And Ky was somewhere—surely still alive—and if not, if she died before he could find her, he would have the whole wide universe again, anywhere he wanted to go anytime he felt like going.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s do it. I’ve nothing on today that can’t wait a day; I finished the quarterlies last night.” He signaled Emil in the outer office and leaned back in his chair. He felt lighter already.
That lasted only until he was once more in his room at their house with all the things his parents had saved. Clothes. Books. That fateful sword with which his eleven-year-old self had killed a man. He came out of the room after a few minutes only to meet Penny coming out of hers, hands as empty as his.
“Maybe we should just—” she began.
“Burn the whole thing down?”
“No. Not the musical instruments. Not the library. But there’s nothing of mine from up here that I want.”
“Me neither, and yet I don’t want strangers digging through it.” He called up a business directory. “Documents destruction first.”
Within a few days the house was empty, put up for sale; the real estate agent would have it professionally cleaned and prepped under Penny’s supervision. The Board had agreed to let Penny take over for the time being, and granted Rafe a leave of absence with pay for six months. He didn’t explain why, but “the strain of the past months” covered it. Penny agreed not to announce the change in her title until he reported from Slotter Key. “But must you go in disguise?” she asked, watching him prep for departure.
“It’s safer,” Rafe said. “You don’t want ISC involved in whatever trouble has hit Vatta again; neither would the Board. And if I have to transfer through some of the places I’ve been, there might be legal complications.”
“You were in trouble,” Penny said.
“Let’s just say I wasn’t always a perfect citizen,” Rafe said. “And not all the bodies stayed buried.”
She laughed. “I’m not as tame as you think, Rafe. I think I’d have liked knowing you then.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” He kissed her forehead. “I hope you enjoy running ISC as much as I expect to enjoy being free of it.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The camp settled into a routine: fishing, gathering seafood from the rocks they could reach, desalinating water from the bay, emptying the honey buckets, moving rocks to piles around the base of the raft-shelters. The piles grew slowly, but now reached the top of the flotation chambers of one raft, with a gap matched to the canopy hatch. They all slept in that one now, crammed in uncomfortably, but slightly warmer. Work on the next windbreak pile went on.
If shelter had been the only lack, Ky was sure they could overcome it in time. Thanks to the desalinators, they had ample water from the sea. Slotter Key’s tides were not large, but Ky hoped the movement of water in and out of the bay would prevent dangerous contamination from their cesspit.
But day by day, hunger and deepening cold took their toll, sapped everyone’s energy. Their initial inventory of rations, after landing, revealed that only thirty-six portions of the original six hundred in the lost raft remained. They still had 600 each from the Ounce and Stitch, and 479 left in Ducky, but it wasn’t enough. Seventy-seven days from now, at one pack per person a day, it would all be gone. And winter would last longer than that.
She herself was hungry and cold all the time; she knew the others were as well, including the ones who never complained. It was harder to walk over the rocks to the water, harder to pile rocks up, harder even to think. Hardest on those who foraged in the water, their hands so stiff they could not unclench from the bucket handle. Rations calculated for warmer conditions and less exertion were not nearly enough in this cold. She looked at the total calories on the ration pack and asked Tech Lundin, as their resident medic, how many were really needed.
“Three and a half to four thousand, in this kind of cold, without heated shelter. Almost double what these packs contain. And before you ask, I’m having to guess what the bay can supply. If it was all fish and shellfish—plenty of it—it might be enough, but so far each person’s getting only a few hundred calories more per day than the ration packet.” Lundin leaned closer. “Admiral, I hate to ask this, but have you considered that some people may be stealing food already? Not everyone is losing condition as fast as the others.”
“Surely not! We need each other.”
“I would recommend a daily count, and some surveillance.”
“Who do you suspect?”
Lundin shook her head. “I’m not going to accuse without proof. Two people should make the count, one from each raft, and it should change every day.”
Ky nodded. “I’ll do that. The situation’s too critical to be careless.”
The first count, that evening, showed the number was five short of what it should have been had everyone eaten a single pack every day. The next day’s count was five short again. Nobody had seen anyone taking rations; no one admitted to suspecting anyone. The day after, the count was only two packs short. But at the supper call, two people were missing: Staff Sergeant Vispersen and Corporal Lanca.
“I saw them out near the point there,” Staff Sergeant Kurin said. “They were on the foraging team today and it looked like they were fishing.”
“I thought they caught something,” Kamat said. “And then threw the line back in. But I was on desalinator duty and just thought we might have fish for supper.”
“They’re supposed to bring a fish in right away,” Kurin said. “They were told that; everyone knows a fish is important.”
“Maybe they thought they could catch enough for a feast.”
“Not Lanca,” Corporal Lakhani muttered.
“What is your problem with Corporal Lanca?” Ky asked. It was not the first time Lakhani had made a comment about his fellow corporal.
“Beyond he’s lazy and selfish and I wouldn’t be surprised if he and Sergeant Vispersen had themselves a fish supper just to hog it, nothing,” Lakhani said, getting it all out in a rush. “At least this time I can’t be blamed for what he did or didn’t do.”
“Have you any evidence that he’s taken food before?” Ky asked. Before he could answer, she turned to Lundin. “And what about you?”
“I told you I had no proof.” Lundin frowned. “I did see both of them—one at a time, I mean—enter a shelter when others were out working. It could have been to use the bucket instead of walking over to the cesspit. Or they’d forgotten something. But neither one looks as pinched as everyone else. So if they’re having a private feast, it wouldn’t surprise me.”
“We were in the same recruit platoon,” Lakhani said, less truculently. “The DI was always on him about being lazy and gossiping. Only, we’re the same height, same coloring, and my name’s next to his, alphabetically. So the DI would yell my name sometimes when it was Lanca shirking. A year later, we were both assigned to that base west of Port Major. Stuff went missing. They found out he took it, and he was punished, but the gossip paired me with him, mixed us up. I even heard an officer say, ‘Lakhani, Lanca, it doesn’t make any difference—they’re both slugs.’ When I was up for sergeant and didn’t get it, I’m sure that was what happened.”
“You haven’t impressed me as sergeant material,” Sergeant Chok said, scowling. “But not as a thief, either.”
“I see.” Ky nodded. “Before I assume that Lanca and Vispersen are thieves, I, too, would prefer some proof. Meanwhile they’re missing, and we need to find them before dark. Four of us—me, Staff Sergeant Gossin, Sergeant Chok, and Master Sergeant Marek—will go out far enough to see if they’re still where they were fishing. Commander Bentik, you have the camp until we return; Staff Sergeant Kurin is your second.”