"You expect us to trust these people with our lives after one visit?" said Abbi.
"We've been putting our lives in other people's hands from the moment we left El Cavador," said Rena.
"That's different," said Julexi. "That was WU-HU. These are scavengers."
"He has offered to give any one of you a tour of his ship to meet his family. But we need to move quickly if we're going to do that. He grows impatient."
"Impatient?" said Julexi. "And what other emotions of his should we fear? His rage? His lust?"
"Will you shut up?" said Edimar. The fifteen-year-old popped out of the shadows. Rena hadn't even noticed that Edimar had been listening. "I am so sick of you cutting everyone down. Everyone's wrong but you. Everyone's to blame. Well you know what? If you actually said something positive every once in a while, you might not be so miserable and people might actually find you tolerable."
Lola, Edimar's mother, looked aghast. "Edimar! You will apologize to Julexi this instant!"
"No," said Edimar. "I won't. Because every one of you knows it's true, and you're all too polite to say so. Well I'm not. If you want to stay here and wait for the Chinese to kick us out, Julexi, fine, but I'm going with Rena."
Julexi narrowed her eyes. "You spoiled little child. You're worse than your dogging sister."
Lola slapped Julexi so fast and so hard, that it spun Julexi into the wall. Several women gasped. Julexi steadied herself, a hand to her cheek, shocked.
Edimar's sister had been Alejandra, whom the family had sent away when they feared that Alejandra and Victor might fall in love. Dogging, or marrying within the clan, was taboo, and even though Alejandra and Victor had done nothing wrong, the family had taken precautions. To accuse Alejandra of any impropriety was cruel and heartless. Rena was tempted to slap Julexi too.
Lola's voice was like ice. "You will never speak of my daughter again. Do you understand me? If you had a drop of Alejandra's goodness and decency, it would be double what you have now."
Edimar stared, mouth agape. Rena was no less shocked. Lola was always so mild-mannered. She had never lashed out at anyone.
Lola turned to Rena. "Edimar and I will do whatever the council decides. I trust your judgment. If you think it's best to leave with this crow, if this is how we can get back on our feet, then I will salvage a hundred ships at your side." She pushed off the wall toward the storage room door. "Come, Edimar. We've said our peace. Let the other women say theirs."
Edimar was still too stunned to move, staring at her mother as if seeing her for the first time. Then after a moment she came to herself and followed Lola inside.
When they were gone Julexi said, "Did you see that? Did you see her slap me? She's trying to divide us."
The hypocrisy of that statement almost made Rena laugh. But it would have been a sad and tired laugh had she done so. The sense of family was fading, she realized; the thread that stitched them together was unraveling and fraying at the edges. She couldn't allow that. Segundo had asked her to keep them together, to keep everyone alive.
"I'll tell you what I want," Rena said, realizing it was true as the words came to her. "I want us on a ship again. Not a crow's ship or a corporate ship, but our ship. Just as El Cavador was and always will be. That is where we belong. We're not going to get there by staying here. Here we have no future. Our work and welcome are drying up. Arjuna can help us move in the right direction. If you disagree speak up now."
They discussed it and then voted. A handful dug in their heels, but the majority--though nervous of the idea--was for going. Anything to get them closer to their own ship, they said. And in the end, even those who were against leaving came along. Staying with the group seemed safer than staying alone with WU-HU.
Later, as the second group boarded the shuttle for Arjuna's ship, Julexi stepped to the airlock with her bag and faced Rena. "If they rape us and kill our children, I hope God has mercy on you."
"I hope God has mercy on us anyway," said Rena. "We need all the help we can get."
CHAPTER 8
Beacon
The blueprints on the wall in the engineering room looked nothing like what Lem had imagined in his head.
"It's still your idea, Lem," said Benyawe. "Trust me. The design may look different from what you initially envisioned, but the principle is the same." She was floating in front of him at the wall, stylus in hand.
"I don't care if it's my idea," said Lem. "Throw out my idea if it's rubbish. Don't feel handcuffed to anything I suggested. I only care that it works. I'm not conceited enough to think I have a better grasp of this than you do, Benyawe. Do whatever you think is best."
In truth it stung him slightly that she had changed the design a bit, even though he had fully expected her to do so. He wasn't an engineer after all, and he only understood the science on the most fundamental level. Of course she was going to change it.
He had commissioned her months ago to develop a replacement for the glaser, and at the time he had given her a suggestion for its design, fully expecting her to dismiss his idea outright, pat him on his little head, and tell him to stop playing in her sandbox. Instead, she had thought the idea worth pursuing and assembled a team of engineers to make it work. Now that nugget of an idea had grown into schematics and actual plans.
"We call them 'shatter boxes,'" said Benyawe. "As you know, the problem with the current glaser is that the gravity field spreads outward too quickly and too wide."
Lem hardly needed reminding of that. It had almost meant his life. Back in the Kuiper Belt, when they had fired the glaser at a large asteroid, the gravity field had grown so quickly and stretched outward so far that it had nearly consumed the ship and turned them all to space dust. Lem's quick thinking was all that had saved them.