Cibola Burn

Elvi thought her eyesight’s return was like coming out of a fog. The green that had enveloped the world was just as vivid at first. It lasted long enough that she was afraid she’d been wrong, or that the long-term use of the oncocidals had made some other change to Holden’s physiology that short-term use wasn’t having. And then the shadows had lines around them again, little zones of definition. And then within hours, she could see the doorway arch and the shape of the chemistry deck. By the time she’d been able to see clearly enough that she could tell Holden for certain that they’d solved the problem, the man had been in what looked like a sleep-deprivation psychosis. It made her feel a little guilty that she hadn’t figured it out earlier. But he’d gone off to talk to Amos, and she was fairly sure that the big man would be able to take care of his captain. And Elvi had too many other things to do.

The chemistry deck’s slowed water purification turned out to be a bigger issue than she’d expected. The distillation filters were exhausted; material that had gone in as white, puffy pads of spun glass embedded with ionic scrubbers came out slick and green. But the other people from the science team and the survivors of First Landing were all starting to get function back too. It took almost four hours, but Elvi and Fayez and two of the mining technicians had rigged a still just outside the ruins that was converting the fallen rainwater to something potable at nearly three gallons an hour. It tasted like fake spearmint flavoring and alfalfa, but it would sustain life.

When Elvi found Lucia, the doctor looked as bad as Holden had sounded. Her skin had an ashy tone and the whites of her eyes were so pink Elvi was surprised they weren’t bleeding. Jacek was following his mother around, carrying her medical scanner and a little sack of bandages. Elvi watched them check on the patients. Everyone was covered in mud and grit. The differences between RCE and squatters were buried under the layers of filth and the shared joy in their returning sight. When Jacek caught her gaze, she smiled. He hesitated, then nodded almost shyly and smiled back.

“Clouds are starting to thin,” Lucia said. “I saw a patch that was actually white.”

“Really?” Elvi asked.

“Still looked greenish to me, of course, but it was actually white,” the doctor said. When she shook her head, it seemed to take her a fraction of a second to start. “You did good work. I’ve only got three people the treatment’s not working on.”

“Why isn’t it working for them? Maybe we should —”

“This isn’t science,” Lucia said. “It’s medicine. A success rate this high on a new treatment for a novel illness? We’re doing brilliantly. None of us are back to baseline yet, though. If it happens at all, it will take time.”

“Time,” Elvi said. “Strange to think we’ve got any of that.”

“We’ve traded up from dying in the storm to dying from the slugs to dying of hunger in a few weeks.”

“We’re pushing the crisis point back. If it’s not winning, at least it’s a way not to lose.”

“If we can keep pushing it back.”

But we can’t. The words hadn’t been said, but they didn’t need to be. With the ships fighting each other and falling out of orbit and the native ecology basically inedible, extending the group’s horizon past a few weeks of starvation was going to be difficult. Maybe impossible. The stress was showing in the people, RCE and First Landers both. Elvi saw it, the segregation into tribes again now that the immediate danger had passed. She wondered whether it would come back when the food ran out.

“You need rest,” Elvi said, and a hand touched her shoulder. Wei and Murtry were behind her. Wei’s expression was bleak. Murtry, on the other hand, was smiling his customary smile. Of all of them, the coating of mud on his skin and in his hair looked almost natural. Like he was in his native element.

“Doctor Okoye,” Murtry said, “I was hoping we could have a private word.”

“Of course,” Elvi said. Lucia nodded curtly and turned away. Elvi felt a little pang of disappointment. After all the trials of the storm and the blindness, the political divisions between the RCE and First Landing were still there, just below the surface. Murtry was still the man who’d burned a building full of terrorists. Lucia was still the wife of a man who’d conspired to destroy the heavy shuttle. It seemed like it should have mattered less now, like the rains should have washed something clean. Anything.

“I was wondering what you could tell me about the last conversation you had with Captain Holden,” Murtry said. His voice sounded perfectly calm and reasonable. It was like they were back on the Israel and he was asking her to think back to the last time she’d used some tool she couldn’t find.

“Well, he was very, very tired. Exhausted. It seemed to be having some real cognitive effects.”

“Cognitive effects like what, please?” Murtry asked.