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The ship was running low on fuel.
Jingliu could tell by the slow blink of warning lights from the cockpit’s panels and by the way the ship’s engines sputtered arrhythmically, as though limping through the last few cycles to their destination—but she found she was unworried. The auxiliary power would kick in in a true emergency, and if the worst came to pass and they became stranded in space, it would not kill her. The vacuum of space was no more a threat to her than drowning or freezing.
She was not sure the same could be said for her companion. The climate control was already turned down to the minimum to save energy—any colder and they’d be entering sub-zero temperatures. She rolled over on the thin mattress, and beside her Luocha made a sound of discomfort as her elbow trapped some of his long tresses against the mattress and tugged at his scalp.
“Excuse me,” he murmured politely, waiting for her to move her arm. When she did, he turned over to face her.
The sleeping pad was small. Merchant vessels of this class usually had minimal human staff, and the ship they were on only had room for two bunks. The other bunk was being used to store the coffin Luocha insisted on carrying everywhere, so when their sleep cycles overlapped they had to share. The mattress was barely big enough to comfortably fit one human adult, let alone two. Jingliu stared into Luocha’s green eyes. He stared back at her.
“You’ll freeze,” Jingliu said. Luocha was touched by the Abundance, but that didn’t mean he was immune to mundane discomforts.
“I’m already freezing,” Luocha replied. Case in point—when he spoke, his breath fogged in the chilly air, made even colder by his proximity to Jingliu.
Her breath did not fog. It was the same temperature as everything else around her.
“You could sleep in the coffin,” she suggested, and that earned a small smile from Luocha.
“Maybe, if it gets that bad.” He blinked, slow and lethargic. They were only a few days out from reaching the Xianzhou Luofu; perhaps he could spend the rest of the time sleeping, hibernating away the hours. There was nothing else to do. Neither of them were much for talking. Jingliu would stay awake to navigate the ship away from IPC patrols, and to keep the fuel levels from dropping too low.
Slowly, Luocha returned to sleep. Jingliu waited until his breathing was deep and even before taking out her blindfold and retying it around her eyes. Once they arrived at their destination, she would have to keep it on. She couldn’t afford to slip up, couldn’t afford to lose herself to memory.
She settled back against the mattress. In the comforting darkness, she lay still between the sound of Luocha’s breathing and the churn of machinery within the ship. Outside, the stars twinkled, like a path of lights guiding them toward their destination in the stellar sea.