Amber gave Jonah a lopsided smile and squeezed his slack hand. “I’ll help you sleep plenty at the lookout post, Lieutenant
Lamarc. Just come with us.”
Scott
gaped at both of them now.
“Another time, Miss Bierce.” Jonah pulled in a breath and let it out as a military man. “I can think of a few men who you might want along. I’ll talk to them.”
“I’ll come back,” said Amber. “As soon as the smoke stops, I swear.”
He nodded, started to walk away, and then stopped. When he came back, she thought for one dizzying, unreal moment that he meant to kiss her and she’d already made up her mind to allow it (
total stranger old enough to be my father for god’s sake and what he’d want in a chubby little white girl like me i don’t know he probably doesn’t either but fear now fear does weird things oh yeah play it again sam fear can really fuck you up
), but instead, he put out his hand.
They shook.
“Take care of things,” said Amber.
“I will,” he replied. “Come back safe.”
“I will.”
They walked away then, and as things turned out, those were the last words they said to one another and they both lied.
6
C
rewman Scott put himself in command. This initially made for some tense moments when he was trying to recruit for what he was calling ‘reconnaissance and establishment of a forward operations base,’ particularly from the Fleetmen, who certainly seemed open to doing something but were visibly hostile to the idea of taking orders from a Manifestor in a make-believe uniform. No punches were thrown, but Scott quickly moved his efforts to the cluster of sobbing, shock-eyed civilians.
Amber left him to it without much hope and distracted her jangling nerves as much as she was able by venturing into whatever exposed areas of the ship she could reach, picking through the wreckage for anything they could use. Since the supplies had been evenly distributed among each mod throughout the ship, there was plenty to find, even if it was all mashed together in the aftermath of th
e crash. Unfortunately, the crates were all marked with such baffling examples of Fleet-speak that she had to bust them open to find out what the hell was inside. This was a lot of work with little reward; none of the really useful things were portable and most of the small stuff was ridiculous. Thumbtacks. Baby bottles. Yarmulkes. Replacement sponge-heads for the oscillating arm on a model Dynamo-3Z cleanerbot. Swimming goggles, for Christ’s sake, perfect for lounging around the colony pool on Plymouth.
The frustrating search ultimately turned up
a stash of duffel bags (each one proudly screaming out the Manifest Destiny logo), which she started stuffing with the one useful item she had dug out of the wreckage: some Fleet-issue ration bars packed like bricks in a khaki-colored crate where the available flavors were listed as Choc, Van and Other. These were Other. Nowhere on the individual bars did it indicate what Other was, but she guessed as long as it wasn’t worm, booger or bubblegum, she was fine.
“Ma’am?”
She looked up without stopping, taking stock of the four Fleetmen coming toward her—three boys and an older man—and making up her mind right then that if they pulled some bullshit military rule out of their asses to stop her from taking this stuff, she’d kick it right back up there.
But, “
Lieutenant Lamarc said you were looking for a few good men,” said one of them, putting out his hand. “Eric Lassiter. Engineer Second Class.”
“Engineer?
” she said uncertainly. “Did Jonah, um, Lieutenant Lamarc tell you what I wanted was to get away from the ship?”
“Yes, ma’am. We’re here to help.”
“Are you sure? Wouldn’t you rather stay here with, you know, the other engineers?”
He was
already shaking his head. “Enlisted engineer,” he said, putting the stress on the first word. “That’s construction. Well, that’s the grunt work for the construction units, but I’m pretty sure I can help you throw together your forward operations outpost or whatever that idiot out there wants. This is Crandall.”
“Brian,” said the next
guy, also shaking her hand. “Electronics tech. And before you ask, I’ve already given this tin bitch my professional attention and concluded that she’s fucked. So I figured I could at least carry shit around.”
“Same
,” said the third man. “Gunnarson, Dagwood D. Call me Dag.” He nodded at the duffel bag she was filling. “I was the main supply clerk in Corporate Mod G, so I know where everything was. I know it all got tossed around pretty good, but if nothing else, I can read the codes on the labels.” He gave the haphazardly-opened crates around her a meaningful glance. “Maybe focus on finding stuff we really need, like tents.”
“And m
edical supplies,” said the last of them. He was the older one, although it was tough to say just how much older. He was Asian and his face was creased but ageless. He had no accent, unless it was a trace of some southern state, but he bent his head to her instead of taking the hand she extended. “Yao. Lucas, I should say, circumstances being what they are, but I prefer Mr. Yao.”
“
He’s a doctor,” Eric supplied, pointing at the little frills sewn onto Mr. Yao’s sleeve which apparently proved it.
“I am not a doctor of medicine.”
The older man did not look around. “And I’d just as soon be Mr. Yao from now on. My service contract appears to have expired.”
There was a short, ugly silence while the
five of them stood there, avoiding one another’s eyes.
“I’m Amber,” she said belatedly, just to get them talking again.
It worked.
“So you are the right girl,” said
Eric, glancing once at Mr. Yao, who wandered off, righting crates and checking labels as he went. “Great. Lamarc said you were heading out with that other guy. Thought you might like a hand.”
“If we can ever get going. How’s he doing out there?
Scott, I mean.”
“He’s bringing ‘em around, shockingly enough.”
Dag shrugged, rolling his eyes as he did it. “He’s got all the enthusiasm of a bulldog with none of the brains—and those are some dumb dogs, lady—but give the man his credit, he can talk a great line.”
“Of bullshit,” snorted Crandall, checking the contents of the packed duffels. “Lady, you need to disperse some of this stuff. No normal person’s gonna be able to carry a hundred pounds of MREs.”
And after that, it was all unpacking and re-packing and shouting questions or advice at each other across the dark, cluttered bay. It kept Amber’s mind nicely occupied until they were done and emerged into the cold, smoky light to find that Scott was still talking, although he was at least winding down.
Amber sat down on a bundle of tents to watch as he marched himself importantly among the masses, trying to win them over with talk of setbacks and the necessity of moving forward in the footsteps of their pioneer forefathers, who had also suffered unspeakable tragedy in the fulfillment of their goals,
also undertaken in the name of Manifest Destiny. And because it was manifest, because it was true, because it was a goal set in their hearts by that higher power that all men, regardless of creed, aspired to, it was still a goal worth seeking.
“At any cost!”
Scott thundered in conclusion, smacking his fist into the palm of his hand. “But never think that makes us unmindful of the cost. The cost will be counted, just as we remember and honor those who perished in the crossing of the ocean, who were buried alongside the ruts carved by covered wagons, and whose wooden markers were paved under by the rising streets of San Francisco! The people we have lost today are our fallen heroes, but
we
are the heroes who go on!”
To Amber’s mild astonishment, that actually worked. Not on everyone, of course, but he got some applau
se for that flowery heap of horseshit even while Scott was still pumping it out.
“What’d I tell you?” said
Eric beside her, shaking his head. “I guess it’s true what my grandma says. God gives even the biggest fool one real talent.”
“What’s yours?” asked Amber, watching people line up to shake
Scott’s hand.
“Hoops.”
“You wish, whitebread,” said Dag, who was just as white as a man named Dag Gunnarson ought to be.
Scott
shook hands, patted shoulders, began to put people in a group.
“I’m ambidextrous,” Crandall announced suddenly.
“Oh yeah?”
“Selectively.
Eating, smoking and jerking off.” He started to mime, re-discovered Amber in their midst and stopped, looking flustered.
“
I ain’t blushing,” she said dryly and wasn’t. She’d heard worse—seen worse—in the stairwell back home.
Scott
finally headed their way, with Nicci walking close at his side although she was quick to do her huddling next to Amber once she got there.
“We’re ready,” he said, giving the Fleetmen a stiff, soldierly sort of nod. “I haven’t done an official head-count, but there must be a couple hundred of them.”
“Yeah…” said Eric, eyeing the crowd. He shook his head. “They might all be willing to come live in the tents once they’re up, but I bet we don’t even get half that when it comes to carrying this stuff up that hill tonight.”
“So let’s hurry and get them set up,” said Amber, slinging her duffel over one arm and snatching up a bundled tent in the other.
“Just relax for a bit, Miss Bierce,” said Scott, also frowning back at the crowd now. “Let me talk to them some more and—”
“Do what you
got to do, Everly,” said Amber, walking. “You can meet me there.”
She didn’t mean it any way but exactly what she’d said—do all the talking he wanted, get more people on board, meet her on the ridge—but he took it for a challenge and an ugly one at that. She heard him clapping his hands and shouting people into order and within a few minutes he was shouldering his way roughly past her to take the lead.
She thought about saying something (
ah hey i didn’t mean it like that be cool you’re still the commanding space scout here so grow the fuck up and quit shoving),
but in the end it was enough that they were moving. Amber reached out to catch Nicci’s hand and give it a reassuring little squeeze. They were moving and as bad as things were, that made her feel just a little bit better.
* * *
Much later, in the waning light of the alien, cloud-covered sunset, Amber finally took that head count. She couldn’t do anything else at the moment, not after that hike, except sit on the ground with her aching, rubbery legs splayed out before her, trying to gasp her lungs into working again.
She’d been the last to come into camp, except that wasn’t right, was it? ‘Coming in last’ implied there had been a line and she’d been at the end of it. Well, there had been a line, and she’d come in about three and a half hours after it, breathing so hard she could barely see and dragging her duffel by its strap.
Nicci had been carrying the tent by that time, and Nicci was setting it up with the help of Mr. Yao and thank God for that, because Amber had spent the last hour of the hike thinking she was going to faint and now that she was here, if she had to stand up and move again, she damn well knew she would.
So she counted people, just in case no one had done that yet, trying to fool herself into thinking that was contributing in some way. Altogether, herself and
Nicci included, there were forty-eight of them, a sad fraction of the hundreds Scott thought he’d won over with his inspiring speeches (although, to give him his due, it had seemed like a lot more than that when they were passing her, one by one, all the fucking way across the burned scar of the ship’s final landing). Of that number, only eleven were women. There were no atheists in foxholes, it was said, and she guessed when it came to lugging crates uphill in the freezing wind on an alien planet, there were no feminists either. Maybe there’d be more tomorrow. Maybe spending the night in a burning ship would make more people feel better about coming out to the ridge.
Or maybe spending the night in a tent would make all of
Scott’s people want to go back to the ship. And if that did happen, if they all left, would she go with them? Was it worse to do something she thought was stupid, like make herself at home in a burning ship, or something she already knew was stupid, like sit alone in the wilderness on an alien planet?
‘Wait for it,’ she told herself. ‘There are enough real problems here, little girl. Start making plans for those and stop worrying about what may not happen.’
“Amber?” That was Nicci, coming to fret over her. Probably wondering if she was having a heart attack or something. There’d been times on that hike that Amber had wondered herself. Even the Candyman’s humming little shots hadn’t made her feel like this. “Are you okay?”
“I’m getting there.” She smiled to show how much she meant it.
Nicci flinched a little. Amber stopped smiling. “I’ll be stiff as hell tomorrow, but if they all go back to get more supplies and people and stuff, I’ll just stay here and…I don’t know. Guard the camp. From what, I don’t know, but…” Amber trailed off with a frown and looked around—at the ridge, at the scarred plains with the ship burning in the middle of it, at the sky. “Do we know yet if there’s any animals on this planet?”