Page 68 of Mutant Mine

“You alright, man?” one of them asks.

I do not reply, but turn and walk away.

Where else?Where?I stalk around the ship, peering into every room I pass — banging closed doors open to check inside, in case someone has tried to hide her away. I listen anxiously for any unusual clamor as I approach the canteen, but she is not in there, either. She is not in the laundry or the kitchen, or any of the other corners where she may have thought to hide.

At last, there is nowhere left to look. I feel drained,depleted, dejected. Not knowing what else to do, I head back to our rooms, just in case she has returned there for any reason. Perhaps, I allow myself to think, she never left in the first place. Did I check in the closet, or under the bed? Could she have crawled into a kitchen cabinet to find inner peace among the saucepans?

She is not there.

I sit on the bed, that smells of her, and sink my head into my hands.

She is alive, I know it. I can still feel her within me. But there is notime. Everything is colliding, this situation is coming to its crisis, and the pieces are not where they need to be. What if I cannot find her before my brothers come? Will I have to choose?

I know what I would choose, if I had to. The certainty makes me feel that I am losing my mind. I have known her for less than a month. How can she already be so important?

She is not on the flight deck, either. That is the last place I check. I would even have been relieved to find her sending an SOS message and bringing the authorities down upon us, if it meant that I could see her one last time.

I slump down onto the stool and look around at the instruments, thinking. Trying to formulate a plan. And then my eyes fall on the maintenance hatch in the far wall.

* * *

AS I MAKEmy way across the ship, I am retracing the steps I took so recently — but my thoughts could not be more different.

My brothers are coming for me after all. Rory going missing distracted me from that revelation, but now I am able to think about it, and all that it signifies, with searing clarity.

Despite everything that I have told myself about setting the little bird free, I do not want to leave here without her. Hours spent panicking at the thought of losing her have made that clear.

I will, if I have to. I have done things that I am scared of before. But I must at least offer her the choice.

Rory was right. I never should have lied to her. I was trying to protect her, but all I have succeeded in doing is hurting her. She deserves the truth. Once she knows everything, there is scarcely the whisper of a chance that she will want to come with me — but it will be her own, informed choice. I will accept whatever she chooses.

The generous part of me hopes that she will say no, and go off to enjoy more freedom than I could ever offer her. But the greedy, selfish part of me saysplease.Please.

Rory. She must be so afraid.

Soon I reach the maximum security deck again. I pass by the corridor of cells, and head into the crew welfare room beyond it — the one that I found before, where the maintenance hatch was hanging open on the wall.

Now it is closed again. Someone, perhaps as they crawled past inside, has taken the opportunity to pull it shut.

Relief crashes over me.

These hatches were designed to allow engineers to navigate the ship’s inner workings, accessing all the cables, pipes, and life support systems. It is a tight squeeze for me — not many engineers are seven foot tall — but I manage to fit inside.

The crawlways run parallel to the corridors throughout the ship. I follow the path that I would take if I were trying to reach the cell where I once lived: left, then right for some distance, then left again.

As I round the final turn, I see her. Living, breathing, whole.Rory.

It is fortunate that we are in a crawlway. If not, I would have fallen to my knees.

Rory does not look up. She is sat against the wall of the tunnel, with her knees pulled up to her chin, looking at the ground. It is as though she has not heard me, although I know she must have; I have not managed to be graceful, dragging my bulk through these cramped spaces. More than once, my horns have clanged against the metal.

She does not move as I get closer.

Eventually, I maneuver myself into a sitting position on the opposite side of the tunnel. For a moment, we sit together in silence. The air feels so heavy with unsaid words, it is hard to know where to begin.

Beside Rory is the entrance to a small ventilation shaft. If you were to shuffle down it, one of the slits might give you a reasonable view of the cells.

“Did you come to see if your friends were alive?” I ask at last.

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