The Space Between the Stars - Softcover

Chapter Six

When Jamie woke the next morning, the cabin was growing gradually lighter. The previous occupant must have set the lighting to simulate a natural dawn, although on board a ship like this, day and night were nothing more than a consensus.

She washed as best she could in the sink before pulling on a blue T-shirt and the long denim skirt she used to wear on warm evenings back on Calgarth. There was a tiny mirror above the cabinet, and she brushed her hair and fastened it back. There were still shadows beneath her eyes, but her reflection didn’t look quite so drawn as the one she’d glimpsed in that bar window back on Soltaire.

There was no one else down in the hold. She was conscious of an out-of-place feeling, like being a guest in someone’s home with no understanding of the unspoken rules.

She made herself a coffee and stood at the counter to eat a bowl of cereal and rehydrated milk. She’d almost finished when footsteps clanged on the stairs. A few seconds later, Gracie stepped through the gap in the crates.

She gave Jamie a cool nod. “Morning.” She paused, as though scratching around for how this sort of exchange should go. “Sleep all right?”

“Fine, thanks.”

Gracie opened the fridge, apparently satisfied that she’d met her conversational obligations. As Jamie hurried down the last few mouthfuls, not inclined to linger in awkward silence, there was a sharp crackle of sound, and Callan’s voice echoed through the hold, distorted by the comm.

“Engineer to bridge immediately, please.”

The message snapped off. Gracie didn’t show any reaction to the peremptory summons, throwing a hasty cup of coffee together and heading back to the stairs. There was a brief collision of voices as she reached the top, and after a few seconds Lowry appeared.

“Good night’s sleep?” he said.

She nodded. “You?”

He smiled. “Not too bad. The engines take a bit of getting used to. Have you traveled much?”

“Not that much. I went from Earth to Alegria when I was twenty-two, then Soltaire a few weeks ago. I did a couple of short trips when I was living on Alegria, but that’s about it.”

“Not back to Earth at all?”

“Just once.”

“Do you have still have family there? I mean, did you have . . .” Lowry rubbed his brow. “Sorry. There’s no right way to talk about it, is there?”

“It’s okay,” Jamie said. “My father died a few years ago, but my stepmother was still in Belsley. I’m not sure where my half sisters were living. We didn’t really keep in touch.”

“And your mother?”

“She died when I was fourteen.”

“That must have been hard.”

Jamie looked away. Twenty-four years ago and millions of miles away, and people still always wanted to know what had happened and how she’d felt about it. It was as though you weren’t allowed to leave anything behind.

The clank of a door provided a welcome distraction, and she looked up to see Callan walking through the gap. He nodded at the pair of them before shoving his tin mug under the hot-water tap and tipping a large spoonful of instant coffee into it.

“Morning,” Lowry said. “Everything all right?”

Callan nodded. “We may be making another stop. We’ve picked up a signal.”

Jamie’s heart gave a hopeful leap. More survivors. More proof that the statistics were wrong.

“From where?” Lowry asked.

“Mining colony on Pangaea.”

“I haven’t heard of it,” Lowry said.

“It’s in the Gemmel cluster,” Callan said. “Fairly wealthy, if I remember rightly. Small-scale platinum mining. Gracie’s trying to raise someone.”

“Do we know who it is?” Jamie asked.

“No,” Callan said. “It’s your basic distress beacon. Date-stamped a couple of days ago.”

“So we’ll be landing,” Lowry said.

Callan gave a noncommittal shrug. “Let’s see if Gracie gets any response. Then we’ll make a decision.”

“What do you mean?” Jamie felt a sharp surge of adrenaline. “We can’t just leave someone down there.”

Callan tipped powdered milk into his coffee and swirled it around. “Well, we can. If we can’t raise anyone, I’m not inclined to land on spec. We won’t know the fuel situation.”

The memories were shoving for space inside Jamie’s head. Her cold stone floor, gritty and unyielding. Her arms wrapped tight around her body as she tried not to break into pieces, alone. And running through her mind, that relentless fugue—zero point zero zero zero . . .

“No.” She wrenched her thoughts back.

Callan’s eyebrows went up. “No?”

“I didn’t mean . . .” She shook her head, trying to clear it. “I just . . . whoever’s down there, they may think they’re the only one.”

Callan was still looking at her, and she felt a flash of resentment. He’d never had to face that possibility. None of them had.

“Like I said.” His tone was level. “If Gracie can raise someone, then we’ll see.”

“What if they can’t get to the comm in time?” Jamie could hear her voice rising. “What if they’re injured?”

“That’s a lot of what ifs.” Callan tapped his fingers on the scratched surface of the kitchen unit. “How about I add one? What if there’s no fuel?”

“You stocked up on Soltaire,” Lowry put in, his tone neutral. “Do we have enough to take off again?”

“Yes,” Callan said. “But it would mean another stop somewhere. That’s an unnecessary complication.”

“Unnecessary?” Jamie gave a harsh laugh. “Saving someone’s life?”

“It’s an established settlement,” Callan said. “It’s not like we’d be abandoning them on some backwater to chase their dinner with a homemade bow and arrow.”

“But they’d be alone.” Jamie could feel a tremor trying to break through her. If she started shaking, she might not stop. “You don’t know . . .” She broke off. The memory of those first hours was too close, too personal. But she had to make them understand. They couldn’t just sail off into the void, never looking back. “I was alone,” she managed. “I thought I was alone.”

Callan sipped his coffee, studying her over the rim of the mug. “You must have known you weren’t. The infomercials said . . .”

“It doesn’t matter.” There was a panicked edge to her voice. “When you wake up and there’s no one . . .” She drew a deep breath. “If we just fly on, and leave whoever’s down there, we might as well have murdered them.”

“There’ll be survivors all over the place,” Callan said. “We’re not responsible for every one of them.”

“But we’re responsible for this one.”

“How do you figure that?” Callan said. “If we’d never picked the signal up we’d never have known there was anyone there.”

“But we do know,” Jamie said. “We can’t stop knowing it just because it’s not convenient for you.”

A quick flash of anger crossed Callan’s face. “Is that what you think? That I just can’t be bothered?”

“Looks like it from where I’m standing,” she shot back.

“You’re standing on my ship,” Callan said. “And if I hadn’t picked the three of you up, you’d still be standing on Soltaire.”

“And we’re grateful,” Lowry said. “But Jamie’s right. We can’t just leave someone behind.”

He drained his coffee and put the mug down. “Let’s see what Gracie picks up.”

As he walked away, Jamie stared after him, a whole plethora of furious responses running through her mind. She wanted to scream, or hit something. But she knew she wouldn’t. She never had. She’d always kept everything shoved down inside her, growing harder and denser, hidden away, but never forgotten.

“Let it go.” Lowry stepped up to her side. “Let’s see what happens.”

Back upstairs, she’d just reached the door of her cabin when the comm crackled and Callan’s voice came on.

“Commencing approach to Pangaea in five minutes. Strap in for landing.”

The tight knot inside Jamie’s chest loosened. One of the other doors slid open and Rena appeared. Her hair was clumped at one side of her head, as though she’d been sleeping, but her eyes were suspiciously red.

“What is it?”

“Survivors,” Jamie said. “There was a signal.”

“More survivors?” Rena’s hand went to her forehead, as though she were about to cross herself, but she caught herself on the edge of the movement and pressed her hands together in front of her chest instead. “How many?”

“I don’t know.”

Jamie turned and walked along the corridor. After a few seconds there was a patter of feet and Rena fell in beside her.

She gave Jamie a quick, tremulous smile. “It’s starting. People will come together.”

“We need to get strapped in,” Jamie said, before the other woman could get into her stride. “Come on.”

Callan’s skill in handling the ship had been apparent when the Phaeacian had set down on Soltaire, and this landing was no less deft. Jamie barely felt a jolt as they touched down.

Callan appeared just as they were undoing their harnesses. “You three stay well back in the hold,” he said, walking toward the door.

“Who’s out there?” Rena asked.

“No idea.”

Jamie stared at him. “Didn’t you speak to someone?”

“No. So stay back.”

“You expecting trouble?” Lowry said.

“I don’t know what to expect. You never know how someone will react when they’re frightened, and stupid is hot-wired right into some people.”

Sharp sunlight cut through the gap as the doors opened. Callan took a couple of steps outside, his hand resting on his gun, and then stopped. He stood still, looking at something out of Jamie’s view, before turning and beckoning to them.

As Lowry and Rena hurried forward, Jamie hung back, conscious of an echo of the same feeling she’d had on Soltaire. As long as they stayed safely sealed inside the walls of the ship, she didn’t have to think about what was out there. She could choose to believe anything at all; that they were alone in the universe, or surrounded by living worlds, full of living, breathing people.

By the time she reached the entrance the others were walking down the gangway. The port was bigger than the one on Soltaire, and they’d set down on one of three platforms around a central loading area. The sky was a darker blue than on any other planet she’d seen, giving the place a pregnant, storm-heavy look despite the white-gold glare of the sun.

There were two people standing a few meters from the end of the gangway: a girl who looked to be in her early twenties, with a tall, thin lad of around eighteen or nineteen standing a few paces behind her, arms soldier-straight by his sides.

The girl was small and fair-haired, dressed in a pale blue dress that looked like something a child might wear to a party. It floated down to just above her knees, and her arms and legs were bare. Her expression was wary, and as Callan reached the end of the gangway, she held up a warning hand, shooting a quick glance over her shoulder at the lad.

“Sorry.” Her voice seemed too light and flimsy for the heavy, industrial surroundings. “Could you stop. Please.” The lad had risen up on his toes, shifting his weight back and forth, his gaze resting somewhere above the heads of the new arrivals. “He doesn’t . . . I mean, he finds people difficult. It was hours before he’d talk to me. But we get along fine now, don’t we, Finn?” She smiled over her shoulder. It looked forced, but the lad stopped his gentle rocking and nodded, a quick jerk of his head.

“What’s your name?” Callan said.

“Mila.”

“You the only two here?”

Something flickered across the girl’s face. “I haven’t seen anyone else.”

“That’s not an answer.” Callan had picked up on the careful shape of her response. “Any sign of anyone else?”

Unexpectedly it was Finn who replied. His voice was flat, his words delivered without intonation. “There’s the bad man.” He had dropped his gaze slightly, so that he was staring at the flanks of the ship.

“The bad man?” Callan said.

Mila tried to smile. “It’s nothing. Just a joke I made when I thought . . .” She broke off, reaching up to wrap a strand of hair around her fingers. “I keep thinking there’s someone here. Someone’s moving things. Or maybe I did it. Or Finn. I’m never sure.”

There was a shrill note in her voice, and Finn went up on his toes again. Mila instantly turned to him, dropping into a soothing monotone. “It’s okay, Finn, it’s okay.”

Callan glanced around the landing site, then looked back at Mila, regarding her appraisingly. As Jamie moved farther down the gangway, she could see what he was looking at. The girl had a mottled shadow of bruising along her jawline and a healing cut in front of her ear. There was also the faintest suggestion of a fading black eye hidden beneath her careful makeup.

“What happened to you?” Callan asked.

Mila flushed. “Someone hurt me.”

“I can see that,” Callan replied. “Is that someone your bad man?”

“No. It was before.”

Callan nodded, his expression still contemplative.

Mila’s face creased in an anxious frown, and then her expression changed, and she lifted her hand to push her hair back from her face. It was a slow, deliberate gesture, and when she smiled at him, there was a hint of practiced coquettishness about it.

“So,” she said. “Here we are.”

The words sounded too old for her. They didn’t fit with her child’s dress and her thin frame.

Callan gave her a long, level look. “Here we are. What now?”

Mila glanced away, her mask slipping a little, as though she didn’t have the right script for this. When she looked back, she was herself again, young and uncertain. It was as though she’d shrugged on someone else’s skin for a moment, but it hadn’t fit.

She chewed at her thumbnail. “Can we come with you?”

“If that’s what you want. We’re going to the capital.”

“Anywhere with people,” Mila said. “I don’t care where it is.”

She glanced over her shoulder as she spoke, and Callan followed the direction of her gaze. “You really think there’s someone else?”

Mila shook her head slowly.

“What?” Callan’s voice was sharp with impatience. “What are you not telling us?”

“There was a gunshot,” she said, after another long pause. “A couple of nights ago.” Her brow creased. “At least I think there was. Maybe I dreamed it. I don’t know.”

“Did he hear it?” Callan jerked his head toward Finn.

“He sleeps really deeply.” Mila’s tone was defensive. “But I know what I heard.”

“I thought you said you weren’t sure.”

“I . . .” Mila bit her lip. “I didn’t dream it. I just told myself that. I know what it was.”

“Shots.” There was a hint of skepticism in Callan’s voice. “From a bad man who’s hiding and doesn’t want to be seen. Maybe he decided to end it all, and that’s what you heard.”

Mila’s expression darkened. “No. I think there was someone else. The bad man . . . he’s still here. Sometimes I hear him at night, scratching around, as if he’s trying to scare us.”

“He?” Callan said, as though it had just occurred to him.

“That’s what it feels like.”

“And you haven’t gone looking for him?” Callan said.

A hint of anger sparked in Mi...