They treated it like Laconia was the only problem because it was the one most likely to get them all killed, but there was more than that. Now that Holden was out of the picture, the only one in a position to fix it was Naomi.
Fix it. That was optimism. The only one who could fix as much of it as was fixable. He hoped she was able to rise to the occasion. He hoped he was too. But no matter how bad it was, things had gone pretty well with Bobbie. He still had Bobbie.
The smuggler’s cabin was dim. Golden light spilled from the toolkit light they used for illumination when the built-in fixtures were too harsh. The air was warmer here, and it had the vague smell of bodies and old laundry. They hadn’t changed out the sheets since they’d gotten here. Some things slipped when you were hiding from authoritarian police squads and trying to topple a conquering army. Linens appeared
to be one of those things.
Naomi sat against the back wall, her stool tipped back so that she could rest against the bulkhead. She smiled when he came in and put a finger to her lips. Alex paused, and Naomi nodded toward the bunk to his left. The lump under the blanket was the curve of Clarissa’s back. It rose and fell slowly. She was asleep. Alex turned back to Naomi, gestured to the door behind him in invitation, but Naomi shifted her stool to one side, making room for Alex to sit on the lower bunk beside her. Come sit with me. I will not go outside.
With a sinking sensation in his gut, Alex sat. His back popped like a bolt shearing off, and the ache went away. In the shadows, Naomi seemed like someone just waking up from sleep or just falling into it. On a borderline, regardless, between one state and another.
“Hey,” Alex said softly.
Naomi made a little wave with a smile behind it. “I’ve been sitting with her for the last couple hours. Amos is trying to get something to take the edge off in the short run, but we need to get her to the med bay. That sludge in her blood is building up. It’s making her jittery.”
“Soon as we’re out of here,” Alex said. “First thing. How’re you holding together?”
She shrugged with her hands.
“Yeah,” he said.
“You coming to tell me that I need to put my big-girl boots on? Stop sulking in my tent and rejoin the battle, quick before Patroclus does something rash?” There was a warmth and a humor in her voice he hadn’t expected. It almost undercut the sorrow that he had expected.
“Yeah, I don’t actually know who Patroclus is,” Alex said.
“Greek kid, got in over his head,” Naomi said, waving it away. “I’ll be fine, Alex. I’ll be out there. Just I needed to be away for a little while. It’s just the down cycle.”
He went through all of the things he’d planned to say, all the arguments he’d prepared to make. None of them seemed to quite fit the situation.
“Yeah, okay,” he said instead. And then, a moment later, “Down cycle?”
“The part where I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. The part where I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again. The part where I think how much I want him to be here and safe and not hurting. And telling me not to hurt either.”
“I know it’s … that’s got to be—”
“Alex, I live here,” Naomi said. “I can’t tell you how many times he’s put me here. How many times he’s seen the right thing to do and rushed off to do it without thinking about the price. Without letting me or you or the Roci scare him into being less than his conscience demands. He doesn’t even know he’s doing it. It’s natural to him. Who he is. It’s the only thing about him I’m really angry about.” The buzz in her voice wasn’t sorrow.
Alex took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I may not have really understood the whole situation.”
“You remember Io? When he went off to a ship with active protomolecule all over it because maybe he’d be able to save Mars? Or Ilus, when he vanished with whatever that weird version of Miller was because maybe he’d be able to keep you and me from falling out of orbit? Or on Marais, when he went into the cliffs so we wouldn’t run out of water? So this time he went to keep Amos and Katria playing nice, and instead, he saved the whole operation and maybe opened the way for all of us to get away safely. All it cost was him. And he paid that price without hesitating. Same as fucking always.”
A tear tracked down her cheek, and he felt his own eyes stinging.
“We’ll get him,” Alex said. “We’ll always get him back.”
“Sure we will. Until the time we don’t,” she said. “It’s like this for everyone. There’s always going to be a last time, eventually. I just wish with Jim there could only be one last time, and not all of them, over and over and over.”
He took her hand. Her fingers were warm, but thinner than he remembered them being. He could feel the little bones beneath the skin, and her skin was dry.
“He’s exhausting,” she said.
“But we love him.”
She sighed. “We do.”
They sat in silence for a moment before she drew her hand back from his and wiped her cheeks dry. She leaned forward, setting the legs of her stool down against the deck. Her sigh came from a thousand klicks away. “Let me get cleaned up, and I’ll get to work,” she said.
Alex stood when she did, but waited behind as she walked out. He’d been traveling with Naomi for a lot of years. It was amazing how easy it was to forget how much she knew herself. He didn’t know if that said more about her or him.