Adrift (14 page)

Whitman got the point loud and clear. He grimaced. “
Yeah? I’m all you’ve got too, buddy. You might’ve forgotten, but things weren’t exactly running smooth when we bumped into each other.”

“They haven’t been much better since!” Tron loomed over him like a cat about to pounce. He
bashed his fist down against the console, somehow managing not to trigger any of the recessed buttons. Whitman didn’t back down, knowing that if he did the guy would be running the show from then on. Ruben had no intention of making them self-reliant. If there had been any doubt that they’d toss him the second they were able, it was gone now. Tron was already acting like a bully instead of a man willing to talk nice, and all Whitman had done was object to his plan.

“We’ll bring you food.”

They were both startled by Kivi’s voice. The girl hadn’t said a word since entering navigation, and Whitman had almost forgotten she was there. Apparently Tron had too, because he turned a deep shade of red and dropped his eyes to the floor in the most amusing display of shame Whitman could ever recall witnessing.

He considered her offer. He didn’t want them to be able to fly the ship on their own. That was too dangerous. But he could show them some stuff. Like how to realign sensors and how to read the data. That would take a while to learn, and once they did it would be less for him to worry about. If he started getting really sick, he could be glad for the help. He’d seen men who missed important
information because they were too sick to pay proper attention. They couldn’t have that.

“I want a bed too.”

He wasn’t really expecting it. He just wanted to demand something they could talk him out of, so that Tron could feel like he’d won something. Whitman got the sense the guy was pretty determined to get a win.

“Ok.”

Whitman blinked. So did Tron. The girl hadn’t even tried to negotiate. He wasn’t going to complain though. He was going to get a bed and food out of the deal. Still, that killed his plan to placate the big guy. He’d hoped to come away with some sort of peace, at least a postponement of hostilities. Now he’d have to watch and wait. Kids like Tron always exploded at the worst possible time.

“
You bring me the food, we’ve got a deal.”

Cold

The second they were out of earshot, which was a good deal further now that the doors were wide open, Tron jerked Kivi to a stop. “What were you thinking?”

She blinked at him. “Getting what you wanted.”

“That wasn’t what I wanted!”

“Yes it was,” she insisted.

He grimaced. Technically, she was right. It was what he’d said he wanted. He didn’t believe for a second that she didn’t understand
the situation though. She might be strange, but no one was that dense. “I want that man off our ship,” he growled.

“We need him,” Kivi answered flatly. “He isn’t a bad guy.”

“He could be! We don’t know anything about him except that he was perfectly ok with locking himself in and letting me die. Not to mention stealing from our dead family. You do remember them, don’t you? What do you think they’d have to say about you needing a man who wanted to rob their graves?”

The moment the words were out of his mouth, Tron regretted them. Kivi took a step back, like he’d slapped her. She pulled her arm out of his grip and turned away, walking at such a clipped pace it was one notch down from a run.

He wanted to apologize. That look on her face… He’d never meant to hurt her. Not really. Of course she remembered. One week wasn’t enough heal that gaping wound; nothing would ever be enough. Tron knew that, just like he knew that she wasn’t any different than him. Not about something like that. They were her family too.

But
Tron couldn’t apologize, because dammit, he was
right
! They couldn’t trust Whitman. The man was a vulture, picking at the scraps of the dead. He wasn’t family, and he never would be. He would turn on them eventually, just like the vultures in the vids always did. Sooner or later, he would get tired of waiting for them to die and would take what he wanted while they were busy fighting for one more breath of air.

He wanted to learn from Whitman, get enough information to get them somewhere. Then they could get rid of the guy. Shove him in a pressure suit and toss him out the airlock for the ship behind them to pick up, maybe. Maybe Whitman was the one they were really after. Tron didn’t want to bargain with the man, though. That reinforced the idea that they needed him, and that was an impression Tron very much wanted to be rid of. He wanted it out of Whitman’s head, too. The scavenger should be helping because he was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t do what Tron said, not because they were bringing him food and a place to sleep.

“So whose bed are we stealing for that man?” He snarled after her. Kivi’s steps didn’t even falter. Tron rolled his eyes and went after her. Fast as she was going, his legs cut the distance in a few seconds. “Well?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him and scowled. He’d never seen her look angry before. Tron steeled himself against the look, but felt that trickle of shame that had gotten the better of him back in
navigation. He didn’t want her mad at him. She was all he had. Her and Lucy.

“It’s not stealing. You said so.”
When had he said that? It took him a moment to remember snapping at her back in hydroponics.

“It’s not stealing to take a bed for you. But he’s not family, Kivi.”

“You said it’s not stealing, so it’s not. You don’t get to change what you said just because you don’t like it anymore.”

“I meant it wasn’t stealing for
you
.”

“Then you should’ve said that! Why don’t people say what they mean?”

It was a question he didn’t have an answer to. Kivi didn’t seem to expect it either. She pushed ahead of him again. Tron wanted to call her back, to keep arguing until she saw what he did, until she agreed not to trust Whitman. He could tell it wasn’t going to work, though. Not yet.

Kivi had always been stubborn. Tron hadn’t known that personally, not really, but he’d heard other people say it over the years. Enough of them that he believed it. His few interactions with her before this never gave him the opportunity to learn first-hand. That had changed now. She’d stuck with him for the duration of his sickness, despite the risk to herself. She’d been almost certain he was going to die – Tron had wheedled that out of her while they rested from their crash course in plumbing – and she had stayed with him anyway. Some people would call that loyalty, and it was, but he had the sense it was more about her stubborn
ness. He was certain that she was the reason he lived through it several times over.

He wasn’t ready to lose her either. That was why he wanted her to see what Whitman really was, and now it was why he let the battle go. She wasn’t willing to talk about it. She was making that pretty clear. So he’d wait.

Tron didn’t need to ask where they were going. It was the same place he’d wanted to go six hours ago, but had been too exhausted to force the issue. Cold storage. They had to see how much damage the lack of water pressure had done, and how much food they had left. That was especially important now that they were going to be sharing with the vulture.

It was another long walk. The forced rest had helped, though he wasn’t about to admit that to Kivi. It wasn’t enough to get him strong again, though. That would require a lot of
work, he was sure. He knew how quickly inactivity could affect the body in low gravity. Tron needed to head down to the rec to start putting himself back to right. There wasn’t any time for that though. There was one more problem, one more issue, something more to do to keep on living. The result was that the muscles in his legs were shaking by the time they made it down into port cargo, where cold storage was.

Kivi didn’t say anything about it, but he knew she noticed. She drifted closer and closer as they walked. By the end, she was pressing her side right up against his, letting him rest some of his weight on her tiny frame. It was frustrating, the way she kept taking care of him. Tron had spent his whole life looking out for himself. Yeah, others on the ship helped some. They gave him food and taught him in class and stuff like that. But when he was in trouble, it was always just him.

Protecting was one thing. Jay and his parents, they were good at protecting. That was why they’d banished him to the most isolated spot in the whole ship. To protect him from himself. Tron resented it, but he’d never really been certain they were wrong about it. He was aware that a lot of the adults were starting to hate him. He knew all the other kids already did. It was impossible to miss that. Hating them back was easy, but it didn’t make anything better.

No one ever took care of him, though. No one ever noticed when he was weak, or apologized for not noticing he was sick. Tron didn’t have a single memory of either of his parents pressing something cool against his forehead when he felt sick, the way she’d done. He was pretty sure no one had ever helped him to the bathroom or cleaned up after him if he made a mess. Yet that’s exactly what Kivi had done. It’s what she was still doing. It was weird and unsettling, and he couldn’t shake the sense that it diminished him in her eyes. He was supposed to be
a big, strong protector. Not this weak kid who couldn’t even walk to storage.

Tron knew it was stupid to worry about it. They were trying to keep living; worrying about what Kivi thought of him was stupid. Worrying about it when everyone else who was supposed to be there with them was dead in the mess hall was worse.
It wasn’t time to be concerned about his reputation. Who did he think she was going to tell anyway? Whitman?

When they walked through the door, he set it all aside. He had work to do. The two of them made their way into the giant cooler that stored all their perishable foods.

It wasn’t good. That much was clear right away. The temperature difference between the cooler and the rest of the storage bay wasn’t dramatic enough. It was cold, his goose bumps told the story of that. But it wasn’t freezing, the way it was supposed to be. His teeth weren’t chattering and he wasn’t wishing he’d brought a jacket. That was a really bad sign.

“It was off,” Kivi said. He was a little surprised. She didn’t usually waste words on obvious statements.

“No way to tell how long,” he agreed. “We’ve got to sort out if there’s anything still good.”

“We’re going to starve to death, aren’t we?”

Tron turned to her, shocked at how small she sounded. “No,” he said slowly. “I told you what we’re going to do. We’ll get through this, just like we got through everything else.”

She shook her head. “There won’t be enough. There aren’t enough plants, and now there’s not enough here. There isn’t enough food. I read about starving to death. I don’t want to do that, Tron. I don’t want to.”

This was like when he first woke up back in his room, when he’d stumbled through her being a normal girl. Only it was worse this time, because this wasn’t ‘Kivi the normal girl’ but ‘Kivi the terrified girl.’ She’d gotten through everything else. But now she just looked so lost.

“Hey!” He grabbed her shoulders and held her face close to his own, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Knock it off! No one’s starving! We haven’t even looked through this place yet. For all we know, the shutdown was when we were swapping the pipes and it just takes a while to get back up to temp. This wasn’t designed to be turned off, after all. Everything in here might be fine.”

“It’s not,” she insisted. “It’s not fine. It’s all ruined. Everything is ruined. It’s all rotting, just like them. I keep pretending. If I don’t think about it then they’ll be ok and we’ll be safe and this won’t be too much all the time. But it is! It is too much and they’re not going to be ok and we’re going to die!”

This was his fault. He’d done more than hurt her. He’
d made her think about them. Tron pulled her in close, hugged her as hard as he dared. She hugged him back, which surprised him, but mostly he was thinking about how fragile she was. She was so tiny, and she was shaking. He’d done that too. “Kivi, you’re not going to die.”

“I am!” Her voice was muffled against his shoulder, but he could make out the words just fine. “Just like them. I should want to. If I loved them, I would want to be with them. But I don’t want to be dead. I’m broken. I’m broken and I’m going to starve to death and I don’t want to.”

“I’m not going to let you die, Kiv. You didn’t let me, I won’t let you.”

“You can’
t do anything.”

“Sure I can.
If we don’t find anything to keep us fed, I’ll donate an arm to cause.”

“An arm?”

“Yup. Whichever one you think would taste better.”

She didn’t laugh, like he’
d been hoping for. But she didn’t say anything about dying either. He let her go and she stepped back, squeezing her arms tight across her chest. He was making progress. He hoped.

“And just so we’re clear, you’re not broken. Weird, absolutely. Hands down, the weirdest person I’ve ever known. But you’re not broken. You’re not the only one who doesn’t want to die.”

Again, he didn’t get the laugh he wanted. Kivi dropped her eyes and turned away. She headed straight for the back of the cooler. That made sense. The back would hold its temperature longest, he thought. Thinking logically had to be a good sign. Maybe. Tron had no idea if Kivi was better. He wanted to think she was, but he couldn’t be sure.

Tron wasn’t going to force her to talk. He liked that she didn’t need to all the time. The silence was different with her. It didn’t press, it wasn’t empty. It was comfortable. This time was different, because he was worried and twisted up with guilt, but that was his problem. He’d deal with it. She’d talk when she was ready and he wasn’t going to dema
nd it happen one second before. Instead, he went about doing what needed to be done. He started sifting through the contents of the cooler.

He tried not to let it discourage him. He was working near the door. It was meant to be airtight, but he already knew how much that claim could be trusted. The cold probably leaked out and the stuff closest to the door would go bad first. He wasn’t exactly sure how coolers worked, but that made sense to him. Just like how the people closest to a hole in the hull were the first to suffocate. But there was so much of it that was bad. Meat that was starting to turn brown, milk that was curdled, eggs that smelled. The list went on. And each time he opened a container to find the food turned, it
was harder to hold on to his hope for the next one.

“I found something!”

Tron smashed his head against the shelf above him, he sat up so quickly. Cursing, he hurried back to where Kivi’s voice had come from. It was hard to find her. The light that switched on when they came in was near the front of the cooler. It was a big place, as big as the mess hall, and he’d lost track of where she’d gone. Soon he was squinting at shadows of food and containers, trying to decide if one of them was her.

“Here,” she said, a cold hand wrapping around his wrist and turning him around. As he realized what she was showing him, his eyes got big.

“Why is there another door?”

She shrugged. “I can’t open it.”

Tron pushed past her, to the huge metal door inside the cooler. It couldn’t lead back out into the cargo bay. Cold storage began halfway through the room and kept on going until it hit the wall. He didn’t think it led out into space, either. Not only would that be the stupidest design he could think of, it didn’t feel like they were deep enough for it to be that wall. And there wasn’t a curve to it, like all the other outside walls. This one was straight. The airlock didn’t have hydraulics either, but that one had a latch handle and lots of warnings written on it. It had a long handle that was attached to the door on both sides, with an opening in the middle, like it was designed for two hands. There weren’t any warnings or signs on it at all. He couldn’t begin to guess what was inside.