Page 22 of Mutant Mine

Not that being able to see Roth coming would help me much. I’m powerless against him. He’s made that perfectly clear.

I dig my nails in harder.

There’s another problem. I do feel better having had some food and water — but now that I’ve seen to one bodily need, another is getting increasingly desperate. I need the bathroom. I think I’m going to have to leave my corner, unless I want toreallymark it as my territory.

…Maybe that’s not the stupidest idea in the world? I’ve already decided that I won’t be washing myself or changing my clothes today, even though I feel gross. There’s nothing I’d like more right now than to be clean and comfortable — but it’s taken several days of scrambling through tunnels to build up these protective layers of sweat, oil, and general filth. If Roth wants my body, I’m not going to make it nice for him.

In the end, the grossness I’m willing to stoop to only goes so far. I can’t face peeing myself, so, bathroom it is.

Getting up is hard. My legs are full of pins and needles after sitting down for so long. After a bit of undignified hopping around waiting for sensation to return (I make a mental note that sitting on my feet may not be the best way to prepare myself for a fight), I open the door Roth gestured at before he left.

Oh, wow.

The bathroom is something. Jeez, the Captain lived likethiswhile we were curled up in our stupid little bunks and squashing ourselves into hygiene pods for our daily sluice down?

The room is tiled with some kind of pale, creamy stone, dotted with sparkling specks of natural gems. Who knows what planet they mined this from, but it’s lovely. There’s a sink made of the same stone, with a huge gold-framed mirror over the top, and a shelf filled with expensive soaps and creams. A rack full of fluffy towels. A sleek toilet. A spacious glass shower cubicle, where the water will fall on you like rain. And best of all: an enormous bathtub. There are buttons along the side, to release all kinds of colorful, scented waters and froths.

It’s beautiful. Immediately, I feel like a grubby little urchin; like I’ll spoil it just by touching anything.

They say that your first thought is what you were conditioned to think, and what you thinknextdefines who you really are. My next thought is that I deserve a nice bathroom as much as the next person — and I ought to prove it by diving into that bathtub like a swimming pool.

But that would have to be under entirely different circumstances.

As it is, I double and triple check that the door is locked,before using the toilet as quickly as I can. It’s a relief to use a real bathroom, after almost two days of peeing in the corners of maintenance crawlways and hoping that none would drip into a vital computer system. What an embarrassing waythatwould have been to short-circuit the ship again.

The toilet is the fancy bidet kind — I shriek in surprise and almost fall off the seat when it starts spritzing me from below. At the enormous sink, I wash my hands, and indulge in just one treat: splashing cool water onto my face, to wash days of grit out of my eyes.It will help me stay awake, I tell myself.

I retreat quickly back to my corner — but I feel restless now. Even the sensation of a full bladder was a useful distraction from my anxiety. Without that, there’s nothing else to think about.

At any minute, Roth could come back. I fret, picking at my fingers until I tear the skin. I jump at every sound. I can’t stop imagining every horrible possibility — every inch of suffering that might lie ahead of me tonight. My breaths get faster and faster. Will I even be alive by the morning? Will I want to be?

Just as I’m on the brink of a full-blown panic attack, I look up, out of the window above the Captain’s dining table.

As soon as Roth’s goons dumped me in this room earlier, I was drawn to the window. It’s the first time I’ve seen outside the ship since I came on board. But I soon discovered that staring into the suffocating vastness of space is a bad idea when you’re trying to stay sane. All thatnothingness. How alone we are. A cursed ship on a cursed mission, and truly damned to hell.

So far, there’s been nothing out there but black, black, black, sprinkled with faraway stars.

But now, in the distance, I can see something moredistinct: a nebula. It looks like a cloud with a bright light at its center, illuminating plumes of hydrogen and cosmic dust. The colors are fantastical: neon pink with a purple halo. My eyes widen as I take it in.

It doesn’t look that big from here, but a nebula like this may be hundreds of light-years from side to side. Someone else, far away (perhaps on a planet in the Theta Zone, or perhaps standing at a telescope on Earth) might also be looking at it, right this second, and thinking how beautiful it is. It might even have a name.

And one day, these clouds of matter may gather together to form new stars or planets. I could be witnessing the birth of something.

I feel like the universe has thrown me a life ring. It’s a connection to a reality outside of the Hades — and it brings my spiraling thoughts back down to the ground. No matter what Roth does when he gets back, there are whole worlds out there where good things are happening.

Somewhere, somehow, it’s all going to be okay. For somebody, if not for me. And weirdly, that’s enough.

Thank you, little nebula,I think, before tearing my eyes away.

Okay. Sitting here panicking clearly isn’t helping me. I need to get up and do something — ideally something that will help me be stronger or more awake when Roth returns.

To the kitchen, then. That must be behind the remaining mystery door. There’s also the door where we came in, the bathroom, and the one Roth disappeared through to… somewhere? I don’t actually know where he went, but there’s no way I’m following him.

Like the bathroom, the kitchen is seriously fancy. It’s made of the same glittering stone, and fitted with every gadget and modern convenience. There’s even a walk-in stasis unit,instead of a refrigerator like I’m used to. These units are very rare, andsoexpensive. I’m shocked to see one, even in the Captain’s quarters.

Stasis units use the same superluminal technology as the ship’s core, so that time passes reeeally slooowly inside relative to outside. Through the glass door, I can see all sorts of food, still just as fresh as the day it was placed on the shelves: pink grapes with misty skins, nectarines, melons and apples, crusty bread, butter and cheese in porcelain dishes, glass bottles of milk, cured meats wrapped in brown paper, vegetables, and bundles of soft green herbs.

In the cabinets are the shelf-stable goods which don’t require clever preservation: wine, honey, tea leaves, spices.

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