That…was a really good point.
“I don’t know,” Arturo said. “You can’t drown in space.”
“But you can asphyxiate,” Nedd said. “Which sounds just as unpleasant.”
The food suddenly felt heavy in my mouth. I set down my fork, which might have originally been some sort of gardening implement.
“Or freeze to death,” Catnip added. “It’s cold in space.”
“The ocean can be cold,” Juno said. “Depending on the currents and the time of year.”
“You don’t depressurize if you jump into the ocean though,” Nedd said. “That scud sounds nasty. Did you know it can make your saliva boil in your mouth?”
“Ew, Nedd,” FM said. “We’re eating.”
The Superiority ship exploded before my eyes. The bodies of my parents were flung into space, fluids voiding, their eyeballs boiling.
I shook my head and set down my plate. That hadn’t happened. They’d been torn apart by the mindblades first.
Hadn’t they?
“The ocean does the opposite,” Juno said. “The pressure in its depths is so great it can crush you.”
“Whoa,” Nedd said. “That’s awesome.”
Stars. Why did everything in the galaxy feel like it was trying to kill us? I had started this conversation, but now I had to get away from it. “Excuse me,” I said, and I got up, leaving my food behind. I moved away from the city, down the beach toward the water.
A projectile shot over the ocean, and I flinched. Was the water attacking us now?
But no, it was a bird—a whole flock of them, wings tucked against their bodies as they shot like bullets into the waves, and then flapping to give them lift again, carrying them into the air with fish in their mouths.
Stars. I’d seen pictures of birds, but watching them glide over the water like so many starfighters…
It was incredible, but it didn’t stop my hands from shaking.
I wiped cold sweat from my forehead. Scud, I’d walked away from the feast. Was I ruining our diplomatic relations? Offending the kitsen somehow? Would they perceive this as a threat?
It didn’t matter. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t breathe. As I stared out at the ocean, the whole of it pressed down on me, all the weight of what felt like millions of miles of water bearing down on my body.
It was too much.
“Jorgen?” FM said. I wheeled around to find her watching me with concern.
Scud, not concern. Anything but concern. I wished she’d look at me the way she had back on the platform on ReDawn, when she’d been pissed at me for telling her she shouldn’t have liberated the slugs from Detritus. She’d been so angry at me, when I’d simply pointed out the obvious—she’d broken the chain of command, violated our orders, and put our comrades in danger.
You are not my flightleader, she’d said.
That had gutted me then, but I found it infinitely preferable to what I knew she was going to say now.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Jorgen,” FM said. “You aren’t fine.”
“Yes,” I said. “I am.”
“That’s ridiculous. You can’t be fine. Your parents—”
“This isn’t the time!” I said. “We are in the middle of a diplomatic mission! We need to talk to the senate so we can get Cobb and Gran-Gran home.”
Once we brought Cobb back though, Stoff was definitely going to declare him indisposed. There was no avoiding that. In fact, according to protocol, I should have already told Stoff that we’d found Cobb and he was indeed unconscious.
I…didn’t want to. As soon as I did, Stoff would be fully within his rights to start acting as admiral. I had no idea what he would do, but whatever it was…I didn’t trust it. Cobb knew what was best for the DDF, for our people, for Detritus. He should be the one in charge.
He would get us through this.
FM stared at me with her lips pressed together like she was trying to hold in all the things she wanted to say.
“This isn’t about Cobb,” she said finally. “It’s not about Gran-Gran, and it’s not about our diplomatic mission.”
“Exactly,” I said. “And those are the only things that matter right now.”
“That’s not true,” she said. “You matter, Jorgen. What happened to you, it matters.”
I balled my fists, turning away from her to look out at the sea. A particularly large wave washed up the beach, and I wished it would come all the way up and wash me out to sea and be done with it. I imagined the water pulling me down, crushing me the way Juno said it would, all that weight blocking out the questions, the demands, the needs of everyone else.