Peter Watts - Starfish

Oh yes you do, says Shadow.

— but he knows that look. Brander wants him to fuck up real bad.

The others keep out of it, for the most part. Nakata, the nervous one, just keeps out of everyone's way. Caraco acts like she couldn't care less if he boiled alive in a smoker. Lubin just sits there, looking at the floor and smoldering; even Brander leaves him alone.

And Lenie. Lenie's cold and distant as a mountaintop. No, Fischer's not getting any help with Brander. So when it comes to a choice between the monsters out here or the one in there, it's an easy call.

Caraco and Nakata are doing a hull check back at the station. Their distant voices buzz distractingly along Fischer's jaw. He shuts his receiver off and settles down behind an outcropping of basalt pillows.

Later, he can't remember drifting off.

"Listen, cocksucker. I just did two shifts end to end because you didn't show up for work when you were supposed to. Then half another shift looking for you. We thought you were in trouble. We assumed you were in trouble. Don't tell me—"

Brander pushes Fischer up against the wall.

" Don't tell me ," he says again, "that you weren't. You don't want to say that."

Fischer looks around the ready room. Nakata watches from the opposite bulkhead, jumpy as a cat. Lubin rattles around in the equipment lockers, his back to the proceedings. Caraco racks her fins and edges past them to the ladder.

"Carac—"

Brander slams him hard against the wall.

Caraco, her foot on the bottom rung, turns and watches for a moment. A smile ghosts across her face. "Don't look at me, Gerry my man. This is your problem." She climbs away overhead.

Brander's face hovers a few centimeters away. His hood is still sealed, except for the mouth flap. His eyes look like translucent glass balls embedded in black plastic. He tightens his grip.

"So, cocksucker?"

"I'm…sorry—" Fischer stammers.

"You're sorry." Brander glances over his shoulder, includes Nakata in the joke. "He's sorry."

Nakata laughs, too loudly.

Lubin clanks in the locker, still ignoring them all. The airlock begins cycling.

"I don't think," Brander says, raising his voice over the sudden gurgle, "that you're sorry enough ."

The 'lock swings open. Lenie Clarke steps out, fins in one hand. Her blank eyes sweep across the room; they don't pause at Fischer. She carries her fins to the drying rack without a word.

Brander punches Fischer in the stomach. Fischer doubles over, gasping; his head smashes into the airlock hatch. He can't catch his breath. The deck scrapes his cheek. Brander's boot is almost touching his nose.

"Hey." Lenie's voice, distant, not particularly interested.

"Hey yourself, Lenie. He's got it coming."

"I know." A moment passes. "Still."

"Judy got nailed by a viperfish, looking for him. She could've been killed."

"Maybe." Lenie sounds as if she's very tired. "So why isn't Judy here?"

" I'm here," Brander says.

Fischer's lung is working again. Gulping air, he pushes himself up against the bulkhead. Brander glares at him. Lubin's back in the room now, just off to one side. Watching.

Lenie stands in the middle of the ready room. She shrugs.

"What?" Brander demands.

"I don't know." She glances indifferently at Fischer. "It's just, he…he just fucked up. He didn't mean any har—"

She stops. Fischer gets the sense that she's looking straight through him, through the bulkhead, right out into the abyss itself to something only she can see. Whatever it is, she doesn't like it much.

"Ah, fuck it." She heads for the ladder. "None of my business anyway."

Lenie, please…

Brander turns back to Fischer as she climbs out of sight. Fischer stares back. Endless seconds go by. Brander's fist hovers in mid-air.

It lashes out almost too fast to see. Fischer reels, catches himself on a conduit. Lights swarm across his left eye. He blinks them away, hanging onto the bulkhead. Everything hurts.

Brander unclenches his fist. "Lenie's way too nice," he remarks, flexing his fingers. "Personally, I don't care whether you meant any harm or not."

Beebe's almost as soundproof as the inside of an echo chamber.

Lenie Clarke sits on her bunk and listens to the walls. She can't hear any actual words, but a sudden impact of flesh against metal was clear enough a few minutes ago. Now, low voices converse out in the lounge. Water gurgles through a pipe somewhere.

She thinks she hears something moving downstairs.

She lays her ear against a random pipe. Nothing. Another; a hiss of compressed gas. A third; the faint, tinny echo of slow footsteps, scraping across the lower deck. After a moment a muted hum vibrates through the plumbing.

The medical scanner.

It's none of my business. It's between them. Brander's got his reasons, and Fischer—

He didn't mean any harm.

Fischer's nothing. He's a pathetic, twisted asshole, nobody's problem but his own. It's too bad he gets under Brander's skin like that, but life's not guaranteed to be fair. No one knows that better than Lenie Clarke. She knows what it's like. She remembers the fists out of nowhere, the million little things you didn't even know you'd done wrong until it was too late. Nobody helped her . She'd managed, though. Sex worked, sometimes, as a diversionary tactic. Other times you just had to run.

He didn't mean any harm.

She shakes her head.

Well I fucking didn't either!

The sound sinks in before the pain does. A dull, solid thud, like a fish hitting a floodlight. Blood oozes from the torn skin of her knuckles, the droplets almost black to her filtered vision. The stinging that follows is a welcome distraction.

The bulkhead, of course, is completely unmarked.

Out in the lounge, the conversation has stopped. Clarke sits rigid on the pallet, sucking her hand. Eventually, the voices start up again.

Almost time to go on shift with Nakata and Brander. Clarke looks around her cubby, hesitating. There's something she has to do before she opens the hatch, something important, and she can't quite remember what it is. Her eyes keep coming back to the same wall, looking for something that isn't—

The mirror. For some reason, she wants to see what she looks like. That's odd. She can't remember feeling that way for — well, for a long time. But it's no big deal. She'll just sit here until the feeling goes away. She doesn't have to step outside, she doesn't even have to stand up, until she feels normal again.

When in doubt, stay out of sight.

"Alice?"

The hatch is closed. There's no answer.

"She's in there." Brander stands at the end of the corridor, the lounge behind him. "She didn't go in more than ten minutes ago."

Clarke knocks again, harder. "Alice? It's almost time."

Brander turns on his heel — "I'll go get our stuff together." — and steps out of sight.

Beebe's hatches do not lock, for safety reasons. Still, Clarke hesitates. She knows how she'd feel if someone just walked into her private space without being invited.

But she said she was up for another shift. And I did knock…

She spins the wheel in the center of the hatch. The mimetic seal around the rim softens and retracts. Clarke pulls the hatch open, peers inside.

Alice Nakata lies twitching on her bunk, eyes closed, 'skin partially peeled. Leads trail from insertion points on her face and wrists, drape away to a lucid dreamer on the bedside shelf.

She goes to sleep ten minutes before her shift starts? It doesn't make sense. Besides, Nakata was just downstairs with the rest of them. With Fischer. How could anyone fall asleep after that ?