The Beyond: Chapter Three

 Notes: I'm still going! This story is getting told, damn it! Have some Kyle POV--he's going to be a pretty big presence in this one.

Title: The Beyond, Chapter Three

***

Chapter Three

 

Photo by the NASA Hubble Space Telescope

 

 

 

Kyle sat next to Robbie in the cockpit of their little ship, prepping everything from the emergency cut-offs for the engine to the modified trajectory calculator that he planned to run in tandem with Robbie’s approach. It wasn’t enough to really help, but it would make Kyle feel better about the whole thing.

Their crew was, unfortunately, a little infamous among people in the Beyond for this particular approach to Cloverleaf Station. The asteroid field was a decent approach as long as you kept enough distance, but given the strength of the gravity waves, you didn’t save much on fuel by skirting close to the pulsar. Most people found it easier to go long, fly a few million kilometers away and get some bigger eddies and currents in there to break up the persistent damage of the pulsar, and round on the station from the larger spaceways, usually hitching onto the most popular from Gania.

That sort of patience wasn’t to be found in Wyl and Pence, back when he was with them. As for the benefit of keeping their unique status to themselves, Robbie of all people declined to bother with hiding that there was something that allowed them to do what they did. “We need people to know that there’s something weird going on with us,” he reasoned. “We need them to want to approach us and interview us, so we can learn from them as much as they might learn from us.”

Which…he wasn’t wrong, but that wasn’t the way Kyle had been trained to go about things. Admiral Liang had taught him from a young age that the best way to get information was by being covert, by hiding your true intentions and giving people what they wanted to see. It had worked for him for a long time—worked too well in the end, when his brother decided to discard him at Redstone.

Garrett Caractacus had anticipated that and sent Isidore Cain ahead of him to save his life, and Kyle would be forever grateful for that, not just because Isidore had saved him, but because in doing so, he’d met someone who was so much like him. Isidore was clever, and knew the benefit of a pretty face and empty eyes, and was so much more dangerous than he looked. If he hadn’t fallen in love with Pence, Kyle would have done his damndest to convince Isidore to stay with them.

But he’d fallen in love after all, tempted into the start of it before Kyle ever showed up, and Kyle knew better than to fight it. That was another thing he’d grown used to—perpetually coming second in the race for a heart.

Stop it. Isidore was happy, so he was happy for him. Besides, the man was pining for civilization and Kyle couldn’t blame him. He had a chance to do more with himself, and he should take it. Kyle would be in good company with Wyl and Robbie.

Second place again. Which, again—Robbie and Wyl were married, and he was old-fashioned the way you got from Martians—he only had eyes for Wyl, and Wyl felt the same. They were the sort of devoted he’d never seen before…well, maybe with Cody and Ten, but that relationship was pure chaos, where these two were solid, two planets in perfect orbit around each other. The only hiccup there was the parasite, and that could be fixed.

It could.

It had to be.

“Ready for approach.” Robbie’s voice was steady, almost mechanical as he made minute adjustments to their pitch.

“Ready,” Kyle confirmed. “The quickest route looks like about forty thousand kilometers, with permanent shadow.” The information wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot better since the Ganian stationmaster had started sending drones out to map the field and give spacers continual updates.

“I’ll increase speed a little.” Ten thousand kilometers an hour was a brisk enough pace, but should give them time to make the adjustments needed to handle unexpected asteroid movement.

“Copy.”

“Are we good?” Wyl asked, coming up behind Robbie and laying his hands on the other man’s shoulders.

“We’re good,” Robbie said, covering one of Wyl’s hands with his own for a moment.

They were. It would be fine, they’d done this a dozen times over the past three years. They’d only ever had problems once, and that was the very first trip. Robbie was better at this now—perfect, in fact.

Because he had the parasite.

“Here.” A mug appeared in Kyle’s peripheral vision. He turned and took it from Isidore with a smile.

“Thanks.” He sipped—mm, milky and sweet, the only way he liked coffee. Kyle took his share of ribbing from Wyl about taking his coffee like a child, but the hell with it. He liked what he liked, and he liked coffee that didn’t feel like a punishment.

“You ready for the station?”

Kyle shrugged. “It’ll be nice to see Pence again.”

“What about your friend there? Jenette, right?”

Kyle shook his head. “She left at the end of last season.”

“And you got her com info, right?”

No, he hadn’t. Jenette had been friendly, a Drifter turned miner who didn’t know who Kyle was and wouldn’t have cared anyway, but there was no point in keeping in touch with her. He’d had to lie to her every moment they spent together; it was just easier not to dig his hole any deeper, especially since she was heading deeper into Alliance space. “It’s fine.”

“Let’s get going,” Robbie said briskly, and Kyle gratefully abandoned the conversation and focused on watching Robbie instead.

This far out, the parasite’s abilities weren’t really apparent. Robbie manipulated the ship onto the right path, the same one Kyle’s program had identified, and they set off into the asteroid field. Forty thousand kilometers…no problem, and yet…there were so many things that could go wrong so quickly. One miscalculation, one misstep, and they’d be splashed across the side of a massive space rock, a brief flare of heat that a drone might catch, if they were lucky, and if they weren’t…

Well, they’d be lost. One more missing ship in a long, long line of ships that had never returned from the Beyond. It wasn’t a place people lived, or where they attempted to make careers or build a life for themselves. The Beyond was simply beyond, a region of space that teemed with so many anomalies that regular radio contact was impossible. Space itself had been warped, like an enormous hand had reached down and twisted it, making it into something that was almost totally incompatible with life.

Almost. There were also the Ruins, hard to find and harder yet to return to, and those were what people like Kathryn Blake were interested in. They were evidence of—hell, the claims varied. Everything from more species of aliens to a portal into another universe had been floated, and Robbie read them all. They all kept up with the research, but Robbie was particularly keen to figure out as much as he could.

The parasite had come from the Beyond, after all. Stood to reason that if he was going to be able to get rid of it, that was the place to do it.

Wyl and Isidore headed back to the mess once they were underway, chatting about anything and everything, but Kyle kept his focus on the charted path. He was the second pilot, and if anything happened to Robbie he’d have to take over. Not that anything would happen to Robbie, but Kyle needed to be ready, just in case. He might not have the military level of mods he used to, not since his brother had ordered them all permanently deactivated before Redstone, but Isidore had gotten him some damn good replacements, and Kyle still had the muscle memory to use them to the highest level. His reflexes were amazing.

They still weren’t as good as Robbie’s when the parasite was driving.

Kyle watched him out of the corner of his eye. Right now it was Robbie in charge, as far as he could tell. His eyes were normal, he wasn’t sweating or shivering—he was just Robbie. He was Robbie for the first hour, and the second, and then they were halfway through the field and had to slow down a bit, which was fine, because—

“Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbee—”

“Proximity alert,” Kyle said quickly, shutting off the alarm and pulling the affected zone up on his implant. He broadcast it to the ship so it showed on the screen. “Two asteroids had an unanticipated collision about five thousand kilometers out. There’s a new debris field.”

“How much?” Wyl demanded. “What size are we talking here?”

Size made a big difference. Big debris was better—easier to see, easier to maneuver around, easier to avoid. Small was like trying to fly through thousands of bullets at the speed they were going right now.  Their shielding just wasn’t good enough to endure it.

“It’s—shit, it’s showing up as a cloud,” Kyle said with a grimace. “No visible pieces, small enough to scatter fast. We need to backtrack.”

“No.”

They all turned to look at Robbie. His pupils had gotten large, and too shiny.

“We can’t make it through that debris,” Wyl said in something close to his normal voice.

“Backtracking will take too much fuel. We won’t be able to make Cloverleaf without bartering back in the Beyond for more, and that will take too much money.”

He wasn’t wrong, but it was the only reasonable thing to do.

“The Devas owe me,” Isidore said after a moment. “I can get fuel for less from them.”

“Pence is only allowed on Cloverleaf for another two days. He’ll have to leave to renew his pass, and that could take months. You’ll miss your window to leave with him.”

Kyle’s heart lurched downward for a moment. That would be bad, Isidore having to stay would be bad, and yet…

“I can get us there,” Robbie said, blinking hard. When he looked at thema gain, his eyes were their normal blue. “Trust me.”

Wyl bit his lip. “Robbie.”

“I can.”

“All right.” That was Isidore, nodding firmly. “Let’s do it.”

Robbie smiled at them. “I’ve got this.” He turned back to the viewscreen and began to modify their course, taking over manually.

Kyle startled badly when Robbie looked over at him and, with a wry smile on his face, winked. His eyes had gone completely black. “Follow my lead and reprogram as we go,” he said, then turned to face forward again, and his face sort of…blanked.

This, at least, Kyle had seen before, when the parasite was extending its—shit, he didn’t know what to call it. Aura? Cosmic range? Whatever it was, Robbie’s passenger had the ability to sense the space around him better than anything Kyle had ever heard of before. He could do it from inside a ship, from standing on the surface of a vantablack planet with no light except what they brought with them, he could do it underground and under water. And clearly he could do it for thousands of kilometers, which begged so many questions that Kyle wasn’t prepared to even ask.

Robbie kept them on course for another fifteen minutes. The first deviation came in the shadow of an enormous asteroid, one several miles across. Instead of skirting around the side of it, he took them under, keeping them in the protective shadow and curling up tight on the other side as they emerged—

Right next to a second asteroid, holy shit, the radar showed it was almost close enough to touch. Kyle inhaled sharply, and from right behind him Wyl cursed, then put the viewfinder on visible. He knew it didn’t matter to Robbie, after all.

Their lights illuminated the pitted, gray rock of the asteroid they’d nearly kissed a moment ago, smaller than the one they’d darted under but spinning slightly, more mobile. Kyle’s breath stilled in his lungs, his heart starting to race as he realized his program was completely useless now. If anything happened to Robbie, he wouldn’t be able to pick up the slack. He’d get them all killed. Useless, worthless, dragging other people down…

“Focus,” Robbie whispered, and Kyle knew it was for him. He forced himself to look away from the screen and at what his own implant was broadcasting, willing the calculations to catch up even though he knew it was impossible.

They had three more close calls over the next forty minutes, including actually watching an impact take place less than a thousand yards away. The asteroids involved were tiny, only about the size of their ship, and broke into a dozen pieces that Robbie was able to weave around without a problem. Still, it was humbling and terrifying in equal measure knowing that the field was always, always in motion. The pulsar’s gravitational waves left the asteroids unstable, moving them around, while at the same time its gravity well pulled the smaller pieces in over time to be consumed by the broken star. It was the only reason the field was passable at all, instead of a solid cloud of dust.

Two more hours and they were finally within range of Cloverleaf Station. Robbie was soaked with sweat and Kyle didn’t feel much better, but as soon as they emerged from the field he reversed their forward propulsion and shut the engines down, then sent their docking code off so a drone could come get them.

“Holy shit,” Isidore murmured.

Kyle looked over his shoulder at them, and one glance was enough to make him get up and give his chair to Wyl. They needed space, and he needed some water. He went back to the mess, head pounding from residual tension, and poured himself a drink. It was tepid and metallic, but it still tasted amazing to him.

Isidore’s hand clasped his shoulder. Kyle shuddered at the clammy feel of his shirt pressing down on his skin. “Are you okay?”

Kyle resisted the wild urge to giggle. What a question. “I’m fine. I didn’t even have to do anything.”

“You had to watch.”

And watching was hard, was what he was getting at, but the truth was Kyle had been grateful to watch. Happy to do so, even. He’d known he couldn’t do what Robbie did in those moments, knew he was nothing but a liability.

In the end, he just shook his head. Isidore squeezed him one more time, then let go. “Come on. Let’s get you kitted out for the station.”

Ah right, his disguise. Couldn’t show up looking like himself, not even on the edge of the known universe. Kyle drained his cup and set it in the sink. He’d clear it later. “Yeah, okay.”

 

The Beyond: Chapter Two

 Notes: Oh my god, this story got lost in the heat of summer and only now have I resurrected it, I'M SORRY ROBBIE AND WYL! I'm SORRY!

Anyway, have a second chapter, lol.

Title: The Beyond: Chapter Two

***

Chapter Two

 

 

Photo by Engin Akyurt

 

Robbie never knew whose dreams he was having when he slept these days.

That he dreamt was undeniable and unavoidable. From the moment he shut his eyes at night, his brain was hijacked by the creature inside of him.

At first, it had careened through his memories, hag-riding his subconscious until it had unearthed every moment from Robbie’s past that he still held onto, most of which he barely knew were still in there. It conjured up visions of his mother from when he was just a child, a woman with constaltly raw, weeping spots on her hands from handling toxic components for the ships she helped build. He was placed back in his father’s arms the day before the man lost his leg in an industrial accident, the last time he’d ever seen his father smile and play with him. He felt the cold of cryosleep, saw only darkness but somehow heard the hiss of failing lifesystems all around him.

It especially loved to revisit the deaths he’d seen. Robbie had killed people during his time in the Marines, too many people, but the parasite far preferred to experiment with how much devastation Robbie could feel about the people he’d lost. His parents and grandparents…friends from the service…Jane, god, he hated remembering how Jane had died…Wyl, when Wyl froze to death and they barely brought him back in time—

That one had been so bad it had wrenched control back from the parasite, which didn’t like being sidelined by Robbie’s will. It had steered clear of most of the memories of Wyl after that, branching out until Robbie was back in Redstone, killing people he didn’t even know. Those had to come from Rory, one of the de facto bosses of the prisoner population in Redstone, the murderer who shared the same old blood as Robbie, and who’d inadvertently shared his passenger as well.

All of it? Some of it? By his own volition, or had the parasite forced him to do it? Robbie didn’t know, and he wanted to. Needed to, honestly. He needed more information about the parasite, as much as he could get, and most especially how to get it out of him.

A thick flow of suffocating satisfaction oozed through his brain. Never. You never will. No one tastes as good as you, Old Blood.

Robbie’s shoulder was shaking. Wyl was waiting for him. He had to wake up.

So sweet, so rich, so dirty with ancient worlds and ancient ways. You are delicious, Old Blood. Even the cleansing doesn’t change that.

The cleansing…Regen. Robbie knew it was Regen; he’d learned a lot of the parasite’s phrases by now. It was always quietest after he’d been injected with a fresh dose of Regen. Wyl had wondered if he should make it a daily treatment, but there was evidence contraindicating that for health after a while. Too much renewal, forced on a body with no other way out, could lead to horribly novel diseases.

“Robbie. Wake up.”

He needed to get up now. It was time…past time. He needed to be back with the man he loved. Robbie strained against the hold the parasite had on his limbic system.

Mine…don’t forget. He’ll know it as well. The thickness in his mind receded, and Robbie breathed in deep and opened his eyes. He looked at Wyl…

And Wyl startled so badly he jumped to his feet. “Fuck!”

“What?” Robbie asked.

“Your—it’s still—” He made a gesture at his eyes.

For shit’s sake. “Get out of there,” he snapped, and the tension receded further. “Sorry,” he said to Wyl, who shook his head in an effort to make light of it.

“No no, it’s fine,” he said. “Who’s bothered? Not me.”

Robbie knew better than to push when Wyl didn’t want to be pushed. “Of course not.” He shifted around and placed his feet down on the floor, making sure he had a good sense of it before he stood up. His balance had been suffering a bit lately as the parasite’s presence in his mind deepened. Run into a wall once, and your husband doesn’t leave you alone.

Wyl watched him being careful, but when he stood and didn’t sway, his shoulders relaxed a bit. “Do you want a shower?” he asked. “There’s enough fresh left in the tank for you.”

“Fresh” was a misnomer, given that the water had been recycled so many times after being on, in, and around each of them that it was permanently cloudy. Technically clean, but cloudy. This ship’s recycling system wasn’t the best, and it was low on the list of things to improve given that their crew was about to get smaller. Robbie shook his head. “I’ll wait until we get to the station.”

“About that.” Wyl leaned against the wall by the door, arms crossed against his chest. It was his defensive posture, one he had stopped taking for a long time with Robbie that had come back in the past few years. He hated seeing it, hated knowing that there was nothing he could do to reassure his husband that things were going to be fine, that he was all right, that he was here with him and was going to stay that way.

They both knew there was no guarantee of that. Not yet.

“Are you sure you can manage the approach from this side? It’s busier than normal—the pulsar’s kicking out heavier gravity waves than expected.”

“It’ll be fine.” This was the preferred approach for Cloverleaf Station if you were coming from the Beyond because it minimized exposure to radiation—the asteroids were just too big, and they tended to be large, some as large as moons. They could extend a shield’s protection for hours, long enough to get into Cloverleaf’s anti-rad field generator, an innovation installed just last year that had completely changed how the station operated.

It was still a dangerous location, but for ships within a few hundred kilometers could take advantage of the massive magnetic field the station produced—as long as they shut their engines down completely once they were past the asteroids, which meant following the station’s instructions for docking with extreme precision. Once you were close enough, a specialized drone would come out, attach to the nose of your ship, and pull you into the station itself. They only worked within a very specific range of speeds, though, and if you overshot the station too fast, you had to wait until you were out of range of the artificial magnetic field to try again.

“All right.” That was apparently enough to settle Wyl. “Let’s get some food into you, then we’ll set out. Hopefully we’ll get through the approach before we have to eat again.”

“Hopefully,” Robbie agreed. “I’ll join you in a minute.” Wyl nodded, and Robbie headed for the bathroom.

He didn’t need to use it. That was something he’d been keeping to himself lately, because he knew it would scare Wyl, but he didn’t actually need to use the bathroom anymore. His body had become incredibly efficient in that way, leaving nothing for him to excrete. He did pee from time to time, when he drank too quickly for the parasite to keep up, but if he stayed relaxed with his intake…nothing. No turnover.

It would be a weird thing to confess, one more in a long line at this point, and so he didn’t. He washed his face, then checked his reflection for any sign of the parasite in his eyes or lips—places there the skin was thinnest. Nothing. Good.

He didn’t want to call attention to himself before he had to.

He dressed in clean clothes, simple spacer fare—blue shirt, gray pants, and long socks with hardened soles, all skin-tight and temp controlled, then put a larger hoodie over the top. The hoodie dated back to his marine years, and was the last piece of clothing he had from what might be termed his “youth.” It was threadbare and the words had long since frayed off, but it was the most comforting thing he had to wear, and it grounded him in his body like only touching Wyl did, and he couldn’t have Wyl touching him while he was navigating the asteroid field.

He stepped into the hallway and almost stepped into Isidore, who was emerging from his room with a smile on his face. His silver eyes were bright—they always were, given the reflective lenses, but they were particularly lively right now, and Robbie knew why. “I take it you’ve checked your messages from the welcoming committee.”

“Pence is ready for us,” Isidore confirmed as they walked one-by-one down the hall to the mess. The ship was tight—two people couldn’t fit side by side in it.

“Good.” Ready for you, you mean.

“And he’s arranged a face-to-face meeting with Kathryn Blake, too.” Isidore said it with the air of someone delivering a huge surprise, and it was merited. Robbie froze and turned to face him, incredulous.

“Over a comm?”

“In person,” Isidore clarified, grinning now. “She’s using Cloverleaf Station as her base of operations this season. She just got there two days ago. Pence had to share some of your research with her to get the meeting, but she’s really interested to talk to our crew now.”

“I bet.” Yeah, their research was interesting—it was unprecedented, because Robbie had the parasite swimming behind his eyes, showing him mysteries in the Beyond that either no human had ever plumbed before or none of them had bothered to share. Wyl had uploaded their videos to a repository on the station, one designed to be shared with Garrett in the event they went missing, but Pence had access to them as well. If he thought they were needed to get this meeting, then he was right.

“Blake is at the station?” Wyl demanded from the entrance to the mess. “Are you serious?”

“As a knife to the heart.”

“Such a sweet talker.” He was grinning now too, though, the merriment spreading, and Robbie was grateful to see it. “That’s amazing, though. She’s the Alliance authority on the Beyond. Over a dozen universities are funding her team, not to mention the mining interests funding metallurgical studies. Holy shit. Holy shit.”

“You’re welcome,” Isidore said smugly right before Wyl tackled him in a hug.

Robbie skirted around both of them and headed for the coffee pot. He poured himself one careful cup, stopping a full inch shy of the rim because it felt right there. He never overate these days, never overindulged in caffeine or liquor. Not that he had often before, but his body had become a finely-tuned machine.

Too bad the tune it was dancing to wasn’t his own. It burned Robbie that he couldn’t even be there for the meeting with Blake, or at least not all of it. Wyl had to be able to ask questions without the parasite knowing what they were, after all. He trusted Wyl with his life—of course he did—but he wasn’t used to giving up control. He hated it, in fact; it made his skin crawl, but…

“Hey.” Kyle raised his own cup from where he sat at the table, and Robbie seized on the distraction.

“Hey.” He sat down beside him. “You ready for the approach?”

“I won’t be the one navigating it.”

“You’re my backup for a reason,” Robbie reminded him. Wyl was an amazing shipbuilder, and Isidore was practically a doctor with how well he understood the human body, but Kyle was the only one who had reflexes anywhere close to what was needed to thread their ship through the asteroid field. It was about more than dodging chunks of rock; there were radiation mitigation efforts to make, long-term radar to take into account, and a trajectory to calculate and confirm before they entered the station’s magnetic field. “I’ll get us there if you handle reentry.”

Kyle nodded. “I can do that.”

“Good.” Robbie took a long, slow sip, savoring the bitterness of the coffee on his tongue. He took another mouthful, letting it wash across the back of his tongue, rich and strong and—

He choked, leaning forward and sputtering as coffee sprayed across the table. Every eye in the room turned on him, and Robbie waved their concern away even as he reached for a hand towel. “Just went down the wrong tube,” he said. “I’m fine.”

He wasn’t fine. That wasn’t the wrong tube, that was a forceful rejection by the parasite. But why? He’d been drinking coffee with this thing in him for years. He wiped his mouth, then briskly wiped down the table.

“I’ll get you some more,” Wyl said, reaching for the pot.

“I’m fine,” Robbie interjected. “Still have some here.” He cleared his throat, then stood up. “I’m going to prep the engine and get us moving. We should be there in about four standard hours.”

Wyl held out a meal bar. “At least eat this first.”

Robbie extended his arm warily, then relaxed as he was able to close his fingers around it. “Thanks.” He forced a smile, then headed into the cockpit.

The sooner he got things underway, the better.

 

The Beyond: Chapter One

 Notes: OMIGOD I'M FINALLY STARTING IT! We're moving on with the Liminal Space universe, at last, and with none other than Robbie and Wyl (and Kyle and Isidore and other assorted characters). It's been so long, but this woman's just started her staycation and is raring to go, creatively speaking.

I'll try to post weekly, not sure exactly which day yet, but we'll figure it out.

ENJOOOOOY! 

Title: The Beyond: Chapter One

 

***

 

The Beyond

Chapter One

 

Photo by Mark Sendra Martorell 

 

The first thing Wyl did when he woke up was make sure his husband was still breathing.

The coolness of his skin was almost unnoticeable at this point. All of them were cool verging on cold this far out in the Beyond, nothing between them and space except their heavily rad-shielded ship, its aesthetic becoming more Drifter style every time they pulled into a station for repairs. Cold meant they were saving money for other things, which was all right.

The stillness was even easier to understand—this was Robbie, after all. A former Marine, station security chief, and child of Mars, Robbie had grown up without ever having the space to really spread himself around. He’d been the sole member of his family to survive the cryosleep from the Home System to the New System more than five decades ago, and he’d chosen the military because it came with built-in orders and a decent income. No, expanding hadn’t been something Robbie indulged in until he and Wyl got together, and even then Wyl was willing to admit that he’d taken up more than his fair share of their space.

The breathing, though…the first time Wyl had woken up next to Robbie and found his husband cold and unmoving, no breaths moving inside his chest, he’d freaked out. Literally lost his mind—fierce and immediate horror had overcome all the expensive Regen treatments he got on the regular for his mental health, and he’d screamed and shaken Robbie’s shoulders until the man had woken up and brought his crisis to an abrupt and confusing end.

That had been three years ago. Wyl didn’t lose it like that anymore, but he couldn’t stop himself from checking. Moving slowly, because he didn’t want to wake Robbie up before he had to, he reached over to the bedside table and grabbed the miniature tab he kept there. He checked it was on the right settings, then held it within an inch of Robbie’s mouth. Keeping that same distance, he went all the way down to the center of his chest before accessing the readings with his implant.

Blood Pressure: 75/34

Temperature: 34 C

SpO2: 100%

Heart Rate: 30 bpm

Respiratory Rate: 2 breaths per minute

On anyone else, it would have indicated a coma. On Robbie, this was one of his livelier mornings lately.

Robbie shivered. If he hadn’t been looking at him so closely, Wyl would have missed it. As it was, he saw the minute tremor wobble across his chest and abdomen and had to forcibly resist the urge to shake Robbie awake. Whatever state the parasite inside of him was cycling through at this point, it was worse to interrupt it. Another lesson learned the hard way.

The cycles were lasting longer these days.

Still, he should come up in the next ten minutes or so. Watching Robbie wake up was like watching a resurrection, and it was something Robbie preferred to go through on his own.

“You don’t have to monitor me every single time,” he’d said a few years back when this was all still much more new and scarier. “I know you don’t like to watch it.”

“Who would?” Wyl had snapped. “That doesn’t mean I should leave you alone for it.”

Robbie had sighed and kissed his forehead. “Baby,” he’d said tiredly. “I’m not alone, and it’s not going to let anything bad happen to me.”

Wyl hadn’t believed that back then. It had taken several near-misses and one genuine miracle for him to see that Robbie was right. As long as he carried the parasite he’d gotten from Rory MacAllister, he had a built-in layer of protection that none of the rest of them did.

Wyl blinked, getting his mind back on track. He set the blanket to slowly warm up, because he might not like watching but he didn’t want Robbie shivering into consciousness either; it hit too close to waking up surrounded by dead people after his cryogenic mishap. He tucked it in close around Robbie’s shoulders, kissed him soft on the cheek, and frowned when he felt stubble on the skin. Robbie depilated regularly; even with a production boost from Regen, he shouldn’t be showing this much hair growth on his face so soon.

It was going to be time for a full check-up when they got to Cloverleaf Station. For all of them, but for Robbie most of all. They were lucky the place had such a discreet doctor. Gania had poured a lot of money into that station over the past few years, ever since LifeShip Industries had taken administrative control of it. It was a good place to rest and recharge, and this time around, Pence was waiting for them there.

Had it already been twelve standard months since he’d left? Shit, time flew.

Wyl stopped staring creepily at his husband and got out of bed. The floor wasn’t cold—he wore socks constantly, he was never going to have cold feet again, damn it—but the air was, and by the time he grabbed his clothes and got in the shower, he was the one freezing his ass off.

The cleansing unit cleansed…efficiently, was about the best he could say for it. They’d kept the ship they stole during their escape from Redstone, one that was made to house between six and ten people. With five of them, it had been comfortable; with four it was downright luxurious, everyone having the option of a room to themselves if they wanted it. Wyl used his for the projects that wouldn’t fit on the table in the mess.

He dressed quickly in a pair of dull gray pants and a thick, luxurious black wool sweater that had been a gift from Garrett for his last birthday. Then he pulled his hair back into a short tail, slipped on his untied boots, and headed out to go find breakfast.

Kyle was in the mess already, getting a cup of coffee from the machine. He glanced over and smiled as Wyl stepped into the room. “Hi.”

“Hey.” It was hard not to smile back at Kyle; Wyl didn’t even try to stop himself anymore. He had that impossible Alexander charm, just like his father had. It didn’t hurt that he had golden-brown hair in need of a trim, bright blue eyes, and a face that looked like it had been designed in a lab…because it had, but that wasn’t Kyle’s fault. The sort of genetic manipulation Kyle had undergone at the hands of his sociopathic brother was incredibly illegal, but not many things were actually illegal to the former president of the Alliance. Rot in hell, Raymond. “You’re up early.”

Kyle laughed, the way Wyl had intended. Honestly, there was no such thing as early in the Beyond; their circadian rhythms were wholly fucked out here apart from the time they kept on the ship, and that depended a lot on the kind of work they were doing. Mining paid well but required intense focus, so regular shifts of waking and sleep were essential.

The other work they did out here…that was way more variable, and way more important as far as Wyl was concerned, but they had to pay for it somehow. That meant mining for rare minerals, which was a hell of a lot easier with Robbie’s passenger telling them where to find the biggest hauls.

Wyl didn’t like to think too closely about that.

“I couldn’t sleep, so I ran inventory,” Kyle said as he put a new cup under the coffee machine and set it for Wyl’s standard order, which had three times the caffeine of everyone else’s. Then he headed over to the food prep area, where a pot had been unfolded, a random meal added—knowing Kyle, some sort of breakfast grain with added gritty, chalk-like powders for protein and vitamins—and the timer set to cook. It looked like it would be done soon, judging from the steam that escaped from the edges of the lid.

“How’re we looking?”

“Flush. We’ve got almost two tons of platinum-group metals, plus a decent amount of cobalt and nickel. Some pretty pallasite too, for the collectors.” He sipped from his mug, plain white that had been savaged with a brush so often parts of it had gone gray, and watched Wyl go through the motions of adding a teaspoon of thick, sweet syrup to his concoction and stirring it with a condenser until he finally sat down with him.

“Where’s Isidore?” Wyl asked. Isidore Cain, the fourth member of their crew, bunked in the room next to Kyle’s. He didn’t always join them for breakfast, but he had steadily regained his ability to socialize over the past few years, to the point where he didn’t wear any deadly mods in their presence. Going undercover at Redstone had done a number on the guy, but at least his time in exile was coming to an end.

“He was reading when I saw him.”

“New message from Pence?”

Kyle shrugged. “Or Garrett, or General Caractacus. He’s got a lot of friends.”

So do you. Only most of them didn’t know that Kyle was alive. Very few people left in the Central System had the clearance for that.

Two, specifically. And only one of them ever sent messages. The other had to be contacted directly from Cloverleaf Station.

“It’s going to be weird here without him,” Wyl offered in an effort to get Kyle to open up. Screw everyone who said he had no emotional intelligence, he knew a bid for connection when he saw one.

Kyle knew what Wyl was doing, of course, but he went with it. “It is. It was weird when Pence left, but it’ll be even stranger without Isidore.”

It really would. Pence, or rather Penstemmon Garaval III, and no wonder the poor fucker had shortened his name as soon as he’d gotten the chance, had only stayed in the Beyond with them for a year before he was able to negotiate a return to Central System space. He wasn’t welcome on any of the major planets, but he wouldn’t be arrested for hanging out in the Fringe, which he preferred anyhow. Wyl had kind of never expected to hear from the guy again, but apparently the friends with benefits situation he and Isidore had started up had more depth than he’d expected. Pence had done a lot of the legwork behind getting Isidore’s name cleared and his permissions to live and work within the Alliance reinstated—with Garrett’s help, of course. Once they got to Cloverleaf Station, Pence would meet them there with a ship, ready to whisk Isidore off to a whole new life.

And he deserved it. He did, but Wyl was going to miss him. Isidore, apart from being a good guy and a gifted engineer, was a stabilizing influence on Robbie. Wyl had his…moods, and Kyle wasn’t exactly a shining example of perfect mental health after everything that had happened to him, but Isidore had been surprisingly well regulated. He’d met Robbie beat for beat and maintained a sense of calm that Wyl could only admire from afar, and once he was gone…well, things were going to get a lot more complicated.

But we can handle it. We’re close to finding the answer we need. Just a few more forays into the Beyond, and hopefully they’d have found a way to free Robbie from the parasite that was riding him so diligently. Wyl wanted to hate it, and yet…

“We’ll be okay.”

Wyl looked over at Kyle, who had an understanding look on his smooth, handsome face. “Hmm?”

“You’re worried. I know it’s bad when you get that line.”

“What line?”

Kyle rubbed the spot between his eyebrows. “That one. But it’s going to be okay, Wyl. We’ll manage. You guys won’t be out here forever, I’m sure of it.”

But I might be went unsaid but heard. Wyl’s heart ached for the situation Kyle had found himself in, through no fault of his own.

“We won’t leave you behind,” he promised.

Kyle nodded. “I know you won’t.” The pot clicked, indicating it was done cooking. Kyle got up to dish it out into bowls just as Isidore came in from the hall.

Wyl took one look at him and laughed out loud. “Someone’s excited!” Isidore had dressed up in his nicest outfit, the fabrics soft and colorful, draping across his body in the suggestive style of Solaydor without actually giving anything away. His long, dark hair was braided, and the tips of his nails were painted silver, to match his eyes. “You look so nice. Dressing up for your beau?”

He blushed. It was precious. “Maybe.” He took the bowl Kyle offered him, then frowned. “Speaking of, where’s yours?”

That…was a good question. Robbie ought to have joined them by now. “I’ll go check on him,” Wyl said, standing up just as Kyle set his food down. “Keep it warm for me, I’ll just be a sec.” He walked back into their bedroom, the closest to the mess, and was surprised to see Robbie was still in bed. The air was warmer, blanket doing its job, but he was as still now as he’d been when Wyl woke up.

“Baby?” Wyl came over and sat on the edge of the bed next to him, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?” He could see Robbie’s chest moving now, at least. “Robbie?” A prickle of unease began in his fingertips and sped up his arms, penetrating his chest like tiny bolts of lightning. “Robbie. Wake up.” He was prepared to get louder, but just them Robbie’s eyelids fluttered. Wyl heaved a sigh of relief and leaned down to kiss him—

Then jerked back as he looked into eyes that had gone completely black except for the thin circle of brown iris within them.