“You know what’s funny?” Jim said. “I feel certain this door will open and Tanaka will be standing there with a bunch of Laconian Marines in power armor ready to charge across.”
Teresa rolled her eyes, but Naomi laughed. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Of course not. But I’m certain it will. That’s weird, right?”
She took his hand, squeezed it once, and as she looked into his eyes, she said, “This is all right. Elvi is with us, and she’s in command of this ship.”
“Besides,” Alex said, “if she’s not, they’ve had plenty of time to call for backup. No one’s here besides the two of us.”
Jim nodded. He knew that the fears were irrational. That didn’t keep him from feeling them, but it did make it a little bit easier to take them lightly. Alex was right. They’d announced Elvi’s complicity to her crew the moment they’d transferred into the system, and no one had sounded the alarm as far as they could tell. The connection of their two ships, the transfer off the Rocinante and onto the Falcon, was almost symbolic compared with what they’d already done.
Amos clicked the last of the safety latches into place and keyed in the syncing protocol. A soft hissing vibration meant that the docking bridge was moving out, creating a corridor between the ships.
“Still, I don’t think we should all go over,” Naomi said. “Not at the same time, anyway.”
“Not until we know the situation over there,” Alex agreed.
“Not ever,” Naomi said. “One of us is always on the Roci. That’s a rule. I trust Elvi, and I trust her to know her crew. But I trust us more.”
Alex raised his hand like a schoolboy answering a question. “I’m happy to keep an eye on the farm if y’all want to go over.”
“I think Amos should stay too,” Naomi said.
“Better if I came with,” Amos said. “Nothing happening over here Tiny can’t keep eyes on.”
Naomi hesitated, and Jim wondered for a moment what would happen if she told Amos he had to stay. Maybe Naomi had the same doubt. “All right,” she said. “Alex and Teresa stay here for now. The rest of us go make introductions.”
Naomi caught his eye and lifted one eyebrow. She meant that he didn’t have to go. He shrugged. He meant that he did.
“Works for me,” Amos said, hauling himself into the airlock. “And we got a seal, pressure, and an invitation.”
Jim followed Naomi into the airlock and felt it in his bones when it cycled shut behind them. His fear of Tanaka had shifted. Now some part of him expected the outer airlock door to open onto the void, for the air to flow out and death to rush in. Instead, there was a soft clank, a hiss of gas as soft as an exhalation, and the gangway. The Falcon’s outer airlock was already open, and the three of them launched across to it. The air smelled different. Bright and astringent.
When the Falcon’s outer door closed, its inner door opened, and Elvi Okoye was there. Fayez floated beside her with a black-eyed girl. Elvi smiled, but she looked terrible. Her skin had an ashy tone, and her arms and legs were visibly atrophied.
“Naomi, Jim,” she said, drifting toward them like an obscene parody of an angel. “It’s good to see you again. And Amos.” As she stopped herself with a handhold, Elvi’s gaze flickered across Amos, and for a moment there was something almost like hunger in her eyes. The focus of a taxonomist on an important new species. “I’d heard you changed like Cara and Xan. I would really love to do a few medical scans while you’re here. If that’s all right with you?”
“If it helps, Doc,” Amos said, then turned to the black-eyed girl. She had very different features from Amos, but the blackness of their eyes, the grayness under their skins, left Jim’s brain trying to see the similarity as a family resemblance. “Hey, Sparkles.”
The girl frowned and started to say something, then stopped.
“Well,” Fayez said. “This is just awkward as hell, isn’t it?”
Elvi shook herself and motioned them in. “Please come in. I’ve had a little welcoming party set up, and we have a lot we need to talk about.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Elvi
The Rocinante had come through the Adro gate, the gate had lit up like a radio and X-ray bonfire, and Elvi knew that the game had changed. She hadn’t known what it had changed into or what the consequences of the change would be, but without doubt, the ways she’d been operating were the old ways now.