A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2)(71)

‘Hey. Sidra. Sidra, come on. We’ll . . . get somewhere quiet, yeah? I’m here, it’s . . . okay.’ He led the kit through the crowd. She kept her gaze on the floor, trying to ignore the concerned stares. She wanted to disappear.

‘Is she okay?’ It was the third Aandrisk, pushing his way alongside them.

‘She’s fine,’ Tak said.

Sidra looked at the Aandrisk man, and tried to push words through the panicked breaths. ‘It’s not – it’s not your—’ The air got in the way. Dammit, she didn’t need to breathe!

‘It’s not . . . your fault,’ Tak said. ‘She’ll be . . . fine. Thank you.’

They cleared the pit, leaving the Aandrisk behind. Tak barrelled them through the crowd toward the table they’d occupied earlier. A group of Laru sat there now. Tak swore, and headed for the exit.

‘Not outside,’ Sidra gasped. ‘Not outside.’

Tak changed course and entered the smoking room. A group of modders looked up from around a tall communal pipe.

‘Hey, man,’ a Human woman said, a smoking mouthpiece hanging in her mechanical hand. ‘Sorry, we just—’ She looked at Sidra. ‘Dude, is she okay?’

Tak visibly willed the concern away from his face and looked back at them with an easy smile. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Never . . . buying smash from . . . that vendor again, though. Synth shit, y’know?’

‘Oh, rough,’ the woman said. ‘She got the shakes?’

Sidra forced the kit to nod at her. It was true, technically. Just not in the way the modder meant.

‘Well, you’re welcome to ride it out in here,’ the woman said. She flicked her eyes over to Tak and gestured at the pipe. ‘Sorry about the redreed.’

‘It’s fine,’ Tak said. Sidra could see that his eyes were already starting to itch. As if this couldn’t get any worse.

Tak led the kit to a quiet corner, away from the smokers. Sidra sat the kit down. The fast breathing had stopped. All that was left was the overwhelming sense of embarrassment. She preferred hyperventilating.

‘I’m so, so sorry,’ she whispered.

‘It’s not . . . your fault,’ Tak said, his talkbox turning itself down. ‘I pushed. I’m sorry. You told me . . . how you’re comfortable, and I . . . should have . . . respected that.’

‘It’s okay,’ Sidra said, taking his hand with the kit’s. ‘It was fun, at first. I liked it. I just—’ The kit put its face in its hands. ‘Stars, I am so tired of always making a mess of things for you.’

Tak scoffed. ‘Now, that’s . . . just not true. We’ve . . . been to . . . how many parties—’

‘Eight.’

‘It was rhetorical, but . . . thank you. This is . . . the first time . . . this has happened. It’s also . . . the first time . . . somebody . . . surprised you . . . while dancing. So, we know . . . to avoid this . . . next time.’

One of the modders approached them with a cup of water. ‘Here ya go,’ he said, handing it to Sidra.

‘You’re very kind,’ Sidra said, accepting it. She took a sip, for show. Water did nothing for her, but she was grateful for the gesture.

‘Take it easy,’ the Human man said. ‘We’ve all been there.’ He gave a warm, slightly inebriated smile, then returned to his friends.

Sidra stared into the cup, watching the ripples bounce off each other. ‘I’m sorry for screwing things up for you,’ she said, remembering Tak’s happy face when the other Aeluon started dancing with him.

Tak looked confused, then laughed. ‘Ah, don’t worry . . . about it. That . . . kind of thing . . . will come around . . . again.’ He patted her hand. ‘Let’s get you . . . mellowed out, then I’ll . . . take you home.’

She started to object, started to tell him to stay, to have fun, to go get laid – but she didn’t. She didn’t want to head home alone. She couldn’t be alone. There was no telling when there’d be another system alert, another well-meaning stranger sending her into a panic. Tak would hand her off to Pepper and Blue, who would hand her off to Tak again the next time she wanted to go out. Like a child. They didn’t see her that way, she knew, but it didn’t matter how nice they wanted to be to her. Being nice didn’t change the way things were.





JANE, AGE 14


I could die today.

That was the first thing that shot through her head that morning, same as it had every morning since she dragged herself back to the shuttle two weeks before. The words showed up the second she was awake enough to start thinking, and they stuck with her all day, like a heartbeat, like a bug crawling on her ear, until she fell back into bed at night, relieved that she’d been wrong. Okay, she’d think. Today wasn’t it. Then she’d sleep. Sleep was good. Sleep meant not thinking. But then Owl would bring the lights up, and the whole thing started over again.

I could die today.

She hadn’t left the shuttle since she’d got back. Her leg was still weak and painful, but it was healing, and the splint she’d thrown together allowed her to hobble around. She’d fixed the weapon, too, and she had the means to build a new wagon. She could go out, if she stayed close to home. Except . . . she couldn’t. She couldn’t go out. She couldn’t do anything.