The Naetilus's new pilot slept through everything for at least a few hours, by his own rough estimate.
He woke disoriented, tangled in the one sheet on his bed that he never made, more disheveled than he'd ever been, yawning without control. What the hell was happening to his body? He'd never needed sleep this badly. He set his bare feet on the metal floor. Let his toes drag slowly across the plates.
He looked around. The room was not tidy. Not even close. Empty bottles, half-empty bottles, full ones. Cigarette butts. Clothes in a pile that had stopped being sorted sometime in the distant past. The smell of damp and enclosure. Books left open and unfinished, scrawled papers, his tablet somewhere in there. Medication containers of various descriptions. All of it made finding anything useful significantly harder than it needed to be.
He ran into Katherine in the corridor. Snapped to attention immediately.
"Sorry."
"Alex covered your shift."
"Thanks. How long did I—"
"Nineteen hours."
The pilot looked at her, working to convince himself.
"Why didn't you—"
"This isn't a boarding school. Waking you up isn't my job."
Katherine had that quality she sometimes had — of knowing something he didn't. But there was something different about her this time.
"What's wrong with you? You don't look well. You need to be in shape for the rest of the run."
"I will be."
She was clearly trying to get past his defenses with that tone. And the dream he'd had left him with an uncomfortable sense that reality hadn't quite settled back into place.
Slightly dizzy, he made his way through the Naetilus's cabled corridors to the men's bathroom, to splash water on his face.
Then he noticed what was missing. That crawling, insistent sensation that usually nested somewhere in his chest.
No desire to drink. No desire to smoke. No desire to take anything.
He stood still in the middle of the corridor.
"Oh, we've been waiting for you. Are you feeling alright?"
Birdie. She had her asthma inhaler in one hand, and after using it her expression was even more serene than usual.
"I'm fine," he decided.
"Good. Alex has been on shift for a long time."
"He's been covering for me this whole time?"
"Not alone. The navigator's been there too."
"You said I was... marked."
"You are. But I like you anyway."
Samantha was approaching.
"Nicholas will be happy to see you," she said. "We had to stop him from waking you up."
"Did you."
"Captain's orders," Samantha reported.
As time passed, Nero understood less and less of what was happening around him.
He couldn't stop thinking about the dream. The aging Naetilus had warped and dissolved, replaced by a mountain range. Maybe that was what sobriety did to you.
He remembered being in his homeland — beside the lake, the willow tree. Watching the snow-capped peaks in the distance. Running without a single concern across the plains, through the valley. He'd touched the wings of dragonflies again, of giant butterflies, gently. Had gotten close enough to hear the hum of neon fireflies along the riverbank. Even he had been a child, once.
This feeling was particularly inconvenient.
"Ready to resume duties, officer."
Alex raised his eyebrows at the formality.
"There he is. We thought you were in a coma."
"I need to get back to my post."
"Sit down. The captain said you might be disoriented."
"Location?"
"We made good progress with that battery you brought. Look."
Nero studied the screens carefully.
"We must have passed near the Excision. Time curved," he told himself — his working explanation for all those hours.
"Seems pretty linear to me. Do you ever sleep, new guy?"
"I don't need to."
Alex smiled, amused.
"Hey, there's nothing wrong with sleeping. The little grasshopper, for example — sleeps like a rock. One time we had to—"
"You mean Nicholas?"
He didn't know why, but the familiarity annoyed him.
"Do you play cards?"
"Depends."
"I'll beat you. Won't be much of a challenge."
"You might be surprised. Any news from the Cult?"
"Their blood is boiling. But they haven't attacked again."
"Damn politicians."
"Now they're claiming they're messengers from the gods of Sigma. Alright, behave yourselves."
Nero swiveled his seat slowly to see who else Alex was talking to.
Nicholas stood there for a moment without speaking. Swallowed, working up to it.
"You slept about... twenty hours."
Nero looked at him as if he'd said something outrageous.
"I don't sleep."
The technician laughed a little.
"That's impossible."
"How would you know? Have you ever seen a nyasuk sleep?"
"No."
"I'm surprised at you, Nicholas. You shouldn't assume without asking."
Nicholas went quiet, trying to picture it.
The pilot settled into his seat and worked the controls with easy precision, while Nicholas's fascinated gaze tried to follow his hands. Nero was still slightly disoriented from the dream and doing his best not to show it.
"Do you want breakfast? There's still some left."
"No, thanks."
He was nauseous.
"Alex told me you—"
Nero let the controls go for a moment and looked at him with that particular intensity — the kind that didn't leave room for retreating — before he spoke.
"I'm interested in this."
"It's probably nothing."
"If Alex said it, almost certainly."
"Why do you two get along so badly?"
The pilot smiled slightly.
"I think he's a clown who wandered into the wrong circus."
"You think this is a circus?"
"What did Alex say?"
Nicholas spoke all at once, words running together.
"It might be a lie. He said you race in the Rift. Is that true?"
"The Excision. He's not wrong. Did he say anything else?"
"No."
"Don't lie to me."
"That you thought you were better than everyone. Ego — ego — egotist?"
"Egocentric?"
"Something like that. And that we shouldn't trust you."
"Good advice. What do you think?"
"That he's exaggerating."
Nero smiled.
"When the dimensions overlap, Nicholas... it's something. I'd like to show you sometime."
That didn't sound like someone who'd merely placed bets on races near the dimensional Rift. That sounded like someone who'd gotten dangerously close to it. Maybe even raced in it. Nicholas's mind started drawing conclusions.
"I don't know if I could handle it. They say humans lose their minds when they get too close."
"True. There are documented cases."
"It's prohibited, under Confederation law. It's dangerous."
"I've never paid much attention to rules. They're just... a frame of reference."
"Sometimes I don't know whether to believe half of what you say."
"Neither do I, honestly."
Nicholas smiled this time, with a little more ease. He tucked his hair behind his ear and fiddled with his lip piercing, looking for something to do with his hands.
Through the viewports, a nebula traced itself across the distance — violet, fuchsia, pink, orange. Nero checked his own screen. The Naetilus was moving more efficiently than usual, just as Alex had said. Which meant this humanitarian mission to Sigma would be over sooner than he'd thought.
The pilot reclined his seat and glanced lazily at his wrist communicator.
"Have you noticed how much time you spend in the bathroom?"
Nicholas went red immediately.
"I timed it. Forty-five minutes. A genuine tragedy."
"What—"
"You need to reflect on your priorities, Nicholas. The mission, or your hair?"
The technician laughed — something musical, much more relaxed than usual.
"Why did you do that?" he managed to ask.
"I'd rather wait for you to come out. I don't want to... disrespect you."
"Thank you."
Nero tilted his head so his own hair — still slightly disheveled from sleep, long and straight and black as a crow's wing — fell across his shoulders and down his back. Nicholas watched it catch what little light there was from the viewports and the console.
"Damn," Nero said suddenly. "My knee."
The technician had noticed the uneven gait before, but hadn't wanted to ask.
"What happened there?"
"It's less interesting than it looks," Nero said finally. "I'm a cripple."
"Oh — I'm sorry," said Nicholas, as if it were somehow his fault.
"I'd tell you the story, but you're a very busy man. This tin can needs more attention than I do."
"Actually... I have another question."
Nero raised one eyebrow, skeptical.
"I'll answer it. If I can."
"What's someone like you doing... here?"
Nero smiled.
"I have a weakness for lost causes. I consider myself a philanthropist."
"I knew you weren't going to answer."
"Didn't you?"
"It's something you do. You say something — a joke, a deflection — so I stop thinking about the actual question."
"I'm a mystery. Although, if you genuinely want to know — I'm trying to stay off the map. Fly under the radar."
"Why?"
"I upset the wrong people in the Asteroid Belt. We have... differences of opinion."
"Who? Pirates?"
"No. Something worse. Much worse."
"What could be worse than pirates?"
"Do you know the story of the blond who kept asking questions?"
Nicholas knew Nero was no innocent — and wasn't all that different from a pirate, really, working purely for money. But he filed that away for later. He couldn't stop smiling.
The pilot was enjoying the effect enormously. It might even have been addictive. He crossed his feet on the console.
The technician said something else.
"I'd like to — the Naetilus has an observatory."
Alex's heavy footsteps sounded from somewhere down the corridor.
The pilot cleared his throat.
"I said: behave yourselves. Pilot — stop putting ideas in the technician's head."
"I haven't done anything," said Nero.
"Yet. But I know your type."
"Do you."
"Nick, Katherine says the thrusters are failing again and she doesn't want to lose the speed we gained from the nyasuk battery."
"Understood. With your permission."
Nero inclined his head in farewell — for now. Nicholas left faster than he would have liked, and it was obvious he did it against his own wishes.
Before going, he looked one last time at the pilot's pale eyes. His canvas sneakers echoed against the brass plates in the corridor.
The pilot watched him until he disappeared into the belly of the Naetilus. He couldn't explain why, but the dull ache in his knee had gone quiet.
"He's got you good, huh?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Did you have fun, new guy?"
"We were talking. Problem?"
"Me? No. Mind telling me what about?"
The pilot was quiet. He genuinely didn't know, or couldn't retrieve it at that moment. The only thing that surfaced was the nyasuk crown's motto: may the gentle lunar mantle cover Naësu until dawn.
Nicholas had mentioned once that his brother had been taken by a Cult ship. Not just any ship — Camlann, the one shaped like a dragon. That made him a mid-level priority target. Otherwise, Ethan Idris Blake wouldn't have sent his own vessel.
The kid looked good in those overalls, too. The killjoy had picked the worst possible moment to show up.
"Does it matter that much?"
"If you had nothing to hide, you'd have already said something. Wouldn't you?"
"Can't I have a conversation with a... colleague ... without you inserting yourself?"
"You're giving him special treatment. And he might start to get... ideas."
"That's not my responsibility."
"Right, well, I don't like—"
"That's what this is. Your sermon. Your moral high ground."
"I don't think I'm anything."
"Stop judging other people. Do your job."
"You think you're so tough. You think I've never killed anyone — that I sit around waiting for others to do the hard work. Well. You're wrong."
At that, Nero's expression shifted into something less certain. He looked tired. Alex wasn't surprised. Nero explained himself.
"If you want to know — the nyasuk had an inverted triangle on his wrist. Not a tattoo. A scar. The idiot burned himself, like livestock. That's what the Cult does," the pilot said.
"How long had you been awake?"
"About two weeks. Three hours at a time, at most. I can't sleep more than that. Every night I dream about someone different. From the Asteroid Belt... or that one, on Omega." Nero shifted in his seat. "My throat is dry."
"That's not the solution."
"I suppose I should pray for the salvation of my soul."
"That's... not it either."
"It was him or us. Numerically, I also consider it a win. Katherine's reaction wasn't ideal. But I was willing to take the risk."
"Fair enough. On this ship, we look out for each other."
"I look out for myself. I don't know you."
"No. But I know you."
"If you have something to say, say it."
Alex looked at him steadily before speaking.
"Leave Nicholas alone. You and I... we're not like him. You understand?"
"He's an adult. He couldn't work for the Confederation otherwise."
"You know exactly what I'm talking about."
Nero swallowed again. The smile was gone, his brow slightly furrowed now.
"We're not like him — that's true. But don't get confused. You and I have nothing in common."
The thirst sharpened. The first officer gave him a disapproving look, then turned back to adjusting the night watch rotation for the following week.
Nero took his feet off the console.
There had to be somewhere beyond consciousness, or in spite of it. Some space free of guilt. He'd find it eventually.
Maybe that place was Sigma.