Page 17

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I t’s past time to go.

I’m the last one to the shuttle bay.

My suit’s on and checked and charged. Helmet under my arm. The door opens, and there’s the crew, everyone but First. They’re on guard duty, I assume. I get all the way down to the main floor. Magnusson’s up the ramp into the shuttle, Saraswati a few steps behind him. Rian holds his arm out, offering to let me board first. And his eyes—

Those are going to haunt me.

“Wait,” I say, and my smile’s not easy but I know it looks like it is. “I forgot something.”

Everyone looks at my suit—fully secure, already checked. My grin turns sheepish.

“We’re going to be forever on that planet,” I say. “I wanted...” I look from Rian to Nandina. It’s easier to lie to her. “I need to get my data recorder. I was going to...”

I let the silence finish the fib. Nandina gets it immediately, I can tell. With a data recorder, I can switch to a private communication channel and record my thoughts. Give myself a little therapy and processing time while I scour the debris field in the wreckage.

“You have a data recorder?” Rian asks. Sharp, sharp.

“Be right back!” I say, spinning around and bounding toward the main corridor.

“You don’t need—” Magnusson starts, but Nandina says to let me go.

There’s a carbonglass window in the door, and I know through it, they can see me turn left in the direction of the bunk rooms. But I double back, bending over so they don’t see me if they happen to still be looking. Once clear of the window, I run—I have to go fast. If they stop me now, it’s all over. Starboard, then forward. Past the storage, round the bend. I’ve practiced this route; I spent the morning chewing on my porridge and counting the doors, the steps.

To the airlock.

As soon as I open the airlock door, an alarm’s going to beep on the bridge. I figure I’ll have maybe ten minutes then. I put my helmet on.

I open the door.

Step inside.

Slam it shut.

Seal the hatch.

There’s a red light blinking over the door. The alarm’s going.

I initiate the escape hatch depressurization. The screen by the door starts counting down. The depressurization starts, and I know.

It’s too late to go back now.

There’s no override for an emergency protocol, especially not on a government-regulated ship. There’s no way to open the inner door and go back inside. There’s no way to stop the outer door from opening into black space. There’s no way to keep me from stepping out into the nothing. One minute and fifty-four seconds, and it’ll all be over.

I’ll be gone.

Outside, through the porthole, Rian’s face appears. Eyes wide, mouth open, shouting, but I can’t hear anything through all the steel and carbonglass between us.

A new light flashes, a green one. The ship’s open communication system. I tune my suit’s comm link to the channel.

“Ada!” Rian roars, clenched fist on the porthole window.

“Sorry,” I say.

“What are you doing?” he says. “Why are you here? Why—”

Then his face goes slack with horror. He turns away from the comm sys in the wall, shouts something.

He thinks I’ve stolen the cryptex drive.

But I haven’t, and whatever response he gets from down the corridor confirms that. He whips back around to the porthole, staring through it like he wishes he could melt the carbonglass, reach through, and pull me back into the ship. Into his arms.

My stomach swoops. The gravity generator is shifting here in the airlock, prepping me for open space. According to the countdown, the depressurization is right on time. Forty-two seconds before the door opens and I step into the black of space.

“Sorry,” I say again. I almost mean it. Just not for the reasons he thinks.

“For what?” Rian’s voice is desperate. No one else is here. The others are probably at the shuttle still. It’s not even been a full ten minutes since I walked away. The captain probably raced to the bridge when Rian realized I had been telling them goodbye with my delaying tactic.

I never had to go to my room to get my data recorder. It has not left my suit’s outer pocket since I put it there just after Nandina gave it to me.

I’ve not answered Rian, but I know he’s ticking through the possibilities. I doubt Nandina told him I got a data recorder, and even if she did, my excuse of wanting to talk through my problems to myself was a decent one. He didn’t know the recorder was in my pocket the whole time yesterday.

The same pocket that held the cryptex drive.

I lean closer to the porthole window, watching his face as the truth settles on him. The gravity’s so low now that I’m floating. The air in this room is already gone; all my oxygen comes from my suit. Twenty-one seconds left. My helmet bumps against the window, and his eyes meet mine.

There’s nothing left to say, no time to say it.

His fist unclenches, the flat of his palm on the glass.

I had the data recorder in my pocket when I put the cryptex drive I rescued inside. My jetpack was never broken. As if something like lava would mess with jaxon jets. I’ve been telling them that my pack is good quality. It’s not my fault no one listened. I put the jetpack on standby and forced myself to do the excruciatingly slow climb up to give the drive time to copy its contents onto the data recorder. Everything I did while climbing up the rift was a delay tactic.

I never had to steal the cryptex drive. I just had to steal the information on it.

“But you don’t have the key,” he says.

The outer door opens. Behind me, there’s the wreckage of my ship, Glory , the hull breached. And there’s all of space and eternity, countless stars surrounded by the killing void.

In front of me is Rian.

“You’re asking the wrong question,” I say.

“Then what should I be asking?” His voice is raw, desperate.

And I think, He’s thinks he’s supposed to ask me to stay.

I sigh. He’s going to be so mad at himself for not figuring this out sooner.

I put my gloved hand over the window, my fingers lining up with his splayed hand on the other side of the glass.

“You need to ask why there were no bodies in the wreck,” I say. “Check with Magnusson. He saw the empty bridge. No harnesses strapped. No bodies. And when you go down and look at the cargo section...no bodies. None.”

And then I push away, floating out of the Halifax and into the black.