Leviathan Falls

Chapter Nineteen: Kit

Their cabin on the Preiss was so small that if Rohi were standing in it, he couldn’t cross the room without brushing against her. The thick cloth covering the metal bulkheads was an unappetizing olive color with location and maintenance data woven into the fabric in orange thread. The wall screen was hardly bigger than two handhelds put side by side and had a protective coating that never seemed clean no matter how much Kit wiped it down. Their crash couches were old gel and badly designed, built into cubbies in the wall that could pinch fingers and toes if they weren’t careful. Bakari’s couch was welded to the deck, the metal still bright where it had been put in. It was a much better design.

It was their only private space for the next few months while the Preiss burned out to the ring gate, made the transit to Nieuwestad system, and then burned to Fortuna Sittard—the capital city on the main habitable planet.

They shared a common galley, microgymnasium, and showers with six other cabins. Someone had put up the city flag of their new home: green and red with a black-and-white patterned circle in the center that looked suspiciously like a football. The door directly across from them belonged to a pair of brothers from Breach Candy who had left their mother’s old salvage company for a contract on Nieuwestad, giving up the family trade of breaking down old terraforming equipment to build controlled environments in the unfamiliar biology of a new world. Kit worried that Bakari’s crying kept the brothers awake, but if it did, they didn’t complain.

One of the farther cabins had a woman with her preteen daughter, who Rohi had taken on as a kind of in-transit project to know better. Kit had the impression that the woman was leaving a bad marriage and that the daughter was seeing a therapist who was making the same transit, but four decks down.

Kit felt a little uncomfortable knowing even that much but recognized that his aversion to hearing about other people’s family history was mostly projection. He’d spent so much of his life avoiding talking about who his father was that hearing about someone else’s felt a little dangerous.

Kit centered himself in the camera, then shifted so that Bakari, napping in the pressure wrap strapped across his chest, also appeared. He started the recording.

“Hey, Dad. Don’t know where you are or when you’ll get this, but I wanted to check in. The little bear is right here too.”

Kit shifted to put Bakari’s face more clearly in the frame—the scrim of tightly curled, fine black hair on his scalp; the full, soft lips pursing and relaxing as he dreamed; the eyelids as dark as if he were wearing eye shadow. Kit gave his father, where and whenever he was, a long look at his grandson, then shifted back.

“We’ve been on the float for five days so far. He’s taking to it better than I am. The ship infirmary has a resistance gel chamber he can use, but we’re not the only family on board that needs it, so we have to schedule times. Rohi thinks it’s important, though. And she’s probably right. Anyway, he doesn’t like it, but he sleeps like a beast afterward. So that’s good. I’m doing fine. Rohi’s doing fine. If we can still stand each other when we get to Nieuwestad, I think it means we’re destined to stay married forever. Living this close to someone isn’t what I’m used to.”

He paused for a moment, wondering whether he should go back and start the recording again. Joking with his father about divorce and shipboard life might seem pointed, and he didn’t want to seem critical. But Bakari shifted a little. The nap wouldn’t last forever, and it was harder to make a message when the baby was awake.

He felt the tug again—protecting his father on one hand and his son on the other. Kit always fell into the middle place between his mother and his father, his mother and Rohi, the contract association and his family. His mother said he got his peacemaker instincts from his father. Maybe that was true, but it hadn’t been his experience of Alex Kamal.

He realized how long he’d been quiet and smiled an apology to the camera.

“Anyway,” he said, “the doctor says the boy’s fine. We’re not going to do the adaptation cocktail. They say as young as he is, it would do more harm than good. As long as he gets his exercise time in and we make sure he gets enough rest when we get planetside, he’ll adapt faster than we will.

“Everything’s looking good here. Going according to plan. We’ll be making the ring transit pretty soon now. That’s really the only scary part of this whole trip. But Bakari is going to take his first steps on Nieuwestad. He won’t even remember Mars. I hope you’ll get a chance to come see him. I don’t know that it’ll mean much to him, but it would mean a lot to me. You’d like Rohi, and you’d love the little bear here. I hope wherever you are, you’re okay and things aren’t any weirder than they have to be.

“Take care of yourself, Grandpa.”

He ended the recording, then played it back. The gap where he’d lost himself in thought wasn’t as noticeable as he’d feared, so he saved the message, encrypted it, and queued it for delivery to the address that Alex had given him for the underground. He didn’t know where it would go from there. He didn’t play with political issues except when the nature of his family demanded it.

It was a risk, but only a little one. Alex understood that if Laconian security forces came calling, Kit would cooperate with them to save himself and his family. They hadn’t yet, apart from a meeting his mother had a year before. Kit seemed beneath their notice, and hopefully getting out to the colonies would put him even further off Laconia’s radar. That was the other reason he’d wanted to take this contract. The reason he didn’t discuss with Rohi.

Bakari yawned, his eyes still closed, and shifted against Kit’s chest. He’d be awake soon, which if tradition held would mean milk and a diaper change. Kit sent a quick message to Rohi: NOT AWAKE, BUT WAKING.

They had formula mixed and ready to go, but Rohi still believed in breastfeeding, and while Kit was able to do a lot to take care of his son, that was a full-on mother-baby thing he was happy to tag out for. Also, he could go to their little gym and get his daily sweating done.

Bakari wrinkled his nose the way he had since they’d seen him in a sonogram, and opened his bright, dark eyes. His focus swam a little, then found Kit’s eyes looking back at him. Bakari made a little bap sound, not even babbling so much as muttering to himself. If he didn’t seem to take any particular joy in seeing his father, it was probably because Kit was almost always there. It made him feel obscurely proud to be so taken for granted.

He was debating to himself whether to message Rohi again or get a round of formula ready when the cabin door slid open. As soon as he saw her face, he knew something was wrong.

“Babe?” he said.

“I’m here.” She gestured to Bakari, and Kit unfolded the boy from his pressure wrap. Bakari slowly windmilled his arms and legs, no distress in his movement at all. As if flying weightless through the air was as natural as anything else. Rohi scooped a hand around him and pulled him close. The baby, knowing what came next, was already plucking at the flight suit over her breast. Like a sleepwalker, Rohi pulled her suit open and guided him to her nipple.

“Babe,” Kit said again. “What happened?”

Rohi took a deep breath, like a diver looking down toward distant water. “There was another blink. San Esteban system.”

Kit felt his gut tighten, but only a little. He’d been through a half dozen rounds of the aliens from inside the rings turning off his mind for him. Everyone in Sol had.

“How bad was it?” he asked.

“They’re dead,” Rohi said. “Everyone in the system. They’re all just dead.”