Expendable - James Alan Gardner [41]
I groaned as the truth came to me. Of course they couldn’t have killed us. That would have violated the one unshakeable law of space travel: no lethal weapons on a starship. The League of Peoples never let such weapons through, no matter how well concealed. “The implants weren’t made to kill,” I said aloud. “Just to knock us out for a while.”
“You didn’t have time to think that through,” Chee said sharply. “You responded to an emergency, that’s all.”
“I didn’t respond to an emergency—I killed my partner!” My face felt hot. “And you were trying to hide the evidence, weren’t you? Stuff him into a tree so I wouldn’t find him. What were you going to tell me? That he’d been dragged off by predators?”
Silence.
“I don’t know,” Chee finally answered. “I just thought it would be better if you didn’t have to confront…if you didn’t have to wake up with him right there.”
“Right there,” I repeated. “Lying in the grass. Where I killed him.”
And I began to cry.
Hell
Hell is weeping inside a tightsuit.
I wanted to cover my face with my hands. The helmet was in the way.
My nose ran. I could not wipe it. Dribbling and hot, untouchable tears poured down my cheeks.
I hugged my arms across my chest. The suit’s surface was like iron; no matter how hard I tightened my grip, I couldn’t feel my own touch. My arms squeezed against unyielding fabric, never making contact with the me inside.
Alone, alone, crying alone. I could not even reach myself.
My Helmet
In time, the sobs wore themselves out. The misery didn’t. The taste of my running nose was salty on my lips.
Chee had his arms around me, trying to give comfort. I couldn’t feel him through the suit either.
He was saying things, meaningless things. “You didn’t know, how could you possibly think clearly, don’t blame yourself….”
Stupid things. I shoved him away. “Leave me alone.”
He was looking at me. I wanted so badly to turn away from him that I stared him straight in the eye.
“Ramos,” he said, “take off your helmet and wipe your nose before you drown.”
“I can’t take off my helmet,” I sniffled. “There are germs.”
“How much air do you have left?” Chee asked. “An hour? Two hours? We’re going to be here longer than that.”
“I’m going to be here forever!” The words came out before I even knew what I was saying. “I’m a murderer now. A dangerous non-sentient. I’m no different from that Greenstrider you talked about—it doesn’t matter what was going through my mind, I should have known.”
“Look, in the heat of the moment…”
“No!” I almost screamed the word. “I should have figured it out. I should have. I don’t deserve to be called sentient if I can kill my partner so stupidly.”
“Ramos…”
“I can never go into space again,” I said. “Even if a rescue ship arrived this minute, they couldn’t take me away. The League would never let me leave Melaquin. They’ll call me non-sentient, and they’re right.”
“Take off your helmet,” the admiral ordered. “I refuse to argue with a person who has snot all over her face.”
In another time and place, I might have been obstinate. I might have played the steely Explorer, sternly adhering to Fleet policies no matter how runny her nose was. But just this once, I didn’t have the energy for willpower. With two sullen taps of my finger, I hit the helmet release button and the safety catch. It took five more seconds for the interlocks to disengage and for the pressure regulator to equalize with external atmosphere. My ears popped just as the helmet swung back on its hinges and exposed me to extraterrestrial air for the first time in my life.
Without a second’s hesitation, I wiped my nose on my sleeve.
“Good,” said Chee, “you aren’t an utter idiot after all.”
A Tomb
We interred Yarrun in the log Chee had chosen—there was no better place for him to go. The miniature shovel in my pack was only adequate for skimming soil samples, not for burying bodies; it would have taken hours to dig a hole deep enough to hold my partner, hours of staring at his throat. I couldn’t