her voice echoes in the silence, and she tamps it down. “I’m not vouching for work I didn’t do.”

“According to this record, Noah told Jerry he already had your approval. Quote, Jerry: ‘What does Shy think?’ Quote Noah: ‘She’s looked them over. No changes.’” Marcus sends the link to her workstation, and she checks the log. Shy leans back in her chair, doing her level best not to be any angrier than she is. If she comes after Noah in front of Jerry, he’ll frame her as a temperamental bitch.

“Okay, like what am I supposed to do, though? If he’s already done my job… terribly…”

“I’m certain this is a misunderstanding.”

“I’m certain it’s not.” She folds her arms and swings a boot up onto the console. “He thinks he’s better than me at, like, everything, because he knows WhiteCap. Like whoopty-shit, who cares that you can code?”

“I’m sorry you’re agitated.” The synthetic looks into her with green eyes, and she wonders what he sees.

The flames of annoyance are best chased by cigarette smoke, but she’s trying to cut down. Shy chews her pen instead. “No sense worrying about it now. I’ll talk to Jerry in the morning. Have we made contact with the beacon?”

“We established Hasanova Data Solutions approach protocol at eight bells.”

“What about planetary control?”

“Ah. Let me clarify. ‘Hasanova Data Solutions’ is the name of the planet. Iran’s National Data Corporation petitioned the IAU that the designation be changed from LV-991 after they acquired the world in a blind-bid UPP auction.”

Shy backs out of the drawings and requests a map of their destination. Sure enough, the beacon says “Hasanova Data Solutions.” The corporate pricks finally figured out how to jam advertising into the registry of worlds. Not even the International Astronomical Union is safe.

Marcus perks up, hearing something Shy can’t—a radio transmission—and his eyes roll back in his head.

Apparently, the wireless link is mostly a Marcus thing. When she first signed up with McAllen Integrations, that phenomenon freaked her out, like he was hearing voices. This Marcus unit wasn’t quite right to begin with, and she’d heard some dark tales about synthetics losing their shit in the frontier.

“Mother requests my presence on the lower decks,” he says. “Routine maintenance of the landing gear.”

“Sure. Of course.”

As he leaves Shy alone at her monitor, she dons her headphones and pops a few tunnel pills. The focus is great, and she uses it to slice up every one of Noah’s shitty designs, continuing nonstop over the course of five hours. By the time the meds wear off, she’s at least twenty percent of the way through the damage he’s done. With a combination of exhaustion and time, she’s calm, and decides it’s probably best if she slogs back to her bunk and passes out. They’ll want her help prepping to land at oh-five-hundred, maybe sooner. That’s only a few hours at best.

Shutting down her monitor, she takes one last long stretch and rises to her feet. On the way to her bunk she passes the galley and spots Noah. She tells herself not to engage, for fear of anger chasing away her exhaustion. He’s making the coffee for his shift, and swearing because there’s no powdered creamer left on the vessel.

“Hey, fuckwad,” she says, despite herself. A ripple of annoyance wakes up the rest of her body, chased by her outburst. “You need to quit doing my job.”

He turns to face her, placidly stirring his drink, and takes a long sip before answering.

“Just trying to speed up the process.”

“You didn’t—you fucked it up. I’ve been spending all night redoing your work.” She wants to slap the coffee out of his hands, but restrains herself. “You need to admit when you’re out of your depth.”

“Shy, I know I’m not a professional artist like you,” he says with a tang of sarcasm, “but you don’t have an art degree, either. Or a degree of any kind, as I recall.”

“Oh, fuck you, Noah.”

“You need to accept that your designs are just your opinion, and that other people have opinions, too,” he persists. “My stuff looks fine. Better than yours, in a lot of cases.”

Oh, no, you did not go there, she thinks. “Yeah, because you left a bunch of user interfaces that make no sense. There are rules to UI design, none of which you appear to understand.”

“That’s what makes me better. I don’t play by the rules that tie you down.” He pushes past her, headed for the bridge. “Now excuse me. Jerry is going to be up any second—he and I have to review the backend before we land.”

She considers closing the door in front of him to block his path. There are switches on every side of the galley, and she could make him stay and hash it out. Instead, he waves at her with his free hand as he leaves.

Her heart burns off her sleepiness like a sunrise. What if she just let Noah get away with it? She only has one job, and he’s trying to do it for her.

“Man, fuck you, dude.” She still has a couple of Balaji Imperials in her pack, and one of those will do nicely right now. She’d rather not smoke in the galley, though, since Mary hates it. A couple of ladders and passageways bring Shy to the Gardenia’s cargo bay. Joanna and Arthur are there, scanning each crate’s barcodes and calling out last-minute inventory. Out in the frontier, there isn’t much they can do if anything is missing from the manifest, but it’s always better to know before the customer does.

Both of them are eager to take a smoke break, and sit beside Shy on a crate.

“Can I bum one?” Joanna asks.

“It’d be downright weird if you actually had your own,” Shy replies, passing out her precious smokes. She can only hope the Hasanova canteens sell cartons of cigarettes, or this’ll be a difficult trip.

Arthur turns her down, but enjoys being around people who aren’t working. The three of them make small talk, and Shy relates her troubles. She expects Joanna to be her typical shade of indignant.

“I wouldn’t go making waves right now.”

“I’m not ‘making waves.’” Shy recoils. “I’m just trying to do my job.”

Joanna shakes her head. “You need to be more strategic, sweetheart.”

“Arthur, back me up!”

“She’s right, Shy.” Their air systems engineer massages the light brown skin of his palms with a calloused thumb. “I wouldn’t go playing with Noah. He’s a lot harder to replace, so if Jerry feels like he has to choose—”

“He won’t,” Shy insists, “but if he did, he’d pick me. I’ve been here for almost five years. We took on Noah like a year ago at most, if you don’t count cryo.”

Joanna shrugs. “Uh, sure, but like, money is tight. Maybe don’t go yelling at people.”

Shy opens her mouth to talk, but shuts it to think instead. That fit with what Jerry had said.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“This ought to be a top-flight run,” Joanna says, “given what the Iranians are paying. But look”—she gestures around them—“all Rimco parts and controllers. This whole bay is full of cheap shit. Why would Jerry do that?”

“Rimco is fine,” Shy says, and Arthur laughs at her.

“No, he’s trying to get a big margin here,” Arthur says. “The man is cutting corners.”

Shy looks over the dozens of crates all stamped with the Rimco logo in English and Vietnamese. She has to admit that they don’t have the best reputation.

“Jerry wouldn’t do that.”

“Honey,” Joanna says, taking a drag and blowing it out, “you never know what a businessman will do until he’s actually in trouble. No matter what Mary says, we ain’t a family. When profits are stressed, the knives come out.”

“Just keep your head down, okay?” Arthur stands and brushes off his legs. “For your own good.”

Shy draws in one last lungful, then stamps the butt out with a twist of her toes like she’s crushing a spider. “Fine,” she sighs, “I’m going to catch some shut-eye before approach.”

“Okay, but you’re back down here at seven bells to help me configure the thruster tests,” Arthur says. “We load program down the main engine at fifteen hundred for approach, and I want them to be long done by then.”

“I know.”

“I’m not sure you do,” Arthur says. “That’s not enough time to sleep, iron out Noah’s fuckups, and help with docking.”

“Then I got you for landing gear checks,” Joanna says. “The last shift before landing sucks, but all hands means all hands.”