Kira smiled, pleased and somewhat self-conscious. “Hope you don’t mind,” said Alan, bending down toward her. “I kinda let it slip when it looked like you weren’t going to wake up.”
She leaned back against him and gave him another quick kiss. Mine, she thought. “It’s fine,” she murmured.
Then Yugo came over to them and knelt by the end of the table so he wasn’t looming over Kira. “Do you think you can eat?” he asked her. “It would do you some good.”
Kira wasn’t hungry, but she knew he was right. “I can try.”
He nodded, spade-shaped chin touching the top of his chest. “I’ll warm up some stew for you. You’ll like it. Nice and easy on the stomach.”
As he lumbered away, Kira returned her attention to the Extenuating Circumstances. She scrubbed at her arms again and then started to fiddle with the ring on her finger.
Her head was still spinning from Mendoza’s revelation, and her earlier sense of disassociation had returned even stronger than before. She hated that all their work over the past four months had been for nothing, but more than that, she hated the thought of losing the future she and Alan had planned together on Adrasteia. If they weren’t going to settle there, then—
Alan must have guessed what she was thinking, because he leaned down so his lips were close to her ear and said, “Don’t worry. We’ll find another place. It’s a big galaxy.”
And that was why she loved him.
She hugged him tighter.
“What I don’t understand—” she started to say.
“There are a lot of things I don’t understand,” said Jenan. “Like, who keeps leaving their napkins in the sink?” And he held up a soggy piece of cloth.
Kira ignored him. “How can the League expect to keep any of this a secret? People are going to notice that a whole system has been marked off-limits.”
Seppo hopped up to sit cross-legged on one of the tables. With his slight stature, he looked almost childlike. “Easy. They announced the travel ban a week ago. The story is we discovered a contagious pathogen in the biosphere. Something like the Scourge. Until containment is assured—”
“Sigma Draconis stays quarantined,” said Ivanova.
Kira shook her head. “Shit. I don’t suppose they let us keep any of our data.”
“Nope,” said Neghar.
“Nada,” said Jenan.
“Nothing,” said Seppo.
“Zip,” said Ivanova.
Alan rubbed her shoulder. “Mendoza said he’d talk with corporate when we get back to Vyyborg. They might be able to convince the League to release everything unrelated to the ruins.”
“Small chance of that,” said Fizel. He blew on his nails and then continued cleaning them. “Not with the League. They’ll keep your little discovery a secret for as long as they can. The only reason they ever told anyone about Talos Seven is because there’s no way to hide the damn thing.” He wagged his butter knife at Kira. “You cost the company a whole planet. Pleased with yourself?”
“I was doing my job,” she said. “If anything, it’s good I found the ruins now, before anyone settled on Adra. It would cost a hell of a lot more to ship a whole colony back off-world.”
Seppo and Neghar nodded.
Fizel sneered. “Yeah, well, that still doesn’t make up for screwing us out of our bonuses.”
“They canceled our bonuses,” Kira said flatly.
Alan made an apologetic face. “Corporate said it was on account of project failure.”
“Sucks too,” said Jenan. “I’ve got kids to feed, you know? It would have made a big difference.”
“Me too—”
“Same. Two ex-husbands and a cat ain’t—”
“If you’d only—”
“Don’t know how I’m going to—”
Kira’s cheeks burned as she listened. It wasn’t her fault, and yet it was. The whole team had lost out because of her. What a disaster. At the time she’d thought finding the alien structure was going to be good for the company, good for the team, but it had just ended up hurting them. She glanced at the logo printed on the wall of the mess hall: Lapsang printed in the familiar angular font with a leaf over the second a. The company was always running ads and promotional campaigns touting their loyalty to customers, colonists, and employee-citizens. “Forging the future together.” That had been the slogan she’d grown up hearing. She snorted. Yeah, right. When it mattered, they were just like any other interstellar corporation: bits before people.
“Dammit,” she said. “We did the work. We fulfilled our contract. They shouldn’t punish us for it.”
Fizel rolled his eyes. “And if starships farted rainbows, wouldn’t that be lovely? My God. Oh you feel bad, so sorry. Who cares? That’s not going to get us our bonuses back.” He glared at her. “You know, it would have been better if you tripped and broke your neck as soon as you stepped out of the shuttle.”
A brief, shocked silence followed.
Next to her, Kira felt Alan stiffen. “You take that back,” he said.
Fizel tossed the knife into the sink. “Didn’t want to be here anyway. Waste of time.” And he spat on the floor.
Ivanova hopped away from the gob of saliva. “Goddamn it, Fizel!”
The doctor smirked and sauntered off. There was someone like him on every mission, Kira had learned. A sour shitheel who seemed to take perverse pleasure in being the piece of grit stuck in everyone’s teeth.
The others started talking the moment Fizel was out of sight:
“Don’t mind him,” said Marie-Élise.
“Could have happened to any of us—”
“Same old Doc, always—”
“Should have heard what he said when I thawed out. He—”
The conversation stalled as Mendoza appeared in the doorway. He gave them a measured look. “There a problem in here?”
“Nossir.”
“We’re good, boss man.”
He grunted and trundled over to Kira and, in a lower voice, said, “Sorry about that, Navárez. Nerves have been stretched a bit tight the past few weeks.”
Kira smiled wanly. “It’s okay. Really.”
Another grunt, and Mendoza took a seat by the far wall, and the room soon returned to normal.
Despite her reply, Kira couldn’t seem to lose the knot of unease in her gut. Too much of what Fizel had said struck home. Also, it bothered her not knowing what she and Alan were going to do now. Everything she’d laid out in her mind for the next few years had been overturned by that damned alien structure. If only the drone hadn’t gone down. If only she hadn’t agreed to check the site for Mendoza. If only …
She started as Yugo touched her on the arm.
“Here,” he said, and handed her a bowl filled with stew and a plate piled with steamed vegetables, a slice of bread, and half of what must have been their only remaining bar of chocolate.
“Thanks,” she murmured, and he smiled.
4.
Kira hadn’t realized how hungry she was; she felt weak and shaky. The food didn’t sit well, though. She was too upset, and her stomach kept rumbling from a combination of anxiety and the remnants of cryo.