Day Eight #4
“I’m open to suggestions. As soon as we can, we need to get out of the Jovian system.
Someplace outside Brimstone territory and outside Inspiration’s control.
I’m thinking Saturn; I hear Enceladus is nice.
But that takes months even when Jupiter and Saturn are at their closest. I don’t normally keep six to twelve months of supplies just lying around.
So we’ll have to make a smaller jaunt to start with, find a place to lie low and gather what we need.
If you don’t have a better idea, I’m thinking Elara. I have a cousin there I trust.”
“You and your cousins,” said Kelli. “Okay. I mean, I don’t have a better idea. I guess I can’t go home.”
She said it matter-of-factly. Until the moment it crossed her lips, it was only another fact.
But hearing it aloud made her stop and think.
She swallowed hard, staring at the dark swirls of Jupiter’s night side, and thought it again.
She was never going home. There was nothing to go back to.
Certainly not a job, and not her nice apartment anymore, and not friends.
Kelli had treasured many things in that white-gold apartment—her favorite mug, her fluffy bedspread, the view out her window.
The quiet. Even if she replaced those things one day, she would never see those particular ones again.
She would never ride up the elevator into the Inspiration Callisto building, standing tall and proud, eager to see the new batch of outlines.
She would never again watch ScriptGen choose words for Orlando, while she visualized how he would say them, how it would feel to be him, guiding and correcting where necessary.
Even when the language model got in her way, it was still the lifeline that connected her to so many things she treasured.
She would never again watch Orlando on the screen, brought to life by AdventureVerse’s animation, seen and loved by everyone.
These were not the worst losses anyone had suffered today. Rowan, beside her, had just said goodbye forever to all his friends at once. Rosaura Quixada must be mourning her mother. But Kelli’s petty losses still hurt.
Rowan had already started to flip switches and enter coordinates, watching indicator lines wriggle upward and down as the ship’s computer did the calculations. But he must have seen the stricken look on her face, because he paused and took his hand off the controls as he looked at her.
“Look,” he said abruptly, “nobody’s in a state to make any big decisions right now.
Not me, not you. But I want you to know—when we get to Elara, if you want to split up, I get it.
I swept you up into this based on a lie.
I got you hurt. I almost got you killed.
And even if it wasn’t for all that—you made your choice ten years ago.
I don’t get to second-guess that. I don’t get to cleverly manipulate events to see if you make a different one now.
When we get to Elara, if you want to find some other ship that’ll take you to safety—forge some credentials and get on a passenger liner, maybe—I can help with that.
You don’t actually have to be stuck in this tin can with me for six months, or two years, or whatever the distance to Saturn ends up being. ”
Kelli didn’t know what to say to that. She could still barely imagine anything beyond the next five minutes, let alone six months.
She couldn’t imagine how it would feel to spend that much time here with Rowan, or cooped up on a liner without him.
She couldn’t imagine arriving on Enceladus, or any other place.
It seemed like it would be a shame to leave Rowan behind again so soon, but how was she supposed to imagine all those different futures properly, or make a sober decision about which one she preferred?
“I need first aid,” she said.
“Right. Sorry. One orbit injection to Elara, coming right up, and then we go downstairs and lick our wounds.”
Right now, Kelli didn’t want to imagine licking anything. That part of her imagination still worked a little too well. It occurred to her that she’d been frightened, she’d run for her life, and in that panic it had felt like the most natural thing in the world to keep holding Rowan’s hand.
It was hard to escape certain obvious conclusions.
The burn that took them out of Io’s orbit was gentler than the launch.
After a short countdown, the engines rumbled back to life; less like a goon standing on her, and more like maybe a big dog.
Kelli watched as the Wildfire turned, as the spheres of Io and Jupiter turned around it, and they left whatever remained of the Brimstone Syndicate behind.
“I, uh, don’t have any first aid training,” said Kelli as Rowan led her to the storage closet.
“I do,” he assured her. “I’ll talk you through the steps. I just can’t do it all with one hand.”
He dug out a suitcase-sized white box, marked with a red X, full of medical supplies. Kelli had to help him pry it open.
“Okay,” said Rowan, pointing with his left hand. “These blue things here are adjustable splints.”
He talked her through the process of adjusting one to go around his wrist. It was a stiff fabric cuff that went from the forearm up to the palm of the hand, with fastenings to hold it there.
Kelli bit her lip as she worked, very aware of how swollen and angry the flesh of the wrist and hand looked, and how Rowan gritted his teeth at the slightest touch.
At least the skin wasn’t broken, and the wrist hadn’t bent at any unnatural angle.
Still, when she tightened the splint, he made a sound like she’d stabbed him.
“Sorry!” she said, letting go.
“No, it’s good, I think,” said Rowan, catching his breath. He’d gone pale. “I told you pull it until the third guide line meets the buckle; is that what you did?”
Kelli nodded. She checked again to make sure, but that was just where she’d pulled it to.
“Okay, now, ice pack,” he said.
The ice was a lot simpler than the splint.
Kelli took out a pack and cracked it to start the cooling reaction, wrapped it in a small towel, and attached it to the splint just under the crook of his wrist. Twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off, he’d said, so she set her watch.
It was a relief to have these simple rules to follow, and something to do with her hands, even though her hands ached from where she’d hung on to the straps when they launched.
“Painkiller next,” said Rowan, “and then we can move on. There’s transdermal patches.
Left top pocket.” He told her the name of the medicine to look for.
She obediently tore out a patch and affixed it to the crook of his elbow, just below the bottom of the splint, mindful not to touch the tiny spines on its underside.
As soon as the patch went on, Rowan let out a deep breath, tension visibly melting out of his body. His eyes fluttered shut with relief. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s the stuff.”
Kelli frowned at him. “Are you getting high on whatever that is?”
“No, it’s a local analgesic. You’re even still allowed to pilot ships on this stuff. That whole thing just really hurt, is all.”
Kelli looked at him floating there, still with dried blood all over the lower half of his face. There were bruises everywhere, too. She wanted to do more. She wanted to run her hands over him, pick up all the damage and brush it away.
“There’s blood on your face,” she said. “Does this thing have wet wipes?”
“There’s wet wipes everywhere on the ship, but use an antiseptic one. They’re the ones with the red labels.”
Kelli dug in the first aid kit for the wipes with the red labels, which helpfully said Antiseptic and had brief instructions. Carefully, she extracted a wipe from the package and used it to dab the dried blood away from Rowan’s chin. Its surface stung her fingers slightly, but she held on.
It had been ten years since she touched Rowan’s face.
Kelli had time to dwell on that now. She had to lean close to make sure she got all the blood.
She felt very aware of how the skin of his face moved under her gentle pressure; how there was a dusting of stubble there now.
How he flinched slightly when she ran the wipe over the split lip itself.
“You can find a doctor on Elara, right?” she said. “For your wrist?”
“Probably.” He winced again. “I’ll have to make a whole new set of fake credentials, but I’d need to do that anyway.”
She pulled back and wrapped the bloodstained wipe up for disposal. She’d missed one stain, a drop of red-brown that had dried on his shirt, but he needed laundry for that, not medical care.
“Here,” said Rowan. “I know I’ve only got one hand, but fair’s fair—what if you opened up another wipe for me and I worked on those scrapes on your arms? Would that be okay?”
“That would be okay,” said Kelli, and it surprised her when the words came out half choked, like she could barely admit them. She took out another wipe, handed it to him, and held out both her arms, palms up.
Very carefully, with just the one hand, Rowan cleaned the scrapes on her hands and forearms and the red marks around her wrists from the handcuffs.
It really did sting, and she bit her lip harder so she wouldn’t make noise.
With one working hand and without gravity, it wasn’t easy for him to keep her arm in place, so she ended up holding him by a nonbroken part of his right arm near the elbow.
She probably could have done this more easily by herself, but the last thing she wanted to do was tell him to stop.
“I still have the character kernels,” she said abruptly. “For Orlando and everybody.”
He raised his eyebrows, but he didn’t look very surprised. “Do you?”
“I made a copy.” She’d done it on the ride back to Io from Ganymede, when she was still expecting to go back to her life on Callisto—or to jail. “I put them all on one of your data chips. It doesn’t matter, though, I guess. It’s not like I’m still going to be using ScriptGen and writing shows.”
“Do you know what I think you should do? You should try writing again. Just for yourself. About Orlando, or Orlande, or whoever else you want. Not an AdventureVerse story, but a Kelli story, in your own style. Like when we were little.”
Kelli looked down, mouth dry. “I don’t know if I remember how.”
Rowan had finished with her arms, and he drew back, self-conscious, hesitating before he put the used wipe into a garbage bag. “Need anything else from the kit?”
“I don’t know,” said Kelli, flustered. “I mean, I haven’t had a chance to look at myself. I got kicked in the ribs, but—um—I think I can do that one myself.”
Rowan didn’t move. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Kelli repeated.
She told herself she should let go of him. Her hand did not cooperate. She didn’t let go.
“Look,” she blurted. “It’s not just you.
I’ve been awful to you ever since you met me at the Good Dog.
I literally sold you out to the cops. And you said to Zhaleh that you broke up with her because she told Conchita your secrets, but I did that too.
I told Inspiration about the fire. So you shouldn’t have to stay with me either, I mean, if you want to split up after Elara, you should get to decide that, too, right? You shouldn’t have to just . . .”
“They were your secrets to tell,” Rowan said. “Not hers.”
“You’re not mad?” said Kelli. It seemed even more unlikely than the rest of this.
“I was shocked. It was the one thing I thought you’d never do. I thought it’d hurt you even worse than it hurt me, telling. But how could I be mad? It’s the position we put you in.”
“It’s funny,” Kelli said. Her voice choked a little. “I almost turned myself in right after the fire. I wanted to. And I didn’t let myself, because I thought it’d hurt you. And now look at us.”
Rowan reached up and touched her face—just the lightest brush of the tips of his fingers against her cheekbone.
There was such depth in his big dark eyes.
Kelli often didn’t like to look in people’s eyes, but she’d always been able to look in Rowan’s and read him.
It didn’t make sense that he looked so vulnerable now.
Like, in spite of all the adventures of the past ten years, all the weird crimes, all the other girls, he still needed what was happening in this moment as much as she did.
“You know I’ll always forgive you,” he said, “right?”
But that was too much.
“You shouldn’t,” she said, pulling away. “That’s what I always thought—that maybe you shouldn’t.”
She hurried to the study before she could make any other bad decisions.