Dorian growled and clicked off his comm.
“Well?” Eikon asked.
“It’s been twelve hours since Theophanes thought he spotted Lennox,” Dorian said. “No sign since then. Lennox has had enough time to crawl the length of the ship twice. Even if he was here, he’s disappeared by now.”
Eikon frowned. “They really don’t think he’s worth catching?”
“Or maybe they don’t think it’s worth the effort of combing through the whole ship to find someone who may not even be there. But that’s not particularly solid logic, since he is a potential threat. I don’t know.” Dorian sighed as they came to a stop at a crossroads of sorts, the connection between one of the habitats and the axis.
They had scanned through the entire command module. They could have been more thorough, checking every single corner, every container, every door, but there was just too much to go through. With only the two of them, it would have taken a week to search everything. They had to settle for a cursory glance. If they could at least ensure that he wasn’t on the axis, they could rest assured that he was cornered somewhere. The axis was terrible to search, though. It was dark and there was more environmental noise than on the command module.
The wounds on the stallion should have been proof that Lennox was out there, but the first griffons to give up the hunt had consumed the body and the evidence was gone. Dorian believed it, but that gave only four griffons, two of which were not fit to search for him. Convincing the others at this point was near impossible… the only proof remaining was locked on the bridge in SecCom.
“Lots of hiding places on Emscon,” Eikon mumbled, looking over the airlock door.
Dorian squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his brow. “Hard to search without the whole flock.”
“Only hard to search and find a single griffon,” Eikon said. “At this point, he’s had enough time to disappear. But he’s had some kind of hideout this whole time. And the stallion was with him, too.”
“They would have covered their tracks.” Dorian shook his head.
“I don’t think there was any reason to,” Eikon continued. “We never went after them. We never knew they were there.”
“You think they stayed in one place?”
Eikon nodded. “With an elaborate web of contingencies planned out. It’s most likely that they had a handful of main places to stay which were easily defended or easy to escape from. And they would have stayed long enough that we’d see some sign of their presence.”
“The only viable long term shelter would have to be far from the places we normally go,” Dorian said. He looked over Emscon’s airlock.
“If we can find some evidence suggesting that searching all of Emscon is worth the effort, the others will come.” Eikon flapped his wings, moving over to the airlock’s control.
It wasn’t locked. Lennox was smart enough not to lock it. That would make the hiding place too obvious.
Dorian thought for a minute before answering. “A cursory glance. I suspect that something else is going on that’s occupying the flock’s attention. I’d like to head back to Chemlab soon.”
They passed through the airlock without trouble and began to descend through the decks of Emscon. They encountered no obstacles on their way down. None of the doors on the upper decks were sealed, and there didn’t appear to be traps of any sort.
Dorian was quiet, for once. A welcome change.
Eikon devoted only slight attention to him. He observed Emscon, watching for any details that might prove useful. He also noted the details that weren’t there. The lack of obstacles was interesting.
It was foolish to leave one’s hideout undefended, but it was equally foolish to make the defenses obvious. The farther down they went, the slower they progressed, until they stopped entirely. Dorian motioned to a room and they moved inside, out of the hallways. They were only three decks down, out of twenty-five main decks plus some additional areas that didn’t fit neatly into layers.
“There are cameras up ahead,” Dorian said, scanning the room to make sure there weren’t any in there, as well.
“There were cameras behind us, too. There are cameras everywhere.”
Dorian leaned over a computer, staring at the screen from an odd angle. “Did you see how they were positioned?”
Eikon replayed the last few minutes. Photographic memory was rather useful on occasion. There wasn’t anything strange about the position of the cameras they had passed. But the ones they had just avoided…
“The ones up ahead are watching for anything entering the habitat from this direction,” Eikon said.
“Coincidence?”
“Not proof.” Eikon shook his head.
“Here’s more not-proof,” Dorian said, still standing over the computer terminal. He held up his left hand, letting his claws rest on the screen. “Someone didn’t follow the screen cleaning rule.”
Eikon went over to look for himself. There were a number of smudges on the screen with clean lines traced through them, a pattern that griffon computer users knew all too well. The skin of declawed fingers would graze the screen and leave a mark, and the claw nubs themselves would end up tracing clean lines through the smudge.
“Lennox blunts the claws on both hands,” Eikon said. “And there’s just enough smudging on the screen to tell the hands apart. There were only a dozen or so who blunted both hands and none of them worked on Emscon.”
“Could have come here after the accident,” Dorian pointed out. “Not normal work schedule.”
Eikon flexed his own left hand, feeling the talons prick the skin of his palm. “None of our flock are clawless.”
Eikon turned and surveyed the rest of the room. It was a small fabrication lab, just two fabricators and two corresponding computer stations to control them. In case of any issues elsewhere that engineers on Emscon would provide a solution for.
“I don’t see anything to suggest that this was their base of operations,” Eikon said. “In fact, quite the opposite.” He drifted to the far end of the room, his eyes running over the fabricators.
“No food, no water,” Dorian said, glancing over the computer once more before drifting to the center of the room. “Just a place Lennox happened to stop by.”
Only three levels down, though. What else might await? The flock hadn’t been on Emscon in a long time. If Eikon were to choose a hiding spot, this would be high on his list.
But the cameras were an issue. If Lennox was watching, and he saw them, he’d know to move on and hide somewhere else. They couldn’t just charge in. “He’ll hide somewhere else if he sees us,” Eikon said.
“So, assuming he’s here, we can’t let him know that we know,” Dorian said. “But we can’t just ignore Emscon. If he sees us explore the rest of the ship but conveniently ignore this habitat in particular. He'll know we’re deliberately avoiding it.”
He could figure it out either way. But they still couldn’t just run down through the decks looking for him. “Is there any way to—”
Dorian’s gaze drifted. He tilted his head up slightly, alerted by something. Eikon listened.
It came from below. The walls and floors of the ship generally did a reasonable job at blocking sound, but sometimes you could hear conversations on the other side. Eikon laid down carefully in the low gravity and pressed an ear to the floor. Dorian did the same.
Two voices shouting back and forth. A brief exchange. Probably two decks below. One low and masculine, the other pitched in a female range. This was an abnormal event. If those two were always that loud, they would have been caught long ago. Recent acquaintances, then? The mare was still missing. Lennox must have found her.
“Fighting?” Eikon whispered.
Dorian smirked. “External threats might help them work out their differences. We could do them a favor.”
Eikon’s heart rate quickened. They could get him now, while his guard was down. “They’re distracted. He won’t be watching the security feeds. Now would be a good chance…”
“No. Not yet.” Dorian stood and stared out into the hall. “We need the others. If he’s distracted, we can use the time to get the rest of the flock before he has a chance to check the security recordings. And before we go, we’d best set up some motion sensors or something, to make sure he doesn’t leave.”
— — —
As long as you don't do anything stupid afterward, Lennox had said, a condition for answering her question. Perhaps he should have explicitly defined 'stupid.'
Lennox muttered curses to himself.
He couldn't have kept it a secret. She would have found out what happened to Solstice eventually. And he didn’t particularly want to keep it a secret, but he couldn't have risked telling her at first, or else she wouldn't have followed him as far as she did. They would never have escaped and found their way back to Emscon.
Waiting hadn't been a mistake. He wasn't quite sure where the mistake had been, or if there had been one. Perhaps all possibilities led to this outcome.
“I am trying to help you!” he called out, following her down the hallway he thought she’d chosen. They were climbing the decks again. Each level higher made him a little dizzy, and while the gravity was still enough to run, his stride had to change to a leaping gallop of sorts.
Perhaps the mistake had been in allowing her to roam free.
She shouted back from up ahead, “Stop following me!”
Could she not see that he was trying to keep her safe? She had trusted him as far as Emscon, which was a lot further than she trusted any of the other griffons. She had to know that he wasn't allied with them, at least. Surely, that conclusion must have occurred to her… “I made a promise to protect you,” he said.
“From what!?”
If he hadn't been breathing so rapidly, his next exhale might have been an irritated sigh. “From anything. From mechanical failures. From the griffons who are currently still looking for us.”
“You’re a griffon!”
Damn it.
Her voice grew more distant with each reply. Despite how tired she must have been, she could still move rather quickly. She probably didn’t even need his help, if she could run like this.
“Can we talk, please?” he said between panting breaths.
Her voice was muffled in the distance, and he couldn’t quite make out the words, but the response resembled, “Go to hell!”
It was becoming very difficult to will himself to pursue her. He was tired. The elevators were mostly locked down, and they had to take stairs.
She probably didn’t even need his help. He kept thinking that, but he knew it wasn’t entirely true.
Even though she could outrun him, she couldn’t hide as well as he could. She didn’t know what parts of the ship were safe. Which hydroponics bays still functioned. Where the griffons usually went. She would learn quickly, but only if she survived the first struggles. One mistake could spell total failure. Picking a bad hiding place… stumbling into the others… using magic in the wrong place at the wrong time…
She wasn’t a survivalist. She was a danger to herself and anyone allied with her.
Lennox slowed to catch his breath. Even if he could catch her… what then? Grab her by the neck and force her to be safe? Any of the mistakes that might get her killed on her own would get them both killed if he kept her around.
Holly Ilex was a botanist. Not a mechanic or an engineer, not a programmer or a systems operator. She was a botanist on a spacecraft. Any skills she might have couldn’t possibly outweigh the burden of preventing her from getting killed. She was useless.
“Holly,” Lennox called out. “If you keep running from me, you will be alone.”
There was no reply.
“Holly?”
His wings involuntarily twitched as he listened to the echoes of his own voice. They had just engaged in a shouting match on the upper decks of Emscon, which was far closer to the axis than he wanted to be. It was almost as if he had been throwing stones at a hornet’s nest without knowing, then suddenly realized what his target was, with a rock already in midair.
Not being at any kind of computer station, he couldn’t check the security cameras. And the motion sensors linked to his comm were positioned around the mid decks. They’d already passed them. There wouldn’t be any warning if the griffons came for them right now.
He kept moving, picking up his pace. There were small noises ahead of him… taps, thuds, reverberating back through the tunnels.
Just as he caught up to them, rounding a corner, he felt a pressure in his head and sudden dizziness. Holly was there, horn glowing. Her murderous eyes glared at him.
A little shard of metal carved through the air between them, drawing a line of separation. It whistled from the speed.
“I told you to stop following me,” she said, panting.
“Despite how wise that may be,” Lennox said, eyeing the metal, “This is not a safe place to be. You need to come down to the lower decks. I promised Solstice I would protect you.”
“And then you killed him. No…” she blinked. Her eyes glistened, reflecting a wavering version of her horn’s glow. “You murdered him.”
“Not intentionally.”
“You didn’t mean to shoot?” She raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. A tear fell loose and darkened her fur. “It was an accident?” Her voice was so choked, the words came out almost entirely as breathless consonants.
Lennox clenched a fist at his side. “His death was not the goal.”
“But, for your own survival, it wasn’t too steep a price.” A tear fell from her other eye, matching the first.
“Damn it, Holly!” Lennox shouted. He rose up, standing bipedal, hands clenched into fists at his sides. His voice echoed through the halls, and somewhere in his mind, there arose a suggestion to remain calm and whisper. That suggestion was snuffed out. He squeezed his fists. If he still had claws, they’d have pierced straight through his palms. “I did not want him to die!”
His wings flared suddenly of their own accord, spurred by the fire inside. Holly flinched, and her horn glow flashed. An involuntary reflex in response to being startled.
A tingling chill carved across his abdomen. Where the cold had passed, warmth and pain spread in its wake.
She hesitated just long enough for her mouth to fall open. She released the bloodied metal and fled.
Lennox put a hand to his stomach. It came away damp. He didn’t look. He zipped the front of his vest and pressed his forearm across the outside, holding it against the wound. He let himself fall back to what would have been a quadrupedal stance, if not for the arm across his stomach.
There was no more doubt. Only a mathematical assessment. He was entirely justified in leaving her to her own devices. Let her fight for her life. Let the other griffons come for her. She might take one or two of them with her!
He took a shaky breath. This was one of the more painful injuries he’d sustained in the last months. How deep had she cut?
It wasn't that bad, he realized, looking down. It hurt, but nothing was spilling out through the cut, besides blood. He'd live.
There was only a mathematical assessment. He closed his eyes. Only that damned little voice, calling out the premises of deductive reasoning in mockery of his best interests…
Griffons honor promises. You are a griffon. You promised. Therefore, you will honor that promise.
…even though it ran contrary to any sense of realism or tactics or self-preservation.
He clenched his beak and started moving, keeping pressure on the wound with one arm, using his other and his wings to move. He muttered curses both griffon and pony as the pain dulled.
She was going to get him killed. He accepted that with a certain detached surrender. It almost didn’t even matter.
In his mind, he saw Solstice again. The brief shared glance before he shot.
He pressed his wound harder, clenched his beak so tight it felt like it might crack.
He remembered the look on Solstice’s face as the watch hung between them.
Lennox was tired. He sighed and paused, staring at the space where Solstice had almost been… where he would have been, if he were still there. Where he should have been.
I couldn't save you. Lennox thought to whisper the words, but didn't, knowing it would be swallowed in silence. Solstice was dead. Gone. There was no ambiguity there. Ponies and griffons and dragons may have believed all kinds of things about death but there was a set of simple, scientifically verifiable facts that Lennox found both profoundly comforting and profoundly troubling.
The voice is a sound wave, a vibration. The air carries the vibrations. The tympanic membrane catches on, vibrated by the air. The vibrations trigger nerves, the nerves message the temporal lobe, and the temporal lobe processes and recognizes the signals as voice.
The brain starts to die minutes after the blood flow stops. The nerves and tympanic membrane take a little longer, but they, too, die. They decompose into dirt and rot, no more alive than the lunar basalt that made the ship.
Whether or not there was anything else that lived on… the mechanisms for perceiving and understanding speech were destroyed.
If Solstice still was, he could not hear in the way that he had.
If Solstice still was, he could not bleed or suffer or feel any kind of pain in the way that he had. Those mechanisms of perception were gone as well.
“I couldn’t save you,” Lennox spoke into the dark, finally whispering the words out loud. Not for Solstice to hear. Solstice was no more. But his sister still drew breath, still ran through the corridors with some desperate hope of survival. And though it was a promise he wasn’t sure he could keep, a goal costly and far out of reach, a task of dubious reward…
“But I will protect her for you,” Lennox spoke into the dark. Not for Solstice to hear. Not for Holly to hear. For himself — an affirmation to spite the blood that seeped through the cloth of his vest, leaving a sparse trail of red droplets in his wake. A goal to work towards. He needed a goal. Something to keep him moving… the worst thing you can do is stop and think.
Though he moved slowly, he did not have to travel far to find her. Apparently her crisis of faith had started not long after his. He passed a maintenance closet, paused, listened. She cried faintly within.
His free hand went for the door control, then paused.
Perhaps she was near because she wanted him to find her. But there was also the possibility that she had another shard of metal, perhaps a larger one, and in light of that possibility he concluded that it would be unwise to surprise her again.
He knocked. Three knocks, gentle, evenly spaced, using his knuckles. The blunted claw tips would have resembled a hoof too much.
There was no response. He knocked again, only subtly louder. Again, there was no response.
He touched the door control, and it slid open.
Just a storage room. Shelves against the three walls, netting across to hold things back from falling. A piece of metal vaguely resembling a circular saw blade rested on the floor. Had she been planning to…? No. Not important.
She was tucked up under a shelf where he couldn’t see. He heard a sniffle.
“Holly,” he said.
She sniffled and rustled under the shelf. “Go away.”
“Firstly,” he took a deep breath, feeling the wound sting as the skin stretched, “that really hurt.”
After waiting for a response that didn't come, he continued, “Secondly, we need to go back down., This is far too close to the central axis to be safe. All of the security measures are below us.”
Another moment of silence stretched out when he was finished speaking. She didn't move for a while, until finally her tiny little voice asked, “Why are you still here?”
“I've already told you. Would repeating myself make a difference?”
She gave no response.
He sighed. “We’re about fifteen decks closer to danger than we need to be.”
“Does it even matter?”
He flinched. He wasn’t even quite sure why that made him flinch. Perhaps it was the sheer unexpectedness of it, the total lack of rationale behind it. Does it even matter? How could that question even be answered? The mere act of asking the question in the first place was a rejection of the answers, answers that were so implicit and obvious that he struggled to put them to words.
He’d asked himself the same questions. Did it matter? Why bother? Because ponies needed help? Why help them? Because it’s the right thing to do? What reason is there for doing the right thing? Because it’s right? Because it is?
All reasoning led in circles. This was the sort of troubling question that had probably plagued Solstice.
But puzzling over existential angst could wait until this was all over. That much was clear and mathematical…. He needed to focus on the present. Whether or not his goals could be deduced from objective logic and determined to be right, they still felt right.
“There are others still in danger,” he said. “We need to help them. Being in danger ourselves won’t advance that goal.”
“And what am I supposed to do?”
He shrugged, though she probably couldn’t see. “I’m sure there’s some way you could contribute.”
“Everypony I cared about…” Her voice cracked and cut off and she couldn’t finish the sentence. …is dead, she might have finished. What’s left to live for? “Leave me alone,” she sobbed instead. “Go.”
Lennox opened his beak to protest but thought better of it. She probably did need time to process things, as inefficient and dangerous as it might be. Pressing her to keep going might actually be harmful. But waiting here with their guard down might be harmful as well.
He patted the pockets of his vest and found the knife. At least he had a weapon of some sort. And he knew where he was… this was just a storage closet in a hallway near a lot of other hallways that gave numerous escape routes. If anything came, he could take her and run back down, and they’d pass through doorways that could lock behind them and delay the griffons.
What was a reasonable danger? An hour? Two? The Verdant Song was a big ship, and the griffons would take a long time to search the whole thing. They’d start at the command module and work their way down towards engineering, probably paying attention to the axis before the habitats.
“I’ll be in the hall,” he said. “Keeping watch.” When she gave no response, he exited and shut the door behind.
His wings flared. This wasn’t logically sound by any means. But, then again, neither was she.
— — —
Dorian cursed repeatedly, pacing back and forth in a lounge. Eikon had pulled up a camera feed from the great hall so they could watch from here, without being near the others.
The griffons were dueling. Not sparring, as they had been for the last day or two, but dueling, in the traditional way. They used their hunting spears, mostly. Blood was drawn. It wasn’t a fight to the death, of course. That would have been a terrible waste. It was a fight until one yielded. Most yielded with a blade at their throat. Some took a few hits, first. But none were stupid enough to fight to the death.
Eikon wasn’t sure who had started it, but he had suspicions about who would win. It would go on for a few days, perhaps, occupying most of their attention. One would emerge champion. Eikon wasn’t sure what would happen after that, because this contest wasn’t just a test of strength, it was a contest to determine a leader.
Kelantos had only awoken briefly, and certainly didn’t have the strength to seize control. The flock was choosing a replacement for him, and in the meantime, the most immediate threat to them was going unchecked. Kelantos hadn’t been able to formulate any sort of plan, yet. He was probably watching the duel from the medlab, just as frustrated as Eikon and Dorian.
Phrygian was one of the duelists at the moment. Probably one of the most likely to win. He parried his opponent’s thrust and leapt forward, throwing his weight into the other. He spread his wings and gave one huge flap, just barely lifting his feet off the ground while the other tumbled.
“Surrounded by idiots,” Dorian muttered. “Lennox is probably planting explosives all over the place. He has all the time he needs to prepare and pick us off, one by one.”
“He might be too busy trying to deal with the mare,” Eikon said.
“Which irritates me even further, because this is the perfect moment to do something. But instead, they’re all in there playing gladiator.” Dorian stopped his pacing next to Eikon and waved a hand at the screen.
Eikon scanned over the flock. Most were present in the great hall to watch the duel. Theophanes and Kelantos were missing, along with two or three others. Those present had spread themselves around the perimeter of the great hall. Some sat at the tables they’d moved to the corner. All were attentive. The only noises from the flock were quiet mutterings.
“Lennox isn’t even the only concern,” Eikon said. “They’re ignoring everything that matters.” None of the others had even mentioned the ship’s voyage home. It was almost as if they were pretending it wasn’t happening.
But then again, what could they do? The Alcubierre drive and the sensitive parts of engineering had been sealed off for a long time, completely inaccessible. They’d tried and failed. The bridge was sealed off as well, now. The only way to stop the ship was to do something that would destroy it. They weren’t suicidal, they just… “To fight against the inevitable is to blunt one's talons against rock,” Eikon mumbled.
Phrygian’s opponent tried to stand, but couldn’t get past the flurry of blows. All he could do was lay on his back and parry. But he extended his spear too far. Phrygian stepped closer, batting the other’s spear aside, brought his blade to his opponent’s neck, and his opponent yielded.
“I can’t think of a good way to interrupt this,” Dorian said. “We’ll just have to wait.”
Eikon couldn’t, either. There were plenty of ways to interrupt it, they just weren’t good ways. Anything involving deception would backfire. They couldn’t invite Lennox to do something to prove how much of a threat he was. Any attempts to publically convince them would likely result in ridicule and reduce the success of future attempts. They still had no solid proof, but they couldn’t risk being seen by Lennox. “It’ll be over in a few days.”
“He’ll win.” Dorian nodded toward Phrygian, who held his spear above his head in triumph.
“What do you think he’ll do first afterward?”
“Gather resources. Prepare to go out in a blaze of glory, lighting up the sky on Equus like a meteor. Something pretty.” Dorian sighed. “When was the last time you spoke to Kelantos?”
“He was awake when we arrived back from Emscon. I told him what was going on. He thought over things, but didn’t seem to reach a conclusion. Why?” Eikon turned to study the other’s expression.
Dorian’s brow furrowed in anger and thought. “Phrygian knows he’s going to win this. Look at him.”
Eikon did, for only a moment. Phrygian’s pride was clearly apparent in the way he carried himself. Eikon turned his attention back to Dorian.
“Conspiring some way to prevent him from doing so will make him a rival and an enemy, rather than an annoyance,” Dorian continued. “If we allow him to win, there may be ways to capitalize on the situation.”
“How?”
Deep thought spoke through Dorian’s features. He was still working out the details. But then his scowl softened and the corner of his beak turned up in a half-smile. “You know I don’t plan that far ahead.”
— — —
Nearly two hours passed in silence before Lennox became far too anxious to stay there any longer. He knocked on the door of Holly’s closet, opened it, and found that she had crawled out from under the shelf and sat on her haunches in the middle of the floor.
“Are you ready to go back down, yet?” Lennox asked.
Her gaze dropped away a bit at a time. First to the wound on his stomach, then to his feet, then to the floor. Her irises were rimmed by red cobwebs and dried tears crusted the fur beneath. Without a word, she stood, keeping her eyes on the floor. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, her voice no more than a breathy whisper.
“I’m not sure that’s a valid response to the question, but I’ll assume it’s a concession of some sort,” Lennox said, turning and glancing down each hallway. “Come on.”
Her hooves clacked softly as she followed him down to Emscon. Other than her hooves, she was quiet, a welcome change. She didn’t pester him with questions. Apparently she’d learned that she wouldn’t like the answers.
But in a strange way, it was disconcerting, as it had been disconcerting when Solstice had gone quiet.
He waited for her to speak, but she didn’t. They made most of trip in silence, until he spoke up. “Aren’t you going to ask, ‘what now?’”
“I guess,” she mumbled.
“As I may have mentioned, the ship is en route to the Celeste system and will arrive in one to two weeks. I’m confident that the griffons won’t be able to stop it without destroying everything, and I don’t expect them to try that,” he said, slowing his pace just slightly so that they’d have more time to talk before arriving on deck four. Solstice always liked to walk when he thought. If Holly did as well, employing that tactic might provide some subtle benefit.
“Because we don’t have to worry too much about the ship itself,” he continued, “our priority at the moment is the hostages the griffons have somewhere on Chemlab. I’d like to say the goal is to ‘rescue’ them, but I’m not quite sure what that means. It’s not like we have anywhere safe to put them.
“What can we do against such reckless hate? I’m just a botanist and you’re a programmer.”
“Actually, I started the voyage as the second officer of navigational systems. When the first was killed, I was promoted to first officer of navigational systems. Though, at this point,” he added, mumbling, “we’re probably so far down the command hierarchy that you can call me Captain Lennox.”
She gave no reaction to the sarcasm.
“We’ll figure something out,” he said. “There’s a chance they might stop hunting.”
“Why would they? What difference does it make?”
“I know Kelantos is still alive,” Lennox said. He internally winced just after the words came out, realizing that he had basically just told her that Solstice had died for nothing. “Barely,” he added. “Too wounded to do anything physical. But he can still play chess from a hospital bed. He won’t let them kill any more ponies because they need the hostages as bargaining chips when we arrive at Equus.”
“So don’t provoke them!” she finally raised her eyes to look at him, picking up her pace a bit to walk alongside him. “If nopony else is going to die, we should just leave them alone!”
“Imagine a situation on Equus. Let’s say a terrorist takes a hostage in an airport. He holds the hostage in front of himself, backing toward a plane. He intends to get on the plane and escape. The police try to negotiate and convince him to release the hostage.”
“This is completely different! This is like a terrorist on a plane taking a hostage to head toward the police.”
Lennox shook his head. “Not the point. The point is: would the police actually trade the hostage’s life for the terrorist’s freedom?”
No, of course not, was the answer. She didn’t state the obvious, but she understood. The griffons could never trade away the hostages. As soon as the ponies were gone, they were just like any other homicidal criminals. They’d be shot down. The griffons would only be safe as long as they had the hostages, and they couldn’t trade them away and expect negotiators to keep their promises.
“The closer we are to Equus, the more dangerous it is for the hostages,” Lennox said. “If the griffons realize they’re going down no matter what they do, they’ll just kill the ponies.”
“I thought griffons hated the inevitable or something. You just surrender.”
Lennox snorted. “Yes, when a goal is impossible. They have two. One is to survive, and the second is to damage the enemy.”
“Oh.”
“Like I said, the griffons need the hostages for Equus. They can’t afford to kill them in transit.”
“Are you sure? I mean… Maybe some….”
“That’s part of the reason why I haven’t tried anything, yet,” he said, starting to descend the stairs that took them to deck four. “That, and I haven’t figured out how to get to the hostages without being killed, myself. I’m not even sure what I’d do if I could get there.”
They came to the bottom of the steps and stopped. He hadn’t even figured out what to do at this very minute. He’d pretty much determined that Chemlab’s security systems were inaccessible and the effort was futile.
“I’m sorry,” Holly said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Hm?”
Her eyes leapt around, from floor to his wound to his eyes. “How badly did I cut you?”
“You could’ve sliced into organs or severed a major artery, but all you’ve caused is superficial damage to the surface.” He unzipped his vest to reveal a fair amount of dried blood, crusted and almost black. “The selection of weapon was adequate, and I applaud the improvisation, but the depth of the cut was ineffective. Three out of ten. Try harder, next time.”
“Diarchs, Lennox, I’m sorry.”
“That’s Captain Lennox to you, doctor.”
“Come here.” She turned and started down the hall, and as she did so, Lennox caught sight of the faintest hint of a smile. It was a small, fleeting thing, and it vanished as soon as he noticed it. But in the heart of a blizzard of despair, one could be grateful for the warmth of a candle.
Solstice had said something like that, once. Lennox wished he had truly understood it then.
He did as she asked. She led him through the hydroponics bay and into a small kitchen that serviced the Emscon habitat. There were two commercial grade ovens, three sinks that were each three times as large as they needed to be, and a refrigerator the size of a small vehicle.
Holly retrieved a cloth from a cupboard and wet it in the sink. She beckoned him over, holding the cloth in her mouth.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Give me that.” He held out a hand to take the cloth, but she turned her head.
“I hurt you. I should take care of it,” she said, her speech surprisingly articulate despite the cloth held in her teeth.
“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of it myself.”
“That’s not the point.”
Not the point? How the hell could that not— No, she was right. Or at least, she was right when he tried to model her perspective. The act had far more significance to her than it did to him. To him, it was nothing more than an item on the to-do list. To her, it was reconciliation.
If this would make her less likely to run again, the plan had his full support. It could only cost him a few minutes standing there being annoyed. Nothing he wouldn’t have gone through, anyway.
“Can’t you use your magic?” Lennox asked, taking a hesitant step forward and lifting himself to stand bipedal, a hand on the edge of the sink for support.
She let the rag drop out of her mouth, catching it in a hoof. “I don’t have the gene for nonmetals.” She sighed. “If you really don’t want me to, I won’t.”
“I wouldn’t want to miss this great opportunity for some exciting team building exercises.”
He said it with such sardonic glee that one could almost have mistaken him for Solstice. Perhaps that same comparison occurred to Holly. The cloth that was meant to wipe away blood instead wiped away tears.
She cried. It took a few minutes for her to calm down. Lennox said nothing, an uncomfortable knot in his stomach occupying his attention. It wasn’t from the wound.
He had meant to be humorous. Humor was the solution to much suffering. This was not his intention.
But she did not seem as upset as she had before. Once she had collected herself again, she apologized profusely, retrieved a different cloth, and set to cleaning his wound.