Chapter Nineteen

Invocation was picked up while Lisbet was in cabin number two pretending to be asleep. She heard the Buckshot join with the solarship that was there to pick up Invocation, but aside from looking out her window, she couldn’t make herself get up to see the process in person. She’d seen enough movies. She knew how the inner lock rooms worked. Not only that, but she hoped that if she stayed in bed, she would fall asleep and sleep for a proper eight hours. She hadn’t done that since she got aboard the Buckshot.

Who was she kidding? She wasn’t going to sleep.

The problem was that she didn’t want to see Beck. What was she going to say to him? ‘Sorry. I was naive enough to believe that as Vantz’s wife, I needed to be faithful to him even when he said I shouldn’t be.’ Or, ‘I didn’t realize I was being purchased partly because you were in love with me and so I rejected you over and over again because I’m stupid?’ Or even better, ‘I didn’t think you were very interested in me because you said what you wanted from me once and then got lost?’

It all sounded horrible.

The truth was that he didn’t force himself on her in any way. He waited for her to come to him and she never came because she really thought she had to be loyal to Vantz no matter what he said. Beck didn’t tease her, flirt with her, get in her face, or prioritize meetings with her. He stayed aloof.

He wanted her to choose him. He wanted her to come after him. He wanted her to get in his face. It was so obvious now, but Lisbet had done none of those things.

Now he was heartbroken.

If she was honest with herself, she was a little heartbroken too, but what could she do about it now? If she went onto the flight deck and said she wanted to talk to him, she felt like there was no halfway for him between a conversation where they got to know each other better and diving between the sheets on a bed nowhere close to big enough. He was from Mars. He had lived on Mars all his life. There was no courting period on Mars. They jumped down each other’s pants with a crook of an eyebrow as all the encouragement they needed.

She rolled over and tried to go to sleep again, but there was a knock at the door.

“Lisbet,” Beck whispered huskily. “Are you awake? If you are, we need to drop down to the surface now or we’ll have to spend another twenty-five hours waiting for our ship to be above the drop zone again. I need you to be strapped down on the flight deck for the drop.”

“I’m awake,” she called.

“Great. Come on.” His footsteps led back to the captain’s chair.

Lisbet got up and joined him, doing up the buckles on her chair that held her down.

“Hold on,” he said quietly, as he turned the ship’s nose down ninety degrees so they were pointed toward the ground.

The warm-colored sand sprang up to meet them. A drop from space took only six minutes, but it was a little like taking a dip on a roller coaster for an entire six minutes before Beck eased the nose of the Buckshot back up and let them hover over the flat sand until they arrived at the abandoned rocket site.

“There’s the supply crate,” he said, pointing. He angled the ship and retrieved it with magnets mounted on the underbelly of the ship.

“Hey. If you’ve lived on Mars all your life, how do you know how to fly?” she suddenly wanted to know.

“All the rich kids know how to fly,” he said as if the answer was so obvious it was annoying to give it.

“And you were a rich kid?” she asked.

“As were you,” he said as he opened the hatch to the hangar where the rocket was stored and landed the Buckshot. “Where are your riches now?” he whispered once the ship had come to a full halt.

She snapped her tongue in agreement. “Yeah. Gone. Yours?”

He unbuckled himself and stood up. “They’re around. A little bit here, a little bit there. You know how it is. You can go back to sleep if you want to. I’m going to get in a spacesuit and go check on the situation in the rocket. Afterward, I’ll sort out the supply crate.”

“Can’t I help?” Lisbet asked, feeling useless.

He shook his head. “Not unless you’re a rocket scientist.”

“And you are?” she asked dolefully.

“I dabble,” he said with a smile that almost resurrected his past charm. “I might not even be that long. If the rocket is unsalvageable after all, this is going to be a mighty short trip. It’s okay. I know you’re not sleeping.”

“How do you know that?”

“Why would you be sleeping well? Obviously, everything that’s happened has unsettled you. If you’re looking for an update on the situation, Vantz released a partial list of the bombs we set to the public, stating that he has not listed all of them and anyone with an ounce of sense will stop drilling immediately and evacuate. The cities are flooding with people as we speak.”

Lisbet asked weakly. “What is his next move? Surely, not to release the rest of the list?”

“No. He’s warning everyone to stay away from the evacuated zones, saying that any interaction with the bombs will set them off. The reason that it’s only a partial list is that there are too many to list in those areas. However, the same thing is going to happen as what happened two days ago. Another bomb will go off, killing more people.”

“Why would people do that?”

“Why would they dig when they’ve been told not to? Because they are used to getting their way, used to hiding underground, used to ignoring the warnings the government gives them, and used to thwarting whoever is in Vantz’s position. Vantz has received so many death threats, it’s impossible to trace them all.”

“Doesn’t he need our support?” Lisbet asked tentatively, looking for more clues about Vantz.

Beck chuckled. “No. I’m sure it’s been explained to you that other people are around him. They have their jobs and we have ours. Now, I’d love to continue chewing the fat with you, but I’ve really got to get going. If you don’t want to sleep, why don’t you eat something?”

“Would you eat with me?” she asked, trying again to get him to sit down with her.

“I already ate,” he said simply, before pulling his shirt over his head and disappearing down the hall.

Lisbet was annoyed that he left her, both that he didn’t include her in his work on the rocket and that he didn’t eat with her. She already had one of the rehydrated dinners and there was definitely a trick to preparing them so they didn’t get too soggy. She needed him to tell her the secret to their microwave. How many seconds did each thing need to cook? The package didn’t know what it was talking about.

As it was, she carefully prepared a bowl of oatmeal that was flavored like banana and coconut. When it was ready, it wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever eaten, but… it would have tasted a lot better if Beck had stayed and eaten a bowl with her. Then they could have laughed about how bad it tasted and figured out a way to make it taste better.

Mars was getting to her.

Mars was definitely getting to her.

Vantz was right. She didn’t know if she was ready for everything Vantz said she could do with Beck, but she had definitely reached the point that if he didn’t hold her for a minute, a tiny part of her might die.

Had Beck been waiting for her to snap the whole time?

When he came back, hours later, Lisbet had fallen asleep, but she woke up immediately when he opened the airlocks.

She waited for him to get out of his spacesuit, redress, and come to the flight deck.

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“How did it go?” she asked anxiously.

“Oh? I’m not sure. I need to do a little research. I think it might be possible to get the rocket to explode, but I don’t have all the parts. I need to set up a VR cage aboard the ship to get the information I need. I was thinking of doing that in cabin one.”

Lisbet unintentionally wrung her hands together. If Beck took down the bed in cabin one, then the only place for both of them to sleep was cabin two.

“I also checked the supply crate. Good news. Everything inside was intact and most importantly, your cryochamber transported well.”

“My cryochamber?” Lisbet mouthed hollowly. If he had asked for her cryochamber to be included with the supplies then that had to mean that he intended to put her to sleep. Her mouth went dry. “Is that a good idea? Putting me to sleep?”

“It’s a very good idea,” Beck replied in a straightforward tone. “Shall I list the benefits?”

“Please do,” Lisbet said, crossing her arms and feeling uncomfortable.

“First thing: if I put you to sleep, I don’t have to worry about your food or your maintenance. In case you didn’t notice, the food here is substandard.”

“Yes,” Lisbet agreed.

“Also, if you thought washing yourself in the castle was no picnic then you should try doing it here on the Buckshot. After a week, you’re not going to want to smell yourself, let alone me,” he said as though trying to make a joke. “And you won’t have to sleep with me,” he added as an aside.

“If we’re only talking about sleeping,” Lisbet said quietly. “If we’re only talking about sleeping, then I don’t think it would be that bad to sleep next to you.”

Beck did a double take, turned around to face her, and dropped what he was carrying. “Is that so? What brought on that change of heart?”

“I think you’ve proven to be remarkably trustworthy,” she said, trying to make herself clear. “I mean, you’ve had my bracelet for months. If you wanted to get me to do anything, you could have electrocuted me into doing it. You have never shocked me to get me to do what you said. How many owners on Mars have shown their slaves that kind of consideration?”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you saying you don’t think I’m a monster?”

She nodded.

The gaze he returned to her was sharp. “Huh.” He leaned away from her. “Okay. Listen up. You go brush your teeth, wash your face, and change your clothes. I’ll take you down to the cargo bay and put you to sleep when you’re finished.”

Lisbet tried to stand up for herself. “Why aren’t you letting me stay up? I don’t feel comfortable being put to sleep in the middle of nowhere on Mars. What if you have an accident and you aren’t available to wake me up? What if I end up asleep for thousands of years? What if no one finds me and you putting me to sleep here is essentially death?”

“Calm down,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders and holding her steady. “Granted, something might go bad and I might not be the person to wake you up, but your cryochamber is set to send out a distress call if it is left unattended for longer than two weeks. Secondly, it’s set to wake you up if you receive a message of a certain amount of urgency. Thirdly, it’s not like no one knows you’re out here. Vantz knows. Invocation knows. And even if they didn’t, everyone on Mars would want to find you if it came out that you were missing.”

“Why would everyone want to find me?” Lisbet asked cynically.

He dropped his hands. “You’re their queen… sort of. At the very least, everyone wants to interview you.”

“That’s true,” she said, agreeing with him.

He stood his ground and looked into her eyes. “Look, I need you to go to sleep in the cryochamber without a fuss. I have a zillion things to do, and now I’ll stop this debate with the very best, most important reason for you to get in that cryochamber.”

“Okay. Let’s hear it.”

“If I detonate that bomb accidentally, you will be safe in the cryochamber. It is Sleeping Beauty Inc.’s best cryochamber. I made sure that you came with the best model that anyone could make. And it might sound crazy, but if we dropped that chamber into the sun, it would last for a surprising amount of time. You’d live through the tiny explosion here like it was a sneeze.”

“If that happened, would you die?”

“Probably, but that’s not my greatest concern in all of this. Besides, I’m good at math and I’ve run the numbers for you. You will be completely safe and I will be able to work much better if I don’t have to think about you.”

“Okay,” she relented, letting her shoulders droop. “Okay. I’ll go brush my teeth.”

“That’s a good girl,” he praised, turning away from her.

Lisbet didn’t like any of that stuff. Everything Beck told her made her uncomfortable, but resisting him any further was a mistake when he made so much sense. She went into cabin number two and pulled out a pack of vacuum-packed pajamas. Pulling hers off and putting those on felt weird. She’d never worn clothes with fabric so rough before. Looking at the tag she saw they were made out of flannel. She’d heard that word before, but she’d never felt it on her skin. Worse, the pajamas didn’t fit her well. Neither did the underwear they came with.

When she came waddling out to the flight deck in her new outfit, Beck laughed at the sight of her.

“Adorable,” he chuckled. “Well, at least they’re clean. Let’s go down. I’ll tell you the last fairy tale.”

She followed him. “What’s the point of the fairy tales you keep telling me?”

“Does there need to be a point?” he asked, leading her down a skeletal spiral staircase and into the cargo bay.

“It feels like you’re not telling me these stories to scare me. You’re…”

“I’m telling you the story of Mars,” he said without looking at her. He was standing beside her cryochamber pressing buttons and opening the lid for her.

“Do I really have to hear the last one?” she asked, feeling uneasy as she took his hand and he helped her into the chamber that resembled a coffin more than anything else.

His expression was sad and he did not answer her question. She suddenly realized that if his plan went poorly, she might not see him again. Letting him tell his story was a small kindness she could give him when he risked so much and he asked her to risk so little. Whatever deranged anti-fairy tale he wanted to tell her, it was better for her to listen to it than not.

She settled her head into the pillow while he buckled her five-point harness. “Tell me the story.”

Beck leaned on his elbow and looked into her eyes. “The violet in your eyes isn’t the way you were born. It’s what you invented for yourself?”

“Yeah, or something like that.”

“Hmm… I wonder how else we’re alike.” With that he launched into the fairy tale, speaking in a steady tone, “Once upon a time, there was a scornful prince. He spat in the face of his father, his family, their kingdom, and even their very way of life. He hurled insults, slapped faces, cut cords, howled to the moons nightly, and cursed them all.”

Lisbet could see his fairy tale was not going to end well.

“However, the curse didn’t land on the scornful prince’s wicked family. Instead, it landed squarely on him. He was branded a monster. The things he said became his horns, his tusks, and his forked tongue. The rage that brewed inside him grew like monstrous fur that covered his whole body. He didn’t look human any longer. He wasn’t human any longer. The only thing that would sate his desire for revenge was death.” Beck paused, took Lisbet’s hand in his, and continued, “At the same time, there was a merchant with three daughters. His business was going poorly and he decided that the only way to recover his losses was to send his three daughters to wed wealthy partners. Sadly, the father focused on the wealthy above any other considerations, and his prized oldest daughter was sent to marry the monster. It was either that or ruin. The faithful daughter complied.”

Lisbet felt her heart quicken as she was certain he was talking about her, but was the monster in the story Vantz or Beck? Were they both monsters?

“She was married without seeing her groom, without understanding the danger that seethed below the surface. Her purity and innocence went undisturbed as their marriage continued. He hid behind cloaks and waited behind daggers, but he never showed his true self to her.”

Lisbet waited with bated breath while Beck went on.

“The fairy tale of their marriage wasn’t real, not for him. He had to make blood spill until the land was as red as the mythos surrounding it. He had to hold her aloft and not let her goodness affect him. If he let her know him and she loved him… would he be able to cut down all that his honor required of him? If he gave her full knowledge of him and she disdained him…” Beck paused and let the thought linger in repose.

Lisbet did not try to pick apart the fairy tale. Perhaps she would understand it later. She thoroughly denied that it was about her.

“Sleep well, oldest daughter of a diamond merchant,” Beck said softly.

She frowned at him. She was doing so well not drawing conclusions and he had to make the story about her definitively.

“I’m sure the drugs will help you fall asleep, even if the story didn’t.” He bent and kissed her.

She turned her head away.

“Stop that,” he said firmly. “This isn’t much. I am an exceptional kisser and if you’d just give me half a chance…” he turned her chin toward him.

Lisbet gasped. It shouldn’t have been the best kiss of her life. It shouldn’t have made her heart weak and her bones shiver. She should not have loved that kiss that was surrounded by blood, ruin, rusted metal, and an entire world that was diseased and broken. A kiss like that should not have been given to her by Beck.

She loved it. She hoped he would never stop. She was so delighted, she couldn’t even move. She wanted him to hold her. She should have put her arms out to catch him, but she missed her moment.

He pulled away and put his cigarette in her mouth. She breathed it, hard. It was pumpkin pie. “Relax. The monster is on the other side of the glass.”

He took the cigarette out of her mouth, took a puff of it himself, and with one final enigmatic look, he pressed the button to close the lid of her cryochamber.

When it came down, finally, she had shaken off her paralysis and was able to move. She put her hand to the glass. It was her fist that she pounded against the lid.

For just a moment, she wasn’t herself. She was a young girl inside again. A young girl who had not been touched much, certainly she had not been kissed like she was precious. She had never been seen the way Beck saw her and she didn’t want the moment where he looked at her to end.

Gas was filling the chamber and the moment was slipping away from her. Ahead of her was a darkness that was like death. It made her think that the person she had been on Earth had died and the person she woke up to on Mars was kissed, unlike her old self. No one wanted to kiss Lisbet on Earth. She was untouchable, but the version of her that awoke on Mars was instantly touched…instantly kissed… instantly wanted… And Vantz… No. Beck… wanted her.

Her hand fell limp and Lisbet fell into a sleep that was like death inside a cryochamber.