of the Enemy on her tender face. She’d survive it. She was Exalt and the Captain, and the aura of her Angel always surrounded her. But it didn’t sound like fun.
She heard him chuckle over the com, knowing she blushed as he began unfolding a transparent geodesic blister. “It’s not a picnic if it happens inside.”
At least the armor hid her face. She stuck the basket down in the middle of the blister with a dab of adhesive and went to help him anchor the edges. It was restful work, repetitive and fiddly, requiring concentration to do well. They worked in silence, shoulder to shoulder, stretching and adhering. Perceval could tell when the seal was complete, because Tristen set his armor to heat and vented oxygen. Alien sunlight and Tristen’s suit heater were enough to keep the thin air from freezing. The triangular panels tautened under slight, sudden atmospheric pressure, but the blister held.
“Go on,” he said, unsealing his helm. “We can hold our breaths on the way back. Let’s eat.”
Perceval burst out laughing with enough force to spatter the inside of her faceplate with spittle. It was irresponsible and goofy and exactly what she needed. She retracted her helmet and faceplate, taking a deep breath of the thin, chill air. The oxygen environment was low-molar, but within Exalt tolerances, and the whole setup was so madly perfect that she didn’t care.
She plunked herself down and stuck herself to the hull beside the picnic basket to watch while Tristen unfolded the paper and insulation. Nothing inside was exactly hot anymore, but some of it must have been when it was packed, because there was enough residual heat to encourage a faint dragon-tail of steam. In its turn, the water vapor thickened the atmosphere, as did every warm, wet breath Perceval and Tristen gave up to it.
Everything is an ecology, she thought, and dearly hoped that she did not live to regret the extravagance of this meal. With a potential end to the aggressive maintenance of environmental balance in sight, it was too easy to spend resources profligately, to make up for long hardship and privation. Too easy, and too dangerous.
While Tristen was sorting out utensils, she found two packets of noodles and handed him one. They were designed so you could hold them open one-handed by pressing at diagonally opposite corners and dip chopsticks in and out at will. Clever and convenient both, for situations with erratic or micro gravity.
She tilted her head back for the first mouthful, watching the world turn against the stars, and wondered how she would pay Tristen back for this.
He let her eat in peace, and she was grateful. Gratitude toward Tristen was one of her more basic emotions. She knew they would have to talk more soon, but for now he had bought her this moment of peace, and he was waiting for her to reopen the pressing subjects at hand. The gratitude toward Tristen was multiplied by her gratitude toward Head, who had outdone hirself. Perceval almost imagined she could taste the nurturing in each delicately flavored bite.
Since she actually felt like eating for a change, she waited until her belly was full. She then waited a few moments more, savoring the peace and the view and the company, until even Tristen—who could eat like an adolescent boy—was slowing.
“If we find Charity,” Perceval said, “and we find the paper Bible, we find the culprits.”
Tristen rubbed his chin. The faint bristle of his beard hairs caught the light, silvery-bright, as if the cold glazed his face. “Yes. Whoever has it, though, can hide it. As well as they hid themselves when they came to take it.”
“Themselves? You don’t think they were all Deckers? Mercenaries? Deckers have a martial culture. Now that they’re Exalt, I would expect good fighters among them.”
“You killed two,” Tristen said. “If Caitlin inflicted any casualties, they took their dead and wounded with them. Now, I knew my sister well—”
He smiled mirthlessly, and she echoed him, feeling the reflex stretch her face across bared teeth. “You’re right. What I fought would not have killed her. Not as she died, with one clean thrust. Not armed with an unblade that could cut any weapon it came against. The ones I fought were using dart throwers and extruded monoblades.”
Perceval fished out the half-eaten noodle packet she’d stowed back in the basket, for something to do with her hands. She should have seen it. Too much grief—
Nova interrupted, only hesitantly. “Captain?”
Nova was kind, and