She sounded disinterested, or maybe wary. But then her head turned from Cathal. “But don’t bother with the stores,” she said, firmly.
“Okay.” That seemed strange, but he didn’t want to go near the stores anyway. Units were open, clothing lay in untidy piles, and mugs adorned the table-top. In one of the storage units he saw an old blanket, muddy and rancid. Brice didn’t want to think about what might be under it.
He guessed the commander of this Proteus wasn’t as fastidious as Cathal.
There were cleaning supplies under the food prep area. He grabbed what he needed and set to work. At least it gave him something to do. It wasn’t as if Ryann was providing much in the way of conversation, and the door to the bridge was closed now. He might as well have been on his own.
He tried not to look at Osker, but those open, unmoving eyes seemed to follow Brice around the cabin. Every time he turned, he expected Osker to have moved.
Brice knew he was being ridiculous. The man was dead. He repeated that to himself, every time he saw the pool of blood and the gaping wound in his throat. The man was no longer alive, and there was nothing Brice could do about that. He’d watched the beast rip Osker’s flesh. He’d seen the look of horror on the man’s face as, surely, he realised this was the end.
He’d come to rescue Brice and the others, and he’d lost his life. He’d died following orders. He’d never see Haven again.
“Here,” Ryann said, and when Brice looked up she seemed distant and blurred. Everything did. She held a cloth out to him. He took it and wiped the moisture from his face. Maybe that was nothing but the rain.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Probably not,” he said, because it was easier to be honest. “But I’ll get my work done.” He tried to smile, and the muscles in his face felt stiff.
“Thank you.” Ryann managed a small smile, out of character but so very welcome. The hand under the blanket moved, like she was gently patting Cathal.
“How is he?” Brice asked.
“Alive.” Her voice was small, and she didn’t elaborate.
Brice moved to Osker, wrapping him in a sterile body-wrap. He never thought he’d have to do this for real. Training felt like a game now, or maybe a competition. It didn’t mean anything.
He moved the body—the person—carefully to one side, doing what he could to secure it—him—in place. Then he mopped, swirling red into pink, spreading the discoloured patch across the floor. The mop became dirty and congealed, and Brice wanted to open the hatch and throw it out.
Brice turned to the creature’s severed arm. He expected the leathery feel, but he wasn’t prepared for the coldness, not so soon after it had been removed from the body. He was sure there should be some residual warmth.
The floor around Osker—and Brice forced himself to think the man’s name, as painful as it was—had been blood-soaked, sticky and rich with a sickening coppery tang. But around the arm there was only a thin dribble of moisture, slightly viscous where he swirled it with his boot.
“They don’t bleed,” he said, more to push back the quiet than anything else.
“Apparently not.” Ryann was watching him now. “At least, not all the time.”
“And daylight kills them.” Brice recalled the charred remains of the one that had killed Osker. It was right that the beast had died for what it had done.
“They are…strange. Most interesting.”
Ryann’s tone was flat. She bent over the infected body of Cathal, yet she was acting like the creatures that had done this to him were to be studied rather than to be despised.
Maybe that was her way of coping.
Brice turned away, and looked to the corner of the cabin, by the hatch. He counted five torches in a pile, and only now realised that his own had gone, because it no longer dangled from his wrist. He didn’t even know if it was one of those five or not.
A couple of others rolled around the floor. He added them to the pile. They looked untidy, and he considered putting them away. But Ryann had told him to steer clear of the storage units.
“You finished?” Ryann said. Brice nodded, noticing how she, too, had been looking to the stores. “You want to go up front with the others?”
“You okay here on your own?” He knew she wasn’t making a suggestion, but it seemed wrong to leave.
“I’m not alone,” she said, her eyes now back on the blankets.
“Okay.” He supposed she was right. And if she wanted company she could always suss.
Brice took another look around the cabin. It felt familiar, yet so different to their own Proteus. Cathal would never have allowed Keelin’s baby to get in such a state. The mugs would have been cleaned straight after use, and clothes would have been stowed. And he definitely wouldn’t have allowed that blanket to stink the place up. It looked like it had been used to clean the floor, or like it had been dragged around outside.
With a lump in his throat, Brice made his way to the bridge, sealing the door behind him.
“Brice,” said the man in the pilot seat, and his face was familiar when he turned, although Brice recalled it with more colour.
“Nyle. Thanks.” What else could he say?
“Osker…you’ve taken care of him?”
When Keelin put a hand on the pilot’s arm, Brice expected Nyle to break down. But he took a deep breath and held Brice’s gaze.
“I’ve taken care of him,” Brice said. “At least the thing that did it to him is gone.”
“There is that.”
Nyle’s head shifted towards Keelin, and Brice knew they were sussing. And he realised how Nyle and Osker would have been in contact. Although Nyle had been in the bridge, he would’ve known what was happening outside.
He would’ve been with Osker as
