Local Star, Aimee Ogden [ebook reader that looks like a book txt] 📗

have been recycled without being properly powered down first. They still used the Hab’s ambient energy to uselessly light the dark as they waited for Reclamation. Triz edged down into Metal Reclamation and landed atop a chair, which may have been broken before her arrival but which certainly was after. “Ow!”

“Nice place. Great vibes.” Kalo dropped down just behind her, crushing a pile of corroded parts. “Let’s open an art gallery down here.”

Triz began pushing piles of rusty metal out of the way, trying to clear some space on the floor. She grunted as a hulking, antiquated model of food printer resisted her efforts. “A little help here?”

“Not a gallery? Okay, you’re thinking maybe a poetry salon.” He put his shoulder to the printer, and it screeched across the floor in answer to his efforts. A rough edge caught his hand as he straightened; he wiped blood on his trousers. “We looking for anything in particular, or are you just collecting spare parts?”

“A hinge. Or a seam of some kind.” Triz felt around the open space and found nothing but smooth paneling. “There’s a secretion apparatus built into the bottom of Reclamation, where we get wiring and plates extruded into the wrenchworks as we need them. Of course, it breaks about once a cycle, so there’s a way to open the whole thing up for repairs. It’s plenty big enough for us to get into the works through there.” She groped around into the middle of another pile and came up with a shimmerlamp whose silvery orb still gleamed faintly. She’d found one in the recycling pits as a kid, and successfully defended it in her hoard for a few years before it got crushed by an unscheduled run of that engine’s aeration stir. “It might even let your ego through, with a bit of squeezing.”

“The hero of Hedgehome does not squeeze.” He kicked over a pile of wall panels, which collapsed into a gnarled knot of pipework with a terrific clatter. But something in the wreckage made him stoop for a closer look, and he ran one boot back and forth in the little clearing. “Hey, this seems promising.”

Triz helped him shovel back metal remnants to open a space a meter across. “This is it!” She wedged her fingers into the seam and winced as it resisted her attempts to force it apart. “Can you help me pry it open?”

He got one hand into the gap she’d opened and levered it wide. Inside was a tangle of pipes and parts. Triz groped around it, freeing what pieces of the extrusion apparatus she could remove by hand. While she separated parts from their fittings, Kalo paced. “You’re abnormally quiet,” she said, after a few minutes’ work. “Should I be worried?”

“Please don’t be. If you’re worried about me, then I’ll know something’s really wrong. I’m just—” The sentence trailed off in an embarrassed laugh. “It’s, uh. Not working.” He flapped his left hand once, then let it hang limp at the end of his wrist.

Triz stared at him, trying to guess at his expression through the shadows. His sense of humor didn’t always match hers, but she didn’t think he was joking now. “Your hand isn’t working? What am I supposed to do with a one-handed pilot? You only cut it . . .”

On a sharp edge in Metal Reclamation.

Where electrobacteria chewed up anything metallic in sight.

She shined the light in his face; he put his arm up to shield his eyes. She wanted to see his face. “Your hand isn’t working,” she echoed. Because it’s made of metal. Like a Ceebee.

Chapter Eight

“I’m still spaceworthy,” Kalo said, as if she’d somehow done something to offend him. A deep breath cooled the fire of Triz’s outrage. She didn’t have time to be angry right now, or to unpack his hurt feelings, real or feigned. Casne didn’t have time. She found the access panel and punched her way through. It screeched on its hinges as it swung down into the wrenchworks. Triz followed it, boots first.

It took Kalo another moment to land behind her in the dark wrenchworks. The emergency lighting gleamed eerie blue here, too, turning the stranded Swarmers into pale ghosts of their former glory. Other systems had come online, though: This far at the end of the Hab from the primary ambient generators, the ‘works had a few systems important enough to warrant redundant emergency power sources of their own. A faint dry breeze wafted down from the air vents, and the amber operation light shone beside the huge airlocks at the center of the ‘works. That loosened the tight set of Triz’s jaw a little.

As Triz surveyed the situation, the wallport lit up, its screen crawling with red and yellow warning symbols. A good sign. The maintenance crews uphab must be busy. She crossed to the wallport and offered her fob, which clicked once and promptly died. It, too, had lost its integrity to the bacteria in Reclamation. She unlatched the manual keypad from its node and typed in her own queries. She didn’t look up when Kalo approached, but resentment crawled out between her clenched teeth anyway. “So, you’re a Ceebee.”

“Gods of—do they have exclusive rights to mods? There’s billions of people in the Confederated Worlds and most of them have one augment or another.”

He hadn’t actually answered her accusation. She met his bluster with stony silence.

He exhaled noisily. “No, Triz, I’m not a Ceebee! Or if I am, I’m a pretty awful one, considering how many of them I blasted out of the sky at Hedgehome. You think I’m the only pilot with nano repairs? Or combat mods?” He sat down against the wallport, smearing a sticky trail of muck down the wall. “Being a Ceebee isn’t about what you do to yourself. It’s about what you do to other people to get what you think you deserve. So tell me, Triz, what exactly do I deserve?”

Triz bit her tongue. She didn’t know whether he was