Beacon 23: Part Four: Company (Kindle Single) by Hugh Howey Read Free Book Online

anything would happen to her—she got a strange look on her face, like she knew this was going too far, and we were feeling too much, even though we still hadn’t had sex, like we were saving that for the people we didn’t love quite so truly. Well, it was after this that she QTed NASA and said the beacon was good to go. To send her an operator. At least, I think this was what decided it for her.
    Cricket mews and growls and nudges her head against me.
    “I know,” I say, scratching behind her ears. “I like her too.”
    The warthen clamps her jaw on my arm and squeezes, like she’ll bite me if I don’t stop lying.
    “Love,” I say quickly. “I love her. Okay? But I’m supposed to tell her that, not you. So leave me the hell alone about it.”
    Cricket pulls away and walks a big lap around the command module, whining.
    “I’m sorry,” I say, throwing my hands up. “Whaddya want from me? Huh? I don’t make the rules. I just break them. Can’t it be enough that we had a good week? Does it have to be all about today?”
    Cricket stares at me. I can hear that I’m asking myself these questions. That it’s me angry at the cosmos.
    “C’mere,” I say, patting my lap.
    Fifty kilos of alien jumps up in my lap and finds a way to curl into a dense, furry ball. Her tail swishes along the ground, back and forth.
    “Truth is, I’m scared,” I tell her. “What if sitting still stops working? Or breathing in and out doesn’t do anything anymore? If the gwib doesn’t do anything, what if everything else stops working too?”
    She licks my hand. And then I have a scary thought, one I shove away fast before Cricket can pick up on it—and the question is this: What if I were to lose her right now? This animal is the nearest thing I have to the GWB, or Rocky, or Claire, or all the things that have given me peace in the moment but never seem to last. Where’s the everlasting peace? Is there even such a thing? Or do we war like alien races war, eternally, against ourselves? I hope that’s not right. I hope that’s not how it all works.
    “Beacon 23, transport KYM731. Requesting permission to dock. Over.”
    I look back to my screen and see that the supply ship has left its collar. It’s just the lifeboat there. There are lights in the portholes and flashing lights along the solar panels. She’s all up and running.
    “Hop down,” I tell Cricket.
    She does, and I grab the HF’s mic.
    “Lock collar Charlie,” I say, reaching over to energize the magnetic latch.
    I go down the ladder ahead of Cricket and close the ladder’s top hatch behind me. I can hear her pacing and mewing, but she doesn’t put up a big fight. Maybe she can read my thoughts and knows that if she gets spotted here, I’ll lose her, and she’ll probably spend the rest of her life in a zoo. Or get bought up by another bounty hunter, who’ll use her with his dark thoughts.
    The pilot whaps the collar pretty damn good. A one out of ten on the pilot-o-meter. I key open the airlock, and we shake hands and exchange names and pleasantries. Then he passes me two dozen plastic crates full of supplies, spares, and food, and I pass him back two canisters of unrecyclable waste. He gives me two empties in exchange. The entire time, I keep expecting Claire to come give us a hand, or say one last goodbye, or at least wave. But the last time we saw each other, it was too perfect a final goodbye to replace. A lingering kiss that I can still feel on my lips. A warmness in my heart that liquor and grav wave broadcasters could never touch.
    “One last thing,” the pilot says. He disappears and comes back with a black plastic bag. The top is seized with a red wire. A tear rolls down my cheek, and I don’t turn aside, and I don’t wipe it away. I don’t even feel the pride of someone who does neither. Nor the pride of not feeling this. Instead, I just am. I feel the sweetness of the gift. I feel the sweetness of feeling the sweetness. There’s no shame,