Steel World by Larson B. V

Author:Larson, B. V. [Larson, B. V.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

“Hi,” I said.

She stared at me. “What the hell happened to you? What did you tell the brass? They’ve been sweating all of us since you disappeared.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I died in the caves, but as I understand the story from the others, you played hero and led them out. That’s about it. I don’t know what they wanted.”

“What about the alien in the air car? What did you tell them about that?”

Natasha shook her head. “I heard about that, but I wasn’t there, remember? Carlos had some story about the alien attacking us. They didn’t seem to buy that. I’m sure they’d already pulled the vids from people’s suits. Our own helmets spy on us, you know.”

I frowned. I hadn’t known that—or at least, I hadn’t thought of it that way. Natasha was studying to be a tech, so I didn’t doubt her on this point. It did make sense that our superiors would have access to any vid we made with legion equipment at any time.

“Natasha,” I said. “What everyone should do is forget about Cancri-9. Or at least, forget about the mine and the air car—all that. Spread the word: pretend it never happened.”

“Easy for me, but what about the people who made it to the end? How are they supposed to forget everything?”

“Just tell them to do it. All of us have to if we want to keep breathing, okay?”

Natasha stared at me for a few seconds. Her eyes darted from one of my eyes to the next, then back again.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” she asked. Then she began running her hands over me, checking my pulse and temperature. “You’re not okay. I’m getting yellow readings on my tapper. You have a fever.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “Just forget everything that happened on Cancri-9. Everything you saw and everything you heard about. For your own sake.”

She stared at me again, looking more worried than ever. She put her face close to mine.

“What did they do to you?” she whispered.

I managed a weak smile. “Nothing. I’m just tired. I need a little sleep, okay?”

Suddenly, a head dipped down over the side of the bunk above us.

“Are you two going to get it on or go to sleep? Do one or the other, please! The suspense is killing me.”

It was Carlos, naturally. I gave him the finger, and he withdrew his round face, grumbling.

Natasha kissed me, then gave me a worried smile and left. I felt the burning tingle of her kiss as it evaporated on my cheek.

I fell asleep the moment she was gone.

The next day I felt crappy. It was like having the flu or just getting over it. I was running a fever, and my face was slightly flushed. When I got up, I vomited in the bathroom. This gathered me no sympathy. Recruits live pretty close to one another aboard ship. They towel-snapped my ass as I bent over the commode.

“What’d you do, man? Steal a bottle from Graves’ office?”

“Something like that,” I said.

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