The Lost Ship of the Tucker Rebellion - Marie Sexton Page 0,67

sure, but it was no accident that they kept the door to their room closed most of the time, or that Laramie spent less and less time in it if he wasn’t sleeping or getting a treatment. Spence was so engrossed in monitoring every minute Gru spent with Treesa that he didn’t seem to have a second to spare for anything else. On the other hand, the cold war between Laramie and Spence had warmed some, which fed a quiet sense of happiness in Denver that he didn’t want to look at too closely.

Until now, Marit had been utterly silent and withdrawn. Her sudden question was the first time she’d broken the silence since he joined her over an hour earlier in the cockpit.

“Could who be right?” Denver prompted when Marit didn’t follow up with anything.

“Ginn.”

Denver’s first impulse was to say, Hell no, but he managed to check it. If Marit was at the point of seriously considering something Ginn had to say, then he should find out more, because otherwise it was a sure sign of the universe was about to end. “Right about what?”

“About us being too hasty with this.”

Denver frowned. “When did she say that?”

“When you brought up us not having a biologist on board. She said we should have thought of that before.” Marit glanced over at Denver and grimaced. “What if she’s right? What else have we forgotten in our hurry to leave? We have Gru just because he stowed away, and I don’t care if he can grow food out of a pile of shit, I don’t trust him.”

“I don’t, either, but—”

“And then there’s Laramie’s medicine,” Marit pressed on. “You got a supply that should last for a few years, but what then? What if wherever we’re going, being there isn’t enough to cure him like the doctors think? What if he needs more drugs and we can’t supply them?”

“We’ll handle that when it’s a more pressing problem.”

“Why wait until then?”

“Have you forgotten how hard it was to get out of Titan X?” Denver asked, more than a little incredulous. “How hard it was to do any business at all, much less equipping for a trip like this, when we’re being watched and followed? What were we supposed to do, just hand over everything to the governor, take our tiny cut and waste a chance at an entire world?”

“Maybe!”

Marit was vehement enough to rock Denver back in his chair. She didn’t stop, either. “What are we going to do with a world? Just seven people and a single bot and a few crates of food. How are we going to get there, in a ship that may or may not exist, and that we might not be able to fly? It’s too much for just us! It’s—it’s so far away.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s so far away. What if we get there and there’s nothing waiting for us? What if we can’t get back?”

“Hey.” Denver leaned in a little bit. “You having second thoughts?” He kept his voice as calm as possible, even though inside, his stomach was clenching like a fist. “’Cause if you are, now’s the time to get them out in the open. We’re stopping at Umbriel Crater to stock up, and after that…”

Marit snorted. “So my options are get stranded in the back end of the solar system or travel on to a fate that, who knows, might be worse than death but it’s hard to say, since we know nothing about what we’re doing.”

“We know a few things. No,” he pushed through her noise of derision, “we do! We know the ship was meant for members of the Tucker Rebellion. That means the ship has to be suitable for humans, so whoever equipped it, they knew to expect that. Sleeping, eating, keeping it warm enough, keeping it properly shielded against radiation—that’s all gonna be there.”

“Maybe,” Marit allowed. “But that doesn’t mean there’ll actually be food or water or sanitation, or at least there’s no reason to think it’ll still be working once we arrive. It’s been almost a hundred years, Denver. They were never supposed to take so long. And that’s only the beginning of it. What about this damned planet? We have no idea what the weather will be like there, or if we’re anywhere near prepared to handle it. I mean, do you know how to build a house? Or, I don’t know, sew a pair of pants or make boots? Do we even