36. Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Six
It was unsurprising when, first thing in the morning, I received a summons to join Tobago in his quarters .
. . without Ursa. Apart from my guilt over Croydon, the anticipation of this summons was the other thing that had kept me tossing and turning throughout the night.
I knew what was coming, and I dreaded it.
I was determined not to cry; Tobago hated any kind of fuss like that, and I knew it wouldn’t soften him at all, only make him harder.
But with Val in the room, her expression far more compassionate than Tobago’s stonelike features, my eyes brimmed with unwanted tears.
“I’m so sorry about Croydon,” I said, before they had the chance to reprimand me for it.
To my surprise, Val reached out a hand to me. When I took it, she squeezed my fingers in a comforting, almost maternal grip. “It wasn’t your fault, really. We knew there was a bulletin out on you. We should have kept you on the ship.”
I blinked back at her stupidly. It had honestly never occurred to me that anyone else might feel responsible for what had happened.
From the look on Val’s face—the furrow in her forehead, the sadness in her eyes, the dark circles underneath—she had likely spent last night in as tormented a state as I had.
“I shouldn’t have run.” It wasn’t that I wanted to take the blame, only my instinct was to try to take the burden from Val as she had tried to do for me.
She shrugged, shaking her head. “What could you have done? Be taken prisoner, too, most likely. And what good would that do?” Bringing up her other hand, she clasped it over mine and gave me a sympathetic look.
“Though the rest of the crew won’t see it that way, I’m afraid.
Not at first. Maybe not ever. I’ll do my best to bring them around, but . . .”
I nodded, absorbing this blow. Any ground Ursa and I might have gained with the Achaeans, any goodwill we might have built up, had been erased by the events of last night.
Tensions were bound to be high now. Val, Tobago, some of the more temperate ones—like Indy and maybe Burt—might be brought about to see reason, but we would have to tread carefully.
Actually, I realized as I glanced over at Tobago, I didn’t wholly know if I could group him in with my allies.
It was possible he did blame me entirely, just like most of the rest of the crew did.
He certainly hadn’t said anything to suggest otherwise, and his face was like granite, hard and smooth and perfectly unreadable.
“We can try to make things up to everyone.” This offer was feeble, at best, since I already suspected it would be futile. “Not that we can ever make up for losing Croydon. But maybe we can make the burden lighter. Do extra chores, take on bigger roles in the next job . . .”
Tobago finally spoke up. “We’ll run into the same problem wherever we go now. If factory workers on SuperVegas recognized you, that bulletin must have had a farther reach than we realized. You’re too much of a liability to show your face on any settlement.”
Despair, hopeless despair, settled like a lead weight in my stomach.
I’d known this was coming. If my face was recognizable anywhere from here to Haven 3, there was no way I could continue to help out with jobs.
I’d proven to be rather bad at it both times, but at least I’d been contributing.
Now, the best-case scenario would be for me to hide out on the ship every time we hit up a port, and that would only work if no overzealous border agents demanded to see everyone’s documents, or decided to search the crew for wanted fugitives.
Rawley had set off my detonation sequence, and it was only a matter of time before I exploded. The only question now would be whether I would take down the rest of the ship with me, or if Ursa and I would be on our own when it happened.
Tobago had no choice, not really. He had to dump us as soon as he could. The trouble was, on our own, Ursa and I would be even more exposed, and that would make it even easier for Rawley to track us down.
If I’d been anyone else, I suspect Tobago would have dumped me at the next settlement without glancing back. Knowing my pragmatic friend, he would likely do the same now, but he might feel bad about it. He might even do his best to give us a head start, if it were at all possible.
I couldn’t ask him to put himself and the rest of his crew in jeopardy for us.
As much as it terrified me, I would have to ease the way for him, show him I understood the decision that had to be made.
“Is it too far out of the way to go back to Newearth? Ursa had a rough start there, but I think he warmed up to it by the end.”
It had been his idea to stay there, after all. Maybe he was right; maybe we could find a way to survive there, make the best of things.
Tobago’s eyes cut over to Val. I caught a glimpse of the quick but firm shake of her head, before he looked back at me. “We aren’t dumping you.”
I blinked at him in astonishment. “You aren’t? But . . . you said so yourself. We’re too much of a liability. We’ll be recognized at every port—”
“Unless we go someplace without a port,” Val suggested.
I had no idea what she meant. The only places without ports were inhospitable at best, uninhabitable at worst. And more to the point for this crew, they were unprofitable.
If people were upset at me for leaving Croydon behind to get arrested, I could only imagine their reaction when they learned we’d be camping out in some unterraformed cesspit with no opportunity for jobs or trade of any kind.
Tobago spoke up, interrupting my train of thought. “If we made it back to Earth, found the spot where you and Ursa joined us—could you get us back to that pool? Where that healing water comes from?”
The question blindsided me. “You want to return to Earth?”
“If Rawley thinks you’ve escaped from there, he won’t think to look for you there,” Val explained.
I looked back and forth between them, too surprised to think quickly or clearly. “I suppose so, but . . . won’t the crew be upset to be losing out on jobs in the meantime?”
“If that poolwater is as potent as Tobago says it is, it’ll be the biggest score we’ve landed in years.”
They wanted to . . . what, try and sell the poolwater?
I thought of the den I’d shared with Ursa, the peaceful calm of the clear blue water.
It had played such an important role in the time we’d spent getting to know one another, I couldn’t fathom introducing that place to the Achaeans.
Watching them bottle up the water, taking as much as they could carry.
Maybe even enough to drain the pool dry.
And for what? To sell off a little taste of healing and rejuvenation to the highest bidder?
I looked to Tobago for more explanation, only to find him gazing back at me intently. “It helped Indy,” he said. “Even that little bit. He was walking again.”
“That was just to tide him over until he got his medicine,” I reminded him. “It wasn’t meant to be a permanent solution.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “The medicine . . . it isn’t as effective as it used to be. It’s just dragging out his suffering now. If that water can cure him—”
“But we don’t know that,” I cut in gently. “We know it has some healing properties, but that doesn’t mean they’re permanent. That’s why I want to take the water to a lab, to test its abilities, to see if they can be replicated safely.”
Without destroying Ursa’s home, is the part I left unspoken. I suspected Tobago and Val would not be all that sympathetic. But they hadn’t lived in that cave, hadn’t watched the sun rise over the still water. Hadn’t fallen in love there.
Mankind had already been forced to leave Earth once for shamelessly plundering its resources without thought to long-term sustainability. I couldn’t allow Tobago and his crew to start that cycle yet again.
“How long will that take?” Tobago wanted to know. “Months? Years? That is, if you can even get within ten yards of a lab with that warrant out for your arrest.”
He wasn’t saying anything untrue or particularly unkind, but it still stung to hear.
“I don’t know. But what I do know is it’s a limited resource.
It’s not a river or even a large lake that can replenish itself easily.
If you take it all, that’s the end—there’s no more.
And then there will be no chance of replicating it so it can benefit everyone. ”
Tobago scoffed. “You didn’t seem to have so many moral qualms when you took those samples for Ursa.”
“Limited samples,” I argued, rising instinctively to the ire in his tone. Although, if I were being truthful, I would have likely taken more if I’d been better able to plan before Rawley chased us away. But not taken it to sell, and certainly not enough to deplete the entire source.
“Limited samples that you keep hoarded for yourselves.”
I had never heard such bitterness in Tobago’s voice before.
Taking in a deep breath, I reminded myself that this was not my friend speaking from a rational place—this was a husband, who had seen the man he loved show unexpected improvement, only to regress again once the effects of the poolwater wore off.
If there were a way to tell Tobago, and only Tobago, about the poolwater’s location, I think I might have done it.
But the rest of the crew? Once they saw what the poolwater could do, would they be content to just take a limited amount?
Val had said it herself—they thought of it as a score, a quick and easy way to get rich.