It was a sense of dread that greeted me in the early hours of the next morning. I wanted so badly to put off the talk with Nate. Regrettably, my conscience and anxiety wouldn’t let me; regardless of my feelings, it would have been cruel to let him stew in his ship any longer, and I wanted this over with. That didn’t keep me from having coffee and eating breakfast, which gave me another excuse to talk things over one last time with my friends. At the very least, it would give me the confidence boost I needed.

Their advice when I approached them in the canteen did help, though it was similar to last night’s attempts. Tell him how I felt, do my best to forgive, get Benni to shoot him (Vulka’s suggestion). Ultimately, I knew it would come down to what he had to say. What Helga had told us, and how I had left him yesterday showed that he was at least somewhat penitent, and possibly on our side. If I could judge that he still was, then I could be ready to give him another chance. 

The walk to dock 314 felt longer this time. If it had diminished earlier when talking to Vulka and Listher, the dread in my stomach grew again as I saw the door, guards in place as always. On my approach, the one I recognized as Sarge nodded to me.

“We were told to expect you, but we didn’t expect you this early,” they said.

“Is that a problem?” I asked. “I just wanted to get this talk over with.”

Sarge shook their head. “By all means,” they said, gesturing to the bulkhead. “Just look both ways this time.”

“Har, har,” I said, smiling despite myself.

Entering the dock, I did actually make sure to look both ways, considering now would be the worst time for a repeat of yesterday. Nate didn’t appear to be exercising this time. Either I missed it, or he was also in a depression funk, the thought of which gave me a pang of guilt that I swiftly quashed. He hurt me, not the other way around. Maybe I hurt his feelings when I rejected him, but it was justified, and didn’t Cowl tell me to be selfish once in a while? This certainly felt like the right time to take her advice.

I made my way across the dock – with guards in tow – to the UAN Hope, which looked more like a flying fortress than ever. Maybe it was how I was feeling, or how clean it looked compared to the Benevolence, but something about it was different. More sinister. Before, it was just where Nate lived during his visit. Now, it was where the man who had been lying to me for the past two years lived. I found myself realizing I was glad I never set foot inside alone.

“Nate?” I called out, then mentally kicked myself. There was no way he could hear me through the airtight, heavily armored walls of the Hope.

Regardless, the ship’s side airlock slid open as I got closer. Either he had somehow heard me, or the Hope’s AI had alerted him to my presence. Nate stood there awkwardly, like the day he arrived, but with an expression that could have rivaled mine in my own worst moments. His eyes had heavy bags underneath, his fur looked matted, and his hair, usually well combed, stuck out at odd angles. I stopped approximately twenty steps away from the ship, hesitant to come any closer. Even with the guards behind me, I suddenly felt as though I was in enemy territory. Heartland class gunships had a lot of firepower.

He raised a hand in a bashful gesture of greeting and tried a smile. “Hey,” he said.

I was silent for too long before I said, “Uh, hi.”

“Should I come to you?” Nate asked.

“Right there is fine,” I said without thinking. 

He winced in response, which brought another pang of guilt that I had to fight down. “Fair enough,” he said. “So what’s the plan?”

The plan. What was the plan? I wasn’t sure how I had expected this to go. Maybe that he was going to fall to his knees and beg to be forgiven? Except that I didn’t want that. I wanted my friend back, and I could never have that again. Then, realizing I had been making him wait while I got lost in thought again, I took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know. I know you can’t go back.”

“I know,” he said, looking down at his feet. “I didn’t tell Blessed Lawsek what happened yesterday, and I think they bought my made-up report, but we’re going to get to the end of my time here eventually.”

“We can deal with that later,” I said. “Hopefully after Lawsek realizes they’ve lost two people out here they’ll stop trying. At the least they won’t have any more leverage on us. What I care most about is how to move forward between us.”

Nate nodded and was silent for a moment, maybe considering his next words. He wasted them by saying, “You can trust me.”

I shook my head. “No, I can’t,” I said. “Even if you were just doing your job, or you were telling the truth about your feelings changing, that doesn’t make this better. Two years, Nate. Two years of what I thought was a genuine, loving relationship after nearly a decade of loneliness. I don’t think you can ever understand how awful this feels.”

Nate sat down at the edge of the airlock, open exhaustion on his face. The airlock was just high enough off the ground that his feet swung a couple inches above. “I just…,” he began, then restarted. “I just keep thinking, what was I supposed to do? For all I knew, you really could have been a dangerous separatist. What would you have done if I told you back then, and what would have happened to me? By the time I got to know you, realized who you really were, we were both too deep to say anything.”

I felt my mouth press into a line as I realized he had a point, and I didn’t like it. “You don’t know that I would have reacted poorly,” I said. “We could have worked together.”

“Maybe,” Nate said. “But you remember what it was like there, don’t you? Trust just didn’t exist. The DoC pushed quota after quota on us to find and arrest separatists. I’m sure half of why I was arrested is because I was taking too long to get enough evidence on you.”

My jaw began to hurt, and I realized it was because I had been clenching it this entire time. Here in Brock Station, it was easy to forget the miasma of suspicion that permeated every personal interaction in Ulthea. The only difference back then was Nate. We could talk to each other like people. Being alone with him used to be a relief, but now the disease was back.

“I want to trust you,” I said, unconsciously clenching and unclenching my fists. “Every part of me wants to trust you, but Ulthea made it so that I can’t. I can forgive you for not telling me back then, and the fact that you were honest about it helps, but I can’t stop thinking that this is some trick Lawsek is playing. That it’s all an act to catch me unaware.”

Nate was quiet for a while. The guilt rose up a third time, and this time I felt it. I wasn’t angry at him any more, I couldn’t be. This situation was orchestrated by the Blessed Madsen Lawsek, tearing us both apart, and there was nothing that could be done but to try and ride it to the end and see what was left.

“Is there any way I can earn your trust again?” Nate finally asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe once this has passed and Helga thinks you’re safe enough to be on your own. Not until you’re really out of the Blesseds’ grasp.”

Nate nodded and hopped down from his perch. “I can live with that,” he said. “As long as you see it in the future, I can wait.”

“Okay,” I said, starting to feel at least a little lighter. “We should probably tell Helga.”

“She’s gonna be upset,” Nate said. “I’m sure she was just itching to fire me out of an airlock.”

Somehow – maybe because I didn’t expect it, or because it was so like the Nate I knew – I was still capable of giving a little snort of laughter, which seemed to bolster Nate’s spirits. We left for Helga’s office, not arm in arm, but with a sense of equal determination.

The discussion with Helga went well enough. She seemed unsurprised at my decision to give Nate a second chance, and even offered assistance with falsifying Nate’s reports. She had that look in her eye again – the one that said she knew this would happen – which annoyed me as usual. I couldn’t understand why she was so amused with me all the time. The next step, we all decided, was to get in touch with Cowl, and hope that she would arrive before Nate’s month here was up.

…

“Oh my god, Casey! It’s SO good to see you,” Cowl said from the tablet screen. Dr. Skisk had set Nate and I up with a video call. The serpentine surgeon’s head nearly took up the entire screen, her nose especially looming large whenever she turned her face forward. As strange and overwhelming as our first encounter was, it felt good to see her again. “What can I do for you, babe? Feet still sticking to walls okay? Wait, who’s that handsome set of stripes next to you?”

“This is my… friend. Nate,” I said, realizing I should have warned him about Cowl’s very forward personality. He was already starting to look embarrassed at the compliment. “He’s actually the reason why I’m calling.”

Cowl turned her head to the side, inspecting Nate closely with one eye. “This one looks like a soldier, am I right?” she asked. 

“Um, yes ma’am,” Nate said.

“And so polite!” Cowl exclaimed. She leaned away from the camera and clapped her bony hands together. “How exciting! I want to hear all about you two when I get there, alright? Now, tell me what package you got, so I know what I’m dealing with.”

Nate blinked in surprise. “Wait, you know about military cybernetics packages?” he asked, the disbelief clear on his face.

“I’ve been working on Ulthean soldiers longer than you’ve been alive, babe,” Cowl teased, her shark tooth filled smile widening. “I can tell you down to the nanoprocessor what hardware they filled you with. What was it, FlyBoy Mk 3? Maybe GuardPlus Advantage Version 5.6, that was a good one. MeatWall Pro 2?”

Nate looked like he could hardly think under the crashing wave of Cowl’s enthusiasm. He barely managed to stutter out, “Um, Station Master, version 6 I think?” 

“Version 6?” Cowl asked, suddenly curious. She brought her eye to the screen again. “When did that come out?”

“About two and a half years ago,” Nate said, reflexively leaning away. “They didn’t say at the time, but apparently it’s a flux rated system.”

“Hmm,” Cowl mused. “It really must be new if I haven’t heard of it, but I can see the logic. Station guards don’t need to travel, so you sacrifice versatility for more power. Clever, but risky.”

“Would you be able to change the flux rating?” I asked.

Cowl blew a raspberry. “Babe, of course,” she said. She leaned back from the screen again, and I saw Nate visibly relax. “Change it, remove it, install an older model, you name it.”

“That’s good to hear,” Nate said. “It’s been kind of a pain this far outside of its range. I’ve been dealing with a pretty consistent headache all this morning.”

“You didn’t say that earlier,” I said, worry creasing my forehead.

“It’s not as bad as yesterday,” Nate assured me. “I didn’t want to distract from what we were talking about.”

Cowl shook her head in disappointment.  “The things they don’t tell you poor kids could fill an ocean,” she sighed. “Anyhow, I can be there in a week, think it’ll keep until then?”

Nate and I looked at each other. “I think so,” Nate said. “It’s probably linked to stress. If I avoid that, it should be fine.”

With dramatic and mocking flair, she said, “Then as your newly appointed cybernetic surgeon, I prescribe you a week of spa treatments and massages,” which made me snicker a bit. Cowl was a lot more fun when she was happening to someone else. In a more normal voice, she said, “Anything else I can do for you? Casey?”

I shook my head. “The legs have been perfect, thanks again,” I said.

“Then I’ll see you soon, sweeties! I’d love to catch up, but I’m entering atmosphere in about two minutes,” Cowl said, and blew a kiss. “As the Pasci say, au revoir!”

Nate and I said our goodbyes, and the feed cut out. Afterwards, we weren’t entirely sure what to do. I hadn’t missed the fact that Nate had received the update to his cybernetics around the time he was assigned to surveil me, but if Cowl wasn’t concerned, I was happy to not think too hard about it. 

We had lunch, because it was about that time, and we needed something to break the awkward silences that repeatedly opened up between us. Vulka joined as well, which was appreciated. It was possible things would turn out okay, and I held on to that optimism, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to relax until Cowl got here. I begged the heavens to let the week rush by.