The First Defense

The stopped take had begun to come apart neatly.

Rin worked along its outer course with her boots fixed under a line and both hands inside the opening. One hand held the cut clear. The other guided the torch. When the last edge gave, the section moved into her arms as though it had meant to.

“Free,” she said.

The line crew drew it away.

Another pair of hands took the section before Rin had to ask. A fresh line came back along the hull. She caught it, fixed it beside the opening and moved on to the next cut.

The work had found its rhythm weeks ago.

Several craft lay around the take, close enough that their work lights crossed. Lines ran from collars to hull, from hull to cargo, from cargo back to the waiting holds. Suited figures moved along them with tools clipped close and nothing wasted.

A run had room for silence.

This did not.

“Lower section coming free.”

“Hold it there.”

“I am holding it there.”

“You are allowing it to wander.”

“It has nowhere useful to go.”

“Neither do you, apparently.”

The channel stayed busy. Counts moved through the talk. Torch calls crossed line calls without tangling because everyone knew which words belonged to them.

Four guns had come out with the crew.

Suda called them before the cutting began.

“First.”

“Heard.”

“Third.”

“Heard.”

“Sixth.”

“Heard.”

“Ninth.”

“Heard.”

Then the work had gone on.

Rin moved past the opening and reached Holl.

He stood along the next line in a suit that made him look even longer than he did behind his table. He had fixed himself squarely to the hull and kept every tool exactly where he had been shown to put it.

His first cut had taken twice as long as Rin’s.

The next had taken less.

Now he was holding a loosened section while two other workers fixed the carrying lines. His hands did not move until the last tie was set.

“Do you want the cut held until they take the weight?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Holl waited.

The lines tightened. Only then did he release it.

“Now?”

“Now.”

He moved aside while the section went past.

There was nothing clever about the way he worked. He was careful. He listened. When somebody told him to move a hand, he moved it. When they told him to wait, he waited.

Hands had been wanted.

It had been his turn.

Rin passed him the torch.

“Next edge.”

Holl took it. “How deep?”

“To the pale mark. No farther.”

He bent to the hull and began.

The tool trembled lightly through Rin’s boots. Around them, the take continued to empty into the waiting craft. Nove drew a loaded line toward one of the holds and kept up a steady account of its faults.

“Left tie fair. Middle tie lazy. Right tie offended by the whole arrangement.”

Rin fixed another catch. “Can it be offended inside the hold?”

“It may be offended wherever it likes once it stops drifting toward me.”

The load passed the hatch.

Nove’s voice warmed. “There. Improved by walls.”

Rin looked along the work.

A line crew folded an awkward section through a collar without touching either side. Two suited workers crossed paths on the hull, one lifting a tool line so the other could pass beneath it. Holl finished his cut and stopped at the pale mark.

He looked up.

Rin put one glove against the edge.

Clean.

She showed him where to fix the first tie.

Suda spoke before he reached it.

“Wasps on the site.”

Her voice had the same level shape she used for a change in drift.

Rin turned.

The Wasps were already coming.

Her first thought was that she had lost the road. It was the only thought there was room for. Wasps rode a weave — wide even turns above a chain, out and back and out again — and you counted the ride and went in behind it when it was away. She had watched them do it her whole working life. A Wasp belonged to a road the way a collar belonged to a hull.

So she looked for the road.

There was no weave across the dark. No hauler light. No line of loads coming up out of the deep. No chain anywhere she could see, and she had been looking at this same sky since before the first cut. There was the stopped take, and their own craft around it, and the lines spread between them, and past the last of the work lights there was nothing at all.

On the channel somebody stopped in the middle of a line call and did not pick it up again.

Nove had been talking since the shift opened. Nove was not talking now.

Machines came to things. That was the shape of it, and it had been the shape of it for as long as there had been anybody to write anything down. The wall came about because they were standing on its road. The Fleas came because a harvester called them. You put your hands on a thing and the thing’s guards arrived, and afterwards you agreed among yourselves which thing you would not touch again.

Rin looked at the take. Cut sections, open seams, their own lines laid over all of it, their own torches burning along the cuts.

One Wasp crossed the edge of her lamp.

Another came behind it.

Neither changed course because there was no course to change from. They were simply there, cutter shapes coming through the work lights.

Nobody spoke.

Rin’s right hand still held the loose tie she had meant to pass Holl. Her left was fixed to the take. The line at her boots ran back to Twelve, and three cargo lines crossed above it.

All along the hull, people were attached in the same way.

“Everybody off the take,” Rin said. “Leave the cuts.”

The channel filled at once.

“Upper line fixed.”

“Cut it.”

“I have two outside.”

“Leave them.”

“Collar crew coming in.”

Rin pulled the release at her boots.

It held.

She looked down. The cargo line above hers had drawn tight across the catch. She put both hands under it and lifted. The loaded section at its far end turned slowly, carrying the strain back into her arms.

The first gun crossed her view.

It went between the workers and the Wasps, turned and answered. The Wasps did not turn away.

Rin lifted harder. The cargo line rose a finger’s width. Not enough.

“Holl. Cut this.”

He was still fixed beside her.

He turned toward the line. A beat passed before he found the right tool. His gloves closed around it, opened, then settled properly.

Rin held the weight clear of her catch.

“Here.”

“I see it.”

“Not the red line.”

“I see it.”

Holl set the cutter against the cargo tie.

A strike passed through the take.

Rin felt it in her boots and wrists, a short hard movement conducted along the hull. The section under her hands shifted. The line came down against her glove.

She pulled free before it trapped her fingers.

“Again,” she said.

Holl reset the tool.

Above them, Third turned across a Wasp’s path. Its hull showed white under the work lights.

The gun opened from the middle. Pieces spread away from one another, turning slowly.

Holl’s cutter slipped off the tie.

He put it back.

The second try parted the line.

The weight left Rin’s arms. The cargo section moved away from the take with both carrying ties still fixed to it. Holl caught the loose end under one boot before it could cross Rin’s release.

He held it there.

Rin pulled free.

“Move.”

Holl released his own catch. It took him one try longer than it should have. Then he followed her along the hull.

People were coming off the take from every side. Some moved hand over hand toward open collars. Others cut their working lines and pushed for the nearest craft. Torches remained fixed beside half-finished openings, their light shining across cuts nobody would complete.

First and Ninth crossed together above the site.

Sixth held nearer the outer line.

The guns kept the Wasps away from the collars. They did not make the crossing safe. Every time one Wasp turned out, another came through the space it left.

Rin reached Twelve’s line.

A suited worker was already on it with a cargo tool held against his chest. Rin waited long enough to give him room, then followed. Holl came behind her, one hand moving only after the other had closed.

A burst struck the line fitting.

The movement came through Rin’s gloves. Her fingers opened.

For an instant the line lay against her palm without being held.

She closed her hand and pulled herself onward.

“Twelve hatch clear,” Suda said.

Rin reached the collar and pushed the other worker through. She turned back.

Holl was three body lengths away. He had stopped beside a cut line that had wrapped across the main run. One end drifted loose. The other remained fixed to the take.

“Under it,” Rin said.

Holl looked at the line.

Another strike travelled through the fitting.

He ducked beneath it. Slowly. Correctly. He kept one hand on the main line throughout and came on.

Beyond him, Sixth drove across the nearest Wasp.

The Wasp turned.

Sixth did not finish its own turn. Its side came open along its length. The hull folded into the opening, and the working light went out.

Rin watched until Holl reached her.

She pulled him through the collar and shut the hatch.

Air returned around them. The suit stopped being the whole of her breathing.

Holl fixed one hand to the inner rail while the craft moved. His other hand still held the cutter. He looked at it, opened his fingers and clipped it back where it belonged.

Rin reached the controls.

“Twelve free.”

Suda answered over the channel. “Twelve marked clear.”

Rin drew the craft away from the take.

Other collars closed. Lines fell loose. A loaded section remained outside one hold until its crew cut both ties and let it go. It turned back toward the stopped take, carrying the day’s work with it.

Nove brought her craft out hard enough that the empty hold showed through the open inner hatch.

“I have everyone aboard,” she said.

Suda counted the other craft clear.

First passed close across Twelve’s bow. Ninth came after it. The two guns turned on the Wasps while the last craft left the lines.

The Wasps stayed near the take.

They crossed behind the abandoned cargo and came no farther. One returned to the opened hull. Another held beyond it. Their movement settled into the same broad turns Rin had seen around guarded roads and working chains.

The craft kept going.

Nobody suggested another pass.

The stopped take grew smaller behind them. Its cut sections remained fixed along the outer course. Loose cargo turned beside it. The work lights they had left there shone on open seams and tools clipped where hands had dropped them.

Suda’s voice came over the channel.

“There was nothing of theirs here.”

Nobody answered.

Rin kept Twelve beside the others.

The controls felt too small under her hands. She loosened her grip and found the marks the gloves had pressed into her palms.

Suda waited until the site had fallen behind the craft.

Then she called the guns.

“First.”

“Heard.”

“Third.”

The channel stayed open.

“Sixth.”

Nothing answered.

“Ninth.”

“Heard.”

Suda closed the roll.

The two guns folded in around the returning craft. The space between them remained wide enough for the missing answers.

Rin flew inside it.

Home received them one craft at a time.

Twelve crossed the inner doors and settled under the bay lights. The deck took its weight. Rin heard the low work of the collar through the hull.

She opened the hold.

It was empty.

A length of unused tie lay along one wall. The securing points stood open. Holl looked into the space from behind her, then moved aside so she could pass.

The bay had been set up for a return. The loading frames stood out from the wall where the handling crew had rolled them before the shift, with the floor marks clear between them for where sections went. Two of the crew waited at the near end with their gloves already on.

Rin came down and told them there was nothing to take off.

They put the frames back against the wall. It did not take long. One of them asked whether the frames should stay out for the next shift, and somebody said to stow them, and they stowed them.

She went along Twelve’s outer racks and closed them one at a time. Two torch clips were empty. The long cutter was gone, and the spare collar bar with it.

She knew where every one of them was.

Suda took the dictation before anyone left the bay.

“Site work incomplete,” she said.

Rin rested one hand on Twelve’s open hatch.

“Take left at site.”

Suda entered it.

“Third and Sixth destroyed.”

The words went into the same file.

She went down the rest of it in the order the file wanted them. Craft out and craft home. The hours worked, and where the cutting had stopped. The open seams along the outer course. The tools left fixed to the take, item by item, which Rin gave her from memory, because she had been standing in front of the racks a minute before.

Suda’s voice did not change between any of it. It was the voice she used for ore, and for ice, and for a correction in drift.

Then she read the file back, and came to the take column, and said it once more.

“Nothing returned.”

Rin looked through the empty hold while Suda finished.

The next shift, Holl was behind his table.

His suit was gone. The plain sleeves had returned, along with the open ledger and the line of people waiting before it. He sat straight, long hands folded beside the page until the person in front of him finished speaking.

The gallery was as it had been. Bedding lay folded along the walls where the woken kept it through the working hours, and their cups stood on the sills above it, and two of them had a mending job spread out on a blanket near the corridor mouth and were arguing quietly about a sleeve. Somebody came through with a tray and took the empty cups away.

The line in front of the table ran back almost to the far wall. It did not move quickly. It had never moved quickly.

Holl heard each person out to the end of what they were saying before he answered. He did that with all of them, and it was why the line was long, and everybody standing in it knew that and stood in it anyway.

Rin crossed the far end of the room.

Holl opened his hands and made a mark in the ledger. He gave the person before him an answer. The person gathered up her blanket and left.

He did not look toward Rin.

He did not mention the site. Nobody asked him whether it had changed his mind.

When the next person stepped forward, Holl folded his hands again and listened.