I cradle Duster's head, his face in the crook of my arm. One hand holds it there, the other is pressed over the nape of his neck so he can't try to pull the comm link out again. He fought at first, sobbing, screaming about Core and clawing the back of his neck and smearing the blood from the injection point all over the transparent holding field between the cell bars as he flung himself against it. I had to jump on his back, get him in a headlock. He finally collapsed, and now he clings to me, chest heaving. His sobs have faded, but my sleeve is wet. He moans.

I stroke his hair with clumsy fingers. The adrenaline that spurred me to restrain him is gone, now, and I'm gutted. My own neck is heavy and stiff from the trauma Wrangham caused, but Crackjaw's medicine still hasn't worn off. What I feel can't be anything close to a comm link injection without painkillers. Your mother not wanting to save you, though. That hurts deeper than drugs can reach.

"Duster?"

He doesn't reply, only flinches.

"Duster, can you hear me?

A mumble comes from the depths of my filthy soal-proof suit sleeve. I gently ease forward and loosen my grip, and Duster rolls a little away from me so I can see his face. His eyes are nearly swollen shut, and blood spills from his nose and down to his lips. It's sticky, though, almost dried.

"Is –" the voice doesn't sound like my own. "Is the comm still live?"

"No."

"And you... you're sure it was Core?"

Tears leak from the slits of Duster's eyes, again. "He was saying... saying your name. Screaming." His face contorts, and he curls towards me again. "He was in pain. I... I knew it. I could feel it. Bloody hell, how did... how did you keep on with him... him... in your head all that time? When he was... when he was in the stasis pod?"

I should cry. My eyes prickle, hot and sharp. But I am dried up. I am tired. I am tired of explaining how I deal with the shite in my life. I don't know how I am.

"Any connection was better than none."

"Not... not this time." A tear slides off Duster's cheek and lands on my sleeve. It's absorbed into the cloth alongside the bloodstains. "This is awful."

Suddenly he grimaces, teeth white against the dark bruising on his face. He sucks in a breath.

"What?" I sit up, pulling him upright with me. " What is it?"

"I think..." He flinches again, violently, and his fingers dig into my arms. "No.... No it's starting again, make it stop. Make it stop! NO! NO!"

He screams. Over. And over. I can barely hear myself, calling to him, begging him to tell me what's happening, what Core is saying. Duster writhes on the floor, back arching. I can't restrain him, though. My arms shake. Black dots swarm my vision. I can't help him. I can't help Core. I can't do –

No. This is a favour for No-Hands. They have no beef with Duster. This is about me.

Still crouched beside Duster, I look over my shoulder, towards whatever frightened Duster, and see what he tried to warn me about. A black mask it set in the wall, up by the tall ceiling. It's featureless, without shadow or highlight, just a flat black shape against the metal. It's like the silhouette.

I grip Duster's shoulders, feel him cling to me.

"I know you're listening, watching, too, probably!" I shout at the mask. "What do you want from me? What do I have to do to make this stop?"

The mask duplicates in my vision. My ears ring. The voice that suddenly fills the cell warbles in my hearing, as if through water.

"Clever girl! But we both know what flips the switch on your friends' comm link. Where did you put the data you collected in Griswold?"

I blink. It's only been a few days, but already I'd forgotten about the recorder, and the drive Ilvan gave me back at the Justman's office. What did I do with –

Wolf.

I haven't seen anything of him, or Melna. Are they still alive? If the Guild didn't find the data on Wolf, that could mean anything. He ditched it. Or they killed him and dumped the body before searching it. Either way, there's only one answer I can give the mask.

"I don't know where it is."

Duster's shriek is a knife blade. I grab him. But he's writhing, twisting on the floor. He's biting his own arm. I drag it out, leaving torn cloth and blood in his mouth, and clamp my hand around the bite to stem the flow. I have to sit on his chest to keep him down.

"Duster! Duster, what's happening? What're they doing?"

"They're drilling! I can... I can feel it spinning... round... round... deeper... GAAAAAAAHH!"

"NO!" I wrench myself around to face the mask. "I DON'T KNOW WHERE IT IS!"

The voice doesn't hesitate. "I'll ask you again in an hour."

Duster screams.

This goes on for a long time. Duster squirms on the floor, crying, vomiting yellow liquid, fighting me as I keep him from pulling out the comm link. Without the brute strength of Wrangham to do it quick, and Crackjaw's expertise to repair the damage, he'll give himself a hemorrhage, or worse. I'm tiring, though. Quickly.

"Where is the the data you collected in Griswold?"

"I don't know!"

I'm groggy with exhaustion. Overreach when I try to grab Duster's hand, smash my knuckles against the wall. I've got to conserve energy. So I lie on his head, use my deadweight to keep him down. I force myself to count through his waves of pain, as midwives teach laboring mothers-to-be.

"Where is the data you collected in Griswold?"

"I told you, I don't know!"

There is a rhythm to it. Near as I can tell, four minutes of relief, two of pain. They're pacing themselves, and Duster. They don't want to wear him out. They want him conscious for all of this. I think of the grey lines on Wolf's face, the permanent white rims on Melna's eyes, and remember the smile I used to see on Duster. I scream, too.

Over

and

over

and

over.

"Where is the data you collected in Griswold?"

Enough.

In his thrashing Duster has thrown himself to the wall furthest from the mask, head shoved down into the very corner and face against the floor. His mechanic's uniform is covered in blood, sweat, and vomit. His entire body lurches with the ferocity of his breathing. If we're lucky, he'll hyperventilate and pass out. I'm lying behind him in a puddle of stomach fluid and blood, one cheek against the cold metal floor, and one hand still pressed to the nape of his neck. The hand is cramped. It's taught and curved like a claw, dehydration stronger than I am pulling it slowly closed. My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth. I close my eyes.

"Enough." I have to say it four times before even I can hear it.

The voice waits.

"I don't... have it, and... I don't... know where it is. I disposed of... of it... before I left Griswold."

"I thought so."

I open my eyes.

"What?"

The harsh scrape of the door echoes off the walls, again, then footsteps approach. I recognize Charon's spurs, and my mind rages against my dumb legs for not standing, for getting my exposed back to the wall. There are not as many footsteps as the first time. They halt just behind me, to my right. Focusing all my strength, I pull my hand off Duster's neck, and use the momentum to roll my torso back.

Charon is staring at me through the bars and the smears of Duster's blood, again. He's got one of those sulfuric cigars between his teeth, and a rifle under his arm. Behind him stand two more Cattlemen. Between them, held still by pistols at their necks, are Wolf and Melna. Melna is crying, eyes shut and swollen. But Wolf's eyes are at mine like his namesake's teeth at a throat. I can't look away.

"Mr. Strony," the voice croons. "Would you tell the good Fire-keeper where the Griswold data is, just like you told me?"

"Wait!" I sit up, drop my head between my knees when the world spins, then glare up at the mask. "You knew I'd disposed of it? Then what the BLOODY HELL was all THAT for?"

"A chance for you."

"A chance for what?"

"To save your Enforcer."

Beside me, Duster jerks. Then his breathing begins to slow. I don't trust this.

"Duster?" I whisper. "What's going on?"

He doesn't reply. His shoulders slump, and I see the muscles in his forearms flex one last time, then relax.

I swing my wobbling head around towards the mask, again. It's turning into fractals in my vision, impassive and blank over and over and over.

"What's going on?"

"Mr. Strony?"

Wolf's voice is flat. "The recorder and whatnot she gave me, they're in the soal-processor on her ship. I threw 'em there, soon as I saw the Stilettos coming after us."

"There's a good man!"

I stare at Wolf, unbelieving.

He told them.

There isn't a mark on either of them, Wolf or Melna.

He just told them.

Then Charon's man gives Wolf a shove, and he disappears behind Charon for a moment. Soal-energy hums, metal clacks, and he reappears between the bars of the cell on the other side of the hallway. Melna is flung in after him, and he's on his knees beside her practically before she hits the ground. His long arms wrap around her, and she hides her face in his neck. Those round eyes of his focus on the floor.

Then Charon's boot kicks the bars of our cell. I glare up at him as he lets cigar smoke slide from between his lips and hit the containment field. It crackles, little flickers of light like miniature cloud lightning in a vapour storm.

"Heard you know those two locals, broad."

I press my lips together, swallow despite the stab it makes down my dry throat.

"But even if you don't, you're the thing making 'em valuable. They're connected to you. Now, I won't touch 'em. At least, not while you cooperate. I'm noble like that. I keep my word. You just say yes when No-Hands says yes, and lie down when she says lie down, girl, and you'll all be fine. Don't try to pull resistance like you did with that Enforcer, and the three of you will get out alive."

My vision is still unsteady. Both hands are cramping now, too, fingers drawn towards my wrists. I can hardly keep my chin up. My mouth is too dry to even spit at him.

"Three?"

"You and the two lovers, here."

"What about Duster, and my Enforcer?"

"The one's mine, and the other? When No-Hands teaches a lesson, she makes sure it's one you won't never forget. Your Enforcer – well, he's dead, sweetheart. So that means when No-Hands is done with you, you're all mine, and there's nobody you can claim to to stop me."

He bites his cigar, grinning, then waves at his men. Their shadows ripple over my legs as they walk for the door. I don't hear it slam shut behind them, though. My ears are ringing. Loud, buzzing, worse than static, worse than a dead comm link.

I stare at Melna, at her open mouth, sobbing what I can't hear. At Wolf, who now is the one to look away from me. At Duster, limp and filthy in the corner. At my warped hands, clutching at nothing.

Core is dead. 

---

Time, I have found, is meaningless in four instances:

When you're lying with someone you love, breathing synched and muscles loose. Transit centers between delayed transports at night. Your bedroom after you've lost something that was supposed to be there the next day, and you have nothing to look forward to. The hallways of emergency medical centers. 

It's like that all over again. 

I lie on the floor. Away from Duster. He's shorter, squarer, not the same shape. But he reminds me, nevertheless. 

I stare at the wall. It hurts to blink. 

Everything is humming. 

My nerves.

The floor.

The wall.

My ears.

My voice. 

They say the stars will go out

Sometime, some night,

And the moon will wane and not come back

They say the sun will set

And extinguish its light

And the world forever onwards be black

Trying to soothe. It's okay, it's okay. Just sleep. There's hope when you wake up. There's always hope. 

Feel like getting up, today?

You can ask that. Questions are hope. Not knowing is hope.

But you know, now.

No. Hum. The words, they're familiar. 

Familiar is safe. 

Safe.

Safe safe safe.

But I've got a secret that burns higher than the sun

A hold on a hope lighter than the moon

Safe safe safe.

My voice is cracking, noise is cracking out of me. Is it laughter?

And the sun can't outshine how bright my world is,

For I've got my arms –

safe safe safe 

safe safe safe 

safe safe safe 

screaming