I stared at the message in disbelief for some time. ‘We might be able to make a deal’? What the hell was that supposed to mean? Was Aisling actually turning on me? After all that talk about loyalty and how I would never be left behind? After explicitly telling me that she would wade through hell for me? Why now? Sure it was a lot of money, but I thought Aisling didn’t care about money! Was that a ruse too? Part of me wondered if I ever should have trusted her in the first place. It wasn’t the first time she’d treated me as subhuman, and that was even before she knew what I was. I remembered before she officially brought me on, she tried to minimize my humanity after she’d talked me into flying her to Luna. Was she really just a charismatic manipulative bitch this whole time?!

I was hyperventilating. Of course I was. I was angry. I was crying. I couldn’t help myself.

“What the fuck is making a deal supposed to mean!?” I shouted through the intercom, my voice synthesis sloppy enough that a spike of feedback broke through alongside my voice.

Aisling flinched at the noise, turning to look up at my sensor array with that usual difficult-to-read calm and calculating stare that she always showed when concentrating “Ow. I was hoping you would be here for this. But ow.” she put a finger in her ear as if trying to shake something loose.

“Of course I’m here for this, I’m the ship!” I calmed down a little, perplexed enough by her calm demeanor despite what I’d just caught her doing. Was there something more to this? “You’re making a deal to sell me to this asshole!” I accused.

She raised an eyebrow up at my sensor, giving me a moment to think about the situation. No, there was nothing wrong with what I said. She finally let out a sigh “Meryll, I’ve read your combat logs, you are a masterful pilot and tactician on a battlefield.” she started, then crossed her arms “But you don’t really get people, do you?”

Was she… taunting me? Was she calling me foolish for not seeing this coming? Or… no, she didn’t have as much leverage as felt obvious here. I could easily just sabotage the ship, walk out, and give myself to Skygraves out of spite right now. She wasn’t trying to hide what she was doing. Was this not exactly what it looked like then? So what was she doing?

“He contacted me first. I waited as long as I could for it to be plausible that I just didn’t see his message.” She explained. I looked at the chat history and saw that he indeed began the exchange, and she first responded hours later. “I tried to keep the pleasantries going as long as I could too. After that, he asked me directly about you and asked if this was a secure channel. I lied.” I hadn’t really taken note of it before, but she did seem to be giving the impression to him that I wasn’t able to read the chat. But I could have at any time, it only just became obvious to me when I got in my core module and thought to look through the logs. “He put down an offer on you. Now, Skygraves is known to be a shrewd man of many means who happens to be the one keeping us here and playing host to us for the time being. He owns this colony, and to some extent, everyone on it. He holds all the cards. If he really wanted to, he could just take you. It’s just easier if he can convince me to part with you for money.”

“But instead, he’s here negotiating with you.” I said more calmly now. It was all starting to come together “You’re not trying to sell me.”

Aisling shook her head “I’m stalling. Skygraves doesn’t know me. I need him to believe that I want to sell you. I’m using that to my advantage so we can have the time to repair the ship before he realizes I’m not playing ball. If we’re caught before then and things get violent, that puts us into a protracted war of attrition that we’ll lose. If we can repair and resupply enough to leave, then he loses all his power on us.”

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So she was lying. But not to me. I felt my muscles relax as I let go of tension I hadn’t realized I’d begun to feel. “I’m sorry.” I sent through the intercom “I misunderstood.” I probably wouldn’t have said it so calmly if I was vocalizing it.

Aisling nodded, turning back to look at her screen and letting her arms relax at her side “It’s fine, Meryll. Sorry I didn’t bring it up at dinner. I probably should have, I’ve just been distracted trying to plan this whole thing. And I knew you wouldn’t like it so I kinda did procrastinate hoping it wouldn’t blow up on me.”

“You really think Skygraves is gonna attack us by the end of this?”

“Definitely will. I’ve got a few ideas, but the fact that he’s got an unknown augment complicates things too.” Aisling admitted “We need to keep up the illusion that he’s in control, try to get more info on him, and figure out exactly what he plans to do when negotiations fall through. But my money’s on physical force to tip my hand.”

Man, she was right. I really didn’t know people all that well. Aisling was here playing this elaborate game with Skygraves while I was just walking around the colony dealing with my own problems.

“Do you need me to do anything?” I asked. I still felt bad for yelling at her, even though I was totally justified knowing what I knew in that moment.

“I just need you to do what you’ve been doing.” Aisling casually shrugged “Go see the doctors, maintain the justification that we should be getting paid for our services. Let me worry about the 3D chess, you just handle yourself.”

I had to admit, the way Aisling looked when she concentrated was a little cute. She had this constant grimace of concentration on her face that almost made her look mad, like she was pouting. Yet she held such a casual demeanor despite it. I didn’t really appreciate it when I was mad at her, but for some reason, it stuck in my head when I was starting to calm down. I felt embarrassed that I’d just blown up on her while she was trying to help me, but something about concentrating on her resting bitch face made me feel better.

“Maybe you should try to get Doc in on it somehow.” I tried to offer “He knows Skygraves. He could probably help you pick apart his psychology. And I know he could use some kind of catharsis against the man.”

Aisling paused and turned her head to glance back at the sensor “He told you about that, huh?”

“Yeah.” I decided to leave the part where I had kind of coerced him into talking about it out. This situation was already complicated enough for my liking.

She nodded back at me and returned to her terminal “Yeah, he might like that. I’ll see what he thinks. And I’ll ping you when Skygraves responds. You could stand to learn a few things about manipulating people.”

That was a funny sentence to hear in good faith.

“Okay. I’ll keep an eye on it. Thanks.” was all I sent next, opening my eyes and blinking a few times, letting the tears I’d built up in my anger wink out of existence into the lubricant around me. as I breathed a silent sigh of relief into my void

It was becoming annoying how complicated my life was becoming. I had only been on Venus for a day and I was already emotionally drained from everything I had to go through, and I’d have to do it all over tomorrow. Well, except for the lifechanging revelation of my origin at the beginning of the day. I really hoped I wouldn’t have to go through that again every day of this week. That would just be exhausting.

I closed my eyes again and looked at the itinerary that I’d been given for the week. Tomorrow would be a neurologist named Dr. Godin. A neurologist. I wondered if they might be interested in the brain scans I’d been taking. Or about my amnesia. Or maybe this would be sort of like my meeting with Dr. Yates and I’d have to answer a bunch of questions about what I’m thinking.

For now, I opened my eyes again and focused on the void. I needed to just let myself slip away and rest.