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“Where’s Vivien?” Dela wondered sharply, with that tone in her voice that boded ill for the subject. “Where’s Vivien all this time?”
“Probably at inventory,” I offered, not really thinking so. “I’ll go find her.”
“I will,” my lady said, with that look in her eye.
Ikept working. That was safest.
And it was not until my next trip topside that I found Viv, who was busy storing items in the freezer. Immaculate Vivien. No hair out of place. At least she was working.
I added my own cart to the lot and began to help. “Did my lady go to rest?” I asked: it was evident Dela had found her—very plain in Viv’s sullen enthusiasm for work. But Dela was nowhere about the dining hall.
“She went to take a bath,” Viv said, all brittle. “You might, you know.”
“I’m sure you haven’t worked up a sweat.”
Viv rounded on me, with such a look in her eyes, on her elegant oval face, that I had never seen. “You,”she said. Just you, as if that were all the fault. Her lips trembled; her eyes brimmed.
“Viv,” I said, contrite, and reached out a hand: I was greatly shaken, not having seen that coming.
She struck my hand down and turned her face away, went on about her work. My lady must have been very hard with Viv. And now and again while we worked she would wipe fiercely at her eyes.
“Viv, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, was it yourdoing?” She looked at me again. It would have made me laugh, because I had never seen Viv’s face like that with the mascara smeared like soot. But I was far from laughter. It was like seeing wreckage. Viv started to cry; and I put my arms about her, just held on to her until she had gotten her breath and shoved me hard.
That was all right. Viv was afraid as well as mad and tired. I knew what that felt like. “It’s all stupid,” she said. “It’s none of it going to work.”
Viv indeed had a mind.
“Griffin says they might be trying a rescue after all,” I offered.
“They’re not,” Vivien judged, and turned her shoulder to me.
I emptied the cart and took it down for another load.
So my lady had had her fling at work and bravely at that, and now she had exhausted herself enough to rest; but I had things yet to do. And Griffin and those with him—they were only now bringing their equipment up the corridor to lift it to middecks, clatter and bang.
It was lonely down there after they had gone; I worked there by myself, loaded up two carts with the last that we had to bring up.
What if it should break through of a sudden, I thought. What if it should be now? I pushed my carts into the lift and rode it up into safer levels, the hammering distant up here and easier to forget.
So we fought, with our wits and our small resources; and the deadliest things we had found in all the ship were the welders that Griffin used to fortify our poor shattered bow.
Viv was not talkative. It was not a good day for her, not in any sense. She sulked about the things we had to do together, and her hands shook when the pounding from belowdecks would get loud. She complained of headache; doubtless that was true. I thought that I might have one if I slowed down and let it have its way.
But Dela came out of her retreat again, bathed and fresh, and helped us, which I think scandalized Viv, and which Viv blamed me for. All the same the working comforted Dela, and she smiled sometimes, braver than we when she had a task under her hands: only sometime the facade cracked and I could see how nervous she was, how her eyes would dart to small sounds. Viv hardly knew how to react to this: I think it was the first time my lady had ever gotten to watch Viv work, which was, excepting Viv’s trained functions, dilatory and involved much motion over little result. And Viv was trying to reform this tendency under that witness, but habit was strong. It would have been fu
We knew, when we were finished, how much of everything we had, and we had taken a great deal of it into storage on main level, including bedding enough for us all if we had to sleep here; and we had filled the huge tanks for Vivien’s domain topside. Vats and pipes everywhere up there; but there was a lot of water involved, and we felt the more secure for that. That was another thing that gnawed at Viv, because my lady insisted on Viv telling her what it all did while I was there to hear it—because, my lady said, something might happen to one of us. Poor Viv. That was not the thing she wanted to think about.
But came the time that all of us had run out of strength, and Griffin’s party came up to the dining hall, all dirty as they were, to the di
Then there was a signal from the bridge, which meant that something had happened, and we staggered away from our supper, all of us.
It knew, I thought, it knewthat we were trying to rest: our hammering had stopped, and maybe it picked up that silence inside. So we stood shivering on the bridge, under the images of the dead ships and the bleeding space outside, and listened to that nonsensical sound that rumbled and roared like a force of nature, Even Dela was there to hear, and Viv—Viv just blanked, frozen in the center of the room.
“Respond?” Modred asked.
“No,” Griffin said.
“I might point out—”
“No,” Griffin said. “No more reaction to it. They know too much about us already, I’m afraid.”
Modred cast a look toward my lady, not real defiance; but there was that ma
“No,” Dela said, ending that. Modred only looked tired, and turned back to the board.
“Leave it,” Griffin said. “All of you—go below and sleep. All of us can use it. Hear?”
We heard. Modred shut down; Gawain left his place, and Ly
No Viv. Percy had gotten her by the arm and they were on their way out the door. Only Lance stayed, looking like death and all but undone.
“Can’t come,” I said. “I’ve got the dishes.”
“I’ll help,” he said. We worked like that, Lance and I, both of us staff and responsible for our born-man and for the things not in anyone else’s province. So he came with me. I don’t know which of us was more tired, but I reckoned it was Lance: his poor hands were burned and the china rattled in them—I reckoned that water would hurt on the burns so I did all the washing.
And after that, we went to see to our born-men, who were together: nothing to do there. Dela and Griffin were locked in each other’s arms and fast asleep. I looked back at Lance who had come closer to the door, made a sign for quiet—but he only stood there, and a great sadness was on his face.
I dimmed the lights they had forgotten or not cared about. “Come on,” I whispered, and took him by the arm, walked with him outside and closed the door.
“Go on down,” he said. “I’ll stay hereabouts.”
“Lance, you shouldn’t. You’re not supposed to.”
“He’s good to me—you know that? He knows, like you said. And he loves her. And all of today—he never had any spite. Nothing of the kind. And he might have. Anyone else would have. But he treats me no different for it.”