Scardown-Jenny Casey-2 by Elizabeth Bear

revolutions, baby. I got better ways to get killed. ‘Preciate the offer of help, though.” He slid his plate onto the breakfast bar, ducked his head, and turned away.
    Indigo pressed her shoulders back. The wallboard was even worse on the outside wall, and the stud bit into her arm. She was careful not to lean back hard. “If you don't do revolutions, what good are you?”
    Razorface stopped with his hand on the doorknob. Shadows caught in the hollows of his face as he looked over his shoulder. “That's a real excellent question.” He turned completely and regarded her, ignoring Farley much as she usually did. His face shut like a door. “I don't know.”
    Indigo opened her mouth, closed it. A sense of
something
weighed on the air, taste of a storm.
    “I don't know, girl,” Razorface said, while Indigo wondered what button she'd pushed, what lever she'd thrown to turn him so cold so fast. “What am I good for? Why don't you tell me.”
    She heard Farley lay his dish in the sink. Traffic noise from stories down. Somewhere in the old building, a toilet flushed, and Razorface just looked at her. He couldn't have been that much older. Ten years, maybe. But with the stark light laid across his face, the cold in his eyes seemed bottomless.
    “Does that mean you'll help?” she tried in a small voice.
    He spat through steel teeth. “Fuck. I guess so.”
     
    0300 Hours

Wednesday 8 November, 2062

HMCSS
Montreal
Returning to geosynchronous orbit, near Clarke Orbital Platform
    Restlessness drove Patty to pace the night-shift-dimmed corridors of the
Montreal
when she should have been sleeping. Or studying. One day more, and she and Carver would be headed home, on the same shuttle as the unfriendly master warrant officer and the Unitek and government dignitaries.
    She didn't want to go home.
    The
Montreal
made her itch. Everything about it: from the freedom to decide
when
her lights went out and what order she studied her homework in, to the ability to throw everything aside and just get out of her quarters and
walk
. It was freedom, in symbol and reality, and the thought of leaving it behind nagged at her as she trailed soft fingertips along the great ship's curving walls.
    She turned right at the next cross-corridor, heading for what would be the sidewall of the
Montreal
if she thought of it in terms of a wheel. Most of the sunlit space on the forward and aft edges of the habitation wheel was taken up with the
Montreal
's vast hydroponic gardens—photosynthesis abetted by full-spectrum bulbs.
    The gardens—a fragile artificial ecosystem of vegetable plants pollinated by colonies of giant sulphur and red Mormon butterflies—were off-limits to the crew except the botanists and the staff entomologist. But some of the
Montreal
's valuable window space
was
reserved for her crew: astronauts have always been happier when they can see
out
.
    Patty undogged the hatchway and stepped into the
Montreal
's forward lounge, which was usually crowded with off-duty crew members. This late in the ship's cycle, it was almost always empty; she could come here and be completely alone. She loved watching the sun spin with the habitation wheel's rotation, looking as if it rolled in circles like a dropped golden coin. She blinked when someone uncoiled from the sofa closest to the large window—exactly where she liked to sit—his white teeth flashing as he smiled. “Carver!”
    “Hey,” he said. “Great view.” He waved her toward the couch.
    She crossed the lounge staring at her shoes and curled onto it like a nervous cat. Staring out the round view port, she said, “I know.”
    Carver sighed, kicking his feet up on to the couch. Patty felt his eyes on her. “Look,” he said. “Whatever I did to make you mad at me, I'm sorry.”
    “Mad?” A startled, incautious glance showed that he looked quite serious. “I'm not—”
    He smiled. “Just shy then? Look, I only want to be friends.” He put a hand on her ankle, below the edge