Equinox - Diane Carey [27]
"No ... she hasn't I always agreed with you, Rudy," Burke said, then held up a hand. "I still do, I still do... but how can we make them understand? Soon enough, I mean."
"We can't" Ransom lowered his voice more. "I know I've stepped over the line in their eyes. We don't have two years to examine the regulations and micro-manage the morality. They don't have the capability yet to understand what we've had to do. How could they? Look at this ship! Clean, strong, supplied... they haven't even come close to the edge. We landed on it!"
"We sure did ..."
" And I wanted to get home. I saw a way to get home. I used it"
"Don't isolate yourself," Burke protested. "We could've resisted. We wanted to get home too. It's all for one and one for all on Equinox."
An unexpected smile crimped Ransom's leathery face. "You know how I appreciate that. Especially here, where you're all-"
"Comfortable? Right... things always look different in a lounge than they do from down a well, that's for sure. But we'll never forget, Rudy. We're still with you."
"I'm glad, because we'll have to stick together. They're not going to understand. We have to forget about that. They won't get it. She'll never approve, that's for sure. She's never been to the Skeleton Coast."
Burke shook his head and laughed sadly. "I remember the first time you told us those survival stories from the Skeleton Coast. It made us feel so... possible! If those poor shipwrecked tourists could do it, so could we ... heat, sandstorms, blindness, hundreds of miles of scorching sand and not even a snake to eat... I used to replay the scenes in my head while I was working. It kept my mind off how bad things were getting."
"You get inspiration wherever you can." Leading the way around a corner, Ransom found he'd made a wrong turn. Now they stood in a vestibule for a turbolift that was under repair. With a red caution tape across the open doorway, the lift stood in passive gawk, half its guts exposed, tools littering its deck.
Beside him, Burke stopped still. Together they stared at the electrical innards. Even dismantled, the lift was a hundred times more tidy than the shambled mess in any corner of Equinox. And this had no blood on it.
There they stood, not looking at each other. Ran-
som's voice moved as if veiled beneath the soft bleeps and whirs of the living ship.
"When you're dropped on the Skeleton Coast, the rules of civilization don't apply. It isn't a place for higher behavior. It gets down to finding enough water. Escaping the sun. Trapping a crab. How do you walk on burned feet? How do you keep from freezing at night? What do you use for toilet paper? It gets whittled farther and farther down ... until all you're interested in is getting through the next few minutes. The lofty goals of humanity? They just don't matter. If you can't survive, then what difference does destiny make?"
The words all but echoed. The turbolift bleeped passively, flashing its little "Under Repair" light. Yes, lots of things were under repair in the Delta Quadrant.
Burke gazed at the red strip blocking the lift cavity. His voice was rough. "You know they'll hold us to that code."
"Because they've never had to live without it," Ransom quietly reminded. "We were trapped on the Coast. Nowhere, with nothing ... dying... hopeless. We could never, ever get home. Nobody else welcomed us. We were completely alone."
"I know, Rudy, I know ... if you hadn't been strong enough-"
Brushing off the compliment, Ransom sliced his hand between them. "Then something happened to change everything. We found ourselves inside a pack of wild animals. Even though it seemed worse at the time, it was really better because we suddenly had a fighting
chance. If you're on a life raft, starving and scorching, it's better to just get in the