Babylon's Ashes

“We will burn after we see the consolidated fleet commit,” Pa said, her distant, muted voice sliding into Naomi’s half-dream. She sounded so weary, it made Naomi want to go back to sleep in sympathy. “I understand that’s not a popular decision, but I’m not interested in having my people be the worm on Earth’s hook.”

“I never understood that,” Naomi said. Jim closed his hand terminal display and settled the earphones down around his neck, his expression guilty. Naomi shifted, and the crash couch swung under them like one of the hammocks she’d grown up sleeping in. “How do hookworms figure into catching fish, anyway?”

“Not hookworms,” Jim said. “Worms, like earthworms. Or insects. Crickets. You’d put them on metal hooks with a barb on the end, tie a really thin line to the metal hook, and throw the whole thing out into a lake or a river. Hope that a fish would eat the worm, and then you could haul the fish out with the hook that was caught in its mouth.”

“Sounds inefficient and needlessly cruel.”

“It really sort of is.”

“Do you miss it?”

“The fishing part? No. The standing out on the edge of a lake or being in a boat while the sun’s just coming up? That a little bit.”

This was the other thing he did. Reminiscing about being a boy on Earth, talking about it as if she’d ever had experiences like his. As if just because she loved him, she’d understand. She pretended that she did, but she also changed the subject when she could.

“How long was I asleep?”

“It’s still six hours until we’re close enough to start docking,” Jim said, answering her real question without having to check. “Bobbie’s down in the machine shop with Clarissa and Amos doing some last-minute fixes to her combat armor. I get the feeling she’s looking to suit up and stay suited up until she’s on Medina.”

“It has to be strange for her to lead OPA fighters.”

Jim lowered himself to the gel of the crash couch, one arm bent behind his head. Naomi put her hand on his chest, just under his collarbone. His skin was warm. In the shadows, he looked vulnerable. Lost.

“Did she say something to you about it?” he asked.

“No. I was only thinking. She’s spent so much of her life with Belters as the enemy, and now she’s going to an OPA ship filled with OPA soldiers. We aren’t her people. Or we weren’t before now.”

Jim nodded, squeezed her hand, and then slid out from under it. She watched him dress in silence for almost a minute.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“Jim,” she said. Then, gently, “What is it?”

When he did his little, percussive, surrendering sigh, she knew he’d given up trying to protect her from whatever it was. He pulled on his undershirt and leaned against the wall.

“There was something I meant to talk about with you. About the ambush where Fred died?”

“Go ahead.”

He did. Connecting to the Pella, trying to distract Marco, seeing Filip, disarming the torpedoes. He told it all with a sheepishness like a kid confessing that he ate the last bit of sweet. Even when she turned up the cabin lights and started pulling on her own clothes, he didn’t meet her eyes. Amos had called him on it, offered to lock him out of the torpedo controls. Jim had said no. His silence was the only sign that he was done.

Naomi stood for a moment, watching her emotions like they were objects scattered by an unexpected turn. Horror at the idea of Filip’s death. Rage at Marco for putting their child in harm’s way. Guilt, not only for Filip but for Jim too. For the position she’d put him in and the reflexive compromises he’d made on her behalf. All those she’d known to expect, but there was an impatience too. Not with Jim exactly, or herself, or Filip. With the need to mourn again what she’d mourned so many times before.

“Thank you,” she said, her heart thick and heavy. “For caring. For trying to watch out for me. But I lost Filip. I couldn’t save him when he was a baby. I couldn’t save him now that he’s essentially a man. That’s twice, and twice is always. I can’t stop hoping that he’ll be all right in all this. But if he’s going to get saved, he’s going to have to do it himself.”

She pushed away a betraying tear. Jim took a half step toward her.

“He’ll have to do it himself,” she said again, her voice a degree harder to keep him from touching her or saying something soft and consoling. “Same as everyone.”