7. Joking Around

Peter sat on his bunk in the dark and let the headache settle.

The vodka was wearing off in the worst way, leaving him clear-eyed and miserable at the same time. He had been awake long enough now to know he was not going back to sleep before he had to do this. Outside the porthole the lunar surface was where it always was, the dim gray nothing of the crater wall, and he stared at it the way he had stared at it as a kid when he could not figure out what his father wanted from him.

He kept circling back to the fact that Sam did not believe him. He could forgive Sam for that, because Sam was usually right about everything, and had been since they were nine and Sam corrected Peter's math homework, already resigned to being the one doing it forever. Sam being right was a fact of physics on the station, something even Angie would not contradict. The trouble was that being usually right had made Sam careful, and being careful had made Sam slow to believe an outlandish theory without a motive attached.

No one would believe him without a motive. Sam was right and Peter had known that walking out of Sam's office and he had known it walking back to his cabin and he knew it now. He did not have a motive. He had a gut instinct that he knew was right, but feelings were not a thing you put in front of a board.

He pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.

Okay. Different problem, then. If he could not prove the Ranchers were dangerous for no reason, he could at least make sure no one else paid for his guess being wrong. And he could make sure that if his guess was right, the LMS-7 would still be ready to launch with the rest of them in it.

That meant going to the wadi himself, alone. It had to be alone. He had to walk in and lay logistics in front of them and make it absolutely clear that the captain of the Hive personally trusted them with the lives of his crew. They had to believe he believed it. If they were innocent, the trip would go fine and the crew would evacuate to the Wadi and the LMS-7 would sit in dock. If they were not innocent, if they were resistant or hostile, then he would know that for a fact. Hell, if they really wanted the miners off that rock, they would give him time on the radio to get a message back, and the LMS-7 would launch.

It was not much of a plan, and it was still putting too much trust into the Rancher’s playing fair, but it was the best one he had.

He got up off the bunk and pulled his full dress uniform off the hook on the back of the door. It had been hanging there since the day of his father’s funeral. He had not worn it since, and still didn’t want to. He shook the dust off the shoulders.

Then he sat back down and dialed Sue's extension. She answered on the third ring.

"I'm having a drink with Moses. Come on down!" she called out.

"I've had plenty with Sam. I think he was trying to poison me."

"There goes your last ally, then."

"Thank you, Sue, for your encouragement."

"What's up? Surely you don't want me to work."

"I do. Meet me in conference room 2-B. In fifteen."

"Damnit, I was joking—"

Peter hung up on her. He stood and looked at the uniform a moment longer. Then he put it on. When he stepped into Conference Room 2-B, Li and Sue were already there, glaring across the table at each other in a thunderous match of mutual animosity. Peter had thought once, a long time ago, that they would make a great couple if they did not hate each others' guts so thoroughly. Whatever the disagreement was today, it had teeth.

Sam was curled up on a chair near the back of the table, head tilted up, staring at the ceiling tiles. Cookie was fiddling with the communications station and managing, very impressively, not to look at any of them.

"Where is she?" Peter stood at the head of the table and crossed his arms over the uniform. The crossed arms felt strange. The uniform felt stranger. Li shifted his glare onto Peter.

"He's on his way, Your Majesty."

The Your Majesty hit harder than Li probably intended. Sam's eyes came down off the ceiling.

"That was uncalled for, Li." Sue stood up.

"Stay out of this, Sue."

"Don't threaten me, Hard Hat. You've got some nerve—"

"Stop it. All of you." Peter slashed the air with his hands just as Angie walked in. He pointed at her. "Sit down." The uniform did most of the work. Everyone sat down and straightened up automatically, even Angie, even Li. Angie did not look pleased about it. There was a shadow about her, the kind a person picks up sitting too long alone, and she carried it into the room with her.

"Cookie, do you have the recorder going?"

"Yes, Captain, just like you asked. It's running." Cookie waved her hands over the comm station then scooted her chair back to the wall, eyeing Angie. Cookie was Angie's. Cookie's eyes on Angie at this exact moment said so.

Peter nodded and remained standing. He had practiced what came next in the corridor. It was not going to come out the way he had practiced.

"I've already notified the Ranchers. I want this all above board. I am personally going over to the Wadi to arrange the transportation logistics."

The stunned silence broke on Angie. "About damn time, you know."

He turned a stony face on her. "Have you been talking to them at all?"

"No. They haven't been returning my calls. I think they're still adjusting to the idea."

"I'm sure."

Sam coughed. Peter looked at him. Sam had his mouth half-open the way he did when he was trying to figure out whether or not to speak up.

"Yes?"

"Peter, is this such a great idea? I mean, well—" Sam glanced at Angie, then at the recorder, then at the ceiling tiles again. "I just mean. You. Going yourself. There's logistics people."

"I know we were talking about the Ranchers earlier, and I've taken all that into consideration. Anything else?"

Sam closed his mouth.

Angie watched the exchange. Her eyes had narrowed somewhere around the middle of it, and they did not unnarrow. "Talking about the Ranchers how?"

"In general."

"In general."

"Angie, as you’ve pointed our repeatedly, we've done the math on every other option. You won. I'm telling you you won. What do you want, a victory lap?"

"I want to know what you and Sam were talking about."

"Filtration systems," Peter said, and watched it land. It was a true sentence and an untrue one at the same time, and given Big Jim’s death, it carried a lot of weight. Angie held his look for a moment longer than she needed to and then she leaned back, unsatisfied, but shut down. For the moment.

Peter finally sat down. He laid out how he was traveling over to the Wadi, how long he intended to stay, and what he was planning to arrange. It was verbatim the Wadi evacuation plan Angie's team had written up three weeks ago. He had reread it in his cabin aloud to make sure his voice would not catch on any of her phrasing.

Angie looked smug. He tried to look like a professional captain making a smart decision.

"So that's it. In the meantime, keep to the LMS-7 evacuation schedule sent up from Earthside. I want everything by the book. Agreed?"

There was random head nodding around the table.

When the meeting was over, he asked Sam and Sue to stay behind. Angie pushed her people out the door without glancing at her brother once, and shut it behind her.

"Make sure Cookie turned that thing off."

Sam crossed to the comm and worked the panel. He nodded confirmation. Peter sat back down.

"Two hours after I head out, I want you to supervise the LMS-7 Evac. I want those ships ready to fly. Test run the automatic nav systems a few extra times. Li won't like it, but make him go outside to do a visual on the tiles. He's got a miner's eye for nitnoy problems, and he knows the materials."

Sam nodded, frowning. Sue erupted.

"What? What's going on?"

"Peter's crazy, that's what. He doesn't think the Ranchers will let us in. He believes they would rather sign our death warrants than let us in."

"That's absurd. And if you are that crazy, then why are you going over there?" Sue asked Peter, pointing at him.

"Do you believe me?"

"No!"

Peter nodded. "That's why." He got up and walked out.