The Price of Staying

The first thing Nacre-7 offered us was a chair with one functioning leg.

I sat anyway. Iven stood beside me, one hand braced against the archive terminal while the other remained in mine. The preservation room’s lights had dimmed to a weak amber. On the wall, a clock counted down the minutes until rationing in numbers too large to ignore and too small to respect.

TWO HOURS, FIFTY-FOUR MINUTES.

“Your hand is cold,” I said.

“My thermal regulation is degraded.”

“That wasn’t an invitation to explain it.”

“I am aware.”

He did not release me.

I found the habitat directory through the terminal’s maintenance menu. Nacre-7 had once supported twelve thousand residents, three docking spines, a medical fabrication deck, and a launch rail for outbound freight. Now the directory listed six thousand one hundred and eight residents, one functioning docking spine, and a launch rail marked INTERMITTENT. Medical fabrication had become medical inventory. Every useful system had been reduced to a word followed by a warning.

I selected POWER AND TRANSIT SERVICES.

The terminal displayed a face made from old security footage: a broad-cheeked woman with a shaved head and a yellow maintenance vest. Her image froze every few seconds, then resumed with a slight change in expression.

“State request,” she said.

“Skiff transit assistance. One damaged vessel, one damaged passenger.”

Iven turned his lens toward the terminal. “I object to the classification.”

“You can object after we get a berth.”

The woman’s recorded face stuttered. “Transit assistance requires payment in ration chits, refined parts, labor hours, or medical priority credits.”

“What can you provide?”

“Power conservation berth. Emergency tow. Launch-rail access. Directional burn consultation.”

“Which of those doesn’t involve selling him to your systems?”

The image paused for nearly ten seconds.

“Clarify.”

“Iven-4 is not a battery. He’s not salvage. He’s not an undocumented appliance you can plug into a wall and dismantle when you’re finished.”

“I am also not an appliance,” Iven said.

“I know.”

The woman’s face resumed. “Nacre-7 does not accept sentient machines as cargo.”

I looked at Iven.

His lens brightened by a fraction. “That statement appears sincere.”

“Most things sound sincere when they’re trying to charge you.”

The terminal requested our docking code, vessel manifest, and a description of the propulsion failure. I entered the information while Iven dictated the remaining specifications. The port engine was gone beyond practical repair. The starboard engine had enough thrust for attitude corrections but not for a transfer burn. Our propellant tanks held less than a quarter reserve. We were technically mobile, in the same way a severed hand was technically capable of being placed somewhere else.

The terminal considered our numbers.

“Outbound freight tug available in sixteen hours,” it said. “Morrow Finch. Destination: Pelin Exchange, inner-system route. Tow attachment possible. Fee: twelve refined conductor bars or equivalent labor.”

“How much labor?”

“Thirty-six hours certified maintenance.”

“That’s not equivalent.”

“It is the current rate.”

“Can you reduce it?”

“I am a directory interface.”

“Then direct me to someone who can.”

This time, the face disappeared altogether. A door on the opposite side of the archive opened, revealing a narrow service passage and a strip of green light.

Iven’s grip tightened. “The system has granted access.”

“It may have decided we’re someone else’s problem.”

“That outcome remains useful.”

We followed the green strip through the habitat’s maintenance arteries. The corridor behind Preservation Records was warmer and much less clean. Pipes crowded the ceiling. Bundles of cable ran along the walls beneath transparent covers, some tagged with dates older than Iven’s manufacture. At every junction, a red indicator counted down to scheduled power rationing.

Nacre-7 did not merely conserve energy. It prepared to go dark in sections.

We found the woman from the terminal in a control room overlooking the launch spine. She was real, which was disappointing only because real people could charge more complicated fees. Her head was shaved close, and one eye had been replaced with a black lens. The yellow vest was stained with sealant.

“Vask,” she said, reading my arrival badge. “Salvage technician.”

“Your directory says you’re Otta Pell.”

“Your directory is fifteen years out of date.”

“Then what should I call you?”

“Pell.”

She looked at Iven. Unlike the archive system, she did not hesitate over his status. Her gaze traveled from his disconnected arm to the missing stabilizer and finally settled on the blue pulse beneath his chest casing.

“Power estimate?” she asked.

“Twenty-two hours, thirty-seven minutes,” Iven said.

Pell’s mouth tightened. “And you’re planning to take him on the Morrow Finch?”

“I’m planning to take him wherever we can go.”

“The tow won’t shorten his operating time. It will extend yours. That’s all I can promise.”

“Good. I’m fond of remaining alive.”

“The tow fee stands.”

“I don’t have twelve conductor bars.”

“You brought salvage.”

“Most of it is in the skiff.”

“Then bring it here.”

“And if it isn’t enough?”

Pell pointed through the window at the launch spine. A squat freight tug waited in a maintenance cradle, its hull patched in three different metals. Beyond it, the habitat’s outer doors showed a field of frozen wreckage glittering in the work lights.

“Your skiff’s navigation core is antique,” she said. “The Morrow Finch’s guidance relay is worse. We need someone to rebuild the handshake between them before departure. If you can do that, I’ll count the labor as payment for the tow.”

I understood the offer immediately. It was not kindness. It was an exchange between systems with too few functioning parts. That made it more trustworthy.

“How long?”

“Six hours for the repair. Maybe eight if your core uses proprietary encryption.”

“Iven can calculate the old protocols.”

Pell looked at him. “Can he do it without burning through himself?”

“No,” I said.

Iven’s head turned toward me. “I can reduce the cost by operating at low processing priority.”

“That still costs.”

“Everything costs.”

Pell leaned against the console. “There’s one other option. We have a cold berth in medical storage. It can put him into a controlled shutdown and wake him for the tow. His power loss would be minimal.”

The words landed with the clean force of a dropped tool.

“How minimal?”

“Perhaps twenty minutes. Perhaps an hour. The berth is old.”

Iven’s fingers shifted against mine. “How long would I be absent?”

“Until Astoria requests your revival,” Pell said.

It was the first time she used my name. It made the offer worse.

I looked through the window at the tug, at the rail leading toward the inner system and whatever brighter, safer place waited beyond Pelin Exchange. Then I looked at Iven’s failing chest light.

“I don’t want a berth,” I said.

His lens faced me. “You have previously described my power conservation shutdowns as an absence.”

“Yes.”

“Would you prefer I remain operational during the repair?”

“No.”

The answer hurt more than I expected. I kept hold of his hand anyway.

“I prefer you choose,” I said. “Not because I’m afraid of you going quiet. Because I don’t want to make you spend yourself to prove you’re still here.”

His thumb moved once over my knuckles. The gesture was imprecise, almost mechanical. It was also the closest thing I had to an answer before he gave one.

“I will enter the cold berth,” he said. “You will repair the guidance relay. I will return before departure.”

“You’re agreeing very quickly.”

“I have evaluated the alternatives.”

“And?”

“Remaining awake would preserve my presence but reduce the probability of successful transit. Successful transit increases the probability of continued shared time. I select transit.”

Pell turned to her console. “That’s the most romantic maintenance decision I’ve heard this week.”

“Your week may contain insufficient romance,” I said.

“It contains insufficient power. Romance is a secondary deficit.”

She printed two authorization strips and pushed them across the console. One was for the cold berth. The other granted me access to the Morrow Finch’s guidance bay.

“Power rationing begins in two hours,” Pell said. “The berth will be on emergency reserve. If you’re going to say goodbye, do it before then.”

“I’m not saying goodbye.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

But Iven had heard her.

On the way to medical storage, he walked beside me without leaning on my shoulder. He was saving the effort. I hated him for being sensible and loved him for the same reason.

At the berth, he removed his damaged outer coat and folded it with careful, unnecessary precision. I checked the coolant contacts, the restraint straps, and the manual revival circuit twice.

“Your repair technique remains questionable,” he said.

“Your timing remains offensive.”

“I am attempting to maintain our established routines.”

That stopped me.

I pressed my forehead to the unpainted metal above his lens. It was cold. He adjusted his posture until the contact was stable.

“Wake me when the route is ready,” he said.

“I will.”

“Even if the repair fails?”

“Especially then.”

His chest light pulsed once. Then the cold berth sealed around him, and the machine I had carried across the Scrap Galaxy became still beneath a sheet of transparent insulation.

I left before I could change my mind.

The guidance bay waited beyond the launch spine, full of dead tools and a relay that had forgotten how to speak to anything newer than itself. I opened my kit, rolled up my sleeves, and began taking it apart.

Sixteen hours until the Morrow Finch departed.

Twenty-two hours, or less, until Iven’s remaining life ran out.

For the first time since finding him, I had a destination that was not merely farther away. I had a schedule, a fee, and a machine that needed my hands to work.

It was almost a plan.