“I’ll see ya,” I say, turning my back before I make a mess of things.
“Yeah,” Claire says, like she knows better.
It’s only after the door hisses shut that I pick up on what she said. Back to Houston in a few days. That’s all. Just that pocket of warmth in a freezing lake. Just a glancing ray of sunshine. A star that winks once, twice, then turns away. Death without the dying.
• 7 •
By the end of my first tour of duty, I was already an asshole. I told myself I’d never get like that. I remember when I joined my first company, after losing my wings and being put in the trenches, how I’d introduce myself to someone with too many days of service, and they wouldn’t take my hand, wouldn’t give me a name, would simply tell me to “Fuck off.”
I called them the assholes. It’s what I muttered to myself as they walked away. I later learned that this exchange wasn’t what it seemed. You shake enough hands and meet enough people and lose them all to the war, and you get to where you don’t want to meet anyone else. Looking back, I can see how the assholes were quick to give me any advice that might keep me alive, but they didn’t say shit about who they were. Names were simply home states or cities or favorite ball teams or embarrassing nicks. The assholes didn’t hate you; they just didn’t want to get attached. I got like that. I didn’t want to ever meet another Hank. I think that’s why he remained my best friend throughout my two and a half tours. I never let anyone else get so close. Those two weeks were painful enough. Hell, after Scarlett, I never confused sex and love again. Used to think the two had something to do with one another. But then the sex and dying came so close together that it almost felt like you were doing it with a corpse. Takes the joy out of it. You die a little inside every time you have joyless sex. Neurons prune back. The good in there withers. And some things never grow back.
This is why I spend the next two days staring at the HF, too self-protecting to pick it up, too enamored to just walk away. I don’t want to know another thing about her. I can already feel the agony of her leaving, off to another brand-new beacon, asking someone to pass her a bolt, the smell of soap and grease on her skin, bonding with some other soldier, leaving behind a dotted line of finely tuned machines and shattered hearts. Makes me feel sorry not just for myself, but for every other lonely and hapless vet who—
“Hello…?”
Cricket lifts her head from her blanket and stares at the ladder well. What the hell? What the hell?
Looking over at the airlock indicators, I can see that collar Bravo is energized. Who the hell stops over unannounced like this? I step toward the ladder, step back, step toward it again, my arms out and akimbo, while Cricket gets up from her blanket.
Before I can think to stop her, the warthen bounds for the ladder.
“Fuck,” I say. I run after her. “Stop! Wait! No!” All the useless commands come out together in a jumble. I practically jump down the ladder, landing in a roll and grabbing at Cricket before she leaps down another level. I don’t stop to put on pants or a shirt, just have my boxers on, and I’m down the next ladder to the life support module when I hear a scream just below me. A shriek. I land to find Claire on her back, Cricket standing with her paws on the tuner’s chest, holding her against the grating.
“Off!” I shout, pushing Cricket to the side and ending up on my knees. Cricket tries to get at Claire again—I can’t tell if it’s to greet her or dominate her—and I fight to hold the alien back. Claire scoots until she’s against the air scrubber and pulls her knees up against her chest, is staring at the animal wide-eyed, her jaw hanging open.
“Sorry,” I say, sitting down and reaching out toward Claire. “I’m so sorry.”
Claire doesn’t say anything. I tell Cricket to back off, to go lie down, to take it easy, and finally the tension goes out of her muscles. She paces back and forth on the other side of me, her head tracking Claire. I keep pointing to the grate, telling her to lie down, thinking for her to lie down, and she finally does. But with a grunt. Like she’d rather be doing anything else.
“God, I’m so sorry,” I say. I reach over and touch Claire’s shin, remembering the time I touched her ankle. She startles, but not as bad as the last time.
“What the hell is that?” she asks.
“A warthen,” I say, breathing hard from the dash down. I rub the ankle I sprained a while back. “I— She sorta adopted me.”
“That’s—” Claire can’t take her eyes off Cricket. She aims a finger at the animal. “That’s against regs. That’s… You can’t have that.”
“I know,” I say. “I know. I suck at this job. You’re gonna can me. I know. We can go QT Houston if you like.”
I almost feel relief at this. Lately, I’ve gone from thinking I’ll serve in this bucket for the rest of my life to being pretty sure I could be fired at any moment. This is the route I took when I sided with Scarlett against the bounty hunters. But the only person who knows that is the hunter who dragged Scarlett’s body away. And she hasn’t said a thing, apparently. But with Cricket around, it’s just a matter of time. When they do the food resupply, they’ll figure it out. NASA counts every hundred-dollar bolt. They won’t miss this. And now they know. The jig is up.
“What the hell is it?” Claire asks. While I’m considering which remote planet I’ll retire on, she seems to be coming out of shock. “Canine? Feline?”
“Neither,” I say. And I see that the fear is out of her, replaced by curiosity. Here’s a soldier who’s seen a shelling. Knows when to duck for cover and when to come out, look around, see who needs help.
I snap for Cricket, who bounds up like a coiled spring, has only been lying there because I yelled at her to. She nearly knocks me over on her way to Claire, gets both paws around her neck, and starts licking her hair.
“Down!” I say.
“Easy,” Claire tells the animal.
And I see that Claire can hold her own. She twists to the side and rolls the warthen on her back. Pins her there, which I know from experience isn’t easy. Cricket’s body is tense, but her legs settle as Claire finds that spot on her belly.
“She likes that,” I say.
“Who wouldn’t?” Claire asks.
We stare at each other.
This is the last goddamn thing I wanted. The last goddamn thing.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask, unable to censor myself, angry at her for being a good person and shoving it in my face like this, waving it around like a flag, making me notice.
“Fuck you,” she says, but she keeps rubbing Cricket’s stomach. It’s just trench talk. Soldier anger, which lasts as long as soldier love does. “You said this bucket was falling apart, I thought I’d come see if I could help. But I think maybe the bucket isn’t what’s broken.”
“The hell does that mean?” I ask.
She looks down at Cricket, whose eyes are closed. She’s doing that deep growling thing that I’d call a purr if it wasn’t so goddamn unsettling.
“You’re right,” she says. She pats Cricket, then unfolds her legs and stands to go. “Good luck with everything, soldier.”
“Wait,” I say. I reach for her hand, even though I don’t know her, even though I’ve spent all of four hours with her, even though I haven’t thought of anything else for the last three days. “I’m sorry.” Two words that I used to choke on when I was younger, that I only now know the value of, the true worth, and how good they feel to say. “It’s just—”
“What?” she asks. She’s standing there, my hand around her wrist, looking down at me. Cricket is watching us both.