Page 63 of Mutant Mine

It’s what I suspected, but my stomach lurches to see it laid out so undeniably.

“Computer, am I understanding this right — that dotted line is our flight path?”

“CORRECT.”

“So… we’re flying in circles?”

“IT IS NOT A CIRCLE. IT IS AN ELLIPTICAL LOOP.”

Hrghhh. “Okay, fine. And how long have we been on this path?”

I’m hoping against hope that this was an error — that Roth just isn’t as good at piloting as he thinks he is, and he accidentally set our path wrong after he corrected for the asteroid belt.

“WE HAVE ALREADY COMPLETED THE PLANNED ROUTE TWICE. WE ARE IN OUR THIRD LOOP. EACH LOOP TAKES APPROXIMATELY FIVE EARTH DAYS.”

Almost two weeks, then. That’s when I was first dumpedat Roth’s feet in the canteen, hissing and scratching. So much has changed in that time — and all along, we’ve just been going in circles? Or fucking elliptical loops?

Roth isn’t rescuing us after all. He isn’t taking us anywhere. He’s waiting.

What the fuck is he waiting for? Whatisthis?

I’m hyperventilating. I drop slowly to my knees, then lean against the nearest metal panel, my back scored by the familiar grid pattern of a maintenance hatch. I curl myself up as small as I can. I want to seal up all the vulnerable parts of me that I’ve left him touch. Scrunch my body up into a ball of nothingness.

I’ve been such an idiot. Just for a moment there, I let myself believe in…everything. Everything I’ve wanted since I was a lost little girl whose parents traded her away.

I should have known better. No one rescues girls like me. Iknewthat, once. I knew it so hard, in every inch of me. It drove me onwards. It got me up and out. Am I going to have to learn that lesson again, the hard way? It felt hard enough the first time.

I used to be so proud of myself for knowing better than all the other girls. Girls like me, slaves in all but name, who had been bent over lighting the fire or scrubbing the floor when some rich guest stumbled across them and liked what he saw. There was always someone boasting about how her man was different; he was really going to whisk her away in a pumpkin carriage and change her life forever.

Used. Lied to. Taken for all they could give, then dumped like dead weight — or worse.

Stupid, stupid.

Fuck.

My memories of the past couple of weeks are reshaping, shuffling themselves around like a rigged deck of cards. Rothhas done a great impression of just playing the hand he’s been dealt, as surprised as the rest of us — but it’s starting to seem like he knows exactly what’s going on. Whatever that is, it’s something that he doesn’t want the rest of us to know about. And try as I might, I can’t think of a good explanation for why that might be.

I swing my head backwards and bang it against the metal panel behind me, hard enough to jar — once, twice. The pain is grounding. Amidst the escalating panic, that calm voice in me is finally able to speak. And that voice says:

No. I don’t believe it.

Of course you don’t. The other girlsneverbelieved it. They always shut their ears to our warnings, never saw the inevitable coming, until it was too late.

Even so. I don’t believe it.

It’s true. I don’t believe it. Not yet.

I am really, really afraid that it could be true. But in my heart of heart of hearts — the smallest babushka doll in the set; that quietest, most secret place, where my loneliness used to live — there’s still just… Roth. Just him.

I need to talk to him, give him a chance to explain. He must have a good reason for doing this.

And if he doesn’t, then I need to know that too.

31

Rory

IT DOESN’Tsurprise me to find that Roth’s awake too. He’s fully dressed and sat on the side of the bed. The lights are on, mercilessly bright.

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