Nessa would not work beside Leonie.
She made no announcement. When the physician came into the Bore Room to check the exchanger, Nessa took her tablet and went up the passage. When Leonie left, she came back. It cost them ten minutes before Mara understood what was happening, and by then Nessa had the look of somebody who had been waiting for an accusation.
"We can do the load drawing at the table," Mara said.
"I don't want her over my shoulder."
"I need the circuit information."
"Then ask her. It's all she's going to tell you anyway."
Nessa set the tablet down too hard. A little white corner broke off its case and struck the floor. She stared at it. Her bag was still hooked over one shoulder, though there was nowhere left to carry it.
Mara bent, picked up the corner and put it beside the tablet.
"Where does Talia live?"
Nessa looked up sharply. "What?"
"The photograph."
"Portland."
"You?"
"Same place. Before this. After this." She swallowed. "There's a bus that goes past our place every twelve minutes. You can hear it from the bedroom. I used to hate it."
Mara waited.
"It's always full. You stand up and somebody's wet coat gets on you and the driver brakes like she's trying to throw you through the glass. I want that bus. That's what I want."
She took her bag off and put it on the floor. Then she opened the structural model.
Mara sat beside her. For twenty minutes they worked without speaking about anything but loads. Nessa knew which fittings had been changed in the last refit, which drawing was wrong, where a camera could reach without disturbing the living bed. Her impatience became useful once it had something to do. She found the lift drive's surviving power requirement and sent it to Hester. She measured the rail's clearance from the tilted Bore Room. She marked the exterior cradle's attachments one by one.
When Jonah came down, Nessa did not leave.
He brought water in a sealed cup for Mara and a little package of paste for Nessa. She stared at it.
"Benji sent it," he said. "He's making us eat the revolting ones while there's still a chance of someone else bringing better ones."
Nessa took the package. Jonah lowered himself onto a tool case. His line rested across his knees. Mara noticed him moving it out of Nessa's way, trying to make himself smaller in the crowded room.
"How's Kit?"
"Asleep. Leonie says the new tissue's settling. He told her if she used that word again he'd put it on her gravestone."
Nessa made a short sound, almost a laugh.
Jonah looked at the exterior cradle model. "That'll be us, then."
"We're assessing possibilities," Mara said.
"Yes. People keep doing that to me."
She looked at him.
"Sorry," he said. "Bad mood. No right to it. I just had nine days I shouldn't have had."
Nessa's head came up. "You have every right to a bad mood."
He smiled at her, briefly, then looked at Mara. "I was dying before the station went. Did she tell you?"
"Only that you were ill."
"Very polite word. I couldn't get from one end of this room to the other without stopping. I had a little stool. Nessa used to move it along for me and pretend she was tidying."
Nessa looked away.
"They'd approved me for a return. I was waiting for transport. Leonie wanted me out weeks before. I said I could finish the equipment repair. One more day. Then one more. You know that trick."
Mara did.
"First time I stood after she connected me, I thought she'd put me on something marvelous. I kept waiting for it to wear off. I walked to the hatch. Then the table. I went all the way round it."
His hands rested on his knees. The fingers were thin, clean, very steady.
"I was happy," he said. "Embarrassingly happy. People were still hurt. Imani was in her little box. And I wanted to see how far I could walk."
Nessa moved her chair closer to him, without touching him.
"You weren't doing anything wrong," Mara said.
He frowned. "I'm not asking."
She shut her mouth.
"I need you to know that I'm not a trick she did. Whatever else she did. I was here. I was having it happen."
He rose, quicker than the invalid Mara had begun to picture and carefully enough for the changed body he had now. He collected the empty cup.
"If the load drawing needs someone who used to mend electronics, I'm still available."
"It does," Mara said.
He nodded and went up the steps.
Nessa opened the paste. She ate it with her finger, grimacing, and returned to work.
Later Mara found Benji asleep upright beside the exchanger. His chin had sunk onto his chest. The repaired wrist lay across his lap, new skin stretched shiny over the joint. She touched his shoulder through her glove. He woke at once.
"Flow?"
"Fine. You need a proper bed."
"I was listening."
"To what?"
He pointed at the machine. The pumps made their uneven purr. Beneath it Mara heard a fine ticking, almost a rustle. It traveled through the casing and into the floor.
"Does that change?" she asked.
"All the time. The slow one means something's opening. The fast dry one, like now, I don't know. Sometimes it goes quiet when the crawler light's on."
"You're sure?"
He shrugged. "It did twice. I tried again and it didn't. So I'm not sure about anything."
Mara sat on a box opposite him. Her back hurt. She had been carrying tension as if it were useful equipment. She rolled her shoulders and could not make the muscles release.
"I thought you'd be angry about the ascent," she said.
"I am. About Kit. About Nessa."
"About you?"
He looked at the inspection glass. "I don't know if I want to go."
Mara had thought he might say it. Hearing it still felt like failure.
"You can want to stay and still want a way out," she said.
Benji rubbed the shiny skin at his wrist. "I haven't even packed. Can I get that far first?"
"Sorry."
He rubbed his forehead. "No, I'm sorry. I'm tired. I don't taste coffee. I had a breathing treatment three times a day for years and I hated it and I still don't taste coffee. That's stupid. It's what I keep thinking about."
He opened and closed his repaired hand.
"There's a window at the refuge. The big one. When we tested the place, I stayed there so long Nessa came back for me. It looked like the whole bottom of the ocean was turning over in its sleep. I've wanted to go back since."
"You haven't?"
"Not with this." He lifted the line. "Not yet."
Mara pictured the service tram, small on the long rail. The exterior cradle moving beside it. Bodies at one end, living source at another, a low-pressure circuit that had to remain whole across three hundred meters of sea. It was an enormous awkward thing to move. It was a thing, at least, whose weight she could begin to know.
Leonie came into the doorway and stopped when she saw them.
Benji stood. "I'll get some sleep. Wake me if it starts making the little knocking noise. Not the normal knocking. The little one."
He saw Mara's expression. "I'll know it if you call."
He went past Leonie without looking at her. She watched him go, then came down into the room. The tiredness in her face seemed to have settled deeper since the morning.
"Jonah spoke to you," she said.
"He did."
"He can be defensive about the illness. He doesn't want people to remember—"
"He spoke to me."
Leonie looked at Mara. There was a warning in the look, or a plea, too quickly covered for Mara to choose between them.
"We have to work together," the physician said.
"Then show me the refuge exchanger."
Leonie's gaze flicked toward the rail camera. Only for a moment. Then she came to the console and opened the file she already had prepared.