“On top of which,” Alex continued, “you think everyone else on the Barb is just gonna be okay with us leaving without them? We don’t have room for everyone on that ship. Docking with a ship full of frightened people looking to get off is never plan A.”
Basia nodded again. “But if we don’t get a plan,” he said.
Alex’s grin went away. “We’ll get your girl. If it comes to that, if we all fall out of the sky, your daughter will be on this ship when it happens. So will Naomi.”
Basia’s panic and anger was replaced by a feeling of shame and a sudden lump in his throat. “Thank you.”
“It’s family,” Alex said, with a smile that was almost only baring his teeth. “We don’t let our family down.”
Basia drifted through the Rocinante like a ghost.
Alex was in engineering, tinkering with the reactor, trying to figure out what was causing the failure. Basia had offered to help, but Alex had declined. He couldn’t blame the pilot. His ignorance of nuclear engineering and ship’s systems was utter and complete. He doubted the reactor failing to work could be fixed by a really clean bead of weld.
If it turned out he was wrong, Alex would call.
In the meantime, Basia moved through the ship trying to distract himself from the idea that he was slowly drifting toward the planet and a fiery death. That Felcia was too. He went to the galley and made a sandwich that he didn’t eat. He went to the head and bathed with damp scrubbing pads and rub-on cleansers. He left with a few friction burns and all the same worries he’d brought in with him.
For the first time since coming to the Rocinante, he actually felt like a prisoner.
Alex had left a panel on the ops deck monitoring the other two ships. Basia could check on the Barbapiccola as often as he liked. The pilot seemed to think that the display showing hundreds of hours before the Barb’s orbit decayed enough to be dangerous would make him feel better. But Alex didn’t understand. It didn’t matter how long that number was. What mattered was that it was counting down. Every time Basia looked at the counter, there was less time than when he’d looked before. When he was looking at a countdown timer for the death of his child, the numbers on it were almost meaningless.
He avoided looking.
He returned to the galley and cleaned up the mess his sandwich preparations had made. He threw his used scrubbing pads and towels into the bin, and then went ahead and ran a cycle of laundry to clean them. He watched a children’s cartoon and then one of Alex’s noir films. Afterward, he couldn’t remember either. He wrote a letter to Jacek and then deleted it. Recorded a video apology to Lucia. When he watched it he looked like a madman, with hair flying wildly out from his skull, and sunken haunted eyes. He deleted it.
He returned to ops, telling himself that he would just double-check that nothing had changed, that the inexorable ticking of his daughter’s death clock was just data to be monitored. He watched the tiny icon that represented the Barbapiccola travel its glowing path around Ilus, every passage taking it an imperceptible increment closer to the atmosphere that would kill it.
Just data. No change. Just data. Tick tick tick.
“Alex, Holden here,” a voice blared from the communications console. Basia floated to the panel and turned on the microphone.
“Hello, this is Basia Merton,” he said, surprised at how calm his voice sounded. Holden was calling. Holden worked for the governments of Earth and the OPA. He’d know what to do.
“Uh, hi. Alex left me a message, but comms have been really spotty. He, uh, around?”
Basia laughed in spite of himself.
“I could probably find him.”
“Great, I’ll—”
“Hey, Captain,” Alex said. He sounded out of breath. “Sorry, took a sec to get to the panel. I was elbows deep in the Roci’s nethers when you called.”
Basia reached out to turn off his speaker and let them talk, but stopped with his finger hovering millimeters over the control. This was James Holden on the line. He was probably going to be talking to Alex about the reactor shutdowns. Feeling a little like a Peeping Tom, Basia left the connection on.
“There a problem?” Holden asked.
“Yeah, so, fusion don’t work no more,” Alex said, exaggerating his drawl.
“If that’s the punch line, I don’t get it.”
“Wasn’t a joke. Just yanked the reactor apart. Injector works, fuel pellets drop, laser array fires, magnetic bottle is stable. All the parts that make it a fusion reactor work just fine. Only, you know, without the fusing.”
“God damn it,” Holden said. Even Basia, who’d only just met the man, could hear the frustration in his voice. “Is it just us?”
“Nope,” Alex said. “We’re all flyin’ on batteries up here.”
“How long?”
“Well, even on batteries I can put the Roci up far enough we’ll all die of old age before she falls down, or I can slope on down planetside and park. The Israel’s got maybe ten days or so, depending on how much juice she stores. But she’s also got a ton of people sucking up air, so she’ll be burning through her batteries just keeping everyone warm and breathing. The Barb’s worse off than that. Same problems, shittier boat.”
Basia’s gut clenched at this casual description of his daughter’s peril, but kept silent.
“Our creepy friend said there was a defense grid,” Holden said. “Their power station blew up, so the old defenses are in lockdown.”
“They do seem to dislike big energy sources near their stuff,” Alex replied. Basia had the sense they were talking about something from their past, but didn’t know what it was.
“And we heard the supply drop was shot down,” Holden said. “So, we’ve got a few hundred people down here, a bunch more up there, and we’re all about to die because the planet’s defenses won’t let us help each other.”
“The Roci’s got the juice to land, if you need us,” Alex said. Basia wanted to scream at him, We can’t land, my daughter’s still up here!
“They shot the shuttle down,” Holden said. “Do not risk my ship.”
“If we can’t get supplies down to you, me and Naomi’ll be inheriting it pretty soon.”
“And until that happens, do what I tell you to do,” Holden said. The words were harsh, but there was affection in them.
“Roger that,” Alex said. He didn’t sound offended.
“You know,” Holden continued, “we’ve got what seems like an engineering problem. And the best engineer in this solar system is locked up on that other ship. Why don’t you call them and point that out?”
“I’ll do that,” Alex replied.
“I’ll see if there’s anything we can do from this end.”
“Miller,” Alex said. Basia had no idea what that meant.
“Yeah,” Holden said.
“You take care of yourself down there.”
“Affirmative. You take care of my ship. Holden out.”
“Look,” Alex said, not quite yelling, “I’ve run the damn numbers. You’re going down. It might take two weeks if you’re lucky, but that ship is gonna be scrapin’ atmosphere and catching on fire.”
“Heard you the first time,” the face on the other end said. A man named Havelock. Alex had called him after the conversation with Holden. He’d stopped off on his way up from the engine room to don a fresh uniform and comb his thinning black hair. He looked very official. It didn’t seem to impress Havelock very much.