The Mars of Malcontents

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

A Broken Night

Pete had taken the dishes into the bathroom to wash them in one of the sinks. Valentina followed with the pots and set them in the sink next to his. She let the water run as hot as it would go, scraping the burnt remains of Stu’s attempt at cooking from the bottom with the edge of a spoon.

“You know, I’m bringing my brother back to the north pole once I find him,” she said. “Perhaps we’ll see each other then, if you’re still there.”

The corner of his mouth pulled up a bit as he looked over at her. The top of her head was just even with his shoulder, and the way he looked down, warm brown eyes through thick lashes that were almost too pretty, made her stomach jump again. “I look forward to it.”

He finished up and carried the dishes back out to air-dry before getting repacked with the rest of their supplies. The pots took longer to clean, and when she was done she cleaned herself up as much as she could, unbraiding and finger-combing her long hair, then braiding it back again. Perhaps at the next station she could shower.

She went to her suit and refilled the air and water bottles, taking a moment before reattaching the water to take another of the pills. Then she curled up on one of the bunks. Her body ached and longed for rest but her mind was anxious and fought sleep.

She wasn’t sure how long she was lying there, drifting between wakefulness and sleep, or how long the murmur of whispers was humming just under the sound of the air cyclers, but a frustrated noise from Pete brought her fully awake.

“We don’t have to do that,” he hissed.

“We have no reason not to,” Stu hissed back. “She look to you like someone who has people?”

“She said she has a brother.”

“What brother would let her wander around alone?”

“With no food,” Pete added. They were whispering more quietly now, and Valentina strained to make out the words. “She has nothing to take.”

“Everything is worth something,” Stu said. “That suit of hers—”

“Is ancient.”

“Did you see her stockings? She’s not so destitute as she’d have you believe.”

Valentina fought the urge to tuck her feet under her skirts. She had forgotten about the stockings. She had woken from her long illness wearing them and had never gotten around to switching them for a pair of her own hand-knit stockings. Her father had no doubt left them for her. The delicate even yarn of shimmering gray, the fancy cable pattern running up the sides screamed factory-made, and that meant life inside a corporate dome.

“Look at the rest of her clothes, though. She probably stole those stockings,” Pete said. “Or she was rich once but her luck changed, like ours.”

“Either way, they’re still worth something. And I want to know what she has in her pockets.”

“But we don’t have to kill her,” Pete said, and his tone said this was the crux of the argument that had wakened her.

“It would be easier if we did,” Stu grumbled. “And we have no reason not to.”

“Look, I’ll go sit on her and you go through her pockets.”

“And then what?”

“We let her go,” Pete said. “What’s she going to do?”

“If she makes trouble I will kill her,” Stu said.

“She won’t.”

Valentina didn’t know what to do. There was nowhere to run; they were between her and her suit, and even if they weren’t, it would take her several minutes to dress and get out of the station. She was trapped.

She watched Pete’s shadow coming toward her. She remembered how kind he had been, sharing his food with her. She remembered the warmth in his brown eyes as he’d talked with her. She supposed he thought he was being kind now as well, sitting on her to keep Stu from killing her, but Valentina set the bar for kindness a little higher than that.

Pete stopped his tiptoe advance when she sat up.

“Don’t fight,” Pete said. “He’s serious.”

“Why?” Valentina asked.

“We’ve run out of nearly everything, no more money and no sign of jobs. We’ve been walking pretty much in circles for months now.”

“I’m sure you’ll find jobs at the polar station. You’re miners.”

“I wish I could make Stu feel that sure,” Pete said.

“You grab her or I’m going to bash her brains in,” Stu growled and Pete yanked her off the bunk, wrapping his arms around her.

“Sorry,” he said, his lips brushing her ear as he whispered. “I have to do this. I’m just trying to keep you safe.”

“I don’t have anything worth anything,” Valentina insisted. She squirmed, but the arms around her were the arms of a youth who had spent his days hauling ore around, who currently spent his days pulling a sled across the ice. She had only been out of bed after contracting Martian fever for two days, and she had spent them pushing herself to the limits of her stamina. She had nothing left to fight him with.

“What’s this?” Stu asked, looking at the last pill in its paper envelope.

“Antibiotic,” Valentina said. “I’ve been sick.”

“Energy bars,” Stu said, digging through the rest of her pocket. “Nasty stuff; I don’t think we’re that desperate.”

“I told you she didn’t have anything,” Pete said.

“Nothing in the pockets of the suit, maybe,” Stu said, throwing the suit to the ground in disgust. “But there are the stockings. Maybe more she’s hiding on her person.”

“I don’t have anything,” Valentina said, struggling against Pete’s grip. “My mother just died of Martian fever. She was sick for a long time; I had to sell everything we owned to pay for the medicine that didn’t even save her. I don’t have anything.”

“You have nice machine-made stockings, and proper antibiotics.”

“My father”—she choked out the word; it felt strange saying it out loud—“left me those.”

“Is that all he left you?”

“Yes, I swear.”

Stu seemed to think this over and a flutter of hope wakened in Valentina’s heart, but then he shook his head and stepped toward her, his eyes going hard. “You’re wearing lots of layers. Lots of pockets in those layers.”

Pete’s arms tightened around her while Stu pawed through her clothing. He peeled the stockings off her legs, turning them inside out as if she might have hidden something within. Then he shoved his hands under her sweater to feel all over her shirt.

“If I had anything I would have given it to you already,” Valentina said, fighting tears.

“He’s nearly done,” Pete said, his arms squeezing in what she was sure he meant to be a comforting hug but only made her feel more trapped.

“A-ha,” Stu said, his hands emerging from her underskirt with the crinkle of squashed paper.

“That’s nothing,” Valentina said. “Just a note from my brother. It’s not worth anything except to me.”

Stu glanced at it and let it drop to the floor, but he still had something in his hand.

The other letter, the one written on thicker, smoother cream-colored paper, sealed with a corporate logo. Stu gave it a shake, frowned, then sliced open the seal with one dirty fingernail.

Valentina looked away. She knew it was irrational, this urge to have nothing to do with the words on that paper. And yet she had stuffed it in her pocket with her brother’s note. She hadn’t questioned it in the moment, had forgotten since that it was even there. But she had never tossed it aside.

Stu didn’t read it either, just unfolded the top, bottom, and sides to reveal the shining coins within.

Valentina froze, the glint of metal in the station lights hypnotizing her. Stu let them drop from the edge of the paper into his other palm, one soft plop against his flesh and then nine more clinks of coin on coin. She didn’t know what it was worth in a corporate domed city, but here at the north pole it was a fortune. She could have paid Hanako for the suit rather than stealing it. For that matter, she could have bought a better one. She could have stocked up on supplies rather than subsisting on fractions of energy bars.

She could have paid for a ride on an outgoing rover.

“Little liar,” Stu said, closing his fingers over the money. “You said you had nothing.”

“I didn’t know,” Valentina said, pressing back against Pete as Stu took half a step closer.

“She didn’t, Stu,” Pete said. “Look at her face. She had no idea.”

“She knows now,” Stu said, still stepping closer. “It’s too much to just walk away from, isn’t it, little girl?”

“What can I do about it?” Valentina said. “Just let me go. I just want to go. I don’t even want that money.” But her voice cracked at that half-truth.

“Come on, Stu,” Pete said. “Let’s not be monsters here. I’m hungry just like you are. But we can eat like kings now. Set up a business of our own. That’s seed money there, we both know it. We’ll just keep it and let her go. Keep a clean conscience.”

Valentina bit back a nervous laugh. Apparently, thievery wouldn’t bother Pete’s conscience. She supposed she should just be grateful that murder would. Stu dropped the coins from his left palm into his right one by one, then shoved them into the pocket of his jumpsuit. Valentina’s lips had just parted to take a deep breath of relief when his now empty hand whipped out at her.

Then she was spinning away as Pete shoved her away from him and she stumbled back onto the bunk, banging a shoulder on the metal frame. She pushed herself back up and turned to find Pete wrestling Stu into the bathroom. Pete was young and tall, but Stu was all muscle and knew how to use his lack of height to advantage. Valentina jumped off the bed, coming around to Pete’s other side to help push Stu into the bathroom. Pete slammed the door, then turned and braced his back against it.

“It doesn’t lock from here,” he said. “I can only hold him for a minute. Run, now.”

Valentina picked up her brother’s note from the bunk and stuffed it into her pocket. She didn’t see her stockings; Stu must still have them. She hurried into her jumpsuit as Stu’s pounding and cursing grew louder from behind the trembling door.

“He’ll want to chase you,” Pete said. “If you hurry and get out of sight, it will be easier to convince him not to bother. Get far enough away that he can’t see you from the door. You’re heading south anyway, out of our way.”

Stu bellowed and threw himself against the door hard enough to nearly open it. Pete grunted and pushed it shut again. Valentina could see he was tiring.

“I’m sorry. I tried to talk him out of this, but he’s feeling a lot more desperate than I am. Maybe because he’s used to being settled, not this nomad life. I didn’t have a steady gig long enough to get used to it. You know, I really do like you,” he added, but this time the crinkling of his eyes did nothing to her stomach.

“Does he . . . do this a lot?” Valentina asked. She couldn’t bring herself to ask if he killed people for their money.

“Times are hard,” Pete said after a long moment of wrestling with the words. “He has a temper.”

“Maybe you should find a different companion,” Valentina said, then fastened up her suit, pulling the helmet down over her head and sealing it. Pete risked a brief raise of a hand in farewell but Valentina didn’t return the gesture.

Her heart was pounding even before she started running, bounding over the ice. It was dark, and she had no light. The ice was smooth, mostly, but occasionally there were deep fissures, blown over with snow, all but invisible until you were right on top of them. They had startled her in the daylight; the thought of them terrified her in the dark. That and Pete’s story about the thing watching from the dark. But mostly she was afraid of Stu. If he caught up with her and killed her and pushed her body in a crevasse, no one would ever know what had become of her. Arturo would never know. He would think she had abandoned him to his fate.

Valentina ran as fast as she dared, head down to stare at the blackness beneath her. Phobos overhead was her only company, and he wouldn’t even light her way.

The station had disappeared over the horizon behind her before she remembered the letter, left discarded on the station floor after Stu had all the coins in his hand. She would never know now what it said or what the money had been for.