Melba had to read the words three times to understand them.
“I can’t go in there,” Soledad was saying, somewhere away to her left. The voice had taken on an irritating whine. “My father. I told you about him. You understand. Your sister was there too. You have to tell Bob or Stanni to do it. I can’t.”
They were going after Holden. They were going through the Ring after Holden. Her panic didn’t fall away so much as click into focus.
“None of you are going,” Melba said. “This one’s mine.”
The official transfer was the easiest thing she’d done since she came aboard. She sent a message to the contracts officer with her ID number and a short message saying that she’d accept transfer to the Prince. Two minutes later, she had her orders. Three hours to finish her affairs on the Cerisier, then into the transport and gone. It was intended, she knew, as a time to meet with her team, make the transition easy. She had other fish to fry.
Filling a locker with industrial sealant was one thing. The foam was made to apply quickly and remain malleable for a few seconds before the yellow mush dimmed to gold and set. The excess could be cut away with a sharp knife for the next hour. After that, nothing would move it except the right kind of solvent, and even that was an ugly, arduous process.
But leaving the body where it could be found wasn’t an option. Someone would be assigned to her bunk, and they’d want to use the locker. Besides which, leaving Ren behind seemed somehow wrong. And so with two and a half hours before she left the ship, Melba took a pair of shoulder-length latex gloves, three cans of solvent, a roll of absorbent towels, and a vacuum-rated large personal tool case into her room and locked the door behind her.
The locker door didn’t want to open at first, fixed in place by a drop of sealant she hadn’t noticed, but a few sprays of solvent degraded it until she could pull it open with her fingers. The sealant was a single rough-textured face of gold, like a cliff made small. She opened the tool case, took a deep breath, and faced the grave.
“I’m sorry about this,” she said. “I’m really, really sorry.”
At first the solvent spray didn’t seem to do anything beyond a sharp smell, but then the sealant began ticking, like a thousand insects walking over stone. Gouges and crevasses formed in the sealant wall, then a small runnel of slime. She rolled up a few of the towels, setting them on the floor to catch the flow.
Ren’s knee was the first part to appear, the round cap of the bone and death-blackened skin emerging from the melting foam like a fossil. The fabric of his uniform was soaked with fluid rot. The smell hit her, but it wasn’t as bad as she’d expected. She’d imagined herself retching and weeping, but it was gentler than that. When she took his legs to draw him out, they fell away from his pelvis, so she cut the trousers, wrapped the legs in towels, and put them in the toolbox. Her mind was quiet and still, like an archaeologist pulling the dead of centuries before out into the light. Here was his spine. This was the vile slush where the hydrochloric acid in his gut, no longer held in check by the mechanisms of life, had digested his stomach, his liver, his intestines. She drew out his head last, the bright red hair darkened and flecked with matter like an overused kitchen mop.
She lifted the bones into the toolbox, packed them with the gore- and corruption-soaked towels, then closed his new coffin, triggered the seal, and set the lock combination. She had forty minutes left.
She spent another ten minutes cleaning out the locker where Ren had spent his death, then stripped off the gloves and threw them in the recycler. She bathed, trying to scrub off the stink, and noticed distantly that she was sobbing. She ignored the fact, and by the time she’d changed into her new uniform, the crying seemed to have stopped. She picked up the last of her things, threw them in a pack, put her still-wet hair in a ponytail, and hauled Ren to the loading bay where the other supplies would be taken across to the Prince. It didn’t allow her time to say her goodbyes to Soledad or Stanni or Bob. She was sorry for that, but it was a burden she could bear.
There were about thirty of them, all told. Men and women she’d seen around the ship, heard their names once or twice, nodded to in the galley or on the exercise machines. Once they reached the Prince, they were all brought into a small white conference room with benches that bolted to the floor like pews. They were already under thrust, already moving for the Ring and whatever was on the other side. While the overly enthusiastic yeoman prattled on about the Thomas Prince, she glanced at the faces around her. An old man with a scruffy white beard and ice-blue eyes. A stocky blond woman who was probably younger than she was with poorly applied eyeliner and a grim look about the jowls. They’d all come here of their own free will. Or free will as bounded by the terms of their work contracts. They were all going through the Ring, into the mouth of whatever was on the other side. She wondered what would motivate them to do it, what kinds of secrets they’d hidden in their tool chests.
“You will need to keep your identification cards with you at all times,” the yeoman was saying, holding up a white plastic card on a lanyard. “Not only are these the keys to get into your quarters, they’ll also get you food in the civilian commissary. And they’ll let you know if you’re where you’re supposed to be.”
The blond woman turned toward Melba and glared. Melba looked away, blushing. She hadn’t intended to stare. Never be rude unintentionally, her father had always said.
The yeoman’s white card turned a deep, bloody red.
“If you see this,” he said, “it means you’re in a restricted area and need to leave immediately. Don’t worry too much. She’s a big ship, and we all get a little turned around sometimes. I got buzzed four times the first week I was here. No one’s going to get bent out of shape over an honest mistake, but security will be following up on them, so be prepared.”
Melba looked at her own white card. It had her name, a picture of her unsmiling face. The yeoman was talking about how much they were appreciated, and how their service was an honor to the ship and to themselves. All in this together, one big team. The first stirring of hatred for the man shifted in her gut, and she tried to distract herself.
She didn’t know what she’d do once they were all on the other side, but she had to find Holden. She had to destroy him. The soundman too. Anything that led back to her had to be destroyed or discredited. She wondered if there was a way to get a fake card, or one that belonged to someone with a lot more clearance than Melba Koh would have. Maybe one that could check out a shuttle. She’d need to look into it. She was improvising now, and getting the best tools she could manage would be critical.