The observation deck lights turned amber, and the glass doors began to close.
Iven’s weight settled more heavily against me. His head rested beneath my chin, his hands loose around my wrists. Beyond the narrowing gap, the central planets continued their patient rotation, bright enough to make the station’s warning lights look embarrassed.
“Deck closure has begun,” he said.
“I noticed.”
“Your return margin is eleven minutes shorter than when we arrived.”
“I noticed that too.”
The doors met with a soft pressure seal. The view became a reflection: my face, his pale shell, the red moon broken across both of us.
I reached for the slate and woke its display. One hour and forty-nine minutes remained.
“Can you stand?” I asked.
“I can attempt it.”
“That was not the question.”
“I can stand for an estimated twenty-three seconds.”
“Good. We only need to reach the ladder.”
He placed both hands on the platform and pushed. His arms locked, shook, and held. I got one arm around his waist and pulled him upright before his knees could fold. The movement drove a hard vibration through his chest. I felt it against my ribs.
The sound followed us into the corridor: a dry, uneven ticking beneath his plating.
“You are carrying more of my mass than before,” he said.
“The clinic removed some of you.”
“Four external panels and the left regulator guard.”
“I was trying to be reassuring.”
“I understand.”
The corridor outside the deck had filled with personnel moving toward the intake lattice. Cargo carriers rolled past with sealed cases. A child in a yellow pressure vest stared at Iven’s exposed shoulder joint until her father pulled her along. Their boots made a clean rhythm on the polished floor.
Mine did not.
Iven’s left foot dragged. I adjusted his arm across my shoulders and started toward the maintenance ladder. The first thirty meters cost more than the climb up. His weight kept shifting as his balance system recalculated. At the third turn, he stopped entirely.
“Put me down,” he said.
“There is nowhere to put you.”
“The floor is structurally adequate.”
Next
With Going Somewhere stripped of its certified power, Astoria has thirty-six hours to earn a new way out before the clinic demands a disposition for Iven’s failing core.
I looked at the nearest wall panel. It was made of white composite, unscarred and expensive. I could have lowered him against it and rested for a minute. The return margin had already become a number I could damage with hesitation.
He noticed the decision moving through me. “Astoria.”
“I am taking you back.”
“You are allowed to stop.”
The words were quiet. They struck beneath the mechanical ticking.
I tightened my grip. “I know.”
He did not argue after that.
At the ladder hatch, Taven waited with a folded mobility frame in her hands. It was a narrow piece of clinic equipment, two wheels and a padded support cradle, built for patients who could not walk but had not yet qualified for a transport bed.
“Borrowed,” she said. “Return it before the station bills you.”
“You brought it here?”
“I calculated your carrying speed.”
“From watching us leave?”
“From watching you leave.”
The distinction was deliberate. I lowered Iven into the frame while Taven locked the supports around his hips and chest. He became a collection of secured angles, less like a person and more like freight prepared for a rough transfer.
His fingers found mine before I stepped away.
“Thank you,” he said.
Taven checked the clamp. “Save your active transmission.”
“I was thanking Astoria.”
“I understood the target.”
The frame rolled with almost no resistance. Taven took one handle and I took the other. Together we moved through the transit ring while the station lights shifted from amber to red.
At the lower intake, the reserve assessment had begun.
A broad display over berth seven showed Going Somewhere’s external bank in white outline. Four clusters pulsed gray. Eight remained blue. Beneath the image, a contract line counted down in seconds.
Sera stood beside the berth gate, her slate tucked into her coat. She glanced at Iven, then at the frame.
“You used the full window,” she said.
“We used the deck’s closing window.”
“Those are usually the same thing.”
Taven released the frame. “He needs the coolant line restored.”
Sera’s eyes moved to the monitor. “The berth bond is entering assessment. The reserve bank is being claimed against the vessel unless release terms are filed before the system finishes indexing.”
“How long?”
“Six minutes.”
I looked through the berth window at Going Somewhere. The skiff sat beneath the station gantry with its patched hull, its new port engine, and the reserve bank bolted outside like a second, uglier heart. Every useful part of it had been earned through an exchange. Passage, labor, risk. I had spent almost everything except the thing I had refused to spend.
“What are the release terms?” I asked.
Sera handed me the slate.
The numbers made my teeth hurt. The bank’s certified value exceeded our remaining contract credit by enough to purchase a small habitation berth for four months. To release it, I would need to surrender the vessel’s central-access bond and assign all salvage income from the next six weeks.
“That takes the bank,” I said.
“It releases the bank from assessment.”
“And leaves us with what?”
“Your skiff. A damaged coolant-compatible unit. Six weeks of labor debt. No certified reserve for departure.”
“Can the bank stay mounted and under my contract?”
“For the bond period. The bond period is ending.”
I looked at Iven. His faceplate had dimmed to conserve power. The blue status light at his throat flickered once, then steadied.
Taven folded her arms. “The clinic can maintain the coolant loop if he remains within the restricted intake zone. I can request an extension.”
“How long?”
“Thirty-six hours under the current station ration.”
Sera gave her a flat look. “You can request it. Approval is not a service.”
“What would approval cost?” I asked.
“Your reserve bank,” Sera said. “And the skiff’s departure claim.”
The assessment display dropped to four minutes.
I thought of the darker branch beyond Pelin, the port engine vibration under my boots, the cramped berth where Iven had watched me practice until I could read debris by touch. The skiff was ugly and unreliable and ours. The bank was the reason we had been admitted this far. Giving it up would not repair him. It would buy time inside a place that had already shown us every door had a price.
Iven’s hand moved against the frame’s restraint.
“I can provide an alternative reserve,” he said.
Sera’s expression hardened. “No.”
He turned his head toward her. “You have not heard the alternative.”
“I have heard the station’s preferred one.”
The display over the berth flashed. Two minutes.
I crouched beside him. “Do not offer your core.”
“I was going to state a capacity.”
“You were going to offer your core.”
His fingers closed around mine. The grip was weak enough that I could have pulled free without effort.
“The clinic confirmed that electrolysis would provide station-grade charge,” he said. “That charge could release the reserve bank and finance your continued transit.”
“Your continued transit,” I said. “You would be gone.”
“Yes.”
He said it with the same precision he used for temperature readings. His thumb pressed once against the side of my hand, a small correction to the pressure.
Sera looked away, giving us the privacy available in a public berth.
Iven continued. “You declared that my active core would be retained. I accepted that declaration. The conditions have changed.”
“They have changed by thirty-six hours.”
“They have changed by the amount of function remaining in me.”
My hand found the exposed seam at his wrist. Beneath it, the actuator housing was cold.
“I am not trading you because the station has a countdown.”
“I am not requesting that you trade me.”
“Then stop making it sound reasonable.”
His head tilted. “I am attempting to make it survivable.”
The assessment clock reached one minute.
I stood and took the slate from Sera. The release form offered two signatures: surrender the reserve bank and vessel claim, or accept automatic seizure and remain liable for the debt. Neither option preserved what I had brought from the outer system. One left us stranded with Iven alive. The other left us without even that.
I signed the surrender.
The slate accepted my thumbprint. Going Somewhere’s bank outline changed from white to gray. Somewhere above us, clamps engaged around the reserve housing.
Sera watched the confirmation settle. “The clinic extension is still unapproved.”
“Request it.”
“Thirty-six hours may become thirty-six minutes if the lattice refuses.”
“Request it anyway.”
She entered the command. “Your labor debt now includes bank-release processing and station maintenance. You will inspect legacy systems until the account clears.”
“I can do that.”
“You cannot leave the central intake until the clinic releases him or the debt is transferred.”
I looked down at Iven. “Then we stay.”
His status light flickered again. “You surrendered our departure reserve.”
“I surrendered a bank.”
“It was the bank that made departure possible.”
“Then I will find another way to leave.”
He held my gaze for several seconds. The station announced the end of the reserve bond. The sound rolled through the berth, polished and indifferent.
“Will you permit me to choose when the other way is no longer available?” he asked.
My fingers tightened around the handle of his frame.
“Not tonight,” I said.
“I can accept tonight.”
Sera’s slate chimed. She read the reply from the clinic and looked at me.
“Extension approved,” she said. “Thirty-six hours. After that, they want a disposition.”
The coolant line unlocked behind us.
I pushed Iven toward it while the station’s clamps lifted our reserve bank away from the skiff. Through the berth window, Going Somewhere remained dark, stripped of the power that had carried us inward.
Iven turned his head toward the departing bank.
I kept both hands on the frame and pushed him into the light.