The Board meeting an hour later ruffled him all over again. Like the Premier, the Board members as a whole still thought of Vattas as dangerous. It was unreasonable how fast Stella had managed to get Vatta Transport on its feet. Toby’s technical brilliance was uncanny, unbelievable: no boy could really have done what he did without some other adult geniuses guiding him. “At least now,” Vaclav Box said, tapping Rafe’s shoulder on his way out of the room after the meeting closed, “we shan’t have to worry about you marrying into that family.”
“Because you’re sure she’s dead,” Rafe said. He could feel his face stiffening in a rush of anger, and tried to force a smile. What right had they to worry about, let alone consider governing, his choice of a wife—if he and Ky ever got that far, which they had not.
“You’re not? Be reasonable, Rafael. A shuttle crash into an icy ocean? Nobody survives that. Only if they’d had rescue immediately, maybe then—” He shook his head. “Accept it, grieve, and get over it. You need a wife, and heirs. Your lovely sister needs to marry again, have some babies. Admiral Vatta saved us all in the war, but she’s not the sort of woman to settle down and make anyone a good wife.” Box turned away. “You’ll get over this, Rafael. You’re a good son.”
He was not a good son. He had been labeled a bad son, a renegade, and he had lived into that label with gusto for years. He watched Box and the others chat on their way down the hall to the elevators, the weight of ISC heavy on his shoulders. It was one thing to come in at a crisis and take over. Crises were, in some way, fun. But this… he foresaw year after year of nursing ISC back to health, always less powerful than it had been, always condescended to by men who had worked with his father.
He should be on his way to Slotter Key now, despite what Stella said. He should be spending his time and his wits finding Ky, rescuing Ky, and then… that vacation they’d both wanted? He wondered if that would ever happen, and if it did… what would it mean?
CHAPTER SEVEN
When the first dim light seeped through the canopy, the storm still raged. Ky felt bruised all over, and what little she could see of the others looked as bad as she felt. Her mouth was dry and tasted foul; she took a sip of water that did not help much, and watched the puddle slide back and forth and around—then wished she hadn’t. Her seasick meds must be wearing off. Staff Sergeant Kurin appeared to be asleep, curled on her side. Sergeant Cosper, who had the watch that hour, had fastened an elastic cord to one of the grabons and was exercising. Ky blinked; that would not have occurred to her.
He opened his mouth, said something she couldn’t hear for the howl of another gust of wind, then shrugged and went on with his exercises. Ky gave him points for initiative. Her implant dinged; it was her turn to take the watch again. Kurin moved, opened her eyes, and caught Ky’s gaze. Ky gave her a thumbs-up with one hand, the other still firmly holding the grabon. Sergeant Cosper, still exercising his free arm, looked at her and when she nodded at him, closed his eyes and went right on.
Ky thought of checking with the other raft, but Marek would call if he had a problem and needed her. She wondered how Jen was getting along with Marek. Surely he had had experience with difficult officers before. Her hour wore on, the light only slightly brighter and the violence of the storm unabated. She imagined the rafts being blown right past Miksland, around and around the empty ocean, stuck in the same storm until they froze or starved. Storms passed over ships drifting at sea; if they didn’t sink, they would live out the storm and be somewhere else.
Late in the day, the light already dimming, the wind’s roar eased, and though rain or spray still fell on the canopy, the seas were not as violent. Ky tried to speak; her mouth and throat were dry. She sipped more water from her suit tube and tried again. “Roll call.” Eyes opened, faces turned to look at her. “Report any injuries. Betange?”
“Present, no injuries, sir.”
One after another they answered, all present, no injuries to report.
“Good. I’m going to check with the other raft.” When she had unfastened the hatch and eased it open, they were in a trough, with what looked like great hills of dark water all around. The air felt colder but smelled fresh compared to the interior. The other raft was still there. She called out to Marek.
“Sir, just a moment—”
She could see the movement of the hatch as someone tried to unseal it, and then it opened a slit and Marek’s face looked out. “What’s your situation, Master Sergeant?”
“All present, Admiral.”
“Good. Same here. Maybe tonight we can get some sleep.”
“I wanted to ask you—about the deceased—”
“Yes?”
“They’re—one came loose of the lashings and was rolling around bumping into people in the storm. And hitting the spare life raft—there’s damage, and it bothers people. Very bad for morale, Admiral. Unless there’s a chance of rescue today—at least by tomorrow—wouldn’t it be better to give them burial at sea?”
“Who was it, Master Sergeant?”
“The pilot, Admiral.”
“Do you have him lashed down safely now?”
“We think so, but we thought so before. It’s that there’s too many of them. Six… it’s too many.”
“It’s almost dark; we can’t just throw them out like trash. Wait until tomorrow, Master Sergeant. If the storm’s past, maybe the sky will clear and someone will get a satellite image—or even a search plane. If not, we’ll have daylight to send them on.”
“Yes, Admiral.” He gave a crisp salute; Ky returned it, then refastened the canopy hatch.
“We still need to set a watch tonight,” she said to her raft. Her crew. “But I expect we’ll manage to sleep. First, though: congratulations.”
“For what?” asked Corporal Lakhani. “All we did was get seasick and scared…”
“You did more than that.” Ky shook her head at him. “You stayed alive. All of you—” She looked around. “You all did everything necessary to get through the emergency so far, and if you keep doing that, solving one problem at a time, doing the next necessary thing… we will make it.”
“You really think so?”
“I really think so.”
“What’s the next necessary thing?” asked Ennisay.
“Suits have limited waste-handling capacity,” Ky said. “We need to arrange a better solution.”
“In a raft?”
“In a raft. Do you want to perch on the sidewall half naked in the cold and fertilize the ocean?” She paused; no one said anything, and she went on. “In the meantime, how many people finished the rations handed out yesterday?” Five hands went up, including her own. “Dehydration and hunger will dull your wits; we should all drink and eat—slowly, with pauses—before sleeping tonight, and we’ll assess conditions tomorrow, when it’s light.”
Ky woke to the sound of voices.
“We could use the survival blankets for a kind of hood around it—”
“I don’t see why—”
“Because some of us have to get out of our survival suits and the clothes inside them to use it, that’s why.”