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“Mr. Lassiter, then? Mr. Crandall? What are we, about five miles?”
“Three, maybe,” said Eric, and Crandall shrugged and nodded.
“Okay. Three miles.” Amber pointed through the tent wall in the direction of the ridge, which was at that time just lighting up with the grey promise of another day through one hell of a roaring rainstorm. “We were three miles away from the explosion last night, Mr. Scott, and you said our solar generator melted.”
His jaw tightened. “The escape bays are heat-proof up to, I don’t know, thousands of degrees. The beacons are our only hope of rescue, Miss Bierce, and they could be all right.”
“Okay,” she said, although she personally thought this was horseshit. “Say the escape bays are intact. It could happen. But they’re going to be intact at the center of the melted pile of slag that used to be the rest of the ship. How are we going to get to them?”
The other men looked at Scott. He flushed and glared back at her.
“Jonah…Lieutenant Lamarc said that even if the beacons could be launched, they’d need the guidance system on the Pioneer to find Earth,” said Amber. “And we don’t have that anymore. Mr. Scott, I’m sorry, but I think we can cross rescue completely off the list.”
“I’m not prepared to do that, Miss Bierce,” Scott said stiffly.
“And then there’s the little matter of all this rain.”
“That you want to go hiking in,” Scott interrupted.
“Yes, I do. Before it floods the lake we’re camping next to.” Amber hesitated, unsure whether she really wanted to bring out the big guns yet, but in the end, she just couldn’t not say it. “And before all the toxic seepage from the Pioneer washes into the water we’re drinking. And before you ask, no, I don’t know for a fact there’s anything seeping out of it, but it seems like a pretty goddamn good bet this morning, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t need to hear the swearing,” said Scott.
“It could be happening, though.” Eric unfolded himself and stood up as straight as the tent allowed. “Okay, Bierce. If there’s a vote involved here, you just got mine. But we can’t just pack up and go, we’ve got to have a plan.” He paused, then glanced at Scott and said, “Right?” in the same careful way that Amber told him he could keep the food.
Scott scowled. “Sure, as far as that goes, which is why we need to prioritize our efforts. Organize teams. Investigate our options.”
Amber pressed a hand over her eyes and tried very hard not to either sigh out loud or shake her head. “We don’t have time for that.”
“I’d rather take a little extra time than charge stupidly out into the wilderness without any kind of plan.”
“And thanks to you,” Eric inserted gently, “we have at least the begi
Scott’s frown went crooked, distracted. “What? We do?”
“When we scouted this place out yesterday, we found several watersheds that emptied into the lake here,” Eric explained, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder at the tent wall. “I suggest we follow the biggest of them upstream and get to high ground.”
“I am not willing to abandon the ship,” said Scott, also standing up.
“It’s not going anywhere,” Eric argued. “But for the moment, it’s probably still burning on the inside and still very much a threat to us. I think we’d all feel better if we got some distance and got out of the imminent flood zone, but I agree that it’s important that we don’t go so far that we lose our water source, because I was looking yesterday, and the water we’re camping next to was the only water I could see.”
He turned to Amber, directing his next words only to her. “I know it must make you nervous to be here. I know you must be thinking of pretty much everything that might happen. I know. But if we get too far away from the water, we’re going to die. Not might. Will. We have a purifier—”
“But we don’t have water,” said Amber, thinking of Jonah, who had said the same thing. She nodded, sighed, and then shook her head, her shoulders slumping. “So just sit around and talk, is that all we’re going to do?”
“And this is why I didn’t want you in here,” Scott remarked.
“Just be patient,” said Eric. “Let us figure a few things out. I know you want to do something, but the day after we’ve all seen our ship blow up is the wrong time to expect everyone out there to pull it together and start marching in line.”
“I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.”
“You don’t have to like it,” said Scott. “And I’ll tell you right now that I’d better not hear you ru
“Ru
The soldiers all looked at each other. Crandall snickered.
“I’ll let you know when I’ve made my decision,” said Scott, moving to unzip the tent for them. “This meeting is over and Miss Bierce?”
“I know, Everly,” she sighed, heaving herself up. “Don’t let the flap hit me in the ass on my way out. Let me tell you something.”
“Bierce,” said Eric warningly, but Crandall, gri
“Sooner or later, you are going to have to say something that people won’t want to hear,” Amber said. “And if you can’t handle that, you shouldn’t be in charge.”
Scott tried to stare her down, but she refused to look away. Eric watched them for a while and then heaved a loud sigh and said, “Don’t we have enough real problems here? Come on, you two, lighten up.” He pushed his way between them and walked out. The other Fleetmen followed. Soon, Amber and Scott were alone and for just a few seconds, she had the chance to either apologize and try to put things right between them or run after Eric and try to form some kind of future that didn’t include ‘Commander’ Everly Scott.
She did neither. She left. So if there was blame, and she knew there was, she shared it.
2
It rained for days. Amber lost track of how many. They had no computers anymore, no digireaders, no handhelds, not even wristwatches. They talked about hours or minutes, but in truth there was no time on this world—just one endless day cycling between grey and black, filled with wind and rain.
The lake started rising, and on the day the water first climbed over the mudbank and reached the grass, Scott did two things. He gave the order to pack up the camp and move upstream, and he cut Amber’s rations from two bars to one. This, when she knew that everyone else was getting three.
“What the hell did I do?” she demanded.
“This isn’t personal, Miss Bierce,” he’d said, handing Nicci a ration.
“The hell it isn’t! What, it rains for six days so I go to bed without supper? What the fuck is that about?”
“I don’t need to hear the swearing, Miss Bierce.”
In spite of everything, Amber had managed to keep a pretty good grip on herself. She had neither turned into a shell-shocked sleepwalker nor a senseless hysteric. For days, she had slept without complaint in a raging downpour with nothing but a piece of tinfoil to wrap herself in. She’d made a point of supporting the man who was incapable of wiping his ass without calling a meeting or holding a meeting without calling it a debriefing, and now he was punishing her because she’d dared to suggest that rain could cause flooding.
She lost her temper. Not a lot, not at first, but just like the rain, once it started pouring out, there was no end in sight.
“Don’t you fucking walk away from me, Space-Scout,” she snapped. “I’ll tell you when we’re done talking.”
Scott stopped in his tracks and turned around. Nicci shuffled back, her eyes huge, clutching her ration so tightly that she’d pinched it in half through the wrapper.
“You don’t get to take away my food just because I was right about needing to get out of this valley.”
“First of all, moving this camp has always been under discussion. You had nothing to do with it.” Scott zipped up his duffel bag and slung it decisively over his shoulder. “And secondly, I’m not cutting your rations because of your attempts to sabotage my authority here, I’m cutting them—”
“Sabotage your authority?”
“I’m cutting them because—”
“You were supposed to hold the rations because you were hogging the biggest tent, that’s all! You were supposed to keep them dry, not use them as your own personal gold-star stickers for all the people who kiss your ass!”
Nicci took another step back. She looked as if she might be on the verge of tears. “Please don’t fight!”
“No one’s fighting, Nichole,” Scott assured her, then turned his best in-charge frown on Amber. “Miss Bierce, you are grossly overweight.”
“Grossly?” she echoed. She looked down at herself and up at him again, as derailed as she’d been when the medico back on Earth had called her obese. The next argument that wanted to come out of her wasn’t even about him, but just that she’d lost sixty pounds, goddammit, and how overweight could she possibly still be? Grossly?!
Scott seized the opportunity of her angry silence to make another speech, half-turning away from her to include all the other people watching them as he said, “It wasn’t all that long ago that you decided you had to lecture me on how a leader should be willing to sacrifice his popularity when he makes a command decision. Well, we all have to make sacrifices, Miss Bierce. We have limited rations and frankly, you can live off your reserves for a while.”
“I’m fat, so I don’t need to eat ever again, is that what you’re saying?”
“Hey.” Eric stepped up between them, both hands raised and empty. “Both of you. Calm down.”
“I’m not upset,” said Scott. “There’s nothing to get upset about. The facts are these: A human being can survive without food for at least three weeks, provided he or she has plenty of water, which we have.”
“Now wait a minute,” said Mr. Yao.
“And judging from the looks of you, you could probably go twice that, easy. Now we’ve got a long hike ahead of us, Miss Bierce, so why don’t you stop complaining and get ready to go.”
Nicci grabbed at her arm. “Please!”
Amber shook her off. “These aren’t command decisions, damn it! This is just you being a dick!”
Scott did not immediately reply. Instead, he reached out to touch Nicci’s shoulder, his brow furrowed with concern. “Are you all right, Nichole?”
Nicci blinked at him. So did Amber.
“I didn’t hit her, for Christ’s sake!” she sputtered. “Why wouldn’t she be?”
“Mr. Gu