Chapter 19
Illiviamona emerges from the medical room just after dawn, sweeping into the command center with the air of someone who’s just won an election.
I’m on my feet at once, ready to pelt her with questions—How’s Lament?
Is he awake? I thought you said you’d stay with him—when I notice the figure in the doorway behind her.
There’s a pause, followed by a sudden flurry of activity as the Sixers collectively drop what they’re doing (messing around on their handhelds, mostly, or in Vera’s case, reading one of her novels) and surround Lament.
Vera pulls him in for a hug, Toph sets a (slightly too rough) hand on his shoulder, Avi batters him with questions (How are you?
Does the wound hurt? Is it still bleeding? Can I see?).
I hover back, fighting a wave of relief and surprise and something else, something darker and deeper and big enough to swallow me whole.
I wasn’t expecting this. Lament, awake again so soon after his procedure, looking tired and rumpled but nonetheless upright.
He’s freshly showered and wearing what I can only think of as loungewear, long sleeves, buttons and pinstripes.
There’s no sign of what he went through in the forest. What he went through before the forest.
I think of the note I left him. The raw, honest words inside. I tell myself not to be embarrassed, that I meant what I wrote and have no reason to feel ashamed, but my anxiety says otherwise. I wonder if he found it.
Suddenly, I’m kind of hoping he didn’t.
“I’ve spoken to Sergeant Forst,” Lament says as he extracts himself from the tangle of overexcited Sixers.
His voice, too, is back to its usual clipped self, direct and to the point.
“She’s ordering us to stay on Venthros until I’m cleared to fly again.
Which,” he says, glancing at Illiviamona, “will be tomorrow?”
Illiviamona’s glowing freckles ripple in disagreement.
Lament tries again. “The day after tomorrow?”
“If you would like to overexert yourself while your body is still healing from a rabid ape attack, that is your choice. But”—Illiviamona’s mouth opens like a fish sucking water—“you will suffer.”
“We’ll wait,” Vera is quick to say. “However long Lament needs.”
“The longer the better,” Avi adds.
Vera shoots the eleven-year-old a scowl. “I don’t think we should wish for Lament’s extended misery.”
“But the longer his recovery takes, the more time we get to relax.”
“Still,” Vera says, in the tone of someone whose patience is hard-won, “I think it’s best to hope for Lament’s speedy recovery.”
“Then you should hope for his speedy recovery,” Avi replies.
Vera casts around helplessly. “What do I do with her?”
Lament gives a slight smile. “It’s all right. We deserve the break.”
“Hear that?” Avi crows. “Lament says we deserve the break!” She punches the air and launches herself into her beanbag, which crunches rather dramatically given she’s the size of a houseplant. “Jester, toss me the remote.”
We’re not watching Hippie Days, Jester warns.
“But there’s a new episode!”
The theme music alone is enough to drive me mad.
“We have to,” Avi insists. “Limpie just found out Gamma’s pregnant, and he thinks the baby is his, but really it belongs to his estranged brother who is part merman—”
Vera squeezes her eyes shut. “Save it, Avi.”
Avi gives a whine and flops backward. “You’re all probably going to put on something scholarly and wholesome and boring, and everyone else in the galaxy will know the fate of Gamma’s merman baby, and I’ll have to wait until we get back to the detachment to see for myself, but by then there will be spoilers everywhere.
” She pops up like a puppet reanimated. “Jester, I’ll play you for it. Frog Smasher, best two out of three.”
Jester’s mouth quirks. If I win, we’re watching Camp.
“Isn’t that the film about that cannibal from the eighties?” I ask.
His name was Rogue Lueman.
“I thought we were going to put on something scholarly?” Vera suggests hopefully.
Camp is scholarly, Jester replies. It’s a documentary.
“Oh.” Youvu Hum looks a bit bloodless. “I’ve never done well with horror stories. Avi, you had better win this.”
“I’m rooting for Jester,” Toph announces. “Bring on the cannibals.”
As everyone splits into sides and Avi pulls out the gaming console, Lament comes to stand at my shoulder and asks, “Who are you rooting for?”
I ignore that question (because, seriously?) and look at him.
Like, really look at him. Lament might want to put on a brave face, but here, under the wan light of the control monitors, I can see what he’s trying to hide: the shadows under his eyes, the fatigue in his posture, pain lines scored like hash marks around his mouth.
He looks worn down and washed out. A painting left too long in the sun.
Which makes me think about the rest of him.
And what I saw. And whether he knows I saw.
I can’t guess how much Lament remembers from Illiviamona’s medical room (he’d already suffered heavy blood loss by that point, to say nothing of the sedative), but I get the sense he suspects the truth.
Which makes me want to apologize. I should have stepped out of the room as soon as Illiviamona cut off his shirt, respected his privacy.
Really, I should have stopped that ape from attacking him in the first place.
Isn’t that my responsibility? The reason I was recruited, the reason I carry a gun on my hip?
All of this—Lament’s pain, my pain—could have been avoided if only I’d done a better job of protecting him.
The pause has gone on too long. Lament tips his chin, probably confused by the unaccountable anguish on my face when all he did was ask who I want to win a video game.
And maybe he was right to jump straight to Frog Smasher after all, because I’m spiraling like I do when things get too big, and my stomach has become a yawning pit, and I’m jumbled and so tied up inside that I just end up blurting, “I hate scary movies.”
He scrunches his nose. “I would not have guessed that.”
“Because I’m brave and fearless?”
“Because you’re a moron about danger.”
I let out a shaky laugh. “Says the man who routinely jets off to chase monsters.”
He has the decency to blush. “That’s … fair.”
The window to apologize—to organize the mess of my thoughts and say something—is closing. A part of me doesn’t want to let it. But: “How … I mean … how are you?”
He gets quiet. “Still processing everything.” He looks down. “What we learned. About the mist. It’s a lot to take in.”
“Yeah,” I agree, and wish I could come up with something to add, something along the lines of what I said before (when he couldn’t hear me) about how long he’s hunted for answers about Bast, and how difficult it must be to have found them, only to be attacked and bleed out and be rushed into surgery before he had a chance to digest any of it, and how it’s okay if he doesn’t feel okay yet, if he’s still hurting, because I know I would be—
“I thought it would give me closure, knowing the truth,” he says, so softly I have to lean in to catch the words.
“I thought if I could understand the reason Moon Dancer crashed, maybe I’d start to put it all behind me.
And now I have the answer, or most of it, but I still feel like something’s not adding up. ”
“What do you mean?”
Lament opens his mouth, then closes it again.
He seems to think. “The timelines don’t match,” he eventually admits.
“Ran Doc Min said the voroxide is a recent development. It hasn’t started to spread around Venthros yet, let alone the galaxy, and according to FPS, it won’t start spreading until Mount Kilmon erupts.
But if that’s true, how did the vapor reach Bast and me in Moon Dancer? How did it wind up on Purvuva?”
“Maybe there are multiple sources of voroxide,” I say.
“Maybe.” But he doesn’t sound convinced.
I wonder for the first time if maybe Vera’s right.
If Lament is holding on to this mystery because he’s grief-stricken, and maybe the kindest thing to do would be to encourage him to just let it all go.
As soon as I have the thought, I feel like a traitor.
That’s not fair to Lament, and if I’m not on his side—me, the person who literally gets it—who else will be?
Ashamed, and trying not to look ashamed, I nod toward his shoulder. “How’s the injury?”
He shrugs.
“Did Illiviamona give you anything for the pain?”
“Yes.” He’s suddenly very interested in the Frog Smasher score flashing yellow on the screen. (Avi’s winning.) “The medicine will make me fuzzy, though. I don’t really want to take it.”
“That I would have guessed.”
A sideways glance. “Oh?”
“You don’t like to be out of control.”
“No, I—” He fumbles. “I guess not.”
I wonder again about the note. If he found it, if he read it, I’d be able to tell, right?
“There’s no pressure to take pain meds if you don’t want them,” I say. “But if you do want them, you should know it’s okay. You’re allowed to have relief. You’re … I mean.” I give a self-conscious shrug. “You’re safe here.”
A small smile. “What if the rabid apes return?”
“They won’t.” A pause. “Okay, they probably won’t.”
His eyes go exaggeratedly round. “Consider me reassured.”
“Oh, come on. Even if we were attacked again, didn’t you see what I did to the last batch?”
“I seem to remember you nearly losing a battle for the door.”
“You were bleeding out. Your memory cannot be trusted.”
He lowers his lids. “Don’t push it.”
“My point,” I emphasize, “is that it’s okay to let go for a little.” And then, words I thought I’d decided not to say come out anyway: “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
A flush creeps along the arch of his cheekbones. He turns away, his expression partly veiled by the fall of his hair. Jester must have taken the lead in Frog Smasher, because Caspen starts cheering and the Youvu Hums let out a collective, Oh no.
Lament says, “You can’t promise anyone’s safety.”