JOHNNY SCHULTZ
None of the Adalwolf’s three hundred cabins contained a double bunk. Hardly surprising, given it was a warship, but inconvenient when Riley Addison and I wanted to curl up together. In the end, we settled for pushing two mattresses together on the floor of what had once been the Adalwolf’s captain’s cabin, and we spent most of our time lying there, our feet tangled in the blankets, while we stared at the gunmetal ceiling and tried to make sense of everything that had happened to us.
There was a lot to process.
A week ago, I’d had my own merchant ship and my own crew. Through luck more than judgement, I’d managed to stay one step ahead of my creditors. I’d even had something of a reputation around the ports. But then I’d overreached. I’d gone chasing a big score and blundered into a nightmare. My ship had been trashed and my crew—my friends—killed. Of those who had entered that alien hulk, only Riley and I had emerged alive.
But we hadn’t been alone. We’d acquired a child who wasn’t really a child, a kid constructed from DNA taken from the Lucy’s Ghost’s organic processer and infused with the merged intellects of both the merchant ship and the ancient Nymtoq ark into which we’d crashed.
And now, what were we? I’d said the three of us could be a family, but how would that even work? I loved Riley and I was pretty sure she loved me back. But was it real love or some sort of trauma-induced state? Were we clinging together simply because we were the only two survivors, or was there more to it than that? How could I tell? How could I even talk about it without upsetting her?
In the face of all we’d lost, just thinking about ourselves and the future felt selfish. Our friends were dead, and the Generality was falling apart. We were the fortunate ones. We had each other and questioning that felt somehow ungrateful. So, we held each other on our improvised bed and tried to understand our place in the chaos and destruction that raged around us.
“I guess the problems of two people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world,” Riley said.
I frowned in the darkness. “What?”
“It’s from an old movie.”
“But what does it mean? What’s a hill of beans?”
“It’s an expression.”
“I can understand a plate of beans. If you’re trying to say our problems don’t mean much, that would make sense. But a hill of beans would be a whole lot of beans. Just a stupidly huge number of beans.”
She sighed. “Johnny—”
“I’m sorry, I’ve just never heard that expression before. It seems to be saying that our troubles amount to a whole shit-ton of vegetables—more than anyone could ever need.”
“Shut up.”
I held her tight, her cheek resting against my collarbone. “I’m sorry. I babble sometimes when I don’t know what else to say.”
“There isn’t much we can say. This is what it is. We survived, we feel terrible about it, but we have to keep going on. We can’t let it destroy us.”
I had a sudden vision of those giant crawdads boiling towards us on the Restless Itch, their mouths shrieking and flapping wetly, their pincers snapping and clicking as they sought to tear us apart, and I knew I’d probably never have another night of undisturbed sleep. I’d carry that dread with me for as long as I lived, but Riley was right when she said we shouldn’t let it destroy us. Dwelling on the memories would only open the door to a hysterical, screaming madness that would confine me to those corridors forever. I could feel the mania lurking. It would be so easy to surrender to it, but doing so would be the end of me. I had to keep a lid on my emotions. I had to keep looking forward, no matter what. And I guess Riley must have felt the same, because we clung to each other like shipwrecked sailors clinging to pieces of wreckage.
There was no point wondering where our love came from. The answer was irrelevant. As long as we had each other, we had something to live for, and someone for whom to stay sane. We would pull each other through. That was the point of it. Love provided solace and salvation and gave us purpose in an otherwise horrifying world. And I guess that’s how the human race had always endured: the survivors building new lives and raising new families among the rubble of war and disaster.
We just had to keep moving forwards.
I buried my face in her hair and swallowed back the sobs threatening to burst through. “I promise I’ll find us a way out,” I said. “You, me and Lucy. We’ll find a place. I swear to you. Whatever it takes, I’ll find us a way.”