Page 117 of Homebound
Firmly telling herself to stop borrowing trouble, Gemma pushed away the curtain to greet Simon. It was getting dark and… Tana-Tana wasn’t there.
“Simon!” she called out in a panic. “The landlord’s missing!”
Simon silently moved to her side and took her hand to calm her down.
“I take him outside at night. For refrigeration.”
Gemma’s mood soured. “This is wrong.”
“This is right. Or he’ll rot.”
“Okay, I can’t think about it. It’s terrible.”
“Someone else’s death is part of your survival,” he said.
“Do you ever feel sorry when you kill others, Simon?”
“No. I don’t kill without reason.”
“Is any reason worth another person’s death?”
“Many reasons are.” He remained perfectly comfortable with what was so morally wrong to Gemma.
She tried again, “Do you think this Tana-Tana may have family somewhere? That someone might cry to learn of his death? Suffer from grief?”
He answered calmly, “None of it is important.”
Ill at ease, she asked slowly, “Would you kill me if you had to?”
“You?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “I killforyou.”
Gemma searched his face in the darkness. Whatever their physical differences, Gemma could more than live with them. But the value Simon placed on another being’s life diverged from Gemma’s by a hundred and eighty degrees. She struggled to justify Simon’s casual brutality and his total lack of remorse.
The four Perali he killed outside the prison. The Obu, Arlo, and all the guards that had perished at his hand. The terrifying man who had wanted to eat Gemma. And now the Tana-Tana alien. How many total? And how many before them?
Every time Simon had been so casual about it, so dismissively indifferent. She didn’t know how to adjust to this side of him.
He squeezed her hand. “Stop analyzing me, Gemma. Come, take what you need and go back. I’m expecting a visitor. He cannot see you.”
Still perturbed but the many emotions roiling within her, Gemma collected some food from the shelf and went to their side of the room, closing the curtain behind her.
Before long, she heard a quiet knock on the door. Simon answered it, and there was a conversation in a language she didn’t recognize. Simon followed the visitor outside, and all was quiet. She strained her ears, wondering if there was a danger to him in meeting this customer. All those thoughts about the dead and the killings made her restless.
Soon the door opened and closed quietly with Simon’s return, and he pushed the curtain aside as he dragged in a thick roll of a foil-like material. He looked pleased.
“Did your visitor left?” Gemma asked cautiously.
“Yes.”
“Did he notice anything untoward, you think?”
“Nope.” He squatted down. “He brought more than I expected. I may not need to look for another supplier.”
Simon pulled at the corner and checked the material out as Gemma approached to inspect it.
“This is interior insulation, for thermal control,” he explained, letting Gemma touch the fabric. It was thick as if quilted from multiple layers that stretched and crinkled under her fingers. “Our ship has one layer, but it’s old. I don’t trust it to do its job. This is enough to cover up the main environment. Keeps the heat in and rejects radiation. Now we’re on the right track.”
Their trip to outer space in a bucket called Butan became as real as the crinkly material under her fingers.
